the way commercials stick with me

There are some jingles that I would say have been very successful simply because years and years later I can still recall them. Sure I have a strange memory for weird and useless information, but I have to give credit to the advertisers who have come up with some of these things.
Today I was driving to work and listening to the radio, to one of the very few radio stations we pick up way in the north and a song by Stevie Wonder came on.
I am NOT (never have been and never will be) a fan of Stevie Wonder. If I had a choice of multiple radio stations I would have changed it, but I don't so I suffered through the song - as I suffer though many things from this particular station.
As the chorus began I laughed out loud. You see, this song, MANY years ago was used in a commercial. As Stevie sang "You are the sunshine of my life.." I finished it with the commercial at the top of my lungs..." MINUTE MAID!"
It made the painful moment bearable. Way to go Minute Maid on a successful media campaign!

Lent

Every year as kind of a joke I give up "hope" for Lent.
I am not a Catholic and growing up we never practised Lent or "giving up"  anything for 40 days and nights before Easter. I do like the idea of a sacrifice made in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice (even though I do not practise any religion in my life now).
Giving up hope amused me, but this year I decided not to do it. I just want my life in 2012 to be different than in the past, better, more hopeful! and even though it was just a joke I decided to spend my energy putting out positive thoughts and energy and hopefully (ha ha) reap something wonderful.
I was inspired by another blogger Sulli, who set a goal to "pursue things with fearless abandon". So that is my goal.
I haven't actually started yet, which puts me a little behind the 8 ball in terms of deciding what I will actually do and getting down to doing it. I want this Lent period for me to be about creating. I'll let you know how it goes.

Letter from Max

Yesterday when I went to pick up the mail there was an envelope addressed to Shel and I.

I recognized the handwriting as Maxies.

He went on a class trip to the post office and sent us a letter.

Inside was a valentine for us.

I LOVE being a parent.

So much has happened, culminating in a visit to the ER!

It's been a while since we spent a day in the emergency room but our track record ended yesterday when CJ fell through a window pane and cut his knee badly.
He was outside and in his Ski pants AND pants and was cut through both of them. My poor little guy was a real trouper though. AS we sat in the hospital waiting for the doctor he played games on my phone. He REALLY wants a motorcycle, but the time to try and convince Shel of that was NOT while we were waiting to get him stitched up!
I must say that the WORST part of parenting has to be seeing your kids in pain. I held him while the doc was putting in the freezing and he SCREAMED. He was looking at me with these HUGE crocodile tears streaming down his face. I was just holding him saying "Sorry buddy, sorry buddy, it will stop hurting soon."
This morning he said his knee was "good" and Max was following him around telling him not to run, so he will be well looked after these next two weeks as we wait for stitches to be removed.

making a rink

It's shameful I know, we live in the Great White North and our boys don't know how to skate. Give me SOME slack - neither Shel nor I skate either!

We have in our yard a dugout. A perfect place to teach the boys to skate. It does take some work to maintain an outdoor rink though you know. It isn't as easy as opening a tap and letting water flood the yard. (and I dont know how people do that anyway, I am terrified of pipes freezing)

I decided this year that I need to teach the boys how to skate and since we have our own pond we have the perfect opportunity to do it right in our own yard.

When I got home from work the other evening I thought we would clear off a spot and then this weekend get some skates for the boys. Clearing a spot would have been made easier if I had two things - a shovel for myself (we have one shovel but Max is apparently the "boss" of it and so he would not let me shovel more than one row at a time) and easier access to some water - because even a pond does not have perfect ice beneath the snow. I have a feeling I will know more about pond ice by the end of the winter than I ever thought I would know.

The weather has has been REALLY mild lately, so I also hope it stays cold enough to get some skating done before the ice melts.



family photo day

It is shameful but true, we have no family photos of us all together since CJ was born. We have planned for it, and in the life I dreamed for myself we had family photos often and they are all cool and fun and funky. In real life it is rare that all four of us make it into one frame all at the same time. It is even HARDER now because apparently at age five Max is TOO COOL to pose for a photo at all, let alone WITH people.

My mom is headed to Africa this week. She and her sisters will be visiting family in South Africa at the end of their humanitarian trip and they have put together a family tree - with a photo - of everyone on my grandmothers side of the family for my grand mothers brother. My mom took a photo of it and sent it to us and I was looking at it on my phone (its VERY COOL) and noticed that the pictures of MAx and CJ were actually just CJ. Once as a baby and one recent. I called my mom to make the change asap and we went into rapid fire photo and emailing sessions. I took a photo of Max and it was too big, so took another and sent that. Then she asked for a family photo (which we don't have) so we sat on the floor in our living room and had Max's friend who was staying over take photos with Shel's i-phone. We had to get him to take about 12 - some had people cut off and others were blurry and in the end we got two nice ones. This one I just posted is a little blurry, but it is a photo of all of us! It is nice to have one and we have now resolved to actually MAKE (and keep) an appointment with a photographer to get some nice family photos.



remind me why we do this again?

This weekend we had a foster girl from another foster home come to us for respite. We are STILL not "open" as a foster home, but respite providers do not have to be open foster homes. The little girl is a one year old who is cute as a button but TOTALLY different from our boys. She is quiet! She slept through the night! She is adorable and in love with the boys and they are just as "taken" with her.

Here's the thing with fostering. It is a HUGE PAIN! Don't get me wrong. I have loved the children who have come into our home. We have given our hearts and souls to the kids who have spent time with us and it has been a real heartbreaker. It has been impossible for us to "separate" ourselves from caring for the physical needs of the kids and keeping our hearts out of the equation.

BUT (here it comes).. There is SOOOOO much political GARBAGE that comes with the territory. For instance. The request for us to provide respite for the weekend came in a message to Shel on facebook from the other foster mother. She requested two nights respite from Friday to Sunday evening. The next thing that happens is Shel got a call from someone (I am not clear on who it was, I think the social worker) requesting directions to the house and letting her know the baby was coming on Thursday from an appointment. When the baby arrived on Thursday Shel was informed that she would be picking up the baby on TUESDAY for another appointment but this way it decreased the amount of times the baby would be "shuffled" between homes. You know, I get it. I don't think kids should be shuffled. The lack of communication DRIVES ME INSANE. After Shel get's all the details from the worker she gets a text from the foster mom asking if it is ok for the baby to stay until Tuesday. Through all of the back and forth we discovered that the plan between the current foster family, the social worker and the foster care worker is for us to provide respite for this little girl and to eventually take her into our home on a permanent basis. It would have been nice to have been consulted on the topic! THE SYSTEM IS WHACK people. WHACK.

It could only happen to me.

I had an appointment at the dentist today. In the spirit of trying to do things "differently" I did not cancel but actually went to my appointment.

I arrived, got settled, got my mouth numbed entirely on the bottom - both sides, and the dentist began working.

Getting needles in my mouth hurts me a lot. I am sure it hurts everyone but I think I have hypersensitive cheek nerves or something. When I get a needle it hurts right into my jaw and into my ears and I have such anxiety about it I can literally feel my heart pounding out of my chest. I try deep breathing. I try thinking of other things, but I have no luck in turning my attention to anything other than the stabbing pain in my mouth - aggravated by the dentist shaking my cheek (is that supposed to help or something?)

All of a sudden the dental hygienist says to him 'I have no water". He checked his water and had none. They went into other rooms and checked the water and there was none. The receptionist called the town office and was told that there was a water break and there would be no water for the rest of the day.

He came back into the room, covered up what he had started and sent me on my way to make an appointment to come back and finish when they had water again.

I got a trip to another town, a frozen mouth and another appointment. YAY ME! I have bad dentist karma.