Mom blog: Happy Halloween and boo to you!

Boo!!

I know it’s Halloween because yesterday I got a special advance invitation to sign up for a visit to SANTA, but hurry up! because they’re going fast!

Good grief, Charlie Brown.

We did a driving tour of the coolest decorated houses within 10 minutes of our house last night. I got to tell my six-year-old all about The Great Pumpkin,

Mom blog: Why we wear vests

It’s cold this morning. I’m struggling through getting a sweatshirt over the head of the 6-year-old son, then the vest, a GAP vest, fleecy, woolly warm and fashionable in grey and orange.

“No, I don’t need the vest!”

“Of course you need the vest, it’s freezing out there.”

“Mummy, people only wear vests to protect them from missiles!”

Pause in struggle.

“Really? To protect them from missiles?”

“Yes. EVERYbody knows that, Mum.”

“Oh, I see. So you mean every time I wear my Camp Ooch vest, I’m protected from missiles?”

He looks at me very seriously, and slightly cocks his head.

“Have you been hit?”

“Noooooo…”

He nods his head very slowly toward me and jumps off the bed. “Let’s go!”

I will be having a follow-up conversation on this subject, but it’ll have to wait until after some coffee.

Mom blog: We went to a Halloween party

Hi!

I wish I had to patience to write some poetry today, because I would like to write an ode to the parents who threw a family Halloween party on Friday night. It was a blast, and it was a testament to what imaginative,

Mom blog: Let this be a new Friday

THIS FRIDAY
I have a fully decorated Halloween yard. My two youngest have their costumes down cold. I have set aside time for making halloween cookies over the weekend. I even have two rolls of dimes for Unicef.

Mom blog: GPS kids’ jacket—save me!

I’m sure you heard about the wonder in child-tracking devices for those of us in the frozen north—the BladeRunner GPS children’s jacket. The U.K.-based company BladeRunner announced it was coming out with the jacket in late September, and released it October 20.

It looks like the typical GAP-style fluff-filled parka, but

Mom blog: The Tooth Fairy Cameth

“Cool! Yes!!!”

The shout rang through the house this morning—last night the Tooth Fairy came to our house and deposited a toonie for my 6 year old’s tooth under his Star Wars pillow.

Questions that raced to my mind:

How does the Tooth Fairy know that Luka lost his tooth yesterday when it wasn’t under his pillow?

How many kids’ teeth fall out at lunch and get swallowed or brushed away by the janitor and dumped in the school garbage?

How has the Tooth Fairy escaped renaming to the Tooth Person? Tooth Rebate Representative? Dental Recycling Associate?

Where is Victoria now? Victoria was the little friend who told my daughter that girls got a Tooth Fairy Barbie when they lost their first tooth. Oh yay!

If I got a quarter from the Tooth Fairy when I was 6, and a regular-priced loaf of bread was 27 cents, is a toonie in step with wheat inflation rates when a loaf of Harvest whatever is $2.69??

Oh lordie, it is!

That Tooth Fairy is one smart girl!

Mom blog: We walked the Walk

My cancer-kid, Graydon (see yesterday’s blog for a BIG photo of him) was the Honoured Hero of Toronto’s Light the Night Walk for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It meant he got to go on-stage with the MC (the voice of the Toronto Raptor games, which Graydon can’t get enough of),

Mom blog: My son, my hero

This is the photo of Graydon that appeared in this year’s Light the Night brochure. It was taken on the haematology/oncology floor at Sick Kids Hospital.

On Friday, the 14-year-old son and I went to a fancy lunch. In my former working life, I probably went to one if not two fancy lunches per week, as well as countless cocktails, launches, dinners, events and premieres. But we had a very personal stake in this lunch.

Mom blog: Cough remedies, no medicine

For Friday (YAY!!!!), a roundup of responses with your best non-medicinal cough remedies. There are some for infants, kids, and, of course, grownups, since we have to keep the parents healthy! Having successfully raised three kids through cough and cold seasons

Mom blog: From the mouths of babes…

With three people in the house with coughs (I joined the 6- and 14-year-old sons with a sore throat and cough—not strep, thank you!—yesterday) it’s difficult NOT to think about the impact on parents’ lives when they have sick kids.