Pool Party!

Mojo turned 7 this month, and decided that what she wanted was to have a few friends over for a pool party (we are fortunate enough to have an in-ground pool in the back yard, and when summer hits Mojo can't get enough swimming).

This would be the first birthday party we had hosted for her at home, and the first time her friends would be over. She was very excited, and we were a little nervous...both about having a bunch of kids in the pool as well as the weather. It had been a summer of record breaking rain fall, and we were worried that the party might get rained out.

The guest list was tricky; we didn't know how many kids we could handle and Mojo was a bit undecided about who she wanted to invite. In the end, we decided she could invite five friends; that being the number we felt we could reasonably keep an eye on and hopefully prevent from drowning. Once Mojo has decided on which friends to invite, we sent out the themed e-vites and anxiously awaited the responses (what if everyone was on summer vacation? what if no one came?).

Much to our relief, responses starting coming back almost immediately. The first affirmative was received in less than 24 hours, followed closely by another Phew! This was going to work out after all, no need for concern.

My Uncle Earl always warned me not to count my chickens before they hatched (OK, he didn't...I don't even have an Uncle Earl...I have an Uncle Russell, but he lives in California and is a bit of a drifter; not really given to the wise sayings and sage advice and such). Our two affirmatives were followed by two "maybes"...cottages/camps, not sure if we'll be available that weekend. Yikes!

We were now holding our breath for the final RSVP.

Two weeks later, we were still holding our breath. We could tell, via the e-vite that the invitation had been viewed the day it was sent, so what was the deal? Long story short: I called, they confirmed, then cancelled the day before due to injury. We were down to three little girls, including Mojo.

We soldiered on. My amazing wife had done a fantastic job preparing; there were rice crispy treats fashioned into flip-flops, gold fish crackers swimming in a "pool" of blue cream cheese, a star fish pinata, hula hoops and fantastic loot bags. We decorated the backyard with steamers and balloons. We were going to make the best of this sparsely attended party!




It rained. We hoped and prayed for it to stop...but it didn't. It just kept raining.

You know what, though? The kids didn't care. They wanted to swim, and swim they did. They swam and played in the pool, they came in for music and hula hooping and pinata smashing and food and juice....then they went back out in the rain and swam some more.




When it was time to leave, one of the little girls proclaimed that she had had the best time "in my whole life!!!"

My wife and I breathed a sigh of relief. Kids are amazing.

Getting Inked

So, lately I've been thinking a lot about tattoos. I have a few of them, and the most recent one is a fairly large koi fish back piece that I really love. I had it done about two years ago by Mitch at Stinger Tattoo in Newmarket. I did a fair amount of research leading up to it, and the idea is that each of the three fish represents a member of my family (one each for Mojo, my wife and myself).







With the birth of our daughter in January, the door has been opened to add to the existing tattoo; a fourth fish for our fourth family member.

While pondering the composition (i.e. exactly where to place this fish), it occurred to me that I should perhaps consider the possibility of a fifth. After all, what if we have another child? It wouldn't be fair to pay tribute to only two of three children, now would it?

So, how much tattoo is too much? My wife (god bless her), does like the tattoo but I know she would be happier if it took up less, rather than more, of my back and I know the upcoming expansion makes her squirm at least a little. Hopefully, we will all be as pleased with the results this time as we were with the last.

My Spider Senses are Tingl...er..Infected

A spider bit me. Again.

I'll begin at the beginning. Last summer around this time I awoke one morning to find two small, red, slightly itchy marks on my arm; right around my "elbow pit". I figured they were some sort of bug bite and thought nothing more of it. I headed off to work.

Over the course of the day, the little red marks grew, turned into ugly red lines and began to track up my arm. By lunch they were at my bicep. Clearly, these bites were no longer benign.

I visited my doctor after work; he thought my bites were likely from a spider and had obviously become infected. He gave me a prescription for antibiotics and told me to come back/visit emergency if the infection continued to spread. It did. By mid way through the next day I had a giant, angry red bicep on top of my bicep, and the infection was tracking toward my shoulder.

Time to head to the emergency room. To make a long story short, I ended up on I.V. antibiotics for a week; I had to carry them around in a little fanny pack 24/7 and a home care nurse came to my house every day to change the I.V. Not cool.

Fast forward to this past Friday, when I woke up with a familiar looking bite on my neck, and another on my chest. What the hell?! Where are these things coming from?

Having learned from last year, I traced the spot on my chest so that I could accurately identify any spreading. I checked it frequently over the course of the day and by the end of the day it had indeed spread past the outline I had drawn in pen, albeit much more slowly than the bite from last year. Off to the hospital......where they sent me away. Apparently, they weren't convinced it was infected this time, but encouraged me to come back if it continued to spread. Great. Thanks. I love the emergency room.

When I got home we dutifully retraced the mark on my chest, and lo and behold it continued to spread. Back to the hospital on Sunday morning. This time, the doctor I saw agreed that there was an infection and prescribed antibiotics.

As of today, the redness has all but disappeared which means I have likely avoided the embarrassment of carting around a fanny pack full of medicine again. Several questions remain, however.

What the hell keeps biting me?
Where the hell is it?
If and when my insect/arachnid super powers manifest, what colour tights will I wear as my super powered alter ego? I'm partial to red, but maybe black would be cooler. Suggestions?

There are not enough hours in the day...

I really am terrible at this. Consistently blogging, I mean. I just can't seem to find the time.

Which brings me to today's subject: time. Or rather the lack thereof.

I have a wife. Two children. A full time job. As you can imagine, this limits the amount of time left for leisure, hobbies, etc. The problem is, there are things I really want to do. I like to stay relatively active, so it's important to me to hit the gym at least a couple of times a week. I also like to try to play basketball after work once a week (weather permitting, as we play outdoors).

Unfortunately, these things eat into the very small amount of time that I have that is not already spoken for. What really makes this difficult, though, is that my favourite people to spend my "free" time with are my wife and kids. I am not one of those guys who takes every opportunity to be "out with the boys", and I can't even remember the last time I had a "guys night out". I like to watch hockey, but I'd rather sit on the couch with my wife and do that (all the while talking about why the Leafs always have and always will, suck) than with friends.

As a result, everything has to be carefully scheduled and checked; making sure something else isn't being missed or compromised.

Recently, I have rediscovered my love of music, which is great except that now there is one more thing that I don't really have time for (although I have tried playing a few bass solos for the baby, with varying degrees of success).

To make matters worse, my brother and an old friend have expressed interest in getting together once or twice a month to "jam". They have even gone so far as to start looking into studio rental spaces. Now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than rocking my face off with those guys, especially in a studio with a bunch of cool equipment.

My wife however, is not super stoked about the idea. Nor can I blame her. As I have said, my time is very, very limited and between Mojo taking the bulk of my time every second weekend the new baby sapping every last ounce of energy from my wife each and every day I completely understand her reluctance to sanction the idea of my spending any more time away from home than is absolutely necessary.

For now, I cannot envision a way to make this latest venture work, and so I'm afraid my rocking out will continue to be limited to the confines of our basement. I'll have to learn some nursery rhymes for the baby, possibly some Hannah Montana for Mojo. Not super cool, but I could certainly do worse.

No. It's not OK...

OK, so Mojo's 7th birthday is approaching (August) and she had decided that she would really like to have a few friends over for a pool party. My wife and I agreed that it would be a good idea; three or four kids, a pool, a BBQ, some pie (Mojo doesn't like cake)....voila! Good times for all.

Or is it.....?

In discussing the proposed party, my wife and I agreed that Mojo's mom would not be invited. To be blunt, we hate her - and while we concede that we have to plaster on our friendly faces and hang out with her at school functions and other public gatherings, we really feel it is important that some boundaries are set; namely our home. If nothing else is sacred that, at least, should be. Yes?

Last week, I knew that I would be attending a school function and that my ex would also be there. I thought I would take that opportunity to make the situation clear to her well in advance of the party so that there were no misunderstandings later on.

So, while Mojo was playing with some friends I brought up the subject of the party with my ex. I explained that we were only going to have a few kids; so there weren't too many to keep an eye on in the pool. I also mentioned that I was going to enlist my brother in law to help out.

At that point, she threw out the "I assume I can come?" to which I replied, "No".

There was then a bit of back and forth during which I tried to explain how there should be boundaries (i.e. our respective homes), which she then countered with a reminder that she had invited my wife and I to Mojo's party last year. I then explained to her that the difference was that last year the party was at a public place - a gymnastics club - and that if it had been at her home we would neither have expected nor desired to be there. She then suggested that perhaps the only solution would be to have the party at a public pool. I told her that was fine, but that she would have to make that suggestion to Mojo.

That last bit was perhaps a tactical error. I likely should have elected to handle the conversation with Mojo myself. As a result of this blunder, I received a voicemail from Mojo the next night. She was angry that I was excluding her mom and demanded that either I relent, or she will have the party elsewhere and I will not be invited as punishment for "being mean" to her mom.

I call her to tell her that I will not be swayed. I tell her that the reasons are "grown up stuff" that she shouldn't be concerned about. She is not happy. I discover later that she does a lot of crying when she gets off the phone. This breaks my heart (she is my little girl, after all), but I cannot relent on my position.

As it turns out, a couple of days later we managed to reach a compromise. We will have the pool party at our house with a few of Mojo's friends (her mother will not be there) as planned, and her mother will throw another party with a different set of friends on another date.

I find myself wondering a lot these days about what it is going to be like parenting Mojo as the years go on. I often worry about the mistakes I have made, and wonder about how many I have made without even realizing it and how many more I will make going forward.

I hope that i am not going to screw this kid up too badly....

So much can happen....

OK, so I realize it's been a while since I posted anything; 7 months, 13 days actually.

What can I say? Time has a funny way of getting away from you, or at least from me. Needless to say, a lot has happened in my life over the last half year plus. What follows is a brief synopsis.

The most memorable recent event occurred on January 5th, 2008 with the birth of our daughter. Kira Sophia Michaud was delivered into this world (via an unplanned emergency c-section)a healthy 7lbs, 11ozs. Though the experience of the c-section was harrowing, both mother and daughter handled it remarkably well (my amazing wife continues to astound me).

So now, we are a family of four. Mojo has taken quite well to her new sister...although she finds the crying "annoying". She loves to hold her and has a somewhat strange fascination with diaper changing time. Kira continues to thrive (i.e. she is fat and happy) and at last check weighed in at a portly 17 lbs, 14ozs. Luckily, no one has mistaken her for a butterball at the grocery store and carted her home for dinner (yet).

Mojo continues to keep us on our toes; she has taken recent interests in rock climbing, guitar and webkinz (if you don't know what webkinz are, you don't need to).

My wife seems to be enjoying her maternity leave, and handling Kira's apparently insatiable appetite for attention well. We're both tired as hell most of the time, but still manage to make each other laugh.

In other news, we had one of the old pine trees on our front yard removed (it had died, and I would really, really love it if the rest of the pine trees on our property would hurry up and follow suit), and we recently discovered that our pool needs a new lining and new coping; a $5000 expense that we hadn't planned on. Ah, well.....

Thanks for nothing...

So, I thought we were done with this stuff. I sold my soul to the devil (or rather I gave Easter to my nasty ex-wife) to keep the peace. That was supposed to be it.

Not so.

Now that Thanksgiving is upon us, I am expected to once again give up some of my time with my daughter so that she can spend time with her mother's family. I tried to stand firm, but in the end I caved. I felt like I was digging in for the wrong reasons, and to split yet another holiday was the right thing to do. *SIGH*

What really bugs me though is the way the ex manipulated the situation. I should not have been discussing the nuances of sharing a three day weekend between three cities/towns and the complex family relationships with a worked up six year old. That discussion should have been strictly with her mother. It was atrocious.

I cannot believe that woman makes a living caring for children.