There’s always that little problem with giveaway and reviews sites on blogs – it’s often for the US only.  So I get excited when I hear about something for us Canucks in the Great White North.  And so I sent a message asking to participate in a blog tour to promote it.

Mom Central already exists in the US, created as a one-stop online resource dedicated to providing busy moms with smart household and parenting solutions.
As founder Stacy DeBroff puts it, “I wanted to create a resource for busy Moms – a place where Moms can trust they’ll find helpful information they need to make their lives easier.”
At Mom Central, you’ll find information on everything from toddler toys and baby-proofing to household finances and green living.  Check them out here at www.momcentral.com.

So the Canadian-ization of Mom Central starts with the ability to join a Canadian testing panel (and you know I love stuff to try, and to review, so I already signed up):

The Canadian Mom Central Testing Panel

Why Should Moms Sign-up?

They’ll get to try out new products before they hit the shelves and their feedback will help make products better for Moms

Their opinion will be heard by leading brands who care about what Canadian Moms have to say

They’ll have the opportunity to share what they learn with other Moms and pass along coupons and other promotions to their Mom networks

They’ll find out about other great opportunities from Mom Central including giveaways, surveys and research studies that help brands make important product decisions

Canadian Moms can go sign-up here.

And if you sign-up during the month of June, you’ll be entered into a draw to win 1 of 5 awesome Canon PowerShot cameras.

You know what I’m going to say -

The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.

I can’t talk about my job.  I work for the government and I’m not allowed to talk about what I do because it could affect politics. I WOULD LOVE to talk about my job sometimes because I work in a part of the government that does some really good stuff.  That makes you go, damn, thank god for that social safety net.  And okay, it’s not perfect, it never is, but let me tell you that government is full of people doing good work with your tax dollars.  Yeah, I am a commie.  So I would love to talk about some awesome stuff that I am doing right now, but I can’t.  Not on here.  You’ll have to meet me in real life to get anymore out of me… (even then, I have to keep my cards close to my chest – I would like to keep my awesome job!!).

The second rule of Fight Club is, you DO NOT talk about Fight Club.

I can’t use this blog to talk about what’s really going on with me.  It feels right now like I need to make some drastic changes to almost everything (um, pretty much everything except my career, that one I can’t talk about!!) or I may end up drowning in a sea of unhappiness.  Whoa, holy dramatic bullsh*t Batman.  But that’s what it feels like.  Either things are really going to have to change.  Or I am going to go under.  And it seems like it’s a lot easier to go under, quite often.  But my own censorship stops me from writing anymore.  Too much family peeking in on here.

Tyler Durden: You have to know the answer to this question! If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?
Narrator: I don’t know, I wouldn’t feel anything good about my life, is that what you want to hear me say? Fine. Come on!
Tyler Durden: Not good enough. (Fight Club)

Can’t talk right now.  Too much on my mind.

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. (Fight Club)

(And no, I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake.)

Thanks to everyone who said hi to me last week on the occasion of my blog’s 5th birthday.

Instead of doing a random number draw, I got Oliver to pick a name out of a hat bowl, of all 13 entries, and Emma (not me!) came out the winner!

Congrats, fellow Emma!  (and seriously, she has so many kids, she could probably really use the labels – so that’s great).  I have provided your email address to Oliver’s Labels for your gift card.

And in her name, at her request, I have made a donation to the Christmas Bureau of Edmonton.  It’s a nice way to start a week, a little charity donation.

This is our third spring in this house.

Every year, a couple of Canada geese take up residence on our island in our pond (a tributary of a river flows through our backyard; actually it’s pretty stagnant, not so flow-y) as winter comes to an end.  They make a nest and lay some eggs and wait.

The first spring, there was a late freeze, and the pond iced up.  Something walked across the ice and smashed the eggs.  A coyote, a raccoon, a fox.  Whatever, it was awful.

The second spring, we waited, and the babies were born! And then, a couple of days later, there were only parents, and no babies.  Something must have eaten them.  Again, awful.

This year, we have waited.  We have watched with binoculars from the picture window.  We have kept the dog out of the backyard (she is not a suspect in the previous crimes, by the way).  Last week, before we went away, the mother goose was still sitting on the nest.  It seemed late.  I was feeling pessimistic.

On Tuesday, after a long weekend away, I opened the curtains after we got home from work/daycare.  And found a scene of joy.  A whole lot of goslings!  And two sets of adults!

I actually don’t think they are the ones from our island.  I think we lost those again.  But I was just so happy to see some kind of life out there.  (Please, nothing eat them.  Please.  Even if they poop everywhere and they are basically evil.)

Anyone here speak goose?  I need to tell those geese to stop coming back.

psst – last chance to enter my little contest!

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Canada, and we took an extra day off as well, in order to have a decent amount of time to spend in Ottawa.

Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, is one of my favourite places.  I was born there.  I wasn’t raised there, but no matter where we lived in the world (my family moved a lot when I was little), we always came back to Ottawa.  My maternal grandparents have lived there since my mother was young.

I lived with them when I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Ottawa.  I made some great friends in Ottawa, through school and through work.  I wish we could live there now – but I have so little French and Mark didn’t see any prospects there.  Maybe one day.

It’s beautiful, it’s active, it’s family friendly.  It’s good.

I’m tempted to say the best thing about this weekend was when my parents babysat so Mark and I could go and see Star Trek (awesome!).  But I think the best thing of all was listening to my grandfather, who turns 90 this fall, have a very detailed conversation with my 3 year old about his British Navy uniform from the 1940′s.  Even if Oliver thought he was a policeman.

I’m so glad that my children are getting to know their great-grandparents.

psst – don’t forget to enter my little contest!

(warning, long personal history story ahead)

(but also a giveaway too!)

It’s hard for me to remember a time that we didn’t have a computer in the house.  I am lucky.  My dad basically had a personal computer from the time that they were first accessible to a middle class family.

In the mid 80′s we had just moved back to Canada (to BC, specifically) after some time in South Korea, and I distinctly remember the hum and glare of the PC in the spare bedroom. I also remember that our babysitter liked to use it.  I think I got him in trouble when I told on him.  But now, of course, I think, who could blame him?!

We used computers at school.  We spent a lot of time on Logo, making that turtle move around the screen.  We did typing games, learning the qwerty keyboard. 

We moved to Ontario.  In grade 6 (we’re up to 1988/89 now), I attempted to use a computer program to design class newsletter with some friends as an extra-credit project. 

In high school, typing class was done on typewriters.  Seriously.  We must have been one of the last classes to do that (it was 1991/92).  I at least hope we were one of the last classes to do that.

Fast forward to the end of high school.  Now we’re talking 1995 and 1996.  I’m very interested in what’s going on on-line because there suddenly is an ‘on-line’.  My dad has CompuServe  at home.  Why yes, I remember the ‘internet’ before there was colour and graphics.  I got addicted to it.  I probably need to win the lottery to pay back the old phone bills.  It was dial up, and it was expensive.  But it was so addictive – it was conversations about music I was listening to, it was interesting new people to talk to in a new way.

At school, there was an announcement that we now had our own email address.  As in, ONE student email address for the entire student body, not 2000 individual addresses. I didn’t quite get why I couldn’t use that address to sign up to SloanNet(when it was a proper listserv and not a yahoo group) and receive messages.  I did eventually sign up properly once I got my hotmail account in 1996.   (As an aside, there is an archive of those messages online and it’s really embarrassing to read an email you wrote in 1996).

A nice English teacher set up a group called Poetry Bytes, which was a new way to share creative writing by using an internal email-like messaging system at the school.  A good friend and I joined, and basically used it to chat.  It was hilarious. I felt bad, so I posted about one lame poem a month, but it was really about electronic communication.  (Awesome!  I just found a little article about it!)

The next year, I was at university and I was getting even more interested in this community-aspect of online communication.  I ended up using ‘women and the internet’ as an essay topic for both Women’s Studies and Media Studies courses. I bought Nattering on the Net and cited it many times. I designed a rudimentary website with a friend as part of one of those projects.

Okay, enough history.  I could go on.  And on.  I already have.

*

The history of this blog is shorter.

I moved to England in 2002 and wanted a way to connect with friends and family back home, to share photos, etc.  I started off with a tripod.com site.  I then started reading the blogof a friend of mine (Hi Jamie!). She inspired me. I decided on Blogger/blogspot and away I went.  Five years ago this week.

(so five years ago I had just been to Egypt with Mark.  Nice.  Sigh.)

It wasn’t until the kids arrived, however, that I really started discovering, or re-discovering as it has its roots in that early stuff, the blogging community.

It wasn’t until my return to Canada and my second mat leave that I expanded my horizons and started reading many, many different blogs.  My blogroll on here is sorely out of date.  Twitter (which I’ve now been on for 2 years) has helped immensely with this.  Well, helped isn’t really the word when it now takes up so much of my time…in a good way…

It wasn’t until recently that I actually met anyone whose blog I read – there are people I have been reading for years that I have incredibly never met in real life, yet I know so much about them.

I don’t place much importance onto anniversaries normally – there’s nothing more special about this week than last week – but I guess it means I’m thinking about all of this stuff, and taking the opportunity to write it down.

*

My own way of noting this anniversary is to get to BlogHer in July, to meet more people, to listen, to talk about this ‘thing’ that we do.  And another way, to say thanks to all 10 of you reading this drivel, a little anniversary present (for you, and for the greater good):

• For you, a $20 Canadian gift certificate for Oliver’s Labels.  Labels aren’t just for kids – check out the designs they offer, for those inclined to organize or not lose things.  They deliver anywhere; it’s not limited to Canada (and a big thanks to the company for offering this up).
• And for the greater good I’ll donate $20 Canadian to charity of your choice (anywhere you wish).

Just leave me a comment and say hi! Or just grunt or something. And make sure you provide your email address.  I’ll contact you after I do one of those random number selector thingys to pick a winner.  Deadline to enter is Friday, May 22nd 2009 at 23:59 EST.

*

In a way, I don’t know how to not be on the computer, to not be online. I’ve been here so long.  I can’t even engage in a conversation that asks whether or not my family should be online.  It’s 2009 now – I don’t know any other way to be, for better or worse.  So here we are.

So Friday night Callum was climbing on the couch and he fell down from a decent height, and I tried to grab him, and he fell really awkwardly on his left shoulder/arm and there went 2 hours of the evening spent in Emergency to see whether or not it was broken or just dislocated or nothing at all.   It was the latter.  When I left the house his arm was limp and he wouldn’t use it.  When I got to the hospital, he was moving it fine.  I could have gone home but instead I decided to spend $13 on parking and potentially expose us to swine flu (hey, now I know where all the people in face masks hang out).

Saturday morning, we were out the door bright and early for Oliver’s first dentist appointment ever.  A non-event, really.  His teeth are good.  He let them poke around.  The only thing he wouldn’t let them do was use Mr. Sucky <insert  your own joke here> so he couldn’t have fluoride treatment.  But we use fluoride toothpaste at home as we are on well water.  So he gets it anyway.

Then our town’s recreation department was holding ‘Springfest’ at a local conservation area, so we drove out there.  Except then the torrential downpour started.  So much for bouncy castles and climbing courses.  We turned up anyway to see what was going on and ended up being the only visitors for the whole event.  Bad for them, good for us.  Nice bbq’d lunch and the kids got to do crafts.

Came home, cleaned ourselves up, put Callum down for a nap, and Oliver and I went for a drive into Toronto to attend latest Bunch’s family dance party.

Too bad I didn’t bring Callum, as the little dance machine would have loved it.  Instead I took the boy who just woke up from a short nap to find himself surrounded by strangers and he wasn’t that happy at first.

But who I am kidding, we didn’t go there for him!  We went there for me!  So I could hang out with Katie and Haley and Catherine and Ali and meet their cute kids.  And fête the launch of their new endeavour, Canada Moms Blog, which is pretty cool.

Oliver fell in love with Katie and her daughter and is still talking about them.  That boy, he always finds a girl he likes.  Or two.

And eventually, he even got up to dance.

(this was actually at a club, full of kids in the daytime rather than adults at night. and so I couldn’t help thinking about when Jude Law’s kid ate that pill on the floor of a club and I was momentarily convinced he was going to end up throwing back some acid. instead he ate part of a pretzel that landed on the floor.)

(it says ‘my mom rocks because: she likes me all of the time’. someone has recently told him that what makes your mummy and daddy special is that they like you all of the time, no matter what, even if you are bad. whoever you are, thank you.)

So that was fun and then we went home and that day was enough.

And then Sunday came and my family was coming over so we could all go out for brunch, so Mark took the kids out and I cleaned the house. Somewhere in there I got flowers and cards shoved into my hand.

Brunch was not actually until 1pm, because we didn’t make a reservation until too late, so we basically just hung out at home.

By the time my parents and brother left it was (snack food) dinner time and bath time and early to bed after a busy weekend.

Oh and somewhere in there?  This little (GIGANTOR) baby became 18 months old.

The bay-bee, my little baaaaaaaaby, also, tonight, told the dog quite clearly to ‘SIT DOWN’.  Both of my children are SO good at telling other people/animals/things what to do.

Lucky they are cute sometimes.

This seems like a great idea, to deal with the fact that Callum has a full hate-on for his high chair, to account for the fact that this is how they eat meals at daycare so why not at home, to have them sitting together instead of Oliver crawling around our window-seat-shaped awkward kitchen table.

That is, of course, until you remember who else is in the room.

I think this is going to end badly.

I don’t like small talk with people I don’t know.  I get nervous about talking to strangers and I have to really work on myself before being happy to take that leap.  Such as when I moved to the UK by myself and had to get a job and a place to live without knowing anyone in London.  Or Blogher.  It’s just a little bit crazy that in July I’m going away for the weekend by myself to hang out with a bunch of strangers (ok, they aren’t that strange, I do know some rather intimate details of their lives so I can be all like ‘hi you don’t know me but I lurrrrrve you and really I’m not creepy at all’). Anyway. I digress.

I get uncomfortable when strangers talk to me unexpectedly.  I was waiting for a friend a few weeks ago, to meet up for a lunch date, when this tiny and well-dressed old lady (who reminded me of my patneral grandmother, with her prim and proper hair-do, and a silk scarf tied around her neck) started speaking to me about Bush’s appearance in Calgary and just how much money he was going to be making from that speech and what a criminal he was.  I just had to smile and nod.  Someone else would have loved to have talked to her at length.

The point of this is that my nature is to shy away.  But this morning, something (human decency?) got the better of me.

I did my ususal walk from the train station downtown to the linked subway station.  Once I got past the ticket guys, flashing my monthly pass, I saw a guy standing still, staring into space.  I kept walking.  Then I saw the red-tipped white cane out of the corner of my eye.  He was still standing immobile, seemingly confused by where he was meant to be going.  And no one was helping him.

I kept walking.  But I got a pang of …I don’t know – action?   I should do something. I know what to do here. I do actually know how not to be completely obnoxious to someone with a sight impairment.  I’ve been educated by the agencies we fund at work.

I stopped.  I turned back.  I asked – “do you need some help?”  And yes, he was trying to figure out how to get to the train station.  I gave him some (hopefully) clear directions, I offered my arm verbally, but he didn’t want it. His independence was obvious.  He started walking, mostly in the direction I had indicated, but stumbled into a turnstile doorway.  The subway ticket guys saw what was going on, and just watched him.

I turned away, and walked on, down to the subway platform.  And felt good that for once, I had purposefully spoken to a stranger.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxK_l5vAMO8]

Or, what happens when you attempt to get your entire family to have an afternoon rest in a hotel room.