Thank goodness, tax season is over. This was a good experience. I took a tax course last fall with H&R block just because I liked to do our taxes and liked to learn more. What I didn’t know was that it was more serious than I expected. It was surprising that I liked the subject more than I thought I would. They were hiring at the end of the course so I ended up working for them for the past three months as a tax associate.

The good part of this job was that I had very flexible hours; I only worked weekends and a few weeknights. Well at the end, it was hard on the family and me because I wasn’t there all weekends. However, it was a good thing to do. I worked with wonderful people, and enjoyed what I was doing even when it was stressful. I met new people and learned a lot about many things from writing and blogging to childcare, to trading stocks.

I’m happy that I have this experience, but I know at the same time how much I had to give up being able to do this. Most of the nights I was too tired to even think of writing anything. I had to give up few of my small projects around the house. The days I worked were especially hectic, as I wanted to spend as much time as possible with kids and have dinner ready for them ahead of time so when daddy was home I could run to work.  Well I don’t have any regrets this was a chance I had to grab; now I’m free again to do what I was doing before. I’m tired though and right now, I’m not sure I’ll go back next year. We’ll see what happens.

Right now, I’m happy life is back to normal and very existed to start writing again.

Until later,

Tags: h&r Block, tax, taxman, working mom

I think I even say these words in my sleep. When my son is excited and in the heat of the moment, he forgets that, he can talk or ask me to help him. He gets wordless and frustrated and then he gets physical. This will even happens when he is working on a puzzle or a toy and can’t get it right and then boom he explodes. There is not enough time for me to step in and help him.

He has a good friend from preschool, they get along pretty well, they used to get along pretty well. The other week they were both hungry and in bad mood and before I knew it my son hit him in the face. I, shocked and upset, jumped in there and told him he made mistake, and told him to apologize. He did so and I could say from his face that he really was sorry, and then we left the play ground as punishment.

On the drive home I lectured him again that when he comes across very loud (did I say he is also very loud) and hits his friends, nobody wants to play with him. He understood what I said then and there and at home he also made a card for his friend which he haven’t delivered yet. But I’m not sure he will remember this the next time.

He is like this at home with his sister too. He loves her, she knows that, and they play well together. Their best cooperative and quiet moments are when they are getting in to trouble. However, they have these moments that he either is so excited that he goes at her like attacking her but it’s just a very scary hug, which she is scared to death of; or he is all heated and wants something from her and hit her.

I keep telling him the right way, giving him right words to use, praise him when he is nice and patience. What else can I do? I’m worried that he stays this way and at the end friendless. He has good play outs after school with his schoolmate, most of sunny days but we get very few play date offers. But I keep telling myself this his first year of pre-school and he just started to speak plain English, still uses some Farsi words when he is short in vocabulary. It is not end of the world, everyone tells me he is only four and he gets better and more in control of his feeling when he is older.

I just hope so, until later,

Couple of nights ago I had a girls night out with preschool moms. We went for manicure and pedicure. I returned late so my daughter was asleep. But when she woke up in the morning, all she could ask and talk was about my nails. It was so cute, she is only 2 years old and was so excited she could barely handle it.

When she was younger, she had no interest in dolls or stuffed animals unlike my son. J I would buy dolls and he would play with them, she mostly liked to play with cars. Amazingly since she turned two, everything changed. She doesn’t walk without her Barbie or princess pictures. When I’m wearing jewellery, she asks for a bracelet or a necklace too.

So today, I ended up painting her nails, of course with a very light and sparkly nail polish. It was the loveliest time we had together, we had a tea party with her dolls and then she asked me if I could paint her nails. It was the most beautiful smile on her face when patiently she held her hand to be painted.

I always liked to have a daughter to be able to share these things with, as I didn’t have a sister. Now I’m very happy that she likes to be pampered and do girly stuff.

Until later,

Last year we had the nastiest flues at a very bad time. I had to cancel my daughter’s birth day party and my son’s, which are three months apart. Around the same time of their birth days we had flue (I mean all of us at the same time). It took us between one week to ten days to recover.

I guess the flu season was late this year. I was so happy that we passed the winter without a single flue. I was so scared that we end up having flue like last year, that for the whole winter I was very careful the kids get their daily multivitamin and I had extra dosage of vitamin C. Well I thought that worked and we passed the flu season safely. I guess I was wrong. Here in Vancouver most households with small children are sick. The worst part of it is that unlike last year we didn’t get the bug all at once to recover around the same time. It’s been a viscous circle since mid march. One would get sick and then get better obviously passing to the next person and on… by the time the last one is better the first one is sick again. Right now it looks like I’m the last person, I have another ear infection taking antibiotic just within two weeks of finishing my last prescription.

I was cleaning all surfaces yesterday with a spray of water, white vinegar and rubbing alcohol. In hope of making the house bug free. I have never been into chemical products but I’m thinking of getting one of those Clorox wipes and start over again, when I’m a little stronger.

We have been having chicken soup every other day for the past month.  I can’t stand the smell of chicken soup anymore. But I can’t think of anything better that chicken soup for our situation. Although I need something else, something that is spicy, grilled with lots of smoke flavour and smell. I’m hoping and doing everything I can think of to end this circle.

Until later

I was browsing the web and came upon an article in cafemom that Philippine is about to ban spanking. Well there are many comments, for or against the idea there, you can read them here.

Spanking is not a matter of black and white to me. There are a few aspects with the concept like:

Is it for the government to tell me how I can raise my child?

What makes it right or wrong to spank your child?

You can talk about many aspects of this subject, but I’m going to stick with these two for now.

I think governments should have some control, to be able to limit child abuse, but it should be in the form of education. I don’t think any educated and mentally sound parent abuses his or her child. And the ones that are not educated or ill they won’t care what the law says. They do whatever they want to until they are caught. So just banning spanking won’t help anything, except that it can have a bad effect on the future of our kids. Read the rest of this entry »