The sky is falling

I did a couple of all nighters in a row helping out with a big, time-sensitive project at work. After a record breaking 18-hour shift, I was understandably exhausted. I helped get kids ready for school and went to bed. They woke me up at 5:30pm when Chris brought them back. Looking concerned, Chris asked me if I had heard anything while sleeping. Understandably, I heard nothing. Deep asleep there was no waking me up. Apparently while I was asleep, a large piece of plaster fell off the ceiling crashing down on the floor below. Wow! I am suspecting that the plaster was aggravated because of the stairs we've put in to connect two otherwise separate condo units to make a larger home. The stairwell opening still needs finishing touches; concrete still showing around the opening. Well, the builder still agreed to come fix the damage so we have someone over taking care of it as we speak. As a bonus it looks like we'll get a freebie and have the concrete covered up and prettied up. So, in retrospect, it all worked out for the best. Still, once is enough. I'd prefer the ceiling stay where it's supposed to in the future.

Tooth fairy incident

Tooth fairy started visiting our family a couple of months ago. Recently Ivor's front teeth got loose. It took a while but the first one finally came out. Chris was in the bathroom with Ivor. Two of them were above the sink working on the tooth in front of the bathroom mirror. Suddenly there was commotion, Ivor ran out with blood dripping out of his mouth (looked awful) looking quite upset, and Chris trekked out right after him. Apparently in the excitement of the situation Ivor knocked Chris' hand and the tooth went down the drain. Ivor was visibly upset because tooth fairy would be unable to fulfill her duties. He went as far as wanting to block the bathroom door so nobody would accidentally run the water in the sink and wash his tooth away. It took a few minutes to stop the bleeding and calm him down. We tried to reassure him that all would be OK but he was inconsolable.

Kids finally went to bed and two tooth fairies had to come out at midnight and fiddle with the drain. After much trouble, tooth fairy daddy managed to undo the drain and pull the priceless tooth out and it was magically returned to the boy along with some money that night. Unfortunately, now we can't tighten the drain back so we'll have to call the plumber for help. That’ll be one expensive tooth. In the meantime, a plastic bowl is catching dripping water under the sink while a boy, oblivious to all the trouble others go through for him, happily checks out his toothless grin in the mirror above.

Birthday bash

Ivor couldn't wait to celebrate yet another birthday. He now boasts to be 7 (even though the actual birthdate is June 25th which clearly hasn't ocurred yet). We celebrated early while his friends are still in town. This week the school is over and the summer officially kicks in with people abandoning the city for the beach in droves. We scheduled the party at a playroom. We had close to 20 kids show up and they all had a blast. Here most parents just drop their kids off for birthday parties and don't stick around. While I don't agree with the practice, especially when it comes to smaller kids like 4 year olds, we did what we had to. Chris and I tried to keep up with them, refilled juice cups, wiped noses, kissed boo-boos (quite a few of them, actually) and took them to the bathroom. Ivor barely had a moment to slow down and blow out the candles. We actually had to make him do it. He and a bunch of little boys ran around without stopping for nearly 4 hours.

You can take a look at more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/mirjana.phillips/200806.

Picture sharing - finally

I've finally uploaded some pictures to Picasa - online picture sharing. I'll try to be good and add a few each month. Enjoy! :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/mirjana.phillips