First morning at the new daycare

So far it's going great... Emily and I spent this morning at Dawn's. The kids played outside, did puzzles inside, had a snack and sang songs and it all went much better than I expected. There was the usual territorial stuff going on but not as much as I anticipated. Dawn was really happy with how it went too so tomorrow I'm going to take Emily there, stay for a bit and then let her have some time there on her own while I do some errands (such as pick up the double stroller that I bought used from Louise, and go buy Louise's going away gift).

One of Emily's favourite places in the house is sitting on a footstool in the kitchen - using it like a little table. She often eats her snacks sitting there in fact. I'll be kind of sad when she outgrows it.

And lastly, one of the reasons that I love life with John is because he keeps on being the same guy in one way: his strange sense of humour that makes me laugh so much. Here is what I found, written in hair, on the shower wall yesterday morning:

Poor quality photo... but those would be his initials. Gross, maybe, but damn funny.

Yes, you heard it right.... new daycare!

Two weeks ago I met with a woman I found through the Daycare Provider Network in our area. Her name is Dawn. She has a daughter who is 18 months old, also named Emily. Dawn is bilingual and will speak to Emily (our Emily) in French but do her program in both languages. She makes her own bread (!) and has a really cozy house - very child friendly but also very homey. She has a great back yard and is really close to a nice park. The only drawback is that she isn't in walking distance to our house so I may be taking the bus more often and John will drive. We'll have to work that out.

So, today was Emily's last day at Louise's. It was if Emily understood because she burst into tears as we left. It was very sweet.

Work sucks. I've decided that I hate my job. It's a long story but essentially my division is caught in the middle of everyone else's crappy work resulting in long hours, getting crap from the Minister's office and the Deputy Minister's office, and oh yah, from the divisions who are sending us their crap work. Nice, eh? Would you stay in this job? No, me neither. But do I have a choice? Of course not. So, here I am doing my best but doing nothing as well as I want to.

At least I have the next two days off - I'm slowly introducing Emily to the new daycare so she and I are home for two days with bits of them spent at Dawn's. I'm so thankful because I don't know if I could have spent one more minute at the office without testing the strength of the glass and hoping that it gave. Of course, I would only have fallen about five inches so it wouldn't have helped me any. I could have just started running though and I bet no one would have chased me because everyone I work with is just too damn busy.

The thing about our division is that we were created to improve the quality of stuff being sent to the minister (briefing notes, memos etc). The result now is that we improve the quality of the stuff and the quality coming to us seems to be getting worse. And no one seems to get that or care. We just keep doing our jobs and doing them really well. Until we stop doing them well, no one is going to do anything about the fact that we keep good information going to the minister with only 5 people. And when it isn't done well, it is because people send it to us so late. Do they get blamed? Of course not... we do. Are you sure you don't want my job?

Strawberries and ice cream are calling me.

Easter with Omi

Last weekend was great. John's mom, known around here as Omi, came for the weekend. Emily loved having her Omi around and we loved getting some time on our own. On Good Friday we took Emily to the Agricultural Museum and bought a family membership actually since I figure we'll be there a lot over the next year. There was a special Easter program on with lots of the animals outside.

On Saturday we dyed Easter eggs - Emily's first time. She seemed to enjoy herself. Only once did she try to drink the dye liquid. That's what you get when you hand a toddler a spoon.

Sunday morning we had an Easter egg hunt in the living room. It only took about 20 minutes to find the eggs but Emily spent the rest of the day looking for more where she had found them before. Very cute. On Monday we all went out for breakfast and then Omi got on the plane to go home. It was a nice weekend leading into a nasty week at work.

I realize this post is late in coming and the pictures are strangely aligned and for some reason I've had to post it twice before I could see it but hey, at least it is finally up. More later today on.... new daycare!

Junk I recently received

Dad, if you read this and are offended, I'm sorry, but I couldn't pass up a blog entry on this. It is just too good.

My mum died in January 2005. My dad recently remarried and decided to move to Toronto to live where his new wife lives. This meant a giant divesting of stuff because Donna, the new wife, has a small house and of course, already had her house filled with her own things. I went up to my dad's apartment in Sudbury one weekend after Christmas. Picture this, as it is important later - I drove, by myself, to Sudbury from Ottawa on a Friday, went through everything (and I mean everything) in the apartment, then saw a major snowstorm was coming and drove back to Ottawa Saturday night. It was nasty and yet I did it to help out and ensure that the things that my sister, Beth, and I wanted to keep were not thrown away and the things we didn't want were left without labels on them. Okay, that's the background.

My dad very generously paid a moving truck to bring the things I wanted to Ottawa. It arrived about two weeks ago with the large items and several boxes. As they brought in the boxes it struck me that this was definitely more than I had labelled and as I opened them up, my suspicions were confirmed. Here is what I found: crap and more crap. Crap I wanted thrown away. Crap I did not want sent to me in Ottawa. Crap that I now had to take the time to go through (again) and throw away. Crap that would now occupy some of my precious and limited spare time. Was I annoyed? Oh yah... that's an understatement. My dad wasn't entirely to blame - Donna was an active participant as well so we can blame them both. Now that I've thrown away or given away most of it I look back on it and laugh. Apparently, according to Donna, there isn't a Sally Ann or Good Will to be found in Sudbury. Who knew?

I'm so glad that I took that trip to Sudbury. I see that it was very helpful.

Here is low-down of my favourite items: entire box filled with old spices. Some of the bottles were empty. One slipper - no match. At least one whole box of sewing stuff that I said I didn't want. A white lump of coral or rock. I have no idea where it came from. A small musical Easter egg that I had clearly made fun of while going through the stuff in the apartment. A very dirty and ripped tea cozy. A big bowl of plastic fruit. A box of 6 keychains. No keys.

To really get you in the moment, I've attached several photos (mainly for Beth's benefit).

All right, so I did barf at breakfast

The thing I hate about having Emily in daycare, aside from the obvious of not being with her during the day, is that I get sick... a lot. I thought I was free and clear of the stomach flu after her brief flirtation with it last week but on Saturday morning I woke up feeling just "weird." Within an hour I'd spewed everything my body contained and then some. It starts you thinking about the last time you barfed. I'm not a record keeper about it like Jerry Seinfeld but I did have to rack my brain. I decided not to count my labour with Emily because it wasn't a barf due to illness. It was a barf due to total, consuming PAIN, and lots of women barf during labour. My midwife swears that it gives you at least an extra centimetre. Anyway, I realized that my last barf was during my honeymoon (not an attestment to John's skills in the boudoir, by the way). I think I'd somehow been exposed to mussels that day - my only bad alergy. Anyway, that was almost seven years ago. Pretty much an iron stomach, eh? Alas, you have kids, stick them in the germ factory that is daycare and then you start barfing. Not to mention, sneezing, coughing, growing large tumours, etc.

So, I haven't been on the blog since just before that and I badly owe my "junk I received recently" piece. I've taken the pictures and will do that this weekend. Unless I barf.

Barfing at breakfast

I said I would write about this so here it is. No, it wasn't me that barfed at breakfast (thankfully). It was Emily. Louise, her daycare provider, came down with the stomach flu on Tuesday and Emily then barfed in the middle of breakfast on Wednesday - yogurt, cheese, and orange juice came spewing out in a lovely medley down her front. She, of course, took it like a champ and bounced back to being happy within seconds. John was more traumatized as he was the one who got to clean up the high chair. She was fine the rest of the day and hasn't had any symptoms since.

Today, Louise is off due to a family funeral so I'm staying home with Emily and loving every second of it. We spent the morning at Meredith's so Emily and Ella could play together. It was great and now Emily is napping. Time for me to clean up our filthy, filthy house. Main floor at least. Tomorrow: junk I've recently received.

A little MEMEory

I do have more interesting entries to write but I haven't had much time. They are coming, I promise, about such topics as 'junk I recently received' and 'barfing at breakfast' and the one I dread, ' looks like this whole staying-at-home-with-my-kids-and-not-earning-a-salary may not work out after all.' I dread writing that because I will cry all the way through it. So, on to the meme:

1. What's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you?
Easy. Being in the Dove commercial. Earned me $7,000 which I used to travel Russia and other less interesting, but still wonderful, parts of Europe.

2. Is there something that you just cannot seem to have luck with?
Money and our house. We have no money, mostly because of our house. We need new steps, a new roof, new eaves. I'm sure there is more we need but we're ignoring it if it isn't causing major problems. Oh wait, leaky basement.

3. Do you do any gambling? If so, what kind?
I've only ever gambled once in a casino kind of place and that was at the Rideau-Carleton Raceway and slots. Quite the dive but John and I had fun. I think it is the kind of place where people wear diapers so they don't have to leave their slot machine - how lovely. I took $20 in and left with nothing. I used to go once and a while to the Flamboro Downs outside of Hamilton with my boyfriend of the time. That was fun because it was cheap and outside and it was horseracing. I have a very unaddictive personality so gambling doesn't hold much appeal to me.