life is like a dogsled team. if you ain’t the lead dog the scenery never changes.
Our neighbours/friends Doug and Esta got me this great bird house for my birthday. The door for the birds is on the front where the VW logo would be. I can’t wait for a family of birds to move in, but hope they don’t drive it away.
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Alex demonstrates his sleeping accommodations in our Westie. The "child hammock", suspended over the front seats, is how the Westfalia can sleep five – two adults up top, two below and one kid in the hammock.
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After saying “drive the bus” all day, Alex learned a new phrase “wash the bus”. Keep washing Alex, if you ever hope on driving it one day.
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Alex and I, hanging out in Buddy (our ‘78 Westfalia), on a lazy Saturday afternoon, dreaming of the next road trip.
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Today is Alex’s second birthday. I was given the pleasure/honour/responsibility of marking this occasion with my first solo-night with him as “Mama” is state-side on business. The night went something like this…
Getting to sleep was easy - been there, done that. Getting back to sleep at 2am was hard.
He woke up around 2 and stirred for about an hour. At 3 he started crying. He was obviously stuffed up, so I tried giving him some Tylenol - he didn’t like that. I tried rubbing various parts of his body and administering some warm milk, but no luck, so at about 3:20 we headed downstairs to watch some Baby DaVinci. This calmed him down immediately and he started repeating the words (its the one that names all the body parts). After the first time through he wasn’t ready to go upstairs, so we watched it again. After the second time he still wasn’t ready to go upstairs, but Daddy was, so amidst protest we headed to bed. I turned on the TV in the bedroom and that seemed to console him. Did you know you can watch Jay Leno at 4am?
With “choo choo”’s in hand he slowly went to sleep. I turned off Jay about 5 minutes into an interview with Jason Lee. I tried to remove the choo choo’s from his hands but he had the kung fu death grip on them, so I decided to leave them and go to sleep. I woke maybe an hour later and the choo choo’s had fallen to his side so I removed them from the scene.
We managed to sleep in until 8:30. His first words to me were “Where’s Mama?”, followed shortly by “Choo Choo’s”? I fetched the later which made him smile. Showering was interesting. I left to door open and he peeked in on me twice, but didn’t want to have any part of it, so mostly he played with his Little People garage. He perched himself sink-side to watch me shave and tried drinking some shaving water - yummy.
I think Daddy and Alex will need to go to bed early tonight and see if we can get back those 2 1/2 lost hours. Ahhh, there always has to be a first time for everything.
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A letter from Alex, send by the way of Julia. (he’s a good typer for 23 months)…
what Alex and mommy do when daddy’s away…
sometimes I try on daddy’s clothes - they’re too big now, but one day, i’ll be borrowing your cool-assed tshirts like the one from ben sherman
we have a bath. well I do, mommy hates baths. maybe one day i’ll learn how to have a shower like you do.
we plan our trip across canada. i’m going to have my diaper changed in most of the provinces. I don’t want to tell you this now, but mommy is making me - I’ll also likely cry in all of the provinces. But the good news is that I’ll also smile when you take pictures of me at all of the crazy tourist trap sites.
we sit in the karmann ghia. mommy says that i can never drive it. but i know that one day, when you’re both at work, i’ll come home from french school at lunch, and steal the keys to take it for a spin. hopefully you won’t even notice.
most days we go for a walk with sheba that big black dog. she’s alright. sometimes though she barks and i have to stop sleeping, but then i realize it’s another false alarm and I go back to sleep. I like how sheba sniffs me when we come home from riding in the truck, i i think she likes me.
on fridays mommy and I go offroading. she said she didn’t want to join a stupid baby group, so we joined this group instead. it rocks. i get to bounce around in the back, and mommy laughs and screams when we hit big bumps. it was kind of like that time at a+w, but mommy was faking it then. she spends a lot on carwashes so you don’t know about all this fun we’re having.
other than that, i just wait around till you come home. you always give me a big smile that i really like. and i like to fall asleep on your tummy, it feels soft and warm.
mommy keeps telling me stuff. like how i have to be nice to girls when i grow up, like my daddy is. and how i can do anything i want to do. maybe i will be an astronaut, i look pretty good in my winnie the pooh astronaut outfit, eh?
mommy also tells me fabulous tales about this cold place far far away where we will one day go. they have carseats that take you to the top of a big hill, then we get to slide down. mommy says it gets so cold that I will probably have to wear two snowsuits. she also says that we’ll have hot chocolate and have something called a ‘fire’, and eat some kind of little bite sized cheese turds. mmm. turds. i want to go to this place, but mommy says not yet, we have to wait for the snow to come. i don’t really remember snow. daddy - do you think i will like the snow? and daddy - when can we go to tremblant?
anyways, i hear mommy coming upstairs, so i gotta GO!
p.s.
I wanted to make this for you cause mommy tells me that she was getting things ready for me to come, and she missed valentines day. she also said that partly it was works fault, somewhere called barking dog - i don’t know what that is, but it makes me think of our dog, sheba. anyways, i’m sorry that we missed this thing called valentinez day. mommy says that she loves you just as much as she loves me, and that must be a lot, cause she gives me kisses and hugs all day when you’re away.
happy z day.
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After some rough-housing on the bed with Alex, for which I always remove my glasses, he decided to help me fetch my glasses, which were on the night table. Unfortunately (for me) Alex, in his toddler wisdom, decided for whatever reason to try to bend the right arm back on the frames a little too far. This resulted in the plastic cracking where the arm meets the frame. Bad news. Â
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This turned me into BOFH. I hated the world and anybody within my blurry sight. So sorry if you crossed my path this morning. Julia please forgive me.Â
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A quick trip to the place where I bough my frames confirmed my suspicion. They were not repairable. Shit.Â
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I’ve had these frames for the last 3 years and they have become part of who I am. I choose to wear glasses, because I hate the idea of contacts, and like “the style and sophistication” a good pair of frames brings. The only time I ever remove my glasses is when I sleep, shower, wash my face or get my hair cut. I can live without glasses, but am pretty dysfunctional when it come to sign reading or reading a computer screen from a distance greater than one foot.Â
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Now I must hunt for a new pair of eyes, a process I dread. There is the off chance that my Nike 4500 Flexon frames are still available, but a quick Googling turned up only one site in Italy. In the process I did find out that Tony Hawk also owes are pair of Nike 4500s - maybe he’ll let me borrow his?Â
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Santa Alex wishes everybody a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Â
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Yes I know, Its been over two weeks of silence on this blog. Sorry, general business at work and life has kept me doing other things.Â
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So lets see… in the past 2 weeks I’ve: done most of my Christmas shopping; flown to New Jersey and back; cut down a fine Douglas Fir, which will be out Christmas tree; moved “Buddy’s Buddy” (the parts bus) from our driveway to the German Supply warehouse in Stouville; attended the annual Rockwood Parade of Lights; visited the dentist for my annual cleaning; watched the Dallas Stars defeat the Maple Leafs 2-1 at the Air Canada Centre; and had our neighbours over for pancake breakfast.Â
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So life as usual.Â
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Dr. Bell is the man. Â
My ‘entrapped nerve’ is becoming unentrapped. After 4 weekly treatments I’m noticing a huge difference. I still have a few days of pain (usually following a treatment), but I can feel things getting better. Â
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Most days I’m down to 2 or 3 Super Strength Motrin. I’m still not sleeping through the night, but the sharp pain has been replaced with a dull muscle ache. This I can deal with.Â
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In two weeks Dr. Bell will be making arrangements for me to see Dr. Leahy, the guy who invented the ART (Active Release Technique). HIs bio is interesting -he used his background in engineering to design the most effective soft tissue treatment protocols. He’s in such high demand these days from international athletes and teams that it must keep him on the road 24-7. Anyway, he’s going to be in Niagara Falls in mid-November and I hope he’ll give a tune-up.Â
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Sobering up the next morning the reality of having three buses in the drive way starts to sink in.Â
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After 6 months of suffering from an ‘entrapped nerve’ in my left leg, I’m getting better. Week after week I tried to ignore with the pain while my chiropractor tried different things to make me feel better - all to no avail. I finally got my him to refer me to his old school mate, Larry Bell, an expert and trainer in ART (Active Release Technique). To his credit my chiropractor tried his best, but my case was atypical - because I had no clear incident of backpain. You know, bending over picking up something and “ouch!” or skiing down your favourite slope and not quite making that turn so you turn in to a human snowball? My pain seems to come on gradually and just get worse week after week.Â
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A few weeks ago it was at it worse… this means a typical day was:Â
8:00 am - wake up with scholiasts and take 1 Super Strength Motrin and 1 Extra Strength Life Brand Back and Mussel Pain Relief pill (chalky basters)Â
8:30 am - stand in the shower for 15 minutes spraying the hottest water I could stand on my left legÂ
9:00 am - get Julia (and Alex) to help me with stretching exercises before leaving for workÂ
12-1:00 pm - another Super Strength MotrinÂ
4-5:00 pm - another Super Strength MotrinÂ
11-12 am - another Super Strength Motrin, an Extra Strength Life Brand Back and Mussel Pain Relief pill, a Ligamend Advanced supplement.Â
4-5:00 am - a final Super Strength Motrin and Extra Strength Life Brand Back and Mussel Pain Relief pillÂ
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Lets just say my stomach was sore from all the pills.Â
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Back to Mr. Bell. Larry is in Orillia, a 2 hour and 15 minute drive from Guelph, but it’s been worth it. Larry seems to be somewhat of a celebrity chiropractor amongst the high performance athletic circuit - having been to over 40 international events, including a few Olympics. Â
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Larry’s techniques, taught to him by the ART master himself, are sometimes painful, but I can noticeably feel improvement after a day or two of healing. I’ll take the pain, as long as there’s some gain! Â
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Let it be a lesson to all: if your chiropractor can’t solve your problem, try another. All chiropractors are not created equal.Â
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I plan to keep seeing Larry until I can sleep through the night - which has been the hardest part of this ordeal. Â
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More updates on my health as things progress.Â
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busman is offline
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