Coucoumellisms

I have learned a lot about attachment parenting, breastfeeding and giving birth in the past three years, over the internet, chatting with other mothers and looking up different websites. So much, in fact, that I sometimes wished that I could have a fifth child, just so I could experiment new things, even though we weren't trying for another child. God works in mysterious ways, and he decided he was going to help me get pregnant, because I did, even though we weren't trying for another. Although I was not overjoyed about it at first, part of me thought, "Now I'll get that chance I wanted to try new things." Having Nicolas and having him at home was wonderful. It is so much more pleasant to have one's child at home. I also decided to co-sleep, which makes feeding at night much easier. I have held him a lot and use a sling. Also, having gone through the whole process 4 times before, I knew ahead of time how things would go. I knew that after a month, thin...

La vallée du Richelieu a ses charmes. Elle est très jolie, bordée de belles maisons, de fermes, et de beaucoup de végétation. C'est chez nous depuis trois ans, et j'adore le coin, mais pour moi, elle ne se compare pas au fleuve St-Laurent. J'ai côtoyé le fleuve de 1991 à 1997, six ans, dont trois sur la rive-sud de Québec, à St-Romuald. Le Richelieu est joli, mais le fleuve est majestueux. À l'est de Montréal, vers Québec et encore plus loin, le fleuve est accidenté, puissant, bordé de collines. La végétation est moins dense, la forêt contient plus de conifères, l'hiver est plus dur, l'été moins humide. Il y a des fermes et de jolis villages aussi. J'y suis allée la fin de semaine dernière, à Ste-Croix de Lotbinière. J'aime beaucoup le Richelieu, mais je me suis rendu compte que les grandes espaces du fleuve me manque. Le coin me manque. Le panorama m'a rappellé les premiers français venus habiter cette terre encore sauvage. Les hivers dure qu'il...

I woke up this morning at 6:30, after having gone to bed late last night because we were gone to Quebec on the weekend, and after having had only 2 hours of sleep the night before,... got up, got the kids out of bed, (literally had to drag them out of bed, since they all went to bed late both nights too) got everyone ready for school, herded the older ones out the door, grabbed the two youngest and everything they and I needed for the day, and went out the door. I dropped Gabriel off at a daycare, and I went and assisted in a workshop on breastfeeding with Nicolas all day, from 8:30 to 3:30, in Longueuil about a 45 minute drive from here. (Very interesting workshop by the way, I'll have to post some stuff from that some other time.) That was probably the most relaxing time I had all day, because I had to leave, drive home in traffic, try to get to the school for 4:30 because I had to pick up Dominic, who'd been away all day with his class in Montreal doing sports, and had co...

Cela fait trois ans (presque) que nous sommes ici, à St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, et cela fait trois ans que je reste à la maison avec mes enfants, ou que je les accompagne à leurs activités. J'ai joué au soccer un hiver et un été et puis j'ai arrêté. Mon mari revenait du travail trop tard et je n'avais plus personne pour s'occuper d'es enfants. Depuis, je me résigne à rien faire car, tout se passe les soirs de semaines, et je ne peux pas emmener mes enfants. J'ai toujours été une fille très impliquée dans son milieu. Au sécondaire, nous recevions des points pour chaque activité parascolaire dans laquelle nous participions. À la fin de l'année, selon le nombre de points que nous avions accumulé depuis notre entrée au sécondaire, nous recevions un prix. Après 4 ans, il a fallu inventer un nouveau prix pour moi, car je les avais déjà tous, tellement j'avais joué de sports et participé aux activités. Ensuite, à Québec, pendant mes années d'université, j...

Ok, I have had it with conservatives (maybe I should specify here: American conservatives), treating illegal immigrants as if they were criminals or something. I guess it's not a problem we Canadians have to deal with, since we aren't right next to a country that people are desperate to leave, so maybe I just don't understand the situation, but still... I understand the situation of those trying to leave. And if those who now treat these people as if they were criminals lived in the same situation, they'd be desperate to leave too. They might be illegal, but they are not criminals. Is it a crime to try to escape poverty? Is it a crime to want to escape violence, terrorism, injustice and exploitation? Is it a crime to wish for a better life? There are surely better solutions to the whole problem than just patrolling the borders and limiting immigration even more. For one, we could be pressuring our governments to pressure their governments to make life better for...

From ABC Color (Asuncion, Paraguay)

I wonder why novels geared at teenagers don't mention braces more often, the ones I read as a teenager barely mentioned braces at all, and never said anything about how horrible it actually is to have them. I can't imagine what it must be like to have them as a teenager when you are already feeling bad enough about yourself. I just went to the orthodontist yesterday and got a pair of braces for myself. I am 34. I don't feel bad about myself, I don't care what others think (much), and I can probably handle discomfort and even pain better than I could then. But these things are really a pain in the derrière... They scrape the inside of your mouth raw, especially when you are eating, because the inside of your lips rubs right up against them while you are chewing. Food not only gets caught in them, half your food stays caught underneath your upper and lower lips just behind the braces, and you can't get it out. If you run your tongue over them, to get out the foo...

It has been a long time since I have had anything to say. Sometimes, when things are going well, there just isn't anything to say. Didn't Tolstoy say something about all happy families being the same but all unhappy families being different? As in when you're happy, there is no story to tell, when you are unhappy, THEN there is a story to tell. Life can be stormy sometimes, but there is something magic about a storm, something powerful. Huge storms hit my island, but that is what shapes it, makes it so rugged, so beautiful. There have been no major storms here recently, however, and I have been walking around my island quite a bit. Imagine my surprise when I came across an old stone building. It had stone arches, and tiny narrow windows. It was surrounded by a courtyard, which, in turn, was surrounded by a stone wall. In the courtyard were what I presume were once vegetable gardens, and in one corner was an orchard. It has mostly gone to weed now. However many of the trees ...

I know there was something yesterday that I wanted to remember to blog about when I had time, besides the Mother's Day thing and the Baptism Preparation thing, but now I can't remember it. All that I remember is that I was in the van, driving Jean-Alexandre to his soccer practice, and I mentioned that I wanted to write about it, that I'd have to remember to write about it,... and I don't remember WHAT it is! Don't you just hate it when that happens?

I know this is a bit late, but I really haven't had much time to come and write here. We went out for supper on Mother's Day. We took my mother-in-law to a restaurant and had a couple of friends as well, who also just had a baby. Mother's day also happened to be my birthday. In fact, 34 years ago, I was born, you guessed it, on Mother's Day. You know, the subject of stress came up in the lovely, informative (not) preparation for Baptism that I went to on Friday. (It's a consipracy - they want to keep us in the dark ages.) The guy (who was talking about everything but baptism) was explaining about how he managed to live a stress-free life, and I leaned over to my sister and whispered: "You know, I find it ironic that, for someone who is relatively stress-free, (okay, there IS soccer, but I expect I'll eventually get used to driving everyone around like a madwoman) the place I feel the most stressed out in is at mass, when I have my five children."...

Vendredi soir je suis allée, avec ma soeur, à la préparation pour le baptême de Nicolas, dans ma parroisse. Je n'ai rien appris sur le baptême. Au fait, c'est à peine si le baptême a même été mentionné. Nous étions tous assis dans un grand cercle et on nous a demandé ce nous voulions pour nos enfants. Nous avons parlé de cela. Et ensuite des valeurs proposés par "le monde". Je crois bien que le nom de Jésus a été mentionné une seule fois. Nous n'avons rien vu de ce que la Bible ou l'Église disent sur le sujet. Enfin, on nous a remis un genre de texte/poème, et il a fallu dire ce qui nous rejoignait le plus. Il n'y rien qui m'énerve plus dans une situation comme ça que de me faire donner un texte et me faire demander "qu'est-ce qui te rejoint le plus?" Et si RIEN ne me rejoignait? Et si RIEN de TOUTE la soirée ne m'a pas rejoint? Et si ça ne me tentait pas de partager avec de purs étrangers de toute façon? Et si cela avait été...

May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor. What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I'm going to offer you the usual choices -- and a new one. Here are the usual suspects: A) We can ignore the movie. ........ The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood's point of view, you don't count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen. B) We can protest. ........ The problem with this option: It doesn't work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots....

Me: at about two or three months Me: at about nine or ten months Me: at about one and a half years Dominic: at about two and a half years I think there might be a resemblance here. See!!! We DO have kids who look like me too!!!

I finally had a pretty relaxed day today. Stayed home, did some housework, but not all that much, took it easy,... had the supper all made by five,... kids in bed by 8:00. This competitive soccer is going to drive me nuts I think. I mean, I really want my kids to get better at soccer if they can, but all this driving around... I'm only one person, and they always have to put everything on the same nights. Dominic and Jean-Alexandre both have soccer practice on Mondays. Dominic, from 5:00 to 6:30 and Jean-Alexandre from 6:30 to 8:00. But Jean-Alexandre's practice is 1/2 an hour away from Dominic's! So I have to leave at 5:30 from Dominic's practice, take Jean-Alexandre to his, (he gets there 1/2 an hour early) go back and get Dominic, and drive back out to Jean-Alexandre's practice and then drive home again. I feel like all I do is drive around like a madwoman. All this while dragging three young kids (who really should be in bed). Add to that, in a couple o...

Pope Cites a Problem That Few Would Argue With ROME, MAY 6, 2006 ( Zenit.org ).- Benedict XVI cited an "urgent need" for reflection in the area of demography, in a message he sent April 28 to participants in a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Experts agree that an increase in life expectancies is being met with a drop in birthrates, the Pope noted. Societies are aging and "many nations or groups of nations lack a sufficient number of young people to renew their population," he wrote. Attention has increasingly focused on the social and economic consequences of too few babies. Last Sunday the New York Times commented on the case of Ogama, a village in rural Japan that has declined to only eight elderly residents. Town members have decided to pack everything up and sell the site to a company that will turn it into a landfill. Sixty years ago the village had around 30 households, each with eight to nine people. Ogama belongs to the municipality of ...

... April 25th was Jean-Alexandre's birthday. He turned 12. Sunday we'll be taking him and (hopefully) a friend to go see Mission Impossible III. Then we'll have some cake at home maybe?

...and I was hoping for a 2B form this year. 2006 CENSUS Count yourself in! May 16, 2006 I worked for Census 2001, back when we were in Prince George, going door to door, making sure all the forms were filled in properly, etc etc. I even helped a friend finish her area and finished off the area of still another guy and even did some extra work when someone who spoke spanish was needed. A lot of work for not all that much pay though. Vowed I'd never do it again. Please save the census workers some pain and trouble, fill in your forms properly and on time!!! And to all you lucky bums who got the longer 2B form, have fun!!! (What can I say, I love filling in questionnaires, I feel like for once the government is actually interested in me. ME!! Hee hee)

Sometimes I feel like a horrible mother. Like yesterday for instance. I ordered a book about the real-life experience of a modern-day slave in Soudan. (The story of Mende Nazer - titled Slave ) I have been aware of the civil war and slavery in Sudan for some time now, since reading an article in the Revue de la Sociétét des Missions-Étrangères . This is a subject that interests me and I have signed numerous petitions through IAbolish to try to make changes. The problem with reading a book is, half-way through, I usually get so involved wth it, that I have a hard time putting it down. So last evening I wasn't the most attentive, organized person. But that's not the worst. I have a temper. And when I am about to be late for something, and am trying to rush out the door as quickly as possible because I happen to know that crossing the bridge is going to be really slow, since the other one has been closed for cleaning and this one has been reduced to one lane both ways fo...

Je n'ai pas eu beaucoup de temps dernièrement pour venir "blogger". À chaque fois que je viens à l'ordinateur, ça prend tellement de temps lire tous les messages et ensuite je me sens coupable du temps "perdu". Je pourrais être en train de faire le ménage, entretenir la maison, etc, mais non, je perds mon temps ici. Ahhh, le bébé pleure... le devoir m'appelle, il va falloir vous quitter une fois de plus.

I often get headaches, especially if I am tired. With them I often also have sensitivity to light that is associated with migraines, and of course, sensitivity to sound which, I'm pretty sure is typical of any headache, migraine or not. They don't usually last more than 6 to 8 hours, usually starting in the mid-afternoon and going away once I fall asleep. (Unless I take coffee and pain-killers). So while I've never really considered that I suffered from migraines, I have wondered about it, since my mother suffers from them. Are my headaches actually migraines? I read somewhere that if what you have is a migraine, you don't wonder if it is more than a headache, you KNOW it is. So I figured it must not be since I'm not feeling debilitating pain. Apparently this is a myth and you might have them and not know it. But recently I've noticed I can tell when one is coming on and take coffee and a pain-killer right away to avoid the pain, and even more recently,...