Karin's first day at daycare...

...didn't go so well. Karin was there for about 1 ½ hours and then they called saying that there was nothing else they could do. Yet, they didn’t give her the comfort items that I packed: blankie & soother (not that she uses the soother usually, but it might have calmed her down). I know they didn’t give them to her because they were exactly in the same spot I left them. The soother was still wrapped in the plastic bag I had it in, it wasn’t wet, and her soft blankie was completely dry. If they gave it to her and she was hysterical it should have been wet and snotty. Also they didn’t let Chance come visit her like they said they would. Chance was disappointed too, he wanted to see Karin on her first day. They didn’t give her a snack even though when I dropped her off (near 10 AM) I said she should be ready for a snack right away, they said they finished “breakfast” (what I would call snack time) at 9:30….they would see what they could do. So they let a hungry, thirsty, scared baby cry for an hour and a half. Now she’s terrified to let me leave her anywhere, including the pool babysitters that she’s been fine with for weeks. We’re not very impressed, and on Monday when she goes back we’re going to sit with them and talk this out because it was a plain old lack of effort, in our opinion. Cam is the one who picked her up (he was home that day, use your vacation days or lose them). I was at the chiropractor. What also irks me is that I can’t have the daycare phoning me at work in a few weeks saying “we can’t calm Karin down, you have to come pick her up”. Just because I’m not working in December doesn’t mean I don’t have things to do – I have all my doctor’s appointments and personal things to do on the days the kids are in daycare! On the bright side: all of the disappointment with the daycare has overshadowed my emotions more or less on the fact that my time at home with Karin and Chance is coming to an end. And those emotions are affecting my decision making skills too. I have been bringing Karin to pick up Chance most evenings so that the place is familar to her. But the last time I did this I got teary on the drive home and started wiping my eyes without thinking. So...I had just been to a daycare and then started touching my eyes without washing my hands first. Pinkeye. Next time I'll smear myself with hand sanitizer before bursting into tears, haha.

Rant

I am so mad. We were nearly sideswiped on a busy road in Calgary by a woman with long brown hair in a light grey BMW with a burned out front headlight last night. She was talking her cell phone. When I turned around to get a good look at her, she was picking at her mascara.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I do know I'm going to do something. Write a letter to the Herald, look into petitions to abolish cell phone use while driving, SOMETHING. This has happened so often to us and people we know. Shame on Alberta for not treating this issue with more respect.

Murphy's Law (TMI warning!)

Well I got a new blue shirt for myself. A really nice bright blue v-neck stretchy t-shirt. It was on sale. It was the last one in its size. Destiny. Fate.

I wore it today for the first time. I picked up Karin and cuddled her close....then felt the warm wet and sniffed, and looked down with horror to find a 3" stain of yellow you-know-what smeared across the front of my nice new t-shirt.

Sigh.

Ugh.

You guessed it. Still at home.

Better off in bed!

We had a crummy day today!

1) Broken computer monitor. $$. Bought new one today, and 4-year warranty.
2) Truck stuck in 2-wheel drive. Funny noises. $$$?? Find out Monday.
3) Had to turn around and go home when we realized that we were about an hour early for a craft show.
4) Tantrum in the afternoon. Denied Christmas decorations in mouth.
5) Lots of sneezing and coughing all day long (Chance). Cam has a sore throat (again). I have itchy eyes (pink eye again??).
6) Visited friends for supper tonight. Chance barely ate more than a few crumbs of bread and egg nog. Toast and bananas eaten in the bath tub.

Here's to hoping for a better day tomorrow!!

We need a new doctor....

Another disappointing visit with Dr. W. Sometimes I swear that he has no clue what's going on, like I'm just some random woman who walked into his clinic for the first time with her snotty kid.

When I mentioned some of the symptoms that I had talked about with the nurse on the phone, he wasn't too concerned at all. Until I did an impression of how Chance had been breathing. Then he smartened up a bit but didn't really give much information. I also asked for a weight and length check, which he did grudgingly (weight only, on the big scale b/c Chance is so wiggly. Chance is 22 lbs.). The whole time he grumbled that he was in a rush to get away to his walk-in clinic at 5 PM. Chance's appointment was at 4 PM. I was there at 3:55 PM. I woke Chance up early to get there on time. We waited until 4:20 PM.

Some of my other experiences with Dr. W:

* he arrived 45 minutes late for an early morning appointment, claiming that he thought it was Sunday, not Saturday.
* he has written the wrong prescription for me, so when I got to the pharmacist, he gave me an antifungal instead of a corticosteriod. Meanwhile my eczema RAGED until I got the right prescription.
* he has forgotten to bring equipment in specifically required for a visit (Doppler to hear Chance's heartbeat when I was pregnant). Cam had taken time off work to come with me. He made patronizing comments when I shed horomone-crazed tears of disappointment.
* he always admits me to his office, then makes me wait a few minutes while he finishes up the last patient's records. Awkward silence.
* he exclaimed in exasperation, "didn't you think of wearing something else to this appointment???" when I came in to see him about a rash on my calf. I was wearing nylons.
* he always spends the first few minutes of our visit jovially talking about his grand-daughter, who is the same age as Chance. Then he rushes me through our visit.
* normally there has never been a problem with waiting to see Dr. W, until this year when his practice started to expand. Now we can almost always count on a 15-20 minute wait. Not so easy while toting around an active toddler.
* he poked (!!) my throbbing red breast when I had mastitis and wrote me a prescription for a topical ointment. When I came back 5 days later and the red patch had spread to 4 times its original size, he wrote me a prescription for the wrong kind of antibiotic. I had to wait 2 weeks to get into the Calgary Breastfeeding Clinic to get a proper antibiotic.


I think I'm going to start looking for a new physician.

Brrrr!

It is snowing today, people. Snowing.
























Chance is sleeping in a sweater and sweat pants. I'm downing cups of tea and waiting for the house to warm up. It was 18°C inside when we woke up. The furnace has officially been turned on.

**Update: Being Neighbourly**

Well the "Bobs" surprised me. At 1:30 PM on Saturday they joined me out in front of the house where I was yet again raking. They helped rake, they rolled the dirt, and they started to lay sod with me. Chance woke up then, and I tried to put him in the playpen to watch us work, but he wasn't happy with that situation. So I packed Chance up and left the "Bobs" at it. They worked all afternoon. At 4:30 the rainclouds were gathering and it looked like a storm was iminent, so I strapped Chance into the stroller and wheeled him up to the back yard and pitched in laying the last 200 square feet of sod with the "Bobs".

The job is done, and before Sunday too! Cam is happy with the work. All we have to do is return the sod pallet at Home Depot to get our deposit back, and collect $200 from the "Bobs".

Being Neighbourly

[SCENE: back yard, last Thursday night. The long weekend awaits, and CAM and DANI are sitting in their back yard at their patio set, enjoying one of the last warm evenings of the summer, enjoying a glass of wine and a game of scrabble.]

DANI: It's your turn.

CAM: Oh...uh...OK...P-E-A-T. Peat. 6 points.

{enter "BOB", head pops over back fence}

"BOB": Hey, I saw a flyer advertising cheap sod for sale. It's nearby, over in Chaparral. Maybe this is a good time to remove that rock and put down sod, get it done. We're home all next week so it will be easy to get it all done.

CAM: Can you lay sod in the fall?

"BOB": Well....you can. Besides, the sod is on sale.

[FADE OUT]



Long story short: Cam and I spent all last week shoveling loads of rock onto our driveway. "Bob" said he'd rototill the dirt. "Bob" never got around to it, so we decided to give it a whirl last night. "Bob"'s Tonka toy of a rototiller wouldn't even break the surface. I phoned around the yellowpages trying to find a landscaper with more power (grunt, grunt).

We ended up renting a machine for $45 (Cam picked it up, I dropped it off). Note that "Bob" is not to be found. Cam attempted to till last night with the bigger tiller, but still no luck. We ended up watering the dirt for 3 hours, which resulted in leaving no option except for Cam to take a few hours off work this morning to rototill while I looked after Chance. We stopped by "Bob"'s house last night to let him know that the tilling wasn't going so well and that Cam would have to take time off work to get it done. Never mind that it was supposed to be "Bob"'s job to till.

Then the dirt needed to be raked. "Bob" said he'd do it. Funny, I was the only one out raking the dirt today. Good thing Chance takes naps twice a day. "Bob" and "Bob's wife" were busying away in their house or garage or whatever.

I stopped by to talk to the "Bobs" about getting the sod laid, and they ensured her that it would be fine for 3 days and they would get around to it. After a bit more pressing, they conceded to start on it "first thing" tomorrow morning. Anyone wanna bet that the sod is still on its pallet on Sunday afternoon???

Tantrums

Whooooo! OK. We get it. Chance knows he is a discrete, independant, person. With wants and needs. Stress the wants. He wants:

in the refrigerator
in the dishwasher
in the garbage
into the cleaning supplies
to chew on wires (cell phone, iPod, camera chargers)
to chew on the cat
to wrestle with the hairdryer (again, cords)
to put his lips on the toilet seat
to man-handle the toilet brush
in the recycling bin
to destroy the newspaper, Time magazine, library book
to chew the remote controls
to bang on the fireplace
to pull on the speaker wires
to yank the central vac ports open and watch them snap back
to eat random non-food items off the floor
...etc...

Today I denied entry to the refrigerator. For like the billionth time. Except this time there was retaliation. Big time tantrum. No amount of distraction could douse the flames! Mom ran for cover into the office and dialled her mommy. Yikes.

Solution: a cold cloth to the face and neck and then a trip to the mailbox. When Grandma called back Chance was in his highchair happily eating lunch. Angel-kid.

Early bird gets the....French toast?

Ugh. 5:30 AM wake up call this morning. Chance was wiiiiiiide awake. I tried to nurse him in the big bed to settle him down, but after he was finished, he sat up and tried to crawl away. So, on came the lights (it was still #%%##@ dark outside for cryin' out loud!), and started stripping the bed. Laundry day. In went a load of towels and sheets and Chance and I had a bath together. Then we put new sheets on the bed and as I reached down to grab the last pillow case, I sniffed. Sniffed again. Groaned. Went off to change a diaper. All before 6:30 AM.

Breakfast was French toast, and I did up a 1/2 batch of pancakes and froze the works for Chance's breakfasts for the next few weeks. 3 pancakes should last him for about 5 or 6 meals. That boy LOVES pancakes.

We pick up Cam at the airport at 3:00 ish, so hopefully Chance will catch a few winks in the car on the way there or on the way home. I'm surprised he's not having a meltdown right now, actually, given that he was up so early.

Rhubarb

*sniff*

I decided to hack down the rhubarb and freeze a bunch for the winter today while Chance napped.

I ended up chopping off the tip of my thumb. I went to the walk in clinic and they steri-stripped it for me (the same stuff they used to close my c-section).

Thank goodness Cam came home from his golf game when he did, I was contemplating leaving Chance with the neighbour.

The doctor said it would be 5 or 6 days before the steri-strips can come off. Have to keep it clean & watch for infection.

*sniff*