Missing the Southland...

Sometimes I really miss Alabama. Especially the sounds, and sights of the warmer weather. I don't necessarily miss the warm weather. In fact I don't miss the 90+F temps, and the high humidity at all that we get there in the warmer months. The spring tends to be balmy a bit too. Fall is the best though.

I miss the sound of the crickets at night, and I miss seeing the stars out at night. They do have stars here in Canada, but you have to drive a couple hours out of the city to see anything. I miss thunderstorms! Thunderstorms are really rare for this part of the country.

I miss southern cooking so much! I miss catfish, and chicken 'n dumplings, cornbread, and butter peas. I could cook chicken, and dumplings & cornbread myself, but nothing replaces my mama's home cooking.

Most of all, I miss my family, and friends.

British Columbia is so beautiful, and I love it here, but sometimes you just have to have that fix every now, and then. :)

I feel pretty lucky...

I have my health,a great husband, a beautiful healthy daughter, and wonderful supportive family, and friends. I have food to eat, clothes to wear, and I have a roof over my head. When I watch shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition, I feel even luckier that I haven't had to endure some of the hardships, and tragedy the people featured have had to go through. I am so touched by this program, and the good they do in this world.

Fear of becoming a "helicopter " parent...

Helicopter parents are so named because, like a helicopter, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach whether their children need them or not.

Now, I wouldn't categorize myself as an extremist in this, but I do tend to hover over Molly when she is learning to do things on her own.

Take sitting up for instance... I am just so paranoid about her wacking her little noggin on our laminate floor. So I pad her with quilts, and pillows. Now, she is exploring her padded area, and showing signs of crawling. She is breaching those boundaries, and because her arms are not quite strong enough to support her at a crawl stance she chooses to push her head into the floor, and put her butt in the air. Now this is fine when she is in her crib, or on the quilt because it is padded. Greg says we have to let her learn on her own that if she hits her head, it will hurt. I know he is right, but I hate not having carpeting.

She has hit her head a few times already, and she knows it hurts, but she hasn't made that connection yet in what causes this. It doesn't help that I accidentally let her slip, and fall while getting her out of her jolly jumper while it was still hanging. She hit the floor head first. I was so upset, I cried. She screamed of course, but was fine a couple of minutes later.

I don't want to become a helicopter parent, but does it make me a bad parent for knowingly letting my child hurt herself? My guess is it doesn't make me a bad parent, but it sure makes me feel bad.

Alleged Serial Killer Robert Pickton goes on trial

Once convicted, Robert William Pickton will go down in the history books as Canada's worst serial killer ever.

From Wikipedia " Robert Pickton is charged with the first degree murders of twenty-six women, and is implicated, as of January 28, 2004, in the murders of up to five more, many of them prostitutes from the Downtown Eastside district of the city of Vancouver. The British Columbia Crown Attorney has indicated it plans to bring at least seven more murder charges against him in the coming year, and new DNA evidence continues to be unearthed at his pig farm.

During the first day of his trial, January 22, 2007, the Crown stated he confessed to forty-nine murders to an undercover police officer posing as a cell mate. The crown reported that Pickton told the officer that he wanted to kill another woman to make it an even 50, and that he was caught because he was "sloppy""


There is no death penalty in Canada. This will be a long year.

New Snow on the Ground...

Well, I just discovered that we have new snow on the ground. The lingering bits from the snow we had over a couple of weeks ago was about gone last night. This is our 5th snowfall of the season, and that is highly unusual for the immediate Vancouver area. Molly , and I have baby group today. I am really glad that it is changing over to rain as the temperature climbs above freezing today. I don't want to drive in the snow. Molly was up at 5a.m. this morning, which isn't too unusual. So after her bottle we go back to sleep on the couch. She will usually sleep until 8-8:30a.m. She woke back up at 7a.m.! I was not ready to get up. There's a new episode of Smallville on tonight. YEAH! :) I just love that show.

I'm tired...

Some days being a mom really takes it out of me... Especially when Molly is extremely fussy. She is a very vocal little girl, and she will express very quickly her dislike in something. She will scream, and we are trying to teach her that is not good, but she seems to think it is funny. I know she will catch on , but I hope it is soon.

I see these shows on tv, like Nanny 911, and Super Nanny, and I hope that with all that is good in this world, that my daughter won't turn out to be a hellish little creature like some of the kids I see on those shows.

Anyhow, I feel like I got more accomplished today. I made Molly some food, and I packed up a whole box of clothes that she had outgrown to send to my cousin's wife, who is expecting her third child. This one was a surprise, and they just found out it was a girl. I was so glad, because Molly has so many nice things that I can pass on. She was more that glad to have them, as they had gotten rid of all the baby clothes from the two other children in their last move.

Anyhow, I must go make some food for our baby group tomorrow. We are watching a movie, and having a potluck luncheon. :)

Cheers!
Jen

I feel empowered...

Well, today is the first day in a long while that I feel like I got something accomplished. I have been less motivated as of late, and not getting much done around the house in the way of cleaning up. I would do what was necessary, and let the rest of it go. It is really hard to get things done most days with Molly requiring attention. That is getting to be easier, but some days are better than others. I hope this is the beginning of me getting out of a rut.

I wished I could have seen my face!

Three days ago I made a coffee date for today at 10:30a.m with my good friend G. I was on the computer when I heard a knock at the door... I assumed it was the mailman with a package. Greg, and I neither one were appropriately dressed to answer the door, but I went anyhow. To my complete surprise I saw my friend standing there. I felt I had a quizzical look on my face, as she said, "I am a little early." If I had thought about it, I would have smacked myself in the head.... I completely forgot about our coffee date! I have never done this, and I will never live this down. G. was pretty cool with it, and even waited while I took a sponge bath, and threw some clothes on. I guess motherhood drains your braincells dry. :)

Another blast of weird weather...

Well, the northwest is being slammed again with yet another cold blast weather system. It brought along strong winds and rain, and now snow. This area has been slammed with at least 4 major wind storms in the last 6 weeks. Leaving many people without power, and proper drinking water for quite some time.

Famous BC Place Stadium has been effected as well. A large rip in the canopy caused the dome to deflate...since then three more major tears have occurred. This lastest blast of bad weather won't help the repairs at all. The dome hasn't had a full deflate since it was built 24 years ago.

The wind storm yesterday was insane. I went to Costco for a few things. I had left Molly at home with Greg, and I am so glad that I did. The wind was gusting up to 100km an hour. Carts were aimlessly blowing across the lot, and hitting cars. As people were leaving the store, lightweight items were blowing out of their carts. It was pure craziness.

We woke up to a few cm of snow on the ground. There has been so much damage the last few weeks, the area will take a while to recover, and lots of money to make repairs. Legendary Stanley Park has lost thousands of trees this past 6 weeks or so. I know Vancouver Island, and the North Shore has had a harder time of it than we have in Richmond. We have been lucky that we haven't lost power here, and we only had to boil our water a couple of days.

Apparently, it has been bad for the entire province. Blizzard conditions have roads closed all over. I tell you this is the weirdest winter I have experienced since moving to Canada.

I have family in nearby Washington State, and they haven't been spared either.
I know they have had to run their generator for days because of power loss, and they are enduring the same system we currently are.

Pictures taken tonight:
Snow
More Snow

The Grace - Neverending White Lights

I love this song! It is so beautiful.

Lady in the Water

Greg and I watched Lady in the Water... M. Night Shyamalan's newest movie. It is based on a bedtime story he wrote for his daughters. It is a great story. I think I will be buying this book to read to Molly when she is older.
Official Movie Website

Girls Raised in the South G.R.I.T.S

I got a some merchandise from Girls Raised in the South from my mom for Christmas.
Too Fun! :)

you can visit their website
here.

Happy New Year!!!

May 2007 be everything that you want it to be
Cheers!!!