babyblog

USPS

Cor.....

Going to my local post office in London involved carrying whatever it was (sometimes large packages) a half mile, queuing up in the back of a corner shop behind 15 thousand pensioners, and generally having a fairly unpleasant and awkward experience.

Going to my local post office in Brampton Ontario was worse again - a tiny counter in the back of a pharmacy which serviced an area of thousands and thousands of houses and had giant queues whatever time of the day or night you tried to brave it. They also were completely swamped with parcels so that you could barely get to the counter.... and finally no matter what you went there to do (post or collect something) you were always expected to hand over large sums of money.

The PO here is astounding compared to these two! I just went to post something for the first time....... and was able to park in the carpark right outside.... then stood in a very fast moving line serviced by many staff members..... and finally posted my couple of items at low cost. Nice.

New Discoveries

1. 'House'. Bloody brilliant bit of TV and Hugh Laurie is a genius in it. Bought Season 1 on DVD and watched 3 episodes last night as we both thought it was absolutely excellent.

2. Amazon used books. I spend so much money on Amazon that I was amazed to discover how easy and perfect the 'used' book store is. I've recently been trying to find new authors to read (see later discoveries) and buying them used has meant I can buy perfect copies for 1cent! Perfect! I've bought 3 or 4 books that way recently and been delighted.

2. Steve Berry. Amazon kept doing that thing where it says 'if you liked X you'll like Y' so for $0.95 I picked up a copy of 'The Third Secret' and couldn't put it down. I've now ordered his other books (used).

3. Greg Isles. Mrs Hubble had written about 'Dead Sleep' on her blog so I thought I'd give it a go.... (again, used, at the enormous cost of $0.01). I've read a few chapters and am completely enthralled. Last night I could barely stand to turn off the light to go to sleep and not know what happened next. I'll definitely be buying more.

4. It really does rain here ALL THE TIME.

On the plus side

I thought I should make a note of how much more positive I'm feeling at the moment about things. I hope it will last but I currently feel quite content and feel that I'm beginning to settle.

The new playroom has made a big difference to our house. The living room is no longer cluttered with mountains of toys and has significantly less dirt / dust on the wood floor to deal with every 5 minutes thanks to the lack of small people running around up here. The fact that we have a beautiful new room downstairs full of loads of toys has made the boys happy, and my desk is now down there and it's an enjoyable space to be. It suddenly feels more like 'home'.

I'm seeing a lot of my new British friends, especially by going to the gym 3 x per week and having coffee there after working out. Working out obviously is helping things too, releasing those endorphins and promoting a sense of wellbeing. I'm finding life quite nicely busy.

G is still working hard and isn't home as much as I'd like him to be - he is rarely in before 6.30pm these days and never works from home like he used to in Canada. That's been a tough adjustment for me because I've been used to having him around more. I also think it's a shame for the boys not to see more of him in the evenings, particularly because his weekends have been quite busy with doing DIY. Hopefully as he settles into the job things will improve on that front, but I am at least letting go of some of the frustration and resentment that had built up, the feeling of being moved to a strange place and abandoned..... which was made worse by not feeling that I had any life of my own to get on with. Now at least the latter has improved, thus the former isn't upsetting me as much as it was. But he is trying and hopefully, as I said, things will continue to improve. Another benefit of having the playroom done downstairs now is that the next couple of jobs (hallway / downstairs bathroom) mean that we'll all be down there together at weekends and not separated by a flight of stairs!

I'm off out for lunch with some friends now... hopefully this good humour will continue for a long while to come :o)

Harry 26-01-06

Harry 26-01-06


Originally uploaded by katybops.

A couple of cute things this guy is doing at the moment that I should note down lest I forget!



Firstly, he's very tidy (no idea where he gets that from). If he gets something out he likes to put it back exactly where it was. If a door is open he will close it. If he is finished with a toy he'll place it back where it came from before finding a new one. Cannot complain about this anomaly in the family!



Secondly, he's incredibly well behaved (no idea where he gets that from either!). If I tell him to not do something, or stop doing something, he stops right then, happily. He has his moments when he will have something he doesn't want to give up, but mostly whatever he is told, he does. Long may this last, lol.

To This

DSC_4025


Originally uploaded by katybops.

From This

DSC_3510


Originally uploaded by katybops.

Harry - 18 months

Feels like a bit of a milestone, 18 months! You've changed incredibly over the last 30 days or so too, you're quite a different child! Still, obviously, incredibly cute, sweet and loving (which you get from your mother, no doubt) but you're walking, almost running everywhere, you're talking ninteen to the dozen and interacting on a whole new level.

One of my favourite things you're doing at the moment is looking in wonder at the fact that you can sometimes walk outside. Granted it hasn't been as often as it should with the weather having rained continually for the last month, but on the odd occasion it stops and we are out you are never happier than being allowed to walk along holding mummy's hand. I love it.

Favourite words this month are still 'errow' and 'buh bye' (the latter you now like to shout while standing on the sofa waving to Daddy and Dylan as they leave for work and school respectively in the mornings), and shouting 'TWO!' every time someone says 'One'! Whenever you want to know what something is you say 'Sat?' 'Sat'? (what's that) and you still enjoy shouting DAD and DAN at the top of your voice if you want them for something.

We started back at Baby Music classes a couple of weeks ago and the break has not diminished your love for it. This time we've learned 'Ring a Ring of Roses' and you think this is the absolute bees knees, practising non stop at home by turning yourself in circles singing 'row row' and then falling down and laughing.

You have been going to the daycare at the gym 3 mornings a week for an hour or so and thoroughly enjoy playing with all the other little kids, especially a little boy called 'CJ' who has become your big friend there. The interaction is good for you though, and you come home happy and exhausted ready for your nap afterwards.

Napping is consistently around 2 hrs every day and has just moved back to noon-ish which is good, means you're better rested in the afternoon when you wake up (and happier, not that you were particularly unhappy anyway!)

Yesterday we took you down to the new playroom for the first time and you thought it was Christmas all over again. You couldn't quite believe the amount of toys and things to do that were down there. Favourites were a ball tower thing and Dylans electronic drum kit (groan). As of tomorrow you and me will spend most of our time down there so you'll have plenty of opportunity to explore all the new things.

Love you little man

Mum xxx

We're in! (Well, almost)

We began moving in furniture and toys to the new playroom today. Sofa's had to be retrieved from the garage, put onto the back of G's truck, driven around the house and carried in through the doors downstairs. The (extremely heavy) TV had to be retrieved from next doors garage, and my desk had to be retrieved from next doors basement.

Next we began to move boxes of toys in. In Canada we had a wonderful basement playroom for the kids which was pretty enormous. It was also built in a boxy kind of way which meant there were lots of little hidey places for crates of toys full of cars, trains and similar and they didn't look out of place. This room being as it is (open, airy), we immediately realised that all the plastic crates were not going to work. The solution was to remove a pile of things from some shelving in the kitchen and take the shelves downstairs where we could plonk alot of the toys. We got as far as we could but we have run out of shelf space so I think tomorrow is going to involve yet another trip to IKEA to buy more.

Consequently we have been unable to unpack some of the toys (the majority are done) and we haven't been able to bring down the enormous amount of toy clutter from upstairs...... or as yet my PC.... but it's certainly a vast improvement! I will post some photo's at some point, the transformation is fairly incredible looking back on the photo's of 'what it used to look like'. I'm proud of our accomplishment. It has taken a long time but it's been well worth it, and I cannot wait for the rest of the place to look as smart.

How it is that Harry knows to leave the crusts when eating bread

Swoosh!

I went skiing for the first time this season, and the first time on the West Coast yesterday. The bad news is I've gained so much weight since this time last year that I could not do up my Ski pants. The good news is that the slopes here are *amazing*. Our 'local' ski resort is bloody brilliant with tons of runs, great elevation and much more akin to going skiing in the alps than Ontario was! I was completely blown away by it.

My friend and I headed out at 5pm for floodlit night skiing and it took us about an hour to get there owing to some slow moving traffic and bad rain on the freeway. It's amazing that you can leave home where it is a mild 10 degrees C and not a speck of snow in sight, and arrive an hour later high up in the mountains where there is feet and feet of the stuff and it is pelting down with snow.

We started off on a couple of green runs to get our 'ski legs' back in shape and then tackled one of the more difficult runs. I was wary - I've never had lessons and while I have good technique as a result of going often, I'm scared of very steep slopes and I'm scared of going too fast. It was also dark, snowing, and we were in the clouds so we had no idea where to go when we got off at the top of a 20 min long chair lift ride.

We ended up traversing over to the other side of the mountain on a not too steep blue run, but then coming out at a mogul-filled BLACK RUN steep cliff type slope and I was really freaked out! Managed to slide across to the other side, too scared to turn and point DOWN. Finally overcame fear enough to turn and fell on my arse. Got up, slid back to the other side.... found a shortcut back to the lift and took it, with much relief. Then we did it again. That time we continued down the BLACK RUN, very bloody scary! I got a bit more confidence though and began parallel turning as my fear decreased. Got to the bottom and did it again..... legs beginning to hurt! Last time I was still nervous but just got on with it..... came to the end of the really scary bit and shouted YAY, DID IT and then fell flat on my face. Doh!

Anyway, it was brilliant and we're going to go every week.

Hair

Common in London and not in existence in Toronto, Seattle and the Eastside offer a plethora of childrens 'specialist' hairdressers. They even take it one step further here by offering funky and interesting chairs for the kids to sit on in the shapes of cars, rockets and other delights. Despite being 'childrens specialists', the 3 I've been to so far (I wasn't hugely thrilled with the first two) took at least half an hour per child to trim their little locks. I may not appreciate the finer aspects of hairdressing but common sense tells me that the key with children, especially small children is to cut their hair as quickly as humanly possible to avoid tears, tantrums and boredom.

The kids had their hair cut today at the 3rd such venue and although they have come out with lovely looking hair I am 50 bucks poorer and it took 30 mins each. This is 15 mins less than the first two we visited, by which time you can imagine Harry was screaming and sobbing and Dylan was fidgeting and getting more & more pissed off. Today they avoided tears, but it still did seem to go out FAR TOO LONG.

I think I'll give it a miss next time and take them somewhere ''normal". Bring back Jo-Ann!

Could it really be true?

We've been working on the new family room / playroom and hallway downstairs since we moved in to this house. First G demolished an entire room to knock it through into one big one, then he removed all the horrendous faux wood panneling from the walls, then he removed the horrendous suspended office-style ceiling, then he rewired the entire lower level and fitted gorgeous recessed lighting, and then he began to hang sheets of drywall before having a nasty accident and ending up with a concussion. Then we got a couple of contractors in to finish the drywall, which they did within a week. Following that we primed and painted, then laid a wood floor, then fitted skirting boards, painted those, and since then have done most of the finishing touches such as install the light switches and plug sockets. The final remaining jobs in that room are to install a shelf, a heating vent, paint the shelf, install trim around the windows and doors. Then he has to finish the flooring and trim in the hallway before starting on the downstairs bathroom. It's never ending.

BUT, having said all that, I think we might be able to 'move in' to the room later on today. Once the shelf is done (it is part of the wall, hides some ducting) we can put all the furniture and toys, desks, etc in and begin to use it. The trim can be done while we're in there.... although it does go somewhat against my nature to put that task off knowing that the chances of it happening any time soon get slimmer as a result, the desire to declutter all the toys from upstairs, to clear the dining table of toys and computers, to actually have a designated area full of fun things to do for the kids, outweighs leaving it another weekend or two so that the trim can be finished.... which can be done when we're in situ, really.

It will improve, dramatically, our quality of life in this house..... to get into that room.

We have visitors coming in March, April and May (3 separate lots) so we do need to get the hallway and bathroom done down there as a matter of some priority too. So the trim may end up being left even longer, but so be it. The guest room is downstairs and the guest bathroom is basically uninhabitable..... plus will be the one used when we're hanging down there, so it needs fixing, ASAP.

Drugs

Things you see on the TV here that you don't see in the UK, are ads for various prescription medications. The drug companies try to entice you into taking their various potions and whatnots by showing you delights such as beautiful women jogging, miraculously cured from their various ailments by taking XXXX.

When showing these ads, they have to add an audio disclaimer stating the possible side effects of these drugs, some of which make you wonder who on earth would ever possibly consider going to their doctor and asking for a prescription.

I saw one today which offered miraculous relief from arthritis.... an older (yet naturally still beautiful) woman who was cured to the point where she was able to go, yes, jogging by taking this wonderful new medication. Then came the disclaimer.... "This drug has been known to cause fatal infections, TB, and Lymphoma".

PF

So says the display on the front of The Worlds Oldest Dishwasher. PF. I have no idea what PF stands for, but it's meaning is clear - The Worlds Oldest Diswasher no longer washes dishes.

A new one has been on our long term shopping list since moving in (along with a fridge, stove, microwave, new entire kitchen) but we'd held out buying one....waiting for the remodel of said kitchen to begin. Meanwhile we've lived with semi-clean dishes and the noise! Oh, the noise! The Worlds Oldest Diswasher was definitely not designed with actually being able to hear oneself speak while ensuring food and dirt are removed from ones silverwear.

So anyway, we had to go and buy a new one .... which is NOT DELIVERED UNTIL MONDAY. Which means I HAVE TO DO THE WASHING UP. I will let you contemplate such horror without elaborating, doing it is bad enough without reliving it on paper.

The new one is going to be The Quietest Dishwasher In The World. It is a Miele which are, indeed the quietest dishwashers in the world. Hopefully, when it arrives, it means we will be able to relax in the evening and not have to shout to make ourselves heard.

Diet

G's Endocrinologist suggested a Mediterranean diet would be beneficial. It's not a 'diet' per se, but a lifestyle change and one we've begun to implement over the last couple of weeks with some success. The principle is (in basic form) that you consume alot of vegetables, fruit, complex carbs (breads, pasta) and a limited amount of chicken and fish, and a rare amount of red meat. We've decided to go for chicken once a week and fish once a week, and red meat once a month (if at all)....... and have been dining on veggie pasta dishes and similar. I haven't cut sugar out of my diet (should do!) as yet, but I am heading towards doing so.

I've also been going the gym 3 x per week... I did several weeks before Christmas and have returned since our trip to the UK...... and I'm definitely feeling more energy. I don't know if this is down to the change in diet or the gym or a combination of both. It could also be because I switched my Anti D medication (yes, back on the Zoloft unfortunately) to the morning instead of the evening...... I was falling asleep on my feet in the afternoons! I'm fed up to be back on it but a couple of weeks before Xmas I gave in to the fact that I felt absolutely bloody miserable and needed help. I am cross because I fought it so hard - I had successfully come off it months before moving and I had struggled through the hard part of the move, but the situation with the house dragged me down and I found myself into that 'no lust for life' situation again.... instead festering at home being pissed off with the world. So back to the medication it is...... Doc reckons 6 months. On the plus side I have felt considerably more positive since going back to it. Back to 'normal', so to speak.

Happy New Year and all that

Unbelievable..... just spent about 30 mins writing a lengthy entry and then lost the whole damn thing.... GRR!

Anyway, we have returned from our much needed and much enjoyed trip to the UK! We are all jet lagged, especially Harry who has woken at 4.30am for the last 2 days.

We had a great trip - our first 'home' for Christmas since emigrating 4.5 years ago. It was so nice to be surrounded by family and friends for once!

We stayed at first in Hereford with G's family. As usual we barely saw Dylan during the week as he palls up with his cousins and plays hard! He really loves spending time with them and it does him alot of good. We hung out with G's mum alot as she was not working and we went to see Auntie Betty in Wales on one of the days. We all suffered horrendous jet lag while we were there (with the exception of Dylan)... Harry and I got it the worst, waking at midnight for 3 or 4 hours at a time until finally a week later on arrival at my mums we both drugged ourselves to get back into a proper routine.

Spending Christmas in Coaville was great...... we had a good long time at mums and I think she enjoyed having us (despite the giant amounts of laundry we generated!). Harry ended up getting a tummy bug for a few days but remained in good humour. Dylan went to Cadbury World with Auntie Kay and Uncle Ken and came back with armfulls of Chocolate! We felt very relaxed and cared for and looked after by Mum and K & K and Mama, all of whom spoiled us and the boys rotten. We ate non stop. We went out with UKChat people and had an hilarious night at a Working Mens Club in Leicester playing bingo, we went out for dinner with Jo & Robin, visited Nanny, watched quality British Telly, and ate...and ate... and ate!

We finished off with a spell in London where the boys delighted their Grandad no end ...... Dylan with his sense of humour and the fact that he's growing up and Harry with his smiley good nature! We took the boys to 'Snakes and Ladders' (climbing place that I seriously wish the like existed here) where Harry learned some excellent coordination and loved clambering on the equipment and Dylan was 'brave' climbing the big area with Emily! We also went to the British Museum to see the Mummies (most of whom seem to still be on tour - we had previously seen them in Toronto) and the Rosetta Stone and to get his teacher a pressie. Also saw Neil for lunch which was an added bonus.

The flights both ways were thankfully unadventurous and easy.... particularly on the way back as we ended up 2 and 2 and I got Dylan (thus enabling me to watch movies and relax...haha!).

Coming back didn't feel like coming home this time, When we moved to Canada we didn't allow ourselves a trip home for a year so that we were forced to settle in. Whenever we went back to the UK I always felt glad to get home afterwards if only to get my own home / space back...... but being for the most part extremely unsettled here and having been lonely, stressed, and miserable for the last 6 months it didn't feel like I was coming 'home' when I got off the plane.

Although it's nice to have our own space the house immediately depressed both Gareth and I as soon as we got back into it. We'd got used to living with all the clutter and problems but having 3 weeks away from it in non-state-of-disrepair houses (despite being British and having the lack of US luxury items such as endless hot water and shower pressure and consistent heating!) it was a bit of a downer to come back to it. We remedied some of that yesterday by doing some of the wiring, throwing a bunch of crap out and making the bathrooms less cluttery, and installing a cheap but new shower head in our shower that actually works (we had previously not bothered as the whole thing will be ripped out soon but it is too depressing to live with).

So today I sit here, at home, alone with Harry for the first time in weeks. G has been great over the holiday by taking almost all the responsibility for Harry, changing his bum when needed and getting up with him in the morning. After 6 months of single-parenting it was very well appreciated and I was able to relax for the first time in what feels like forever. After all that, and after being surrounded by family and activity, it's crap to be sitting here in the quiet and having nothing to really do or anyone to do it with.

But I will endure and I will continue to try to settle here.......... 2 friends have already contacted me to make plans to do things and I am going to the gym tomorrow to work off some of these Christmas pounds (like I really needed to gain MORE weight!) which is nice, and the house will get done - eventually - and hopefully by the end of 2006 (if not sooner, please!) I will feel like this is home.