Recently I have been thinking about mom friends. You know the ones who you can get together with, your kids play together and you chat about life.

I recently moved and have been spending a lot of time at our new park, there is a great splash pad and park with a covered area with benches and tables.  As I sit there I notice the ladies chatting, their kids are all playing and the moms are talking and enjoying themselves.  I sit there by myself with my iPhone, Facebook and Twitter.  While all of those are great I miss the actual company of a physical human beside me.

I don’t notice it all that often but it seems to really be in my face at the park. Could be because I work at home all day by myself.

Yes I just moved into a new neighbourhood and I still need to meet people, but even in my old neighbourhood I went to the park by myself. People were a lot friendlier there.  While we live in this great new neighbourhood there are no kids around us.  Makes me sad as we had that in our old house, up until the last month when a great family moved in with 3 boys the ages of my kids.

So tonight at dinner I started thinking to myself about how sad it makes me that I don’t have any mom friends who I can call and ask them to meet me, or ones that call me.

Sure I have friends, not like I am all pity me because I am a friendless loser.

But when my kids were little I had “Mom” friends that I regularly saw, our kids played and we chatted about life. I met a great group when my 1st was born, we still continued our regular play dates as we all started having 2nd kids but then something happened…

I started Grace Announcements when my son was 1 and by the time my daughter was born I was busy. I didn’t have as much time, I needed to use nap time for working not forgoing it for human contact. And now that I am at a point in my life where I want it, it isn’t there.

Shows the importance of nurturing friends along with family. With making it a priority to stay in contact with friends.  While I know that I will have friends in my life that will always be there, no matter how much time goes by it doesn’t matter.  We can pickup right where we left off. I am very lucky to have a lifelong friend like that, unfortunately she lives in Ottawa so we don’t get to just see each other whenever we want.

Do you make it a priority to keep all your friends close? Or do you have friends which whom you have grown apart from?

But then you have friends who you put a lot of effort into, you try to contact, you try to setup “dates” but it never works out.

Do you forget about them?

Does it also get to a point in life where you have friends who are moms but you don’t ever get together with kids?

It has been way to long, but I have had major writers block… well I have had lots to write about but I could just not get the words out so that they made sense.  Over the past 6 months there has been lots that I would love to share and here I am tonight I could write forever, but I promise I will spare you all.   Instead I am going to just spit it out in little bits that might not make sense but I need to restart and this is the only way for me to do it.

2010 sucked ass (don’t know why you can read here). I know it could have been much worse. We are all healthy and really that is all that matters.

We made it through. DH is working at a great company, has a great job, and loves what he does. He started enjoying making music with some friends and what started as a fun Friday night jam session has turned into The Bird of Rage. The kids have settled and are doing really well, Kal is just about to finish grade 1. He is so smart and loves his school and teacher. The progress he has made this year has been huge, nice to see after a huge life change. Miss E loves being in school full time, I admit I miss her at times and wonder if I should have kept her home with me longer.  But I think even though she is still so young this is best for her. She loves school and has started reading and writing. She is learning french which is amazing for a 1st year Casa student. I think French Immersion might be what she needs in grade 1.

I had high hopes for 2011 and although it didn’t suck like 2010 did it hasn’t been what I had hoped.

After April 20th, 2010 happened I had no choice but to step up to the plate and take care of this family. I did my best to shelter the kids from everything. To hide that their dad was so depressed and fragile I was scared to leave him alone. Work hard to keep food on the table and a roof over our head. And not let the people around me know that my world had just fallen apart and I was not sure if I could keep it from crumbling. Very hard to do when I spend so much time out in the open.

I got tired of pretending like my life was okay, but I felt I had no choice.

The new year came, the kids went back to school, DH started his new job and I was here all alone. I had no one to take care of, nothing to distract me from the past 10 months. I sat and I started to think…. it all hit me and it hit me hard.  I hid within myself and the lie that everything was okay.

Now today I sit here, clear again, with an extra 20lbs of fat feeling sorry for myself. I know that I need to do something but I just can’t. I weigh more now than after having both kids. I wish I was the type of person who stress made me lose weight, instead I gain it. I am not an emotional eater that just shoves my face full of anything around, I barely eat now. But that doesn’t help.

I am lucky to have great people in my life. People who stand beside me, who hold me up and who keep me going.

I refuse to give up just yet. 2011 will be a great year, might just take a little longer to get there.

My son drew this tonight in bed and brought it down all excited to show me.  Yes folks we are one crazy iPhone house!  The first is the ifon4, this is daddy’s phone, then it is my son’s and my ifone (yes we both just have the boring old 3G) and the bottom one is the baby version of an ifone.  Guess that is what his little sister gets to play with!

I unfortunately was not able to scan it all, but his title was the same as mine “kins of ifone” for Kinds of iPhones. I love how on the iPhone 4 the game he drew is called corn pops, where you launch corn pops.  I thought it was his favourite, angry birds!

Tomorrow I will set foot back in the Odette Cancer Centre at Sunnybrook Hospital for genetic screening and counselling.  It has been over 3 years since I was last there.  I had a newborn baby and a 2.5 year old at home.  I had to wait at that time as I was breastfeeding, best to come back when I was done. That was the recommendation from them.  Well after 2 years of breastfeeding and moving I lost touch and the information. They didn’t have my new contact information and I put it into the back of my mind. I had more important things to think about.

Crazy to think that way.

You see I have a family history.  My paternal grandmother, Grace, whom I never met as she died really young (with a baby of her own, my aunt) from breast and ovarian cancer.  My aunt who was diagnosed with colon cancer in her early 40′s with 3 young kids.  I remember thinking, how?  I went onto Google and searched to find that breast, ovarian and colon cancer are all linked.  She fought and won that battle, but a few years later she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She is fighting that battle and winning. Because it is on my paternal side it doesn’t mean that there is not a huge risk for me.  My father can carry the gene and pass it to me, without me really knowing.  Many men carry the gene, but don’t always develop breast cancer themselves.

Seeing my aunt recently and talking to her about life has reminded me of how precious it is.  My aunt and I always had a really close relationship.  She was young, much younger then my dad, she was the small child that was left behind with no parents.  We had something special, something that I have always cherished.

I started to think about my history and my risks.  I started to question as to whether I would like to know, or whether I would rather just enjoy my life without the possibility of knowing I carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene and could very well end up fighting the battle against breast cancer myself.  I started to have friends who were dealing with cancer themselves or their very close family and I stopped….

I stopped and I thought long and hard.

I realized that it was important to know.  That I was being silly being scared of the “what ifs” and I was better to be proactive and if I got some news that I didn’t want to hear I would not be scared, I would just start to do what I need to and enjoy my life.

So tomorrow afternoon I start the process again.

I am not going to lie, I am scared.  I remember sitting there in this centre with my tiny baby at my side, looking around and seeing the people there for tests, for treatments.  The families with them.  I could see the fear in their eyes, and that gave me fear, fear of the unknown.

I don’t want to be there.  I don’t want to be thinking of this.  But I think I am stupid to not, so I will.

There seems to be a buzz right now on Twitter about being kind.  I think it is great, because this is my motto for life!

I was chatting with my hubby about it this morning as we were driving to an appointment.  On our way back home, after stopping for lunch at the best local deli for a smoked meat sandwich and latke (mmmmm…. heaven in my mouth) we stopped at Starbucks.  I waited in the car so I could tweet (yes I know I am a huge addict) and he went in.  He was obviously listening to me because he decided to buy the tea of the woman standing behind him in line.  The best part is everyone thought it was so amazing that it continued on for 9 other people, and maybe more, he left so we don’t know.

The lady behind him said how amazing it was.  Then she asked, “What happens if someone doesn’t do it?” and my husband answered with how it doesn’t matter, that she did her part and she should feel good.

I am so proud of him!  It shows me that he has been listening to me.

We had the discussion a while ago with him how easy it is to be nice, and the effect that has on others.  I told him how one day I was in the Tim Hortons drive thru and I said a simple please and thank you to the woman taking my order.  When I pulled up to the window the woman was so nice, she was almost in tears telling me how much it meant to her.  How hard it is because of how horrible most people are.  She told me I was the first person to say thank you in over a month.

I think it is sad how people act.  How hard is it to hold a door open for the person behind you, or maybe even all of the people behind you.  And do it with a smile.

Being nice isn’t hard and it goes a long long way.  Try it for a day, and see what happens, you will be amazed at how nice you feel!

So the other night @MississaugaKids called me a hero because I was put in a situation and without even thinking I acted on it. I personally don’t think I did anything special.

You see we went out for a nice early family dinner at this great restaurant at 5pm on a Sunday and just after we left I was driving along and this van came inches from side swipping me.  I passed him and made a right turn heading towards home.  This guy turned too, he was weaving all over the road, went into the on coming lane a few times missing cars by seconds.  I told my husband who was in the passenger seat because he enjoyed a few beers with dinner, to call 911.  I knew that it wasn’t a situation of this guy playing with his stereo which we thought when we were almost hit by him.

They wanted us to follow him and get his license plate number, which we did, he went everywhere and we followed.  At one point he drove off a country road into a deep ditch and we thought for sure he was going to hit a tree, but he kept on going.  So we kept on following him, we wanted to make sure that he didn’t get away before the police got there.

The 911 operator said they had his address and figured he was heading for home and they were sending an officer there and when he got there we could leave.

Well he kept on driving and headed towards a parking lot (ironically the parking lot to the York Regional Police Clubhouse!!) where we followed him.  I went in another entrance and parked back far from him.  I told hubby to call 911 again and tell them where we were so they were not waiting at his house.  We stayed in case he decide to leave again.  We waited for an hour for the police to arrive, where they took him to the police station, towed his van and took hubby’s statement.

They stated that he could barely speak but he didn’t smell of alcohol. That he was most likely an alcoholic and could hide it well.

We drove for 20minutes with this man as we watched him almost kill many people.  I could not imagine just leaving and going home, at one point in our drive around town with this guy we were 1 minute from home.  It was a Sunday evening, the kids needed a bath and I had laundry to finish, but that didn’t matter.

I have a friend who 18 years ago was hit by a drunk drive early on a Sunday morning, he was in the hospital for a long long time and almost didn’t survive, thankfully he did, but he has never been the same since.

I have a friend @SharonDV who was one of these unlucky drivers who was on the road, driving along, minding her own business.  Family in tow heading out for a Mothers Day celebration and was hit head on by a drunk driver.  You can read more of her story here. I read it a few years ago and it has stuck with me.  She is one of the first people I thought of when I saw this guy drive across the center line.

I did what I think anyone should.  I didn’t think about what I still had to do that night, I just thought about the people like Sharon (or my friend from high school) and how I could not do anything.  Very similar to the situation with my son, I could not sit back and not think about how we were lucky, but what if someone else gets hurt.

Everyone knows of Facebook, and if you don’t I would like to know what rock you have been living under?!

The past year I have learned some real downsides to Facebook which make me want to shut down my account and walk away.  Really I deal with enough crap in my life that I don’t feel I need something like Facebook to make matters worse on me or my family.

So those who know have an idea of the positives, or at least people think they are.  Reconnecting with old friends, you know the ones you have not seen in 17 years, the ones that after reconnecting you remember why you lost touch!  Keeping in touch with out of town relatives or friends is a good thing about Facebook.

But there are the downsides….

The friends who’s relationships/marriages have ended because of crap on Facebook.  You know the private email from an old flame telling you they have never forgotten about you. The positive to marrying my high school sweetheart is I don’t have many of those!

The people who read too much into your status updates…

The friends who you find out you are no longer friends (and good friend, like big brother type) because they removed you as a friend from Facebook. Totally happened to me, and the kicker, it is my neighbour…

The family who see something you post and freak out because they think the something catastrophic has happened not realizing that if it really had, you would have called them from the ambulance.

Then you have those ones, the people who just have nothing good to say.

Today I had someone post something nasty on my Grace Announcements page.  I immediately read it over a few times before I got all freaked out, they claimed they ordered over a month ago and didn’t receive anything.  I scanned the name and it didn’t look familiar.  I looked through my order forms on my desk, nothing.  I did a search in my email, nothing.  I pulled up my online shopping cart software, nothing.  I went the last place I could try, PayPal to look there.  They did after all claim at how much they paid for shipping… and there was nothing there.  This person was not listed in any of the 5 places that their order would show up. I would not let up there, technology has let me down many times in the past, that is part of running an online business. I sent the person an email on Facebook and they come back and tell me that they had not ordered anything from me… are you freakin kidding me???? I spent 40 minutes going over everything to see what could have happened to their order.

I was horrified that there was a customer out there like this, that had been waiting over a month for their order.  They didn’t call the office or send an email.  Customer service is our top priority,we will go above and beyond in a situation to make it right.  But how do you make a situation like this right?

This person turns around and blocks me (because I am going to go all Facebook crazy on them or something???) and removes all of their bad comments from my page.

Do you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and think that today is the day I am going to have “fun”on facebook?

Yep so there you have it, today was one of those days when I would be so happy to close my Facebook account and walk away…

So sadly I come to post with not much information…

But I wanted to come and update all those who have shown their support.  I called Ninja Jump and was told to email the details so it could get forwarded to management.  I did and have still not heard anything.  I will be following up tomorrow.

There have been reports put in with Health Canada by myself and the family of the birthday boy.

Today Angela also known as partymomma on twitter gave me the contact information to a really helpful man who gave me some great information.  He told me that most likely the Aurora Sports Dome was operating this bounce house without a licence or insurance.  That they should have had someone from their establishment supervising, that as a public facility it should never be left up to the parents.  He told me that Ninja Jump will do nothing and to contact TSSA.

So I contacted TSSA who took all the information and is looking up the Aurora Sports Dome.

I will be stopping by there tomorrow afternoon in hopes of talking to someone in charge.

I have also talked about the birthday boy family about taking this to the local papers, as it seems that the sports dome was in the wrong here.

I will not stop until I get some real answers… I will not allow this to happen to another child.

On a side note I noticed someone shared my story on “the Bump” thank you very much for helping spread the word on this danger!

I tried to log in so that I could comment but for whatever reason I get logged in but the moment I go to the post I can’t post and it logs me back out.  So I wanted to add to some of the feedback here.

It is not known who did this to my son, or I would have dealt with him and his family.  My son didn’t know who he was and all he could remember about him was that he was wearing a black shirt.  Half of the kids were wearing black shirts because they were on a certain team for the soccer game at the beginning of the party.  Many kids gave their thoughts but every one was different so what and who do you believe.  Him or his family have not come forward and I don’t believe they ever will.  No my son was not playing with any kids after this incident.  Once we were both calmed down (enough so I could drive) we left.

This very well could have happened without another child wrapping it for him.  That is probably the exact reason that Ninja Jump has removed the strap and replaced it with handles.  The problem is they have done nothing to modify or remove the models out there that have the strap.  You can not put a 5-6 foot long lose strap hanging inside of something and not have this risk – look at blind cords.

I also didn’t leave my children unattended for a moment, I followed them around as they played, that is why I was standing 2 feet away from the backside talking with one of his classmates parents when this happened.  That is how I heard him screaming.  If I was not right there this story might not have ended in a happy ending.

The reason I will not allow my kids into a bounce house again is because of the many hidden dangers.  I would have never expected that there would be a 5-6 foot long strap/rope inside that could get tangled around any child.  Unless I go inside to make sure the unit is safe my kids will not play in it.

My son has said himself at 6 years old that he will never play in one again.

One of those days that you pray will never happen and you feel sick to your stomach when you read some other persons story.  Well today was one of those days for me.

It all started as a normal suburban Saturday, we had a birthday party to go to for one of my sons friends at a local sports dome.  They had a big soccer game planned (amazingly organized by the birthday boys parents), followed by pizza and cake.  After the kids enjoyed some food they were able to go back into the dome where the dome had set up a big bounce house very similar to this one from Ninja Jump (just a different theme) a company from California.

The boys were all playing and having fun in here.  I started thinking that someone was going to get hurt, but never thought that there was a risk like what happened today.  The house has black mesh sides and it is very hard to see inside.

I watched my kids playing inside and moved around checking on both and chatting with a fellow parent who’s son is in my son’s class.  All of the sudden my son starts crying and then screaming and crying and screaming.  I went over to him and started talking to him through the net, I thought other kids were just bugging him so I told him to come out.  The opening was all the way on the other side.  He starts really screaming at the same time that another boy is pulling on his leg, so I yell for him to stop and to my son to get out now.  He screams even louder and one of the other kids tells me that he has this rope wrapped around his neck.  I look above him and see this green rope, and I look at my son who is grabbing at his neck.

It was all in a split second.  I didn’t do anything but run.  I threw down my water bottle, purse and kicked my shoes across the sports dome as I ran around this thing.  I ran up the slide and immediately knew I could not pull him up so I jumped down beside him and tried pushing him up to get slack and free the rope.  It wouldn’t work, it was as tall as me.  I start begging for this kid at the top of the slide to help me pull him up, what that poor boy must have been thinking… but he did nothing.  The father of the birthday boy and his sister must have heard me because they both came running in and he grabbed my son and pushed him up, removed the cord and pulled him out.

See the red line, that is a rope that hangs down the part where they climb up to go down the slide.  This rope just hangs there, it isn’t fastened at the bottom or anything…

That is where I found my son hanging with a rope wrapped around his neck.

I was in shock… I followed his sister out of this death trap and immediately went to my son who was crying.  I felt like I was going to vomit, I was shaking and wanted to freak out and yell.  I wanted to know how this happened.  Kids start telling me that some boy wrapped it around his neck and pushed him,they are pointing at all these different kids.  I just sat there and hugged my boy. His little sister even came over and started rubbing his back to make sure he was okay.

I just wanted to leave, but I knew that there was no way I could drive these two kids home.  I was so shaken up and all I could do was stop myself from vomiting all over the ground.  Some other parents distracted my son and got him to go off and kick around the soccer ball.  By the time I was a little calmer I asked him if he wanted to leave and he said no, so we stayed for a little while longer.

I just needed to stop shaking…

My 6 year old son was able to tell me exactly what happened and describe how scary it was.  He is upstairs with my hubby at 10:30pm because he is too scared to sleep.  Totally understandable after the day he had.

If I had decided to go sit down on one of the chairs 10 feet away I might have not heard him, I would not have checked to see what was going on… and who knows if another kid would have.  Since instead of yelling for help they pulled on his leg to just pull the rope even tighter.

He is okay, his neck has rope burn.  My shoulder has gotten so sore that I can barely move my arm, but that doesn’t matter.  He is alive, at this time that is all that matters.

I am so thankful for Brian who rescued him, because no matter how hard I tried I didn’t have the strength.  The poor guy is still shaking himself.

It is September 6th, Labour Day, the day before kids go back to school.  I should be sitting here with a smile on my face, celebrating like the millions of other parents out there, but instead I sit here with a tear in my eye.

You see I started a business 5 years ago when my first baby was 1 so that I could do something with my mind, so that I could be creative, and to stay home with my son but still contribute to the family financially. I was not one of those people who could just be a stay at home mom, I did it for the year and I loved being home but I also needed more for me.

In the mix of getting my business off the ground and raising my son I received a wonderful surprise, I was pregnant again with a little girl.  I would have 2 kids, 2.5years apart, one boy and one girl – the million dollar family.  What could be better?  Nothing!  Only I am running my own business, so there is no 1 year maternity leave, there is as much time as I want to take off and not have my business running.  If I didn’t work then there was no business.  I was home from the hospital less then 24 hours after having Miss E, and I think I was on my computer working 2 hours after getting home.  I took a break for a few days during March break but other then that I was working while raising this baby and 2.5 year old.

When Kal turned 3 he started preschool 5 mornings a week, and stayed at the same school for his JK year because I didn’t believe in the alternate day kindergarten that all of our schools have here.  Last year which would have been SK he went full time for the 5 days.  As many readers know my kids go to a Montessori school.

Well where do the tears come from?  Miss E is starting her first year at the school tomorrow and I signed her up for full time.  She went for a few months at the end of last year part time mornings and loved it. She was always learning, unlike her brother who did more play/practical life for the first 2 years.

I have real mixed feelings about her being full time….

I need it for the business, I am too busy to work and take care of her at the same time.  She needs it for the stimulation, she is bored at home and needs to socialize with more then her brother.

But I feel like I should not be rushing this.  I feel like I should be enjoying this time with her.  I question why I allowed my business to get to this point where both kids needed to be gone all day.  One of the main reasons for my business was to stay home with my kids…. and that is not what I am doing here.  Could I not work part time and have her in school part time?  I question myself all day long on this.

I know in the back of my mind that this is not something that I can do.  It wasn’t working for either of us, and unless I put her in programs every day during the afternoon she would not be stimulated enough.  That is not an option because most programs for preschool kids run in the morning when she is in school.  I also need to work more then 2 or 3 hours a day and since she doesn’t nap this wouldn’t work.

So tomorrow morning I will be weeping as my son goes off to grade 1 and my daughter starts her first year of preschool and is gone all day.

Check back with me in a month (or Wednesday) to see if I am celebrating and loving it!