I look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers!

She takes after her Grandma Palud, who, in her dismay to see that the condo decided once again to plant yellow marigolds, asked the gardner if she wouldn’t consider red, and maybe a little white…

Just to oblige our girl, the planter near our door has a red begonia just for her. She pats it each time she goes by it and I tell her “gentle, gentle” each time.

Wishing you all a lovely long weekend!

Cheers!

So, as Jasmina’s in the hospital with Sébastien, getting over some stupid virus that causes phenomenal stool outputs (4 litres… are you sorry you asked?), I try and make a point of keeping in touch since it kills me, that they’re all so far away and I can’t do anything to help.

Last week, after our phonecall (Jasmina at the hospital and nurses and dieticians visiting every five minutes, during lunchtime), I decided Jasmina should be distracted. I send her an e-mail (thank goodness she has a Blackberry… no, they didn’t pay me to say that…) and asked her what kind of magazines she likes. She catches my drift and e-mails me back on another subject entirely. I threaten her and say that she’ll be guilty of a teddy bear’s death if she doesn’t tell me. Very funny she says. I say I’m preparing the guillotine, and I’m going to send the pictures to Sébastien. She picks a magazine. Sébastien gets balloons delivered to his room, since the choice in teddy bears at the hospital is either overpriced or a little depressing… (The lady at the giftshop has an accent. “Oh! This one is cute!” she says. “It has a crutch under one arm, and a cast on the other leg…” Ummm, that’s alright. Sébastien isn’t sick that way. In fact, I fear if I send that one up, he’ll burst into tears.) Then I tell Jasmina that thanks to her cooperation, I only decapitated the chocolate Easter bunny she sent Marie-Hélène.

Easter caused me and Christian to eat an inordinate amount of chocolate eggs… You know, those little Hershey’s Eggies? I’m not sure what prompted Christian to buy a pound of those things, but we couldn’t stop eating them until they were gone. Every last one. And then, they were gone, within a week, tops, and Christian and I kind of looked at each other the following evening, when there wasn’t an Eggie to be found, and admitted we had sugar cravings. We’d been pretty good before Easter. I cut out deserts, Christian too, and now?

Last night, I sent Jasmina an e-mail. Figuring I should work a little for Sébastien’s news, I admitted my Great Sugar Cravings. “Do you know what? Last week, I had such a craving for donuts, I stopped debating with myself and bought 20 Timbits. I ate 17 of them, before almost feeling sick.” I told Christian that evening, even though I hid the remaining three. He laughed and said I wasn’t gaining any merits. I thought that was self-evident. Then I told Jasmina that I ate three muffins yesterday, from the batch I made for Mother’s Day Brunch, from a recipe that says they’ll last a long time (Um… not in this house).

She hasn’t answered me yet which means one of two things: Sébastien’s too busy having salt added to his food (because his new kidney is extra efficient at eliminating salt) – and sheesh Jacinta, find yourself a bigger problem. Or, she’s discouraged and wants a new friend. Then again, if I lived close by, I’d have the perfect excuse to make truckloads of muffins, and we’d both end up not quite ready to wear a two piece to the beach. Distance is both blessing and curse.

She likes wearing hats, and if it’s a windy day, she’ll hold on to it so it doesn’t blow away. She loves her sandals, and the routines in her day… wake up, get dressed, drink milk, say bye-bye to Papa, then breakfast.

She loves picking out a sweater to go outside. She loves walking and playing at the park. The swings are no longer the main attraction… she’ll go on for a minute or two, declare she’s done, and race off to the play structure.

She listens to the birds, and can hear a dog a mile away. (She loves dogs so much!) She likes the sound of bells and spots the airplanes in the sky. She’s afraid of motorcyles, and it becomes imperative I hold her until they pass.

She looks at us all wide-eyed when we explain something new to her. The other day we taught her to clink her glass to ours, “chin-chin” we said. Yesterday at lunch, she raised her chocolate milk and looked at me: “chin-chin”?

When we go to sleep at night, Christian and I sigh sometimes, because we feel so incredibly lucky. A few days ago, radio stations across Canada united to raise money for children’s hospitals everywhere. I tuned in a little while in the morning, mostly because Jasmina and Sébastien have participated in the past. I was putting the dishes away, when Avril Lavigne’s Keep Holding On came on. That song chokes me up. For me it represents some of Sébastien’s toughest battles in the hospital, and the emotions Christian and I felt for our friends and for our godson. I suppose that that has been the blessing of knowing Sébastien as a sick child… Marie-Hélène was thankfully born in good health, but having known so many stories of children who become sick later on, I never want to lose sight of the fact that everyday with Marie-Hélène is a blessing. I’m grateful…

There are a few biographies missing from that pile… I send them back to the library pretty quickly once they’re done, since I’m afraid a fine will creep up and scare me. “Boo! You are now owing the library seven dollars…” Please don’t tell my husband! I smooth down my conscience and say that it is a charitable donation… a membership fee. So yes, I’ve been reading. Because of the Royal Wedding, I picked up Diana’s biography. I sometimes wonder what could be so bad about being royalty, and there’s nothing quite like her story to make you realize that your simple life, as small as it is, is quite perfect that way.

So, we rode to Wal-Mart and found shoes. She preferred the purple ones (like Anna would have!). The pink ones didn’t come in her size. So I bought the brown ones.

Then, when Papa came home, we showed him the shoes. I was afraid he might not like them, but he said, “No, no! We’re a brown-shoe family!”

My Mom always told me you can judge a person by their shoes. I believe she would be ashamed about how dirty mine are… (We went to the park. It’s dusty there…)

Last week, John bought shoes online. Yesterday I called him and said a second box had arrived, exactly like the first. “Really? Huh. Open it! Hey! If they sent me another pair of shoes, that is so cool!” Uh John? I’m just kidding… I thought you’d be freaked out to find that you had to pay for a second pair of identical shoes… “Oh. I guess I don’t get that crazy about things like that.” I must find better jokes to play on my brother…