Meghan's Space

We are in Global Economic Recession.  Canada's job losses are high, and we are expecting to hear nothing but horrible news for all of 2009.  Poor forecasts ahead.  There is a lot of anxiety, tension and stress in the world.  In 8 days from now, the US will be inaugurating it's first black president in US history, Barrack Obama.  He has a lot of expectations to live up to.  Everyone is hoping he will make everything alright, but when he's faced with TRILLIONS of dollars in deficit, I'm not sure exactly what he's going to be able to do.  He's coming to visit Canada as his first foreign visit.

 

 

January 2009:

 

My favourite uncle in the world has been diagnosed with cancer.  That was more than 5 years ago.  He had prostate cancer, and had it removed, the whole thing.  then in January 2008 we found out the prostate cancer came back.  He went through a radical radiation therapy for 3 months, lots of pain, and we got the news in April that it didn't work.  The PSA level is still growing.  It has spread to his bones and he's in a lot of pain.  My poor uncle. 

 

And my aunt is grief stricken.  First her sister (my mom) died of cancer now her own husband is sure to go.  They say it's incurable.  can you beleive getting that kind of news from your doctor??  It's so sad.

 

I spent Christmas with them this year, and Doug was different.  On morphine and steroids, and a thousand other pills for pain, for slowing down the cancer, to strengthen his bones, to kill the bone cancer...you name it.  One thing contradicts the other.  it's just terrible.

 

Tonight, I just found out my friend Sue has cancer.  On Monday she finds out what kind it is. 

 

I fucking hate cancer.

I've coined a new phrase tonight, called Shift Partying.   Def:  the act of partying with your neighbours while your kids are home alone sleeping.  With babysitters in short supply (since all the mom's from Balmy Beach school were in attendance) and we didn't want to miss the party, so we took shifts!

 

9pm:  Meg's shift

9:30:  Andrew's shift

10:00  Megs' shift

10:30  Andrew's shift

11-3am  Meg's shift!  (andrew has to get up for the cottage)

 

In fact, IF the party was directly beside me, we could have brought our baby monitors.  It works perfectly in our homes since we're all so damn close to each other.  Literally 3 of our semis together probably is the size of a big detached home in Oakville LOL, so if I go 'next door' it's like I just went into the 'den' or something !

 

Good times tonight.  Heather and Dave are leaving for Halifax so they hosted a blow out good bye party - and we had a blast.

Meghan

January 2008

15 days past New Years.  Too tired to blog. 

 

 

To blog or not to blog...that is the question.  Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of life, or to blog about them.

 

I haven't written anything for a very very long time.  Here I am, the last day of 2007.  A day to make resolutions.   A day to reflect on all that the previous year was.  I thought that I could use Windows Space as a place to write my history.   A place to document my days so that I could look back on my year and think of what I've accomplished, what I'm proud of, look at my pictures and reflect on the previous year.  Well, my last blog was Connor's chickenpox which was way back in March!  Ever since Facebook came about, I stopped using this Space.  It's been FOREVER since I last wrote here, and I've not checked this for a very long time.  I use Facebook all the time, but it's not really meant to be a blogging social medium, it's not set up like that.

 

So, as I read my previous blogs here I'm reminded of some memories that I've totally forgotten.  It's brought a smile to my face and I have to admit these details would have been gone forever had I not documented this.  I wish I had written more. 

 

Perhaps my New Year's resolution should be to begin blogging life's little moments again.  To spend MORE time online.  But that sounds so contrary to my beleif that life is so short we should live it to its fullest, why waste it all online??  I'll have to find a healthy balance.

 

 

Poor little fellow!  Connor missed ALL of March Break due to the chickenpox.  He couldn't have anyone over, and we couldn't go anywhere either since he was so contagious.  He got them on Sunday, the weekend before the break.  At first, I didn't think they were going to be bad, but by Wednesday he was covered with them.  Thursday was probably the worst of the days for him, as far as the itching goes - he was begging for Calamine Lotion and Benadryl.  Poor guy.

 

Well at least he's finished with them, and he's now immune.

Punk band Rise Against came to our office this week to perform an acoustic set to our counsellors and staff.  They were really great, well spoken, and very considerate.  MuchMusic also came to cover this, and they interviewed Kids Help Phone.  I ended up getting interviewed also, and we'll be on at 4pm on Sunday.  I'm not sure it was my best interview to date - because they asked me some pretty out there questions, that I'm not exactly qualified to answer.  Such as "Do you think teens respond well to Rise Against?"  uhmmmmmmm that's a loaded question don't you think?  It was cute, some of our coworkers brought their teenagers, so it's good we had some teen reprentation in the office.

Rise Against went on later that night as an opening act to Billy Talent at the Air Canada Center.

Billy Talent has been very supportive to us, and they put our logo at the end of their music video "Nothing to Lose". 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm soo happy with my decision to volunteer at Connor's JK class once/week.  I was worried how I was going to manage the time off work, and worried my boss would disapprove, worried coworkers would sneer etc.  But you know what?  None of that matters, because this time in Connor's life will never come back.  He'll never be a Junior Kindergardener ever again, and I just had to paint a mental picture in my head of his day to day activities.  I'm so glad I'm doing this!  I've only done it twice so far, but it's so worth it.

 

When he joined a new daycare at 3 years old, I took a full week off work to phase him in.  I sat through a full day with him, and observed the routines.  I got to know exactly where he'd be at any given hour.  Lunch, nap, snack, outdoors and I could feel comforted when at work knowing what he was doing.

 

So, when JK started it was wierd not having that time to observe.  So, from January - March, I'm volunteering one morning a week as a parent helper.  It's great.  And, now I know what he's up to, how he compares with other children, how he behaves at school, how the teachers treat him, what's expected of him etc.  I highly recommend it.  Of course, you have to have a flexible boss, like mine.  And I get my work done (at 10pm at night mind you, but there's got to be a tradeoff)

 

This experience has taught me a lot.  I now understand the importance of telling Connor what I've packed in his backpack for him in the morning!  For example, they are expected to go and get their own library books out of the backpacks, and return them in the yellow bin.  They are expected to write, colour, draw all on their own.  They don't get any one-to-one instruction time on how to hold a pen, or any extra help! I know I have to work with him at home, to teach him things on my own.  I know that he can put on his whole outdoor outfit, snowpants etc, all by himself, so no more me helping him.  Anyway, I'm glad to have this opportunity.  It will be sad when it's over.

 

Meghan

Yesterday, we shot a new Kids Help Phone donor commercial with Jann Arden. 

Also, thanks to Canada Newswire (CNW GROUP), because they donated their broadcast services and produced this whole commercial probono!  That was so generous.  And Jann Arden also donated her services to us, so we are very thankful for such great suppport.  She was hilarious in between takes, cracking jokes, making everyone laugh. 

 

Unfortunately by about lunchtime, I became very sick - with cold/flu symptons (aches and pains all over body, chills, running nose, sneezing, coughing) so I had to leave early.  It was so hard to be uppity and fun with Jann, because I felt so crappy.  I was trying to hide the sneezing and nose running by discreetly ducking out to the washroom but I was the only Kids Help Phone person there in the morning.  Thankfully my VP and our board of directors chair showed up.  All I wanted to do was crawl into bed.  Graham offered to look after the rest of the shoot for me, which as so kind.  I have not been that sick in SOOO long.  It was nasty!  I'm still sick.  I went home yesterday at 1:30pm and slept allday and allnight long - that's 24 hours.  I haven't eaten either.

 

Well, all in all, Jann did a WONDERFUL job as usual, and the piece is going to be great.  We were so lucky that she was able to donate her time and talent.

Publicis and Blink Pictures hot three tv commercials for Kids Help Phone all day Saturday.  The shoot went very well, and I was impressed at the actual number of people involved in putting these together.  There must have been 50 people there in total. 

 

One is a 30 sec spot with a menacing bully talking to the camera...very powerful.  The other two are back to back 15 sec spots, just like our washroom and locker posters.  Those last two spots were difficult to get everything across in only 15 seconds.  The objective is to raise awareness of the issue of bullying, and let kids know there is help available.  But also to demonstrate the anxiety that kids feel everyday when they are constantly being bullied, that it's not just the actual incidence that occurs, it's the stress of being at school, fearing running into the bullies.  I am totally impressed at the concept that Pat and Gary from Publicis came up with.  The directors were Derek Sewell and Margaret Malandruccolo who were top notch.

 

We hope to get the Ontario Auditor General to approve these, and we can add the Ontario Government logo to the very end of these and hopefully get extended reach across Canada.

 

 

 

I was working late tonight, well, it was more fun than work.  We were at a production meeting for some new Bullying TV spots that Publicis is creating for us.  We're hoping to let kids know that they don't have to live with bullying situations, that there is someone to help. Then some coworkers all went out for dinner/drinks. 

 

Anyway, I called home at 8 to say good night to Connor.  He gets on the phone with his adorable 4 1/2 year old voice and says, "I coloured you a picture Mommy.  It's a nice one."    (See, him and I have different tastes.  He likes gross anglerfish, bugs, ants, dinosaurs, dragons, and snakes, and when he asks me what I think of his pictures, I usually reply something along the lines of "that's cool buddy, good job, but Mommy's not that in to those creatures, but it's a good picture, and I love you..." kind of thing. )

So tonight he goes "It's a nice picture, Mommy, of a family, of you and me, when I was a baby.  I drew that for you cuz you like family things."  awwwwww what a perfect little boy.  On the phone with his cute little voice, I just wanted to reach into the phone and eat him all up.

When I got home from work, he was asleep, so I crawled in there to say goodnight, and he opens his little eyes, "hi mommy" all sleepily.  "can u stay with me for a while?"  So I crawled in there, and he says "I wish Daddy could crawl in here too".  THen he started to back to sleep, so I whispered "good night, you're a good little boy" and he said "you're a good girl too Mommy" with his eyes still closed.

CHOMP.  i just want to eat him right up, I love him sooooo much.

 

Tomorrow I'll be attending some focus groups of children and teens, to find out their perceptions of online safety.  Microsoft and Ipsos-Reid are hosting these and invited Kids Help Phone along. 

 

We also did a neat survey on MSN Messenger (on our tab) asking kids/teens how much they know about online safety.  I downloaded some of the survey results today and I wasn't all that shocked as to the results.  However, what was amazing was the # of kids who filled out complete survey results.  We got a pretty good cross section of kids in Canada, about 5300 responsed in just over 2 weeks!  I'm really hoping that with these findings, we will be able to better tailor our online information and protect kids in this environment. 

All I wanted out of this trip was some good quality time with Connor and my husband, and I didn't really expect too much from

Disney World.    It ended up being such a blast, and Disney was out of this world.  Really incredible.  Mary Louise went down for work to attend the Disney Institute course on world class customer service.  She was put up in a great hotel for 5 days, so Andrew, Connor and I were able to stay with her for free, totally cool.

 

We arrived, checked into the Disney Contemporary Resort.  We tried going for dinner, but quickly realized we needed reservations everywhere.  The host at the restaurant said, matter of factly "you're in DisneyWorld, people make reservations before they leave the HOUSE."  hmmm, I didn't like his attitude.  No one told us we needed reservations!  I was tired and hungry (we woke up at 3am to catch a flight).  I complained a bit about not knowing where to eat if all the restaurants needed reservations... until we were promptly escorted by the manager to the best seat in the house.  I must say, disaster averted by some really great customer service.  I was a little embarrassed after that, so I made sure to thank them all.  So, we pretty much unpacked, and hit the hay.

Animal Kingdom - probably Connor's favourite place.  WOW.  We went on a safari ride through real live animals (crocodiles, lions, hippos, zebras, etc).  The tree of life was out of this world.  A huge tree, with animal carvings in the wood, and roots.  However, under the tree was  3D movie called 'it's a bugs life".  Connor and Andrew were there, and1/2 way through, when the termites came out and started spitting acid at him (actual water gets thrown on you) Connor ripped off his glasses "Im getting out of here!".  Poor kid is terrified of 3D movies now!  An imal Kingdom is home to DINOLAND, this complete area filled with dinosaur rides, dinosaur shops, dinosaur kids activity place - where kids can run around climbing, digging, sliding etc.  This is where Andrew went on the ride Dinosaur.  Connor got a really neat Pterodactyl toy dinosaur.  There was a really cool parade at  3pm.  Full on floats, music, dancing, giant animals all going by was beautiful!  We saw the Lion King show which was really incredible, great singing, dancing, sound - very cool!  At night, we went for dinner at Downtown Disney.  A neat place, with lots of shops.  The whole place lit up for Christmas, with decorations galore, and a symphoney playing while you stroll along.  Gorgeous. 

 

Epcot Center - this was way cool.  A more space / science kind of place.  This is where the new Finding Nemo ride exists along with the interactive Turtle Talk with Crush show is.  What a neat experience that was!  Connor was a bit scared in the dark Nemo ride, thinking he would be attacked by Bruce the Shark.  Ever since that realistic 3D experience - he seemed very nervous on rides.  Poor guy.  The Turtle Talk thing was ultra cool!  Then there was this HUGE aquarium, one of the worlds biggest aquariums, which housed sharks, manatees, and all sorts of marine creatures.  And then we ate at the Coral Reef restaurant, literally, right beside the aquarium.  One whole wall was the aquarium.  Connor ate Crab Legs, and we all seafood - which is a bit morbid now that you think about it?! 

At night MaryLouise watched Connor, while Andrew and I had a date night.  We went to this beautiful restaurant on top of our hotel, and you can see the Disney Castle off in the distance all lit up.  I had a French Martini, mmmmm. 

 

 

Magic Kingdom - so this is the place where all the magic happens - This is the park that has the castle!  Rides were, the Haunted Mansion ride, the Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Brer Rabbit's Laughing Tree, It's a Small World, Peter Pan's Flying Adventure, Winnie the Pooh ride, and the 3D movie Mickey's Philarmagic.  Here you could meet Ariel, Cinderella, list goes on.  At night, the castle changes colours, and then an amazing fireworks show goes off, and Tinkerbell flies around the castle glowing in the dark, twinkling!  So nice.

 

At night, Connor, Andrew and I went to the restaurant in our resort called Chef Mickeys which is one of the hardet restaurants to get in apparently.  Wierd.  This is what you call "Character Dining" and you need reservations like a week in advance.  When Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto come out to sit with you throughout your meal, it's like Bono just came out.  The kids like FREAK OUT.  I don't know if it's an American thing or what, cuz Connor wasn't all that thrilled.  It was really neat, but other tables all held up their napkins and rotated them around and around chanting, and singing like they were brainwashed or in some sort of Disney cult, and we weren't drinking their water.  I still managed to snap lots of shots of Connor and Goofy together.

 

MGM Studios - this was neat, I really love the whole Hollywood set buildings.  Andrew went on the Tower of Terror, which he really liked.  We went to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show, but it freaked Connor out a bit, so we had to leave.  Mickey the Sorcerer was the big thing there, and we got to take a picture with him.  After lunch we went back to the resort to meet MaryLouise so we could go shopping!  I went to the outlet mall in Orlando for the rest of the day/night and Andrew and Connor went back to Magic Kingdom to go on more rides.

 

Thursday was pretty much get up, have breakfast, pack, and head out to the airport.

December 2006

Last night, I attended the client holiday party of Toronto ad agency Publicis.  It was a lot of fun.  Great hors d'hoevres, open bar, and great people.  Publicis is our ad agency, and they have been so great to Kids Help Phone.  They are going to do a tv PSA for Kids Help Phone, and help us get the spot aired in February.  It's all about bullying prevention, and illustrating the anxiety that kids feel when they are being bullied.  It should be good.

 

Some great people we met that became quite passionate in helping us get our advertising out there, and offered to work with us (like OBN and Zenith).  So overall a good work night. 

 

Somehow, between taking a nasty spill into their shag carpeted pit, and ending up at the "beer garden" I think, talking to complete strangers, the I had a pretty rough morning.  UGH.  

 

But I'm now on holidays!  YAY!  We leave for Disneyworld early Saturday morning!  I am so needing a holiday with my wonderful husband and son.

 

 

This week I went to the 25th anniversary of Family Communications.  They own Parents Canada and Todays Bride.  It was fun, and I brought our PR Coordinator and Graphic Designer.  It was the first party that our graphic designer had ever been to, for a work function.  It was fun for her, there was a martini bar, live band, hors d'hoevres flowing - and we chatted with the publisher about getting them in to support Kids Help Phone.

 

The National Sales Manager told us a bit more about the new magazine they are launching.  Marla Shapiro is the editor, Susur Lee for food, etc. and it's targetting parents.  It's going to be a GREAT magazine, I can't wait to get it.

 

Friday night, Andrew went out with Joey and the guys for a late night, so I invited Mary and Arianna over.  We ordered in pizza, and the kids played in the basement.  It's great having that new space down there, holy cow. 

 

Saturday was Connor's swimming lessons and he passed his Preschool Level 1 class.  The next session starts in January.  He really likes going there, but I'm not sure he had the best teacher.  She didn't really get them to do anything, except jump around and play.  At the end, the report card rated him on how well he did the back float (I don't remember her asking him to do a back float?)  Oh well, it's only preschool 1.  

 

 

Andrew and Connor are on their way out to Whitby for a visit.  Phyllis needs the Santa Claus suit for something she's doing at her school and we've had it for a few years, collecting dust really.  I don't think we ever wore it??  Andrew's going to bring home a big huge pile of wood for the winter.  I love having a real fireplace in our house - because when we get the house all decorated for Christmas, and the fire's burning, it really feels cozy.

 

I should be getting the house ready for Christmas today, but I've still got this lingering headache/cold.  Connor stayed home from school two days this week, and of course I spent my time wiping his nose every 10minutes and answering work emails/phone calls.  So guess who's sick now?  You can't escape it, even with ColdFX and Echinacea..it just catches up with you.  Now here I am alone on a Saturday with the perfect opportunity to do work - and all I really want to do is relax.  I don't feel like working at all today. My head hurts.  

 

Tonight Andrew's going out to Sue Davidson's 40th birthday party.  I'm going to stay home with Connor.  This Christmas season there are always so many parties etc that I don't want to miss quality time with Connor.   It should be fun though to see the whole crew and to wish Sue well.  Steve and Jenn are driving Andrew up, so he'll be good and drunk when he gets home I'm sure.  Hard to beleive Andrew is almost 40 too.  I should start thinking of what to do for him?.  

 

 

Last night we went for dinner at Steve and Jenn's.  Connor loves going over there, he has so much fun with Jarrett.  They really play well together, running around in the leaves in the backyard, playing with little Scott, pretending he's a bogeyman.  It was cute, while we were upstairs, Jarrett and Connor decorated their basement with Christmas ornaments...and we had no idea what they were up to.  We came down, and they had hung stuff everywhere, off light switches, off pictures, where ever they could find space. 

 

The Santa Claus parade today was funny.  It lasted exactly 20 minutes.  All our neighbours were there so it was fun for the kids to hang out with each other.  Arianna and Maddy's ballet class had a float (how cute eh?) and so Mary Griffiths and Heather Spriet were in the parade too.  When Mary saw us, she took a card out of her pocket and ran over to give it to us "I thought I might see you here!".  Talk about local community.  I had to laugh at the end, cuz Santa was riding in the back of a Home Hardware pick up truck. 

 

We saw a boy in Connor's class, Graydon, at the parade so he is over now for a quick impromptu playdate.  They are watching Scooby Doo movie, saying "Im NOT SCARED, are you?" to each other, trying to be cool.  I just made them some fresh fruit smoothies so they're happy.

 

Andrew's out on the Vespa trying to get the gas to run out so he can store it for the winter.  It's still nice out so we're getting lots of use of it. 

 

Connor's fast asleep, and Andrew's out with some clients from work, which he said were big drinkers.  He's taking out media buyers in an attempt to woo them into getting their clients to buy advertising on ROBtv, to simplify.  I'm sure he'll have fun.  All I know is he'll be out late tonight!  

This Sunday, there's a big Christmas parade in The Beach (too early in my opinion). The day starts off with the first Santa Clause Parade right at Kingston Rd and Victoria Park ... just around the corner from our house. We can't really miss it I guess, even if I wanted to avoid it, we'd HEAR it.  I don't know about parades, they're kind of wierd in my opinion.  

Then after that, it's the CTV Kids Christmas Party (Andrew's work) which we're going to at night. I can't beleive we're celebrating already? It's crazy, way too early!   I just finally took down our Halloween decorations tonight, which were all over the place. We bought that dollar store cobweb crap and in an overzealous attempt to be festive I went a little nuts with the stuff. It took me 3hrs to take it all down from the trees, shrubs, bushes, windows, gates etc.  Connor attempted to help but just got more tangled up in the stuff.

I stayed home from work today with a migraine but I feel much better now, thank god. It was a brutal day yesterday and most of today.  This weekend Andrew and I are going to get HEALTHY.  After Connor's swimming lessons, we're going to go to St. Lawrence market and pick up some fresh fruit/vegetables/fish etc and start eating better.  While I will be on this big kick to eat right, I'm guaranteed a hungover husband for the day tomorrow.  Goodnight.

I've heard that it's not the quantity of time you spend with your kids it's the quality.  bull shit.  Tonight, we were supposed to have a dinner party with some friends, but both Connor and Andrew were sick, so we had to cancel.  I would have spent a few hours today cooking and cleaning and not really really tuning in to Connor. 

 

Life is so busy all the time, and sometimes we forget to slow down and get on Connors' wavelength.  With no agenda, no schedule, we really listened to him today and you know what?  He had a lot of great things to talk about it!  At the strangest times, he'd just burst into a conversation, and tell me about a day at JK this week.   Usually when we pick him up from school, we ask him "How was you day?" he says "good".  That's it.  Then it's rush rush rush home rush rush rush dinner rush rush rush tidy up rush rush rush bath rush rush rush story...crazy!

It's just nice to spend time with him.