Blog Warning

I heard a story on the radio this morning that makes me sick.

I am writing about in hopes it will ease the pressure on my heart and allow me to put it aside.

A Toronto two-year-old, who was left inside a SUV in Houston, Texas, for two hours, has died.

The inside temperature of the car reached 50 C (122 F).

The radio report I heard said the toddler’s older sibling was having a seizure, which is why the child was left in the car parked outside a relative’s house.

Initial reports, which I have been reading, didn’t have that information but said the child was forgotten in the confusion of unloading the car from a shopping trip.

Please do not think I am judging because I certainly am not. I understand things get busy and people get distracted. I also understand that is easy to think your spouse is dealing with one child, while you deal with the other.

I guess this awful, tragic and incredibly sad story is a reminder to never let your guard down.

For me it was so hard to continue to drive to work. I wanted to race back to my son, scoop him up and hug him tight.

A…Yah…I Have a Problem...

My 17-month-old loves the computer.

For his first birthday, my Dad (Popa) got him real keyboard, which he loved until he realized mine actually worked.

Now he will take his keyboard off the desk, drop it on the floor and point to mine, which I have put far out of his reach.

I would imagine he likes mine better because it actually does things– one button turns on the search function, another button pulls up the Internet and email. When he types and Word is up, characters appear on the page, and if you hold down a key long enough, it beeps.

It’s all quite exciting for a toddler.

The baby has done key commands that I didn’t know existed - and can’t repeat - such as locking the keyboard or, as happened last night, somehow changing the monitor setting.
Let me explain.

I have a wide-screen monitor. It’s fantastic. I can see the entire web page without having to scroll from side to side.

Not any longer.

My little guy has somehow made the page go in the opposite direction.

So instead of my page being more wide then long, it’s now more long then wide. It’s like my son has turned the screen so the top is shorter than the sides. But the physical screen is still wider than it is long so in order to see the page, you have to twist your.

The mouse is hard to use as well, likely because the screen is going in the wrong direction.

Does this make sense?

Can anyone tell me how to fix it?

Everything is New Again

What’s really neat about babies, and toddlers, is that everything is new.

While my son experienced his first snowfall last year, he was wrapped in a snowsuit, in a blanket and then in his carriage. It’s not quite the same thing.

This year, he is really experiencing snow for the first time. After our first snowfall, and before we left for the day, I brought in a handful of snow and gave it to him.

He touched it. Squished it. And of course ate it, offering me his ‘Ew, gross’ face. He then put it down. Picked it up. Squished it again.

Yesterday, I loved watching his face as he pointed out the big, fluffy flakes that were falling from the sky, not only in the window in front of him, but also the window to the right of him.

And while he also experienced Christmas last year, this year will also be tons of fun as experiences the sights, sounds and tastes of the season.