Flyer conspiracy solved

One of my late grandfather's favourite tasks of the week was going through the weekly flyers. As a teenager, I didn't have the desire or time to pursue the flyers for potential deals. But my grandfather did. He'd regularly stock up on cans of beans, cans of salmon, boxes of Shreddies and anything else that he'd consider at a good price. "You'll never get it at a better price," he'd tell my grandmother while searching for bargains.

I have a love/hate relationship flyers. I go through some periods where I'll sit down for a half an hour, search through the flyers for sales and make a shopping list. Other times, I'll simply chuck the entire flyer package right into the recycling. But now I'm focused on reducing our food bill and flyers do help in planning our menu for the week. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a single flyer delivered to my door step in the last three months, so we've been looking at the flyers online. I even called the flyer company a couple of weeks before Christmas to complain. However, I never received a response. Searching for bargains on virtual flyers online is okay, but I rather have hard copies to look at.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I just assumed the reason why I wasn't receiving any flyers was because the flyer company had no delivery person. About two weeks ago, I spotted a man delivering flyers in my neighbourhood. Yesterday, I spotted him again, delivering flyers. I watched him for five minutes as he did his deliveries. I got excited when he walked up the path with a handful flyers. Yay, flyers, I thought to myself. Unfortunately, none were delivered into my mail box. Once again, I was flyer-less.

The thought of hijacking his stroller full of flyers briefly popped into my head. Instead, I thought I'd do some research and then take action. I took notice that my immediate neighbours received flyers. Very strange and odd.

This morning, I called the flyer company and got an actual live person on the phone. The problem, said the employee, wasn't on their end. It was on the Ottawa Citizen's end. In October, I started receiving a free subscription from the Citizen, in hopes I'd return as a regular subscriber. Unfortunately for them, all in the news at that time was H1N1. And as a mother of a young toddler, I was trying to reduce the amount of H1N1 coverage I was exposed to. When I asked them to cancel my subscription, they labeled me as a temporary hold, not a permanent hold. And for three months that is why I wasn't getting my papers. So I had to make a second call to the Citizen, to release the temporary hold and cancel my subscription permanently. It seems silly to do all this work in order for me to receive flyers that will eventually be dumped into my recycling box, but when you are looking for bargains, every little bit helps. Here's hoping I get my flyers next week.

An eureka moment

Sometimes you can't see the forest from the trees.

For a week now, I've been cursing, moaning and whining to myself as I try to figure out a knitting pattern. I'm knitting a hat for a friend and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to shape the top of the hat. I searched Ravelry for answers. There are more than 100 people who have knitted the hat that I'm knitting, all of whom say it is an easy hat pattern. If it was so easy, I thought as I was doing my research, then why the heck can't I figure it out? Until today, I was almost going to give up, accuse the pattern designer and those who knitted said pattern of a massive conspiracy and come up with my own shaping design.

I even called a friend, a fellow knitter, for insight. It is kind of hard to discuss knitting problems over the phone when you both haven't knitted the same pattern. So today, while I had some friends over and I was about to discuss my problem with my knitting friend, I stared at the pattern once more and the answer suddenly came to me. There was nothing wrong with the pattern. I just hadn't clued in what the pattern was telling me.

Boy, do I ever feel dumb. The answer was right there. I just was fixated on something that wasn't even an issue. Now the hat is on its way to be completed before winter. Sometimes I guess you just can't see the forest from the trees, even though the forest is staring right at you.

Boob tube woes

Darling daughter and I have been watching way too much television. Too much for my liking.

I blame it on a couple of factors. January blahs. I'm a bit too lazy at the moment to leave the house so we are frequently turning to television for entertainment. It has become a bad habit. An hour of CBC Kids has turned into two hours and even three hours some days. Yep, it is bad all around. Lately, I have found myself surfing my many television channels after lunch time to see what is on. And I dislike daytime television too. I blame it on winter.

Reason number two: darling daughter's new trick of turning on the television. To curb our television watching, I try very hard (well, maybe not hard enough or I wouldn't be facing this situation) to turn off the television. But darling daughter will have none of it. She'll turn it on. We now play a game where I'll turn off the television with the remote and she'll turn it back on manually. Sometimes I give in as it is a distraction from her climbing and walking on the furniture, which is also becoming a bad habit.

Reason number three: January blahs. Oh yeah, I already covered that.

I'm not too sure how to get out of television habit. If I had my way, we'd have basic cable. Growing up, I only had three channels to choose from: CTV, CBC and TVO. We we moved up the road, I was excited because we had four channels to choose from. I had a conversation with a friend this morning (yep, the television was on at the time) about how my television consumption has increased in the last month. I felt a little bit better to learn that I wasn't alone and she was facing a similar issue. It kind of relieved my guilt. I don't think I will be breaking my habit any time soon. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games are starting in mid-February and we will likely be watching. And as a proud Canadian, it would be unpatriotic for me not to watch and cheer on my fellow Canadians. Well, that is the reason I am telling myself. Now, if I could just come up with a similar excuse for the situation I currently face. . . .

Halfway to three

A random thought popped into my head yesterday: darling daughter is halfway to the age of three. She will be 18 months soon, which is mind boggling when I actually sit down and think about it. It just seems like yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital, staring at her in her bassinet, not quite sure what to do next. Then there were the first seven weeks where she didn't sleep through the night and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert became my best friends while I tried to grasp hard onto my remaining sanity.

And after that, it is basically a blur. First time rolling over, first Christmas, first teeth, first solids, first Easter, finally sitting up, babbling, army crawl morphing into an actual proper crawl, first steps, full fledged walking have all happened in the last 18 months. She is officially out of babyhood. She has been for awhile, but this 18 month "milestone" marks the fact that she is a toddler. And a stubborn toddler she is. If she doesn't like something or feels like she is being wronged, she vocally tells us about it. She is now going through a no clothes phase. No sleeves and no pants, please. Those types of phases don't affect babies. These are actions of a toddler.

So if the last 18 months are gone in a flash, I can only assume that the next 18 months will go as quickly or even quicker. And in no time at all, I'll have a three year old on my hands, who in all likelihood be charming, sweet, demanding and mischievous. Mind boggling when I think about it.

Toddler attitude

My kid is full of toddler attitude these days.

As I blogged recently, darling daughter loves to play with the power button on the television. On off. On off. On off. On off. You get the idea. In addition to playing with the power button, she now likes to play with the DVD player. I caught her playing with it twice today. She was even so kind to open the DVD player, pick up the DVD in said player and bring the disc to me.

Secondly, she loves playing on the furniture. I don't trust her on the furniture. She's a toddler. She has no real concept of safety. There has been a couple of times where she has bumped her head. Now she is standing up on the couch and love seat, which is a real no, no. And as a result, she is spending a little bit more time in her play yard, especially when I'm getting lunch ready in the kitchen.

Thirdly, the outlet plugs. I have plastic safety doohickeys in all the electrical outlets, but she manages to pull them out and bring them to me. Lately, she has been in a fetching stage. She'll bring me the cordless telephone, television remotes and DVD discs.

Fourthly, the word no. No is her favourite word these days. Do you want to have a nap? No. Do you want something to eat? No. Do you want to play? No. Do you want your diaper changed? No. Yep, no is favourite word these days, especially when I take things away from her. She develops a real little attitude. She purse her lips together, scrunch her face and say no in a determined and firm voice. Yikes! When the heck did my kid become a toddler. Those baby days are over. I hate to even think what the teenage years are going to be like.

Anti-sleeves and anti-naps

Apparently sleeves and naps have fallen out of fashion for darling daughter.

I'm assuming all toddlers go through a similar stage when it comes to sleeves. Darling daughter regularly shimmies out of hers. It must be a toddler fashion statement. The only problem is that she is stretching the neck line of her onesies. Almost all her onesies now have out of shape necklines. Any hope of using them for future children are nil. And forget resale value. Who wants to buy an onesie with a misshapen neck line?

She likes shimming out of her sleeves during nap times. It entertains her while she should be napping. Ah, nap time. It is on the endangered species list in our household. I can't remember when she had a good, quality nap in her own crib. Darling daughter will occasionally go to daycare. According to our wonderful daycare provider, darling daughter naps. She'll nap for an hour and half to two hours. And sometimes she'll nap in a playpen while children play around her. What the heck?!? These days if I can get an hour nap out of her, I'll be lucky. This afternoon, she napped for an hour. Instead of shimming out of her sleeves, she shimmed out of her sleep bag. I have to say, that was pretty impressive. Nap time used to be my favourite time of day. No longer. My new favourite time of day is 5 p.m. when dear husband comes home and provides me with sweet reprieve.

Teething is a bitch

Pardon my language, but there is no way around it: teething is a bitch.

There. I said it. I feel a little bit better.

Last night, for the first time in three nights, darling daughter slept through the night. It was a far cry from her usual peaceful nighttime sleep, but at least dear husband didn't have to sleep on my yoga mat on her bedroom floor.

Except for the two year molars, darling daughter's teething days are slowly coming to an end. The only two teeth that have yet to come in are her bottom incisors. Shortly around New Year's, they started to come in, but they weren't really bothering her. Until Thursday. After she woke up from her afternoon nap, she developed a fever, which in her case usually indicates teething. We checked her gums and they were red and swollen. We have spent the last four days trying to comfort a crying, sad, overtired and cranky toddler. Dear husband had to spend two nights on her bedroom floor because she wouldn't sleep without someone in her room. On Saturday night, he spent three nights sleeping on her floor, which screams parental love to me. Or desperation for sleep. Or a little bit of both.

On Saturday, we could see the little whites of the top of the teeth poking through the gum line. Unfortunately, they have since retreated. Fortunately, the pain has somewhat retreated, too. Our happy little darling daughter is back, but she is still overtired. She refuses to nap today, to my dismay. So basically I'm back at square one: waiting for these incisors to finally appear. Until that happens, I'm praying that the worst is over and they poke through. Because, really, teething is a bitch.