Mar 30

Yes, I have been sucked into the Facebook fad, like just about everyone else in the blogosphere.  If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. You just own more of your soul than much of the global population.  It’s simply a network to connect with people you know and have known in the past.  This is a nice idea. The problem is two-fold.

1) I don’t want to be one of those people who simply adds every person I can find that I’ve known at some point in my life, whether the relationship was basically superficial or very meaningful.  I have a list of a number of people that I really am interested in connecting with. Much to my chagrin, I realized that some of these people aren’t even on Facebook. But the way the phenomenon is spreading I figure it’s just a matter of time.   But I feel pressured to add “friends” to my list so that I can prove how truly cool I am, despite the fact that I was the consummate geek through most of my years in school.  But should any of my former accquaintances stumble across my profile I want them to be impressed with how popular I am.  Which brings me to my next point.

2) Facebook is (in the words of my husband) “permissive voyeurism”.  We want to find out what our classmates have done with their lives. We want to know if they have become successful, if they have families, if they are in relationships, what their sexual orientation is. We want to know who is still trailer trash and who has overcome their humble beginnings. Apparently we even want to know what music they listen to and what movies and books they love.  Why does this matter?  Well, I expect it’s so we can satisfy our judgmental nature and feel superior. The problem is that it’s backfiring for me.  I’m spying on connecting with people who have gone to prestigious schools and have interesting and complicated careers.  I’m feeling like the loser because I have not finished a degree and am a plain, old mommy.  You all know that I really believe motherhood is a wonderful and important job.  And I certainly would not say that anyone who chooses to stay at home with their kids was wasting their life. (Nor would I say the opposite about moms who choose to go back to work, so just relax!)  But somehow I feel that I have not done enough with my life.  That I should have come farther.  See what I mean? Facebook.  The devil.  It’s the truth.

And on top of these two points, it’s frickin’ taking up waaay too much of my time.  You can surf around Facebook, scrutinizing people’s lives for hours without accomplishing much of anything, besides a boost or slam to your ego.  A girl on my Friends List recently posted that she was in class on Facebook with her laptop and from the four computers she could see from her seat, THREE were open to Facebook!  Seriously, people!  It’s an addiction!  If you haven’t started Facebooking yet, take my advice, DON’T.

Mar 29

Well, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, change is in the air for our family. My husband has been accepted into the twelve month MBA program at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.  It has been a long time coming as he has been studying for the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test), and then travelling to write the test, and then filling out applications to Ivey, doing interviews with Ivey, and then the anxious nine days of waiting to hear if he was accepted.  Those of you who knew we have been waiting on this have my eternal gratitude for not kicking me in the teeth because of my constant uptightness in the past week.  It’s amazing my brain didn’t melt and leak out my ears from all the energy being created by my frazzled psyche. 

Anyway, now that we know, we can start the stressful chaos of selling our house and moving to a completely new place. You, my faithful readers, can expect many cranky and whiny posts in the future about all the work of packing/cleaning/selling/moving/being a single parent (the hubby will likely go out several weeks, if not a month ahead of me and the kids).  I apologize in advance for this. 

After the move I will probably collapse into a weepy puddle when I really hits me that I am without a single friend in a strange place where my husband will be extremely busy and I have two small children and people mispronounce “pants’ as “pay-ants”, so that will be fun, right?

So I will hope for cheery and encouraging comments from you all.  I will defend my prairie homeland to the best of my ability while residing in this foreign land of rock and trees.  Stay tuned for more information.  Ivey has two programs running simultaneously and we have yet to firmly decide whether we will go for the May or the September start date.

Oh yes, and did I mention how very proud I am of the hubby and how much totally deserves this after how hard he has worked? Because I am and he does and he did.

Mar 28

So here we are, a month since Kieran was first diagnosed with an ear infection and he’s still not better.  He is now taking a third antibiotic and the doctor says if this doesn’t work he will have to see the Ear/Nose/Throat specialist, possibly to get tubes put in his ears.  This really doesn’t concern me.  I just want him to get over the infection so he can hear properly. This is such a crucial time for figuring out sounds and if he can’t hear well it could seriously affect his speech development. 

On the up side the kids have been been trying to kill me starting the day at 5:30am.  If by “up” you mean “waking”.  Because that’s really all I can say about that without cursing.  We think Avery might be developing allergies because she seems to have a runny nose that won’t go away and it seems to get worse at night when she was sleeping on a feather pillow and under a down comforter. I am going to make some changes in her sleeping environment and see if that improves things.  But it would seem that she may have inherited her father’s sensitivity to…well…everything.  Allergies suck.  For the allergy sufferers, sure. But don’t think that the families of allergy sufferers don’t also suffer! We have to put up with the sniffling and snoring and general crankiness, too.  And Avery has DEFINITELY developed a case of the grumpies.  She is so cranky these days. I don’t know if it’s because of this possible allergy, or the fact that she’s waking up so freaking early that she’s tired, or if it’s just the three-year-old-crazies.  But some days she is more belligerent than a teenager.  She’s also started lying. Unfortunately (for her) she’s not very good at it. So she gets caught.  This results in punishment. Which increases the moping and moaning and general gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. 

Example:  Avery is not allowed to get up until the digital clock in her room says 6:00am.  (What she doesn’t know is that the clock has accidentally been set back by half an hour.)  This morning she comes out and tells me that her clock says “6″ and she wants to get up. I, knowing that the clock does NOT say “6″, say “Let’s go check and see what time it says.”  Avery scurries ahead of me to her room, covers the numbers with her hand and says “No! Don’t look Mommy!  It’s a secret!”  Secret, my ass!  I set the damn clock. I think I know what time it says!  This child will never work for any kind of secret intelligence agency!

Mar 26

My hubby pointed me to this site which has a very accurate and thorough list of Ways to Fix LOST.  I totally agree with basically everything he has to say.  If you are a LOST fan (or former fan) you should check it out.  How do you think they can fix what has gone wrong?  What exactly HAS gone wrong with the show?

Mar 23
NO

My son is disgusted by my apparent reluctance to let him stick his fingers up my nose.  I’m all for exploration and discovery but this crosses the line.

With the advent of mobility, the word “NO” has been making a comeback in our household. Unfortunately, Kieran just looks at me curiously when I say “no”.  He doesn’t get it.  And he enjoys the reaction he gets when I’m shrieking “NO!  Don’t stick your hand in the VCR!  NO!  Don’t eat that dirt!!!”  and he continues doing whatever he is doing.  This is a hard stage. But his little bum-scootching-crawl is pretty cute. He’s been sleeping a little better which has been really nice.  But I’m sure getting tired of giving him antibiotics. It’s a huge pain in the rear.

Mar 22

Here are some of the comments that Avery has amused me with this week:

Oh Canada!  We stand on guard for bees!!  Because, really, where would our fair country be if no one stood up for the helpless bee?

My brother is so squishy! As she pinches big handfuls of his flesh as though it were playdough.  Let’s make the baby into a dinosaur! Or a pizza!  Or a Christmas tree!

My favourite color is pink-with-sparkles!  Pink withOUT sparkles is only a shabby second choice.  All other non-sparkle colors are completely useless.

Mar 21

This describes my life of late as much as Kieran’s.  We are into our second round of antibiotics for an ear infection that just isn’t going away.  I am out of patience and so tired.  I hope it works this time.  It’s a good thing this kid is cute.  Because he can’t hear very well with all the fluid in his ears so he is yelling ALL. THE. TIME.  Even his happy sounds are reach a volume that is liable to make my ears bleed.

Mar 19

Interesting. I wouldn’t say it was totally accurate but it was fun to do.

Mar 17

Dear CTV,

Get your act together already!  For the past couple of months you have been mixing shows up, airing certain shows on a different day each week for several weeks in a row, advertising an “all new episode” which is actually an episode that was all-new about 3 months ago, showing some shows one week and then dropping them the next week altogether, airing the same show at a different time each week.  This is totally unprofessional. And in case you are wondering, people haven’t forgotten the fiasco where you aired the wrong episode of Grey’s Anatomy on the night that the Season Premiere was supposed to air last fall.   Is there a pack of monkeys loose in your control room or something?  Seriously, if you could try and operate like you know what you’re doing, that would be great.

Sincerely,
An Annoyed Viewer

Mar 17

Yeah, you read that right.  I have never considered this possibility before until I read this post on RLP.  He links to this article by Tony Campolo (who is way more “left wing” than I thought he would be) about the same thing and this fabulous short film called Credo.  It is very interesting and just a few minutes long, from the point of view of God. It’s weird to imagine this bald guy with thick glasses singing operatic/hebrew type music as God.  But give it a try.

If you don’t read the whole RLP post then this quote sums it up quite well:

I loved it. It’s lovely, precious, and endearing. And it’s certain to spark some pretty intense conversations. As you watch it, remember this: It is a work of art, not a theological treatise. Don’t pick the theology apart. Also, you should remember that in the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament) God repents several times. In Genesis God repents and is sorry that he created humankind. In First Samuel God repented that he made Saul king. And, most stunningly, in Exodus God is angry and about to destroy the children of Israel. Moses intervenes and demands that he repent of this anger.

“Why are you angry with Your people, which you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand? . . .Turn from your fierce wrath and repent of this evil against your people…And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto his people.” (32:11-14)

This notion of God experiencing regret is only a problem if you are into the whole omniscient and omnipotent thing. And since those ideas are NOT IN THE BIBLE, I don’t feel obligated to believe them myself.

Yeah, not in the Bible. The omni concept is more of a Greek, philosophical thing. Surprised aren’t you? Here’s a little article about this by Tony Campolo, who is a huge hero of mine.

Keith Synder explores the idea of God, evil, and repentance in this wonderful little film. And if you can let go of the omni stuff, then you make room for the idea that Larry Picard’s God character might actually be possible. Which is cool because I absolutely adore Larry in this film. I wish he was my friend in real life, but I’d have a hard time not always wanting to pray to him. ;-)

Love, love, LOVE!  Good watch! Go see!

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