Croup Be Gone

Sometimes as I struggle with the whole single parenting thing, I really do have reason to believe there's someone looking after me. Balancing the whole executive career thing with child in general is tough, but toss in some travel requirements and unexpected long days and watch those multitasking/organizational skills blossom. However, stuff generally tends to work out. Earlier this week, I was in New York on business, followed by Toronto. I knew that Makeda had acquired a bad cold while I was away, but there seemed to be nothing significant about it. I took an early flight back from Toronto so I would get home before she went to bed, Tuesday night. I arrived home at about 7:00pm and unfortunately, due to the cold, she had passed out early. I logged onto the computer at home, baby monitor at hand. By about 7:30, something didn't seem right with the noise I was hearing. I grabbed her out of the crib and it was obvious she was having some trouble breathing. Off to emergency we go. Breathing difficulties come and go - as long as I keep her sitting up, she mostly does ok. Five hours later, finally get a doctor. Diagnosed with croup ("oops" says the doctor, she should have been fasttracked, I wonder why the nurses didn't do that). Moments later, on steroids, no oxygen required yet but she's not allowed to leave. Five more hours later, allowed to go back home. By now it's 5am. Write off the remainder of the day (which, unbelievably, only consisted of 2 hours of easy to ditch meetings - an absolute rarity these days) while I hover over her as she sleeps most of the day. The cough starts. I know it hurts her. She sounds like a little seal, but there's nothing I can give her, other than some children's tylenol. Slow, steady recovery with that ever-constant smile on her face. By today, she was almost completely recovered, which is apparently just going to happen in time for my Wednesday flight to Portland for a conference. See? It's magic.

And did I mention she managed to keep that smile on her face? Here's today's photo op.

Breaking the Bank

Let me first say that, since I didn't buy anything for myself, I count that as staying within my allotted $0 budget. I also have to correct the popular misconception that there's some sort of recession going on down in the States. Having seen Wall Street up close and personal, and having witnessed the dearth of sales in SoHo and Midtown, I can attest that apparently all is well and good in the U.S of A. Seriously - 2 hours in Bergdorf's and we walked out without a thing. Although in that particular store, it wasn't the lack of a sale, it was bearing witness to the carnage left behind from several thousand post-Christmas shoppers who had picked the place clean.

Deigning to leave town empty-handed, I trotted over to (mmmmm) Tiffany's. I think I could be a Tiffany girl with a little practice if only I could find a walking wallet to call my own. Until that day (and he) arrives, I unfortunately must continue, for the most part, to windowshop. But not entirely. Ever since Makeda arrived, I've been thinking about what kind of trinket I'd like to pass on to her. And I finally decided. Meet the Tiffany charm bracelet, together with charm #1, a cupcake for my cupcake. I'm going to add one charm each year as a stocking stuffer, hopefully finding a charm that represents something special or otherwise representative of that past year. The idea will be that she can take custody of something that I hope will reflect her life (so far) with me, when she turns Sweet 16. I also hope to start the same tradition when her little sister arrives on the scene. I guess that means I'm not quitting my day job any time soon.

New York City on a Shoestring Budget

Tomorrow a.m. I leave for New Yawk City. This is not a boondoggle - it is a legitimate biz trip. It does, however, involve a work colleague from the Centre of the Universe who enjoys her shoes as much as I do. So, I anticipate being able to shop vicariously through her on Sunday, before our meetings start on Monday. Why vicariously, you ask? How is it that I, professional shoe shopper, could possibly satisfy my "urges" tagging along behind somebody else? Put quite simply, plumbing. Not mine, personally, but plumbing that I own and must now repair. $5000 worth in fact. That's just the start. Inadequate drainage systems not only create flood opportunities, but apparently also cause the wooden aspects of 1926 structures to, you guessed it, rot. Ergo, major infrastructure upgrades over the next few months. Let's say $10,000 or so to start to plug the dyke (this is really all starting to sound quite rude, isn't it?) with sky's the limit potential from there.

Anyway, back to New Yawk. I need cheap things to do. Asap actually, since my flight leaves tomorrow. I'll try and coax Eleanor into paying for my street vendor hotdog, but I also need cheap entertainment. I'm staying in the Financial District where I suppose I could gaze for awhile at the tanks and machine guns surrounding the Stock Exchange premises, but that will grow old pretty quick. So, all suggestions welcome. In the meantime, enjoy these - we've been blanketed in fog for the last 19 days. It finally lifted this afternoon. These are a couple of pics of the city taken while we were fogged in.

Math Sucks

This morning, the bike dude came to take my toy away for the winter. As I waved good-bye, I recalled the day, several months ago, when nasty auntie judy was with me in the garage, watching as she rolled a finger lightly over the seat of the ducati, looked at me with a sly little smile and said "hmmm, lookin' a little dusty". So I thought I'd undertake a cost/benefit analysis relating to the merits of my little hobby, with the following results:

Kilometres rung up during 2008 riding season: approx 500 km
Cost to store and insure during 2007 offseason: approx $600
Cost to insure during 2008 riding season: approx $600
Depreciation incurred during 2008 riding season: approx $2000
Fuel: inconsequential

Cost per kilometre: $6.40

Size of the smile on face during every one of those kilometres...

PRICELESS!!!

still not selling it




Don't worry baby, I'll see you in the spring! Mama loves you! Stay warm!

I've Got the Golden Ticket

As you surely must know, Vancouver is hosting the 2010 winter olympic games. Since the tickets were anticipated to be in high demand, a lottery system was developed where you could request event tickets on-line. If your name was drawn, your Visa would instantly be charged an exhorbitant fee, and at some later date you would be notified by email that you'd won something. Of course, you had to do a secret log-in to find out what exactly you'd won. And of course, said website promptly went down for some period of time as 100,000 people tried to access it simultaneously. Eventually, I got sick of trying to log in to see whether I'd won any of my ticket choices. I have a "go big or go home" philosophy, so I only put myself in the draw for women's and men's gold medal hockey. Plus, I figured that if I elected to skip the whole debacle and rent my house out for that two weeks whilst escaping to a warmer clime, a furnished house WITH gold medal game tickets might just be enough to get me to the Bahamas.

Anyhoo, today I tried once again to log in, and this time, with the other 100,000 applicants having now completed their own logins, I finally succeeded. An' guess whoze goin' (with the bff of her choice) to see .....

THE WIMMENFOLK!!! Best seats in the house! I am either in for so much fun, or so much money. la la la. HOW many bff's do i have? Probably a whole separate lottery worth.

Doin' my happy dance.

Belated Christmas Pics

Yes, Santa stopped here

This stocking was too heavy to be hung with care


Required mama reading


Oh the noise we will make!

Christmas pj's

With Tessie and favorite toy, the remote control

Dinner at the grandparents

First taste of pumpkin pie

With gramma

xox hope everyone had a merry christmas!!

You WILL Pay Attention to Me. I Am Your Mother.

There has always been a Christmas tradition at my house that the children are read "The Night Before Christmas", on Christmas Eve. This year, there was only one available child, and she is not yet so inclined to sit still for that long. But I perservered. Even though I only got through 2 pages in my lovely singsong voice, after which I had to speedread. She started squirming by page 3 and although I successfully fought her off for awhile, I eventually had no choice but to put on the chokehold. We didn't make it to the end. Here is the sequence of events, as captured by auntie judy.

And a couple of more pics of our lovely evening.