| So according to a blurb in today's Toronto Star, a PETA exec wrote a letter to Ben and Jerry's trying to convince them to start using human breast milk instead of cows milk for making ice cream. Oh the poor ickle cows.
This is me never again eating anything endorsed by PETA. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| That's one hot ass you have there!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I love stupid people. And what's great is that his family will NEVER allow him to live that down. New girlfriends visit the house and the first words will be, "nice to meet you... say, did you know that when Bubba was twelve he lit his own ass on fire? We have pictures!"
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| Well, it's 12:30. I know I'm going to feel like crap in the morning, but I just can't bring myself to go upstairs and go to bed. And I know when I finally do that I'll just lay there and read for as long as I can. I don't know why I feel like this tonight. I haven't felt this down and depressed since I was at Olaf.
I really wish I could go up and get a cuddle from Derek. My fault. I stayed up too late, so he's sleeping now. I'm not going to wake him up.
In other non-depressing news, I'm busy trying to find out if there are any ancient or isolated civilizations that never developed the idea of a god or gods. I can't think of any. The closest I can come is Chinese ancestor worship, but it's still dealing with the idea of spirits that need to be appeased and respected and that they can influence our lives. I'm not sure if that constitues belief in "a higher power" so I'm going to dig out my old books and text from college and give them another look-see. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm so excited.
Tomorrow the Moratzes are coming over. Actually, I'm meeting them at Ikea (I've never been there before and it's their favourite store). They have lots of shopping to do so I'm going to hang out with them until it's time for the kids naps, then we'll go back to the house and they'll join me there when they finish their shopping. We'll hang out for a while, then I'll scoot out and pick up Derek. When we get back we'll have dinner, watch Doctor Who, and they'll have to get going. Just our bad luck that Derek has to work until closing on the one day they can come visit. Blah.
Oh and on a completely unrelated note, I'm totally addicted to the Olympics. Another night where I'm going to have to fight the urge to stay up and watch the events live. Last night I was up until after 1AM and am I ever feeling it now. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| - Life is great with two kids. People had been telling me since I had Andy that things get toughest when you have two kids, because you're dealing with a newborn and a toddler at the same time. And while Andy has chosen a dozie of a time to start the terrible threes (he pretty much missed the terrible twos) it's been far easier than it was with him. We know what we're doing now for one and I'm much better at the whole multitasking thing.
- Just spent a week down at my folks house. It was great to be able to show the kids off a bit. I even managed to squeeze in 18 holes of golf (though not all at once) and some fishing with Dad!
- It's going to be our 5-year anniversary this year. It's so hard to believe we've been married for 5 years! We're going to take a special trip up to Gravenhurst with my parents so everyone can celebrate their anniversaries together (my parents will be married 30 years this year!). We already have the hotel reserved and we'll be going out for a boat cruise. Derek and I went there once before and loved it.
- I'm taking the housewife/stay-at-home-mom thing to heart. The house still isn't clean or neat, but I'm proud to say that it's consistently less messy and every week some little project is getting done. Cooking is VASTLY improving and I even made homemade ice cream last week. This week I will set up Gracie's crib and get her room ready. She's been sleeping in the bassinet in our room up until now, and I think we're just a step away from her sleeping in her own room. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Well, there's been simultaneously a lot and nothing going on here since the baby was born.
On one hand, you're just trying to get through the day on less sleep than you're used to, trying not to let the house dissolve into a heart-stopping mess every day, trying to make sure you're thinking far enough ahead to at least have an idea what you're going to make for dinner and trying to find a little quiet time where you can relax and recharge enough so as not to melt into a messy pool of goo. On the other hand, things get so mundane, predictable and stale that even when you try to get out of the house for a change of scenery, you're still bored with where you are.
So I've decided that I'm going to use the library until it bleeds.
Even when things are kind of crazy here, there's a lot of opportunities to read. First thing in the morning, any time I'm breastfeeding, when Andy is up and awake, but either playing semi-quietly or watching a show, wind down time before I fall asleep-- that all adds up. So I'm taking this chance to learn as much as I can before I have to go back to work. And there's no limits or pattern to what I'm trying to pick up. I went online and did a search on the library's website for the Dummies books. I currently have 10 of them either checked out already or in transit to my library for me to pick up. They're quick easy reads and a plethera of topics. I've already read one on NASA, and I'm finishing up "Winning at Internet Poker for Dummies." After that will be "Writing Children's Books for Dummies."
Some slightly more practical reading comes in the form of 4-5 time-management/housekeeping books that I'm reading/going to read. One one hand we have Mrs. Beeton, on the other Martha Stewart. On another hand, there's a tiny little book with over 300 suggestions and tips from moms accross America as compiled by some mom blogger.
And I started my maternity leave, I have bought or subscribed to more magazines that I ever have before in my life. Better Homes and Gardens, Canadian Gardening, Parenting, Crochet Today, Kraft Magazine, Simple Knits, Knit.1, and Canadian Living, though I might be missing a few. I wonder if this happens to very other new Moms? I don't know what it is about magazines, but I'm addicted.
It is really pissing down outside. I think this might be a nice time to put on a little rainy day music and just enjoy a little peace and quiet for a while. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Oh, I can't believe I didn't post about this.
The other day I was playing with Gracie and standing her on my lap. We were having a great time. Then she smiled really big, looked straight into my eyes, and said...
"Fear Me."
I've got a creepy little baby.
****
In other interesting Gracie news-- at 6 weeks of age, she can roll from her tummy to her back. And it wasn't just a fluke. We set her back up and she did it again, and again, and again. Yep, another genius in the family! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I don't know what rock I was hiding under, but it appears that two out of three Gusters recommend having progeny--wait, make that three out of three... looks like another one is due in a month or so. Holy crap! I dimly remember that maybe one of them already has kids, but it was pretty neat to see the cute baby pictures on the road journal--which I haven't read in over a year. According to the journal, Adam's daughter was over 9 pounds (!) and Brians "can't play drums for shit." Heh.
In more local baby news, Gracie slept through the night last night. Mom was very proud (and quite grateful!) I don't know why I even bother wearing a shirt in the house right now--she's eating enough to make a Holstein say "steady on, love!"
Tomorrow Andy goes in for his first dentist appointment. Here's hoping that isn't the nightmare that I fear it will be. The dentist seems really confident that it will go well, and since he's done this lots of times before I'm trusting that he has the feel of it better than me.
Randy has been finding pictures of Derek from way back in the 80's and he's been sending them along to me. It's really cool to see the pictures but every time he sends them I have the same thoughts in the same order every time I see them.
Thought #1: Holy crap, someone feed the skinny kid a sammich fast!
Thought #2: I really wish I could have just a day to spend with 24-year old Derek, just to see what he would have been like.
Thought #3: I was 3 years old when this picture was taken. Yeah, that's kind of weird.
I've hit that lonely stage of the new baby period. It'll be nice next week when Andy is home. Even though he's going to be hard for me to keep up with, it'll be nice to have him in the house. I wish Derek or my mom was here. Even when Derek's home after work, he needs time to unwind by himself or time to do his music, and we get maybe an hour together just the two of us before bed, if we're lucky. We might get a little bit of time in the morning before he goes to work, but with Andy staying home now, we won't have that anymore, unless he starts sleeping in later and we can steal some time then. It's not his fault--he's so burnt out from his shitty job, and he's just trying to take care of himself. But aside from the very end of the pregnancy, this is just about the first time since I've moved to Toronto that I'm really feeling how hard it is to live so far away from all my friends and family. Even Brooke lives on the whole other side of the city--she's my closest friend here and it'd take over an hour for either of us to drive to the other's house. Mom says that when you get married that it can be really lonely until your kids actually start school--then you make friends with parents at the school. I'm starting to look forward to that. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| Well, Mom and Dad are back home now and things are slowly returning to as normal as they will be from now on. Gracie slept through a huge chunk of the night last night, which was great for me. She has a doctor appointment today which is a little stressful for us, but at least it is someplace a LOT closer to home than where Andy has been going. If we like this doctor today we'll be looking into switching Andy over to this doctor as well.
This weekend is going to be VERY interesting. Derek has to work both days which means it will be my first taste of what life will be like when Andy is no longer going to daycare and it will be him, Gracie and I on our own all day. More and more right now I'm considering spending a bit of money and finally getting a proper patio set for the backyard. We were going to do it last year, but with Derek out of work we decided we had better hold on to our money. And while we're trying to be good about expenses what with me on maternity leave, I think it would be a very worthwhile purchase for us to make. I'm not going to be able to take the two of them out very much because Derek will need the car for work, but I'm planning on spending a lot of time with Andy in the backyard burning off energy and it would be nice to have a proper place to sit and even have lunch out there, not to mention all the times that we would use it as a family and for entertaining and such.
Something VERY frustrating lately. I've been turned down for a credit card again which made absolutely no sense to me. When I was first turned down a few years ago I thought it might be just because I had only just then gotten my landed immigrant status and maybe I was just too "new" to be considered for a card. No worries. But after I've had a bank account for quite some time and been on one of Derek's credit cards, I thought that by now, surely, I should be approved. But no. Turns out, I still have no credit history here in Canada. I've never bothered getting a credit card of my own because I figured that I had one I shared with Derek and never used, so what was the point? It never occured to me that while I'm on his card and could (theoretically) destroy his good credit rating that it meant that I somehow was gaining some sort of credit status. Alas, no. Secondary card users don't get recognized in that way. So all this time, nearly 4 years I've been here, I have no credit to my name. Bugger that! So now I have to do some research and decide what will be the best sucky card to get, use it a few times and pay it off immediately and then sit on the bugger until my credit is such that I can get a decent one. Not that I am in need of a credit card at all, but I'm thinking ahead a few years into the future when we're going to be looking to buy a house, and I want to make sure that I've got the best credit that I can by then. I guess that's what's so frustrating though--it's not as though I have BAD credit, it's just that I have never put myself in a position to buy things that I can't afford. I never needed one because everything was paid for immediately. It's too bad that that kind of responsible behaviour doesn't work in my favour. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Baby Grace Rosemary was born at 4:09AM on May 15. She weighed 7lb. 6oz. and was born with a full head of black/brown hair. Everyone is home now and getting adjusted to being a 4-person family. Andy is adjusting to being a big brother and we are very proud of how well he is doing with the baby. Grandma and Grandpa Wysocki are here visiting and we're all having a very lovely time getting to know the littlest member of the clan.
Thanks for all the well wishes over the last few days--more updates when we are a little less sleep deprived! | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| "As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from desiccation." --Humphrey Lyttleton (May 23 1921- April 25 2008)
The world is a much less funny place with you gone Humph. And as much as I love and would miss ISIHAC, no one could replace you and they shouldn't even try. If they do, I would listen, but I would be content just remembering things as they were and listening over and over to all the old shows. You were a GENIUS in comedy, and I deeply regret that I am still not familiar with your jazz work. That will be remedied.
As the Toy Poodle of Time humps the Pantleg of Fate, we've come to the end of the show. Never have I felt so sad for the death of someone that I've never even met. But if I'm going to shed tears over Humph, you had better damn well believe they are going to be tears of laughter because it wouldn't be right any other way. I saw a memorial show was done on BBC 4-- I'm going to laugh and cry until I get the hiccups, and then tonight when Derek gets home we'll do it again together. I hope he doesn't have a bad day at work today--he's going to be really sad when he hears.
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| Still no baby yet. I'm absolutely dragging here. I think I might be nesting, but it's hard to tell when it's you doing it. I've been busy trying to get the kitchen cleaned and laundry shifted, but I can only do it for about 5 or 10 minutes--then I'm out of breath and dizzy and have to sit down for a while. It's driving me crazy because there is so much that I'd like to do. When Andy comes home I won't be able to get anything done because I'll be playing with him, and by the time Derek gets home I'll be pretty much ready for bed. I think the only time I've ever been so wiped in my life has been when I've been sick.
It looks like Derek is going to have to work all next weekend. To make up for it, it looks like he'll be scheduled for two days off this week. We don't know what days yet, but I'm hoping it's Thursday and Friday. I doubt it'll be Wednesday because that's the day the "VIPs" are coming out. No one knows what that is about yet, but the owner is driving everyone nuts about it. Anyway, if he gets Thursday off, then we can drive down to the hospital for my doctor appointment. That would be great--the TTC sucks right now for me.
Oh no! I'm listening to the News Quiz right now and Jeremy Hardy just said that he had a clipping given to him from Humphrey Lyttleton and Jeremy said it was a way to say "thank you and farewell" to Humph. Does this mean that he died? Last I heard he was in the hospital but doing okay while waiting for surgery. Oh no...I have to go find out. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Still no baby yet. She's taking her sweet old time. I'd say that I think she's happy in there, only judging by the way she seems to be fighting for room and trying to force her way out through my belly button, I'm not sure that she's feeling all that comfy right now. The doctor checked things out yesterday and far too cheerfully announced that labour didn't appear to be imminent and he was willing to bet that I'd be back to see him on my due date. After I groaned he suggested I try castor oil. My response was, "the day my husband volunteers to take the first spoonful, THEN I'll try the castor oil." So it looks like I'm sticking with the bumpy car rides, spicy food, lots of housework and walking and sex. And do you know what's depressing? Derek is happier about the housework than the sex. (The fact that the house and yardwork also seems to be more effective than sex is quite beside the point in my opinion. I know which one *I* prefer!)
What else. Nisha, our daycare lady, is out to win a prize for my favourite person ever. She has been so great lately--when I've been stopping to pick Andy up she's always ready for a nice talk and she's even been dropping him off at our house so Derek can take the car to work the last few days. That was SUCH a huge help. And Nisha has even graciously agreed to take Andy if we have an emergency and need to go to the hospital to have the baby at night. I need to think of something really special to do to say thank you to her and her family. I don't really want to do flowers--anyone can send flowers. I kind of wanted to think of something a little different. I thought about getting a gift certificate so the family could go out for dinner--but they're Hindi, and I don't know all the dietary restrictions that they observe and I really don't want to make a mistake. I guess I could ask if there is any place that they like to go, but I kind of wanted it to be a surprise. Someone suggested maybe I get them a gift card to take the family to the movies. That might be nice, but I don't know if that's the kind of thing that they like to do. I know they eat a lot of fruit, so maybe a nice fruit basket would be the way to go, but once again, that seems rather typical. Maybe I'm being too picky about this. I know that they'll appreciate anything, but I just want to make it special, or something they can really use. I'm drawing an absolute blank though. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Derek just called me out for copying his dance move.
I told him that imitation is the highest form of flattery. He's not buying it.
With good reason! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Well, we're just about in the last month. Actually, I think we're well into the last month--I'm pretty sure that this baby is going to come early. Things are going to get pretty stressful for us in about two weeks, and I suspect that it might be enough to trigger labour, false or otherwise. I stayed home from work today--I had another really bad night and woke up sore all over and so tired that I spent most of the day in bed. There's never any time that I really can rest and get caught up on sleep these days--the weekends are spent running errands and playing with Andy, and during the week I come home from work, eat, put Andy to bed, and then only have an hour or so to spend unwinding or doing things with Derek before it's time to go to bed. Maternity leave can't come quick enough, only I know that when it does, there will be NO sleeping at all for me for months. So on a day like today I don't feel too guilty staying home.
And does anyone know how to keep a kid from sticking things up his nose? Tonight it was peas. Not fun.
Derek has signed up to take classes to be certified on driving a forklift and some other kind of industrial vehicle. That should be a huge help in opening up opportunities for employment for him. I must say that I am crossing my fingers for that tech support job that he applied for. There'd be about 2 months of training before he actually started working, but I think that would be something that he'd be good at, and he's so patient with people and has such a soothing voice that he'd be good on the phone walking people through fixing their crashed computer. Actually, it's kind of funny because when Derek called on the of the forklift training companies the guy on the phone said, "What do you want to drive a forklift for? You should be on the radio!" I kind of forget just because I hear it every day, but Derek really does have such a lovely deep voice. I know he would never be interested in radio--he used to work for a radio show up in Sudbury, but it REALLY doesn't pay well. But I wonder if he'd be interested in doing voice-overs or something for commercials? "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!" | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Back in the hospital again today. It seems like I'm in there every third day or so lately. The situation with my heart is getting a bit out of hand lately, so I finally called my family doctor to have her look at it. We got lucky and it misfired twice while she was listening to it, so now FINALLY someone is taking me seriously. I've been in for an EKG, an echocardiogram, and had one of those ambulatory monitors or whatever their called for the whole weekend. I don't think the EKG or the echo is going to show much, unless there is actually something physically wrong in there (I think the problem is electrical in nature) but they should have LOTS to look at from the monitor. The good news is that while the episodes are coming much more frequently, they seem to be having less and less effect on me now. My doctor thinks that the things that are causing the "blips" (meaning hormones from the pregnancy and increased blood volume) are also helping to protect me from the dizziness and general ickiness that I always felt when it only happened once every couple months. Hopefully we'll have some results this week or next.
Work is going well. One more day until the weekend. Four more work days until we leave to visit Mom and Dad for Easter. Then another four weeks until I start maternity leave. Baby could be coming anytime in the next 5-7 weeks. I guess this weekend would be a good time to get the baby's room ready perhaps? Oh, and I really should check out the schedule for when hockey playoffs are going to start--I'm going to guess that the days the Wings play and for about 12 hours afterwards are going to be the most likely times for me to go into labour.
Derek's getting weepy watching TV commercials and he's having cravings. He's put on at least 10 pounds since the last time we checked. I think someone is having sympathy pregnancy symptoms!
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| Interesting...
I've found a few different local articles about the accident yesterday, and it appears that some of them are changing. Not that they are being updated, but that certain things that I know I read earlier have been removed from the articles. It no longer says that the police received an "anonymous" 911 call (which as far as I know wasn't correct anyway), and the bit about the kid driving home from a family gathering is now off one of the articles. All of them read as though the police found the guy themselves. Oh, and the bit about the guy who was hit, that he had been drinking at his friends' place, that's gone too. It's never mentioned that he was drunk, not dressed for the weather, nor that he was completely dressed in black. All of it seems to be leaving out the bits that would seem to explain how this kid could have hit the guy and not be at fault. Jim said that there were absolutely no tracks or markings that you would expect if a car went off the street and hit him--we think that the car came around the turn in the road, the guy was walking in the road, and Bob's your uncle.
It's so sad. Obviously I feel awful for the victim and his family, but I feel absolutely terrible for the kid too. Yeah, he may have left, but he did the right thing in the end and came back. If there was someone else in the car that he was driving home like we heard earlier, then it could be that they both panicked--it might not even have been the kid's idea to leave--if you're freaked out and someone else tells you to do something and you're too scared to think, you might do it, even if it's against your better instincts.
I hope the guy makes it. For his own sake and his family's sake, but also for the kid's sake. Can you imagine living with that for the rest of your life? Mom and Dad are not hopeful though. They told me what condition he was in last night, and Dad said that the guy had major head trauma. They were just hoping that he lived long enough to allow his family to see him at the hospital to say goodbye. As far as I know, he's still alive, but there hasn't really been any new information. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| HOLY SHIT.
So I was just checking the Detroit News online (I do this every day at lunch--it helps me feel a bit more connected to back home) and I noticed an article "Hamburg Twp. Police investigate hit and run". Since that's my backyard, I clicked the link.
Turns out, it took place just north of Imus on Kress, near my parents house, nearly just outside Dave and Michelle's house. And the guy hit was a Dearborn Hts. man. That immediately sent me into a panic because Dave is from Dearborn Hts and even though I wasn't sure who he would know who would be 40 years old and visiting at 1AM, it seemed a major coincidence that someone he didn't know would be there and get hit right outside his house.
Turns out it was a coincidence. But this is where things get really strange. I'm in a panic and calling Derek telling him to immediately call my parents and see if they know anything about this, and he says that HE already knows, and that it wasn't one of David's friends or family. How does he know? BECAUSE MY PARENTS FOUND THE GUY. At 12:45 AM my parents were in the car going to Eucharistic Adoration at church, and when they were getting ready to turn onto Kress, my mom could see a shoe by the road. She looked a little harder, and could just make out the guy lying there. They got some blankets and got him covered, called 911, and took care of him until the ambulance and cops could get there. The police questioned my parents briefly last night, and I guess they're coming out to question them again today--not that they think they have anything to do with it. I guess some 17 year old kid has come forward saying that he thinks he might have been involved in the incident. I don't know how he just "thinks" it might have been him, unless he completely didn't see the guy and thought he hit an animal or something. The guy who got hit as at U of M hospital--Mom told Derek that he had a head injury. Hope he turns out okay.
What a strange thing to have popped on me sitting at my desk at work. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
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a_wee_chickadee's journal
