Spurred by the massive amounts of information (mainly misinformation) about the Hini aka H1N1 aka Swine Flu aka Bacon Plague aka the Oinking Sickness, I have realized that many people do not really know how the internet works.  I feel called upon to pay heed to this grave matter, and have compiled the following:

Official Rules for Internet Usage, Version Hini Point One

1. When you google something, the first page of results from your google search are not an indication of their veracity or “trueness.” Results are ranked based on how many hits, or “clicks” they receive.  The more you click, the higher its google rank.  This does not mean its content is true and reliable.   Example: Just because the first site that pops up when you google “H1N1 vaccine ingredients” tells you that it contains formaldehyde and tissues from aborted babies does NOT mean it is true.
2. Anyone can publish anything they want on the internet.  There are no editors or publishers to approve or reject any of its content.  Example: I could create a page touting the merits of taking high doses of Vitamin D to combat the Hini, encouraging people to take doses higher than the daily maximum recommended intake of 2000 IU, and watch my stocks in the vitamin company soar.  I could casually forget to include pertinent information such as the possibility of vitamin D toxicity, which can cause calcium deposits to form in places, like, your blood vessels.  Awesome.
3. Never believe anything, especially forwards, you receive in your e-mail inbox.  Most of these are not true. You will NOT get bad luck for 100 years if you delete the message before forwarding it to 27 of your favourite friends. Example: Ashley Flores is not a real missing person.  She may not even be a real “found” person.
4. Anyone can sign any name to the bottom of an e-mail.  There is no way to track this back.  Example: I could write an e-mail to everyone, telling them that eating bacon dipped in vitamin D will give you immunity from the Hini.  Then I could sign it Dr. David Suzuki, and copy and paste an entire list of his credentials and all the great stuff he has done.  That doesn’t mean the Suze wrote the e-mail, and it definitely does not mean you should braise your pig fat with D-drops.
5. When in doubt about the veracity of an e-mail, go to snopes.com and please, for the love of Zeus, look it up before you forward it.
6. “Researching” is not the same as “googling.” There are places to go on the internet if you want real facts.  Most of these are databases of academic periodicals from universities and libraries.  Not so much from google.  Don’t get me wrong, if you want great ideas for icebreakers for your next business function, google is awesome.  If you want to know what caused Gulf War Syndrome (ahem), google is NOT where you go; Pub Med (not to be confused with Club Med) is where you want to be.

If you do not know how to properly use the internet, please don’t use it to make important decisions, such as how to properly cook pufferfish, or whether or not to get the Hini shot.  You wouldn’t google “pufferfish”, then watch a youtube video on how to cut it properly without leeching its poison into the meat, then cook it and serve it to yourself and your children.  Why, then, are people willing to make a decision about getting a vaccine based on their “research” on the internet and in TV Guide rather than talking to their family physician or their pharmacist? Because they don’t know the rules of the internet.  The internet is a free-for-all.  Sometimes, this can be fantastic. But not when you are making important decisions regarding your health and the health of your loved ones.

Get off the computer and go talk to your physician or pharmacist or other health care practitioner.  He/She will be more than happy to give you all the valid information you need.

**I realize the irony of my posting this on the internet.  Like I said, it’s a BYOB out here. It sort of tickles me.

Ally McBeal is FINALLY on DVD!!

Now, I know I am dating myself, but I loved this show so much that everyone knew that you did NOT call me during Ally McBeal, on punishment of death.  Or at the least a severe verbal lashing, followed by a click and a dial tone.  Even Tony knew not to call, when we were first dating, on Monday nights between 10-11 pm: I was on a date with Billy…until he died.  And then with Larry.  Until good old R. Downey Jr got sent to jail for some drug charge and they had to write Larry off.  I cried my face off.

I have been waiting for years to get this on DVD, and even tried to find a way to buy a non-region-encoded DVD player and then order the DVDs from the UK, where it has been out for a long time.  Apparently there were issues with music rights and so on in the New World…gah.

Tony says he wishes he would have known, as he already bought my Christmas gift. NOOOOooooooooo!

To quote John “The Biscuit” Cage: BALLS!

On our first night of our mini kid-cation, Tony and I decided to take in some wine tasting, compliments of our lovely hotel.  We tasted.  We liked.  We tasted more.  We discovered that we were allowed to taste two full glasses of wine free of charge.  And so we did.

We then went down to the lobby to decide where we would eat for the night, and I noticed that there was an optician shop attached to the hotel.  My glasses had been bothering me, as the arms were too tight behind my ear and known to give me headaches.  I thought it would be a good idea to get them adjusted.  He adjusted them, but pointed out to me that one of the arms was weak and a little too floppy in the spot where the metal was welded to the plastic.

“See how it wiggles here?  That means it is very close to snapping.  That is a manufacturer’s defect, so you should probably take them back to where you bought them,”

he told me.

“Oh?  Wiggly like this?” I asked, touching my glasses and trying to get a better look through the eyes of a drunk.

Snap.

Oh shit.  My glasses are in two pieces. My only pair for the entire weekend.  My other pair were at home.

“Hmm,” the optician said. “I could put some solvent on those to try and get them to hold together until you can get home, but you’ll have to let them sit flat on a table for a few hours.  Do you think you could handle that?”

“Well, I have my seeing-eye husband with me, so I think I will be ok,” I replied, with as much wit as a semi-intoxicated mother-in-hiding-from-her-children could muster.

So he solved the glasses, I brought them up to our room, and we decided to saunter down to our favourite nacho destination, Julio’s. Of course, I could see nothing.  I was a little off balance from the vino, a little blind from the lack of eye wear, and not walking too well.  Tony thought it would be funny to push me into things, just to test my blindness.  Or gymnast-worthy balance.

Seeing how I was already blind and unable to use my knees properly, I decided to have another drink at Julio’s, along with the most amazing nacho platter I have ever had.  We ate, we laughed, we belched, we plowed through a Mexican fried ice cream in less than 20 seconds.  It was pure awesomeness.  Other than being blind and stuff.  We paid our tab and decided to head over to Chapters, a rather large bookstore that we frequented a lot when we were poor starving students in university.

I walked into Chapters on Tony’s arm, then remembering that I couldn’t see anything more than 10 cm from my face.

“Hey, look at this!” Tony would say, showing me the book he was flipping through.  Ha ha.  I can’t see.  Dumbass.  What the heck was I doing in a bookstore when I couldn’t see anything on the books?  I could hardly make out the labels above the shelves that tell you what section you are in.  Oddly, I ended up in Women’s Studies and Military History.  Fun times.  Seeing how those are not really my passion, I headed to an area where I knew I could have fun: the Thomas train table.

Eventually, Thomas got bored with me.  I sniffed my way around the store, trying to follow the stench of Julio’s farts coming from Tony’s bum.  Eventually, we were reunited, and we walked back to the hotel.

Back in our room, I reached for my glasses, so eager to join the seeing world again.  I went to put them on.

Snap.

Frick on a stick!!

Alright, bring on the tape.  I can rock the geek look if I have to.

I am not at home.  Tony and I are on our FIRST trip away from the boys.  First order of business: sleep.

Second order of business: sleep.

Will post later after sleeping has occurred.

Is it sad that I just spent, oh, an hour and a half looking up logo and button making freeware so that I can make cool labels for my knitted items RATHER than actually kntting the baby hat I am supposed to finish and block and wash (and let dry) in time for a baby shower on Sunday?

No?  Good.  Just checking.

Image by Cool Text

This was Sacha’s birthday present.  He knew I was knitting this sweater for him, but due to some yarn shortages, I had to put it on the back-burner for the last month leading up to his birthday, so he managed to forget about it until he opened it. The pattern is from Handknits for Kids, knit in KnitPicks Swish DK yarn (merino).

I feared that after all this work, he would only wear it once.  So I made sure to get his 3-year old photos taken wearing the sweater.

Sacha started preschool today.

I know that he just turned 3, and largely speaking, I don’t really agree that preschool for 3-year-olds is ncessary. In our case, however, we are sending him to a francophone preschool, where he will interact with other children (and adults) who speak French.  This is hugely important to me (and Tony) as I have only spoken to my kids in French since their births.  Sacha, for some reason or other, has decided that he is not French.  In fact, when we met with his teacher last week for a mini-orientation, we asked him to say “À la prochaine!” (Until next time) to his teacher.  He responded “I don’t fwench.” I then quickly replied to him (in French) that he is TOO French.  He then conceded and said “I just a wittle bit fwench.”

He understands French completely.  There is no issue there.  The issue is motivation to get him to speak in French.  Hence the preschool at age 3.

The first day, despite being über-excited all morning, was a bit of a gong show.  He found his place on the mat, labelled with his name, and sat down.  He said “bonjour” to his teacher, and just as I was about to leave, Kees-man in tow, he started to weep.  He pulled out all the stops: But I WOVE you!  I want stay with you FO-EVAH!  I WIKE you so much!  Don’t WEAVE me!” I told him that I would stay until after the class photos were taken.  Sure enough, in every frame of those class photos, Sacha’s bottom lip was almost swallowing his head.Once photos were done, he begged me to stay.  By this time, Kees was tearing up the school, starting to smell like pee, and I was at my threshold of patience. So I told a small lie:

“Sacha, I would love to stay, but I have no diapers for Kees (not true).  I have no snack for Kees (only partially true).  I have nothing for Kees to drink (tru dat). I will go home, get the stuff I need, and I will be back to pick you up.”

He agreed to this, and his teacher grabbed a little clock and had me move the arms on the clock to what time I would be back.  He seemed to understand.

I left.

I came back at the agreed-upon time.  He was sitting in a circle with the other kids, huge smile on his face, talking to his teacher.  The teacher assistant showed me a photo on her camera of what Sacha looked like about a minute after I left: he was sporting a huge smile.  I sigh with relief.

Just as the boys and I were about to leave, the teacher approaches me.

“Does Sacha hit other kids at home?” she asks.

Shit.  This can’t be good, I think.

“He hit someone, didn’t he?” I ask.

“Two kids.  I put him in the time-out chair, which I didn’t want to do on the first day, but I did.”

Damn.  Now I have to really think.  DOES he hit kids at home?  Well, the only kid at home is Kees, and, well, they are typical brothers.  There is a lot of hitting (Sacha), biting (Kees) and general wrestling and UFCing.  But other kids?  No.  Kids at the park?  No. Kids at the play centre? No. He has not physically lashed out at a kid since being a pinching toddler.  Usually, if he is mad at a kid, he turns all red and lets the fiery depths of his 3-year old lungs loose on the other kid.  Or finds out what annoys them and does everything to get under their skin.  He has a real talent for that.  Especially with the young ladies.

I tell his teacher that I will talk about it with Sacha at home. Here is how that conversation went:

Me: Sacha, did you have fun at school?

Sacha: Yeah, Mommy!  Lots of fun.  I learned lots new things.

Me: Did you play with other kids?

S: Yeah, Mommy.

Me: Did any kids try to take toys away from you?

S: No. I did share.

Me: Did you try and take toys from other kids?

S: Yeah.  I ask them for they toys, and they not sharing, so I tap them.

Oh, well at least he’s honest.

So obviously, we had the talk about sharing, asking for things, using manners, and what to do if a kid won’t share or take turns (talk to the teacher). We even did some practicing of how to ask for a toy or a turn with something and how to talk to the teacher. I guess this is all stuff he would have learned already had he been in daycare. It’s not as if he doesn’t know these things, but he has never been in a large group of children without Tony or I being there.

I am still embarrased about the whole thing, but I must not be the only mother who has a hitter.  When I told my MIL about his day, she just laughed.  Normal kid stuff, she said.

Sacha keeps talking about how much fun he had at school, and how he cannot wait to go back next week.

I just hope there is less hitting next time.