Jadey peed in the potty! (and more)
Jade has been practising sitting on the potty for quite some time. It's taken months to get her to sit on it without a diaper though. As she likes to do everything that Quentin does, sometimes she sits on it if he has to go (he's on the big toilet, so no, it isn't a battle.) Tonight, Quentin announced he had to, and went downstairs. Jade said she had to...and she did! Quentin was 17 months when he started, but was almost three before he was completely potty trained. But, they say it's easier to potty-train girls, and maybe because it took so long for the first one, it might go quickly now. Or it might be a fluke that it happened, and won't again for months. We'll have to see.
Now that the 'casts' are off my gums, I'm really not thrilled with what I spent $3000 on with my gum surgery. Not what I expected/hoped for. When I see my dentist on Monday, I'll ask her what she thinks.
Quentin helped me make jam today. He said that he really enjoyed it and wants to do this evey year with me. Maybe the start of a great tradition? Okay, okay, to be fair, he has been around when I've processed grapes for the last few years, and I think he may have thrown a cup of sugar or two in... So far, we have cherry, blueberry, cherry blueberry, cherry raspberry and cherry strawberry jam. Most of them aren't sit-still thick, but I didn't want to cook the flavour right out of them as they are so tasty! Tomorrow we'll make apricot jam. Personally, I enjoy a good red jam any day, and don't give apricot jam its due, but my dad's apricots do make a great jam, and the kids love apricots. I don't know if apricots combine well with berries to make a different kind of jam...I know I could mix in peaches, but that wouldn't make sense with my peach allergy.
I love teaching summer school, other than the usual. The kids are so well-behaved and work so well it's fabulous. All but two are taking the class to get a head start on next year's courses, so they are there to do well - and it shows.
Two more weeks, and then it's vacation time! Two weeks of travelling around BC, and a trip to Alberta to the farm, visiting friends and family and getting camping in too! Yay! A lot of driving, but I think it's going to be worth it.
On another note - I'm glad I joined Facebook. I know, I know, but I was able to get in touch with my best friend from elementary school that I haven't spoken to since I was 19. We talked on the phone for an hour and a half this week, and it was great. She has a 15-month-old son, so our conversation had a few pauses as she went to tend her child, or one of mine interrupted, but it was great. It will happen again soon, I'm sure.
Time for sleep. Take care all.
Surprise surprise!
Don't read this paragraph if things make you squeamish. I went to the periodontist today, thinking he'd basically be just looking things over, removing the one "cast" and off I'd go. Nope. He said to go to the dentist in a week to remove the lower cast. The upper one, which I was told would last only two days, the most they'd seen is five - it's been nine - they glued back on so it would last "another day or two." They had booked me in for Friday the 13th at 13:00 for the first surgery originally. They managed to move people around to get me in last week. Nobody cancelled the appointment for today, so while I was under the impression it was kept just for a check before they went on holidays....I showed up to him telling me that we were going to do the next sections today. It's another two weeks of pureed soup for me. Both sides on the top were done today, taking tissue from the other half of the roof of my mouth. Leaves me with nothing to chew with. Then they jammed the needle into my sinus and shot the freezing crap up through my nose and sinus cavities. Not a nice visit.
And I was looking forward to having steak tonight. Instead I got cream of chicken soup. Tasted similar to those dry powder cream of chicken soup mixes my dad always used to have on hand. Only without the dried lumps of powder, or chicken, floating throughout.
Quentin saw the new Capital One commercial with the "tooth fairy" tonight. He asked if it was the tooth fairy, and then stated "I didn't know the tooth fairy gave kids lists!" in his 'aren't they silly?' tone. I love that tone. Tyler figures it just means that the tooth fairy gets off easy when Quentin starts losing teeth.
To sleep. Perchance to dream.
Be well.
Fun in the summer
My Neon got its last oil change from me today. I'm just going to clean it up, and then it's ready to be sold. Do you know anyone who wants to buy it? It's in excellent condition as I've kept it well-maintained. It got a new battery today, two new tires a few months ago, and it runs really, really well. No rust. And, as you may remember, it's a lovely shade of purple. I've had it for ten years now, and the only trouble I've had with it (other than squirrels) was the one time the transmission line blew within a week of getting it serviced so I'm suspicious that was the fault of the people who serviced it. Nothing else.
Camping went well. The kids really enjoyed it. Jade kept trying to crawl into Quentin's inflatable toddler bed (it's an air mattress with kind of a sleeping bag attached to it) so we ended up buying her one the next day as well. Quentin got one with SpongeBob on it from his Pappy last year. It's an air mattress, with a pillow, with a cover on it that has a sleeping bag on top. Jade's is a Dora one, but it doesn't have a pillow. Instead, it has almost a head board (to keep from going over the top, I guess) and bumpers on the sides so she can't roll off. She's sleeping on it downstairs right now quite well. It's so hot upstairs that we're keeping her down there until we head to bed.
My mouth is slowly getting better. I can talk and almost laugh without hurting too terribly much. Friday they are going to take the "cast" stuff off my gums. The one on the roof of my mouth I was told would only last about two days with most people, five if it was taken care of. I still have seven days later - minus the edge where it wore away. It's a little swollen where the under coating of whatever it is under the cast came off tonight, but seems to be doing fine. Of course, now that I'm writing this...did I even mention that I got gum-graft surgery last Wednesday? If not, they took some tissue from the roof of my mouth to extend some of my gums on my lower front teeth. They'll do it again at the end of the summer to help the receding gums on my upper front teeth.
Summer school is actually going quite well. The kids are well-behaved. Some are whiny, but that's to be expected. It's going very quickly, although only teaching half days, I have no idea what day of the week it is. I couldn't figure out if today was Monday or Friday, but I figured it was one of the two.
Tomorrow I take my car in to get fixed. Yes, my new one. Tyler was at the mall the other weekend, and somebody drove into the wheel. Yes, they missed the rest of the car, but got the wheel. It's scratched up and the alignment is off. We'll see if anything else is wrong when I bring it in for servicing.
Be well. Stay cool.
It's a beautiful day
It's a gorgeous day outside. A perfect day for camping in the backyard - exactly what we plan on doing. I'm going to set up the tent this afternoon, then the kids and Daddy can cook hot dogs over a fire. Or on the barbecue if it doesn't look safe around the fire. I don't think I'll cook my soup over the fire though.
I had my gum graft surgery on my lower front teeth on Wednesday. They took two strips from the roof of my mouth as donor tissue. I can't say this is the most comfortable experience I've ever had. I have two weeks of liquid or soft foods only to look forward to. No bread, nothing I need to bite into, and nothing I really need to chew. *sigh* It's cherry season. End of August I'll get my top gums done.
I finished my first week of summer school. It's a really strange experience. It's really intense while we're in class (we are trying to fit ~3 classes into every class), but I'm out of there by noon and I only have one class so the marking isn't awful. I have no idea what the students think of me. Very few talk to me because there is so little time to relax as we try to get through everything. 87 classes leaves you with time for doing homework and some casual time in class. 27 classes means there's no time to take things home to work on before you discuss it so it needs to be worked on right away. It's keeping me busy enough anyways.
My mouth hurts.
Be well and enjoy your weekends!
Happy summertime all!
It's not Canada Day anymore, so I couldn't use that...Although we did enjoy our time at the Burnaby Village museum. They've done a few things differently this year that we liked. Mostly just a change in the way it was set up, but it worked a lot better. We missed having the lemonade, cotton candy and kettle corn though.
Thank you to everyone who contributed towards the Do It for Dad walk this year. We really appreciate it. It was two days after I was rather ill, but we did the five kilometre walk anyways. Just a little slower than usual...
School is done. I cried. I hate leaving anywhere. I've been passed over enough times that I just don't hold any hope of being back, although everyone says that I'll be back. I just can't do that, but I can't not. It's a vicious cycle that tears me up inside. Such a great group of teachers to work with, and they really seemed to accept me as part of the staff. I'm even invited to the summer department meeting at the department head's house.
The pub the staff attends on Fridays was attended by us on Friday, and then we were told to evacuate because of a fire on the premises. Yep, it was really, really smoky. Lightened the mood a little for me as I was about to walk out bawling anyways.
The children are doing wonderfully. Jade is singing more often than not. Random songs that she knows will start coming out of her mouth, some conjunctions missing, some lines missing, but always happy about it. The songs generally don't fit what's going on either. I think that it's wonderful. I almost always have a song going through my head, but it's rare that I vocalize it (rare compared to the number of songs, that is), but not her. I hope she keeps it up.
Quentin is growing up more and more. The way his mind works is well beyond that of most almost-four-year-olds. He has been starting to draw actual things (a happy face or a sad face are most often, but he does do some large-bodied animals with legs in odd places.) He is going to piano class and seems to be enjoying it, but he doesn't practice. Which is fine. He kicked me and Jade out of the room after the first class. I think that's okay too.
We're looking forward to our camping trips this summer, and visiting people we don't often get to visit. Quentin is very excited. If it had been nicer weather coming into this weekend we were going to have to set up the tent in the back yard and have a little sleep out. Hopefully that works out next weekend.
I start teaching summer school on Tuesday. It's only mornings, but how to fit an entire semester's worth of English into 27 classes (the 28th is exam day) is a little intimidating. After school on Tuesday I get to take my car in to get damage estimated on it (yes, our brand new car) because someone backed into Tyler when he was at the mall yesterday morning. Urrrr. Wednesday after school I get to go have gum graft surgery. I'm soooooo not looking forward to it. Let alone trying to figure out if I'll be able to teach Thursday, but I can't get a sub at summer school. That's also not too much fun because the last night of regular school, I got a massive intestinal thing that emptied my system both ways, and the same thing happened yesterday morning. My tummy's still feeling a little under the weather.
Tyler's hoping to start schooling in October, but BCIT messed up his paperwork and doesn't care, so it looks like January. Such is life.
That seems to be our world. Only working half days this summer should give me more time to update, and hey, I might even get some pictures going too!
Be well,
Jen.
