Congratulations!

Congratulations to Kristen on the safe arrival of Brett!!!! I still haven't heard the official middle name yet, but I heard that he arrived this evening and weighed in at 8 lbs. 10 oz. I can't wait to hear the birth story and see pictures of this not-so little guy.

Matt and Patrick are away this weekend. Patrick had games today and tomorrow in neighbouring towns that are almost 2 hours away from here, so the team decided to stay in a hotel tonight. I'm sure that Patrick is having a great time with his teammates, swimming, playing video games and just running up and down the halls. ;-) I'm sure that Matt isn't suffering either with his fellow hockey dads.

They called to say that Patrick's team won their game against the first place team in the league. That after they beat the second place team last night! woohoo! On to play the third place team tomorrow. I think that the best they can finish is third place in the regular season, but it should help build their confidence going into the playoffs next week.

In the meantime, Damon, Campbell, Kira and I are trying to have a low-stress, quiet evening at home. After a struggle to keep her temperature below 105 early this morning, Kira's fever has been fairly low today, but I anticipate it will be high again tonight.

I should have seen this coming

With all of the sickness that has been going around this house this past month, Kira has stayed relatively healthy, just minor colds here and there. Not anymore. Last night she woke up with a high fever and a nasty cough. She has been lethargic, not her plunky little self. Every chance she gets, she gets her arms wrapped around my neck in a death grip. She is so cute when she coughs though, Patrick gave her a lesson in coughing this morning. He taught her to cover her mouth and she always remembers to do it, it is so sweet.

We went to the mall to get some new cold medicines for her and cough medicine for Patrick. I thought that since we were there, I'd go across the hall to Gymboree to get a rain coat for Kira. I changed my mind about the coat and somehow we left with a new shirt, jeans, sunglasses and wallet for Patrick. How did that happen??????? He is quiet and helpful, but that kid has to get back to school next week! We are both enjoying these sick days too much. lol

I stopped drinking cola today. I had one can of pepsi yesterday, and none today. I have been drinking a lot of water, milk and some orange juice. I have been surprised by how hungry I have been though. I have had a wicked headache all afternoon so I resorted to trying a can of diet cola, but that didn't help, so I'm not sure if it is caffeine withdrawal or maybe I am sick again too.

This family is sick on many levels

I have to let you all know that bowl had just been cleaned and was filled with fresh water. Campbell taught her that yesterday, and every 5 minutes today, she was having a sip. LOL In the last picture she is getting comfy because she lapped up the whole bowl there.

My cat caught a mouse today, I thought about taking a picture for my blog, but mice just creep me out way too much. I don't like picking them up and since Matt wasn't here and I didn't want to ask Damon unless I had to. I opened the front door and we chased the cat out to enjoy his prize on the neighbour's driveway. :-D He came in with Matt and has been strutting his stuff all night.

Patrick is still sick. His asthma is bad, even on his puffers. He has a fever and his tummy isn't feeling great either. I think I will take him to the doctor's tomorrow when Damon and Campbell are at school. He even missed a hockey game tonight. He wants to get better though, because he has his last 3 regular season games this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Damon woke up in the night with a stomach ache, so I let him stay home. I don't think he was really sick. I did manage to get him to let me cut his hair. It isn't a good haircut because he had a lot of rules (no clippers, no brushes, only a certain comb) and he kept resisting. UGH. Anyway, he hates his haircut and I am mean for giving it to him. *sigh* I'll try to sneak a picture of it when he is sleeping, but I think it is a drastic improvement.

Here we go again...

round and round on the merry-go-round of sickness.

Damon and Campbell went to the school for the first time in a week. Damon's teacher still hasn't gotten my "hazards of scarves/why-did-you-worry-about-a-hat-when-my-kid-was-burning-up-with-fever" letter yet, because she was off sick today. *evil cackle*

Patrick who was the least sick last week, woke up early this morning having an asthma attack. Usually, he takes the day off and is fine. But today he continually had problems with his asthma, and tonight he is losing his voice and has a fever. I'm getting worried about him and we will probably make the trek to the doctor's office tomorrow. He came home from his semi-final game and went to sleep and didn't wake up until late the next morning. I thought that he must be coming down with something then, but he was fine on Sunday. It is a shame because he will miss a hockey game tomorrow night.

I was just getting better too and looking forward to taking Campbell and Kira out shopping and to the SPCA to cancel Maddie's dog license and get a form for a new one for "Puck". I can do that by phone, but it isn't as much fun that way.

Snow day

Saturday was a crazy blizzard day. We got more than a foot of snow and really strong winds were blowing it all around. It was the result of an "Alberta Clipper". They cancelled everything in our city, including hockey. That was nice because Matt was away at the tournament with Patrick and I was going to have to take Damon and Campbell to their hockey practices with Kira. They EVEN had to close the mountain accesses because the visibility was so low that the plows and salt trucks couldn't see well enough. I say that with amazement, because those mountain accesses are a lifeline for us here and are always the top priority for snow removal. Hey it could be worse, the same storm dumped more than 2 feet on my brother in Halifax on top of what was already there from 2 previous storms.



My van and my backyard.



My front porch.

Now Kathy, THAT is a snow day! LOL At this point I'd trade you though.

As I said, Matt took Patrick to his hockey tournament. Even though our hockey was cancelled, they couldn't do that at the tournament, because they had 120 hockey teams from Canada and the U.S. waiting for their games! They won their morning game 2-1. That put them into the semi-finals where they lost to one of their regular season rivals, Waterloo. Waterloo went on to win the whole tournament. Patrick played some excellent hockey though. He's developed a lot as a player this season.

It was a beautiful day outside today. We dug out and then went off to my mom's to celebrate Damon and my sister Lianne's birthdays. Damon turned 7 and Lianne was 21.



I'm a dork, I ran out of room for his name! LOL The first thing he noticed was his number, #1 on the player's jersey.



Damon was thrilled with his Gameboy, games, helicopter and new army pants (his old pair were overly loved). He is planning to do his birthday party with his friends at the military museum where they get to try on uniforms and hold weapons from the 1800s.

Pucks and Puke

I just confirmed our choice with the breeder, we chose Miracle Max to be our Puck. It is funny, when I was there, I really didn't know which one I wanted. When I left, I told the breeder that I would talk to Matt about whether to chose Miracle Max or Inigo Montoya, and email her our decision. In the van, my sister was saying that she thought we should get Miracle Max. When I looked at the pictures I took, coincidentally the majority of the pictures were of Miracle Max. (good clue Kristen) That's when I knew that the decision had already been made.

Patrick is in a tournament this weekend. Today they won both their games 5-2 and 7-1. That second game was against their biggest rival in the regular season and the first time they have beaten them! Woohoo. Patrick played really well. The team has too many defensemen, so they used to have Patrick playing forward at the beginning of the season. Back in December the team manager's son and Patrick switched positions, which was difficult for both of them. Patrick is just starting to feel comfortable again in defense, so I asked the other boy's mom how he felt about being a forward. She said that he wasn't really happy because he hasn't scored any goals since he was moved forward. He felt like at least when he was playing defense, he was contributing. She just finished this sentence, when right in front of her he took a shot and it went straight through the goalie! WOOOOHOOOO. The team has never celebrated any goal they way they did that one. They all jumped onto the ice and hugged him. His smile was unbelievable, and he kept looking back at the stands to make sure mom saw. Well this kid just kept scoring and scoring! He scored 3 goals and an assist in the first game today, and 1 goal plus an assist in the second. WTG! There is another dad on our team who knew how much this kid wanted to score, and he had a special puck that he had promised to him if he scored a goal. He has been carrying it around since early December. Isn't he sweet!

I was just trying to watch The Prisoner of Azkaban with the kids, when Kira started freaking out. I've never seen anything like it. She was drooling, screaming and holding her breath until she turned purple. I started to worry that she might have something stuck in her throat so I started doing the heimlich maneuver, but that didn't seem to make a difference and I decided that when she did draw in air it was going in, so I tried to put her down. She took two steps and puked all over the bathroom floor. She continued to fuss, but eventually fell asleep on my shoulder, and she is still there. I'm afraid to put her anywhere for fear that she will puke all over. I'd rather change my shirt and take a shower than change the clean bedding.

LOTS of PUPPIES!

Miracle Max & Patrick



Miracle Max with Adri & Campbell



Miracle Max



Miracle Max with Patrick again



Westley & Adri



Big old Fezzik



Lianne & Inigo



Kira & one of the girls



"HELP"



The girls LOVE Damon


Patrick and the girls

Little things

Lots of snow here. I'm still sick.

I just noticed that Kira is about to cut her first upper tooth. She hasn't been much worse than usual. lol Okay, she is normally loud and demanding, wants to nurse all the time and never want to be in her crib.

Patrick's teacher said that I was right and that I should disregard her previous note and no bother to monitor his homework. WHAT? I didn't say that. I wrote another note to clarify. UGH. Did I mention how sick of this I am.

Tomorrow we go and pick out our puppy. Then we take him home in 2 1/2 or 3 weeks. I can't wait. I should be putting up lots of pictures of the puppies with the kids tomorrow.

If it wasn't enough that Damon was sick last night, as I was trying to go to sleep, Campbell woke up screaming in pain that his ears hurt. He didn't have a fever and after some motrin for the pain, he went back to sleep. I think that it was just ear congestion, so I kept him home from school today and gave him decongestant and antihistamines.

Off to cook a prime rib roast and then work on a blanket for Matt's grandmother and a little fleece one for the puppy to rub all over his brothers and sisters. ;-)

feeling smug

I went off to google "scarf strangulation" and I'm not joking, the first 3 results were FROM MY CITY! One of which was a newsletter for TEACHERS from the public health dept. in my city to tell them of the dangers of scarves on playground equipment. I'm going to make her cry.

Watch out! They've woken the bear...

...momma bear has been woken from her winter's sleep. Be warned, I'm going to rant about Patrick and Damon's teachers now. I'm about ready to homeschool!

This morning I sent Damon to school and I KNOW that he wore an orange hat. I know this because I made sure he had a hat, and I made sure he put it on (partly because his hair was standing up and I told him it would help it lie down). When I picked him up, his teacher was at the door and said she needed to speak with me.

Teacher: "From now on, can you please send Damon with attire appropriate to the weather. Today was very cold and he had no hat, mitts or scarf in his bag and we went outside this afternoon and he was like this." (she points to him with no hat, just a hood, but strangely he had his orange mitts.)

Me: "He has mitts on, and I sent him with a hat, a matching orange hat. Damon, where is your hat?" (Damon is speechless, looking like a deer caught in headlights)

Teacher: "Well from now on, can you make sure he has a hat, mitts and a scarf?"

Me: "He DID have a HAT and he HAS MITTS. He had an ORANGE hat. I know he had it on, I MADE him put it on. If he doesn't have it now, he lost it in your classroom, it's orange, it's a hat."

Teacher: "Oh well, we didn't see it. Maybe we can check again tomorrow."

GRRRRR

So we all go home, and I am rattled, so I try to get the boys working on their homework. Damon starts crying about what a bad day he has had, and how he doesn't feel good and how he just wants a nap. I felt his head and he was burning up. His temperature was 104.5. And the teacher wanted to argue about his HAT? He was so afraid of her being upset about him not having his hat that he didn't tell her that he was sick and wanted to come home. So I wrote a nice note to her in his agenda. "Dear Madame, When Damon arrived home tonight, I discovered that he had a very high fever that was not noticed at school today. In the future, I will be sending a sealed bag with an extra hat and mitts in it "just in case". I will not, however, be sending Damon to school with a scarf. I happen to believe that scarves are a strangulation hazard for young children in an improperly supervised playground. Sincerely," Signed by me. All of this after the big commotion that she caused about his shoes! He didn't want to leave his shoes at school and was keeping them in his bag. So she asked me if I would give him permission to leave them at school. I told her that was fine with me, if it was okay with HIM. geesh. The kid is protective of his shoes, and as long as he doesn't forget to bring them to school why does she care? Anyway.

Then I go to read Patrick's agenda and my stomach drops to the floor. There is a note in it from the teacher. She is really young, and I always feel like the tone of her notes is like a big sister tattling. "mommmmmmmmm, patrick won't do this, mommmmm patrick said this." "Dear Mrs., Could you please check that Patrick's homework has been completed every night? When he has been away, his homework has been incomplete. This happens often." Ummmm yeah? He was away Monday, today is Tuesday. I kind of expected that his homework might be incomplete. But WHAT homework? I have repeatedly written this teacher notes telling her that I am HAPPY to supervise Patrick's homework, but I need her to make sure that it is written in his agenda, or I can't know what I am checking! At the beginning of the year, she told me that Patrick was having trouble completing his homework, but when I asked her what he didn't complete, she said, oh I can't remember. Several times, she has accused him of not completing his homework, and claimed that she gave him several reminders. I checked the agenda from front to back, and NO mention was made of that particular homework. Anywhere. So how is it his fault (or mine) if she doesn't assign it to him!!!!!!!!! I wrote her a letter too, It is too long to repeat here. It could be read as nasty, or not. Anyhow, my routine with him is to read his agenda, ask him if he has completed the homework, I read the list. Usually he has asked me to help him with the homework, so I usually know that it has been finished, but occasionally, I will take his word for it. I take his word for it on purpose, because I believe that at his age, he needs to start to take responsibility for his own schoolwork and to face the consequences if he doesn't do it. I am here to remind him and to help him, but not to do it for him. I also let her know that I feel that her expectations of him catching up after he has been sick (and he's been sick a lot this year) are unreasonable, especially since when he comes back he is usually not 100% better yet.

She is so hard on him. He does really really well on his tests this year, but his handwriting is still kind of sloppy and she puts a lot of emphasis on marking their homework and he loses a lot of marks for neatness and not writing out his answers. I understand the argument about good study habits, but it is ridiculous. Another thing, is that I find that she is an alarmist. She CALLED me once to let me know that he "didn't do very well at all" on his test. I am thinking he failed it, or just passed. No, he got a 74%. WTF? I think I'm willing to live with that one. GEESH, leave us alone lady!

I just want to pull them both out and keep them home until September. Matt has been bouncing around the idea of sending them to the private school, but I was resistant because we love the kids and parents (and most of the teachers) at that school. But the private school is sounding kind of tempting right now. Hopefully with that tuition money, they can hire teachers who are capable of spotting brightly coloured hats on their classroom floors, or can remember that before they can call homework incomplete, they need to ASSIGN it first. :-D I think that tomorrow I might call up one of the other teachers (one of the kid-friendly ones, not the narly nasty ones) for a shoulder to cry on.

She couldn't resist

Patrick was waiting for the shower to get warm and Kira snuck in!  It's the second night in a row she has tried to take a shower.  Unlike Campbell, Patrick doesn't pose in the nude.

We keep catching Kira playing with her brother's hockey sticks (unfortunately, they live next to the front door), but when I tried to take a picture of her this morning, she quickly put it down and posed for the picture. She didn't want to be caught on camera playing hockey.

It has been an interesting 24 hours of phone calls.

My sister called today. Last year when we were making arrangements to have Kira baptized, I asked her if she wanted to have her children baptized at the same time as Kira, because if so, my priest would happily have a separate mass for this occasion. She sounded interested and asked her husband, he said NOO way (and a few other disparaging comments about the Catholic church). I reminded him that it opened up the option of going to a catholic school. Nope, in his town (rich suburb) ALL of the schools were good schools. Yeah, okay fine. So they need to sign my niece up for Kindergarten this month and they are doing their homework on what schools are available to them. BIL's mother tells him that Catholic school is a good idea and there is a nice one on their street, so guess what? LOL NOW he's eating his words and he wants to get them baptized. Definitely not a forward thinker. LOL I think my sister is teasing him about it now. In a way it works out for them because the baptism will be right after the birth of their third (and probably last) child and they can have all of their kids done at once.

My ex-stepmother called last night. My father's second wife is a wonderful woman who at a very young age, married my father and assumed the role of stepmom-supreme. She was really good about trying to include us, even after she had my brother and even after they split up and she remarried and had 2 more boys with her second husband. She is having a rough time right now and my heart goes out to her. She's a teacher and was injured when she fell as a result of a kid throwing a ball at her. The medical problems that resulted from that are complicated and I don't pretend to understand them all, but I do know that she will never be able to work full time again. She suffers every day and needs to take frequent rests. Then my brother married last summer, which was a joyous, but of course stressful situation for her, and then over Christmas, my brother's young bride lost her mother after a long battle with cancer, and she was trying to be there for him and his wife. Last night she dropped the bomb that her husband left her and her kids. He told her months ago that he was planning to leave and she tried to change his mind with marriage counselling but he was unco-operative. During the wedding when they sat together at the parent's table, through the big family Thanksgiving they hosted, through Christmas and then the funeral of her son's MIL, she suffered in silence. I could tell by the sound of her voice that she is devastated. She is a strong woman, but I fear that all of this may be more than she can bear. Her family lives in another province, and even my brother is a long drive away. She has always been VERY generous to me, my siblings and our children, and I really hope that now, in her time of need, I can return the favour.

Today I am grateful that I have a husband who loves me.

He’s a freak! He insisted on going to hockey. Damon took some Motrin and within ½ hour his fever was down and he was beating up Campbell. Matt had to take the refreshments to the team and he thought that today would be a good time to get his volunteering on the time clock over with (since he wouldn’t be missing watching Damon) . Right before he left, Damon told him he was going. Matt asked me if it was okay, I said I didn’t think it was a good idea, but that I would agree to defer to Daddy. He went, he played, he got some shots on the other team’s net and he came home and went to bed. Then right before the party he came alive again, insisting he wanted to go. I drugged him up with more Motrin and tried unsuccessfully to get him to drink some ginger ale. I hope that the parents don’t mind, in fact I think that if we told them that Damon couldn’t come, they would take it personally or something. I dropped him off at their house and they are bringing him home later. He’s going to be dead tired when he gets home. It is a new parenting dilemma for me. I feel like a neglectful parent, but my other options were to either withhold medicine so that he feels sick and sleeps it off OR force him to stay home and watch him bounce off of the walls and torment his brother and sister. Lucky for me, when Patrick and Campbell are sick they act that way.

Well this sickness turned out to be a particularly insidious. It even managed to get through to Matt and Damon. They only get sick once or twice a year. Matt is better today though, but when Damon woke up he looked flushed and tired. His fever was 104. Of course his dad asked him about his hockey game and he said, "Yeah I'm still going." Yeah right! As he got moving a bit more, he started to realize how crappy he feels and now is wanting to stay home, as long as Daddy takes the drinks and treats to his team. Of course the day it is our turn for refreshment duty, our kid is sick! We are still in negotiations over whether or not it is a good idea to go to his friend's birthday party later this afternoon. They are having it at a place that has a basketball court and an indoor swimming pool with a huge waterslide. So I'm not sure he could fully enjoy it when he is sick anyway. I gave him some Motrin and he looks like he is feeling a bit better.

Before bed last night, I took a long hot bath with baby soothing aroma stuff. It was nice. I'm feeling a bit better today.

I fell asleep with Kira and woke up a little while ago feeling sick. I had a funny tingling in my throat all day. I woke up to a raging sore throat, a bit of a fever and a runny nose. I am praying that this isn't strep throat since antibiotics are a major problem for me.

Matt has been really busy at work. They just got a bunch of contracts and on top of the usual, he has been wearing the hat of engineer. He has squeezed me out of this chair most nights this past week so that he can do drawings on visio. Matt doesn't have the patience for computers, so let's just say, things have been a bit tense...

Some good things:

Kira and I went on a shopping spree this morning. She bought herself some belated birthday gifts at Gymboree, Please Mum and the toy store. Her favourite things that she played with for the rest of the day are her red glitter shoes, and her push broom. We also ordered a new tray for our puppy's crate. Puppy is coming in 3 weeks, I'm so excited.

Patrick's hockey game on Sunday was cancelled, which means that we no longer have a conflict where both Matt and I need to go to 2 different arenas for games. So if I am so sick that I can't drag my ass to the rink, at least he can handle the hockey schedule on his own. *OKAY I take all of that back, I just got an email that Patrick's game is back on, but later in the day so Matt will be able to take Damon to his game and it is our turn to do "juice duty". I just need to take Campbell to hockey while Matt is away with Patrick. Damon will be at a friend's birthday party, so I will just have Kira to watch at the arena and THAT is a vacation to me. ;-)*

I think things with Damon may be getting better. (knocking on wood) He really wants his own gameboy advance, and he recently made huge strides in improving his reading(a pre-requisite here). But it is still a struggle for him to finish his homework, so we told him that we need him to stop struggling with us if he wants a gameboy. Tonight he came home really eager to do it and to read books to me. After a while he started up (he yells instead of speaking and throws himself around and hits his siblings) and I reminded him. I could actually see that he was thinking about it and TRYING to resist the urge to behave like that. He stopped for a while and when the behaviour started again, I sent him to his room and he agreed that he needed to go there to settle down. He came back and was good for the rest of the night.

Campbell took the picture of him with the snowman in to his class. They had been doing a unit on snow and snowmen. He was so proud and so cute.

Oh yeah, this is the dress that Kira wore for her birthday -
me in my dress 

My dad brought that dress and the doll back from the world championships in Germany when I was 15 months old. Funny thing, we planned to make a German meal for Kira's birthday party (weiner schnitzel, spaetzle, red cabbage, german potato salad, cucumbers in vinegar and sugar and of course Black Forest Cake), I planned for her to wear her Christmas dress again, but I saw that dress hanging in her room and decided that if she didn't wear it soon, it wouldn't fit any longer. My family thought that I meant for it to be a German themed party and thought I had lost my marbles. Well my husband was born in Germany.

Kira had her 12 month visit at the doctor's today. She was 31 1/2 inches and 23 lbs. 1 oz. So her weight gain is slowing down. She didn't even cry when the doctor gave her her needles in her arm. She's such a trooper. She was funny though. She kept escaping into the neighbouring pharmacy and rearranging their shelves. They lady there is really sweet and understanding and loves to make a big fuss over Kira. I hope she doesn't mind the fact that Kira thinks that the Kaopectate BELONGS in between the A535 and Deep Heat. ;-)

Thank you Cindy for sending me the pictures you took!

Finally opening presents. 


Cindy did better than I did, she got all of them at once! 


Funny girl 


she was so excited 

Birthday cake! 

I love this pictue! What a poser. She's a very social girl and she really loved her birthday party. She's growing up too fast!