I have an incredibly beautiful grandson!

So, on March 6, I received a text from my son...'it's go time'. Not much sleep for us that night. My husband was flying home from Toronto on some ghastly flight that got in at 2 am, and, then had to be on a 6 am flight to Labrador. There probably would have been minimal sleep in any case. In the morning we discovered that, two provinces over, the obstetrician on call had decided that the thing to do was dope my daughter-in-law up to the gills with gravol and morphine so she could get some rest. Labour stopped. So after an 8 hour snooze, it was decided to put her on the drip to speed things up, so that the baby wouldn't have to spend 6 hours in the NICU. Not all of this seems logical to me, however, that is what happened.

Rogers has no cell phone connectivity in Labrador so I had the number of a nice young woman who was working in Labrador with my husband in order to keep him up to date on progress. She, a young mother herself, was pretty excited to be on the receiving end of messages. And there were lots of them. Between my son and his sister-in-law, who is adorable, there were lots of messages. At 4:55 pm the message 'pushing' came through. My husband and his crew were just getting on a plane to fly home, so I was able to let him know that pushing was happening, as the flight attendant was approaching him to tell him to turn off the cell phone.

I don't remember pushing taking two hours, but apparently it can, and did. Henry was born at 6:55 pm, and the first pictures came through within fifteen minutes. I was able to text the info to my husband's colleague's phone just as they landed, and were able to turn on the phones. There apparently was loud cheering on the plane, and the phone was passed all over the plane for everybody to admire our handsome grandson.

He really is a beautiful baby. He started out at 7 pounds (3 kgs), lost a bit in the first couple of days, and really did like to sleep (could have been all that gravol and morphine), so it took him a while to make it back to his birth weight. He is going strong now, and is checking out his world more and more all the time. I am placing bets that he will be blue eyed...that newborn navy is more on the blue side that the muddy side that seems to go brown.

So far, since he was born I have only knit him two sweaters, a hat and a pair of socks. I think that is pretty restrained myself.

Returning to the Blog

The Bride says I should write here more often, once every two years just doesn't cut it. What does she know, she is only a PhD candidate in English, ha! Her sister, the next bride, knows better than to nag her mother about these things, or doesn't have an interest in making sure her mother's mind doesn't totally atrophee. ( How does one spell that word? Spell check isn't sharing).

So there is another wedding in the offing, but heaven knows when, or where. While waiting for people to figure out if they are ever going to have time to think about what to do about it, I skim through Pinterest for wedding ideas that might suit. This bride tell me that right now she can imagine 8 bridesmaids, and people flying in from all over the world to a grassy meadow on a mountain top with grandmothers being brought in by helicopter, where the weather is always perfect so no worries about rain etc, because it is only imaginary.  Reality will occur possibly between 3rd and 4th year of med school, maybe. She keeps sending me pictures of wedding cakes done to look like birch logs, so that I have time to practice making fondant look like that. I might even try it one of these days. In the meantime I have knitting, quilting, sewing, cooking and baking non-wedding things to keep me busy.

Instead of making my daughters nuts with my over enthusiasm for organizing things, I can now work on making my daughter in law nuts. She, after all, is going to be the mother of my soon to be arriving grandson. I think she might be afraid that she is going to buried in knitted objects. I am trying to be restrained so I am thinking of making a sweater for my daughter's cat to match the Icelandic sweater that I made for her. Grand-kitties should be remembered, too.

the luggage saga continued

The four of us went and lined up to report missing luggage. One girl had a family member lapping the airport in their car waiting for her, and they phoned about every 5 minutes to see if anything had happened yet. I let her go ahead of me. So I reported the bags missing and cabbed in to Meredith's place.

 She was home and looking terrific after her three weeks in Richmond/Vancouver with Nic. I called the airport to check if they had found the bags yet. Their computers were now down, so the gentleman said he would call me back in 15 minutes. He didn't. Meredith wanted to go scout out the school where she was to be starting student teaching in the morning, so we did, so she could get an idea of how long it would take to get there, and what it looked like. As we were walking down the street, I was phoned back and had to give all my information again. It is so much fun to stand on a busy street and bellow my personal info into a cell phone and have the guy ask you to repeat yourself, somebody in Toronto might have missed something. Finally,  he ran out of questions, just before I lost my temper, and we went on our way hoping they really would find my bags. That bottle of Scotch that Alexander sent for Meredith was starting to sound really good.

We found the school, and it is beautiful. Meredith is starting a session of student teaching at a swanky private girls school that specializes in the IB program. We confirmed with a caretaker which building was for the junior school and then headed off to the ROM gift shop. It is cold in Toronto, with a damp chill, but we kept walking and were fine. On the way home we stopped at a Loblaw's and got some groceries. Dinner and a pleasant evening, and I checked the computer. Air Canada was still looking for my bags.

Monday morning, 7 am, checked the computer listing again and my bags have been located and sent out for delivery. Hurray thought I, clean underwear! I was wrong it is now 15:47, or 3:37 pm, and still no bags. No ROM for me today. So this a blog about how I spent my visit to Toronto so far, waiting for my luggage, and thinking fondly of the clean underwear that it contains, and the Scotch........

Air Canada Has My Luggage, and they won't give it back

   Yesterday I left Fredericton, NB for Toronto. Not too complicated, one would think. The plane was delayed leaving. We were supposed to take off at 11:10 am. and when we got to the airport we were told that the flight was delayed until 11:30 am. No biggie. They finally boarded the plane at 11:30 am and then we sat on the runway for about half an hour. One might understand if there was questionable weather or there were lots of flights all wanting to go at the same time, but there wasn't, it was brilliant sunshine and about -1 C, and there was one other flight. To my mind this wasn't a problem as I didn't have to make any connecting flights and Meredith was expecting me sometime in the early afternoon. Most of the other people on the plane which was overbooked, by the way, had connecting flights. There were 17 military folks on their was to Edmonton for a special training before their next deployment for Afghanistan, a couple of military heading to Kingston, and so on. I know this because the flight attendant read out a list before we landed that read something like the 17 of you with the connecting flight to Edmonton your gate is at the other end of the airport and they may hold the plane for you because there are so many of you....run as fast as you can when we get there, you 2 people for Kingston your gate is right next to the one we are going to so you  may make your flight, and so on and so on.

I met the other three people who were terminating the flight in Toronto at the luggage carrousel. It went around and around and  around and nothing erupted onto the conveyor. Then the electronic sign that said the luggage from the Fredericton flight was going to be on carrousel 1 changed to a flight from Sudbury and we knew we were in trouble.

They Have let me out of Voice Mail Jail!

This morning I got up with the best of intentions. Today I was going to accomplish a lot of things. I was planning on getting to the bank and depositing some grocery money in Ellen's bank account, and go to the gym, and get the HD channels arranged with Telus and get Ellen's cell phone bundled with the Bell Aliant bill so that we don't forget to pay it, get some groceries, return some shoes, and package up the stuff to send to Meredith. That was the plan. I started this at 9 am.

I sat down, still in my jammies,with my coffee and figured that I could get the Telus call out of the way quickly. I finished with them by 10:45 am. We will now get HBO and the sports channels have been eliminated, and they will be sending us a new remote by snail mail so that we don't have to use the remote three inches from the sensor. OK, so then I figured I have wasted this much time on the phone so I might as well tackle Bell with the cell phone thing. It is now 12:45 and I am still in my jammies, and totally wiped out.

When we set up the cell phone account it appeared to be quite simple. I was told that once we had the account activated and had the phone, it would be one simple phone call to get the phone plan purchased at Bell Mobility bundled with the Bell Aliant account. I was not informed in which universe this would happen  . I think I have spoken to every department in both Bell Mobility and Bell Aliant, and even one pleasant young woman at PC Mobile. My favourite was the person who told me that he couldn't help me because I never had had a delinquent account, he could only do something for me if the account had been sent to collections. These systems are enough to make one want to live off the grid.

If I go to the gym now, I might make it to the bank before it closes, and can get the shoes returned. There is a tin of soup in the cupboard that I can add some stuff to for supper, and we'll still make it to Tai Chi at 7pm.
Excellent! A new plan!

I hope all the things that I was trying to arrange this morning actually happen or I'll have to go through it all again!

What am I doing here?

One of my daughters told me last year, when I moved across the country, that I should blog the whole experience. I didn't, mainly because I wasn't a happy camper and didn't need the world to know that I was a whinny control freak bitch. I have other aspects to my control freakiness. 

This year, I have other fish to fry. I still don't love living in Vancouver, but I am getting the hang of it. Now that I have achieved this state of Nirvhana, my husband tells me that we will probably be moving east again, to St. John's, Nfld. or the Niagara region in Ontario, or who knows. We should know by the end of October, maybe. It is out of my control, so I have decided to ignore it until I know if we have to move, or not.

I need to lose weight and get in shape. At 55, I really do need to get this in control before it becomes a health issue. It will be much more fun whining about having to exercise, than whining that I can't find clothes that fit around my belly. I know how to do it, I'm just really good at putting it off. My heart will thank me, as will the hips and knees that have to support the excess blubber. 

My oldest daughter is now engaged to her best friend. He worships the ground she walks on, and has for a long time. The wedding is to be September 5, 2011, in Ontario. I'm not quite sure what my role as mother of the bride is. The wedding, I'm told is going to be at his family's cottage on a lake north of Kingston, and is going to be very small, maximum 60 people. My daughter phoned and asked if she had to invite all of her relatives, or could she not invite most of them. Gulp! I told her that it was her wedding and that she and her partner were in charge of the guest list. This the right thing for them and the size of the venue, but there will be hurt feelings, and general huffiness. There will be lots to write about on this topic. I think my major role as mother of the bride will be to take the blame for this.

Am I totally charming? Nope, and I never have been. I have a tendency to be blunt and speak the painful truth, as I see it. Some people appreciate this, and others do not. I was told that I am totally charming one day last summer by somebody who obviously appreciates this. Within the same week, I was told by my mother in law, that I am a nasty control freak, and that I needed to let my kids, who are all now adults, to live their own lives. That hurt, and I don't think I micro-manage their lives. My son, who travels all over the world for his job, does let me know when and where he is going to work, and when he will be home. This usually means that I get told that he is going to Africa for 6 weeks, leaving on Tuesday, or whatever, and will be returning on an approximate date.His partner works the same kind of schedule, and she lets her mother know where they are too. It is always good to know that they are safe.

 Anyway that is what makes me 'the totally charming control freak mother of the bride'.

I think I'll go down to the gym and figure out the elliptical trainer thingy.