Okay I'm trying something new...

I'm always pleased to receive comments on my enteries. It bolsters my ego (which needs constant stroking or it gets cranky) and makes me feel loved. :) So thank you to those that post. Thank you to to those that read and do not post; I'm actually guilty of doing that on far to many people's blogs.

I do however feel quite guilty that people ask me things and make suggestions and I appear to ignore them. I'm not ignoring you at all I just don't always figure out how to respond appropriately. I could just make seperate enteries but I have a small brain that is very cluttered with important worries (like how to make lunch for a child and when to eat my own lunch. Sigh it's 2 pm and I have again forgotten to eat lunch and will now ruin my dinner). I often forget to make said important enteries and then weeks have gone by and it seems pointless since no one will have any idea what I am talking about.

It was easy on TLOL because I would get an e-mail with someone's comment and I could just reply to the e-mail. Not so easy here. Except I do have an easy mechanism that if I had a bigger brain I would have figured out sooner - make a comment of my own.

So I'm making comments on my own blog which not only lets people know that I appreciate them and care about what they have to say but also has the added advantage of building my comment numbers. lol

Okay now I'm worrying that those I don't respond to will think I don't like them...

I'm getting an ulcer. I do like you. I just didn't have anything intelligent to say except thank you. :)

Is it bad to have peanuts and diet coke for lunch?

I'm laughing at myself (just a little) and completely panicking

Over school lunches of all things. Yesterday, at the orientation interview for Kamryn, who starts “big girl” school next Wednesday, I found out that I had misunderstood the whole staggered start thing they are doing. I THOUGHT that the two days she was going next week (Wednesday and Friday) were half days. Seems reasonable since they are gradually introducing them supposedly. Nope – it’s a full day 8:30 – 3:00 pm. The whole “staggered start” seems a lot more useless to me now. But what has been slammed home to me is that I have to send her with a lunch on Wednesday! I think it’s the immediacy of it all that is getting to me.

I just called Daniel from work in a complete panic that he go to the store immediately and start buying up truckloads of peanut-free merchandise:

- Chewy Granola bars (what?!? You only bought a normal sized box; why not an econo box?!? Those will never last!!!!)
- Nutragrain bars
- Yogurt – ummm get little yogurts rather than the family sized jobbers we normally get. No wait get little ziplock plastic throw aways. Ummm – what if those pop open. No wait get the little yogurts AND the normal family sized ones.
- Cold meats we need cold meats lots and lots of cold meats.

Pretty obvious we’ve been married awhile. He listened on the other end of the phone as I rattled stuff off, talking mostly to myself. Then when I realized how silly I sounded AND the fact that I need to pack exactly two lunches total next week and kind of petered off and told him to ignore everything I just said he said “okay, honey”.

I am so stressed out about lunches. Lol

My kid won’t eat eggs or cheese and isn’t a huge fan of sandwiches. She’s also a messy eater and I worry what her uniforms will look like after I send her to school with thermoses full of pasta and soup (I’ll do it but it scares me). Also (just to stress me out because I am above all else a rule follower) the school has made it quite clear that only “healthy lunches” are acceptable. I stood in the hall yesterday and listened to a teacher tell her kindergartners to go to their lunch boxes and get a piece of fruit, a vegetable or some cheese to have for their snacks – yikes – she made no mention of Nutragrain Bars or muffins or cookies (my mom had it so easy!)

Sigh. This really isn’t a huge problem I’m sure. I have loads of stuff I can feed her. Daniel bought a teeny weeny bottle of sunbutter for 9 bucks – so I have that. He swears he won’t buy it ever again. I pointed out that a bottle of Scotch is $60; he got quiet. I feed her healthy stuff at home for lunch every day. She LOVES fruit and vegetables.

I’m panicking mostly I think because I need something to panic over. I’m a goof. Just thought I would share that with you all.

We're all going to be blind as bats.

Also today, we had both kids eyes checked. Oi! What an appointment. Sam and Kamryn spent last night with my parents so that Claude and I could celebrate our 8th Anniversary of not trying to kill each other with forks. :) I know that when they stay with their grandparents sleep isn’t to be had in mass quantities. They manipulate my parents. They go down late and get up early. My kids, neither of them, do particularly well without their normal quota of sleep. Kamryn gets hyper and annoying; Sam whiney and tantrumy. It was one of those appointments where you know the staff would be talking about you when you left. I was certain Kamryn was going to break something expensive. Sam had a meltdown over giving back the doctor the little toy she used to test his eye movement. Sigh. Both kids are eventually going to end up bespectacled. I guess not a huge surprise because both birthmoms wear glasses (the optometrist doesn’t know either kid is adopted).

Let me preface this explanation of why my kids are going to need to eat A LOT of carrots not to end up in little horn rimmed glasses with the fact that I can never remember which terms mean which (i.e. nearsighted, farsighted, short-sighted etc.). I’ve thrown the terms in here from what I thought the doctor said but I may have mixed them up. So if you’re not suffering from the same mental block I am and I seem not to be making coherent sense, substitute the opposite of what I’m saying and it will probably work.

Kamryn has developed a slight astigmatism that isn’t bad enough to need correction yet and may disappear on its own. The doctor told me that astigmatisms can appear and disappear as the eye changes with growth. She’s also LESS farsighted than she should be at this point in her development, which means she may end up nearsighted in the end. We’ll watch it she said; no worries (or glasses) until next year.

Her first comment on Sam was that he had really big eyes. Duh tell me something I don’t know. What I didn’t know, but what she explained, was that people with really big eyes tend to be far-sighted. So we’ll be watching him too.

It does though look like in a few short years our entire family will be decked out in what will be expensive eyewear. Ah well. No REAL problems have been identified and that’s a good thing.

School Interview

Well this morning we had an interview at Kamryn's school with her new teacher. She has a morning teacher and an afternoon "early childhood education specialist" (read: daycare provider although they do do a little more than a daycare would). Both of them are named Julie. Too easy. She will attend school full-time but her afternoons are supposed to more play-based and focused almost exclusively on developnig language. This is because many of her classmates will be going to school in their second language and it is intended as a catch-up. My friend who has had her child already go through this program and is a teacher herself tells me in the end they end up well ahead of their peers in other programmes. This isn't why we are doing this but that's a nice fringe benefit I guess. We are enrolled in this programme because there isn't another option. All french language schools structure their pre-K and Kindergarten programmes this way.

So we had our first meeting this morning. Kamryn looked very cute in the same dress I sent her to preschool in and a nice white blouse with her new blue shoes (school shoes must be blue or black) and some aqua socks. I describe her outfit in such detail because:

a) I forgot my camera and took no pictures.
b) She was the only child in the school dressed that way - oops!

All the other children were in uniforms (school started yesterday for all grades except pre-K). The child who had the interview before Kamryn was wearing her uniform. The child who had the interview after Kamryn was wearing her uniform. Okay I figured that it was a 45 minute get to know you interview and that it didn't make much sense to waste a perfectly clean uniform on 45 minutes. I guess I fugred wrong. No one said anything though. * shrug * Although I guess there was a casual remark made to Kamryn with a quick glance at her delinquent parents that when she came for "real" next week she would be wearing her uniform.

Kamryn didn't really participate all that much in this interview. She played with a puzzle with ECE (early childhood ed ...) Julie while we met teacher Julie and then she joined us in the classroom and checked out the doll house and the play kitchen while we chatted with Julies squared.

We answered a host of VERY boring questions about Kamryn's completely typical development and generallly accomodating and independent nature. We smiled to ourselves as the Julies worried about Kamryn suffering any separation anxiety. Daniel commented later that he's pretty certain he could put Kamryn on a plane with a flight attendant she had never laid eyes on and leave her with no concerns. I we discussed her development I was waiting, hackles already up, indignant reply playing through my head about why they needed to know, for "is the child adopted." I know that for a lot of schools that is a standard question. It's not a secret, it's just not an appropriate question in my opinion. The question never came. All that choler wasted.

I found out that nap time is 12:15 - 1:00 (I think they nap instead of a noon recess but I didn't ask further). I'm thinking unless they REALLY work them in the morning there is no way Kamryn will nap during that period but I guess we'll see. I know she will want to nap before the school day is over. I also found out that she has 16 children in her class which is at least 4 fewer than I thought there would be and which makes me happy. It looks like one of her "friends" from preschool will be in her class which has its advantages in at least she will know someone else and its disadvantages in that the little girl isn't the best influence (if she is any influence at all) on Kamryn in my opinion again we will see.

The biggest revelation of the meeting was that school next Wednesday is ALL day. I though it started as a half day; I don't know where I got that idea. So she is right into it next Wednesday.

We found her cubby in which she stowed her shoes and her blanket for nap time. There are no other Kamryn's in Pre-K although there are at least two in Kindergarten (this we discovered by reading the names of all the children outside the various classrooms).

We talked a bit about their teaching methods and Kamryn's sometime reluctance to try new things and/or to give up immediately when encountering any difficulty or missing perfection on her first try. We also discussed Kamryn's tendancy towards excitability when pair with another child (she is quite calm without an audience/accomplice). Part of the educational approach is teaching children to work calmly and quietly on their own - oh that will teach her LOADS!

All in all a good meeting. Kamryn is now very excited to return to school. It feels nice to see her looking forward to it.

My Across the Street Neighbour

Some may remember my posts about my neighbour who has waited it seems FOREVER to adopt a baby from Russia. Well, they left this morning to go and bring Maxime (pronounced Max-eem, we have another french Canadian on our street lol) home. He's 16 months old and just adorable. White blond hair and blue eyes and a little moon face. Can't wait to meet him. They are going to have so much fun.

I've never known a "real-life" contemporary who has adopted before (I've met many online friends that have been down that path but it's different when the person lives across the street). All my adoption experience have been friends that were adopted or friends of my parents who were adopting. This is the first time I have "seen it all go down." You know, I'm more excited for them than I was for friends who have been pregnant (even those who have undergone infertility treatments). I think it's because I understand how bad the ache and despair is and I know how much fun they are going to have. I'm just giddy for them.

Maxime may be the last addition to our street for a long while. I do have a neighbour who's daughter was tragically born stillborn this spring but I don't know what there plans are (I think they MIGHT try again but I know her heart is hurting :(). I think pretty much all of my other neighbours families are complete. It's been a 6 year cycle of babies, babies and more babies and now everyone's house is full :).

Last Day of Preschool

Thursday was Kamryn’s last day of preschool. Left me feeling all gooey inside.

I dressed her in the same dress she wore when she started preschool in January 2005! lol I guess I bought it a little big. I can remember looking at the shots I took back then and thinking how very grown up she looked. Looking back at them she was sooooooo very little.

She starts "big girl" school on 6 Sept and keeps asking me when she's going to be big like me. I get the idea that she thinks she will go to bed one night and wake up the next morning 5'9" and way too many pounds.

I'm sad that I won't be taking her to preschool anymore. She really enjoyed her time there. She's psyched to start school though and I'm very excited for her. She's ready and it's pretty obvious that she's outgrown her current school and needs more of a challenge. Bring on elementary school. Yikes!

We go into her school on Wednesday to meet her teacher and have a little pre-school interview. Her first day is September 6th.

Yadda-yadda-yadda...

Some Mom I am... I told you all about my new dining room and not at all about my "new" son. I thought I had; I honestly did. My excuse is that work is CRAZY right now. I've written 6 speeches in the last 8 days during a period that is supposed to be the quiestest of the year (ya right!)

Okay back to Sam. We can't shut him up. He talks constantly, has an opinion on everything and wants you to hear it. This summer has been phenominal for him he has just exploded linguistically. That's how it was with Kamryn to some extent but she was just silent and then talked. Sam was unintelligible for so long and then I guess something just clicked. He, interestingly, speaks MUCH more French than English. Odd.

Anyway, despite having most of our worries about his language development assuaged Daniel insisted we go forward with the appointment we made to have his language formally evaluated. The speech pathologist came to our home last Thursday for the evaluation. I couldn't have been prouder of Sam. You never know which little boy will show up (or stay!) - cooperative, happy boy or miserable, tantruming, you can't make me boy. For a two year old, Sam couldn't have behaved better.

The speech pathologist told us that she planned to start off with her regular test and see how long he would tolerate the formal test but that at his age children normally couldn't do it. Ha! Sam was cooperative from start to finish. He was even having fun. The good thing about the test was that by being forced to say specific words/sounds, we got a very good picture of what he could and couldn't say. I was really surprised at some of the things I didn't think he could do that he did fine when pushed. I think he might be a "lazy" ennunciator. Why try if gobbledegook works? he was nailing complicated words AND he was doing a lot of them in English which truly is his second language (she brought the wrong test along with her). It was funny at one point she pointed to the duck on her flashcard and asked Sam what it was. He told her "canard" (duck in french). She was trying to see if he could say the "Du - ck" sound and told him it was "duck in english" he looked at her like she was from Mars and said "no! Canard!" I cracked up.

He did very well with the flash cards, describing things he wasn't even asked to descibe. He was using 3 word sentences. He was flying. She did four different tests and then skipped the last one because she told us he was definitely on track and maybe even ahead and she didn't feel it necessary to waste our time and money further. In truth he was using sounds that he shouldn't be able to do for a few years. I was very proud of him.

We're waiting for the report to be written up, but honestly all concerns are completely gone. Now our only concern is how we will survive two non-stop chatterboxes in the house. Poor Daniel, the only quiet one in the family, he will never get a moment's silence.

A really important post (tongue firmly in cheek)

Okay don’t get me wrong – I have a nice house. It’s big, not as big as some but plenty for a family our size. It’s got some really nice touches. For instance we have a good sized family room off the kitchen which has some great advantages. The kids can destroy it/play while I cook dinner for instance. I also have a small laundry room off the kitchen which makes doing laundry a little less of a chore (although my family room is often full of laundry needing folding lol). Still, I’m often a little embarrassed when people come to visit.

We built this home in 2000. RIGHT in the middle of our infertility woes. If you didn’t know that we’d wasted (read:spent) an obscene amount of money on infertility treatments followed by two reasonable priced but still expensive adoptions you’d really wonder whey we wasted our money on such a large house that we couldn’t afford to furnish. We’ve been working on things. Slowly. We’ve gone room by room and done what we could afford. Family room — check. Nursery — check. Kitchen — check. Big girl room — check (Sam inherited the nursery). Living room — getting there. Our bedroom well – we’ll just close the door. Dinning room — maybe we should install doors or perhaps just seal it off.

When we moved in everyone in my family HATED the light fixture in our kitchen. As a housewarming gift my parents bought us a new fixture. We took the hated lighting fixture and hung it in the dining room where there was nothing, temporarily. Ya. It’s been six years. It gets worse. For our formal dinning room table we used the table my father’s friend had given me when I moved out of my parents’ house. Okay, it’s the one he had when he himself had gotten married 40 years ago, an old brown melamine table, nothing special. When you use your knife at this table, the entire table shakes. My father re-upholstered the four wooden chairs for me. The re-upholstered part is quite nice. The chairs, well they need a good coat of paint. They are after all 40 years old. We took the Ikea book cases from Claude’s old apartment, the one’s he used as a TV stand to use in place of a buffet and/or hutch. It was better than an empty room.

When more than 4 people came for dinner I would use our old kitchen table on little wooden blocks (so the tables were the same height) and cover them with a tablecloth.
I stored my good dishes and crystal in my kitchen pantry. I tried to be casual with guests about not finding just the right set yet. If I get a chance this week I’ll take a picture and let you drink all the luxury in.

So a friend came to hang out last week. They just built a new house down the road from us last fall. When they moved they left ALL their old furniture behind and bought all new stuff for their new house. Their home is devine. As we sat using the computer in our dinning room (might as well dump the computer there as we aren’t affecting the decor any). I commented that I had finally found a light fixture for the dinning room and that maybe it would give me the incentive to finish off the whole room. She giggled a little too politely at my little joke. Sigh.

Anyway I bought the “chandelier” the next day. Without telling my husband. It really is a temporary chandelier but definitely less temporary and embarrassing looking as what we have there now. I pulled out the new Ikea catalogue when he got home and told him I was sick of waiting to buy a dining room set that we liked AND could afford and that maybe we should get something serviceable and just live with that for awhile. The next day he showed me a furniture flyer that had a set that looked all right in the ad on sale. It was a going out of business sale. I acquiesced to going down and looking although I had no real intention of buying anything. We’ve looked for years and NEVER purchased. Only dreamt. On Saturday, 2 seconds after walking in the door, we had a new dining room set. We got home an on checking out our dining room and imagining the set in place (it won’t be delivered for 3 weeks) I decided that we needed to take better advantage of the sale that the Bombay Company was having and that I also needed a new clock. Ta da! Off to the store on yesterday to buy a new clock and just like that we now have a formal dining room. Although I still need window treatments and I guess I have to find somewhere else for the computer or at least a nicer desk.

I’m giddy with excitement and keep looking into the room longingly. Okay it’s a silly thing to be excited about but what I’m really excited about is living in a grown-ups house after living like a student for so very long. I have a good job. I’m careful with my money. This shouldn’t have taken so long. Infertility affects us in so many ways. If I could pop kids out like the next guy well this would have been done years ago and then some.

Ah well — Off to look at roll top desks.

On the Kids' Birthfamilies

Okay this is going to be disjointed. Sorry, I’m throwing up on paper. Lol

I’ve been reading kind of off and on of late, the Naked Ovary. I’m insanely jealous of the fact that hundreds/thousands(?) of people read her blog and about 20 read mine lol. She is much more interesting and funny than I am. I don’t spend a lot of time reading it though because she generally is writing about where I’ve already been and while interesting isn’t adding much to my life except voyeuristic glee (lots of that lately since she has just been matched :)) Anyway, recently – big controversy – on her opinions or, for some, apparent lack there of on her daughter’s birthmother. Started me thinking a little of Kamryn and Sam’s birthfamilies.

I think about their birthparents a lot. Probably daily. It’s part of raising the adoptive kid. There are adoptive parents out there who I know like to pretend the birthparents don’t exist. Sadly many more than you’d expect. I can’t. Kamryn will proudly tell you that she has gorgeous curly hair – just like her birthmom Sarah. Sam has a collage on his wall of his birth family that we go through each night in the hopes that he will not forget the family he spent the first year of his life with but now never sees. Anyway we think about them and talk about them a lot. It’s not always easy.

About a year ago I wrote about ending the monthly updates with Kamryn’s birthparents. A distance has developed there. I don’t know if it’s because I chose not to write as often and they were waiting for permission to step back a bit or if it is just circumstances. Kamryn’s birthdad moved to Kenya in January and technology makes it harder for him to stay in contact. When I do send out e-mails I may or may not get a response from Kamryn’s birthmother. If I do get a response it could be WEEKS later. From her birthdad we hear very little. Never an e-mail (he does have e-mail access I think). He’s called three times – Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Kamryn’s birthday. Dunno. Contact is good just not often.

Sam’s birthfamily is sporadic as well. Nana, claims she doesn’t get my e-mails. Well I can’t fix whatever filter she has accidentally put on her e-mail account from here. She calls but not very often – once every two months or so, maybe. She was supposed to visit in May (for his birthday) but had to cancel (pretty typical of her) and has finally rescheduled for the end of August but I’m not holding my breath. She last visited (her only time) in November 2005. She is afraid he will have forgotten her – so now I’m anxious that he has. We show him her picture nightly (as I mentioned above) but there isn’t much more than we can do. Also – he used to call Kamryn, Nana (I understand this only makes sense to those of you who know Kamryn’s real name). That’s how he said her name. After months of repeating “not Nana, say Kamryn” he finally got it. About two weeks ago. So I told him to say goodbye to Nana on the phone last week and he says, you guessed it, good-bye Kamryn. So now part of our nighttime routine is reinforcing the word “Nana.” He now thinks it's a big joke and this kid LOVES to clown. God only knows what he will say when he actually sees her. She won't think it's funny if he doesn't call her Nana.

Anyway, contact with Sam’s birthmother has been weird but that’s not unusual either. As our relationship “develops” her developmental delays are more and more apparent. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not dealing with an adult but, mentally in a lot of ways, a pre-teenager. When she sends an e-mail I need to respond immediately or she panics that we are somehow hiding from her. No matter that she doesn’t respond to an e-mail from us for months if at all. She needs that reassurance that we haven’t disappeared with her boy. I understand that little but she panics after hours not days. She might send us 12 e-mails in a week. She may not send us any e-mails for months and months. We worry when she disappears because we seriously worry about losing her someday (as does her own family). Anyway… nothing we can do there. She’s had serious difficulties of late that I can’t get into but at least would make her easier to find. Sigh.

Okay all that ramble brings me to who I’m really thinking about and the serious repercussions -- Sam’s birthfather. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t; no one knows but we spent a lot of money terminating his parental rights because he wasn’t cooperating. He was happy to interfere just enough to slow the adoption down but not enough to actually get involved (i.e. show up at court or even answer the phone). He never stated anything about wanting Sam by the way. There never really was a chance of him getting him. If Sam hadn't been adopted by us or another family he would have become a permanent ward of the state. Before the adoption was finalized the adoption agency counseled that we have no contact with him whatsoever. He’s kind of a scary guy so I’m not sure I want any contact with him. I would like to know for sure whether he is Sam’s birthfather though for several reasons most predominant of which is that Sam’s going to want to know and I want to be able to tell him.

I have this man's last known address, his grandmother’s house, so conceivably if I sent something there it would eventually make it’s way to her. I don’t want him to have our address though (although if he is Sam's birthfather I wouldn't be adverse to letting him know about this great little boy). I need to look into maybe renting a PO Box. I don’t know if he’d write back. I don’t know how long I’d have to keep the PO Box. Perhaps I should write him through the adoption agency. I don’t know if they’d help or if have to pay for that kind of help. Lots of I don’t knows. It makes it easier to procrastinate. The longer I procrastinate though the greater the likelihood that I will lose this man who right now is just a name and the nasty things we’ve been told.

I am so dreading the questions that will come from Sam on his birthfamily. They are going to be VERY tough to answer. In this case I wish I knew less because “I don’t know” would be the easy answer. But I do know, and because of that I need to know more. It's all very depressing.

Wanna know a secret?

I don’t miss my husband.

Okay I do miss him but not in the way I expected to miss him. I miss his company, not his help. I was thinking this morning as I walked into work that this is not at all as hard as I thought being alone was going to be. I’m quite competent and kind of enjoying the simplicity of doing things on my own – my way.

Now I’ve cut some corners in the past few days but not that many. I actually had to edit this paragraph because I was listing the corners that I was cutting and I could only really come up with one thing. They’ve eaten (for some strange reason) a lot of hot dogs. Oh and I haven’t put the laundry away – I just keeping moving it back and forth from the big chair in my bedroom to the bed and back again. Last night, (at midnight!) I at least folded a bunch of it.

The kids have had their normal number of baths and showers. I’ve been grocery shopping with them. They’ve had a playdate that included dinner – hotdogs! They’ve been to a picnic – more hot dogs! Tonight, if it doesn’t rain I’m going to take them to this new and wonderful park that the Kiwanis Club has built a short drive from our house. We will have something for dinner that isn’t composed of spare beef bits grinded up. The house (except to the laundry, hidden in my bedroom since the playdate on Friday (when I moved it from the couch in the playroom lol) is neat and picked up. I’ve ordered a new chandelier for the dinning room that I haven’t even mentioned to Daniel (it was on sale and there were only a “limited number” (fifty-six) available so I had to act fast lol).

It’s just so much easier to say wash the dishes when I know I’m the one who dirtied them. I feel responsible for making sure they get washed immediately. I get my dérrière out of bed in the morning to get everyone washed and fed because there isn’t anyone else to do it. It’s much easier to pull up your socks when you know that if you don’t then your ankles will just get cold – no one else is going to do anything about it. I feel less guilty when I hop on to the computer after the kids have gone to bed instead of spending “quality time” gazing at the TV and drooling next to Daniel on the couch.

Okay sleep isn’t going well at all – for me though, not the kids. They are sleeping fine. I haven’t managed to close my eyes much before 1 am yet. I hate sleeping alone. Last night was the best but that’s because the exhaustion is catching up on me. Tonight will hopefully be easier still and tomorrow, late, he will be home. Got to get the laundry away.

The kids seem to be doing fine as well. They ask about Daniel but more in a matter of fact, accepting way and MUCH less than I thought they would. I have told them both that Daniel is on vacation visiting his “Maman and Papa.” Kamryn gets this and asked me this morning how much longer we were going to wait for him (like we were sitting pining by the window lol). :) Sam seems to equate the word “vacation” with his grandparents (who were on vacation for the better part of this summer) and golf (also a grandparent thing) so he thinks his dad is out playing a very long game of golf I guess. Lol They’re doing fine but will be thrilled to see their father on Wednesday morning.

So we are all holding it together. I think much longer than a week and what would get to me would be the loneliness. Competency is fine. Having time to do what I want to do instead of lining things up with Daniel – nice, but when the kids go down it is AWFUL quiet in the house. I couldn’t handle much more the 6 days of it I think. That and while it’s Monday morning I can’t say I feel particularly rested. I feel like I spent ALL weekend running - hard. Every joint and muscle in my body is actually sore. I think I’m actually a little exhausted and it’s only been 5 days. Egads. I am spoiled.

My Sunday at the beach (not really a day at the beach)

I'm so punny. :) lol

I've always been of the mind that at 2 discipline is pretty hit and miss. You try to discipline because well you can't let your kids run wild (or can you?). Anyway you do your best and just hope. I expect that everything I say remains in Sam's little head for about 2.3 minutes - about the length of a time-out. I am sooooo wrong about that.

Yesterday, I took Kamryn and Same to a big family picnic that friends of my parents hold every year. It was VERY close to home. My plan had been to take the kids in the morning and let them play, feed them lunch at the picnic and then run them home for naps around 2. That meant pushing nap time for Sam by just a little (on a normal morning where he hasn't been playing hard he goes down around 1:30).

So at around 1:00 I sat them down to give them lunch. My four year old sits down happily to eat. The moment Sam sees her get food, he starts to freak out that he wants some to. Okay give me a sec kid I have yours all ready I just got Kamryn set up first because she's easier. I take him by the hand and lead him to the other side of the picnic table. Sit him down and give him his little styrofoam plate of cut up hot-dog and bread. I got back around the other side to open up the cooler and get them their milk. In the cooler were juice boxes. I very rarely let my kids have juice - no better than liquid candy. Special occasions (like picnics in the park) are the rule. We don't even buy juice at home. Earlier I had given them both a juice box with their snack. He knows the juice is in the cooler and IMMEDIATELY refuses to eat and demands juice. I told him there was no juice for him and to eat his lunch and that I had milk for him. He looks me in the face, scowls and sweeps his hand rapidly across the table, flinging his food to the dirt below.

I, calmly, (quite proud of myself here - nothing like having a battle of wills with a two-year old in front of at least 30 people who knew you when you were two-years old!) asked my mother if she would keep my Kamryn for the afternoon - why should she have to leave the picnic early because he brother was in a snit - left instructions on the food in the cooler that Kamryn could have. Picked Sam up and left - all within 3 minutes. The entire time he is screaming at the top of his little lungs and as highly pitched as possible "manger picnic" (eat picnic). I walked to the car - he is screaming. I strap him in - he is screaming. I drive home (5 minutes) he is screaming. I even stopped along the way to give my parking pass to a shocked family that was just arriving - he is screaming. I unstrap him - he is screaming. I carried him upstairs and changed his diaper. Screaming. Put him in his crib screaming. The same phrase over and over and over again - "manger picnic." He is screaming this desperate, high pitched, "you will listen to me or else" way. I never said a word to him after my initial calm reproach that his behaviour was unacceptable. I closed the door and walked downstairs, screaming STOPPED -- like someone turned a switch. I waited 3 minutes and went back upstairs and he was sound asleep. Exhaustion is ALWAYS a bad deal with Sam. He's not giving up naps anytime soon. He slept for exactly 3 hours.

When he got up I changed him, fed him and put him in the car to go back to the picnic. We get about half way there and he keeps saying "ecouter" (listen). So I finally asked "ecouter what" Sam. He says to his stunned mother: "Ecouter Maman. Ecouter Granddad. Ecouter Grandma. Ecouter Kamryn" I laughed at the last one and told him he didn't have to listen to his sister. He went on. "Manger. Pas dégât" (Eat no mess). "Picnic."

Lordy - 4 hours later. He remembered why we had left. He understood the consequences. I never thought it possible.

And thus ends day one of my life as a single parent ...

No Daniel hasn't left me; well entirely. He's gone home to help his parents out for a few days. His father is very ill with Alzheimers and his mother is very alone. To go with the kids would be no help at all. They are noisy and rambunctious and would just annoy their grandfather who I doubt would know who they were or why the were there. :( Makes me want to cry. As a toddler, Kamryn used to follow her grandpérè around everywhere and he just ate it all up. He wasn't with it enough when we visited last summer to truly understand where Sam even came from. I just spent all my time trying to keep Sam out of his way. Okay I am starting to cry so I must stop talking about Luc. Say a prayer for him please...

I took the day off work because my parents schedules just weren't lining up at all today and I needed to stay home with the kids. Anyway, I dropped Daniel at the airport this morning (what a wonderful day to fly...NOT) and I've been on my own since 10 am. Until I go to bed though it's not THAT unusual an experience. Daniel often works very late and I handle dinner and bedtime by my lonesome but it's pretty rare I go to bed alone. Bed beckons though. Am I avoiding it. I think subconsciously since it has never occurred to me to sit and write a blog entry at midnight before.

I just wanted to somehow record the passing of the days. Was a busy night and will actually be a pretty full couple of days - playdate tomorrow after work, golf date on Saturday with some buddies (my parents will watch Tweedledee and Tweedledum for me), picnic with friends on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday are looking a little empty now but. until the phone started ringing tonight around 8, so did the weekend. lol

Okay need to go to bed. To complicate my life just a little the Minister's office broke a cardinal rule this week (the speechwriting unit has a mandate to lay about and do nothing all summer because no one needs speeches when the House isn't in session). He has gone and planned a two week trip to the Pacific Rim. He needs something like 13 speeches! I've got three to so. I want to be out of the house by 7:15 am and that will be somewhat of a challenge, I'm sure.

More from me tomorrow if ai find a moment, maybe 'round midnight. :)

Our Vacation to the Middle of the Sun

I haven’t gotten around to writing about our vacation last month (yikes! Summer is just flying) yet. I’ve meant to. I’ve had time. I just haven’t had much motivation to sit down and write. It’s weird when I write it’s generally because something strikes me and I have a compulsion to write about it – like our potty incident with Sam the other morning. There are other things I want to write about but that takes more effort in a way.

This morning, hiding in a stall in the women’s bathroom (teehee) I got the compulsion to write about Dallas. Okay I bet you’re wondering what about the woman’s washroom reminds me about Dallas aren’t ya? No Dallas does not resemble a public bathroom. J I was doing ‘my business’ while two other women yelled at the top of their lungs back and forth about how hot it is here right now. The conversation they were having made me think of Dallas and it’s poor citizens who really do know what hot is.

I think Dallas reset my internal body thermometer. Or maybe it’s been broken all along since stunningly hot as it was while we were there I didn’t find it all that onerous for the most part. It was kind of “cool” (as in a unique experience). The morning we left for Dallas I turned on the news and the forecaster was going on about how “very hot” it was going to be in our area that day. Temperature was forecast to hit 86F + humidity. I thought in my naïve little mind that this would make the temperatures in Dallas easy to adjust to. How much hotter could it be there? Hmmm… how much hotter is Mercury than Pluto?

We arrived at 5 in the evening and it was 102F + humidity. Didn’t get much cooler the 6 days we were there. Sam didn’t like the heat at all. One afternoon when leaving the hotel he got to the edge of the shade and stopped dead and announced “Pas ça! Chaud!” (Not that! Hot! ). He refused to go any further. He looked at me like I was crazy to keep taking him out into this awful heat (smart kid!). When I picked him up to carry him, he buried his face in my shoulder to escape the sun. Only looked out for a moment to give the whole situation a “raspberry” and then promptly buried his head in my shoulder again. He certainly isn’t a fan of temperature extremes be they hot or cold and isn’t shy about letting you know how he feels. It’s completely adorable.

Don’t know what he’s up to here:



It was a challenging trip for all. Sam’s not the best air traveler and we were traveling over his nap (both coming and going). Unfortunately on the outgoing trip he was just too exhausted and couldn’t wind down enough to fall asleep but was certainly unhappy (read screaming at the top of his little lungs) at being awake. Kamryn was no superstar either. We were probably expecting a lot more maturity out of her than we got. I think she traveled better as a younger child even. We were those people on the plane that EVERYONE hates and no one looks at with understanding. Ah well, we will never see any of those people again.

Both kids did well in the hotel though although I don’t see how they couldn’t have. Through a little bit of planning and a big mix-up we ended up staying in the Presidential Suite. We took pictures of the kids standing under the sign outside the room that read Presidential Suite because it’s doubtful that such a chance will happen again until they are rich and famous and paying for it themselves.



It was like a VERY nice apartment that we wouldn’t afford to rent. Each child had its own double “sleep number” bed. They shared a bedroom and slept really well (and late!) during the whole vacation. It was Sam’s first real experience with sleeping in a bed (he naps occasionally in bed at my parents house). He never even came close to falling out of the bed (the first night I surrounded him with pillows and put pillows on the floor around the bed but he stayed right in the centre of the bed all night long). He stayed in bed all night and did fine in the morning – both he and Kamryn would troop into our room on waking without getting into trouble first. This is a positive sign for when we finally free Sam from the crib on his twelfth birthday.

While in Dallas we visited the Dallas Arboretum where the kids had a wild time playing in this “giant frog” fountain. Sam wasn’t too sure at first but certainly got into it after a while. Kamryn was born to be wet.



Sam, checking out a treehouse:



We also visited the Dallas World Aquarium where both kids got a real kick out of all the animals. Sam most literally squealed in delight at the sharks. Aquarium is definitely a misnomer since it’s kind of a mini-indoor zoo.

Mostly we enjoyed visiting with some really great friends. We got together with a bunch of people that I met through Friends By Adoption. People I have spoken to and seen pictures of for years and had never met. It was surreal to open our hotel room door and see a wall of faces that I knew attached to moving and talking bodies. It was a great day. Everyone was nicer than you could even imagine. Kamryn is still talking about one of the little boys she met as if they have regular play dates. It was a wonderful day.

The highlight though was the time we spent with some very special friends, a friend and her family that I met way back when I started journaling on The Labor of Love. I’m so glad we connected so long ago. They were the reason we went to Dallas and they were such terrific hosts. They really went out of their way to make us feel welcome. They took us out to eat (oh we went to the coolest restaurant called Babes and ate real Southern cooking; I wish I knew how to make biscuits like that; I’d be the size of a house! Okay, I must admit that I’m on a quest to learn how to make biscuits like that. I yearn for them. ) They had us over to their house; we had a wonderful barbecue/pool party at C’s Mom’s house. They totally spoiled us. Last night in the car Kamryn was asking about when we were going back to visit C’s mother. She wanted to know why we couldn’t drive there. I asked her if she remembered the 6-hour flight. Lol We thought that Dallas was a once in a lifetime vacation, but I’m almost certain we will go back. Probably not in mid-July though.

Oh interesting aside, the heat the women were complaining about in the bathroom today (and oh they were complaining big time!) … well yesterday it was a dizzying 87. How DID we survive? lol Right now it’s 85F (humidex of 107) heading for a high of 93F + whatever the humidity brings it to. It’s warm, today especially, but really… In two months we’ll be lucky to crack 50F. Who will be complaining then?

Sam has been abducted by aliens! Should I call the authorities?

When I went to take Sam out of his crib this morning he wasn’t there! Instead there was a little boy who looked EXACTLY like him perhaps put there in the middle of the night while we slept, oblivious. How do I know it’s not really my son that was in the crib this morning you ask? Well here is my evidence:

Morning routine the last two weeks or so (since we instituted potty stops)…

Sam wakes and calls for his Daniel (always his Daniel; I try not to let this bruise my ego). I go in and he looks at me and immediately asks to go downstairs and either eat or “voir Papa” (see Daddy). If he isn’t already screaming and whining, the screaming (as if his skin is being flayed from his body) and whining begins at this point. Generally it’s already started. He refuses to stand up so I can lift him out of the crib. If I’m feeling charitable I reach in and get him. If not there is much more screaming as I pretend to leave.

Okay now we move toward the change table to change his sopping diaper. More screaming about going downstairs to eat or see his Dad. The way he pleads to eat you’d think we never give the boy food. I explain in a calm Caillou Mom voice that first he has to change his diaper and/or have a pee-pee and then he can go and do everything he wants. He screams louder, kicks some, and at times hits me. Wonderful. I smile (inside I reminding myself of the struggle we went through to bring him home). Take him by the hand and put his little naked butt on the toilet. He screams and jumps down. I smile put him back on the toilet and walk away. He stays and screams and screams and screams some more. After, going around making sure all our windows are closed, wondering what the neighbours think we do to our children and waiting 5 minutes I return (I’ve learned that sitting with him just makes him scream more), remove him from the toilet – sometimes he pees; sometimes he doesn’t. He used to unroll the toilet paper and shred it in protest. Daniel cured him of that “hobby.” When he pees he generally calms down immediately (in anticipation of a reward) when he doesn’t …. Sigh. Diaper him while he screams and then send him downstairs screaming.

This morning:

He called, still for Daniel. I walked in and he was playing and hide-and-seek with his blanket. When he does this I generally play along (screaming does not ensue until after the game has ended) but this morning I was in a hurry – bus in 10 minutes! I pretended I couldn’t find him as I lifted the covers off of him and lifted him from the crib. He asked to go downstairs and eat. I asked him what do you have to do first and he replied “pee-pee.” There was no screaming. I was stunned; he does understand. I was beginning to wonder if he understood that once he went “pee-pee” that I would let him do whatever he wanted or whether he thought he was doomed to stay in the bathroom his entire life. He’d had me on the ropes until this morning. I was thinking of ending this routine.

He asked to take his little stuffed snowman with him. As he wasn’t screaming, I thought what the heck let him have a toy. Mean Mom that I am, I normally hesitate to let him bring toys with him because generally they become the focus and he never pees. We walked to the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet. Still no screaming. As I turned to leave he peed the biggest pee ever and had a big giggle, made stuffed snowman pee. Again I was stunned. This is when the reality dawned that this was not indeed my son but some replacement. I took him to his change table to look for the batteries. Finding none I replaced his diaper and sent him on his way downstairs. Since that is where he had been asking to go. No… he went to my bedroom and stood PATIENTLY by my dresser where I keep the stickers so that he could have one. I thought of how well they hid the batteries; you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t a real boy. I let him pick a sticker, which he took happily and then he did something that sealed the case. He asked for one for his sister! I gave him one and he raced downstairs happy and proud as punch to give it to her. No screaming, peeing AND sharing.

I wonder how long this boy will stay and when they will return my son to me. I’m hoping the experiments the aliens are carrying out will leave some residual robot boy behavior behind in Sam.

Okay, for those of you horrified by my toilet training methods. We aren’t really toilet training in the full sense. I don’t have an agenda (having been taught quite thoroughly by Kamryn that this won’t happen on my timetable no matter how much I want it to) and fully expect to be buying diapers until Sam starts college. We put him on the potty for 5 minutes whenever he is diaperless. That’s it. He used to scream to not have his diaper changed in the morning as well so it's not just the potty causing the screaming. He just doesn’t like not getting his way. The potty stop, which obviously isn’t his idea, isn’t helping reduce the decibel level around our home.

Repeating Myself

If you keep a journal long enough I guess, eventually you begin to repeat yourself. Bear with me, today is a special day. I'm all weepy.

Meredith - I've been following your blog and thought of you when I read this over - September could be late August. lol Get shopping! Not that you need much encouragement there. :)

The Weather Network here runs little clips of “weather events” that have occurred in recent history as a lead in from commercials. They run about a 15 sec clip accompanied with a month, year and place. A few weeks ago I caught one and I didn’t need the caption to immediately know the exact day it was taken. It showed blinding rain and winds. The kind of rain that make you pull over when driving because ALMOST nothing is important enough to risk forcing your way through. It was tagged with “Kitchener, Ontario” perhaps an hour from where Kamryn was born. I knew when it was because I drove, like a COMPLETE madwoman, for over 7 hours through that storm (admittedly it wasn’t coming down like a hurricane for the entire 7 hours but there were plenty of scary periods).

We’d had a late night the night before, a Thursday (oh if we only knew how long it would be before we would sleep properly again lol). Less then 10 days after being matched with a baby due in mid-August euphoria was high. We were due to make the 7 hour drive to ************* (just north of Big City) on Saturday to meet our potential birthfather who was flying in from England. We’d rented a car for the trip because we felt neither of our ancient beaters was up to the task. I was flittering valuable sleeping time away making lists of what we would need to bring with us and dragged myself to bed around midnight. I turned my cell phone off and left it sitting in the family room when I went up to bed.

The next morning I was up early and out the door. Tossed my cellphone in my bag, grabbed and umbrella cause the weather was icky and ran for the bus. Once the baby arrived I planned to take 11 months off work and really needed to buckle down and get my office, files, job organized for whoever was coming in behind me. Today was the day – having spent the previous week daydreaming, shopping and generally dreaming about impending mommyhood.

So I’m sitting on the bus, minding my own business and trying to plan out my day when my phone begins to ring. My cell phone NEVER rings. Almost no one, even today, has the number. I constantly forget to even turn it on. Figured it was Daniel with a last minute request for me. But no, it was “the birthmom.” I tried to keep things light as my mind panicked and raced over why she could be calling. They changed their mind? Birthfather didn’t want to meet us anymore? We shouldn’t come this weekend because it wasn’t convenient? I’m totally panicked when she says “congratulations, you’re a Mom.” Okay I lost it. I was crying and shaking and talking REALLY loudly (on a public bus mind you). Kamryn had been born at 3:18 am. Sarah, Kamryn’s birthmom had gone into labour at 11 pm but didn’t call because she figured it would take awhile and it was the middle of the night. When it became apparent that it wasn’t going to take a while she tried desperately to get a hold of us but of course my cell phone (her only direct link to us) was in our family room and off while I dozed upstairs.

I didn’t know what to do, I was halfway to work on an express bus (express busses only run one way; getting home on the bus at that time of day would literally take over an hour). The whole bus was clapping and congratulating me (once I hung up the phone and the world was starring at me, I had to explain to my fellow passengers) – I still get teary thinking about it. So I went to work and tried to call someone to come and get me. DANIEL had had knee surgery the month before and was in physic therapy (not that he could drive anyway but I thought I should at least tell him). His cell phone was off! I called my parents – no answer! In the rain, my mother had gone to drive my Dad to the golf course – silly man plays no matter what. I was bouncing off my office walls when a colleague told me to sit down and have a glass of water and think for a minute. Good advice. I called my girlfriend who lived almost an hour away and who promised to throw emergency baby supplies in her car and rush right over. Finally I got a hold of my mother who I didn’t tell what was going on (as I didn’t want her to get into a car accident). I just asked her to come and pick me up at work because I needed to go home. When she arrived I told her I would drive and to please move over I had some news for her. She cried when I told her.
When I caught up with Daniel at the physio therapists office he looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign tongue and told me to please wait he had to make an appointment for his next therapy session. He really didn’t get it. It was hilarious to see the non understanding on his face.

We had to get to ************* now, the weather was getting worse and we didn’t have a vehicle. We threw our partially packed stuff together and grabbed all the baby stuff we had collected over the week and headed for the rental agency to see what they could offer us. We had originally reserved and Escape but that was for the next day. On their lot they had a VW beetle and a Ford Explorer Sport Trac. Okay I though a Ford Explorer Sport Trac was and Ford Explorer with a sporty look to it. lol When they drove it around I about died and asked to take a look at the beetle – maybe we could make it work. Not a chance. So there we were with the Sport Trac – open bed in a driving rain storm. It was big enough inside the cab to get all the luggage inside though and we prayed that on our return – with a baby – that the weather would be nice enough to leave the enormous amount of stuff we were taking with us (we didn’t know how long we would be stuck there) in the back. All ready to go and DANIEL accidentally locked the keys in the truck. No problem you would figure since we hadn’t left the rental agency. Well you might think that but they didn’t have keys! We had to wait for someone from their central garage to come and help us. I was going nuts.

Once we got the truck opened it was a pretty uneventful trip to ************* – with the exception of the driving rain and my kamikaze driving skills. Took us about 8 hours with a stop for lunch and a pumping break for me (I was pumping in preparation for breastfeeding). We didn’t have a hotel because that was the same weekend the Pope was in Big City for World Youth Day and there wasn’t a hotel room to be found for miles. We got there just after 7 pm. Tiny hospital. Kamryn was waiting at the nurses station and EVERYONE was excitedly waiting for us. She was so perfect with an incredibly round head and just enough hair. She’d scratched the living daylights out of her little face though. Poor kid. I got to nurse her within 20 minutes of arriving and they had a room for us (arranged by Sarah who was amazing!) so no worries on the hotel. We stayed in the hospital 5 extremely stressful days while they worked out the paperwork (it was a mess but that’s a story for another day). On the day the hospital said no more we can’t keep you – the Ministry of Child and Social Services finally approved us as adoptive parents (totally last minute, we thought Kamryn was going to foster care and I must have cried all day). We left the hospital at 6pm and it took us 9 hours to drive home. Nothing like walking into a highway rest stop with a 5-day-old baby to get shocked looks from people (not that we had any choice). We had planned to drive and get as far away from ************* as Kamryn would let us and then stop. Although the last hour and a half was AWFUL (I HAD to drive as Daniel couldn’t. Problem was nor could Daniel nurse and that’s what she wanted) she let us get all the way home. Got home at 3 am with our precious baby. Can’t believe 4 years have gone by.

The Preschool is still standing!

Dropped Sam off at pre-school today. I actually went in to the school with them this morning as I had nothing to do at work anyways so why rush in. I was so proud of him. He really seems to like it there and I'm less nervous about him being booted. God he's adorable.

Kamryn gave me a long and running commentary yesterday evening on all the things Sam did "wrong." She is a geat spy and loves to tell on her brother which I'm thinking isn't a good thing. Regardless, nothing he did was a big surprise but none of it was all that egregious either. He didn't smack anyone and it seems he didn't scream the place down. Fingers crossed that today goes as well.

Pics for yesterday:

Not particularly interested in having his photo taken.



Very proud of the sticker on his wrist (his reward for using the potty before school).



His beloved "scoobag":

You guys make me blush...

Thanks for the kind and encouraging comments about my writing. I've always liked to write but never thought I was much good at it. This job doesn't help either because you write something and then 4 levels of people look at it and tear it apart for what's wrong with it. You really question your abilities after awhile although intellectually I know that no matter how perfect a speech I write is someone I answer to is ALWAYS going to think they know how to make it better because that is their job. They need to make it better to justify their paycheck. It's actually the last "level" that is the worst because that's the Minister's office - ummm.... shhhhh! don't tell on me but they ALWAYS make it worse. Sometimes their changes are so bad that I hope no one knows that I wrote the original text because I don't want people to think that I wrote that "schlop."

Okay I'll post the piece I wrote (although now I'm terrified you will all read it - I think most of you have already actually - and wonder what kind of drugs I'm smoking that I believe someone would actaully publish it and give me money.) Note: I know it's too long but figured I would let an editor tell me that - maybe this is a mistake? I could cut five things; there are a couple (not 5 but a couple) of things on the list that were just there to make it "25 things long". Also, it's been edited for a Canadian audience as I'm only sending it to Canadian publications as I'm not sure it fits a US audience all that well - it's a little too critical.

Last summer my family (my husband, 3 year-old daughter, 1 year-old son and I) drove to Winnipeg, Manitoba from Ottawa, Ontario. We thought we’d drive through the US on our little family adventure. I was dreading the journey. I survived.

13 days (7 days of which were spent at our destination)
2 provinces
5 states
1 Mazda Tribute Red/Grey
2 adults
2 toddlers
12 Provincial Highways
25 US Interstates/Highways
5 hotels
4 border crossings
3400 miles/5440 km
1 speeding ticket (not mine! somewhat deserved although I’m not sure hubby didn’t get tricked into it as the speed limit must have changed 6 times in 2 miles.)
12 fill-ups
145 gallons/549.67 L of fuel

Twenty-Five Things I Learned on the Road Trip from Hell:

1. Driving from sun-up until well past sundown for 6 solid days in a well equipped but smallish SUV with two kids and a cranky husband will not kill you.

2. Staying in various hotel rooms for two weeks with two toddlers and a cranky husband might just kill you. I still need to make an appointment with the doctor to assess what damage was done.

3. There are some super nice customs agents out there. i.e. the Canadian customs officer who helped us document the electronics that we owned and were bringing into the States. He told us that we were of “no interest” to customs agents (who are instead looking for terrorists older than 3 and 14 months old) and that if anyone gave us any problems to give them his badge number and he would “deal with them.”

4. There are some customs agents who need a boot to the head. The U.S. Customs guy who made my husband take the slice of roast beef out of the sub he had with him for lunch and throw it away because of the ban on bringing beef into the US. He quite sarcastically told me when I pointed out that my husband was going to eat it in about 15 minutes that if he wanted to drive back to Canada to eat it that would be fine. He claimed that rather than eating his sandwich my husband could throw it away thus infecting the entire US with mad-cow – which was of course our mad plan. Foiled again! He made it worse by condescendingly asking us if we had heard of the ban on “importing” beef into the US and informing us that if it were a cow younger than two years than it would be all right. Ugh! (just so you know I’m not biased the customs agent on our trip into Michigan was more than pleasant).

5. The quality of the hotel stayed in (and they ability of the bottom bed sheet to remained properly tucked in) is inversely proportional to how long you have to stay there. It is in no way related to price you are paying.

6. That no matter how good your kids are being in the back seat you should say nothing about it out loud because if you do chaos will reign for the remainder of the day.

7. That US interstates are peppered with road signs and billboards that can be an entertaining diversion on a very long car drive.

8. That Canadian highways have comparably almost no billboards or road signs and that is a welcome relief after days of starring at billboards.

9. That there seems to be an obsession with the purchase of fireworks in the US. This as evidenced from all the billboard advertisements i.e. buy one, get six free, and Fireworks Superstores we saw along the highway. I don’t get it. I’m not sure you can even buy fireworks here. If you can I have no idea where – maybe we need more billboards and less boring trees.

10. That if you drive for hours and hours perusing, via billboard, the different fast food joints at which you may enjoy a “delectable” meal that the moment you decide you need to stop for food, gas, potty break etc. ALL evidence that there are any restaurants, gas stations, rest stops etc. will vanish from the earth for the next several hours.

11. Fill-up in Gary, Indiana because after that there are no readily available gas stations until you are most of the way through Chicago.

12. Related to the above. Our truck can go almost 600 km (360 miles) on one fill-up (60 litres/16 U.S. gallons). We didn’t know that previously.

13. American rest stops (at least in the states we traveled through) are AMAZING, in good weather. I suspect they would definitely suck in nasty weather - nicely appointed parks where a family could picnic abounded. The inverse is true for Canadian rest stops which might explain a lot considering the amount of nasty weather we can have.

As we had good weather all but one day the US ones win, hands down. Of course, you can’t buy real food at the U.S. Rest Stops which are only stocked with vending machines. That isn’t great but at least the kids can run around outdoors and burn off some energy and as an option there are a gazillion fast food places just off the highway which is less true when traveling down the Trans Canada Highway.

14. I do not care if I NEVER EVER enter a MacDonald’s EVER again. Actually I do care so I should restate this – My life’s goal is to never enter a MacDonald’s ever again.

15. Never potty train an almost 3-year-old right before a road-trip. Talk about total meltdowns whenever a “nap” induced accident or near-accident occurred.(yes, my almost 3-year old has very high standards for herself. What this meant was every time my daughter awoke from a nap there was a meltdown that invoked memories of 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl. This doesn’t happen when she has slept in a bed. I don’t know why this is, but I am grateful.)

16. If you ask the previously mentioned 3-year old if they need to use the bathroom the will insist they do not have to until 2.7 seconds (+ or – 3 seconds) after you pass the exit for the Rest Stop or nearest convenient exit. Next Rest Stop 60 miles!

17. 3-year olds (notice a trend here; and I thought the one-year old traveler was going to be the challenge) get bored and stiff in the car and will regularly claim to need to use the potty whether they need to or not. If you listen and stop every time they request it, you will NEVER get where you are going. As evidenced by day 4 on the road where a short 7 ½ hours of driving took almost 12). A “bathroom stop” schedule dictated by Mom (confidence buoyed by the convenience of Pull-Ups) is a necessity. Pity that I didn’t figure out this simple point until day 6 of driving. Duh!

18. 3 year-olds should always travel in Pull-ups. A lesson that thankfully we didn’t need to be taught but were grateful common sense dictated. Day one was good but it went downhill from there.

19. Kids will always fall asleep 5 minutes before you need to stop for food, gas, the night, etc. They will of course wake up the MOMENT the vehicle ceases forward motion with their 5 minute nap leaving them either refreshed enough to party all night when you desperately want to sleep or refreshed enough not to want to fall asleep again but as cranky as and octogenarian with hemorrhoids the size of oranges.

20. The “Weather Channel” in the U.S. does not hold a candle to Canada’s “Weather Network”. I feel sorry for all Americans. My husband explains that Americans are more well rounded than Canadians and not as obsessed with every factoid and detail about the past, present and future weather for their current location and any other location in the country they may visit in the next 3 years.

21. Crazy people in some U.S. states ride motorcycles without helmets. Why would one do that? Wouldn’t the wind mess your hair up anyways? Not to mention what the pavement might do to it.

22. Eating somewhat nutritious foods in a real restaurant instead of fast food junk might be good for the children (if they actually ate said food) but certainly does nothing for the other dining patrons or Mom and Dad’s sanity. I sat in the car with my daughter during dinner on day 2 after being hit in the head with mashed potatoes and gravy. I sat in the car with my son on day 4 after he threw pretty much everything he was given to eat on the floor. I sat in the car with … notice a trend.

23. Cheerios are a wonderful and necessary tool when dealing with slow service. Always walk with Cheerios.

24. Duty Free shops in Canada are entirely civilized, clearly marked and conveniently located. Duty Free shops in the U.S. remain a complete mystery to me. We kept missing them and those we found (note we crossed the border 4 times) were these odd warehouses with counters at which you placed an order to be picked up MILES away when you got to the actual border (maybe this is just a North Dakota/Michigan thing)?

25. No matter how much of a great time you have had and no matter how nice people have been to you there is such a feeling of relief and serenity at crossing your own border, back into your own province and country.

I'm excited - Going for my first rejection letter!

Last summer I wrote a little piece about my summer vacation and posted it on some boards I frequent. On one of the boards someone commented that I could probably sell it. I was very flattered especially when someone else backed her up. Then I found out that the person who backed her up is a freelance writer and likely knew what she was talking about. She told me she would help me try to get it published if I would like. Well the nature of communication over a busy board meant that that idea kind of fizzled. She never responded to my post replying that I would love some help getting it published and I was too ...hmmm... shy, stupid, humble, nervous, incredulous ... pick a word... to pursue it any further but it's kind of danced on the outskirts of my consciousness for some time now. Then I read the "Devil Wears Prada." lol I've been inspired by a schlop (entertaining schlop) to actually follow through.

E-mail makes it easy. So I'm lining up a bunch of magazines that might publish something like my "piece" and I think I will send it out and see what happens. Nothing to lose. Won't cost me anything but my pride - not that there's much to damage there; I'm an amateur in every respect; the last English class I took was in Grade 13. Don't even have any university credits in English. What do I know about writing - other than speeches anyways (not that I know that much about speeches either). Wish me luck.

Well the school hasn't called me yet so that must be a good sign.

I’m supposed to be writing a speech. Kind of a good speech to. As part of my previous job, I headed “working end” of a negotiating team (by that I mean I had a BIG boss – a General actually – but he didn’t really do any negotiating, I did everything and then told him what had transpired) for a treaty between Britain and Canada. It was perhaps one of the most challenging tasks I have had in my career. I had some great advisors and some “not so great” advisors. The “not so great” advisors gave me and the rest of the team a huge headache. Things got REALLY rough. The British were being very reasonable; it was my own team I couldn’t control. Nothing like conducting internal and external negotiations at the same time. I got things to a 98% finished point and then left all the infighting on my own team because we adopted Sam and I got to take leave for almost a year. I wasn’t upset to leave it because at that point it was just annoying, I did want to find out what happened though. Today I’m supposed to be writing the speech our Minister will give when he signs the treaty in a couple of weeks. Too cool. I feel like a pair of bookends.

I’m sitting here not thinking about the speech much at all.

Today was Sam’s first day of summer camp — in reality his first day of pre-school. I’ve worried about it since last week. Worried he wasn’t at all ready and that this was all a huge mistake. Tied my stomach in complete knots.

He is going three days a week from 9 - 11 30. I figured if I sent him to camp this summer he could start with his big sis. She could help him adjust to the new place and people then in the fall when he has to go by himself it will be easier on him. They only take two 2-year olds a class; all the other kids must be 2 1/2 or older. So he is the youngest.
I'm honestly worried that I will get a call in a week or two asking to refund my money because they can't handle him - how's that for awful.
As you all know the poor kid tantrums often, regularly and for LONG periods of time (hour long screaming tantrums are the norm). His language skills although developing aren't where they should be so oftentimes we have no idea what he is saying which is a real source of frustration for him. He uses real words you just have to guess what they are because his articulation is so off. He is incapable of sharing. When he doesn't get what he wants he just hauls back and smacks whoever the "offender" may be (oddly though if the child is smaller/younger than him he will allow himself to get beaten up). He doesn't really understand schedules (i.e. if he is doing something he likes he doesn't understand why he should have to stop and do something else). He is convinced that if he screams long and loud enough he will get whatever he wants; not working, he can scream louder. He is EXTREMELY persistent.
We NEED him to go to pre-school in September - partially for his language skills and partially as a child care fix (he will only go two mornings a week but that fills a big hole).
I keep telling myself that he can't be the most difficult little boy they have ever dealt with (he's the most difficult little boy *I* have ever met though; loveable but a whole lot of work). It doesn’t help that friends and strangers alike don’t hesitate to stop and comment to me on what a handful he seems to be. I keep telling myself they are professionals and will be able to handle him. Still my stomach was COMPLETELY tied in knots.
This morning went well though – the pre pre-school part. Only one short tantrum when I wanted him to sit on the potty and he panicking that he was missing some once in a lifetime moment somewhere else refused to sit. Potty training is NOT going to go well. Lol He’s always positive that when I put him on the potty that that is the moment when a marching band throwing candy and giving away free toys MUST be marching through the living room. Anyway back to this morning.
I had an icky “ovulation” night. Much pain, no sleep. So the decision to go into work a little late was an easy one to make. I would have called in sick outright but I didn’t work most of last week because of child care problems and my boss was kind enough to comp me the time. Kamryn got herself up and dressed and after only a modicum of protest “allowed” me to comb her hair by which time Sam was awake and raring to go. Daniel took care of him. Both kids were fed and Sam pottied (eventually!) and dressed before 8:30. Downstairs to get ready to go and both kids are too excited over their backpacks. Geez, if I got this excited over my briefcase every morning I would NEVER make my bus. Sam is using a “new” (he’s had it for awhile I just never took it out for him before) “Thomas” backpack. He gets so excited over anything Thomas that as a casual observer you might mistake him as having a seizure. The other challenge was to keep him from ripping out his snack and eating it right there. I got both kids sport sippy cups last night because Sam is completely incapable of drinking out of a cup – he just wears whatever he is drinking because he has no patience to sip slowly. Both of them are very excited over their new sippy cups. It’s the highlight of preschool for them.
Got some pictures taken – huge challenge because I gave Sam a sticker for going potty and that was all he could focus on at the moment, that and the stupid backpack. We actually left for school with a reasonable cushion. Halfway there we pulled even with the last express bus downtown from our place and decided to bail on Daniel and grab it rather than take the city bus which is adequate but “icky” (full of all of God’s creations not all of whom use deodorant). So Daniel took the kids in on his own.
I called to nag him the moment I got to the office and he reported that drop off went fine. Sam took off the moment Daniel put him down inside the school – off to play happily in the sand box with Bruce, one of Kamryn’s friends. Poor Kamryn was a little lost as Jordan is away on vacation so she was best-friendless. I’m sure she adjusted just fine though; she’s a social little kid. Daniel warned the director about Sam’s “nature.” I hope he does well, doesn’t melt down or smack anyone. I hope he had a blast and I can’t wait to get the “pick-up” report from Daniel which should come in about a half-hour. School is just letting out now. Please don’t let them kick him out.

I’m feeling surprisingly emotional about his venture out into the world. I find I typically don’t get as nostalgic over Sam as I do over Kamryn. It might be because the experiences with him tend to be “BTDT” experiences or it might be his rough and tumble nature and the fact that he exhausts me so there isn’t much room for nostalgia. This morning though I felt just as teary as I felt when Kamryn embarked on her first day of preschool. Today was all about him and I really felt it. My baby is taking his first steps into the world on his own (albeit watched over by his sister). Lord, help the world. lol

Speech Therapy Frustrations

So we went to a Speech Therapy parent information night at the Children’s Hospital on Monday. Back in January, some may remember, we had Sam screened at a clinic and he was determined to likely need services and “screened into the programme.” What that was SUPPOSED to mean was that in the following three months we would be called and given an opportunity to attend a parent info night. We were told that in the three months following our attendance at the info night he would be evaluated and he could expect services in the three months following that. So:

January – screened in.

March/April – Parent-Info night

June/July – Evaluation

October/November – Services

Seemed like a LONG wait to me. However, he was talking and progressing and personally I thought the speech pathologist may have jumped the gun a little so I was willing to wait.

Ya, end of June and we’ve JUST had out info-night. We were told he will be evaluated sometime between August and November. At this point I’m thinking November is likely. He won’t get services until FEBRUARY!!!! That’s over a year from the point in which a speech pathologist suggested he should receive services. That’s ridiculous.

Not to mention that while he is progressing and talking in two to three word sentences now and repeating stuff like crazy he still talks like he has a mouth full of marbles. We are unable to understand 90% of what he says (Kamryn can understand more) and strangers can’t understand him at all. He gets EXTREMELY frustrated, poor little guy. So now we are looking at paying out of pocket and getting things checked ourselves.

I go back and forth on this. Sometimes I listen to him and am certain that I’m just expecting too much – Kamryn I think is a little gifted in the whole language side of things. She really has a good grasp of both English and French and has a wonderful vocabulary and very good enunciation. She’s not a milestone. Then though I bump into other two year olds who speak clearly and in complex sentences and I really worry.

I just don’t want to waste anyone’s time if he’s really fine but I have a nagging belief that he’s not. His godmother is a speech pathologist (unfortunately she doesn’t live in this city). Daniel is going to call her and see what advice she has to give.