Eating

Okay I'm on a diet or a lifestyle change as Weight Watchers pushes over and over again. I got out all my old Weight Watchers materials and I've been following the program (on my own, I know not recommended) for 6 days now. I THINK I might be feeling a change but I'm not sure. I don't own a scale. I'm not going to buy one so I have to go on how my clothes fit. They weren't fitting at all and now I think they are beginning to fit a little but I'm not really sure how much of that is just in my head. I haven't gone over even one day. Tomorrow – my tenth anniversary I'm going to binge completely. But that's what flex points are for no? (probably not but hell, it's my tenth anniversary).

 

You want to know a nasty side effect of all this good eating? I'm disgusted by what the husband is eating. COMPLETELY. And I'm not exaggerating. He eats terribly. He eats like a teenage boy and he really shouldn't. BOTH his parents are diabetic. And he carries all his weight in a paunch around the middle – not at all good for his heart. Now it has always kind of bugged me. but now it is grossing me out. Maybe because I'm hyper aware of what I'm putting in my belly? Now to make matters worse he THINKS he is eating quite healthily. And really he eats a lot of fruit and drinks a lot of water and his meals themselves are not bad but it's the snacking. He snacks on crap. When he is the least bit hungry he must eat immediately and it has to be crappy snacks. He thinks they are healthy - Casava and plaintain chips, for instance. Okay they sound like they might be healthier for you than potato chips but in reality they have just as much fat and are just as bad for you. And he doesn't just have one snack – he'll have chips followed by ice cream followed by rice cakes (at least those are healthy) And then there is portion control. I have some nice "healthy" trail mix that I snack on. Well a small handful is a healthy serving. He will eat several handfuls while waiting for dinner to be ready – yikes. This drives me particularly nuts because the kids and I aren't snacking and he doesn't get the urgency behind getting dinner on the table without needless delays.

 

Anyway its really bugging me. And being about 30 lbs overweight and dieting for all of 6 days I don't feel I have a right to say anything but I just wanted to put down somewhere that its driving me absolutely insane.

First Day of School

Well Kamryn started school yesterday morning. She was so very excited. Bus was scheduled for 8:45; at 7:45 she came bounding into our bedroom (I'm still on holidays) all dressed and her hair combed to announce that she had eaten breakfast and was ready to go but no one had packed her a lunch yet. lol The school bus was a no show (no surprise was the same last year) so we drove her to school much to her disdain.

Major topic among her friends when they saw each other for the first time - teeth! It was hilarious they were all comparing mouths - all twenty or so of them.

The school has already called us about the bus. Seems the transportation company is having major problems. The administration is calling each and every parent. Insane.

I asked Kamryn what was the best part of first grade: "Maman you know you get THREE recesses! One in the morning! One in the Afternoon! And one AFTER lunch!" Ahhh... the simple things.

Sam drove me insane all day (he's better today) - he doesn't start 'til next week and he's lost without his playmate. Today we go off to the school with him for his intake interview. He already had a registration interview so this is his second encounter with the school – this school likes interviews. We'll put him in his uniform for the interview. I ironed his dress shirt because I figured it will be one of the only times he wears it. Unsupervised I fear for the poor shirts life. Golf shirts are a little hardier.

Roadtrip 2008

Okay this is lame. This video is 11 minutes long and it won't mean much to anybody unless they are a memeber of our family but I tried to upload it on Youtube to share with the kid's birthparents and failed because its to long. And this is the only way I know to load it on whatever the video program blogger uses is. So here is is. LOL I'm so technically savvy. Oh and the first minute or two are the same as my last video (just in case you have 12 minutes of your life to waste). Now I see that even loaded here it can't be shared seperate from my blog. I expect to have to burn it to DVD and mail it to them in the end.

Hotels

We are currently in our sixth hotel room in two weeks. Can someone please explain to me why they make electrical outlets so hard to find and use?

Returning to “Our home and native land...”

So here we are hurtling through Southern Ontario having just crossed the border. It's nice to be "home" again. Don't get me wrong, I like visiting the U.S. – very much actually. It's just different enough to be a bit of an adventure while being common enough to be easy. But there is a comfort to being in your home country and to carry it one further, your home province. Here I can complain righteously about things, safe in the knowledge that I have every right to complain, praise or try to change things. I have confidence that I know and understand the laws. Hell, that I know and understand the food! Who knew food could be so very different in places so much alike (there were sausages, biscuits and a HUGE TUB of white stuff that I later found out was gravy – yuck! Who eats gravy for breakfast?) And, I know where I am in the universe without consulting a map or our GPS.

 

Anyway, I enjoyed our little sojourn through the Northern U.S.. Michigan is really a beautiful state. I got to see it from one end to the other – twice! And Wisconsin is no slouch either. I'm firmly biased against Minnesota though because every time Daniel drives though he gets a ticket (we escaped unscathed this time). It's not even that we're speed demons either just bad luck and some confusing signage – thus the bias – it's like we are targeted because we have Canadian plates.

 

Oh! And I just clued in and turned on the radio. I'm so desperate for news: Canadian news... international news. I'm sorry but Americans do a piss poor job at relaying what's going on in the rest of the world. I know all about Obama, McCain, the US Olympic team and the Tropical Storm that hit Florida. I know a little about Russia and Georgia and there it ends. Although I must admit the "Daly Report" is a hoot! It's not real news. I'm desperate to know what's going on in the world beyond the US border. In 7 minutes (it's 7 minutes to the top of the hour) I will have real news. I'm not alone in my assessment of US broadcast journalism – Daniel gave a "Thank God" when the news started. lol

Anyway, on to more mundane topics. We are definitely getting to the point though where it's good this little journey is coming to an end. All this quantity time just might kill us. The kids are antsy and Daniel and I are just tired. Sam 24/7 is an exhausting proposition (at home when you're at the end of your rope you can always send him to his room – for the past 10 days though his room has been the same as my room. He's a good kid but he needs his alone time just as much as his parents. And Kamryn is just gone completely giddy. Getting her to bed each night is getting harder and harder.

Okay battery dying, more later...

My life just gets easier and easier

Tonight, I learned that I can publish directly to my blog from this version of Microsoft. Too cool. I love this new computer more and more. What it means for me is tons 'o convenience. What this means for you is probably more, less typo filled entries (no guarantees there lol).

Oh to see life through the eyes of a four-year old

So here we are in finally (it rained for the first two days we were here as if we'd done something to offend God) sunny Winnipeg. Yesterday we went to visit my Father-in-law. My father-in-law is a very sweet man who told the funniest little stories. He was laid back and just fun to be with. Kamryn used to follow him everywhere like a shadow; it was hilarious to watch. He didn't seem like a "kid person" but here was this little kid toddling after him and it was so obvious that he just loved it. The kid's don't remember that man. He was sick by the time we adopted Sam and never really got to know him all that well. Now he is a shrunken (he has gone from over 200 lbs to under 120) little man who doesn't speak. He spends his days wandering the ward in a wheelchair that they have had to strap weights to the wheels to keep him from moving too fast (he runs down the other patients). Yesterday was the first time I had seen him in three years. When I last saw him he wasn't the same man I had known but he could walk and talk and take care of himself. I didn't want to see him yesterday. I went because, I think, it was expected that I would. I really wanted to remember him the way I knew him before but hey I obviously needed to get over myself as this really wasn't about me. I was though quite nervous about having the kids see him.

   
 

They took it in stride. I think Kamryn was scared although despite many questions about how she was feeling and if she wanted to ask me anything she seems to have taken it all in stride. Sam was intrigued that Grandpérè didn`t talk. Like any child who has questions and doesn`t quite understand he managed to work the fact the Grandpérè didn`t talk into everything he said for the first 10 minutes or so of our visit. My father-in-law had taken a fall a few days earlier and had gotten some stitches so he had a bandage on his head. At one point Sam pointed out that he too had a "bobo" -- indicating a mostly healed scrape on his knee – but that he still talked. That out of the way Sam climbed into his father's lap and proceeded to play cards with Grandpérè (Who doesn't really play as much as hold tightly onto the cards). At the end of the visit Sam went over to his grandfather and gave him a very tender hug and marched happily off to the elevator. The visit really showed his personality. He is such a rough and tumble kid but when he needs to be he slows right down and can be so incredibly sensitive. I dare say he did better than all the rest of us (his uncle, aunt, 2 cousins, sister, mother and father). I think we all learned a little watching him.

My first film

So I made a little movie. Never done that before. I was in the hotel in Ironwood Michigan on night two of our wonderful voyage and bored and I have this snazzy new computer so I was goofing off. Hey - movie making is fun. I thought the kids would get a kick out of it but Kamryn's comment "you can't make a movie without video." Ah well.

There is kind of a sweet little (somewhat boring ;)) story around this video. We are navigating with a GPS and were searching for somewhere for lunch and not finding anything nearby. We saw a "pay-for-the-day" campground and decided to stop as we passed it. Looked pretty non-descript from the highway but behind all the trees was a really sweet spot. We had a quick lunch and then discovered the beach behind all those trees. The water was frigid! But pretty. It was a nice little surprise and a good break to a long day.

On the Road Again

Hi from Saginaw, Michigan - only about 10 hours from home. Only another 20 hours of driving left. Ugh.

You know we didn't even make it out of the driveway before we were all bickering over something. Thankfully things improved after that. Still a LONG day.

Good things - we hit almost no construction. Couple of miles in Southern Ontario. No real slow-up.

Bad things - Border was somewhat backed up but we only lost about 40 minutes there.

It really is easier to drive cross country with a 6 and a 4 year old rather than a 3 and a 1 year old.

Hotel room smells funny.

Oh, when the customs agent asked us if we had anything with us that we planned on leaving in the US when we left (in 2 days) is it bad that I muttered "the children."

In my defence - when is the one time you want you kids to sit quietly and respectfully? Need I explain what my kids were doing? Ugh!

Cheers all!

Picture of Kamryn on Canada Day (July 1st)