Monthly Archives: September 2003

Not sure how many miles I put on tonight.  I was late leaving the office so straight to school to pick up Grace after Drivers Ed.  Spent a few extra minutes there while she tried to get back into the school to pick up the papers she forgot in the room – of course they had to be signed and taken back tomorrow.  So after wild gestures to someone in the upstairs stairwell, she got back in and retrieved the papers. 

Sara, meanwhile, was home making Taco salad –  we only had to stop and pick up the Nacho chips and Taco sauce for her on our way home from the school.  Arrived at the store and of course Grace thought of several things she had to get to make her lunch for tomorrow.  Spent a few more minutes getting all the stuff.

Finally got home and had supper.

Then the chauffering request.  “Please can I go up to S’s?”  Since S lives halfway across the city that can be translated as “Can you drive me to S’s”  Since I already knew I had some errands to run, that was OK by me – homework was done.  So off we went.  Didn’t get all my errands done and back home till 9:30.  Fifteen minutes later Sara called for a ride home.  Can’t really complain since she knew she had to be home by 10:00 and so she was making sure she was not overstepping her curfew.  It just would have been nice to spend more than 15 minutes at home just then.  I barely had time to return some phone calls between runs.

I’m afraid the school year has begun!  I already have my evening planned around places I have to drive tomorrow night.  And Saturday morning I won’t even get to sleep in – both girls have to be at school by 6:00 am to go play soccer in Munster.

I have been up for a long time today.  The dog woke me up at 4:30 am and it just seemed easier to stay up than to try and go back to sleep for an hour.  Now it seems I am staying up far too late as well. 

But I got a lot of stuff done today and that feels good.  I have learned a lot of stuff from Randall over the past couple of days about this web page.  And It is starting to make more sense and I think I am catching on a little bit.  Got some things working that I have been trying to get going for awhile without success and organized some other stuff.

Going to meet and pray with God and a few friends is also a good way to start the day.  I’m becoming hooked – probably already am – on Gate Crashers.

Today was one of those days when I got to do one of those little special tasks that I learned to do a few years ago.  Went up to the hospital to take an impression of a newborns mouth.  The baby was born with a cleft palate.  While I was there, I was asked to see a second baby as well – funny how these things seem to come in batches. 

I am usually called to do this – a sort of weird hobby I guess – a small interuption in the daily schedule.  Anyway it saves the mom and newborn a trip to Saskatoon to have this done and it gets these little ones off to a better start.  I get one of our labs to make the first little feeding plate so that the baby can suckle.  The plate helps to separate the mouth from the nasal cavity so that the baby can create some suction and nurse.  And it keeps some of the milk from going up into the nose.  Tube feeding doesn’t have to be done and the plate usually helps to cut down on ear infections in these little guys.  They need to gain weight so they can have their first lip repairs done as early as possible. 

Tomorrow I will get to go and show the mom how to put the little plate in and take it out.  Kind of a nice change from routine dentistry.

This evening I needed to attend a meeting of soccer parents too.  We have this big fundraiser coming up that was originally intended to help get the girls to National playoffs in Nova Scotia.  Now that they aren’t going, we have to decide what to do with the funds.  So we are planning a neat wind-up for the girls and will likely start a fund to help other teams get to playoffs, etc. Maybe even start a fund for a new soccer facility here.  The girls on the team have all become good friends and we parents have gotten to know each other pretty well and if the girls keep playing, we will have several years when we spend a lot of time together.  Kids do provide good opportunities for meeting others and developing friendships. 

I was just thinking that I didn’t have much to journal about tonight but then I started to think about all that has happened over the past few days. 

Soccer finals kind of dominated the weekend with the Premiere league wrapping up it’s outdoor season.  And it was a sad weekend in a sense.  The girls lost both their games – 1-0 and 2-0 – played very well but just didn’t have the offensive strength they needed with their best striker out with a broken leg.  Sara played exceptionally well – her big brothers even thought so – making a couple great slide tackles that saved the opposing teams best striker from scoring.  In the picture above the ball is just coming off her feet.  Check out my photo album for more scenes from the final two games.

We stayed down in Saskatoon overnight since today was a holiday and I didn’t have any pressing need to get back.  So I took Eric and Patrick down to the Black Duck to the Worship Freehouse meeting.  We sat around and had a good time and I learned some new things about mennonites.  You can find some pitures over at the Worship Freehouse FotoPage.

Then I got to see Mars.  I went over to Cathy J’s where her husband had his telescope set up.  I had never thought about how fast the planets are moving through the sky.  Saw the Andromeda galaxy too.  Amazing to think that the light from it has been on it’s way several million years – I can’t remember the exact figure.

Slept in this morning too – unusual for me.  Let the kids make me breakfast.

And once again – it is good to be back home.  Another four day week so I think it will be tolerable.