to persevere: parenting stories and other geekery

I normally don’t do email forwards, but I thought it would be fun to do this one:

FOUR THINGS ABOUT ME!!!!!
I’ll start this off, but it’s not about me, I want to know about you!

This one is a bit different from the rest. Four things about me that
you may or may not have known in no particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Music Library grunt
2. Lab Researcher
3. Recording Engineer
4. Worship Leader

Four movies I’ve watched more than once:
1. Citizen Kane
2. Independence Day
3. Finding Nemo
4. The Sound of Music

Four places I have lived:
1. Mississauga, ON
2. Willmar, MN
3. Toronto, ON
4. sorry, haven’t lived in 4 places

Four T. V. Shows that I watch:
1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Naruto Shippuuden
3. Lost
4. 30 Rock

Four places I have been:
1. Hong Kong
2. Australia
3. Romania
4. Hungary

People who e-mail me
1. Matt
2. Gizelle
3. Karina
4. Dean

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Loh Bak Goh
2. BBQ Ribs
3. Chocolate
4. Lamb

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. California
2. Barcelona
3. Galapagos Island

Things I am looking forward to this year:
1. Trip to Calgary sans kids
2. Summertime fun with kids
3. Improving my photography
4. Improving my electric guitar playing skills

Hit forward, delete my answers and type in Your answers. Then send
this to some people you know INCLUDING the person who sent
it to you. The Theory is that you will learn a lot of little known
facts about those who know you. Remember to send it back to the person
who sent it to you.

I want to hear back from you, if you want to reply in the comments, please do! Or trackback to this post, or email me at divine.conspiracy [at] gmail dot com. Whatever you do, in the words of a cucumber and tomato, “Remember, God made you special, and He loves you very much!”

Complaints:

The Linguist has been pestering, no, hounding me lately about the following issues:

1) When are we going to go to the Science Centre? We have a membership, so why don’t we go? We never get to go!
2) Why can’t I play outside by myself? All the big kids get to play outside without a grownup all the time! It’s not fair!

Hopefully we can spend some time when school is out to do the things she’s asking. Because in reality, I’d love to do them too, but because of the Comic’s need to nap in the afternoon, we have to do things in the morning. Which is when she has school. Catch-22.

Home Reno Update:

If you haven’t been following my twitter (why not?!) let me give you the quick update. We had finished the bathroom, but after using it for a week, discovered that we had a blocked pipe. And a leak. They were related, unsurprisingly. The water was backing up the drain pipe, reaching a level where during the previous kitchen renovation, the old pipe had been capped off. Needless to say, it was capped off improperly. So the decision was made to open up the walls again, and replace the whole drain pipe, down to the basement.

At the same time, we would try to snake the drain under the basement floor once we got the pipe cut down. This revealed that the pipe was so damaged by tree root infiltration, that it was actually collapsed, not just blocked. This meant that the drain had just been leeching into the ground, and not going to the sewer. Yuck.

So we had to excavate the basement floor, and replace a long section of pipe under the concrete. The carpet had to be pulled back, the bench removed, and a great big mess created. But in the end we had a new pipe, a clear running drain free of tree roots, and at this stage we’ve decided to redesign and eliminate the long bench to free up some much needed floor space to play. We’re also getting rid of the big blue monster couch that came with the house and has broken springs and we couldn’t be happier.

Summer can’t come soon enough:

All in time for summer holidays. We’ll be broke, but at least our home will be a little bit more settled down. It’s still surprising what home renovation will do to disrupt children and their behaviour. It shouldn’t be, but I think it’s because us grownups just deal with it and move on, but for the kids it’s a source of unknown change, unidentifiable and scary.

Actually scratch that. Us grownups get grumpy too.

Our darling 3 yo walked into the kitchen before dinner and announced that she “had put something in her nose at Poh-poh’s house today.” My wife was prepping dinner, and I was sleeping lying down on the couch.

DW: “You did? Oh-oh. You shouldn’t do that.”
the Comic: “I know.”
DW: “What did you put in?”
the Comic: “A screw.”

Something about the arc of this conversation wakes me. “Come here, honey,” I say.
The Comic dutifully trudges over to me. I look into her nose. Because I don’t have my glasses on, I’m not sure what I see there, but there seems to be a glint of something metal.
I am awake now.
I sit up and put on my glasses, and take a closer look. It’s a screw, still in my daughter’s nose. I can see the cross of the phillips head.
“Ok, honey, sit right here. Don’t move,” I instruct her, and bolt upstairs to look for a flashlight. “Honey, there’s a screw in her nose!” I call to my wife. “It’s still in there!” I’m trying not to let the panic that I feel in my heart escape into my voice.
I can’t find the flashlight.
Tweezers. We have tweezers, somewhere. I dash into the spare room to look through the bathroom supplies box. Grabbing the tweezers, I head back downstairs.
“Ok, honey, I’m going to try to get it out. You have to lie down, ok?”
The tweezer head is too wide. I can’t get it in.
My second attempt involves using my small electronics screwdriver set, which is magnetized, in the vain hope that it might stick on to the screw head and pull out. My daughter won’t have anything to do with it. Probably for the best, anyway. I might poke it in further, a big no no.
“Well, it looks like we’ll have to take her to emerg then,” I say to my wife.

Being the cool and collected medical person that she is, my wife suggested that we all eat dinner first, before she goes and takes the Comic to the hospital. Good idea.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“No,” the Comic says. I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt, since she’s had it in her nose since the afternoon.
“When did you put it in your nose?”
“At Poh-poh’s!”
“I know, I mean, was it before your nap, or after your nap?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Did you tell Poh-poh? Or Goong-goong?”
“I did tell Poh-poh.”
I don’t pursue my line of questioning further. Somehow I’m not sure that she really did tell anyone, because I think my mother in law would have a) told me about it when I picked them up or b) done something about it, like, oh, take her to the hospital.

After dinner, my wife packs up the Comic and takes her to the hospital. The Linguist, my 5 yo, stays with me and we play a game of Monopoly Jr., stay up much too late, and go to bed around 9PM.

I still haven’t heard anything yet. I can only assume they’re waiting, because you always wait when you go to emerg with something minor like this. I call my wife’s cell, but she doesn’t answer. No worries.

At 9:38PM she calls me back with the good news. It’s out, everything’s ok.

When they get home, I welcome them at the door.

“Is it out?” I ask my daughter.
“Yes,” she says, in a of-course-it’s-out-silly-daddy kind of way.
“Don’t do that again, OK?”
“I won’t,” says the Comic, “they threw it in the garbage!”

She’s totally not going to do that again. I know it.

postscript:
On the way home, my wife jokes with the Comic:
“We should have turned you upside down and gave you a shake before we went to the hospital!”
“Yeah!”

I just discovered, looking through this week’s Wal*Mart flyer, there is no PST (Provincial Sales Tax in Ontario) on bicycles. This new policy change came into effect on December 1st, 2007, and remains in effect until November 30th, 2008. It applies not just to bicycles, but also to accessories such as helmets, lights, reflectors, and more.

I’m surprised that the provincial government would do something cool like this, and I’m definitely going to benefit when I get the kids bikes this year. More bikes = staying active, less driving. I can get behind that.

I wanted to highlight a research foundation that I’ve been doing some work for at the studio, The Sanfilippo Children’s Research Foundation. Sanfilippo syndrome (also known as Mucopolysaccharidosis or MCP) is a genetic disorder that affects the body’s ability to break down sugars, resulting in a buildup of heparin sulfate in various organs in the body. It affects normal development, with wide ranging symptoms. Individuals with Sanfilippo syndrome usually live into their late teens.

Elisa Linton was diagnosed with the syndrome in 1999, and her parents Randall and Elisabeth decided they would dedicate their lives to raising awareness and funds to find a cure. To date, they have raised over three million dollars for research.

As a parent myself, it touched me deeply to hear of Elisa and her battle with MCP. It’s heart-wrenching to know that the disease doesn’t manifest itself until age two, and so amazing to see how Randall and Elisabeth have responded.

I had the privilege of working on a short video for the Foundation’s upcoming fundraising gala. When it’s finished, I hope to be able to share it here. As you can see, it’s a Dr. Seuss themed gala, and the video is the story of Elisa, told in the style of a Dr. Seuss story. The story was written by Tracy Keenan, and I recorded the voiceover in the studio. For the musical score, I was able to enlist the help of my colleague and friend Howard Baer, an amazing and talented composer, who agreed to orchestrate and score the video. Both he and I felt compelled to donate our time to this worthy cause.

To find out more about the foundation, please go to www.alifeforelisa.org, where you can find out more about Elisa, the foundation, and Sanfilippo Syndrome. Thanks!