Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

Here are just a few things I've noticed most recently about how motherhood has changed me. The most significant ones I've blogged about back in October 2008 . When do you sleep? It's summer, around 8:30 pm and the neighbourhood kids are out playing in the road. I see them as I'm about to switch out the lights to go to sleep. A date with the hubby. My husband took a day off work so we can spend some time together, and what do we do? We went to the outlet mall. Now I've always been somewhat pragmatic, and it's not that I didn't have a good time, but if I think about it, the depths of my practicality is frankly staggering. Come to think of it, his too. Shoe shopping. My husband was looking for shoes. I went in with him into various shoe stores and...sat down. Yes, I didn't need any shoes, so I didn't even look. What a sad, sad state of affairs. Volume control. As time goes by, my normal speaking voice is getting louder and louder. Directly proporti

I was putting Lucas to bed last night and I noticed that Shark-Bait, the stuffed shark he sleeps with, wasn't in his bed. "Where's Shark-Bait?" He gave me a sheepish look and walked over to the desk in his room, opened the bottom drawer and pulled out Shark-Bait, then a few seconds later whipped out a stuffed dolphin from the same place. "Shark-Bait and Dolphin were on a date and they needed some privacy." He was completely serious. "A date??!" I can only imagine how ridiculous I must have looked and sounded, I was just totally stunned, not only that he knew the word, but he actually thought something about it. "What are they doing on a date?" "Well, you know, eating chocolate-covered strawberries and talking.." "Oohhh." How sweet, I'm thinking. The things he gets into his head. "So when did you decide that Shark-Bait and Dolphin should go on a date?" "About a week ago." What??! You've

I am not sure how many parents out there wonder or are even concerned if maybe, just maybe, they prefer one child over another, even just a little. I believe it is not uncommon for many parents to think about this when another child comes along, especially if there is sufficient spacing between them and the one before. I've found myself wondering about this, but I think a big part of the issue is that there is such a large gap between the older and the younger child (6 years). So while everything the baby does is in the "..isn't that sweet?" or "..isn't that amazing?!" category, everything my older child does these days falls into mischievous or thoughtless category. All the amazing things he does gets relegated to "..well I expect no less from you.." While the baby still wants cuddles and lots of loving, Lucas is less interested. I suspect a contributing factor is also that I spend a lot more time with the baby than I ever spent with Lucas

2-yr old: "Waaah..!" wail, bawl. 7-yr old: "I'm sorry..I didn't mean to hurt you." 5 minutes later. 2-yr old: "Waaah..!" wail, bawl. 7-yr old: "I'm sorry..are you ok?" Loop again 10 more times today. The boys walking hand-in-hand up the stairs. 2-yr old: "My water." 7-yr old: "No, my water." 2-yr old: "No! Mine!" 7-yr old: "No! My water!" And so on for another 5 minutes. 7-yr old: "Get off me! Get off me!" Various noises, "....Ow, Ow, Ow!" 7-yr old: "Waaah..!" wail, bawl. Mama needs to sign up big brother for more full-time summer camps. Hosted Mom's club ice-cream bash at our house. In the backyard. 28 moms with at least 1 child each. You do the Math. Yikes! Papa getting a big squeeze hug from 2-year old. 7-yr old getting a big, smoochy kiss goodnight from baby brother. Splashing in the pool with the boys. Priceless.

My family in Trinidad have Facebook accounts, so I decided to get one, to keep in touch. Well, what a time-sucker is all I'll say. It works great for pushing information outward to all your "friends" - a one-liner on your wall and they all see it, but it is very time-consuming when all your friends post something of their own on their walls which you see. I wish I could find a way to see only what my friends post and not the responses of their friends who I don't know! And I'm not even talking about the gifts, invitations and other miscellaneous things my friends send me. On the upside, I've reconnected with school buddies that I haven't spoken to in about 20 years!! I told one of my cousins that he has too much information on his (public) Facebook profile, to which he responded, "..and you have none". Well you see, it's because I have an IT background. I can only too easily imagine worst case scenarios (even my former corporate employer

And by colour I mean race. I am busy compiling a library for Lucas (poor Lucas) for when he gets older. One of the books I've picked which I loved, is the the second of a series, Dolphin Song by Lauren St. John . I read a review of this book, and the reviewer didn't give the book as good a rating as others did. One of his criticisms was that although the book was set in South Africa, the heroine was of European descent. "Would it have been so hard to make her African?" was his lament. It made me stop and wonder. I never really consider race when I read (unless that is part of the plot). When I was growing up, I went up in a Wishing Chair and had adventures, I solved mysteries and had adventures (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Famous Five, Secret Seven) I invented things and had adventures ( Tom Swift ). It didn't matter that the protagonists were Caucasian in all the books I read. When I read - it was me. Perhaps because it was my multi-racial environment, but it neve

Yes, we finally did it. I had visions of Liam clinging to my leg and screaming he didn't want to go to school - in Kindergarten! That and the fact that I felt I needed the time for me prompted the decision. He goes 2 days/week and started last month. The first day, my husband was very excited to have lunch with me, but needless to say I wasn't very good company. Every 2 seconds my eyes filled with tears. I had to remind Gunnar that Liam was my constant buddy and went with me everywhere for the last year. It was very hard to abandon him to daycare where they won't sing to him while changing him or kiss his toes like I do. It's taken me a month to get around to planning to do something with the time - I keep thinking (hoping?) that I'll have to bring him home. I tried to make the transition as smooth as possible for him (we were going to the school for a couple of weeks before he started), but he still cries when I leave. It takes me a good 1 1/2 hrs to stop potte