The Bug

We all have this wonderful bug - it starts out by throwing up after your snack, in the car, followed by a lovely fever... which you can't treat, other than with suppositories, cause otherwise you throw up whatever is left in your tummy. Needless to say the truck interior smells - we've had to clean it twice now, and I even had to buy one of those tree things for the interior to remove the smell of kids being sick. Now DH and I have a form of it, and of course he has to work late tonight to correct the satellite's orbital position. Let's hope in his delirium he doesn't miscalculate something! (He won't... don't worry, there are so many checks and double checks done that it will be fine).

Tristan is doing just great at hockey camp this week. He is with older kids (8-10 year olds mostly) and he is holding his own with confidence. He is firmly in the middle of the pack, which I consider amazing considering how young he is. He also had a run in with an 8 yr old this morning, and he held his own - the other kid was telling Tristan that he should be in the kindergarten class and not with the older kids; Tristan told him to basically leave it alone, he knows what he is doing, has been skating for 3 years and he can keep up just fine. By the end of it, the other kid was asking if Tristan wanted to sit with him at lunch. I gave Tristan a big squeeze afterwards (when the other kid wasn't there) and let him know how well he did standing his ground.

Now.. if you are wondering why there are no dresses available on the South Shore, that's because I keep buying all of them! Case in point:

Hurricane Dean and Typhoon Sepat

Both sides of the world are getting hit hard - first Hurricane Dean, which is heading towards Jamaica now, hit St. Lucia which is where we were married a year ago. I am hoping and praying that all the wonderful people that we met there are all right. The hospital in Castries lost there roof and it seems as if all crops have been lost (the news reports didn't specify which crops, but I assume the banana crops).

Then Typhoon Sepat, which has hit Taiwan, and is on its way towards mainland China. The province just below where Kaitlynn is, Fujian, has evacuated some 900 000 people. Now there saying as it continues over land it will fall to a tropical storm... but I can't help but wonder if she is all right, if she isn't scared of that wind and rain. Hopefully, someone is holding her tight for me.

4 weeks in!

I can't believe its been a month all ready. Every day just seemed to drag by, looking at her pics everyday, wondering when... and there you are, 4 weeks down, 30 days in. Only... how many days now? Who knows? Hoping that we will hear something either in or around Sept 20th (too fast, unless we have Leanne's guardian angel who managed to get her LOA in 61 days) or Oct 20th (probably more reasonable, at 3months in). Rumor has it too that the guy responsible for LOA's is on holidays - Happy Holidays for you (everyone needs to sharpen their saw from time to time... so I do say this with the utmost respect).

I have been watching that ticker at the top waiting to see 1 month of waiting for our LOA... and I get up this morning to find that the site is down for maintenance!!!! arrrrgggghhhhh....

We have a plan for the rooms now (not bad, only took us a month!): Jacob and Kaitlynn will double up! In the new Ikea catalogue, there are toddler beds that are blue and pink, and we thought that might be nice to have matching style beds different colors for two toddlers. We are thinking of painting the walls white with blue and pink polka dots.

This is what we are thinking for drapes (Ikea again)

Purple Haze

Just not a good time tonight - had a crazy day at work, then get home to find out that I have to go out and get groceries cause there is nothing left in the house... when all I want to do is sit and do nothing for a few hours. I know I had something to write about tonight, but I can't remember what it was now.

Oh, ya... 2 of my 3 kids have black eyes. One involves stitches (4 of them to be precise). The big T decided that he had to get into the act and he scraped his knee and elbow today at camp. So let's see, 2 black eyes, one set of stitches, three scraped knees - one of which may be infected, one scraped elbow. Don't you just love summer time? Zach is fine - it happened at BK, stitches come out on Sunday and all ready the swelling has come down quite a bit.

School supplies have been ordered - found this great site that has your school board/school list on it and you just click and order everything on the list. They even sharpen the pencils and label everything for you, and deliver it on your door step. Its ecoleomax

Ok... just been paged, bandage changing time!

More shopping!

Yup, I've been at it again!


This is just toooooo cute - her first pair of Levi's and they were on sale, and they have... pink satin bows!













and then.. we have this beautiful lavender dress and I couldn't control myself - just look at those shoes! They are PURPLE!
















and while I was at it, I saw this beautiful pink dress covered in bows. And look at the hair bows that match!


I have been trying to find a nightgown too. And look at the beauty I found... with matching slippers! And..... its PINK!

Enough you say???? No WAY! Hit a sale at Blu (thanks to my neighbour for this one) and found this lovely dress for next summer.



But wait... there's more: Now isn't this just the best!

Granby fun and forgetting things...

Loaded up the truck, and drove to Granby Zoo on Friday... along with everyone else in Montreal! we had a great time - between Jacob asking if we were really going to Granby Zoo, and Zach asking "are we there yet?" - the crowds didn't seem to affect us that much. The advantage of having young kids is that they eat earlier than most people, so we were able to get a nice table surrounded by the elephants, lions and giraffes while we ate hamburgers and nacho chips.



After lunch, we managed to get to the pool (Amazoo) and we had a blast in the wading pool and then in the wave pool with the older kids. Again lots of people, but we found a nice shaddy place under a tree and the wading pool didn't have very many kids in it.








Then it was snack time - cotton candy, and dipping dots/ice cream for some - and then off to the rides. There were so few kids that the older boys were able to get on and get off without having to wait more than one turn. Jacob got up enough courage to go on the horse carousel! We walked out at about 4:30ish, and Jacob proceeded to fall asleep in the car even before we were out of the parking lot.



Thankfully hubby has his memory neurons firing properly, and he remembered last night to check out the hockey equipment situation for the boys - hockey camp starts next week. Here is the result of his efforts:


Zach's equipment fits!!! The only new addition is a new stick and new skates, which were from Tristan at the end of last season. Phew....










So that meant that Tristan's equipment, which I expected to be using for Zach can stay on Tristan's back... if it still fits. It does fit, and we had all ready bought him a new helmet for goalie camp, so we are good to go!







Finally, a very big Happy Birthday to my girlfriend Julie! With everything that has been going on this past week, I forgot the days and forgot to wish her a happy bday on the 9th. Hope you had a great one, old friend! (the page above is a page from Kaitlynn's scrapbook that I sent to her, so that she can get to know the people who will be around her in her new life in Canada).

Another lovely day at work...

So I wrote this huge entry about what happened at work today and then decided that it would probably be a career limiting move on my part. Suffice it to say that my emotions are a little high this evening and I can't see the forest for the trees. I do not understand people sometimes - we are working towards the same objectives, but some people feel as if they have to stomp on you to make themselves appear better.

Just one more day, and if its nice on Friday we are off to Granby zoo for the day. Pray for sunshine... cause I need to get out of there for a few days.

Ok... this is going to be a looooonnnnnggg wait for me!

Not to take away from other's that have waited 2+ years for their referrals, I am going to talk just about my reaction to waiting for this LOA - its not a good one. When you have a couple of pictures in hands and you see that beautiful little face looking back at you... oh my, its impossible to just sit and wait!

I am literally climbing the walls. I can't concentrate on work, wondering if I should call the cleft clinic at Children's to book an appointment for December (even though Maria said we could have an appointment in a matter of a couple of weeks), wondering if I should call my speech therapist and put Kaitlynn on the waiting list (wait is 3-4 months now, but the Children's has their own speech therapist), looking at pictures of clefts to desensitize myself to what may be Kaitlynn's palate situation ( no idea how big the cleft is, just that the soft palate and the hard palate have a cleft, and perhaps a part of the gum line (alveolus)... but could something have been lost in translation? I would love a picture of her palate to get a better idea of what awaits, but its not going to happen.

Want to call the agency and find out if they have heard anything, anything at all (Karen hasn't and she doesn't expect to hear anything until our LOA arrives)... I have no idea how Karen waited over 200 days... I can't even get to 30 days (I'm only at 17 days right now)!

Man, oh, man... this is not good, not good at all.

It is lovely however to watch Julie and Elisa with their respective daughters presently in China! Leanne and Mary are on deck... just waiting for those TA's to come in. It shouldn't be called adoption, it should be called something like "The Wait" or "Managing the Wait" cause that is all we seem to do... wait.

Our 1 year anniversary!

Well, its official we are into our 2nd year of married life!

We went out to dinner to Vago's in Westmount - when we first started dating, Greg wanted to take me out to dinner at Vago's but we didn't have a reservation and so we went elsewhere. So we decided that we should try again but with a reservation this time. It was very good - lovely butternut squash soup with apple, buffalo mozzarella cheese with tomatoes in olive oil/balsamic, chicken in tomato/garlic/chive sauce (so-so), tiramisu with a cappuccino/biscotte at the end! We returned home on a cloud of romance, to be told that Greg's dad had called... we got a bit worried, until Greg called and found out that his Dad and Mom were calling to wish us the best!
The after-phone call fireworks were lovely too

Only 49 more years to go to celebrate 50!

Humbling experience

This week our big boy Tristan has been at goalie camp, on the ice for 3 hours per day putting himself in a net so that a former NHL player who is now a coach and a 15 year kid can shoot pucks at him. Needless to say that the poor guy is exhausted, and he had a major breakdown this afternoon when after being on the ice for 1 hour for a 3-on-3 with younger kids he found out that he had to go and play again with the older kids (he had practiced in the morning for 1 1/2 hours all ready).

Needless to say it didn't happen for Tristan... the poor kid was drenched in sweat, exhausted and he said he never wants to be a goalie again. Poor kid, he has been dreaming about this camp for over a year and it ends this way for him. Just broke my heart to hear this kid cry so hard cause he didn't want to go back on the ice to face the big kids. We didn't force, we got him undressed and told him that this was a trial week for him to see if he really did like it and if he didn't that was fine he wouldn't have to do it again if he didn't want too. You have to understand that this kid faces those pucks without fear and with all the effort a 6 year old can put into protecting his goal - his dream was to play as a goalie in the NHL, and now after being coached by a former NHL goalie, his dreams are put into perspective I think.

I think I am more heart broken than he is right now. Not because he isn't going to be a goalie, but because his dream has been shattered - being a goalie is very, very hard work and he tasted the real thing this week. I should have protected him a bit more from reality I guess, let the dream persist for another year or so. Hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it?

I should mention that Greg would want me to say that Tristan is just fine, and he was happy as punch to welcome Zach home tonight. Everything is fine for the boy, its Maman that is suffering.. funny how a mother's heart works.

Shopping!

Yes, my retail therapy continues, but I am not posting pics tonight... too hot, too tired after soccer practice and having a heart to heart with another divorced mother of two boys (why can some men be so stupid and not pay child support? do they not figure that they are impacting their kids more than anyone else?... but I digress). I am however going to share where I have been shopping. Those of you who know where to look for awesome girls clothing please share!

So, its down to this (in no particular order):
1. Winners - Taschereau, beside the Maxi, has the best selection of girls stuff by far.

2. Children's Place - they are pretty much all the same, but they have some cute stuff.

3. H&M - Champlain Mall on the south shore has a kid's one. Great "fashion" stuff at really good prices. I am going to go there and get Zach's school stuff there, my fashionista is going to go ga-ga when he sees all the cool clothing in there!

4. Blu - Quebec Mom who has started her own clothing wear. Everything is made in India and its really nice quality fabrics, with a European flare. The only one I know of is in 10/30 in Brossard, but I think there is another one in Quebec City.

5. Sears - yes, I said Sears. They have great quality stuff, with nice fabrics and it lasts (case in point, the boys clothing bought at Sears has been worn successively down the line and you can't tell its over 6 years old and gone through 3 boys). All their Summer stuff is on sale now - I'm talking shorts for under $3 that would sell for $20!

6. Clement - oh boy... this is a real treat for me to go in there. Lovely, lovely clothing but very expensive sometimes. I am going to splurge and buy Kaitlynn's winter coat/pants there - the softest pink color I have ever seen on winter coats are here. They also just came out with their seasonal coupons, so if anyone is interested let me know and I will send you the link. Also, they have pink Peg Perego strollers! Guess what stroller Mom is getting her daughter?... and I don't care what the damn thing costs... its PINK!

7. Zara - haven't been yet, but I have been told to go and check it out.