Happy Mother's Day

The kids woke up and were excited about giving Tina her Mother's Day cards and presents. Jeremy and Corbin gave Tina the cards they made at day care and school, respectively. Next, was the beautiful red box with a lovely candle holder and a small porcelain case. The final present was a small indoor flower combo for Tina's desk. Tina's only other wish was not preparing any meals. No problem. Happy Mother's Day.

Bureaucracy At Work

We recently received a disability Tax Credit Certificate for Corbin. With this paper we can claim additional credits and amounts for Corbin on our income tax returns. Awesome. The certificate is back dated to 2002, which means that we can claim the additional credits and amounts on every income tax return back to 2002. However, to do so, we have to request that our previous returns be amended. Huh? How about automatically processing the request once the certificate is approved. It's extra money in our pockets - who wouldn't want that? So Adam is filling out a bunch of forms which he will send in next week and hopefully in four to six weeks we will receive a positive response from the Canada Revenue Agency. You have to love red tape.

I Lost My Hat

Jeremy to anyone who would listen:

"I lost my hat. It flew away. I fell in the river. It's gone. The fishies have it".

Repeat over and over and over. Repeat "I lost my hat" over and over and over.

Seems that Jeremy has experienced his first traumatic experience: the loss of an item. Jen, our friend who is babysitting Jeremy, took Jeremy and her son down to the river. It was windy day and at some point Jeremy's hat blew off and landed in the river. Bye bye hat. Time to buy a new hat or two.

Finally Relocated That Bush

Sunday brought pleasant weather. Adam proceeded to do some work outdoors, including relocating a bush to a flower bed that was missing one bush. He headed out to Rona to buy some topsoil to use in the plant transplanting. It took some time to dig the bush out - the roots were thick. Next was redigging the hole, spreading some bone meal and plopping the bush in the hole. Some of the dugg out dirt and the new topsoil was put back around the bush and voila, the bush was planted. Adam moved on to planting some perennials that were replacing plants that had either died or were pulled out. All that is left with the Rivard flower bed is the installation of edging and soaker hose and topping up with lots of mulch. The next task was to fill in some gaps in other two other flower beds with new perennials. Another productive day.

A Day With The Boys

Tina was attending a local conference today, which meant that Adam was the sole parent for Jeremy and Corbin. It was also compost day at Devonshire Mall, an event where you can buy compost and other items such as composters, recycling bins and so on. Adam tries to go each year and buy a bunch of compost for use in the vegetable garden and flowerbeds.

After finishing breakfast, Adam packed the boys in the van and headed out to buy some compost. The crowds were lighter than usual (when you schedule the Home Show and the annual Perennial Flower Sale on the same day, I guess that is to be expected). Adam got his compost and a shiny new stainless steel compost bin for the kitchen. Hooray.

Arriving back home, Adam set up the boys in the house and went outside to unload the compost. Back in the house, Adam spent time playing with Jeremy, who had no interest in watching what Corbin was watching. Around 12:30 it was time to get Corbin ready for karate. This was a struggle since Corbin made his intention of not going clear. But rather than get into a heated debated with a 7-year old, Adam told Corbin the decision was his to make, but that if he did not go to karate class today, he would have to explain to Sensei why he missed a class. That seemed to change Corbin's mind. Next was getting Corbin to wear his gi (the karate uniform). Adam explained not wearing the gi to class would be disrespectful of Sensei. To Adam's disbelief, Corbin put on his gi. Karate here we come.

An hour or so later, it was time to head home. Adam stopped at KFC to pickup a meal. Corbin had his drumsticks and fries, while Jeremy stuck to the french fries (for some unknown reason, Jeremy does not like chicken). A quick clean up and the boys were back to playing. Corbin's respite worker arrived, followed shortly by Tina. Boys day was over.

Gotcha Day For Corbin

Gotcha Day is a day that we invented to celebrate the day we first met Corbin - that would be four years ago. While Corbin did not become officially our son until July 10, 2003, we considered him part of our family from that first visit. Like a birthday, we had a special family meal that ended with a cake with candles for Corbin, Tina and Adam to blow out - Jeremy helped too. The rest of the evening was spent playing video games and hanging out.

Back To Work

Today was Tina's first day back to work. She spent the past 35 weeks on parental leave taking care of Jeremy. My how time flies. Jeremy knew something was up and gave Tina a hard time in the morning - Adam was taking him to the babysitter (aka Aunty Jen, a close friend of ours). Tina's first day went relatively smoothly - deleting hundreds of emails and so on. She was able to remain at her old desk, but her chair had gone missing. Win some, lose some. Welcome back to the working world, Tina.