Simon’s heirarchy

Simon is 15 and 1/2 months old. In my completely unbiased opinion, he is the cutest, most flirtatious, charmingest baby ever. (Well, at least since Tristan.) He is also the most mischevious baby ever, bar none.

He is in the naming phase now. He walks around the house pointing at things and informing us what interests him. Everything is “Dat!” except for a few words that have emerged from his primordial grunts.

He sometimes says “Dae-dee” for Katie, but mostly he calls her “Dog-Dog.” He says a lot of things twice, maybe to be heard over the chaos of the rest of the house.

“Ball-ball.”

“Nite-nite.” (My favourite. He finishes either his bottle, which he gets before naps, or nursing, which he does before bed, looks up at me with his beautiful brown eyes and says in the sweetest voice ever, “Nite-nite.” Precious beyond words.)

Given the central role food plays in his life, it’s not surprising that his first words include a pretty good array of things to eat. “App” for apple; “Banananana” with varying amounts of syllables; and “joos” for anything that comes in a cup.

He says, “Tsstt” for Tristan, which is truly adorable, and the occasional “Dada.”

The other day, he was playing on Tristan’s bed and he stopped to look at the pictures of Bob the Builder on the wall. He pointed and announced, “Baw.” Thinking it was a fluke, I pointed to a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine and asked him who’s that, to which he replied something I can’t phonetically recreate, but you’ll have to take my word that it was a pretty good approximation of Thomas.

Since then, he’s been on a mission. Much like Jen’s expedition through the grocery store finding Elmo at every turn, I’m amazed at how many Bob the Builders there are in our lives.

He’s on Tristan’s clothes and his shoes and his bedroom wall, he’s on the bubble bath in the bathroom, he’s on the DVDs in the living room, he’s all over the grocery store, he’s on every second kid at the playground, he’s even in the Bulk Barn on the cake pans.

Everywhere we go, Simon announces his latest discovery with a triumphant, “BAW!!”

You know what he doesn’t say?

Mama.

I probably shouldn’t even try to compete. I don’t stand a chance.

Categories:

WW progress report #1

Don’t run screaming never to come back, I promise I won’t subject you to weekly weigh-ins and mercurial reports on my weight watchers progress. But sheesh, I gotta come up with something to write about every day.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve become quite neurotic about counting up my points. I have 22 points per day to spend, and on the day I joined, I spent 40 points. Day two saw mild improvement at 36 points, and by Wednesday and Thursday I had myself under control at 30 and 30.5 points. By then I had completely blown my weekly discretional points. I also stopped counting mid-day on Friday, not coincidentally the same time that we departed for our camping adventure. There was just no need to know how many points’ worth of marshmallows, hot dogs and beverages were consumed.

Having said that, imagine my surprise when I stepped onto the scale yesterday morning to find I’d actually lost two pounds! Holy crap, it worked!!

So I am back to diligently tabulating the points values for everything I eat. It’s getting old quickly. Did you know that while there are 10 points in my precious Tim Hortons choco-chip muffin, you still get dinged for 8 points if you get a dry bagel with one peanut butter square? There’s not a whole lot of inspiration to give up the muffin for a lousy two points that I can walk off on the way to the bus. Sure, I can have the low-fat blueberry for a measly 5 points, but I’m sure if I ate some cardboard mushed up with printer toner it would give me the same oral satisfaction and transient satiation for even less points.

And did you also know that when Beloved saw how much time I spent on the WW Web site hunting down the point values for every food I might consider eating in the next year, compounded with the amount of time I already spend on my blog habit, he lost all his hair?

Well, not really. He just went for a hair cut and told them to go nuts with the number 1 clippers to have a breezy and easy care new ‘do for the summer. But I’m sure it’s no coincidence.

An ode to doughnuts

Doughnuts are a very Canadian treat. According to the CBC, there are more doughnut shops per capita in Canada than in any other country, and we eat more doughnuts than other country’s citizens. Canada has one-third the number of doughnut shops that the States has – with one-tenth of the population. The jury is still out on whether this should be a point of national pride or shame.

I’m particular about my doughnuts. Won’t eat just any doughnut. After a lifetime of sampling, I have a definite preference for Tim Hortons doughnuts. It’s true that they have the best coffee and the tastiest doughnuts, but it’s the company’s patriotism that has endeared them to me. Beer, hockey and Tim Hortons – the core of the Canadian identity.

That’s why when American doughnut magnate Krispy Kreme infiltrated the Canadian doughnut market back in 2001, I was prepared to dislike them from the start. I had heard that Krispy Kreme doughnuts were greasier, heavier and more sugary than Timmy’s doughnuts. Mind you, when they opened a store in Mississauga, Ontario, my brother told me they had to hire police to direct traffic in the parking lot. I told you, we Canadians take our doughnuts seriously.

It took more than four years for Krispy Kreme to wend its way to the nation’s capital. I don’t think they have any coffee shops in the region yet, but you can get the doughnuts in the convenience kiosks in the Petro Canada and Shell gas stations in Barrhaven. On the weekend, Beloved stopped to tank up the car and came out with a half dozen assortment of Krispy Kremes to go.

I was naturally reluctant. First and foremost, I felt disloyal cheating on Timmy’s. A distant second, I could only imagine how many WW points I would blow on a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. But they were in the car, I was in the car, we were setting off on a 45 minute drive around the countryside to give the sleeping boys in the back seat a bit of a nap after an adventurous afternoon. So I tried one.

You know what? It was okay, but it didn’t blow my socks off. I was smugly vindicated. It was good, but not that good. Beloved ate two, I ate one, and we brought the rest home with us.

As we were driving, I read on the box that Krispy Kreme recommends their doughnuts be heated before consumption. Ewwwwwwww! Hot doughnuts? That’s revolting.

The next morning, I was grubbing through the cupboards looking for something to go with my morning coffee when I came across the leftover doughnuts. Finally, curiousity won me over, and I popped a chocolate frosted glazed doughnut into the microwave for the recommended eight seconds.

Oh. My. God.

Truly, the most exquisite doughnut experience imaginable. How could something as disgusting in concept as warm doughnuts be so incredibly delicious?

I’m sorry, Timmy’s. I promise that you’re still my java dealer of choice. But damn, that was one tasty doughnut.

Categories:

Our wilderness adventure

So have you been on the edge of your seat, waiting for the report on the great wilderness adventure of 2005?

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly wilderness. The campground was perched up on a rolling hill in between a couple of farms on the opposite side of the 401 from Lake Ontario. Not only could we see the lake, we could feel the cold lake winds. The good news is, mosquitoes and black flies hate the cold even more than me. It’s the only time I’ve never received a single bug bite while camping.

The boys had a great time, just like you said they would, you clever blog people. There were ramps in front of the cabins that were perfect for rolling trucks and balls down, and ladders to the bunk beds perfect for climbing.

They loved the little 1970s style playground that reminded me of the parks of my childhood complete with swings, sandboxes, metal monkey bars and those merry-go-round turnstiles guaranteed to take out at least a few kids each day.

The boys loved the freedom of wandering around from cabin to cabin. We didn’t have to worry about traffic because we were the only transient campers in the whole park, and only a couple of hardy seasonal campers were visiting their trailer cottages.

Simon and Tristan continue to be fascinated by their baby cousin Noah:

Did I mention it was cold? By the time we were sitting around the campfire, I was wearing two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a flannel shirt, a fleece and my brother’s XXL vest. I looked like that kid in A Christmas Story: “I can’t put my arms down!!” (I had remembered to pack everything from toys to baby monitor to coffee maker, but forgot — my coat.)

The rain help off until almost 10 pm, so we had most of the evening to teach Tristan the finer points of campfire etiquette.

It rained most of the night, but let off long enough for us to pack up in the early morning. The boys did wake up at 5:30, but so did everyone else. By 8 am, we were on our way to a warm and greasy and embarrassingly grungy breakfast at a Denny’s a couple of kilometres down the 401.

I hear there’s a great little KOA with cabins somewhere in the Thousand Islands. I’m making a note on my calendar to make a reservation for next year. Call me crazy.

Gone fishing!

We’re off on our little camping adventure, although I have my doubts that we will be able to fit everything in the car and still have room for the kids.

I swear, packing for 24 hours is as difficult if not more troublesome than packing for a week. And although we’re not canoe camping deep in the heart of Algonquin Park, I have been a little freaked out over the thought of getting there and realizing we forgot something important and irreplacable, like Tristan’s morning cereal bar or (god forbid) Thomas or Bob.

The good news is, the rain isn’t forecasted until Saturday. The bad news is, the temperature is going to top out around 14 degrees. I guess we can leave our bathing suits behind!

I had a bad moment last night when I almost called the whole thing off. I had a vision of them waking up at their usual 5:15 am or so, and having NO TELEVISION to placate and stupefy them. Good grief, we’ll have to stagger out of bed, and probably out of the cabin, and play with them or something. In the rain. At about 6 degrees. Yikes!

I love the library

You know what continues to amaze me? Libraries. I love libraries. I love the idea of libraries. I love the fact that libraries have serious books and fun books and naughty books and children’s books and reference books and comic books. I love tactile stimulation of the library, of walking between looming stacks, the smell of the books, the crinkle of plastic dust jackets, the fonts and colours on all the spines.

But mostly, I love that they are free.

Can you believe it? In this day and age of user fees, service charges, membership fees, subscription rates and monthly dues, the library continues to be absolutely free.

I love free. I love books. How could I not love the library?

I have the most wonderful memories of going to the library with my mom when I was young. We used to go every week, whether to the local branch or to the bookmobile. It wasn’t long before I had read every single book in the astronomy section, in the paranormal section, and every book Judy Blume wrote, from Superfudge to Forever. (Yes, I’ve always had eclectic tastes in reading.) Each week, we’d both leave with a stack of half a dozen or so books, and each week we’d read every one.

Sometime during my high school and university days, I stopped using the library for pleasure and just used it for research. Then when I finally finished my degree in 1998, I stopped using the library entirely. It’s just in the past few years that I’ve renewed my love affair with the library.

Ironically, it’s technology and the Internet that brought me back. From the library’s Web site, I can request a book and it will be retrieved from any branch in the city that has one available. The queue for holds is city-wide, which makes the queues much longer but also much quicker. The other day I was on Mimilou’s blog and she was talking about having read Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. I said to myself, “Self, you’ve been meaning to read that book for ages. Why don’t you hop on over to the library site and reserve it while you’re thinking of it?” So I did. And the nice library lady with the robotic voice called two days later and told me I had a book waiting for me. And it was a really good book, too!

Most importantly, though, I love going to the library with the boys. Tristan gets as excited about going to the library as he does about going to WalMart. (Um, yeah, I know. We’ll talk about that another day.) Not only does he love getting new books, but he’s discovered that they have Thomas the Tank Engine movies and DVDs. And Caillou. And Bob. And Franklin.

We’re very lucky in that the kids’ section of the Barrhaven library branch is huge – and completely self-contained on a separate floor from the rest of the library. What more could you ask for? Free books, free movies, and a place to run around and explore without irritating the rest of the world for a little while.

They won!!

(Spoiler warning: Amazing Race results will be discussed. I stayed up half the friggin’ night to watch it, so if you taped it you’d better quit now if you don’t want to know who won. And yes, staying up until 11 pm does count as half the friggin’ night when your day begins at 4:45 am.)

Hooray for Uchenna and Joyce, winners of the 7th edition of the Amazing Race. I’m a big consumer of reality TV, but this show is my favourite by far, and I have to say it was one of the more enjoyable races they’ve had. I have to admit that seeing Rob and Amber come in second was a sweet victory in itself – second as opposed to first, I mean – but in my humble opinion Joyce and Uchenna were the only couple truly worthy of winning the whole thing.

How could you not cheer for this couple? He has been the quintessential gentleman, from his loving support when Joyce had to cut off her hair, to helping the old couple complete their tasks, to refusing to race for the finish line until his taxi driver was paid. I thought I was going to have an aneurism watching them beg strangers for taxi fare mere steps away from the finish line. Could you see Rob Mariano doing that?

Uchenna and Joyce showed grace, sportsmanship, thoughtfulness and kindness at every turn. If only half the people in the world were as good-hearted as these people, imagine what a wonderful world it would be. (Apologies to John Lennon and Louis Armstrong.)

Of course, before the race even started, they were my sentimental favourites. The pre-show publicity alluded to the fact that they wanted to earn the million dollar prize to help fund another attempt at in vitro fertilization (IVF). I already had tears in my eyes for them when they won, but when they were standing on the winner’s mat and Uchenna yelled, “In vitro here we come!” I couldn’t help but cry. And then he said, “And if in vitro doesn’t work, adoption!” and I was officially a sobbing mess.

A couple of thoughts are struggling to get out here. First, how amazing would it be to watch the early shows today and hear that Joyce is pregnant? Wouldn’t that just make your day? Based on the Christmas decorations in one of the airports, the finale was filmed in December, so she’s had plenty of time to do a cycle or two.

Second, if you were a birth mother, wouldn’t you be falling all over yourself to ask these people to adopt your kid? Hell, I want them to adopt me! I’m fairly confident that they will manage to fulfil their dream of parenthood now, and that makes me very happy for them.

Third, and this is the big “but” where I get on my soap box, how sad is it that a couple who loves each other, who are obviously so good-hearted, who really seems like they would be just the kind of parents we want raising the next generation of our species – why is it that they have to resort to winning a million bucks on a reality TV show to have a family? It just makes me think of all the infertile couples I know who haven’t been lucky enough to find that miracle funding, and it makes me a little bit sad, even as I cheer for Uchenna and Joyce.

If I had more time, more energy, more clarity of thought, this would be a much more harshly worded criticism of the access to reproductive technologies in the US and Canada, but I just don’t have it in me right now. But think about it, will you? Maybe some day I’ll come back and write this up properly.

In the interim, congratulations to a truly worthy Uchenna and Joyce. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful and happy family.

Will work for points

Well, I finally did it. I forked over my $85 bucks and bought myself a 3 month membership to weight watchers online yesterday. I figure three months will get me near enough to the fall sweater season that I can say I gave it my best effort and bury my bathing suit in a pile of junk food wrappers until next year.

As I mentioned in my other post, I’ve never dieted before. I don’t think my eating habits are horrendous, but I do like a little snack here and there. The appeal of WW was to learn how to make better food choices, especially since I’m the chief cook and grocery buyer.

The plan I chose is called the Flex plan: “Enjoy the full range of food options, while making better choices with the POINTS system. ” All foods have a point value, and you just have to stay within your daily alottment of points to become a size 6 overnight. Okay, I may be extrapolating more than they are promising, but how hard can it be?

Two things appealed to me about this whole point system. The first was that they have a full catalogue of the point value of all my favourite fast foods. Subway, Tim Hortons, Wendy’s, McDonalds, it’s all there. How bad can any diet be that includes Dairy Queen? The biggest appeal, though, was the daily counting and control of the points themselves.

I must confess, I am a bean counter at heart. Points to tally, online charts to monitor your progress, little boxes to check off several times a day – it’s an obsessive-compulsive dream come true. With all these points to micromanage, I’ll have no time to eat junk food.

So I sign up late yesterday afternoon, and spend a while playing around on the site and looking at the point values for various foods. “Hey,” I think, “This is going to be a breeze. Looks like I’ll have to replace the odd bag of chips with an apple, maybe choose the veggie sub over the philly steak and cheese, but this is going to work out great!”

I enter my height and weight, and it gives me my daily point value. And I hit the back button to make sure I didn’t miss a digit or something, because that point value seems suspiciously low. So I rekey it, and it is still the same. Hmmm. Okay, we can work with this.

Despite the fact that I’m feeling a little shortchanged in the points exchange, I’m still feeling keen and eager to play with their various points calculators, so I begin entering all the food I’ve eaten so far in the day. I’m amazed how simple it is – just a few clicks and I’m into the “dining out” section, finding Tim Hortons, scrolling down to find the choco-chip muffin that is my daily breakfast bread and – GASP! Holy point explosion Batman, that damn muffin is almost HALF of my daily alottment of points.

It is with considerably more trepidation that I search out the salami and havarti sandwich from my favourite deli that was lunch and add it to the total. Eek. Not even noon and my points are busted for the day. Too late to change dinner plans so late in the day, so I go ahead and add the barbequed sausage, saurkraut and cole slaw that I have on the menu for dinner. I am only somewhat mollified by the fact that the greek salad will cost me nothing if I pick out the feta. I know I probably won’t pick out the feta, but I just don’t have the heart to burden myself with the additional points.

Okay, so this is not an example of my best eating habits, but neither is it as bad as it gets. On day one, I’ve eaten 150% of my daily points alottment. Yikes. No wonder left to my own devices I’m not losing any weight.

Already discouraged and wondering if I’ve just wasted $85 that I could have just spent on bigger pants, I found my saving grace. You can bargain for extra points! For 20 minutes of moderate exercise, you can buy a point. For 30 minutes of vigourous exercise, you can buy two points. So my new daily obsession is not so much tallying up the food points as keeping track of how many seconds it takes to walk to the photocopier or the printer and back to my cube, so I can string them all together to buy myself enough points to earn my muffin back.

I was going to create a new blog for my WW adventures, but with barely enough time in the day to maintain one blog now that I’m spending all my time bartering points I’m not sure I have it in me to maintain two. What do you think? Are you interested enough in my WW adventures to keep reading them here, or should I move it elsewhere? Or, god forbid, shall I just keep it to myself for once?

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Just a little post-script: sometime around 6 pm last night, I had my 5000th hit. Yay for us! Thank you for making blog such a success. I know there are lots of bloggers who get 5000 hits in a day, but in considering it hasn’t even been four months since blog was born, I think we’re doing pretty good!

10 reasons I love my kids today

A while ago, gratitude journals were all the rage. I think Oprah lead the charge on that one. While it smacks of saccharine, I have to admit that when life gets crazy, it’s easy to lose sight of all the wonderful things I have to be thankful for every single day.

It’s Mother’s Day, so here are 10 ways I love my kids this week:

1. I love the way the boys are starting to play with each other. Yesterday, Tristan invented a game called “Mr Fingies” that involved passing a small flat toy under the bathroom door to Simon, who passed it back to Tristan’s urgings of “Give it to Mr Fingies.” Not only was it adorable, but it allowed me to go to the bathroom in (relative) peace.

2. I love the way Simon comes up to us when we have food he wants. You can see it register on his face that one or the other of us has a tasty bite of ice cream or cookie or something he might like. He waddles over and points and grunts at what he wants, then opens his mouth just like the baby birds in the National Geographic videos. It’s especially cute when he does this to Tristan.

3. I love openmouthed wet baby kisses.

4. I love the fact that Tristan is really starting to think for himself. The other day, Beloved was pestering him to finish a few bites of food on his plate, and Tristan told him, “Please be quiet, I can’t think or eat with all that racket going on.” And when Beloved complied, Tristan contentedly ate the rest of his food. Later that same dinner, when Beloved went to go wipe Tristan’s face with a cloth, Tristan told him, “Go over there and wash the dishes.” That’s my boy!

5. I love Tristan’s manners. He almost always says thank you when you give him something, usually remembers to say please when asking for something. He often says “excuse me” when walking past or in front of somebody. I know this won’t last, but I love it while it does.

6. I love Simon’s attitude. The boy just learned to walk last month, and yet the novelty of walking itself is not enough for him. God help you if you try to convince him to walk in any direction except the way he wants to go. You’d think with the entire world to explore, he’d be content to just go, but no, he has to go his way. And he doesn’t need to hold your hand either, thank you very much.

7. I love that they love books. The other day, Tristan was “reading” a book to Simon, repeating it more or less verbatim from memory.

8. I love watching them get smarter and more aware of the world every day. I love being surprised by how much they know and understand.

9. I love going for walks with them. Usually, Simon rides in the stroller and Tristan walks, but we go extremely slowly as every pinecone, stone and crack in the sidewalk must be explored, manipulated and moved.

10. I love peeking in on them when they are sleeping. There is not a single night that my heart doesn’t contract in sheer joy as I look at them sleeping in their beds. They are truly angels – when they are sleeping.

I could go on for hours…

Because it’s too beautiful outside to blog…

I lifted this from Casey at Expectant Waiting. I never thought of myself as a pink kind of person, but the description seems apt.

you are deeppink
#FF1493

Your dominant hues are red and magenta. You love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can’t leave behind. You can influence others on days when you’re patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing.

Your saturation level is high – you get into life and have a strong personality. Everyone you meet will either love you or hate you – either way, your goal is to get them to change the world with you. You are very hard working and don’t have much patience for people without your initiative.

Your outlook on life is very bright. You are sunny and optimistic about life and others find it very encouraging, but remember to tone it down if you sense irritation.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

What colour are you?