Personal Weblog - Category: Kids

No more eyebrows

Jasmine shaved her eyebrows yesterday. Remember, she's only 6 years old. She was just about to shave her brother's too when she was caught. What was she thinking? She had to go to school that afternoon. Well, you can imagine the reaction. She's not a happy camper right now.

She now thinks she's ugly. I'm trying as much as I can to convince her that her eybrows are going to grow back but she has no patience, "will it grow back by tommorrow?" she asks crying. Boy she has really learned her lesson. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn't help laughing the first time I saw her. Of course that made her start crying... Poor thing.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 12:52 AM | Comments (1)

Stop Laughing at me

Yesterday Jasmine started talking about school at the dinner table. I always try to get her to talk about what happened that day and let me know of anything interesting. Every day she talks about how boring school is...

J: School is so boring!
M: Why?
J: All we do is play play play. I wanna do some work. Why don't they give us some homework?
M: They will, when you're in grade 1
J: But I want work now!
...pause...
J: Daddy, today at school Cassie was mean to me. She said I couldn't be her friend any more.
...cry...
M: Why would she say that?
J: Because she asked me to trade shoes and I said no because hers have tielooshes (shoelaces) and it takes too long to put on because I can't tie my shoes fast.
M: Why are you guys trading shoes anyway?
J: Because we want to.
M: ok
J: I traded with her before when she had the shoes with the lines on them (velcro) 'cus it was easy but i didn't want to now.
M: Did you tell her that?
J: Yes I tried to but she just turned her back and wouldn't talk to me.
...cry...
M: Anything else happen in school that you want to talk about?
J: Well when I was at the gym and running i tripped and almost hurt myself. Everyone especially Niko was laughing at me. I don't like it when they laugh, it's not nice to laugh, it's rude.
...cry...
M: Well, did you tell them that?
J: Yes, but they wouldn't listen. Mrs. Cosley told them to go to the class room and put Niko in the "chair".

As I was sitting there having this conversation with Jasmine, my mind started to jump back and forth between Jasmine's little problems and my huge problems when I was her age. My how significant those "issues" were to me back then, how important it was to fit in and not be the tease and ridicule of my school. As I thought about this I realized that in reality, there was nothing i could do for her to help her get through these moments of embarasment or frustration. I could only comfort her and tell her that it doesn't matter. I can't fight her battles just as nobody could fight my battles as a kid. I actually didn't want anyone to do that for me since I had a huge ego and did not want the "embarassment" of outside help.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 02:29 AM | Comments (1)

Child Vomit

I know that reading the title of this entry is not very pleasing, but holding the pail with one hand and your nose with the other is even worse. Thus began the week with Jasmine sick with some sort of stomach bug on Sunday. She was puking all night and it broke my heart to see her go through it. The first time it happened we had to change all the bed coverings since it happened in bed. After that I tried to go to bed but was woken up a few hours later with another incident. Second bed sheet change later and at this point the house is smelling... we have lots of laundry this week. By Monday she was feeling slightly better but no school for her.

We have this reference book on childcare (doesn't every parent?) but it only went up to age 5 and Jasmine was 6. Oh well, I decided to risk it and read up on vomiting. If you try to read into every detail of this type of book then you can get very panicky very fast. You'd end up in the emergency room every week. Looked up Vomiting in the index and I noticed the sub-index had the word "projectile". Hmmm, I don't recall Jasmine's head spinning around and the bed elevating so I guess it's not "projectile". I should double-check in any case.

Lets see: Pyloric Stenosis
This is a congenital condition in which the valve leading from the stomach into thr intestines won't open up enough to let food through. As a result, the baby may vomit with force, a phenomenon known as projectile vomiting.

Ok I guess it's not that. Further digging and I realize that it's only serious if acompanied by fever and if it lasts for more than 24hrs. While I was reading Merlyn decided to turn to another source of information, the new provincial telephone health system called Telehealth Ontario. What a crock of shit this is. I can't believe our tax dollars are going into this bloody thing. It's just a bunch of nurses with no decision making capabilities saying it may be this or it may be that and just to be on the safe side... go to a doctor. I think the whole purpose is to prevent people from flooding our already crowded emergency rooms. This is the second time we've called them for help and the response has been pretty useless.

Tuesday afternoon rolls around and it's Alexander's turn to increase the laundry load, only one bed cover change for him though. Twentyfour hours later and he's back to normal now. Merlyn and I hadn't been up in the middle of the night for a long time. We've forgotten what it was like to have sleepless nights with babies crying, diapers that needed changing, bottle feeding... This latest vomit fest reminded us how vulnerable and needfull the kids still are.

Ok I promise to stop talking about pukeing. Well, until absolutely necessary.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)

Small World?

So my 6 year old daughter and I are watching TV and she turns to me all of a sudden and says "Daddy, it's a small world and and we live in a big city". I look at her and say "what?". Then she goes on and asks "If the world is round and we're on the outside then why don't we fall off?"...

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)

Doing just fine

Every new year's eve is relatively uneventful for me. In the past I felt left out, not part of the "in" crowd. If I wasn't at an all night bash drinking it up and with a hundred other people claiming to be my friends, then I thought something was wrong with me. Cultural cliche's tell us that new years eve is a time for extreme cazyness, where we have to party because if we're stuck alone at home watching TV then that means we're social outcasts doomed to be alone for the rest of the year and possibly our life. Of course even if I wanted to be "normal" I couldn't. How can you go party with friends you don't have? That was how things went back then, seven times out of ten I spent it at home, staring at the TV. I watched new years eve count downs on every channel (US and Canadian)...

This new year's eve i'm staring up. Staring up at two frightened eyes of a young girl. A young girl who is hanging 20ft. off the ground with a harness strapped around her waist that apears to be made for a child many years older than her. She's stuck two thirds up the side of a rock climbing training wall. She's in what appears to be a dilemma. Do I give up and climb down, or do I show mom and dad that I'm made of more than they expect? "Go on, you can do it!", I yell at her from below. Inside of me, my gut says she will give up and be on the way down. I'm already preparing my speech about how it's ok and at least she tried and I'm proud of her anyway etc. Externally I was still smiling and could not show any disapproval, not even a flinch. She could read that.

She flipped her head back up and streched for a small simulated rock knob. A few inches was all it took and she was stepping 1, 2, 3... she made it to the top. The smile on her face. The free fall... that was nice. Hugs and kisses for the little 6 year old billy goat.

So, do I feel depressed and "left out" this new years eve? Not a chance. Funny thing is... I missed the count down... hmm, that's too bad I guess. Maybe next year.

Higher Ground Climbing Gym

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)

Found Barbie - Gift hiding

Just want to let everyone know I found Rapunzel Barbie... I just went off the beaten path to a Zellers Select store and there she was.

I was trying to find a spot to hide the gifts 'till Christmas. I pulled up a chair, peered over our bedroom high boy closet only to discover a gift for Jasmine I placed there last year for safekeeping. It wasn't even wrapped and had a years' worth of dust on it. Reminded me of the movie Christmas Vacation when rusty finds last years gift to his wife in a hiding spot. Well, I guess Jasmine gets a bonus gift this year...

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 12:17 AM | Comments (1)

Curly Hair

My daughter has curly hair. Is she blessed? I don't know. Every time we are in public, people (mostly women, men are too shy) come up to her and tell her how beautiful she is and what nice curly hair she has. Most women say how lucky she is that she has curly hair since they have to pay an arm and a leg to the hair dresser for the same effect. I've heard this over 100 times. Why do they have the need to say that I don't know. Jasmine just stands there with a smile on her face and says: "I know". And she's probably thinking ya ya move on lady, nothing to see here. I end up being a sideline, an ugly father sidekick to the angel-like god-child.

In the end, when she's a teenager just trying to find herself, I think Jasmine will probably buy all kinds of hair products and hot combs just to make her hair as flat as possible.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 12:15 AM | Comments (2)