If I had my way, I’d be working as a midwife right now.  The problem is that I only realized by passion and fascination for midwifery a few years ago, when I went through my own pregnancies.  I am now 36 (37 later this year), I have 2 young children and I live in a country where midwives are fairly uncommon.  Had I still been living in the UK, I’d had undoubtedly started the schooling by now and would hopefully be well on my way to caring for mothers and babies.

My son was born in England, where women are delivered by midwives.  Just over two years ago, my daughter was born in Canada.  Right here in Cornwall, in fact.  In Canada, it is very rare for a woman to use a midwife over an OB/GYN.  When deciding who to seek out for my prenatal care, I had no hesitation in contacting a midwife, having experienced midwife care for my first pregnancy.  Lucky for me, midwife care is covered by our provincial health coverage here in Ontario.

In Cornwall, I found a small group of midwives called St-Lawrence Valley Midwives.  They were fabulous.  I had an hour for every appointment, so I never felt rushed out.  I could call with questions, reschedule appointments and I pretty much felt like they were a part of my life throughout my pregnancy and during the weeks after her birth.  They were professional, knowledgeable and very attentive.  Truly, I cannot recommend them enough. 

When I’d tell Canadian women that I was seeing a midwife, I was always confronted with shock.  Horror, sometimes.  But what if something goes wrong, they’d ask.  Midwives are highly trained, specializing in pregnancy and birth.  If further assistance is needed (ie. a c-section), they are trained to know when to seek it.  Exactly as an OB/GYN would.

So that brings me again to my desire to become a midwife.  It certainly is not impossible to do that in Canada, but there are very few schools that offer the course.  The closest one to us is in Toronto.  We would need to move and, having a child with a disbility, I must admit that I worry about how the move and the workload would affect our lives.  With money also a major issue, I know that this dream, although not a lifetime in the making, will surely remain just a dream.

We ordered St-Hubert for supper tonite and, oh, what a treat!  We rarely order in.  Now, that’s not to say that we don’t eat our fair share of fast food/restaurant meals.  We just normally go out for the meal.  And the last time we had St-Hubert was when my Mum and step-father treated us to a meal in the restaurant the day before my daughter was born.

(This is significant to me because we have joked over the years that meals out with my Mum causes me to go into labour.  We went out for a pub supper in England the night before my son was born - one month before his due date.  And we went to St-Hubert here in Cornwall with her the day before my daughter was born - 3 weeks before her due date.)

So it’s been 10 months since we’ve had St-Hubert and it was well worth the wait.  Stephen and I filled our faces and had to pretty much roll ourselves away from the table.

To make the meal even better, they told us that it would take 45 minutes and the meal actually arrived in 20!  $9.45 a head for club sandwiches with fries, creamy coleslaw and their world famous gravy.  Yum.

We’ll be doing that again soon!

I am altering some curtains for my son’s room and I needed some thread and other things for the job.  We stopped by Wal-Mart today to pick up the few items I needed.  For once, it was a quick stop in the store.  No browsing around!

When I got to the tills, all of a sudden, Wal-Mart was packed with people.  I find that the cashes nearest the doors are usually less packed so I headed down there.  I finally settled on cash 5, I think it was, and was dismayed to see a certain cashier at the check-out.  This guy has been cranky with us in the past, so we generally avoid him. 

But I was already in the queue and decided that I could put up with a bit of crankiness.

When it became my turn, the cashier started ringing my items through.  Without a ‘hello’ or so much as a glance up at me.  I leaned in and greeted him.  “Oh, hi,” he said, and continued ringing up my three items.

In the middle of all this, he glanced up and noticed the woman behind me had only 2 small items and that she was holding them.  He curtly instructed her to put the items on the belt and to use one of those divider bars to seperate her items from mine.  The lady looked a bit shocked at being commanded to put her items down but did as she was told.

The woman behind her, hearing what the cashier had said, started quickly laying her own items on the belt.  Another divider was laying on the belt, apparently not being used.  She grabbed it and lay it behind the first lady’s items.

“No,” Cranky Cashier reprimanded, “that one needs to stay where it was.  It’s helping to keeping the belt straight.”  Huh?  What the hell does that mean?  But OK, whatever you say, buddy.

So Lady #2 puts the bar back and simply stands there looking awkward.

Cranky Cashier turns his attention back to my purchase and tells me that it comes to $3.12.  (Hey, big spender!)  I hand him 2 toonies, a dime and 2 pennies.  I tell him how much I’ve given him ($4.12) because I fear not getting my loonie and having to bicker with(read: kick the crap out of) this cranky cashier.  As I hand him the change, some of it falls amongst the bags.  He glances down, easily retrieves one penny, counts the change in his hand and tells me that I owe him a penny.

It fell among the bags, I wanted to tell him, but simply couldn’t be bothered.  I handed him another penny, accepted my loonie change and quickly left him behind.

I work with the public and I always, always make it my priority to greet people and to be polite and kind.  Why can’t Wal-Mart staff do the same?  I rarely get greeted when I walk up to a cash there and often come close to having an associate roll their eyes when I ask for help finding something.

But they must be doing something right: I keep going back.

Hubby and I have a son who was recently diagnosed as having Autism Spectrum Disorder.  J is 3 years old and is still not talking.  Obviously, we started on the road to a diagnosis and treatment quite a while ago, starting with J’s pediatrician.  He then referred us to a doctor at the Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre. 

The doctor at OCTC and his colleague spent over an hour with us and with J.  We answered loads of questions about the things that J does well and the things he struggles with, as well as his many likes and his relatively few dislikes.  The diagnosis came back at the end of that session: Autism.

Hubby and I weren’t particularly surprised.  We’d read a lot about the disorder and we knew what the signs were.  J did not display them all, but he had a fair few.  For instance, J has a distinct lack of communication.  Not only is he not talking, but he also does not wave goodbye when one of us leaves.  He also tends towards repetative, unimaginative play, rather than constructive or structured play.  He loves toy cars and trains and pushed them along the floor or your arm or leg, but does not really play with anything else as it is meant to be played with.

But J is loving, tender, gentle, affectionate.  He loves to be outside, running and climbing.  He likes meeting new people and does not get stressed with a change of schedule.  Loud noises do not bother him, nor does bright light.  His sister drives him nuts, but now that she’s 10 months old, he’s definitely learning to play alongside her without pushing her away.

Anyway, the point of this post was to praise the system here in Ontario for the amazing support we’ve had as parents of a newly-diagnosed autistic child.  We’ve had 12 weeks, so far, of Speech Language Therapy, we’ve met with Social Workers and we’ll be meeting soon with an Occupational Therapist.  The Ontario government supports parents of kids “with disabilities” rather well, it seems, in that at-home therapy is avalable and paid for, there are tax benefits to be had and we could even receive a yearly sum for respite care. 

Not that we want any time away from our precious boy.  I must stress that J is an absolute pleasure to have around and I could never imagine wanting a break from him.

Then, one of the Social Workers called here and we went through the necessary forms over the phone.  She filled in all the details and simply sent them to us to sign.  She even included pre-printed labels to stick to the envelopes so that we didn’t need to guess where the forms were going.

The help that we’ve had so far has been unbelievable.  We feel like we have someone to turn to, someone who knows us and J and knows the system, well.

Today, we made the hour and a bit drive into Ottawa to do a bit of shopping.  The journey is pretty straightforward from Cornwall - up the 138 to the 417 West - and voila, you’re there.  I have my G1 license now (yup, at the ripe old age of 34), so I am allowed to drive on roads sign-posted at 80 or below.  So I drove the Route 138 bit and Hubby did the highway driving.

For our shopping spree, we chose the St-Laurent Centre because it’s closer and easier to get to than the larger and more exciting Rideau Centre.  If you ever get the chance, the Rideau Centre is a great mall and runs alongside the canal and is only a block or so away from the Parliament Building.  Stunning on a bright summer’s day.

I digress.

We arrived at the St-Laurent Centre with our tummies growling and headed directly for the food court.  They have a decent selection there, but we chose to eat our usual fair of burgers and fries courtesy of A&W. 

The food court was packed.  It is Saturday, afterall, and lunchtime.  There were people roaming around with trays, looking for a place to eat.  We never hang around at a table longer than we need to because we have two young children who are completely impatient and today was no different.  Immediately upon finishing, we started gathering our debris and dumping it on the tray. 

At this point, a woman appears who obviously works there.  She has a spray bottle in one hand and a rag in the other.  She coos at the kiddies, helps us gather our stuff and even offers to dump the tray for us.  Ah, how sweet.

But gathering up children and all the paraphenalia that goes along with them, like sippy cups, wipes, rusks for the baby, etc, is a tough and time-consuming job.  I lifted one of our bags to put it on the table to start filling it and this woman started spraying the table to clean it for the next customers to use.  She basically took over the table and left me standing there holding a baby, a bag, a bottle, and god knows what else.

Now, I do see myself as being a very reasonable person.  I don’t purposelly try to anger or frustate people and I don’t set out to be difficult. But I was not going to rushed off of this table.  I dumped my stuff back on the table and sat my son down again so that I could get his shoe back on.

That sure put an end to her wiping!

Like I said, I wasn’t trying to be difficult.  I could see that people were waiting for tables, but I found what she did to be rude.  She just needed to stand back for about 30 seconds and we’d have been on our way feeling a lot less ticked off.

Yup, we live in Ontario in Canada.  In Cornwall, to be exact.  And today, hubby and I took the kiddies to McDonald’s for lunch, as we occasionally do.  We like going there because we feel like the food is tasty and not over-the-top expensive.  A meal there is cheaper than a meal at, say, Wendy’s, Harvey’s or KFC.  But I would say that, on the whole, we enjoy a meal at Wendy’s the best.  Hubby likes replacing his fries with the chilli (yuck) and we find the burgers more sustantial that McD’s.

Anyway, at around 1pm today, we parked outside the McDonald’s on Brookedale in Cornwall and went inside.  We ordered our usual, a few cheeseburgers and some fries and one drink (hubby and I share a drink).

(Actually, as I typed that last sentence, I realize how cheeky we were in just ordering one drink.  You see, hubby and I always share a drink when we get fast food because neither of us ever finish a whole one.  But this McDonald’s offer free refills.  So they probably watch hubby and I drink from the same cup.  Then I did something I have never done before:  I took advantage of the free refill and filled my cup before we left.  It hadn’t occured to me at the time, because we always share, but looking back, I can see the cheekiness of our actions.  I digress…)

One of the managers or supervisors or something at this particular McDonald’s never smiles.  No matter how many times we go in, no matter what time of day, and no matter whether we smile broadly at her.  Nothing.  She just frowns and I can’t understand it.  I also work with the public, as a cashier in a large store and I smile all the time.  And I mean that.  I smile at everyone and I say ‘hello’ and I ask if they help finding anything.  That’s my job and I do it well, I believe.

When I was about 18, I remember being snotty when I worked with the public.  I worked at KFC and at the airport in Montreal.  But I was 18!  I was immature and I thought that the world owed me something.  But I’m older now - 35 in November (yikes!) - and I know better than to treat people, especially paying customers, in that way.

This woman at McDonald’s looks to be in her 40’s.  She should know better.  And if she doesn’t, her boss should be offering extra training.  And if that doesn’t work, my empathy ends there.  As a paying customer myself, I don’t need to see that long face while I order.

Maybe we should start going to the one on Second Street instead.