Archives
Santa!
A little while ago, we went to Ottawa's St-Laurent Shopping Centre and we got a picture taken of Jake with Santa Claus. We paid $10 for the hard copy and $5 for the digital copy on CD. The girl who worked there (Santa's little helper) handed me the CD and said that it had taken a while to write it to the CD and she was concerned about whether or not it had written properly.
Sure enough, we got it home and the CD was blank. Santa's Little Helper had told me to 'just' come back' if there was any problem. Well, luckily, we had intensions of going back anyway.
So we brought the CD back and told them that we'd like the photo re-written to CD. Unfortunately, they only keep 50 photos, meaning that ours was long gone. They offered to take another one though, so Jake sat down again, yanked on Santa's beard again, and smiled for the camera - again.
Here's the result (not quite as cute as the original photo - which I'll post when we get our scanner - but still great):
What a night!
The day that we went shopping in Ottawa and got the picture of Jake and Santa redone was an eventful one. And not in a particularly good way either. The beginning of the day was pretty good. The shopping was decent too - although I'm showing my age by hating crowded shopping malls full of giggly teens!
Anyway, the day took a slow turn for the worse when we exitted the shopping mall to find that the snow was steadily falling. Big, chunky flakes were falling quite hard and Stephen, not ever having driven in a Canadian blizzard before, was a little apprehensive about the hour-plus drive home on country roads. The sun had set by this point and we knew also that the route home was not well-lit.
But due credit to him, leaning forward in his seat with his eyes glued to the disappearing road, he plowed on and finally got us home safely. I don't drive (yet) and I think that it's hard for us non-drivers to appreciate just how tiring a drive like that can be. Stephen was just happy to be home, where he could put his feet up and relax.
But no, my dear, it was not to be.
We pulled into the driveway and noticed that the lights that we'd left on were very dim. Not off, just dim. While we got Jake out of the car, Stephen in to the house to investigate. He came back to announce that some of the lights inb the house worked while some didn't. The stove didn't work and neither did the dryer, or the furnace. Some power points work, while others were completely dead. Huh? How can that be? How can our electricity be only half on??
After humming and hawing, flicking switches on our newly installed electrical panel, we finally gave up and called the electrician who had installed the panel. As it was already about 8pm at that point, we had to use their 'emergency' number. Aned, as we were calling the guy out on a Saturday night, we worried about a huge bill at the end of it.
He came by with his little tester-thingy and deduced that the problem was outside the house. Apparently, the power for the house come in on two different wires, 120 volts on each. One of the wires was live while the other was dead. The trip switches in our new electrical panel are hooked to one or the other of the wires. And that is why some of our lights were worked while others weren't.
To make a long story short, Cornwall Electric had to come and turn off the power to the house so that the electrician could fix the fault outside. Then the electrician had to wait to receive authorization from the inspector (who was at his work's Christmas party) to turn our power back on. Then Cornwall Electric had to come back and turn the power back on. Our panel was then reassembled and all was well. Interestingly, the electrician blamed the fault on his company. When they installed the panel, he said, they broke something outside. I don't pretend to understand it, I'm just pleased that we have not incurred a big bill!
So we had McDonalds for dinner... at 11pm, and, with the electrician leaving at 12:15am, we finally got to bed around 1am.
What a night!
It snowed!
It was snowing when went to bed last night and it was still snowing when Jake woke me at 6:30 this morning. It slowed soon after that but we've had light flurries all day. The temperature's been around -2; so not too bad.
This is a view from our back door:
Here's Ruth up to her thighs in the snow on our front lawn:
Out the front of the house:
Our driveway is attached to our neighbor's driveway. You can see where he's cleared his (with a snow blower, I might add), and the work that was in store for us (with shovels):
This amount of snow isn't particularly spectacular for Montreal, but we are slightly West of there and we're told by our neighbors that the 25 cms of snow we got in one night was about as much as they had all Winter last year.
The Montrealer brought the weather with her, I guess!
Help!
Nappies. Diapers. Whatever you want to call them. Is it just me or do other mothers have to change their baby's clothing three times a day simply because of leakages? Wet thighs, wet legs... even wet feet! We've tried cheap ones, expensive ones... About every other day, Jake's pyjamas are wet when he wakes up in the morning - which means that his sheets are wet too. Arg! It's driving me nuts!
And I'm doing tons of laundry.
This problem started when Jake became more active and more mobile. He sits up a lot more than he used to, which causes his nappy to get all bunched up around his legs. I change him frequently, as a preventative measure, but he still somehow manages to soak himself.
I'm at a loss. Any advice?
Yawn...
Christmas was wonderful! We were all spoiled rotten. Jake did extremely well from my family. He now toys that he can hold to learn to walk, toys he can sit on, toys he can ride, toys to cuddle, and no end of toys that make noise. Our house sounds like a fun fair, with bells and whistle going off in every room of the house... even when no one's there to make them go off! Very weird. Jake now has two phones, one that rings even while it's in the toy box. My sister was so pleased to finally get the present she was giving him out of her house because every time a train went by, she'd hear the Sesame Street gang sing a little tune. The boy's only 9 months old!
But he's growing up fast. He may not have really understood Christmas this year, but he's changing every day. He even holds his hands up to us when he's in his bouncer and wants picking up... which is always. Clever boy.
My stepdaughters fly back to England tomorrow for their Mother's wedding. They're staying two weeks and I think that they're really looking forward to it. They've missed England, their mother and their friends. It's means that Stephen, Jake and I will spend New Years alone this year. Hmmm... it also means that I've lost my babysitters for the next two weeks! 
Well, it's 9:50pm here in Ontario. Stephen's asleep on the couch. The girls are downstairs, watching TV and eating raw cookie dough. Jake is sleeping soundly. And me? I'm typing this and wondering if I should just go to bed. Well, should I?
Does anybody know...
...what happened to nuttysue? JoJo, you mention in your blog ages ago that Sue had had her baby and that she was having troubles accessing her blog.
Sue? You out there?
And on the diaper/nappy front...
Huggies to the rescue.
They were more expensive but, with wider waist bands and a better fitting leg, they work like a charm. The boy is no longer perpetually wet! Yipee!!
