The ice has thawed although the leaves are nowhere to be seen in the great white north. D will be heading out this weekend to the shack for the first and final inspection. Apparently the agent will be flying him out there. These pics were taken a couple of days ago..we are quite excited.

The weather has been glorious, the children have been amusing. All should be on the up today. But let me tell you the one thing that will bring you back down to earth..a meeting with the insurance agent. Our agent M has bi-annual meetings with us to update us on our insurance issues and make new recommendations. He is great help, but I always find that after he leaves I get into a sort of funk. At this meeting, in view of our potential decision to stay here for at least a few years and my going back to work, we had alot to discuss. D is turning 40 later this year so we also had to sort out insurance issues before he hit that number..it gets more expensive and more medical tests are needed. We have insurance policies pre-marriage and pre-Dylan, so we had to take the new situation into account. We do not over-insure ourselves but in view of the fact that D is the sole breadwinner, we do take up sufficient insurance to cover family expenses without me having to work up to when the kids reach the teenage years and to provide for their education up to the initial postgraduate. We basically insure the family against a disastrous disruption so to speak. And to of course pay off the mortgage. The mortgage insurance that banks tell you you should take is an expensive scam. Better to use your own cheaper insurance to enable you to decide whether to pay off the mortgage instead of paying to insure the bank against their potential loss. In line with that we have also decided to take up extra disability insurance and some sort of insurance that will pay out if D gets cancer or the like. The disability insurance is to top up that which is provided by his employer. M did us a favour by looking at the employment benefits and pointed out that the employee will only cover D up to 18 months and after that they can make him take up any other (lower) position and payment stops. But who are we kidding..in most cases the disabled employee will probably be fired so we have decided to create our own safety net. The other safety net is in the event D gets cancer etc (touchwood) he has extra cash to play with for experimental treatments anywhere in the world. Best case scenario, we never have to refer to our policies. I suppose worst case scenario, he gets sick, employer ditches him, insurance kicks in, the family income remains, and in addition to state supported medical help, he has extra cash to spend on treatment. At the end of the day, he is the sole breadwinner and it would kill me if he couldnt seek the treatment he needed say in Switzerland or the US because he was worried about keeping a roof over our heads. Some people say insurance is a waste of money. We have, due to no fault of ours, been rear-ended on a highway and had the car totalled. Without insurance we would not have been able to cough up the cash to buy a new one outright. I say insurance is bloody expensive..until you actually need it. A morning spent thinking of death of one and both, physical disability, mental disability, money needed to keep 2 kids clothed, fed and educated (lots of zeroes I tell you), and other depressing actuarial data can be a real downer. But let me tell you, the next day you breathe easier knowing that you have done the best you can to ensure your kids' future..the very best that you can.

Uni down south counter offering. So is Uni out west. Decisions, decisions...

D forwarded a list sent to him by one of his students. This guy had compiled and transcribed a list of Doug-isms said over the term. For those of you who do not know the kind of man I married..this will give you an idea of why we stay together. Laughter.

Quotes from Professor DC
Transcribed and compiled by DS
Winter term, 2010

• On regulating PE: When you get into a bar-fight, you don't hit the person who started the fight. You hit the person you hate the most.
• On his handwriting: My wife doesn't let me write the addresses on our mail. Oh no, it's never going to get there! She says.
• Have you seen this HBO video, Right America Wrong? It's horrifying. So many dumb people in this world.
• If you go first, you can get it out of the way, and if people are mean to you, you can be mean to them the rest of the semester.
• I have to grade people relatively. It's like the Tonya Harding thing. If you break your colleague's kneecaps, maybe you'll be better off.
• I don't have any social life. I'm often bored and lonely in my office, so come by and say hello.
• Grading is inherently subjective, so I try to be as fair as possible and assign the highest grades to the person who buys me the most beer. Just kidding, just kidding... just trying to make light at the beginning of the semester.
• I'm sort of averse to using Lotus Notes... it gives me the heebie-jeebies as they say.
• This is our most important course. At least I like to think so.
• I can say two things about myself: I'm getting old.
• I've got two kids, 1 and 3... I've got bags under my eyes. I don't get proper sleep, ever.
• The three f's: friends, family, fools.
• If someone's in a venture-backed company, that's probably the first thing they'll tell you at a cocktail party.
• If you go bankrupt in Austria, they tar and feather you, string you to a pole, and you're a social outcast forever. People don't want to be venture capitalists in Austria; they'd rather have second families and hide them in their basements.
• People say, who cares about Quebec? Which is fair enough. Anyone from Quebec? I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
• I've been going on the Internet a lot lately... I'm not sure why.
• I like this expression, "negative value added," because I have brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who fit this description.
• By being systematically stupid, you can lose money even when the market is doing well.
• My wife started calling people, she said, oh my god, I met someone who doesn't know what SMS means.
• on Palm's IPO performance: You know how they say there's no free lunch? This is like a free Yacht.
• I tell my students, when you're working at an investment bank, call me and let me have an IPO allocation. . . in 10 years, I haven't received that call.
• I spent a year working at Royal Bank... they give you nice discounts on your mortgages and a free cheqeuing account.
• If you give me ten million dollars for my lunch, I might say wow, Phi Phi Island is calling me.
• If you're like me, you're a greedy S.O.B., and if I have a lottery ticket, you're not getting any of it.
• We spend too much of our time writing papers, but they're not all totally useless, hopefully.
• Excel has a random number generator, and I just went Kaboom! So if you don't like your group, blame Excel.
• In the event of bankruptcy, debt gets paid first. Actually, there's an exception to that— unpaid employees get paid first. Those damn socialists— I'm kidding.
• I'll tell you his first name, not his last name. Bruce. When you think of Bruce, think of his agency problem.
• You can't just put in a contract: "work hard." Then you'd take people to court and say, you didn't work hard!
• I like to think of the multitask moral hazard as the "favourite child" problem. I have lots of brothers and sisters, all older, and that's the source of all my psychological problems.
• On SA&S: Google those guys on a Saturday night when you don't have anything better to do.
• If you offer a fixed wage contract, you're likely to attract lazy people. It's like giving professors tenure.
• Firm D & C have the same risk, but if I can say, firm D is just a crappy one.
• The next agency problem is free-riding. And I just assigned you to group projects! I've had this problem with coauthors, but now that I've been a coauthor with my wife, I probably free-ride on her a lot more.
• You can't put a Tony Soprano-like clause in your contract and say, if you live this company, I break your kneecaps! But you can have vesting provisions.
• I can see Hao's all mad. It's just an example, don't take it personally.
• I don't want Daria to know that I'm as bad a person as I really am, because then she might tell you guys.
• Someone asks you, what'd you learn here? I learned from Doug how to be the worst person possible.
• On trilateral bargaining: I shouldn't think of it this way, but I often do. It's like dating. I'm dating on person, but maybe I'm also dating this person.
• DC: What's window dressing?
CR: Making things look good for a short term performance review?
DC: I was gonna say, window dressing is... my wife! No no, it was me, pre-marriage, in a bar. We're always trying to make ourselves look better than we are.
• Actually, I have sisters-in-law that I'm not too fond of. They're also negative NPV projects of a sort. Made for an interesting Christmas dinner... anyways, that's why I'm so interested in agency problems.
• I promised we wouldn't go to Vegas, but now that I got the money, I’m definitely going to Vegas.
• In general, people aren't going to do things that give a paycheck to someone else.
• With asset stripping, there's lots of fun things you can do. Steal the photocopier, steal the stapler, pay a nice big dividend to common equity holders, invite the Rolling Stones to the Company Christmas part.
• You can think of this as How to Do Bad Things... just don't leave a trail that suggests you know you were at point A.
• I think there's still a law firm in Toronto called Smart and Biggar.
• DC: Any questions?
SD: No dice.
DC: What does no dice mean?
SD: Well, I guess it would be... "no."
DC: Alright. No dice, then.
• Tonight you can go home and watch American Idol or whatever it is you do on a Wednesday night, or you can look at this web page doingbusiness.org. You can do both, actually.
• Adveq sent an expensive bottle of Wine to everyone that gave us information, so we have a biased sample of people that are alcoholics.
• Is that how you spell commitment? It's one of those things guys don't want to learn how to spell.
• If you work for Kleiner Perkins, buy me a beer sometime, that's all I'm saying.
• I feel like I've read too many contracts. I'm going blind these days.
• That's why it's useful to marry your coauthor so to speak. She's read many of these contracts.
• If you're managing your career, write-offs are like an F.
• I drank too much before class. Just kidding.
• Say we know that Rita is a dirty rotten scoundrel. Sorry I'm picking on you there.
• How do you adjust for the contingency that Kiel gets hit by a bus? You know, he's walking around drunk, and something happens?
• You don't pay someone 2 & 20 to invest in publicly traded securities.
• If you're trying to raise money from institutional investors in this market, you should just bend over and take all your covenants.
• That takes us to 2:18. I could tell you a joke for 2 minutes...?
• I think you guys did a great job. Your classmates were nice to you. I think they were worried about the feedback effect.
• You can spend your evening watching American Idol or Lost, or you can spend your time reading about bank regulation.
• Go play in traffic -- I like that.
• It’s like the captain and the crew abandoning ship. Whoa, thank god I’m out of this crappy venture!
• Those are the people who have to quote-unquote “shut up” during the quiet period.
• When the price [of palm] is $168, then stupid people like my brother-in-law are the buyers.
• Bre-X was really exciting in 1997 if you were in the securities regulation business.
• Wow, this my dream: you take a company public, after 65 months hopefully people won't realize how crappy it is, you sell everything and go retire in the Caribbean.
• I myself am not a big socially responsible person at all.
• I'm not French, as you can tell.
• As a taxpayer, you should be saying, "What the—"
• The computer's just thinking about whether it's going to start up today.
• To RG: Where's your partner? We should give her a standing ovation when she comes in.
• You know group work's not going well when...
• The Newfie joke, paraphrased by DS: Guy's never been off the Rock before. Wants to take a vacation, travel agent suggests Spain. Newfie says, hey, I'm a little worried, because I don't speak Spanish. Agent says no problem; if you need someone in Spain to understand you, just speak real slowly. Newfie gets out of airport in Madrid, lost and confused, finds someone to talk to. “Hell..o... I... am... from.. New.. found... land.” Other guy responds, “wow... I... am... from... New... found... land... too...” First guy says, “if... you... are... from.. New... found... land- and- I- am- from- New- Found- Land- then- why- are- we- speak- king- Span- nish?”
• Franz Müntefering has called PE managers locusts... I dunno, something in the spirit of Germans doing crazy things.
• In the industry, everyone knows Franz and they hate him to bits.
• Let's click on Franz. He gives me a headache, looking at him.
• Instead of watching American Idol, as I like to say, you can click on David Rubenstein.
• I have one other Newfie joke I should tell you before we start valuation. Valuation is a bit boring, so… Why do seagulls fly over Newfoundland upside-down? Because it's not worth shitting on.
• We often have physics-envy in finance.
• If you're doing a deal with my brother-in-law, you can probably convince him of something he shouldn't believe.
• The hockey-stick cash flow projection! You look at this and say— bullshit!
• If people shout out BINGO! while you're talking and laugh at you, you might as well leave. You're not going to get money from those people.
• I think for the CFA exam you need to know 100 to 150 ratios? We want to know five. So don't complain, basically.
• When I did the exam, I had to memorize the normal table too.
• I have to apologize for this error. If you do that on your exam, I'm going to have to be forgiving.
• On Dragon's Den, you don't see people pulling out their cheat sheets and saying, how do I do that calculation again?
• I'm not going to test you on something we didn't cover in class. I have this fear; people know where I live.
• Maybe I was drinking before class.
• It's nice to be a creative accountant. Who says accountants are boring people? They're not.
• Why do we like the NPV method? Even my brother-in-law has seen it.
• You probably did Taylor Series in your first undergrad math class. Bringing back fond memories in the front row, I can see.
• ... That equals... negative 11.53. This my friends, is a negative NPV project. This is my brother-in-law.
• Good question. I might just be mean and put that on your midterm.
• Ah, the 10-year cash flow projection. That's also when you start saying... bullshit!
• In the spirit of manipulating my brother-in-law, It's good to know how this is done.
• If g > r forever, the world explodes.
• These are the companies that paid CFA a lot of money to get them to approve their calculators.
• People are like... good god, can't we do Newfie jokes or something?
• The VC valuation method; I like to say uses a tony-soprano discount factor.
• DC: Anyone watch Snowboard cross yesterday?
SD: Yeah, gold medal! You watch hockey?
DC: A bit. Eight-nothing wasn't it?
SD: Yup. You watch curling?
DC: What are you, crazy?
• My brother-in-law is, as you'd say, not the coldest beer in the fridge.
• This is a roughly normal curve. You could say it's a drunk version of a normal curve. No, I promise I haven't been drinking.
• A long time ago, we were all taking these courses where the lectures were all going over the exact same thing. Lack of communication, that kind of thing. Nobody wanted to say anything, and then one guy actually did! We all wanted to pummel him.
• You guys are stuck for life. If you decide finance isn't your shtick, it'll come back to haunt you.
• My brother-in-law has been so good at losing money for me lately. He's such a horrible person, among other things.
• ...I really did go into a bar before coming here.
• As my wife likes to say, I frequently make mistakes. That's supposed to be a joke... I never make mistakes.
• I'm not going to tell you to go to the library instead of watching American Idol to get these papers. Just download them from the internet.
• I sometimes carry my phone around me because I don't like wearing a watch.
• If you go to an investor and ask to read their contracts, they might politely tell you no, they might laugh at you, they might tell you to read between the lines... [shows three fingers]
• Academics do bad things. We're like little children fighting with each other.
• Debt, convertible preferred, dadadadada... my tongue is getting tired, actually.
• I would have yelled at you, but you're hard to blame here.
• These guys in the US— We like to say they're smartest, the biggest, and the best... and the fattest. I shouldn't say that word.
• My social life has been bad for many, many years, so one of the things I do is I go on the internet and see what other people are doing.
• St. Paul Venture Capital. These guys are in Minnesota. If you've ever seen Fargo, you might say they're not sophisticated. I'm from Winnipeg, which is north of there, so I guess I'm really unsophisticated.
• When you go home to your wife or your girlfriend or your dog, you can talk about why buyouts are leveraged.
• I'm from Winnipeg... I really shouldn't make fun of Newfoundland.
• Oh, you're killing me here! Didn't you do super-well on the exam?
• So, should we have class outside, or what?
• As much as I love music-- I mean, I love American Idol, right? I'm finding that very distracting.
• You guys attracted a lot of aggression today. Good job!
• I can't promise I have any music. Next day we can bring in music.
• Yup. Yup. That was -- Yikes! Oh well. Good good good. Okay!
• DC: Is the door open or something?
CR: No, someone's being extremely loud.
DC: I'm just gonna go out and say, "shut the fuck up."

• This would be a great way to steal from someone. If you meet up with my brother-in-law, say hey, join me in this new venture, but I should get priority.
• If you want to be a dirty rotten scoundrel, you've got a lot of tools right now to go kick someone in the teeth.
• Think of it as a marriage contract with cash flow rights and control rights.
• This is partly why I wear glasses. All these stupid documents.
• You're thinking: Doug's handwriting? Fuck that. ...I don't know why I'm in this mood today.
• I think you can guess who I'm talking about, but I'm going to bite my tongue before I say any more.
• I like this word "redemption." Somehow it has religious overtones.
• Your first question might be, "why care about Europe?"
• When I was single, I spent a couple of winters in Amsterdam doing very bad things.
• My typical response in Europe was, get the hell out of my office.
• Any questions before we go on to IPOs? And we figure out how much of a moron my brother-in-law is?
• The prospectus has to protect your grandmother.
• I ask for these IPO allocations, but nobody ever calls me up. I guess I'm not buying enough beer for people in class.
• I don't see any smiles in the room. She [prof. MC] must be hard on you with her derivatives.
• In Japan, people allocate IPOs to politicians. I thought, oh cool, I'll make a slide on that.
• When we finally got a house, I was like, oh shit, I gotta pay for this. How much did I overvalue this house?
• This is the kind of thing that would send the CEO of the issuing company into the washroom vomiting.
• What does this say? Ristribution? I shouldn't have had that drink before I came to class today.
• SD: I'm just curious... which brother-in-law are you referring to?
DC: That's a bit of a tricky question. It's not on my wife's side, I have lots of sisters-- actually, they all married badly. . . this guy bankrupts farmers for a living . . . it definitely makes Christmas dinners a bit trickier. What can geese do, that ducks can't do, but lawyers should do? . . . stick their bills up their ass.
• I love data, so I just want to show you some data.
• Crazy last 20 minutes there. I feel like I was on drugs or something.
• It's simple for me to do the addition. I'm a simple guy, I like simple things.
• The computer needs a cup of coffee here.
• Wow! I get a bunny rabbit umbrella?
• I've met with some of these guys, and boy, are they ever arrogant.
• Let's take our 10 minute break now; you can buy me cookies, coffee, and orange juice, and I'll happily accept it.
• The questions are: do people lie? And, does it pay to lie? These are questions I've thought of since I was three years old.
• If I don't have any data, I can talk out of my butt and say whatever I want.
• I always try to respond to e-mail within 24 hours. All those I get about hair loss, and, uh, other things? I reply to those too.
• You mean, you don't double-star all my e-mails?
• The more beers you buy me, the better you'll do on the exam.
• On Dragon's Den, who knows what they're jotting down. They could be drawing doodles, or they could be doing simple math like this.
• Valuation is not scientific, though you can get people to think it's scientific.
• I think you can watch Lost online. Why I needed to tell you that, I don't know.
• I addition to data, as you know, I like charts.
• If you were to say that to someone downtown, they'd say, what the hell are you talking about?
• You can tell people, on no, the entrepreneur's dog died, his mother got sick, the economy turned bad-- who could have seen that one coming?
• Aw damn, Kiel’s a bit too honest here. Better submit an accurate report to Chris.
• Think like a three-year-old. When do I lie? Well, I lie when people aren't going to catch me out.
• I put up in a German old folks home for three months. This old lady parked herself outside my door every morning and said, "”Guten Tag.” I'd say, “uh, okay, Guten Tag” back to her, and she'd start talking to me in German. I told her, “sorry, don't speak German!” Same thing happened next morning, she says Guten Tag to me, I say Guten Tag back, and she starts talking to me in German. I say “nope, nope, still don't speak German!” This went on for three months. Three months!
• Does dishonesty pay? Yeah, it does, probably.
• Although, don't tell the dean that I said these things.
• I'll put that in my calendar. 2:30, Monday. Subject: Rita's gonna bug me in my office. Just kidding! Just kidding.
• You can call me the night before the exam. I'll be like the suicide hotline.
• If I hand out to many A-pluses, someone from the administration beats me up in my office. If I hand out to many Cs or Fs, people find my address and beat me up at home.

Sasha is still on her french fries binge. Good thing that I head to McD every morning to stock up Dylan's milk. I have no idea where the closest supermarket is and I would rather be doing something constructive instead of getting lost in Montreal. Like swimming. Sash has newfound confidence due to her swimming lessons so she is quite happy bobbing about in the semi-cold water in her swimsuit. Dylan just wants to put his head underwater, choke, gasp and repeat. Sasha then gets upset when her hair gets wet...this living on an island will be extremely interesting. So I have been coming back to the hotel with bags from McD. People dont know that I am just trying to avoid the $5 glass of milk + tip from roomservice and the bags just contain 10 small boxes of milk as Dylan's daily supply..yes, the kid drinks ALOT of milk. So far the staff think I feed my kids rubbish. Little do they know that my kids dont eat anyway. So tonight, when the babysitter orders her Ribeye from roomservice, my kids will probably be eating french fries.

We are in Montreal for a conference. We took the train yesterday as the kids, hardly ever getting car rides anywhere, are not road trip savvy. It was a 6 hour ride but better that then a 6 hour drive. We woke up this morning to a slew of emails from participants informing us that due to volcanic ash their flights were cancelled. Those from the UK, Belgium, France, NL....tres disaster. This is a very small conference of a select few, and many from Europe. Ah well, the important thing is to concentrate on those that are here. Tomorrow I discuss a paper, sit on a panel and attend the gala dinner (we are having it at a museum) while the kids stay in the hotel room with a babysitter who I know from Adam other than a clear criminal report for 8 to 9 hours. Dylan is not sleeping and woke up 5 times last night. Sasha is not eating anything but french fries. Tomorrow after the babysitting they will be clingy and scared of us leaving every time we even try to head to the bathroom. This will go on for a few days. This is just a recurring nightmare for 2 academics with 2 young kids. Next month, different city (Chicago), same story.

Rellies

This is a picture of Dylan's Grampa at age 1...



This is Dylan at the same age...some say the resemblance is uncanny..I just recall my FIL telling me he couldnt take up neurosurgery as his hands were too big..

Signed

The last family member signed at 8.10 pm last night. Spent the next 2 hours calling up various rellies asking for their help in upcoming inspection of property. D's dad is thrilled as the family now has 4 properties in the area. He will of course be helping D inspect. D's elder brother will also be doing us a huge favour by helping with the inspection as D wouldnt know a septic tank if one hit him on the head. I have decided not to go because the waters are too dangerous for the kids..icy cold..death upon submersion I suspect. Now to deal with banks, interest rates and US dollar rates...sigh.

The island as you can see is teeny-tiny. But the cottage is hidden amongst the trees.





You see that little white dot behind the plane..that is D's sister's place. His dad's place is on the other side of that island.



And this is the shack that will house us for the hopefully many summers to come.



This is going to be one hell of an experience for a KL-lite who thought Seremban was way too rural..

So 3 of the 4 sellers have signed the offer document. The agent expects the youngest child to sign by end of business day tomorrow. D is so damn excited that I doubt he will be able to sleep until the document is signed by all. I am sort of..more apprehensive about the fact I dont have a boat license, hell, I dont even have a drivers license. Our kids dont swim and it is a freaking island. What if there were a medical emergency? I have yet to appreciate this view that we are buying, but my father-in-law has told me that it is one of his favourites in the lake. Did I mention that everything is propane powered and a generator is used to power up lights. Yes, it is totally off the grid. I have only used an out house a few times (in Tunsian/Sahara dessert, Kuala Lipis, and somewhere esle I dont remember)..I am actually going to be using one for 3 months of the year till.well..till like forever.

Postscript

D is coming back early. He thought it was strange that there were so many "religious" radio stations available from his rental car (not that there's anything wrong with religion). He was slightly apprehensive when the person taking him around to the best neighbourhoods took him only to the suburbs off highways. He got a bit scared when he asked where they could get a Starbucks or just coffee as he had been awake since 2am to catch the flight and she had to think for a while and the only place she could think off was where they had lunch. He called me the minute he saw the third billboard sponsered by the NRA and shouted "There is no way in hell I am raising my kids here!!!" His call came through when I had some neighbours over for wine and cheese. They were on the floor laughing when they heard D babbling on about how horrified he was...they reminded him that he was raised in Winnipeg..he shouted "There are 2 Starbucks outlets within a 5 minute walk from my Dad's place..if we don't get shot by some NRA member we would have to take a f*^ing flight out to find one from here!!" They are happy that we are staying. He is on the next flight out.

Waiting to exhale

This week has been one of those "life changing" weeks. I have received a job offer that may involve a move across the border. The offer is extremely generous and is one that many in my line of work can only dream of. It is also a dual offer in that D will also be moved. The Uni wants a tag team working on teaching law students innovation finance. The only "if" in our minds is the fact that it is really down south and we are very happy living where we are, not only in terms of country, city, neighbourhood but even exact geographical location of house (proximity to shops (rumour has it a new Mexx or H&M may be opening 100 metres away), schools, parks, running trails, museums, restaurants etc). But the chance to work under such fair terms is just too tempting. So off D went to tell his boss..who then turned around and made an equally tempting offer. I was asked to meet him at the office 3 hours after D's meeting, with kids in tow, and offered a position that is extremely generous in view of such short notice. You know how you should watch what you should wish for. Where earlier this week we were pretty sure we would be putting away our winter clothing for good..well, now it seems that we have the choice to stay..decisions, decisions. D has gone south to look at houses and the area surrounding the area to see what we will be giving up if we dont move. I am staying put here as we are also in the process of bidding for a summer home. They call them cottages here. We initiated negotiations on Tuesday and this morning our lawyers helped us draw up an offer and we are now just waiting...and waiting..for some rather unmotivated and emotional sellers (mum and 3 children) to accept our offer. If they do then D will immediately fly out to the lake to look at the cottage..did I mention that the offer is being made site unseen. Well, at least by me. The cottage is situated on a 1.5 acre island which is a 5 minute boat ride from D's dad's cottage, and also his sister's cottage and not to forget his brother's cottage. So while I have no idea what this island looks like or the condition of the cottage, D spent every summer since he was born up to when he left the country in the surrounding area. He is extremely excited about raising the kids there, teaching them to waterski, pick blueberries on a neighbouring island, playing board games etc..technically, he has been preparing Sasha for this since birth..she loves the board games she plays with Daddy and she has been taking swimming lessons for the past year. I suspect the island will be the deciding factor in our dilemma..

My baby girl is 4

I still cant believe Sasha is all of 4 years old now. It just seems like last week I gave birth to her...changed her first green poo filled diaper..helped her with her first steps. D got a bit emotional on the day of her birthday (last Saturday) and kept mumbling that Sasha would never ever be 3 again..ah well..cest la vie. We held her birthday in our backyard as it just seemed the easiest thing to do. I only finished teaching yesterday evening so I wasnt about to do anything elaborate. At the end of the day, its all about her and no one else. She had told me months ago that she wanted a pink and purple cake (because thats my favouritest colour everrrr Mummy) with Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and dinosaurs on top. So I got a few quotes and chose the cheapest and closest supplier. Carolyn who charges $40 and pick up as compared to a bakery that charged $220 and $20 delivery charge. No brainer. Only hitch was that C could not supply the princeses so I found a couple of stickers of the appropriate princesses and dinos that Sash has lying around and stuck them on toothpicks. Sasha chose the loot...flower balloons that also helped decorate the solarium, colourful plastic watering cans and candy kebab. I am a firm believer in edible or reusable loot for children's parties.



I booked the entertainers Sonshine and Brocolli ages ago, as a surprise for Sasha as she attended a couple of music classes they gave last Summer at a neighbours home. They sang for 30 minutes, then we cut the cake.



Earlier that morning I ordered a party sized cheese pizza for the kiddies, an Xlarge gourmet pizza for the parents, made some mango salsa and guacomole, put out some chips and lots of pop and juice boxes. I used to think that the adult spread had to be Malaysian-style ie I had to "feed" the adults...but R my neighbour set me straight and as she said "To hell with the parents, they can go home and eat.Its all about the kids". I am pretty sure that my Mum would have a heart attack if she knew I only served nachos and pizza for my guests, but hey..as long as there are no complaints from the kids, we're golden.



Happy birthday my baby girl!

Saturday at home

It is one of those spring days where it is sunny enough but still hovering just above zero..so after ballet in the morning, and a short stop at Starbucks, we mainly stay indoors with a short trip to the park to get some fresh air. That doesnt mean we cant pretend its Spring in full bloom inside..







Dylan isnt really bothered if we stay indoors as long as he has his car/plane/bike inside to play with..boys and their toys.



And this is the look he gives me when he gets scolded for ramming his car/plane/bike into a piece of furniture..



How can I stay angry for long?

A kind neighbour offered to have Dylan over for a playdate with her son so I could have some Dylan-less time with Sasha. Well, it was Dylan, her son and her nanny, but who's counting. I thought of taking the opportunity to buy some groceries and run some errands, but decided to get our nails done instead. I only really get pedicures as my nails are beyond redemption. Sasha had full mani-pedi..as usual. I think Sasha really needed some "alone" time as she has been away from her daycare since last week (J is having a break at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica) and Dylan has been in her face every waking minute.



The girly-girl



Comparing nail jobs

Dylan has been missing his Daddy. It is Spring hence D starts his travels. This week Koln. He wakes up screaming for his Daddy and falls asleep asking for his Daddy...but at least he is his usual chipper self in between.

I scream, you scream..

I dont know about other parents of toddlers, but I find I am becoming a screamer. I read somewhere recently that this generation of parents have been termed the Generation of Screamers. I think it has something to do with our inability to deal with the frustration of trying to discipline without resorting to the threat of physical harm. And if you have a couple of stubborn, pig headed, and manipulative kids (and I say this with all my love) with a definite taste for adventure and theatrics, this is a challenge. I remember when I was a kid I used to get pinched..seriously pinched, by my parents if I even looked at them the wrong way..lets not go into throwing food into their faces/onto floor/onto other kids heads. If I broke something in the house..which I did often..although it was wholly the ball's fault..I got smacked. I dont recall them hitting me after that age..well, unless I was seriously and ridiculously bad. I never considered these forms of discipline to be "abuse" but then by the time I was old enough to be aware of this concept of abuse (probably by age 4) I feared my parents enough to know throwing anything was out of the question and if my Dad even looked at me a certain way I would drop/stop anything and everything I was doing..in a split second.I am not saying how they raised me was wrong, or right..it was just the way I was raised and I must say it probably worked for them. Now, as it is my turn to parent, I dont know what to do. I would never hit, smack, or physically touch them in anger..EVER. I find however the only option open to me is screaming....I scream when they run across the street without looking out for cars, I scream when they have massive fights and hit each other, I yell when they intentionally spread jam all over the silk carpets, I yell when they refuse to eat anything 3 days in a row...I just scream when I am so bloody tired and frustrated and I dont have the time to sit and rationalize with them when they are acting like horrible monsters. I was initially ashamed of my being the poster child for this Generation of Screamers..until I heard from my good neighbour that she finds herself screaming too..all the time. And we find that our kids are screaming at each other..but I guess on the upside...they are not hitting each other.

Tuesdays

Tuesdays are hectic for me. I teach from 11.30 to 2.30pm, but I have office hours before that. So mornings consist of getting up (I am most definitely not the Good Morning God! sort of person, more the Good God its Morning! sort), getting coffee, getting Sasha up and dressed, getting Dylan dressed, getting Sasha's angel toast (whole grain bread, Nutella, an angel shaped cookie cutter) and Princess vitamins (Dylan eats these too as he is still not averse to a bit of Sleeping beauty in his diet), and off to daycare. Then a walk around the block and by 9.30 Dylan and I are being driven to the Uni. I still don't have a license here and Doug is still quite happy to drive me to work. Then the work day begins. Granted, it then ends at 2.30pm when Doug hands Dylan off to me and I take him home by bus/subway. By the time I get home I feel like I am ready for the weekend..or rather the week.

We were in Winnipeg for the weekend. Mainly to give a presentation but mostly to hang out with the family. When I fly back to the Peg I tend to take along an extra piece of luggage as inevitably we will be taking home a pile of toys that Grampa has bought in anticipation of their visit. So on this visit the kids scored a frontloader, some random plastic animals, some sort of dollhouse that has to be built from blocks and books galore. They love visiting Grampa.

I have a couple of classes to go then we spend a week in Montreal for a conference. Then Dylan takes Sasha's place in daycare and she and I will spend some quality time over the Spring/Summer until she starts school in September. I am rather looking forward to relatively more freedom to move about with only one toddler in hand (sushi lunches, pedicures, shopping..). I am not looking forward to getting Dylan adjusted to daycare. Not looking forward to it at all..

Sasha has officially been accepted to her pre-kindergarten. So now we have been asked to make initial payment to secure her position.. my six weeks of work teaching MBA students will now pay for 2.5 months of her kindergarten. When they said having kids was expensive, they mean it. My only hope is that she will appreciate the sacrifices I have made for her education...I am of course talking about the LV tote I was eyeing..sigh.

The con

I have always believed that having a job while taking care of my young family would complete me. Having been a stay at home mum since Sasha was born made me question the choices I had made..whether I should have done the right thing and gone back to Malaysia and marry nice malay man, have kids, get maid, keep high-powered job and all will be well in life. I then figured as that scenario was pretty much impossible to achieve without first learning how to create a time machine, getting a job would make it all right. Having started a contractual teaching position a few weeks ago has made me realize that a job alone doesnt fulfill me and that it is DAMN hard juggling kids, home and work..as work is never over both at work and home. I used to think that working Dads never appreciated us stay at home mums..I am now of the opinion that us stay at home mums never fully appreciate how difficult it is to juggle the responsibilites and the guilt..oh, the guilt. I now know that when I offer to look after S's best friend at day care when J has an emergency day off (best bud's parents work) why her Mum is sooooo greatful..and I usually do it for selfish reasons so as I dont have to play Princess all day. When you have so much on your plate and one little cock-up happens it pretty much buggers your day. Yup, I am pretty darned sure that I will only work for the money and not to have my self defined. But for the money I would much rather just stay at home and play Mum...no work to cock-up my day.

I head of to the Prairies tomorrow for 3 days to give a seminar on latest working paper. D's family live there. The beauty of mat salleh families is that it is allright that I will be staying at a hotel 10 minutes away from my Father in law's house and it is OK that I may, if I have time, have breakfast with him before I head out to the airport to catch a flight...he offered the breakfast suggestion as he didnt want to disturb my schedule and if I dont like the hotel he will have a room ready. Gotta love my in-laws.

Preparations

I have been busy preparing for my next class on Tuesday. I find that I am starting to get into the groove of shooting the breeze (listening to case studies) for the first hour and just going over past seminar presentations over the next 2 hours. Unlike me, these students actually get upset if their breaks are too long and they actually do want you to teach up to the very last minute. Because the technology is so very different than when I was a student (man, was it that long ago), it takes about 10 minutes for me to switch on computer, stick in USB, switch on control panel (to control use of DVD, 3D projector (unlike the prehistoric overheads, you don't need the plastic sheets but you can even project 3 dimensional items), and sound system)and switch on dual screens (so I can project 2 different slide shows if I want)..yes, I actually had to attend an orientation programme to learn all this. They have this in EVERY classroom..no wonder North American Uni's need multi-billion dollar endowments. I have to send the students the slides at least 24 hours before the class as they all just have their laptops during class..although I am sure they are Facebooking. I would have been.

We were stuck at home this afternoon waiting for someone to pick up a baby carrier that I put up for sale on Craigslist. Bought the Pikkolo soft carrier for Dylan for $200 a while back and he has outgrown it...put it up for sale for $100 and got an offer for $80. It has gone off to a good home. Now wondering whether I should blow some of it on a sushi takeout dinner..

First day of school..

I am typing this in front of 40 odd students as I invigilate a midterm exam. Kind of funny actually thinking about the many years I was in their position…in those seats..thinking about how I would kill myself if I messed up…..pills, too messy…jumping of bridge..would it hurt? And now I sit here and think how much less could I care about their potential results…not much.

This is actually D’s class I am invigilating. We had planned to meet up after my class, he would hand Dylan over, then I would take Dylan home as he had his class. Unfortunately, Sasha had a barf fest last night so immediate change of plans. Dylan would take Sasha’s place at daycare and Doug would stay home with her…so I have been in this classroom for the past 5 hours…my 3 hour class and D’s immediately after. I was wondering this morning how couples who both work deal with these sort of emergencies. Who takes the day off? I suppose we should count ourselves extremely lucky that our life affords us the luxury of being able to deal with this rather painlessly..if not the luxury of anything overly luxurious.

I need to pee but I cant leave the room unattended…I am told that they WILL cheat.

My first class ever went rather well. Was able to fill my 3 hours with on overview of the syllabus, introductions in class and the first lecture on LP contracts and fundraising. Now to figure out how to fill up the next 3 hours next week.

I seriously need to pee..another 39 minutes to go…

As I mentioned earlier, the Unit spent a week in Club Med Ixtapa, Mexico. To be honest, the idea of Club Med-ding (apparently it is such an experience that it is a verb) never once entered my mind because when I think of spending money on a holiday, it has to be one that enriches the mind and soul. I think more along the lines of cruises on the Panama Canal and doing Machu Pichu. But those trips need advance planning and it is usually me that does it..from determining dates, flight times, hotels etc. I figured I would tough out the winter as it was soon to be March. However, with March/Spring break in the horizon, everyone I met kept telling me about their holiday plans..usually the Bahamas (3 hours away), Mexico or Dominican Republic. Sasha’s best bud went off to Punta Cana, DR a week after the earthquake in the neighbouring country. So I started thinking whether one of these all-inclusive holidays would be an experience in itself. At the same time, D was stressed about something or rather so he wanted to go away for a change. Add an excited travel agent to the mix and Club Med it was. Only 5 hours away, all inclusive with open bar, and most importantly, supervised activities for the kiddies. We were sold and paid the bill.

When we arrived we were thrilled with feeling the sun on our skins, yet apprehensive about the sheer size of the resort. But pretty soon, as Sasha and Dylan settled in their activities and we were able to just relaxon the beach with Mojitos..we were converted. The fact that everything had been prepaid made it easier as we had no worries about tipping, paying for extra snacks etc. Also, there really was nothing to do in Ixtapa..after taking the kids to swim with the dolphins and the obligatory lobster lunch and snorkeling, there was nothing to attract us outside the club. The week flew by quite fast and well, here we are back in T.

Oh thank God..th exam is over and I can now go and pee.

New beginning

I realize that I have been neglecting my site. I never really meant to abandon it, as I do enjoy keeping a journal. I have however been busy keeping up with one senior toddler and another demented toddler. I used to tell friends that what I liked most about having a girl and then a boy was the potential experiences raising the two diffeent sexes. What I tell total strangers now is that had I had Dylan first, he would have been an only child. He is a wonderous child but my God he is reckless. I have had Doug do a practice run to the nearest emergency room as he has had his fair share of tumbles and I suspect many more to come.

I have also been preparing to start teaching an MBA course. Prep work is no fun. It is only a half course but it is my first ever. Rather apprehensive. Because we dont have a nanny, and as D teaches right after me tomorrow, he will stay at home while I teach, take Dylan to the Uni, and we will do the Dylan handoff after my class.

We just came back from som R&R in Ixtapa, Mexico. It was after a rather dreary and cold Wednesday a few weeks back that D and I decided we needed to get away from the cold and more importantly the kids' snow suits. We called Karen our trusty travel agent and told her to send us somewhere. She immediately shouted Club Meddddd!! We loved it!! As it is not a cultural hub, we had no choice but to laze by the beach and relax. I find that when I take holidays I am always torn between taking in culture orrelaxing. I invariable choose the waking uo at 7 to take random bus to see temple/castle/Unesco world heritage site, and need a holiday after my holiday. Not this time. We had quality family time. And it was there I realized I had to make time to blog...I need to do things for me..there will always be other more important things to do..but they may not necessarily be better.



Sunset in Ixtapa, Mexico. 26 Feb 2010.