If I Had a Blog This is what I'd say...

My sister has a bunch of Aeroplan points and a couple of weeks ago she offered to use some of them to get some tickets for us to fly out to Ottawa with the kids for a visit this winter. We mulled it over a bit. Given Greg's employment status we weren't sure we could afford it (we paid the taxes), and we weren't sure he'd want to take off for a week when he'd (hopefully) just started a new job.

I thought about taking the kids on my own, but that thought lasted all of two seconds. Flying with Elliot is easy, flying with Amy is not. I thought about going out again with just Elliot, but my sister would really like to see both kids. So in the end we've decided to go as a family.

A couple of days ago (and this is related), Elliot and I were sitting on his bed reading. He's always been into books, but he's stepped it up quite a bit and I figure we're probably reading about 20 books per day to him now, on the days we're home all day with him. So we were sitting there reading, side-by-side, and Amy was playing in the room. She would run over to the train table, grab a car, come running back to the bed, grunt and groan until I helped her onto the bed, put the car in the pocket of the sweatshirt I was wearing, get off the bed and repeat the process. Periodically she'd stay up on the bed and try to zip or unzip the pocket. Then she'd ask for help and get mad when I tried to help her. And she'd get mad when I would put my arm down to turn the page, because she couldn't get to the pocket. Then she'd take all the cars out. And put them back in again. Then sprawl herself on my lap. Then roll over. You get the picture.

Through all this, Elliot didn't moved a muscle. He's listened intently to the book, even through all the distractions. And I suddenly realized...THIS is what the plane ride will be like. Thank God I'm not doing it by myself.

Tonight Greg and I are having dinner with two other couples, at one of the couple's new house, sans kids. It's been planned for over a month, and I'm really looking forward to it. Greg and I get plenty of time to ourselves in the evenings because we thankfully have two good sleepers, but we don't go out a lot without the kids, so this is a real treat. Uninterrupted adult conversation with good friends, coupled with wine and food. Sounds pretty awesome to me.

Elliot and I just had our first official movie night. Greg was supposed to join us as well, but he had a last minute trip to the mainland.

After bath we got into our pajamas, made popcorn and settled in. We watched Bob the Builder - Born to be Wild. It was good, but I look forward to graduating to some Pixar movies. They are too long still for Elliot, and he scares VERY easily, so we'll wait a while yet.

We plan to make this a fairly regular thing in our household.

I gotta write this letter, and I gotta do a blog post. So here you go. And yes, I will actually be mailing this letter. Although not sure it'll go out exactly as is...just wanted to get a rough draft done.

To The People Responsible For Making Customers Happy At Yakima:

My husband and I bought a Yakima SkyBox in June of 2006. We paid over $700 for it, which was a lot more than we would have paid if we went to a warehouse store and bought one of their no-name brands, but we were willing to pay for a quality product. In addition, the lifetime warranty was very important to us.

We have only used the SkyBox about ten times over the past three years, as we don't often need the extra storage. When we went to use it this past summer, my husband noticed a crack in the underside of it as he was putting it on our car. Upon further investigation, we found that the crack ran down the entire belly of the pod. Which obviously affects the integrity of the pod and it's ability to keep things dry.

Knowing the pod has a lifetime warranty, we took it to the dealer we bought it from, an authorized Yakima dealer, and they contacted their Yakima distributor. They were told that the crack was not a defect, but that the pod must have been dropped. They refused to honour the warranty.

We have not dropped this pod. We have not dropped anything on it, and it has not fallen down. We are very disappointed with Yakima's reaction, and unless this situation is rectified, we will not be buying Yakima products in the future. We have already had the need to purchase a bike rack, and given the customer service we've received so far from Yakima, we decided to get a Thule instead.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
The Customers Who Are Not Happy

When it came time for Amy to go to daycare and Elliot to switch daycares, there were two that I was hoping would have openings at the right time. Both were recommended to me by friends. One of them was at the top of my list for two reasons: location (close to my office) and they provided food (less work for us). We didn't get into that one.

Turns out neither have been an issue. In fact, it's been the opposite. Their daycare is less than 10 minutes from my office, and it's on a beautiful piece of land, as opposed to next to a parking garage downtown. And I actually like making their lunches. I like having control over what they eat. And now that I've been doing it for a few months, I don't really have to think about it anymore.

Not to mention that both kids are pretty darn happy there. I'm very thankful.

Yoga night tonight. My regular instructor wasn't there and the instructor subbing for her was just okay. She talked a lot, and it was...different. Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising since they are different people. But she lost me when she told us we should melt our shoulders like warm icing going down our backs.

However, it did get me to thinking of the other "service providers" in my life, and how few changes I've made. I've had the same hairdresser for almost twenty years. Same dentist for about the same time. And I'd still have the same dental hygienist, but she left the office so I got a new one. I've received about 150 massages over the past eight years and all but one of them have been from the same RMT. I had the same doctor for ten years and only switched because I got pregnant.

Is this normal? I suppose it probably is. Why switch when you're happy with the service you are receiving?

Greg and I menu plan. We started before we had kids, to prevent the conversations we'd have in the car on the way home from work, tired and hungry:

Greg: What's for dinner tonight?
Me: I dunno, why is it up to me?

(To be fair, he often worded it differently, like "Any thoughts on dinner?". But no matter how it was asked, it always got me riled up.)

For the longest time we just did it a week at a time. But last year I changed it to a two-week plan. Partly because I was sick of doing it every week and partly because we started ordering some of our food from spud and that required me to be a bit more organized.

So now, every second Monday or Tuesday night, we put together a two week menu plan. And we're darn good at sticking to it. We do change the days up depending on what we forget to take out of the freezer, but for the most part we don't change the meals. And it's actually mostly me who does the planning. This is because I'm terrible at multi-tasking, and if Greg is doing it with me, he often suggests an idea while I'm in the middle of writing down ingredients for another meal. And then I lose my train of thought and end up forgetting to write some key ingredient down.

Our eventual plan is to get a bunch of the recipes we use often digitized so we can quickly search for ideas instead of flipping through recipe books for every meal. (I am very much a follow-the-recipe kind of cook.) That is still on our to-do list, though.

There are a couple of other advantages to doing the plan, aside from keeping our marriage intact. One is we do way fewer trips to the grocery store. And the other is we eat better. Before when we'd just go to the grocery store to grab something for dinner, it often was something unhealthy.

Some people have told me they couldn't do a plan because they wouldn't know what they felt like eating on a particular night. There is the odd time that I've felt that, but generally the meals on the plan are ones we really enjoy eating, and it hasn't come up very often.

I have no suitable closing comment for this post so I'm just going to end it right there.

Today after Amy's nap we decided to make a family trip down to the library to get some books out for the kids (and their dad). Elliot initially said he wanted to come, but as we were getting ready he changed his mind. I didn't feel like staying home, so I convinced him to come. I told him we wouldn't be long, and that I'd carry him for a bit if he was tired. There were some minor tears, but he came somewhat willingly. He waited on the front steps for me while I finished getting ready, and as soon as I was out the door he asked me to pick him up. I did, but I told him I couldn't carry him the whole way. We literally had gone two steps when he said "down, down!". And off he went. He pretty much ran the whole way to the library, and never once asked to be picked up.

This has been the trend lately, and it has made life a lot easier when we're out. He was definitely a stroller/carry me kind of toddler, and he hadn't grown out of that when Amy was born. We didn't get a double stroller, so we've had many a battle over who should be going in the stroller. We were making headway before we went to New Zealand in February, but once there he seemed perpetually tired, and he got carried a lot. Throughout the summer there was still a lot of carrying happening. But over the last couple of months things have changed, and I love to see him skipping, splashing through puddles, and doing his funny runs.

But now I have to figure out how to get my arm workouts in. Although Amy's over 27 pounds so that might do the trick.

I'm having a tough time coming up with ideas for posts...and we're only half way there. When something of note happens throughout the day it makes it a lot easier. I guess that means I had a boring day? But I didn't.

I slept in. Read some books with the kids. Had some breakfast. Went to a craft fair while the kids and Greg played at the park. Joined them in the park. Went grocery shopping with the whole family. Had a yummy lunch at home. Put a very tired girl down for her nap. Checked my email. Retrieved a still-very-tired girl from a 30-minute nap and convinced her to go to sleep again. Worked. Made dinner. Played with the kids. Ate dinner. Played with the kids. Put the kids to bed. Entered into a bad mood. Worked. Blogged (albeit pathetically).

That's all you're gonna get for today.

Amy does not like getting dressed in the morning. This past week I tried a new tactic. Twice she was VERY displeased with a shirt I was trying to put on her, so I suggested she go get another one from her drawer. She did this willingly, and getting the shirt of her choice on her was easier. I wouldn't say it was straightforward, but at least she wasn't screaming bloody murder and pulling it in every direction but on.

Before I go further, let me say that I enjoy getting both my kids dressed, or more accurately I enjoy the end result. They both have some really nice clothes, thanks to hand-me-downs from generous friends, and I will fully admit that it pleases me to see them looking nice.

This morning I picked out an outfit for Amy and put her shirt on. It was a bit of a fight, but we got it on. Then I stopped and gave her a break before tackling the pants. The shirt was a nice red long-sleeved onesie and the pants were jeans with some pretty red flowers embroidered on them.

I got sidetracked by some other getting-ready task, and it ended up being Greg who was in charge of pants. Amy put her foot down and refused to wear the jeans, and instead picked another pair of pants she'd been carrying around with her all morning. A pair of navy blue cotton ones with pink, turquoise and white dragonflies. Really cute pants that definitely DID not go with her red shirt. And I don't fault Greg for the result...Amy can be pretty darn stubborn.

I knew that trying to get her into pants that matched was a stupid battle, and I didn't fight it. But it did bother me. I am reasonable enough to tell myself that it shouldn't, but it did. But I'm proud of the fact that she left the house dressed in what she wanted to wear.

And I'm even prouder of the fact that when I grabbed socks for her, I purposely picked socks that didn't match her shirt or her pants.