The Life of Sue, Part 2

Back in New Brunswick

2011-07-30T19:50:00.002-04:00

Today was travel day #1. We left our cottage around 8:30 this morning to start the drive to Edmunston, NB.

It was a pretty uneventful day once again. The kids watched movies so that kept them pretty quiet along the way.

The only trouble we ran into was trying to find somewhere for lunch. The place we stopped at last week had cars lined up to get into the parking lot. We didn't think that seemed like a good idea so we kept driving. However, when we checked our GPS there wasn't anything else listed within 100 km. We kept driving to see what we could see and eventually stumbled on a little motel and restaurant. We went into the restaurant to find that it had 6 tables inside, all of which were occupied. Some of us went to the bathroom while others tried to find a table. We eventually got one, but it still took the overworked waitresses 10 minutes to get it cleaned off from the last people for us. It was crazy busy the whole time we were there, but we finally got some pretty good food and got on our way again.

Nick was feeling pretty tired this afternoon, so I took over the driving for the last 200 km or so of the trip. We had some pretty heavy rain at times, but overall a good day for a drive.

We got to Edmunston around 5:30 and had supper at Wendy's before checking into the hotel. Then we went for a quick swim in the pool before trying to get the kids to bed. It is currently 9:00 our time and Wesley is still awake. Hopefully he falls asleep soon because Nick will soon be back with some DQ and I'm not sharing!

Slow Day

2011-07-29T19:46:00.003-04:00

We didn't want to do any long drives today, because we'll be spending the next two days in the car, so we stayed pretty close to home today.

We went back to the Railway Museum this morning for another ride on the little train. The kids were just as excited this time as they were the first time. Fun times.

After lunch we went back to Basin Head beach. It wasn't a terribly warm day today, so I wasn't too fond of the idea of swimming. When we got there we saw that the tide was really far out today. We went and walked around in the shallow w

ater where the water had been the other day. While we were out there we saw a sand crab walking past us. He then buried himself in the sand right before our eyes. Very cool!

When Wesley and I were walking by ourselves we found the tiniest hermit crab I could ever imagine. His tiny little claws barely poked of the shell. We picked him up and Wesley named him, "Hermie". Then Nick and Darcy joined us an

d they found several full-sized hermit crabs and one snail. We loved playing with them and checking them out. Of course, the kids wanted to bring them home, but they've been returned to their homes in the ocean.

It was a pretty low-key evening around here, starting to get cleaned up and ready to go in the morning. We're sad to be leaving but we've h

ad a wonderful time. We packed a lot into our week though. I love this island and would love to stay a bit longer. I guess we'll just have to come back another time!

Green Gables Day

2011-07-28T21:07:00.004-04:00

Today is the day we've all been waiting for. Green Gables!

We had about an hour and a half drive from our cottage to Cavendish so we arrived shortly after 11:00. It was raining when we got there, but it was still quite busy. There were women dressed up as Anne and Diana in the barn (which is a bit of a museum), and we saw them right after we got there. We toured through the house and Darcy thought it was great. She picked up on things from the book throughout the house. After touring the house we took a walk along Lover's Lane.

We then headed down the road to Avonlea Village. This is a fairly new place in Cavendish so we've never been there before. It is a little village set up to replicate Avonlea as it would have been in Anne's time. There are activities from the time period and characters from the book are walking around. There are plays, concerts and games going on throughout the day. The kids really enjoyed it here and we had a blast.

We left there to do some shopping along the Cavendish Boardwalk before heading to St. Ann's Church for theirfamous lobster dinner. Not being a seafood lover, I had the steak, as did my Dad. Darcy has tried lobster before but was really excited about having it again. Wesley had chicken nuggets. Nick was looking forward to the lobster as much as I was looking forward to Green Gables! It was a great meal, and a great part of our island experience.

We don't want to do too much driving around tomorrow, as we'll be spending two long days in the car over the weekend, so we're staying around the cottage tomorrow. The weather should be good, so we're planning to return to the beach we visited earlier in the week. We might also go back to the railway museum for another ride on the miniature train. Plus we'll have some cleaning and packing to do to get ready to start home on Saturday. Our wonderful vacation is coming to an end.

Passing the Love to the Next Generation

2011-07-27T20:22:00.003-04:00

I think we can officially say that the love of Anne of Green Gables has officially been passed down to the next generation in our family. We saw "Anne of Green Gables - the Musical" this afternoon and Darcy was absolutely in love with it. But I'll get there.

Today was our day to head to Charlottetown. It started off with a tour of Cows Creamery. That was a great time. The kids each got a cute t-shirt and we all got to sample some tasty ice cream. Delicious.

After a quick lunch we headed to downtown Charlottetown to get ready for the musical. Before the show we went to the "Anne of Green Gables Store" which is like heaven on earth for me. I could have spent a lot of money there.

Ever since we started talking about this trip, Darcy has been talking about buying a straw hat with red braids attached. That was the first thing we sa

w when we walked into the store, so we picked it up. She also chose an Anne Doll. She wanted the hat to wear to the play.

Then it was on to the play. Our seats were in the second row, in the centre of the row. If you've never seen a play this way, I highly recommend it. We were right at stage level and felt like we were part of the play. Amazing. Darcy loved the play. She laughed like crazy at the funny parts and cried (along with pretty much everyone else, I'm not going to lie) when Matthew died. She told Nick all about it at dinner. I think she's already as in love with the Anne story as I was at her age and I'm pretty sure this is something that we're going to love for a long, long time.

Nick and Wesley went to see "Zookeeper" while we were at the play. Wesley had a good time. Nick thought it was terrible.

Tomorrow we are heading to Cavendish to see the Green Gables home. Then we're going to Avonlea Village for a bit more Anne fun. I can't wait. There could be a lobster dinner in our future too.

Another Great Day

2011-07-26T21:32:00.003-04:00

Today was all about the animals. I'm talking about real animals, not my kids.

We started out today visiting Buffaloland Provincial Park. This is a place Nick and I loved to visit when we were here on our honeymoon. What a letdown it was today. It just doesn't seem to be well-cared for anymore. 13 years ago there were different kinds of animals, they were close to the lookout and it was really exciting to see them. Today there were only buffalo, and they were in a completely different field from the viewing area. It was pretty disappointed. The kids were bored out of their minds.

From there we went to Panmure Head Lighthouse, which we climbed all the way to the top. It was pretty cool and we got an amazing view of the ocean from there. In a field right beside the lighthouse were some cool horses, which got a much better reaction from the kids than the horses.

From there we went to Springwater Farm, a cool little sheep farm we had read about in the Visitor's Guide. It's just a little family-owned farm that we drove into. We were greeted by the family's dogs and then taken around to see their sheep, rabbits, and chickens.

We followed that up with a little shopping, and then we went to Greenwich National Park. We didn't have time to walk all the way to their famous sand dunes but we took a nice walk. The only animals we saw here though were mosquitos. And tons of them.

We then returned to the cottage for a relaxing evening "at home". I'd hate to mention who won the Trivial Pursuit game between Nick, Dad and I, but I will say that they were beaten by a girl.

I won't pretend to hide how excited I am about tomorrow. We're off to Charlottetown tomorrow for a trip to Cows Creamery and "Anne of Green Gables - The Musical". Darcy, Mom, Dad and I are going to the musical, while Nick and Wesley are going to the movies. Then Thursday will be our trip to Cavendish to see all things Anne. Darcy hasn't bought her hat with the red braids yet but I'm sure she'll have a chance over the next two days.

I can't wait!

Day 2

2011-07-25T19:30:00.003-04:00

What a great day!

We are loving our vacation. We started our day with some sugary cereal, which is a big treat in our family. We must be on vacation.

Our first stop today was the Elmira Railway Museum. It's right beside our cottage and we'd heard something about a small train to ride around so we wanted to check it out. There wasn't much to see in the museum, but we loved the train ride. It was a 15 minute ride on a small little train going through the woods around the museum. At times, I thought Wesley was going to go out of his mind with excitement, especially when we went through the little tunnel they had built. He was positively gleeful.

We then had a trip to the grocery store and lunch before heading to the beach for the afternoon. We went to Basin Head Beach and had an amazing time! Wesley got a little freaked out by the jellyfish, but still had fun digging in the sand. We found seashells, crabs, and the previously mentioned jellyfish.

When we were back at the cottage making hamburgers for supper I realized that we hadn't bought ketchup for the hamburgers. You can't have hamburgers without ketchup so my Dad and I took off to find a little shop where we could pick some up. Well, apparently our cottage is in a really remote area with no shops anywhere. All we could find was a little restaurant so I went in there to ask if they knew of anywhere that I could buy some ketchup. They couldn't tell me anywhere closer than 20 minutes away but they were able to give me some little packets, so we were all set!

After supper we drove to the lighthouse at the eastern tip of the island. We got there at 7:02 and it closed at 7:00 so we couldn't go inside. We walked around, looking at the magnificent views. Again we encountered two little foxes who were running around by the lighthouse. These guys seem to be everywhere. It's pretty cool.

We're expecting rain tomorrow so we're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow. We're hoping to visit Buffaloland Provincial Park, which is a place Nick and I loved to visit when we were here on our honeymoon. There's a lot of wildlife there and we know the kids will love it. We'll see what tomorrow brings!

More pictures will be posted soon on our flickr site.

PEI Trip

2011-07-24T20:26:00.002-04:00

So, I've totally slacked off on my blog recently but thought that our PEI trip would be a perfect time to start again.

We're here! We made it to PEI this afternoon around 3:00. This is my third trip to PEI, the first was in 1979 and the second was in 1998 when Nick and I honeymooned here. I was six in 1979 and don't really have a lot of memories of the trip. Nick and I loved our time here on our honeymoon. Being the Anne of Green Gables lover that I am, it's definitely one of my favourite places.

I'll admit I was nervous about being in the car for two days with the kids. They really surprised us! They were great! They watched a lot of movies, and they were really patient, and good the whole time.

We went from Ottawa to Edmunston, NB yesterday. There's not a lot to see in Edmunston, so we ate at the hotel and then went swimming. We were pretty wiped out after our day in the car so weren't feeling up to too much anyway.

We were on the road at 8:00 this morning, and after a hard time finding McDonald's we got our breakfast and got on the road. I was surprised at how beautiful New Brunswick is. I haven't been there since 1979, and I don't remember it at all.

In 1979 I got to PEI by ferry. In 1998, we arrived by plane. Today we took the Confederation Bridge. That is amazing! Even Darcy said, "I'm going to stop watching my movie so I can look at this!" It was incredible.

After a quick stop for some groceries, we found our cottage. I don't think we can really call it a cottage. It's more of a summer home. It's got 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, a full kitchen (but as Wesley noticed, there's no dishwasher), and satellite TV. It's beautiful.

There is a railway museum next door to our cottage. We walked past there tonight and we think we'll check it out tomorrow morning. Apparently there is a small train that we can ride around the area. Wesley will love that.

While we were on our walk today, a small animal came out of the bushes. At a quick glance we thought it was a cat, but it was a fox! We were almost close enough to touch it. Very cool.

So, that's where we are so far. We're trying to plan out the rest of the week, so we can see everything we want to see. It's going to be a great time!

Blah!

2011-04-04T12:02:00.002-04:00

One of my big concerns in moving from Windsor to Ottawa had to do with the weather. It didn't sit well with me to be moving from the southernmost tip of Canada to one of the coldest national capitals in the world. I lived in Ottawa during my school years so I knew exactly what to expect and it wasn't good.

So here we are on April 5th, and I think it's safe to say that I have survived my first Ottawa winter in nearly 20 years. I say that while a good portion of my backyard is still covered under snow and ice and after brushing snow off my car this morning. We're expecting more warm weather and rain this week and I'm hoping the snow and ice will soon be gone from the backyard.

I've seen friends on facebook today complaining about the humidity in Windsor while I'm brushing snow off my car. I've heard of sightings of crocuses while mine are still safely underground. I've heard about thunderstorms while I'm still wearing my winter boots.

I've got a lot of big windows in my house and I don't like having lights on during the day because of the amount of light they let in. Today is so grey and dark I need several lights on.

Yuck.

Aside from the weather, though, we're continuing to make the adjustment to our city quite well. Darcy is really doing well at school and her French skills are amazing for her age. She is starting to make some really good friends, which is a big relief to us. Wesley is settling into his routines as well and is getting excited about starting school in September. His speech still isn't completely on track for his age, but he's improving all the time. We're still in line for speech therapy.

We can't believe we've been here for almost a year already, but it's been good. Now let's enjoy the beautiful Ottawa spring we've heard so much about!

Kobo Reading

2011-03-16T09:13:00.003-04:00

When I first heard about e-readers, I immediately dismissed them. I love books, and thought I wouldn't want to read from a computer screen. I wanted the feel of the book in my hand. Then I read a 900+ page book and started to rethink things.

I LOVE reading long books. However, I always find them to be awkward to read, especially when you are near the beginning or the end. They are so hard to balance.

Then I started hearing more people talk about their e-readers and how much they were loving them. My brother-in-law emailed me because he was thinking about buying one and wanted to know my thoughts. So we went back and forth for a few days with the advantages and disadvantages of e-readers in general, and then the different varieties. He was looking into the Kobo e-reader and was drawn to the fact that it came pre-loaded with 100 books. He found a refurbished model for sale at Best Buy for less than $100 and thought it would be a good way to get introduced to the world of e-reading. Then that same offer went on sale for an additional $20 off and his mind was made up. And so was mine. I ordered it the next day and it arrived in about 10 days.

I like it so much more than I ev
ought I would. It's so easy to pick up and read, no matter where you are in the book, or how long your book is. There are countless options of books available, whether to purchase, or even to borrow from the library. I am more of a library reader than a book buyer so this option works great for me.

I certainly don't think I'm giving up on printed books forever, but I think this is a great alternative. I'm working on a list of pros and cons of e-reading and I thought I'd share it here.

Pros
lightweight and easy to hold, regardless of book length
easy to read screen
huge selection of books available
books are cheaper to purchase than printed books
very portable

Cons
I'm nervous about using it in the bathtub (I wrap it in a ziploc while in the bath)
I can't loan much-loved books to friends anymore
Need to worry about battery life on my book

I'd like to hear from anyone who may have tried it, or is interested in trying it, to see what your thoughts are.

What a Day!

2010-12-21T20:22:00.003-05:00

I have been dreading this week for weeks. It's Christmas vacation for the kids in school so I have been anticipating having 5 kids here all week. Two of them (Wesley and one other girl) tend to have temper tantrums so that adds to the fun too. I knew it could get ugly. I've been preparing activities and crafts to help keep everyone busy and entertained throughout the days.

Well one little boy has been sick the past two days so he hasn't been here. Of course, he's such a sweet little guy that he's pretty easy and fun to have around. But yesterday I managed to keep everyone happily entertained throughout the day and things went pretty smoothly. I was hoping for a similar day today.

We got off to a pretty good start today. We worked on a cool craft and then went downstairs to play. I thought I'd make a quick trip down to the bathroom while the kids were heading downstairs. However, by the time I got to the stairs (less than one minute) I could hear the girls calling out to me that Wesley had been hurt. I ran down the stairs and saw Wes lying on the floor with one of his legs at a weird angle. He was lying face down so my first thoughts were of his leg. I gently rolled him over and saw that his eyes were rolled up. I checked his leg and it was limp. I called his name and he tried to look at me. I knew right away that it could be something serious so with Nick and work and me at home with 4 kids I felt the best thing to do would be to call 911, so I did. Then I called Nick and got him on his way home.

By this time Wesley was completely conscious and crying. A lot. I never saw him completely unconscious but I wasn't there when he was first hurt so I can't say for sure. He had apparently been crouching behind our Klik Klak couch and Darcy was sitting on the couch. She got up and leaned back, which kicked in the Klik Klak mechanism and the couch laid down, with Wesley underneath. That knocked him over and he hit his head on the floor. We've got a nice carpet with a super-thick pad underneath but it seems he still hit pretty hard. His altered consciousness lasted less than 15 seconds and then he was crying hard.

The paramedics soon arrived and were concerned but not freaking out. That really helped me to calm down. Nick arrived by taxi soon afterwards and we decided to be careful and have Wesley taken to the hospital by ambulance. We could have taken him to a hospital or clinic on our own but the paramedic seemed to feel that the ambulance would be better in case he started vomiting or lost consciousness on the way. Nick went with him while I stayed at home with the girls.

Well, he was apparently laughing, joking and singing in the "ambulance truck". They didn't have to wait terribly long at the hospital before he was seen. The doctor gave him a good checking out and she felt he didn't require any further testing. They said that when consciousness is lost for more than a minute they get concerned but because his was so short it wasn't as much of a concern. He needs to take it easy for a bit, but he seems to be just fine. A man from our church is an emergency room doctor at the children's hospital and he popped in too. He said everything this first doctor said and they were on their way. The girls and I drove over to the hospital to pick them up and he was his normal, silly self all the way home. He's been fine since he got home.

We've now pushed the couch against the back wall to make sure that nothing like this happens again.

On a completely unrelated note, tonight before bed Darcy and I started reading "Anne of Green Gables" together. She has a young readers version (that is probably still a bit beyond her comprehension) so that's where we're starting. We read the first chapter tonight and she didn't want to stop. At the end of the first chapter you still don't know if Matthew and Marilla are going to keep Anne or not. She was pretty worried about that. I reminded her that the name of the book is, "Anne of Green Gables" and that Matthew and Marilla live at Green Gables so it looks promising. We're looking forward to reading more tomorrow night.

So that's been our exciting day. I would much rather have dealt with some fighting and temper tantrums, but we're really glad that Wesley is OK.

Still Here

2010-12-14T10:16:00.003-05:00

Although I'm sure there's no one checking anymore.

Since opening my home daycare in October, time for blogging is really limited. These guys keep me super busy all day so sitting down to the computer is not a luxury I have much time for anymore.

In mid-October I started with one family, with a 3-year old son and a 6-year old daughter, just like our kids. It was a really great fit and things started off really well for the most part.

The big problem has been Wesley's adjustment. He has been used to having me all to himself and doing what he likes throughout the day, so having another little guy around all day long was a bit of a shock to his system. He also wasn't big on sharing his toys all the time. For the first few weeks it seemed that he spent more time in time out than he did playing. But as time went on he seemed to get used to it and was doing a lot better.

Then we added another girl to the mix and it started all over again. The new girl can be a bit bossy and is the youngest sibling with teenaged brothers. She is really not used to having little guys around and doesn't like it much. It has caused some real problems. She and Wesley are like oil and water. He can do great all day long but then he freaks out as soon as she joins us at the end of the day. I'm still trying to figure out how to get both of them be a bit more patient with each other.

It's been an interesting adjustment for all of us, but we're still pretty sure that this is the right choice for our family right now.

Aside from that, we're settling in for our first winter in Ottawa. We got our first snow on Halloween, and have had little bits here and there since then. Last night was our first real dumping of snow. And wouldn't you know it, Nick is out of town so all the shoveling is up to me. We drove the girls to school this morning and then the boys and I came home to do the shoveling. It was good fun. We followed it up with some yummy hot chocolate and it made for a pretty great morning all around.

Nick is in Windsor for a couple of days settling up a case he was involved in before we left Windsor. Weather permitting he will be home around midnight tonight. He's staying with Jerilee and Fred so I'm pretty bummed about that.

I think that's our update for now. I will keep updating from time to time, so please keep checking back if you're still out there!

Big D

2010-09-23T09:33:00.003-04:00

Darcy's teacher called me aside yesterday after school. She was laughing as she told me that she had received a few papers yesterday that she wasn't sure who had handed them in. When she realized she didn't have a paper from Darcy she asked Darcy if they were hers. They were. Instead of writing her own name on the papers, she decided instead to use Nick's nickname for her, "Big D". So all the papers she handed in yesterday were from, "Big D" instead of Darcy. We even had one paper she brought home with, "Big D" written on it. Man, did I laugh hard about that. Every time I looked at her throughout the evening I cracked up again. What a funny little kid.

But there's a weird twist to the story. When I was in grade one, I did a similar thing (although not nearly as imaginative). I was frustrated that there was another Susan in the class, so I decided to change my name. So, without telling anyone I started filling out all my papers with my middle name, Elizabeth, instead of Susan H. I had just mastered the spelling of Elizabeth so I wanted to have a chance to try it out. How odd that we would both have done the same thing around the same time!

She did get a pretty good reaction from everybody about this, so I think we may have a hard time getting her to sign her name properly again! We told her she should use her correct name on all her papers but she really doesn't want to now. I told her she has to listen to what her teacher says. We'll see what happens today!

I Haven't Given Up

2010-09-19T18:05:00.002-04:00

If anyone still reads this, you probably think I've given up on blogging. I haven't, really, I just find it hard to find the time to sit down and write something here. Wesley is just so active and busy that it's hard for me to sit still for more than 30 seconds at a time. Nick is playing with the kids right now so I'm going to try to write something quickly.

We are still adjusting to life in Ottawa. We are finding our way around, experiencing all the great things this city has to offer and meeting some great people. We have really lucked out again with some wonderful neighbours with great kids for our kids to play with.

We recently bought a membership to three museums, the Canada Agriculture Museum, the Canada Museum of Science and Technology, and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Our membership covers our admittance to all three museums for one year. That's a pretty sweet deal and we're going to use that a lot.

One thing that people have been asking me about a lot is my work. I have been offered a job with Christian Horizons, working with develomentally challenged children. I was hired for a new centre that was scheduled to open in August. Then September. Then October. It kept getting pushed back and at the same time I was having trouble lining up child care for the awkward hours they were offering me. I finally lined something up and then 10 minutes later the phone rang and it was Christian Horizons changing the contract they were offering me, so the child care plan I had finally worked out no longer worked. I was back to square one. Again.

We sat down and looked at the numbers of the number of hours I'd be working, the hassle and expense of finding child care, and the fact that we moved to Ottawa to get away from Nick's shift work so it didn't make sense for me to start shift work. So after all that, I've decided not to take the job. We do feel we need some extra income coming in so what I'm planning to do now is to care for 2-3 children in my home. I don't want to have a lot of children to care for, but having a couple of kids would be a bit of extra money, plus it would be good for Wesley to have some kids to play with.

I've already met with one potential family so things could develop quickly. I'll be glad to have the opportunity to stay at home with my kids and get to know some other kids as well. I'll be interested to see how this develops.

So that's our update for now. Hopefully it won't be another two months before I write again.

The Case of the Missing Tooth

2010-07-19T08:23:00.004-04:00

Darcy has been quite anxious to have a loose tooth for months. She talks about it all the time and constantly had me checking to see if I could see anything happening. There was never anything to see.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the dentist and she even asked about it during her cleaning. She was told that nothing was visible then but that it could happen anytime when you're six years old.

On Saturday morning she was trying to undo the knot on a plastic necklace when she found that it hurt her tooth. She got Nick to see if she had hurt herself, but instead he found her first loose tooth! She was so excited, until she tried to eat lunch. She found that eating with a wiggly tooth really hurt and she cried most of the way through lunch.

We told her that it could still take a long time for the tooth to fall out. If it just started being wiggly on Saturday then it could be a long wait before the tooth would actually fall out. We were playing outside on Saturday afternoon and the kids were eating cookies. Darcy started crying again and said it felt like her tooth broke. Nick took a look and her mouth was bleeding and one of the roots had broken free. We got her to rinse her mouth and Nick cleaned it up a bit. With the tooth only hanging on by a thread he was able to remove it easily. So after only a few hours of being loose, the tooth was out. There was a very excited little girl around our house. She needed to call some good friends to let them and was disappointed to get their answering machines.

She couldn't wait to get to bed for the tooth fairy's visit. She kept wanting to put the tooth under her pillow to help the tooth fairy come faster. It was only 4:00 in the afternoon!

Sunday morning finally came and there was a twonie under her pillow. She was very excited. Then when we got to church a facebook friend who has seen us writing about it on Sunday gave her another dollar, saying that the tooth fairy must have gotten confused and gone to her house by mistake. So Darcy thought she was the queen of the world with her $3.00. Grandmaman and Papa came for the day and she even offered to buy us all lunch at Swiss Chalet with her three dollars. What a funny kid.

Earthquake!!!

2010-06-23T20:29:00.002-04:00

Just when I try to sneak in an afternoon nap, I get woken up by an earthquake!

I had a bit of a headache this afternoon and didn't really have anything pressing on my agenda so when I put Wesley down for a nap I decided to have a little rest myself. Around 1:45 I started to hear some loud rumbling noises and the house started to shake. Our house is under the Ottawa airport flight path so we get several loud planes going overhead every day. A neighbour told me that there are sometimes some really big planes that shake the houses, especially when there are visiting dignitaries here. There had been a big deal on the news this morning about the Chinese president coming to Ottawa today so I thought it was his plane. I went to Darcy's room to look out the window and see what I could see. This whole time the noise and shaking is getting louder and stronger. I can hear dishes rattling in the cupboards.

There were no planes in sight and the house was still shaking. I looked into the backyard and the kiddie pool I had just filled had waves in it. This is when the word, "earthquake" first crossed my mind. But that seemed ridiculous. I thought they would only happen on the west coast. I went out the front door to see what was going on. Many of the neighbours were outside and everyone was saying the same thing. "Earthquake". I couldn't believe it. People were definitely shaken up (pun not intended). A woman a few doors down noticed a crack in her window that hadn't been there before.

I tried calling Nick at his office but got no answer. As soon as I hung up the phone rang and it was him on his cell phone. All of the buildings in downtown Ottawa were being evacuated and he was out on the street. He had first thought there was a bomb downtown but soon learned the real story. They ended up sending everyone home. He's actually just gone back downtown now because his bike lock key was left in his office so he couldn't ride his bike home. He got a ride with a friend and has gone to get his bike now.

I was worried about Darcy at school. I thought she would be scared. When the time came to get her off the school bus I asked her what she thought about the earthquake and she said she didn't feel a thing. I don't know how that is possible. The other kids all said they felt it, but Darcy felt nothing. Sometimes that girl really is in her own little world!

Wesley slept through the whole thing. He has talked about his bed shaking but I'm not sure if he really felt that or has just heard all of us talking.

Darcy had two friends from up the street come over to play this afternoon. I was talking to their Mom when she came to get them. She's from Haiti and has a brother whose body was pulled from the rubble and a sister she hasn't heard from since February. I'll admit I was pretty scared this afternoon, but after talking to her I just felt so grateful. There is no major damage here. I haven't heard of any major injuries. It could have been a lot worse.

Settling In

2010-06-03T11:34:00.002-04:00

Well here we are in our new home, all of our stuff is here and we are slowly but surely getting it all organized again.

Nick's parents came on Saturday to help us do some painting and preparing the house for the arrival of our stuff. It was a great help and we got the horrible blue bathroom and the burgundy bedroom painted. Our bathroom is now a nice, neutral beige and Wesley's bedroom has gone from burgundy to a bright, light blue. He loves it. Thanks Papa and Grandmaman for all of your hard work.

On Monday the truck arrived early in the morning and started unloading our stuff. They were done shortly after lunch. Our house was full of boxes and it was suggested that we not do any unpacking so the movers could do the unpacking on Tuesday and check to see if there was any damage. So we still lived in a bit of chaos on Monday evening. My parents also arrived on Monday to help us out. That proved invaluable during the unpacking on Tuesday. They provided two workers and Nick and I each had to partner with one. The mover unpacked the items and we had to put them away. It was fast, crazy work. Mom and Dad kept the kids busy and entertained while we worked. We got everything unpacked before lunch, which blew me away. We still don't have a spot for everything and I'm not entirely convinced that the things that are put away will stay where they are. We'll work that out over the next few weeks.

I still don't feel like I'm "home". It feels like we're living in someone else's house. We now have TV, phone and internet which at least helps us feel like we're connected to the outside world again. For example, we woke up on Monday morning and smelled smoke everywhere. We thought a neighbour had been using their woodburning stove, we had no idea that we were smelling the smoke of forest fires in Quebec.

We will also be getting our new appliances today. We figured out once we got into the house that our enormous plates don't fit into the dishwasher that was left here. It has a sprayer suspended from the top shelf that hits our plates. The new tall tub dishwasher should prevent that. Once we get the new fridge set up then I can do some real grocery shopping and be ready to cook in our house again!

Thanks for all your kind wishes and to those who have come over to help. If you're in the area, pop by any time. We'd love to see you!

Homeowners Again

2010-05-26T22:11:00.002-04:00

We officially are no longer homeless. We got the keys to our new house this afternoon. What a great feeling that was.

Our "stuff" won't be delivered until Monday so we're still living at the dorm right now. Our plan for tonight was to get the carpets ripped out because the installation of the new carpet starts tomorrow morning. I couldn't wait to get it out of there for several reasons. The first is that it was a hideous green colour. Also, it was horribly stained in a lot of places. The final reason is that the previous owners had a cat and I am terribly allergic to cats. Getting rid of the carpets will help me breathe easier once we're living in the house.

So Nick and his friend spent this evening ripping out the horrible green carpet. I was very happy to see the end of that!

In true Wesley fashion, the house has already been christened. We had been there for a couple of hours when I figured it was time to change Wesley's diaper. I laid him down on the beautiful laminate floor of the living room and took off the old diaper. You can see where this is going, can't you? Of course I then realized that I hadn't taken a diaper out of the diaper bag and I had to dig for one. When I finally pulled one out, I turned to the diaper-less Wesley and saw the fountain hitting the floor. I asked Darcy to get me some paper towels but she was laughing so hard she had trouble doing that. Then of course she had to get Nick and tell him too. What a perfect start to our life in our new house!

The plan for the next few days mostly revolves around getting the carpets replaced. On Friday we are also expecting the delivery of our new washer and dryer. I am hoping to get the kitchen appliances ordered soon too. The dishwasher isn't bad but the fridge and stove are pretty junky. I'm hoping to sell the dishwasher and the dryer because they're in the best shape. I don't think the stove is worth selling, maybe I will donate it somewhere. I might keep the fridge in the garage. We'll see how that goes.

So that's where we are right now. I'll try to keep you posted as I can!

First Day of School

2010-05-19T09:38:00.003-04:00

We all feel better now that Darcy has had her first day of school.

She was really nervous yesterday morning. On her first day of JK she didn't learn anyone's name and she came home crying because she didn't make any friends. She was really afraid that something like that was going to happen again. We tried all we could to reassure her, but she just needed to get there and see for herself that she would make friends easily.

She started crying on the drive to school because she was so nervous. Then the GPS led me astray and I had a bit of trouble finding the school. That stressed her out too, because then she thought she was going to miss it all! I eventually found the school and we went into the office. When we walked in, one of the secretaries who had been there when we registered Darcy saw me and said, "You must be here to drop off Darcy". Darcy was thrilled that they seemed to be waiting for her. They paged Darcy's teacher but she was on duty on the playground so she couldn't come. Another teacher walked us to the playground and brought out Darcy's teacher. Mme McGavin came right over and called her by name which made Darcy feel pretty great. Then she told Darcy how excited all her classmates were about meeting her. She took Darcy by the hand and took her inside the school.

After school Darcy told me that everyone was waiting for her and they all knew who she was already. She also had a cubby already made for her shoes and backpack. The fact that everyone already knew her name really set her at ease.

When I got to the school at the end of the day she was playing in the sand with another little girl. They looked like they had been friends for years. I stood and watched her for a few minutes and she had no idea I was there, she was having so much fun.

All of her nervousness is gone and now she's super-excited about going back to school today.

While Nick is at work and Darcy is at school, Wesley and I are having a hard time keeping ourselves entertained back in our dinky dorm room. I'm still going to try to get him to take a nap each afternoon, but we'll see how that goes. As I type this, Darcy and Wesley are playing Hide and Seek in the room, which is really hard because the room is so small there aren't a lot of places to hide.

Tonight we have our final walk through the house. At the same time we've arranged for the carpet installer to come and do the measurements he needs so he can be all set to install the new carpets once we get possession of the house next week.

Here We Are

2010-05-18T08:49:00.003-04:00

Well, here's my first blog post as a resident of Ottawa.

Last Wednesday the moving company came and packed up our house. We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights in a hotel in Windsor while they were working. Wednesday was all packing and on Thursday they loaded the truck.

Things were a bit complicated for us when both kids developed pinkeye on Wednesday. It meant Darcy had to miss her last day at her much-loved school but her teacher let me take her in for a visit. They also both went on to develop ear infections and bad coughs as well. With both of them taking antibiotic eye drops and medicine they both seem to be on the mend now.

We had several sad goodbyes around Windsor and then on Friday at lunchtime we were ready to go. We spent the weekend in Cambridge and then were off to Ottawa on Sunday.

We are now residents of the Algonquin College residence until we get possession of our house on May 26th. We'll probably stay another night or two until we get the carpets replaced. We're going to play that a bit by ear. Our stuff won't be unpacked until June 1st though

Dorm life is a bit cramped for a family of 4. We have a two-bedroom suite but that's pretty much all that is in it. We've got two bedrooms, a small eating area and bathroom with shower only. I'm really glad we got the May 26th closing we wanted instead of the June 14th closing the sellers wanted. A month in here would have driven me crazy!

Nick started his new job yesterday and things went well for him. He's got an easy bus ride from the residence to downtown. Darcy starts her new school today. She goes back and forth between being really excited and really scared. We know that her teacher will be Mrs McGavin and that she is in the afternoon class. She is scared that she won't make any friends today and that there won't be a dollhouse in her classroom. I'm sure she'll do great but I know she'll feel a lot better when she's got a few days under her belt.

So that's our update in a nutshell. I'll try to keep you posted as things go on!

What a Difference a Day Makes

2010-04-30T12:15:00.002-04:00

We weren't sure what to expect when we started out yesterday but by the end of the day we had bought a house!

We met up with our agent at his office and set up our plan for the morning. He already had several appointments set up for us and then arranged a couple more while we were there. We really can't believe the speed of this market and how we can have an appointment made only to find out that it has been conditionally sold. There was one house that only started accepting visits yesterday. We were in there just after 9:00 am. We really loved it. It was a great place, an end unit townhouse that had been well maintained. Really the only things we didn't like about it were the carpet and a weird built-in bar they added to the dining room.

We left that house and went to some others. Some we liked and some we didn't. In one house we saw a gold wedding ring that looked like it had been thrown onto the floor of the downstairs family room. It just seemed so odd to have that ring lying there. It made us wonder if there was a relationship break up that was leading to the sale of the house. Bad vibes! There were other things we didn't like about the house too.

The next one we really liked was a vacant townhouse but it wasn't an end unit. We liked everything about this one too. It was big and bright and seemed perfect for us. Our agent noticed some weird spray paint on the basement ceiling and that made him suspicious. Everything had been sprayed. We were really interested in this house but we needed to find out what that was about. We took a bit of a break in the afternoon and our agent was going to set up second appointments at the two places we liked and he was going to try to find out what was up with the spray paint.

It didn't take long for him to find out that the house had previously had what seemed to be a fairly serious mold problem. There was a HUGE window in the back of the house (one of my favourite features of the house) that apparently had a leak of some sort. We don't know how it happened but the mold eventually spread through the whole house. We were provided with a lab report detailing the work that was done and the new clean tests that had been done on the house. There were a few things that still made us uncomfortable though. First of all is the stigma of a house that had previously had mold. When we ever want to sell the house it could prove to be a problem. Secondly, all that work had only been done in February. Could we really be sure the mold was gone permanently? Thirdly, the window that had started the problem was still there. There was still obviously water damage around the framing and that made us really uncomfortable. The window would be really expensive to replace and it was just too much for us to take a risk on. As much as we loved the house itself, we decided to walk away from that one. Too many risks.

So that brought us back to the first house we saw yesterday morning. We did the second look there and still liked what we saw. It has a nice layout, a good yard and good-sized rooms. The master bedroom has a walk-in closet and an ensuite bathroom. That's pretty exciting. It's a beautifully bright room too. One of the bedrooms is already painted purple and we know a little girl who will love to move right in there. We will need to replace all the carpeting before we move in but that shouldn't be too huge a job.

So we made the offer at 9:00 last night, 12 hours after seeing it the first time. We knew we had to act quickly because it wouldn't last long. We spent an hour going back and forth about the price and the closing date. We ended up getting close to the closing date we wanted (May 26th, we wanted May 20th, they wanted June 14th) and we're OK with the price. So now we need to wait for the home inspection which is set for Monday morning. This morning has been spent on the phone with lawyer's offices, mortgage people and all that sort of fun stuff. We're on our way to Darcy's new school shortly to get her registered. It's all going to happen very quickly from here!

House Hunting Day One

2010-04-29T07:09:00.002-04:00

Well here we are in Ottawa for our house hunting trip. We had a pretty easy travel day yesterday with some nasty turbulence around Toronto as our only problem. We arrived at the hotel shortly after 3:00 and spoke to the real estate agent at 3:30 and he was on his way over shortly after that. There was no time to be wasted.

We saw three homes yesterday. At this point we're not sure if any of them will be real contenders or not. One has definitely been ruled out. We like the layout of the house itself but it has been a rental property and is in pretty rough shape. There's just too much work to be done. Another one also has a lot of work to be done but it may be something we'd consider. The third is move-in ready but the rooms are a bit small.

I've lost track of how many we're going to see today. Lots. So we may be able to rule out the ones from yesterday, or we may see that that's where we're headed. Who knows. All I know for sure right now is that there's a Starbucks right across the road and our day starts there.

Hop on the Bus Gus

2010-04-24T20:29:00.002-04:00

No updates for months and now I'm posting on two consecutive days?!?!? What is going on?

For months Darcy has been asking us to take a ride on the city bus. She rides the school bus daily and has ridden the city bus in Montreal but not in Windsor. For some reason she really wanted to take a ride on the city bus.

Yesterday I took the kids to the mall before Nick got home from Toronto. There's a bus terminal in area where usually park and she started in about the bus ride again. Then Wesley started too. He wanted to get on the bus right then. I knew Nick had a stack of bus tickets at home that he won't be using before we move so we came up with the plan of taking a bus ride together today.

So we had two very excited kids this morning, anxious for their first ride on the bus. We waited in the rain and finally the bus came (5 minutes late, just as you would expect from Windsor transit). I wish you could have seen the look of pure joy on Wesley's face as he sat on the bus. He was positively gleeful. Darcy wanted to stand and was busy looking at all the people and all the sights we were passing. She even made friends with the lady sitting beside her.

We did a bit of shopping at the mall and then boarded the bus for the ride home. There had been an accident with the bus before ours so at one point we had to stop to let the passengers from the damaged bus get on our bus too. I had told Darcy on the way home that she would be able to ring the bell to tell the driver when we needed to stop so of course she kept asking me every 10 seconds if it was time to ring the bell yet. Finally she got to ring the bell and our bus ride came to and end.

Who would have thought that something as simple as a bus ride would make them so excited? Wesley kept yelling, "Bye Bus!" as we walked back up our street. He was thrilled. Darcy is thrilled at the prospect of riding the bus more frequently when we get to Ottawa. What funny kids. For our part it was a cheap way of keeping them entertained on a rainy Saturday morning!

Long Overdue Update

2010-04-23T14:41:00.004-04:00

It has been far too long since I've posted an update here but it has been a crazy few months for us. Wesley is super active right now and if I'm not right beside him all the time then he is sure to do some serious damage to himself, Darcy or the house. So, sitting down to write a blog post isn't a luxury I have very often. He's sleeping right now so I'm going to try to get one done.

Our house is finally sold. I say "finally" but by Windsor's standards, being on the market for 2 1/2 months isn't all that bad. We were still panicking wondering what to do, because Nick was supposed to start his new job on April 14th but it has all worked out now. His new office was really understanding and gave us an extension until the end of June, instead of requiring him to come without the rest of the family. We were very thankful for that.

It's pretty interesting how it all turned out. If we had sold the house as scheduled, the day we probably would have moved would have been April 10th. Unfortunately, that ended up being the day of Nick's Grandpa's funeral. It would have been very difficult for us to manage the move and the funeral at the same time. However, we got an email on the morning of the funeral saying that someone was seriously considering making an offer on the house. They made the offer on the 12th. You've heard it said that the Lord works in mysterious ways. No kidding. We really experienced that here.

So we had gotten ourselves used to the idea that we would be in Windsor until the end of June. When the offer came, though, the buyers asked for a closing date of May 14th. A little over a month. We wanted to do as little as possible to rock the boat so we accepted that closing date even though it put us in a real time crunch.

We should have left right away for a house hunting trip but Nick was already scheduled to be in Toronto this week for training for the new job. So now the move is 3 weeks away and we still don't have a house to go to. Nick will return from Toronto this evening and then he and I leave for Ottawa on Wednesday to try to get us somewhere to live. Many thanks to my parents who are coming here to watch the kids so we don't have to disrupt their schedules too much and so we can really focus our attention on the house hunt. The market in Ottawa is completely different from the market in Windsor so we know we will have to act fast and offer wisely when we find a house we like. We still might end up in a hotel for a couple of weeks if we can't get an immediate closing date but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So there you are. If there are still any of you checking this, that's our current update. Hopefully I'll be able to post soon saying that we've got somewhere new to live!

Funny Darcy Story

2010-02-19T11:35:00.002-05:00

Things are moving slowly on the real estate front. The house has been on the market for over two weeks and we've had two showings and a poorly-attended open house. Because we're in a bit of a time crunch, we've already decided to do a price reduction to see if that generates any more interest. Here's hoping.

So, with all that going on, things are pretty stressful around here. With that in mind, I thought it was time for a funny Darcy story. This is one of my favourites, and I hope I can do it justice in my retelling of it...

I lead a kids' club at our church and Darcy attends each week. It's a fun group, we have a story/lesson time, games, crafts, snacks, those sorts of things. During this week's lesson I asked the kids if they thought that having lots and lots of money would guarantee their happiness. Surprisingly, they unanimously said, "NO!" I was impressed. When I asked them why, Darcy put up her hand. When I chose her to answer, this is what she said,

"I think it wouldn't make you happy because if you had lots of money, other people wouldn't have as much money and that would make you sad..."

Now imagine my pride here. I was so impressed with her grasp of the situation and her awareness of the needs of people around here. We've tried to teach her that we always need to be concerned about others and help them wherever we can. This proved to me that she was getting it. Unfortunately, her answer was not done. She went on to say,

"You would be sad because you wouldn't have anyone to go shopping with."

Rolling Along

2010-02-02T14:49:00.002-05:00

Although we got the paperwork we needed from the government, we're still finding that a lot of the moving process is out of our hands and things still aren't progressing as quickly as we'd like.

Our house STILL isn't on the market. That's causing us a great deal of stress right now. We finally got clearance yesterday to go ahead with that. We had preemptively met with a couple of agents last week so this morning we called the agent we had chosen. She is coming to meet with us tomorrow (Nick is working today) and we hope the house should be officially listed by the end of the day tomorrow.

We're really pleased with the agent we've chosen. She's a pretty big name in the Windsor market and is consistently a top producer. She's very energetic and outgoing and we think she's got what it takes to sell our house. She also has two young children herself so she's sympathetic to our plight of trying to show the house with two kids living here. She's going to make sure we get as much notice as possible before viewings so we can get things in order.

Both of the agents who came through the house last week were really pleased with the look of it. However, they both recommended a little fix up to the stairway leading to the basement. We knew it needed to be done but were hoping it wasn't that big a deal. With both agents mentioning it though, we know it needs to be done. So I'm scraping wallpaper today and Nick will start painting tomorrow. The agent said she doesn't need to take pictures of that area tomorrow so it's OK that it's not done.

So, hopefully the sign will be in the yard tomorrow and we'll get some people interested soon.

The Ball is Rolling

2010-01-22T16:46:00.003-05:00

Since we decided to move to Ottawa we've pretty much been playing the waiting game, waiting for the government to get us the necessary paperwork to get the ball rolling to make our move happen. It's been a frustrating wait.

Our biggest concern is selling the house. The market in Windsor is very depressed right now and selling a house is hard. We wanted to have as much time as possible to sell the house. However, until the paperwork is all settled, our hands are tied. This has easily been our biggest frustration. We've been doing what we can to get our house ready but we haven't been able to list it yet.

This also impacts our ability to buy a house in Ottawa. The market there seems to be the opposite of the market here. We look at houses online and in a day or two they're gone. Things sell quickly and from what we understand there are usually multiple offers for houses. If we don't sell our house, we would need to make a conditional offer and that would probably lessen our likelihood of getting the house we want. Again, frustrating.

Well, the paperwork came today and our relocation file has officially been started. We should be contacted soon by the real estate company that handles the government relocations. That will get the ball rolling. Our house should be on the market here soon and all we can do is hope and pray that someone will want to buy it and for a reasonable price. We're prepared to take a bit of a loss but we really don't want it to be HUGE, especially with what we're expecting to pay for our new house in Ottawa.

So, that's where we stand right now. Things are finally moving. Maybe now I can get some sleep at night. I doubt it.

Top Books of 2009

2010-01-13T10:53:00.002-05:00

2008 and was a pretty rough year for me book-wise. I just couldn't find anything that I loved. 2009 was the complete opposite. I read a bunch of amazing books so I thought I'd borrow a page from my cousin, Glenn, and list them here.

The Godfather, Mario Puzo - I'm not really sure what made me read this. I saw a guy reading it on the bus in Montreal and it got me thinking about it. I didn't see myself as a mobster-type fan, but I have to say, I LOVED this book. The characters are amazing, the story is compelling and I asked for the book for Christmas so I can read it again. I've also discovered I love the movies. Who knew?
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer - This book was recommended to me by two different people within a few days of each other. That's usually a good sign. This was a quick read, but a really enjoyable World War II story.
Come, Thou Tortoise, Jessica Grant - Another recommendation from a friend and I had no idea what to expect when I picked it up. It made me laugh from beginning to end. This book had the most unique narrator I've ever encountered in a book. I totally loved her and the whole story.
Roots, Alexander Haley - I read this one after several members of my family did. I had no idea that the book claimed to be the actual lineage of Alex Haley. I really loved the book but that was a bit disappointed afterwards to find out that parts of it have been plagiarized and the whole claim about Alex Haley's lineage seem to have been debunked. It's sad really because it's a wonderful book about the power of people to overcome the worst life can throw at them.
The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill - Very similar to Roots in many ways, this Canadian book blew me away. You should read it, if you haven't already.
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - This is another book about which I knew very little when I started reading it. Set in Germany during World War II it gives you a different perspective on the war than usual. Narrated by death, it deals with the power of words and books and people. Amazing stuff.
Wishin' and Hopin', Wally Lamb - I just got this book for Christmas and it's another one that made me laugh out loud constantly. It's a super-light but super-fun ready. It really needs to be made into a movie. It would be the next, "A Christmas Story". I loved it and may even have convinced Nick to read it too.

Disappointing books of 2009:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith - I thought it might be a fun read. I was wrong. Really, really, wrong.
The Blythes are Quoted, L.M. Montgomery - This is a new book in the Anne of Green Gables series that has never been released in this form before. It is a series of short stories with Anne and her family brought in as minor characters. Each of the stories had been written on its own and then Anne and her family were added in later. I have previously read the short stories on their own and they were better as they were. The times when Anne and her family are mentioned seemed forced and often silly. It doesn't really do much to tell us anything more about the Blythes. I'm glad I read it, but I doubt I'll read it as often as I read the other Anne books.

Update

2010-01-06T10:44:00.003-05:00

Nick got our camera/computer problems worked out and our pictures are now available on Facebook and Flickr.

On Monday morning I had Wesley back at his ear specialist for another check up. The doctor continues to be pleased with how Wesley's ears are looking. He asked to see us again in six months but I told him we'll be living in Ottawa by then. I wasn't sure how that was going to work. I hoped he would be able to refer us to a specialist in Ottawa. I was afraid we'd have to get there, find a family doctor and then wait for a referral again there. Fortunately, our doctor here said he will see Wesley again before we leave and then will set us up with a specialist in Ottawa, so we'll be all set. That's a big relief. So, we're happy that he's doing well and that there are no more ear problems on the horizon.

The doctor didn't mention anything about Wesley's speech this time, so I guess he's OK for now. He's trying to say more words and is getting easier to understand. We'll see how things go over the next couple of months and see if we want to look into any sort of help with that once we get to Ottawa.

We're Back!

2010-01-05T10:59:00.003-05:00

We're back home in Windsor after two wonderful, but exhausting weeks on the road.

Nick and Darcy counted the other day and over the 14 days we were on the road, Darcy went to 11 parties. That includes celebrating Daddy's birthday, a couple of Christmases, getting together with my cousins and extended family, those sorts of things. There were late nights, great food and lots of laughs. The kids did pretty well through it all, and we managed to survive too.

I won't go through a whole day-by-day synopsis but I will highlight some of our top (and bottom) moments:

- seeing the Olympic torch pass through Brantford, Ontario
- watching the excitement on Wesley's face when our plane took off!
- taking Darcy to her first movie, with Auntie Stef
- tobogganing in Montreal
- lots of turkey
- surviving our flight home (including have each member of our family being assigned individual seats on the plane)
- managing not to throw Wesley's new Wiggles car (that sings "Toot toot chugga chugga, Big Red Car loudly, over and over and over and over and over...) out the window
- lots of Chinese food
- seeing many of my cousins
- a great New Year's Eve at my sister's house, even though I wasn't feeling well and needed to take a nap to make it to midnight
- the return of the Haskell family New Year's Day street hockey game
- breaking my toe while falling down some stairs at my parents' house
- celebrating my Mom's 60th birthday

What a great list and what a great time we had. Nick had to come back to Windsor to work so he missed some of our time in Cambridge but he joined us for the final weekend and then we all came home together on Sunday. We've had a lot of unpacking and laundry to do but things are starting to feel normal again! I'm having trouble uploading the pictures from my camera but I hope to get them on Facebook and Flickr soon.

Santa Success

2009-12-13T15:54:00.002-05:00

Every year our church hosts a Christmas party for the young children and every year it is a stressful time for Darcy when she finds herself face-to-face with Santa Claus.

It completely caught us off guard the first year. At that time she was a girl who would try just about anything, but as soon as Santa came in the room she freaked out. We've since seen similar reactions to Chuck E. Cheese, Elmer the Safety Elephant and Bonhomme Carnaval.

Last weekend I told her it was nearly time for this year's party and the panicking started immediately. She was nearly ready to stay home from the party but still wanted the gifts Santa handed out. She got to the point where she didn't even want to talk about it anymore.

Yesterday was the day of the big party. It was the first thing she talked about when she got up in the morning and the party wasn't to be until 4:00 in the afternoon! We had a bunch of stuff to do before the party and I needed to get her distracted. She and I went to the mall to do a bit of shopping in the morning and we walked past the Santa display there. She looked from outside the fence, at first cowering behind me but eventually coming out to make eye contact with an elf.

After that mall, we needed to go with Nick to the other mall in town where a band from our church was going to be playing Christmas carols at Sobey's. We went to watch him and they had Santa there too. He asked Darcy if she wanted to get her picture taken with him. She did not. She did, however, take one of his candy canes. After about 20 minutes of listening to the music and watching other kids get their pictures taken with Santa, she asked me if it would be OK if she got her picture taken. I told her it would, if that was what she wanted. She went and got on his lap herself and we got a picture with Santa (it isn't ready to be picked up until Tuesday). We were really proud of her and she was extremely proud of herself.

A few minutes later, Nick asked her to join the band to play some bells during, "Jingle Bells". She did a great job and loved that. Santa was so pleased with her great job that he took his own jingle bells off his wrist and gave them to Darcy to keep. Well, that sealed the deal. She is now officially Santa's biggest fan.

Later in the afternoon when it was time for the party we went without a whimper from Darcy. Santa arrived and there were no tears. Then he started calling them to come up and get their presents. Wouldn't you know it, Darcy got called first. She looked over at us nervously but then got up, went over to him and sat on his lap. She took her present and went back to her seat. No fuss, no tears, just smooth sailing. She didn't give Santa the big hug and kiss that Wesley gave to, "Ho ho" but she got up there and we were pleased with that.

Ottawa

2009-12-08T09:17:00.003-05:00

My fingers still aren't completely healed. Typing starting to become more manageable with both hands, but it still hurts. I'll see how this post goes.

Things have been very busy for us in these last few months. I'm sure you all know by now that we're moving to Ottawa but this is the first chance I've really had to write about it so I figured better late than never.

With Nick working for the government we kind of figured that a move to Ottawa would be inevitable for us at some point. However, we he started talking seriously about it last spring, it freaked me out a bit. It's such a big move and we've got things pretty great here. I tried to make a list of pros and cons to help me figure out what was the best move for our family.

The pros were:
- we'd be closer to both families. Instead of being 1000 km from our farthest family, we'd be 500. That's a big difference.
- we want our kids to be bilingual. That will be a lot easier to do in Ottawa than in Windsor.
- Nick's new job would be steady days, Monday - Friday. The shift work is killing us all.
- we both have friends in Ottawa so we wouldn't be completely lonely in a new city.
- the kids are young enough to be pretty resilient about the whole thing.
- they offered us a pretty sweet relocation package.

Those are some pretty big pros. There were also some huge cons:
- THE WEATHER IN OTTAWA
- houses cost nearly twice as much (plus the difficulty of selling a house in Windsor right now)
- we've worked hard to allow me the opportunity to stay home with the kids. That will be out the window because of the housing costs.
- the snow
- good friends/church here
- it gets really cold there

You get the picture. We went back and forth for a long time. Is this the right time, is it not? It will never be easy but with the relocation package this might be the easiest time to do it. Eventually, that's what we decided.

So, while we're sad to be leaving our life here, we're excited about the opportunities for the future. I told Nick last night that he needs to make it his goal to rise through the ranks until we get invited to some sort of state dinner.

The Wiggles

2009-10-24T09:19:00.002-04:00

I am going to attempt a one-handed post here. I've already made 6 typing errors so it could take a while and still be short. Please forgive any typos you see!

The kids had so much fun at the Wiggles concert the other night that I had to write about it. We've never been huge Wiggles fans at our house but when we heard they were coming to Windsor (and that tickets started at $10) we thought it sounded interesting. Of course then $10 tickets ended up being a lot more with about $6 in "convenience" fees added to each ticket but it was still worth it.

We got them to watch the Wiggles a lot more in the weeks leading up to the concert to make the show more enjoyable for them. We thought that the kids would enjoy the show but that we'd be ready to lose our minds by the end of the show. We couldn't have been more wrong. It was just a fantastic show all around. I had no idea about the gymnasts and acrobats that toured with them. The stage show was amazing! The songs are also quite catchy and Nick and I haven't been able to stop singing them since Wednesday either.

However, the best part of the show was the audience interaction. We had heard that kids who go to the shows bring roses for Dorothy the Dinosaur and bones for Wags the Dog. The morning of the show Darcy decided she wanted to draw a rose for Dorothy and we worked together on a bone for Wesley to give to Wags. I didn't want her to be disappointed at the show so I kept reminding her that our seats were in the very back row and that we wouldn't get close enough to give them actually to Dorothy and Wags. I thought that we'd just leave them behind in our seats and tell them that someone would pick them up for Dorothy and Wags.

We couldn't have been more surprised when Murray Wiggle himself walked up into our section, right to the very top row and asked Darcy and Alisa if they wanted him to take their roses to Dorothy for them. Of course they did. Then he saw Wesley holding his bone and asked him if he wanted that taken too. It was very cool. They also spent time during the show talking to kids with birthdays and reading all the signs kids had made. They really made the kids feel special.

If you've spent any time with Wesley at all you know he doesn't like sitting still. In fact he's climbing on top of me as I type this. Well, he barely moved through the whole show and I don't know if he blinked at all! He was mesmerized.

All in all, we loved the show and we'd go again. A highly recommended night out for the family.

Pictures Up

2009-10-08T22:26:00.004-04:00

There are new pictures up on our Flickr site of our renovations and some of the kids having fun. However, because of my injury, I won't be updating here for a little bit. One-handed typing is just too frustrating for me. I'll be back as soon as I can!

Week 2 Begins

2009-09-21T11:52:00.003-04:00

We've survived the first week of school and are now heading into week two. It's been a week of adjustments for Darcy but for the most part, she's doing well. We're seeing that she's pretty tired by the end of the day and her attitude often gets pretty unbearable around supper time. Yesterday was pretty bad for her which is surprising because she didn't even go to school yesterday. Everything was an argument and everything seemed to reduce her to tears. It was awful.

Just as I was shutting out the light at bedtime she said, "You know Mommy, I'm feeling a little bit sad about something." Finally! We were getting to the bottom of things. She explained that she was feeling sad because she wasn't seeing her friend, Sam, much at school.

At Darcy's school they have junior and senior kindergarten in the same class and last year when she was a JK, her best friend was in SK. Sam is a delightful little girl and they really became great friends. They've had several play dates outside of school too and really enjoy being together. However, with Sam now being in grade one, she's on a bit of a different schedule from Darcy and I don't think they're going to see much of each other. That's going to be pretty hard on Darcy. We're trying to encourage her to make new friends in her class and we know she will, but she's really missing Sam. I think this will cause some sadness for a little while.

Wesley, on the other hand, is just the happiest, silliest little guy you'd ever want to meet. The guy just cracks us up all the time. One problem we're having with him lately is throwing his food and utensils. Once he's had enough to eat he views everything remaining on his tray as a potential projectile. We've found spaghetti on a mask that hangs on the wall about his head, french fries on the other side of the room and people eating at our house have had the misfortune of having his spoon suddenly appearing on their plate or in their drink.

Wesley currently has two favourite games, "Duck, Duck, Goose" and, "Ring Around the Rosy". He wants to play them all time. In fact, you can't get him to settle down for a nap or bedtime unless you first play "Duck, Duck, Goose" with all the animals he has in his crib with him. There was one night when Nick put him down without playing it first and Wesley would not settle down to sleep. After listening to him for half an hour, Nick went back in and Wesley told him he wanted to play ("Duh, duh" is Wesley's phrase for it). Nick played the game and Wesley was asleep in minutes. Crazy. He still loves dogs, balls and big trucks. He's really turning into quite a little reader too, which makes me very happy indeed!

Bus Stop Frustrations

2009-09-16T13:28:00.003-04:00

With all my fears last year about sending Darcy to school on the bus, things went unbelievably smoothly. We only ran into one slight problem with the spot where we meet the bus at the beginning of the school day.

One day after dropping the kids off, the lady who owns the nearby house stopped our neighbour and I to ask them to keep the kids off her grass. Fair enough. It's her grass, I'm sure she didn't ask to have a school bus stop there so we did our best to keep the kids off the grass. We never heard anything more from her so we figured she was OK with the way things were going. One day during the summer our family was out for a walk and we stopped and had a lengthy conversation with her and she even joked that it was good for us to see that she was more than just the, "cranky lady from the bus stop". Those are her words. I was expecting things to go on as they were when school began again this year. Apparently I missed something.

On the first day of school we were all gathered on the sidewalk in front of her house. There were four members of our family, Darcy's friend Quinn and his Dad and another Mom with a baby in a stroller waiting for her son to get off the bus. The sidewalk was pretty crowded. We soon noticed this woman pacing back and forth on her front steps. Soon she came down the steps with her Jack Russell Terrier on his leash. She came right for us. Quinn politely asked if he could pet the dog. Her response was a very sharp, "No! He bites!". She walked right through our group (forcing some of us to step on her grass to get out of her way, I might add) a couple of times. Very nice.

The next day we went back and she had put up some lawn edging around the perimeter of her yard. She didn't have quite enough, so she placed a big pile of branches where the edging didn't cover. Again, fair enough. However, that wasn't all. She also had a sprinkler going on her yard, you know the kind that looks like a fan and goes back and forth over the yard. She had it turned on so high that the whole sidewalk in front of her house was getting wet so we had to stand around the corner and risk not being seen by the bus, or else get soaking wet.

Today was pretty mild in comparison, there was no dog and no sprinkler, just her lawn edging. She did come out and stand on her porch though, staring at us all. Quinn touched the lawn edging and I thought he might get yelled at for that, but she didn't say anything. I was suprised she didn't go then and turn the sprinkler on.

We have no idea what has triggered her escalated response. The full day kids also wait there in the mornings (our pick-up is at noon) so I wonder if something happened with them during their first week of school when we hadn't started yet and she's taking it out on all of us.

One thing I forgot to mention is that when we did have that nice talk with her during the summer, she told us that is a retired teacher! She even used to teach at Darcy's school. Man, am I ever glad she's not there anymore.

So we're not sure what to do about this, or if there's anything we can do. We do our best to respect her property but that's clearly not enough. She's got to wage some sort of sitcom-type war against the five-year olds who have the misfortune of needing to stand in front of her house for 5-10 minutes a day. Stay tuned for more bus stop adventures!

First Day of SK!

2009-09-14T21:12:00.003-04:00

Today was Darcy's first day of senior kindergarten (finally!). She could barely sleep last night for all of her excitement and was pretty wild this morning. As a result, we were pretty happy to see her get on the school bus today. Quite a switch from last year!

She looked super-cute in her outfit from Grandmaman and Papa and even got a compliment from her beloved teacher about it. That put her on cloud 9 for sure. She is still in the afternoon class but we are happy that she has the same teacher from last year and a lot of the same friends in her class. I'm not happy that we're being told that there's a kid in the class with severe allergies so we can't send snacks with peanuts, peanut products, sesame seeds or EGGS. Like packing snacks isn't hard enough, now we have to avoid eggs? That's going to be very difficult. They sent home a list of suggested snacks and most of them had eggs in them so I'm totally confused. They seem to be focused more on the peanut part of it, which we already had to do. I'm sticking with the list they sent and not getting too worried about the egg thing.

We had a bit of a crisis when Darcy got home from school. I noticed that her super cool name tag wasn't on her backpack. I was not impressed because it was brand new and if you follow the link, you'll see that they're not cheap. I searched through the bag to see if it was inside the bag somewhere and discovered another kids name written inside. Wrong backpack. When I told Darcy, she had a complete meltdown and was convinced that, and I quote, "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me!" I ended up calling the school and speaking to the principal who assured us that everything could be switched back tomorrow (I knew this, but Darcy needed me to call so she could calm down. She gets a little stressed about things I don't know where she gets that from.) with her teacher's help. We're trying to encourage her to develop a friendship with the owner of the other matching bag so they can check every day to make sure they've each got the right bag. So once that crisis was over we were able to settle down and have an enjoyable evening. Hopefully day two goes better!

More pictures are available on flickr.

Odds and Ends

2009-09-10T09:32:00.004-04:00

We've been trying to enjoy the last few weeks of summer and as a result I haven't posted here lately. Here are some high (and low) lights of the past few weeks:

- Wesley got stung by a bee, right on his nose
- we went to the Detroit Zoo twice last week, making the most of our membership
- Nick and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary
- Darcy went to her first "supper party" alone
- I have read several great books this summer (but that might be another post of it's own someday)
- Darcy is still anxiously awaiting the start of Kindergarten (Monday the 14th)
- Wesley can shriek loud enough to pierce your eardrums
- I have learned that both mushrooms and processed cheese slices will stick if they are thrown against a wall by a two-year old
- I actually bought a bathing suit that I like
- our garden was hit and miss this summer. The green beans were a big hit, the zucchini was a disaster (we just didn't have the room for it to grow properly) and the jury is still out on the carrots (the zucchini may not have allowed them to get the sun they needed). Darcy is already making plans for next year's garden.
- we just bought tickets to see The Wiggles in October

That's about it for our house right now! Maybe I'll be doing more regular updates again once Darcy is in school and I've got a few minutes to myself each day.

What a Difference a Year Makes

2009-08-22T23:48:00.005-04:00

Look at the difference one year can make in the life of a small boy!

2 Years Old!

2009-08-21T14:21:00.002-04:00

It hardly seems possible but today is Wesley's second birthday. When I was pregnant and stuck in the hospital for six long weeks it seemed like he'd never get here. Now it's hard to remember a time without him!

So here's my little Wesley tribute for his second birthday...

Wesley is a fun child to be around. That hasn't always been true of him this year but it's really true right now. He really dealt with some serious separation anxiety and wouldn't let me out of his sight for a long time. Fortunately those days seem to be over and he's generally a happy little guy now. He's got quite a sense of humour and he loves to laugh. And when he's laughing, everyone around him is laughing too. He's got this crazy, infectious laugh that I could listen to all day long.

Wesley loves his stuffed dog, pictures of dogs and books about dogs, pretty much anything to do with dogs. Unless of course he's around an actual dog. Then he freaks out. Any sort of pretend dog is A-OK though.

He also loves trucks, tractors and cars. His favourite activity right now is "driving" the car. If we would let him, he'd sit in our car by the hour pretending to drive. I think all Nick did after supper last night was sit in the passenger seat of our van while Wesley "drove". They had a blast.

Wesley loves his sister. He wants to be wherever she is, doing whatever she doing, even if she's playing dress up. I got a great picture of him in one of her dress up gowns the other day. Hilarious. Whether Darcy is doing something good or bad, Wesley wants to be right there with her.

Wesley is small for his age. At 2 years old he weighs 21 pounds, less than most one-year olds. He eats well (we've recently discovered a passion for chicken drumsticks) but he doesn't put on any weight. He doesn't like milk (which could be part of the problem) but would drink apple juice from morning to night if he could.

His speech is also a bit behind schedule for a two-year old. He doesn't have as many words as he should and he's not yet putting any sort of sentences together. We know that his hearing problems earlier in the year contributed to this. He is making improvements but we know he's not yet where he should be. So we continue to work with him on this and in the meantime he is a championship signer. He uses sign language for a lot of stuff so we have no trouble communicating with him but people outside our immediate family might have some trouble. One of his favourite new words is "movie" (he says, "oovie") which he picked up after our recent vacation and his exposure to the DVD player on the long drives. He also likes to do a high-pitched shriek when things aren't going quite the way he'd like them. Not cool.

It has been an eventful two years and we've loved almost every minute of it. He is just the cutest little guy and we love having him as part of our family. Happy birthday Wes-man! We love you.

Frustrating

2009-08-10T14:35:00.002-04:00

It was approximately a million degrees here yesterday. Nick was working from 10:45 - 10:00 which makes for a long day for the kids and I. With church starting at 10:30 we all got ready to leave at the same time.

We haven't been at church for a few weeks because of our vacation and Darcy was really looking forward to getting there to see her friends. I also had some friends with family visiting from out of town that I wanted to see too. So we actually got in the car a few minutes early and headed out the door. We had been driving for all of 2 minutes when I heard a funny sound and felt a pulling to the right of the car. We were near the home of some friends from church so I made it to their driveway and pulled in. Sure enough, we had a flat tire. Our friends weren't home so I pulled out my trusty CAA card. We were told it would be a 45 minute wait at about 10:15. Although it was early, it was already heating up. I left the car running so we could keep the air conditioning on. It didn't make much difference though and we were all sweating. The kids had drinks with them, but I didn't.

I had to determine if we had a spare tire, because if we didn't CAA would have had to send a different truck. I looked in the trunk but because we have a mini van with fold-down seats the spare tire wasn't there. I called Nick at work but he hadn't arrived yet so I dug out the manual and figured out that the spare is in between the front and back seats. So it's about 30 degrees out, I'm dressed for church and I'm digging around in the car trying to get out the spare tire. Fortunately it didn't look like it had ever been used so my white skirt was safe.

Finally the driver came, only a few minutes past the 45 prediction and it took him very little time to get the tire changed. By this time it's 11:15 and church is nearly done. I suggested to Darcy that maybe we should just go back home and she looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Then why am I wearing a dress???" So we went and just went straight into the nursery so she could play with her friends. Church ended pretty much as soon as we got there, so we made it in time for juice. Woo hoo!

We're back!

2009-08-08T13:58:00.004-04:00

It has been an incredibly busy and fun two weeks away for us, but we're finally back at home.

We started off in Cambridge two weeks ago for my Dad's retirement celebration. He has worked for Allen-Bradley/Rockwell for over 44 years and has decided to retire. They really threw him a great celebration party. We went first to the plant where they made some presentations to him and we got a tour of the plant. Then we were all taken out for a delicious steak lunch. It was a great day. We had decided that since we'd all be together and dressed nicely that we'd do formal family portraits on the same day. The kids were pretty tired by this time but the pictures went well and turned out nicely. I'll post them once I get them scanned.

The next morning we were up and on our way to Montreal as we needed to be at L'Achigan camp by that evening. We had one of the smoothest drives we've ever had to Montreal and spent a couple of hours with Grandmaman and Papa before heading up to camp. We also had a delicious meal there, which turned out the be good because the camp food was terrible this year!

We had a great week at camp once again. We're so glad we decided to go. The kids loved being up there. It rained a lot, but not nearly as much as last year. We got a lot more beach time in this year than we did last year which was great. All in all it was a great week and we hope to go back again next year.

Once camp ended we headed to Montreal for a few days with our family which was great, as always. We went to the Biosphere which was a first for us. We'll definitely go back.

After Montreal it was off to Ottawa for a few days. We met up with my sister Lynn and her family there which made it even better. Ottawa seems to have changed a lot since I lived there and I had a hard time finding my way around. We spent time at the Museum of Civilization and the Agriculture Museum (which was pretty much a farm with animals we could look at). Very cool. We also saw the changing of the guard, and one of the guards fainted right in front of us. It wasn't that hot of a day, but he must have been hot in his big, heavy uniform. He went right down. I hope he was OK.

Our time in Ottawa was great, with two exceptions. The first involved the hotel pool. The first night we went down with Lynn and her family. Both Lucas and Darcy fell on the super-slipper pool deck. The second night we were there, Lynn and her family were gone so the four of us went down together. Nick was playing with Darcy and I was playing with Wesley. He wanted to go up and down the stairs over and over and over... You get the picture. One time he was standing at the top of the stairs and as he stepped to come back down, he fell, hitting his head very hard on the pool deck. I picked him up and could tell he wasn't quite right. I called out to Nick just as Wesley went unconscious in my arms. Nick took him and he woke up instantly. What makes this story even worse is that there was a lifeguard on duty this whole time who was watching movies on her laptop and didn't make any attempt to help us. When Nick took him from me, I called out to her and asked for her help. She pretty much came over and said, "He'll be fine." Fortunately, Nick has his first aid certification and knew what to check for and we soon figured that he was OK. We monitored him through the night and he is fine. We were pretty ticked about the lifeguard situation so we filed a complaint with the hotel.

The other problem is that when we got home we realized that both kids' stuffed animals had been left a the hotel. We called from Cambridge but they couldn't find them. For Wesley this isn't a big deal, but for Darcy it was a HUGE deal. She loves that cow so much. It was given to her by Auntie Stef after a trip to Switzerland and Darcy sleeps with her every night. When we called the hotel again this morning we were told that the stuffed animals have been found and that they'll be sent to us by Fed Ex. What a relief.

We spent one last night in Cambridge on the way home and arrived back in Windsor yesterday. We are mostly unpacked now and getting settled back in at home. The kids had a lot of fun but a lot of late nights so it will be good to get them back into their routines. It's great to be away but it's always good to get home again too.

Sign of Things to Come

2009-07-17T13:34:00.003-04:00

Today Darcy was invited to go to her friend's house to go swimming. Sam has a pool at her house and her Dad had invited Nick to bring Darcy over one day for a swimming play date. He likes to have a parent stay around when their child is swimming, for safety's sake, so Nick was prepared to go swimming too. A great sacrifice on his part!

This morning they were getting things ready to go, swimsuits, towels, sunblock, all the normal things you need for a pool party. Wesley saw all these preparations and noticed that nothing was being prepared for him. He has this way of yelling at you so that even though he's not saying any words, his thoughts come clearly across. He made it very clear that he felt he should be included in the pool party. At one point he looked inside the backpack and saw Nick's bathing suit inside. He pulled it out and held it up in my face and started yelling. He was clearly saying, "See! I knew there was something fun going on! Where's my swimsuit????" To add insult to injury, they rode Nick's bike with the child seat on it over to Sam's house. Wesley's two favourite activities right now are swimming and bike riding. Nothing like rubbing salt in the wound. As he looked out the window and saw them riding away, he freaked out. He's had mini temper tantrums before, but nothing like this. There was crying, screaming, yelling, kicking, hitting, the whole package. I felt bad for the poor little guy so I let him have it out, tried to give him some hugs and then got him some grapes (his favourite snack) to settle him down. I think that as we approach his second birthday next month we're going to see more and more outbursts like this. He got over it pretty quickly but it was quite intense while it lasted. I'm not looking forward to that being a regular occurrence!

After he settled down, we went to the grocery store (where he got a free cookie) and then we came home and played in the backyard. Then we went for a bike ride around the block. It took more than half an hour to go around our tiny block with Wesley on his tricycle. He stopped every few minutes when something caught his attention. A big transport truck went down our street (they're not supposed to do that) and that fascinated him. A pretty blond lady got into her car and that fascinated him too. Then he had to get off the bike to throw a stone in a puddle. Normal 2-year old things. He ended up having a great morning, but we sure got off to a rough start.

Wesley's Ears - July Update

2009-07-14T14:46:00.002-04:00

Today was our first visit back to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist since Wesley's surgery in March. Of course, with it being a specialist's appointment, you can't expect things to go perfectly smoothly. We had to wait about an hour past our appointment time before we saw the doctor, but Wesley was great. He played quietly and was really patient.

After waiting for an hour we had about 3 minutes with the doctor and a resident. They both looked in Wesley's ears and told us that everything looks great. That's pretty much what I expected to hear, so we're all good. The doctor said he wanted to hear Wesley talking his ear off the next time we see him. Wesley is already getting the beginnings of a lot of words (including one for chocolate 0 that's my boy!) so I think we're getting back on track speech-wise. I'm sure that we soon won't be able to get him to be quiet.

Our next visit with the specialist is in December. Hopefully everything continues to go well until then.

Summer Fun

2009-07-10T13:41:00.002-04:00

Sorry I haven't been updating much but we're not spending much time inside so I'm not at the computer as much as usual. We just love being outside and we're trying to spend every minute we can out there. Wesley is having a nap right now and it's super hot outside so Darcy and I are taking a break so I thought I'd sneak in a quick update.

Of course, there's not a lot to update. We play outside and we laugh a lot. That's about it right now.

Wesley is definitely developing into an interesting character. He loves to play jokes on people, his favourite being to throw a bucket of water on someone. He loves it just as much when you throw the bucket of water back on him. Darcy is really into telling jokes, but most of them don't make any sense. She thinks she can ask you any question and then say, "Gotcha!" and that's a joke. For example, we were in the car this morning and she said, "Mommy would you be able to drive the car without any buttons on it?" I said no and she said, "Gotcha!" and laughed like a maniac. I didn't get it. Her favourite joke is from a TV show. She tells you that you have to ask her if she's a truck. When you do she shouts, "NO!" and then laughs like crazy. That one's a bit funnier.

Our favourite project of the summer has been our vegetable garden. We've been working on this since May and now we're finally starting to enjoy the fruits (or should I say vegetables) of our labour. We've had several servings of beautiful green beans already with a few more to come. Over the next couple of weeks I'm hoping to get rid of our first group of bean plants and then grow a second batch for later in the summer into early fall. Our carrots seem to be coming along nicely, as far as we can tell from the greens. Our big surprise though has been the zucchini. I will admit that I didn't do enough research before planting zucchini. It's way too big a plant for the tiny garden we have. It's taking over! And from the look of things, we're going to have a lot of zucchini when they're all full-grown. We might be taking orders! We've got a few that are starting to show now and lots of blossoms still coming up every day. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

As for flowers, we've got some cosmos planted in the backyard along with our annual attempts at sunflowers. I think we're going to have four, maybe five great sunflowers this year. They're coming along very well. Papa planted some hostas (with purple flowers, for Darcy) in the front yard when he was visiting and those seem to have established themselves well in the front yard. Darcy has loved being a part of the gardening, especially picking the green beans. They both love to do the watering with me, but Wesley just wants to get himself wet. It's been a great family project and I'm already beginning to think about what we're going to grow next year.

One Year Down

2009-06-25T13:25:00.004-04:00

Countless more to go. Today is Darcy's last day of junior kindergarten. Despite all my nervousness from last summer and fall, Darcy has had a fantastic year. She's disappointed to end the school year and I think she'd like to keep going to school all summer long.

Yesterday they had a big year-end concert and picnic at the school. The concert consisted of two songs that they performed in their classroom (the 4 other afternoon classes were performing in their classrooms at the same time) and then all the classes joined together for a picnic out in the sweltering heat. Even with the heat, it was a lot of fun. It just cracks me up to see her hanging out with her little friends.

Her teacher told me that at this point there isn't room in the morning class for Darcy. So if everything remains the same in the fall as it is now, Darcy will be continuing on in the afternoon class. I'm a bit disappointed but whatever happens, we'll make it work. She has done really well in that class this year and I know she can do great again next year.

5 Years Old

2009-06-09T21:17:00.004-04:00

I can hardly believe it but Darcy's 5th birthday has come and gone. It hardly seems possible that 5 years have gone by since she joined our family. In some ways it seems like she's always been here, but in other ways it feels like these 5 years have absolutely flown by.
Here she is on June 6th, 2004.

Here she is on June 6th, 2009.

For her birthday party, Darcy chose to go to the bowling alley around the corner from our house. They seem to be the only place in town that does 5-pin bowling and she loves it. With her cousins, church friends and school friends all put together we had 12 kids joining us at the party. It was pretty loud at times but a lot of fun. I didn't get to see much of the bowling with getting the food sorted out but it looked like the kids were having a good time.

There is one girl from school who drives us nuts but Darcy really wanted her there, so she was there. All the other kids were just great. A lot of the parents stayed too which is great because they're our friends too so that makes it more enjoyable for us too, and with the number of kids we had, the extra hands came in handy (so to speak). My family stayed for the weekend so she had an all-around great time celebrating her birthday. Grandmaman and Papa will be coming this weekend from Montreal so we're all really excited about that too.

I thought that in honour of Darcy's 5th birthday, I'd write a little bit about Darcy at age 5. Darcy is a funny little girl. She's got a vocabulary that sometimes cracks me up and often says things that make her sound like she's older than I am. She loves the colour purple, Barbies, dolls, princesses, books and all kinds of fun stuff. Her favourite food is spaghetti and she loves chocolate (that's my girl). No meal is complete without dessert, she'll even try to get dessert at breakfast sometimes. She knows that you can't wear socks with sandals and is horrified if someone shows up school like that. She loves reading books and is starting to read a few words on her own. She is sounding out all the letters and it won't be long before she can completely read on her own. Darcy loves speaking French and if you ever get the chance to listen to her do it, I highly recommend it. It's pretty entertaining. She has really picked up the language quickly and is doing very well at school in both languages. She can also be stubborn, bossy and whiny, like most 5-year olds. All in all, we're incredibly proud of her and we love her. Happy birthday, Darcy!

Potty Training???

2009-06-04T09:53:00.002-04:00

Warning: Bathroom content!!!

Lately Wesley has been showing a lot of interest in the potty which has caught me completely off guard. He is 21 months old and Darcy was over 2 before we started any sort of training with her. All the conventional "wisdom" that you hear says that boys start later than girls so I hadn't really given potty training any serious thought yet.

However, over the past couple of weeks, Wesley has been fascinated with the potty. He's always wanting to sit on there so we've been letting him, with no sort of "action" happening. Yesterday I was making supper when he walked into the kitchen and started tugging on his diaper. I told him I didn't have time to take him to the potty but apparently that answer didn't satisfy him. He then took off his pants. I figured he meant business. I took him upstairs and put him on the potty and what do you know, he peed! He was pretty proud of himself, you could tell.

Last night was a night when I go out before Nick gets home from work with a babysitter in between. When I got home Nick was all excited to tell me that Wesley had peed on the potty before bathtime. I had to rain on his parade and tell him that it wasn't the first time. Then when I got Wesley out of bed this morning I put him on the potty again and he peed again (although this time more got on the floor than in the toilet). I can't believe it.

I don't really think this is the real thing yet. I could be wrong but I'm not sure that he's ready for full potty training. I'm not pushing the issue but if he's going to start taking off his pants in the kitchen then I'll take him to the bathroom. Oh, what would I give to be able to stop buying diapers forever!

Absolutely Fantastic!

2009-05-31T09:49:00.006-04:00

Have you seen the movie, "This is Spinal Tap"? What about "A Mighty Wind"? If not, you should (although I will say that some may find Spinal Tap offensive. Hilariously offensive). It was our love for these movies (along with others directed by Christopher Guest) that inspired us to buy tickets to see "Spinal Tap: Unwigged and Unplugged" in Detroit this past Friday night. It was a completely different kind of concert from last week's Billy Joel/Elton John show but again we had a fantastic time. My stomach still hurts from laughing so much.

Featured in the concert were Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean. Not only are these guys all incredibly funny actors but they're also pretty great musicians as well. They performed songs from both movies, with all of the heavy metal Spinal Tap songs getting new acoustic arrangements. There were also a lot of video clips and just general comedy throughout the night. The banter between songs was just what you would expect from guys like this. Harry Shearer seemed to do a majority of the talking with Michael McKean saying a lot too. Our big surprise was how quiet Christopher Guest was. He really seemed to prefer to stay in the background, letting the other two lead the way. A bit disappointing. As longtime fans of "The Simpsons" we've been pretty big Harry Shearer fans so it was great to hear so much from him too although it did feel like we were being spoken to by Principal Skinner all night (except for the time he said, "Release the hounds!" in a Mr. Burns voice).

One big surprise was when they opened up the floor for questions and answers from the audience. Aides roamed the floor level (not us on the balcony) and let people ask the guys any questions they wanted. Questions ranged from where the guys met and how they started to playing together to whether or not Christopher Guest kept in conact with the dog he worked with in "Best in Show" (his response to the woman - "Are you OK?") with a "Which way to the bathroom" thrown in for good measure.

I don't know if I could pick a favourite part of the evening, I loved it all. "Stonehenge" was definitely up there along with "Old Joe's Place".

All in all, another fantastic evening. Of course, we've just used up our concert budget for about 5 years so don't expect any more exciting reviews from me for a long, long time!

(note: that is not my photograph, it is taken from tonepublications.com. We didn't bring our camera)

Great Night Out

2009-05-22T09:48:00.003-04:00

Last night was a night I had waited for for a long time. This is the third time Billy Joel and Elton John have toured together but last night was the first time I managed to get there. We saw Elton John on his own a few years ago(and loved it!) but Billy Joel is someone I've always wanted to see in concert so seeing them together seemed a great combination. I thought I was going more to see Elton John than Billy Joel but I've got to say the Billy Joel blew me away. I was completely shocked at how great a show he put on. Really amazing.

I was afraid we were going to miss the beginning of the show because 1) we had a long wait crossing the border, 2) traffic was at a standstill on the highway, and 3) I really had to hit the bathroom before we could even get to our seats. The show was scheduled to start at 7:30 and it was 7:40 before we got in our seats but fortunately things didn't get started until 7:45. Perfect!

They started off with 4 songs that they did together, 2 from each artist. Then Elton John and his band took the stage for an hour. It was amazing but because we had just seen him in 2006 the show we saw last night was a lot the same as what we saw then. He also did two songs back to back that he clearly loves but that didn't seem to connect with the audience very well (Burn Down the Mission and Madman Across the Water). The jerks behind us (I'll get to them) were yelling "Move on!" at one point.

When Elton John was done, Billy Joel took the stage for an hour. He was amazing, from beginning to end. His band was made up of a group of multi-talented (most of them played several instruments) musicians and he really talked a lot and interacted with the crowd, which Elton John didn't do at all. I was a bit surprised by his potty mouth but he was really funny. He even poked fun at some of his previous traffic accidents and his ex-wives. He chose great songs and is a fantastic live performer.

I was so excited to be there that I was on the edge of my seat for most of the night. I could hardly sit still. We were pretty high up and it was hard to see but I didn't care. It was great to be there. As I mentioned earlier we had some twits sitting behind us. They were singing along a little too loudly and then talking loudly when they weren't interested in the song. Before we were into the second song Nick had his chair kicked, he'd been hit several times with a program and had a pizza box dropped on him. During the show I got beer spilled on my purse and shoes twice. They did settle down for most of the show but they were a bit of an annoyance.

Because it was a combined show, neither artist could do as many songs as I would have liked to hear. My favourite songs by each of them are little known ballads so I didn't get to hear those. For those of you keeping track you can hear them here and here. They each did some fantastic songs though and it was great to hear them combining on some of the classics.

The show ended at 11:15 but because of traffic it took us over an hour and ten minutes to get onto the highway. It was a distance of two miles but it's all so poorly laid out with bad traffic lights and we got steered out to a bad exit so it took us a ridiculously long time. We were feeling pretty badly because our friend who was babysitting needed to work this morning but she was really understanding when we rolled into the house after 1:00. Fortunately she only lives across the street.

It was such a great night, we're so glad we did it. Now we've got another concert to look forward to next week when we see the actors who played musicians in Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. That should be a great night too.

Wesley Update

2009-05-08T10:35:00.002-04:00

Last week's post was a Darcy update so I thought a little Wesley update might be in order.

This kid is absolutely cracking us up lately. His personality and sense of humour seem to be developing really quickly and he's got us laughing all the time. One of his new favourite tricks right now is to crawl into our bed, or Darcy's bed and lie down, pulling the covers up over him. He makes sure you're watching him the whole time and as soon as he lies down and pulls up the covers he laughs like a maniac. It's not that funny a trick but you can't help but laugh at his reaction.

He's also fascinated with animals, especially dogs. He makes a little "woof woof" sound (his sounds more like "hooo hooo") whenever he sees a dog, cat, squirrel, bird, any sort of small animal. There's a small dog that lives a couple of houses down and he'll often bark at the window when anyone walks past. Wesley wants to walk past there all the time to see if he can get the dog to come to the window and bark. There are also a couple of dogs near Darcy's school bus stop which thrills him to bits too.

I haven't been posting much lately because we've been going outside a lot. Wesley wants to be outside every opportunity he gets. Some of that is so he can see and hear dogs but other than that, he just likes to run around, climb things and colour with sidewalk chalk. This is definitely going to be a summer of scraped knees and grass stains. He's having the time of his life and we love watching it.

His separation anxiety really seems to be improving as well. When his Wednesday night babysitter came this past week, instead of crying he started waving goodbye to me. That's definitely a sign of improvement! We were all pretty excited about that.

This weekend is a trip to Cambridge to spend Mother's Day with my family and to celebrate my nephew Lucas's fourth birthday. We're looking forward to a great weekend.

Darcy Update

2009-04-29T20:26:00.002-04:00

We got Darcy's second term report card last week and she's doing really well. We arranged an interview with her teacher for Friday morning. We didn't have any concerns, we just wanted to keep in touch and I also had some questions about how next year is going to work. Her teacher is also very pleased with Darcy's progress especially in French. She is really getting a good French vocabulary and is using the French words correctly.

My question was whether or not we'd have a say about whether Darcy would be kept in the afternoon class or moved to the morning next year. I went into the interview wanting her to stay in the afternoon but we're feeling differently now. Mademoiselle said she had wanted to talk to us about that. Apparently the school is hoping to keep kids who are in JK this year with their same classmates and teacher for next year. In Darcy's case, however, her teacher wants to recommend that she change from the afternoon class to the morning class. I guess her two classes are like night and day. The morning class is very hard-working and gets a lot accomplished each day where most the afternoon class struggles (a lot of them don't speak either English or French at home so they're struggling with the French Immersion). She thinks that with Darcy's personality and with how well she's doing so far that she will do much better in the morning class. Her best friend this year is in SK so we already knew that she wouldn't be in Darcy's class next year. The bus driving the morning kids home is the same one that picks up the afternoon kids, so Darcy has gotten to know some of the kids on the bus ride.

At first, she was very hestitant to make the change, but the more we've talked about it, she's getting excited about it. I think it will be better for the whole family's schedule so it looks like we're going to make the change. My only concern is that we're going to need to get her out of bed at 5:00 in the morning so she will be done her breakfast on time to get the bus. She is such a slow eater, especially at breakfast. We're really going to need to work on that this summer. It could cause some stressful situations for us. In the long run too, it will be good preparation for when she starts grade one and is going to school all day.

Again, we're very pleased with Darcy's teacher and her interest in Darcy's success. Darcy really loves her and we know that's part of the reason why she's doing so well. We're really pleased that she will be Darcy's teacher again next year.

Darcy and her best friend, Sam have also been talking all year about getting together outside of school time for a play date. I've finally worked this out with Sam's dad and Sam will be coming over here on Saturday morning to play and have lunch with us. They are both so excited about that. Should be fun!

Interesting

2009-04-23T13:36:00.001-04:00

Thanks to my sister for this interesting link. If this is true, then Wesley should turn out to be some sort of genius. With what we're seeing from him so far, then I think he will be an evil genius...

Not Much to Post

2009-04-16T21:17:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since my last post but there hasn't really been a lot to write about. We've just been keeping busy and trying to keep everyone healthy.

We had a wonderful Easter with Nick's parents and sister visiting from Montreal. You can see some of the pictures here. Our time together always goes too quickly but we enjoyed every minute of it. Darcy was OK when we said goodbye on Monday morning but for some reason it really hit her hard on Tuesday morning. She cried all through breakfast (like it doesn't take her long enough to eat her cereal normally!) but eventually the thought of going back to school after 4 days off settled her down. Also, I told her that we're going to Cambridge soon for Mother's Day and to celebrate Lucas's birthday so that helped too. A potential visit with her cousins is sure to cure any sadness!We're learning that Wesley loves being outside. He's tried to sneak out the front door a few times (we had to get a new latch for the door that locked to prevent this from happening) and will often stand by the back door, pleading with eyes for us to take him outside. The last two days the weather has been great around here so we've been outside as much as we can. We also got a bike helmet for him today so he went for his first ever bike ride on the back of Nick's bike. They were out for about 45 minutes. Nick tried to end the ride a couple of times but Wesley made it clear he wasn't done. When Nick finally decided the ride was over at the end of the 45 minutes, Wesley had a good little temper tantrum. I had to pick him up, kicking and screaming, out of the bike seat and carry him with me to the bus stop to get Darcy to get him to calm down. The next two days are supposed to be beautiful so I think we'll be outside a lot again.

They're both in swimming lessons right now, Wesley in a parent and tot class and Darcy in her "big kid" class. We were fortunate to get both levels running at the same time this session so I can get them both there whether Nick is working or not. Of course, some of the city workers are currently on strike and others (like the lifeguards) will likely be going on strike on Saturday so I don't know how many more lessons we'll get to have. Hopefully the strike won't last long.

So that's my update for now. Hopefully there'll be more to say in the coming days!

Rough Week

2009-04-03T09:27:00.002-04:00

Man, it has been another interesting week around here. Darcy was sick at the end of last week but by the time my parents came for a quick visit last Saturday everyone was in great shape. We had a wonderful visit with Grandma and Pa.

However, by Sunday evening, whatever had been bothering Darcy had clearly hit Wesley. He wasn't throwing up or anything but he had a high fever. When he woke up Monday morning he seemed better. Around supper time though it seemed to hit again. I checked his temperature and it was 103.7. I've never measured anything higher than 102 on either of our kids before. I was terrified. I was pretty sure it was the virus Darcy had but her temperature had never been anywhere near that high. Also, Wesley had just had surgery a few days before so we wondered if there was a connection between the fever and the surgery. Possibly an infection?

When we were having his surgery done the doctor had told us that if we had any problems after the surgery that we should call his office or go to the hospital. He was very clear that we weren't to go to a walk-in clinic. Well, his office was closed for the day and with a fever that high I didn't want to wait so it was off to the emergency room for me and Wesley. By the time we got there and got checked in it was 7:15. We were called in to see a doctor at 9:30 (I will not go into the horrors I saw as we waited) and then saw a doctor at 10:30. After all that, there was no connection to the surgery, his ears looked perfect, there was no site infection. That was a relief. Of course the doctor was still concerned about the extremely high temperature and gave me instructions of what to do to prevent him from having a fever-related seizure. Wonderful. We got home around 11:15.

The next day, Wesley was completely miserable all day. He still had a fever, although not as high. He screamed all day and seemed to be uncomfortable no matter what I did to help him. He barely napped. I was counting down the minutes for Nick's arrival home from work so he could give me a break from the 8 hours of constant screaming. At 4:30 the phone rang. Nick was involved in a situation at work and he couldn't leave until it was all taken care of. He had no idea how long that would be. He was supposed to be home at 6:00 (after leaving for work at 6:00 am). He got home at 12:50 the next morning. It was brutal.

Wesley's fever seemed to have subsided by Wednesday evening and sure enough he woke up Thursday morning at a healthy temperature but then he was covered in a rash. It's called roseola. It's pretty harmless and not contagious (Nick took him to a clinic again) but it looks so sad. It's just the virus working it's way out of the body.

We're hoping things are on the upswing now. Darcy has been healthy for a week and aside from the rash, Wesley seems to be mostly good too. Of course he has gotten used to being held all day long and it's going to take some work to break him of that habit again. Tonight is the first night of swimming lessons for both of them. Wesley is in a parent and baby class and Darcy's level meets at the same time. I haven't been able to sign Wesley up for his class because I never knew what to do with Darcy on the weeks Nick was working. Having both classes at the same time is perfect so hopefully we'll have fun. I could use it!

Hopefully the End of the Ear Saga

2009-03-25T10:57:00.007-04:00

Wesley's ear surgery was this morning and so far we can say that everything went perfectly smoothly.

We checked into the hospital around 6:20 am. From there we went up to the Pediatric Unit where they did a little pre-assessment on him, checked his vitals, that sort of thing. He was then given some lovely pink and white striped pyjamas to wear. We had a while to play then until they were ready to take us downstairs for surgery. There was a great little playroom there. Of course, he fell against the car table and got a nice bruise on his head but was otherwise OK. His favourite thing was that there were little cars like they have at the mall and a wagon for him to ride around in. We did several laps of the floor in each of the different vehicles. He loved it.

Our surgery was scheduled for 8:15 and they took us downstairs at 8:00. We met the surgical nurse and the anaestegiologist down there. Wesley was then taken to the operating room and I was led to the waiting room. At 8:30 the doctor came and told me the surgery was done and that everything was great. A few minutes later a nurse came with Wesley in her arms to get me. He was whimpering a little bit but nothing serious. I got to hold him then instead of him being in a bed in the recovery room. After 20 minutes or so there it was back up to pediatrics.

There they checked his vitals again and gave him some apple juice. He hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 7:00 last night so he was very thirsty. He made short work of the apple juice and then I gave him the Cheerios I had brought for him. He inhaled those as well and was generally our normal, happy little Wesley. The nurses were very pleased with how calm he was and how easy he was to work with.

We were able to go home around 10:15. As I type this he is, as normal, trying to crawl onto the computer desk to get at all the cool things that are up here, supposedly out of his way. He's certainly not letting anything slow him down today! I expect that his nap might be a bit longer than usualy this afternoon, but who knows. Then maybe I can have one too.

Some Excitment We Didn't Need

2009-03-20T11:58:00.002-04:00

I was expecting today to be pretty laid back day. Why would I ever think that???

The kids were playing happily this morning and I thought it would be a good time for me to take a quick break to go to the bathroom. Even Moms need a bathroom break every now and again. I was gone for less than 2 minutes but I came back to Wesley screaming and Darcy trying to settle him down. He had fallen and hit his head on a wooden toy. When I got him settled down I could see that his nose had a welt on it and was starting to swell. I pressed on it a bit and that didn't seem to bother him but it did make him sneeze. When he sneezed there was a fair amount of blood that came out. I started to worry.

There is a clinic down the road from us that has short wait times and an x-ray clinic in the same building. We got in to see a doctor in 5 minutes and got an x-ray in another 5 minutes. There is some damage to the nose, but not enough for the doctor to be able to do anything for. We have to monitor him for a head injury (checking for alertness, waking him up, etc.) but that's all. I had visions of him in a Hannibal Lecter-style mask.

So within about half an hour of the accident we knew that everything was OK but I had a few anxious moments in there.

Robert Munsch

2009-03-17T21:53:00.002-04:00

What an exciting day we had at our house.

Darcy recently wrote a letter to Robert Munsch. In it she told him how much she loves his books and a bit about herself. We also included a copy of the Montreal Gazette article in which she'd recently been featured, discussing her love of his books. We also asked if he'd autograph the copy of the article and send it back to her. Just to be safe, we included a self-addressed stamped envelope. I've had my eye on the mailbox, looking for that envelope. I had heard he responds to all letters he receives but I had wondered if things had changed since his stroke. Apparently not.

Today when I went to the mailbox, it was empty, however there was a parcel in between the front door and the screen door. It was addressed to Darcy with a return address of "Bob Munsch Enterprises". She ripped it open (ripping his response letter in the process, but we managed to salvage it). He sent her a very nice letter which was clearly personal to her. It talked about the article she sent and how he enjoyed it and was glad to have received it. He also mentioned that he had signed it and sent it back, as she requested. In addition to that he had also sent a hardcover copy of one of his newest books, which he had also autographed to her. Our friends were over for a playdate at the time and Darcy had Michelle read the new book to her twice in a row before it had been out of the package for 10 minutes. She was absolutely thrilled, to say the least. I think we'll be reading that book a lot over the coming days.

Hooray for Robert Munsch!

Success!

2009-03-12T12:02:00.002-04:00

Last night was one of the Wednesday nights when I had to be at Kids' Club at church and Nick was working until 6:00. That means there's a 45 minute window where we need someone to watch Wesley. As you know, this has not been going well. Finally, last night, it seems we had a bit of a breakthrough.

I'll admit I was less than optimistic when I left for Kids' Club last night. Wesley did his usual scream-fest when Willow arrived. Again, I need to say that this is the sweetest lady imaginable. When she babysat Darcy, Darcy didn't want me to come home. There's no explaining Wesley's reaction. He just knows when he sees her that Mommy and Darcy are about to hit the road.

As I was getting ready, he was clinging to me. I could barely move. He was wailing as we walked out the door.

When I got home and asked Nick how Wesley's night had gone, his response was, "Perfect.". Perfectly awful? No. Absolutely perfect. He had cried for a couple of minutes after we left and then he calmed down. And played. When Nick got home both Wesley and Willow had smiles on their faces.

We are so encouraged by this. I'm sure the separation anxiety isn't a thing of the past but maybe, just maybe, it's becoming more manageable.

Now if we could just get him to swallow his food instead of just hoarding it in his mouth like a chipmunk!

Odd

2009-03-10T10:02:00.003-04:00

Just when you think you've got your kids figured out, you see a new side of them that surprises you completely.

When I think about how Darcy would act at school, I expect her to be a complete chatterbox, the kind of kid who has a story for everything and tries to answer every question (kind of like me when I was in school). Yesterday I accompanied her class on a field trip and I saw a completely different kid than I was expecting to see. Our trip took us to the local Children's Safety Village and started off in a classroom with a Police officer teaching the kids about safety. Darcy sat beside her best friend, Sam, and pretty much did the opposite of what I had expected her to do. She raised her hand from time to time but not often. When questions were asked that I knew she knew the answer to, she didn't put her hand up. She knows her address and phone number but when the officer asked, she was silent. When I asked her about it afterwards she said she had been too scared to answer. So I don't know if she's always like that in class or if the police officer made her nervous. I think if she had been asked the question in her regular classroom by her regular teacher then she would have answered.

At one point, Elmer the Safety Elephant came in to help reinforce some of the rules the kids were learning. At the end, all the kids were given a chance to go and give Elmer a hug and Darcy stayed in her seat. She wasn't going near that elephant. Her teacher told us that they'd had Carnaval a few weeks ago which featured a visit from Bonhomme. Not only would Darcy not go near Bonhomme that day, but she cried. A lot. It brought me back to her fear of Santa Claus too.

Aside from her fear of small animals, Darcy isn't the kind of kid who's afraid of lots of things. We don't face these kinds of situations a lot so when we do I get caught a little off guard. I'm sure the new situation made her a little uncomfortable so I hope that's all. We'll have to keep our eye on this one.

Improvement

2009-03-05T15:22:00.002-05:00

Over the past few weeks we've had the opportunity to leave Wesley with a few different babysitters and we're starting to see some really encouraging results. So much so that we're trying it again tomorrow night!

A couple of weeks ago our friend called us with tickets to see Creedence Clearwater Revisited at Casino Windsor. It's really not a show we would have chosen but the tickets were free and the friend who offered them even offered to come over and watch the kids so we could go. Sold! Of course that time the kids were in bed before we left but it was still a good night out.

Last Friday night we had arranged to go to a fundraising dinner to support the private school where my friend teaches. Nick and I used to go out with Jerilee and Fred all the time before we had kids. As we sat down to dinner last Friday night we tried to think of the last time just the four of us had been together. The best we could come up with was June 5th, 2004 which turned out to be the night I went into labour with Darcy. Anyway, we wanted to go to the dinner and we nervous about getting a babysitter the kids didn't know for Wesley to have a major meltdown. So, we recruited my brother to come from Cambridge. It was a PA day so Darcy had the day off school. Brian came in the afternoon and we all went bowling together and then Brian and the kids had supper while Nick and I got ready to go. We left and the three of them were having a great time. When we got home, Brian said that everything went pretty smoothly. Wesley had been really calm and even went to sleep for Brian without any incident. We were thrilled.

Then last Sunday we tried a new group meeting at our church. The plan is to meet for a potluck supper and then the adults go to a Bible study group with babysitting provided. We weren't sure how that would go, because attempts for me to leave Wesley alone in the church nursery have been pretty disastrous. Last Sunday though, he was perfect again.

So, why the change? What's going on? We really think that Darcy has a lot to do with it. It seems to make him a lot more comfortable knowing that she is being left behind with him. I also think it helped to have Brian spend time with us before we left and then for us to have supper as a big group before we left him on Sunday. So I'm trying to learn from this and trying to implement things that will make things go smoothly from now on when we have to leave him with someone.

There's a movie night at our church tomorrow night and we're going to go. There's a young woman at our church who is living in Windsor and going to the University here. She's going to come and babysit and even put the kids to bed. I've invited her to come for supper (not sure yet if she will) to give Wesley a bit of time to get used to her. She teaches Darcy's class at church so Darcy knows her (and loves her) but Wesley doesn't know her very well.

We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'm just getting greedy, going out three weekends in a row!

Another Ear Update

2009-02-18T15:58:00.002-05:00

Wesley and I have just arrived back from the Ear Specialist. Everything went really well.

It seems that right now Wesley's ears are constantly infected. They are infected right now but the doctor didn't want to give me another antibiotic because they're not doing anything anyway. When he found out that we have an older child without any ear problems he asked me if we want to wait and see if Wesley gets better on his own or if we want to proceed with tubes. We had already discussed this and we knew we didn't want to wait around. Everyone we've talked who has kids with tubes has told us how much of a difference it has made. We don't want to mess around with his hearing or speech development so we want to go ahead with the tubes. The doctor felt that was a wise decision.

The surgery will happen on March 25th at 8:15 am. We need to be at the hospital at 6:15 (yikes!). He explained that there are complications in 5% of cases so hopefully we'll be in the 95% there. We're feeling pretty good about this at this point, we just hope he's not in too much pain until the surgery if he's not getting any more medication before then.

Separation Anxiety Anxiety

2009-02-16T21:19:00.003-05:00

We are currently experiencing a common parenting problem with Wesley that we were fortunate to have bypassed with Darcy. Separation anxiety, we are learning, can be a terrible thing. I guess we got off scott-free once and we can't expect that to happen both times.

Whenever we left Darcy with a babysitter, she was really excited. In fact, she would cry when we got home because the party was over. This is certainly not the case with Wesley. If I even go to the bathroom he'll scream and cry. Imagine the chaos if I actually need to leave the house and leave him in someone else's care! It's horrible.

We were really worried when we left on our cruise in the fall but he did fine then and we hoped the worst was behind us. I don't know if it was Nick's time away in January or what, but things have definitely gotten worse again over the past few weeks.

Every second Wednesday night we have a half an hour time frame between when I need to go to Kids' Club at church with Darcy and when Nick gets home from work. A very kind lady from our church (who Darcy loves to have babysitting) just lives around the corner and she has agreed to come and watch him on those weeks. As soon as she walks in the door, he freaks out. He knows what's coming. As Darcy and I are getting ready to go, he is screaming and clutching onto me for dear life. It's heartbreaking. Out the door we go, though and he has to wait until Nick comes home. Last Wednesday, Nick could hear the screaming as he rode his bike into the driveway. It's winter, all the doors and windows were closed and Nick could still hear the screaming. Apparently there was an ear-piercing screech when Nick came in the house too. Wesley hadn't stopped crying for the entire half hour. Willow tried every trick in the book (she has 5 children of her own and I've lost track of how many grandchildren she's got) and she couldn't get him to settle down. Then, when Nick got settled in, Wesley stopped crying and walked to the door to pick up Willow's boots and purse. The message was clear, "It's time for you to go now!"

On Sunday, Willow and her husband were sitting behind us in church. Wesley greeted her like she was his old friend and was laughing and smiling at her. She put her hands out to see if he would come to her though, and he jumped back into Nick's arms.

So we're really not sure what to do about this. Do we keep leaving him in other people's care when it's freaking him out. I can't stay in the house 24-7, so what do I do? I won't be able to lead Kids' Club with him there so taking him isn't an option. Also, Nick and I would like to go out on our own from time to time and that is next to impossible for us, without importing babysitters from out of town (grandparents or aunts and uncles). We were given movie gift certificates for Christmas 2007 that we didn't use until after Christmas 2008 because it's so hard for us to leave him. We're waiting to see how long Christmas 2008's gift certificates take to get used.

If anyone has dealt with separation anxiety and has any tips, let me know. If you've got a good set of earplugs and are looking for something to do some weekend, we could use a babysitter!

Build A Bear Fun

2009-02-11T09:30:00.002-05:00

A couple of years ago a new store called "Build a Bear" opened in our mall. In it, a child can build their own teddy bear and then spend a fortune dressing and accessorizing that bear. Darcy was pretty young when it opened so she had no idea what it was and we've just never drawn her attention to it in the mall. She never seemed to notice that there was a bear store there. Good!

Shortly before Christmas she started talking non-stop about Build a Bear. Apparently her good friend from school went and she told Darcy all about it. That had Darcy curious. So when we were doing some Christmas shopping one day I took her in there to have a look around. She immediately decided that she needed to build her own bear. I told her that if she got any money for Christmas then we would come back to Build a Bear and she could make a bear.

Sure enough, she got $25 from my grandfather so I told her that could be her Build a Bear money, we just had to find time to go. We went this past Monday morning. I have to say that although it is a bit pricey, Darcy had a blast. These people certainly know how to help kids have a fun experience.

Right inside the front door Darcy got to choose which shell of a bear she would choose. There were over 20 options, I'd say but I gave her the choice of the three cheapo models so her $25 would go farther. She immediately fell in love with one of them and gave it a big hug and determined it to be the cuddliest bear ever, even though she didn't have any stuffing yet. We had the option of putting a sound on the bear but I decided against that. Then it was on to stuffing. A worker did most of it, but Darcy had to step on a pedal, like from a sewing machine, to get the stuffing in her bear. Then she chose a heart to go inside her bear. She had to warm the heart up, make a wish and then seal it with a kiss before putting it inside the bear's body. The bear was then sewn up and we were off to the bath. There's a little bear bathtub where air blows over the bear so you can get rid of any extra fluff from the stuffing centre.

Then the fun begins! You get to shop for an outfit for your bear. They have all kinds of things to choose from. They will even let kids try several outfits on their bears until they settle on just the right one. Not her mother's daughter here, Darcy fell in love with the first outfit she tried on her bear. It's a cute little ballerina dress that came with little ballet slippers and a pretty little bow for her hair. I will say here that the bear itself was only $12 and the clothes were $13. Quite a little racket they've got there.

Then we went to the computer station to name the bear and print her birth certificate. Darcy had already decided on the name before we left and her bear was officially named "Honey". Honey got her own condo (a box) and we were on our way. As we walked through the mall to do the rest of our errands, Darcy had a smile on her face from ear to ear. She was so thrilled to have this bear and she showed her to anyone who would glance in our direction. She even went on one of the dollar rides they have for kids in the mall and put Honey in her box in the seat beside Darcy. Funny.

Since we've been home, our new daughter (Darcy has decided that she and Honey are twin sisters) has settled in nicely with our family. An old toy drum has become her bathtub and Nick got in trouble for moving Honey off the couch the other so he could sit down. Apparently she needed to rest! She's barely left Darcy's arms and is being dragged around as I write this. An heaven forbid that Wesley tries to touch her! World war 3 will erupt then.

It appears that Darcy has made a friend for life!

Catching Up and My New Exercise Routine

2009-01-29T09:44:00.004-05:00

So I seem to have slowed down a bit on my blogging. There are a few reasons for this. A big one is Wesley. He's constantly climbing and getting into trouble. It makes it hard for me to sit down at the computer to get somthing like done. He's sitting on the couch with Darcy right now so I'm trying to squeeze in a quick post right now. Another reason is that a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about over the past few weeks revolves around Nick's job and it's just a lot of stuff that can't be written about in a forum like this so I haven't really had much else to say.

I will say that Nick is now back from his three weeks of training in Ottawa and are we ever glad! While Nick was away the toilet broke, the computer broke, the hot water heater got replaced and then the new one started leaking, we had tons of snow and Wesley got sick. It was a lot of stuff to deal with while he was away so that's another reason why I didn't write much. It all got dealt with but I had a lot of headaches as a result!

Nick had a few days off after returning home and has now been back at his 11+ hour days for a few days now.

If you've been following my blog for a while then you'll know that fitness has always been an issue for me. I'm a naturally thin person so the motivation to exercise has always been lacking for me. However, now that I'm in the later half of my 30's, the need to exercise and stay in shape is really becoming apparent to me. I tried running but it was never fun for me. I completed my one and only 5K run and I felt great about that, but I never got the enjoyment from running that I needed to stay motivated to keep doing it. Running was always a chore for me and that made it hard to do, especially in bad weather. I needed to find something else.

This past fall our church started a new exercise group and the idea appealed to me right from the start. It uses a DVD put out by a woman named Leslie Sansone and it is a walking based program. Following the DVD you walk on the spot at home with some upper body stuff mixed in along the way. Small weights or resistance bands are used to make it more of a whole body workout. I knew from the first time I tried it that this was much more the type of exercise I could get into. The group at church makes me more accountable and it makes it fun to go there and exercise with others, from young moms to a woman in her 80's (who is one of the greatest women I've ever met in my life). Because of Nick's schedule I'm not always able to get there so I bought a different DVD to use at home. My own DVD is a much more intense workout than the one we use at church (3 miles instead of the option of 1, 2 or 3 where we were doing 1 hoping to soon increase to 2). It uses resistance bands which I'm hoping will help with toning my arms and upper body. I plan to use it a few times a week while Wesley is sleeping and hopefully it will help keep me in shape.

That's about it for now. I've got to go get Wesley off the stairs!

The Apples and the Trees

2009-01-20T14:15:00.002-05:00

It is pretty apparent when you look at our family that Darcy looks a lot like me and that Wesley looks exactly like Nick. We're already seeing a lot of personality traits in each of them that mirror the parent they look like too. This was played out for me so perfectly last night that I had to laugh. A lot.

In a nutshell, last night at bath time Darcy got undressed and left her clothes on the floor. After the bath Wesley picked them up, carried them to her room and put them in the hamper.

Now in Darcy's (and my) defense, she would have picked them up before bed but Wesley couldn't wait. He needed those clothes cleaned up right away.

Very Frustrated

2009-01-19T17:10:00.003-05:00

I had an appointment with Wesley's pediatrician this afternoon at 2:30 to follow up about the hearing assessment we had last week. When I got there, 3 other families were waiting in the hallway because the door was locked. One called on her cell phone and found out that the office was open but some kid had apparently locked the door. The waiting room which is usually pretty empty at that time of day was already full.

As we waited I could tell something was wrong. The doctor was on the phone a lot and not really seeing a lot of patients. At one point he was clearly angry and was speaking quite loudly on the phone so we could all hear what he was saying. Apparently someone else had taken his prescription pad and had written some prescriptions. He was going back back and forth with the police and a few others trying to track down the person. This was taking a lot of his time.

After waiting over an hour and 20 minutes I had to leave. The receptionist told me I was next but I couldn't wait any longer or else I'd miss Darcy's school bus. She brought the doctor to the window and he told me that Wesley is going to be referred to an ear, nose and throat doctor. He brought me into the exam room quickly and looked in Wesley's ears. Sure enough, they're infected again. I told him I couldn't wait to get a prescription then so he told me he'd arrange it with the pharmacist and have it delivered to my house this evening. When I called the pharmacist to arrange payment for the prescription, he didn't have a prescription for Wesley and the doctor was conveniently gone for the day by that time.

I'm pretty frustrated with the whole experience. I understand that the prescription pad theft is an important issue for the doctor to get sorted out, but that waiting room full of babies is pretty important too. I wasn't the only person who left without being seen.

I was supposed to be doing my groceries for the week at that time but I figured Wesley's doctor's appointment was more important. I also needed to get my glasses fixed on the way home but that didn't happen either.

I left a message at the doctor's office after getting off the phone with the pharmacist so hopefully this will all be cleared up early tomorrow morning. I feel better after venting about it.

Wesley's Hearing Assessment

2009-01-13T17:18:00.002-05:00

We went to the hospital this afternoon for Wesley's hearing assessment. The appointment was booked for 1:00, exactly Wesley's nap time so I thought it was going to be a disaster. Really, it couldn't have gone better.

We checked in a few minutes early and Wesley was his charming self to the women in the reception area. We then waited only a few minutes before being called in to see the audiologist right on time. She was really helpful and clearly skilled at testing kids that young. She made it really easy for Wes and for me which was great.

The first thing was to test to see if he has any fluid in his ears. She told me we were looking for a lot of activity on the graph in front of us to indicate a lack of fluid. We saw a straight line for both ears which mean both have a lot of fluid in there.

We then entered the sound booth to check his hearing. He had little probes put in his ears and he responded when he heard things in them. She then attached a special headset to the bone behind his ear which would somehow simulate how he'd hear without the fluid present. Between the two tests she was able to determine that his hearing would be normal without the fluid, but with the fluid he has a 30 decibel hearing loss. This loss is not permanent and will be corrected once the fluid is gone.

So how does that happen? I'm not sure but I think it's pretty likely that we will have to get tubes inserted in his ears. The results from today need to go to the pediactrician first and then we'll go from there.

So that's the latest update. I'll post more as I know more!

Check This Out!

2009-01-09T12:03:00.002-05:00

When we were at the Robert Munsch exhibit in Montreal we were interviewed by a reporter from the Montreal Gazette. Click here to see what she said.

Home!

2009-01-08T09:57:00.003-05:00

Our Christmas/New Year travelling is all done and we are back at home. We've had a great time but I am glad to be home and be pretty much back into our routine. Darcy will be going to school this afternoon and everything should be getting back to normal. The house is a mess so I've got a lot of work ahead of me, figuring out what to do with all this new Christmas stuff.

We decided to fly to Montreal this year and that was definitely the right choice to make. It was just so much easier than trying to drive that distance in the winter with two little monkeys. Nick is currently in Ottawa for training (for three weeks) and so I had to get home with the kids on my own. I definitely did not want to drive that distance on my own, so flying it was.

We had a belated Christmas in Montreal with the family there. There was, of course, a delicious meal, lots of presents and our annual Pit game. Fun times. We also went toboganning on Mount Royal and to a Robert Munsch exhibit at a museum there. Very cool.

There was a big snowstorm brewing in Montreal yesterday, just as we were preparing to fly home. I was a little nervous about that but we managed to get out just before the worst of the storm hit. We were a bit delayed leaving (an hour on the tarmac) but finally managed to get in the air. Wesley was pretty cranky by that time but finally fell asleep in my arms as we were taking off. Darcy loves flying. She got her own rolling suitcase for Christmas and was thrilled to be able to pull it through the airport with her. It was pretty funny.

Our flight between Toronto and Windsor was on a very small, very full plane and Darcy was a pretty big hit with the people around us. She had asked if I would make pancakes for supper when we got home. I told her I would and that as a reward for her being so good all day while we were flying I would put M & M's in them. Well then she leaned across the aisle and told the people over there, "I'm going to have pancakes with M & M's for supper." The people for a few rows around us all laughed and one guy asked if he could come over. She said, "Sure, everyone come over and my Mom will make you pancakes too." More laughter. Then she said, "And my address is..." and proceeded to shout it out for the whole plane to hear. She was a little disappointed when she found out that we were only joking and that none of these strangers would actually be coming to our house for pancakes! And all of this took place after she marched up with centre aisle of the plane shouting "I have to go pee!"

All of our luggage arrived without any problem which didn't seem to be the case for a lot of people on our flight. There was a story on CTV last night about how much luggage Air Canada is losing right now so I was extra glad to be home with all of our things.

So that's about it for now. I've got some pictures up on facebook and I'll have them up on Flickr later today.

Christmas Round Up

2008-12-31T09:50:00.002-05:00

We're still alive, I just haven't had much of an opportunity to write anything. As soon as I sit down at the computer, Wesley climbs up on the desk and starts pushing buttons. I'm trying to write a quick post now while he's distracted with toys.

We had a great Christmas (with more still to come!). We went to Cambridge to spend a few days with my family up there. We arrived in time for supper on the 23rd and had a great visit. We celebrated Nick's birthday before Christmas Eve church with a great supper of our favourite Chinese food and Nick's favourite apple pie. After church we went to my sister's house before returning to Mom and Dad's to prepare for Santa's visit.

On Christmas morning the kids opened their Santa presents in the morning before we went to my Aunt Joan's house for lunch. We had a great time there with all the Robbins clan (I think there were about 35 of us this year!) and then went back to Mom and Dad's to open family presents. We relaxed at home for a bit and then went to my cousin Judith's house to celebrate with the Haskell side of the family.

Nick had to be at work before 7 on Boxing Day morning so he returned to Windsor on Christmas Day but the kids and I stuck around Cambridge for some more family gatherings.

Friday was our annual games night with some of my Mom's family. That's always a crazy, fun night lasting well into the morning. This year was no exception. I thought the presence of so many kids might end the evening earlier this year but that certainly wasn't the case. There was a large 6 and under crowd but they only served to make the evening more enjoyable. Most of them stayed up with us until past 2:00 in the morning (which I paid for dearly with Darcy's crankiness the next day, not sure about the rest of you!). We had some good laughs which haven't seemed quite so funny when I've tried to explain them to Nick after the fact so I guess you had to be there.

Saturday was pretty laid back and we spent the evening at my sister's house in Brantford again checking out some of their new Christmas toys.

On Sunday we had dinner with my family after church and then drove back to Windsor along with my brother. Nick had driven Brian's car back to Windsor so Brian drove back with us and stayed for a couple of days, even allowing Nick and I a date night, using a movie gift certificate we received last Christmas and hadn't had a chance to use yet. We saw, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" which we both enjoyed a lot.

Nick is now working today and tomorrow and then we're off to Montreal on Friday. Nick has three weeks of training in Ottawa which begin on Monday so we're timing our Montreal visit to work with that this year. Nick will leave for Ottawa on the train on Monday evening and the kids and I will stick around in Montreal for a few extra days before flying home next Wednesday.

So, that's it, our Christmas so far in a nutshell. Pictures are up on flickr and facebook as usual.

Wesley's Ears

2008-12-17T09:16:00.002-05:00

It seems that every time we turn around Wesley seems to be developing an ear infection. He was just diagnosed with another one yesterday, which is his second one is just a little more than a month. I've lost track of how many others he's had. It's been quite a few and some of them have been, in the pediatrician's words, "quite severe".

We are scheduled for an assessment in January to see if there has been any hearing loss and I think to see if we can determine a cause for the infections. I'm not entirely sure what it's going to involve but we hope it will be helpful.

One of the things that makes it hard for us is that Wesley doesn't show a lot of symptoms for the infections. He's generally still his happy self during the day. We start to get concerned when he cried before going to bed at night. He usually settles himself down quite easily so when he starts freaking out it usually means he's in pain. He had two rough nights this week (30 minutes one night, 45 the next) so Nick took him in yesterday and sure enough there was a new infection starting.

So we've got another round of antibiotics for this poor boy. Fortunately this is the kind he likes and takes without a fuss. That makes things a lot easier for us. Hopefully this will be the last infection before the appointment in January!

Pinkeye

2008-12-10T13:14:00.002-05:00

We're starting to experience the joys of kindergarten. It seems that Darcy has had about 3 colds since she started school all of which she was kind enough to share with Wesley (one of which he shared with Auntie Stef!).

On Monday after school she went to play with her friend Quinn and have supper at his house. When I picked her up at 6:00 she seemed fine. Around 6:30 I noticed a bit of "gunk" in the corner of her eye. I got a kleenex and wiped it away and expected that to be the end of it. 10 minutes later I looked at her again and it was back and it was worse. We looked closely at her eye and it seemed to be turning a nice shade of pink. It was nearly 7:00 by this time and Nick started calling around to clinics. There was only one still taking patients and it was way on the other side of town but they had to go. We didn't want to wait until morning and let it get a lot worse. So off they went. It was about 9:30 when they got home and Darcy was asleep in Nick's arms.

Sure enough, she had pinkeye. We had to wake her up to get her ready for bed (and to drink the hot chocolate Nick had apparently promised her) and to get the drops in her eyes. I think I would rather give the kids a suppository than do drops in the eye. You feel like you're being so cruel. They hate every minute of it and won't sit still. Darcy kept blinking at the last second making it impossible for us to get the drops in.

She was pretty uncomfortable but she was most upset when we told her this meant she couldn't go to school on Tuesday. You'd have thought the world was coming to an end. "Please, let me go to school! I want to go to school!" In a few years she'll be begging for pinkeye.

Going to the doctor on Monday was definitely wise. I think we really nipped things in the bud. When she got up Tuesday morning we could see a big difference. We called the school to tell them she had pinkeye and ask how long she had to be out of school. I was surprised when they said she could go back after one full day of treatment. Darcy was pretty happy with that news! She has taken her drops very bravely and her eyes look perfect again now. She is back at school today.

We still have no idea where she picked it up. Quinn hasn't had it, none of our friends kids have had it, so it must be school. Nick's eye is slightly pink but we've got some over-the-counter stuff that should work for him. So far, Wesley and I seem to have avoided it. Hopefully it's all behind us now.

French Immersion

2008-12-02T13:42:00.004-05:00

We got Darcy's first report card last week and had our first term interview with her teacher. The report card was excellent and we were pleased with the interview as well. Darcy seems to be adapting to school very well and is handling the French Immersion very well too. According to the teacher her pronunciation is excellent (although we can't understand what she's trying to say a lot of the time) and she does well switching back and forth between the two languages. When we were driving to the interview though, she was demonstrating some of her French counting skills for us. She asked us, "What's the French word for 'trois'?" She didn't seem to believe us when we told her that trois was the French word, she wanted us to give her a new word.

She also seems to make up French words when she doesn't know what they are. We sometimes sing a song, "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, we're going to the moon" at night before bed. It ends with a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off. Darcy has changed that to, "cinq, quatre, trois, deux, un, bloost off" because that, apparently, is French for blast off. Who knew?

The teacher also talked about how Darcy is adapting socially in the class. I was afraid she'd be easily led and just do whatever the other kids told her to do. Her class is mixed with JK's and SK's and the girl she has become good friends with is an SK. The teacher told us that usually when SK's and JK's become friends, the SK is clearly the boss and the JK is the follower but that's not the case with Darcy and Sam. She said their friendship is really equal so that was cool to hear. Mademoiselle didn't have any concerns with Darcy at all and is really pleased with how she's done so far. That makes us happy!

Darcy also got to go to a pizza party for being the top fundraiser in her class in their recent catalogue sales fundraiser. We didn't really do too much with it, I thought most of the parents took them to work and sold for their kids but we only sold to family and our neighbour. It didn't even cross my mind that she'd get to go to the pizza party. They apparently paged down to the office and called her to go down to the staff room for the party so she really thought she was the queen of the world then!

All in all we're thrilled with how Darcy's first term of JK has gone. We've ordered her class pictures and should have them to show you soon.

More Cruise Stuff

2008-11-29T11:44:00.005-05:00

As I mentioned before we left, our cruise had four stops. The first was at Princess Cays, Bahamas, then Ochos Rios, Jamaica, Georgetown, Grand Cayman and Cozumel, Mexico. At each one you can pay extra for little excursions or tour around on your own.

The first stop was at a privately owned area of the Bahamas called Princess Cays. There wasn't a lot to do here, except beach stuff which is not really my thing. We just wanted to spend the day relaxing, so that's what we did. We grabbed a couple of beach loungers and camped out. It was wonderful. There were also some little shops to check out. There was one little market area that you had to leave the Princess compound to get to so we checked that out too. We didn't really see anything that caught our eye so we just enjoyed the buffet lunch and the sunshine again. It was probably in the high 20's that day. A few clouds but it only rained for a few minutes. By mid-afternoon it was getting quite windy, right about the time we had to board the tenders (little boats) back to the ship. Our tender ride was very rough. There were little hatches that could be opened. The one by us was closed. We debated opening it but decided to leave it closed. The one opposite us was open. As the ride continued and got rougher more water started coming in the hatch. Two women were sitting underneath it and one woman got a little wet and decided to come and sit by me to keep dry. Almost as soon as she moved a huge wave hit and it looked like a waterfall came in the window. The woman who hadn't moved got absolutely soaked! She was a good sport and laughed so we all could laugh too. Good thing, because it was pretty hysterical.

The next stop was on Tuesday at Ochos Rios, Jamaica. Here we had a cool excursion planned which involved climbing Dunn's River Falls followed by a bobsled ride on Mystic Mountain. It was an amazing day but with one major problem. It was pouring. I can't state that enough. Absolutely pouring. This was a negative on a few levels. It was raining so badly we couldn't take our camera out of the bag so we didn't get any pictures. It also meant that after we climbed the cooooold waterfall there was no way to get warm. The bus that took us to the mountain were air conditioned and that didn't help either. I had a dry shirt and dry shoes to put on afterwards but they were both soaked within minutes too. I was in Jamaica and I was freezing. They were giving away coffee samples at the top of the mountain and that helped a bit but not much. We had ridden a chair lift to the top of the mountain and the higher we got the windier it got and I was just unbelievably cold.

We looked around a bit at the top of the mountain, which had a bit of a Jamaican hall of fame, specifically some Jamaican athletes who've made it big like the original bobsled team. I finally got nearly warm enough to attempt the bobsled. It was on a roller coaster-style track but we could control the speed. Our cars were attached together so Nick in the front got to control the speed. I took this video to give you an idea of what it was like for us. What you can't see is our camera case (empty) flying out of Nick's seat at one point. He was sitting on it for safekeeping but wasn't counting on being lifted out of his seat! Oh well. We were told that the ride was going nearly twice as fast that day because of the rain.

After the bobsled, I was still cold. We took a bus back to the main shopping area near the boat and in one store a sales clerk told me to imagine I was somewhere warm. I told her I was in Jamaica, I thought I was somewhere warm. After a bit of shopping our day in Jamaica was ended and we got back on the ship to warm up and dry off.

Tuesday night was a very rough night at sea. Even people who had cruised many times found it to be very rough. As a result when we got back to our room after dinner we found out that our excursion planned for the next day in Grand Cayman had been cancelled due to the high winds we were experiencing. We were supposed to visit Stingray City and swim with stingrays. This was something Nick was really looking forward to, and so was I but there was nothing we could do about it. Any of the other excursions we were interested in were also cancelled so we decided not to do anything and just sightsee around Grand Cayman.

The first thing we wanted to do was call the kids. We hadn't spoken to them since we left and it was now Wednesday. We had brought some international phone cards with us but couldn't find a phone to take them, they only took credit cards. So we took a chance and used our credit card (found out when we got home that it cost nearly $70) and called home. It was great to hear Darcy's voice and hear that both kids were doing great while we were gone. We got to hear, many times, about Wesley peeing on the carpet of Darcy's room. Funny stuff. We spent the rest of the day walking around Georgetown and eating a ridiculously overpriced lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. There were three cruise ships docked there that day, adding ten thousand people to an area with a normal population of 40 thousand. All the restaurants were really busy and we thought that was the best we could do. Never again!

Thursday was spent in Cozumel, Mexico. We had arranged an excursion here called "Discover Mexico on your own". It said that taxi fares would be included as we discovered Mexican culture or something like that. When we got off the ship and found the people we needed to talk to we found out that we were actually being taken to a place called, "Discover Mexico". We were being taken on our own instead of part of a tour group. It was a replica village filled with miniature versions of some historical Mexican landmarks. It was interesting but not what we would have chosen for ourselves if we had had all the information. We got back in the taxi and paid a few extra dollars to go downtown. We had a bit more shopping to do but we weren't prepared for the high-pressure bartering that happens down there. Holy moly! No prices were marked, it seemed, you just had to haggle with the sales people. And heaven forbid you tried to leave to go to another store. They'd follow you out of the store, yelling the whole time. It was a bit much. We bought a few things and then decided to go back to the ship for lunch. Afterwards we stayed closer to the ship and bought the rest of the things we needed in a less intense environment.

So, I think that's about all for our cruise trip updates. I think I've covered all the major things. If I think of anything else, I'll write more later.

We're Back!

2008-11-26T20:14:00.005-05:00

We got back on Saturday night but it's taken me a few days to get around to writing this post. There's a few reasons for that. The first is that I haven't been feeling all that great since we got back. I've still been feeling like I'm on a boat and it's been making me more nauseous than I ever got on the ship! It's been a lot better today so I'm hoping that's the end of it. Another reason is that there's just so much to say that I don't know where to begin! I'm going to start writing and if it gets to be too long I'll probably break it down into several posts.

Let me start by saying we had an absolutely wonderful time. If you haven't already seen them, there are pictures on facebook and on flickr. All of our travelling was as smooth as silk, meeting up with the Princess reps in Fort Lauderdale was really easy and getting on the boat was a breeze. We didn't get to talk to the kids before we got on the ship because they were out on the town with their grandparents and Auntie Stef. We later found out that they did great without us so that helped us relax and enjoy the trip more.

I struck up a conversation with a couple that was on the elevator with us on our way up to the lunch buffet on Saturday as soon as we got on the ship. I thought they had been on the bus with us from the airport so I asked them where they had flown in from this morning. They said that they had come in from Detroit, but that they actually lived in Canada. We said, "Us too." Then we asked them where they lived and they said, "Windsor, Ontario." We couldn't believe it. The first people we meet on the ship and they're from Windsor. Crazy.

One thing we were disappointed with was our dining room experience. We had asked for a table of 6 but were put at a table of 4 and the other two people at the table were two women in their late 60's and early 70's. They were very nice women but just not our first choice of dinner companions. Also, our waiter wasn't all that great. Aside from that, everything else on the ship was wonderful. We were especially impressed with Zoltan, our room steward. He was responsible for our section of hallway and he was amazing! He seemed to be always right outside our door ready to help us however we needed it. He went in our room twice a day to clean up , even folding up my robe one time when I left it lying on the bed.

All of the food was amazing and there was just so much of it. You could eat all day long if you wanted. Restaurants, buffets, cafes, you name it. Food everywhere you turned around. There were several comedians on the ship and they all joked about how small the rooms were and how much food there was to eat.

When we were at sea, my favourite thing to do was sit on a lounge chair in the sun, reading my book. I loved it. Then I'd spend some time in the hot tub and then back to my deck chair. Wonderful. I went in the big pool once to cool off after being in the hot tub, but I thought it was shallow and I when I went in over the side I thought my feet would touch bottom but they didn't. I went right under. I wasn't prepared for it and was wearing my contacts. I went right under with my eyes open which totally freaked me out. I managed to struggle my way back up and also managed not to lose my contacts (which was good because I'd only brought one pair and no prescription sunglasses). However, that was the end of the pool for me!

I think I'll leave it at that for now and write more about the shore excursions tomorrow.

Out of Here!

2008-11-14T10:40:00.002-05:00

Well, today is the day. Nick and I are heading out of here tonight for our big Caribbean cruise. We'll spend tonight at a hotel in the Detroit airport so we can check in for our flight at 5:30 tomorrow morning (shudder).

By early afternoon tomorrow we should be on board the Ruby Princess preparing to set sail. By late afternoon I plan to be sitting in a hot tub, reading a book. Sunday will be spent on a beach in the Bahamas. We'll be at sea Monday and then in Jamaica on Tuesday. In Jamaica we'll be doing a bobsled run and climbing a waterfall so hopefully we'll have some fun pictures of that. Wednesday we'll be in Grand Cayman swimming with the stingrays. Again, more cool pictures. On Thursday we'll be in Cozumel, Mexico and we haven't quite figured out what we're going to do there. We'll see how we feel on Thursday. We arrive back in Fort Lauderdale Saturday morning and we'll fly home Saturday night.

The kids are doing great with their Montreal family here but Wesley is really cuddly today. I think he can tell that something is up. I know he'll be fine but there might be some rough moments tomorrow morning when he wakes up and we're not here. So, I hope that all goes well and that I'm able to fun even though I'll be missing them so much.

I'm going on a Jamaican bobsled. How can I not have fun?

See you in a week.

The Big Field Trip

2008-11-07T20:25:00.004-05:00

My Mom may think that parts of this story are untrue, but I assure you that every bit of it actually happened!

Darcy and I went on her big field trip today and I'm happy to say that I survived and actually did well. I was really nervous before we left but I settled down once we got going. However, they saved the snake for the very end of the afternoon so I had a lot of time to worry about it.

We started off with a "creepy critters" slide show and then a nice walk through the trails at the nature centre. We didn't see too many animals on the walk but the kids found some cool leaves and they thought that was pretty exciting. Then we went back inside and that's when they brought out the snake. I really thought I was going to crawl out of my skin when she was taking it out of it's bag but once she had it in her hands for a few minutes I settled down. She walked around the room giving the kids and adults a chance to pet the snake. I wasn't going to do it, but then I told myself to grow up. If a bunch of 4-year olds can do it, then so can I. So I did. She had walked past me and I called her back so I could try it. I wasn't about to be outdone by those kids. It was really dry. The lady beside me said she'd only touch it if they turned it into a pair of boots. Darcy touched it as well and was really proud of herself for doing it. I'm pretty proud of myself too. And Mom, I didn't even cry! Hard to believe, but true. One of the moms screamed when the lady pulled out the bag with the snake in it, but not me. Of course, she grew up in Africa so she's used to much more dangerous snakes than what we were dealing with today.

The more I meet Darcy's teacher the more I'm impressed with her. She's absolutely fantastic. Darcy loves and I can tell that Mlle Dresser gets a kick out of Darcy too. She let Darcy hold her hand a lot on the nature walk and even sat with Darcy on the bus on the way home. She told me again how pleased she is with Darcy's work, which is great.

When we were having lunch before we left home today Darcy kept saying she hoped I would be her group leader and that she'd be able to be with me at the nature centre. Once we were there all the other kids who had moms on the trip walked with their moms and held their mom's hand, but not Darcy. Oh no, it was like I wasn't even there. Once she saw her teacher I became chopped liver. Some of her friends thought I was fun though. I guess I'll have to take solace in that!

There are some pictures of the field trip posted on our flickr page and on facebook.

Notes from School

2008-11-05T09:27:00.004-05:00

We're constantly getting notes home from Darcy's teacher. Usually they're asking for money whether through a fundraiser or a hot lunch or whatever. Sometimes it's worksheets that we can work through with Darcy at home.

Last week she brought home a note saying that her first field trip was coming up, that they'd be going to a local nature centre. I kind of skimmed the note, getting the main information, the date, the times, and the fact that they were looking for parent volunteers. I checked the date and saw that Nick is off that day so I filled out the information saying that I would volunteer to go with the class. Darcy's friend was over that day and the two of them were excitedly talking about the upcoming field trip and the things they would see there. I heard them say things like "bats, bees, bugs, plants and snakes". Snakes?!?!? There would be snakes involved in this field trip? No one had mentioned snakes. I looked at the letter again and saw that the teacher had, in fact, mentioned snakes. The theme of this field trip is "Creepy Critters" and they're looking for everything Darcy and Quinn mentioned. I am terrified of snakes. Absolutely, irrationally, terrified of snakes. That will teach me to read something thoroughly before I sign up for anything else!

So I had a choice. I hadn't returned the paper yet. I could cross out the information saying I could help with the class or I could face my fears and show my daugther what it means to be brave. The last thing I want is for her to inherit her fears from me. She is really overcoming her fear of dogs and cats. How can I ever encourage her to do that if I would let a garter snake or two keep me from going on this field trip. So I returned the paper still indicating that I would go on the trip. I was hoping that maybe they'd get more volunteers than they needed but I got a note from the teacher thanking me for volunteering, assuring me that I am needed on Friday.

Quinn's class went to the nature centre yesterday and he disappointedly told me last night that he didn't see any snakes. Maybe there's hope yet!

We also get a montly newsletter from the school. On the first page of the newsletter all the students of the month are listed. I kind of scanned the list and it's a good thing because the student of the month for reading in Mlle. Dresser's class was none other than Darcy T! A couple of days later, Darcy brought home a student of the month for reading certificate. That's very exciting. We have noticed a huge difference in Darcy's approach to reading since she started school. She still can't "read" but she is really improving in knowing what letters make what sounds, and recognizing both upper and lower case letters in her books. We're really proud of her and we're glad to see that her teacher is seeing her hard work too. Great job, Darcy!

Halloween, Part 2

2008-11-01T13:32:00.003-04:00

We had such a great night last night!

When Darcy got home from school we loaded everyone up for a quick bite to eat at the mall before trick or treating there with our friends. We met up with three other families from church, each with 2 kids (unless Dayna's gone into labour by now - ha!) so we had 8 little trick or treaters roaming the mall. It was a bit hard keeping track of everyone sometimes but we each made it home with the kids we brought, plus a lot of candy.

Darcy then met up with her friend Quinn and they went trick or treating on our street together. They were out for about an hour and again got a lot of candy. When she was finished that she went to our neighbour's house to hand out his candy. He let her keep a lot of what he had leftover at the end of the night (which was a lot because we had a slow night on our street) so the girl really ended up with a boatload of candy and other treats.

Wesley and I stayed out on the front steps all night handing out our chips to kids. I let Wesley try some at one point and he devoured the whole bag and then went looking for more! He really loved wearing his costume and all the attention he got. He's a big fan of Halloween already.

If you're on facebook you can check out my pictures there. If you're not, you can see them here.

Halloween

2008-10-31T09:56:00.002-04:00

Well it's Halloween again and we've got one very excited little girl at our house.

She can't wear her costume to school, they have a "noir et orange" party instead so she's dressed in black pants and an orange t-shirt. We've got little goody bags packed for her to take to school to share with her friends and she's really excited about that.

After school we will be meeting up with some friends to go trick or treating at a local mall. It's the smaller mall here in town and they offer trick or treating within the mall. We went last year and it was great. It's safe, there's no worries about the weather (although we're expecting 18 degrees today anyway!) and they get lots of great candy. We'll go there from 5-6 and then go home to hand out chips to the trick or treaters around here. Darcy and Nick will probably go up and down the street too.

Darcy is going to be dressed up as Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Wesley has a cute little pumpkin costume we're going to attempt to put on him. We'll see how that goes but I'm not holding my breath on that one!!! There will be pictures tomorrow.

On a different note, after being invited to her friend Quinn's house for supper last week, Quinn was invited to have supper at our house last night. It was so funny to see Darcy being so excited to have Quinn there. He's a really funny little guy so she spent most of supper giggling. They both managed to eat their supper, which surprised me a little bit. It seems that they're becoming great friends.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Stay safe if you're taking out any little trick or treaters.

The Bus

2008-10-28T14:52:00.003-04:00

If you've been reading this for a while you'll know that I had some concerns about sending Darcy to school on the bus. In the end we decided to go with the bus and on the whole I still think we made the right decision. Some of the things I was concerned about are starting to happen though.

Darcy's bus rides are nearly as long as the time she spends in school. That really lengthens her day. She's gone from 11:45 - 4:15 which seems like a long day for a 4-year old. Of course most school districts are doing full days for Kindergarten so I guess that's not much of a concern for anyone but me! Her friend Quinn was falling asleep on the bus ride home some days (once we had to get on the bus to wake him up!) but the farther we get into the school year, that doesn't seem to be happening anymore.

She's often coming home with stories about things that happen on the bus and these are the things that concern me the most. One girl pushed Darcy off her chair because the other girl wanted to sit with Quinn that day. Another time a boy spat in her face! She's also full of stories of big boys calling other kids bad names. Quinn's Mom and I were talking about it yesterday when we were waiting for the bus at the end of the day and it seems she's been hearing a lot of the same stuff from Quinn. Then when the bus got there the kids got off and Quinn looked at him Mom and said, "Loser!" That seemed to be the new word he picked up on the bus yesterday. His Mom had a little chat with him, letting him know she doesn't like hearing him talk like that so hopefully that's the end of the loser talk at their house.

We had to take Darcy to the school before the school year even started for a bus safety day where they learned all the rules of the bus. Then one day a couple of weeks ago she was telling me about a friend of hers sharing her snack with Darcy on the bus. I reminded Darcy that eating on the bus is against the rules. She responded with, "It's OK, the bus driver didn't see us." She seems to be learing quickly that rules can be broken if the authority figure doesn't catch you (she has also responded to me, when I'm trying to point out something wrong she's doing, "That's OK, Daddy's not here.").

So we're learning quickly that not all of her learning is done in the classroom! She seems to be handling it well for the most part. For example, when the girl pushed Darcy out of her seat, Darcy said she just went back and sat where she was. That's it, Darcy! Don't let yourself get pushed around.

Important Links

2008-10-25T08:33:00.004-04:00

It seems that every Halloween you hear some sort of warning about keeping your children safe. Some are just common sense, some are complete craziness and some are worth reading about. One came to my attention the other day from my Mom and I thought it was worth posting about here so any other Moms who read this who may not have heard about will hear about it from me. It's a warning about tainted chocolate coins that could be handed out this year, which are part of the melamine in milk disaster going on in China right now. For more information, please read this article.

Secondly, we know that as soon as Halloween is over we'll be hearing all about Christmas. If you are looking for some good ways to help others this Christmas, I've got some good links for you. The first is my annual plug for the World Vision Christmas Catalogue. We've bought things from this catalogue several times and have been very pleased with the whole process. I've also found two other organizations doing similar things so here are links to their catalogues too so you can decide what's best for you. Samaritan's Purse information can be found here. I had wanted to include some information about the Salvation Army's new program which is similar but oddly enough, I can't find any! If I find it, I'll post it here later.

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Update:

I found the information I was looking for. The Salvation Army has a program called Gifts of Hope. There isn't a lot of information on the website, just a list of what can be purchased but you can find it here.

Great News!

2008-10-22T15:48:00.003-04:00

Wesley has had a cough for a few weeks which just isn't getting better. He woke up from his nap this afternoon wheezing and fighting for breath and I decided enough was enough, we needed to see a doctor this afternoon (wait a minute, isn't this post called "Good news"??? Read on).

The doctor prescribed an antibiotic and in order to get the dosage right we needed to know an accurate weight for Wesley. We weighed him and he weighed 8.8 kg or 19.4 lbs! That's the good news. Our pediatrician had been concerned about Wesley's weight and had told me to be careful when feeding him to get him the most calories possible. He wants to see Wesley again in November and had hoped he would weigh 19 lbs then. I'm now hopeful that he'll weigh 20 lbs by his November appointment.

This is really good news for us and huge load off my mind. Keep up the good eating, Wesley. Now if only we could get rid of that cough...

Good Stuff

2008-10-06T09:23:00.006-04:00

Well I feel like I wasn't really being fair to Wesley the other day with my post. It made it sound like he's just a troublecauser so I wanted to write a new post today to focus on some good stuff.

Wesley is a super-cuddly little guy. He will walk across the room just to get a hug. They're good hugs too. He'll lay his head down on your shoulder and give you a good squeeze. I didn't think there was anything better until he started giving kisses too. If he wants a kiss from you then he'll pucker up his lips, giving himself the cutest little fishy face. Then he makes smacking sounds until you give him a kiss. It's so sweet (unless he's doing this in the high chair when his face is full of food!). Our favourite thing is when you're putting him in bed. He'll lie down in bed, sick his bum up in the air and then as soon as you walk away he'll get up on his knees and start making kissing sounds. You go back and give him a kiss, he gives you a big grin and then he lies back down. You just can't beat that!

He's also starting to understand what we're saying to him. If he shoves too much food in his mouth at one time (which happens at every meal, several times) we tell him to take a drink and he does! If we're getting ready to go somewhere I'll ask him to go get his shoes and he'll walk over to the mat and pick up his shoes. He'll also do this on his own if he wants to go somewhere. If Nick is getting ready to walk Darcy over the school bus stop Wesley will pick up his shoes and bring them to me because he wants to go too. If his jacket is not hung up, he'll pick that up too.

He's really getting into a fun stage where he's learning new things all the time and we're loving it... when we're not trying to keep him from climbing the walls!

I've put new pictures up on flickr if you haven't seen them yet.

No Time

2008-10-03T08:53:00.002-04:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a while but I don't have a lot of time for blogging when I'm so busy trying to keep Wesley out of trouble! That kid can figure out ways of doing things that we didn't think were possible.

First of all, he can open the child locks we have on the cupboards in the kitchen. Of course he figured this out using the cupboard under the sink where all the poisons are. He uses toy shelves as ladders and has ways of pushing toys together to make stairs. He likes to stand on the arms of the couch. We had to buy a special lock for the oven because he was using the handle as a chin-up bar. As I typed that he tried to crawl under my feet to unplug the computer. Needless to say, he keeps us on our toes.

Darcy is still doing well at school. The crying seems to have stopped and she's really becoming good friends with the boy across the street. They're always wanting to play at each other's houses after school. Her teacher is pleased with her progress and loves having her in the class. It sounds like she's getting off to a great start.

Things are changing a bit for Nick at work. Starting today his shifts will all be 11 hours long. He was just doing 9 hours shifts so he thinks these extra two hours are going to be long. My extra two hours alone with monkey-boy may seem long too!

As for me, I've got my formal wear worked out for the cruise with a couple of new dresses that I'm really pleased with and a new pair of shoes. Now I'm more eager than ever for that cruise!

So that's about it from our house for now.

Injury!

2008-09-24T22:55:00.004-04:00

Darcy got her first injury at school today. From what we can understand she was running around in gym class and fell, bashing her chin against the floor. As you can see, it looks pretty ugly.

On the Wesley news, Nick put Wesley to bed tonight for the first time and fell asleep quite quickly. I think we're doing really well. He seems to be adjusting as well as can be expected. I'm pretty pleased about that.

Finished!

2008-09-22T20:06:00.002-04:00

I put Wesley to bed tonight without nursing him. It's the first time in his 13 months that has happened. I've been working towards it for several weeks, decreasing his last feeding by a minute or two every night but tonight was the first night he got nothing. I was nervous about how it would go but it seems to have been all right.

Last night I told him it was his last night of nursing. I don't think he can understand that but he cried for nearly an hour before falling asleep. Tonight I didn't say anything, I just read him his book, sang a little song and put him in bed. 15 minutes later, he was asleep. He did stand up in his crib and point at the rocking chair when I put him in bed but I just closed the door and walked away. He seemed to get the hint.

I feel like I should be sad about this chapter of my life being over but I'm really not. I'm so relieved. Darcy was a good baby to nurse, all cuddly and sweet. Nursing Wesley has been anything but a pleasure. Instead of cuddling while he was nursing, Wesley's favourite activity was slapping me. He would change it up sometimes and pinch me or scratch me. There was an occasional kick. This doesn't even get into the biting... Sometimes the slaps would be so loud that Nick could hear them in another room. Not cool. Combine all this with the fact that he never drank from a bottle and has only reliably been drinking from a cup for the last month and it became pretty exhausting for me. I was willing to do it for the well-being of my son, but I am more than willing for it to be over.

We've decided that I will put Wesley to bed for the first couple of nights and then Nick will start doing some nights too. I know it's not guaranteed to be smooth sailing but at least we've gotten off to a good start!

Quick Update

2008-09-16T18:53:00.002-04:00

We had to go to Darcy's school tonight for a welcome meeting for new families. It was pretty informal, just to give us some information about some of the school's programs and how we can get involved. We got a bit more information about how Darcy is doing too.

When we pulled into the parking lot there was a little boy and his parents getting out of the car beside us. From the backseat I hear, "Oh, I thought that was the cute boy but that's not him." I just about fell out of my chair. Some might say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree but they'd be wrong!

We saw her teacher inside and she told us that Darcy has cried a few times and that today she had asked for a telephone to call home. She doesn't even know our phone number (I know I should teach her). Darcy told me that sometimes her heart feels like crying so she has to cry. We're just trying to encourage her and remind her that school is fun and that she doesn't need Mommy around all the time. Aside from the couple outbursts of tears though Darcy is doing great in the classroom and is a lot of fun to have around, she said. That's very good to hear.

So we hope the tears will soon be over and that she'll enjoy going to school every day. Nick, Wesley and I took a really nice walk this afternoon while she was gone!

Sailing Along

2008-09-11T19:43:00.002-04:00

Things seem to be going pretty well for Darcy at school. We found the shoes we thought she had lost but she still has two pairs at school and we can't seem to get her to bring the extra pair home. She just doesn't seem to have a grasp on the whole "inside shoe - outside shoe" thing yet.

She is starting to make some friends and talks a lot about a girl named Samantha. She also told us today about some boys who were hitting and kicking but according to her, she has been perfect.

We're a little concerned that she's not eating her snacks, though. For the past couple of days they've come home untouched. They can bring cookies on Fridays so I expect we won't have any problems with tomorrow's snack.

We've been asking her what French words she's been learning and she keeps saying none. Then last night I was asking her what she did at recess and she said "Nothing because I had to go get my sac a dos." I asked her what that meant and she said, "My sac a dos!" Then she finally took pity on her non-French-speaking mother and told me it meant backpack. She's also used a few other French words in conversation so we know she's learning some.

I haven't talked much about Wesley in all the excitement about Darcy going to school. He's starting to take a few steps now but of course he stops as soon as I get the camera out. Hopefully we'll get some pictures or a video soon. He's also growing several teeth right now so he's been kind of cranky over the past few days. Not cool. He's drinking a lot of milk and we're trying to feed him lots so hopefully he's gaining weight too. A month ago I was nursing him three times a day for a total of an hour a day. Now I'm down to once a day and tonight that was only for 9 minutes. I'm cutting out a minute a night until I'm done. He's pretty mad at me and isn't settling down to sleep right now because he wants to be nursed more, but he'll get used to it. I can definitely get used to it!

First Day Summary

2008-09-08T20:35:00.002-04:00

There were a few bumps in the road but I think her first day at school went pretty well.

The bus was about 20 minutes late coming home at the end of the day. A few buses went by our stop and one even stopped without Darcy getting off, but it was a different bus line than what had picked her up so I was pretty sure that we were still OK. Eventually her bus arrived and she got off with a big smile on her face.

The first thing I noticed is that she was wearing the new shoes we had bought her that were to be designated as "inside shoes". I asked her what happened to her other shoes and she said she couldn't find them. I had put her name on her inside shoes but not her outside shoes because I figured that those would just stay in her cubby hole. Silly me. I hope we can find them.

She cried when she got home when I asked her the names of some of the other kids in her class and she didn't know any of them. She also said she didn't have anyone to play with at recess. I encouraged her to find another little girl tomorrow and introduce herself and ask the girl if she wants to be friends. I told her there were probably other girls who felt lonely too and that she'd have lots of friends soon.

We were asked to send two snacks but she had only eaten one. We'll see if she does better in the future.

She told me they had learned a new song today called, "Bonjour samalama". I'm pretty sure that's not the right second word but that's what she told me. She also told me that when they were learning the song the teacher had asked if anyone knew what bonjour meant and she put up her hand and the teacher called on her. She said it meant hello and she was correct. She kept saying "correct" over and over. It cracked me up. She was very proud of herself for getting a right answer.

The rest of the evening went well until I was turning out the light for bed. Then she started to really cry, saying how much she missed me during the day. She asked me to lay down with her and although I won't usually do that I made an exception tonight. I told her she could remember our faces when she felt lonely at school and that would make her feel better. Then she started rhyming off all kinds of faces she could think of (me, Nick, Wesley, her cow, things like that). Soon she was ready for me to leave so I said goodnight and closed the door. I was in my room for a few minutes when I heard her door open. I went to see what was going on and she said, "Mommy, can I think of my toothbrush's face when I'm sad?" Her toothbrush has Belle from Beauty and the Beast on it so I told her she could. That put a big smile on her face and she closed the door and went back to bed. I haven't heard anything else from her.

So, there were a few perfectly normal worries but I think we're on the right track. I'm sure that by the end of the week she'll forget that there was ever a time when she didn't go to school!

And She's Off!

2008-09-08T15:02:00.003-04:00

Darcy is at school as I write this. We had a pretty fun morning at home and then an early lunch and off to the bus stop.

We were told the bus would meet us at the corner of Pillette and Ontario, quite near our house but we didn't know which corner to wait at. Nick was off then so we all went together to wait for the bus. When we got to the corner we saw the boy from across the street and his Dad waiting on the other side of the busy street from where we were so we crossed to wait for them. We waited for a few minutes with a couple of false alarms with other school buses going past but finally our bus came and stopped but it was across the street from where we were so we all had to cross back to get on the bus. We moved quickly so we weren't really thinking but I had the stroller and the camera and Nick had Darcy so we nearly didn't get a picture of her getting on the bus. She was so excited to get on the bus that she didn't kiss either of us goodbye she just got right on the bus. I managed to get a picture of her halfway up the stairs though. The driver had a checklist and knew Darcy and Quinn would be getting on there so we knew she got on the right bus. Wesley and I will go at 4:00 to see if she gets off where she's supposed to.

I was much stronger than I expected to be and I didn't cry at all, even after the bus drove away. Nick, Trevor and I walked back toward our houses together and chatted a little so that helped keep me from crying. Then when Nick and I were walking up our driveway our neighbour was getting out of his car. This guy is well into his 70's and is an interesting character. He got out of his car and said hi to us, but he was clearly wearing women's sunglasses (really glamourous ones at that) and didn't seem notice. If he did notice, he didn't seem to mind. Well, by the time I got into the house I was laughing so much about that that there were no tears.

We were eating lunch and the phone rang just as the class time was supposed to be starting. We thought at first that it might be family calling to see how she made out, but then I panicked and thought it was the school calling to say something was wrong. We should have known that it was just a solicitor!

So I'd have to say so far so good. We'll see in an hour if she's home in once piece. I'll update later with her account of how the day went! I'll also be putting more pictures on facebook and flickr.

What, Me Worry?

2008-09-01T21:26:00.002-04:00

Darcy seems to have been having trouble sleeping lately. She's always been a great sleeper but over the past week or so she has been waking up in the night and coming into our room for a different reason every night.

The first night she just needed a snuggle. The next night she had lost Heidi, her cow that sleeps with her every night. The next night she lost her pillow and on a different night she woke up twice for drinks in the night. When she saw I was serious about telling her to stay in bed that night she then suddenly had to go to the bathroom.

I tend to overthink things. I had just read an article about dealing with pre-school stress and it said that sleep disturbances could be the result of anxiety about the changes to come. I was always scared about starting a new school and I remember being really freaked out just as school was about to begin so I thought this could be the problem. Here is the conversation we had at breakfast after the two-drink night...

Me: Darcy, are you worried about starting to go to school?
Darcy: No. Why do you think I'm worried?
Me: Because you keep waking up at night and saying you lost Heidi, or you lost your pillow or you need drinks.
Darcy (looking at me like I'm crazy): No Mom, that just means I lost stuff or I'm really, really thirsty.

I had to laugh at myself.

She doesn't start school tomorrow. Kindergarten doesn't start until next Monday. We go for an interview with the teacher on Thursday and then that's it until the bus picks her up on Monday.

10 Years!

2008-08-29T09:41:00.005-04:00

Today Nick and I are celebrating our tenth anniversary. It hardly seems possible. It has been ten great years and I'm looking forward to many, many more.

As for the wedding itself, in looking back there are a few things I would do differently.

1. I would tell the hairstylist that I was getting pictures taken at home even though they weren't going to be professionally done. That way I might have gotten out of her chair more than 45 minutes before the wedding was due to start (although my hair did look spectacular).

2. I wouldn't hold flowers that were bigger than me and I wouldn't be pressured into getting roses. I only wanted daisies and that's all I should have gotten, instead of letting the florist talk me into something bigger.

3. Two words: Chocolate fountain.

As for the marriage, I wouldn't change a thing!

Hop on the Bus, Gus

2008-08-28T13:59:00.002-04:00

We think Darcy is going to take the school bus. She's so excited about it and when I weigh out all the factors I think that the bus seems to work the best for everyone. Besides if we start the bus and don't like it then I can always change my mind. It would not be as easy to change my mind and put her on the bus later. Also, in talking to the neighbours across the street, their little guy is also going in the afternoons so there will be two of them getting on and off at the same spot. That makes me feel better too.

The bus trial day was a lot of fun. They had a Winnie the Pooh movie about bus safety and then a 10-minute bus ride, after which they learned how to safely cross the street in front of the bus. Then there was cookies and juice which makes any event a success in the eyes of a 4-year old.

Darcy was on cloud nine as we left the school. She couldn't stop talking about that bus ride and then getting to ride the bus when she goes to school "for real". I just couldn't burst that bubble and tell her that she couldn't ride the bus because Mommy is too scared. The principal was laughing at some of the parents (not me, believe it or not) who were struggling to put their kids on the bus even for the practice ride. They were trying to drive away and there will still some parents touching the windows (breaking the rules they had just taught the kids). "Time to start letting go!" she called out.

I also found out at the school that there are no school supplies needed for JK, just inside shoes. We got those yesterday (Barbie, self-lacing, light up shoes) and we picked up a first day of school outfit on Monday. I think we're all set.

September 8th, here we come!

Birthday Boy

2008-08-26T11:48:00.002-04:00

We had a great weekend celebrating Wesley's birthday. My family arrived on Saturday afternoon and we spent the afternoon in the backyard with the kids in the pool. It was about 39 degrees with the humidex so having the kids in the pool was a great idea.

Wesley got lots of great gifts and he actually sat on my lap and was interested in them while I opened them. He was trying to open his books and pick up his trucks. At Darcy's first birthday she was only interested in the tissue paper.

My only disappointment is that he wasn't at all interested in his cake. He barely ate any at all. It really didn't do a lot for the photo ops.

This morning I took him for his one-year check up. The doctor wants to "conservatively" monitor Wesley's weight. He started life on the 5th percentile for weight but has fallen to the third percentile. The doctor is concerned about that drop. Wesley has been hovering around the 17-pound mark for nearly 6 months now. He really needs to start putting on some weight. So the doctor gave me some tips on how to increase Wes's caloric intake so we can try to get up back up to where he started. He wants to see us again in 3 months and would like Wesley to be around 19 pounds then. He wants us to start putting butter on Wesley's bread, pasta and rice as well as to give him milkshakes instead of plain milk. We just need to find easy ways to increase his calories along with what he's already eating.

Part of the problem is that he hasn't been taking his formula. He's only taking about 3-4 ounces a day. The doctor said that at this stage formula doesn't offer anything more than milk would so he wants us to switch Wes to whole milk right away. Hopefully he'll get more of that in him and that will be a great way to add on the calories quickly.

So hopefully we'll get this boy to be a little chubbier soon. The doctor does say that he knows it's genetic and that he will likely always be thin. He's not concerned and for once he's not sending us for extra tests. That's why we're "conservatively" monitoring things. I'll keep you posted.

On a different note, Darcy and I are heading to her school this afternoon for the school bus info day. I'm sure I'll have a post about that tomorrow!

Birthday Portraits

2008-08-22T10:37:00.004-04:00

Here are Wesley's official birthday portraits. We got them done at the same place we've always gotten Darcy's done but I wasn't very impressed with the photographer we had this time. It was like she never worked with a baby before. The package we got included three poses but none of the third one were good enough to buy so I just got these two. I really like the football one. He cut his lip last week at my parents' house and because he drools so much it doesn't seem to be getting better so you can see that in the pictures. At least the bruise on his forehead isn't that obvious!

One Year Old

2008-08-21T16:59:00.009-04:00

We can't believe that we are celebrating Wesley's first birthday today. This year has just flown by. It certainly doesn't seem like it was a year ago that I was in the hospital all that time, wondering about if the baby was going to be healthy.

My best memory of this day last year (apart from seeing Wesley for the first time) is the moment when the doctor told me he didn't have to go to the NICU. That's the picture you see at the top of the post. After all our concern, he was just fine. Small, but fine. A few bumps (and unnecessary tests) along the way but here we are, a year later and he's just perfect!

He is a completely different baby than Darcy was. I don't know if it's a boy/girl thing or just their different personalities. He doesn't cry nearly as much as she did but if he doesn't like what's going on he'll let out an ear-piercing shriek instead. Sometimes I'd prefer more crying instead of the shrieking!

Darcy is a wonderful big sister and she loves her brother so much. We really didn't know how she'd handle another member being added to the family but she's been great. She is Wesley's favourite person in the world. Whenever he sees her he just lights right up and she can make him laugh easier than anyone else can. It's amazing to watch them together.

Our neighbour was talking to us tonight and when he looked at the kids he said, "You're very blessed." I couldn't agree more!

To Bus or Not to Bus

2008-08-20T13:49:00.002-04:00

This is the decision I've been procrastinating on all summer. Now the school year is nearly here and I still haven't decided how Darcy will be getting to school this year.

She is going to a French immersion school so busing is available for most students and Darcy falls into the area they'd bus. She can either take the bus or I can commit to driving her and picking her up every day. When we registered her they told me to sign up for the bus then because it is easier to sign up and take your child off the bus than it is to try to add your child to the bus in the fall.

The other day we got some mail from the bus company detailing her drop off and pick up spots. I guess this means I need to decide soon.

Darcy has it in her head that she's taking the bus and that's one of the things she's most excited about when she talks about going to school (one of many things) but I'm nervous about it. I've seen too many news stories of kids getting bullied and beaten up on school buses. I'm afraid she'll get on the wrong bus some day and end up in another part of town. In short I think she's just too little to ride the bus.

However, I just don't know about driving her every day either. You can't bus some days and drive others days, it's got to be an all or nothing decision. She needs to be at school to start at 12:45 and that's just when Wesley is eating lunch and getting ready for his nap. If we drive her to school every day he'll fall asleep in the van and never take a proper nap at home. I don't want him to not get his proper rest because he needs to drive her to school. Also, the parking situation around the school is a zoo and we're required to get out of the car and walk her to the school. I hate the thought of fighting for a parking spot twice a day, every day.

So I really don't know which is best for Darcy and the whole family. We have a bus information day at school next Tuesday. I'm hoping that will answer some of my questions about bus safety and the school parking situation which should help me make a decision.

Blah!

Back Home

2008-08-18T09:23:00.002-04:00

We are all finally back home in Windsor. We arrived Saturday evening, just around supper time. It was great having some bonus time with my family (even though the circumstances were sad) but it's really good to get the kids home and back into their routines.

If it can be said, Uncle Dale's funeral was wonderful. Everyone had great memories of him and I heard some stories I had never heard before and my cousin sang beautifully (which brought out more than a few tears). You were one of a kind, Uncle Dale and you will be greatly missed.

One really good thing that happened while we were away is that Wesley's separation anxiety improved greatly. He was still having a rough time at the beginning of our week at camp but he got better towards the end and was really good during our week in Cambridge. I'm really happy about that.

Now that we're at home my big project is to get this boy weaned. I nursed Darcy for 13 months but by the time she was a year old I was nursing her a lot less than I'm still nursing him now. I'm still doing three feedings a day for him because he's not taking enough consistently from his cup. Our doctor told me that I might have to be "cruel to be kind" on this one and let him get a little hungry sometime so he'll know he needs to drink from his cup. I think that today I will cut back to two feedings a day and in a couple of weeks I'll only be nursing him before bed. I'll shorten that feeding every night until it goes away. Hopefully by the end of September the nursing will be a thing of the past. That will give him plenty of time to forget about it and develop his routine without nursing before Nick and I go on our cruise in November.

It sounds really easy when I write it down here. We'll see how it works in reality!

In Cambridge

2008-08-13T10:36:00.002-04:00

I've now been gone from home for two weeks, we'll end up being gone nearly a week longer than we had planned.

We had an amazing time at camp and a good, but quick visit with family in Montreal before heading back to Cambridge on Sunday. We were getting ready to return to Windsor on Monday morning when the word came that my Uncle Dale had passed away, just two weeks after his wife. We decided that it would be best for the kids and I to stay in Cambridge rather than making them do the drive twice in a week, especially after driving to Montreal and back. So here we are. The memorial service is on Saturday so we'll return to Windsor after that.

Darcy developed a fever and vomited in the car on the way from Montreal to Cambridge. Wesley woke up with a fever this morning. They're both kind of out of sorts from being out of their routine for so long. We'll finally get them used to being here and it will be time to get them back to Windsor. I'm hoping that Wesley's fever is just related to teething and not anything more serious. He's not sleeping well here and seeing as how we're in the same room, neither am I. We're all pretty beat.

So it has been an emotional couple of weeks for our family with the deaths of Aunt Nancy and Uncle Dale so close together. In addition to that my Mom got word this morning that her cousin passed away as well. Just one hit after another. Hopefully everything will be back to routine soon!