Remember Sophie's waldorf doll that I was making her for a Christmas gift? Yeah, well I never finished it. But.... I did finish it in time for her birthday tomorrow (yes, my baby will be one tomorrow!! *sniff*).
All I can say about making a waldorf doll is this: don't do it! It's so hard, especially because I foolishly expected it to look like the ones you see online or in waldorf shops. Next time (for Parker's birthday I think) I'll be buying a doll instead of making it again. I'll never complain again about the dolls costing up to $125 as well handmade ones from all natural materials are so worth it. :)

(I had a better picture but the server rejected it. I'll upload a better one later on... gotta go to Parker's dr's appt about whether or not he needs a cast!).

And on the flip side....

... Sophie has taken her first steps!

Picture to come soon!

Screw you 2011!

Well, as Parker's mom I say that. The poor guy caught a nasty cold that hung around for over a week. Then on Sunday we were preparing for Dave's birthday dinner and Parker was climbing the furniture as usual. Only this time he landed funny and hasn't been able to walk since. He screamed everytime pressure was put on it so I took him to the walk in (which luckily we got in right away) but Parker wasn't very comfortable with the doctor who was invading his space and he started to become very upset. Parker was able to stand at the doctor's office but I think that's just because he was so upset with the doctor he wasn't paying attention to how his foot was feeling. After 2.5 days he still couldn't walk on it so we took him to see our regular family doctor who was much more respectful of Parker's space. The doctor wasn't able to see anything wrong but it was obvious that Parker was in pain so we were sent for an x-ray where we learned that Parker has a tiny fracture called a toddler fracture in his foot. We have a follow up appointment with our family doctor on Friday and then we'll see if Parker needs a cast. :(
And then in the middle of all that I noticed Parker's front tooth was a light grey colour! A few weeks ago Parker hopped in the shower with me and fell, hitting his mouth on the rim of the tub. He cried for a long time and was in pain but there was very little blood and his teeth looked okay so we didn't worry. Now he gets to possibly have a baby root canal to fix it.
Again, screw you 2011!

Goodbye Facebook

I'm making changes in my life to be more present in the moment.

Cable was first, facebook was next.

For my facebook friends that read my blog: no, I didn't block you... :) If you need to reach me, you can through my blog or through email: kim@plakoeis.com or westcoastgirlie@hotmail.com. 

Breaking up is hard to do!

Never had that phrase been truer than when dealing with Shaw Cable.

For most of my adult life, I never had cable. Most of the times it was due to finances but I look back on those years as quite relaxed. Most nights were spent reading but since moving in with my husband who is the biggest tv and movie junkie, I barely read. I don't really watch tv even though as soon as dinner is finished it's on until we go to bed. Usualy I do some crafting or flip through a magazine or if I can't handle the noise anymore, I go on the computer. I'm alot like Parker in that I get overwhelmed when there's too much noise going on. And having television turned on in the house makes it so that I spend most of my evenings overwhelmed with noise.

So.... yesterday we cancelled our cable! I've been talking to Dave about it since this summer but there's some shows on tv that he really enjoys and would miss so we kept putting it off. I found a way for Dave to watch these shows online and also now the dvd series of the shows come out just a few short months after the season ends on tv. Yesterday they cancelled our video on demand and on Wednesday they'll come pick up the cable box and cancel the basic cable. I was on the phone with the woman at Shaw for 20 minutes explaining why we are choosing to cancel our cable. She tried to give us all the best deals, even had it pared down to paying just $10 per month. When she heard the kids in the background she wondered what they would watch. Upon saying "nothing", she asked several times if we were sure we didn't even want the "educational" channels and tried to tell me how to still have cable but limit the amount of time spent in front. *sigh*

Not only is this saving us quite a bit of money each month (I think we're saving $65 per month not havig cable but keeping internet and phone) but I'm really hoping this helps us become a more engaged family, reduces stress and allows Dave and I to spend more quality time together.

Toddler Watercolour Art Project

Parker and I spent part of our rainy afternoon yesterday creating a hanging piece of art. A few nights ago I was reading Rhythm of the Home and came across a neat art idea.

So I mixed up some watercolours and prepped a painting space for him and away we went! He had a hard time with the scotch tape (had I used masking or painter's tape as suggested it would have been fine) so I laid the tape down. The rest was all him:

Living (and loving) on One Income

This past year has been the first time in my adult life that I've not brought in an income of some sort. As of last year we are officially a one income family and you know what? It's doable!
When I got denied EI maternity benefits last year just weeks before Sophie's birth, we were in a panic and didn't think we'd survive a few weeks without my income. It really is a shock to the system to go from expecting and having two incomes to just one instantly. No savings to stretch out, no nothing. I was totally one of those people that thought living off of two incomes was a must in our society. I cried when I "had" to return to work after Parker was born, thinking in order for our family to survive Parker must be in daycare and I must work (I was at least fortunate that Parker was able to come to work with me). And when we got that phone call, I cried even more and thought our family was doomed. After all, how does a family of 5 survive on one income? Income coming from a self-employed newish business at that!
We made changes in our spending. We learned as we went along. We made mistakes (many many mistakes) along the way. Heck, we're still learning and making mistakes but we're now confident in our choice for me to stay home with our children until they're older.
So now when I hear other parents complain that they can't possibly survive off one income and how they sob when they drop their babies off at daycare each day (I was there!!) thinking they "have" to work and they don't have a choice, I want to shake them and let them know it's possible. If we can do it, then trust me any family out there can do it too!
The biggest deciding factor for us was when we calculated how much childcare would cost and how much money I'd be bringing in. I think we worked it out to be about $400 per month that working full time would bring in. And that's not counting transportation costs, food for lunches (at home we eat leftovers from the previous night's dinner), work clothes. Financially it just wasn't worth it for us. Was being away from my children for 9 or more hours per day really worth a few hundred dollars?
There's many other changes we made too that I'll post about in upcoming posts, so stay tuned!