BIG news

We just heard today that Ben is finally going to start his ABA therapy in a couple of weeks. We just have to get the location and the therapist organized. We have been waiting over a year for this and we are so excited to get started. He's eligible for 20hrs/week, but right now they have us slotted 1-4pm Monday-Friday. That's enough for us - way to wait in line! Hooray!

We didn't tiptoe

What a great weekend! A belated happy mother's day to everyone of the mom persuasion!
Saturday we drove to Ottawa to see Steve's mom, had a nice lunch, and went to the tulip festival.

The kids loved the tulips, but they were both in need of naps, so there was the usual demonic behaviour when we wouldn't let them wander through the flowers or pick them, or, in some cases, eat them.


If there's one thing that a tulip festival brings out, it's the photographers. I had some severe camera envy watching the supreme camera geeks wielding their expensive DSLRs with humongous lenses on sleek carbon tripods.
On Sunday I got to sleep in and I got flowers, a new cookbook, and Cirque du Soleil tickets for next weekend! After a pancake breakfast, I chatted on the phone with an old mommy friend (she's not that old), and when Ben and Steve got back from swimming, we had lunch, changed our clothes, and headed up the street for our friends' daughter's christening party. The kids ran around the backyard and we enjoyed some yummy food and good company. We had chinese food for supper and after the kdis were in bed, we watched some tv and enjoyed the evening. Perfect!

What do you think?
(via Melissa)

Your Birthdate: June 12

You're a dynamic, charismatic person who's possibly headed for fame. You tend to charm strangers easily. And you usually can get what you want from them. Verbally talented, you tend to persuade people with your speaking and writing. You are affectionate and loving, but it's hard for you to commit to any one relationship. Your strength: Your charm Your weakness: Your extreme manipulation tactics Your power color: Indigo Your power symbol: Four leaf clover Your power month: December

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

March in April

We did an autism march with the ATEDM on Saturday. The weather was not good for marching - cold and rainy - but we had an amazing troupe of drummers playing us along and the organizers provided colourful red and green hats for the hatless. April is (was) autism awareness month, we'll have to keep that in mind for next year :-)



Ben loved "walking with the people" and jumping in the puddles. The most bizarre part of the march was that we went through mostly residential streets on the Plateau at 10:30 in the morning, so tons of locals came out of doors and stood on balconies in their jammies to watch us go by. There was a Radio Canada team there and they briefly interviewed Steve so he was on the news! Amidst all the drumming and hubbub, Naomi fell asleep. It felt good to participate, I have a feeling that we'll be doing more of it...

Am I the only one excited about this movie?

Yeah, I don't get the "modest" thing either...

stop when you hear the crunch

After living with back pain for the past 18 months, I finally decided to do something about it and booked an appointment with an osteopath. The trouble all started a month after Naomi was born. I would wake up at night and have to pile all the pillows up so that I was nearly vertical to get enough relief to go back to sleep. The pain has dulled significantly over the year and a half, but I still wake up somewhat sore, and that ain't right. A friend recommended her osteopath who has done a good job on her, so I swallowed my fear of all people who manipulate your body and went in. I'm not sure what I was expecting (cracking, breaking, crunching), but she was really nice and figured out that the problem is probably that my hips weren't aligned, not uncommon after birth, especially one that's so freakin' speedy (thanks again, Naomi). I felt fine right after, but now my hip is achy. It would be great if this gets me back to normal, and I'm not afraid anymore! Well, of her anyway.

bunnies and surgery

My Easter weekend was much better than my sister in law's. On Friday, they drove to my folks' place from Toronto. she jumped out of the truck and ran to the house because she had to pee, and as she rounded the corner she fell and broke her ankle in two places. The ambulance took her to Sherbrooke, an hour away, and she ended up having surgery to fix the break with plates and pins on Sunday. Blah!
Saturday we had Steve's folks and brother over for Easter festivities and a roast dinner. The kids were spoiled and happy to see everyone.
Sunday we drove up to see the folks and celebrate my dad's birthday. My nieces stayed for lunch and then my dad drove them to the bus station and they took the bus back to Toronto. The kids were spoiled there too, as expected. They ran around the house and entertained us all.
Monday was nice and quiet. I didn't get enough done, but that's ok for a holiday.
Yesterday I wandered in to Fabricville and saw some adorable fabric, so I found a pattern, and now I'm determined to use my sewing machine! I will! I will actually start a sewing project and finish it. Of course, this particular dress only has four pieces and about four steps. Wish me luck!

posting at my post

Today is Good Friday, but I decided to come in and work today so that I could have Monday off instead. While the majority of people are taking the day off, shopping, or lugging large crosses around, I am sitting here enjoying the silence that is an office without people. The other pluses are no traffic, good parking, and open access to the photocopier. Life is grand and I got so much more done than normal due to the fact I didn't have to listen to my officemate talk to her friends on the phone all day about her aches and pains.
Have to get back to my surfing work now!

Petting zoos a plenty

It's Easter, so every mall now has a petting zoo with all the basics: sheep, goats, llamas, ducks, piggies, bunnies, and chickens. The kids just love the animals, and the animals love the food from those little dispensers. Ben figured out that a whole bunch gets dropped, and he diligently picked up the pellets and fed them to the sheep - smart boy!

Steve took Naomi out with the playgroup to another mall on Wednesday, but Naomi was far more excited about the indoor play structure than the animals this time.

She's also discovered that climbing up slides is fun. She's been a bit hard on Steve lately; she's very busy and now seems to have a penchant for extreme toddler sports, like climbing on to the kitchen table and rolling off and jumping up and down on the toilet. Living with a small Knieval is tiring because it's a constant race to protect her from herself. Even when she falls she's not deterred. We are very happy that the weather is getting warmer and the park is now an option for running off some energy for both kids. They love the park more than they love us, and possibly more than their Uncle Scott, although that could be an exaggeration.

Should have been The Deaf Assassin

Blue Met is on at the end of the month. As interesting as this event is, I have to point out that they've chosen perhaps the worst reader of her own work, the Atwood, for opening night. For $50, you too can discover that listening to Margaret Atwood read her work and talk about it is actually worse than having your ears chewed off by coyotes or listening to Vogon poetry. If you go and they offer those translating headphones, take them and listen to the translator. You will thank me later.

weekend rounddown

Wheh! Busy weekend!
It was supposed to be even busier, but our Sunday plans were cancelled. On Saturday we drove up to Ottawa to celebrate Steve's folks' birthdays (they're both this week). While there, Steve's mom and I popped over to the store she works at and the mall. We picked up a few things for the kids, including new rubber boots for the kids. Naomi's boots are especially cute, she tried them out yesterday at the park:

I just found out that they're available in women's sizes - woo woo!
I also discovered that the body shop has brought back their pink grapefruit line of products. I have been looking for pink grapefruit-scented stuff for ages, and now it's back! I got a body wash and a lip balm.
It just doesn't get any better than that, and of course it didn't because we had to drive home in a snowstorm, bleh!
Sunday we were supposed to have our friend Sauline over and some of the old gang to celebrate Sauline's almost being a mommy, but she cancelled because she was 4cm dilated and her doctor thought that she was going to go into labour at any minute. The bad is that we don't get to watch her waddle around and laugh at her, the good is that the next time I see her, I get to cuddle a new baby - sigh! We took advantage of the less busy day and got some errands and chores done and rested a bit and went over and played in the park. It was a gorgeous day and the kids were excited to be running around outside and not sinking knee-deep into the snow.

Smell you later

It's a drag that by the time you realise that you forgot to use deodorant in the morning, it's far too late to do anything about it.
Quick tip: You cannot fix the situation using cucumber-melon hand sanitizer, in fact, it really only makes it worse.

Cleanup in office 6078

Can someone please explain to me how someone who complains about the smell of handcream and the smell of fresh paint two floors down can clean her desk with Hertel and then tell me I'm a baby when I complain about the fumes? Grrrrrr.....

Just one of those days

I caught the end of a documentary called Virus Hunters last night. They were talking about bird flu, then it shifted to autism and how it's a widely-held idea that autism is somehow caused/activated by viruses. I hate seeing stuff like this, not because I'm not interested, but because they always make me agonize over what I could have done differently to make Ben normal. It's a low day.

Adventures in Photoshop

I've been playing around in Photoshop lately and experimenting with some different techniques I've found on Flickr. Here is my first result:

I adjusted the colours in Lab colour and then did something called an eye pop. I think it's pretty cool.

Movies!

I almost never remember to do reviews, but last week I went to see Children of Men, and last night we watched Stranger Than Fiction, and they were both very good, and so completely different that my brain feels a bit warped. Children of Men has the yummy Clive Owen. I could watch this man read the back of Cheerios box and enjoy it, he's that good. In fact, if I could ever combine my favorite breakfast cereal and Clive Owen that would be about the best thing ever, aside from my kids and husband I suppose (who am I kidding?)
Children of Men is wonderful and visually so complete that it captures the emotion of the film brilliantly. It is bleak, wayyyyyyy bleak, so don't go thinking that you'll get out feeling happy. The movie takes place in 2027, 18 years after the world has stopped producing children. Just stopped. Britain has become a scary place. It's interesting to see the impact of a world with no children. The schools are abandoned, people dress their pets in designer outfits, and compassion is practically non-existent. Despite the heavy theme, there are some wonderful light and touching moments as well to break up the darkness. I normally can't watch this kind of film, but I'm glad that I did. The movie is still getting to me, especially after the next day when the paper was talking about all the environmental doom that is about to hit us. See it if you get the chance, the acting is top notch.
Stranger Than Fiction, in contrast, is a pretty happy film, but with a nice bit of depth. The main character, Harold Crick, discovers that he is the main character in a novel by an author who is known for killing off her characters at the end of the story. He's now in a race to try and find the author to change her mind, and change his life, which up to now has been a bit of a snore. The bit that I liked the most was the visual effects used to show how Harold's OCD mind counts, contains, and interprets his world. The film also has Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson being fantastic. And there's a nice love story. This is the perfect movie to see after Children of Men to take your mind off the bad stuff.

Who do they think they are? Hallmark?

I recently noticed that my sanitary napkins have a paper label with "Have a nice period" printed on it. Whoever thought this up may have sincerely thought that it was a great idea, but frankly, I think that the sentiment seems out of place. It's like your mom leaving a note in your lunchbox, but you're in the bathroom, so it's kind of freaky.

Happy Birthday Stevie!

My great big snow angel

Love you lots and lots!

Introducing the book

and you think you had trouble adapting to Vista:
(the links works now)

Hooray for Ben

It has been a year since Ben was diagnosed with autism and the yearly assessments have started. This month we have about six appointments with researchers to obtain data on Ben's progress. The first one was last Monday with his favorite researcher and the psychiatrist, and Ben knocked their socks off. The psychiatrist is very happy with the progress he's made with the limited help we've been able to offer him. The combination of the daycare, shadow, us at home, and the recent addition of a one-hour speech therapy session every two weeks has produced some great results, and the psychiatrist thinks that he could do even better if we can just get him into the 20-hour/week therapy program that we're waiting for. We are going to start getting more agressive and send them a letter from the psychiatrist in hopes that this gets him into the program sooner. She feels that he will probably be able to go to mainstream schools, with some assistance, if he continues on at this rate. We've come so far over this year, and it's still hard for me to talk about, but this assessment have given us a lot of hope.
We went to a Kids' CBC show this weekend, Ben got very excited about it and was only a little freaked about the large cartoon characters. Naomi was cranky and spent most of the show with Steve running around the lobby.

It's a nice day for a white winter

Finally the snow has arrived! We have been living in a land of yellow grass and mud since the beginning of the year. I hate my boots as much as the next person, but come on, it's January in Quebec. The kids have only been out on the sled once this year, and they love playing in the snow. There's a bit of a cold snap, but it's supposed to warm up a bit by the weekend so hopefully we can go out and sled in the park and make a snow duck or two.
One of Ben Christmas presents was a child's guitar. A music teacher comes in once a week at daycare and she plays the guitar and sings. Ben loves her guitar, and so we figured that he would love one of his own. We were right! We brought it in for show-and-tell a couple of weeks ago. It took Ben a few tries, but he finally shared it with his group. He sat on a chair and played and sang the ABC song.

When we heard this and saw the photographic proof, we were floored.

It's hard to know what Ben will be able to do when he gets older. Most autistic adults that I've heard of don't have careers, just limited jobs that aren't long-term. Wouldn't it be nice if he could become a musician and do something that he loves?

My hypochodriac officemate returned to work last week. I haven't seen her since before I left for mat leave, and she's just as much an energy-sucking life force as ever. We had a disagreement about the lighting (I finally had someone rip out the flourescents from above my desk) on day one. Last Tuesday she was already here when I arrived. She told me that she used my hand cream (it was sitting on my desk, no big deal), and then complained to me that she didn't like the way it smelled. This pretty much sums her up. I am staying optimistic and looking forward to many more funny incidents like this to pad my pathetic blog.

Resolution update: No juggling practise, but we made waffles last weekend and had enough to freeze for Ben's breakfasts this week. I put all my friends' names in a hat and will be pulling one out for writing to this week. I'm also back on track with the weight thing - yay me!

Goals and Schemes

I don't do resolutions for the new year, it always seems a bit pushy of myself to impose something to "fix" or make myself "better" than the year before. Really, what the hell is wrong with the me I am now? This year, I have goals. They are mostly silly, but should keep me entertained for the year:

• Learn to juggle - I've always wanted to be able to juggle, but I'm lazy and you can't just start juggling stuff without practising. This year, I am going to practise and learn this useless skill. I have some balls and have already started trying to throw one back and forth from hand to hand and catch it consistently. It's not going to be a quick process, hence the whole year thing. 2008? Chainsaws!

• Make more waffles - I bought a waffle maker in November. Ben eats a waffle every morning with reasonable consistency. If I make them, I can start slipping some nutrition in them on the sly so we can wean him off those supermarket freezer waffles with the nutrition of cardboard. And who doesn't want more waffles in their lives?

• Keep losing weight - This is a classic, but I've been pretty good so far, and since I started last year, it's just a continuation of something I already started, more of a goalette, really.

• Appreciating my friends - This is something that you can't do enough of. My friend Libby started sending me handwritten notes last year and it really impressed upon me how much more it says than sending an email. I shall be sending sneak-attack notes to people, be prepared, my handwriting kinda sucks and I tend to babble. No, really.

That's it, four things is really quite enough, and that juggling one is really going to take up a lot of my free time.
Wish me luck everyone! What are you gonna do?

Back

It was a great holiday, but not in the restful kind of way. Christmas was wonderful, everyone packed into our very tiny place for cheer and into our tinier diningroom for a feast. There were way too many presents, but we loved them all. We had snow the day after Christmas and over the holiday we had some fun playing outside.



The snow didn't last though, and now it's back to green and brown with a projected high this weekend of 16C and rain. It's just wacky.
Ben is back at daycare. Yesterday was his first day with a new shadow. Bea is very nice and I think that Ben will do well with her. He only took one nap the entire holiday, so it was no surprise that he didn't nap, but he did wake up everyone else which isn't good.
Work is really slow this week, a lot of people won't be back until next week. On the bright side, it took me 18 minutes to get from the daycare to my office chair.

Merry Christmas Everyone

To everyone out there in Internetland, and very merry christmas full of love and happiness.
Love to you all!
dina

Five days before bullets:

• People are still making me work - what's up with that?
• Finished my shopping - Yay!
• Bake, give away, bake, give away, repeat
  
• Lost another 2lbs while stuffing my face with cookies
• There's a frozen turkey thawing in our fridge
• Have bought way too much stuff for the kids
• Have JT's 'Sexy Back' stuck in my head, and I like it
• Completely disgusted with that song about that guy who's talking to his ex on the phone and he's telling her he never got over her and his girlfriend's in the next room - why do they keep playing it on the radio?
  
• We still have no snow. It was nice for awhile, but let's get serious now, we need some for Christmas. Ben gets excited everytime a flake falls. He's ready to make some snowmen.

Last Friday was Ben's Christmas pageant at daycare. The kids were cute and totally unprepared for a life on the stage.

Ben decided not to wear the cute snowflake hat, and also not to sing or dance, or even stand up unassisted. He chewed his fingers and watched the other kids try to recite the poems and sing. He was quite happy to wear the hat and even sing Jingle Bells when no one was watching though. Sigh, maybe next year.
The cutest thing was when Santa gave him his present. He looked at him and said, "Thank you Santa Claus", I was so proud. A lot of the other kids just grabbed their gifts and ran or broke out in tears. I have a great kid!

A new found respect for the Sears portrait photographer

We just need a photo of the kids for the Christmas card, how hard can that be?


Click the picture to see the whole set. By the end, I was a weeping, laughing mess on the floor.

cookies and the incredible shrinking woman

We started baking last weekend. It was the perfect Sunday. Snow was falling, those big, fluffy flakes, and we were inside rolling dough and decorating. I couldn't be happier. Ben loved helping this year. He loves it when they bake at the daycare, and he was a great help, and an even better eater.

We made trees and stars, and of course the traditional Christmas elephants, gorillas, butterflies, and airplanes.I have a big box of cutters and I love to find ones that are a bit out of the ordinary.
In other news, I started weight watchers 5 weeks ago (my own version where I track points but don't have a membership) and I have lost 10lbs so far! This is largely due to the fact that I have much more to go, but I'm very proud - yay me! Of course, this will not stop me from enjoying my Christmas cookies, I just don't have to feel guilty about it now :-)

One of my favorite all-time Christmas albums is A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love Vince Guaraldi's jazzy sound, and I also love the animated special. We have a copy and watch it during the holidays, and of course Ben is now hooked too. I came across a piece on NPR that talks about how Guaraldi's music almost didn't make it and how CBS thought that the themes of materialism and faith weren't appropriate for children. Can you imagine a Christmas without A Charlie Brown Christmas? How would you describe a Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Good thing CBS caved. The album was released 41 years ago, and has never gone out of print since. If you don't have it, it's a great addition to your Christmas collection.
I was walking through a forest of Christmas trees at a lot yesterday (already!) and the scent was out of this world. Nothing puts you in the mood for Christmas like that smell.

Like Bart Simpson, but with an accent

A tech support guy actually said "aye caramba!" to me today. I think we outsource to Costa Rica now.

The holidays are coming whether you're ready or not. Generally speaking, I am not. I forget about a hundred things that I wanted to do for Christmas etc. that seemed perfectly reasonable in July. I have baking projects, and projects for the kids to make things for people, and shopping, and cards, well, you know what I'm talking about. I came across this site last night for getting organized for the holidays. Although I will not take advantage of many of these templates (a cleaning checklist? are you out of your minds?), there are certainly some here that may put the ho back in holiday. I know there's no such thing as a liday, gimme a break, it's Monday.

The great leveler

Adventures in driving to work:
Older, distinguished gentleman in a suit driving in your Audi with your impressive phone ear piece: I watched you pick your nose in my rear-view mirror for a good 15 minutes while stuck in traffic. What did you have in there that was so fascinating? Did it put up a fight? After the first 5 minutes, it went past disgusting and right into plain funny. I even turned around to watch you for a while, but you were to preoccupied in the dig. Thank you for the laughter, but I wouldn't want to be the people you shake hands with all day. Buy a hankie or a box of kleenex, please.
Why do people think that when they get into cars they are invisible? That's two-way glass people!

Happy Birthday Pumpkin

It was around this time one year ago that you were born. You were in such a hurry, the nice doctors didn't even have time to give Mommy an epidural. The pain, although I will remind you of it for the rest of my life, was so worth it. You are such a perfect little girl, my favorite little girl in fact. You are so happy so much of the time, you are walking everywhere and babbling and pointing and laughing. You love wrestling with your brother and playing tickle. You find joy everywhere and fill my heart with it. I love you so my little Naomi.
Hugs and kisses,
Your Momma


Oh, and Happy Halloween everybody! Here's a little something fun that I like to do. Go up to a stranger who is obviously not dressed in costume and try to guess what they are. Don't tell them I told you to do it.

no one can hear you flush

I got into work this morning to discover that a busted waster main has turned off all water to the building. No coffee, no bathrooms, of course, the two kind of go hand in hand anyway. The nearest bathroom is downstairs and at the end of another building. People are coming by and asking, "I'm going down to the bathroom, you coming?". I now have more information than I ever wanted on my colleagues toilet habits.
In other news, they are adding an extra person in my office. It was supposed to have a small table for meeting with people, but instead I'm getting an extra body taking up oxygen and talking. One cone of silence please. I'll be nicer tomorrow I'm sure.
Look! It's a fairy!

First full day

It's my first full-time day at the office. I feel a bit strangled. Part-time was great while it lasted, but now I know I'm not going home early to pick up Ben from daycare, or play in the park while it's still light out. Sigh.
Fall is here, I love this time.

We were out in the park yesterday for a while before cold hands and noses forced us back inside. Naomi practised walking on sand, a huge difference from hard floors.

Ben enjoyed pushing his sister on the swings:

Time for more coffee :-)

Witty insults

I wish I was clever enough to come up with one of these. Use a few on your least favorite person.

Look who's walking

And here I thought nobody liked me

Lisa just pointed out that my comments didn't work. I think that I have it fixed. Could the beautiful people who still visit my blog leave a comment to test it for me? Thanks!
I love you all.
Work is better. I'm not very busy, but I heard that there are a few things coming my way.
I was listening to a radio piece on CBC this morning about cocoa farming on the Ivory Coast. This is where most of the world's cocoa is produced, and a lot of it is done by exploiting child labour. I'm not really an activist, but the irony of kids selling chocolate bars for school fundraising that was harvested by kids has pushed me too far. If you go to the Global Exchange site, you'll find all kinds of information on stuff that you can do. There are even fundraising alternatives. The one in Ottawa with Cocoa Camino looks yummy. Chocolate lovers unite! Let's stick it to Nestle and Hershey and make them do the right thing!

The grind

Today was my first day back to work. It was grey and dreary. It's weird to have to try to get out the door on time after a year. Ben was upset because I dropped him off at daycare, but he was fine after he got there. I'd forgotten that people drive like real jerks in the morning. When I arrived at work, nothing was set up, no computer, no phone, no chair. By the end of the day I had a computer, and after several calls to support I had software, passwords, then the correct versions of software. I stole a chair and a lamp from an empty office and scrounged a bunch of pens. My new office is nice and quiet, my officemate is gone for at least six weeks. Nothing has changed much since I've been gone. Tomorrow's bound to be better.

a week in bullets

• It has now been a week since I stopped breastfeeding Naomi. The decision was not totally mine. Since she's started eating more regular food, her feedings have become shorter and less frequent. Her biting however, increased. When you have four new teeth, you tend to explore new textures, and it only took her a few feedings to realise that when she bit, mommy reacted. The last time she nursed, she bit me and when I yelped, she laughed. Game over. It's really depressing when you have to stop, but I wasn't going to continue after I went back to work, so it's time. I just can't get over how much formula we need to replace my boobs.
  
• Naomi started swimming classes yesterday. She was the prettiest little splasher there, and she loves the water.
  
  
• I'm starting back to work at the beginning of October. I'm trying to get in touch with HR to arrange to work part-time for the first couple of weeks. I've been told that we're moving to a higher floor and that I will be getting a nice, bright corner office. The bad news is that I have to share it with a hypochondriac, but as a friend pointed out, that means I will have the office to myself quite a bit :-) I may also be able from my new perch to provide traffic updates during rush hour.
  
• We watched the first episode of the Amazing Race and were amused by the couple selection. If you were white and applying to the Race this time around, you better hope that you were either gay or had amusing hick accents. There's a cultural rainbow on the AR and Survivor this time around. Of course, Survivor decided to be "controversial" and split teams up by races, it clearly sounded more shocking on paper than practise.
  
• I've entered my Autumn cooking frenzy. Yesterday I made muffins, cauliflower soup, whole wheat bread, and squash in preparation for a risotto. I also have another cauliflower to do a casserole and I'm thinking that I should get some stew made and in the freezer.
  
• We saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 this week and it rocked! I liked it better than the first one.
  
• And finally, my cute, cute boy
  

Loving the hair, hating the guns

I went out to the salon with my trusty hair person, Maggie, and came out looking faboo. My hair will not look like this again because I just can't do anything this nice with it myself, so have a look. I'm tempted to just carry the photo and show it to people.

After, we went to Value Village where I found some costume stuff for Ben, here is the very original cowboy fairy

We then went out for lunch where we saw the news reports of the Dawson shooting. I really hoped that we wouldn't see another tragedy like this one after U of M. One innocent life lost is one too many. I went home and hugged my kids and wished for a world where it would be safe to send them off to school. Maybe the boy who did this needed a few more hugs in his life.

Five years ago today

That was some serious I-do-ing. Would I do it again? Damn right!
Love you Stevie, with all my heart :-)

Tales of a reformed English major

Back in the old days, when I had an attention span, I was a voracious reader. I used to read a wide variety of topics and kept several books going at once. Now, the back of the Cheerios box looks like fresh prose every morning. I also used to be a bit of a snob about pop literature. Anything with an Oprah stamp was beneath me (unless I'd already read it, then Oprah was a wanna-be) and I scoffed at the idea of chick lit. Well, then I became a mom. The piles of unread, untouched books got larger on my nightstand the longer the kids existed. I now have a couple K2-sized stacks blocking my view of the alarm clock (I don't need it anyway) and my access to my face cream (my wrinkles cry themselves to sleep every night). Serious reading takes so long now with all the re-reading I have to do when I open up the book and realise that I can't remember what I read the night before. Why would anyone use more than three characters in a book? They just confuse me!

Anyway, all this to say that when my mother-in-law came down with a stack of Sophie Kinsella novels, I was wary and at the same time in need of some good brain-light reading. Verdict? I love these books! I ignored all my other books and read through every single one. They are like Harlequins for people with brain cells. The shopaholic series is a fun read and the main character is surprisingly interesting and intelligent. The other two novels (Can You Keep a Secret and The Undomestic Goddess) are even better and could also be directly translated to movies (I can already see the trailers). The women are all beautiful, the men that fall for them are all handsome, rich, talented, well-built, or all of the above, but Kinsella has taken the time to write them well and research her topics. Maggie has just given me another potential chick-lit find by Emily Giffin, I'll let you know how that goes.

jump up!

Hot

I'm melting. Today it was 46C with the humidity. It was like walking around in tepid water all freakin' day. I grabbed the munchkin and ran to the mall where the air conditioning was set to subarctic so that stores could sell Fall sweaters. I have never seen so many pregnant women walking around in my life! I sympathized with each and every one. We're expecting a huge thunderstorm any minute. If it knocks out the power, you'll find me running naked outside dodging the lightening.

9 months old

The girl has now spent as long on the outside as she did on the inside. So far, we are pleased with her and have no intention of sending her back :-)

We may have voided the warranty anyway; she took a tumble off of our bed this morning. Mommy is feeling very guilty for turning away for 2 seconds to grab a shirt :-(
She's now cruising and climbing and I just know I'm gonna need a leash and a bell once she starts walking, which should be tomorrow at the rate she's going - ack!

Question

How long can Italian soccer fans keep hanging those flags from their cars?
And now, some music:

So Ben's birthday party the weekend before last was great. Our guests piled into our kitchen because it rained so we couldn't do it in the park this year. Ben had a blast, everyone had cupcakes, and Ben was spoiled with gifts.

His actual birthday was not as nice. At 3am, he crawled into our bed and coughed until he threw up, then coughed more and was just burning up. The day was spent being listless and cranky and unable to settle or sleep. Finally, I went to the pharmacy and got some children's nyquil, which worked after a while. Poor thing! We had planned on visiting Angrignon Farm and having some wading pool time and then going out for chinese food at Ben's favorite restaurant.
The rest of the week was a blur of sick and semi-sick children. Naomi's still got it and last night she was either screaming her lungs out and coughing them up, or fitfully sleeping on me, we're both beat.
Yesterday we made it to Angrignon Farm and Ben had a wonderful time and Naomi had an amazing snooze in the stroller.
Click the photo to see the set.
Ben's really making progress with his speech. He's getting much better at using names, and has even referred to himself, which he's never done before. When he plays hide and go seek, he pretends not to see you and looks around saying "where's Daddy?", its very cute!

Naomi started crawling with gusto and couple of weeks ago and chasing her brother, father, mother, cats, and brooms (we can't figure that one out either). Not only that, but that very week, she also started pulling herself up to standing using the furniture, toys, and people's legs. Ben is often the target of much of the chasing and pulling up because he is his sister's favorite person in the house (unless my boobs count as people). He has been pants a few times and now tends to avoid her which makes her very unhappy. We figure that she'll be cruising by the end of the week. This has all happened so fast that I haven't had time to video it properly. If I don't do it soon, I'm going to miss all the wobbles. Ben didn't cruise until he was almost a year old and didn't walk until he was about 13 months or so, so this is a big change for us. We had to break out the playpen and put it in the kitchen for containment purposes.

She's into everything and gets so mad when you restrict her movements. I don't know where she gets that from :-)

Happy Birthday Ben

I can't believe it's been three years since you came out of me all red and screamy. You've had a very interesting year. Since your diagnoses in January, so much has changed. You started daycare, which we hadn't planned on, but it's worked out very nicely so far. You like all your classmates and your teacher Linda. It seems like the more people you know, the more people love you. You've started speaking and telling us what you want and don't want. We finally heard you say "Daddy" and "Momma" and our hearts just swelled to bursting and for weeks every time you said "Momma" I'd blink back tears I was so proud. Now you are starting to speak in two word sentences, and also say "where are you going?" and "what's up?" and it's so funny. You come into a room and say, "hi Momma, what are you doing?", and I know that you don't really know quite what you're saying, but it's too cute to hear your voice. When we were driving out in the country, you were looking out the window and looking for cows and saying "cows, where are you cows?" and your daddy and I were killing ourselves laughing. You are also the best big brother in the world. You are so gentle with your sister and loving, she's very lucky to have you.

We have a long road ahead of us, but we are making so much progress. You are the most adorable, beautiful boy that I know and I love you more than the world.
Love, your Momma

Our silent white god, oh we love you!

Our silent white god, oh we love you!
Originally uploaded by dina the m and o.

YeeHaw

Let's pretend

To encourage Ben's pretend play (which is already loads better than 6 months ago), we gave out birthday ideas to the grandparents for things like Little People and Playmobil. I went to the Playmobil site today to have a look around, and they really do have quite a selection of stuff. Two of the out of the ordinary were the Hazardous Waste set:

and the Vacation Home set:

Can I have a vacation home? Anybody?

She moves, she moves!

Our carpet commando in motion:

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What I've done so far with my summer

I was out of town the week before last staying with my folks while the landlord renovated the kitchen. I thought that it would be a nice break. I brought books and cds and stuff I wanted to catch up on. I imagined Ben playing with my folks outside, gardening and playing in the wading pool while Naomi had a nap and I could read and nap in the swing on the deck with a warm breeze. Sigh, that would have been nice. In reality, it rained all week, so everything was damp and grey and humid and hot and then cold. We took Ben out to play in the puddles which he loved, but the mosquitoes were also out in full force. Even with repellant we were getting eaten alive. Ben decided that he would forgo naps all week, which meant that I was losing my mind everyday by late afternoon. When he finally did nap Thursday, I nearly backflipped. Combine this with Naomi's teething and you have a recipe for a stressed-out mommy. Of course the last day we were there, both kids went for naps at the same time and were good all day, ugh.

We did have a few nice bits. We went out and bought fresh strawberries from a farm and ate them all week. Mom got Ben to help her in the garden and plant some beans, and we got the wading pool out for some splashing.

Our new and improved kitchen looks really nice. I have unpacked quite a bit of stuff and the cabinets are still holding it all. The best thing is the DISHWASHER! The landlord was nice enough to do the rough in for one. I phoned my lovely friend Lynda and she ordered it for me. I love having a friend who is the appliance queen. It's a nice unit with super quiet insulation and a tall tub for pots. The landlord hooked it up last night and we ran it when we came home from a movie -sweet! I feel like a grown-up again!

We went out and saw Superman last night, fantastic! I'm really not used to going out downtown anymore - so many people and cars, I was acting a bit like my parents when they come in to town. I must get out more.

Ben started his swimming lessons last Saturday and he's loving every minute. We went to Ottawa to see Steve's folks for Canada Day weekend. On Tuesday and Wednesday, my folks came in to babysit so I could go to a two-day seminar on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy being given by the adaptation centre program we're waiting to get Ben into. I knew nothing about ABA, so it was very interesting, as was talking to other parents and getting the real dope on private therapists and other pitfalls. I now have a lot more resources.

A video!

Thanks to Lisa for using this site, the free account lets you have 10 free short videos.

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coke and mentos

Apparently, there have been a lot of these types of videos posted on the internet lately, but this one is pretty impressive. Go now and see what two guys with a camera, lots of coke and mentos, and way too much time on their hands have created. Not surprisingly, mentos may hire these guys for a commercial, and coke wants nothing to do with it.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me!
Originally uploaded by dina the m and o.

I am older than I was in this picture, but the general attitude remains the same :-) Yay me!