I'm back, did ya miss me?

So, I've been back from Mexico now for long enough that my brain has had a chance to absorb all the things that I saw there (some good, some not so good) -- don't worry, I've still got more to write on my Mexico Blog  but I have homework and kids and life to deal with first.

Which brings me to my post.  Apparently I was missed.  Poor Mr. Delusional has come to the realization that I do a lot more than he thought I did (I don't even want to know what he thought).  On Saturday, I was blissfully sleeping in and he did a load of laundry *gasp* -- sure, he messed up my routine, but I forgave him.  The kids were making their own lunches all week Adam has started weaning himself from his blanket...I feel like somehow I missed out on a whole lot while I was gone.

Things were back to normal pretty quickly though. Iman and Isaac were squabbling, Adam getting into things he shouldn't and me stuck doing all those chores that I really hate - like grocery shopping.  On Mother's Day.  Woot. Woot.

Not much else happened for me on Mother's Day - I got a home-made card from Isaac, spent some quality time with Iman, and visited with friends.  At bed time, as I snuggled with Adam, he kissed me on the cheek then sat there rubbing it for a bit.  "What are you doing?" I asked.  "Rubbing my love in so that it reaches your heart." he said.

Best. Mother's Day. EVER.

(Oh - a post script to my own mom - There is an entire post developing in my brain - dedicated to you and your awesomeness.  I can never thank you enough for everything you've done.  Love you.)

Vacation -- day ...uh...whatever, I'm on vacation!

So, it all started off all fun and exciting.  We woke up early and planned on spending the day out at Fort Edmonton, which is just an area in the city that's been trapped in a time warp -- different eras of my fine city.  They have pony rides, an old time carnival and all sorts of other thins.  BUT...(there's always a but, isn't there?) -- hubby got called into work (yes, on his vacation) for a meeting with the big wigs and was gone "for an hour or so" (read, 3 hours) -- by the time he came back, there was no point in going...so we changed plans and went to this funky place called Jurassic Forest.

First of all, it's outside of Edmonton...we used GPS to find it -- but the GPS was wrong.  What should have taken us maybe 20 minutes to find took us nearly 1 1/2 hours.  (if hubby had listened to me, it would have taken us 25 minutes, but nooooo....)  Anyhow we eventually found it - and it is absolutely amazing.

It's 100% outdoors.  There is this fabulous pathway all through the forest that can easily accommodate strollers, wheel chairs or walkers (and we saw all three on our trip).  Along the path way there are little sign posts, much like in a museum talking about each dinosaur, but there are also ones that talk about the local flora/fauna and information on animals (like bees, squirrels, birds, etc) as well as on forest life (decomposition and so forth) -- not only is it very interesting to read all of these things, it's very neat to see them right there in the park.  The pathway is set up so that it's not disturbing the forest, it's a kind of "floating" pathway and it allows the plants and animals to grow/move all around it.

As if the signs and stuff weren't enough -- they have these guides who are walking randomly along the paths.  I think that they ensure that you don't go out into the forest, but they are also major sources of information - "did you know that this dinosaur is actually the earliest mammal on record?  It still laid eggs, but it's skeletal composition resembles mammals more than reptiles"  or  "When we studied this dinosaur's intestinal tract, we actually discovered that it ate only (insert type of plant) while we thought that it ate (insert name of different plant)."  They were really cool.  I was expecting these people to not know much about dinosaurs -- but they are actual paleontologists who are here...very cool!

Finally, these dinosaurs move people.  They blink, their eyes roll in their sockets, they lay eggs, their tails swing, they scream and roar....it's astounding!!

They also have a concession stand (that I didn't bother looking at), a picnic area (nicely shaded among the trees) a park for the children to play in (that's still not quite set up yet, but none the less, is very cool) and little areas all along the walking path to sit and take a little break.  They have a north and south loop right now (takes about 1.5 hours to walk them both) and they are apparently planning on adding a third loop as well.  There are spaces where you can tell there will be new dinos added and quite a few (as of yet) empty signposts -- but all in all, this place was very cool!  I will definitely be going again, and think that I will be making more than a few field trips with the dayhome kids out there, too!  If you're in my area, check it out!

Some Random Thoughts

I don't really have anything that I could turn into an honest-to-God post, so be satisfied with this:

• I am a horrible mom - yesterday I thought that my toddler ate breakfast with hubby while I showered, he thought he ate with me.  We didn't realize that he didn't have breakfast until he had an all out, screaming, flopping on the floor tantrum in the middle of Children's Place.  Poor kid!
• Ikea rocks.  Yes, I love this store.  Plus, kids meals for $1.99 -- Adam ate every bit, and some of our food too! (Yes...guilty/horrible mom moment)
• Outlet shopping -- it's the only way to go.  I bought about $1000 worth of clothes for about $300 -- sure, my kids will be wearing last season's clothing -- but if they don't like it they can start buying their own!
• That whole McDonald's rant post is still ticking people off.  For the record - I have NO issue with McDonald's, I have an issue with daycare providers taking their charges to McDonald's.  Get over it people!  It's not a "slap to American culture".  America does NOT equal McDonald's!!  In fact, when I think of America this is what I picture in my mind:  Waving flags, Bruce Springsteen (♪♫I was..Born...in the USA ♫♪), the statue of Liberty, the white house....nope ...not McDicks.  Sorry peeps.
• Having a house that's not filled with white walls is so...appealing.  I love colour (yes, I spell like a Canadian, get over it).  I love that I have the same furniture in the same house and yet feel like I'm in an entirely different space!
• Vacation - time always goes too quickly for me.  Why doesn't the same thing happen when I'm working?

Hmm...it seems that that's all that I can think of right now -- I'm off to check out a dinosaur park...will post later.

Vacation Day 2

Good God -- who knew that painting the house would turn into a blog post.

Let's start with the mundane.  My house is very "white"  -- it was built in 1972, and I was convinced that it hadn't been painted since then.  I was proven wrong however, when trying to remove old nails (that, yes, I re-used to hang my pictures when I moved in 5 years ago) that were painted over.  The house -- every inch of it, was painted in an eggshell white.

In a desperate attempt for colour, I painted my kids rooms about 3 years ago.  I must have been in some sort of pregnancy hormone induced act of lunacy - because for some reason I chose to paint all their walls yellow which in my mind was a butter yellow, but in reality was more of a sunshine yellow.  Then, I proceeded to paint the trim in the boys room bright blue and in my daughter's room bright pink.  It looked like an Easter egg threw up all over.  It was horrible (but the kids loved it)

So this time around, I brought my husband along with me to "tone down" and colour highs I may be on (no pregnancy this time!!). I chose a colour called "chocolate fudge" for the main living area, and am going two toned for the kids (Iman has chosen a mauve-ish colour and her accent wall is going to be a deep purple.  This will go "great" with her lime green sheets that she also picked out last week)  *le sigh*.  The boys -- I'm going light blue and a deep ocean blue accent.

Oh...the boys -- that includes the toddler terror...who, while I was busy carefully edging around the ceiling (and hubby was carting in groceries) was in his room drumming on the paint can. You see -- Isaac was really worried that I'd "lose" his paint, so he had to have it sitting there on his bookshelf.  Well -- as toddler terrors go -- Adam is drumming away and I tell him to stop it (cause it was really annoying)  the next thing I know he comes walking out of the room with one blue foot and says "Messy".

I'm sure you can imagine the words that went through my mind.  They are not fit for the blogosphere!

That's right, folks, tiny terror managed to knock the can off of the book shelf (it's only a 2 shelfer), which resulted in the lid popping off and 4 gallons of paint spilled all over the floor!

What's a person to do??  Hubby whisks the child away and to the bathroom to wash off - then goes at the foot prints down the hallway.  I am sitting on the floor of the boy's room madly scooping up paint (with my hands!!) and dumping it back into the can.  I got about 3 gallons back in.

How can you get mad at this face??

Then, I get hubby to bring up the steam cleaner -- only to realize that the last person who borrowed it BROKE IT and didn't even tell me (thanks a lot chicky -- another reason that I'm happy that I've carved you out of my life!).  The thing would suck up water/spills but I couldn't get the water & cleaning solution to come out.  So -- There I am with a sucking only steam cleaner in one hand, and bucket after bucket of water to throw onto the carpet with the other.

It took me an hour and a half to get the paint out.  And I didn't even get it all...an hour and a half!!

Good thing that Adam's cute -- other wise something terrible could have happened!!

A look back at 2009

So, I decided that I should look back at this year. A reminder of all of the good as well as all of the bad.

First there was school. Though I technically started in the Fall of 2008, it was about this time of year that I got my official marks. I'm a keener, an over-achiever and very likely the most competitive person that you know. My biggest fear was failure. I was, after all, a high school drop out. I am happy, and yes, very proud, to admit (= brag) that I have a GPA of 4.0. Can't get better than that!

Then there's family. My baby turned one, began walking and talking. 2 of my 3 children are off at school (and are competitive keeners like me!). My husband was promoted. The relationship between my stepson and I deteriorated. Stepson left the house, sick of our rules. Though we see him every so often, the relationship between us all (with the exception of Stepson and Baby) is very, very strained. One day, he will see the reasons behind everything, but until then, we live as the evil, unrelenting parents.

There was the walk for Cancer. I walked all night. It was tiring, and by the time the sun rose and the closing ceremony was finished, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. But even though there were so many of my family members lost to Cancer, it was surprisingly cheerful. The time spent with my Aunt, Mother and cousins was important to me. I'm glad I did it.

I learned to knit. To some, this is an "old lady" thing, but I don't care. Knitting was something that my grandmother did, and I always wanted to learn. She died when I was in grade 6. The yearly gifts of slippers and scarves came to an end. No one picked up those needles to carry on her tradition. Years have gone by and I learned how to knit. Months of searching the internet for patterns finally yielded a pattern as close to grandma's that I could find. Slippers soon came. My family all have matching slippers - some better than others as I tweaked the pattern to my liking. I know that my husband thinks that I'm nuts. I've had many people say to me "why don't you just buy them from the dollar store". But, what they don't understand is that I feel connected to her again...I envision her in my mind...rocking in her chair, her knitting basket next to her as she watched Coronation Street and pretended to listen to my grandfather's ramblings. I miss her terribly, and it's my way to remember.

I got a new cat. Well, some would call him a mountain lion, but he's a giant, lovable fur-ball. Alviss appeared on my friend's Facebook page...needing a home. I helped out. Little did I know that the picture of the gray ball of fluff would turn out to be a 20lb cat! He's huge. He's beautiful. He's cuddly. What more can I ask for?? (okay, he could shed a little less, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?)

I had the most horrible daycare experience ever. A family who was here wasn't happy that I had terminated care. The child was fabulous, the mother was fabulous, the father....an Ass. They were happy with everything, but when I could no longer put up with the father's BS, I terminated care. They, after having had their daughter in care for over a year, accused me of neglect, claimed my home was filthy and, in general, did their best to bring me down. One thing about always doing the right thing, you know that the truth will prevail, but while the truth is busy being detected by child welfare and all the other crap that goes around that....it's stressful. I am still very bitter and very resentful of that whole situation. I genuinely love and care for all the children that are in my Daycare, and their false accusations have left scars.

I had a visit from the very first child ever to be in my dayhome! Funny, how you don't expect these children to age. Wonderful that he jumped out of that van, shouted "Heather!!" and ran to give me a huge bear hug (he's now almost as tall as I am). Sad that he had to leave.

I got a new family in dayhome. They are wonderful. They are fun, sarcastic, witty and real. I am very grateful that they came. Really good dayhome families are a rare gem. This is one of them. I also have a very good friend bringing her child to my dayhome. The fact that we are able to keep our business and friendship as two separate entities is amazing.

Fond memories were made. A rainy holiday in Drumheller. A town full of churches. A visit to Heritage Days and being trapped in a rainstorm. That is one that I never wrote about. The downpour that we went through, arriving to our car dripping as if we'd gone fully clothed into a swimming pool only to have the rain stop minutes after getting inside. It was at first, irritating, quickly overwhelming and soon hilarious. I came home that day to blog about it (once I had dried off and warmed up) only to discover that there was a woman who had died in that very same storm while at the Big Valley Jamboree. Suddenly, it wasn't something to write about.

There were the fun times the kids had with their grandmother. There were all of the great things that my daycare children have said. There were the debates with friends, and a few with strangers. Though I started this blog as a way of putting down the odd and silly thoughts that run through my head, mostly for the amusement of my friends and family to read -- I have come to the realization that there are people from all over the globe (well, so far, just North America) coming here searching for advice, or maybe just confirmation of their innermost feelings.

Everything is a lesson. Best wishes to you and yours, my readers, for a happy 2010!

Vacation

So, this week I went on vacation with my children....and my husband. What a joyful experience to drive for 4 hours with three children. Thank God for our DVD system in the car! I remember driving in the car on long trips with my own family. Yes, we played the games that all the children played back then....things like "I spy" and "ABC signs" and so on. But we also played "Pinch your brother" and "Poke your sister". Parents would also get in on the action with the "Don't make me pull over..." and the ever so popular "over the seat backwards arm swat that usually hit everyone but the intended target".

Lets just say that Alberta doesn't necessarily have the most fantastic scenery....at least not along the route that we were taking. We saw canola, then we saw wheat, then we saw barley. Oooohh, aaaaahhh.

So, the kids watched movies or played their gameboys. Oh, right, as dayhome boy reminds me every time I make the mistake of saying gameboy, "it's a DS, not a gameboy." I know it kid, I really do, but I'm OLD, and I revert to calling things what they were when I was a kid. I now understand why grandma always said "britches".

Anyhow, we finally get to our destination, Three Hills. Not a big place by any stretch of the imagination, but nice. According to the information booklet in our hotel room, the population there was just over 3, 400. They have TWELVE churches....for 3000 people. Just in case you don't know, I'm Muslim....and I wear a head-scarf. Let's just say that I felt a little like a carrot that managed to find it's way into a bowl of peas.

We got there on a Sunday evening. After a long, hot drive, we were looking for someplace to eat. There was the Mission Restaurant (which we later found out had been "closed until further notice" back in May), there was an Italian place (closed Sundays) a Greek place (closed Sundays) and a restaurant that "specialized in Italian and Chinese Buffets" (cause that's always a great combo). The name of this place was E&W Buffet. When your restaurant spells "ew", it's not a place I want to go. It was closed anyhow. It was Sunday!

We finally find out that there's a pizza hut, as well as an A&W, both were in the same food court (which consisted of Pizza Hut, A&W, and a slush machine). I walked into A&W and the restaurant literally fell silent. I've never experienced that before....like in a movie, when a character says something spectacular and private, and the whole restaurant stops. But, we ate our burgers and fries, took the kids out to a field to run around and then went back to our hotel.

The next day, we drove down to Drumheller. We went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum (which is really amazing). Baby (and actually, I should change that to Toddler now) screamed the whole time through. Well, not the whole time, because there were moments when he had to stop to take a breath. Daughter and Son quickly glanced at the dinosaurs and did the obligatory "wow" and moved on to the next item. Husband, however, sauntered through the place and read every last bit and piece of info on any little tag that was there. I'm sure that at this point, he could have an honorary degree in paleontology.

After the morning in the museum, we decided to spend the afternoon someplace cool and air conditioned. We went to Reptile World where the kids got to see lizards, snakes, and crocodiles. Still can't figure out why they had frogs and salamanders (amphibians) in a place called Reptile World, but that's neither here nor there. They got to hold a snake and that was cool enough for them. I had been to Reptile World when I was a child, and I remember it as being the coolest place with animals of all kinds. To go back to the same place 20 years later is a little disappointing. Quite frankly, I look at the cost we spent to get in ($25 for the family) and I see the cages, the pathetic decor and I think, "I paid $25 for this?" But again, the kids really enjoyed it.

After these two places, there really wasn't a heck of a lot to do out there. Not anything that's not screaming "tourists, come and spend obscene amounts of money on pathetic attractions here". After a long, hot day out in the sun, I was looking forward to getting a cool and creamy Iced Cap from Tim Horton's. Neither Drumheller nor Three Hills has one! Sacrilege, I tell you!!!

After an hour long drive back to Three Hills, we went for a walk (and found out that the Mission restaurant was closed) and managed to find a Subway. Mmmm...Subway sandwiches. Toddler managed to throw a fit there too. Tossing his food on the floor, squeezing his juice out of the box, and being....well, a toddler! We went back to the hotel, put the kids to bed and hoped for a better day...

We had planned for the next day in Drumheller to be our "out door" activity day. We woke up to rain, and heard on the morning news that there would be scattered showers in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. We thought that would have been perfect, as it would be cool in the afternoon then.

After another morning of the continental breakfast at the hotel (which was a good breakfast), trying to scarf down food while chasing after a toddler who's biggest thrill is the giant automatic doors...we get in the car and head back to Drumheller. Problem #1, the rain did NOT stop. Probelm #2, the rain got really heavy. Big, fat, giant raindrops.

Well, we'll tour in the rain, that's fine, right? Problem #3, the Hoo Doo's, by their very nature, are slowly eroding. Rain helps that. When it rains, the Hoo Doo's are closed, you cannot walk through on the paths. They are like a sugar candy on a cake....look hard and sturdy, but touch your tongue to it, and you can feel it disolve. So, item number one on the itinerary was cancelled.

So were other ideas of taking a hike along the many walking/hiking paths. Instead, we drove. They have 2 "loops" that you can drive. We did both. We saw canyons and old mines. We walked on a suspension bridge (in the rain). We saw more canola, wheat and barley, too! There were some cool, old-style wooden bridges on one of the tours...that was kinda intersting. The kids? Oh, they didn't notice. They had long since been watching Shrek and only looked up to say "I'm hungry" or "are we there yet?"

That night, we went to a place in Three Hills called Athens. It's a Greek restuarant (duh), but the food was fan-freaking-tastic. Don't let the measly little front entrance of this place fool you. It was amazing.

That's it. I'm tired, but I've got another story about what happened today brewing in my head...gotta plan it out so that you stay interseted!!