The First Years Last Forever

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

 

*The First Years Last Forever*

As a mother feeds her child, she gazes lovingly into his eyes. A father talks gently to his newborn daughter as he changes her diaper. A caregiver sings a child to sleep. 

These everyday moments, these simple, loving encounters, provide essential nourishment. Just as their bodies need food to grow, science now tells us that the positive emotional, physical, and intellectual experiences that a baby has in the earliest years are equally necessary for the growth of a healthy brain.

At birth, the infant's brain has 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons. These neurons will grow and connect with other neurons in systems that control other functions like seeing, hearing, moving, and expressing emotion. These systems, activated by repeated experiences, provide foundation for the brain's organization and functioning throughout life. The absence of appropriate activation results in the lack of development or the disappearance of these connections.

At birth, the brain is remarkably unfinished. The parts of the brain that handle thinking and remembering, as well as emotional and social behaviour, are very underdeveloped. The fact that the brain matures in the world, rather than in the womb, means that young children are deeply affected by their early experiences. Their relationship with parents and other important caregivers, the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings they experience, they challenges they meet - these don't just influence their moods. These experiences actually affect the way children's brains become "wired."

Recognize that each child is different. How to you react when they do something bad can have negative effects. Use discipline as an opportunity to teach. Establish routines and rituals. Take care of yourself. When you feel overwhelmed, take care of yourself. Reach out and get some help. When you make a mistake, as all parents do, you have many opportunities to make up for it. The new brain research informs us of the vital importance of the relationship between parents and child in the first years of life, and affords us a wonderful opportunity to enrich the lives of our children and help them realize their full potential.

............The first years truly last forever.

    *Much Love*

    

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

     Wow! I haven't blogged in awhile! I am getting rusty (lol!) Things are busy at home with Jaa being gone and only home on weekends it's hard to find time to sit down in front of the computer, and when I do get the chance to time for myself I usually just relax and rest my brain from to much thinking. There's a few new things in store for us; Jaa got a big raise at work and we are all so thrilled! We're able to save a huge amount of money on the last little while..it's our "Bora Bora Vacation" fund as we like to call it. Braelan is doing great in Preschool. They recently had a Halloween party and Jaa went with him. We're still trying to conceive and it's been a long, frustrating ride BUT we're not giving up..yet. I joked about maybe returning to work full time and maybe then fate will turn and get us pregnant, how awesome would that be?! 

    We are getting a pug puppy! We saw her on November 5th, 2010 and she is just adorable! There were 2 fawn females and 2 black males. We fell in love with the cutest most adorable little fawn female and have decided to name her Penny. We will be picking her up on November 12th, 2010 when she ready to come home. I just know she is going to be spoiled, BUT training is still a must. Everything she has is pink and we love it! The breeder was very nice and intelligent, she had been breeding for 9 years...that's a lot of experience! Her prices are fairly decent, the parents of the puppy are CKC Registered but the pups aren't..but that is OK. 

    Over all it has been a busy and eventful October. November is going to be busy as well but I'm sure time will fly. We are looking forward to December when Jaa gets to take some time off work and be with us. We will continue to try and conceive another child and hopefully we'll succeed. 

*Much Love*,

    

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

       We have recently redecorated our 55 gallon fresh water fish tank, one week ago today. We've added some fine white sand and more live plants. Our fish tank is a cozy home for our two Angelfish, one Three-spot Gourami, one gold Gourami, one Opaline Gourami, one Pearl Gourami, one Pleco, and two Shubunkins. The tank has a wood trim and the stand also coordinates with the fish tank. We scored pretty big when we bought this tank! We got it second hand from a lady in Bashaw, AB back in April 2010. She had to downsize her tank because the 55 gallon wouldn't fit in the office where she wants the fish tank to go. She paid over $1000 US dollars for both the tank and the stand together plus the gravel and all the gadgets she had to have in able to run a fish tank. BUT guess how much she sold it to us??? She gave it to us for $150 (Canadian) cash! We were astounded! There was absolutely nothing wrong with the tank, no leak, no broken pieces, it was absolutely in 110% excellent condition! 

   (ABOVE) This was the set up that we had when we first got the tank. Of course the picture was taken a few weeks later. I loved the very natural looking gravel/pebbles. We bought more plants, most were fake because we had a Jack Dempsey that would probably ravage live plants. He did manage to pull the plants and dig the gravel but we would always fix it right away. Sadly, we got rid of our Jack Dempsey because we miss having a nice community tank instead. We still had our 37 gallon running which was the previous home to our  two tiny angelfish and three-spot gourami. We've just recently added the gold, pearl, and opaline gouramis 2 months ago. 

   When we first got this tank it had an undergravel filtration which we didn't like the most for biological reasons (if you google and research you will know why.) Some people prefer it but we personally don't. We bought a Top Fin 60 Dual Filter from PetSmart and also added an extra Top Fin 15 filter on the left side so that we would have a good filter system in our tank. 

    We change all our filters once every 3 weeks and do a water change once every week. This method has worked for us for the last 6 months and all our fish stayed healthy and happy. Below you will see a few pictures of the tank and some our pet fish.

     This is a little bit of a close up photo of the tank. I had the flash turned on so it created a very different image. We have a mixture of both fake and live plants but I think eventually we will get rid of some of the fake plants and stick with live plants which is beneficial to the fish' environment.

   We chose to keep the gravel along with the white sand and create a very different looking set up. We also made the left side dense with more plants and the right side with just wispy plants like the corkscrew val and small ludwigia. We also have a couple live horn worths and sword plants.

This is Lulu, Jaa's black Angelfish.

more of Lulu.

Here you'll see Lemon, my yellowish/gold Angelfish. 

more of Lemon...and a little bit the the pearl gourami on the right side!

   

   We've had Lulu and Lemon since beginning of April 2010. They were half the size of what they are now! We love them so much and they definitely have distinguished personalities than the other fish. They remember us and seem to interact with us when we are looking at them. It's really hard to explain without sounding like a crazy fish owner HAHA! 

Pearl Gourami

Haha, it's really hard to see and identify them here if you've never seen our fish before. The fish you see to the right is the Gold Gourami. If you look closely in the middle you will a fish looking right at the camera, that is the three-spot Gourami. If you look just above the three-spot gourami you will see a blue and white marble looking fish (you can't see its head, just the body), that is the Opaline Gourami.

Three-spot Gourami close up.

Our fish' are so funny! Everytime they see us standing in front of the tank they all gather in front because they think its feeding time! Like the photo you see above.

   Another we bought for our tank is a Moonlight Lighting System for 55 gallon tanks. We bought it on eBay for $50, you will find a bunch of different types but I would only buy from someone who knows exactly what he's talking about. Our MLS did not come from China, it came from the US and was made in the US so it's guaranteed to work and last for a very long time. It's basically a set of blue LED lights that serves as a Moonlight lighting at night. It's definitely better than turning the fluorescent light off completely at night. FYI..you have to do this in able for your fish to distinguish the difference between light and day. If your fish is constantly on the bright light it might stress them. Think of the ocean, the sun isn't always shining down. The moonlight system was definitely a great buy because not only does it provide some lighting to the tank but any light colored fish or gravel or plants or rocks that you have in your tank will glow. It is very nice for night viewing only. 

     The pictures are a little hard to capture at night due to the fact that blue lights are a little harder to see or look at. Other than that it is beautiful!

   Anyway, our 55 gallon fish tank will be around for awhile unless we upgrade to a bigger tank eventually. We have spent quite a bit of money to maintain our tank but mostly I think because we buy fish, plants, and decorations for it. We wanted our tank to look as natural as possible not crazy-like with multi-colored gravel and outrageous decorations. It's something we love to do as a hobby and something that we are very proud of! :)

*Much Love!*

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

     Today is my 6th year anniversary with my long time partner Jaa. It's too bad that I didn't get to wake up next to him this morning because he's been gone to work since Monday morning, but lucky for us he gets to come home tonight and be home all weekend! I'm very excited and happy with everything despite the fact that I have a bad cold and I just feel like a total bag of smashed sh*t (not that I would literally know how that feels, just metaphorically.) 

   

   Well, I'm supposed to go do some shopping but I am just not up to it. If I could send Braelan to someone who will watch him for free I would, so that I could sleep and just rest in silence..but that would be just too convenient to ever happen in real life. I'm a stay-at-home mom and I'm supposed to suck it up...well there's a realization. Anyway, I hope this cold will go away real soon. I hate being sick and I'm sick of people spreading it around..if colds and flu are money, then please pass it on to me. 

   This anniversary stinks because we can't really do anything mainly because I would rather crawl back into bed and stay there until I feel better..and we've given away our money to charities..sarcastically, yes that means bills. Hopefully we'll get to do something next weekend; We are supposed to go to the Comic Strip in Edmonton to see Bobcat Goldthwait live..we were planning on going to the dinner and comic thing BUT realized that we are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner that weekend with the entire family..so we can kick that idea of comic strip dinner right in kisser. Do I sound like I'm complaining?? No, I'm really not complaining..I am simply venting..on my online blog! Go figure. 

   Do people really read this blogs? No, I don't think so..you know why..because nobody gives a rats a$$ about anybody's life..it's really that simple. Nothing they say will make you feel better because even if you did feel better you are still worrying..and saying things like, "I'm fine" or "Now I feel better"..who are you really kidding?? You might feel a little ease but you will never stop worrying about everything...unless of course you're single, young, and have a lot of moolah to blow. People can comment all they want about your blog..but ask yourself something..has anyone said anything to you completely out of the ordinary?? People will kiss a$$ and say nice things but really they're thinking of the opposite. 

  

   People say things like, "Oh don't worry hun, things will get better." Really?? How?? Because if you can explain this to me and really make me believe that things will get better then you, my friend, are a genius! And seriously..what is it with people who all of the sudden act like they have something in common with you?? There you are simply looking for answers and trying to figure something out and all of the sudden a swarm of people will start talking about their lives and how "it just really, really sucks!" I don't know about you but if I have a problem I will usually talk about it with my parents or my bes-test best friend or ask around some close friends and get ideas...Ummm hello?? I have a problem to figure out. I don't really feel like wasting time listening to a bunch of people tell me stories of the past and how it affected them, thank you very much. 

   So I've concluded that I like venting on here because even if people will or have read this and wish to comment..I can always delete it. I used to have a diary but why write when you can type. I guess I could start a diary using Microsoft words..but I don't really have anything to hide. Plus, having a blog like this is nice..its a free freakin' country..be prepared for to explore my opinionated mind! =)

  *Much Love!*

   

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

    So, Jaa got me the new Fluval Edge 6 gallon fish tank for our anniversary! I love it so much! It is very stylish and contemporary and very calming and nice to look at. The design and the way it's engineered is somewhat sketchy because only part of the whole tank is sitting on the base that comes with the whole thing. Then another piece sits on top and together it creates a very stylish, modern look! Take a look at the pictures and see for yourself. 

   I don't have very detailed pictures of the base and every pieces that comes with it. Inside this black piece located at the back is a very powerful Hagen*Fluval Edge filter. It is made for it and you have to buy the one made for this tank. It's not very expensive and you would only have to change the filter at least once a month if you want to maintain a healthy tank and healthy fish. If you want more detail Google "Fluval Edge Aquarium" and you should be able to find detailed info about the tank itself and reviews. I personally love it!   The tank is all glass, it's the first 3D tank. There is a small opening on top where that top black piece is covering so you can access the inside for decorating, cleaning, and feeding the fish. The set comes with 2 small halogen light bulbs that gives off heat and provides ample lighting for the tank. I don't have a heater for my tank because I find that the halogen lights give enough heat to keep the water warm at 80 Fahrenheit. 

    I decided to use white sand instead of gravel for this tank. I don't really think that gravel will put the edge on this Edge and make it more stylish and high-end! We also have a 55 gallon with natural looking pebbles (I will talk more about it later on another blog.) My Fluval Edge has a few rocks, the one in the middle is an expensive "petrified" rock from Big Al's in Edmonton. It is the center focal point or the point of interest in this tank. It's a very nice rock. The other flat rocks you see are from another pet store and I've decided to stack them on corners. I have all live plants in this tank, no fakes. I have 2 live sword plants and 2 live mandos, and 1 moss ball. I love how my tank is set up. It's beautiful and I love staring at it!

   I have a thermometer in it to make sure that the temperature is nice and comfortable for the fish. In the photo above you will see two Bala Sharks. I have a few more fish in there now which you will see in the pictures below.

   Here you will see one of my bala sharks, 2 albino tetras (the white-cloudy looking fish), you will also see a small striped Severum at the back if you look closely. The Severum is a type of a non aggressive cichlid. He is small right now but will eventually get bigger. He will not live in this tank for a long time, I will eventually have to transfer him in to our huge tank. He is only here temporarily. Oh and if you notice there is a little fish on the bottom left hand side, that is one of my zebra danios.

    This is Molly the balloon molly! They look so cool, almost like a puffer fish =) I wanted to get a molly in the tank..and what better choice than to get a balloon molly..the coolest looking molly of all mollies!

    The Fluval Edge tank from another point of view! Oh, the tank is set on top of a wood and wrought iron wine/serving rack. Its a very nice little table to set our new tank. By the way, the fluval edge comes in three different base color, Burnt Orange, Black, and Pewter. I wanted a Pewter color so bad but every PetSmart in Canada only have them in Black. The only place that had them in Pewter was Big Al's in Edmonton BUT they were more expensive! The black isn't so bad actually..the sand and the rocks just makes it pop!

   A very nice picture of the bala shark. Of course the picture was taken by me. Too bad about the smudge on the tank that I didn't notice until after I took the picture. 

    If you can see, there's a tiny striped fish just above the petrified rock...that is one of the zebra danios. And if you notice on the right side, middle part of the photo there is a tail..that is the Pictus Catfish' tail. Unfortunately I didn't capture him in the photo because those darn catfish swim fast! They just never stop moving..ever.

    Well there you have it. Hope you liked my little blog about my little tank. Yes, I am trying to convince you to get one because they are nice and takes very little to maintain. Even if you want a bigger tank you can still have this. We have a 55 gallon fish tank and that didn't stop us from getting this. We love fish tanks, if we could have more we would. We are looking in to upgrading to a bigger tank eventually..probably next summer(2011.) It's our hobby and I don't think we'll ever get tired of the maintenance. 

    Fish tanks are so calming and if you actually do your research well you will find that fish tanks are commonly used for people that have stress disorders, youths that have issues, and its overall appearance brings Zen into peoples lives. 

*Much Love!*

My tattoos...

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

     I love taking pictures of everything! From my son being funny to the dog being silly and Jaa being..well, Jaa! I even let Braelan take pictures and believe it or not they do turn out good as well. 

This is Jaa being photographed by Braelan!

Hehe..Braelan's foot!

   I forgot to blog about my new tattoos! I finally got a foot tattoo on August 13th, 2010 and "Brae" tattooed on my wrist on August 31st, 2010. Notice the dates?? I know! It was weird because I never even thought of that until the day I got my wrist tattoo. My favorite number is 13! I know some say its the bad luck number but it's been lucky for me so far. So here's a picture of my foot tattoo...

   Foot tattoos hurt! This one hurt more in between the top of my foot and my ankle, other than that it was bearable. It took just over 2 hours and cost me about $300 (no I am not joking.) You can't see the whole thing in this picture but you should be able to on the next photo...

      Here you can see that it goes all the way up above my ankle bone and it also goes past my ankle bone. There was a lot of details involve and she had to take a little slow around the middle area because that it where it hurts the most. I must say though, I did not twitched or moved once..like I said it was bearable until the last 15 minutes of the session when my foot had become so swollen and raised. I love this tattoo!! It looks awesome and was definitely worth the pain. 

   The next photo is of my old tattoo..my very first tattoo that lasted about 4 hours and some. To be honest, I expected this tattoo to hurt because that is what people told me. BUT it didn't hurt that much at all! 

   It's a tiger/tribal tattoo. You can see the eyes if you look closely. Like my foot tattoo, there was also a lot of details involved with this one. I think the painful and most uncomfortable experience with this tattoo was the way I was sitting. It was a taller chair and I had to sit facing the back rest and had to lean towards it. I am short so my legs and feet were dangling down..and that became uncomfortable after an hour! This tattoo cost me $450! I couldn't sleep on my back for awhile but that didn't bother me because I'm a stomach sleeper. 

    This is one of my new tattoo. It is short for "Braelan", which is my sons name. This tattoo did not hurt at all, it was quick and it healed within a week! I love this tattoo! I was going to add his birthday (Sept. 28th, 2010) in roman numerals just below his name but decided not to because I have other plans. I want to get Braelan, Jaa, and my birthday in roman numerals and have it tattooed on my left shoulder (I already have a kanji tattoo on my right shoulder blade.) I want more work done eventually. Some of my friends say I'm addicted, I say "oh well". I don't have any other addictions. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't watch pornography, I hate shopping, really just no addiction but getting unique art tattooed on me. If people don't like then don't look at it =)

     I will update later when I get more ink done..which is real soon ;)

*Much Love!*

    

Our 6th year Anniversary

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

 Our 6th year Anniversary is on October 1st, 2010! After all these years; after all the challenges we've been through, all the happiness, laughters, tears and fights we've shared...we are still going strong! I wouldn't change a thing about us except that as we grow older..together..that our friendship and the foundation of our relationship will stay strong, stronger than anything in this world!

    Many have asked if we are married..or when we are getting married. We've honestly thought about it..but why now? We are perfectly content with our relationship status. We are practically married! We want to eventually get married someday..maybe we will when we are both 50 years old! Honestly that is not a bad idea at all. Just look at how marriage can turn a perfectly good relationship, sour. I don't want that for us. Sure it is nice to get married and easily drop $5000 or more on just for that one special day but right now we are perfectly comfortable with our relationship status. 

    I've witnessed a few marriages that had gone sour and ended badly. Many saw it as an opportunity to "steal" from each others riches and make one feel bad about themselves. Just because you've been dating for a few years or have known each other for a long long time even before you started dating and gotten engaged..you still don't know a lot about that person..not unless you've been together for 25 and some years, have lived together, have kids together, have gone through A LOT of challenges..and I mean a real "mean roller coaster ride" kind of challenges..it is not worth getting married and tying yourself into something you will end up regretting..or something that would end up to a divorce. Some may say that I am being negative..I absolutely am not! I'm simply being realistic and staying true to myself. Fighting and all that does not test your relationship enough..but having kids before marriage does!

   You and your husband are used to having time alone; You two are used to going out (alone or together..it doesn't matter); You two are used to being spoiled, both of you are used to having careers of your own...the list goes on. You see many couples that are divorcing after 25 years of marriage because they are just realizing that their relationship is over, there was nothing fun about it anymore. I want my partner I to be the opposite. I want us to go through all the hard times now and really, truly out our love to the test and see how far it will take us. Having a son together and putting my career on hold and being the one sacrificing what I have for both my son and Jaa is pretty hard to swallow sometimes. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what life would be like if I was on the other side of the fence...but you no matter what I think or fantasize..I still would not trade a day of my life for someone else' successful and "perfect" life. 

   So therefore I am not saying that I don't want to get married. I just prefer to wait for many more years to come and then tie the knot because I know that once Jaa and I have been together for 25 and some years and have put our love to test..then I can honestly say that getting married is like the icing on top of a beautifully sculpted cake! 

   I love you Jaa Carrigan!

*Much Love!*

   

Braelan's 3rd Birthday

::September 28th, 2010:: Late entry...
  
    Braelan is officially three years old! I love it! I am so proud of him and his accomplishments. Yes, I still miss him being small and dependent on me BUT this change is good. He is a lot more fun and such a little person! I can actually have small "little person" conversation with him without having to say "huh?" more than once! 
    We had to celebrate his actual birthday by ourselves because Daddy is working away during the week but he is home on weekends =) We had a nice birthday party for him the weekend before his birthday. He loved both of his cakes especially the train-shaped cake!

      The lady that designed his cake did a really good job! I loved it! But most of all Braelan loved it! For his actual birthday I got him a number '3' cake and three train-shape chocolate lollipop. He loved the lollipop and ate one all by himself on his special day..of course I took the other two lollipops without him seeing because I wasn't going to let him eat a lot of chocolate! 

This was his number '3' cake!

    I love everything about this cake! We still have some left of course..saving some for Jaa for when he comes home =) I took more pictures of Braelan's reactions and everything about his special day!

Just couldn't wait to start eating! ^.^

  Happy 3rd Birthday Braelan!

We LOVE you so much!

*Much Love!*

Little less blogging lately...

When was the last time I blogged...

Ok, I'm not going to lie and say "I didn't have time", or "I have been super busy", or "There is just not enough time in the day to blog"..I simply did not have anything to say..!

Well here's what's new...

-Jaa is barely home nowadays. He is between two jobs in Vermilion and St. Paul; he is gone during the week but comes back on weekends. Braelan misses him terribly and so do I. Luckily, we got to spend the whole week with him last week! His awesome boss suggested that Braelan and I should go up to St. Paul and stay with him in his "company paid for" hotel room. I was astounded more than Jaa when I found out that they would let me and Braelan tag along with him! It was a nice little getaway for us and I will forever be grateful.

-Jaa is doing really well at work. Needless to say he's been there for over four years and he is pretty devoted to his job (not that he isn't at home.) You can look at it both ways, the positive is that he is never a target for getting "laid-off" or getting "fired". He's never mentioned anything about leaving the company he's working for..not because he is happy or unhappy, he is very happy and content with his job. Jaa doesn't want to leave us at home by ourselves. We know that him being away is only temporary because he has another project here at home. He didn't want to be the kind of dad that his kid will never get to know. There had been many opportunities where Jaa could have worked for someone else and be away from home for more than 7 days (this was way back, before Braelan even turned one.) He would've made more money BUT he would've missed out on his son's daily progress. He chose to stay because he knew what meant more to him. I'm very proud of Jaa's success, although he has progressed slower than the others it was his good reputation and great workmanship that he never lacked. Anyways, (haha) his boss has decided to give him a company work van that he can take home with him and use everyday. He is not a journeyman yet, but his boss definitely saw his hard work and potential. It was well deserved!

-Braelan is almost three years old! My little baby isn't so little anymore. On September 25th, 2010, we had his 3rd birthday party celebration just with close friends and family. He was ecstatic! He received a bunch of gifts and he loved his "train-shaped" cake! We are very happy that it turned out right and everyone enjoyed themselves. His real birthday is on September 28th..(which is tomorrow!!!) I still can't believe that he is turning 3! Where did the time go?? He is super smart; he knows the different colors and shapes; he can count from 1 to 20 and knows the alphabet..all before he is even three years old! It brings such joy (and tears) to us. The way that he is becoming more and more independent and we can actually have real conversations with him! It is definitely amazing and I'm very glad that neither Jaa nor I have to miss out on this. Braelan also has baby chores, he likes cleaning up his room after he plays, he likes to hold the dust pan when we're sweeping the floor! He can go to the bathroom by himself and get up on the toilet without a step-stool. He can wipe his own bum (and I always check his bum to make sure its clean..and IT ALWAYS IS!) He is definitely growing and everyday I feel like he won't ever need my help anymore..it's a bittersweet happiness.

-Braelan starts Preschool! On October 4th, 2010 Braelan will start his first day of Preschool. He will attending once a week on Mondays for two hours a day. We took him with us when we registered and I know that he is going to love it! They have a huge indoor playground and they have their own lockers! Here's to the beginning of school expenses, volunteering, making lunches, not missing the parent-teacher meeting, recitals and practices, and years of birthday parties full of kids! =)

So overall that is all I have to say. I could talk about our upcoming 6th year anniversary..but that's not until October 1st..so I will talk about it then =)

Much Love!