Maple Leaf Mommy

I did this last year and it was tons of fun, so time for a repeat...



Halloween has always been one of my favourite holidays.  It's the one time of year when it's socially acceptable to run around dressed like a total loon.  What's not to love?

I love looking at pictures of other people's clever costumes so I thought it might be fun to host a Halloween themed blog hop.

Rules:
While I would love it if folks would follow me, it's not required.
Just link up to a Halloween themed post, preferably one containing a picture of you or your little ones in costume.
(Links to giveaways or non-Halloween themed posts will be removed.)
Then click through and enjoy seeing other peoples Halloween pictures.

As an added treat you may find a new blog or two to follow.
Think of it as virtual Trick or Treating!



Since many people probably won't be taking photos until this eve, I'll leave the linky open for one week to allow time for folks to post their pics.

My mother-in-law just emailed me a bunch of pictures from Halloween's of the past. Photos of my husband dressed up to head out trick-or-treating, back in the 1980s.





I wanted to share them because I thought they were cute, but what really struck me while looking at these photos is, they could really have been taken from anytime from 1960 through today. They could be photos of the kids that will be coming to my doorstep come Monday. Aside from the modern leaning towards bought costumes, and plastic pitchforks and swords over homemade tinfoil ones, these pictures are timeless. I think that timelessness is part of what makes Halloween my favourite holiday. And for the record, I'll take a tinfoil sword over a plastic dollar store one any day.

This is a guest post from my husband. He runs a local gaming forum and frequently posts reviews for video games, board games, and roleplaying games. If you want to check out more of his reviews take a look at the Windsor Gaming Resource.

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I'm a gamer. I play all kinds of games, from pen and paper RPGs to card games to board games to video games. I am also a father of two beautiful girls. Like any parent I love spending time with my kids. What's even better is when I can spend time doing the things I love with them and sharing my interests with them. Of course in this regard I'm talking about gaming.

Traditionally games for kids were made overly simple. Games like Chutes and Ladders or Hi-Ho Cherry O where there is no decision making and each turn is just rolling the dice or spinning a spinner. While these games may be great for the kids, they are boring as heck for us parents. Thankfully with the rise in popularity of gaming in the last few years (especially in the areas of board and video games) this has started to change. Right now is a beautiful time to be a gamer dad (or mom for that matter). There's a great selection of stuff out there that the entire family can enjoy. Stuff that's not only simple enough for the kids but has enough added complexity and decision making to be fun for parents.

Today I'm going to point out a few games that I have found to be awesome to play with my kids, and which don't bore me to tears. I'm going to focus on what are probably my three favorite types of games: roleplaying games, board games and video games.

Roleplaying Games:
By roleplaying games I'm talking about a game where you take on the role of a character and play through an adventure. During that adventure you get to decide what exactly you want to do and you have the opportunity to improve your character in some way. In the last year Lego has provided us with the perfect gateway into RPGs for our kids. That is Heroica.

Heroica was released this year as part of the new Lego boardgame series. What sets Heroica apart from other games in this series is its RPG elements. In these games you build an encounter area. This is a dungeon, forest, dessert or other adventure location. You fill it with treasures and monsters and decide on a goal. Goals can be to beat a certain monster or to get a certain treasure. Once set up the players pick a character and start the adventure. Each character is different and has a special skill. For example the Barbarian can defeat every enemy adjacent to it with a sweeping attack. Once the characters are picked out players play in turn by rolling a die and moving their pawn. Moving next to a monster starts a combat which is also resolved using a die roll. Each set also contains some special encounter type. One set has magical doors that can only be opened by standing on the right spot another has cave-ins that you have to roll to get past. During the adventure players find items and gold. Gold can be used to buy better equipment.

Overall this simple game includes all of the basic RPG elements. Adventures, characters and character improvement. The rules are simple enough that even my 4 year old understands them. I will admit the pieces are a bit small for her and dangerous to leave out around her little sister, but it's no problem with me making up the maps and then us playing through together. My daughter absolutely loves these games. After playing she will go on for a day or two about how her Wizard killed the Rock Guy (Golem) with a Spell! There are currently 4 different Heroica sets out on the market at a variety of price ranges. Each contains two set adventures and of course being Lego they can be easily changed up and combined in an infinite number of ways.

Board Games:
As noted above, I'm not a fan of the traditional kid’s boardgames. They just aren't fun. We've tried a variety of the favorites and found nearly all of them to be boring, not just for us either, the kids seem to loose interest pretty quickly as well. Enter Blue Orange games. Blue Orange Games produces a pretty extensive line of extremely well made kid’s games. Two of my favorites so far are Bendomino Jr. and Bingory.


Both of these games come in a sturdy brightly coloured wooden box with a slide off lid. The components inside are just as nicely made with real wood pieces and a cloth bag with Bendomino Jr. Each contains an easy to read simple to understand rulebook.

CentrSource.ca  is offering an absolutely fantastic contest right now where you can win a Canadian dream vacation. The grand prize is a $10,000 travel voucher, redeemable for $1000 spending money plus airfare and accommodations in the Canadian city or cites of your choice. This would be one awesome prize to plan out. I get giddy just daydreaming about it!


So tell me guys, what is your Canadian dream vacation?

Personally I would love to stop in and visit some friends I have living in Edmonton, or perhaps a second honeymoon in Montreal, or heck, maybe both! So many choices....

Also, on top of the grand prize - each week from now until December 11th, CentrSource is giving away a $500 Visa gift card.  Plus even if you win one of the weekly draws, you're still eligible to win the $10,000 Grand Prize. How cool is that?

CentrSource.ca allows you to search for local offers. Whatever your looking for, CentrSource will help you find the best source, whether that be an online retailer that ships it to your home, or a local store in your home town. They can help you find products or services in specific parts of Canada. You simply go to centrsource.ca, type in what you're searching for and enter your postal code. It's that easy.

Here's a recap of the important info....

• Contest runs October 11, 2011 – December 11, 2011.
• Grand Prize $10,000 Canada Vacation Voucher.
• 8 weekly secondary prizes of $500 gift cards to be won.
• Travel Voucher must be redeemed between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012.
• Open to all of Canada including Quebec (age of majority).
• Enter CentrSource's DREAM BIG, CANADA! contest. 

I totally understand why they call this the "Dream Big, Canada!" contest, because every time I think about it I set to daydreaming....

If you had $10,000 to travel within Canada, where would YOU head?

Disclosure: I have been asked to help promote this contest and am being compensated for this post.

Everyone in the house is sick AGAIN, which made this weekend the perfect time to curl up on the couch for family movie night. The movie of choice? The True Story of Puss 'n Boots. 


I wasn't expecting much from this film. It seemed to me that the only reason it existed was to ride on the coat tails of a certain big Hollywood franchise about to produce their own Puss in Boots spin off movie.  However, two words drew me in, and those two words were: William and Shatner. I am a big fan of William Shatner. I think the man is a hoot, and I'm proud to know he's Canadian. So when I noticed that he was the voice actor for Puss, I had to give this movie a go.

The first thing I noticed was the animation. It's really top notch. Some of the big wide angle shots where they show off the scenery, like for example when they first introduce the Ogre's castle, are quite beautiful.  My husband didn't like the mix of super realistic computer animated faces with more cartoon-ish less textured clothes and backgrounds, but I actually found the style charming.

The film is full of gorgeous shots like this one where they show the miller's windmill home.

The voice acting overall was top-notch. The music was good and the songs (because everyone seems to think cartoons need songs, sigh) were tolerable. William Shatner as Puss was amusing, but not quite what I had expected. He didn't sound much like himself, but rather did a silly cat voice for the character.

Where the movie failed for me was in the story.  It billed itself as a retelling of the classic Charles Perrault fairy tale. They even inserted Mr. Perrault as a character into the story, which I thought was cute. However, they took some really large liberties with the original fairy tale storyline.

Where did the talking monkey come from? Why is there a monkey in this film?

If you're not familiar with it the original tale it goes something like this: A miller passes away and leaves his mill to his eldest son, his donkey to his middle child, and to his youngest son he leaves only the family cat. The boy is surprised to discover the cat can talk. The cat demands the boy make him a pair of boots. The boy fulfills his request and the trickster cat manages to convince the King that the poor boy is actually the Marquis of Carabas. First the cat brings the King game (a rabbit, some partidges, etc) as a gift from his master the Marquis of Carabas. After a few months of this, the cat arranges for the King to discover his master naked in the river, supposedly put there by bandits who had made off with his clothes and jewels. So the King clothes the miller Marquis in noble clothes and rides on through the country-side where various peasants that have been threatened or cajoled by the cat, assure the king that each field they pass belongs to the Marquis of Carabas. In truth the land there abouts belongs to an ogre who has the power to transform himself into any sort of creature. After gaining audience with the ogre, the cat tricks him into transforming himself into a mouse and eats him up. The ogre's castle now being vacant, the cat presents it as belonging to his master the Marquis of Carabas. In the meantime the King's daughter has become smitten with the miller Marquis. The King, duly impressed with the Marquis, gives him the hand of his daughter in marriage. The End. 

The evil chamberlain and his hunchbacked lackey.

 The True Story of Puss 'n Boots version of the tale diverges from the original plot in that; 1)the princess, who loves to sing and dance (hence the many song and dance routines they manage to sneak into the film), will only marry someone who knows how to dance 2)there is a villainous chamberlain who is making evil candy that transforms people into animals, most notably toads 3)the princess, in a Zoro style mask, sneaks out to the nearby tavern to dance for the locals 4)the miller insists that his son make boots for the cat with special leather that he also bequeaths him 5)the cat's boots are magical and let him zip around at a quick pace (sort of like the classic seven league boots from other fairy tales) 4)there is a monkey with a Jamaican accent living in the basement of the Ogre's castle, who teams up with puss and the miller's son 5)the ogre starts to morph into a tentacled octopus like beasty whenever he loses his cool and can only be soothed by the sound of music 6)Puss steals one of the princesses dancing slippers and then "finds" it for her 7)the Princess urges the miller's son to do the right thing, and tell her family the truth about his origins 8)the ogre secretly wants to be transformed into a swan, so via one of the chamberlain's magic candies Puss turns him into a rather ugly duck.

The princess meets the miller's son when she sneaks out to perform in a tavern.

Much of this left me shaking my head, particularly the princess masquerading as a tavern wench.  But the part that had both my husband and I raising our eyebrows over the girls heads was the characterization of the princess's parents. For 99% of the movie the King was unconscious, clutching a fly swatter, asleep on his throne or in his carriage. The Queen was the one in charge, but she was pretty belligerent, and also often seemed confused. She slurred her words, her eyes were at half mast, and she slouched down in her throne. At one point my husband looked over at me and asked: "Is the Queen supposed to be a drunk??"  Pretty much any conversation that featured the Queen and King left me feeling bewildered as to what the heck the story writers were trying to convey.

The movie was filmed in France and was originally produced in French. My four year old is attending Junior Kindergarten at a French Immersion school, so I love that the option is there to play the movie in French. I played through part of the French version and the audio quality is great. I think they even used many of the same voice actors for both versions.  For example the Princess and the Queen both sounded like they were being voiced by the same actors. However, I'm just going by what my ears told me, as I didn't go back through to compare the credits.

I couldn't pass up a film where Shatner plays a cat.

I love fairy tales. I love trickster tales. Puss in Boots is at heart a trickster tale. However, I understand why the film tacked on the "importance of telling the truth" moral. It's a kid's movie, and showing someone getting ahead through deceit wouldn't be considered correct.  I should probably also note that G-Girl thought that it was hilarious that the bad guys were transformed into ugly animals at the end.

Overall, I was expecting something closer to the original Perrault tale, and in that I was disappointed.  On the other hand, my four year old loved it. I think the film is trying to be Disney, and it does a pretty good job at it. There is music, there is singing and dancing (Several of the songs are sung in french, and are quite pretty). There is magic, transformation and adventure aplenty, and the overall production quality is quite high. If you are looking for a Disney-like film for your kids to watch, this is a safe bet, just don't expect it to have much in common with Perrault's original tale.

If you'd like to read more about the film, or see more still images you can check out the Official Website for The True Story of Puss 'n Boots. The DVD was released on October 4th and is being distributed by Phase 4 Films. You can order it online via Amazon, or you should be able to pick it up at whatever retailer you normally purchase movies from.

Disclosure - I received a free copy of the DVD. As always, my opinions are my own and were not influenced by the company, or by the free product received.

I have the crummiest timing. I picked a really lousy time to rent a carpet cleaning machine.  The entire family had been sick all week, so it kept getting put off until I finally absolutely had to rent Bissell's Big Green Deep Cleaning machine so I could produce a review, and get the awesome accompanying $100 RONA gift card giveaway posted.

Once I made it out to the store I had a great experience renting the machine, as I already recapped in the first half of my review. Not only did the RONA clerk walk me through how to use the machine step by step, but she also sent me home with a brochure (and the Big Green machine has labels all over it showing you how to use it as well. It is really quite idiot proof).  Taking a look through the brochure I was disappointed to notice that I should thoroughly vacuum all the carpets before using the Big Green Deep Cleaning machine.  Makes sense, but it hadn't occurred to me ahead of time.  I immediately called my mom and asked to borrow her vacuum. She offered to drop it off on her way home from work, the next day. So there was day one of the rental wasted.

The next day my mom dropped off the vacuum right on schedule. Then about 10 minutes later Baby-G fell and split her lip open. We spent the rest of the night in the emergency room getting her stitched up and got to bed ridiculously late. So there was day two of the rental wasted.

The next day my husband and I took turns swapping off between who got to nap and who got to watch the babe to make sure she didn't tear out her stitches. I figured once I got everyone down to sleep I would have a go with the Big Green machine. However, Baby-G had other plans in store. She picked at her stitches during naptime, and in a panic we headed back to the E.R. This time we were there for under two hours, but it was still enough to throw off dinner and bedtime. So there was day three of the rental wasted.

The next day was the Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend. The day was taken up with family dinners and all that good stuff. I managed to vacuum and prep the room that I wanted to clean, but that's as far as I got. I called the RONA hoping to heck that they were closed for the holiday, which would give me a days grace, but no such luck. So there was day four of the rental wasted.

All this time this $29.99 a day machine has been sitting in my basement doing nothing, and I was feeling incredibly guilty about it. Bissell had provided me with a RONA gift card to cover three days worth of rental, but I ended up renting the machine for five days and paying out of my pocket.  This was just bad timing and sheer stupidity on my part. There is absolutely no reason you should need to rent the Big Green Deep Cleaning machine for more then two days, three tops.

The next day was the holiday Monday and I was determined to use the darn machine No Matter What. I sequestered myself in the basement and got to work. We have a small carpeted area in the basement, where our TV and couch sit. The poor carpet in that area is much used and abused.  We had water damage in the basement a few years back and at the time we rented an industrial strength fan and dehumidifier to dry everything out, but the carpets had never been properly cleaned. Being in front of the TV it's also an area where a fair amount of snacking takes place. Finally, I don 't much like admitting this, but I know the darn cat has peed on this rug. It stinks down there. It smells like cat pee and something else, a musty maybe mould smell. I decided I would be happy if I managed to tackle the carpet and the couch (also home to cat pee, and yes I want to wring the darn animal's neck thank you very much).

First to set up the Big Green Carpet Cleaning machine.  In my original review I mentioned the Bissell cleaning solution runs $22.99, that is for a 32oz bottle.  The directions call for two capfuls of solution to each tank of water. However, I first thought they meant the cap on the bottle the solution comes in. Not so. The cap in question is the big cap on the water tank. So you will be going through that bottle of cleaner a little quicker then I originally claimed.

Bissell had provided me with a couple different products to try out. I decided to use the Advanced Formula first. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't mind the smell!  I had expected the smell of the cleaning solution to turn my stomach, as most cleaning products do. But actually Bissell's Advanced Carpet Cleaning Formula didn't smell bad at all. It was a sort of organic smell, like something citrus or some sort of flower, but not synthetic or cloying.

I tried using my bathroom sink to fill the tank, which I found to be not the best idea, as angling the large tank into the small sink was awkward at best.  The tank was also pretty heavy once full. So after the first tank what I did was, I added the solution to the tank and just left it attached to the Big Green Machine. I then used a plastic pitcher to cart the water to the tank. Four or five trips did the trick.

This is the space I was concentrating on:



On one tank I was able to do 99% of my 5.5ft by 9ft space. I really wanted to give this carpet a thorough cleaning so I went over it four times, aka four tanks worth.  The instructions basically directed you to make two wet passes and then to run dry passes until it stopped sucking water. I felt that for it to really work you need to move at a snails pace. Easy, but tedious. Overall I spent about 4 hours on this tiny space. I do wonder if  I was being too cautious, and you're supposed to move along more briskly?

I was absolutely shocked by how much dirt the machine removed. This is what the first tank of dirty water looked like:



The machine is heavy but it rolls with ease. It does require a bit of space to turn. It also works best when you can be directly behind the handle pulling and pushing the machine. I tried pushing it while walking along side it with mixed results.

The directions said to continue making wet passes until the water you were sucking up didn't look dirty.  I did the entire room slowly and thoroughly four times.  The fourth tank of water was still filthy.  I called it quits when it was time to make dinner and put the kids to bed. I wonder if I shouldn't have continued and done another go or two?

The dirty tank was easy to empty out, and easy to rinse clean. I also noticed that the tank was made from an antibacterial plastic, which I thought was a nice touch.

Tank number four, the water is not really noticeably cleaner compared to the first go.  Again, it's disturbing just how much accumulated filth the Big Green Deep cleaning machine was able to remove.

My rug looked beautiful when I was done. It was visibly cleaner. The carpet dried quickly, and there was a noticeable improvement in the smell in the basement. For the fourth and final tank I switched over to the Allergen Formula. I didn't like the scent of this one nearly as much. I also think combining the two products was a bad idea, smell wise. Personally I still thought the basement smelled way better overall when I was done, but my husband felt otherwise as he didn't like the lingering aroma of cleaning products.

When I swapped formulas I think I had enough left in the first bottle for one or two more tanks, which means you should be able to get about five tanks worth of water from one 32oz bottle.  I had wanted to save some of the Advanced Formula for tackling the sectional, which is why I swapped bottles. In the end all I manged to get done was the basement carpet. I debated keeping the machine longer to do more, but decided to rent it again once everyone was feeling better.

Time to take this baby back. While returning the Big Green machine I noticed something I had missed when taking it home. The tall handle folds up against the machine, making it pretty compact for fitting in your trunk.

Overall I was really impressed with Bissell's Big Green Deep Cleaning machine. I would definitely recommend it to others. I want to rent it again. I want to do my stairways.  I want to do the couch. I want to do my daughters bedroom.

I would recommend prepping everything prior to renting the machine. Pre-vacuum the rooms you intend to clean. Move the furniture out of the way. If you have absolutely everything ready to go, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do multiple rooms in one day. Making the cost of $29.99 pretty darn reasonable.

I can attest to the fact that Bissell's Big Green carpet cleaning machine blew away the wet/dry vac I've borrowed from my mom in the past. I haven't used any other rental carpet cleaning machines, so I'm not sure how they stack up.  Have any of you rented one of Bissell's Big Green Deep Cleaning machines?  What did you think of it?
 
You can find Part 1 of my Bissell Big Green Deep Cleaning machine review HERE. Bissell's Big Green carpet cleaning machine is available for rent at select RONA stores. Take a look at the online Bissell Rental Locator to find a nearby participating RONA location.

Disclosure: Bissell provided me with a Rona gift card and some free cleaning solution so I could test out their Big Green deep cleaning machine. As always, the opinions stated are my own and were not influenced by the free product received.

Here is the winners list for the past few weeks.  As always, the draw results are also available on the Rafflecopter widget on the original giveaway page as well.


Life Choices Foods prize pack
Winner - Doreen Riopel


Pair of Converse Kids sneakers from the 2011 Fall Collection
Winner - Belinda McNabb


Litterless lunch prize pack from Grassroots
Winner - Caleigh Kerekes


Congrats to the winners and thanks to my sponsors (Life Choices Foods, Converse, and Grassroots) for working with me to give away such great prizes.

As always, plenty more goodies are in the works, so stay tuned...

Ok, this is a giveaway that I am pretty darn excited about sharing with you guys.  As part of their green homes challenge Green Works is going to be providing both myself, and one lucky winner, with an eco-friendly professional home cleaning experience. In total fifty lucky homes across Canada will be receiving a deep, sparkling, clean thanks to Green Works natural products.

I am extremely excited about the idea of someone coming into my home and giving it a thorough clean-over.  It makes perfect sense that eco-friendly cleaning services must exist, but somehow the thought never occurred to me. I do use a fair amount of all natural cleaners in our household, by which I mean vinegar and baking soda - which frankly often just don't cut it.  So I am really quite eager to try out the Green Works line.  In fact I've been meaning to get around to trying Green Works for a while now and this gives me the perfect excuse.

Head over and check out the Canadian Green Works website, which gives a break down of the different green cleaning products they offer.  If you sneak over to the US version of their site you can also read numerous product reviews, which I found pretty interesting.

Like most people I hate cleaning. I also hate the scent associated with cleaning. I simply can not stand the smell of most bathroom cleaners. Cleaning the toilet or the shower literally makes me physically ill. On the one hand, it's great because it means my husband steps up and does most of the dirty work. But the smell still lingers. I open all the windows, turn on the fan, and try and get through it. I dread it.

I've read several reviews for Green Works products where folks mentioned that it smells good. On their website Green Works mentions that their cleaners provide "extraordinary cleaning power without harsh chemical fumes or residue". Oh, I am so there. I can't wait to try these out. And the fact that someone else is going to come in and clean the place for me is just icing on the cake.

Green Works products:
* Are made with plant- and mineral-based cleaning ingredients.
* Come from biodegradable ingredients that are naturally derived.
* Are not tested on animals.
* Use environmentally sustainable packaging whenever possible.
* Are acknowledged by the Natural Products Association, the Sierra Club and the EPA’s Design for the Environment program.

So what do you think guys? Are you as excited about Green Works green home challenge as I am?  To enter all you need to do is tell me why you would like to make the switch to Green Works. Or if you already use Green Works, I'd love to hear about your experiences with that as well.

If you've been eyeing some of the cool products over at Greenmunch.ca check this out - They've opened an Ethical Ocean storefront! To help celebrate the launch, for a limited time all of the products available through their Ethical Ocean Market are 50% off! Use Coupon GREENMUNCH-EO during checkout to receive 50% off your order.  That means you could pick up a hydros water bottle for $15.00!! Or a four pack of kids organic cotton t-shirts for only $24.50. Some great deals to be had, check it out! Greenmunch.ca on Ethical Ocean Market Place.

And don't forget, I've also got a giveaway going right now where you can win a $40 gift card to use at Greenmunch.ca. If you haven't yet, head on over and enter now.

Highlight of the CBC Live opening night party for Blissdom Canada - a kiss from Mamma Yamma.

I am super excited to have a Nescafe Dolce Gusto machine enroute to me as I've wanted to try one out for a while now. I think it's pretty neat that it is designed to make both hot and cold beverages. From what I've read, the 15-bar pressure system is comparable to coffeehouse machines. You can also customize each drink you make; you can adjust how strong that particular cup will be, as well as how frothy.

All of that sounds great, but what I'm really excited about is the variety of beverages available with this machine. They have the standard fare, various roasts of coffee, as well as espresso and cappuccino, but they also have some rather unique offerings like caffe lungo, peach ice tea, and iced cappuccino. I love the idea of being able to make fancy coffee shop bevvies at home!

My favourite coffee shop treat is a mochaccinno, a chocolate flavoured cappuccino type of thing.  I sometimes cheat and make this at home by adding instant hot chocolate powder to an espresso or cappuccino, but it's not the same.  So I was pretty excited to see that the Nescafe Dolce Gusto offers a "Mocha" capsule.  The website says it's "A smooth dark coffee with the rich flavour of chocolate." I can't wait to try it out as I'm hoping it will fulfill my mochaccino craving.

I'll be reporting back with a full review once I've had a chance to check it out.  In the meantime, I've got exciting news for you guys, Nescafe is teaming up with me to give away not one, but two, Nescafe Dolce Gusto machines.

EDIT:
You can check out my full review on the Dolce Gusto HERE.

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I was extremely honoured to have been chosen as one of the Summer 2011 recipients for the Mom Central Canada Blogger Grant program.  Receiving the email notification that I had been chosen was one of the most exciting moments I've had since starting my blog. Their grant allowed me to focus my time on producing a post that meant a lot to me, the story of my grandmother's experiences with postpartum depression in the 1950s.

I am supercalafragiliciousexpeal-excited to be leaving this morning for Blissdom Canada. Come on, how could I not attend a blogging conference where the  slogan is Mapletastic?!  And I really wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of my two awesome sponsors: eco-retailer greenmunch.ca and personalized gifts guru sammygs.com. Thank you both so much!  Oh, and also, let's not forget, thanks to Lug I will be toting around one very cool conference bag.

My mother-in-law, my husband, and my mom are teaming up to watch the kids so I can go away for a few days. My mom even booked time off work to be with her grandkids, which I think was pretty awesome of her.  I am currently feeling truly blessed and ready to get my bliss on.

I honestly don't know if I'll find time to blog over the next few days or not. I know when I attended the She's Connected conference two weeks back, the entire thing went by in a blur.

To the 299 other gals heading to Blissdom Canada: Can't wait to see you there!
To the rest of my readership: I'll be away for the next few days, but will catch up with all of you next week!

I am partnering with my Blissdom Canada sponsor Greenmunch.ca to host a great giveaway. You can win a giftcard good for anything on their site!

As I've mentioned previously, Greenmunch is a small Canadian retailer based out of Sherwood Park, Alberta (just outside of Edmonton).  They carry a wide and unique variety of eco-friendly, reusable, natural and compostable products. Such as reuseable bags, lunch containers, skin & body care items, organic cotton clothing, cleaning supplies, candles, eco-friendly party supplies and much much more. You really need to browse through their website to get an idea of the many fantastic green products they carry.

And you might as well start browsing, because you need to figure out what you'll be spending that $40 gift card on, right?

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In 1951, after giving birth to her first child, my grandmother developed postpartum depression. She was diagnosed as having a "nervous condition". Her treatment took the form of electroshock therapy.  She was twenty years old at the time. Separated from her family she was sent to a mental hospital in St. Thomas, many miles away from her home. In the meantime my grandfather was left to watch over his newborn daughter. He moved back in with his parents, and did what he could to take care of the baby, while also holding down a full-time job. Each and every weekend he made the four hour drive to visit his wife in the mental hospital.

My grandparents circa 1949.

Finally, after almost a year my grandmother was pronounced cured and was released to return to her family.  She went on to have two further children without incident. Everything seemed to be going fine until she reached menopause.  The hormonal changes combined with the damage that had been done to her brain during the electroshock therapy worked together to cause her to have a second nervous breakdown. She began seeing a psychiatrist and was to be on psychiatric drugs for the rest of her life.

I didn't learn this story all at once, but in bits and pieces as I grew older. I knew, from when I was a teenager on, that my grandmother had some mental health problems. Sometimes she forgot or refused to take her medication and suffered bouts of paranoia. The sort that would have her demanding that she needed to change all the locks in the house because the neighbours were sneaking in and stealing her Harlequin romance novels.

Then at the age of 80 my grandmother had a mild stroke.  It was such a mild stroke it slipped by unnoticed, but what it did do was again change the chemical balance in her brain so that the dosages for her medication were now off. She slipped into bizarre and paranoid behaviour. It took months for us to figure out what was actually going wrong. Once they realized she'd had a stroke and adjusted her medication, she was in a much more balanced state. Again the doctors mentioned that this was likely a side effect of her earlier treatments. The after effects of her postpartum depression, in particular the after effects of the electroshock therapy, were to remain with my grandmother for her entire life.

It is a sad story, but unfortunately not an uncommon one.  I originally thought that my grandmother must have been a very extreme case in order to have been treated as she was.  I thought perhaps she had suffered from  postpartum psychosis, a far rarer and more intense version of postpartum depression.  I started reading up on it, and I was shocked to discover that my grandmother was far from alone. Though not always separated from their families for such long periods of time, many woman during the 40s, 50s and 60s received electroshock therapy to help treat "nervous conditions", a catch all phrase used to cover everything from postpartum depression to mild psychosis. It was a very common treatment choice for the time.

I was aware of electroshock therapy, but thought it was something they stopped using at the turn of the century.  After a bit of research I discovered that it actually wasn't introduced until 1938. The doctors who developed the treatment were even nominated for a Nobel prize.

I was surprised and disgusted to find out that it was the popular treatment of choice in the 1950s. I was even further surprised to discover that electroshock therapy is still in use today.  A CBC news article from 2008 opens with the line, "Despite protests calling for a ban in the treatment, electroshock therapy is frequently used by Canadian psychiatrists to treat severe depression."

Though apparently it's a bit different then the treatment my grandmother would have received in 1950. Now a days they sedate the patient, and give them a muscle relaxant, so it's a slightly more humane experience - though overall the effect upon your brain remains the same. There are some differences between pioneer and modern electroshock therapy that I don't claim to understand, such as the change over from unilateral sinisoidal current to constant current brief pulse. Unilateral was used by some doctors in the 1940s and early 1950s, and I don't know if my grandmother received unilateral or constant current electroshock therapy. 

But the purpose of this article isn't to bash electroshock therapy. It's to highlight the differences in how postpartum depression is treated today vs. how it was treated in my grandmother's time.  In the 1950s there was no acknowledgement of postpartum depression as a valid medical condition.  A women, like my grandmother, who had a bout of postpartum depression was described as having a "nervous condition" or "bad nerves". All of this was hushed up and never really spoken of.

I have my grandmother's copy of Every Woman's Standard Medical guide from 1948. The chapter on pregnancy and birth, which covers up to six weeks post-birth, makes absolutely no mention of postpartum depression, or any of the normal feelings or anxieties you may experience post-birth. .  There are however two entire chapters dedicated to "Nervous Tension" in women. When going into reasons that women develop "bad nerves" it mentions that "Arrival of a new baby may be a signal for the beginning of nervous tension in the sensitive, anxious woman." Far from reassuring, it places the blame back on the woman for being too sensitive or anxious.

This was the closest my grandmother's medical book came to hinting at the existence of postpartum depression.

When my mother gave birth to me in 1975 and later my baby brother who was born in 1978, no one spoke to her about postpartum depression. No one explained to her that it was normal, something that one in four women experience. She described to me her feelings after my little brother was born, "I knew something was wrong with me, but I had no clue what it was."

By the time my mother gave birth to my sister in 1983, there had been a change in the medical scene. This time she was provided with information on postpartum depression by her family doctor and the hospital.  It was at this point that she had the ah-ha moment and realized what she had been going through back in 1978 was perfectly normal.

Today, and I am speaking from my personal experiences after having gone through two pregnancies,  today we are bombarded with info about postpartum depression. I was handed pamphlets throughout each stage of my pregnancy. There were posters hung on the wall in the O.B. and midwife's office. Every pregnancy or baby book you pick up has a chapter devoted to the topic. I'm not sure if this is the same across Canada, but here in Windsor, after being released from the hospital the local health nurse calls, and even visits your house, to check in with you and see how you are doing. Every post-birth appointment I had with a doctor or midwife they would gingerly ask, "How are you feeling?" and I would have to reassure them that I was fine.  I was lucky in that I never went through postpartum depression personally.  I will freely admit my hormones were out of whack after giving birth, and I remember having crying bouts within the first few days after having each babe, but nothing serious and sustained. It was actually a bit overwhelming to have people constantly checking on you, and sort of expecting you to snap.

But then compare it to the alternative, where no one talks about postpartum depression, or is willing to admit that it is a real and serious condition.  I think we as women are lucky to live in a time when postpartum depression is recognized as a valid medical condition, and we are also lucky that electroshock therapy is no longer considered the treatment of choice. Now a days postpartum depression is treated through a variety of methods, including psychotherapy, support groups, and medication.

But when did the change over in public perception occur?  I don't believe there was one defining moment when the public perception shifted, I think it was a gradual shift over time. From what I've read, starting in the 1970s, amid renewed scientific interest in mental illnesses in general, postpartum depression began to gain new recognition. Though even then, most women struggled with the illness on their own.

I decided to write about this, and share my mother and my grandmother's personal stories with you, because I think it is important to know just how lucky we are with the way things are right now, with the fact that postpartum depression is a widely recognized medical condition, and one that is treated humanely.  I also think it is terribly important to not let it slip from the public mind. It needs to keep being talked about. The support needs to be there for the women who are suffering, for the women who are pregnant and need to know what they may be coming into. Even the mild depression and wacky hormonal stage that I went through after child birth, or the Baby Blues as it's usually termed, could be terrifying if you didn't know it was a normal phase of your body adjusting post-birth.

I don't want the story of what my grandmother went through, what many women of her time went through, to be lost. In twenty-some years time when my daughters are becoming mothers, I want them to receive the same, or better, level of care and support that we are seeing today. I don't ever want postpartum depression and it's discussion, it's acknowledgement,  to slip into a dark and secret place again.


The following definitions and stats are taken from the Public Health Agency of Canada's Family Centered Maternity and Newborn Care: National Guide Lines

Postpartum blues, or baby blues, are experienced by 45 to 80 percent of postpartum women. Common symptoms are insomnia, sadness, mood changes, tearfulness, fatigue, headaches, poor concentration, and confusion. These symptoms are usually transient: beginning on the third or fourth day after birth, they last one to two weeks and then disappear without treatment.

Ten to twenty percent of women experience postpartum depression during the first year after birth. Usually, it begins within two weeks to six months of birth. Although a form of clinical depression, it is not psychotic in nature. Common symptoms are periods of excessive crying, feelings of despondency and guilt, emotional lability, anorexia, insomnia, feelings of inadequacy, poor self-esteem, inability to cope, social withdrawal, and concern about "not loving the baby." The many physical symptoms include impaired concentration, irritability, poor memory, and fatigue.

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I was selected as one of the Summer 2011 recipients for Mom Central Canada Blogger Grant, and received compensation for the above post.  Mom Central Canada's Blogger Grant Program provides financial aid to Canadian bloggers in the Mom Central Canada network who have a compelling story to tell and who want to help make the lives of busy moms and their families better.

A while back I discovered Grassroots, an eco-friendly online Canadian storefront based out of Toronto.  Providing my daughter with litterless lunches is a priority for me and Grassroots was a great place to start as they have an excellent selection of litterless lunch options to choose from.  Such as this Kids Konserve Thermos that they gave me the chance to check out.


The Kids Konserve Thermos is the perfect size for little hands. My four year old can easily open and shut it on her own. It's also the perfect size portion wise. It fits a nice G-Girl sized portion of leftovers, Kraft dinner, or soup. The seal is fantastic. It's 100% water tight. I can throw it in her backpack with soup in it without worries that it will leak. It does a good job of keeping things hot, or as my kid prefers, merely warm. Because my daughter actually dislikes piping hot food, I skip the suggested step of pouring boiling water into the thermos to pre-heat it.

The Kids Konserve Thermos is made of food grade stainless steel. The plastic lid is free from BPA, lead and phthalates. The container washes up easily. I love that it's safe to toss it in the dishwasher. I also like that it's not too deep, my hands can reach inside to give it a good scrub. It is sturdy and well made, and I can easily see us using this thermos for many years to come. It's also nice to know that at the end of it's life the entire container can be recycled (Stainless steel body, plus #5 plastic for the lid).


Overall, I am pretty impressed with the Kids Konserve Thermos. It is available from the Grassroots website for $24.99, which I think is reasonable given that it should last for years to come. Grassroots also carries a well rounded line of other environmentally friendly products, give their website a peek - www.grassrootsstore.com.

Also don't forget - I've got a great giveaway going right now with Grassroots, where you can win your own Kids Konserve Thermos as well as a cute reusable lunch sack.  If you haven't already, get your entries in now!

As most of you know, I was really torn about G-Girl starting Junior Kindergarten.  Do you know what she does all day at school? For 99% of the day they play! During the teacher interview at the beginning of the year they even gave out pamphlets on the importance of play, and how children learn through play and exploration.  Though I still have mixed feeling over whether or not she's actually benefiting from attending J.K., as she already plays at home with me throughout the day, I do wholeheartedly believe in the power of play.

"Play nourishes every aspect of children's development - it forms the foundation of intellectual, social, physical, and emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life." ~ Canadian Council on Learning

I also think it's really important to make the time to play WITH our children. To that end my new (school year) resolution has been to spend more time playing with my kids.  Since we miss G-Girl so much on the days when she's at school, it just seems silly to ignore her when she is here. I am still a total computer addict that can't help stopping in the computer room to check my email or Twitter at least a dozen times a day.  However, when my daughter says come play, or come see what I made - I do it. Immediately.  I want her, well actually both of my girls, to know they are far more important to me then the computer. I remember reading somewhere that you can never spoil a kid by giving them too much love and attention, as something that is spoiled is by definition something that is left to sit on it's own and rot. 

My cuties. This is what they look like when they're NOT trying to kill each other.

This blogging thing can be time consuming, but I constantly remind myself that I am a stay at home mom first and a blogger second, not the other way around.  I will admit with some embarrassment that I was falling into the trap of telling my girl just a minute, and then that minute turning into ten or twenty.  No more.  For the last month now, when my daughter asks me for something when I am on the computer I say yes, and I get my butt of the computer and go play.  You know what? While stepping away mid-sentence can sometimes be annoying it is totally worth it, and I've found that really there is nothing so darn important going on on the internet that I can't turn away and come back later.  Besides, it's not like I do my best work when the kids are interrupting me and pulling on my hair. That's not to say that I'm not still writing the occasional post with a baby sitting on my lap and Sesame Street playing on the second monitor, it's just happening less often.

While I understand the need for unstructured, unguided play and plenty of time (in a safe environment) to explore on her own, I also think it's incredibly important to get down on the floor and invite my child to share her world with me. One of G-Girl's favourite one on one moments is sitting down with me while Baby-G is napping and sharing a Kinder Surprise egg.  We each eat half of the egg (what, you think I'd let her get all the chocolatey goodness?), and then we work together to assemble and the play with her new toy. Sharing a Kinder Surprise egg is a guaranteed half-hour minimum worth of fun, and when we're done she has something new to add to her Kinder collection.

G-Girl's growing stash of Kinder "treasures"  tucked safely away with our nightly reading pile;  on the top of her dresser where her 19 month old sister can't reach them.

So I'd love to know, what do you folks do to make time to play with your kids?


Oh and don't forget Kinder has an awesome contest going on their Facebook page right now.  You could win one of ten gift baskets full of over $200 in Kinder brand goodies. The contest ends tomorrow (October 10th), so hurry up and get your last minute entries in!

Disclosure: I’m part of the Kinder® Mom program and I receive compensation as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

I am very excited to announce my second Blissdom Canada sponsor, sammygs.com.


Sammygs.com is a small Canadian online gift shop operating out of Toronto, and their specialty is personalized gift items. What I love about their store front is the large variety of items they offer. They have over 80 different items available for personalization (Yes, I counted). That doesn't even account for the various colours of each product offered. Plus when you chose your name/personalized message, you get to pick the thread colour as well. There are sixteen thread colours to chose from, everything from hot pink to chocolate brown. 

Sammygs.com has some really unique items available in their catalogue; such as hand puppets, soft furry pillowcases, pencil cases, crayon keepers, chalkboard placemats, bike helmet covers, terry cloth head bands, cosmetic bags,  as well as special pet towels and bandanas. See what I mean? Unique items!  They also carry all of the classic items that come to mind when you think of personalized gifts; like bath robes, towels, bibs, onesies and blankets.  The blankets they carry are really fantastic looking. I'm partial to the kid's polar fleece blankets, with bright colourful lettering. However, they also carry rather elegant looking mohair throws for more adult tastes. And that's just a few of the things that caught my eye. They carry MUCH more. They truly have something for everyone; pets, babies, kids and adults!

Check out some of my favourite items:






Now I have to admit I personally would never spend $209 on a shower gift. However I think this would be just perfect for a group gift, from a couple of friends, or the girls around the office. 


Go take a look through their website (www.sammygs.com), and you're bound to find something that catches your eye.  Also be sure to follow Sammy G's Personalized Gifts on Facebook to be eligible for the many sales and cool contests they run, like right now you can win a cute pair of pink bunny B Squeezer pants. You can also hook up with Samantha Graff, the brilliant lady behind sammygs.com, on Twitter under the handle @sammygssgraff.

Everyone's sick and Baby-G is still recouping from the stitches she got Friday eve, so we're laying low this Thanksgiving.  My awesome Mom offered to bring the leftover Turkey and stuffing over to our place! Oh yum! Can't wait!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, full of friends and family, that leaves you feeling that you truly have something to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

I am totally embarrassed to say that in my recent sponsorship post for greenmunch.ca I forgot to mention their Facebook page! Yikes. Sorry guys.

You really should go take a look at their Facebook page. It's full of tons of additional info on the cool green products they carry. I think the fact that they only have 75 people following them on Facebook is criminal, so let's do something to fix that, shall we?

Head over here and give 'em a like: https://www.facebook.com/greenmunch

Everyone in the house is sick right now with this sore throat stuffed up miserableness thing, that I am really hoping to shake off in time for Blissdom Canada.  Thanks to a couple of last minute sponsorship angels I didn't have to sell my Blissdom ticket. (Thank you greenmuch.ca and sammygs.com! (Wait, I haven't told you about sammygs.com yet, have I? Yeah, that post is coming up soon)).  Which means I had to, you know, actually book train tickets and stuff.  Which leads me to asking my sick husband to watch one sick kid, so I could make some phone calls and get my train ticket sorted out.

In the meantime kiddo #2 woke up from her nap soaked and insisting that the only appropriate costume change was to put on a blue silk party dress. I am fiddling around trying to convince VIA Rail to let me still get preference reward points without travelling under my maiden name (yeah, it's been a while since I've been on a train), and G-Girl is in and out of the room discussing her outfit with me. Just as I finally click "submit" to purchase my non-refundable train tickets, I hear a loud scream from the basement, followed by my husband yelling "De, hurry up she's bleeding!".  I run into the kitchen to meet my husband coming up the stairs cradling my littlest one. He points out that her lip is split wide open. Like a one inch gash. And there is blood just pouring out. She is covered with it. "What do we do?" he asks me. "Hospital. Now." I say and we bundle the babe and her blood-soaked PJs into the carseat and take off.

Thank goodness G-Girl insisted on putting on dress shoes to match her party dress, I just toss the crown off her head and herd her into the car.  Other then double-checking to make sure I have Baby-G's healthcard, I grab nothing. The hospital is like a 5 minute drive away from out house. However, the traffic is horrible at 5:50 at night, and we end up stuck behind some git going 30. My husband is freaking out.  The baby is screaming at the top of her lungs. And then she just suddenly stops screaming. Which scares the beejeezus out of us. We still have her in a rear-facing seat, so I can't see what she is doing. "Is your sister awake back there? Are her eyes open??" we ask G-Girl, in a total panic. I crane myself around in the seat and manage to see that Baby-G is just staring at her blood covered hands in shock.  She looks dazed. My husband and I are freaking out, thinking she is going to pass-out from blood loss or something. (Yes, we were over-reacting.)

Now G-Girl has been asking questions this whole time. At one point before we left I was standing in the kitchen telling G-Girl that her sister was hurt and that we were taking her to the hospital so a doctor could fix her up. Yes, that's her blood. Yes, she hurt her lip. She'll be ok, but we have to leave Right Now.  Now we are driving to the hospital, the baby has stopped crying, which I find even more worrisome then her constant scream, and then suddenly G-Girl yells out, "Oh, no, oh, no, there is something very wrong back here!!!", "What, what??" my husband and I ask her, in a total panic. "My sister! Her lip is BROKEN!! That's why all her blood is falling out!"  Yeah, ok, we already knew that. Thanks. "Her blood is falling out, and falling out. She will run out of blood and she will die!!" gasps my dramatic 4 year old, though really it's not far from what my husband and I are currently fearing. I assure G-Girl that her sister will not die, and that the doctor will fix her up. "We need to get her to the hospital RIGHT NOW" she tells us. Yes, well, welcome to traffic, we're doing the best we can.  "Her lip is broken. She has no lip. She won't be able to eat or drink. She will starve!!" Again and again I assure G-Girl that her sister will be fine.  "Dad you need to drive faster! Baby-G is in pain. She hurts!"  My poor husband was already feeling so guilty over the fact that the babe managed to hurt herself on his watch. I think he would have driven through the cars ahead of us if he could.

We park illegally and rush the baby into the hospital.  They wave us right into the triage station off to the side. Baby-G is calm, and quiet. I hold her and the nurse takes all her vitals and takes a look at her lip. Her bottom lip is split right down the centre, into her chin. How did it happen? I asked my husband that on the ride to the hospital. Turns out Baby-G was sitting on his lap watching TV, when she quite suddenly decided to get up and dove face first off of his lap, hitting her mouth off the crossbar of a wooden TV tray. Not sharp at all. I couldn't figure out how the heck she managed to cut herself so badly. The triage nurse assures me that her teeth did the damage. She tells me that they will mostly likely have to sedate her, and that they will stitch her right up and she will be good as new. She asks the clerk who the pediatrician on call is, and shoos us off to registration.   The security guard tells us that we are next up to register, and directs us to a seat. We wait like 10 minutes. The window becomes clear and I go to register, but the clerk tells me I am not next in line and she is taking this person first, thank-you-very-much.

I finally get up to see the clerk. Baby-G is on my lap and she is smiling.  She tells the clerk she has an ouchie, and then says "Look, look!" over and over, marvelling over all the items at the reception desk.  She is babbling and happy the entire time I am trying to register. The clerk gives me the stink eye and informs me that there is a bathroom at the end of the hall, "Go clean the blood off of her, we don't want her in here looking like that."  Um... wait, you don't want a kid is the emergency room covered in blood? Um. ok.  I try and clean Baby-G up a bit, but she does not want to be touched. She doesn't even want me to clean her hands. It takes forever to get her tidied up, but that's ok, because it turns out we have plenty of time.

It took us over five and a half hours to see a doctor and get the baby stitched up.  Well, that's a slight exaggeration, it was more like four and a half hours of waiting and half an hour of them actually fixing her up, followed by another half hour wait before we were released.  Here we had rushed to the hospital, thinking every moment counted. My husband and I had assumed that the quicker they stitched her up, the less chance their would be of a horrible big scar. Plus, she was bleeding a fair bit, which we figured in a 20lb 19 month old is never a good thing.

I know the emergency room tends to take forever. I normally don't even mind the wait. However, I went in thinking, we have a small child that is hurt and bleeding, they are going to take us right away. Then I assumed we were waiting because we needed to see a pediatrician, but that wasn't the case. When we finally did see a doctor, it was just a normal doctor.  It was very frustrating waiting and seeing patient after patient get called in ahead of us. Not life threatening stuff either, more like I have a cough, I've been having bad headaches, I punched a wall and my fist is swollen, that sort of thing.

Thankfully my mom came and picked up G-Girl and took her back to her place overnight. Keeping her occupied for hour after hour would have been a pain. It was rather like being stuck in hell as it was. Baby-G was quite understandably not happy. She wanted to nurse, which I didn't think would be a good idea as I didn't want to touch her lip in any way. Every time I tried to sit down with her on my lap she would ask to nurse, and then start to fuss. So I stood and held her, and walked, and paced, and rocked her in place. Until my arms felt that they would break, and then I would try and sit, and she would fuss, and I would end up pacing again. She didn't want to sit on her father's lap. Though eventually as the night wore on we did mange to switch off. She had a pretty bad screaming fit at one point, and then passed out asleep on her dad's shoulder.  I was frustrated that whenever hospital staff appeared my babe was happy and calm, and the rest of the time she was fussy and miserable, and I had to fight with her to keep her hands off her mouth.

We waited for two and a half hours in the front waiting room. Then we were moved to a smaller waiting room in ambulatory care, where we waited almost another hour and a half.  Around a quarter to 10 o'clock we we were given a bed. Which for us was just silly. At this point Baby-G was asleep on my husband's shoulder, and he had to try and perch on a stool, which had no back, and hold her. It didn't work, and she woke shortly. We could see the lady who was complaining of bad headaches sitting in the pediatric room, while we were in a stall with a bed and no chair. Baby-G's lip also looked much worse by this point, which was bothersome.

There was a computer monitor across the way with a screen saver showing African wildlife. Watching the monkeys and elephants had Baby-G in pretty good spirits. I sat her on the bed and sat next to her, holding her and worrying she would manage to pitch off the side. A nurse came and put a kit at the foot of the bed. Someone else came by and set a second stool at the foot of the bed. The doctor finally came and took a look at her and said she would need stitches. By this point we had noticed quite a bit of additional blood in her mouth. I mentioned it to him and he took a look. Torn frenulum. No big deal, it will heal on its own. The doctor said they would have to put her under, which we were already expecting from what the triage nurse had said. He then walked away pretty much mid sentence. I thought he would be coming right back to us, but then heard him talking to one patient in a stall down the way, and then another.

The doctor eventually came back and said he wanted someone else to look at her lip, and sent another women, who I later discovered was a med-student,  over to take a peek. Baby-G was smiling and babbling happily about the animals on the screen saver. We waited. Another nurse came by and said we would be going to the resuscitation room. We waited. Someone else came by and removed the unused kit from the foot of the bed. We waited. A male nurse came and sat down, introduced himself, and explained that we would be going to the resuscitation room, that she would get a needle in her arm, that she would be sent into a sleepy state and then stitched up. He left. A few minutes later he returned, He asked me about how her PJs came off, but said to leave them on for now. They weren't ready to move us to the room yet. We waited some more. Someone else came by to say we would be moved to the resuscitation room but that it wasn't ready as they were cleaning it. We waited, and so on.

We were finally moved to the other room, where we waited some more. I stripped Baby-G out of her bloody PJs and paced up and down holding her in my arms. The male nurse we had been dealing with assured me that putting the needle into her arm would be the worst of it for her, as she wouldn't feel a thing when they were actually stitching her up.

Finally a team of three people assembled to put the shunt into her arm. They bundled her into a blanket. I held her head and my husband held her body while the three of them worked at getting a needle into her. As predicted Baby-G did not enjoy this part at all, and it was a bit of a task keeping her still and somewhat calm. They taped her little hand down to a soft foam board and got the shunt into her arm, and then left. I was a bit surprised when the nurse suggested  I pick her up and hold her. We waited some more. The male nurse came back in, hooked up her IV, and hooked her up to the machine to watch her vitals. He left and we waited some more. This part, keeping her still and calm while hooked up to all of this crap, keeping her from messing with the stint in her hand, it was horrible. Seeing her so tiny and hooked up to all this stuff, I couldn't help thinking of every mom who has ever had to deal with a truly sick kid, which made me feel like crying.

Baby-G kept saying "Done!" and asking to go "home". She told me she had an "ouchie" lip, "ouchie" "hand". She asked for "help" with her "hand", and when we wouldn't fix it for her she cried.  Finally the doctor appeared, and they prepped the anaesthetics, two antibiotics that would make her drowsy.  They uncapped the IV drip and nothing happened. They flushed the line and fed the first antibiotic in. It didn't seem to be working. I held her hand as my husband stood behind me. They fed the second antibiotic into the line, and then asked us to leave the room.

As we left the room I noticed Baby-G was still awake, though the nurse was flashing a light in her eyes and telling the doctor he thought she looked dozy. My husband went and fetched a second chair and we sat down and waited. And listened to our daughter cry. She was NOT asleep. She was yelling Done and Ouchie. It got quiet for a moment, and then she cried out again. Each time she would stop, I would think it was over and she must be under now. The cries ramped up from complaints, to true crying. It would get quiet for a moment, and then she would let out a blood curdling scream. Another nurse came down the hall and into the room. I stood outside the door wringing my hands and feeling like I was going to puke. I heard the nurse murmuring something about how she was snoring and most be asleep, followed by my daughter's bestial screams. She wasn't just crying, she was screaming with her whole body, over and over, in obvious pain. What happened to the assurances that putting the needle into her arm would be the worst of it for her??

I stood in the hallway and wondered if I should go in the room. I wanted to go in the room. I didn't want to get in the way. They had asked us to wait in the hall. I waited. I wish I had went in. Then everything was quiet, and after a few minutes the male nurse stuck his head out the door and told us to come back in. My daughter was laying there, wrapped up on the bed, looking awake but confused, with stitches in her lip.

We had to wait half an hour to make sure she was ok after recovering from the anaesthetics.  At one point the male nurse said, "She was a fighter and wouldn't sleep, so there was "a little whimper".  Then we gave her a bit extra and stitched her up."   Yeah, sorry bud, that was not a little whimper. My daughter screamed her heart out, and not just once. Did he think we couldn't hear it in the hallway?!?
I was surprised to find that the doctor chose to use dissolving stitches, after one of the nurses had explained dissolving stitches would be a bad idea, as it's on the lip and will get wet, and they might dissolve early.

It was at this point that we were told that she would have a scar for the rest of her life. It was odd, because up until that point everyone we had spoken to had just said, oh we'll make her beautiful again. We'll fix her right up. No worries. She'll be putting lipstick on those pretty lips. That sort of thing. And now, after stitching her up they say, well of course she'll have a horrible scar.  I wonder if they had stitched it up right away, if we hadn't waited five hours, if it might have made a difference?  I wonder what happened in that room, while I waited in the hallway and listened to her screaming.  I think they tried to start stitching her up and she was still awake. I wonder if they botched it because she was flinching? 

My husband is really upset at the thought of one of his beautiful girls bearing a scar. He is so upset over the fact that she got hurt by falling off of his lap. It really wasn't his fault. There was nothing with sharp corners around. She hit her mouth on a very innocent seeming TV tray.  We agree that there was nothing he could have done differently to prevent it.  I wonder if we should have done something different at the hospital. Spoken up in some way. I am not so distraught over the idea of my girl having a scar as I am at the thought that other kids will probably bug her over it.

Overall, it was a really lousy way to spend a Friday night. Being sick, trying not to cough on folks, feeling lousy, plus trying to keep a hurt toddler calm, and the stress and worrying. It was a really bloody long night .We left here at 5:50 and didn't get home until well past midnight. After leaving the hospital at 11:40 we still had to head to Shoppers and pick up the suggested pain relief and antiseptic cream. Then we hit a drive through for a very late dinner. We had to wait until 1am to be able to feed Baby-G. She devoured her food. Nursed and then passed out asleep. I was really relieved to find that the stitches and the pain in her lip didn't stop her from being able to breastfeed.

I apologize. There is probably no one still reading at this point, as it's turned into a rather long story/rant. But I felt like I needed to share the experience with someone, as I was very frustrated with the hospital. Also all those pictures going forward from here, where my daughter has stitches, and then most likely a scar. Yeah, I figured they'd need some sort of explanation.

Have any of you ever had similar experiences with horrible hospital wait times?  Also, if you known anyone that tore their lip into two, and it didn't turn out so bad, I'd love to hear about it.