A much needed night out

Tonight I am meeting with my book club. My book club is the best book club in the world because it consists of three people: me and two good friends who live in Waterloo/Kitchener. We started this up 8 years ago when I last lived here and we've started it up again. It's the best in the world because:

• we only choose books available in the library or the remainder section at the bookstore
• we eat great food and drink great drinks; each person brings either a savory, a dessert, or a drink
• the food has to relate somehow to the book; sometimes the relationship is extremely remote
• we often don't talk about the book until the very end but we do eventually talk about it.
• there is no set schedule for meetings; we meet when we're all finished the book

I am so, so, so happy to be meeting tonight. After almost a week of being housebound due to a child being unable to leave the couch because of the flu that must not be named (thanks Lynn for adding a bit of humour to all this!) and being a single parent during that week and being 10 weeks pregnant, I need a night out more than just about anything else right now (although a day at the spa and a million dollars would be fine too).

And then tomorrow we're off for a what ought to be a wonderful weekend in Toronto that will include the Ontario Science Centre and (hooray!) a visit to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. I love the Royal Winter Fair! Great memories of my first taste of beer nuts and the smell of horses and cold weather. Lovely!

As for the stroller, well, I have no chance to win at this point but thanks for all who voted for me. I'll make do with second-hand. Shiny and new is nice but they would both get me and baby #3 from point A to point B in just the same way.

Please vote for me!

Recently Amy at Muddy Boots solicited votes to win a digital camcorder at Classy Mommy . Well, there's a new giveaway at Classy Mommy and I want to win!

The current giveaway is for a Mutsy Transporter Stroller. Given that the current baby forming in utero was a big surprise, we find ourselves lacking some important baby equipment that was completely worn out by Emily and Hope, the most important being a crib, change table, car seat and stroller. We're a family on one salary so we'll be borrowing an begging for help to replace this equipment. It would be wonderful to win this stroller!

And given we normally reside in a very snowy city, our stroller has to be able to plough through snowbanks. The Mutsy looks like it is up to the job.

So please vote for me here! (I'm the name at the top.)

He's home!

At 7:30 pm this evening I sat in our car, headlights on, girls in the back excited beyond belief, scanning the Kitchener train station platform for John's form. I haven't felt that excited about something since.... well, probably sometime around Christmas 1986 or so. Likely the year I got my Litebrite.

Being on my own for the past 8 days while attempting (I think successfully?) to stave off the flu, being 10 weeks pregnant, hosting my dad and Donna, keeping up with the usual stuff around here, and now the last two days, nursing Emily through *the* flu has not been a good time for me.

I've said it before when John has been away but being a single parent is not enjoyable in any way. Sure, you don't have to make any decisions in tandem, checking to see if your decision works for your partner. But that is far outweighed by all the other CRAP that you have to do by yourself.

Like tonight for instance. I really needed to get groceries. I had planned to take Emily and Hope to our nearest grocery store (my favourite, Central Fresh Market - an independent grocery in Kitchener) and get the staples we were missing as well as stuff to make chicken noodle soup. Although Emily was perkier than this morning, she had hit the wall again and did not want to leave the couch. Or the comfort of her jammies. So I started calling people: first Greg who it turns out was playing single parent himself; then Julie, no one home at her house; then I looked out the window and saw that both Dan and Jewel were home downstairs and although I'd used and abused my friendship with Jewel all day, I did it again and she graciously stayed with the kids while I ran out.

A couple of Facebook friends asked later if there was a grocery delivery nearby. You only think of these things afterward and in anticipation of a next time, I did some research. As far as I can tell no grocery stores do this in K-W. A big oversight for sure. What do single parents do in these situations? I assume they have to rely on a huge network of friends and family. It's not a role I ever want to permanently play.

And so, if you know someone who is a single parent.... make them a meal and drop it off for their freezer. Just for those times when they might need it. It will make their day.

What was I thinking?

I foolishly signed up for NaBloPoMo again (that's National Blog Post Month for those of you not in the know). I'm supposed to post everyday for the month of November. Given that I only posted 10 times in October, 11 times in September and let's not even talk about August or July, one can only conclude that I am set up for one gigantic and spectacular FAIL.

Hah! But you underestimate my obsession with proving people wrong. And maybe I'll do it here. Or maybe I'll cultivate my other obsession which is procastinating and saying I'll do something and then not do it.

I guess it will just be a surprise. Don't you just love surprise endings?

Kind of like this book I finished last night where in the last few chapters a baby was born (granted it was a new sub-species of human), turned to its dad and said "Hello Mitch" and I'm not even kidding. I'm also not kidding when I say I was laying in bed last night reading this, completely by myself since John is still away (BUT COMING HOME TOMORROW THANK GOD BECAUSE EMILY THREW UP AGAIN TONIGHT AND HOPE WAS CONSTIPATED AND HONESTLY I THINK I GOT EMILY VACCINATED AGAINST A FLU THAT SHE ALREADY HAS), and said outloud to me, myself and I "Oh that is so stupid."

It completely ruined the book for me which up until that point I was thoroughly enjoying. Seriously? A talking baby? Greg Bear you couldn't come up with anything better to attribute to a new sub-species of humanity than early speech. All I could think of was those annoying commercials where babies talk about how much they like their Huggies.

Where was I going with this?

Right. So maybe I'll surprise you with actually accomplishing this whole blog-everyday thing kind of like the talking baby surprised me.

Oh, and on the topic of babies, tomorrow is my first midwife appointment. I'm seeing a midwife named Mina. Which essentially means that everytime I see her I will only be able to picture Lloyd Axworthy sitting there suggesting that I massage my perineum.

That would make no sense to you unless you currently or have previously worked at Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs. And if you have then right now you are thinking I am pretty freaking hilarious. Which I am.

And with that, I close.

Post Halloween lazies

I shouldn't in fact suggest Emily is feeling lazy. What she is actually feeling is sick. She has another terrible cold. She does have a fever, but not a high one. She does have a cough, but I don't think she has H1N1. Although without a vaccination I'm sure she would get it. I'm sure because she has had about 4 days since school started when she hasn't been sick with something. Her new school has not been kind to us germ-wise. And it is for this reason that we're getting vaccinated tomorrow by our family doctor here. Waterloo has issued vaccine to GPs so we're not required to stand in line for hours, thank the good Lord.

And even though Emily was suffering from her cold last night, the promise of candy as well as a dose of Motrin ensured that she was able to collect her share of loot. Hope did fairly well considering her legs are a lot shorter than her sister's. With still two streets between us and home, Hope declared that she had enough candy. Emily and our neighbours finished the route while Hope and I sorted through her things at home. Most unusual treats: pop. One can of Coke and one can of gingerale. That's what you call phoning it in for Halloween.

I sewed Hope's costume. It turned out rather well don't you think?



I made Emily's as well, a mermaid costume made out of duct tape, muffin cups and a garbage bag.

I'm all about the homemade costumes.

John is still in Ottawa and I'm pretty much done with being a single parent, especially when pregnant, nursing my own cold and Emily's. He gets home on Tuesday evening and I can't wait.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed on things around here. Time for tea and a mini-chocolate bar.

-- Post From My iPhone

And the winner is....

Ecomama! Ecomama won herself a copy of Character is Key. Way to go Ecomama. Hope you enjoy it!

Apparently you can go back home again

We had a great weekend in Ottawa last weekend. It was a whirlwind tour but nice nonetheless. I would have liked a little more time so that we weren't feeling so frenzied seeing everyone and getting things from our house. The girls had a great time but were also up until 10:00 two nights in a row. That's never good.

We spent Friday night at a hotel in Peterborough. It had a pool which was the big sell for the girls. The big sell for me was that the pool was set about one degree above body temperature. Lovely. The hotel also offered a continental breakfast which usually, in my experience, consists of dry muffins and bad coffee. This hotel had a full breakfast (muffins, cinnamon buns, hot and cold cereal, toast, bagels, juice, coffee, tea) which included something the girls are still talking about: wall-mounted cereal dispensers. You had to twist a handle and the cereal, which you could see through the big transparent tube, fell into your bowl. It was pretty cool. Do you think Starfrit makes those?

On Saturday we drove to Ottawa and started our buzzing around - first to Meredith and Ron's to drop off our things and have a quick visits, then to Pam and Jim's for playtime and visiting and dinner, then back to Meredith and Ron's in Chelsea. The next morning our friends John and Dawn and their daughter Emily arrived in Chelsea for a visit, then everyone else showed up at noon for a brunch. After that it was to our house to pick up some Christmas decorations and other things, then to John's brother's in Riverside South for supper. Back to Chelsea and then I drove the girls home with me the next morning. It was a full day's drive and we made it without resorting to buying a DVD player. That is the sign of a good car trip. I think we can say goodbye to that technology for good (fingers crossed). We did stop at the Sandlion Sticker Outlet in Richmond Hill and stocked up on about 5 years of stickers.

Did I take photos? Not one. And that is the problem with having such a crappy camera. I often don't even bother to pull it out anymore. So sad.