Name that iPod - a summer contest

I had no idea.

According to Sue of Inner Dorothy, my iPod needs a name. Her iPod is named Surely.

I'm ashamed to admit that when iTunes asked me to name my iPod, I labelled it with the incredibly lame and pedestrian "Dani's iPod". Now that I've been enlightened by Sue, I'm all over the idea of christening my iPod like stink on a diaper.

But what name is worthy of my little electronic bundle of joy? Something clever, something original, something snazzy? Well, at least something that's not going to get my poor little iPod mocked on the playground by all the other cool iPods, at least.

And that's where you, dear friends, come in. You've proven time and again that you are more witty than me by half, and twice as clever. Welcome to the "Name that iPod" summer contest. I'll take your suggestions through the end of the week, and on Friday, I'll put up a poll and you can vote for the best name. If you can't make the comment box work, and a couple of you have mentioned that you can't, send me an e-mail.

Did I mention there will be prizes? Prizes! I'm still feeling inspired by the sugar rush of the great candy swap of 2006, so the clever person who suggests the winning name will have not only the prestige of knowing you christened my beloved new iPod, but I'll send you a gift pack of personally selected candy as well.

It's like Rockstar Supernova and Big Brother and Canadian Idol, all wrapped up into one bloggy contest, isn't it? Not so much? Oh well, at least you get the chance for some free candy.

So get on it. What's my iPod's new name?

A weekend with Mimi and Pipi

Friday morning, an hour's drive outside of Ottawa, we arrived at Storyland and spent a morning in this charming if slightly shabby park in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

We drove all afternoon through Algonquin Provincial Park (perhaps one of the loveliest drives I have ever been on) and arrived at Mimi and Pipi's house - also in the middle of absolutely nowhere - in the late afternoon. The boys loved roaming their exquisitely landscaped acre carved out of the bedrock of the Canadian Shield and the forest.

We saw lots of creatures, both familiar and wild: snakes, turtles, fish in Pipi's pond, and a huge moose having breakfast in Mimi and Pipi's neighbour's yard. They called us to tell us they could see two moose in their yard, and we hopped in the car and made it over just in time to see one loping away into the woods. The boys had fun tracing following the humoungous hoofprints across the loamy soil. Simon actually caught this monarch butterfly, and I'm not sure who was more surprised. He let it go, and it fluttered on its way.

The weather crapped out on us on Saturday, but we managed to have a lovely day nonetheless. Mimi just this month got her licence to drive a school bus (at the impressive age of 62 no less - don't you love her to death?) and so the boys enjoyed their first school-bus ride with a personal driver. Sadly, cameras were left at home.

Sunday, the weather improved enough for a trip to the beach, and a ride in Pipi's boat. And yes, that last picture is of the boat that towed us back to the dock after the motor died in the middle of the lake. My biceps are aching as I type this from the paddling!

But the true highlight of the weekend was riding around the property and the local snowmobile trails on Pipi's tractor. Every four year old needs grandparents who operate heavy machinery and let them drive boats and tractors, don't you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_j9xGcaPPc

Bad marketing ideas # 207

Did you see this bit about the NHL coming out with pink hockey jerseys? The NHL, which is more concerned with improving profits than improving hockey, is targeting what they estimate are the 40 per cent of hockey fans who are women. Apparently there are a lot of women out there who are coveting a pink (or baby blue) hockey jersey with their team logo on it.

Not so much.

I can totally see the idea of marketing a smaller, tailored version of the jersey (shall we call it a hersey? Lookit that, witticism via typo!) made to fit an ordinary person not encumbered by 20 pounds of hockey gear - in the team's colours. But what on earth made the NHL marketing gurus think we needed them in girley pastel colours?

I don't own any Senators clothing, not because I have been waiting for a pastel version but because the Senators logo is so hideously ugly. And also, I'm allergic to polyester. Make me a nice cotton jersey, or maybe even a silk-lycra blend, in the teams colours with a subtle little logo on the sleeve, and put it at a price point that's considered a fun splurge and not a major investment (I have blazers that cost less than $70) and I'd be all over it. Or rather, it would be all over me.

That's all I have today. We're leaving in an hour to spend the morning here, and then driving through Algonquin Park to spend the weekend with the in-laws on the other side of the province. I'm only half packed, have nothing organized for the four-hour drive, and am more than a little nervous about keeping my wee beasties out of trouble at the un-child-proofed house of my in-laws, tucked on an acre of forested land about 15 km away from the nearest outpost of civilization. Eek!

The emotional gamut that is the two-week wait

It's been a week since frostie became toastie - or, as Beloved has christened it, "Stickie". We're half way to resolution and I'm finding the wait much harder than I expected.

I know, I'm not exactly famous for my patience in the first place, but I kind of figured that I would have less emotional investment this time around. I mean, either outcome is wonderful - on one hand, we have a gorgeous family with just the four of us. On the other hand, we have a gorgeous family that is 25 per cent more - therefore 25 per cent more gorgeous - than before. I can't lose.

And yet, I have spent a lot of time fretting. And flying. And fretting. And flying. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm developing a theory on the two-week wait, because I've had a little bit too much time in my head to think about it. The two-week wait allows you to experience every single possible emotion on the spectrum, from elation to desolation, just to prepare you for any possible eventuality when you take that pregnancy test.

I started out pretty confident that Frostie>Toastie>Stickie had implanted, and I was pregnant. I had nothing to base it on but my own instincts, which have been pretty good about predicting actual pregnancies, but not so good at predicting gender. (I was gobsmacked to find out my babies were boys both times - I had been sure they were each a girl when I was pregnant.) I spent most of the weekend blissfully imagining how the next nine months might pass with me pregnant, and passed idle time considering how we'd arrange Tristan's room into a shared room for the boys, and checked out other people's mini-vans every time we drove somewhere.

I've slowly slid down the confidence scale to the point where I'm now fairly sure that it didn't work. Why? Because I've spent WAY too much time in my head, that's why. I don't feel any pregnancy symptoms yet, although the deeply repressed logical part of my brain keeps insisting that at a full week before my period is due, there simply aren't any symptoms to be felt.

Every couple of hours, I'll have a random surge of confidence, and the gyroscope in my brain will announce it worked and I am pregnant. The alignment of dust motes in Namibia will cause a ripple in the Force a few hours later, and my emotional barometer will plummet, convincing me that the cycle has failed and menstruation is imminent.

It's all becoming rather tiresome, to be honest.

At least it's not as bad as the two-week wait with the IVF that resulted in Tristan. I had a toxic reaction to the estradiol level in my blood from the follicle stimulating hormones, and developed Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome, a potentially serious condition that causes fluid to gather in your ovaries. Pregnancy excerbates the condition, and when my OHSS symptoms started to abate about five days after we transferred two embryos, I was so sure that the cycle failed I cried for days - including a rather embarrassing breakdown at the clinic when they told me my OHSS had cleared up enough that I didn't need to come in for daily monitoring any more. In my hormone-addled brain, no OHSS = no pregnancy.

That was around six days after transfer, pretty close to where I am now. And then, three days after that at nine days post transfer, I started to feel sick and bloated, and when late in the day I started having trouble drawing a breath, I called the doctor on call to check in. He ordered me to the ER and to make a long story short, we found out that night that I was pregnant. (We found out two weeks later it was twins, and lost one of the twins two weeks after that. The whole story is here, if you haven't read it yet.)

And all that means pretty much nothing. I just have to wait. And wait. And wait. Did I mention I'm not so good with the waiting?

I'm thinking of buying some bulk home pregnancy tests from the Extraordinary Baby Shoppe - they're only four for five dollars, plus the freebie from my great OPK adventure. I could start testing on Monday, but I'm just not sure if I could handle a full week of negative HPTs. I saw enough negatives in our years of infertility, thank you.

But hey, was that a twinge in my left breast? Maybe it's a little tender? Or, maybe not. Maybe it's tender because I keep groping it, trying to see if it's tender.

Argh. I really hate waiting.

Sweet vacation days

It doesn't get any better than backyard vacation blogging, does it?



Oh wait, yes it does: summer evening vacation blogging, when you are blaring your brand-spanking-new, six-days-early birthday present iPod Nano - and blogging.

Love the iPod Nano. Love it, LOVE IT!!!! Really, I'm hearing new things in songs I've listened to a hundred times or more. Changes by David Bowie and Closer to Fine by Indigo Girls and Ahead by a Century by the Tragically Hip and the Boomtown Rats I Don't Like Mondays- the music has never sounded so clear, so crisp, and all this through dollar-store headphones, no less. The only problem is I'm alone in the house and although I want to blare the music, I'm afraid I won't hear the boys and their endless bedtime requests for another story and a glass of water and biscuits for the dog.

Hey, wait a minute... who said that's a bad thing? Did I mention I totally heart my new iPod???

Blog mail

You never know what's going to show up in the blog mail these days!

First, I received a note from Deirdre, a fellow doughnut-lover from Winston Salem. She wrote:

I just read your “Ode to Doughnuts” and absolutely loved it. I am in the process of writing a happy little (short) book about doughnuts and would like to include a snippet of it. May I do so? I shall credit you and site the source (url). Just let me know.

It never fails to amaze me what catches people's fancy. I'm sure a good ten per cent of my hits have to do with doughnuts in one form or another, mostly about Tim Horton's and Weight Watchers points. Oh well, it's not the worst imaginable internet legacy. And of course I told Deirdre that I'd be honoured if she quoted my post, and that I was grateful that she asked me first, rather than just lifting the text. And I told her I'd be happy to review a book about doughnuts on blog, since it seems to be a theme around here.

Back in February, I blogged that I was thrilled to be offered my first book to review, but that I coveted some of the other cool things bloggers had been offered to review, like DVDs and even trips. Offering free stuff to people who are considered opinion leaders among their peers is a new spin on the age-old word of mouth marketing technique, but this time around they call it buzz marketing. Get a few people who are respected opinion leaders to start talking about your product, and the buzz it generates can be more valuable (and way cheaper) than all the traditional media ad space you can buy.

A couple of days ago, I got an e-mail from a buzz marketing firm in Toronto called Matchstick. The e-mail said that if I met a few criteria, I might be eligible for a free multimedia smart phone - all I had to do was blog about and with it. Apparently we've found my price, and it's free. Free!! I'm all about the free stuff.

I had to stretch and wiggle a little bit to meet some of their criteria - I get about half the daily hits they were looking for, and am a week short of two years older than the age group they were targetting, but I blog daily and with enthusiam, and can be bought for the price of a single multimedia smart phone, so I guess that made up for my shortfalls.

They put the phone in the mail yesterday, so I'll keep you updated when it arrives. I feel a little disingenuous, because they think they're getting a respected opinion leader who is tech savvy enough to exploit the phone's many features, and they're getting a mediocre blog junkie and recovering luddite who is more than a little intimidated by a phone that does anything other than ring and dial out.

Not only is it a phone, but it's a digital camera (still and video!), it received e-mail and has an internet interface, and it's equipped with Bluetooth technology, which seems to engender appreciative nods and sighs from my tech-savvier friends.

Our existing cell phone ('our' because we don't even each have our own) is about four years old - not even a flip-phone - and the account is a bare-bones one grandfathered from an old employee plan back in 1998, so I'm curious as to whether it will support this fancy-ass new smart phone. (Being an existing Rogers wireless customer was one of the criteria.) Whether I'll be able to figure out how to even turn it on, let alone answer a call or take a photo or blog from it remains to be seen. But in the spirit of free, I'm more than willing to try!

And, as a post-script, in doing a little bit of research for this post and my previous one, I found this link to a blogger in Italy who is willing to give his 60G iPod Video to a random blogger who links to him before August 4.

I'm shameless, aren't I? I'd be embarrassed, but I'm too busy being gleeful over the free multimedia smart phone.

The cutest pirate on the seven seas

I'm either really late for last Halloween, or really early for the next one. But, despite that, is he not the most adorable pirate ever?



Johnny Depp's got nothing on Tristan the Pirate!!

Tristan was invited to a costume birthday party yesterday, and I was in a bit of a panic as to what costume he could possibly use for a party in July. All our Halloween costumes have been carefully chosen for blustery October evenings with a decent chance of snow - the more fur, the better!

I'm rather proud of this costume, because although I fancy myself on the creative side, I'm not good with imagination stuff like this. The T-shirt is from his drawer, and the track pants were about to be sacraficed to the god of torn out knees anyway. The inflatable sword came from a Happy Meal box, as did the eyepatch not showing in this picture. The only thing I bought was a 97 cent bandana and 89 cents worth of red satin fabric, both courtesy of WalMart. Add a curlicue of moustache thanks to Clinique bonus leftovers and his own rubber boots. Voila - instant pirate!

More important than anything, though, was the fact that he loved it. He was the proudest pirate you ever would meet, and we practised his "Aarghh!" the whole 30 minute drive to the party and back again.

***

Posting may get a little sporadic, not to mention lightweight, over the next two weeks. I'm on vacation! Hooray! Turns out my vacation perfectly coincides with the two week wait, through no actually planning on my part - I couldn't have made it work out better if I tried.

Are we there yet?

Technology, baby!

We were at my parents' house on the weekend. Tristan was sitting in Granny's lap and she was reading him a book. Simon was elsewhere, and made some sort of appealing noise that attracted Tristan's attention. He hopped down from Granny's lap, on his way to investigate what Simon was up to, and Granny protested.

Granny: Where are you going, Tristan? We're in the middle of a book.

Tristan: I'll be right back, Granny. Just pause the book.

***

It's my birthday next week, and my family has been asking me what I would like. I have absolutely no idea. Well, there is one thing I would especially like, but no amount of money will alter nature's plan for that.

Beloved suggested my family combine forces to get me a 1G iPod Nano, and I'm seriously considering it. As you may remember, Beloved and the boys got me a generic brand MP3 player for Mother's Day last year. I agonized for months on what music to load, and then it took me an embarrassingly long time to get around to actually put the music on the MP3 player, which was in and of itself an entirely frustrating experience. Despite carefully crafted sets and links between song groups, the laptop and MP3 player conspired to jumble the playlist, but the player itself doesn't have a scramble feature. And then when I used it at the gym, my primary reason for wanting one in the first place, I found the volume wouldn't crank loud enough to motivate me.

Will an iPod solve any of these problems? Probably not. But I want one anyway. I'm embarrassed about what this says about my not-so-latent consumeristic streak.

Do you have an iPod? Which one, and would you recommend it? If not an iPod, what else do I need for my birthday?

Baby pictures!

So I didn't get the artistic blog photo I wanted, but I can at least share this picture of the transfer. You're looking at an ultrasound of my interior plumbing - isn't it exciting? The big dark 'sea' at the top of the picture is my very, very full bladder, and the bottom half shows my uterus, with the cervix on the far right. You can see the catheter in the centre, and three or four bright white spots that are the fertility goo that surrounded the embryo in the catheter. (Ya, I know, what it really looks like a big grey smudge. But humour me... )

I had asked Beloved to scan the ultrasound picture for me the night of the transfer, but the editorial comments were an unexpected addition.

"Your mucous is lovely!"

It's not every day you get a compliment like, "Your mucous is lovely" but being the affirmation-junkie that I am, I'll take it!

That's what one of the two (two!) reproductive endocrinologists (RE) who helped turn frostie into a toastie yesterday told me. He also said I have an ideal uterus, and I'm filing that one away for a day when my self-image is feeling particularly low. "Yah, I may be pudgy and dull today, but at least I have an ideal uterus and lovely mucous."

So yes, everything went extremely well yesterday, and frostie is now officially a toastie, snug in my womb. He/she came out of the five-year deep-freeze extremely well. They look for an embryo to be six to eight cells, and this one was seven cells - bang on average. And they grade them in quality on a scale of one to five, five being the best quality - but, the nurse assured me, they almost never see a grade four or five quality- and frostie was a grade three plus. I am absurdly proud of this, as if I had anything to do with it. I'm as proud as when Tristan passed his first year of swimming lessons, which again, had basically nothing to do with me.

Jojo, I did ask about the placement of the embryo in the uterus (that, and about a hundred other questions - it was like Curious George goes to the Fertility Clinic) and one of the REs said that yes, there is in fact an ideal place, high up in the uterus. A few minutes later, the nurses, REs and lab technicians clustered around the ultrasound monitor gasped appreciatively, in much the same way you ooh and aah over a particularly vivid fireworks display, when the RE skillfully launched the embryo and a small amount of fertility goo into exactly the place the RE had just indicated on the monitor. One of the nurses later said that the fertility goo drifted placidly out of the catheter in the most ideal way, and again I was absurdly proud.

The whole procedure only took 15 or 20 minutes, and then I was free to empty my way, way, WAY overfull bladder. Oh yes, and the RE also complimented me on my bladder capacity. He said, "You must be great on a road trip." Why is it that I attract comedians wherever I go? (Cool aside - you know why they want you to have a full bladder? Because it presses on the normally curved uterus, making it straighten out and providing a much more direct path for the catheter. The RE said they have a statistically improved success rate with a full bladder during transfer. I am endlessly fascinated by this stuff.) I had already gone three times in the half hour leading up to the procedure to let off a bit of pressure, and by the time they had launched toastie out of the catheter and then sent the catheter back to the embryologist to verify that it was empty, I was just about cross-eyed with the need to relieve myself. And let me tell you, no amount of kegels will prepare you for the exercise of trying to empty your bursting-to-capacity bladder as quickly and efficiently as possible while simultaneously contracting your cervix snuggly and tightly closed around a microscopic embryo.

Like a good blogger, I had wanted to bring my camera into the clinic with me. I had visions of a particularly amusing photo taken from my perspective on the table, looking down past my stirruped legs to the accumulated medical personnel at the business end of my anatomy, but the nurse and Beloved disabused me of the idea.

The good news is - I have pictures! The bad news is, Blogger won't let me post them. I'll try to put them up later. Evil, wicked Blogger - how you vex me!

The rest of the day was entirely uneventful, in a mildly hedonistic sort of way. We went to the movie (just average, but I'd happily fork over $10 to watch Johnny Depp read from the telephone directory, so it was a pleasant afternoon) and by coincidence of timing, I had a previously scheduled appointment to get my hair cut yesterday, too. The only thing I lacked was a massage, or maybe a pedicure, to make it the perfect "all about me" day.

But of course, it isn't entirely all about me. For those of you wondering how Beloved is faring through all of this, I have to tell you I've been a little concerned about that myself. He has a few more reservations than me about the whole 'third child' thing, and he didn't seem nearly as invested in the whole idea of frostie as I was - but then, that seems par for the course in many male-female relationships in these types of circumstances. I think it takes a little longer for guys to be able to give themselves over to hope, and a little bit longer for them to internalize a pregnancy, or even a potential pregnancy, as a reality.

Any concerns I might have had about his reaction evaporated last night when he performed what I can only describe as an impromptu interpretive dance of the embryo gaining cells and implanting in the uterine wall. Oh, how I wished I had a camera nearby, because it was a thing of beauty!

It's all good. It's all very, very good! And now, I think I'll consider myself pregnant until I find out otherwise. (You should see the grin on my face!) My blood test is two weeks today, on August 4.

*glances at watch*
*taps watch face*
*glances away*
*looks at watch again*

It's gonna be a long two weeks!

Candygram!

Patience may be a virtue, but it's not one of my personal strengths. Turns out some things are worth waiting for, though. Who knew?

No, I'm not talking about that other thing that's happening today, I'm talking about the arrival of my package this week for the great candyswap of 2006! Bethany not only came through for me, but she must have felt awfully guilty for being a little bit late (as if I'm ever on time for anything) because WOW! what a lot of great candy. But I'm getting ahead of the story...

I completely forgot to check the mail on Monday, so the poor package might have been stuck in the community mailbox in the blazing sun and 43C-with-humidity temperatures all day Monday. I was on my way home to a house full of in-laws when I picked finally retrieved the package on Tuesday afternoon, but couldn't justify putting off saying hello to them in order to tear into my package. (I tell ya, this being a grown up thing calls for a lot more restraint than I ever would have anticipated.)

In the bustle of our very-short overnight visit from the in-laws, I never did get the chance to open the package, but it didn't escape Beloved's eagle eye for candy. (I could paint the living room turquoise and puce with magenta accents, or come home shaved bald, and he might not notice. But a seven inch cubic square box of candy inside my messenger bag inside a closet he manages to ferret out. Go figure.)

He called me at work.

Beloved: "Can I open this package?"

Me: "Back off, Jack. That's my candy! You had your chance and you decided not to participate in the candy swap. Get yer paws off my box!"

Beloved: "But I shook it three times now, and it sounds like it's got some great stuff in it!"

Me: "Step away from the box. Don't mess with me on this one, I'm ovulating."

Beloved: *careful silence*

In the end, he managed to restrain himself. As he was leaving to teach his class after dinner tonight, he impelled me to open the box tonight, so he could inspect the bounty within. "It's full of American candy," he said reverently, his eyes glittering with expectation. "They have all kinds of candy down there that we don't have."

So shortly after we cleared away the dinner dishes and sent Beloved on his drooling way, notions of exotic American candy dancing in his head, my 'helpers' and I set about opening the package.



Inside, there was not only candy, but this really funky rainbow striped box. Is this a coincidence, Bethany, or did you know I have a container fixation?



And it was full - bountifully, blissfully FULL of snack-sized Twix Bars (mmmm), and sour Altoids, and sour Jelly Bellies, and Sour Patch Kids (my mouth is puckering just thinking about it) and a box of assorted flavours of Pop Rocks - remember pop rocks? I haven't seen them since grade school! I can't wait to freak the kids out by feeding them some. Watch for that excellence-in-parenting video to debut here soon! And last, but far from least, the biggest honkin' box of Willy Wonka Everlasting Gobstoppers I have ever seen. Bethany, you ROCK!!!!



And you know what? I know the perfect time to start making a dent in this most excellent stash of candy - this afternoon at the movie theatre. Heck, let's give that little embryo a sugar rush right out of the gate, shall we?

Thanks, Bethany, for the cornucopia of great candy!! And thanks to Andrea, too, for conceptualizing and creating the great candy swap of 2006... what a great idea!

3.. 2.. 1.. GO!

Oh look, it's yet another post in the ongoing saga of "oh for the love of god, will you either get pregnant or shut up about it already".

Well, we're almost there. And when I say"we" I mean "we" as in all of us, because I'm really enjoying having a couple hundred of you along for the ride. I like knowing that a lot of you have been there (and been there, and been there) but I also hope that this has been an informative little peek into the world of infertility for some of you.

And now, on with the show, because tomorrow's the big day! After an epic amount of waffling and no small amount of coaxing from my colleagues, I finally decided to take the whole day off. We have to show up at the clinic for 10:30, and I have to have a 'very full' bladder. The nurse suggested I drink a litre or more of water starting around 10:00. (Do you think a litre of Tim's coffee would be an acceptable subsitute?)

Around the time we show up at the clinic, we'll know whether frostie has survived the thaw, about an 80 per cent probability. The actual procedure will be at 11:30. (Are you squirming at thinking of sitting on a 'very full' bladder in a waiting room for an hour? Because I sure am.) I think they encourage me to have a little rest for another 20 minutes or so after the transfer - and who am I to say no to the rare opportunity for a daytime nap? - and then we should be out of there by 12:30 at the latest. We arranged for the caregiver to take the boys on Thursday instead of Wednesday this week, so Beloved will be there for the whole thing, and then we're going out to an afternoon matinee after that.

The only decision that remains is whether to see Pirates of the Carribean, Superman, or You, Me and Dupree. I'm leaning toward a little Johnny Depp action, if only I can claim later in life that he had some impact on my fertility and reproductive capability.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together despite a complete absence of planning on your part? Yet another sign from the universe that we're on the right track!

I wish I had something more coherent for you today. I don't even have a cute anecdote from the boys to apologize for this week's relentlessly self-obsessed drivel. Bear with me, we're almost done, and soon I will get my head out of my reproductive tract and turn my gaze back to the rest of the world. But, although it's a tight call, my reproductive tract is still marginally less scary than the rest of the world just now.

I'm floundering for a way to end this that doesn't seem like I'm fishing for a sea of "good luck!" comments (hey, lookit that - flounder, fishing, sea - and I didn't even do that on purpose!!) but other than my newly discovered marine theme, I got nothing.

Um, so - how's life with you these days? Oh wait, here's another idea - we could play "Infertility Questions". As in, if you have any questions about infertility treatments or the emotional rollercoaster or any of that stuff, me and my panel of experts will answer them for you. Or, you could tell me about your dog, or your goldfish, or just about anything to distract me from tomorrow.

(And if you think this is bad, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen the new low in neurotic obsession that is the 'two week wait'. Stay tuned, it's likely to get ugly.)

Hurry up and wait

I was going to post a really big whine this morning. I'm starting to get a little impatient with the whole daily bloodletting thing (no updates because there's nothing to post, just a lot of holes in the inside of my arm and the back of my hand), and this morning on the way into the clinic I managed to spill most of my coffee all over my white cotton blouse. Three days in a row, I went from the clinic back home or to the gym - it figures that I douse myself in coffee the day I'm heading to work. In white.

And I was going to whine that my in-laws are stopping by for a last-minute overnight visit tonight. I'm pretty lucky in the in-law department, but this is not exactly the best week for a visit. Oh well, aside from the fact they sleep in my bed when they visit, they're pretty low maintenance and I enjoy their company - just not on a weekday, when I'm working and in the middle of a flippin' fertility cycle!

And then there is Sassy, my parents' gorgeous and goodnatured but absolutely dumb as a post malamute husky, who is vacationing with us this week. She has a tendency to use the rug as a toilet, and no amount of walking has encouraged her to use the outside facilities. My dad walks her three to five kilometers morning and night, but sadly, I just don't have that kind of time just now. I'm hoping she deigns to use the back yard sooner rather than too late.

All in all, I was in a pretty crappy mood when I arrived at the office this morning, and then I saw that Nadine from heathifica.ca had extended my plea for information to her own health-related blog - wasn't that nice? And then I opened my e-mail, and Jojo the commenter (and godmother to my boys) who really should write her own blog sent me the link to a wonderful blog called The Shape of a Mother. It's one of the best new blogs I've seen - I love it!

In other words, I've got nothing today, but do go check out The Shape of a Mother. One of these days I might post my own saggy self over there, too!

Tummy trouble

I'm a little bit worried about Simon.

(Warning: there will be talk of barfing ahead. Consider yourself warned.)

He's always been a great eater, but he's been a little off his food lately. And maybe five or six times in the last couple of weeks, he's finished most of his dinner, started to whimper, and barfed it all right back up again. Each time it has happened, it's been a fairly hot day, and up until last week I was attributing it to the heat.

Last week, he was sick three times, but showed no other symptoms. And once he finishes yakking, he's fine - energetic, playful, in good humour.

So Beloved took him to the ped on Friday, and the ped weighed him. He's actually gained weight since his well-baby appointment six months ago, so that's a good sign. The ped told us to simply keep an eye on him, and let him know if other symptoms (food avoidance, ill temper, etc) manifest. He also gave us a prescription for Prevacid, the same reflux medication both boys were on around four to six months of age. Even though he's now two and a half, the administration of the medication is the same - with applesauce.

Just wondering if, in the beautiful symmetry of the Internet, any of you have any experience with random barfing (looks pointedly at Nancy) and any advice? Thanks to Tristan, I know from fevers, but barfing is new (not to mention messy) territory for me.

And now, as a reward for tolerating a post about my two year old's tummy troubles, a bonus conversation and non-sequiter:

We are at my parents' house for dinner. Tristan is downstairs watching TV and Simon is playing in the kitchen while my folks and Beloved and I are finishing our dinner. Tristan comes upstairs and asks for some crackers, which I give to him with the admonition to be very careful and not make a mess with the crumbs. At no time does Simon go anywhere near the basement family room.

Tristan is downstairs all of two minutes at most, and comes upstairs with a comically worried look on his face.

"Someone made a mess with some crackers downstairs," he confides with wide blue eyes, "and I think it was Simon!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

Frostie update

I've been promising an update for a couple of days, but I've been holding off for two reasons. One, I don't really have anything of substance to report, and two, I wanted to be able to capture some of my thoughts and impressions on being back in the world of the infertile again. Whatever thoughts might have been floating around won't float close enough for me to capture them in writing, so you'll have to make due with a bare-bones update.

The ultrasound on Thursday showed that my lining is around 6.5 mm, which I think is right about bang-on average. The nurse to whom I spoke certainly seemed satisfied with it, anyway. (I'd appreciate any comparisons from those of you who have been through FETs before and are as neurotically obsessive about remembering and noting these things as I am!)

As of yesterday morning, I'm paying daily visits to the clinic to have them draw a vial of blood, which they analyze for the surge in luteinizing hormone (LH) that will precede ovulation by about 48 hours. There's no way of knowing exactly when that will happen, but based on my fairly regular cycles, I expect the surge to occur Monday or Tuesday, with transfer two days after that.

Each morning, I get to the clinic between 7:30 and 8:00, and wait only 10 or 15 minutes for my turn with the phlebotomist. I have small, rolling veins, and getting a blood draw is always a pain in the arm. They've resorted to taking it from the back of my hand, which is slightly more uncomfortable but better than having them dig around the inside of my elbow with the needle, which is what they did the first two times. Youch! After four or five hours, the nurse calls me with an update, telling me (so far) simply that I have to show up to do it all over again the next day.

I'm still on the fence about how to go about the transfer itself. Actually, it's how to accomodate the transfer that I'm waffling about. The wisdom on the subject of the amount of bedrest required after the embryo transfer runs the gamut from "you can leave the clinic on a pogo stick after transfer and not pose any risk to the embryos or implantation" (a favourite saying of the head of my clinic) to a week of absolute bedrest, as advoated by a lot of American clinics.

When we went through the IVF that resulted in Tristan, I took nearly three weeks off work to encompass the last few days of stims, the unexpected coasting, the retrieval and transfer (three days apart) and a few days after. The actual day of the transfer, we left the clinic and went out for lunch on the patio of our favourite restaurant, then went to the video store where I rented three movies and spent the rest of the day lying on the couch. It seemed like enough. Oh, and I ate about three pounds of fresh pineapple, shredding the inside of my mouth in the process.

This time around, I am considering working the morning of the transfer, or going back to work afterward, depending on the time of day of the transfer. I have a hell of a lot of work to get through and two weeks of vacation starting on Friday, and I'd like to get some stuff off my desk. Quite frankly, it would probably be more restfull to sit in my quiet, air-conditioned cube and work at my computer for an afternoon than be at home with the whirling dervishes that are the sunshine of my life. I dunno... I keep waffling about this. I'll play it by ear, I guess.

I'm not even sure if Beloved will be able to accompany me to the clinic the day of the transfer. There's no official reason for him to be there - he made his, ahem, contribution to the process five years ago, when the embryos were created. The transfer doesn't involve any medication for me, so there's no reason I might need assistance after the transfer. That leaves only the more intangible fact that it would be nice to have him there, but we'd have to arrange for someone to mind the boys, no easy feat on a weekday. Only a few days remain, so I guess we'll play this one by ear, too.

If I seem a little detached about this whole process, it feels the same from here. If I really stop to think about what we're doing, my stomach fills with butterflies - but I try my best not to think about it too much. Whatever happens happens, right? If I don't invest too much up front, there is less to lose - and everything to gain.

Now I have to go do some laundry so I can wash my new skort and take a picture to post so Marla will quit pestering me about it, and I can settle once and for all the debate raging about how far above my knees the hem actually falls...

The Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar

Catchy title, eh?

Sometimes I have to turn over rocks and scrape barrel bottoms to find blog material, and sometimes things leap out of the newspaper and holler "Blog me!" This is one of the latter instances.

Last night in Toronto, performance artist Jess Dobkin hosted the first-ever Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar at the Ontario College of Art and Design gallery in Toronto. Any interested passers-by were welcome to try a 3 mililitres (about 2/3 of a teaspoon) sample of pasteurized human breast milk, donated by six lactating mothers.

Quoted on canada.com, the artist (who says she herself had trouble nursing her one-year old daughter) said her intent was not to stir up controversy, but to "create an environment that's welcoming, and I welcome people's interest and curiousity."

While I must admit my first reaction was "Ick!!", I do like the idea of opening up the conversation. I was incredibly curious about breastmilk and nursing before I had kids of my own, but was shy about asking any of my lactating friends anything but the most cursory questions. When considering future parenthood, the idea of nursing was always something I strongly believed in but was more than a little freaked out by.

What I can't imagine is drinking, or even tasting, anybody else's breast milk. For reasons I'm not sure of, the idea disturbs me on a fundamental level. I had no problem tasting my own milk (I've always thought that episode of Friends, where one of them said it tastes like canteloupe, was right on the money), and the boys seemed to enjoy it. After an exhausting, frustrating, and painful start (both times) I nursed Tristan for 10 months and Simon for more than 16 months.

Despite the artist's intention, the Lactation Station performance has stirred up more than a bit of controversy. Last month, there was an outcry when news broke that the exhibit would be the recipient of a $9,000 grand from the Canada Council for the Arts. Yesterday, the performance prompted Health Canada to issue an advisory about the dangers of buying human breast milk over the Internet or directly from individuals, as breast milk can transmit HIV and other viruses, alcohol, bacteria and other pathogens.

In the end, I give kudos to anyone who encourages thoughtful debate on something as important, and yet often still taboo, as nursing. But I think I'll pass on my free sample, thanks.

What do you think?

Ultrasound day

I've got nothing to say today, folks. I've got an ultrasound appointment at 7:30 this morning, followed by four hours of French class. (Ugh.) And yesterday, which is actually right now because I'm frantically typing this Wednesday night - see how I put myself out for you? - isn't going to work because I have two boys who have decided sleep is optional and a husband who is out teaching and there's just no muse to be found anywhere, let alone a few minutes to string some thoughts together. So it's not so much as I've got nothing to say as I've got no time to say it.

And it's a crying shame, because we've been having some great conversations this week!

So forgive me for not having something more interesting tposted today. If anything exciting comes out of the ultrasound, I'll post later, but I think all they will do is check to see if there is a decent-sized follicle that will give then an indication that I'm getting ready to ovulate, and then we'll start the daily blood tests to check for the LH surge that I used to OPKs to detect last month.

But if you're desperate for a diversion, have you seen "ask metafilter"? I've been flipping through it on and off for a couple of months now, and every time I open the page, I find something that sucks me in. Then again, I have the same problem when I open a dictionary. And sometimes the phone book.

It's late, my brain stopped working about an hour ago (hell, more like about four hours ago) and for some reason my fingers are still typing... it's really time to shut this down...

How old is too old?

This past weekend, I was looking for a quick wardrobe fix to get me through the summer heat and I had gone out looking for a simple knee-length skirt when I found myself looking seriously for the first time at 'skorts'. I've always found both the word and the concept of "skort" a bit absurd, to be honest, but one in particular didn't have the fake skirt panel in front and divided legs in back but instead looked like a skirt all the way around - a skirt that just happened to have little bloomers sewn in like the hot pants from the 1960s. I actually thought it was a skirt when I brought it into the changeroom. I tried it on, and despite the extra material, I liked it immediately. The hem falls to two or three inches above the knee, but the straight cut and stretchy material (god bless lycra) are forgiving and it looks sharp enough for work with a blouse and nice shoes.

The problem is that now that I'm wearing it, the 'skort' part feels more than a little weird, like I'm wearing boxer shorts under my skirt. There's just too much material down there. And what exactly is the point of those knickers sewn in there, anyway? I just don't get 'skorts'... the only reason I bought this one is because it so closely resembled a skirt and was a stellar 40% off the regular price.

If I had one signature piece of clothing in my 20s and early 30s, it was probably a plaid, kilted mini-skirt. I loved them, was pathologically unable to resist them, and had at least five versions hanging in my closet in colour palettes from black and gold to burgundy and teal. While I may have been self-conscious about a lot of my other body parts, I was always more than willing to show off my legs.

In the last year or so, since I realized that my post-pregnancy 10 lbs weight gain was going to be a permanent feature, I've gradually become more shy about baring my legs. Instead of moving into shorts at the first hint of a spring breeze, it was well into early summer before I hauled out the shorts this year, and even then I've moved from a shortie-short to a walking shorts length.

And because everything you see on TV must be true, I have also taken to heart the sign at the beginning of What Not to Wear that admonishes "no miniskirts after age 35". My lovely plaid kilts, in addition to now being a full size or two too small, are also no longer age appropriate. It's heartbreaking, really, but bitter as I am, I guess I can see their point.

What do you think? Are there some things you don't wear anymore because you are a woman (or man) of a certain age? Have you taken out your belly-button stud? (Oh, how I wanted one of those when I was 24 and freshly divorced!) Weight issues aside, what do you think of the 'no miniskirts after 35' rule? Is there such a thing as too old for certain styles?

The mommy wars, in person

Over the last year and a half of blogging, I've seen a lot of conversations the 'mommy wars'. In five years of mothering, though, I don't think I ever actually felt judged by another mother about my parenting skills - until yesterday.

We have, in our community, a wonderful resource for parents of children under the age of six called an Early Years Centre. It's funded by the province of Ontario, and each community's centre is a little different, but mostly they have things like a toy lending library, a schedule of parenting courses, often a daycare centre, and the part I always loved: a drop-in playgroup. I loved the drop-in at the Barrhaven EYC so much that before I lived in the community, I'd drive 10 km just to bring Tristan in when he was a toddler. They have high quality play sets, like fully equipped kitchens, dress-up clothes, puzzles, train and lego tables, and a crafts centre. Each drop-in ends with a story and song circle.

When Simon was a newborn and Tristan was a busy toddler, the EYC was a lifeline for me. I'd put Simon in a sling or bjorn carrier, or even leave him under a mobile on a soft mat in the babies-only section, and follow Tristan around as he burned off energy and played with the other kids. The staff were well-educated and helpful, and would happily entertain Tristan while I sat with my back against a wall and nursed Simon. Tristan christened it the 'ladybug playgroup' because of the big red ladybug on the mats in the crawling baby section. I've often encouraged Beloved to bring the boys there during the day, because they always loved it and always napped well after a morning of play with fresh toys and new faces.

In the year and a half since I've been on maternity leave, the EYC has moved a mile or so up the road into a new facility. I've booked off Mondays through the summer to have extra time with the boys, and since the skies threatened rain yesterday, I brought the boys in to try to recapture some of the old fun. Turns out, like in so many things in life, you can't go back again.

The first thing that struck me was a plethora of new and strict rules. No matter what we did, we were breaking a rule. First, I got the evil eye for letting the boys play in front of the doors as we queued up to take a number to get in. (Only 30 people allowed, and when we arrived three or four minutes after they started handing out numbers, we were the last few to get a ticket.) Then I got an outright scolding for letting them be in front of the door again as we inspected a cricket to pass the time. Then Tristan got scolded for running through the door. Okay, I get a rule about no running, but by this point I was starting to feel a little prickly.

They read out a list of house rules, and we were informed that there was to be no carrying toys from one section to another. No lego in the craft area. No puzzles in the book area. No kitchen toys outside the kitchen area. We're talking about a room full of preschoolers here, in a room a little larger than the average classroom, and they aren't supposed to carry the toys around? Poor Simon was distraught when he couldn't use the spatula and the wooden spoon in the big box of cornmeal. I'm just glad he didn't do what he usually does - fixate on one object and carry it around like a talisman everywhere he goes. (He actually shoplifted a yellow plastic spoon from the Children's Museum last time we were there, because I forgot he had been carrying it around with him all morning. I'll bring it back the next time we go, I promise!)

We had to fill out a registration form, and as I completed the form, one of the staffers and I chatted. She asked why it had been so long since I had been back to the EYC, and I mentioned working full time but that I had been encouraging my husband to bring the boys. I wish I were exaggerating when I tell you that her whole demeanor changed when she realized I was not a stay-at-home mother. She looked from Simon to Tristan, both happily engaged in separate play areas, and I swear I could read on her face that she saw a direct correlation to their high-spiritedness and my working. It's the first time I've ever felt judged for working outside the home, and it was like a shock of cold water.

So I was feeling a little tense to begin with, and every time the boys showed any energy or spunk or enthusiasm, I felt like the two women staffers were giving me the evil eye. Sometimes it seems like my boys are a little more wriggly and noisy than their peers, and I worry about it. They aren't bad, they just exhuberant, and in Simon's case, relentlessly curious. So when I raised my voice because Simon wasn't listening to me telling him for the third time not to dissemble the aquarium while I tried to complete the registration form and mop up the paint Tristan had dribbled onto the table, I was actually impressed with myself for not screaming outright. And when I say I raised my voice, I mean exactly that. "Si-mon," in the singsong-y getting his attention voice, followed by "Simon!" in the abrupt, I mean business voice, followed by "SIMON!" in the are-you-deaf-or-just-ignoring me voice. I hadn't even made it to the "SIMON!!" you are risking imminent death voice.

That's when one of the other mothers decided I needed an intervention, and she approached me using that calm, soothing voice that you use on angry dogs and people about to go postal. If she had approached me collegially, with laughter and empathy, I would have likely welcomed her solidarity. Instead, she actually initiated the conversation, without even so much as a 'hello-how-ya-doing', by asking me if I'd ever taken any parenting courses on how to speak to my children. I was floored, and so taken aback that I could only sputter. I was far more polite to her than I should have been, and listened patiently while she recommended a course and two books on the subject. I managed to disentangle myself from her to 'help' Tristan with some markers, and spent the rest of the morning actively avoiding her.

In the end, the boys had a great morning and were resistant to leaving. After speaking to no-one for the entire morning except the two judgemental women and feeling more than a little like a social leper, I was more than happy to get out of there, and told Beloved when I got home that I would no longer pester him to bring the boys back.

Maybe it's just the new culture of this particular EYC, but I'm disappointed to lose something that we had so enjoyed. I'm not sure whether I'm more surprised that it took this long for me to come face-to-face with this kind of bias, or how much it bothered me. It drives me crazy that I'd let the opinion of a couple of strangers undermine my confidence in my own parenting skills.

I think I'll stick to playdates with friends from now on.

Trading spaces

For a change of scenery, I'm blogging over here today.

Summer morning at the waterpark

Sunday morning + sunshine + warm weather + local water park
=
perfect morning of free fun!



(or, click through to youtube)

Ten-pages-in book review: Hitching Rides with Buddha

I know, I know, I just did a 10-pages-in book review last week. And, I just reviewed another book by this same author a couple of months ago.

But I'm so happy to have back-to-back excellent books to read, and I know it's summer reading season and I for one am desperate for recommendations for something to read myself, and I have such a literary crush on Will Ferguson now that I just can't help myself.

I'm about half way through Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan, the very funny and insightful travel memoir of one witty Canadian who takes a break from teaching English in Japan to follow the sakura, the much-celebrated wave of cherry blossoms that flows up and over Japan each spring.

Here's how Will (I'll take the liberty of using his first name, because I truly hope we can be drinking buddies some day) describes the seminal moment when he decides to undertake his journey:

One year, drunker than usual, I announced to my circle of Japanese teachers that I was going to follow the Cherry Blossom Front all the way to Hokkaido, at the northern end of Japan. Or rather, that is what was reported to me. I don't recall making this vow exactly, but I was repeatedly reminded of it. My supervisor, for one, constantly fretted over my plans. (...)

Anyhow, I had committed myself to discovering the True Heart of Japan. "William is going to follow the sakura all the way to Hokkaido," my supervisor would tell people at random, and I would grimace in a manner that might easily been taken for a smile. I stalled three years.

When I finally did set out to follow the Cherry Blossom Front north, I went armed only with the essentials of Japanese travel: a map, several thick wads of cash, and a decidedly limited arsenal of Japanese, most of which seemed to revolved around drinking or the weather. ("It is very hot today. Let's have a beer.")

He sets off, a Gaijin-san ("Mr Foreigner") curiousity hitchhiking the entire length of Japan (across seven islands, roughly the distance from Miami to Montreal) for no real reason except because he can, and because so many of his Japanese colleagues tell him either it can't be done or he is crazy to try.

If one day I were to become a famous and celebrated writer, I should be very flattered to have someone observe, "Her writing is very similar in style and substance to that of Will Ferguson." I love his keen eye for the quirkiness of those around him, I love his barely subdued wit and his gentle self-deprecation, and I simply I love how he strings words together.

It was these qualities that made me pick up this book in the first place because to be totally honest - I wasn't all that interested in Japan, or travels in Japan, or Japanese culture. Not there is anything wrong with Japan, or the Japanese; it's just not a culture that has ever captured my curiousity before. I have friends who have and would love to travel to Japan, but it never even cracked my own top ten of places I'd some day like to visit. Until now, that is; until I read this book.

Hitching Rides with Buddha has piqued my curiousity about Japan in more or less the same way that Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw inflamed my love of my own country. Did I tell you one of the inspirations for our Quebec City trip was Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw? Will Ferguson didn't write specifically about Quebec City, but he reminded me that there are many, many exquisite places to visit within a day's drive of here, and that could do worse than spend a few days exploring Canada and understanding our own history a little better.

This memoir, Hitching Rides with Buddha, is the antithesis to the standard Frommers or Lonely Planet tourist guide, and far from the usual dry and trite assessment of the Japanese people and culture. There is a constant tension between Will's status as an outsider and the intimacy of his perspective on the lives of the ordinary Japanese citizens he encounters while hitchhiking that makes his story compelling as well as descriptive. Will's insight into both people and place, and his alternating affection for and exasperation with the Japanese makes both the author and his subjects charmingly endearing.

By the way, if you're looking for this book in the US or UK, it was published under the title Hokkaido Highway Blues. An author's note in the newly released Canadian edition tells the reader that Hitching Rides with Buddha was the author's original choice for a title, but that "the title was nixed by the American publisher on the complaint that it sounded too religious. Sigh."

I've been both extremely lucky and kind of annoyed to find two great books to read back-to-back through the early summer reading season. 'Annoyed' because The Historian was so page-turningly compelling that I could barely stop reading long enough to make dinner or put the kids to bed, and other niceties like personal grooming and work had to take a number to get my attention. Hitching Rides with Buddha will bring me through to next week, but I've still got two weeks of holiday time at the end of July and the beginning of August to pass.

What have you read recently that's worth recommending?

Hidden talents?

I'm watching America's Got Talent again. (I know, I know - I can't help myself. It's been on three weeks and I've mentioned it three times already. What can I say, I'm hooked. It's like chips and dip - I know I shouldn't, but I just can't help myself, especially when there's no other worthy distractions around.)

Leonid the sparkly Slavic sword balancer with the pink wings (!) has just skipped across the stage after an emotional plea that actually left me choked up. Really. I blame my hormones.

Actually, it's something the previous contestant said that resonates with me. He was the rather disturbing looking contortionist-guitar player, and one of the judges asked him, 'What would make you learn how to do something like this?'

He shrugged and said, 'I just need the attention, I guess.'

Yep, that's why I blog. I just need the attention, I guess. Hell, that's not just why I blog, that's my life!

But really what I've been thinking about is that I need a special talent like that. Not so much the contortionist guitar player, but what about the guy who balanced the stove on his face, or the guy with the parrot hiding in the pretty coloured scarves, or the guy with the flaming bowling ball and the scorpion in his pants? I mean, really!

Everybody should have a parlour trick, a hidden talent, something you only do after two or three beers that always impresses people the first time you do it but annoys the hell out of your significant other, who knows when you haul out that tired old trick that it must be nearly time to find your coats and shoes and get the hell out of there before you decide you are best buddies with the other drunk guy in the corner talking to the plant.

Not that it would earn me a million dollars, but people always seem impressed that I can clap with one hand. (It's a lot of fun to get a whole dinner party table waving flapping their wrists around, trying to do it. Dang, now you're never going to invite me over for a dinner party, are you?)

And I can do that lipstick thing that Molly Ringwald did in The Breakfast Club, but now that I've breastfed two babies and my 34Ds have become 34 longs, it ain't so pretty to see anymore.

What's your hidden talent?

Day one!

Because I know my reproductive workings have you on the edge of your seat, I felt it necessary to broadcast to the entire interweb that it is, in fact, day one of my cycle. The cycle. The cycle that will lead, in approximately two weeks, to my wee Frostie finally coming out of its deep freeze, at which point I think I will begin to refer to it as my little Toastie instead.

Next stop, an ultrasound on July 13. Stay tuned!

The one with the rant about the child care allowance

Starting this month, the Canadian government will be doling out the cheques for the new Universal Child Care Benefit. That’s the $100-a-month credit, for each child under age six, that the Tory government seems to think gives families some sort of ‘choice in child care.’ Right.

I have to be careful here. The prime minister is my boss, and I don’t think it’s too clever to crap where I sleep, so to speak. So read these words not as written as a civil servant, but as ranted by a working mom of two preschool boys.

I’ve always thought that the $100 Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) allowance is nothing but a practically meaningless token amount. And it annoys the hell out of me that it is so inequitable. Because the benefit will be taxable to the lowest income earner, a single parent family, a two-income family, and a two-parent-single-income family will all get different amounts.

After taking into account the income tax that will have to be paid, and the elimination of the former low-earner supplement to the Child Tax Benefit, of the original $1200 per year you will only be able to keep:

$641 if you are a two-income family earning $40K a year;

$768 if you are a single parent with an income of $20K a year;

$951 if you are on welfare; and,

$971 if you are a one-income family earning $250K a year.

(See the Caledon Institute’s excellent essay for a detailed analysis. I took these figures from their report.)

Isn’t that lovely? The upper-class one-income family, which most likely does not even use child care, gets more than $200 a year more in net benefits, per child, than a working poor single parent.

And then, as if that weren’t a bitter enough pill to swallow, the media this weekend reported that childcare centres across the country are hiking day care fees just in time to benefit from the new allowance to parents. Some centres are hiking fees by as much as $75 a month, which leaves parents with a net deficit at the end of the month. One daycare centre operator wrote a letter to parents, saying, “[the daycare centre] would like to be a part recipient of those funds which are to be used for day-care purposes.”

This isn’t about, never was about, should not be about working parents versus stay-at-home parents. If the government wants to hand out this half-assed, poorly planned reward to the voters who were naïve enough to elect them, fair enough. Call it the “thanks for electing us” benefit, then. To their credit, they did change the name of the credit from the Choice in Child Care Allowance to the Universal Child Care Benefit, which is only mildly instead of completely patronizing and insulting. Because it’s far from universal, and has little or nothing to do with child care.

If the government wants to make a meaningful financial contribution to the families who are paying for child care, they should consider changing the tax laws so the highest income earner in the family can deduct the child care expenses, for starters. And then they should go back to the drawing board to find a real way to make child care accessible, reliable and truly universal. We’ve got a long way to go.

Sketches of Quebec City (Post-Script)

It is the morning of our last day in Quebec City. We are in the car, on our way out of town.

Tristan asks, not for the first time, if we are going back to Canada today. "We are in Canada," I reassure him. He has not asked this question when we have visited Toronto or Kingston or any other city. I launch into a lengthy explanation about cities, provinces and countries, which takes most of the drive to the outskirts of town.

We cross the soaring Pierre Laporte bridge in silence, and as we gain terra firma on the other side, Tristan asks brightly, "Are we in Canada yet?"

How is this possible? I am fervent federalist, and yet I have given birth to a separatist.

Sketches of Quebec City (Part Five)

The boys are asleep in the back seat, Beloved is taking in some culture at the National Musee des Beaux-Arts and I am driving randomly through Quebec City, as relaxed as I've been since sitting in Nancy's comfortable kitchen two long days ago. I start out driving rather aimlessly, and end up in a rather boring suburban neighbourhood that has the same big box stores every Canadian city now seems to have. I am pleased, however, to find a Tim Horton's - our first in Quebec City - and maybe it's the familiar caffeine burst that sooths my frazzled nerves as much as the sleeping boys and gentle loops I am making.

The boys should sleep for a good hour or more, their bellies full of the familiar tastes of home thanks to the most exquisite McDonald's I've seen since the Champs-Elysee in Paris. Lunch on the patio of a 300 year old manor apartment converted into a McDonald's on the Grand Allée, the most grand boulevard in Quebec, seems a perfectly reasonable compromise that leaves everyone content after our busy morning's adventures.

I drive down to the old port, and circle the outside of the city walls, looking up the formidable escarpment first at the imposing Chateau Frontenac, and then at Battlefields Park. For the first time, gazing at the sheer face of the escarpment, I get a visceral understanding of the history of the place. I can see why Champlain stopped here, why the British fought for this land, what 400 years of civilization - 400 years of Canadian history - looks like. It leaves me feeling infinitesimal yet strongly connected to the past. I follow Champlain (the road, not the explorer) as far as the looming bridges that ford the St Lawrence to the west, and loop back around for another pass.

I begin to realize that Quebeckers tend to be such aggressive and poor drivers (I once heard a stand-up comedian opine that the motto on the Quebec licence plate, Je me souviens, does not in fact translate to "I remember", but "I will be cutting you off in the near future") because they have the most arcane, confusing road system known to man. Traffic lights take forever to change, and seem to do so not to assist the flow of traffic, but to impede it.

After almost two hours of driving, during which I cover surprising little territory due to the aforementioned traffic peccaddilloes, I finally feel like I know Quebec City, and I wonder why I didn't do this the first night we were here. Eventually, it's time to return to the Musée des Beaux-Arts to pick up Beloved, and I manage to miss the exit I need.

Full of bravado and my newly acquired sense of the geography of the place, I forsake my map and make random turns through the heart of the old city. I am temporarily lost, then get my bearings, then become lost again. I find myself for one embarrassing moment going the wrong way down a poorly (if at all) marked one way street, and I vow that if we ever return to Quebec City, we will not only get a hotel in the old city but park our car when we get there and leave it parked until we are on our way out of town.

The final entry in this series is the post script.

Revenge of the Luddite

Technology - my vice, my paramour, my nemesis.

The laptop has been 'in the shop' for about two and a half weeks. The 'shop' is in - of all places - Utah. Apparently, in all of North America, Gateway computers only have qualified technicians in Utah. Go figure.

You may remember back when we got the laptop - I thought it was an almost embarrassing and unnecessary extravagance. Now, it's a lifeline. For more than half a month, I've had to actually creep down to the basement and use the desktop computer to surf, and to blog. Oh, the indecency of it all. It's practically a stone tablet and chisel, for goodness sake.

And then, while we were away this past week, Beloved has the audacity to take with him our digital camera (which I also thought was a bit of an embarrassing and unnecessary extravagance), leaving me with my little Canon Owl point and shoot 35mm camera. Not even an SLR, mind you. And I had to bring the films to the photo lab and actually wait to see what the pictures looked like. It was nothing short of painful. We used to live like this? It's positively prehistoric.

So anyway, I had to wait until tonight to post some of the pics from the 35mm camera (I even had to ask for a reminder tutorial on how to scan things into the computer!) and now Blogger has crapped out on me and won't let me edit post any more photos. But in the next little while, I'm going back to re-edit some of the original sketches on Quebec City, so do go back and admire the photos, now that it's taken so much bloody work to post them for you. Egads, at this rate I'll posting via seminole signals by the end of the weekend...

Sketches of Quebec City (Tristan's Perspective)

Beloved bought a disposable camera for Tristan to use on our vacation in Quebec City. Despite the fact that Tristan didn't quite understand why this camera doesn't immediately show the shot you just captured like our digital one does, I think the whole series of shots makes a wonderful collage of the old city from the perspective of a curious four-year-old. (These photos are actually scans of the index card the photo lab includes with each processing order.)

Continue reading Sketches of Quebec City with Part Five.

Sketches of Quebec City (Part Three)

We are sitting on the warm pavement of the parade grounds at the Citadel, the site of the original military fortification at Quebec and still an active military garrison. We are hot and sweaty under a heavy grey sky, having marched uphill into the Citadel from the old city in double-time to make it in time to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony.


(If you are looking for a way to keep two preschoolers sitting still for a 35 minute outdoor spectacle, walking for a couple of hours through the winding streets of the old city and then running them twenty minutes uphill in dreadful humidity to get there is a pretty good way to ensure they sit in quiet stupor awe for the entire thing.)

I couldn't resist at least one cheesey tourist photo for posterity:

Okay, so these ones are pretty cheesey, too - but cute!

I can tell the boys are starting to lose patience in being dragged around the old city, but Beloved wants to make one quick stop at the l'Hotel Dieu, a museum run by Augustinian nuns within a working hospital, before we stop for lunch. I was hoping the boys could stand at least a little bit of cultural indoctrination, but am fearful of what kind of behaviour we might encounter with tired, hot, cranky boys inside, of all places, a monastery. We are wandering down from the Citadel back into the city walls when a perfectly lovely park appears in our path like an oasis. I nearly fall down with joy and gratitude, and the boys and I stop to play for an hour while Beloved makes his way down to the museum unencumbered.

The Parc Esplanade is truly a gift, a full park nestled up against the old city walls. We swing, we climb, we play with the children of other exhaustedly grateful tourists, and we even make our way up on to the old walls themselves to run on the grass-topped ramparts for a few spectacular minutes.

The hill that rises up the left side of the photo leads up to the old city walls, which you can just barely make out. The buildings you see are all outside the old city walls.

Now I get it. This is the Quebec City that people have raved to me about. Amazing...

Continue reading Sketches of Quebec City with Part Four, Tristan's Perspective.

Sketches of Quebec City (Part Two)

In 1759, the British and French forces fought the a definitive battle on the Plains of Abraham. Early on a humid morning in 2006, I was just grateful for a place to let the boys wander safely and explore the world at their own pace for a while. Wide open spaces, sweeping vistas down the escarpment to the river, and sporadic canons - not the worst way to pass a bit of time.

Finally, with at least some of the boys' energy burned off, we manage to make our way into the walled old city. I finally understand why people rave about Quebec City. The cobblestone streets are narrow, winding, unpredictable. Centuries-old buildings crowd together, leaning into each other for support. Everything is an arm's reach from everything else. Windowboxes adorn every window, and containers overflowing with flowers stand sentry at most doorways. It is like something out of a fairytale.



We wander near the Chateau Frontenac, and make our way down to lower town on the funicular, a 127 year old elevatorish device with a panoramic view that descends the side of the escarpment at a 45 degree angle. It is, we are told, the only funicular of this kind in Canada. The boys and I discover 'funicular' is a funny word to say, especially if you say it out loud, several times in a row.

Continue reading Sketches of Quebec City with Part Three.

Sketches of Quebec City (Part One)

I'm never going to get around to writing the epic post that sums up our sojourn in la Belle Province, so I've decided to cover it in a series of vignettes instead. I'll try to post them over the course of the next couple of days.

We made, I decided in the end, a tactical error in choosing a Holiday Inn in downtown Quebec City over a more picturesque inn in the old city. For those of you who have never been there, the old city is an 18th century walled city perched atop an escarpment, looking down on the St Lawrence river. Our hotel is in the commercial district, a twenty minute walk from the old city. Twenty minutes seemed entirely accessible when making the booking through the Quebec tourism website, but a lot less so when Simon, Tristan and I set off on a wander shortly after arriving in Quebec City. Beloved, here to do research for his upcoming course in Quebec Art, has set off in the other direction toward the Musee des Augustins de l'Hopital General.

We are in no particular hurry, and set off without a specific destination in mind. Many of the tiny streets are only wide enough for a single car to pass, and the buildings crowd the street on either side. We wander down what seems to be a main street, and my stomach is tense trying to herd my wandering nomads through the pedestrians and away from the heavy traffic. Quebec has just passed a bylaw similar to the one that prohibits smoking in public spaces in Ontario, and the sidewalks are thick with cigarette smoke and loitering displaced smokers. The skies are heavy and threatening rain, and I'm not incredibly impressed with this first taste of a city that everybody raved enthusiastically about before our departure.

Then again, it could be that I'm a little cranky from the long drive (we sat on the highway for more than an hour while an accident was cleared away less than 700 metres ahead of us) or from the greasy lunch of pogos and french fries at the Bigfoot Madrid gas station, buffet, monster truck zone and plastic dinosaur exhibition (talk about brand confusion) a few hours ago.

I'm idly hoping to stumble across a mall, or a department store, where we can find - of all things - a magic wand for Simon. He found a piece of black tubing broken off another toy at Nancy's place, and has fixated on it as his 'magic wand'. Unfortunately, the treasured magic wand went missing somewhere in transit and Simon the Magnificent is apparently powerless without it.

We walk a scant two blocks from the hotel, and I'm beginning to realize we're never going to make it as far as the old city, when I see a shop window with a lovely display of toys in it. We walk along, and the next two windows are similarly decorated. Hardly able to believe our luck, we pull open the doors to the largest, nicest toy store I've ever seen. Not only do we find magic wands, but we find - gasp! - train tables, and a full-sized train that is sadly only run on weekends. Simon busies himself with a doll house, Tristan settles in at the train table, and I stand guard nearby, gazing about with wonderous relief.



Dinner an hour later is a comedy of preschool shenanigans, funny to the few young men sitting at the bar in the otherwise empty (thankfully) small restaurant we have chosen to subject to the boys' antics. The hotel guide recommended it for pizza, paninis and burgers, which seemed a perfect family-style combination. In retrospect, the raised eyebrows of the welcoming server when I ask for a table for two adults and two children should have served as a more clear warning that this is not a child-friendly establishment. It is not unfriendly, exactly, but moreso unprepared for the hurricane that is my boys.

They refuse to sit still, slipping in and out of their seats and under the table. They tug the tablecloth and rattle the silverware. Simon insists on holding his own glass tumbler, and while Beloved and I focus our attention on him, Tristan elbows his own full glass all over the table. After carefully mopping up the ensuing puddle, with a look between amusement and pity the server brings over a box of pencil crayons and markers and earns a tip half the price of the meal. The young guys watching with amusement at the bar chuckle when I reach across the table and gulp half of Beloved's pint in one weary pull.

The boys refuse to eat, so I eat half of their incredible club sandwich (made with real turkey - exquisite!) after downing my own sicilian pizza. Beloved raves about his reuben panini and the belgian sauce (garlic mayonnaise) that accompanies his home-cut french fries. It is a delicious meal, what I taste of it in my hurry to swallow it down and get the hell out of there, and I am grateful to the patient kindness of the server and his cronies.

By the time we make it back to the hotel, the boys are clamouring for a swim in the hotel pool. I am disappointed to find that it is so deep in the shallow end that Tristan can barely touch bottom, and I have to hold Simon in my arms. By the time we make it back upstairs, I am overtired, overfull, and rather cranky. We all fall asleep to Regis Philbon and America's Got Talent, having never even made it near the old city.


Continue reading Sketches of Quebec City with Part Two.