Monthly Archives: September 2007

Good times are had by all when the Aunties come to visit! No idea what was so funny here…Kris showed them pics of his trip to England for hours and hours! Continue reading →

Dee Dee Came visiting two weekends in a row with Auntie Marilyn from Halifax. Continue reading →

Emma blows her own nose. Constantly. If it’s runny, she blows it. If it’s not runny, she blows it. She blows her doll’s nose, her teddy’s nose, she tries to blow my nose. It’s kind of good actually, it took Kris alot longer to learn to blow his nose. It’s interesting finding tiny pieces of Kleenex all over the house. It’s also interesting to see what she’ll use if she can’t find a Kleenex…

The other day she was all dressed up in a pretty dress. She grabbed the hem of her skirt and lifted it to her nose and blew really hard. She then prissily dropped the skirt and patted it back into place. Nose blown, problem solved! Miss manners she isn’t! Continue reading →

Girls really do prefer pink
Mon, Aug 20, 2007 (HealthDay News) — As the mother of a newborn baby girl, Dr. Anya C. Hurlbert wondered why all the products aimed at her daughter tended to have a pinkish tint.

As a professor of visual neuroscience at Newcastle University in England, Hurlbert was able to create a scientifically sound study to determine whether girls really do prefer pink. The answer, as outlined in a report in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal Current Biology,, is “yes.” Females do have a preference for pinkish colors that males don’t.

“We find very clear differences between the males and females we have tested,” Hurlbert said. “We haven’t yet found any exceptions.”

In more formal terms, females in the study showed a preference for the reddish side of the red-green axis of colors, while males didn’t. There was no gender difference in preferences on the blue-yellow axis, with everyone tipping toward blue. The study included 208 participants, ranging in age from 20 to 26.

That bluish preference seems natural, Hurlbert said — blue skies and all that. The female tilt toward pink, she speculated, arose from evolutionary influences millions of years ago. “Females were the ones who gathered red fruit against a green background,” she said. “Red is healthy in faces and in fruits.”

Cultural influences may have accentuated this natural female preference, she said.

The study Hurlbert did asked several hundred young men and women to make quick decisions on which color they preferred as pairs of colors flashed on a screen in front of them. “We did about a thousand different pairs,” she noted.

Some Chinese people were included in the study along with native Britons, to get evidence that the results were true in more than one ethnic group.

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The toy recalls lately are enough to drive any parent absolutely insanely paranoid with worry. Is it actually paranoia if there are so many threats or is it just common-sense fear for your child’s safety. I should be able to go to Toys’R Us here in Canada and buy any product without having to worry for the kid’s safety. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We cannot trust the products on our shelves, regardless of the price or brand name. These are no longer good ways to keep them safe.

I wanted to have a “Made In China” free Christmas but I’ve found this next to impossible. Everything, and I do mean everything, is made in China. Look around your house…my mom’s friggin mushrooms are from China! She bought them at Co-Op! There’s a mushroom farm just outside of Calgary…why are they not from there? Nearly all of Emma’s toys are made in China. Even the ones that aren’t probably have parts of them made in China. The wool, thread, material, stuffing, etc. is generally all from China. What the hell is going on??? I’m willing to pay higher prices for locally made products.

Now I’m just ranting, I’ll keep you posted on this issue…Here’s a link on “7 ways to keep your kids safe” dealing with toy recalls, etc. from baby center http://www.babycenter.com/0_toy-recalls-7-things-you-can-do-to-keep-your-child-safe_1742013.bc?page=2&articleId=1742013. Continue reading →

This is going to seem like an odd link but check it out… http://www.duckproducts.com/

Who knew the money you could earn by wearing duck tape…What the??? Halloween Costumes, Prom dresses, and Duck tape to the rescue. An interesting page if you’ve got time to kill. I was looking at MSDS reports when I stumbled across this. Continue reading →

It started raining last night when I went to bed and it is still raining! Emma had a couple of firsts this morning as we were headed out the door…she said “rain” for the first time out of nowhere even though no one else said it. We opened the front door, she looked out and just said it! Incredible. She also put on her own coat for the first time this morning. I handed her her raincoat as I was putting on my shoes and she put it on by herself! Okay, so it was backwards, whatever. I just did the snaps up the back and off we went. Too bad we couldn’t use the hood though…. Continue reading →

: : : : Anybody know where this phrase originated and what it means?
: : : : “warms the cockles of my heart”

: : : Meaning: Causes a pleasant feeling of a sentimental kind, is comforting, is reassuring.
: : : Origin: Not clear. The shell of the cockle, a mussel, is somewhat heart-shaped, but that may not have produced this phrase.
: : : Entry from Webster’s Second Unabridged, 1934: “Cockles of the heart: A phrase (in which ‘cockles’ is of uncertain meaning) denoting the depths of the heart; as, to ‘delight, rejoice, cheer, warm,’ etc., ‘the cockles of one’s heart.’”

: : Maybe cockles is a medical term.

: : The heart is composed of various parts that work in unison to pump blood throughout the body.

: : One of the parts of the heart is called a ventricle. I dont remember if the ventricle pumps in or sends blood out but it makes no difference in this discussion.

: : Anyway, the Latin term for the heart’s ventricles is “cochleae cordis”.

: : Could “cockle” be a corruption of “cochleae cordis”?

: Correction: I mistakenly said “mussel” above. I meant to say “mollusk.” “Cockle” formerly applied vaguely to various bivalves but is now more specific.
: More on derivation: It’s unsettled. Oxford Engl. Dict. says “For derivation cf. quot. 1669. Others have sought its origin in L. ‘corculum’ dim. of ‘cor’ heart. (Latham conjectured ‘the most probable explanation lies (1) in the likeness of a heart to a cockleshell; the base of the former being compared to the hinge of the latter; (2) in the zoological name for the cockle being Cardium, from the Greek [word for] heart’.”
: This is the “quot. 1669″: R. Lower, “Tract. de Corde,” . . . Fibrae quidem spirali suo amb tu h licem sive cochleam satis apte referunt.
: “Tu h” doesn’t look right; individual letters in my OED may have failed to print.

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Kris’ first week of grade 8 is over. He’s already had quite a few homework assignments. Some of which he has completely forgotten. We’ve even already gotten into a couple of arguments with him over his homework. However, this year will be different! Two of his teachers who teach the core subjects — humanities, science, and math have “Homework blogs”. They post the homework they’ve assigned online so that students and, more importantly, parents can check what is due over the next couple of days! It is AWESOME!!! Now we can easily keep track of what he’s supposed to be doing. If you create a user name and password on this site, a list of links related to Kris’ homework will pop up on the left. Sometimes technology really does make life easier! Continue reading →

When I was little my Auntie Dee used to tell me this wonderful story of a princess as she picked apart a bleeding heart flower. She couldn’t remember how the story went but I found it online last night. Here it is:

Ann’s Story of the Bleeding Heart
by Elma Lang

“Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess. Young men from far and near came to pay her court. But the princess was very vain and would have nothing to do with any of them. A young prince from the neighboring country fell deeply in love with her. She ignored him like the others, though he tried and tried to win her heart. One day the prince found a pair of pretty pink rabbits at the market. He sent them to the princess thinking ‘these will surely melt her heart.’” Ann carefully broke off the two outside petals of the flower in her hand. She placed them on the teacher’s desk. Sure enough they looked like a pair of pink rabbits.
“But the princess went right on ignoring him,” Ann continued with her story. “Then the prince sent her a pair of beautiful Oriental slippers.” From the front and back of the flower, Ann took off the two long petals. One could easily imagine the dainty heels, the slender insteps, and the widened toes. The looked like a pair of real Oriental slippers.

Ann had to wait until the oh’s and ah’s of the class had quieted down before she could go on.

“Still the princess would have nothing to do with him. The young prince was so heart broken that he took his dagger and drove it into his heart.” The remains of the flower in Ann’s hand made the outline of a heart with a line down the center. Ann broke out the stamen, which had made the line. It looked like a dagger. She put it through the center of the heart. Ann held her hand so that the class could see the perfect heart pierced by the dagger.

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