The Treasures You Find

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon at my mom's place (aka Bubga aka Bugma). I was literally there from 1pm to 9:30pm. We had planned, weeks ago, that I would come over and help her declutter her house. My parents have lived there for about 23 years and have accumulated large quantities of "stuff". They have 5 bedrooms in their house and all of them are full of "stuff".

Anti-Kels and Boyfriend will be staying for a short while before getting their own place. This is why Bubga is panicking to clean the place up. There just isn't enough room for an extra 2 people and all of there belongings.

I wish I could say we cleaned everything out but it wasn't that miraculous. We did manage to de-clutter the 2 rooms upstairs as well as one hall closet.

It was pretty fun going through some of the stuff. I even found some special items I had totally forgotten about. There was this wooden Green Day Dookie plaque I had made in the 8th grade shop class. There was a personal fan letter that I had never managed to mailed to Tim Armstrong of Rancid (so glad that never got mailed - I should post it on here as it is sooo ridiculous). I also found a little stuffed monkey which made my heart all fuzzy and I am wondering if it was my lovey.

This is totally off topic but worth mentioning because of the monkey. I have asked my mom if I ever had a lovey and she denies I had one. Anti-Kels had a lovey that everyone in the family remembers to this day... Not me, apparently I was too good for Lovies or something. So yeah, secretly I like to think this cute little monkey was my lovey.

Back to the found goods. I found a very precious gem of mine. I mentioned it awhile ago in this post.

It's my very first garage sale find! It used to have many more rock people on it but I found it really tempting to pick them off the rock. I liked taking them off but it kinda disturbed me too. Thankfully there are 6 survivors. It warms my heart knowing this thing is still around.

On a cold night

Last Sunday morning a homeless man was found dead in Rotary Park. He was covered in snow with no foot steps around him. A woman walking her dog noticed his body burried in snow. I feared it would be one of the gentlemen I knew.

On Monday the local newspaper confirmed he was a man named "James" who had lived at the shelter for 15 years. My heart sank. I would indeed know him. However, with only the first name James, I couldn't figure out which "James" it was. There are many.

At work on wednesday the staff let me know who it was. James C. My heart sank some more.

The thing about working at a shelter is that it desensitizes you. After a year nothing really surprises you. You still mourn the loss of the people you know but it is just the sad reality of the streets. Having not worked at the shelter for almost 2 years I found that I grew a little more sensitive again. So on Wednesday no one seemed to be mourning James anymore. I guess there is just the need to move on, to try and prevent other sad circumstances from occuring. And surely some staff just didn't want to talk about it.

James was 54 years old. His kids are grown. He was a man with a great sense of humour. His running joke was about getting into his locker. He'd ask, "Can I get into my locker? I need to get my beer out!" and then he'd let out a big laugh.

I'll miss him and his jokes, but won't forget him. Just like the other friends I've lost, they are burned in my memory.

Supporting Local WAHM's

I really like the idea of Hanging Diaper Pail's and Dad picked me up one from Texas a few months ago. The annoying thing is that it only has one handle. I think most people use them on door knobs. While it does the job, I found it kind of frustrating. I'm just one of those people that doesn't like stuff hanging off door knobs.. it gets in the way. Anyways, I saw on-line that you can find some with two handles so they perfectly hang off a change table or say, a towel bar. All the ones I saw though were either really pricey or really plain. Then I connected with a local mom who makes Diapers and Accessories at home (and also mothers 2 kiddo's!). Michelle from A Lovely Start custom made me this beautiful large hanging diaper pail. It's awesome, exactly what I wanted, and was an excellent price. And it's nice to know I supported a local Mama.

Speaking of which I finally got to order some hair clippies from my good friend Deb. Deb makes all of her hair clippies at home while still caring for her two young kids! I have been wanting to support her in her business, Hazel's Zippy Clippies, because she is really talented! However, I don't have a girl! and none of my close friends have had girls. But finally a close friend had a baby girl a few weeks ago and I asked Deb to make me some cute hair clips for her. They turned out awesome and I can't wait for more of my friends to have baby girls.

Hemp Hand Protector

My hands. My poor brittle hands. They're dying a slow death. The weather, the wind, the daily washings. It's a hard life for my hands. Wednesdays are especially hard on the hands. At the shelter I wash them even more. They're cracked and bleeding.

It seems I have spent a lifetime looking for a miracle hand cream. I've found a few good ones along the way. But by far, the best I have found, by recommendation of a fellow mother and shelter worker, is the Body's Shop's Hemp Hand Protector. I started using it in the fall.

It. Really. Is. Amazing.

After using it for a day or two, it literally felt like I had grown a new healthy layer of skin on my hands. They were transformed from dry, cracked and bleeding hands to the soft skin of a baby's bottom.

I ran out a few weeks ago. Which is why I am back to bleeding knuckles. But after I put Stinx to bed tonight, and gave Dad the monitor, I drove quickly to the mall and bought another tube. I will not, can not, live without this precious hand lotion.

Fraz

I'm feeling a little frazzled. Mothering is really tough some days. Most of the time it's fun work but it definitely can have rough patches. While I do feel that some parts of mothering come "naturally" other parts don't. For me, particularly, the discipline does not come naturally. I did talk about discipline a bit in this post, and what I hope it will look like for me at some point.

Today I feel very very far from that point.

Stinx has gone back to his beating up of little babies routine. He started this routine awhile ago and then it seemed to die down for awhile. I thought we might have escaped it. Ha! Yeah right! Yesterday he was back at it full force. We had friends over and Stinx seriously tried pummeling every baby smaller and younger than himself. I felt terrible.

I know he doesn't do it to hurt the babies. I know, logically, he's doing it to learn cause and effect. What will mommy do if I push this baby? or.. What will the baby do if I hit him? Will he cry?

It's still frustrating though. I tried to handle it a couple different ways but none of them really seemed to work. My first response put all the attention on him "No! Don't hit babies! It gives them owies! Don't do it again" type deal. Alisha suggested I try the "Hitting hurts - Oh poor baby has owies, poor little thing" where the victim gets all the attention. Tried that. I tried removing him from the room...

I guess it just comes down to me repeating the same thing over and over, and not letting him do it. Perhaps I need to stick really close to him while he's in these stages so he doesn't get a chance to push or hit. I did that before when this stage first started and it seemed to help. So next time we're around a little baby maybe I will try watching Stinx with an eagle eye, when he does attempt to hit, explain why it's not ok and then comfort the victim. Maybe it will help? It probably just goes back to consistency...

Can anyone share some 2 year old age appropriate discipline wisdom with me?

Strollers

Anti-Kels, this one is pretty much for you! So learn from my stroller buying mistakes... Some hardcore APer's may even suggest you don't need one... I think it's good to have one around. They do come in handy sometimes.

Let's talk strollers.

When I was pregnant with Stinx I couldn't figure out which kind to get. I really was overwhelmed with all the choices. My cousin made it a bit easier on me because she offered to let us use her infant car seat. So I didn't feel the need to buy a stroller/carseat combo. So I tried asking my mommy friends what their opinions were. And they all said it was trial and error. Most of my friends had several strollers. In the end Dad and I chose a stroller my grandpa had seen at the mall. He told us about this cool 3 wheel stroller he'd seen. He said it was really neat and "futuristic". He asked the mother at the mall where she had bought hers from - Sears. So Dad and I checked out these neat strollers on-line. It was the Quinny Buzz.

Dad and I saved up our pennies from baby shower monitary donations and went to Sears to buy the stroller. While at Sears I started to panic. What if this wasn't the "one"? It was double to price of the other strollers. What if I turned into a stroller collector, or hoarder? I didn't want to have 5 different strollers for all of our different needs. I paniced. Bugma had come with us and I asked for her advice. She didn't have any. She did say it was pricey but cool. But by the time I had changed my mind, Dad was convinced this was the stroller for us. I explained to him that we could save a bit of money if we bought a carseat stroller combo instead. Nope, he didn't care. He had made the decision that he would not push any other stroller except this one. Humph. So we bought it. And it's not that I didn't like it, I loved the look of it. But I wasn't comfortable spending the amount we did (even with the sales and gift certificates we had)... It made me uneasy.

The kicker was that we also had to buy a bassinet to use for Stinx. More money! For 0-6 months they need to use the bassinette attachment. I loved the bassinette and I did use it quite a bit, but it was also a bit of a pain to put away after every use.

When Bugma, Stinx (who was 3 months) and I went to visit Anti-Kels in Kelowna we picked up a 2nd hand snap and go car seat stroller. I hadn't brought the Buzz because it was so big and heavy. The Snap and Go was a brilliant idea but the one we got had a bogus wheel. When I got back to Calgary I looked for a similar stroller to use while Stinx was still using the infant car seat. I found the Kolcraft Universal Carseat Stroller. It was amazing. It had lots of great features: big basket, parent tray, and it was super light and easy to fold up. I was really really sad when Stinx out grew the car seat, it meant I could no longer use the Kolcraft stroller.

So I went back to the Buzz.

I felt like such a dork walking Stinx in our neighborhood with this ridiculous stroller. I'm not going to say I live in a "poor" neighborhood, but it's definitelty middle to lower class. When I went to the local mall with the stroller, people would literally stop and stare at the stroller. It was awkward. I felt like the stroller made me stick out amongst the crowds of people. Maybe some people would like all that attention. I definitely didn't. I was worried I might get "jumped" for pushing such a thing. And really, it just wasn't my type of stroller.

It's like cars. I like the look of some nice new fancy expensive cars, but that doesn't mean they suit me or that I would be comfortable driving such cars. I'm the type of gal who adores old volvo station wagons... not new fancy ones.. Know what I'm saying? I'm a thrifty gal... I don't usually wear make up, my jeans usually have holes in them, and I'm kinda smelly too. So I just felt that the stroller didn't suit me.

I fell out of love with the Buzz. There were a few reasons. The biggest one being that the Buzz wasn't practical. It had a teeny tiny bag at the bottom which was sorta supposed to be a basket. The newer models do have a small basket at the bottom but they're so small I think they're still probably useless. I think all strollers should have a decent sized basket. You need a good sized one to throw coats, or diaper bags or shopping bags in. There was also no food tray for the child. I really wanted for Stinx. I wanted to be able to run errands or go to the zoo and leave little snacks in the tray so he could munch on them when he wanted to. So the tray became an issue. The last thing I really wanted was a parent cup holder and or tray. Most practical strollers have a cup for the parents to put their drink in, or a tray for such things. Not the Quinny. Nope.. It didn't have any of those basic practical things.

I decided to sell the Buzz and Bassinette. I sold it to a lovely young couple from Saskatoon who said they rarely saw such "cool" strollers. I told them it was just too "Bling Bling" for me. And it was true. The stroller made me look bad. People probably saw me pushing it and wondered if I had stolen it from somewhere... LOL. Anyways, they said they loved the Bling Bling factor... and the mom was definitely more blinging than me. It actually suited her.

So then I went on a quest for a light weight convenience stroller. I looked on-line and read lots of reviews about lightweight strollers. Because I had liked the Kolcraft one so much I looked at theirs. Toys R Us was selling one of theirs but it was cheesy and hand some cartoon animals on it. I just wanted a plain stroller. I found the perfect one on-line. It was exact same as the cheesy one except plain black. Only problem? It wasn't sold in Canada! I was going to get Dad to buy it in the U.S. but it got complicated trying to phone all these stores in Dallas. I gave up and decided to just buy locally through Kijiji.

I ended up buying the Peg Perego Aria. I really like the stroller. It has a good basket, it folds pretty easily, has a child tray, and it is supposed to have a cup holder for the parent ... but the lady I bought it from had lost it. All in all I have to say I am pretty impressed with it. Some of the reviews I have read on-line haven't been so great. But for the thrifty price I paid, it seems well worth it. I believe that I can get a infant car seat to go with it too if another baby enters the picture.

The bummer? Well, while in Florida in January I saw the exact black Kolcraft Stroller I wanted in K-mart. I was soooo tempted to buy it. Seriously. Oh well.

Oh and I didn't even mention the time Dad bought a jogging stroller from an auction... that's a whole other story... and since we never even took it out of the box I won't bother telling the story...

So in the end I turned out to be one of those people who bought numerous strollers. Live and learn. Trial and error. And what did I learn? Looks aren't everything! Baskets, child tray's and parent cup holders are nice to have.

Sugar Cookies

My favorite thing to bake these days are sugar cookies.

And because I am addicted to mint things I make the icing flavour peppermint.

It's a little much for some.

But I can't get enough of them.