Author Archives: Crystal

A Plague-Free Christmas

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I can’t remember the last time we had a major family gathering that didn’t involve at least one person coming down with a communicable disease, but this year we managed to make it through the holidays relatively healthy. When you have 11 people tripping over each other for days at a time, it’s nothing short of a miracle when no one gets sick. (I had a cold for a few days, but that’s nothing compared to the ear infections/bronchitis/pink eye fun that swept through the group last year.)

I’m fairly sure everyone enjoyed themselves. I KNOW everyone ate too much. And I for one am happy to get back to the ol’ routine.

Bring on 2014!

My (Two-Week) Resolutions

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Everybody makes (and breaks) New Year’s resolutions, right? Who can keep them up for that long? So this year, to maximize my chances for success, I’m making Christmas holiday resolutions.

For the next two weeks, I will:

1. Interact more with my husband and less with my iPad. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in our own personal devices that we barely even speak to each other. We need to play some games, have some laughs, and leave the electronics alone.

2. Play with my kids on their terms. That might mean having snowball fights, doing Pokemon battles, building Lego creations, or playing indoor football. I will not be so busy that I can’t find time to play.

3. Clean my house less often. This should help with #2, though this will probably be the first resolution I break.

4. Take lots and lots of pictures. I’ve taken maybe four photos in the last three months. I wish I could say it’s because we were too busy having great experiences, but really, we were just too busy.

5. Not criticize my family’s fashion choices. None of the males in my house have any sense of what goes with what, but I will not intervene, other than to point out when their clothes are on backwards. Which happens more than you’d think.

6. Not worry about the nutritional content of every meal. I won’t even comment when Chris goes for a third bowl of chips. We’ll see how long that lasts.

7. Not be in a rush all the time. It’s not easy for us Type A personalities to go with the flow, but I’ll do my best.

Most of all, I will cherish this time with family and friends, and not take all this love for granted.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Good Tidings

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Things are going extraordinarily well around here these days (knock on wood). And since I tend to only blog about the annoying stuff, I thought I’d embrace the spirit of the season and celebrate all that is good with the Lee family:

1. I love my job. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I do, but I really think I’ve found my calling. Technical writing is a good fit for me. And working part time rocks.

2. I finally got my grades from my tech comm program, so now I officially get to graduate.

3. Justin had an amazing report card, PLUS he actually passed his swimming lessons. That’s the first time either of my kids has passed swimming. Awesome.

4. Brayden just lost his first tooth. I had to physically yank it out of his mouth cause the adult tooth is fully in and needed space, but hey, all’s well that ends well. He was pretty stoked about his first visit from the tooth fairy.

5. We’re not travelling for Christmas this year. Technically I’m hosting, but the way it worked out, none of the out-of-town relatives is actually sleeping at my place. Bonus.

6. We’re all healthy. Last year at this time we were three weeks into a brutal stretch of colds, flu, ear infections, bronchitis and eye infections that didn’t end until mid-January. Things are looking up this year.

So that’s the latest on us. Ho ho ho!

Bringing Order to Chaos

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Sometimes it hurts to be an obsessively organized type A personality. Particularly when you are the mother of boys who are organizational train wrecks. I just don’t get how they can be so clueless. A couple weeks ago Brayden came out after school wearing his toque and mitts — but no coat. Another time Justin wandered out without his backpack. Argh.

Justin’s lack of personal organization is the major issue in his IEP (individualized education plan) right now, which is actually good news, since it means he’s conquered the toileting and social skills challenges he had for so long. (And if they figure out how to get him to keep track of his stuff, maybe they can tell me how they did it so I can try it with Brayden. Argh.)

Actually, a lot of positive stuff came out of that IEP meeting. His teacher wants to send him for some academic testing so she can get him into some sort of gifted program, which sounds pretty cool. Anything that will keep him challenged is good. (He’ll certainly need better work skills, but that’s a whole other issue. The pitfalls of having everything come easily…sigh.)

As the control freak in the house, I do what I can to keep everybody on track. But will they ever learn to do all this for themselves?

Don’t answer that.

The Back-to-Work Experience

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It took two or three days to settle into things at work, but overall it really hasn’t been too stressful. It helps that I vaguely recall most of the key things about at least one product, and that management lives in LA and has no contact with me whatsoever, and that the person I work most closely with is a good friend of mine. Plus I’m only there five hours a day. It’s a charmed life.

A few observations from my first week:

1. Looking at the products and systems now after being away for so long, I’m appalled at how complicated everything is. In the old days I was so immersed in my little niche that I couldn’t see the big picture from an outsider’s perspective. Now I can, and it’s a real eye-opener.

2. I’m excited to have a role that is much more expansive than just copy editing. Everyone seems to have their hands in a lot of different stuff, and that’s cool. I’ve even been given the chance to review some user manuals, which is exactly what I spent the last two years doing in my tech comm program. Awesome.

3. A big difference between way back when and now is that now I don’t look to my job to be my whole world. I don’t go for office gossip, I don’t waste (much) time on Facebook, and I’m not looking for a new social circle. Why? Because I’m only there part time, and most of my life is outside the office. That definitely wasn’t the case last time around (I even met my husband at work). But things are different now. In a good way.

4. Having just come from a school setting, where I had to produce top quality stuff to get decent marks, it’s slightly surreal to now be in a situation where the project might succeed or fail, but either way I get paid the same. Fear isn’t even a factor, cause I could take or leave this job, and I’m not in it forever. It’s very liberating.

And so begins week 2…

A “No Yelling” Update: Not in Front of Witnesses

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I’ve been remarkably good about not yelling at the kids for the past couple months, but sadly I don’t think it’s because I’ve turned over a new leaf. And it’s definitely not because the kids have been perfect angels. It’s because my little brother has been living with us. Remember how I used to pretend there was a hidden camera recording everything I did?  Now I don’t have to pretend: there really IS another set of eyes watching me.

At least there was for a while. Dave is away on a business trip right now, and I’ve already had at least two yelling incidents that I’d rather not think about. But even while I was yelling, I knew I wouldn’t be doing it if Dave was still around. Bring on the guilt.

Not that the yelling was totally unjustified. Justin’s in a phase of arguing with absolutely everything I say. It’s a bad combination of his black-and-white thinking, his lack of emotional self-regulation and his just being eight years old. Even Dave had moments when he wanted to strangle the kid. Argh.

I just have to focus on the mantra I learned during that Orange Rhino challenge: I can’t control anyone else’s behavior, but I can control my reaction to that behavior.

Deep breaths…

Clearing the Cobwebs

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I started a new job today, although Justin keeps insisting I was actually restarting an old one. He’s sort of right — I’m covering a mat leave for an editor at the company where I used to work. But things have changed enough that I think we can call it a brand new position.

It was actually a curious blend of old and new. There are many new products and systems to learn about, but for some things they’re still using the manuals I created 10 years ago. So it’ll take me a while to get comfortable with everything, but at least I’m familiar with some of this stuff. How they would ever explain it to a new hire, I have no idea.

My having a job makes absolutely no difference to the kids, however. I work 9-2, so I still drop the boys off at school and pick them up afterward, and continue on with our after-school activities (today was Justin’s social skills group, tomorrow is floor hockey…whew.) As far as they’re concerned, nothing’s changed.  But I’m exhausted. I know I’ll find my groove eventually, and I’m really not stressed about it, so it’s all good.

Plus, when I was leaving the office, I mentally calculated what I earned today, and that made me smile. I’ve been working hard for years without earning a dime. This will be a nice change.

Celebrating the Dead in DC

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Elaborate memorials to the dead are everywhere in DC. Virtually every building in the downtown core is either a government office or some sort of cenotaph. So when I say today was devoted to death, it wasn’t really as morbid as it sounds. Death is just what this town does best.

We started at Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot in 1865. I expected to just have a look inside the theatre and be on our way, but instead we were shuffled into a very impressive museum containing loads of historical artifacts — including the gun that fired the fatal shot. After half an hour of reading displays about the events leading up to the assassination, we were led into the theatre itself, where we saw the box Lincoln was actually sitting in when he was shot. The whole experience was much cooler than I thought it would be.

After the spy museum yesterday, we thought we’d try the equally highly rated National Crime and Punishment Museum today. It had a crime lab, the filming studio for America’s Most Wanted, and three floors of thematic exhibits on everything from medieval criminals to 20th century gangsters, serial killers and cyber hackers. We loved it, but I can see how it wouldn’t be for everybody. The first thing you see when you walk in the door is Ted Bundy’s car next to a plaque that explains how he used it to subdue his victims. The rest of the place is filled with similarly sordid artifacts and information.

The museum also offered some kick-ass interactive experiences: you could test your skills with a (fake) firearm, stand in a police lineup, evade the cops in a high-speed car chase or tunnel your way out of a prison cell. One whole floor is dedicated to an immersive CSI experience, where you observe a suspect escaping a crime scene, then collect and analyze the evidence to figure out what happened. It was really well done.

After lunch we hopped the metro to Arlington National Cemetery. I mainly wanted to see the Kennedy graves, but we also sought out the memorials to the Challenger and Columbia astronauts, and the tomb of the unknown soldier. So that rounded off our day of death.

With our sightseeing done, we relaxed in a couple different pubs and basically ate and drank continuously for the better part of three hours. Ah, vacation. If we can stay awake we might wander by the White House after dark to see it all lit up, but we have a really early flight tomorrow, so I dunno.

Home sweet home awaits…

The Best Things in Life are Free

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One of the greatest things about DC is that a lot of its top attractions are free. And I’m not just talking about walking around looking at monuments. We toured the Library of Congress AND the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and it didn’t cost us a dime. I love this town.

We ended up at the Library of Congress almost by accident. The plan was to hit the Air and Space Museum first thing, but as it didn’t open until 10 and we were up and about long before that, we decided to walk down to the Capitol building to look around. (Google Maps says we walked almost 8 km today, not including the four hours of walking we did inside museums. I’m not sure my feet will forgive me.) Behind the Capitol lies the library, so we decided to check that out.

And was I ever glad we did. In addition to the beautifully decorated great hall and reading room, the library had a special exhibit of a Gutenberg Bible and the first map ever created that shows America as a separate continent. It was a history buff’s dream.

When we finally made it to the Air and Space Museum, it was Chris’s turn to get excited. We saw the actual command module from Apollo 11, the mission that first landed a man on the moon. We saw the Spirit of St. Louis, the plane Lindbergh took on the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. We touched a moon rock. We walked through a Skylab replica. We saw a full-size model of the Hubble telescope. We got an inside view of the cockpit of an Airbus. It was all amazing. I still can’t believe it was all free.

On the long walk back to the hotel, we decided to stop and see the International Spy Museum. It’s one of the few museums in the city that charges an admission fee, but it was totally worth it. The place covers the entire history of espionage with incredibly detailed thematic areas, exhibits and displays. Everyone has to choose and memorize a cover identity, then you get a special briefing about what to expect, then you go through some exhibits that test your spy skills, and so on. They even had a special exhibit on 50 years of Bond villains that was pretty cool, even for people like me who have never been fans of the movies. Awesome.

One more day in DC…

A Welcome Change of Pace: Washington, DC

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A note in our hotel room warned that the nation’s capital has the worst traffic congestion in the U.S., but whoever wrote that note has clearly never been to New York. This place is awesome. We walked around the city for hours this afternoon and never once encountered the teeming mass of humanity that surrounded us at all times in NYC. People here actually heed traffic lights and walk signals. Imagine.

Our hotel is not far from the White House, so we started our sightseeing there. We’ve all seen it on TV and in the movies, but I was still surprised by how small the building really is. After that we wandered down to the Lincoln Memorial, not out of any historical interest, but because Chris remembered the reflecting pool from Forrest Gump and wanted to see where that was filmed. Nice.

And now to rest my aching feet…