Wednesday, January 24, 2007

It's One Thing After Another!!!

SATURDAY
On Saturday, we had to attend my cousin's 11th birthday party. It was a late night and the kids had woken up early that morning, and didn't take a nap. My grandmother is NOT the grandmotherly type if you KWIM -- has no clue how to play with kids since nannies took care of my dad and his siblings when they were small.

It's about 9:30pm, and we're waiting for them to bring out the birthday cake. My grandma is bored and starts to "play" with my YDD who is 3 years old -- by taking away her toys, poking her and generally just teasing her. We didn't say anything to my grandma since she is old, and that is just how she is -- though we did tell YDD to be nice since she was giving dirty looks and growling at her. Removing her from the situation doesn't help since my grandma would then follow her around to "play". I did say something to my grandma, but since I'm supposed to be a "NICE" Chinese girl, I couldn't really do too much. Finally after about 30 minutes, my daughter had had enough -- she stood up, pointed at my grandma and said "You talk too loud" (grandma is going deaf and thus, tends to talk really loud). We all started laughing, including my grandma -- she secretly loves when someone stands up to her since not very many people do.

Anyways, my aunt (my dad's older sis who has NEVER been married or been around kids) starts freaking out about how disrespectful my daughter is and how we should discipline her, etc. My DH got upset and said that it's not about disrespect, but about standing up for herself. This really got my aunt angry -- I don't get it -- my daughters always greet their elders by name, they always say good-bye and give a hug & kiss, they always say thank-you and please -- and when they don't, we remind them and they always repeat it. They are ONLY 3 and 5!! It was utter chaos!! My grandma, my DH and I were all talking VERY loudly to my aunt -- which was a good 10-15 minutes of VERY loud arguing which took my mom, sis and BIL to break up. I mean, my grandma wasn't even offended -- she found it funny and even yelled at my aunt by saying "what is the big deal? She's only a child -- they don't know how to be rude (on purpose), etc.".

So anyways, this means that I won't be spending Chinese New Year with the family. It's very bad luck to say anything bad/negative on that day and I know my aunt will start something -- she's weird that way. And my mom and other relatives would be so unhappy if any arguing happened that day. I already feel bad that we ruined the birthday celebrations of my cousin (on my mom's side) since celebrations follow the same negative/bad rule.


SUNDAY
We had a guy come give us an estimate on painting the trim on our house and we got a quote of $2000+!!! Just for trim!!! If we wanted th entire house painted, it would be $4500+!!! Our house is very small, less than 1800 square feet!!

Guess we'll be getting a second opinion.


TUESDAY
My ODD had to see a pediatric dentist today. She has 6 cavities and when we took her to her regular dentist a few weeks ago, she refused to get her fillings done (after the 3rd shot, she clammed up, screamed and refused to get the treatment). So, she is going to the dentist I went to when I was a kid!! Weird isn't it?

Anyways, they did a consultation and it turns out that there is more work than anticipated. The believe that she will need about 6 crowns and tons of little fillings. It turns out that one of her front teeth is abcessed and has to be removed. She will need to go to Cambie Hosital, be put under and they will do all the work at once. Talk about expensive. They gave me a handout today and it costs $369/hour at the hospital and this is all BEFORE the dental work. I shudder to think about the final bill....

However, if it has to get done, it has to get done. Not much we can do about it. It's just frustrating as she rarely eats sweets and brushes her teeth after if she does. Drinks juice once per day with a meal. Brushes regularly and flosses every night. The dentist told us that she probably just has weak enamel and that there isn't much we can do about it.

Oh, and it turns out that she may be missing the two teeth besides her top middle two -- it could be late but most likely is missing. Apparently it happens and is apparently heriditary though I don't know anyone in the family who is missing them...so this may need ortho work later on....

ACK!!! Oh well, tomorrow is a brand new day!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Goals for 2007

Okay, I guess it's time for New Year resolutions event though it's been about 2 weeks later than I should've sat down to write this.

Personal:
  1. Be more active and fit.
  2. Date Wil more on a romantic setting rather than just trips to Costco for a hotdog prior to grocery shopping.
  3. Eat healthier -- bye-bye Costco hotdogs!! : )
  4. Spend more quality time with the girls -- they won't be small for long.
  5. Be more organized -- my room and computer areas look like a tornado hit them.
  6. Be better with money - shop less!
  7. Be more patient.
Scrapbooking:
  1. Do more - try to scrapbook at least 3 times a week.
  2. Do more multi-page and multi-picture layouts.
  3. Use up my stash -- buy less, hoard less.
  4. Be more adventurous - use colors/embellies and things that I would ordinarily not try -- at least once. How do I know if I can do it if I don't try?
  5. Make gift albums for the parents for Christmas this year!

Whew...let's see if this works. So far today I have NOT spent any money!!! Though it will be hard with Remember Me having their sale this weekend...

Sunday, January 14, 2007

The most embarrassing day of my life...

was this past Friday. I kept both kids home from school (as a unofficial professional day) and took them to Brentwood mall to spend a quiet few hours together. Everything was great until lunch which was at McDonald's. Since the youngest didn't finish her cheeseburger, she was not allowed to have any fries which caused her to blow up! She screamed and threw a royal fit -- including wailing, crying and hopping up and down! I told her that this behaviour was not acceptable and that we would now have to go home. She then crossed her arms and refused to let me put on her jacket.

EVERYONE was staring at us, and looking towards the sound of the screaming!! I walked away with the oldest in tow, and the youngest screaming her guts out, trailing behind us. We walked from one end of the mall to virtually the other end -- and she was the type of nightmare child that you sometimes see and wonder why the parents can't discipline their child! Finally she stopped -- only because she thought I would leave her behind since I told her that she was not going to go outside without a jacket and that I was leaving.

I couldn't figure out why she was behaving so terribly until a bit later when I realized she had a fever! I forgot that she had gotten the flu shot the night before, and I guessed it changed her behaviour somewhat -- this is the second time she's ever done that to me, and that was a year ago when she had gotten shots then too!

Talk about kids managing to embarrass their parents!

Monday, January 01, 2007

A Day in the Life of a Shopaholic

Happy New Year Everyone!

To celebrate the New Year (sort of), my friend Cathy and I went down to Bellingham to shop. Talk about luck! We made it through the border virtually with no wait (one car in front of us), and even had time to stop off at Barnes and Noble for a coffee and a yummy chocolate molten cake for breakfast before the stores opened!

Then we went to Treasury of Memories and shopped for 2 hours at their annual sale. I only ended up buying 2 mini book kits, some paper, and a 7 Gyspies stamp. My friend bought a gorgeous green ultrasuede mimi bag along with some paper and other supplies.

This put us at around noon, so we then headed off to Stampadoodle for their big New Year's Day sale -- everything in the store was 25% off. I ended up with a ton of ribbon, some princess charms, ink pad/cleaner and Stickles. We were there for about an hour and a half and then went next door to Paper Zone. They have lots of great stuff, though there wasn't a sale. We did check out their clearance area and got some great deals. Cathy bought this package of KI ribbon, regular price $12 -- we thought it was 50% off but it ended up being $1.75!!! I think this was the best deal of the day! I ended up with an assortment of paper -- from $0.17 - 0.56 each, some Doodlebug ribbon for $0.50 each and Making Memories "heidi" rub-ons for $3.00 each!!

So we finally ended up at Bellis Fair for a very late lunch. Checked out Target but they didn't have anything in terms of scrapbooking products. So we headed home. Again, luck was on our side...made it through with no line-up...and the customs guy was nice and let us through without hassle...YAY!

Thanks to Cathy for getting us there and back safely (YAY!! No more fears!!)

Can't wait...we'll be heading down again on the 13th to Treasury of Memories as Karen Russell will be teaching some classes.

As well, we'll be heading off to Sonja's place this coming Saturday for some scrapbooking fun! She always has such fantastic layouts for us to scraplift!

Thank goodness there are things to look forward to...I'm heading back to work again tomorrow (after a 2 week break), and am STILL trying to re-organize my scraproom. At least I can see the floor now!