pewfie.com

2 hours, 29 minutes to go

....and still much cleaning to do to make it appear as if I did some cleaning over the past 3 weeks. Heh.

Also, nobody told me we owned a mop!?!?!

9 days, 1 hour, 35 minutes to go...

Oh, and Kadin has

MEASLES

He's doing well though, all things considered. More on this later, as I'm late for work.

10.5 days to go

I miss him very much. I mean, just look at him, would ya?

12.5 days to go

Being apart from Kadin and Tonia is incredibly difficult. There really is no other way of saying that, really.

The last 9 days have been smudged together, since outside of work I really haven't done anything to separate the days. The only memorable thing is the family tree that I have been obsessively working on.

I haven't even had the heart to sleep in our bed, so the couch it is!

In talking to Tonia & Kadin at least twice every day I know that he's been having a great time being spoiled by his nanny and poppy, which even through my missing him makes me happy that he's having a good time.

Today however almost killed me.

Tonia called me at work to let me know he had woken up with a mild fever, but after taking some tylenol and a cool bath, he was doing A-OK. A few hours later the fever crept up again, but tylenol did the trick to bring it down.

Just as I got home I got a call that he had a 104 degree fever (he just woke up from a nap and was very, very warm), so Tonia was taking him to the local hospital which was a short drive away.

Tonia had her friend Heather's cell phone on her, but wouldn't be able to call me until after he had been seen in the hospital. What followed was the longest 45 minutes EVER.

Anyone who has had a sick child knows what I was going through, however that pain and fear was made a thousand times worse by the fact that my baby was clear across the country and there was NOTHING I could do for him.

In those 45 minutes I sat in silence waiting for the phone to ring, my mind racing through all possible things that might be going on at that moment. To keep myself occupied, I did a 30 minute online survey regarding the use of household detergents and fabric softeners.

I nearly sobbed when Tonia called and explained that he had been seen by the doctor who prescribed pennicilin for essentially the flu (or cold, the only part of that conversation that I'm clear on was that he was ok). His fever was down to a much safer 101 when checked in the hospital. Both of them are at her mothers house now and at the time of this writing, fast asleep.

Being a father has done some odd things to me, I've realized. It's quite odd actually writing this, however it seems some genetic protection mechanisms became active the moment Kadin was born. Whenever there is even the slightest glimmer that his health or safety are in jeopardy, about 99% of my brain shuts down. Whatever is left working combines with some non-thinking parts to protect him.

This mechanism has sometimes kicked in at odd times, like when he's been up at 3 AM with gas so bad he's literally shrieking; I'm running through the apartment with a little dropper full of Gripe water, RACING towards him to make the pain stop.

So going back to the interminable wait for Tonia to call me, I was going through plans of taking a midnight flight to Newfoundland to possibly get there for Saturday morning.

I know my writing is rather disjointed, but my mind is still racing and the flow of writing does somewhat mirror that.

When I was 6 years old I went to Pakistan with my mother, but my father had to stay in Ottawa for work. We were gone a total of 6 months (or a little more), but I was separated from my father for at least a few months before he was able to join us for a brief time.

In talking to him the other day, I asked him how he could have possibly lived with being separated from us for months; I was a broken man after only a week. He at least had his sister and her family in Ottawa, so he spent a significant amount of time with them. I look forward to going to work, and standing in the rain at 11 PM waiting for 2 dogs to poo. Heh.

I think that's entirely too much broken writing for one evening. Kadin has his birthday party planned for tomorrow, which at this point depends entirely on how he's feeling in the morning. I hope my bobaloo feels better in the morning.

21 days to go...

Yesterday, Kadin and Tonia left for Newfoundland.

I could write volumes, but let me just put a in image in your head which sums it all up: the three of us standing just outside the security zone in Vancouver airport. We say our goodbyes, and Tonia starts to walk towards security. The whole time Kadin is crying while looking at me, and holding his hands out.

.......................

So 9 hours pass, and Tonia gives me a call from St. John's to let me know that overall, the trip went very well. Kadin slept most of the way from Vancouver to Montreal, though the landing was very difficult on him. He was cranky also on the last 2.5 hour leg from Montreal to St. John's, and was asleep until the cold woke him up when exiting the plane.

After getting some fruit and fries from McDonalds, he slept the entire way to Marystown. When I spoke with Tonia this morning I could hear Kadin laughing and squealing, so things appear to be just fine!

How am I doing you ask? Well, I had a fun dip for breakfast. Haha.

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY KADIN!!!!!

Mommy's letter to Kadin

Abu's letter to Kadin

------------------------------------
Birthday Day: Written by Hasan
We all had a great time on kadin's birthday! As usual he was up shortly after 5 AM. Once it was clear that he wasn't going to bed, we got up and started the gift opening!

He received a Chatterbox Telephone from his Maham Puppo, a Corn Popper from his Zahrah Puppo, and a Rock 'n Roll Trike from his Aba-Jan & Dadi.

From us, Kadin received a Pirate Ship Playhouse ! We spent a few hours just watching him go from one toy to another, though in all honesty he had the most fun playing with wrapping paper!

For lunch we went downtown and, due to the torrential rains, stayed under the covered awnings on the west side. After doing some sightseeing, we went to Swiss Chalet for lunch.

The rest of the day was primarly spent in trip preparations and just spending some quality family time together.

At supper time we had Kadin's birthday cake! At first he was slightly hesitant, but once he got the first taste he just methodically worked through a sizeable piece.

He fell asleep fairly well that night, though the effects of such a sugar injection on a 1 year old baby were felt from 12:48 AM - 5:14 AM as I spent that entire time on the couch with him to try and get him to go back to sleep...haha. Eventually Tonia saved the day by giving him some Gripe water, after which he belched a few times and slept for another hour and a half.

And that's all for this post...

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock...

So we're entering the final hours of Kadin's first year. Tomorrow our little infant becomes a TODDLER!!! All of us are very excited for the big day. Especially Kadin, who decided to pee all over me yesterday when I was getting him ready for his bath. Since I'm always prepared for situations like this, I used a combination of my hand, right leg, and the diaper I just took off to try and catch the pee. I might have stopped about 10% of it...heh.

Mixed in with the birthday preparations are final travel plans as well. Tonia & Kadin ship out on Thursday morning. More updates later today!