A rollercoaster kinda day...

 Today started out as any other day - don't they all?

We were running behind, I ended up driving all the kids to school, picked up friends and headed to drop Faith at preschool.

Today she actually cried when I left the room but I still left and figured she would be fine.  My mom was there to stay on site, so it should all be fine.

Went to the human resources office here to get Mr. Hockeys social insurance card replaced with only a passport and that was not good enough...they need to see the actual birth certificate.

So, we headed to our friends place for ladies breakfast.  I realized that I had left my cell in the van, but didn't go to get it, because really, who would be calling me?

Well, my mom called. 3 times. And I wasn't there to answer.  Faith had a seizure during preschool today. 

It happened just minutes after I left, and when I got there to pick her up, she was fast asleep on the couch in the common area.  She survived...without me.  They handled it fine, the teacher and my mom.  This is the first time that one of us has not been there for a significant seizure. 

And still.She survived...

Trying to piece this all together now, she had a seizure on Monday - after a rough night of sleep.  She had a seizure today - after a late bedtime and a rough night of sleep.  Both seizures happened between 9/930 in the morning.  Both were standing seizures.  1 was long and 1 was short.  1 needed ativan 1 did not.  I am seeing a few small patterns, and am thinking WONDERFUL...we have a ridiculously scheduled child. 

She is not going to be able to off her routine.  We are going to have to find a sitter who can watch her and put her to bed at night when there are events for the whole family.  We are going to have to adjust our lives...

Again...

Oh, and on the good news front Mr. Hockey started his first job tonight.  He is there for a few hours for training.  Then he starts tomorrow and works every Friday and Saturday. 

He is a dishwasher at a restaurant that is very close to our house.  He can walk there and we will pick him up afterwards (since it is late). 

The restaurant is sooo expensive that we would personally not venture there often.  It is one of those fancy places that you pay a lot for a little...

This is definitely a great step for him.  He wants to be a chef when he is older and this is a great place to get his foot in the door:-)  I am excited for him. 

Anyhow, that is my rollercoaster...the ups and downs. 

My life, and I love it:-)

Wordless Wednesday - My son in Romania

He will be home soon:-)

High School Course Selection

Mr. Hockey is in grade 9. It was a milestone, the first year of high school. Just this past week he did his course selection for next year.

He brought home the paper to have us sign it and he had to bring it back to school so they can plan for next year.

As I am reading down the list of subjects he picked I read:

Science
English
Health Education and Active Living (gym)
Geography
etc...

Then I read:
Career Stud

I question this course that he selected...I know it really is Career Studies - but come on. They can fit 5 words to say gym, but they can't add the "ies" to career stud.

Our dinner conversation that night consisted of this...

Me: (teasing) So, you are going to learn how to be a stud?
Dad: I could have taught him that;-)
Mr. Hockey: They meant career studIES they just couldn't fit it in
Me: But they fit all those other words in for gym, do you guys know what stud means (smiling)?
Princess: OH MY GOSH!!! He is going to learn THAT???
Me: What are you talking about?
Princess: Max (our old dog) was put out to stud!!
Me: (bursting into laughter!!) NO, That is NOT what it really means!!!
Princess: (Giggling:-)
Me: It means a "cool, good looking, popular guy!!
Everyone: Sigh of relief...

All this from course selection!!

Never Pet The Market Cat

This is my first guest post!! I enjoyed retelling this story...my son and one of his experiences in Guyana!!

Never Pet The Market Cat

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Lazy Dayz...Update from the poolside...

So, I have fallen off of the blogging train this summer...we have been enjoying the warm weather while it is here...it took a while for it to realize that it is supposed to be warm...

Our son, Mr. Hockey, has gone and come home from his trip t Guyana. He really enjoyed his time and is starting to save his money already to go back again. He has such a heart for the nations and people...he is definitely a servant.

Listening to his stories, and seeing his pictures really opened up our eyes and our other kids eyes. Princess has the countdown on for when she can go now...and she was hesitant before.

One of the bigger tasks they took on was helping to build a cement path and clean up and paint the outdoor washrooms at the church they went to help.

Mr. H learned a lesson in not touching market cats...this shot is the funniest I have seen...he definitely looks like he should be shouting "Adrian"...haha. He was just waking up in the morning...I guess next time we will send some allergy pills with him, as this cat allergy may be a bit bigger then we thought..

He also, obviously missed his sisters dearly, because he made sure to find a new sister in Guyana...he said she was so cute!!

He also said that they have the best food down there, and he is really going to miss that too. He said they make the best pancakes...one of the things he brought home for us was a tawa, it is like a cooking pan that sits right on the burner, there are no sides, it is just a flat pan...he asked me when I was going to learn to make roti...hm...I will have to find a recipe for that now. His least favourite meal was the rooster feet...

And he still took notice of how God's creation is evident, no matter where you are!!

We're Number 1!!!

Mr. Hockey played ball hockey this year again, at a local church. They have been running it for 5 years now and he has been there since the start. I think he has one more year left and then he is too old.

The first year he played, he wanted to be goalie, so we signed him up for that. He has a lot of heart and played hard, but let too many goals in. I believe that they did not win one game that first year. He smiled his way through it.

The next few years got better and better, the guy who ran it started setting up the teams after a skills day and it made for more even teams. Finally, I think it was 2 years ago, his team placed first. He was so excited, to go from last to first. He is also improving in his hockeying ability and keeping on the ball at all times (no longer a goalie).

This year, it just ended and believe it or not, his team came first again!! They each won a medal and Mr. Hockey was picked to receive the "Most Sportsmanlike Award". That is pretty impressive if you ask me. He always seemed to smile, and when he missed a goal, he smiled, and when he got penalties for slashing :-0, he smiled...

All in all he had a great season and is looking forward to returning for his final year next year. The church that runs it does an awesome job!!

It's been how long???

I have no idea where I left off last, I barely have time to get on here long enough to do more then check email and facebook now...

New things:

Faith started walking. She has only really done it one time, a few weeks ago, and every now and then she takes a few more steps. She seems to like to make sure she knows what she is doing, and will do it in her own timing. She also is scheduled to see the seizure clinic, at a hospital out of town in April. Until then, we continue praying against seizures and any ill effect from the hydrocephalus. We saw the ENT yesterday and apparently Faith has some negative pressure in her right ear, which may eventually lead to tubes. No biggie, we will go back in April to reassess her hearing again. We are heading to her eye appointment outta town soon too, and hopefully they will make some sort of decision then. It is hard to patch a 1 year old...she either pulls it off or falls asleep...and the therapists we are seeing are quite pleased with her progress. The OT is suggesting that we work with a brace for Faiths thumbs, until she learns how to use them properly...I had never even thought of something like that before. What we take for granted is truly amazing! I am thankful today that my thumbs work...I couldn't imagine not having them!!

Mr Hockey has been saving for the past few months for his missions trip. At first they were going to go to South Africa, but there has been a change in plans and instead they are heading to Guyana. They will be going with a great group and it sounds like they will have a great time. It is starting to hit me that I am sending him off so far away!! Oh my...now we have to prepare...passports, immunizations, all that fun stuff!!

We have totally fallen off our budget and are hoping to get back on by March. 1 small check really affected us a whole lot...we need to get out of that place now. We will be working on that this month.

I have started going to a TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) program and in the first week lost 3 pounds. I was the biggest loser!! I can't wait to see what I can lose for next week. I have been setting new goals each week, so last week my goal was to not eat any chips. I met that goal!! I haven't had chips now in over a week. This week my goal is no eating after 7pm. So, I turned down donuts tonight! I am hoping that these goals are habits that will be formed in my life. They are healthy and sensible. I think I will have some kind of walking goal I will start next week.

I also entered Faith into a baby photo contest. It is for the Live with Regis and Kelly show. I have really never entered my kids into anything. Too much work and anxiety associated with those things, but I did. We will see what happens the week of March 9...

I have also gone coupon crazy!! The last few receipts I have are along the lines of 7 items for $5. I find a thrill in that. We have been using coupons on items that are on sale, so that makes them even better! We have a movie coupon that we may use tomorrow or we will wait until April, but it does all add up, the savings.

We have started a Friday night cooking group...yeah, that is what I am going to call it. My sister and I were just going to make some soup to freeze, and another girl joined...this week I think we are going to make egg rolls, for $8 we will each have about 26 egg rolls...not bad. But, I think that there are around 5 of us now...or maybe. It is always more fun to cook with friends then it is by yourself (and cheaper).

Anyhow, I am gonna run now. Will post more when I get the chance.

Wordless Wednesday - The tooth fairy

Not really a wordless Wednesday...morning conversation...

Princess - Mom, the tooth fairy didn't come last night, you forgot to leave me money!!

Me - Sorry Princess, here's a looney...

Princess - Do you want my tooth?

Me - No, just throw it out...

Then later, when Mr. Hockey woke up and Princess told him...he said, I didn't get anything from the tooth fairy...so I handed him his looney too...

This is what the tooth fairy has resorted to in my house

I was the proudest mom last night!!

Last night was the AWANA awards night. It is over now, until September.

The kids went up in order...

First was Cutie Pie - She received her first book award,

Then was Princess, she received her first book award for T&T Girls AND....
then was publicly recognized, in front of everyone, for receiving an award that her leader has never handed out before. Princess had finished the whole book, all the silvers and golds (extra credit) AND memorized 32 backup verses to answer 4 questions and said them all in one sitting, without any help.

Mr. Hockey earned the Excellence award, for completing 2 of the T&T Boys books. It is also his last year in the program. He has been there since he was 5...Oh how time flies!!

Can you see why I was the proudest mom there??? I have awesome kids!!

Wordless Wednesday - Walking

What to do, oh what to do...

We just got back from the hospital audiology department. I took Mr. Hockey in for a test to see how his hearing was. We have always wondered if he had 'selective hearing', and being 11 who knows?

Well, no, he really does have a problem, he is really trying to listen to us, but needs us to be closer to him so he can hear us clearly. It is his left ear that seems to have the most problems. He is very congested and that means that his ear feels like it needs to 'pop', you know when you are in the mountains or on an airplane.

However, it is like this most of the time and we need to figure out why. The technician suggested that it be allergies and I said that he did have allergies to dogs, and we haven't had the heart to part with Snoopy. We didn't see that it affected him that much, so we were just going to deal with the reactions.

Now, if the reaction is the congestion, then that is affecting his hearing and it makes the situation a little bit more difficult to handle. This dog is by far the best behaved dog we have had and he fits in so well with our family. That is what makes this so hard. If I have to choose between my son hearing better and living a fuller life, then I have no problem parting with the beloved family pet. The rest of the family don't quite see it that way...I am the mean one here, but I guess there needs to be at least one mean parent...right?

I feel so bad, should we just go with medication (antihistamines) or actually get rid of the dog? How do we get rid of the dog and not make our son feel like it is all his fault? How do we get the other kids to deal with it well enough? Why don't they have a parents manual that we can read and know what to do all the time?????

Great News!!!

As per some testing yesterday, at the hospital with Mr. Hockey...we found out that...

He has a brain!!

He went for an EEG and it was pretty neat, all those wires and tape and such. I got to sit in the technicians room and watch the brain waves on the computer screen. Our brain is such an amazingly complex part of the body. It is stimulated by things as small as light, even when your eyes are closed and jus by opening and closing your eyes.

I haven't spoke much about this here and I still am not going to go into too much detail, because I still feel that some part of our lives has to belong solely to us, but we are doing some different testing with him jsut to make sure things are ok, more or less ruling out different possibilities.

There is really nothing wrong, so not to worry about that, it was just a neat test that we went to yesterday, and no one can ever tell him that he has no brain!!

Wordless Wednesday - My son's point of view

I am not so addicted!!

Wow, I haven't been here since Thursday!! That is quite a while, for me!!

Anyhow, there has been a lot going on. On Saturday I went to the homeschool conference and really enjoyed the sessions I went to. I went to one that dealt with toddlers and teaching older kids (you can never have too many suggestions on how to deal with this); the next one I went to was about motivating our kids to learn - hello...30point bathroom cleaning list, no, she really talked about the 5 love languages of our kids and how we need to really know what they are, then we can really encourage and motivate them; then we had lunch and I browsed the curriculum hall, then I went to the session on teaching reading with kids who learn 'differently' (I dislike the term disability...). I learned how a syllable works!! wow, I never knew there were that many rules involved in syllables but now I can read ANY word put in front of me; and the last one was how to teach and build better printing and handwriting. That is something that we totally fight with here, but I learned some pretty cool strategies on handling this...exercising the wrist, arm and shoulders, working on finger strength...there is so much more involved in priniting and writing then I thought!

Anyhow, it is always a fun day, I look forward to it every year. I bump into old friends, new friends and sometimes people that I don't expect to see there. It really is a nice way to break up the year.

We had church on Sunday then took the kids to see the ninja turtle movie. It was pretty good, but probably could have waited for dvd. Then we went shopping. The best time to go grocery shopping in my area is Sunday night around 6ish. The store was EMPTY!!

Yesterday we were back to homeschool group and I hung out in the nursery with the babies and moms. It is a light helping session for me, which is a nice way to end it all. The kids are working on plays and a huge choir for their performance day. I look forward to watching them perform at the end of the year, it is always interesting to see what they planned and wrote.

We got home and Cutie Pie had a friend over. We were busy doing some science stuff...

We made worms and snow...the kids had a blast.

I realized at some point during the day Pooky wasn't around and it was so quiet. Princess and I ran all over the house looking for her. We looked in every bedroom, under the beds...I was starting to worry that she had somehow gotten out the front door without us noticing...it has happened before...anyhow, we open Princess' room door and Pooky was sprawled out, fast asleep on her bed, with the Chuck E Cheese token cup and a calulator...wonder what she was trying to figure out...probably that she got gipped when we went and didn't get as many tokens as the big kids!?

Answered Prayers!!!

Today was our pediatrician appointment. We have been praying for a doctor who will work with us and we will be comfortable with.

Prayer answered. If anyone lives by me, and needs a pediatrician, ask me!!

She was such a nice person to talk to. Without going into too much detail, because our life still has to remain our own...she asked all the questions you could ever want to know about any one person. By the end of the visit we knew that Mr. Hockey has a very strong upper body, is growing right in line with what is normal and we have another appointment set up for one more test.

On Wednesday we go in for allergy testing on him as well. This is one test he is not looking forward to at all!! The dr. today wasn't sure if there was any concern for allergies, but I still want to cover my bases. So, that is where we are off to later on this week.

So, to whomever was praying with us, thanks for the prayers. They really were answered and I feel so at ease now with what is going on in our life.

Saturdays Ponderings

Today I headed out for a nice hike with Cheryl and a lady I met on SparkPeople. I have never actually met anyone that I knew online, so I told Cheryl she had to come with me!!

We had a really nice time, I had told the friend we met that I brought my friend, cause I wasn't sure about meeting someone from the web and she said that her husband told her that if she wasn't home by noon, he would call the police.

We hit it off and got along really well. We ended up walking 4 km and Cutie Pie walked almost 3 with us. It was a great way to start the day out, except that my right leg was really sore. I guess I have muscles in a part of my upper leg, that I didn't realize I had, cause I can't walk. I hobbled around for the rest of the day I have been in so much pain. I guess I should really stretch out before I walk like that. I just didn't think anything of stretching, cause we were just walking...oh well, lesson slearned for next time!!

Then when I got home we got ready to go to Mr. Hockey's ball hockey game. In the past 2 years of playing in this league, his teams had won a total of 1, you heard me right, 1 game. This year they are 2 for 2. He is so excited to win their first 2 games already.

Then we went shopping (oh how fun), then came home and made pizza and watched our "e" movie. We went to the video store and they did not have Ever After, so after some pondering and word scrambling we got Around the world in 80 days, but we called it "80 days around the world"! It was a very good movie, a bit slow in the beginning, but not too bad once it got moving.

Now I am exhausted, but it is unheard of for me to go to bed by this time, so I am not sure what I am going to do...hmmm...

Maybe we will watch another movie...