Yep, they're mine all right.

Although the first story also relates to the fact that S is our little Italian girl, taking after DH's heritage with her love of all things pasta, olive or cheese-related... But it's also a well-known fact that I talk with my hands. A lot. In fact, someone once said, after watching me from across the room, "Jeez, if we cut off her hands, she wouldn't be able to say a word!"

So, S and I were out for a walk/bike yesterday. She was riding, I was trying to walk quickly enough that she wouldn't end up falling over every two minutes.

She launched into a story about a particularly beautiful front lawn that she saw once, but she was having trouble describing it.

Finally, she said, "Mummy, I'm going to have to tell you when we get home. I can't describe something and ride my bike at the same time--I need my hands."



This one definitely shows that these children are mine, all mine.

Going out to dinner the other night, we were discussing whether or not DH knew where he was going.
E piped up helpfully:

"You know the one, Pop! It's right by the LCBO."

Who says romance is dead?

So, the low-fat/no-fat train is still chugging along. Although I'm happy (relieved) to report that beer and wine have successfully been reintroduced into my diet...

Now I promise I'm not going to turn this into a blog about food and weight loss and how much kale is really the food of the Gods (mostly because I haven't had that kale-related epiphany that everyone seems to be having lately), but I do feel compelled to mention that we're all eating much better and as a result, DH and I have both lost some weight.

So we were talking the other night, and we had this exchange, which I think pretty much sums up the difference between men and women:

Me: You've really lost weight! I like that when I hug you now I feel closer to you.

DH: Yeah, you too! When I stuck my hand down your pants to grab your butt last night, the waistband wasn't so tight anymore.

Scared straight, part two

At 11:30 on Friday night, I woke up with a pain in my upper middle back.

"That ain't good," I thought.

So I went downstairs and did what any right-minded individual would do - I got on the internet and started looking up all the things that could be causing such a pain.

The two likely culprits were my heart or my gall bladder.

I selected b) and chose to wait it out.

After a half hour or so, I started to think, "Well, even if it is my gall bladder, shouldn't I get this checked out?"  Because, well, in the words of my friend L - "Things burst."

So I went upstairs and woke up DH and explained my predicament. 

Then we both came down and pondered our options.

At that point, the pain got MUCH worse, and I said, "Yes. Do it. Call. Call now."

I had remained calm until this point. I kept thinking, "My blood pressure is fine. I'm not cold and clammy, therefore my circulatory system is not being effected, therefore I am fine."

It was at this point, as we waited for the ambulance, that I went cold and clammy. And my arms started tingling, for good measure.

So that's how I spent my Saturday morning - lying on a gurney, and then in a hospital bed, with many wires stuck to me and various fluids being taken from and pumped into me.

But there are many happy endings to this story.

First, it wasn't a heart attack. This became apparent fairly early in the process. Didn't make the incredible pain go away, but still good news.

Second, our neighbour just bought a new truck. So when he heard the ambulance door slam, he thought someone was stealing the truck, and he came outside to check on it. He then stayed with the girls while DH came up to the hospital with me. Have I mentioned how lucky we are to live in this house?

Third, we asked the ambulance not to turn on the sirens so the kids wouldn't wake up. We got home at 6 am, and they were still asleep. We thought about telling them, but really, what good would come of that? "Hey guys, guess what? We were gone for six hours while you slept last night."

Fourth, I'm riding the low-fat/no-fat flavour train! No, that's not really the happy part, but the fact that I am actually blowing the dust off the ol' Canada Food Guide and taking it seriously is obviously a good thing. I've decided that I don't want to eat any meals that I would be embarrassed to admit to an EMT. Like, for example, when I - at age 41 - had to say, "A chicken burger and fries" when they asked me what I'd had for dinner on Friday. I mean, if I could've at least said, "And a salad" or "And an apple for dessert..."

So I'm off to get an ultrasound of my gall bladder on Friday. I don't really know what the next steps are, but I hope they eventually lead to me being able to eat peanut butter again.

Sleeping with one eye open

 Where I once found pictures of puppies and rainbows, I came home yesterday to this lovely drawing.

Her explanation:

"Mommy. It's just a zombie."

They still count though, right?

We're doing this cool thing at work to encourage everyone to be more active.

Everybody got a pedometer, and we're tracking how many steps we take over an eight week period.

Apparently the recommended daily number of steps is 10,000.

I am here to tell you, that's a helluva lot of steps.

But on Saturday, I logged over 14,000!

I was surprised, because I went on a long walk with S on Sunday, but I couldn't really think of anything specific I had done on Saturday to bump my total up like that.

I had done a little Just Dance magic that morning, and then the usual Saturday morning housecleaning blitz...but frankly, I spent the majority of Saturday afternoon working my way through a pile of unread issues of Vanity Fair.

And then I remembered: Saturday evening I suggested we all walk down to McDonald's for McFlurries.

So. Every journey to weight gain begins with a single step.

Scared Straight

I was in a marathon meeting yesterday at work. When it ended at 2:30, I saw that there was a message waiting for me on my work phone.

"Hi Mrs. C, this is _____ from the Children's Aid Society, could you please give me a call?"

I immediately called back, left a message, and then.....I waited......

To say that I was worried would be an understatement. My mind was racing - had I yelled at one of the girls in public lately? (Let he who does not have the worst brought out of him at Wal-Mart cast the first stone.) Did the lunch we sent to camp with K actually qualify as abuse? (Honestly, all she agreed to take was a bun with butter!) Did the alarming number of mosquito bites on the kids' legs show that I am a neglectful parent? (We're a tasty family, what can I say?)

Eventually the woman returned my call, and very slowly said, "Mrs. C...I received a message from a colleague....[Frankly, at this point I thought I might throw up] ... "

It was regarding a VERY random work question. She didn't seem to have much of a sense of humour when I let out a huge sigh of relief. (She should be thankful I didn't burst into tears.)

DH thought I was being silly, but I defy any parent to sit for an hour waiting for someone from CAS to call them back for an unspecified reason and not get a little antsy.

So, now the great experiment begins! Did this scare me straight? Am I going to cheerfully answer every  request, even at 7:10 am? Am I going to smile understandingly when dinner is rejected with an eye roll or a gagging noise? Will I enthusiastically sit through an episode of Austin & Ally?

Probably not.

But you'd better believe I made some promises to God during that long hour, and I intend to keep them.

Father's Day

I'm usually pretty crap at thinking of gifts. But this year, thanks to the interwebs, I found this idea where you do things that help tell the story of how Dad became Dad (or Pop in our family, or DH in this blog).

So first I asked the girls what they thought of when they thought of Pop, and thankfully they didn't say anything like 'farting', so I was able to come up with appropriate gifts (coffee = Tim's Tassimo discs, trains = gift certificate to hobby store, Duck Dynasty = beardo t-shirt).

My contribution included some Strongbow (shades of our courtship days at The Brass Door) and Red Stripe (from our Jamaican honeymoon). I also decided that we should play pool (also from our mis-spent youth) and go out for wings (can you believe I'd never had wings before I went out with him??).

I must say, the day was going pretty freakin' awesomely.

We wrapped up the celebrations with dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, and I was feeling pretty good about finally pulling off a half-decent Father's Day.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, as I was, BWW is one of those places where they assume that people love sports so much that they don't want to take a break from watching sports while they eat their meals, so they have many, MANY TVs throughout the restaurant showing various sporting events.

As we waited for dessert (seriously, we were so close to making it out of there without incident), a well-meaning employee changed one of the feeds to the Weather Network to track a thunderstorm that was approaching. Oh, and the accompanying tornado warning.

Did I mention that K has some pretty big anxiety issues about storms, and tornadoes in particular?

She was in mid-sentence with me, and she suddenly trailed off, and I knew she was reading the dreaded 'red screen.' There was no way I could distract her, since it was on every other TV surrounding us.

And things took a turn.

First the tears.

Then the questions.

"Is there going to be a tornado?"

"Will it be a big tornado?"

"How bad will the tornado be?"

And finally:

"I don't want to die!!"

So we excused ourselves to the bathroom, where a complete stranger took pity on her and said that she had been through a tornado before. Well-meaning, but not helpful.

Then we came out of the bathroom, to find that her sisters were now looking at me with tears in their eyes, and DH was desperately trying to get us out of the restaurant as quickly as possible.

Then the rain started coming down sideways, and the power went out.

And I thought, "I really don't want to meet my maker in Buffalo Wild Wings."

It was at this point that K threw up.

To their credit, everyone at BWW was lovely and helpful, and by this time the power was back on and they tried to distract everyone with the promise of video games (because there was now no way we could leave, due to the insane weather).

When the weather finally broke, we all gratefully (and still slightly hysterically) headed out to the van. Only to realize that DH and I had each left our windows open a few inches.

So we commenced our very soggy, weepy ride home.

K suggested we pray, we all made plans to sleep in the basement (even though the storm was long gone) and we agreed to never, EVER go back to Buffalo Wild Wings (as if it were somehow to blame).

Oh, and when we got home, S threw up from residual stress (and perhaps the wings).

In retrospect, though, I think it's fitting that Father's Day be celebrated with an evening of tears and honking.

Those have pretty much been the hallmarks of the fatherhood experience so far.