9 Months and counting

Oh and by the way.
Happy Chinese New Year 888 times over to all our chinese friends. I wish them all tons of 8's. The more 8's the better.

I liked that restaurant you picked Edwin. The food was good. Everything had some kick to it. Mai, you would have liked it.

It's been a tough week. Really busy for me. Last monday we took Kieran to the Science Center and saw the Body Works show. It was really neat. I wasn't sure if Kieran would have nightmares from it. I wasn't sure if I would get nightmares from it. Apparently everything was real. Some plastination process that a german doctor came up with. You can even donate your body to this Body Works exhibition. They had a sample form on display.

The Science Center seemed a lot bigger when I was last here. I think I was 12 years old. I would have taken photos but no cameras were allowed, but then we saw a whole bunch of other people taking pictures.

After the center I had a work function to go to at a restaurant called the Sultan's tent. I've never been but I heard the food was good. I found out later that there's a belly dancer show that goes on. She came around when our main course arrived. As I was digging into my lamb shank I felt a tap-tap on my shoulder. Mike directed her right to me. So it's a customer-participation type of show. It's a lot harder than it looks. There are photos as proof of me trying to belly dance. I just don't have them.

Kieran has just past the 9 month mark. Sleeping through the night has been a struggle. Or more like, it's not happening. But we've got him going to bed earlier now. Instead of midnight. We get him ready for bed around 9pm and the first night he cried for 45 mins. The second evening he cried for only a few minutes before he went lights out. So we're slowing training him to sleep early and hopefully longer. I've been reading this book on the Ferber method. Not easy to execute. Not sure if it's really for us. But I think that I can take some things from the book.

Tile-dal wave

After moving the old deep chest freezer, that were were hardly using, from the basement pantry that was under utilized. We redid our coldroom and pantry that was in the basement. I primed and painted the room to clean it up and put up new shelving to maximize the space. Tresa didn't want the 'L' shape shelves, but since I was doing the work. I put it up. I wanted more shelving than this, so this was a comprimise. The next thing was to rip out the old linoleum tiles. The coldroom tiles come out in minutes. The pantry took me a couple of hours to do. There's this tool you can get from Home Depot to help scrape off linoleum. It would have been a nightmare without it.
And to our shock we found that underneath the tiles was hardwood flooring! What a waste.

Our old next door neighbour was a flooring professional. Plus he laid down the carpet and the tiles in the laundry room for the old owners. So I asked him about laying down tiles in the rooms. We also asked him about the salvaging the hardwood. And he said that the wood was so thin it wouldn't be worth it. So when we remodel the basement and rip out the kitchen counters and cupboards, we'll give him a call again. To lay down the carpet.

After painting the rooms, and Tresa found the tiles that she liked. We gave him a call. I was originally going to do it myself, but with all the little corners to cut. It would have been at least the whole weekend to do, plus rent a cutter and breaking some tiles and going back to that tile place and waiting a few days for the extra tiles. It was easier for me to let our old neighbour do it. Joe ended up doing everything in a few hours. Including trimming the door to clear over the tiles.

So this was the final product. Gotta say, Joe is a pro. The workmanship is top notch. He even filled in the gaps in the cold room with grout. Tresa bought 16x16" gray tiles that were on sale somewhere. The total square footage of the rooms was about 65 sq ft. We have 1 tile left over. And we had just enough grout. We were lucky.

Cast Away

Another casting call for a ministry of health commercial. Not sure if Kieran was selected or not, but he sure showed them he knew how to pee-pee on mama. Her shirt was drenched. I offered her the shirt underneath my shirt. But they were going straight home afterwards.

He had be naked for this one. Being naked and having cold air around is a recipe for creating a fountain. These commercial people must not have any kids, cause this is common knowledge in the Parenting World. So it was basically this - blanket wet, mama wet, mama and baby stressed and we go home.
I was more worried about a parking ticket than anything. I hate those guys.
And I had to go to work.
This Fade to Black place where we had to go, was super small. Must be a tight budget production. You know government squeeze.

And there just wasn't enough room for parents to bring in their strollers. Plus it was upstairs. I don't know what some people were thinking. Most audition places we've seen were small. So use your head people. Just carry your kids. Consider it exercise.

This train of trailers. No it's not a trailer park.

I think they're shooting a commercial or something. We see this all the time near my office building.





So I was just walking along and saw the name on the trailer. Dan Plesac.
Sounds awfully familiar. I ended up doing an internet search later because I couldn't put a face to the name. He was/is a baseball pitcher. He was with the Blue Jays, but now he's with Milwaukee.



Then I strolled by the next trailer. And guess what? It was MY trailer?
Holee cow! Check it OUT!
Or Kieran's. Not sure. Big trailer for a baby. He would be fine with a minivan.
I was tempted to open the door and take a snooze or use the loo.

There was another trailer for Kate Burroughs. Not sure who that is. But it could be for TSN or something. And FYI, there's a Rich Garces that was a pitcher for the Red Sox. So maybe that was his trailer.

Size 4's

So we're now into size 4 diapers, and Howard and Cindy came by to drop off a couple of boxes from the last P&G sale, that we couldn't make it out to. The boxes have been sitting in the back of their trunk for months now and the were worried he'd be out of them before they could get the boxes to us.

But he's just gotten into them and I suspect he'll be in this size for a while. We'll probably need more of these. But Kieran's diaper utilization rate isn't the same as before. It's much lower now. So that's a good thing for our bank balance.




Howard has a thing or two to learn about holding a baby. It almost looks like Kieran fell into a toilet or something.









It's a good thing that Cindy is a natural. She'll need it with Howard by her side. Kieran was much happier after getting out of the arms of a rookie.

J.G. turns 4

It was Jaedin's 4th birthday party last Sunday.
Can you tell he can't count? How many candles are there on the cake? Okay, he's got an alibi, he's a toddler, and isn't even in school yet.
But what about the parents? What's their excuse? I know what might be the reason. They've been away from school for a long time.


And Emerson is practicing to be a plumber or an electrician, because she sure has the clothing on right.All she has to do is show a bit more butt crack and have the underwear label show and put the name "JOE" on the waistband.


Hey Bob! Click this link for more photos

Happy Sukaboy day to the cousin...

We all love to bug!
That's her on the right hiding in her husband's shadow, with the black depeche mode shirt with some white stuff on it. And that's her luggage there on the cart. Chris is wearing what he travels with. And Liam just has diapers.

Teen we're all pitching in to get you a new Depeche Mode shirt, so you can ditch that one you've had since highschool. And all the dustmites and crap that's embedded in that shirt.

Oh and Cath told us that Conner was going home with them today. So you don't have to speed dial the rest of the family. We ALL know already!

Go make your hubby happy by doing something today.

And have a GRRREAT birthday today!

Family restaurant

Did you know that Lucy opened an italian restaurant? Why? Cause she's Italian. And she wants to be like her hero on the show "Everyday Italian". What's her face. The one with the teeth.

Just kidding. It's just a coinky dink that this restaurant has the same last name as Lucy. I've walked by it before thinking about the family name. But I just happened to have my camera with me. We didn't go inside because we were headed over to Gilbert's new office/studio. I had just come out of my physio appointment for my back and since we were close by we'd drop by his place.

This is Gilbert's elevator. He doubles as the bellhop, you know the guy who brings your bags around. The elevator is really cool. There's no buttons you just yank on the rope or cable and it starts. And to stop it on the floor, you pull up the gate.

This is Gilbert's office space. And his assistant.

He even has a SIN #. I got Kieran's gov't stuff so he can work legally. Although with a bum left ankle he'll have to go on workman's comp.

We went out to Pho Hung after to eat. It was either that or go home to nothing in the frige. We have to go grocery shopping bad. Cuz the only one getting fed on a regular basis is the little boss here.

The machine that has the spirit of giving

I was looking for a parking spot and got a slot machine instead. Every time I tried to put money into the machine to get a ticket, I noticed the time was not changing. So when I turned the red cancel knob I'd get my change plus a whole bunch more. It was like Casino Danforth. But I still needed to get a parking ticket so I ran to the next one and the same thing happened - ka ching! So I ran back to the first one and just used my credit card.

We went to the Danforth to meet up with our good friend Dian, for a late lunch. She's seen him only in the virtual world. This'll be the first time she'll see him alive and kicking. For the most part he was pretty good. No poopy diapers.

And as a side trip we visited Eve, Indy's little sister. I was actually looking for my brother, and they happened to be around the corner from where we were, over at Wendy and Bruce's place, so we headed there before going to Mama's Pizza and then home.

Northern Exposure

Happy New Year!
And this is how I rang in 2006 - on my back after falling down the stairs at Pat's house up in Timmins. With Kieran in one arm and my digital camera in the other. I managed keep them both from harm. Kieran has a little boo boo on his left leg, but Pat says that it should heal up in 7-10 days.

As I was walking down the stairs to get a better shot of Camryn and Indy jumping on the bed in the game room, I stepped on something tubular and made my way into the new year horizontal. As I was falling I had the presence in mind to lift Kieran up so that he wasn't going to hit the stairs too.

I ended up hitting my lower back on my left side on the edge of the stairs. I wasn't winded or anything, but I was in a lot of discomfort. My only concern was that Kieran was okay. I could hear him crying but I wasn't sure if he was hurt or just freaked out. So Tresa gave him deh deh to calm him down. And I drank some red wine to calm me down. And I got Indy and Maddie to help me massage and stretch my back.

He initially seemed okay, playing and laughing and eating. We checked him out. Squeezing his legs and arms. Nothing. So he was fine. But when he we would put him on the floor or bed to stand he would lift his left leg. This wasn't right I thought. Pat checked him out. And Kieran didn't indicate any discomfort from Pat checking his leg out.

As Jan 1, 2006 came rolling in the next day I noticed Kieran lifting his left leg off the bed. Trying hard not to put any weight on his leg. So off we went to the hospital for the second time in 2 days to get his leg x-ray'd. No break, but Pat said there was a buckle fracture. Since baby's bones are so malleable, like clay. They don't break, but the bone just above his left ankle was not how it should be. And he said that the force of the fall probably did bang him up a bit. We're going to get his leg x-ray'd again in a week to check it's progress. But he should be right as rain in two weeks.

He's nursing the foot right now, but he seems okay. He's crawling around now and jabbering away like he normally does. I'm just glad his okay. It could have been much worse. I just gotta say that this kid is a trooper. He's already trying to stand up. But he's not putting all of his weight on his left leg. But it's not stopping him from getting around.

We thought they'd lost Kieran's car seat when we were getting our stuff, but they put it in the odd size pick up area. When the baggage claim carousel stopped. We thought uh-oh. Where's Kieran's car seat? How are we getting him home? Then I asked one of the attendents there where the odd sized stuff goes. And he pointed to Area 'A'. And as I was walking closer to it I saw his car seat and the 3 composite hockey sticks that this Junior B hockey player was waiting for too.

Not sure if you can recognize who these two guys who are on the escalator. Tresa recognized them while they were waiting for their luggage at the baggage claims areas - it's Ron Maclean and Don Cherry. You know, all of his shirts have those huge collars. He looked kinda pissed so I didn't ask for a photo or autograph. But as he was leaving the gated area people said 'hi' and he said 'hey kids' back. It was weird. Ron took a different path around the people while Don walked right through the people shaking hands.

Gotta say. The new Terminal 1 is really nice.

Click for more photos from up north