Tales From a “GREEN” Minivan

How did this happen? How am I old enough to be the mother of a child going into high school?

This past week it has been High School Open House in our district. The grade 8 students are all invited into the area high schools each evening of the week where they showcase the benefits of attending each school.

Mackenzie has had her choice narrowed down between 2 schools that are within close walking distance (yay no more driving for me!) one of these school’s being her father’s high school and the other be my old stomping ground!

Tuesday evening was  the night we toured her father’s old school. To be fair I wasn’t feeling the best so I know my outlook on the school could have been a little more positive that evening. As well one the kids doing our tour was being really negative and complaining there were too many people on “his tour”. After we broke away from the tour things started looking up when we found the Art dept and Mackenzie found the Life Skills room handing out red and white cupcakes and little cartons chocolate milk. Since the school hallways are very narrow, I felt a little claustrophobic with the large crowds that attended that evening. All in all it was a positive experience for Mackenzie and she liked the school and that’s what matters most.

Last night we headed down to my old high school. Her dad wasn’t able to go as he needed to stay home with the boys. Once we walked in the doors so many good memories came back to me.  I tried to share a few with Mackenzie, but she seemed really annoyed with me so I tried to contain my excitement. The first part of the open house Mackenzie did not enjoy. The kids on the stage and their screaming and yelling and displays of “school spirit” were too much for her.  She does not do well with noise. Once the principal spoke and introduced some of the teachers we were given the option of doing a tour and going off on our own.  We decided since I knew the school quite well we’d just do our own tour. We met up with one of Mackenzie’s classmates and went on our way.

I guess one of the benefits of having a  child in your early twenties is that they have the opportunity to have the same teachers you had in school. In Kindergarten Mackenzie had a teacher I had in 4th grade, and I was surprised to see so many teachers at my old high school that were there when I was- who, I should mention still look exactly the same! I was also impressed by the resources that were now available at the school. A whole Math Help Dept and resource teachers that are accessible anytime and the International Baccalaureate Program including Art. The other school does not offer IB but may also have these resource opportunities but I didn’t see them showcased when we were there on Tuesday evening.

In the end I know it’s her decision, and I really hope that it’s her that makes the decision and not a group of friends. I guess secretly deep down inside I always just assumed she would have chosen the school I went to. I’m thinking she’s going to choose the other school and I hope she’s happy with her decision.

Here’s a photo I snapped last night in the Physics Lab, of Mackenzie with Mr Turner who happened to teach there when I attended.

There’s also a High School Q&A new at CPO this month, for other parents trying to help their kids make this important decision- be sure to check it out!

Yesterday while volunteering at our local Car Seat Safety Clinic, I got to hold a tiny newborn while his mom was busy with my fellow technicians. As I held this little seven pounder it brought me back to when my four were that small.  It seems so long ago that my youngest Finn was a newborn.  He’s quickly approaching three years old, where did the time go?

The first year of a baby’s life goes by so quickly yet when you’re in the midst of it seems to drag along and be never ending. The sleepless nights, teething, extra laundry, back to back nursing sessions and the countless diaper changes all seem like a distant memory now. If you’re in the midst of it all now and are burned out try and remember that you will get through it.  I made it through four times which still amazes me!

So my advice to you don’t rush the milestones with your babies. Enjoy this time with them knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t be in a rush to start those solids (many doctors are rushing these too early), or move baby to the next stage car seat (unless they exceed the weight or height limits of course) or don’t think you are doing something wrong because your baby is still not sleeping through the night.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned being the mother of four is that no two babies are alike. They will all do things on their schedule, now is the time to savour those quiet late night feeds and folding little onesies really isn’t that bad at all!  Trust me as your kids grow so do their clothes and your loads of laundry! Take the time to document this first year, take lots of photos and videos and write about this first year of your baby’s life.  I wish I had done more of this with my children.

So did holding that wee newborn give me any pangs for a number five?  Not on your life!  Finn’s name is short for Finn-ished!

Here’s a shot of Finn minutes old and now at almost three.  Believe me when I say the time has gone too fast!  Where did my baby go?

Remembrance Day has evolved into much more than wearing poppies and a moment of silence in my house, it’s become a day to remember family members who are no longer with us and cherish those who still are.
This family tradition started long before I met my husband Andrew and his family. Andrew’s maternal grandfather Charles, who served nine years as a trooper in WWII with the Princess Louise Dragoon Guard, had passed away on October 30th, 1988. Every year he had marched with the veterans in our local Remembrance Day ceremony. It was decided that since he was no longer able to be there physically, the family would all attend the ceremony and get together afterwards to visit his grave and have some soup. Twenty-one years later, this tradition still continues.

I first experienced the Annual McCormick Remembrance Day festivities in November 2003. (Although I had been in the family since 2002, our son Liam was born on November 9, 2002 and we weren’t released from the hospital in time to make it.) It has since become one of my favourite family traditions. A way to remember fallen heroes, lost loved ones and appreciate the extended family that you may not get to see as often as you’d like in these busy times.

Andrew’s uncle Ralph McCormick usually says a few words and then we all recite the poem, In Flanders Fields in English (and occasionally my daughter Mackenzie will say it in French). We then all attend the local Remembrance Day ceremony and meet up at a central spot to travel together by car (there’s normally six to seven car loads). Along the route we make stops for family members to pay respects to loved ones at different graveyards. Our last stop is at Andrew’s grandparents’ where we remove our poppies and place them on the memorial wreath.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow   
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

After being outdoors in the chill of November we all return to Andrew’s aunt and uncle’s home (Judy and Gary Lockhart) for hot soup compliments of all of the family matriarchs, although the past few years I have been bringing my Buttercup Squash Soup by request! It’s such an honour to be included in this family event, one that I hope will continue on for many years to come!

Be sure to visit The Memory Project- Stories of the Second World War  where you’ll find the incredible stories of service and sacrifice which are currently being collected and archived by The Memory Project.

From the time my daughter was little she’s always been so different from myself. A friend of mine whose daughter is a few months older always used to joke we got the wrong kids! Her daughter was always so rough and tumble and Mackenzie was always super careful didn’t really enjoy sports and was a real girlie girl unlike my Tom Boyish ways growing up. Over the years I’ve always heard how much my own mother and I were alike so I just assumed that Kenz would eventually gain some similar traits.  Can you believe that it’s taken me 13 years to finally realize that that’s not going to happen.

I think many parents have so many expectations for their kids, but so often their expectations are too high and just not realistic.  I was the social butterfly, always around a group of friends, talking on the phone, having sleepovers etc. Mackenzie is just as content to be with a bound sketchbook and pen or a good novel  off in the corner by herself.  Is she lonely? Perhaps.  Do I worry about her? On a daily basis.  The thing is I need to accept her for who she is for her to grow as an individual. I can encourage her strengths like art and protect her from the things that cause anxiety.  These things are the very things I thrived off of when I was her age, organized group activities.  We’ve tried to encourage her to join Cadets and that was a bust, sports are not her thing, so our next step is finding something that she loves and that is art.

From the time she was very young I knew she had a talent. This is one of her drawings that she drew for me at age three.  Most kids at three years of age are still content to scribble on blank pages, but not Mackenzie she wanted to create art. Over the years she has continued and amazes us daily with her creations.  She’s always very modest and self critical, I think this may be the sign of a true artist?

She’s now branching out to different forms of drawing she has a computerized drawing Tablet and uses photo shop to colourize black and white sketches.  It truly amazes me on a daily basis.  Here’s a few recent things that I grabbed to scan when she wasn’t looking. She hates praise and I’m not sure if she realizes just how talented she is.

It looks as though I haven’t forgotten! One thing I had forgotten was just how much I love to bike ride! Earlier this week I mentioned I’d like to get the boys one of those Tag-Along bikes that attaches to the back of an adult bike. The next thing I know I get an email from Sarah that someone is selling one locally!

Here’s what they look like:

The Trail-a-Bike is made by Adams and meant for 3-6 year olds. They were introduced in 1986, so parents could have a safe way to enjoy longer bike rides without their child trying to keep up on their own bikes or for those still learning.  They also help in introducing “traffic safety”concerns as well.  Seeing that my boys are very small for their age, I know we’ll get lots of use out of it!  We already had a bike seat for Finn, so the plan is to get Liam confident with peddling  using the Tag-along and then move him to his own bike.

This afternoon Liam and I biked approx 2 kms!  I’m so proud of him and he did really great!  This is a boy that’s never even used a bike with training wheels before!

Here’s  a shot I took of us of our reflection in one of the windows of Saint John’s new Cruise Ship terminal on Water Street.

Over the past few years we’ve been fortunate enough to have a fantastic new trail system evolving right along the harbour front dubbed the Cranberry Trail due to it’s red asphalt, but it’s official name is Harbour Passage.  It welcomes biking, walking, running and also my favourite- inline skating. I started inline skating about 17 years ago when I lived in Florida, but did not really have a great place to skate here at home until Harbour Passage came along, nor did many others in the area skate.  Now at any given time you’ll pass by someone inline skating on the “Passage”.  I’ve decided that I’d like to get out at least 3 times a week and either bike or skate during the fair weather season, wish me luck!

I must say that I had been relatively fortunate thus far into the school year to have not caught any of the bugs brought home by the kids. Well my luck just ran out!  It was a pretty stressful week and I ignored the signs that I may be coming down with something by throwing myself into work and staying up WAY too late at night.  These choices caught up with me as I lay here in my bed on this non-productive Saturday.

I then started to think more about my own diet and the fact that I’m probably not getting as many of the essential vitamins that I need.  I have a confession to make, I am not a really big fan of fruit.  I can stomach it in smoothies,but grabbing an apple and snacking on it just would not happen. I’m certain that I’m a Supertaster.

Supertasters experience tastes with a far greater intensity than the average person. For me it’s the intense sweetness in fruit that I have trouble with.  To me taking a bite of an apple is like eating a sour candy for the average taster.  Smoothies have helped as I’ll take some of the bite out of the fruit by adding frozen yogurt.  It’s still something I struggle with though as smoothies are not as practical or appealing this time of year for me.

So I started thinking that perhaps I should start taking vitamins.  Earlier in the week I made it my mission to seek out some vitamins and was met by this:

After glaring at the eternal wall of bottles I quickly glazed over and became overwhelmed! Is one brand better than another? Is a multi-vitamin the way to go or should I be taking higher doses of individual vitamins?  Needless to say I left the store more confused and empty handed.

I do eat a lot of vegetables (still working on the greens though), and the rest of my diet is fairly balanced, I just think I may be compromising my nutrient intake by my lack of fruit. So do you take vitamins, and will they help to pick up the slack of what my own diet is lacking?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I’m a little disappointed with myself as I really thought I was going to get to blog more during my month off. I’m pretty sure most of you were aware that I took the month of December off.  Things seemed to be piling up (quite literally) all around me and I needed to take a break from my screen time and focus on things that have been neglected around the house. The first part of the month was extremely busy with many appointments and general household CHAOS!  My dad was over for a few days to help get some unfinished projects around the house completed. Mid-month I got to take a little weekend vacation with my mom and Andrew’s mom down to Maine to do a little Christmas shopping without any of the kids.  It was a nice break and we had a great time without the men around! Then later that week I took a quick impromptu trip down to Halifax to get my BIL to an important appointment at a specialist.  The weather was very bad and winter driving does not bother me, so we loaded the van with Finn in tow and spent the night at my BIL & SIL’s home in Dartmouth then headed straight back to Saint John right after the appointment.  So sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet up with some of my friends in the area, but I was only in town for less than 24 hours!

After that busy week the next thing I knew Christmas was quickly approaching, luckily I was pretty much ready, most gifts were wrapped, I had already picked up the food for our Christmas Eve Seafood Feast.  Here’s a few pics from the evening and a tradition we have in our family every year!

Sweet Finn posing in front of the tree

The Miller’s looking a little Norwegian

Matching Jammies

Christmas Day was our usual tradition of getting up and putting on our…jammies!  Yes we spend the day in our PJ’s, we go to my dad’s for brunch and then to my mom’s for turkey dinner.  This year, I’m not sure what happened but I din’t get a pic of us in them!

Boxing Day was a hoot!  While we were in Maine we saw some red Christmas t-shirts at Old Navy in every size!  I thought wouldn’t it be fun to wear them to our annual family get together?  Andrew’s mom then saw them and said why don’t we get them for all 13 of the Miller’s that would be attending, so we ripped through the shelf and found 13 ranging from size 2T all the way to XL!  Here’s a shot of all of us!

We finished off the evening by getting a shot of the 6 Miller Cousins in the matching PJ’s

Not sure what we’re going to do for our New Years Celebration, we have a few invites, but I think it may be a low key gathering and perhaps a little Rock Band 2 for the Wii involved!  Andrew and I are ADDICTS!  It’s so much fun!

This morning was a typical lazy Saturday morning.  I always have great expectations to get up, and go to one of the markets but relaxing always prevails.  Instead the boys had a great time playing Mario Galaxy on the Wii and I lazed around watching The US VP debates that I downloaded from CNN to put on my iPhone.

Everyone was getting ansty and needed to get some fresh air, so we headed toward Rockwood Park.  For anyone reading not from our area, it’s a HUGE Municipal park right in the middle of the city, it’s truly a gem!  I’ve been noticing on some of my friends Facebook photos that there is a new trail open, part of the Trans Canada Trail so we decided to check it out.  Here’s a few photos I took on the iPhone and uploaded them directly to my Photo Hosting site (SmugMug) directly from my phone.  Pretty cool eh?

As you can see fall is definitely amongst us!  The air was cool and crisp and it really gave me a burst of energy.  I really need to do this more often. I’m a huge procrastinator when it comes to physical fitness, but when I’m out there doing it I really enjoy it!  I need to just get some more self-motivation!  Any tips??

This past weekend Andrew’s sister got married on a beautiful Saturday evening. Being the non-traditional girl that she is, her and her fiance Ben planned a small ceremony with immediate family and a few close friends to be held in the early evening outdoors at Ben’s Parents house followed by a reception dance in their barn!

It was nice to get the cousins together, earlier in the day my SIL Tracy and I got the kids together and had a group shot of them taken.  It’s always a challenge to find one photo that we both liked, my Tracy and I have similar tastes and we both settled on this one, I played around with Smilebox to liven it up!

The boys checking out the horses before the Ceremony:

The boys all wanting to sit with Nanny!

Mackenzie was one of the Flower Girls, a first for her!

Andrew’s dad giving Colleen away. Her dress was made from Hemp, and she designed it!

Colleen and Ben being Bonded.  Before rings became the norm, couples were tied together to Bond them.  It was quite humourous to see Andrew’s very staunch catholic father squirm during this one!

The Millers

Colleen and her Sister-in-Laws - left to right: Tracy, Rebecca (Bens sister) and me

The wedding cake- A Delicious Carrot Cake (yes I got the recipe, I’m making it later in the week!)

Congratulations Guys! It was a beautiful day!  We wish you guys the best of luck on your move to Montreal!

I think I need to change the title of my Blog!  I honestly felt like I lived in the van this first week back at school!  We’re not sure if we’re going to be able to get transportation for the kids as this is not our area school.  I knew this was one of the drawbacks, but the other benefits outweighed this.  Just before we went on vacation I spoke to a reporter with our newspaper, I was very unhappy with how the Dept of Education handled the Elimination of the Early French Immersion program, especially the kids who were enrolled to start this fall.  Here’s the Full Story and the photo that appeared in the paper.  Oh and did I mention it was on the FRONT PAGE in colour!!!!!
Kids caught in game of musical schools by French immersion program changes

In the end we got Liam and Mackenzie into a school that offers French Immersion, so he wont have to attend 3 schools in the first 4 years of his schooling.  So I’m officially the mother to a Toddler, a Preschooler, a Grade Schooler and a Tween!  Liam started Grade 1 and has a really sweet teacher.  I did however notice that she’s expecting, so it looks like he may lose her at some point this year.

Day one was chaotic as the kids were not on any class lists and we had to get that all sorted out.  Thank goodness Andrew came with me, or I would have been stressing a lot more than I already was. Liam was really nervous and the extra waiting did not help matters, but once he met his teacher and got settled into his classroom he seemed to do fine.

Mackenzie also was a little nervous and I had to stick around to quickly speak to her teacher to let her know I was picking her up early for an orthodontist appointment.  I know bad timing on my part, but this was the second time I had to reschedule this appointment.  We met her teacher and found out that in her class she has 4 kids from her other school!  We found this really funny, as her old class only had 17 students!  Their numbers must be really low this year!

Day 2 went much smoother and I managed to grab a couple of pics as well.  Mackenzie wasn’t overly happy about it, but I made her anyway!  That afternoon I ran into the kids bus driver from last year who was wondering why we were at this school and asked if we moved.  He also informed me that his run has him driving right by our house, and he’d be happy to drop them off!  Now I need to find out if the District will OK this.  If I can get transportation at least one way that will be great!  Maybe I’ll use the whole save the environment argument.  If there’s already a huge diesel guzzling bus going right by my house why should I have to take out my minivan everyday too?

Liam in his class

Thursday I spent the afternoon at the Mazda Dealership getting a brake light bulb replaced.  It was kind of fun, as I was checking out the new Mazda 5.  The boys loved it, as it was a lot easier to get into than our van.  It seats 6, has 4 car seat tether anchors and UAS/Latch in the 2 middle row seats. The other cool feature is that it has sliding doors just like a minivan.  To me this is a great bonus, as I just don’t trust these gusts of wind we get and heavy doors and little boys just don’t mix.  There was only a couple of negatives that I could see.  One was that it didn’t have a lot of cargo room  this would be a problem for us when we travel, I guess we could alwas buy one of those cargo boxes for the top?  The other negative was that only the late 2008 and 2009 models have rear A/C.  This was on my must have list, as our van doesn’t have it and I promised that the next vehicle will.  I refuse to buy a brand new vehicle so we may have to wait a couple of years to get one of these used with the rear air.  It would be nice to go back to a smaller car, but I think our reality will be a minivan.  So there you have it, another new blog title:  My Life Sentence- The Minivan!

The boys in the RX-8- they thought they were so cool!