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October 7, 2004
Greetings!
It's been two weeks since I last left off and what do you know, we managed to squeeze in two more colds. I'd have coloured them wicked prior to the pandemic, but now I see them as what they are, just colds. Only one ear infection. This has been the loooooongest two months, and the only comfort I find is in telling myself at least it's behind us, their immune systems are getting stacked and we can't catch it again. Please, spare me the truth.
September was insane, I'm even more booked in October, but thankfully, mostly for the love of fun.
In grade one at our school, there are three teachers to pick from. The one with the 1-2 split I wrote off because Brandan isn't bilingual enough to be autonomous. The luck of the draw came down to the really tough, no-nonsense teacher with the great reputation or the jerk-wad screamer who got 22 letters of complaint two years ago. It was Mme. Poirier who placed Brandan with his teacher, I had a good relationship with her, my rationalization was that she wouldn't want to reward the bad teacher with a great parent. Not much to go on, I'm afraid. I was sure I could handle the bad teacher, win her over from the beginning, but if we had to have her, I really wanted all our friends in the miserable class with us. I barely slept the night before day one, I was DYING to know. They have looping at our school which means whoever Brandan has in grade one, he will also have in grade two. It could be a very long two years. What if we ended up all by ourselves in the wrong class and all our friends were together in the cool class? I admit, it even sounds foolish as I type, but a month ago this was big, really big.
At the school, we gathered in the playground and discovered, shock of all shocks, the class lists were not posted. We would send our kids off with their teacher from last year, and the new teacher would come and get them. It would be the end of a long day before we'd know anything. Someone discovered the lists were in the library so we ran for it. I saw the lists, saw the good teacher's name, with most of the people we wanted to be in a class with, under it. And didn't see Brandan. Then one of my friends said he was on the list. I leaped and skipped and woo hooed. I was so excited, so relieved. Brandan is my first born child, I'm new at this.
When they said Mme. Cimino was tough, they under emphasized it. She has them do a lot of homework, at least an hour a night, and she has them redo over and over what they've done until they get it perfect. Admittedly, there are times when I think, what, what, what? He's six. But he'll be a better student, better kid for how strict she is. She has a great rewards system going. He gets X's when he misbehaves and dollars (pretend) when he does something well. On Fridays they get an extra dollar if they didn't get an X that week, they can trade in their dollars for a lollipop or they can save them up to buy something in her monthly "store". We parents became obsessed with $'s and X's. Mitchell, who is unquestionably my favorite little boy in the whole wide world, rascal that he is, was getting X's like crazy and she would take away his $'s. He took the dollars home and hid them in his bedroom. When the next day, Mme. Cimino wrote a note to his mother asking him to bring them back, and his mom asked him about it, he started crying. If he brought them back she would take one away. Maybe not talking to his neighbors? Now that would be impossible. Brandan is doing amazing in school, that he's learning how to read and he figures out all those complicated exercises and that it's all in French, freaks me out. I love that hour we do homework together. He's really into it for now, so that's half the pressure gone, but it makes me drop everything else for that little bit of time with him every day. He thinks my French accent is hysterical, sometimes even hollers for Remo to come listen to how I say something. I signed up for French classes at lunch, I've got to catch up to Brandan.
For the record, most parents are pleasantly surprised by the bad teacher. Goes to show you how dangerous talk for nothing can be.
Kaillan started day care. We love the place, love the teachers, the owners, the curriculum. Kaillan hasn't jumped on board yet. Her only friend is Deloris, one of the owners. Because Emmie will only be old enough next year, and I've got them in three different places, I placed Kaillan there two days a week, the idea being next year both girls will be there full time. I didn't consider the part where most of the other kids are there full time and thereby making friends. Kaillan is all excited about the place and what she's going to do, until we get there. Then we have to pry or peel her off ourselves and make a break for the door. She goes Tuesday nights for swimming lessons and Saturday mornings for hip hop dancing and she cries there too.
I don't want to raise quitters, my children will have to give things a chance. I've considered she's maybe too young, or just not interested. A couple times I found myself bribing her with McDonalds for lunch or a Care Bears shirt and regretted stooping to that. Now I'm trying gentle encouragement (pumping her up like crazy). The thing is she's excited by the activities, and she never stops hip hopping at home, but over her dead body will she participate when she's there. Kaillan is very attached to us, very sensitive, she's never been in daycare, and the only activities she's done, we participated in with her. She's getting better every time, but she's absolutely doing it on her terms. This part of her will probably cause me grief the rest of her life, but I hope with maturity she will become more reasonable. Just a bit. Dr. Phil (did anyone else catch that parenting show?) suggested we try to find a friend at daycare and arrange a play date. We decided to have Kaillan go three days instead of two. Kaillan took it upon herself to tell Deloris she has three TVs at home, and would she like to come watch one of them? She told me Deloris has two fishies, her daughter is getting married and her mother is sick. She asked if she could make cookies for her and we did. She's a tough nut my Kaillan Mackenzie, but the thing is once you're in, she's loyal for life.
Emmie (14 ˝ months) started a temper of her own. When she makes it clear she wants something and you don't oblige immediately or worse, you take something dangerous from her grip, in a fit of mad, she grabs the next closest thing and pitches it. She's cute, petite, cuddly, less independent than I imagined the third would be. She's not talking, save for Mama, Dada and Baba (Brandan or bottle depending on how she pronounces it). She'll run our errands (get Mommy a Kleenex, pick up the blocks). She does a perfect night and we stopped the bottle cold turkey last week. Not by choice, Gerber discontinued the nipple and her inability to breath while sucking anyway, was convenient.
Prior to the pandemic (if this wasn't the big one, it was pretty freaking close), I had organized a bunch of things I felt obligated to honor. First off, we had a Mom's dinner for all the moms in our grade one class. I sent really pretty invitations (I really am wasting this talent) and was delighted when most of them said they were coming. My reasons for doing this are selfishly vast. I'm a working mother in a school where 78% of the mothers stay home. You can imagine the cliques, and you can imagine how having connections can only benefit my child. I like that Brandan knows I know most of the mothers, if he acts up or disrespectfully or inappropriately, he thinks I will find out about it. This will be good in adolescence. Getting together, brings us together, I've said it before, a sense of community is important to me. I like that it opens me up to new people. This diary helped me a lot to think outside my box and so I've carried it into my life personally. I go to a few Mom's dinners here and there, with different groups of women and I've left every one of them with insight about something I didn't know I was missing out on. What I like about working is that I don't have time to get heavy into the cliques. There's a few women I feel very close to, extremely comfortable with. The best part is how easily our families interchange, every weekend one of my kids are with them or theirs are with us. I secretly like having the kids over more because they're a riot. Matthew and Mitchell are in the same calss and activities as Brandan; hockey, swimming, faith first and we have a stack this long of birthday parties we're all at, so we can coordinate pickups. We work really well together. Matthew's little sister, Sydney, my favorite little girl in the whole wide world, happens to be best friends with Kaillan (when she's not playing hard to get), they're in dancing and swimming together. Sydney swims and dances. Kaillan stands and stares.
We had our annual trip to Mont Tremblant, the weekend away I organize every year with a bunch of friends and their children and we go up to the most beautiful resort? We were 58 people this year and we had a great time. For me personally, I found it stressful because it was at the end of Emmie's mess, the night before we were still at the hospital (it was actually a pediatrician there who encouraged us to go). I wanted to cancel desperately but felt torn because half the people going didn't know one another. Remo and I took turns staying in with Emmie. At one point we went luge racing down the mountain with the kids, Kaillan and I easily beat Remo and Brandan at it, I was surprised Kaillan had absolutely no fear. Our condos were beautiful, the leaves were changing and the kids had a blast.
Ach, I never told you about seeing Dr. Bray! I should've slipped it in way up at the beginning. I was excited to see him and Julie. It was the first time I didn't bring them a treat, but I was so over my head, I forgot. He did his usual business and while I nitter-nattered about how desperately he must miss me, he gave me two requisitions. One for a hystéro-salpinographie on my uterus, the test I was supposed to have done before I had Emersan that would give him a better idea about my double uterus. The other was for an x-ray on my kidneys. A what, I asked? He said sometimes uterine abnormalities were indicative of urological anomalies and my appointment was scheduled for a week later. I wanted to know what the point of this was. Let's say there's a complication down the road, he said they had to know what they were dealing with.
At the ultrasound, they inject iodine in a line in your arm. Thank God because I prepared myself for a catheter. While I put the gown on they asked if I had allergies. Nope. Then I peeked my head out the curtain and mentioned oh yah, there's those food ones they think I have (I'm still in denial), peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, apples, almonds, hazelnuts, carrots, celery. Was I allergic to seafood? Again, nope. Then I mentioned, I actually don't eat it and had never been tested. I eat white fish and salmon, but I've always passed on tendony ones. They consulted, deciding to have a line ready lest I'd react to the iodine. The test ran for maybe an hour. An hour of lying still for pictures every 4 or 8 minutes or whatever it was. You can imagine the hell it was for me to lie still, bored out of my skull, especially if this was all for nothing. I talked the technician's ear off, we became fast friends. When it was time to go, I asked if she had seen anything interesting, sure that she would remind me it was the doctor's responsibility to read the report. I didn't expect her to tell me I have four kidneys. Can you imagine???? Double vagina, double uterus, three ureters, four kidneys and my tonsils grew back after I had them removed. I never considered for a moment that it might be complicated, they never bothered me, I found the whole thing so exciting. Hello, my name is Allisun and I have four kidneys. I was going to a Pampered Chef party that night, did it mean I could drink double the wine?
Now one thing I can say about myself is I am not a snob when it comes to people or things and I pray I never will be, BUT (notice that's a big but), I have a line when it comes to a vehicle. I don't care if it's fancy or not, don't care about the make or model. What I have a problem with is getting in one rusting, falling apart, clunking or squeaking. I would rather walk. So this week my van started squeaking on one side and it got louder by the second. I had new $500 brakes and a checkup done today. Nothing is worse than sinking money into a car, except maybe when you weren't planning on keeping it much longer. Ugh.
Oh! The bunko party. Have any of you ever played bunko? We had a party last weekend and it was a BLAST. Again the invitations were impressive, printed on silver paper and shoved into silver toothbrush holders with dice. Bunko is a dice rolling game. We had 16 people (teams have to be divisible by four). We had tables set up in our kitchen, dining room, living and family rooms. Everyone put $20 in a pot and rolled dice as partners. I didn't care if I took the whole thing, but Graeme had been sending nasty e-mails all week, so I had to at least beat him. Things got very competitive, if a die landed on the floor, four people landed on top of it. They were wild. Thirty seconds before the end of the game I stole the Bunko hat off someone's head to claim half the pot. $160 for my troubles and better than that, Graeme didn't know what hit him. All who came are now throwing bunko parties of their own. I'm putting together another one this weekend with a different 16 people.
What else am I up to my ears in. Hmmm. There's the cooking club. We're a group of eight women. What I like best is that it's flexible. We're each responsible for hosting a dinner for the other women. Setting fancy tables, trying new recipes. Next week is at my girlfriends house and she's planning stuffed cornish hens, cream of squash soup, fall roasted vegetables, some sort of apple cake, a beautiful fall centerpiece. Molly has December and she's planning on teaching us how to make sushi and egg rolls. All Gina knows is she's starting with green apple martinis. We have plans for a fancy appetizer party with our husbands, for having someone come in to teach us how to make say, Lebanese food. My hosting month is April so my plans aren't yet past something with asparagus.
I took on the fund-raising lunches at the school again. Two Fridays every month we order in pizza or spaghetti lunches for the kids in the school, with all proceeds going to the playground. Remo and I did it last year without help and it was a nightmare, or as Remo said, all the money in the world wouldn't make it worth it. This year I'm smarter about it and better, I lined up help. The other committee I'm on and excited about is the Halloween dance for the whole family. Now let's face it, this could be an impressive event or the biggest flop yet. We'll need to hustle up some troops for this one. When we were in North Conway this summer I bought these ruby red slip-ons you put over your shoes, if I can find a pattern, material and a seamstress, I might be Dorothy. I have no backup plan. The weekend before that we have a 70's surprise party. Remo wants to be Elvis. Did I ever tell you about the clown suit I made him once? We were going to a party and Remo wanted to be a clown. We went looking for costumes when Remo made his snob line clear, no way was he getting in a rinky dink costume. Me, with all my infinite talent, swore I could make him a beautiful costume. In grade ten I sewed a stocking. His mother had a sewing machine, we bought some great fabric. I couldn't be bothered with a pattern so I laid the fabric down on the floor, had him lay on top of it and cut around him. Remo's mother was flabbergasted but what KILLS me is Remo never for a second doubted me. In the end, we had to make the legs the arms but it looked awesome and survived a wash even. I should post a picture on our web page. This year Brandan's being an army guy for Halloween. Kaillan's being a ladybug when we trick or treat and she's a princess for her daycare party. Emmie's a little lamb. How convenient having Halloween on a Sunday this year.
In three days I've eaten thirty mini coffee crisp chocolate bars. While I want to stress that they were in fact mini, I kept knocking them back thinking I would at one point get sick of them. I didn't.
The board, I PROMISE to hit the board tomorrow. My parents just sent me an "are you alive"e-mail, they come first.
Til then,
Allisun
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