moving mountains

i feel like i've moved mountains today! truly! getting through the red tape of canadian government agencies is like moving mountains. let me indulge you for a moment....
did you know that officially it takes three months for a child to get his or her birth certificate? yes. that is what they tell you, when you call the agency. and the application form consists of four pages, where the questions are so confusing (things like - the applicant is not the child, but one of the parents!), that i have managed to make mistakes on both copies of the official forms i had ordered. however, when i called the office to ask where i could pick up another application form, they conveniently forgot to tell me that there is a web site, where you can fill out a simplified version of the form, pay and order the stupid certificate all from the convenience of your own computer chair! that was about five days ago.

i do have to stroke my own ego, here, a little. i was wise. i did not give up that easy. i figured... most government forms are downloadable. let's do a search. and sure enough, i found the site, filled out the form, ordered the certificate and exactly four days later i got a notice in the mail box to come and pick it up. four days! what the #@$%??? how is that possible? how can it take three months on paper and be done in four days on the web? i just don't get it. and it seems like the web thing is the best kept secret, because none of the other mothers i have talked to knew anything about this site and they all have ordered their kid's birth certificates. infuriating!

but...i did not get off that easy. when i went to pick it up, it turned out i had to show them the original bith registry form. we never got that. at least, not that i can remeber. (i hope steve is not going to tell me otherwise!) this meant having to go to the city hall to get an official copy. then back to etobicoke for the birth certificate. finally, after standing in line-ups three times & spending 90$, a whole three hours later i had the little piece of paper in my hand. score! i headed straight for the dufferin mall, where the closest government office issuing SIN numbers is located and stood in another line up and got that done, too. so that's my story. it was exhausting. but now my child has all the paperwork necessary to be a functioning, official citizen of this country. or i've just been through all the red tape i can handle for a while.

blah, blah, blah

can't really bring myself to write anyhting. maybe kaspar can start doing his own blogs, soon... i went to work today for about four hours. it really got me down. oh well. maybe tomorrow...

the two day long entry

it seems like we have not had much of a winter for over a month now, so, you can understand my surprise, when steve calls me last night to tell me that they have been caught in a snowstorm that is supposed to deliver from 30 - 40 cm of the white stuff over the course of the night. that's only 5 hours north of toronto! strange... we were supposed to get snow, as well, but we mostly got rain and the bits of flurries that did appear, disappeared as soon as they hit the ground. the weather has been very strange this winter!

today is sunday, and yet i have not done a single thing to make me feel like it's sunday. the weather has been windy enough and kaspar has had a sniffle, big enough to make me not want to go outside. so, i'm hanging out at home with my kiddo and pampering my mother, who's sort of an invalid today. she slipped and fell on the stairs last night and pretty badly bruised her back. thank god she managed to catch herself! i feel for her... i remember a certain boy named george, who pulled a chair out from behind me, and i fell and hit my tail bone and lower back on the edge of the chair. i was in pain for a long time. i've hated the name george, ever since!

well, this didn't get finished last night... kaspar woke up and we had three hours of sincere crying. it was not just cranky screaming, but absolutely sincere crying with a flood of tears followed by two hours of hiccups (or, you know the sort of gasping for air, like one does, after very hard and long crying) i'm not sure, but i wonder if his gums are hurting. he does have a couple of very hard, about to pop, bumps on his lower gum line. who knows. that's the hardest part - not being able to understand why the crying occurs. anyway... now, we're up. happy. well. he's happy. i'm relatively happy. i'm more sleepy then happy. but, i just made myself three cappuccinos, so i will be better in a few minutes. yes, i do find it extremely hard to wake up at 6am. it does not happen every day, but probably about half the days of his life, kaspar wakes up just after 6am. and, if steve is not home to take him for that first hour (or, if he just got in at 4am) then i'm it!

i'm listening to cbc radio. it's kind of my lifeline. very often i have 'cbc one' on in the background, while i'm working or cooking or something. kaspar is definitely used to it. i realized this morning, that he perked up and listened to it intently as the metro morning jingle came on. funny! he's very tuned into different sounds. not talking, but musical sounds. i like the constant flow of useful or sometimes useless information... but in either case there is something to think about and listen to, while my hands are at work. i'm very proud to say that as of this week not only one, but two of my friends work for cbc. how awesome is that!?!



here is kaspar - the star. this is my saving grace in the mornings. when he gets his hands on the microphone, he's busy for a good twenty minutes, which gives me a chance to finish my blog and in turn gives you all a couple of good pics. hope you all have a great day and great week ahead!