All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth

Isabel has teeth. Two to be exact. On the bottom. And I think that they are fangs because they are sharp as razors. Ask my nipple. Or where my nipple used to be...ouch! Well it feels like she's going to rip it off. 5 more months of this, I dunno. Is breastfeeding REALLY that much better? hmmm....

Right now the two teeth are just poking out of her gums and they are hurting her so much. Two night now she's woken up, screaming in pain. I gave her a bit of tylenol last night and that seemed to help. It was so sad, I was up with her for about an hour, had fed her twice and she still wasn't happy. At this point I definately knew it was the teeth causing this normally happy, fun loving little girl into my sad, weepy, screaming ball of sweat. I gave her to Jordy to hold as I was going to go downstairs and get the tylenol and she reached out her arms towards me and screamed louder and harder. It broke my heart. She wanted her mommy and nobody else. I will admit, it did feel nice to know that she wanted me and was choosing me to comfort her but I felt helpless. Sure I could hold her and rock her and sing to her but I couldn't make the pain go away. It really does kill you when your child is hurting and you can't do anything. Now,I know if this was happening to anyone else, I would be saying "but holding her DOES help and it DOES make her feel better" and blah blah blah but when it is actually happening to you it's hard to see that. You just feel. And we both felt sad together.

Success!

I made my first meal tonight. You're probably thinking "big whoop", but it was to me. I made a chicken bruschetta bake and asparagus with a cheese sauce. It was my first time eating asparagus and it wasn't that bad. Even Jordy ate it all up. Actually it was all quite filling and not that bad in weight watchers points. So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself, in my start to eating healthier. I was also going to puree up some asparagus for Izzy, but read that I should wait until she's a wee bit older as it's a harder veggie for her tummy to digest. But my mom gave me some cucumber fresh from her garden and I'm going to remove the seeds from them and mash it up for Izzy. It'll probably be refreshing for her on a hot day. My dad is also giving me some beets out of the garden to for her. Beets are a vegetable however that I simply cannot eat. I've been forced many times, as my parents LOVE it, but it is utterly disgusting to my palette. So instead I'll force it upon Isabel. Well, I'll let her try it and if she doesn't like it than she doesn't have to eat it. Next on the list is green and yellow beans and cheesy mashed potatoes. YUM!

eat your veggies!

Isabel has successfully made her way through all of the approved first try veggies. These would be peas, beans, squash, sweet potatoes and carrots. She has now made her way to fruit, starting with, of course, apples. She seems to be accepting the apples, but still loves her veggies, especially carrots. This, as a mother makes me happy for two reasons 1) That she's not a fussy eater making meal time a non-stressor and 2)That she will have healthy eating habits. I really started to think about this last one. Sure she eats her bowl clean now, but what about when she comes off the baby food and starts eating "real" food. I don't eat any of those above mentioned veggies (except carrots) and really I try to have a veggie at dinner time but it's the same three that keep getting rotated; frozen mixed veggies, corn and cauliflower. I have crappy eating habits. I know this. I love fruit, but they're high in sugar and I hardly eat any veggies at all. I'd say of my 7 seven servings of fruit and veggies, maybe 2 are veggies. This is not good. For me, or for role modeling for my child. I want to do better, to eat better, for her sake as well as mine. This lead me to my second problem. I don't cook. There is a big misconception about my cooking abilities that really, I am to blame. I have everyone believing that I am a horrible cook, that I can burn water. Not true. I am by no means a fabulous cook, but I can make yummy meals...when I want to. And that's just it. I ....hate....cooking. I hate the mess, the production that goes into it, trying to time everyting so it's all ready together. And I never know what goes with what when it comes to ingredients, which is why a lot of the stuff that I know how to make are pasta dishes because the one dish is the meal. Anyways, blah blah blah, the point I'm trying to make it cooking is not a fun task so to avoid it I make up lies about my deficiencies in this area. So then no one ever asks me to cook or if I do, everyone has lowered expecatations. Well today I've made a decision. No more. I want Isabel to grow up eating healthy meals so that her body can grow the way it's suppose to, have tonnes of energy (dear god) and be healthy and happy. I don't want her to become accustomed to boxed dinners as a staple. Having worked in the school system for the past three years, I see the correlation between food and a student's success. It's no surprise that every single one of my kids in my program eat sugar packed meals. They have those lunchables, or if they do have something healthy like a sandwhich or soup, they never eat it. Just the cookies and junk. It's no wonder they can't concentrate, have behavioural problems and are falling behind in their grade level. There was even a study that linked proccessed foods to behavioural problems in kids. I'm not surprised. So starting tomorrow, I am going to start making some of the dinnertime meals and I will be adding foods such as squash, green beans, asparagus and turnips to the menu. I have found some recipes that look promising, but if anyone has any others they would like to share, by all means let me know!

World Traveller

Okay, okay, I guess you couldn't call Isabel a world traveller (yet) but going to Machete and East Barriere is pretty good thus far. Last month Jordy, Izzy, myself and my parents went up to the cabin at East Barriere Lake. This was Izzy's first vacation and she really enjoyed herself. So much so, she refused to sleep. She felt it was necessary to stay up and see EVERYTHING! I'm surprised she didn't strain her neck looking around so much. I think she's going to be an outdoorsy person. She loves it when we go for walks and especially when we stop in the park to play on the swings and chillax under the trees. She was the same at the cabin. I think her favourite part was going in the lake and trying to catch all of her rubber duckies with dad. Her least favourite part was putting on the life jacket. Her body went stiff as a board and she howled.

This past weekend our family went up to Machete Lake. Lots of mosquitos but oddly enough they weren't pestering me as much as they usually do. They were loving mom and Jordy. We did lots of fun things like go for a walk in the forest and look at wild flowers and trees, went for a barge ride along the lake and we saw a doe and eagles. We also had a baby chipmunk come visit us from time to time and we kept feeding it peanuts. Max wanted to prove his worthiness by barking at it and chasing it all around the woodpile. Later on the chipmunk came back and gave Max a piece of its mind. I think Isabel's favourite part of this trip was sitting with grandpa on the porch and watching the whiskeyjacks swoop down and pick up the pieces of bread we left out on the balcony. Her least favourite part was the same as last trip. Except this time she didn't scream the entire time she had it on. She just sat on mom's lap, stiff as a board. I think she thought she couldn't move her body. Her arms and legs were sticking straight out and she only moved her eyes back and forth, it was as if she was paralyzed. Whenever she saw myself or Jordy she let out a scream to let us know how she felt about being in that life jacket.

I have to say, I really enjoyed spending time with my family and had a good time but travelling with a 6 and a half month old is very tiring. It's also a long way to go for her too, which isn't easy. In two and a half weeks we are going to Penticton and back up to East Barriere, so maybe by then I'll be better organized or something. All I hope is that Izzy has a good time.

**Editor's Note: Pictures are still waiting development due to finacial issues. They will be posted on facebook shortly**

Mickey Mouse

I am so fed up with SFU I must vent or I will burst. The students in my program have been divided into two campuses. One is Burnaby, one is Surrey. I work for Burnaby but live in Surrey. I was really hoping that I would go to the Surrey campus because being on mat leave, it is closer for me and because I am still breastfeeding this will be easier for my daughter as well. At the orientation in June it was revealed who would be at which campus. I found out I was to be at Burnaby. The teachers said that if where we were placed was a problem they would do their best to switch us. I was the first to ask and gave my reason why. They said they would do their best. That's fine. If I'm at Burnaby so be it, if I'm at Surrey, super! I've made my preference and it's out of my hands.

Fast forward to a month later. I am suppose to register for my classes at the end of July. There is a diferent registration number for the two campuses. I am a bit worried because I have not heard yet from my teacher whether my request was granted or not. So I email and explain my situation again. I'm thinking this will be better for all those involved if this is taken care of BEFORE I register, so things don't become confusing and messy. A week later I receive an email from the Admissions office saying that she has gone ahead and registered everyone into their class. I double check this and my account says Surrey campus. So I'm thinking my teacher gave the okay for the campus switch. Nothing more to worry about.

WRONG.

I received an email back yesterday from the teacher I emailed a month prior to say that I am not on her list for the Surrey campus, I should double check with the other teacher. I emailed her back saying I will and explained the email that I received from Admissions. I then emailed the other teacher, whom I heard from today stating that he is away at the moment but when he returns will be contacting me to discuss the situation and then informed me that EVERYONE in the program was registered for the Surrey campus.

WHAT-THE-FUCK?!

I am so fed up with this disorganization. What if I never emailed anyone in the first place. I would've gone to the wrong campus for the first class and looked like a total dork! Not only that why haven't they made a decision yet about me changing campuses? How hard is it to look and see, "Oh yes there's room" or "Oh sorry, we can't". Seriously! I kind of would like to know where my class is when I go to school in the next 4 weeks. This seems to be the theme for SFU:disorganized. Nobody seems to know what the hell is going on, everyone you talk to has a different answer and I feel like they just don't give a rat's ass. I paid my $100 deposit April 30 and it still says that I owe $100 on my account. I phoned twice about it in May and June and was told it takes awhile for the computer to adjust. 3 months? Come on. I know I should be grateful and thankful and blah blah blah that I'm getting to go to school for my so-called dream job but at the cost of my sanity? It had better not be 16 months of this crap!

To Be PC or Not To Be PC...

That is the question. Thursday on The View (my only morning show), there was a fellow on by the name of Michael Smerconish who wrote a book called Muzzled: From T-Ball to Terrorism – True Stories that Should be Fiction, discussing how politically correct our society has become to a fault. It was a very interesting discussion. Some of it agreed with and some of it I did not. He does think there should be racial profiling, which honestly, I'm not completly sold on, as some of the terrorists that are out there are not Muslim, and really, not all Muslim people "look" Middle Eastern. There are people from many different cultures that are Muslim and would not fit the profile that the government is trying to screen for. However he did mention an interesting story that did make me think, that there were some passengers either getting ready to board a plane or they were already on it waiting to take off (I don't remember which one) and one of the passengers was acting peculiar. It was not described what acting peculiar encompassed but because this passenger "looked" Middle Eastern, the other passengers were wary to report his behaviour to the crew because they did not want to be called racist, and they themselves questioned whether they were in fact being rasict in that situation. I guess the odd behaviour continued and they trusted their gut feeling, reported the passenger and he was in fact planning on hijacking that plane. So maybe there is something to this racial profiling, but then again, they didn't catch that guy so really is there a no-fail method of protecting civilians?

One point that Michael Smerconish raised that I completly agree with is how rewarding we've become with children, especially in schools and the removal of competetion. I don't know how many of you have been to a sports day recently in elementary schools but they are a joke. There are no sports and everyone receives a prize just for showing up. When I was growing up there were running races, long jumps, shot put, obstacle courses and a lot of team races. It was about getting your team to wim but it was still about having fun and doing your best. I hardly ever won, I am not an athletic person, but I still loved sports day because it was so much fun (and you didn't go school work for the whole day). Nowadays there's a bubble blowing station, a jump rope until the music ends station and obstacle courses that are not timed or raced against and at the completion of each station you got some candy. Big whoopdidoo. There is nothing wrong with (healthy) competetion. There is nothing wrong with having winners and having losers. It is imparative that children learn you are not always the best at everything. That you need to learn how to work hard, that you learn to work towards a goal and that sometimes you're just not the best. It may sound harsh but how overwhelming is it going to be for them when they grow up and get out there in the real world and have their first job?! There is competetion for promotions, you have to learn how to work hard to get what you want like saving money to buy a house or a car. If they have a hissy fit in their office because they're not getting hat they want, guarenteed they will be looking for a new job pretty quickly. Disappointment teaches true happiness. If a child doesn't do well in math and receives a bad mark and learns how to study and work hard to understand the concepts, when they receive that better mark, they will feel so much pride in themselves and guarenteed will want to try to have that feeling much more often. But if we just tell all of our kids that they're doing great what will they really have learned? Nothing will ever be good enough and they will never feel satisfaction? And I think that's the real disservice.

Soul Cleansing

Tonight I had enough of my messy, unorganized kitchen, so I decided to take everything out of the cupboards and clean and junk and organize. I quickly was in over my head. In two years I accumilated so much useless stuff, mainly by the way, have been given to me by both my mother-in-law and my mom. I say NO MORE! I am boycotting the hand me downs of useless junk! If you don't have a place for it the liklihood of me having a place for it is nil! Actually my mother-in-law is quite good at being sneaky about dropping things off. All of a sudden there'll be a stack of styrofoam plates on my counter or an entire angel food cake in my fridge and I don't even remember inviting her over....FREAKY! So I need to be on the lookout.

Because of this sudden de-junking, I have also decided we are going to have a garage sale. Last year our complex had an "everyone participate" garage sale and I loved that idea. The only reason why we didn't participate was because it fell on the same day as a friend's wedding. So I was really hoping they'd do it again this year. Looks like a no. So I'm taking it upon myself to do one. And making some cash is also nice. Even if we only make $50, I'll be happy. We can go out for dinner or buy Izzy some more toys (that she can either ignore or stick in her mouth). I have to say though, even though my kitchen table is a mess with piles of stuff we're planning on selling, it feels good to have extra space and a very CLEAN kitchen.