Disaster update...

Things are starting to look up!!!

I just got back from the transmision place. The car is already fixed - it was just a sensor. An "output speed sensor," he called it. Just a half hour wait, and $100, and it's as good as new! Phew! It was fixed by the owner himself. He said we got off really lucky this time - Dynasty's are notorious for transmission issues. I said we know.

He told us to take it in for a tune-up sometime- we've got some sort of a little misfire in the front end, but otherwise he said it's a smooth-running car. Probably just a spark plug or something. Not surprised. We haven't had to change one the whole time we've owned the car, so they're probably due to start going. I guess we'll take care of that once things settle down.

Rotto Rooter guy will be here within an hour to fix the sewer. Another one of those maintenance things that need to be done every year, but was put off until it was too late.

So things are starting to look up! I'm getting nervous - it could be the calm before the real storm.

In case anyone's wondering, yes, I am off work today. Our babysitter took holidays today and tomorrow. We were just going to take Friday off, but once things started to melt down, and someone needed to be available to ferry cars and hire plumbers, and get it all done before we leave for the wedding, we decided I'd take an extra day and save the trouble of finding a babysitter on top of everything else.

Our sewer backed up. When is this going to end!!!

On a positive note, it probably drowned some of the fleas down there.

just a quick note...

It was bound to happen. Our reliable car is no longer.

Our transmission is shot. Yup. Transmission - you know, that really expensive thing.

We're taking it to a specialist's shop tomorrow. We can get three gears, but can't go faster than 50 for now- sure it will get worse with time if not addresed. Hopefully we won't need an all-new one! We're kind of hoping it's one of those "oh, you just needed your system flushed. There's no charge" kind of things.

Our favourites of the 14 cats we babysat. They're gone now, but we rmember them every day, as we pick fleas from our ankles.

It's a shame, really, about the fleas. Mike had actually taken over laundry duty until then. Now, he won't go to the basement for any reason, because he always comes back with about 10 fleas. I might have one or two. I guess he tastes better.

John did the funniest thing this morning! We shared a plate of scrambled eggs for breakfast, and when I brought them out, he started huffing and puffing. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, until I went to give him some, and blew on them to cool them down. He was blowing on his eggs, because he'd seen me do it so many times! Isn't that cute?

The long lost birthday photos!

His only happy moment of the day - playing with his new barn from G&G W. It's still a favourite - at first he liked to send things down the silo. Now, he's obsessed with the buttons. Each one makes a different sound. His favourite is the workbench, which makes a hammer sound - some days he'll dance to the beat it makes.

I found them in my e-mail, of all places. I sent them to Mike from work,who sent them to my e-mail for safe keeping. Who could've guessed that one? The rest are down below - I posted lots. I know you've probably all been waiting for new pictures. Today's you're lucky day! Note the complete lack of any smile. Not a fun hour for the birthday boy. I guess we'll have to keep it a little lower key next year.

feeling a little---overwhelmed 

What is it? 

What will happen if I eat it? 

What the heck? 

Why are they doing this to me? 

Really...why? 

yumm... 

notice the relative lack of cherries on top - he ate those 

yummm

There you have it - and I found some others along with these, so I'll post them up over the next couple of days.

Thank you for everyone's help with our little financial crisis! It makes a huge difference. My parents and Mike's grandma have helped with the bills, ans Mike's parents will be covering our hotel in Ohio, so we have fewer things to worry about. Here it is on Saturday, and all the utilities are still running. Not a single creditor has phoned - normally it's one after another on Saturday mornings. It's nice. No-one has been completely paid, but the extra cash allowed us a little more room to negotiate, so most were willing to work out payment plans that worked for both of us. It's amazing how far behind you can get with a strike. It was four months of paying nothing but groceries and the mortgage. Nothing else could get paid. Well, once a month the student loans had to get paid, which is why the mortgage bounced a few times. But really, food and shelter, and everything else was forced to wait. We always intended to pay them, obviously, but when they all swooped in for the kill at the same time, it got very overwhelming! So thanks again to everyone!

John is doing well. He's teething badly, but is still in good spirits most of the time. He's having a lot of trouble sleeping at night - the pain always seems to affect him much more at night. His babysitter says every now an then, he clutches his mouth and screams, but for the most part is still a happy guy in the day. I think it's two coming at once - the eye teeth on top. His top gums on both sides look really swollen.

Daycare is still going well. He's only had one day where he didn't want to go. Liz reached out for him, and normally he reaches back and they go off to play, but on Thursday, he clutched to me. It worked out OK - I just stayed for a few minutes to get him settled in. When I left, he was smiling and playing. Liz thinks he's great, and is happy to have him - she says all the time how well he fits with the group she's already got. He likes all of the activities, and joins right in. He loves circle time! She said he climbs onto her lap and claps along to the songs they sing. Sometimes he sings at home - I think he's probably singing the songs he's learned. He's always been a bit fan of music! He really likes her daughter - her name's Megan too - I think she's 11. John aparently latches on to her all the time. Likes her to carry him around, and she's happy to oblige. She changes his diaper and feeds him - they're good pals. The 5-year-old boy really likes him too. Every morning when I get there, he yells "John's here! John's here!" and runs around the room. So it's going really well - much better than I expected. I guess it's just a matter of finding a good match.

He's been doing a few new things. He points now! I don't know if someone taught him to do it, or if it's one of those things that just appears when it's ready to appear, but he points at EVERYTHING!! When I carry him, 90 per cent of te time his finger is straight out in front of us. It's fun - sometimes he points to specific things, like a tree. So we go to the tree and talk about the tree, while he pokes the tree. There are some things we can't do that for - like ceiling fans. He just keeps pointing, and looking at me as though I should fly up there to give him a better look.

He's getting really chatty now, and it's getting easier to figure out what he wants, with all his new signals and pointing, even though words haven't come yet. "Da" is very obviously Dad, not just a random noise anymore. As part of our bedtime routine, John has a bath, followed by a little playtime with dad, so near the end of his bath some days, John says "da" over and over again. And when we're in our bedroom, if he's going to Mike's side of the bed, he'll say "da" on his way there. He still only uses "mama" as a distress call, but I guess that's ok. At least he knows who I am.

Work is going ok. We'll finally be back to full staff again on Monday at the paper - everyone's been taking holiday time. Mike's happy to be back and is looking forward to overtime shifts being added in the next few days. The pay is slow in coming. It turned out that his first pay was even lower than we expected - it was only 2 days anri.p. d the signing bonus, so it was very small. But the light is still on at the end of the tunnel, so things should be back to normal by the end of summer. He has a licence now, too, which is a huge weight off our minds.

What else? We're looking forward to Vicki's wedding next weekend! It'll be a fun trip. It'll be nice to see everyone and spend some time with John. It feels like I never see hime now, and when we are home, I have so many chores to do, I never get to spend much time with him. This working mom thing kind of stinks. I don't think this is what the women's movement had in mind - we have to work AND do all the household stuff, while strangers raise our kids. It's kind of a bum deal.

Anyway, I had better get John some lunch!

This is John out with me at the Westfield Ice cream festival - it was my weekend to take pictures, so he tagged along with me. It's one of those living museum places. He had fun! He saw a horse for the first time, and kept waving to it - or maybe he was waving to the driver, who tipped his hat to John every time he passed.

John's nearing the end of his first week in daycare. I feel kind of obsolete - he LOVES it! I mean he REALLY LOVES it! Liz is awesome. We took him to meet her the day before he started, so they'd have a chance to get to know each other. It took a little while for him to let her touch him - he peeked at her for a while, playing peek-a-boo by poking around my back, with big, big belly laughs each time. But eventually - after half an hour, he went to her and let her carry him.

Now, the second he sees her, he grins from ear to ear. He's so happy - he giggles at her when I go pick him up, and he smiles and lunges for her in the morning. It's great - one less thing to worry about in life. He still crawls to me when I walk in at the end of the day, so I'm sure I'm still #1, but it's nice to know he's with someone he really likes. He loves the other kids, too. She says he watches them all day, and tries to do what they do. Today, he decided he was going to use the chalk board, so they gave him a piece of chalk and he drew! I wish I could have seen that. She gives us a little write-up every day, stating what he ate, when he slept, and what he did. We really appreciate that - it's nice to feel like a part of what's going on.

Beyond that, everything else is pretty cruddy. I just cleared my first business publication. What a nightmare. I was supposed to get the pages to work on over the weekend - I didn't. I can do it without, it just takes a lot longer. But I had to make do, because it was a short week, and the paper was short-staffed, so I had no choice but to do it over the weekend. I spend my whole long weekend working, and still wasn't able to get it all done - it was a last minute scramble to get it out, with my editor glaring at me, and everyone in Burlington passing the blame for why the dummies weren't to me in time. It was very frustrating.

Money is, in a word, disasterous. Whatever could be going wrong, is going terribly, terribly wrong. I think it's on everyone's file that Mike is back, and they all want to be the first paid, so they're playing hardball. But they just don't understand that it's going to take a while. What reserves we had are exhausted. My pay is spoken for - mortgage and daycare, and that's it. The rest needs to come from Mike, but his first pay isn't even a full pay, for starters. We were counting on a full pay, in addition to the signing bonus, which he's now told may or may not be on the first cheque. We were also planning to gut his vacation and banked overtime hours, but he can't. Turns out, the union still hasn't signed the contract, and weren't scheduled to until the day after the cut-off to request vacation and overtime. Convenient.

As well, this partial pay is his only pay before the wedding, so it has to stretch like you wouldn't believe. We not only have all the wedding and travel expenses, we have the gas company, who's sent a letter stating the gas will be shut of on Tuesday, unless they're paid in full - he won't even be paid by then. The electricity won't be far behind - they've been sending threatening letters for months. The water, I believe, is already a lien on the house. The credit card companies,who've been pretty patient, have all threatened to take our cards away - not that they're any use to us now anyway. One just called, threatening that they'll lock my debit card, unless we send them some money. Our water heater rental company has just sent us to collections. One credit card is being revoked on Tuesday - again, before he's even paid. Don't these people listen? Our mortgage company keeps stealing money right out of our account - luckily, there's never a bean in there, so it keeps getting bounced back to us - minus a few service charges.

Peachy. How long until we can look back and laugh at this one?

Sorry for ranting - it's just so frustrating. These people phone, and we're so close to getting out of the hole. They just need to hang in there with us for a few more weeks and it'll get sorted out, but they don't care - they won't listen. They won't accept arrangements, nothing - we have to pay in full (before we're even paid) or else. Even if they were willing to wait until he got paid, there's not anywhere near enough in Mike's pay to cover it all. Not even close. It's just so horrible.

Oh well, at least John is happy!

Gotta go and finish making dinner...

forgot to mention...

Liz has a dog - a golden retriever who loves little kids! Apparently, he likes to play in the yard with them. I think John's going to like it there.

Sorry...still looking for those pictures, and have to download the new ones as well - the ongoing residual problems from our computer's meltdown.

I think John's period of slow weight gain is over. He feels sooo heavy these days, and he's suddenly outgrown a lot of his clothes! He doesn't even remotely fit a single 12-month-old outfit anymore, even though they all fit him just last week!

Also, we have a mystery. I've been waiting until our picture system is back up and running, but it's turning into a slow process. We got a box last week, which wasn't marked with the sender. Inside was a set of Bunnikins dishes, and several sets of clothes. One set was a cute little shirt and tie outfit,with a vest and matching dress shorts - perfect for Vicki's wedding! It's sooo cute!

It's fantastic! And at a great time - we had found one little collared shirt for John at the Goodwill, thinking it would work for the wedding. It fit fine two weeks ago, but now with this latest growth spurt, it's skin tight! It had to go straight to the box for Baby 2, without ever being worn.

The problem is, we have no idea who to thank. There was no card and no return address. We think it must be someone from T Bay, because the courier sticker had that listed as the intake depot.

Does anyone out there know who sent it? If it's someone who checks the blog, speak up!

yet another new sitter...

Hopefully, this one will stick.

Unfortunately, we've had to forget about Carmen - she's still in Italy, and with Mike starting work, we needed someone quarunteed to be there and ready to take John first thing Tuesday morning.

We've found Liz. We haven't MET Liz, but she sounds nice. We're taking John to meet her on Monday and unless she decorates her home with whips and chains, she's the one.

She has her ECE. She has two tweens of her own, and already has a five and three year old, with another five and another three year old starting in September - John will round out her collection. Come September, the two older ones will be in school, leaving John at home with Liz and two three-year-olds, which thought would be really good for him - he can watch the big kids and maybe pick up a few things. Good things, hopefully.

She's the same price as Carmen and is still close to my work, so we're pretty happy to have found her. She lost four of her kids in one shot, when the family moved to Oakville, which is why she was looking - she took out an ad in my paper.

Mike is back at work and is scheduled for full-time so far - 12-hour shifts don't start until mid-August. The full schedule hasn't been made yet, so he still has time to book the wedding off, but it was a busy, confusing day, with lots of guys mad that they were called in, only to be sent home because the company forgot to rechedule their shifts, so he didn't get a chance to ask his manager, who was being swarmed by angry techs at the time.

The one piece of good news - he's home dispatched! He's one of very few guys who are, because the scabs have a good chunk of the vans.

Another bit of good news - by business publication is small! I was told at least 20 pages, with big big holes - it's a small 16, with lots of hold - that means it didn't sell. Wohoo!

Just a quick note...

The strike is over. 70 per cent yes, with 75 per cent of guys coming out to vote.

Mike has mixed feelings. He missed his job and is eager to get back and do a great job. But he's furious about the contract they were offered.

The company has 5 days to make initial contact, and 14 days to get everyone back. The scabs will be around until September, which will make for a very hostile working environment for a while, I'm sure.

I think we'll have to find someone super-quick for John - Mike could be back by Monday morning, and Carmen is in Italy for another week!

HE WALKED!!!!

We'll get back to birthday pics in a bit - I just think this is really cute. It's actually an old photo - those big leaves back there are pumpkin plants, and they've started to take over the lawn now.

Okay, maybe I'm getting a little over-excited. It was only two steps. Two very shaky little steps from one object to another, but it was walking gosh darnit! He's been standing by himself more and more often lately, and a couple of times, he'd taken a little shuffle with one foot, in a lunge to get to the next prop. This was actually two teetering little steps, one foot in front of another! I'm so excited I got to see his first steps afterall! Mike was in the room too, but unfortunately wasn't looking at the time. We tried to get him to repeat, and he did try, but it was more a step-lunge than a step-step.

Work is chugging along. Mike could be back to work sooner than we expected. Or not.

There's a strike vote underway. A tentative deal was struck, and the union advised the guys to vote yes. However, they did the whole thing very stupidly, which left a lot of guys feeling too angry at the union to accept it - including Mike. They put on a media blackout, which meant the guys wouldn't see the contract until minutes before the actual vote. Everyone was so happy they may be going back to work - the union said it was a good deal and everyone should be grateful for it. Then they saw the deal. It's not good.

So, things broke down a little. People started yelling, things were getting thrown, walls punched. And then, they went to the ballot box. I wonder how they voted. By the next day, a lot of them were regretting it, though. If the union had only shown it a day earlier, let them cool down a little before the voting, it would probably pass.

We're thinking it's still going to pass - the union wants it and they count the ballots in secret. I think you know where I'm going with that. The company seems sure it'll be a yes - Mike's pager has been re-activated. We'd prefer a yes - it comes with a $1,000 signing bonus, which we need more desparately than words can describe. We have bills out the wazoo and a trip just around the corner. It's not pretty.

One thing Mike is concerned about is a transfer clause. There is none in the contract. However, there was a letter sent out by the company stating that because they own Mike's company now, they have full transfer rights - in that they take internal applications before external, which will make it easier for him to move around in the company. True, it's not in the contract, but I'm not sure it has to be. I think it's more a company policy thing. Who knows.

John had his one-year check-up the other day. He' not growing terribly fast. He's only gained a few ounces since last time. The doc wasn't too concerned - said he's probably using that stored energy to go up, rather that out. He did get several inches taller- he's in the 97th percentile for height, and his head circumference is off the charts, which I'm assuming is a good sign. Only the 50th percentile for weight, though. Doc West said not to read too much into it, though. We'll check again in three months, and if he starts dropping off, he'll call in a pediatrician to assess him. Otherwise,it's just a phase where energy is going to other things.

The shots didn't go well. He was up all night screaming, and is screaming still. I guess it's to be expected - he's fighting offmeasles, mumps, chicken pox and meningitis, all at the same time. Hope it passes soon, though. He doesn't have a fever - he's just really crabby.

No hesitation here! Shortly after this, he discovered the cherries - and ate them all one by one! According to Mike, he had chocolate poop for days. Mike's doing great as a stay-at-home parent, by the way. He wants to do it again for the next one. He's changing dirty diapers, feeding, playing. I come home to them playing "boat" with tupperware bobbing in bins of water, or "fort" with sheets draped between chairs. The have Duplo days and reading days. They have lots of fun. They've definitely become closer for it - John used to only cuddle with me, which really hurt Mike's feelings. Now he'll cuddle up to either of us.