july, 2005

july 29

wow - what a whiney previous post. must have been an off day - both the children and i have been a lot perkier since then but i can't possibly write too much today since i'm only going to have to do another update on august 1. in fact the only useful news i'm willing to give is that we've had an offer accepted on a house [just down the street from where we live now] so i guess plan a worked after all. more to follow in august..

as an aside, i've just found a link to swanksigns on boingboing. swanksigns is 'dedicated to the art of mocking public works' - [who isn't?]. speaking of strangely funny things, my local radio station here in vancouver is currently running 'the breeders cup' - couples have to enter to become one of 3 couples who will race to see who can get pregnant first.

july 24

aaaarrrgh... at the end of my tether. it's not often than i get to the end of my tether because generally i'm a very calm person, happy to go with the flow, and things don't tend to bother me very much. i think the fact that sascha has had to work for most of the weekend, coupled with the fact that the children are both at their worst probably has something to do with it. i'm looking forward to work tomorrow. we have a pro-d week at work which means no customers, less of the money side of my job and more time to get caught up and hopefully make a start on my long-term to do list.

i know toby is unsettled still with me working and i think the 3 of us are all a little jet lagged - not having been used to getting up early in the mornings. neither of them seem to be listening to a word i say. they want to play together all the time but only so they can fight/scream/whine apparently. [deep breathe] things can only get better from here :-)

having said all of that, we did have a nice day yesterday together - we headed to family place in the morning [i just wanted to call in and meet the saturday thrift store staff but we ended up staying for a couple of hours because the children wouldn't leave] then we went to the richmond playday which was great. aly lost her sun hat in the middle of the huge sand hills they had in the sand zone. she had been helping all the older kids who were digging a giant crater in the middle of the biggest hill so no doubt it had been buried alive. she also managed to get a splinter in her foot which meant i ended up giving her a piggy back for the last half hour until she made a miraculous recovery on the way back to the car when we had to walk through a huge playground. the highlight for me was building our own tent out of cardboard and tape in the building zone. last year sascha was with us so we went for a more elaborate house but our tent came in very handy because it provided some shade for the 3 of us for a mid-afternoon break! aly's highlight was getting a harmonica for finding 5 pieces of buried treasure in the sand zone and toby's favourite was mini golf in the nature zone. strangely i didn't manage to bring a camera for the 2nd year in a row - not like me at all.

i've finally come up with an elaborate 5-party child minding scheme for september. i just have to speak to the montessori school and my 2 potential child-minders to see if it is going to work for them. at least preschool and kindergarten are already confirmed.

last weekend we all went ice skating which was an interesting experience. toby had never been and aly had had lessons once a week with her preschool last year but really moaned about the whole thing [hence us not having been back]. anyway, after a minute or 2, everything came flooding back to aly and her and her little ice walker frame thingy were whizzing around on the ice and she was doing to odd bit of skating/shuffling without it from time to time. toby was much less sure and was ready to go home once we'd watched the zamboni. maybe he's just not used to getting outdone by his sister! anyway, he rallied around and in the end it was me dragging everyone off the ice [must remember my gloves next time].

quote of the week comes from aly: "why are the numbers coming off toby's hockey shirt?.. maybe they're just worn out like grandpa". the back story to this is that grandpa always complains that the children wear him out when he visits, but still!

july 17

just been to see the long-awaited charlie and the chocolate factory at the local IMAX which EVERYONE loved [quite impressive since our party consisted of a 3, 5, 18, 31, 32 and 65(ish) yr old]. johnny deep was a little odd to say the least but i think that's ok.

it's our wedding anniversary this week and i have a babysitter sorted out, but looking at the grown-up movies around at the moment i think it might have to be a trip to the casino instead. we watched bourne supremacy and oceans twelve on dvd this week [something we haven't thought of doing for well over a year] both of which we enjoyed [although bourne supremacy was a bit of a mystery since i had completely forgotten what had happened in the first one and sascha never saw it]. the kids and i watched the latest peter pan on video last night which completely freaked aly out - strange because it's usually toby who gets scared if anything. aly is usually only bothered by loud noises. we watched peter pan while sascha, his dad and dani were out watching sunderland get beaten by the white caps [local vancouver soccer/football team]. how embarrassing!

i'm feeling very invigorated by working. it helps that i've figured out where most things are and who most of the volunteers are. i also had a really good day on friday when everyone i'd been leaving messages for all week returned my calls - including 2 of my 5 calls into the city of richmond [a seemingly mysterious labyrinth of phone redirects usually resulting in the voicemail of someone i've never heard of and don't have a direct number for]. my first banking session was also interesting when it turned up a forged $10 note. the bank were very nice about it though. did you know that banks in canada still count money by hand. naturally they count a lot quicker than me but i was still standing there for 10 minutes wondering where they hid those nice weighting machines from the uk where you just drop the money in and it tells you the value. perhaps it has something to do with all the american coinage that ends up in circulation here or something.

i was playing a game of restaurants with toby the other day [believe me, it makes a nice change from playing 'bc ferries']. when i arrived at the restaurant i asked if i could seat myself. he said 'no, i have to tell you the table where there's pretty much not much crumbs' [which says a lot about the calibre of restaurants we frequent!]. when the plastic lunch arrived i complained that it looked a bit burnt to which he replied 'it's black but it's not burnt'. i was about to correct him when i realized they were my words in response to complaints about the very dark brown toast i serve for breakfast all too often!

also, toby's latest phrase: 'it's a accaster' [combination of disaster and accident]. accasters happen a lot to toby.

this week the children are in full time day care and it's going to be busy at work since ruby is leaving and we have a penny carnival on thursday, but i can't wait :)

july 11

just a quick update since i'm an overworked working mom! work is actually quite a nice rest from the rushing around i have to do all morning at the moment. this week it's toby's swimming lessons [in an outdoor pool in the rain during our hopeless summer - poor boy] then back home for a quick lunch, a long argument about finishing lunch, getting shoes on etc. then drop them at either sports camp or the child minder's [depending on how early i have to be at work].

roll on next week when they'll be in montessori day care from 9-6 every day. no offence to the children, it's just that i did not plan the beginning of the summer with 32 hours of work/week in the equation! i am missing them during the day, but i know they're having a great time [since they complain when it's time to go home!] i'm also making sure that the first thing we do when we get home at 6.30ish is give each child 15 minutes of undivided attention to do whatever it is they want to do with me. today was pretending to take the ferry to disneyland with toby [who's imagination suddenly knows no bounds] and playing on the CBC website with aly - something which she hasn't done for a long time. after that i juggled vacuuming the house with cooking dinner, eating dinner, reading stories [we're in a library summer reading program where they get stickers for every 7 days they spend 15 mins or more reading - with a prize at the end of the summer], then bed. it's certainly easier to get them to sleep with all this activity. this week my aim is to have them in bed by 8.30pm because i know a 9pm bedtime started to catch up with toby last week. i'll probably move it earlier again the week after because we'll have to be up early from then on.

the work itself is a little like travelling back in time to bluewave in 1996. very strange; varied admin and staff coordination [only this time with volunteers]. the only curve ball is the fact i seem to be running a store [thrift store]. maybe i should have spent my summers working in shops in my younger years instead of bars! fortunately many of the volunteers have been working in that particular shop for years and years so they all know what they're doing! anyway, it's good to be working again. i think i've been ready to make the leap for a good 6 months now. it is a different world though after 5 years of mommydom!

july 3

so we're onto plan.... erm.. [calculating, calculating..] E on the moving front. Let me just recap. I haven't bothered blogging most of it until this point because the plans haven't usually been on the table long enough!

plan a: move to a bigger house [with garden] in hamilton [the village where we already live]. result: we decided that financially it made sense to stay put for a while longer.

plan b: move to burnaby so sascha would be closer to work. result: houses too expensive and the only areas we liked were as long a commute as the place we live now.

plan c: move into a rented house in hamilton. result: to cut a long and bitter story short someone else is living in the house we found because the letting agent was too hopeless to ask us whether we were happy to move in on june 1st [which we were].

plan d: move to maple ridge with sascha's sister and dad. result: looking less like because nikki might have some fancy schmancy travelling the world on horseback job!

plan e: move to a bigger house [with garden] in hamilton [the village where we already live].

that's right. we're back to square 1. i'll give you another update when we're up to about plan m. i supposed it's a step in the right direction compared to moving to a new country without much of a plan at all [as we did for our last 2 big moves]!

tomorrow is my first day of work as richmond family place's family resource program office and volunteer coordinator [or FaRPOVoCo as i like to call it for short!]. i'm looking forward to it and will give you an update when i get a chance [of course that could be next year now i've got a proper job!].

july 1 - happy canada day!

we visited butterfly gardens in victoria for our last day on the island. the gardens were very humid but good fun. along with the butterflies came several tropical birds - including one which had a thing for pecking people's feet.

the ferry ride home was my most enjoyable ever - my parents treated me to the 7 dollar quiet zone [free newspapers, tea, coffee, danish etc.] while they entertained the children. i got through the best part of a book, did a crossword, and watched them play on the deck just outside my window [i could see them, they couldn't see me]. it was all very relaxing until my dad appeared on his own and proceeded to take a nap on the bench right outside my window. i considered trying to find my mum dreading to think how she was coping with the 2 of them [who usually want to be in completely different areas of the boat] but after a few minutes my dad's conscience apparently got the better of him and he dissapeared. i was so dissapointed when it was time to go back to the car after 90 minutes. quite a contrast to normal when we are counting down the minutes. speaking of ferries, one of the bc ferries ran over several yachts in vancouver yesterday before proceeding to slam into the dock. it's very weird to see such a familiar vessel squished like that. fortunately nobody was injured.

work looms on monday - but i'm much more relaxed now i've confirmed that i have places for both children for most of the summer in the montessori daycare in our complex and have worked out my hours with my new boss at richmond family place. due to swim lessons and ballet camp, i'm only working from 2pm onwards for the first 2 weeks, so it should be a nice gentle transition.

a great quote from aly yesterday when someone asked her to go to the bathroom before we left the house 'but i don't want to go to the bathroom, i just want to save it all for sweat'. ahh, she's such a lovely young lady :-)

aly and toby have been playing wonderfully the whole time i'm been writing this - they're playing their favourite game - the airplane to disneyland. we're actually planning a trip to disneyworld with my parents in december which i'd been careful not to tell the kids about for fear of 6 months of nagging. unfortunately i made the mistake of leaving toby alone with the family calendar the other day - right after telling me he wanted to go to the tower of terror in disney for his birthday [in september] he was reading "saturday.. december.. 10th.. disney... DISNEYLAND!!!!" doh - who taught him to read. i'm still hoping he'll forget he ever saw it written down though - aly might not be able to read, but there's no way she would let something like that go.

anyway, happy canada day, i think we're off to fort langley for the celebrations along with dani who's here for her last weekend of freedom before she starts her summer job at a restaurant in victoria.

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