Gamezgirl's Institution

The essential tools of parenting

gamezgirl — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:09:38 +0000

So when you bring a baby home, people are very helpful with information about the essentials that you will need for life with baby. When the child gets a little older, the child will tell you most of what it requires wants. What I have discovered is the one tool that you will use almost from the day your child comes home and for the rest of that childs life in your home is one that no one tells you about…until now. I will now prepare you, are you ready? It’s a phillips screwdriver. Every darn toy, music thing, gadget and battery operated doodad that the child will ever own, requires a phillips screwdriver to either open it, assemble it, replace the batteries or pry it out of wherever the child has stuffed it. No one told me this. Thankfully my husband is a tool tart and has about 100 of said screwdriver so there is usually one that I can find at any given time. Now you are prepared to be a parent. Go forth and multiply.

Plow Stalking

gamezgirl — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:00:14 +0000

So it’s almost 1:30 am, we are all still sick, we should have left for South Carolina a day and a half ago and we haven’t started packing yet…so what am I doing? I just came in from a stalking mission. I went out stalking snow plows. Our driveway has been neglected because of us all being sick and the stupid snowblower not working properly so as my neighbor so kindly stated “your driveway is a disaster”. Gee thanks Tony. But sadly he is right, packed ice and snow, ruts and drifts…it is a challenge not to get stuck coming and going on a daily basis. So, I decided that none of us have the energy or time to fix the mess and we needed a plow. Tonight there is a light snow falling so at midnight, I headed out to the best place I could think to find a plow…Tim Hortons!! Sure enough there was one and he was actually working so that was a bonus (many companies here have a rep for taking your money and then never showing up) I stopped him, asked him if he could help me and he gave me his bosses number. I called Dan from Ritchie’s snow removal and 1/2 an hour later he pulled into my driveway. I had finished digging the vehicles out from under the snow and was shovelling the walk and Dan’s assistant jumped out of the truck, told me to put my shovel away and grabbed his own shovel to do the walk and step while the boss did my driveway. BONUS!! So 10 minutes and $40 later, my driveway is scraped down from the front of the house to the road, and my walkway and the step are done too! (For those of you who don’t know, I have a big driveway, the part they cleared will hold at least 6 or 8 cars) I am a happy camper, and I hope Tony complains about the noise of the plow tomorrow…ppbblltttt! LOL

Impending Vacation

gamezgirl — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:05:03 +0000

First off I will say that I haven’t forgotten to blog since New Years, I was simply adhering to a lesson that Mom taught me. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all….so I didn’t. I was just particularly cranky at everyone and everything and although mildly entertaining at first, it would likely get boring very quickly. I spared you the grief.

And now onto bigger and brighter things….if we are lucky. Bear with me, this a really long post…

It seems that the vacation Gods have not really been all that keen on getting things rolling smoothly for us. The heater resistor block failed on my van so the fan only runs on high..can you imagine that for 18 hrs? And then Amy’s door stopped working, another minor inconvenience but when you are alone in minus–holy-hell- degree weather with three little ones to haul in and out of the van, that little inconvenience turns into a real pisser. Then Amy and Nick both get really sick with what I think is a sinus cold… a couple of days pass and I finally take them to the doctor. Surprise! It’s pink-eye! HIGHLY contagious and extremely painful. The doc said that Nick has the worst case she has ever seen. Great, I feel like an ass for neglecting it thinking it was a cold. So now, Nick has an ear infection and pink-eye, Amy has pink-eye and a cold, the baby has an ear infection and a cold and I have pink-eye and a cold. So far Phil just has a cold. Do you know how much fun it is to give eye drops to two unwilling toddlers twice a day for 7 days? Ugh. Thankfully Nick takes the oral antibiotics without so much fighting.

Next, we paid Canada Post a small fortune to deliver the money order as payment for our rental condo in South Carolina. The person at the postal outlet told Phil that the payment would be in Michigan at the condo office in three business days. That meant it would be delivered Monday. Tuesday night no delivery so I started calling Canada Post. They told me that it was NOT three days, that would have cost $50 but it would be there in 5, so by Wed. Thursday am, still no delivery, I’m freaking out because we are supposed to be leaving Saturday on our trip. Phil called CP again, the agent tells him that it is stuck at Customs. They would have someone call us within 24 hrs. I didn’t like the lack of info so I called them back. The next agent says that they have no way of knowing where it is. Now i’m mad and can’t wait to talk to the agent who calls us. Well that night, the real estate people email and say that they got the letter, it has been damaged and opened. She wanted to verify the info for the money order because she is concerned that it has been switched and someone put in a fake. Lovely. She calls the 1-800 number on the money order for info, they won’t tell her anything on the phone so she goes to her bank. They are also suspicious. Now, where we stand is that she deposited the order and we will wait and see if it clears. 3-5 business days which eats into our rental time by ahh…let’s see…3-5 days! Thankfully the owners have still sent us the directions and lock box info for the condo, we will just have to wait until the draft clears for our ID cards and parking tag. Blah.

Today, one last checkup with the kids to see that things are getting better…baby is good, Nick still has pink-eye so keep up the drops and if needed continue past 7 days at our discretion, now, the Dr says AMY has an ear infection. Shit. Oh yeah did I mention that Nick was supposed to have a vaccination todaybut the pharmacist wouldn’t give it to us even though we had a prescription. He insisted on talking to Nick when he phoned. I tried to tell him that Nick is only 2.5 but apparently you don’t need to speak or understand english to hand out drugs. The doc gave us a new prescription to take to another pharmacy and now we go back Monday at 9am.

After the doctors, we headed an hr out of town to a friends garage to get the van issues taken care of. He was mad at a car he was working on so he ignored us for 45 mins while he worked on it. We finally got in, he fixed the door and 3.5 hrs later, we came home. The door worked once, now it is broken again. F*$K!!

I’m tired of my own complaining…I’m not even going to write about all of the other stuff. Needless to say, we aren’t leaving until Monday the 19th, that is the day we are supposed to arrive in Hilton Head…ugh. I need to get some sleep, it’s 2 am and we have to leave for a funeral in Kingston at 8…

P.S. Phil came out at bedtime, his eye is red and oozing…he’s got the pink-eye now.

Happy New Year!! and wierdness on FOX television

gamezgirl — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:34:24 +0000

So tonight was supposed to be a quiet type family New Years Eve at our house. It turned out to be even more quiet than I expected. EVERYONE was sleeping but me. Now I expected the kids to be asleep, but I did kinda think that Phil would be awake. Nope, he was dozing on he couch and got up and went to bed at 11:50pm. Gee, thanks Honey. Nick got up for cereal at 11pm but he went back to bed with Phil. Oh well, I wandered through the house, kissed everyone and took pictures of them all sleeping so I could remember this raucous event and came back to watch Robbie Knievel jump some volcano fountain thing in Vegas on TV. They ramped the segment up with all the typical chatter about how dangerous it is *ooohhhhhh shudder* Now yes, I will admit that it is dangerous but holy cow they (FOX) laid it on thick. They had a whole segment complete with computer anmation of all that could go wrong. I got to see Robbie fly through the volcano and burst into flames as the pyrotechnicians prematurlely ignited the volcano, got to see him crash on the landing and the best was when he fell into the volcano which as the announcer gravely stated would “result in an agonizing death” Good grief. I need to go to a party next year, this is just too exciting for me. *yawn* By the way, he made the jump…woot woot, now shut up Robbie, NO ONE that has so little to talk about needs to be interviewed 10 times in 15 minutes. Wow, I sound cranky, I’m not really, it just sounds that way HONEST! Now off to bed.

New Years Resolution

gamezgirl — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:17:17 +0000

Ok, so attempt #4…I’m going to try this again. I feel like blogging is kind of like a diet or exercise…I keep falling off the wagon, before it even gets rolling. I guess I just have to make the effort and eventually it will become routine. I look back at the very small handful of posts I have made and I entertain myself. I want to entertain me even more…

The things a daddy will do

gamezgirl — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:08:45 +0000

So further to last night’s post, here are the pictures I took. Poor Phil, I had no idea how big that darned pool was or how many inflatabe parts and accessories it had with it…I wonder if he really is that nice or if he is just manuevering for a really great Father’s Day gift? He he he

One of those wierd moments…

gamezgirl — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:31:09 +0000

Ok, so I was reading about beekeeping (thanks Gord) and I heard a thump and the cat ran by me. The following conversation took place between my husband and I

me “What did you do to the cat Phil?”
him “I was trying to scare him with the robot”
me ” Why did he fall over?” (the robosapian)
phil “Harold tripped him”

And I accepted this and went back to reading. A few minutes passed and I started to giggle. I suddenly realized that 3 years ago, this conversation never would have happened. Yes, Phil would still try to terrorize the cats, it’s how he shows his love, but Harold the helicopter (from Thomas the Tank Engine) and the robosapian would never had met and the robot would not have tripped over him. I turned around to look at Phil and he is in the middle of the floor blowing up a giant kiddie pool (putting his surplus hot air to good use) Just as the pool was fully inflated, it bumped into the kids Little Tykes kitchen and the kettle started to beep makes it’s boiling sound. Now maybe it’s just me being delerious at the end of a very long day but this is all hilarious. I grabbed my camera to capture the moment and the photo is just as priceless, there is Phil, the pool, the robot and as the finishing touch, a giant monkey making faces in the rocking chair…Ok I’m going to bed now before this gets any more odd…I’ll post a picture tomorrow…or in 6 months when I remember to blog again…

My son needs a laptimer…

gamezgirl — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:59:07 +0000

Ok so why is it that a child (well, mine at least) will run laps around ANYTHING!?! I just looked at Nick who will be 2 in April and he all of a sudden decided to run laps around a pile of train parts that he disassembled from the train table. As soon as Amy saw him, she dropped everything and joined in. I kid you not, if you are bored, try it, take something, put it in the middle of the floor, my kids will run around it. They run around dirty laundry, toys, cars in the parking lot, shoes, me…It’s kind of funny. And you know, come to think of it, they only turn left…hmmm maybe all that Nascar I watch IS having an influence, maybe all this practice turning left will end up in a big money sponsorship and a Nascar championship some day! Who knows?

Now this may not be my most insightful or thought provoking post, but it was on my mind when I sat down to the computer…so there you have it.

Mickey is a genius

gamezgirl — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:18:43 +0000

So, I don’t know how he does it, but it must be mouse crack. How can one rodent make so any folks take leave of their sanity and toss wallets and credit cards into the air with reckless abandon? I admit, I tend to be a bit of a free spirit when it comes to stuff that make my cool meter ping, and I have been known to spend a dollar or two on things that MAY not have been necesary, but take one look at Disney and suddenly I’m not alone. $28 per person for lunch with the Princesses, anywhere from $82.00 to over $2000 per night to stay at a resort (yes, I did say $2K PER NIGHT and I did not forget any decimal points) $40 to $200 at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique to give a 3 yr old a Princess makeover? Suddenly the $4.00 hotdogs and $9.00 chicken fingers sound good don’t they?
In spite of the potential for costs to run wild and financial futures to be destroyed, we managed a spectacular familly vacation at the Disney Parks in Orlando ON A BUDGET!!

So many things I could write about and share here..it will take more than one post to go through them all but we have had so many people asking for details that I shall do my best over the next little while to share our experience in a somewhat orderly fashion. (Why start being orderly now? Hmmm…I don’t know)

So about the spending money with reckless abandon, I have to get off the computer before I slip and order a Disney movie of our vacation photos for $74.95… Gotta love the mouse!

Ok, so here it is a year later…in case you haven’t figured it out, I had the best of intentions at the time but currently no plans to finish the post here about how our trip went. I left it too long ago…but if you want any Disney tips, I’d be happy to help, just message me.

Here we go

gamezgirl — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 03:27:47 +0000

So, I started a blog a year ago, then I abandoned it. I renewed my interest about 8 months ago but that effort was also short lived. Tonight, I get puked on and here we go again. What does puke have to do with blogging? Nothing unless you are talking to my cousin Gord, then somehow the discussion of chunky toddler puke with noodles and odour turns into a new blog. Who knew?