6 Reasons Why

  1. smilesBecause I loved you completely and totally from the moment you came into my life.
  2. Because you are a dynamic, unique, creative, stubborn, unstoppable force that can and will accomplish anything that you put your mind too.
  3. Because you are a ninja, a wrestler, a super hero, an explorer, a discoverer, a scientist, a mechanic, a big green monster, a cook, a defender of the NP & Mat, a harasser of the NP & Mat, a belly poker, a goalie, a blackjack dealer, a spy, and a 100 meter sprinter and whatever else you choose to be at that moment in time, all rolled into one.
  4. Because you can eat through an entire pack of pasta, three bags of milk, a container of chocolate syrup, a jar of cheez whiz, a pack of bacon, a loaf of bread, loads of nuggets, a smear of Nutella, a dozen apples, and so much more; in a week!  (When you become a teenager, my grocery bill will probably quadruple.)
  5. Because you exasperate me, contradict me, challenge me, defend me, question me, reject my rules, make your own rules, define your own path, break as many rules as you can safely get away with, adhere to as many rules as you can adhere to, talk back, listen, understand more than you let on to, learn so much everyday and love totally.
  6. Because you are you.  The best and only Maks there is and there will ever be.

Happy 6th Birthday Maks!

I love you now, forever & always.  May your birthday be filled with adventure, cake and joy.  May the years to come bring you all the things that you think you want, and all the things that you didn’t know you needed.

5:15am

I’ve been up and online since 5:15am trying to register Maks into the before and after school program at his school.

It seems like every other parent in the school had the same idea because, since 5:15am the site has been down.

This has me so nervous.

Since Maks’ school was built there has been a waiting list for the before and after school programs and it looks like this year will be the exact same as every other year.  I was trying to be one of the first to get on the site and register so that I could guarantee Maks’ spot but it looks like this is not going to happen.

I am going to have to sign off now and hope that by the time I get into work the site is working properly and there are spots left.

*fingers crossed*

Update:  the blasted site is still down!

Going on a field trip

I went on a field trip on Monday Mat’s class.

It was a Mother’s Day extravaganza.

We went bowling.

15 preschoolers and their moms piled into a bus and went 5 pin bowling.

It was an interesting experience.

I told Mat that I was going to come along on his field trip but I don’t think that he actually believed it until I showed up and got on the bus with him.  I took the morning off from work, telling them that I had an “appointment” with my son.  :)

We were supposed to leave the daycare at 10am and by 9:30am, all the kids were dressed and ready to go, waiting anxiously for the arrival of the bus.  The bus showed up at exactly 10am and all the kids rushed the window to see the bus.

Each child got to sit on the bus with their mom and then it was off to the bowling alley we went.  We rented the bowling alley for an hour and a half and it was three children per lane.  They each took turns bowling with little bowling balls.  Even though we had the lanes for an hour and a half, after about 45 minutes the kids were done with bowling and had gravitated towards the video arcade and candy machines.  But the daycare has strict rules about outside food, so they weren’t actually allowed to eat anything that the daycare had for sale.  They just sort of wandered around pushing buttons and trying to take candy and gumballs out of the machine.

By the time we made it back to the daycare, Mat was done for.  He just wanted lunch and a nap.  And because of that, he didn’t mind that I had to leave him at the daycare to go back to work.

I leave you with a picture from the “best” part of the trip.  THE BUS!!

Look at me!  I’m on the bus!

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Being Hindu in a House Full of Beef Eaters

I rarely talk about religion, in general, and very rarely talk about how it is handled in my house.  That’s because I am a religious person, in my own way, but in the greater scheme of my religion, I am a very bad Hindu.  I do not practice the way that I should.  Instead, I try to be the best Hindu that I am can be which usually means not adhering to all the rules that I should adhere to but the ones that are easiest to adhere to in the crazy lifestyle that I live.

But one of the rules that I am very good at adhering to, is not eating beef.  Now I have eaten beef before, and I will probably eat beef again.  Even though my religion is one of the reasons that I don’t eat beef, an even bigger one is; I don’t like how it tastes*.  Maybe it’s the high iron content in it but whenever I eat beef, even something that is cooked well done, it tastes like blood to me.  That to me is a complete turnoff and the reason why I chose not to eat it most times.

In my house, just about everyone else LOVES beef.  Maks asks for anything that I make with ground chicken** to be made with ground meat instead.  In the daycare, they rarely have ground chicken or turkey, just about everything is made with ground beef and that is what Maks likes to eat the most.  If I try to convince him that ground chicken or turkey is just as good as ground beef, he doesn’t buy it.  He would prefer to have beef.  Millhouse and Beanz occasionally request things like veal or steak and I will humour them and make it.

The bottom line is; I have no issues buying or cooking beef but when I make meals with beef, I end up with nothing to eat.  I either have to starve*** or make another meal altogether for me.  And on evenings when I am beat, making a completely different meal for me just isn’t appealing.  I need to find some sort of beefy middle ground.

*the exception to this is oxtail and steak on a bun from a greasy diner by High Park.  I will readily eat either of those two dishes.

**meatloaf, Sheppard’s pie, meatballs, hamburgers, tacos

***which is one way to control my weight, not the method of choice but one highly effective way.

Happy Mother’s Day

“Behold the only thing greater than yourself”

In the book Roots, this was what Kunta Kinte’s father said to him on the day that he was born.  He held him up to the heavens and told him; “behold, the only thing greater than yourself”.

To so many people that could mean so many things but to me it means that there is no person in this world that is greater than you.  The universe is the only thing that shall ever be above you.  No other person has the right or the ability to be better than you or held in higher esteem.  You hold yourself up so that only the stars are given a priority.

I told this to Maks on the day that he was born.  I tell him this on his birthday.  I told this to Mat on the day he was born.  I tell it to him on his birthday.*

I never want them to forget this.

If they take away one thing from me, in this lifetime, this is the message that I want them to learn.

So on a day, when the boys chose to celebrate me, I chose to remember that being the best mother I can be means instilling values into my children that will carry them through the hardest parts of the their lives.

It’s a hard thing to remember sometimes.

So today and everyday, I wish all the moms out there infinite patience, love and communication.  May your hugs always chase away the fears and may yours kisses always fix the booboos.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY ALL YOU FABULOUS MAMAS!

*I don’t tell this to the NP.  I tell her so many different things.  Her struggle will be different from that of the boys.  She will face different obstacles and I tell her things, that I hope, will prepare her for those trials.

Things I learned over the weekend

  • When you are overdressed for a party, hiding out in the parking lot until the majority of the guest  go indoors can help reduce some of the anxiety you are feeling about having people stare at you because you are all dressed up and they are wearing paint splattered tee shirts and jeans.  But it is not wise to park in the soggy, muddy grass.  See below for why.
  • The Walking Dead does not provide accurate information when it comes to getting a car that is stuck in the mud unstuck from said mud.
    • In a related note, when a vehicle is stuck in the mud finding something to act as traction is recommended.  Using a sweater for traction is not recommended because it doesn’t work.
      • Last related note, I am not sure if Beanz is ready for a zombie apocalypse.
  • Getting a Dodge SUV unstuck from a muddy field requires six to eight able bodied, and slight inebriated men to push the vehicle, one slightly inebriated, not so able bodied man to steer the vehicle and one Beanz to hold their beers.
  • Adding a brownie to an ice cream sundae makes it fantastic.  Adding a warm brownie to an ice cream sundae makes it fan – freaking – tastic!!  If you haven’t tried it, you totally should.

Grease and Ghosts

Millhouse’s job is at night.  He usually starts work anything from 11pm to 1am and he comes home anywhere from 4am to late the next afternoon.  It all depends on his schedule and how many restaurants he has to service.*

His new job has resulted in some very obvious changes.

  1. He’s got a different sleeping / waking pattern than we have.  When the boys and I are awake and at daycare and work, he’s asleep.  When we’re asleep, he’s at work.
  2. We don’t see him as much.  Because of his schedule there are days when we only see him for a short period of time or some days we don’t see him at all.  So far this week, I haven’t really seen him and because of that I still haven’t told him about a certain someone asking a certain question that they knew the answer to already.
  3. We have a second income in the house.  Booyah!  More money is always a good thing because the damn mortgage refuses to pay itself.

But there are some things that we didn’t expect:

a)      Millhouse has lost weight.  A good bit of weight, actually.  He has lost about 35lbs since he started doing this job.  The job itself is extremely physical and because of this he has gotten leaner.

b)      Millhouse doesn’t want to eat out anymore.  Millhouse sees the conditions in which the restaurants operate.  And even though all the places that he goes in to service are board approved, they are not Millhouse approved.  He has seen food left overnight on counters with the intention of being served the next day, he has seen not Millhouse approved storage methods and he has seen the ingredients that actually go into the things he used to love to eat.  Seeing all these things has made him not want to eat out anymore.

c)       Millhouse is on the verge of becoming a vegetarian.  Working in the restaurant industry means that Millhouse sees all the things that we don’t see and one of the things that bothers him the most the grease that is left over after meat has been cooked.  Grease is a big part of Millhouse’s job.  In a lot of places the grease is so thick that he has to use a paint scrapper to scrap it off the equipment (and that is within months of the equipment being cleaned).  And the grease still smells like food when he scraps it off, only a stale, more greasy version of the actual food.  Rotted food smelling grease is not appetizing.  That acrid smell of burnt flesh has become embedded into his nose now and the thought of eating most types of meat disgusts him.  I give him another month before he completely gives up on eating meat.

But he also comes home with some crazy stories.

There was the time that the drunk guy called into the pizza place that he was working at and his helper answered the phone thinking it was some sort of an emergency.  Turns out the guy just wanted to order a pizza.

But my most favourite stories are the stories about the haunted places that Millhouse goes to.

There was this one time when Millhouse went to a restaurant in a 200 year old house.  When he got there no one told him it was haunted.  He just knew that it “felt” weird there.  For most of the night he felt as if someone was standing behind him watching him work but whenever he would turn around, there would be no one there.

He didn’t mention this to his helper, and it wasn’t until they were leaving that the helper mentioned how he felt like he was being watched all night and his helper told him what had happened to him.

His  helper was walking out to the van to pack things away and he heard Millhouse walking down the hall in flip flops behind him and he asked Millhouse to grab a roll of plastic for him so he could load up the truck.  The thing is, when they are on the job, Millhouse doesn’t where flip flops.  He wears steel toe boots.  In fact, his helper has never seen Millhouse ever wear flip flops on the job.  Whoever was walking behind him wasn’t Millhouse.

And they were the only two people there.

His helper threw everything into the van and jumped in.

It wasn’t until they left that they found out that it was haunted.

They are never going back there again.

*He services restaurant kitchen equipment.  So he can only do that at night when the restaurants are closed and there is no cooking going on.

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Happy Fall to Earth Day!

Today is Beanz birthday.

This is the only picture of her, that I could get away with putting on this blog.  She’s the baby that my maternal grandfather is holding.

She looks pretty much the same now, just taller.

Happy Birthday Backside!  Keep doing what you do, because only you can do you as well as you do.

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