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Can you see my crack?
November 14, 2006One of the perks of my ‘mommy’ job is that I get to chauffeur my little bosses around and quietly listen while they chat in the back seat.
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One day, Grant was fiddling with his window, trying to adjust it so there was a barely discernable opening.
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He says to Nicole; ‘Cole, can you see my crack?’
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Upon noticing that Mommy is snickering away up front, Nicole asked me what I was laughing at.  I decided to explain to the kids about the bum crack and how most people hearing that question would think of that. They erupted into giggles of course because kids just love to laugh about anything to do with bodily functions or private parts.
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 So, for then next two months, I frequently heard Grant putting his window down to the right degree and asking Nicole ‘can you see my crack’ and listening to gales of laughter. That was fun.Â
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 Another funny one was when we were driving to Montana. The kids were watching The Lord of the Rings and Grant asked Nicole; ‘What’s royalty?’Â
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She thought about it for a second then told him ‘royalty means you have a nice hat and don’t get killed’.Â
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Tell me something funny you heard kids say! I love this stuff. 
Blog Vacation, coming right up!
July 9, 2006
Mother Hen is taking a vacation from blogging for a month or so.
In the meantime, my two favorite guys are going to celebrate their birthdays before I get back here.
Ron will turn 40 on July 16th and Grant will turn 6 on August 1st. The big guy has threatened me with dire consequences if I organize a party so we’re we’ll have a quiet family celebration. The little guy has been planning and scheming for a party for about 6 months!
We expect to be overrun with little boys at the end of the month. Should be fun. (*cringe*)Â
Take care friends of the blogosphere. I’ll see you later.
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3 bags full….
July 2, 2006Spent the better part of this today washing, drying and shaving one hot poodle!
I always think of that nursery rhyme about the sheep and bags of wool…
It would make a nice warm sweater I bet!
Yesterday I took the kids to the Canada Day parade. We always have an interesting assortment of participants in our parade, from the Edmonton pipe band to the Greyhound rescue club to the Red Hat Club. In fact, I think the ladies of the Red Hat club had one of the nicest floats, a great big rig decked out in purple and red.
We had Ray Whitney and Mike Commodore, a couple of local guys who won the Stanley Cup this year, horses, dogs, minature ponies, multiple fire trucks and the best part…most parade entrants were throwing candy to the kids. I wonder if they’d be as enthusiastic if there were no treats!
In the afternoon we went to Mike and Kim’s wedding. Mike and Kim started dating in grade 8 and had a couple of goes before breaking up for good then marrying other people. After 20 years, they are back together. The wedding was really nice and took place at the little ski hill on the side of the river in Edmonton. They were attended by their two best friends and Kim’s 5 children from her first marriage. In the picture below Kim caught me about to take a picture so gave me a big grin. Mike looks verrrry serious!
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5 questions…..5 answers
My sis Logo has been doing this question/answer meme. I don’t know what possessed me but I asked for 5 questions so now I’m honour bound to answer them. Of course, she didn’t give me anything easy. She’s read most of my blog so picked some really doozies. Here we go!
1. What is the best chemical geek joke you know?
This is not as easy as it sounds. First, I never remember jokes. Second, ‘chemical geek’ is a rare category.
(For those of you who don’t know, my education is in chemistry and I work as a spectroscopist/analytical resource leader for a big chemical company. That’s where this question comes from).
Like I said, I don’t remember jokes typically. I laugh then they evaporate from my brain. However, some months ago, I followed a link on my friend Katie’s blog. If you haven’t visited her, you should, she’s always funny. Her link was to Brandon’s blog and the post is all about chemical hazard signs and what they ‘could’ mean. I found it freaking hilarious. You may not.
http://www.onechildleftbehind.com/2006/03/ready_114231466575220030.html
2. How do you think Harper is doing so far?
Better than I expected. The conservatives are not as conservative as they used to be and the balance of seats in the house I think necessitates more agreement creation and cooperation in government than it would if there was a sweeping majority of any one party. I’m glad to see the New Democratic Party (NDP) has gained some momentum over the last few years.
3. How is that Brazilian working for ya so far?
That Brazilian is working just fine-you should try it.
4. I, as did you, experienced post-partum depression.
Was there a specific time, perhaps a moment of joy, in which you said to yourself,
“Aaaah, this is me! I remember me, I like me!”
or was it more like a gradual rebalancing?
There was no ‘moment of joy’. I don’t know if you read the series of post I did called ‘The Dark Days of May’ but it talks a bit about the journey. I still suffer extreme PMS and continue with the antidepressant medication to help with that. I feel more like myself now than I did from about 2000-2003 but not 100%.
5. You have mentioned handbag contents a couple times on your blog,
got anything interesting in there at the moment?
Way more crap than the last time I talked about it! Contents now include a book, a pile more receipts, gum, 5 tubes of lipstick, a requisition for a mamogram, ibuprofen, ozonal, keys to the trailer, and papers from the school in addition to all the stuff pictured here.
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To all my American friends, A very happy Independence day to you today-Jul 4th
♥ ♥
Can’t keep up to the kids or the flowers!
June 28, 2006This posting once a week is for the birds. I’ve already missed out on telling you the late breaking news about the kids.
Grant graduated from kindergarten last week. The kids were so cute. Most rushed up to get their diploma and rushed away. Standing against the wall all I could hear was the muffled oaths of parents who had missed getting a picture. One little guy had the idea of ‘enjoying the limelight’ and walked slowly towards the teacher, pausing every few moments to grin at the audience.Â
The kindergarten teacher laughed and said ‘and we practiced two times!’ I got this fleeting shot of Grant, running away with the goods. After receiving their diplomas the kids sang us a song in French, their favorite, Petite Poisson. It was a hit.
Summer in Alberta is a burst of growth and life between long months of cool/cold weather and brown vegetation. When things start growing they go crazy.
I like to grow roses, and there are some very hardy varieties of rose that do well here. There is a whole line of roses named after famous explorers. I have an Alexander MacKenzie rose growing in the front of the house and its just starting to burst forth. It will be loaded with flowers for the next month.
That’s a Wiegela beside it.
Nicole finished grade 1 today and I went to the school in the afternoon but they didn’t really have a grad. I have one picture of her with her teacher and they both look so hot and fed up that I won’t post it. It was about 30C here today and the elementary section of the school doesn’t have air conditioning!
Another funny thing that happened recently a certain 5 old boy has discovered grooming and mirrors. What a goofball. He is working on perfecting his gel/spike look. Tonight I just about wrung his neck waiting for him to come and have his bedtime snack. He was that absorbed in the bathroom. Oy!
Father’s Day and more
June 18, 2006Happy Father’s day to all the dad’s out there. Things are quiet here as our resident father is sleeping then heading off to work again tonight.
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Thank you very much to those of you who offered your insights into the career/ home conundrum and to the many who offered my friend M happy retirement wishes. She is a bit shy but when I saw her this week she mentioned that she had seen all the kind words from my blog friends and was touched.
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I really got a kick out of the many friends and blog buddies who stuck their pins in my Guest map. Many are aquainted with each other in the blogosphere so made comments to each other. (In case you didn’t know, you can actually zoom the map before sticking your pin in, just in case you get a chance to do this somewhere else and are worried about squishing your fellow countrymen).
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This week Nicole had to go back to the Pulmonary specialist because she still has not got the lung function expected of a 7 year old girl, despite being on regular asthma meds. She has been coughing a lot since her tonsillectomy and seems to be in perpetual chest cold mode. Anyway, Ron took her to the University and she was still only at about 75% so they took an X-ray. Found some spots on her lungs and decided to do a bunch of swabs.
Results came back Friday so Friday evening I had her at the Doctors office to get a prescription to treat mycoplasma pneumonia.
UPDATE: Last night Nicole sat on my lap and read all the good wishes from my blogging friends. She was thrilled, both that she could actually read them (reading has been a tough row to hoe) and at all these nice people sending her good thoughts. Thanks everybody
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I got to see my brother David this week and is wife Kim. They had come out from BC for their son’s grad from the U of A. They took us out for a nice dinner and we got to meet Ryan’s girl friend. How come it seems like just last year that I was driving a 10 year old Ryan from Trail to Rossland and he was asking me about one of our relatives? That memory is so clear in my mind, I can hardly believe it was almost 15 years ago.
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A couple of weeks ago I told Jamie Dawn that I would do a post about terrorism in Canada. I don’t have a lot to say and am not going to present a scholarly paper on it but I do have a couple of thoughts. The main point I want make is that I’m not in a hurry to jump on the ‘hate the Muslims’ bandwagon because I think there is a lot more to it than that. I do believe our policies in the past have been too wishy washy towards people that want to thwart being a Canadian. Yes, that includes the native indians and the Quebecers. First and foremost loyalty should be towards your country and the values and laws engendered in its constitution.
As for terrorists?
17 men were arrested in early June as part of a police sting operations. These men were Muslims, born and raised in Canada, and the sting involved them buying a significant quantiy of chemicals used for making bombs from undercover police officers. They are allegedly terrorists. Their aim was to blow up several targets right here in Canada.
I won’t start ranting about Muslims as terrorists because it simply isn’t true. I think the Muslim community in Canada is as concerned about the rise in hate groups as any other sector of Canadians. Terrorists come in all forms; what do you call the people that terrorize the staff and clients at abortion clinics? There have been many instances of murder perpetrated here by fanatical right-to-lifers. What do you call it when the Oka Indians don facemasks and automatic weapons and start pushing other Canadians around? Its not new and it won’t be solved by hatred and bigotry.
I don’t want to see our Prime Minister go down the road that President Bush has either. There is a very good post from an other Canadian blogger that I like to visit for keeping abreast of politics. The fellow who writes The Gazeteer said he didn’t mind me linking to his post. It’s entitled ‘Pimping Fear’ and it’s worth a read.
Also, there is an editorial from a Candian journalist, Heather Mallick, exploring the growth of racist language and opinion in Canada in this link.
This is an excellent article
That’s about all I’m going to venture forth with on the topic of terrorism in Canada. Its complicated and the issues around those following Islam requires a heck of a lot more knowledge than I have.
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On lighter news, I’ve been working on ‘Pages’ about each of the dogs I’ve owned. I finished Kyah’s story this week if you want to have a read. Its mostly pictures but I been getting the message to ’show more dogs pictures’ so there you go! I have to do a lot of scanning to tell Cato and Torin’s stories but they are coming.
Have a great week everyone.
The Road is Hard
June 11, 2006Before I begin this post, I wanted to mention a couple of ‘admin’ type items. One is my new guestmap over there —–>
I know where a lot of my blog buddies hail from but if you’d care to stick a pin on the map, I’d be glad to see it. I’m sorry Minka, Joel was 1st but that doesn’t mean you’re not number 1 around here
Second, I’m going to try to go to just making one new post a week, probably on Sunday. With the kids, school, sports, work, yard, dog and a whole list of goals I haven’t progressed on, I have to seek a new balance. It doesn’t take much time to drop in for a visit so I’ll still keep in touch with my regular buddies, I will just post less. Think of it this way, it will so much easier to keep up with things at the Hen House!
Ok, back to the Hard Road:
1) I’m working on my rollerblading and its coming along nicely but I guess I had to fall down eventually. I fell down twice today, both times during stopping. Stopping is difficult and dangerous. The road is really $%*#@$ Hard!!
Oh well, in fashion news, purple buttocks are all the rage this season!
Grant came with me the first time, because he is learning to blade too. What a good sport he was. He fell on his little butt about 20 times but just kept saying “I’m ok Mom” and carrying on. In typical little boy fashion, he did stop to watch the worms at one point and hollered out to me ‘ Look Mom, there is a worm digging into the pavement! ‘
In Alberta, even the worms are hardy!
2) I wanted to share with you a bit about a celebration I have taken part in in the last few weeks. My good friend M, who I have worked with for almost 20 years, retired on June 1. She is definitely happy with her decision and is looking forward to many years living as a ‘Happy, Wild, and Free‘ retiree. I’m glad that she has so much to look forward to.
Here is a picture of us, taken at her party (posted with permission):
I have so many great memories of the years working with M. Not only is she is highly respected chemist but she has always been very involved in the academic community and in promoting women in science. As a colleague she has been a great mentor and friend. The last few years at our company have had some significant challenges and its been good to share them with one such as M.
Some of the biggest influences from M have been in the area of personal support and friendship. She always looks out for people. M was responsible for introducing me to the fellow who I ended up car pooling with for several years and we became very good friends. He and his wife, even though they’ve moved to Michigan, still stay in touch and their children call my Auntie! Also, years ago, I had to go to a very important meeting in Houston and this was the first time I actually got to go to a work meeting with someone I knew. Luckily for me, M was going to the same meeting. Unfortunately, I had had a miscarriage a couple of weeks before that meeting and was still fairly ill. No tidy endings for me, I had to bleed and struggle for 2 months, but that’s another story. Anyway, M was so kind and supportive of me through that time, and it meant a lot to me that she was there as a friend and colleague. We had some pretty big battles to fight in those days and as an ally, she was superb.
Why am I including this under the ‘Hard Road’? Well, the thing that I find hard is not only coming to work and she is not there, but I have been feeling a lot of career angst lately and this change just underlines it all. I know that M is leaving our company to enjoy many busy years of activities and family time and I’m happy for her. I really wonder these days if I shouldn’t leave, but for slightly different reasons. I keep thinking ‘what is the point of retiring in 10-15 years when my kids are just about ready to leave home?
Maybe I should go now, focus more on the family, and start another career when I’m in my fifties. I’ve spent a lot of time developing a lot of skills. I don’t want to pack them away and never work again. In fact, I think, if I choose wisely, I can have another 20-30 years of doing something useful. But, I’ve also paid a pretty high price to get the family I have. I want to do the best possible job at helping them develop and grow so they too can move and be contributing, productive people. That is so hard to squeeze in now and it creates a lot of stress.
Years ago I took a set of courses called “The Excellence series”. It was basically about rising to your potential. One aspect of the mission of Context Associated, was to help people be more effective so they could ‘move forward, get great results, and contribute to the world’. I’ve learned a lot and done a lot but somehow have the feeling that I need to contribute a bit more.
So, this is the hard road I’m travelling right now. Trying to decide what signposts to follow, trying to tune my GPS so I don’t get lost! Of course, I haven’t mentioned anything about my husband, and he’s a big part of this but I don’t want to speak for him, but yeah, I’m driving him nuts too
I would love it if any of my friends, family, lurkers, would care to share their thoughts on this issue. I know I’m not alone, and many people have career upheavals and change to deal with or to make happen.
Meanwhile, because the road I’ve been blading on really IS hard, and I’m using a whole lot of rusty muscles, I better go for a soak!
For the Record – according to Casper
June 8, 2006Hi everyone, its me, Casper.Â
Am I not the most sad and pathetic looking Pootie that you’ve ever seen?Â
This was me, last night, languishing on the couch while Mom went to a meeting, Dad and the kids made sandwiches for some kind of school party , and then, still, ignored and abandoned while they watched hockey. Woe is me. *sigh*
Anyway, while I was laying, alone and forgotten, *sigh*, I overheard quite a few things. For the record, I have to say Mom is quite annoyed at the childish behaviour of her hockey club with this weird ‘throwing of the beef’ ritual. What is that about? Do you know that for some reason, when the Oilers are playing out of town during the play offs, its tradition to throw a piece of Alberta beef on the ice. I’m not sure but I think I heard Dad tell her that it was some kind of strange thing started years ago when the Red Wings would throw a dead squid or octopus or something on the ice during their away games. What is it with puerile sport behaviour?  I hope its not a boy thing because I’m a boy and I don’t do stuff like that.
Mom is a member of the Alberta SPCA, an organization devoted to seeing that ALL animals in the province are humanely treated. That includes farm animals (of which we have quite a few). It somehow seems disrespectful and arrogant to be hucking raw meat around. Anyway, this is something I overheard her saying.
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In happy news, I heard Dad tell Mom when she came home that the Carolina fans were singing the Canadian anthem at the beginning of the game. This is cool. I know that during the Anaheim away games up here, our fans cheered all the way through the American anthem. That was nice to see too.  I know she griped about the bad sportsmanship witnessed a few weeks ago but that must have been a momentary slip up in the sportmanship department. All this hockey stuff isn’t about country against country but just a game. Duh. Even I know THAT! Did you know the Carolina goalie is from Sherwood Park? Just down the road from us. One of the Mighty Ducks, Fedoruk, has a niece in Nicole’s grade one class. Its a small world according to my Mom. She’s kinda smart so I’m not going to dispute it.  (Sucking around for brownie points here Mom).
 Something else Mom is  kind of worked up about is this issue of homegrown Muslim extremists in Ontario, plotting acts of terror against Canada.  What the hell is that about? How can you be born and raised in this country and be so filled with hate against the western culture that you would want to do grevious harm to the people and the country? I think she’s practically foaming at the mouth about this stuff and will probably blog about it next week. She’s says she’s busy. And she’s going to be offline until Monday so it will have to just stew away in her brain. That’s normal though.  I suspect her brain is quite a scary place, bubbling away with thoughts and idea, blog posts, and a ‘rich mental life’, whatever the heck that is!Â
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Yeah, she says she’s busy but she still has time to give me a pedicure. Dang, I hate having my feet shaved.
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woof!
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A couple of things…
June 6, 2006I have no idea why the picture below was in our photo album. I think Ron was trying to capture the fork lightening in that black sky. Anyway, yesterday I saw it and we were having a sunshower again so I took a picture to compare how the trees have grown in 8 years.
That silver cylinder with the red top is where our well comes up.
Looking Northeast from my dining room in late June of 1998:
Looking Northeast from my dining room yesterday:
It takes a long time here, but eventually the trees do grow. Our neighbors trees grew quite a bit too. (Miz B, that is the fence I told you about; good for keeping out foxes, coyotes, and other nasty two legged varmints.)
And another thing, unrelated but I want to include it here. I received the gift of a poem yesterday from our resident poet, Brian Hummingbunny. Here is the poem he wrote about me:
“What’s fuzzy and warm and lives up North?”
in the wilderness that is Alberta
a Mother Hen and her chicks reside
don’t like dogs she’s gonna hurt ya
give good belly rubs come on inside.
she lives where the wind always blows
and good service is so hard to find
long summer days when the wheat grows
and her children pay her no mind.
spent many dark days under duress
wondering just who she had become
no one told her the brain was a mess
that her chemistry made her feel numb.
today she is better and living strong
enjoying her life out of the blues
her blogger family romping along
Let’s all give Kyahgirl her dues.
looking forward to many fun times
with a good book or two by her side
I hope that these words of rhymes
made you laugh inside till you cried.
Play date! **Updated
June 4, 2006Â
This weekend, Ron went fishing in Saskatchewan with his friend Darren and Darren’s eldest son, who is 12. Today, the kids and I went for a play date with Sonia, Darren’s wife, and Dallas, their younger son. That’s Sonia and the three kids by the tire swing.
A good time was had by all, in the little pool and at the park.
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Yesterday, I had to visit the hairdresser and, because Ron is away and our neighbors who sometime babysit were away, I had to take the kids with me. This was a significant milestone. We brought a DVD for them to watch and they behaved like perfect angels for one and a half hours. It probably seems trivial but to me, its huge. It means a bit more freedom. I don’t always have to juggle the schedule with Ron’s so he can take the kids and I can do something I need to do. Yay!
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Another really special thing that happened yesterday was the kids chaperoned their Mom as she began to learn how to in-line skate. I was pretty proud of the way they encouraged me and stayed by me, telling me ‘you’re doing great Mom, I’ll stay beside you’. The sweetest moment was when Grant told me ‘don’t give up Mom, its normal to feel really uncomfortable when you’re learning something new’ These were almost the exact words I said to him last winter when he threw himself down on the ice in despair and wanted to give up learning to skate. This little sojourn really made up for all the times I feel like a crap parent. I yell too much, I’m too demanding, etc, etc. It just showed they’ve learned some really positive stuff from Ron and I. Oh, and the in-line skating was just awful at first. I felt like I couldn’t move without my legs wanting to fly out every which way. (For the safety nazis, I was wearing a helmet and protection on all my joints). But, with my little helpers beside me, I persevered and got the hang of it. It took 10 minutes to get to the next neighbours driveway (about 70 feet) but after that I found my legs. We went about half a kilometer and then I figured we’d better turn around because I knew my calf muscles were going to start complaining. Its a whole different set of muscles you use.
Next time-we learn to stop (good plan eh?)
The in-line skating is a good option for me right now. I need to be able to go faster so I can keep up to the kids on their bikes, but I don’t care for biking myself. I also want to be able to walk/run Casper and this looks promising. I got up some pretty good speed at the end of my lesson.
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**UPDATE: If you would like to ‘hear’ me telling another exercise story from years ago, please mosey on over to Doug Drones on. There is some kind of debate about my Canadian ‘accent’ but I don’t have one.
