Month: August 2008

I did it!! I did it!!I did it!!

I’m dancing around the living room with Lucas singing, “We did it!!!” I fixed all the problems (that, erm, I had created in the first place) in transferring over to my new blog host. I figured out that my SQL database wouldn’t populate because I was using the wrong version of SQL (and let me tell you, I felt a cold finger of dread performing the bloggy equivalent of open heart surgery with a box cutter when I was mucking about in those SQL tables, trying to cut and paste them when the file was too big!!!) and then I figured out why my wp-config file wasn’t reading the databases correctly. After 48 hours of headache, five calls and four e-mails to technical support and about sixty filezilla uploads and downloads, I DID IT!!!!

Oh how I missed you, my pretty blog. There were a few dark hours there where I thought I might never see you again, and I felt guilty remorse for the horrible way I’ve neglected you over the past few months.

I swear, my darling blog, I’ll never leave you again!

Anecdotal aside: yesterday, I was asking Beloved how to set up our printer-scanner thingamawhatchacallit so I could scan some reciepts before I send them to the health insurance company. He said, “You just plug it into the USB port on the laptop and it’s ready to go.” When I kind of muttered and asked him to do it for me, he said, “Let me get this straight. With no idea how to use the coding languages, you’ll edit your PHP files and your SQL databases, but you can’t figure out how to plug something into the USB port?”

I replied that it was all a part of the delightful package of contradictions and dichotomies that is me.

P.S. Did I mention I DID IT!!???!!!

P.P.S. I know, some of the images are missing, including the blog banner. I have to resave my images file on the new server, but after Lucas and I finish our victory dance, there are a few (ahem, hundred) things around here I’ve neglected while parsing my blog code, like feeding the kids. It’ll all be back to normal eventually, now that the scary part is fixed.

Imagine if the trip to Lake Placid had been this, well, placid

Suckers for punishment that we are, we decided on one last road trip this summer. We loaded the boys into the van and drove across the province, through the unbelievably picturesque Algonquin Park, to see the boys paternal grandparents, Mimi and Pipi.

If nothing else, the trip completely restored my confidence in our ability to enjoy a road trip. That, and the boys had the chance to drive Pipi’s boat, go fishing, and feed the chipmunks that Mimi and Pipi have tamed with a steady stream of peanuts.

These are a few of my favourite moments:

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The full set of photos is here. (And, if you’re wondering, the answer is yes, I have spent the entire summer with Lucas in one hand and my Nikon in the other!)

The baby who didn’t like TV

Anyone who has been reading for a while knows I’m (cough) pretty lax about the idea of kids and TV. Baby Einstein came crashing on to the scene just about the time Tristan was born, and I have fond memories of plopping him into his exersaucer and queuing up the Baby Mozart for 30 minutes of blissful diversion. We were equally charmed and perplexed by the boys’ addiction to the DVDs, and called them “baby crack”.

By the time Simon graduated from DVDs to broadcast TV, we had a dozen or so of the Baby Einstein DVDs kicking around — some of them even free enough of scratches, fingerprints and drool that they still play. Not that it does us any good. (As a side note, it’s kind of funny to look back and see what background TV each kid was exposed to. Tristan watched a lot of Trading Spaces on TLC when he was a baby, and Simon listened in on a lot of Tristan’s Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine shows. Lucas, on the other hand, gets a steady diet of Sponge Bob.)

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that, in this house of four people who are hopelessly addicted to the electric nipple, Lucas shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in baby TV. And don’t think I haven’t tried. Little heretic doesn’t even make it through the first five minutes without fussing.

Scandalous, I know. It’s like Tiger Woods’ kid choosing a paintbrush over a golf club. A child of mine who doesn’t watch TV. Hmpfh.

There is good news, though. There is one thing he seems to particularly enjoy watching, sprawled out on his blanket in front of the TV. He is fascinated by Rock Band on the Wii, and will lie contentedly for long stretches, watching song after song as Mommy and Daddy rock out on the guitar and drums.

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(I’d come back from washing my hands after a diaper change and he had inched his way over and grabbed hold of the whammy bar. Rock on, little dude!)

Stroller shopping

It seems mildly ridiculous to me that I have three strollers and yet am shopping for another. Who knew before kids that you actually need more than one kind of stroller?

The old Graco that came with my first travel system back in 2002 is finally falling to pieces after two and a half boys, and I have to replace it. I also have a Maclaren Triumph that I got on serious clearance, and my very indulgent but well-used Chariot running stroller circa 2002. The Maclaren is great for travelling as it’s light as air and folds up small, but it doesn’t look terribly comfortable and you can’t lie down it down flat. The Chariot is wonderful for snow with its big bicycle wheels, but is a pain in the arse to fold and unfold and cram into the car.

I need want something decent to replace the Graco: a good-sized, durable, easy-to-use stroller that I can use every day to walk the boys to school and still cram it into the van to tote it around town with us. I don’t want to spend a fortune and am amenable to used, so I’m just scoping out what’s available out there. What you kind of stroller do you have, what do you love and what do you hate about yours? What do you covet in a stroller?

My wishlist is fairly short: I’d like a snack-tray with cupholder for Lucas; a seat where he can sit upright and lie more or less flat; a nice basket for storage; and, most important of all, a cupholder for me. Lightweight is good as is compact, but not my primary concern. I’d like to come in under $200 new, which seems a bit unlikely unless I go with one of the fancy-ass umbrella types, and I’ve pretty much got that covered with the Maclaren. I’ve been eyeballing everything from a Zooper (I saw a Zooper Waltz second hand for a song and have e-mailed the seller) to a Peg Perego Aria to a good old Evenflo.

Talk stroller to me, baby!