We cannot find Dini

We cannot find Dini. I recall picking him off the bed and chucking him in the stroller as we were leaving the hotel room. Thats the last I remember seeing him. We came back from the waterfront, the playground and Chez Piggy where we had lunch, and as I was searching for him upon Sash's request...well, that'w when I discovered he was no longer with us. We leave for TO tomorrow night, and there is no way we can get one FedExed over from the States to Kinston on time. This is a phenomenal disaster. Sort of like being buggered up shit creek.

We are having trouble putting Sasha to bed, as usual. While we have tried not to stray from the routine of early dinner, walk, bath and brushing teeth, books and then Dodo, our precocious little angel has found a way to have us start catering to her from 8pm to 10pm, or sometimes 11pm when she finally dozes off. We try to get her to eat before 7 because she is meant to be in bed by 9, and as one of her delay tactics is to ask for copious amounts of milk (record so far this past week: 4 bottles), she tends to puke out her dinner ala Nicole Richie if she eats too late. Another delay tactic is to ask for yet another book. She is also aware which books take longer to read, so now Dora is less popular than say Dumbo or Beauty and the Beast. Then after these two books, we have to read a Pirate book. And where there is Pirate, there has to be Fairy. And where there is Fairy...there is Pirate again. You get the idea. By the time we get to her fifth book, we are already making deals, like "OK Sasha, after Goodnight Moon, you have to Dodo. Or else we will not go to the park tomorrow." She will agree then as we near the last page, she will be out of the bed in a shot looking for the next book. Of course we have to be firm, but it is extremely difficult to see your child cry (crocodile tears of course) while holding a favourite Dora book, begging "One more Mummy, please." Seriously, how do you say no to that. So we give in and after an hour we practically threaten to put her under house arrest unless she Dodos. So she will say Buenos Noches, and have her chat with Dini, Diego, Dora, Baby Jaguar and her new stuffed pig that snores (Dont ask..) while she lays in bed. She will of course not fall asleep until 10 or sometimes 11pm. If we are lucky, she will just lay there quietly. If we are unlucky, she will keep on asking for milk, juice...a diaper change...you name it, she will try it. On the bright side though, she is technically in bed by 9. What she does there is another story altogether..

We have finally taken my desk out of Dylan's room and with the help of our neighbour, Doug was able to dismantle it, take it down to the basement and reassemble it again. We had initially thought of selling it, but we really do like the Danish style retro-antique desk. Well, I do anyway. We have also taken down the crib from the loft with the intention of assembling it before leving for Montreal. Unforunately, we have no idea where we stored the screws. So I have called and emailed the manufacturer to request that some new screws be sent, or at least details of the screws used to enable us to get new ones. If they are unable to do so, looks like we will have to get a new crib. Of course the minute we get the new crib home, we will find the screws in the most unlikely place. Story of our lives...

Our neighbour R also helped us drywall a section of a wall that suffered water damage over the winter. D forgot to shut the main valve for the garden tap so of course it burst over the winter. To thank him for his kindness, we had R, L and S (their dot) over for a BBQ dinner. We had great fun, just watching the kids play and fingerpaint, and eating a simple meal of burgers and grilled chicken, corn on the cob and salad. We are planning to take advantage of the beautiful Summer and have more al-fresco meals together, starting this Sunday with a picnic in the park with a few other neighbours. R and L will be supplying the food, while we supply the drinks. D is leaving for China on Sunday afternoon but he will join us for the picnic and leave right after. Sash and I will miss him loads..

As I type this at 10.08pm, I am listening to Sash apologize to Baby Jaguar for something she did over the baby monitor. She has been in bed since 8.30pm....

I have only flown alone with Sash once, to visit GTandD in Singapore. Yesterday was only the second time. It is exponentially more work getting us checked in, thru the security and to the gate, not to mention keeping her entertained during the flight. Luckily it was only a 2.5 hour flight. And she was exceptionally well behaved considering she was woken up at 5am, and her beloved Daddy was nowhere in sight. I decided to forgo the stroller so she stood in line during check in, security checks and walked all by her big girl self to the gate. All in all quite painless. Surprisingly..

My sis-in-law picked us up at the airport and we headed back to granpa's home. Where Sash found waiting for her some books, a Dora DVD, and a pet shop toy thinggy that comprises a pet shop set up, many minute pieces and pet characters, all in a big box...which we will have to lug back of course. Very sweet of granpa...but I am looking at this thing and foreseeing the many times I will painfully step on the little pieces. Sigh...oh, and yes, a big box of Oreos. You just have to love grandparents...Sash sure adores hers..and Tot, if you are reading this, she is still carrying around her bottle of perfume.

The funeral is on Saturday so we are waiting for the rest of the family to trickle in. M, D's eldest bio brother, is driving up from Minneapolis on Friday. With his 3 kids, who are all under 6. Now that feat deserves a medal. Another sister is flying in on Sat morning. It will be a full house, with cousins galore for Sash to play with. A bit like Christmas, but without the need to fork out for presents...We head out to the cottage on Sunday morning to open up for the season. Of course D, Sash and I will not be here to enjoy the rest of the season as we are spending the Summer in TO, but it is nice that we are able to help out with the opening as that, and the closing, is when most of the labour intensive work is carried out. Well, the brothers are doing the work..I have stocked up on magazines and will be in charge of making sandwiches for lunch and defrosting the steaks for dinner. Not too difficult.

Sasha's first Mother's Day present, created with J's help at daycare...



She was well chuffed with her efforts.



Taken on our post-Brunch walk.

On a bright note, we had an excellent Mother's Day yesterday. Although D only realised that it was to be Mothering Sunday on Saturday evening (you gotta love a man who walks by store windows displaying signs touting how appropriate their lingerie, shoes/bags, spa treatments are for Mother's Day every day and not notice), and dragged me to a store immediately only to wait outside while he chose some cards, he carried it off excellently. We had brunch at The Homeway, a local restaurant/diner that I have been meaning to try, and it was delicious. We then walked off the gazillion calories we consumed in the park. We played with Sasha in the backyard, which looks semi decent now, took a nap, and had dinner at Roberto's, another restaurant that I have been meaning to try. Again, it did not disappoint. It is good to be home again, although by tomorrow morning we will be in Winnipeg and will be there for a week. As much as I realise that we have to be there at this time, I dread having to break Sasha's routine yet again. She has only just started sleeping in her own bed again, without us lying down next to her with her bedside lamp on. She has only just started drinking milk again. She is starting to eat proper meals. While her granpa's house is not totally alien to her, it will still take time for her to get comfortable. By Saturday, we will be at the cottage, and then back home on Wednesday. Did I mention that we will be in Montreal and Kingston a week after we get back from Winnipeg, for yet another week in hotel rooms. I wonder sometimes if Sasha really is a resilient kid, or I fool myself into thinking that she is to make myself feel better about this constant upheaval in her life.

On a sadder note, I have been reading about the bloody crimes against humanity carried out by the Myanmarese government against their own people. The UN estimates that the death toll will hit 216,000, higher than the tsunami death toll. Myanmar cites it at 28,548 as of yesterday. Aid is not allowed to be distributed, and whatever is being distributed has names of senior military official plastered over the boxes. Resources are being diverted for the referendum. Everyday, the newspapers here are plastered with pics of dead bodies and helpless children. Calls for donations are being made. However, as everyone is pretty sure that the monies collected will just turn up in the Swiss bank accounts of the scumbags or that the aid distributed will just help their military junta, there is understandable hesitance.

Edward Burke said that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. For God's sake, someone, anyone, do something!! (I can't cause my ObGyn would totally freak out)

Who would have thought...

We received this email from D's aunt in Winnipeg on Sasha's birthday.

Hi! Hope all is well with you. I expect you're getting ready for your trip to Malaysia. It is this coming weekend that you leave, isn't it?

Will you have a little party for Sasha or do they do something at her day care? Hard to believe she's only two. She's so bright and active. Give her a hug and kiss for me.

I think I've spent the last month just waiting for spring. Still lots of snow left - there is about 2 to 3 feet covering the perennial bed in the garden. It's suppoed to get as high as 9C today, but back to -2C tonight and only a high of 0C tomorrow and staying cool to the weekend. Went to a garden centre yesterday with sister, Anne. Just had to see some growing plants and flowers.

I was at Derek and Kristi's for Gordon's birthday. They have a gorgeous home! Gordon didn't look well - He said his hip was giving him a lot of pain (arthritis) and he certainly looked as tho' he was suffering. Poor guy. I think he'll be glad to get to a nice hot climate.

Have a wonderful time in Malaysia.

Love, Aunt Hilda

I had meant to respond but with the birthday arrangements, packing and travelling, I assumed D had done so because he checks his email 1000 times a day on his crackberry. I figured I would get back to her this week with profuse apologies. She is a stupendous lady who totally adores Sash so I figured it she would understand.

We were informed last night, rather late last night, that she passed away on Thursday. Worse still, the neighbours only found her yesterday but it is thought that she may have pased on Thursday. She was sitting on her couch and they only realised something was amiss when her papers were not picked up off her porch. Her only daughter, who lives in Calgary, will be flying in to Winnipeg in the next few days to sort out funeral arrangements. Sash and I will be flying in to Winnipeg on Tuesday morning while D will fly in on Wednesday morning as he is away until Tuesday. We will stay for a week as I think D has come to the realisation that work should not be a priority and that the call could have been regarding another closer member of the family. FIL thinks we should not trouble ourselves by flying back just for the funeral but he doesn't really understand. I feel gutted that I did not respond to her last email with even a one-liner thank you. D recalls not even bothering because it was as he termed "time wasting non work related email" (hence the whole re-prioratisation). Aunt H is, or was, the closest thing I had to a mother in law and she was absolutely, absolutely lovely. And she adored Sasha, always remembering her birthday, even our wedding anniversary. Making sure she had toys to play with whenever we visited her house even for half an hour. She joined us for my birthday dinner last year, and bought me thoughtful presents even on her rather limited pension. Her passing is a surprise to everyone because she was rather dynamic, and while she was 74, her Mum lived to the ripe old age on 94. We are still grappling with accepting that she is no longer around. This has, suffice it to say, a rather bittersweet Mothers Day.

Yea for customer service!

Gosh it has been a busy few days. Got home late Monday after an eternity on the train (where again Via Rail exceeded expectations with early boarding and economy class coaches...steward provided Sash with a blanket and pillow..and confused her by calling her pumpkin a few times...to which she replied.."I not pumkin. I Sasha!"). Took the subway home and stopped by the Sushi resto round the corner for some takeaway. Sash had a grand old time playing with her new found toys so it took us ages to put her to bed. The next morning we woke up rather disoriented, wondering where we were. It felt great being back in familiar surroundings!

Random thoughts about train travel:

I find it disturbing to hear the train whistle going off mid-travel. My initial thoughts: Is the train engineer warning someone off the tracks? Another train maybe? But a split second later I recall D telling me that it is a legal requirement for the engineer to toot the horn/whistle near every crossing. But does this stop me from worrying? Of course not. So during the 7 hour ride from QC to Toronto, I must have freaked out for 35 split seconds in total...

Unlike in planes, people tend to want to chat more. It may just be Canadians, but random strangers from 3 seats away would strike up conversations. Makes you long for the headphones used in planes mainly to avoid conversation with others...

We have spent the last few days running mundane errands like sending off the dry cleaning, stocking up the freezer and fridge, buying more flowers and plants to experiment with, starting a mini herb garden etc. And oh yes, making arrangements for yet another visit to Montreal in a few weeks for a conference. Yup, we are going there again. This time we will need a babysitter for Sash as both D and I will be presenting papers in the same session so I have been contacting the hotel and conference organisers to sort this out and carry out the necessary background checks. We will be driving this time as we need to stop by Kingston on the way back for another conference so at least we don't need to book tickets etc. Did I mention that Spring/Summer is conference season??

Since we arrived home, no less than 5 people, from my trusty neighbours to the check out girl at my local fruits and veggie shop, have encouraged me to take advantage of the Canadian Avent recall of BPA bottles. You see, after being criticized (or shall we say dragged through the mud) by consumers for their position with regards to the use of BPA in bottles, Avent has relented and offered to refund parents for Avent bottles returned to various stores, such as ToysRUs. The extent of their recall is amazing, full refunds even without receipts. So this morning I dug up my Avent bottles, which luckily I had not chucked out, and returned them for a credit of nearly 50 bucks. Full refund, no questions asked. I wonder what Avent will do with these hundreds and thousands of bottles returned throughout Canada (everyone is sending back their bottles!). They will not be introducing BPA free bottles until late Summer while I think (I am not sure whether it is a legal requirement or due to customer demand), Canadian stores are only stocking BPA-free plastic or glass bottles. As I was returning all 8 of my Avent bottles, there were many other parents using their refunds to purchase the BornFree or glass bottles. I wonder how Avent will recover from this? The funny thing is, design wise, I found Avent to be superior to the much more expensive bottles. It is a shame that their brand name is now associated (at least with the Mums that I come in contact with) with dangerous bottles and corporate arrogance. But I suppose the damage will only be contained in Canada as I read somewhere that the UK has only just started publicising this issue. In Malaysia, it seemed like business as normal. Perhaps the Canadian government is paranoid...but I am not one to complain because with the refund, I bought Sash a playset comprising a sandpit/pool with a picnic table and umbrella. I figure that will just about make up for the unnecessary hormones in her body. So if you are in Canada, dig up those bottles...

Quebec

We have been in Quebec for the past few days. We started our second leg of our Spring work/holiday with a train ride from Toronto to Montreal on Wednesday evening. It was my first Canadian train ride, similarly for Sasha. I must add that I am duly impressed. We dragged our luggage, Sasha's backpack and stroller onto the Eglinton subway station and connected with Via Rail at Union. We had booked the tickets online and we were able to get our tickets for both our outgoing and return journey from the ticket office in Union. The ticketing agent advised us to be at the gate 5 minutes before boarding and to request early boarding. We did as we were told but did not have to get hold of anyone to seek early boarding as the ticket master found us and directed us onto the train personally. There was another single mother with her 6 month old baby also boarding early and we chatted about how civilised the process was, in comparison to the early boarding for flights that inevitable turn into a mad rush by airmile card holders and parents with 15 year old kids. We arrived in Montreal close to midnight and headed straight for the Delta hotel, where we were being put up by the meeting organisers, only to be told that they had overbooked and they were going to help us get a room in another hotel. Now, in situations like this I find that you have a choice of either going apeshit, which is totally understandable considering the time and the toddler you have with you, or you can just go with the flow and ask what can be done. We chose the second option and they found us a room at the Ritz-Carlton Montreal, and paid for our room and taxi ride to get there. Alls well that ends well I guess. I do wonder though where the Ritz puts people up when they overbook. The next day we returned to the Delta where they also provided complimentary breakfast and room upgrade for our stay. I am liking this Montreal hospitality. After the meeting, which involved some Ministers and others from the research center, D informed me that Sash and I were invited to the dinner being held at a rather posh resto near the meeting venue. The food was gorgeous, and our daughter behaved beautifully. We were worried at first but hey, they invited us and presumably they would be prepared for a 2 year old and potential behaviour issues. I must say that Sasha does surprise us sometimes.

The next day, we rented a car and drove to Quebec City where D's co-authors live. They had invited us to stay at theirs for the weekend. Initially I was very reluctant because I think I know my mailman ...Rob, or Bob..something with an ob...better than I know JM and C. Also, they do not have kids and I am always weary of putting people out..especially when the kid they will host in their home is still jet lagged. But they were really keen to have us over and D needed to discuss some work with them. Also, I have never been to QC so I figured what the heck. And am I glad that we did come. They have been ever so hospitable and welcoming. They were initially worried that their home is not child friendly and offered to go out and buy some baby gates. You see, they live just outside of QC in a 3 story chalet set in the woods at the bottom of a ski hill, facing a gorgeous lake. It is such an idyllic setting that I cant even begin to describe how beautiful it is. I reassured them that Sasha is well aware of her limitations and that we will watch out for her. And boy does Sasha love the house. The house has a wrap around deck on the third floor where JM and C hang a multitude of bird feeders that inevitable attract all sorts of wild life. Sash has been sitting on the deck all day pointing out the yellow and red birds, the woodpeckers, the squirrels and the rabbit. JM and C are originally from Northern France so we have been having French style meals, such as steamed lobster, steaks and salads served ever so simply with bread, but with a rustic style that is just so sincere. We visited Old QC yesterday and I honestly feel like I should be using Euros instead of the Canadian dollar. I have heard that Montreal is very European, but I find QC to be even more so. I now totally understand the separatist movement as I keep having to remind myself that I am in Canada. Toronto seems a continent away.

After a weekend of visiting hitorical sites, hiking, and eating, we head back home tomorrow morning. We are taking the train as the 8 hour drive would have been just too tiring. Although it will take longer by train, D and I are both in agreement that we don't really enjoy road trips by car and we much prefer to spend the equivalent hours seated in a train with WiFI access. I cant wait to get home to my own bed. On Tuesday, we start getting Sasha back into her old routine..wish us luck.