Hey! The Spring/Summer Weather Stopped By...With Squirrel Vandals Included

Yes, spring/summer weather stopped by on the weekend, bringing with it loads of sunshine and gorgeous warmth. Got my first burn of the season!

And with the warm weather came hubby's desire to get cracking on the yard work. And thought, hmm. Maybe I'll take Ty out for a bike-ride later, and went to go get the bike trailer out of the shed...only to find: a nest of baby squirrels.

I'll say right off that these little guys are cute buggers, but their mom was most destructive to our bike trailer. Chewed the absolute crap out of it. And guess what, none of the parts that were destroyed are considered "replaceable parts" by Little Tikes, so we are screwed. Pissed us off, I tell you.

We took the trailer out into the open, and at dusk, watched with relief as momma squirrel came and took her babies to a new nesting ground. Oh, and did I mention that destructo-squirrel chewed a hub-cab sized hole through 2 layers of Rubbermaid plastic to get into the shed? Arrrrgh!

Where IS the Spring Weather?

It is the middle of April. Warm showers? I could tolerate this. Instead "STORM WARNING-SNOW EXPECTED!" What the hell? On the postive side, the temp is supposed to rise by the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

Braved the misty rain and chill with Ty this morning to take him to get his haircut. Saying he looked shaggy would be too kind. I told Mark that maybe we should grow his hair into a sk8er boy cut, and he said, and I quote, "Over my dead body." Well, seeing as he is still alive and well, Ty has a nice, SHORT boy cut, and looks super-cute. He's so good too. Rare to see a two-year old (almost) that doesn't cry and wail when clippers are taken to his head. Not a peep out of him. He was happy just to hold a comb.

Keegan's nasal spray seems to be working. He hasn't had a nosebleed since we started it. I am worried a bit about the contraindications on the package, including "MAY AFFECT GROWTH RATE IN YOUNG CHILDREN. GROWTH SHOULD BE CAREFULLY MONITORED WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION." Uh...yeah. Okay. So, no nosebleeds, but 3 1/2 feet for life?

Phoenix is doing well in his after-school reading program. He seems to enjoy it. That being said, he had a major emotional meltdown after school yesterday when it came time to do his spelling homework. Everything from tears, sobbing,throwing himself on the floor, storming upstairs, kicking me in the leg, and saying, (I still can't believe he had the nerve!) "You're not the boss of me! You can't tell me what to do! Sometimes you're the meanest mom EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well son, guess what? I AM the boss of you, I WILL tell you what to do, and if making you go to school makes me a mean Mom, then I'm in good company with the moms of every other kid in your class!

I'm not sure what brought this all on; but it was up and over with in 10 minutes, after which he buried his head in my stomach and said that he was sorry, that I'm not the meanest mom ever, and he loves me even when he's mad.

Whew.

In more fun matters, seeing as I am a daughter short for life's milestones, my sister-in-law graciously loaned me hers, and allowed me to take Heidi for her birthday to get her ears pierced. She was SO happy! And Heidi, you look gorgeous with your new jewellery! (I also told her to come to me on her 20th b-day and we'd get her a tattoo...).

Remember my mentioning the Webkinz mania that has hit our house? It keeps getting worse, aided and abetted by yours truly. Even Ty has a Lil'Kinz bunny, that he christened "Shabadee" and carries with him throughout the house and always to bed. They're so cute though! I get sucked in, every time. And with 3 birthdays coming up in the next 2 months, I'm sure we will have more "housemates" soon. So to you who haven't caved in to your child yet? Stay strong! Once you start...it's the evil E-bay...

Have a super-duper week!!!! (for those of you that didn't notice, that was my false enthusiasm in place of warm sunshine). :)

Keegan Update

Keegan's doctor called today and his bloodtests came out fine. (Whew!) We are going to try him on a new nasal spray and see how that works.

Also booked him an appointment for the beginning of May for allergy testing. Thanks to all who asked for updates.

Some Easter Pix

Keegs, Phoenix and Ty in their Easter finery. Was Keegan made for suspenders, or what?

Happy Easter!!!

This year's Easter cake collection includes mini-cupcakes of bunnies and chicks...

Wishing everyone a fun and happy Easter!

Strong Advocate For Home Schooling

I have become a strong advocate for home schooling. Why? Because at least if your children are confined to their own homes all day, they won't be bringing home a new virus every 3 seconds.

Yes, Keegs and Ty are sick. Again. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge.

Ty has some bronchial infection that makes him wheeze like a 10 pack a day smoker. He is on drugs and a puffer.

Keegs has major lung butter and a chest infection so he's on antibiotics too.

Took Keegs to the dr regarding his nosebleeds and general lack of good health on Thursday afternoon. Dr recommended extensive blood tests. He thinks he may be anaemic, as I posted before with the most benign of my suspicions. So they took 5 vials of blood out of him; not like he has much to spare these days. He was great. Not a peep out of him, not even a flinch. The lab techs were all "Oh, what courage! What a good boy you are!" And Keegs looks at them and says, "Yes. I know. I am brave." He's too cute.

So now we wait for some results, which will be somewhat delayed due to the Easter holiday and all, so look for an update on Tues or Wednesday.

Happy Birthday yesterday to my nephew Lucas, who is 12 years old! Enjoy your last preteen year ( or is it tween, now?)

Busy day tomorrow. Mark was in Ottawa all week, so I am way behind on my Easter errands. I have to get a million things done tomorrow including taking the boys for haircuts (although I think I may leave Ty's a bit longer in the front to cover his black eye (up close and personal with the kitchen stool) and the chunk that is missing from his forehead (faceplant from the stairs onto a Transformer toy). The kid is Evil Kneivel, I swear. No fear. Keep your fingers crossed that he survives each day.

Will post in the next few days with my Easter "mini" cakes...

For A Long Month, It Went Fast

At first, I thought March was going to last forever. And now, here it is, April already. Now is the busy time countdown in our household. For me, it is a busy cake making season. Lots of birthdays here and among friends and family, plus Easter treats to make. We also have EarthJam 2007 coming up, and Mark's band has a set list with 10 new songs to learn, so Mark is in the studio all the time in preparation for the show. Then in May, it's FSRT duck race season. So by the beginning of June, stress levels begin to abate, right? No, because there are more birthdays and parties and preschool graduation and the end of grade one...so really, I'm pretty much screwed until summer.

This week, Phoenix starts his after-school reading tutoring, twice a week. Keegs has his visit with the dr regarding his explosive nose hemorrages (8 last week, one this week so far, but hey, it's only Sunday!). Good Friday we are all off, of course. Saturday is a baking day. Sunday is Easter at Mark's mom's cousin's house (Zosia). Monday is another day off for most; Keegs goes back to school.

I have spent the day filling out forms, mostly disclosure agreements to release info regarding Keegan's psych assessment to various doctors, schools etc. Also filled out forms for summer camp for Phoenix. I am sending him to two, week-long day camps in July and August to break up his summer. He's going with his friend Hannah, so he should have a good time. Keegs we are keeping at the daycare through the summer to keep him in routine. It will be good, because it is at the main centre, and will be all kids in his age group, all going into SK. We ended up keeping the same subsidy level, so costs will be managable, and his transportation will still be covered. And in the off days? Well, play dates, and the weekly trip to the Farmer's Market to pick up fresh fruits and veggies, and to visit Grandpa who works there as well.

I have spent the weekend a: doing laundry, b: baking cakes, c: caring for fever-ridden child, d: losing 8 bids on E-Bay, e: becoming addicted to Facebook, f: all of the above. (The answer is F).

Phoenix came down with a fever on Saturday morning. Weird. No other symptoms, no stomach ache, no sore throat or cough, ear pain, nothing. Just a fever hovering around the 103 F mark. Which meant that we had to miss out on my nephew's birthday party (made him a guitar cake) and going glow-in-the-dark bowling. I did laundry and watched endless episodes of Justice League instead. He is okay today. Mark took the kids to church and they came home proudly displaying the crosses they had made with palm. (Palm Sunday craft...). I stayed home with Ty, who refused to nap and frosted my flakes. Refused to nap in the afternoon too. Was quite pissy by bedtime, let me tell you.

Anyway, it's approaching 11:00, I'm blind from all of the time spent on the computer this weekend, so I'm going to head out. Will update on Thursday with Keegs dr news.

Always Something New To Worry About

Yes, in my world, there is always something new to worry about.

This week, (surprise!) it's Keegan. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Keegs suffers from frequent nosebleeds. This has kicked up a notch from frequent to almost daily. And these aren't your run-of-the-mill, stops-in-30-seconds-type nosebleeds either. More like 30 minutes later, and maybe we can take the Kleenex plugs out of your nose type. He will be sleeping, or watching t.v. or playing, and all of the sudden, it's the red sea. My carpet throughout the house looks like a crime scene. Last week, there was the unfortunate sneeze-and-cough during nosebleed session that turned my bathroom into a scene from The Shining (Tony's not here, Mrs. Torrence!)

That being said, I have taken him to the pediatrician regarding these before, back when they were weekly occurances. She said it was due to his allergies, and to put a humidifier in his room, use Rhinaris nasal lubricant, and she prescribed Flonase nasal spray. Well, turns out, Keegs is one of the small percentage of Flonase users that react to the spray by having, you guessed it, heavy nosebleeds. So that was out. So I've been doing everything we should be, including a daily allergy med, with no avail.

The scary part is, aside from the blood, is the way he looks after. He is white as a sheet. You can't see his lips; they blend right into his skin. And he is cold all of the time. He is always asking for blankets, or an extra sweater, even on days like yesterday, when it was 72F here, and we were all in T-shirts, and he wanted his jacket on and zipped.

So I have made him an appointment to revisit the issue. I did the paranoid mother thing and did a search engine on frequent nosebleeds in children and came up with two viable explanations, neither good, but one infinitely more acceptable than the other. First, that he is anaemic. The other, and horrifying one is leukemia based, and I refuse to even go there (even though there is two cases of leukemia family history on my husband's side...STOP IT! Shannon, please...).

Our appointment is on April 5, so I will keep you posted on any developments in this area.

I did have some lovely things to share, but I am burned out from the above. I will post again later to shed some optimism over this worry-weary blog.

Rock 'n' Roll!

Electric guitar cake that I made on Friday...next up...well, something Easter-ish.

Enough, Already!

Kripes! Will this flu virus never leave our home? We had a minor reprieve over the March break, and now it's back again in full force, kicking ass and taking names. Ty, fever yesterday. Keegan, came home from school yesterday, white as a sheet, with a fever of 102.4. He is still sporting a fever today, and is home with me. Mark and I are suffering from major sore throats. I feel like I'm swallowing broken glass. And believe me, the congestion does not make the hubby-snoring issue any better. Ty was up 13, yes, 13!!!!! times last night. Can't breathe. So let's cry! Yeah, that will make the snot flow ease up!

A little sympathy and some cyber hugs would go down nicely (as would serious drugs and alcohol, but I DO have kids to look after...)...pray to the gods of Nyquil and Cold-EEZE that we recover soonest!

Cough.........wheeze............sniff.......................

PS. Phoenix is still standing tall. What a trooper. I told him that his antibodies have superpowers to prevent his contracting this illness. Mind over matter. Mind over matter.

Ooh, Baby!

Cake I made this weekend for a baby shower...'tis the season for cakes. Got 4 orders this week! Stay tuned for next week's feature: the electric guitar.

And The Diagnosis Is...Umm...We're Not Sure

Today, Mark and I went to meet with Keegan's psychologist who did the psycho-educational testing with him over the last month and a half. The meeting was to discuss his results, and therefore, his forecasted diagnosis so to speak.

And the results were, well, ambiguous at best. Which, in a way, is kind of a good thing. Perhaps I should explain.

Basically, he was being tested to evaluate if he had a cognitive learning delay, and to explore whether or not he was in-line with an Asperger's profile.

Regarding the Asperger's, the answer is no. With the cognitive learning, half of his results were in the normal range, which was great to hear. This means that he does not have what is called a general or "global" delay. The other results were below average but not critically so. The problem is that since Keegan has expressive and responsive language delays, it sort of skews(sp?) his results a bit. It is difficult to determine whether he cannot perform the task because of a cognition problem, or because he does not understand the language presented to him in the deliverance of the instructions.

For example, Keegan has difficulty understanding linguistic concepts, like many, few, different, same. If you work with him for a long time, showing him examples, he will understand the concept, and be able to complete the task. But if you just say, show me the ones in this group that are different, he may not grasp the words "show me" or "different". So it appears that most of the delays that showed up during testing are language delay based.

To put in all in a nut shell, the hope is that as Keegan's language skills develop, so will his cognitive skills. His delays are LANGUAGE based, and not cognition based. Confused? Me too. But what it all comes down to is that this is something that with a lot of work, he can overcome. It will not impact him life-long. Of course, there is the risk that he may have an actual language DISORDER, which we won't know for about two more years, at which time he may have to be reassessed.

So what do I know? Not much. But it is a good thing, to us. Better to have the hope, than to have a label at this point. What is comes down to is that here we have a really bright kid, who has some walls up in his head that we have to take down brick by brick to open up his information highway.

And as Scoop, Muck, Dizzy, Roley and Lofty would say, "We're on the job!"

And We're Not Circus-Folk!

Strangest thing to hear yourself saying to your children at 7:50 am on a Monday morning:

"Will someone please take the sword out of your brother's mouth before he impales himself or something?"

Yeah. And we're not even circus folk!

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Health status: Myself and hubby--we're okay. Knock on wood.
Phoenix: occasional cough, but okay.
Keegan: Hacking cough, but no fever
Ty: After 9 days, still coughing, runny nose and now and again fever.

Took Ty to the doctor's again yesterday, insisting that a child should NOT have a fever for a whole week. Chest clear. Ears fine. Throat okay. He's not sick.

Yeah, okay, come over at 2:00 am when he coughs so much he vomits and I have to change his pyjamas and all of his bedding, and tell me he's not sick. Bastards. Well, it's the flu, sunshine. It can take 4 days to 3 weeks to recover.

Ah, yes. That is EXACTLY what I wanted to hear. Sigh...and to top it off, next week is March break. I need a vacation THIS March, not next one! I keep waiting for Regis and Kelly to call my house for the Blizzard Blast Trivia A-Sno-Go, but it hasn't happened yet.

This Friday Mark and I are meeting with the psychologist that did the 5 week testing with Keegan to get his results. I will post the good (or not so good) results when I get them.

We have a leaky shower pipe and my toy room was flooded on the weekend. Eff.

Will someone please post with some GOOD news to cheer me up, on this miserably cold crappy Monday morning?

Ty Update

Still coughing, still running fever, still river-nosed, but according to the dr, not sick enough for meds. Must be a virus, fluids, rest, blah blah blah. Poor little nugget!

And this morning Phoenix was complaining of a cough! ARRRGGGHHH!

Poor Little Muffin!

Poor Tiggeroo is sick. Croupy, harsh cough that sounds like it is ripping his chest in half. Runny nose. Fever of 102.4 F.

I complain all the time about how busy he is; always getting into everything and how I can't turn my back on him for a second. And now, he just sits on my lap for hours on end, and cries if I put him down for any reason. Dare I say it? I miss his energy. It breaks my heart to see him so listless and sad.

"Are you okay?" I asked him this morning. "Oh Money, (combo of Mommy and Honey, I like to think;))", he said and started to cry. Then he toddled over to the couch and looked out the window to the driveway. "Daddy...." he whispered. Soon, soon, he'll be home soon. Mark is taking him to the dr's at 3:40. Will update after.

Why? I Ask You, WHY?!?!?!?!?

Dear Neighbour,

Why!

Why is it necessary to snow-blow your driveway at 5:35 am? There's not THAT much snow!

Why do you do this on a night when Ty has come down with the croup and I only just got him to sleep?

Bastards!

Delinquency Lives!

I apologise for the sporadic posting. It's just too freaking cold to be here in the office. My hands are chilled and my toes are approaching the frostbite zone. Maybe I should be swilling gin or something to warm me as I type.....hmmm.........

Okay, first things first. The playdate from hell.

Let me just say off the bat that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my kids, more than chocolate, and that's saying something. But other people's kids? Meh. (As Leanne would say). (But not YOUR kids. Your kids are great.)That being said, a few weeks ago, we had a PD day at Phoenix's school. His friend's mom called me up in the morning to invite Bun over for a playdate. Sure! I said. Around 1:30? Great. Two seconds later I get another phone call. Can he come over in the morning instead? Sorry, uncle and grandfather visiting at present. Okay, same time then. Bye. Two more seconds later, another phone call, asking if her son could come play at my house for about an hour, because she had a job interview and then Bun could spend the rest of the afternoon at her house. Ok.

(Also scheduled that day, was a psych assessment appointment that I had to take Keegan to, hence the brother/dad babysitting duo. Then, at 12:30, I had a meeting at my house with Keegan's resource consultant to plan our education meeting with various other people that Keegs has been seen by or tested with. Ok...)

When the boy in question arrived, I explained, SEVERAL TIMES, that I had a very important meeting, and they had to play quietly downstairs and NOT INTERRUPT. RC arrives, we start the meeting, and then the agony begins. "Um, excuse me, Phoenix's mom? I need a snack." Go away. I am in a meeting. I will deal with you and snacks later. "Excuse me, can we go play video games out in the studio?" No. Over my dead body. Go away. I am in a meeting.

Things to this nature happen again and again and again until I have to excuse myself and go and threaten death upon all of the kids in a very scary low-volume evil-mom voice.

Get back to the meeting. "Excuse me....". I turned to the child in rage, then in fearful curiosity. What is that all over your shirt? "Oh, we were giving our Webkins (stuffed animals) haircuts. I said it was okay." At this point, my head is about to explode and the RC is trying not to laugh. I run downstairs to the toy room with boy in tow, and see the beauty shop massacre all over the carpet and every child. The look on Phoenix's face was plainly "Oh F U C K ! ! ! !" Pretty much. I gave a rapid and fierce riot act, confiscated scissors and any other potentially heart-attack inducing weapons of mass destruction, and went back up to find the RC packing up. She told me she had written me notes of what she wanted to cover instead, since I was obviously not able to focus. I apologised profusely, and saw her out. Then Ty woke up. ARRGGH!

At this point, I told the boys to put on their gear and chucked them into the backyard. And did I mention that this "one hour" had turned into three? I was NOT impressed. When the mom finally arrived, with an off-hand apology for being late, and a questioning, "How was he?" I certainly did not mince words. When she, in her mortification of her child's behaviour, offered to take Phoenix for the afternoon, even dinner, I told her that I thought perhaps they had seen enough of each other that day.

So. That was my playdate from hell, in a nutshell. Do you have any playdate war stories? Share them! I want to hear "Shann, that was nothing compared to my day!"
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I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day yesterday. In the spirit of "LOVING" I have composed a list or two. Things That Annoy the Hell Out of Me about my Hubby" and of course "Things I Love About My Hubby" and his list for me. Here goes. See if any of these things are on your own lists...

Things That Annoy Me About My Hubby
1. Snoring. Enough said.
2. How he takes up 89% of the bed, leaving me clinging to a shred of blanket and the edge of the mattress.
3. How he leaves the toilet seat up
4. How he dumps tupperware into the sink without rinsing it out, and piles dishes on the counter ABOVE the dishwasher, and yet can't take the extra 2 seconds to put them inside.
5. Taking off his socks and leaving them in balls or inside out in 100 different places in the house, none of which include the laundry basket.
6. Talking with his hands.
7. Inviting people over without consulting me first, resulting in a whirlwind of cleaning frenzy-induced anxiety for me.
8. How when I am in the middle of a rant, he interrupts and tells me to "relax". ARRGHHH!

Things I Love About My Hubby

1. He will drop anything to "you know what" even if he was sick and dying.
2. He loves to cook and 99.9% of the time, makes dinner.
3. He doesn't like chocolate so I get to eat it all!
4. He is an awesome dad.
5. He is good to his parents.
6. He makes me laugh every single day.
7. He is handy, and can fix most electrical and plumbing issues and does all of the outside gardening work.
8. He feels sorry for my hands, and has taken over bathing the kids duty.
9. How he is always warm as toast and doesn't mind me placing various body parts on him to leach out the heat into my frozen limbs.

Things That I Do to Annoy the Hell out of my Hubby

1. Insist on checking my e-mail right when he is about to do some work in the office.
2. Leaving piles of miscellaneous crap on tables, saying that I am still using it, and will put it away later.
3. How I put off putting away laundry until I have no choice.
4. How I would rather read than do anything else.
5. That I abhor most types of physical activity.
6. How when I drink a Coke, I only open the can a little bit, and not the whole way, and don't suck off the pop from the rim after every sip. (This for some reason drives him insane, so of course, I do it now just to piss him off...)
7. How I will put the milk back in the fridge, even though there is only a 6 drops left in the bag, because I may use it in my cup of tea later.

Thing My Hubby Loves About Me

1. The fact that I am gorgeous, dead-sexy and not to mention, modest.
2. Big boobs.
3. When I wear my hair in a pony tail.
4. My sarcasm. (Yes, there are people who see it for the art it is!)
5. That I am a good mom.
6. That I am close with my family and his.
7. That I do all the stuff he hates, like sorting mail, reading and deleting crap e-mail from his in-box, cleaning toilets, doing laundry and assisting homework.
8. When I laugh in bed, silently as to not wake the kids and the whole bed vibrates. He always says "I don't remember putting a quarter in the bed!"


I am sure that I am leaving out a million things on all four lists but, there you go. No matter what the annoyances are, I love him, and couldn't live without him. And he loves me too, and is too scared to leave ;)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

As Promised, The Before and After Hand Shots

As you can see, my hands looks much better now, as opposed to before. Eww...gross. But, the 4-step program works. What can I say? Don't get your hands wet. Don't get your hands wet. Don't get your hands wet. Use Prevex-B. I can even wear my wedding rings again! For the first time in years!

Wednesday Morning Serenade

I woke up this morning to a serenade under my bedroom window; a guy with an icy body and icicles dripping from his nose. I think his name is "Weather Man"...singing:

I'm Mister White Christmas
I'm Mister Snow
I'm Mister Icicle
I'm Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
I'm too much!

He's Mister White Christmas
He's Mister Snow
That's right!
He's Mister Icicle
He's Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
He's too much!

I never want to see a day
That's over forty degrees
I'd rather have it thirty,
Twenty, ten, five and let it freeeeEEEEEEeeze!

He's Mister White Christmas
He's Mister Snow
That's right!
He's Mister Icicle
He's Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch... too much.
Too Much!

Too much is right! Kripes. It's freaking cold. -27C with the windchill! Can you say frozen baby cheeks? It's been a damn cold week or so here, and we have been miserably house-bound as a result. Which is part of the reason why I have been lazy in posting. One, the kids are always underfoot to bug me with their constant, yet inane demands and questions, and two, the weather outside equals freezing cold basement. My office is there. As is the computer. So, I either type as fast as I can, or, say screw it, and head upstairs to warmer temperatures, a good book, and a steaming mug of tea. Like I have been doing for the last while.

But, after more than a few inquires as to my whereabouts, I have decided to lock the kids in the toy room watching Cars for the 1000000th time, and brave the chill.

What's new, what's new...

Well, Phoenix is on the verge of losing his second baby tooth, and makes me wiggle it at every opportunity so he can cash it in for $ with the Tooth Fairy/Tooth Beaver. He is saving up for a new Webkinz. Have you heard of these? I may have mentioned them before. They are stuffed animals that come with a code that gives you access to KinzWorld, where you can design a room for your Kinz and play games and stuff. Pretty ingenious money-maker; every kid in Phoenix's class has at least two of them. (I admit, I have one too, a leopard named Micah.)

Keegan is half-way through his psycho-educational assessment sessions. He loves going; always new things to try and play with. His assessment with the Occupational Therapist indicated that he needs to build up his core strength (through the torso) so we have daily workout sessions with therabands, doing pilate-like exercises. He also needs to work on his fine motor as well, as he has a weak grasp and this makes things like holding a pencil difficult for him. Speech therapy is also coming along. We are currently working on sequencing and the ubiquitous 3-step directions.

Ty is still a little troublemaker. But damn, he's too cute! New things include (as just announced by Keegan) taking shelves off of the wall, scattering movie cases and -oh fun!- sticking his hands in the fishtank. He's just a whirlwind of busy-ness. No wonder he's not talking. It would take too much time away from raising hell!

Just got off of the phone with my friend Leanne, who has put up the idea of taking a girls' trip together next winter (Feb/March) with our mutual friend Kris. I am LOVING this idea. I am pretty confident that Mark will encourage it. He knows I need to run away and decompress, and this is a perfect opportunity.

I have been returning to the classics, book-wise lately. I recently read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and was itching the smack Tess by the end. It irks me how dumb some characters are. Today I am reading Wuthering Heights, which I am quite enjoying so far, and I have Emma left to read.

Oh, I also read "Through A Looking Glass Darkly". I recommend it. Good chunky read. Now, of course, I feel obligated to go and buy the prequel and sequel...Oh! Speaking of sequels, I am too excited about the Harry Potter book coming out this summer. I loved all the other books. I know that there are a lot of people out there that have not read any of them as they refuse to give into the hype, but trust me! They're great!

I have a story to tell but no time right now. I will try to get back in here tonight to recount to you the tale of "THE WORST PLAYDATE EVER" which occured here last Friday... stay tuned.

Shann out.

Insert Favourite Swear Words Here

Eff.

Ty has broken out of the crib.

What to do?

(My other GOOD sons never did this....)