File under "Adorable Misquotes"

Says Jamie:

I will puff
And I will puff
And I will blow the house away!

Change management

I know the seasons have changed and it's Fall now, yet somehow the colder weather seems to catch me off guard every year. I never find it hard to remember to pull out light jackets for the kids at the end of summer, but I don't seem to do as well about remembering to get winter coats, mitts and hats together in time for when the really cool weather comes. I think that's partly because I'm in denial about the whole thing. It's not really THAT cold yet, is it?

Ah, but it is.

On Wednesday when I dropped the kids off at daycare, Jamie's teacher mentioned to me that his hands had been cold when they were outside the day before. I'd thought he had a pair of mitts at daycare, but apparently they'd come home at some point. Ooops.

She also mentioned that Jamie's jacket was a bit light for the cooler weather we were getting now. I felt kind of bad...his jacket has a lining, so I thought he'd be fine, but apparenly he was pretty cold when he was outside earlier this week.

So at lunchtime on Wednesday I nipped to Markville and went on a bit of a spree buying winter gear for the kids. I tried to find an orange coat for Jamie, since that's his favourite colour, but no luck. I managed to get a green coat with a bit of orange trim. It had a really nice, soft, comfy lining. I was pretty pleased with it. Jamie isn't really a fan of change, and often gets upset when the weather changes and he has to wear new things, but I hoped that he would like the coat too.

When the kids got home I showed them what I got them. Hana was very pleased with all her stuff. Jamie loved the matching hat and mitts I got him and insisted on wearing them inside the house for a few minutes, so that was kind of cool. When I went to try the snow pants and coat on him, though, he freaked out.

"Noooo! I don't want that. I want my blue coat! I want my blue coat!"

"Your blue coat isn't warm enough anymore Jamie."

"This coat's too big. I don't like it. I want my blue coat!"

"It's not too big, Jamie...it's fine...just hold still..."

Jamie squirmed and writhed and finally (to borrow a line from Knuffle Bunny) he went boneless. It took a ton of effort to get the coat onto him.

"See, Jamie? It fits fine. It looks great!"

"Agggggggggghhhhhhh!"

Apparently, he didn't think it looked great.

Yesterday morning we went through it all again when it was time to go to daycare. He struggled and squirmed and went boneless, all the while yelling for his beloved blue jacket. But this is how it goes with Jamie and new things a lot of the time. In fact, I think he had much the same reaction to his beloved blue jacket the first time we tried it on him—he hated it.

By the time we arrived at school Jamie seemed to be a bit less upset about the jacket. It certainly didn't hurt when we bumped into one of his former teachers on the way into the daycare and she oohed and ahhed about how cute his jacket was.

And by the time Ed went to pick up the kids at the end of the day, Jamie donned his new coat without even the slightest bit of a fuss. Whew! Guess we got him used to that new thing reasonably quickly.

Now wish me luck, because this weekend we're going to go through this whole process all over again. On Saturday we need to get him new winter boots.

Some Enchanted Earworms

When we were at the cottage this summer, our friends' kids introduced our kids to the movie Enchanted, with Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey and Susan Sarandon. Hana liked the movie so much we ended up getting our own copy once we got home from vacation. The kids have watched it a few times, but I'd only caught bits of it until fairly recently. It really is a fun twist on a classic fairy tale movie.

Last week I ended up buying a few of the songs from Enchanted from iTunes, to add to a playlist I created for the kids that features music from movies they like. I bought three of the songs from the movie: True Love's Kiss, Happy Working Song, and That's How You Know. The songs are fun and the kids and I enjoy listening to them, but...

Ugh, what was I thinking buying them?

I can't get the songs out of my head! They're insidious. I'll be at work, editing some document, then realize that I'm humming to myself:

It's not enough to take the one you love for granted
You must remind her, or she'll be inclined to say...
"How do I know he loves me?"

Or I'll be sitting in a meeting, trying to concentrate on whatever's being said, but all I hear in my head is:

You could do a lot when you've got
Such a happy little tune to hum
While you're sponging up the soapy scum...

Arrgh.

I guess it could be worse, though. The past two mornings that I've dropped the kids at daycare, the JK teacher has had It's a Small World After All playing loud and cheerily from the classroom nearest Hana's cubby. Given a choice, I'd rather have the songs from Enchanted worming around inside my head.

Mental lapses

The other day I went to log into my bank account online and I totally forgot the digits that made up my bank account number. I've had the same bank account number for several years now and I typically log into it at least once a week. It's been ages since I've had to look up the number, yet the other day I just stared at the computer blankly. I had not the slightest clue what the number was. I waited a couple of minutes before I finally conceded that I needed to look up the number. A went to our main hallway to retrieve my purse. As I reached down to pick it up, the number suddenly jumped into my mind. I rushed back to the computer, typed in the account number, typed the password (which thankfully I still remembered) and ta-da! I was in my bank account.

I'm fascinated by things like that. How is it that numbers or passwords I know so well can suddenly be beyond my recollection?

At work we have to change our passwords every three months on most systems, plus we're not allowed to repeat a password for quite some time. What this means is that I end up having to come up with a huge number of passwords that meet the company's password rules, but are still memorable enough that I can remember them. Coming up with the passwords is half the battle. And then—once I finally do settle on a particular password, I have to get use to using the new one instead of using the one I've been using for the last three months. It doesn't surprise me that I have trouble remembering them because how could anyone possibly keep on top of a password that changes so frequently?

It's the times that I forget the numbers I know really well that throw me for a loop. A number of years ago, before I had kids and even before I met Ed, I was buying some beer at the beer store when I realized I didn't have enough cash on me and that they didn't take credit cards. I had my bank card with me, so I went to pay for the beer using debit. I approved the price, entered in what I thought was my password, and a few seconds later a message popped up on the screen to say the password was incorrect. I figured I'd just mistyped, so I entered in my password again...and again it was incorrect. Huh? What was going on?!? I started to feel totally self-conscious as there were several people behind me in line. I tried one more time, and failed to get the password correct. By that time I was so embarrassed I just decided to leave without the beer. I probably muttered something like, "it really is my card...honest!" on my way out to the door to go find a rock to crawl under.

I figured the number would come to me eventually, but that time it didn't spring back into my mind quickly. The next day I tried to use a bank machine, but again I got the password wrong. It was crazy! I'd had the same password for a couple of years. How could I not remember it? Finally after several days of not remembering I had to go to the bank to request a new password. I couldn't believe that it came to that, but I really could not remember my old password at all...it was time to move on.

About a week or two later I went to a bank machine to get some money out and as I reached toward the keypad to enter my new password, my old password suddenly hopped back into my head from wherever it had been hiding. It was a Eureka! moment about two weeks too late.

These days I'm inclined to blame such mental lapses on sleep deprivation and "mommy brain." It's nice to have a good excuse.

The perils of distracted parenting

I've been pretty busy with work lately and have had to bring my laptop home a fair bit to work during the evenings. I've usually waited till after the kids are in bed to pull out work, but every now and then I've tried to work in the evenings while the kids are still up. I sit in the living room with my laptop, concentrating mainly on my work, but keeping a bit of my attention on what the kids are up to around me.

One evening as I worked away, Hana sat at her art table busying herself with some sort of project she'd started. Every now and then she would ask me for some coloured paper or if I knew where a particular marker was. I confess, though, that I didn't have all that clear an idea of what she was up to. She mentioned something about how she was making signs, but I wasn't sure what for.

A few days later, Hana was finishing up work on her little project when she asked me to spell her brother's name for her. I was busy in the kitchen, but I called out the letters to her. A little while later she ran over and asked me where the glue was so she could put up her signs. I told her where it was and went back to work in the kitchen.

About two or three minutes later her question floated through my thoughts again and the obvious question I should have asked came rushing to me.

"Hana," I called. "Did you say you say you need the glue to hang up your signs?"

I heard Hana's voice from upstairs. "Yes, mom!"

"Where are you putting up the signs?"

"On our doors, mom!"

"Which doors?"

"Our bedroom doors!"

"With glue?!?"

I headed upstairs to see what she was up to and luckily there was no glue on any of the doors yet.

"Hana, you can't put glue on the doors!"

"But mommy! I told you I was making signs! I have to stick them up somehow!"

"Ummm..."

Luckily, Ed came upstairs and entered into the conversation at this point and mentioned he had some tape that should stick to the doors just fine without causing any permanent damage.

And so it is, that we have these three signs on the doors to our bedrooms:



Cute eh? And cuter still because they're not stuck on with glue!

Things happen in threes, right?

Near the end of September I received an invitation to a get-together at my friend Catharine's house to participate in a Chocolate Tasting. I confess, I'd never heard of anyone holding a Chocolate Tasting before, but that didn't really matter. Her invitation mentioned things like "chocolate" and "wine" and "a night out" so I really didn't need to understand the details.

As it turns out, holding a Chocolate Tasting involves hosting an event where people can sample various chocolates that you have selected. Participates compare the chocolates to see how they differ in terms of how they look, smell, taste, feel and sound (yes, really...some chocolates make a snapping sound when you break off a piece, but others don't).

Catharine is taking a course on chocolate, and one of her assignments was to host a chocolate tasting. In preparation for the tasting, she marked off numbered sections on paper plates and placed a small piece of chocolate in each section. Each of us got a plate of chocolate, a piece of paper with numbered bullets to match the numbers on our plates, and a pen so we could jot down tasting notes. She gave us a few pointers on the sorts of characteristics we might want to look for and then left us to taste the chocolates and see what we thought of them. She had the plates arranged so that milk chocolates, medium-dark chocolates were together, and dark chocolates were together, so that it was easier to compare similar chocolates.

So we tasted and jotted our findings. This chocolate had a dull sheen, a waxy texture, a bit too much sweetness, and a vanilla aftertaste. That chocolate had a shiny, dark sheen, a crisp texture, a slightly dull flavour, and a hint of bitterness. By the time we were three or four chocolates in, we really began to notice more differences. The participants started to call out which ones we loved and which ones we didn't like at all. The amazing thing was how much we disagreed--one person's favourite was another person's least favourite. Since we were doing a blind tasting, we had to ask Catharine the name of the chocolate whenever we found one we particularly liked or disliked. At one point one of the women exclaimed. "Oh! I really don't like number 6. What is it?" Then when Catharine told her the name she looked surprised, "Wow. I buy that one all the time..."

Suffice it to say, it was a fun, interesting, and informative event, though I think all of us went home with a bit of a caffeine buzz at the end of the night. My two favourite chocolates of the evening were Cocoa Camino organic 55% dark chocolate and the Nestle Eclat Noir 64% dark chocolate. Yum!

Given that I'd never even heard of anyone holding a Chocolate Tasting before Catharine sent me her invitation, I was pretty surprised to be invited to yet another one just a few weeks later. My second Chocolate Tasting was a work event, held as a fundraiser for our employee charitable fund. Again, we were provided with a wide variety of chocolates. Surprisingly, there were very few overlaps with the ones I'd tasted at the previous event. Whereas Catharine had concentrated on plain milk or dark chocolates, this tasting offered a variety of flavoured chocolates. It was amazing how many there were: banana-flavoured chocolate, chili-flavoured, masala-flavoured, lemon-flavoured, and so on. My favourite at this event was Lindt's A Touch of Sea Salt dark chocolate. Again, some of my companions didn't like it at all, but I thought it had such a really interesting and delicious flavour.

So those are my two experiences with Chocolate Tastings, both from the last six weeks or so. Now all I keep thinking is, "Hey universe! Things are supposed to happen in threes, right?" I'll be on the watch for that third invitation to arrive...

NaBloPoMo begins!

Once more into the abyss...I'm throwing myself into November Madness for a second year in a row. The hard part won't be coming up with ideas to write about...I have tons of those. No, the hard part will be finding time to write them. I'm actually pretty excited about getting back into blogging more regularly.

The thing is, I really have been missing writing for myself. I write all the time for my job, but it's not the same—it's just technical writing. Writing about install files and environment variables and command beans pays the bills well, but I wouldn't say it's the most fun or interesting way to spend time writing. This blog is what I write just for me, though of course it makes me happy to know that I have a few regular readers who seem to enjoy what I have to say, too. It's gratifying to know that things I write for me—for fun—are of interest to anyone else beyond my immediate friends and family.

Looking forward to writing for you and for me in the coming month...

Happy Hallowe'en!

It was a pretty quiet Hallowe'en night on our street. We had a grand total of 34 kids show up at our door, which is about half the number that came trick-or-treating last year. I'm not sure why there were so few—if it was because it was a Saturday night, because of the impact of H1N1, or because kids just don't go door-to-door anymore. I popped by Markville Mall earlier today and was surprised to see tons of kids going from store to store in their costumes trick-or-treating. Is that the latest trend? Trick-or-treating in the mall? Just doesn't seem the same to me.

Despite all that, our own kids had a good time going door-to-door trick-or-treating. A lot of houses on our own street were dark and uninviting, but Ed and the kids found houses to be more welcoming on one of our adjacent streets.

Hana and Jamie dressed up as a pirate and an elephant:


Hana's been telling me for the last month she wanted to be an elephant for Hallowe'en. I was all for that idea since we already had a secondhand elephant costume I'd bought a couple of years ago. Of course, she changed her mind about wearing the elephant costume to her kindergarten Hallowe'en party—opting instead to go as an angel fairy—but she decided the elephant outfit was just fine for going trick-or-treating.

She briefly considered going as a princess elephant...

but in the end, she decided an elephant was a good enough costume all on its own.

The kids were also excited to have two of their cousins come and join them on their walk around the neighbourhood. So much more fun to trick-or-treat with their cousins! All in all, it was a good night: costumes, candy, fun with the cousins. For a 5- and 3-year-old, those are good times.