Thursday, January 27, 2005
It has been a pleasure dealing with our auto insurance company, GEICO, over this car accident business. The claim cheque arrived in yesterday's mail, just 24 days after the accident. And every inquiry I've made has been handled with reasonable competence and extraordinary courtesy. Bravo!
I just got in from taking AJ to see his pediatrician. Today he had his polio and diptheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis vaccinations; he weighs 15 lbs 8 oz and is 27" tall, representing a 3-pound and 3-inch increase over last date of measurement (11/23/04). He's a big, healthy boy! And for a second time, Dr. Sergiou could detect no sign of the little heart murmur AJ had at birth, which indicates that it has corrected itself.
So all is well.
I just got in from taking AJ to see his pediatrician. Today he had his polio and diptheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis vaccinations; he weighs 15 lbs 8 oz and is 27" tall, representing a 3-pound and 3-inch increase over last date of measurement (11/23/04). He's a big, healthy boy! And for a second time, Dr. Sergiou could detect no sign of the little heart murmur AJ had at birth, which indicates that it has corrected itself.
So all is well.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
We picked up the car yesterday and got it home - slowly - before the worst of the storm hit. The news had been calling for a blizzard non-stop all morning. The snow hit our area starting at noon and accumulating steadily through the afternoon; winds picked up in the late afternoon and made it seem more blizzardlike. (In this area I can be suspicious of words like "blizzard". We don't really get that much snow, so by my standards what arrived yesterday might have been merely a heavy snowfall.)
Words notwithstanding, we've got a respectable lot of snow on the ground, and it's still falling. Our lovely new car is buried, along with most of the block. Good thing we hadn't made plans to try it out extensively today; it's a really good day for staying indoors except, possibly, for a short play-outing in the snow with snowsuit boy! He's been talking of snowballs he threw at "Grampy" one afternoon in Kemptville pretty much every day since we got home.
Here's the car, with us. Decent picture of the car, at least...
Words notwithstanding, we've got a respectable lot of snow on the ground, and it's still falling. Our lovely new car is buried, along with most of the block. Good thing we hadn't made plans to try it out extensively today; it's a really good day for staying indoors except, possibly, for a short play-outing in the snow with snowsuit boy! He's been talking of snowballs he threw at "Grampy" one afternoon in Kemptville pretty much every day since we got home.
Here's the car, with us. Decent picture of the car, at least...
Friday, January 21, 2005
Tomorrow we're to go and take possession of our new Volvo: a 2004 V70 wagon, metallic silver with graphite leather interior (woo-hoo!). It was used as a loaner car by the service side of a Volvo dealership out on Long Island, and has less than 7000 miles on it. I'm very excited!
Monday, January 17, 2005
WEBSITE UPDATE: last night I added a gallery of kid photos to the main website's Pictures section. This gallery covers mid-November through mid-December when we left for Kemptville for the Christmas holidays; holiday photos should also be up by the end of today, and over the course of the day I'll be adding links to 25 new videos (September through December 2004!) on the main site's Videos page. You'll see them starting with row 5, thumbnail image 4.
The Home button in each of the five most recent galleries still doesn't work at the moment. Sorry. As before, for now, just close that window when you're done with a gallery!
In other news, the insurance company has written off the Volvo. Poor little red car...
So I'm looking into used cars this week. We're considering a slightly larger car this time, to accommodate the slightly larger family and the amount of gear that travels with us.
The Home button in each of the five most recent galleries still doesn't work at the moment. Sorry. As before, for now, just close that window when you're done with a gallery!
In other news, the insurance company has written off the Volvo. Poor little red car...
So I'm looking into used cars this week. We're considering a slightly larger car this time, to accommodate the slightly larger family and the amount of gear that travels with us.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Yesterday I had a car accident on the 401 near Pickering - hit black ice and skidded into the median. AJ was in the car with me. Both airbags deployed when the Volvo slammed nose-first into the concrete median, spun, clipped the median again with the back end, and came to rest wrong-way around on the left shoulder.
The car is probably totalled. I have superficial facial lacerations caused by the airbag, which essentially punched me in the chin, and bruising across the chest where the shoulder strap caught me, but I walked away from the accident. AJ was completely unharmed.
Deo gratias.
The paramedics and OPP were very kind, and Mike, the tow truck driver, was one of the world's truly great people. He saw to it that we were warm and safe in the cab, gave me a wet cloth to clean up my face, found my mangled glasses, got us and the car to the nearest Volvo graveyard, found a place that would rent me a car on a Sunday, transferred all my junk from the car to his truck, drove me there, transferred all my stuff again, and waited with me until the rental paperwork was complete.
Once I had the rental car, I drove on to my parents' place in Kemptville like a paranoid little old lady. It took a long, long time...but it was great to get there. Now we're working on arrangements to collect the last few bits of salvage from the car, have the insurance claims adjustor view the damage, and get me and the boys down to Brooklyn where we belong.
And we're probably going to be in the market for a new (used) car again sometime soon.
The car is probably totalled. I have superficial facial lacerations caused by the airbag, which essentially punched me in the chin, and bruising across the chest where the shoulder strap caught me, but I walked away from the accident. AJ was completely unharmed.
Deo gratias.
The paramedics and OPP were very kind, and Mike, the tow truck driver, was one of the world's truly great people. He saw to it that we were warm and safe in the cab, gave me a wet cloth to clean up my face, found my mangled glasses, got us and the car to the nearest Volvo graveyard, found a place that would rent me a car on a Sunday, transferred all my junk from the car to his truck, drove me there, transferred all my stuff again, and waited with me until the rental paperwork was complete.
Once I had the rental car, I drove on to my parents' place in Kemptville like a paranoid little old lady. It took a long, long time...but it was great to get there. Now we're working on arrangements to collect the last few bits of salvage from the car, have the insurance claims adjustor view the damage, and get me and the boys down to Brooklyn where we belong.
And we're probably going to be in the market for a new (used) car again sometime soon.
