Snow Day

Yesterday evening and today marked the first legitimate snowfall during our time here in Toronto.  It started when Campbell and I were driving around on one final Christmas light and Santa Claus-finding tour, and the blizzard didn't stop until this morning.  I think we ended up getting over a foot.  It's not like the wet, slushy snow we see once every five years or so in Texas or  Louisiana.  This snow was more like Colorado snow-dry and fluffy.  The second we stepped on it, Katherine and I got that itch to hit the slopes!
I promised Cman we would make a huge, gigantic snowman.  I'll be the first to admit that I am completely out of my element in Toronto and especially Toronto in the Winter.  I'm pretty sure everyone in our neighborhood, if they didn't already before, knows we're not from around here.  Still, as any Southerner would do in the snow, I strapped on my trusty Red Wing boots and Katherine got Campbell into his much safer and appropo knee-high, waterproof, fully insulated Stride Rite boots, and we headed out.  We quickly found out the big downside about the snow being so dry was that it didn't really stick together, which made fulfilling my promise a tough task.
After a minor goal adjustment and aiming a little lower, we ended up with a nice mini snowman with christmas lights for the eyes and nose and a curly branch for the mouth.  Campbell was so excited to be out in the snow it didn't really matter in the end.  After some documentation of our hard work, we trucked back inside to get some hot chocolate.

I later found out from our French neighbor Kamel who has weathered many a Toronto winter and built his share of snowmen for his now older kids that the best time to build a snowman is actually just before the snow starts to melt (confirmed by Wikipedia!).  He thinks Saturday should be a good bet so we will try again then and aim a little higher, maybe.

This last photograph I took on the way home from work today.  It's an equestrian statue of Edward VII in Queen's Park by the University.  I just thought it was a nice scene.

Christmastime

It was difficult not being able to go back to Dallas this year for the holidays and see family, especially since we didn't make it back last year with Mackenzie due in January, but we definitely have made the most of it being in Toronto.  We have had so much time to catch up and hang out.  It's been great getting to spend time with the kids since I often don't get home from work until after they are asleep.  For Christmas Eve, we went to church at St. Paul's Anglican Church on Bloor.  It wasn't exactly SCAPC, but it was great being in church on Christmas Eve.  The kids did so great.  Mack was all smiles, and Cman had a great time looking at the decorations and coloring.  Here are some Christmas Eve pics at the house.

St. Lawrence Market

One of our favorite things to do since we've moved to Toronto is go to St. Lawrence Market on the weekends.  It was actually named the best food market in the world by National Geographic this year.  We always have the best times there.  It starts with buying some salsa, tostadas, and guacamole from this sweet lady at Manotas, which is hands-down the best guacamole in the city after my own!  Next we go pick up a monster crepe for brunch and some coffee, and then we head upstairs.  Upstairs Campbell (and Katherine) are in their element.  There are tons of samples from all of the vendors.  Campbell either sprints around to the different displays checking everything out or he wants me to put him on my head to get a birds-eye view.  We can never get out without buying fresh-made ravioli and this triple-combo pasta sauce that is the freshest mix of tomato, alfredo, and pesto-basil sauces.  It tastes best when it is just all mixed together.  As great as all that is, the highlight of the market are the GIGANTIC lobster tanks (I put gigantic in all caps because Campbell has this way of saying gigantic really loud in this super low-pitched voice that is hilarious).  We even bought a couple of lobsters one day and Katherine whipped up some of Ina Garten's lobster rolls for lunch!  I don't know anyone other than Katherine that could just whip up the best gourmet lobster rolls on-the-fly while feeding a 9 month old and 26 month old!   On our last trip to the market, we bought our Christmas tree.  We have always bought frazier firs, but this year we bought a balsam fir, which has turned out to be the hardiest, best-smelling tree yet.  We all love the market.

Our Caged Bird SCREAMS

[originally written on August 18th] Our move to Toronto was stressful to say the least.  We packed up the house on June 18th and the moving van arrived in Toronto on July 4th.  In between, we stayed in several different hotels and eventually slept on an air mattress in our rent house when we couldn't take the hotels any more.  Our sleeping arrangements were less than ideal for a baby and toddler.  We thought once the kids room was set up, we'd be back to normal.  HA!

Campbell has been refusing to sleep in his crib.  Every night he would pitch a huge fit (waking up Mack in the process).  Eventually we resorted to letting him fall asleep in our arms and then carefully putting him in his crib.  And every night a few hours later, he'd be screaming bloody murder and would end up in our bed.  And instead of getting progressively better it was getting progressively worse.

Finally Campbell and I had a "communication"break through yesterday.  I tried putting him down for his daily nap and he freaked out.  I needed to pump milk for Mack, so I let him scream for about an hour, hoping he would go to sleep.  He eventually woke Mack up, and I couldn't take it any longer so I went to his room.  I gave him books and toys and told him it was time to lay down.  He refused.  He grabbed the toys and said "I don't want this" and threw them out of his crib.  Then he grabbed his crib bumper and said "I don't want this."  

Light bulb... despite all the SIDS warnings, his crib bumper used to be a great source of comfort for him.  Every night he would sleep squished on one side of the crib with his head buried in one corner of the bumper and his feet buried in the other.  I looked into Campbell's tear-soaked face and asked, "Campbell do you want a big boy bed?"  "Ya..." "Do you want to sleep in a bed like daddy's..."  "Ya..."  That night we took one side of Campbell's crib off.  Holy cow, he went to sleep in it.  He still woke up in the middle of the night and ended up in our bed, but at least he started in his own bed and made it for more than an hour.  And today, happily went down for a two-hour nap.  What a big boy.  It's hard to think that something that used to provide such comfort was now the source of all our problems.  And I'm so proud of Campbell for figuring out how to tell me what he needed.  I only wish I had figured it out weeks ago.

Algonquin Park

VACATION!  To say the past year has been a whirlwind is a serious understatement.  The last vacation we took was when Campbell was 6 months old (nearly TWO years ago).  Brad had heard from several colleagues that going to Algonquin Provincial Park to see the fall leaves was a must while in Canada.  So we booked a hotel (for one night, let's not go too crazy here); we loaded the kids into the car on Saturday morning and headed North.

Brad and I were so excited to go on vacation.  The Wednesday night before our weekend getaway, he texted "I'm so exited we should start packing now!"  Let us not forget that we were going on a 36 hour vacation.  Packing for one night should not have taken 3 days of preparation.  And yet, as we loaded the back of the Yukon with all our gear, we barely had enough room for the dogs.  Luckily, we didn't have far to go before they were dropped off at kennel.

And we're off!  Oh wait, is that our tire deflating.  Stop for lunch... stop to air tire... stop to find a place to replace tire... all service stations closed.  Make decision to press on and get there.  Mackie losing it because she HATES sitting in her car seat.  Finally arrive!  40 degrees and raining...  Hey, let's go check out the park with a 2 year old and screaming 9 month old...  View the park from the car with a deflated tire...  Get pulled over by warden who just wanted to tell us that our tire was flat ... head back to hotel.... eat frozen dinners from hotel microwave... survive the night in a chilly room with teething baby and wide awake toddler.

Sunday... let's regroup and eat breakfast in the inn restaurant.  It's impossible to mess up breakfast; unless it takes 45 minutes to make 3 pancakes.  1.5 hours later... okay team Johnson, it's time to put our rally caps on and pull this thing together.  We're headed back to the park for our hike and photo op if it kills us.

Campbell loved the .8 KM hike!  For a week we had talked about seeing a moose or "hopefully fox."  We settled for rocks, moss, leaves and sticks.  The rain held off just long enough for us to make the hike and get our photos.  Poor Mackenzie was so exhausted she fell asleep in the Baby Bjorn.  But the leaves were really beautiful; and at least we can say we've been to Algonquin Park.

NOLA

Some of you may have heard this story, but we tried to keep it on the DL so not to worry anyone.  Now that we are safely out of NOLA, it's time to blog about our arrival in that amazing and wild city.  We left Nashville and made the drive to NOLA in one day.  I drove with the dogs and Brad drove our moving truck.  When we arrived in NOLA, the moving crew we hired to help unload our moving truck was MIA.  Not a huge deal because we were staying in a hotel.  We had to negotiate a simultaneous close for our Nashville house and NOLA house, and that date was several days after we moved to NOLA.  The owner of the NOLA house said we could go ahead and unload our stuff into the house, but we obviously couldn't live there until we closed.

Day 3 in NOLA, moving company still MIA.. we unloaded our dining room table and a few other items. I was sitting at the dining room table in front of a huge window with no window coverings.  Brad and my dad had gone to Home Depot for various supplies.  When we arrived in NOLA in 2008, the city was still freshly recovering from Katrina.  Our neighbor across the street had hired a crazy contractor who had basically moved into his house with his posse work crew.  The crew had had a huge BBQ earlier that day and was in the process of packing up to head north and to supposedly help with the flooding that had happened in Iowa that year.  As I quietly read a magazine, all of a sudden people are scattering and running in all different directions like ants after an ant pile gets stepped on.  A man comes running out of the front of the house, screaming "he shot him, he shot him" and I see a body lying in the doorway.  Call Brad!!  Our conversation went something like this, "uh, babe, I think someone just got shot."

Next thing I know, I'm watching a live version of CSI/Law and Order unfold before my eyes.  First, an ambulance shows up.  Paramedics walk into the house and then leave.  Next, the coroner's truck shows up... lots of police and detectives.  Like an idiot, I'm standing right in the window watching everything with a morbid curiosity.  Brad and my dad finally make it back to the house.  Then I see a detective point towards me and start walking to our house.  Next thing I know, I'm being interviewed.  Surreal.  I gave my statement to the detective and then I had a question for her.  "We just moved here and we haven't actually bought this house yet.  Are we going to be okay living here?"  Her response, "Oh, you'll be fine here.  This is a great neighborhood. We believe this is an isolated event between two people that knew each other.  Welcome to New Orleans!!" she said cheerfully and walked out of the house.

Welcome to New Orleans indeed.  Moving company finally called to say they were on their way.  Alas, our moving truck was roped off in the active crime scene.  It would not be unloaded that day!  Needless to say that ordeal was the low point of our time in NOLA.  It could only get better from there.

In the four years we lived on S. Prieur Street, we made NOLA our beloved home.  We grew to love the city, the culture, and the people.  We celebrated the birth of our son and the birth of our daughter!  Brad and I celebrated the big 3-0 in NOLA.  We cheered the Saints to a Super Bowl victory and partied on Bourbon street.  We paraded like pros through Mardi Gras and ate more King Cake than anyone should.  We evacuated for Hurricane Gustav; we got eaten alive by mosquitos; we sadly grew accustomed to the violence and nightly murder reports.  I won't miss the heat, humidity, bugs or guns.  I will deeply miss our friends and our church.  When people ask me where I'm from, my response these days... New Orleans.  The city where we started and grew our family.  New Orleans, you taught us how to enjoy life!   Laissez les bons temps rouler...

 Moving day...

Last night in NOLA... finally rode that street car with Paw-Paw.

Dino Obsession

Campbell has had an obsession with dinosaurs for a couple of months now.  It started when we rediscovered an old book, I Love You Stinky Face.  In the book, a little boy asks his mom if she would still love him if he were a wild creature.  "But mama, but mama, would you still love me if I were a terrible meat-eating dinosaur."  Campbell went nuts when we got to that page.  So that night Katherine bought several "How Do Dinosaurs" books by Jane Yolen.  To say he loves them is an understatement.  We read them over and over at night.  He still has a tough time saying dinosaur so he has just shortened it to "dino".  It wasn't long after we arrived in Toronto that we heard about this incredible exhibit called Ultimate Dinosaurs at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), and we knew it would be right up C-man's alley.  It's the largest exhibition of dinosaurs ever in North America and the largest dinosaur exhibition in the ROM's history.  Needless to say, Campbell loved it.  He sprinted around the exhibit checking out all the dinosaurs shouting "Dino!".  It really was pretty fun.  I think Mackenzie liked it too.

When July 11 rolled around,  the decision on the theme for Campbell's birthday cake was an easy one.  Katherine knew she had to make a Dino cake.  She set the bar high after the amazing monkey cake for birthday #1, but she managed to outdo herself yet again.  Her chocolate cake is simply the best.  Campbell loved it.

There were many birthday highlights including trucks and tricycles.   The big truck from Paw-paw was perfect because he also loves trucks.  Every time he sees a truck on the road, he emphatically states "Big truck".  It could be a cement mixer, moving truck, garbage truck, dump truck; you name it.  Living on a busy street has actually been kind of exciting for him because he can stand in the window and watch the big trucks go by.
Katherine and I got him a tricycle, which he loves to ride and is actually getting much better at riding.  At first, he hated to wear his helmet, but now I think wearing his "Duck-goose" helmet is his favorite part of riding.  His legs are just a touch short to stay on the pedals for a full revolution, but I don't think that will be an issue too much longer.

Canada, eh?

We found out we would be moving to Toronto for our fellowship last August.  I say "our" fellowship because even though I am the one doing the clinical fellowship at Toronto General Hospital and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in head and neck oncology, I feel like the rest of the family is getting one last exposure on how to live under non-ideal circumstances.

Post-graduate medical education is truly the ultimate in delayed gratification.  I had some great job opportunities before I decided to take a fellowship, all of which payed very well starting out.  I now know I am a true glutton for punishment because I decided to take a job making the same thing I made last year in a foreign country that is a good deal more expensive than the U.S.  For example, a gallon of gas costs almost $6, and a 6-pack of Coors light long-necks costs around $12.  We knew Canada would be more expensive than the United States, especially in terms of child care, and as a result, we made several decisions to start saving money in preparation for our move.  We didn't go on some exotic vacation to celebrate the end of residency, but perhaps the decision I regret the most now, hindsight being 20/20, is that we did not travel to Toronto at all prior to moving up here to do any house-hunting.  We thought we would save the money we would have spent on flights, hotels, etc.  However, we spent a great deal of time looking for places to live on the internet.  Finally, one night after work I was looking on Craigs list and found what looked like a nice clean house in the part of Toronto called Greek Town.  We talked to the property manager, did a fly-by on Google Maps, talked to people who had lived in Toronto; basically everything we could do short of seeing the house in person.  We decided to pull the trigger and went for it.

The first time we pulled up to the house, needless to say, we were shocked.  Bad idea not to see the house in person.  The yard was a jungle with overgrown, dead brush, trash, debris and God-knows what else.  It looked like someone had trimmed some tree branches in the not-too distant past and then thrown them on top of the "pile" to decompose.  I remember seeing a digital thermostat on the wall and Katherine saying let me turn the AC on because after all, there has been a ridiculous heat wave in Toronto this summer.  After about an hour, all the while working to throw out the junk the prior tenant had left in the house, I turned to Katherine and asked her if the AC was working because I certainly wasn't feeling any cooler.  We looked around and noticed there was not a single air vent on the ceiling or in the floor, and suddenly the light bulb went off that we had no AC!

There are many other smaller issues like no dishwasher and disposal in the kitchen, for which I've already promised Katherine a La Cornue stove in our next house, a refrigerator that spontaneously went into defrost mode (we now have a new one as of last Thursday), a basement that likes to take on water after a rain storm, walls painted colors that could be better chosen by a blind person, and a bathroom so small, I have to pee facing sideways.

Needless to say, we have been through some adversity in life so after the shock value of what we were facing wore off, we got to work.  Katherine scrubbed the house from top to bottom as only she can.  I woke up early one Saturday morning, rented a U-haul trailer, and tackled the yard.  The AC was probably the biggest issue with sweet 6 month old Mack liking it cold.  I went to Home Depot, bought very nice LG window units, and drawing on my white-trash instincts, duct taped them into the windows in the kitchen, our bedroom, and the kids' bedroom.  Oh, and we now have a side-gate that is actually quite sturdy to safely let the dogs out into the back yard.  So with a little elbow grease and some ingenuity, our Greek house has become perfectly adequate.  This experience has helped me to appreciate how fortunate we have been to live in the houses and cities that we have lived in thus far in life.  Living in this house will just make the house we move in to next year that much sweeter.  We are already planning house-hunting trips.

Before:

After:

Ahhh... AC!!

My Sweet Baby Girl...

I have been told by friends who were second and third-born children how important it is take just as many pictures of Mackenzie as we did of Campbell. Luckily Brad had just bought a new camera lens for Christmas; we were ready to take lots of pictures of Mackenzie. The challenge I have realized... who takes the pictures? With Brad chasing our busy toddler and me taking care of Mackenzie, taking tons of pictures to document every moment is not so easy. But here are some of my favorites from our first week with Mackenzie.

Love all that curly brown hair!

Time to go home!

What's so funny Mackenzie?!

Mackenzie Arrives!

I never would have guessed that Mackenzie would be arriving 3 days after my last blog post. We had planned everything perfectly! My doctor recommended a planned c-section one week prior to my due date. However, that was the weekend of the MLK holiday and our friends who had generously volunteered to watch Campbell for a night were going to be in CA. So I suggested we schedule the c-section for January 17th. It was perfect. Campbell would spend the night at our friends house on Jan 16th; Brad and I would have our first night to ourselves since Campbell's arrival, and then we would get up super early on the 17th and check-in to the hospital for Mackenzie's arrival.

Ms. Mack had other plans. Friday night, Jan 13th, I worked till after 10 PM to get everything done before going out on maternity leave. I finally got into bed around midnight and realized I was having contractions. I convinced myself they were braxton-hicks (the "fake" warm-up contractions). I got out of bed to sit on the couch and drink gallons of water to try to stop it. Finally at about 3 AM I woke Brad up to give him an update - I was having contractions and all the water in the world was not stopping it. We paged my doctor. He agreed I needed to go to the hospital. Great... what was our plan now. Who was going to watch Campbell at 3 AM?!?! I hopped in the shower to shave my legs (because who knew when I would get another chance to do that); I threw some clothes in a bag (because I was totally not ready yet and hadn't carefully packed a hospital bag like I did with Campbell); and I jumped in the car to drive MYSELF to the hospital. Brad stayed home with Campbell!

I waddled my way to L&D around 4 AM and got checked into the hospital - yep I was having contractions about every 5-10 minutes. We had a few options, take meds to try to stop the contractions and go with planned section on the 17th or move forward with delivery that morning. As a precaution I was given the meds any way, but Brad said let's go for it. Mackenzie would be arriving today. Next step, find someone to watch Campbell. As grandparents scrambled to change their flights (everyone had planned for the 17th!), a fellow resident was willing to come to our house at 8 AM and spend the day with Campbell. I was scheduled for a 9:00 AM section which luckily got pushed back to 9:30 AM. Brad made it to the hospital at 9, and Mackenzie was born at 9:44 AM - exactly one week before my due date, as my doctor had originally suggested! I guess she listened better than me. Welcome to the world Mackenzie!!!