Lousy, lousy, lousy Bell

I suppose I should have expected it, since it's been some time since I've had any significant problems with Bell Canada service.  A while back, after numerous significantly frustrating ordeals, I gave up on them and switched over to Rogers for a year, but after the initial offer from them was up, Bell offered me a deal on phone and internet service which was too good to pass up, plus it didn't come with any contractual obligations.  And I have to admit - for the last year or so, I haven't had any major complaints.  In fact, if I ever needed to contact them, it seems they have rearranged their customer service department so you can actually talk to a real person (not Emily) within a reasonable amount of time who usually speaks decent English and doesn't sit at a desk halfway around the world. 
After today, though, I realized that Bell has not given up on its infamously and unacceptably lousy customer service, and is in fact working hard on stacking blocks onto its monumental tower of stupidity.  I called them earlier this week to arrange the moving of our telephone and internet service to the new house, which I asked to be set up for June 21.  This call took almost an HOUR to complete, with both kids screaming in the background at various times.  Glad to have that phone call out of the way, I started working on the rest of my infinitely long to-do list.  This morning, I tried to make a phone call and it didn't seem to go through - I assumed it was a bad number and didn't think anything more of it until later in the morning when the internet stopped working.  Strange... I went downstairs to reset the modem.  On my way back upstairs, I realized with a foreboding feeling that today was May 21...exactly one month before June 21... I'll bet that Bell tried to move our phone line today instead of next month. I had received a confirmation email about the moving of service, and it was definitely set up for June 21 but you never know what kind of mistakes this company is capable of. 
Sure enough, after calling Bell on the cell phone (which we reserve for emergencies) and having a quick chat with Emily, she confirmed that our service move was in progress and she assured me service would be up and running - at the new address - by 5 pm.  I got a hold of a customer service person and explained the situation - she apologized and promised that service would be restored to our current address within two hours.  Four hours later, service still wasn't back so I called again - and I was assured it would be restored by 5:00.  Guess what - at 5:00 it still didn't work!!  I called them from ZELLERS and chewed them out (the second time I called, anyways, since the first time I called I was hung up on), demanding that someone come and give me back my phone line TONIGHT, because I do not want to have no phone over a long weekend!  He told me that the phone service was working at my house and since I was at Zellers, since my phone didn't work at home, I couldn't very well check it, could I.  I told him to have someone give me a call at 9:00 to confirm it was working.  Aaaaand once I returned home, guess what, the phone still didn't work.  Surprise.  However, there was a dial tone at the NEW house so I guess Mike will be getting a call there at 9:00 (he's doing some work there this evening).  How stupid can you get??  Yes, we might have possession of the house already but what if we didn't?  Bell would have directed all our phone calls to someone else's house.  They'd better restore my phone service VERY soon, because this is just infuriating me!! 

UPDATE:  Although the phone is still not hooked up here and we have no dial tone, for some odd reason the internet has started working again... if you have a hard time getting a hold of us this might be why...  In the meantime I still have to figure out where I should go to use the phone to chew someone out over there at Bell...

Another Garbage Truck Day

Seeing as today is garbage truck day, the kids are both quite pumped to see the regular fleet of garbage trucks pass by the house.  Because our house is situated across the street from and near the corner of a park, we are in a unique location to see each garbage truck at least three times - adding up to 9 or more trucks passing by.  How could life get any more exciting?  The unfortunate thing about this day is that the trucks tend to come by right around when the kids are eating breakfast - and stuck in their chairs.  All through the winter I've either waited to give them something to eat, or let them out of their chairs when a truck was coming.  This morning, I made a perfect compromise:  I hauled their chairs into the sunroom so they could eat in there - breakfast AND garbage trucks.  Fantastic. 

Feeding them in there also afforded me a new view of our neighbourhood.  All those times that we've heard the train whistles from the tracks at the end of the street?  When Peter tells me that he hears the train and "look Mommy, train!" I've agreed with him but never really looked all that hard.  I discovered this morning (after almost four years of living here) that you can, indeed, see the train if you are sitting in the right spot. 
I've also learned this morning that "Loads of Raisins Raisin Bran" is not the most time-efficient breakfast for my dear oldest son.  "Look, Mommy, I found a raisin!".... "Look, Mommy, I found another raisin!!".... and every raisin discovery demands a response from Mom.... I think maybe we'll stick with Cheerios, lol....

New House!

May the fourth be with you!  (two days ago)  I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about blog posts the last little while as the closing date for our new house came closer and closer - and finally arrived on Tuesday.  It was originally suggested to have May 5 as the closing date, but we changed it to the day before, to take advantage of the Star Wars reference... not that either of us are Star Wars junkies by any definition (I think I may have watched all episodes once, can't say what Mike's watched but I definitely know he isn't a die-hard fan).  Just a quirky choice of date I suppose.
So, after a couple of busy, slightly stressful weeks of getting all the proper paperwork in order, we were finally able to pick up the keys on Tuesday at noon.  We've been doing some cleaning, painting, and decision making, and although there is a lot of work yet to do before it feels like "home", we are very excited!  I haven't posted pictures of the house yet, so here are a few...enjoy!   

A Year of Growing

I try to be consistent with taking photos of the boys as they are growing, and at various stages in their lives.  It can be too easy to put the camera on a shelf and forget to capture certain moments during a busy day, but once these moments are gone, you can't get them back.  I'm sure the number of photos will decrease as the number of kids increases, but I will try my best to keep up with the picture-taking as life gets busier.  I have been working on an on-going project since Peter was born, and since I've just completed Year One for both kids, I thought I'd post my comparisons up now... kind of as a public incentive  to tie me to my responsibility to continue this project for the rest of our kids in the years to come!

0 Months!  Just Born

5 Days

6 Weeks

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

7.5 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

11.5 Months

 12 Months!  Happy Birthday Boys!