**Superstitions

Some days I feel that I may need to be institutionalized for my superstitious-ness. I am a superstitious person and I believe in fate and all that hokey pokey stuff. I make a wish and kiss something red if when I look at the clock, all the numbers are the same. I wish on the first star I see at night, prefacing it with "star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight". I knock on wood (or my head, whichever is more convenient), and I even avoid stepping over my kids to make sure they'll grow, and if I accidentally step over them, I will step back the other way to reverse the bad karma. There are some things I won't do, however, like avoiding walking under ladders, and if I break a mirror, I don't fret over bad luck for seven years.

I do fully believe in fate, and if something happens to me that I find to be a really crappy, unfair thing, I honestly believe that there is a reason that it happened. I believe that when people walk into a casino, if they are meant to win, they'll win, and if not, they won't - regardless of what seat they sit in or what slot machine they choose and when.

When we were first entering the real estate market and put an offer in on a condo that fell through, I was devastated. It seemed like the perfect place for us and I felt as though we'd never find anything else as great. Well we did - we found a less expensive, larger, better located place that we DID get and lived in happily for years. It was meant to be.

Just know that if ever I wish upon a star, or make a wish blowing out birthday candles, it is always the same wish, and will be the same wish forever....but I can't tell you what that wish is, or else it won't come true! :-)

**Why I Hate Dec.31

Would it be plagiarism if I were to launch into a Paul Reiser moment? If I use quotation marks could I recite an episode of "Mad About You"? Is that allowed? Screw permissions! NEW YEARS IS A ONE SECOND HOLIDAY! All of this fuss and muss is made over a one second celebration! Food costs more, you have to pay to get into everything, and lord help you if you want to have a drink! Um, do I hear someone saying "second mortgage"?

I have a poor track record with New Year's Eve, but I don't feel that it has skewed my insight into this hideous freckle-of-a-moment every year that people put so much emphasis on. People stay up past their bedtimes to scream, blow horns, kiss someone in front of hundreds of other people, say 'happy new year', then go home and go to bed. I'm all for saying "Happy New Year" to your family and friends, but how about doing it at a reasonable hour with no horns or screaming? How's that for refined living?

I have a few single friends and family members who insist on not being alone on New Year's Eve, and they think that it's not a big deal for me because I "have" someone...well honestly, does it matter that I "have" someone when the ball drops in Times Square and I have already been asleep for three hours? I can say with complete and utter confidence that December 31st and January 1st are regular days to me - other than the fact that I need to remember to write '08 instead of '07 on my patient's charts.

**New Years Resolution

I'm glad I'm not a professional writer. The task of being REQUIRED to write something and not feeling inspired is terrifying to me. I love to write. I feel exhilarated at the idea of people reading my writing, but I must admit that I feel pressure to be enjoyable. There is nothing worse (okay, there are worse things, but go with me on this one) than sitting down to read an excerpt that you expect to be entertaining and it falling short. I hope I don't disappoint, though I know in my moments of sheer boring-ness, I likely do.

So my new year's resolution - the only one I vow to make because I don't really believe in new year's resolutions - is to blog more often. Even if it is a teeny tidbit from my day that I wish to reflect on or share, I hope to come through with this promise.

My blog is loosely based on two people's blogs. You have to promise not to laugh, okay? The first one is Lisa Brandt. She is a radio personality and a newspaper writer. Her blogs are always so witty and entertaining - and she always finds something to say. Her style of writing did inspire me, and though hubby does laugh at me for being a 'fan' of a radio news anchor from 680 news, I insist that her style of writing inspires me and entertains me concurrently.

The second blog of inspiration is Rosie O'Donnell. QUIT THAT LAUGHING! So I'm a fan, okay? I admit it. I was even on her show TWICE. I won't even try to get into why I enjoy her and her blog because there are too many Rosie skeptics in this world and I don't even want to go there.

So check back often. I'll try to be here.

**Funny Tidbits

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I have been experiencing motivational difficulties. I figured I'd bring some holiday cheer by sharing some funny quotes my children have said over the years. Sorry for the lack of personal touch by using "daughter" and "son", but I'm paranoid lately!!

***
Daughter: "Do you think Santa wears something different in the summer? Cause he'd get pretty hot in that!"
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Mommy: "This game says 5+ but you're doing so well!"
Daughter: "Yeah, that's cause I'm a smart 4."
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Son is looking at the calendar. "The one-th of January says New Years"
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Daddy to Son as he's picking his nose: "Do you need a kleenex?"
Son: "Not anymore!"
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Daughter sees a fly in the cottage: "Let's dead it!!"
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Daughter: "I got a boo boo and I have an animal band-aid"
Mommy: "Where's the boo boo?"
Daughter: "Under the band-aid!"
***
Son keeps saying "excuse me I farted" so Mommy says "you don't have to say the 'farted' part, you can just say 'excuse me'", so Son switches to saying "Excuse me, I."
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Daughter: "when I grow up I'm going to be an art-er"
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Daughter is talking about missing her great grandmother who died and asks: "can we leave a message on her answering machine in heaven?"
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Daughter sees a convertible for the first time and says: "Mommy! A broken car!"
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With family over for dinner, Son walks into the kitchen naked. Trying to get him to put on underwear, Daddy says: "but you have to wear SOMETHING!", and Son replies: "But I'm wearing socks!!"
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Son: "How can Santa's sleigh fly without wings and a propeller?"
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Daughter stubs her toe: "Mommy! I hurt my socks!"
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Filling up Son's bike tires at the gas station he asks what it says on the air pump sign.
Mommy: "Free air"
(Son thinks for a while)
Son: "Is that cause I'm free?" (aka three)
***
Mommy has a lady bug on her pants that's not moving.
Son: "Mommy! It's not working!"

**Unfair

It just doesn't seem fair that I woke up, asked my children about their dreams, went to work, came home, picked up my kids from school, read stories, made dinner with 4 little hands helping me, ate as a family, bathed and tucked them into their beds, and there are two small children who came home from school today to find their mother had died in her bed ten minutes after they left for school this morning.

How is that fair?

I know I sound like a broken record, but I can't help but feel lucky. Multiple times every single day I look at my life and am thankful for all I have. The downside is that I think I'm actually waiting for the day that the crisis will hit MY family. I have seen too many crises and somewhere deep down inside of me, I fully expect that one day something like that will happen to someone I love (G-d forbid). I'm not sure this is healthy. I spend so much time thinking about the things I am blessed with that I believe I live in fear that it will be taken away from me one day.

The emotional toll that comes along with my job, some days, is very difficult to bear. In the moment, and even shortly after, I'm okay, but hours or days or weeks later after my mind has wrapped around the enormity of the moments I had been a part of, it affects me profoundly. Sometimes it feels like there are wires tethered to my brain and the other end of the wire is tethered to the ground, pulling my mind down physically and emotionally. It is hard to snap out of, but I do. I'm not sure what kind of a different person I'd be if I had a different job, never being exposed to this type of grief and suffering. Would I be a happier person? Would I look younger and more vibrant? Would I have more energy?

Unfortunately at this point I don't have the liberty to leave my job and find out, though I do often wonder if I did, would it help or hinder me. There is an element of positivity in being thankful for every moment. You love more, cherish more, even force yourself to enjoy more. But who would I have become had I been an accountant or even worked at McDodalds? Would I be the same ME? I don't think so, and I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

**Terrible news

On a cool, crisp day in November while feeling great with myself for crossing something off my "to do" list, I was hit with news that I had no idea would affect me so much.

Prior to getting poked with a flu shot, with my 5 year old sitting on my lap trembling, I was told by the wonderfully gentle public health nurse - who also works at our pediatrician's office - that our spectacularly competent, confident, beautifully kind, caring pediatrician is getting married and moving away. The practice is being given to another physician.

Dr. K. has been a savior to us. In my profession, I have had the displeasure of working with countless arrogant, ill-informed, narcissistic, incompetent doctors, and I have always felt so incredibly lucky to have a doctor for myself and hubby that I trust, and even more importantly, the most wonderfully thorough and shockingly current doctor for my children.

When my son was 2 1/2 he got what could have been a life-threatening infection in his knee joint. Dr. K. worked so quickly and efficiently, knew precisely what to do, and acted on the matter so quickly that we prevented the spread of the infection to the bone and my boy was home and running around again in 3 days.

Over the next few months, while the frequent check-ups were draining for us, my little man and his doctor who saved him, developed a wonderful relationship. He had been scared of the doctor, as many kids are, with the needles and sickness and stress that he surely felt coming from the adults, but by the time he was deemed cured, him and Dr. K had the utmost admiration for one another. She'd take him in the stairwell of the building to see him walking the stairs to make sure his knee was healing okay, and he thought it was a game, they would play "Simon says" and have him jump up and down. Most importantly however, she followed up so vigilantly and got us the care we needed within hours of symptoms occurring, and she prevented permanent damage to his knee, or even worse possible outcomes.

She seems to be light-years ahead of many other doctors in every-day illnesses as well. When my daughter got strep throat, she called us in the midst of her antibiotic treatment to switch to a different antibiotic because some kids in her practice were having relapses after using this particular drug with this particular infection. She prevented a recurrence by being proactive. Two months later on the evening news, they reported on the findings that strep infections in children weren't responding to conventional antibiotics as they had in the past.

We don't visit her often, but when we do, it is because we need her. It is so priceless - especially with how much I know, which is sometimes more of a curse than a blessing - to have that safety net there for your children. To know that if that day comes (which hopefully never will) when you need someone to help your child, she will be there, and she will absolutely do the right thing. Without that, to me, parenting seems more difficult. I tense up when I think that my safety net will be in Owen Sound. And as she passes the torch to another doctor I well-up inside. I hope it never happens again that we need her skill and precision, but if it did and she wasn't there, I cringe at the thought of what could happen...what could have happened to my boy had Dr. K. not been there.

**The good ol' days

I'm trying to figure out how my life has become so busy. In the last couple of months my family has gone from trying to find things to do to keep busy, to trying to find time to take a shower because that 10 minutes is difficult to schedule in a day. What changed? Our calendar used to have a couple of appointments/activities/playdates, but now we're running out of room on most of those impossibly tiny squares.

I'm not really sure that I'm complaining because afterall, I am a person who thrives on being busy, and it is very nice to be surrounded by such a large volume of happy plans, but my views have shifted. I used to look at a blank calendar day and think "oh great...what the heck are we going to do? Will it be warm enough to go to the park? Do I have energy to venture to the Science Centre? Maybe it will be a walk around the mall and looking at the toy department at Zellers"... And now I see a blank day...well, that's a lie, there really aren't any, but if I DID stumble upon one, I would smile. A day to just *BE*.

Between kindergarten, swimming lessons, gymnastics classes, playdates, appointments, meetings, working and cooking (well, ordering), it's hard to find time to breathe. I can't even imagine what it will be like when the kids are in separate extracurricular activity classes, have separate friends and make separate plans. We will need an industrial-sized calendar.

Hubby commented that while trick-or-treating this year he realized that a year or two ago he spent countless hours walking around the neighbourhood, pushing a stroller and encouraging a toddler to walk. Now the area is foreign again as a walk around the neighbourhood would have to be scheduled a month in advance!

Some days I feel proud to provide my children with such a rich, full life filled with friends, family and fun, but some days I see how it is good too to have hours and hours to just let them play with toys, make up games, read some books, colour some pictures, and just make their own entertainment - the kind that doesn't need to be written in a calendar.