Rita and fever update

James' fever broke in the night and before I left for work he was sitting up (he wasn't able to sit yesterday) and said 'I won't puke today'. Good. He was still hot, but not as much as he was, so better. He will spend the weekend recovering before heading back to daycare.

Myron will have to work tomorrow to make up for some of the time lost.

Then I'll have to work a bit on Sunday to catch up on my internet work that I can no longer do from home.
Why?
We have no internet.
Thank you so much Rita for filling our yard with a giant tree and taking out phone service to the whole neighbourhood.
Reminds me I have to call my insurance!

fever and Rita

James woke up at 4am with a fever and chills.
gave him tylenol- seemed to help the chills.
he's staying home with myron today.

i've been up since 4am and i'm working!(well will be soon) I'm very tired and not able to eat because of all the stress, etc.

Tropical depression (or whatever) Rita is here now. The winds are crazy. Lots of branches down and power out. While I was getting my bike out (yes, I biked) I heard a snap and over in the neighbours (2 houses over) a big tree had snapped in 2. It hadn't fallen yet, but I assume that's an obvious next consequence. It's not near anything but power lines so shouldn't cause much property damage but it may take out power to the sickies at my house.

I hope James is better soon- it is terrible to see a boy so full of life just lying flat out on the floor, wanting to play but not being able to get up. :(

Talking about...

I had so many things to put in this post but most have been squished out by overwork.

I took James to church today for our potluck/prayer meeting and during the meal there were a couple of ladies who work in the hospital talking 'work' and James was dismissive of their conversation saying they were talking 'sick', meaning they were talking about sick people. They all laughed!

We also had some visitors from Brazil at the supper and it was very interesting to meet them and hear their stories.

I also made an amazing new recipe to bring to the potluck. It was called 'cheesecake brownies' and it was like a lemon cheesecake on top of brownies. Very yummy and very rich!

Also, happy birthday to my blogger friend Tammy!

I look like a T!

On the bike this morning on the way home from Church, James was sitting on his bike seat (it's in front of me) and sticking out his hands saying 'I am a T'. It was pretty funny.

He also spells out S-T-O-P or P-O-T-S when we get to a stop sign.

Lorna asked about the academic dishonesty. This past week they did a worksheet so if we catch them copying we give them a new worksheet to do. Forthe rest of the term they submit reports that they type on their computer so we have them submit their reports electronically and then we have a 'copycheck' program that runs them against each other as well as any previous reports submitted in the last 5 years. We had to do this because copying was getting very out of hand! It's much better since we got the copycheck program.

Marking complete!

I have been marking like a crazy person and finally all 300 papers are done!

I also worked in the morning at RMC and I called home because James had a nasty poo just before I left to see how he was. He's o.k, tummy just seems a bit disturbed. But I got to talk to him on the phone for a long time. It was soo cute. He's so funny on the phone.

I also got James a Thomas the train basket (it's squishy and foldy and I thought he could keep toys or stuffed animals in it) and he's treating it like a tent- he keeps climbing in it. Well, at least he's having fun with it.

Should get some sleep now.

Things my students say to me

Even though I am so swamped at work, I still get a chuckle out of some things my students say to me. However, my brain is so overloaded I can't remember most of them!

One guy, I was showing what he did wrong on his worksheet- he had forgotten the absolute value bars which meant he was subtracting instead of adding. He seemed to understand what I was saying until he asked 'It wouldn't change the answer, would it?' Ummm, well, if you are subtracting instead of adding YES it will change the answer.

Another guy I was having a talk with about copying. I showed him the two sheets and how they were copied. He claimed he didn't know the other student in question. I commented that I had just seen him talking to the other student about 10 minutes ago. First he's dealing with an academic dishonesty thing and he LIES to me- not very smart. He then tried another angle- that he didn't know how he could have copied. I tried to be patient here but do I really care HOW he copied the paper? Do I have to figure that out? I have the papers in front of us, I see the copying, I'm just calling it like it is. I don't care how it happened to get that way.

Gas prices

In my post below '104.5', I have learned that the people were lined up for gas, not necessarily because they liked the price but are worried about the effect of hurricane Rita on gas prices. It is expected they will spike until it is known if the Texas refineries are damaged or not.

Speaking of cars, I explained to James that Oma and Gadda are going to give us their old car as they have a new car. After he got over the fact that we couldn't have the new car, he has been quite excited about the prospect, even running to the window in the morning to see if they brought it yet!

104.5

My work has been crazy so I haven't been posting.
I am working about 10-14 hours a day (as much as James permits outside of daycare.
I also have to work on Saturday, well work at RMC work- I would have been working anyway as I have heaps of papers for Queen's.
I post this at the half-way mark though- 150 papers marked- 150 to go.

The title to this post represents the price of gas at the Canadian Tire I biked by today. Apparently, this was quite a good price, as cars were lined up all the way across the Canadian Tire parking lot in line for the gas. I wish I had my camera with me.

On Tuesday, I dropped James off at the daycare at 8am. When I picked him up he had quite the story to tell me. The story as the 6 o'clock news told it: At 8:50am a pickup truck ran a red light at the corner of Concession and Victoria and hit a school bus. Luckily the school bus had just dropped of the kids and no kids were hurt. James' daycare is only a few houses down from this intersection and this was the story he told me (so that I knew to switch on the news!): A truck hit a bus. A big boom. Lots and lots of sirens and lights flashing!
When we biked home I could see all the dirt they put on the road to clean up chemical spills.

Need to sleep!

Bill and Ben

James would like all to know that he now possesses BILL and BEN the engines.
They are 2 little teases he says.

This means that he went shopping with me. The only way I could convince him to go was if we went to S&R as well. So we stopped there first and played with their train table, bought Bill and Ben and then went to Food Basics to pick up some things for tomorrows dinner. We are having my boss Georges and our friends Georges and Nadine and their baby Gianna over for dinner tomorrow. I am making some sweet and sour chicken balls and Nadine is making tabuleh. I will try to make a dessert entitled 'Summer Breeze' as well.

After Food Basics we saw a park on the way home, so we had to stop and look at the fountain and the old steam train and the boats.

Yesterday, I also renegotiated our mortgage. That was an interesting experience, but I switched it from a fixed rate to a variable rate, and have changed our payments. It doesn't come into effect until October so we'll see how it goes.

The Petting Zoo- Part 2

James and his 'class' walked to the zoo/fair thing. They got there early so they beat all the other buses of children and got good seats for the milking demonstration! They watched the milking and got to see all kinds of other animals, pigs, sheep, bunnies. James didn't touch any. When he got home all he could tell me about was the cow that went to the bathroom. Ew. Polly said he seemed to have an allergic reaction to the hay. But overall, I think it all went well. They didn't loose any children. They were the youngest 'group' there and everyone said they were the best behaved!

I'm hoping to go grocery shopping now and am trying to convince James to come with me. Not that I actually want him to come because it makes the shopping more difficult, but because Myron was up until 5:30am and is trying to sleep now.

James-isms

James was in the bath playing with water and Myron asked him if he liked fluid mechanics. James responded saying yes, he liked HAMMOCKS.

Before bed James was telling me he would go to my work and I could go to the daycare. Then he said 'I'm going to be a mommy soon'.

Today, out of nowhere, he told me that the next time we take a train we'll have to take the same one as last time so we could find the spoon we lost. (On our trip back in August he dropped his spoon somewhere beside the seat and we couldn't find it back.)

Heading into work now. Hoping that the new computer that was set up for me there will actually have internet access so I can do my work, otherwise it will be a long day!

The Petting Zoo

Tomorrow, the daycare has planned a field trip to a petting zoo. Some kind of fair is in Kingston this week, so they will have a 2 block walk to get there. James is TERRIFIED of going to the zoo. I'm not sure what I should do. I'll talk to Polly about it when I pick him up tonight.

This evening we have our potluck supper and discussion group at the Church. I've made some awesome chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (my current favs) and a pasta dish to bring.

Myself

Blogger just ate this post on me. Trying again.

We were sorting pillowcases and James picked up one of his and asked 'Is this for myself?' It was cute the way he phrased it.

Myron asked James about Big Brother and James responded that there were '4 people left'. Nice that he's keeping up with it!

The Letters

Yesterday, James started to learn to write letters on his own. He is rather letter obsessed. He pulled out his wipe-off doodling contraption and drew an 'L'. I'm not sure it's what he was planning as I think he was pretty surprised too and called to me 'Look an L'. Then he drew an 'O'. Gathering strength he also managed 'E' and 'F'. After that he just practiced L, E, and F for a long time. Myron came home and tried to show him to do 'M' which he was interested in while Myron was there, but when Myron went to have supper (he was home late), James decided to tackle 'G'. The way he did this was have me draw the 'G' about 100 times. I know how to make a 'G' really well now!

Today we went out to see a Thomas show at the mall. We left at 12:30pm and had just made it across the street before the bus arrived. (that bus was early because of construction by the bus terminal i.e. it doesn't do the complete route, so we were lucky) we had to transfer and were out to the Cataraqui center by 1pm. We went to Toys r us which had this amazing Thomas display but their train table did not have an engine (it had about 6 coaches though) so James wouldn't play with it. There were lots of interesting Thomas things though, overpriced in a typical Toys r us way. James decided he wanted a Troublesome truck and so we got that and were out of Toys r us in 15 minutes! Quickest Toys r us trip ever for us! Then we went to Loblaws to get some money and headed over to the Cat center. We got there about 1:30 and the show didn't start until 2:30 so we wandered around for an hour looking at stores and had something to drink. By the time we got to the center court it was full of kids and this really freaked James out so we went up to the upper deck to watch. James wasn't too interested in the people but he did like the stationary Thomas engine. Returning home, we did not do so well with the buses. As we approached the bus terminal there was a bus pulling out the evidently was the late #4 which, had we caught it, would have made our connection, but we ended up waiting 20 mins for the late #1 which was late as I said and we didn't make our connection (by only a few minutes) and then we had to wait 25 minutes for our connection. So it took us about an hour to get home.

Now James has got out the letter puzzle that oma gave him and has taken out some letters as 'inspiration' and placed them by his doodling contraption so he can look at them and draw them. It really is an interesting selection. Anyway, he wants me to go and help him learn his letters. How can I say no?

Blog spam

I have enabled word verification as blog spam seems to be getting me. Let me know if this is a problem for anyone (ie. can't see the words)

Who's in the castle

Today Bob the Builders' vehicles - Scoop, muck, lofty and roley are in the castle.

First day of school

Well, not for James and not for me but for lots of people here. The bike ride in was a lot busier and there were crossing guards and school buses everywhere. When I got to RMC classes were already in session all around my office! (I got in at 8:10, classes start at 8am and I start work at 8:30am- I catch up on my email and write my blog from 8:10-8:30!)

When I'm 4

James seems to be putting off things he dislikes for when he is 4. I made leek and potato soup today. He normally likes soups, but of this one he said 'maybe I'll like it when i'm 4'. At least he doesn't completely write it off!

In an interesting twist on learning letters, he came to me with one of his styrofoam letters (a V) and asked 'is this a v?' when I answered in the affirmative, he then presented me with the number 7 lying on it's side and said 'what's this then?'
a little while later he brought me a letter and asked if it was an N. When I answered in the affirmative he then help up another letter and said 'what's this then?' Unfortunately, I had been wrong about the first letter. The first letter was a Z rotated and the second letter was the actual N. Very interesting that he gets rotation now.

Myron has also been teaching him his 'right' and his 'left' of course, this is so he can play his Bob the Builder video game, but nonetheless...

The Castle

In James' Fisher Price castle there are 2 rooms with pictures. One room has pictures of things like a pie, a cake and knives and forks. James declared 'this room is for eating'. The other room appears to be the dungeon and has pictures of a rope and odd clothing. It also has a gate and barred windows. James declared 'This room is for playing'. Odd, let's hope this doesn't mean he is headed for a life of crime!

We did our 'storm in a cup' at Church today(blue jello, cool whip and sprinkles). It went really well. The kids all dug in really quick, though the adults were not all so keen on jello! I did a reading by Max Lucado to go with it. It was about how the disciples were out in the boat waiting and waiting for Jesus to calm the storm and how sometimes we are in the middle of our own storms waiting for Jesus. But he does come! I also had a scripture from Thessalonians about thanking God in all circumstances, whether we are in a storm or not!
I ate one of the storm in a cups too and it was really good- I was impressed!
We also had (before the storm in a cup) a lady who brought spinach quiche- that was soo good. Our church service is the early service (starts at 9:30) and so it's a bit odd to have a full meal that early in the day! But it was good.
James wore his new Thomas light-up sneakers and loved showing them off! He's going to have a blast taking them to daycare.

This week we are starting a small group on Wednesday nights. It will be a potluck and go from 6-8pm. This week is just a planning meeting. I'm planning on bringing leek and potato soup. James will be so pleased about this. He pretty much asks me every morning if he can go to Church!

Expressions of Affection

In the last week James has told me 'I love you , Mommy' and 'You're the best mommy in the whole wide world.' I don't know where he got the second, maybe at daycare because I don't recall using that phrase.

Another interesting thing I heard him say was 'When I was 2 I was really small, but I'm growing and growing.'

Myron was up until 3:30am playing his game but he has plans on weeding the yard today. We'll see if he stays awake.

I was up from 3:30-5am (couldn't get to sleep) and am just heading downtown to pick up a few things.

Yesterday I had a massive shopping trip to walmart. I bought a $300 dehumidifier for our crawl space. Myron didn't tell me there was a height restriction, so it may be too tall. We'll have to see. I also got James some Thomas the train running shoes that light up when you walk and some huge rain boots (they only had size 12- but he can wear thick socks right?)

Happy 60th

TO MY DAD!!!
Hope you guys are having fun in Stratford!

Hello Katrina

Katrina was pretty much worn out by the time she visited us. We got lots of rain and had a few trees fall, but it wasn't really much. Certainly not compared to what the people of New Orleans are dealing with.
James was quite disappointed that Katrina didn't come with thunder. He was counting on thunder.

This week at the daycare they are discussing pets. Yesterday, he brought pictures of our birds Kiki and Kassie and today he brought some stuffed dogs to share. However, before choosing the dogs, he picked out a snake. I told him that some people do have snakes as pets so that would be o.k.. However, when we went to put it in my backpack he balked and insisted they 'weren't talking about THAT' and decided on the dogs instead.