Just what I need

I'm going to Toronto for two weeks.

August 21- September 5, my mom and I bought tickets on her birthday.

I'm going to see the A's play the Blue Jays in Toronto! That should be fun.

I'm also going to get to see The Wilkinsons in concert (very few of you probably have ANY idea who that is - they're like my favourite band EVER and I only get to hear new music when I'm in Canada).

My mom's going to take me to all the places that she went growing up. And I'm going to take her to Casa Loma which I've been to but she never has, it'll be fun to share part of her city with her, rather than having her show me everything.

I'm so excited. I think this is exactly what I need.

When I return, I'll either substitute teach or work at a nanny position - I don't know if I got the job. And if I did, I'm still not sure that I'll accept it.

I have more, but I'm too tired to post right now!

You Are a Bit Prissy

From time to time you can be a princess, but these days, who isn't a little high maintenance? You know what you want, and you're definitely not afraid to ask for it. (Just refrain from having a temper tantrum if you don't get your way!) There's nothing wrong with having high standards... as long as they're occasionally low enough to allow spontaneity and fun!

How Prissy Are You?

Save me from the wild children!

On Thursdays, I don't start work until noon. This means that I get the kids for lunch, nap and some kind of outing for the older one. Well, today, this meant they refused to eat, the little one refused to nap and the older one was a nightmare. Granted we had fun while at the waterpark, but in the car, both directions was awful. She absolutely refused to listen to anything I had to say. And sending her upstairs to "change/control her behaviour" didn't seem to help any. Probably mostly because she came downstairs after five seconds. Every. single. time. Until I finally told her I didn't want to see her until her clock said 7 minutes later. She came down and was okay for about 30 seconds, until she riled up her brother again.

Tomorrow the little one and I get to spend most of the day together, which should be fun. We'll go shopping, to gym class and probably out to lunch. Let's just hope that he can keep his temper tantrums at bay. I think the odds are fairly good, he does much better when his sister's not around to torment him!

I think I may have a decent prospect in terms of a job in the fall. I found a family looking for a live in nanny (not one of my requirements) who is more than willing to meet my salary request (which isn't really that much, just enough to pay bills with a little extra left over to save, but you'd be surprised at the number of people not willing to speak to me after I mention my rates), with the potential for health insurance in the future, along with paid vacation and/or travel with the family.

It sounds great but there have been some little odd things in the emails as well, I'll have to wait until I meet the family before making any decisions. I have other options in the fall, but this one would be nice.

I'm fairly certain that I am going to go to Toronto from the end of August until the beginning of September, I found a pretty good rate with reasonable flying times and I excited that I have this chance. Apparently there are some perks to not knowing what I'm doing with my life in the fall! And if I fly twice more on Southwest I have a free flight, which I'll use for something fun, not something small like Vegas or Oakland.

In other news, the seven year old is for the most part being tolerable. We have our moments (but then again I always have with B too), but we also have a lot of fun when she's not being a brat. She seems to have finally gotten it, that I will call her out on things and I mean business. YAY!

Still working more than anticipated, and yet I had $30 in the bank all week...

I have had 15 hits from people searching for Jason and Chantel Kendall in the last three days, mostly from the Chicago area. And since they seem to be finding the Class Act posting without any troubles, I'm not going to link it here. If you want to know what kind of family you've added to your team, let me just tell you that you really must read that post, it'll tell you a lot about the character of Jason and Chantel.

I also have read numerous articles stating that Jason was booed on his first night in Chicago. Booed. Not even given a chance before people judged. You want to know something? That makes me even more upset than the fact that we don't have Jason anymore. Give the guy a chance.

I'm going to head to Sacramento for baseball on Saturday and then spend the day on Sunday boating with my dad (I think, as long as he can find somewhere to camp on Saturday night), which should be a nice change of pace. There's a chance that one of my favourites may be in Sacramento tomorrow rehabbing from his injury, but even if he's not, I'll enjoy myself.

I hate this time of year

They traded him.

And I can't read Athletics Nation anymore right now.

They are far too giddy about things over there.

Word World: A Review

A few weeks (okay, more like a month) ago, I was sent a free DVD through the MotherTalk blogger group (I have NO idea why I am part of this group, but it's cool, they do a lot of blog book reviews and now reviews of other products).

I keep meaning to sit and write about the show but never seem to find the time. So here it goes.

Description: Word World is "beautiful place where words come alive" (stolen from the website). In Word World, the characters are made up of the letters of their names (yes, that description is awful, check out the pictures, it'll help makes sense!).
My opinion: For the most part, I was impressed. The episodes are short with a mission for the animals. Finding letters to make that object. The website talks about finding R-O-C-K-E-T to save the pig, but that's not the one I saw, we watched one about a bird and one other about a box that they weren't supposed to open and when they did the O rolled away. My number one complaint? The annoying narrator voice that pitched in far too often. It is not necessary to have an adult male narrate the story that the animals should be telling.

The seven year old's opinion: I watched with the seven year old because her brother was sleeping. I think she liked it because she could read the words before they made the object, so it was a confidence builder for the child who was just beginning to read. The two year old would have liked the characters, and I'm not sure why I didn't think to show it to him last week when he was cranky. It would have been better than Cars for the 9 millionth time!



Word World premiers on September 3rd on PBS. It's definitely worth checking out with your preschoolers.

No wonder I'm exhausted

My life last week:

Monday:
7am - Leave for work, because I didn't drive to the city the night before
8am - Begin work with the two and seven year old
9am - Take seven year old to art camp, return home
10am- Leave for gym class with two year old
12pm - Pick up seven year old; two year old begins screaming
1pm - Glorious nap time! I have no idea what the seven year old and I did at this point
4pm - Off work at Job 1
430pm - Pick up 22 month old; commence fighting over food, sleep, etc for the next four hours
830pm - Her mom is home! Yay!
9pm - Head to the house that I am housesitting
Somewhere around midnight, finally fall asleep

Tuesday:
Repeat Monday; add screaming two year old at about 1045, he fell asleep at 11, seven year old and I went to the waterpark for a couple hours, housesitting job ends

Wednesday:
Repeat Monday, removing 22 month old and adding karate and dinner, I was with the two and seven year old until 8pm when their mother returned from a day trip, then I drove an hour home. In the process of the day, take away waterpark for the remainder of the week due to the rotten behaviour of seven year old

Thursday:
Didn't start work until noon; before noon, applied for passport (should be here for my birthday at the latest), went shopping for basic household supplies, had lunch with mom, "moved into" condo that it located in the city where I work, while at work, went to a movie from 130-330, pretty much meaning I earned $40 and a free movie for four hours of doing nothing!, got back to condo around 5, didn't fall asleep until after 1am

Friday:
Repeat Monday, almost exactly; add babysitting gig from 9pm-2am. For which I was paid $25, excuse me? I was think at least $50, more like $60+, it's not like I slept or anything

Saturday:
Had K from 9am-2pm, took shower, got dressed, curled hair and went to friend's play, got back to the condo at 11, went to sleep around midnight

Today:
Nothing, glorious nothing. Until 430. Then I'll get the 22 month old and we'll go to the waterpark. At 715 I have church, then I'm staying at my friend's so she doesn't have to wake the baby to go pick up someone at the airport

Do you think I've influenced her a little?

Today I got to hang out with K, because mom and B were on a camping trip and dad, as per usual, wanted to work in his yard.

I walked in and K commented on my outfit, by saying that we matched. Which is about 100% accurate. We both had on purple shirts, denim skirts and pink polka dotted sandals. Yes, all the way down to the sandals. I hadn't spent any time with K in quite some time, and yet we match? Odd!

She also asked me if I was wearing "the earrings you daddy gave you" - my father gave me this beautiful pair of peridot earrings a couple months ago and K likes them as much as I do, I think. Sadly, I did not have them on today.

We went to the pool, not the one close by but the one that's about 30 minutes away, because it is a much better facility. Also, mom wasn't there to hesitate about me driving K there (it's a kind of notoriously dangerous stretch of highway to get there, I've only gotten to take these kids maybe twice...). We had a lot of fun and I ended up taking K out to lunch as well. I figured that spoiling her on the rare occasions that I see her (or at least once in a while) isn't really going to hurt anything, right?

I love that little girl and miss her so much!

HOT! HOT! HOT!

It was 108 degrees here today (or 42ish for you Celsius people).
The record for the city was 108, about this time of year in 2002.

When we got in the car after 2 hours at the waterpark, the thermometer said 111. Thank goodness for waterparks!

I spent about 30 minutes there with the two year old this morning and then a couple hours with the seven year old while he napped. We had fun. The two year old requests the "razy riber" while the seven year old likes the wave pool and the lazy river, as well as just about everything else (although we didn't go on slides today... too hot, and too many lines).

We'll probably go back tomorrow- it's only supposed to be 103, but we've been going just about every day anyhow.

Happy Fourth of July!

< Photo removed... >
Stay safe!

AHHHH!

Today was a horrible, no good, very bad day on all accounts.
I dealt with not one, but two tired and cranky two year olds.
One who was mad at me for no apparent reason. And another who is coming down with a cold. I like the one with a cold better. At least she was cuddly and tired, rather than fighting and tantruming about who knows what.

Here's hoping tomorrow will be better.

I was going to finally update day four of my trip. But the word document I had it saved in has been corrupted. I have no idea how or why. But, I'm not even going to try to remember what I wrote in there four days ago. Sorry. The trip was good-ish. I think I lost a really close friend though. And that makes me sad. I'll get over it, and hopefully so will she.

Oh, and how crazy would it be for me to drive to Oakland on Wednesday (and back home again, as I have to work at 730am on Thursday)?

Happy Canada Day!