Ugh

Starting from last night, I have had a string of crappy. I sliced open my chin with my thumbnail, scratched my hand with something serrated, spilled and dropped about 14 things and woke up this morning at 5am with a leg cramp that defied the meaning of pain. I drove to the hospital through the Katrina leftover deluge for a blood test and dietician consult, got soaked walking from the parking lot to the door, found out I had to have another test an hour after the first and that I had packed a bad breakfast. Oops! Met with the dietician who told me that my one bad reading was exactly on the upper limit and that she wouldn't have asked me to come in (recap: pouring rain, early morning, needles, breakfast in soggy room full of pregnant women, wet clothes and hair, $15 parking). Ran into my ex in the hallway looking for his wife. He was forced to talk to me and it was like chatting with a small, nervous dog with a caffeine problem. It's hard to conduct a polite conversation with someone when you know they are about to gnaw their own arm off to get away.
Get soaked again walking back to car, traffic caused by super rain, try to run an errand-but of course the store is out of what I want. Back to car-soaked again. More traffic, trees down on road, highway full of water, no maternity parking spots left in front of office, get soaked again. Morning completely wasted and I'm starved. Can I just start over from last night?

Addictive

I found this link last night - evil, evil!!!

Shake, rattle, and roll

Besides a baby, I'm asking my doctor to check for the following during the next ultrasound:

• a soccer ball
  
• juggling equipment
  
• a trampoline
  
• aerobics gear
  
• leg warmers and the soundtrack from Flashdance, possibly also Footloose
  
• a small discotheque
  

Joke

Two men are playing golf. One is about to chip on to the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows his head in prayer. His friend says: "Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man." Resuming his stance, he replies: "Yeah, well we were married for 35 years."

New Jersey trip

We had a wonderful time in New Jersey visiting my friend Kuan, her two-year old son Ryan, new baby Alex and Kuan's hubby Chris. Friday morning we jumped in the car and started our little adventure. It was our first long trip in the new car, and it drove great. We got stuck for at least an hour at the border and then were further delayed trying to find food at exits that seemed to contain way too many people. We finally arrived and the next few days were full of baby cuddling, toddler shenanigans, fun with friends, and a teensy bit of shopping.



New baby Alex is super cute and teeny. You forget how small they are when they're so new.


The trip back was better except for the turn off we missed and had to backtrack. We stopped at a restaurant called Red Robin which provided free baloons and crayons - Ben was in heaven!
We got home and were tired. Ben was so happy to be home that he ran around the house looking at stuff and laughing.
See the trip here.

Diabetes update

So I finally heard back from the doctor and I failed only one of the readings which means no gestational diabetes, but I do have to go in for a consult with a dietician. Hooray!

I had my long glucose test on Thursday and I'm waiting for the results this week. Aside from the bruises on both my arms from the needles that makes me look like a junkie, and the awful dizzy nausea created by the awful orange drink they make you take (honestly, how did they manage to make sugar taste so bad?)it went ok. I've said this before, but having health insurance to pay for private testing instead of going to the hospital and waiting around with tons of other people rocks! I was the only customer at the private testing clinic and had a comfy chair to wait around in for the duration of the three-hour test. I did some work, listened to the radio, and relaxed. It was very civilized. I only hope that I won't have to endure the endless testing and poking of the hospital after my results come in. We shall see.

Phones for kids

Rogers has come out with a new phone for pre-teens called Firefly. It's got mommy and daddy buttons and 20 other pre-programmable numbers. I was listening to an interview with a marketing guy from Rogers on the radio, and he was trying to explain why this is what the consumer wants, and really didn't come off that convincing. What really sealed it for me was the fact that they are not just advertising to parents, but they're also going to advertise on YTV and other kids' programming channels because apparently kids are very savvy about identifying products that have their safety in mind.....right.

Bat Cave

We had another bat this week. That is the second bat in two weeks. I bravely stayed in the bedroom again with Ben while Steve shooed it out. Or at least he think he got rid of it, it seemed to disappear after the door was open. We're not sure why we suddenly have a bat invader, but we're hoping that we can figure out how it's getting in. My dad said that it could be getting in through the flue even though it's closed, so we blocked the fireplace. So far no more winged vistors.

State of the art.....

Noodly appendage

All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Drat

I found out this morning that I failed the glucose screening I had yesterday. Now I have to go in for the big three-hour test and probably endure all the weekly testing and poking and general badgering from the hospital that upset me so much the last time. I am going to try to fight all the hospital stuff, but I fear that it's gonna happen anyway. I'm not in a good mood today....thhhbtttt...

Shall I compare thee to a carburetor?

Bulwer-Lytton 2005 contest

I think that I need a vacation

It's a beautiful day today, not too hot, not humid, sunny, nice breeze. It's a perfect day for a picnic or hanging out at the park, or lounging on the balcony, or going for a nice walk. Here I sit in my office without a window as my mind drifts to all the lovely things that I could be doing, and I'm getting a bit down about the whole situation. Should I run away from work and never come back? When I was contracting I could take days like this off (or at least part of the day) and enjoy it. What I really need is a winning lottery ticket - anyone got one out there to spare? Drat! Guess I'd better get back to work then...

Fun weekend!

The weather cooled to mid-20 temps and was sunny and not humid for a change-hooray for non-stickiness! It was perfect summer weather for me. On Saturday we did chores and tidied the house and went for a walk. On Sunday, we drove up to the folks and frolicked in their new replacement pool. I'd have pictures, but we had battery problems, doh! It's a little larger than their old one, but made with plastic and resin, so it shouldn't rust out like the old one. Ben was iffy with it. He likes the wading pool, but this pool was deep and I think that makes him a bit uneasy. He did like playing with daddy and sitting on his huge blowup aligator and in his little inflatable car (beepbeep). Steve and I lounged around on pool noodles and despite sunscreen, I got a little reddish. We finished the day in the country with some fresh picked berries and whipped cream - yum!
Ben had a blood test last week because the doctor thought that his penchant for chewing on metal might mean that he was a bit anemic - but no, he's fine, we just have a chewy child. I guess that he comes by it honestly, I chewed the hands off my favorite doll as well as bits and pieces of several hundred other toys, and when my mother sold her humungous station wagon (aka land yacht), she had to explain that all the teeth marks on the passenger-side dashboard were mine. Can you imagine what the safety police would do to a mom today that let her toddler chew on the dash in the front seat of the car, without a seatbelt of any kind, while she was driving? I shudder to think.

Zoo

For Ben's actual birthday, we went to the zoo. We had a wonderful time, although it was so hot that all the animals looked kinda loggy.

See more pics here!

See some of Ben's birthday party photos here on Flickr!

Potter head

I finished the newest Harry Potter on Monday. Obviously, it kept me reading, so the mystery portion of the book was good. My biggest comment is that this book really lacked in plot action - the action occurs very late in the book and much of the beginning serves only to remind the reader of 'important' events from the previous books to set up the final book. When I thought about what new information was added, I realised that it could have been brought together in a much tighter narrative and left room for more actual story to be added around the set up details so that they appeared less forced. Don't get me started about the romance aspects of the book, I agree with one reviewer who said it was like Degrassi Junior High for wizards. I won't talk about the ending, but I will say that looking at the amount of things that JKR has set up to resolve in the final book, it's going to be either an enormous installment or a big disappointment.

Birthday boy

Happy birthday Ben. I cannot believe that two whole years have gone by since I first saw your angry little red face. Since then, you have grown and changed so much. You are now your own little person, sometimes you throw yourself on the floor and scream when you are not getting your way, sometimes you are running into my arms laughing. You babble away and seem to expect me to know what you are saying, and I try to oblige by shaking my head and saying "Really? Is that right?", and then you look at me like I'm somewhat retarded.
I can't imagine life without you. You have a smile that warms up my heart everytime I see it, and when you fall and scrape your knee, it tears me in two to hear you cry as I hold you and want to take all the hurt away. I want to protect you, but I know that you have to fall now and learn. You aren't my baby, now you are my little boy and I love you so very much.
-Mommy

Movie review - The Island

We went for a sneak preview of The Island last night. We made sure to get there early, but almost nobody showed up. There were no announcements before the movie other than a warning about cell phones, and no free handouts after. The only thing they did do was check bags for cameras and have a couple of security guys in the theatre. On the whole, the movie was very good - the action sequences were wild and the premise was interesting. There were also some delightfully funny throw-away bits from some of the minor characters, and Sean Bean was great. Big criticism? The ending was very lame, but it didn't spoil the rest of the movie for me. I knew almost nothing about the movie before we saw it and I think that's what made it good. Afterwards I read a synopsis in the free movie magazine they give out in the theatre and if I had read that beforehand, I think that it would have wrecked it for me. So, if you're interested, don't read anything before you see it. Now that I think about it, I wonder how many movies have the potential to be good and surprising on paper, only to be ruined by advertising trailers and press release blurbs that give the entire plot away. I seem to remember a time when I went to movies knowing nearly nothing about them (which explains why someone got me to see Dead Ringers - ick!). Do we really need to know the entire plot before we go to the theatre?