holy cow

this back to work stuff is really cutting into my blogging time. There's lots going on, teaching grad 7 and a little bit of grade 6, the drama that goes along with that, and trust me, there is drama. I was actually a little suprised to find out that there is drama at every grade level. I have duty outside with the primary (k, 1, 2) kids twice a week and it's mostly swing pushing and shoe tying and door opening so they can go pee, but there's a lot of "I wanted to play with Ashley and Carson told Ashley not to play with me because he said I was mean to him yesterday and but I WASN'T mean to him yesterday and but Ashley won't play with me!" and then tears and then me trying to explain that it's not really fun to play with people who don't want to play with you anyway, so why not find something else to do? The grad 6/7 drama is much more direct, girls being bitchy and boys being jerks and wanting to beat each other up type stuff. The usual, you know.

Today the little girl decided she knew how to get out of her crib. She does, sort of, but not really, so her escape was really a matter (I think, I wasn't in there at the time) of her getting a leg up and over and then falling over the rail. It was quite a thump, and I briefly thought, oh, she's thrown her water cup out again (she throws it really hard, and the first couple of times I heard it I thought she had actually jumped out of bed), but then I thought wait, she doesn't have her water cup, so I went in and sure enough, baby's on the floor. I scooped her up, but she was already pretty ticked off at having been put in bed in the first place (naps are for suckers, right?) so she took a few minutes to calm down. le sigh. The boy continues to be generally charming and wonderful, but every now and then I do get the distinct urge to throw him out a window. Or at the very least lock him or myself in a room so that I can escape the crying and whining. I know it's payback, I was a whiny child, but that makes it no less irritating. I'm waiting for the logic to kick in so that when I say things like "if you ____ then _____" and then he does that thing so I do my thing he doesn't completely lose it, or he might even be able to regularly make the decision NOT to do the thing in the first place...but as I've mentioned I'm a teacher, and I'm not seeing a lot of logic and / or planning in any of the students I teach, so I'm not really hopeful it'll happen any time soon. Joys of parenting, yo!

We're in the midst of the whole H1N1 thing, we have a couple of cases at school, so a significant portion of parents are keeping their kids home so they'll be safe. Which would make sense if I thought for a minute that they were also keeping them out of like, WalMart, convenience stores, Sobey's, and all the other places where their kids are about 158 times more likely to catch something than at school, where we're all cleaned and disinfected and looked after in a semi-responsible way. Anyway. It makes teaching easier, except that the 1/4 - 1/3 of my class that is missing won't have learned any of this stuff, which is a giant pain in the ass. We're having a flu shot clinic at school on Wednesday afternoon, and I'm interested to see what that's going to do to the school. I'm really quite annoyed that I can't get the shot myself. I'm also annoyed that like, police officers and PRISONERS are annoyed that they can't get the shot, when people like teachers and pharmacists who are far, FAR more exposed to dirt, germs, and viruses than the average joe, are not being put in any "priority group". Miss Baby girl has to go this weekend and get part 2 of her shot, but apparently Mr Little Man doesn't need a 2nd dose. Let's hope that the powers that be have made that decision based on real data, not just based on the fact that they need more vaccine and don't have enough to give our little people their required part 2.

We went to Bangor for Thanksgiving weekend and did the bulk of our Christmas shopping for the kids, which is excellent. We have a closet now, a large closet under the stairs, that very much resembles Santa's freaking workshop, but it's all good. We went down with friends of ours, and took their van, and every inch of non-seating space was absolutely filled with stuff on the drive back. It was like a game of tetris trying to get everything in there, and in such a way that any abrupt stops or turns would not lead to someone's untimely demise. Death by play kitchen. Tragic. I have to stop buying things though. Having started so early is great, but now I keep seeing things and being like, one more thing, one more little toy, oh, look at that! wouldn't the baby / the boy just LOVE that? le sigh.

As a sidebar, I'm looking for a good book to tell the boy the story of why we actually have Christmas in the first place. We've told him, but he loves to read books, so if we had a good book that would be even better.

I bought the new mario Wii game, and should really either be playing that or going to bed, so I'm going to go maybe flip a coin and decide.

back by popular demand

here you go folks, the fall tv premieres! I know, it's exciting, right? It's my list, so I'll keep everyithing on it, but I'm crossing shit out and bolding the good stuff.

also, some stuff has already premiered, like Mad Men, so this is just the stuff that's starting after today. apparently nothing for a whole week, gasp! I do apologize that the channels are US, you'll have to do a little digging on your own to find out exactly where they'll be.

Tuesday, Sept. 8

90210, 8 p.m. (CW)
Melrose Place, 9 p.m. (CW)
Sons of Anarchy, 10 p.m. (FX)


Wednesday, Sept. 9

America's Next Top Model, 8 p.m. (CW) (I don't like reality shows. Sorry.)
Glee, 9 p.m. (Fox)
So You Think You Can Dance, 8 p.m. (Fox)


Thursday, Sept. 10

Supernatural, 9 p.m. (CW)
The Vampire Diaries, 8 p.m. (CW)


Friday, Sept. 11

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, 8 p.m. (Fox)


Saturday, Sept. 12

America's Most Wanted, 9 p.m. (Fox)
Cops, 8 p.m. (Fox)


Monday, Sept. 14

Gossip Girl, 9 p.m. (CW)
The Jay Leno Show, 10 p.m. (NBC)
Lincoln Heights, 8 p.m. (ABC Family)
One Tree Hill, 8 p.m. (CW)


Tuesday, Sept. 15

The Biggest Loser, 8 p.m. (NBC)


Wednesday, Sept. 16

The Beautiful Life, 9 p.m. (CW)


Thursday, Sept. 17

Bones, 8 p.m. (Fox)
Community, 9:30 p.m. (NBC)
Fringe, 9 p.m. (Fox)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 10 p.m. (FX)
The Office, 9 p.m. (NBC)
Parks and Recreation, 8:30 p.m. (NBC)
Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Survivor: Samoa, 8 p.m. (CBS)


Friday, Sept. 18

Crash, 10 p.m. (Starz)


Sunday, Sept. 20

Curb Your Enthusiasm, 9 p.m. (HBO)
Bored to Death, 9:30 p.m. (HBO)


Monday, Sept. 21

Accidentally on Purpose, 8:30 p.m. (CBS)
The Big Bang Theory, 9:30 p.m. (CBS)
Castle, 10 p.m. (ABC)
CSI: Miami, 10 p.m. (CBS) (for Jenn. xo)
Dancing With the Stars, 8 p.m. (ABC)
Heroes, 8 p.m. (NBC)
House, 8 p.m. (Fox)
How I Met Your Mother, 8 p.m. (CBS)
Two and a Half Men, 9 p.m. (CBS)


Tuesday, Sept. 22

The Forgotten, 10 p.m. (ABC)
The Good Wife, 10 p.m. (CBS)
NCIS, 8 p.m. (CBS)
NCIS: Los Angeles, 9 p.m. (CBS)


Wednesday, Sept. 23

Cougar Town, 9:30 p.m. (ABC) (seriously, this looks terrible)
Criminal Minds, 9 p.m. (CBS)
CSI: NY, 10 p.m. (CBS)
Eastwick, 10 p.m. (ABC)
Gary Unmarried, 8:30 p.m. (CBS)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, 9 p.m. (NBC)
Mercy, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Modern Family, 9 p.m. (ABC)
The New Adventures of Old Christine, 8 p.m. (CBS)


Thursday, Sept. 24

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, 9 p.m. (CBS)
Flash Forward, 8 p.m. (ABC)
Grey's Anatomy, 9 p.m. (ABC)(though I may not watch without George...)
The Mentalist, 10 p.m. (CBS)


Friday, Sept. 25

Brothers, 8 p.m. (Fox)
Dollhouse, 9 p.m. (Fox)
Ghost Whisperer, 8 p.m. (CBS)
Law & Order, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Medium, 9 p.m. (CBS)
Numb3rs, 10 p.m. (CBS)
Smallville, 8 p.m. (CW)


Saturday, Sept. 26

Saturday Night Live, 11:30 p.m. (NBC)


Sunday, Sept. 27

60 Minutes, 7 p.m. (CBS)
The Amazing Race, 8 p.m. (CBS)
American Dad, 9:30 p.m. (Fox)
Brothers & Sisters, 10 p.m. (ABC)
Californication, 10 p.m. (HBO)
The Cleveland Show, 8:30 p.m. (Fox)
Cold Case, 10 p.m. (CBS)
Desperate Housewives, 9 p.m. (ABC)
Dexter, 9 p.m. (HBO)
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, 7 p.m. (ABC)
Family Guy, 9 p.m. (Fox)
The Simpsons, 8 p.m. (Fox)


Monday, Sept. 28

Lie to Me, 9 p.m. (Fox)
Trauma, 9 p.m. (NBC) (going to give this one a try, because I miss ER)


Tuesday, Sept. 29

Hell's Kitchen, 8 p.m. (Fox)
Shark Tank, 8 p.m. (ABC)


Wednesday, Sept. 30

Hank, 8 p.m. (ABC)
The Middle, 8:30 pm. (ABC)


Thursday, Oct. 1

Private Practice, 10 p.m. (ABC) (gotta see how they get Violet out of that sticky situation)


Friday, Oct. 2

'Til Death, 8:30 p.m. (Fox)
Stargate Universe, 9 p.m. (Syfy)


Sunday, Oct. 4

America's Funniest Home Videos, 7 p.m (ABC) (this is still on? really?)
Three Rivers, 9 p.m. (CBS)


Monday, Oct. 5

Rita Rocks, 7:30 p.m. (Lifetime)
Sherri, 7 p.m. (Lifetime)


Tuesday, Oct. 6

Scare Tactics, 9 p.m. (Syfy)


Friday, Oct. 9

Sanctuary, 10 p.m. (Syfy)
Ugly Betty, 8 p.m. (ABC)


Thursday, Oct. 15

30 Rock, 9:30 p.m. (NBC)


Friday, Oct. 16

Supernanny, 8 p.m. (ABC)


Friday, Oct. 23

Southland, 9 p.m. (NBC)
White Collar, 10 p.m. (USA)


Tuesday, Nov. 3

V, 8 p.m. (ABC)


Saturday, Nov. 7

Legend of the Seeker (syndication)
The Wanda Sykes Show, 11 p.m. (Fox)

at the beach

at the cottage. Everyone was here yesterday, but Dad had to go back into town today for the night, so it's a girls (plus the boy) night, wooh! Right now though, the girl is napping, the boy is down at the beach with his grannie, my sister and her wee lass have gone for a drive to get some air conditioning and see if that makes wee lass feel a bit better, and I'm up here, all by myself. It's quite lovely. Quiet, breezy, nice. I'm going to lounge around and read a book I think. Should last at least another 5 minutes, I better take advantage!

quite something, really

I've been posting for 7 years on this site. It's moved around a bit, had different names, but 7 years nonetheless. And in that entire time, I've posted at least once a month save for 3 months. I find that very impressive. And I am not easily impressed.

That's not true, I'm actually really easily impressed. And amused. But I like that about myself, it keeps things interesting.

then again, maybe 4 is too young for team sports

I knew 3 was, which is why we didn't put the boy in soccer last summer, but all of his friends had played, so we decided he could this year. Or should, whatever. Anyway, he mostly had a great time running around "playing soccer", but the last few games he would get really sour when he didn't get the ball or didn't score a goal. We tried explaining to him that everybody is trying to get the ball, and it wouldn't be fun for anybody else if he always had the ball, that you have to take turns, blah blah blah, like reasoning with a piece of bacon, but to no avail. To the point last night, his last game of the season, which I had to bring little girl to because the man had to work late, where he got so upset about not having sole custody of the soccer ball that we got to the "either stop crying and go play with your friends, or we're going home to bed (a good hour earlier than usual)" stage. He opted to not go back out and play, so we did indeed come home and go to bed. He fell asleep almost immediately, as, thankfully, did the little lady, who almost always has a very hard time falling to sleep if we keep her up past 6-6:30. We're discovering, to no great surprise, that there is no reasoning with upset 4-year olds. It doesn't matter what you bribe or threaten him with, he just is upset and will continue to be that way generally until you just leave him alone and he calms down on his own. We're hoping this is a phase. It's a phase, right?

good heavens

June? Really? I'm sorry. It's not like I've been busy working or anything. The minutae of my daily grind just haven't inspired me to keep a journal, you know? July was absolutely gross, as far as "summer" weather goes. I don't think we had more than an hour of sunshine the whole month. The first day of summer was decidedly un-summery, and it continued from there. We've had a few nice days so far this month though, so hopefully it will keep up. Having said that though, the nights are quite cool already, and although the boy likes to keep us guessing as to what he'll be wearing to bed, going to bed in one set of jammies and getting up the next morning in another, or in underwear...the girl has made the move to long sleeves and legs. Not of her own wishes, clearly, she still doesn't have much say in the matter. I tried to let her pick out of the drawer a few times, but she really doesn't have a firm grasp on the type of jammies vs type of weather correlation, so it doesn't generally go well. We're not to the flannels yet, but we're out of the cute little shorts and t-shirts. Silly girl won't wear a blanket, so we have to dress her a little warmly.

We've been to the cottage a couple of times, the man has been quite busy with his course and with work, so we took off for the better part of a week and left him here. I think he didn't really mind too much, and despite the weather not being terribly welcoming, we had a lovely time. We all went for the long weekend, as did my sister and her man and their new sweet baby girl, and it was LOVELY weather, and the baby was relatively cooperative, as far as 4 week old babies go, and we got some very nice family pics taken by our cottage neighbour. All in all a good time! We made ice cream for mom's birthday (belated) but our technique was not well thought out, so we ended up with nice chocolate ice cream with great giant gobs of (natural) peanut butter, rendering it slightly inedible. Tasty, but difficult to manage. We'll try again, I'm sure. I actually haven't made ice cream since the delish peanut butter stuff, and that was probably 2 months ago, so I'm due for some new I'd say. The man and the boy only ever want mint chocolate chip, the boy actually prefering his without the chips, so that gets a bit boring. I like mine with about as much excitement as possible, but then I'm the only one who will eat it.

Hmm. I can't even remember, did I tell you about my job for the fall? Yes, I did. Ok. I just finised up the training for the French part, and was quite impressed with how well I was able to understand and speak the language, having been quite out of practise these past 5 years or so. Like riding a bike! I think teaching French this new way is going to be really good, much easier than drilling lists of vocab and grammar, and probably more enjoyable for the kids. People who have been teaching for years though are having a bit of a time adjusting to the new way. It's very logical, did you learn your first language with grammar drills and vocabulary lists? Likely no. But you learned, and learned pretty well. So why not apply that same learning style to 2nd languages? It seems to work. People hate change though, is the thing. Not change for me, I've never taught that way, so I'm a happy camper! I've also found someone to look after my sweet offspring, which is nice, but I'm still not at all looking forward to that part. She's a lovely woman, she came recommended by several people I work with, she even has kids the same age as mine, and a swingset, but the boy at first refused to get out of the car the first time we went, and the girl cries just about every time I leave the room, if there's anyone in that room who she's not intimately acquainted with, so the first couple of weeks should be just wonderful. I'm going to bring them for a couple of hours here and there before I go back full time, hopefully that will help. I know we've done it before, and at least the kids will get to be together, but it just still really sucks.

The man is taking vacation the last week of August, he'll be finished his course and I won't be back to work yet, so we'll try to make some great plans for that time. Camping, maybe? I think that would be better for the men / boy folk than for me / the girl, but we'll see what happens. Maybe we'll drop the kids off somewhere and have a night to ourselves for the first time in...a really long time. Endless possibilities. Endless.

I painted a mural from the Curious George movie on the playroom wall. It's pretty cute, it's from the part where George gets into the lady's apartment and she's having it painted, so there are all these open cans of paint lying around. That's just asking for trouble, if you ask me. Anyway, George takes it as an invitation, and paints a jungle scene with palm trees and giraffes and whatnot all over the walls. He also paints himself and the man in the yellow hat, but I didn't do that part. The boy likes the mural, but did point out that we were missing those 2 key things. I told him we didn't do the *whole* thing, just a part, so hopefully he'll let me not paint that part. Memory like a steel trap, that one. It's going to serve him well I'm sure, but for now it's a pain, because you can't get away with anything. My memory is terrible, so he definitely got that from the man.

As usually happens when I sit down to do something, the little lady is waking up, so I should probably go get her. She's likely soiled herself, it seems to be her favourite way to wake herself up from naps. I'd choose something else, but to each her own.

just the one time, ha

yeah, so I haven't been running since then. Whatter ya gonna do, hey? It just isn't meant to be. Or I hate waking up early, and just don't have time to go in the evenings, since the man is much more committed to his workout routines, and that's when he goes. I did get a really good start with the wii Active, which I do recommend, I think. I got about halfway through the 30 day challenge, and was doing well. It's a good little workout, and you can personalise it to be low, medium, or high intensity. Anyway. My knees started giving me grief. I'm not sure if it was because of the running on the spot or the masses of lunges and squats (all of which is being done in my basement, which is carpeted but not so much padded over the concrete floor), but something was causing my knees to object rather forcefully. So I took a break, and now I have a wicked cold / flu, and now it's been...I think 5 days since I worked out last. I did buy some big foam mats though, and I think I'll skip the running on the spot parts (you can do that, it shows you what your workout consists of, and if there's something really objectionable there you can say hells no) and see how that goes when I do the rest on some padding. I'll let you know. Maybe I'll actually start going for real runs! My sister gave me 2 mp3 players, so I don't have to share with the man anymore, which will be lovely because our tastes in music are...different. Especially for working out. He's all like, heavy, hockey warm up AC/DC type stuff, and I'm more like Fergilicious / Mariah Carey / I know it's terrible but it's peppy type stuff.

Anyway. I have a job for next year, teaching mostly French, English, and Math. They are all new programs, and all likely require a lot of prep, so that should be fun! I have to go for training for the French, it's the (relatively) new Post-Intensive French, so these 7s will be the first to have this grade 7 portion of it. They'll be my homeroom, and they're the bunch that were in the classroom beside mine when I was teaching last year, so that's fun. I'm looking forward to all of it though, I'm theoretically an English teacher, so it's nice to be getting back to that. I was always actually better at math than English, I just couldn't see myself doing math for the rest of my life (a la the man and sister) so I opted for English teacher instead. The French, will be kind of an adventure, I think. 4 days of training, here in town, which is excellent because the initial Intensive French program training was in Shippegan. I've never been there, but...yeah. I'm glad it's here. I also could have gone to Moncton, which is more fun and better shopping, but that would have required nights away from both kids and way more planning.

Apparently we're going to watch a movie, one of 3 very manly ones that the man has picked out. I told him I don't want to watch any of them so I don't know which one we're getting.

adventures in family bike riding

The boy is now officially proficient in riding his bicycle without training wheels.  of course, the 3 times he's fallen off, he's cried like a wee lass and protested that he needs his training wheels back on, but I just remind him that he sometimes falls down when standing still, so putting the training wheels back on may or may not be the solution.  Anyway.  This theoretically allows us more biking freedom, he can go faster, and more quietly, and can now go on the walking trails, where the extra wheels before might have made it tricky with the gravel and whatnot.  Anyway.  There is a school about 2.5km from our house which has a playground.  I'm thinking it's a bit far, but we'll take our time.  I have to convince myself of this, because I mentioned it offhand to the boy and he was like, let's do it, whee, park!  So we start out, I was planning to be out for maybe half an hour, but then the idea of the park came up, so he wouldn't turn back.  Let me tell you, it was a lesson in patience.  And balance.  The baby in the seat on the back of my bike sort of throws off the centre of gravity, and adds a new element to the bike ride.  Along with the new element of biking with a 4 year old who needs to stop for rests roughly every 30 feet.  I tried to explain to him that it's probably harder to stop and start and stop and start up again than it is to just keep going for a bit longer, but he's got the logic of...well...a 4 year old, so that didn't really jive with him.  Anyway.  We made it to the park, but it took us forEVer to get home.  The baby needed a nap, so she got pretty angry at the playground when I wouldn't let her go down the slides headfirst by herself.  I know, I'm no fun.  She's quite independent when it comes to everything but walking, so it was sort of her way or the highway.  The only time she gets angry is when she's tired, so we had to pack it all in and come home for a nap.  We were gone over 2 hours, and we were probably at the park for about 15 minutes.  That's a lot of biking.  And stopping and starting.  And "come on buddy, let's see if we can make it to the bench / garbage can / stop sign / dead tree without stopping!"ing.  I'm on kijiji right now to see about one of those wee ride back of your bike attachment things for longer bike rides.  I'd hook that on the man's bike, of course.  

Anyway.  Damn, I'm tired.  

Also, I went for about a 2k run last night, without stopping.  When I figured out how far I had gone, I was really impressed with myself.  I credit the rower, it must actually be doing something for me.  I had to stop for the painful breathing before I had to stop for the cramp in my side, so that was good too, I think.  I'll keep trying it.  I heard a rumour too that I may be inheriting an mp3 player, and not have to share with the man and get the odd like, Cyprus Hill song in the middle of my Mariah Carey / Fergie / Joel Plaskett / Rihanna mix.  Anyway, on the way back I mostly walked but did run some.  I should have just turned around and not stopped, because it was only after I got going again that I had a cramp.  Live and learn.  I'm going to bring the man's watch next time too and try to do that run 9 walk 1 or something.   

Wish me luck!

good day

The man has been away this week, but should be home around 3am. Awesome! Anyway, hanging out with 2 kids all day with no grown-up time at the end of the day for conversation or help with the aforementioned kids is...tiring. Makes days long. But today, day 4 of just us, was a really good day. Started out ominously, with the little one pooping herself awake after only about 20 minutes of nap, after having been awake since 5am. We went for a bike ride, but didn't get far, as I was biking with the babe on my bike, and the boy was biking in front of me, stopping or slowing down every 32 seconds for one reason or another. For example:
- why did you stop?

- I drove through a puddle.

- so did I.  why did you stop?

- I got mud on my tire.  see?  there.

- it's a tire.  it's allowed to have mud on it. let's go.

- my legs are sore though. (this after roughly 0.02km of biking)

- turn around.  turn around now, we're going home.

We made it through lunch, and a trip to Superstore.  We went for a wagon ride (that thing is HEAVY to pull up hill when full of kid, FYI) and then the baby ate some sidewalk chalk while the boy and I scribbled.  She finally got cranky and agreed to go for a nap.  This allowed the boy and I to hang out one-on-one, which we don't really get to do much of.  We took the training wheels off his bike and I chased him around for an hour.   He had so much fun; it was great.  Quite tiring, but great.   He then helped me write his name on the sidewalk, and then every other name of family members he knows.  No big fights, everyone ate supper without complaining.  The girl actualy, possibly, ate as much as I did.  Definitely more than the boy. Now I'm just hanging out, waiting for the Office to start, debating how much snacking my mom-workout entitles me to. Thursdays are my snacking night, moreso than others, because usually the best tv is on. Since the ER finale though, there's been not much going on. I may just go play mariokart, who knows. 

I've only got 3 grand prix races left that I haven't won gold in.  You're impressed, I can tell.  I haven't gotten the requisite 1 gold star ranking which unlocks all kinds of goodies, but I have gotten some new characters and vehicles for winning trophies, so that's something.

either way, I'm out.

something has to go

I think maybe Facebook. I'm getting a bit over it, you know? I've become sort of dependent on it, I'm constantly checking for updates and comments and notifications, but it's mostly become a collection of status updates, random photos from people I'm really not that close to, and quiz results. My god, the quiz results. That combined with the fact that they apparently want to own any pictures I post makes me pretty ready to let go. Or at least cut back. I'm working on it.

We just finished Easter, and are having supper tonight with my sister and her husband. We're making supper, she's making dessert. Excellent. I may make some easter bunny caramel chocolate apples later. We saw them at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and they were super cute, but they were $12 each. That's a bit foolish, isn't it? For an apple dipped in caramel and chocolate? Maybe not.

Anyway, Easter. My sweet girl was marginally impressed by her basket, it had some empty plastic eggs in it, which are her favourite toy lately, so she liked that. Also a fluffy chick toy that makes chick noises, which in retrospect may have been a bad idea. The boy got 3 new Spiderman toys and some goodies, and when he had found everything he was like, is that it? I near slapped him, but managed to restrain myself. THIS is what happens when you constantly buy small children things, they have absolutely no appreciation for what they do get. I hope now this is clear to ... other people in his family.

In other news...my leave is almost technically over but I have nowhere to go, so I'll just be broke / unemployed for the summer. If you have some odd jobs or anything, let me know. Ha. Really though. I'm working on a little something, I'll let you know how it pans out.

I'm also looking for a new program / app to display my photos. I use Simpleviewer, and it's pretty good, but there might be something even better out there, right? I'm going to experiment with the Picasa version too, and see which turns out prettier. I've gotten so used to just popping them up onto Facebook, that I really want to keep doing more than one album every other month or so on the kids' page, but it's a lot more work. Any ideas?

My children are being cute, and the little one needs a nap, so I'd best be off. I'll try to come back before 2 months have gone by. I had a really good record going, at least one post a month, but I've really slacked off lately.

quite possibly the longest hiatus ever

Sorry, loyal reader. Not that I've been depriving you of much really, we had a lovely Christmas, save for the storm that prevented my dad from coming up Christmas eve, and the power outage that made us drive the turkey all over hell's half acre...or at least the city, trying to figure out a way to cook it. It was just perfect, the way I'd imagined our first family Christmas at home to be. Presents were a hit though, with my BatCave coming in pretty high on the list for the boy. The girl really didn't care, she mostly wanted to eat the paper and sit in the boxes, but she has played with everything now and seems to like it all, so that's good. The big people seemed satisfied with their gifts too, myself included. I got a few little things, a new Mexican cookbook that I still have to try out, we need some ingredients....and a family ring from the man, which is lovely. Our birthday months are complementary, September, July, and April for both kids. Slightly American patriotic, but since we are on the ends and the kids are in the middle, it's not.

I feel like I'm being a bit repetitive, since I am a bit obsessive about updating my Facebook status, so most of you probably know all of this already.

Since Christmas, we really haven't been up to much. Finally have gotten the girl sleeping through the night most nights again, which is nice for everyone. Part of the battle is that she has to be in bed by 6:30 at the latest, or she's up all night. Now if I could just get her to not be so awake and chipper at 6:30am, we'd be set. There's a big winterfest thing here next weekend, so I'm looking forward to taking the boy to that. The girl's a bit young yet, but she can come watch I guess! The boy's social calendar is more fun than mine, he's got 2 birthday parties to attend in the next couple of weeks. We haven't done too badly though, we went to see Frost/Nixon, which was *way* better than I thought it would be. The man forced me to go, and I was anticipating being bored, but I should have known better than that I guess. Also, Empire is giving away free popcorn on Mon-Thurs nights. How could it get better?

I've been crafting, making fleece hats and such for a few people, and I knitted a sweater for the girl. It's quite big, 12 month size but apparently sweater sizes are different from like, every other thing sizes, so it'll probably fit her in the fall. I've made her a few pairs of leggings too, out of women's knee socks. Very cute, and very useful this time of year. Keeps her warmer without making another layer to fight with at diaper changes. If you want, you can buy me some cool knee socks, and I'll make you some baby leggings out of them. Or you can buy me some and I'll make some for the girl. Either way. We like gifts.

My plans for the next little while include trying to save some money so that when my mat leave runs out in May and there's no job to go to, I'll have some way to pay bills for the following 4 months. Sounds fun, yes? I've been trying to do that the whole time, but it's rough going. Life is expensive.

Anyhoo, that's a remarkable amount of typing for now, I've been taking breaks to like, put babies to nap and help small boys play games, so I think I should publish this before Vista crashes my computer for fun, as it tends to.

holy hell, batman

and I feel totally justified in using the batman line, because the boy is slightly obsessed with all things superhero. I just realized that there are only 6 days until Christmas. In 6 days, we'll be done with presents and almost eating a giant turkey with all the trimmings. Mmm, stuffing and gravy....

I'm basically done, I just have one more thing to get for the man. We realized today that we had forgotten about Santa bringing the wee lass a present, and had wrapped and placed under the tree all the non-Santa gifts. We will now have to either unwrap and set out on Christmas eve a gift that's already under there, or "borrow" a Santa gift from somebody else. See, Santa apparently doesn't wrap gifts, he just sets them out under the tree. That's how it was for the man, and it seems like less work for me, so I'm for it. He also brings stockings, and for me he would put them on the end of our beds. This helped to keep us in bed an extra 10 minutes in the morning, so I think I'll try that too. We've explained to the boy that since the girl is so little, she really doesn't need much, and also wasn't able to ask for anything, so Santa will just pick a couple of things that he thinks she'll like, and bring those. He'll get more for this year. I feel a little guilty about it, but she is not going to have any idea, and the things that we got for the boy at this age, we still have, so we just couldn't think of anything that was a "big" gift for her that a) she doesn't already have or b) somebody else hadn't already gotten her.

Ok. I should go hang out with my children now, and make supper and such! The girl just woke up, and the boy spent about half an hour while I sewed gifts playing on the Fisher Price website. It's linked over yonder now, and has loads of cute online games for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. For free, most importantly. He knows how to use the mouse now, so that's opened up a world of non-mom-led entertainment options!

ready?

not even a little. Well, ok, maybe a little, but definitely not entirely. I haven't even made my scotch cakes yet, although we did make some pretty fine gingerbread men last week. We've got the kid big presents taken care of, but might need a few last minute stocking stuffers. Not sure about a stocking for the wee girl, she's so little she won't notice, but the little boy might. We told him already that she won't get as many gifts from Santa as he will because she's to little and doesn't need as much, and she couldn't tell Santa what she wanted, so he'll just guess a couple of things. Dear husband has told me he'd like a book and a case of beer, so that's pretty helpful. Not really thoughtful gifts, so I'm trying to think of a couple of other things to get too.

I've made a couple of gifts for baby-friends / friends' babies. I'm at the point where I don't exchange gifts with friends so much anymore, but with their children. That's fine with me! I plan to make the baby girl a doll, since I can not find one that is soft bodied / headed and has a nice face. That might not make it for Christmas, we'll see.

The boy continues to astound me with his language and thinking. He's started saying his Rs properly, which is a pretty big step since his name HAS an R in it, and he can now say it the way we meant it to be said. Other little words have started to become clearer, where I'll just be like, hey, he just said "again" instead of "ah-den". Nice! We were driving the other day and a car passed us. He couldn't see the driver, so he said "Mom! There's no driver in that car!" I said wow but, I wonder how that works? He didn't say much for a second, and then said, "maybe it's a transformer?" I said, maybe bud, that would explain it!

We lost one of our cats, Mort, a couple of weeks ago. He's very missed, not least by George, who is SO LONELY he just wanders around and meows the entire time he's not sleeping. The other day he walked by the boy, who petted him and said, "it's ok George, you're sad. Morty is not here now."

Sweet boy.

Anyway, I'm going to go hang with the boy while the girl sleeps. We ALL slept ALL NIGHT last night, it was fantastic. I woke up to the wee girl chattering in her room, and when I looked at the time, (I had to check, cause it's so GD dark all the time) it was 7. Beautiful.

the mind of a 3.5 year old

I swear, if anyone actually understood how that works, they'd be a fricking billionaire. Cause mostly everyone is going to have to deal with a 3.5 year old at some point in their life, and it is not easy going, let me tell you. We just came from returning (tried to exchange for a bigger size, but there wasn't one) a snowsuit at Co Op. I'm not a member, so all I could do was the exchange, and I had told the boy that before going. We weren't buying any treats or toys, just looking for a snowsuit. He doesn't listen so well. Anyway, cut to him screaming like a crazy person because I can't / won't buy him a Batman toy and me trying to wrestle him and the wee girl (who is just staring at him, and at me, like, mom, wtf? and looking like she should start crying too out of moral support for the boy or because she's kind of scared) out of the store into the car, which involves first releasing his death grip on the mini shopping cart he's pushing around and then getting him into the car while holding the girl, which I had almost accomplished (I had just planned to stick him in the car and close the door, go around and buckle the girl in, and then come back and buckle him in) when one of the lovely ladies at Coop came out to help me, and held the girl for me while I wrestled with the boy who was fighting with his impressive, especially for a 3.5 year old, strength to prevent me from even sitting him in the seat, let alone buckle the straps.

Good times.

He fell asleep on the way home, exhausted from his tirade, so I did make good on my promise that he was going to his room until his father got home once we made it home, but it just didn't have the same impact since he was unconscious at the time, and will probably sleep until the man gets home anyway. I'm sure as shit not waking him up.

whaaaaaaat?

I'm teaching the boy to say that, cause it's funny.

I just had to tell you all about my having too much poop experience yesterday. We went to the park by my parents' house. Playground, I guess. Regardless, we went. I brought a towel because it had rained so the equipment was all wet. So, we get there, I dry off the swing and a slide, and I go up to the top of the bigger slide to dry it off (by which I mean put the towel down and make the boy slide down on it) and there is a big chunk of mud right where you would sit. I try to slide it off with my shoe and discover 2 things. 1 - it is really stuck on there. someone has squished it down to make it hard to clean. 2 - it is poo, not mud. So, now I'm having a whole range of emotions. I'm grossed out, because there is poo on my shoe. I'm angry and disgusted that someone would go to the effort of putting poo at the top of a children's slide. I'm annoyed because I can't in good conscience leave it here now that I've found it, both because the boy really wants to go down the big twisty slide, and because it's just going to be some other poor parent who comes across it and has to either a) clean it up or b) discover it too late on their kids pants and then in all liklihood have to throw away / burn those clothes, because it's one thing if your kid gets their own poo on them, but if it's *stranger* poo, that's just sick and nobody wants to deal with that. So I went to the car and got wipes and a little baggie to put the wipes in, and found a good stick to scrape off the majority of it. Totally disgusting. So then later, I'm at Sobey's waiting for my mom to come out, cause the little girl fell asleep in the car, and a bird craps on my windshield, bigtime. It went on the front windshield and my window. Scared me! And was gross. But then it started raining really hard, so that was ok.

That's my crappy day!

oh, right, the elections

We fared not well, I have to say. I can't blame people, I guess, for not voting Dion in, but it's just disappointing, to say the least, to have all that money gone for no reason. Maybe next time the NDP will win! Here's hoping.

At least the Americans finally figured out that things are just NOT working, and made a change for the better. I'm excited for that, and interested to see what happens from here.

for you, my one reader

there may be 2, or even 3, but I'd be surprised if there were more. What's new, you ask? Well, there's a reason I haven't been posting. Nothing's going on. I'm home with my lovely children, and we do not very exciting things. We play outside a lot, unless it rains for 5 days straight like it did last weekend (I wasn't sure we were going to survive that one, seriously), we go for bike rides and we get the mail and say hi to "the ladies" who have home daycares in my neighbourhood who are out walking their kids around. The little girl still (usually) has 2 pretty good naps a day, one mid morning and one mid afternoon. She's on to semi-real food, baby cereal, purees and whatnot. I get to start yogurt and more real food soon, so that should be fun. More fun than pureed squash and peas, I'll tell you that much. It's hard to feign enthusiasm for that kind of stuff, because it's disgusting. I've even made my own pureed veggies and beef, which the girl is *not* a fan of. The beef. She likes the veg, and I've discovered I can mix just about anything with sweet potato and it'll be ok. She's funny, if she doesn't like something she spits most of it out and makes a terrible face, but then looks at me like, come on, that's gross, what are you trying to do here? If she really does like something, she gets really excited and wiggles and her feet start going. Babies are so easy.

The little boy is doing well. Despite my best efforts to fatten him up (ok, not really, but I do wish he'd hit the 40lb mark soon) he is still like 36lbs and thus in a giant car seat. He's tall enough, but not heavy enough. This means that I have both giant car seats in my car, as the little girl is now too big for her infant seat. This isn't so bad, except that any time we have to go somewhere all together, we take my car. And if the man wants to go somewhere with just the boy, like skating on Sunday afternoons, then he either takes my car and I'm stuck home, or we (I) have to switch the seat to his car and then remember to switch it back before Monday morning when he leaves for work or I'm stuck home for the day. It's just not worth buying another car seat for the few months left until the boy is big enough for a booster, but it sure would be handy. Anyway. Other than that, he's mostly delightful, in his 3.5 year old way. He still loves to snuggle, loves to play and run around, watch movies, and dress up as Spiderman, Indy, Woody, or Superman. He'd be Batman too, but we don't have that costume yet, so he has to pretend a little harder for that one. He loves to love the little girl, and so wants her to just sit with him, watch a movie or whatever. She'll sit with him for a bit, cause she finds him entertaining for some reason, but she's not into tv (which isn't a bad thing, but the little boy has been from about birth, so it's different) and he doesn't understand why she doesn't want to watch Blues Clues or whatever with him. He cries way more than she does, she can go for days without crying at all. He is at that super fun age where he knows what he wants, and he wants it now, whether it be Halloween candy for breakfast or 11 stories at bedtime or to go see his friend next door at 6:30am or at bedtime. There is no logic or reasoning with a 3 year old, so it's largely frustrating for everyone involved at times.

I'm doing pretty well too, thanks for asking. I do enjoy being home, but I think I have to start getting out of the house by myself on more than a monthly basis. The man is still a bit wary of staying home with the 2 when they're awake, so that puts a crimp in my plans. I have one friend who's on leave, but we both have 2 kids, so we don't actually manage to cross paths very often. She's going back to work after Christmas, so I'll be on my own until summer when the rest of my teacher friends will be around. I've given very brief thought to going back early (if there were a job), but I think it would stress me out too much to be away from the 2 of them when the little girl is still so little. If a really good job came my way, I'd give it more serious thought, but for now there's nothing that tempting.

I've clearly been typing long enough, because I can hear the little girl on the monitor, muttering and rolling around. It's nice to not wake up crying, don't you think? She'll just babble and talk to herself for a while, and get gradually louder until someone goes up to get her.

GO VOTE, CANADA!

How to vote in the upcoming federal election. How to *register* to vote in the upcoming federal election.

Ok. If you haven't gotten your little beige and maroon card in the mail yet, or if it's not the right information, then here's what you need to do. It's not complicated, I promise. But you need to do it before next Tuesday (October 7) at 6pm. Especially if you're wanting to vote by mail or something else crazy. You can actually register and vote at the poll, but why not just go ahead and get the registration taken care of now, and then you're all set to go.

You can call from Canada or the US: 1-800-463-6868
You can call, even if you're in Mexico: 001-800-514-6868
You can call from other places, but it'll cost ya: 613-993-2975
You can call if you need a fancy TTY phone: 1-800-361-8935

You can write, but that will take a long time: 257 Slater St, Ottawa ON, K1A 0M6

You can fax, but I don't know what exactly you would send. Proof of your ID and address I imagine: 1-888-524-1444

There's more info on the website, but it does not appear that you can register online just yet.

I'm almost done here.

When you go vote, and you can still register then, remember, you will need to bring some ID with you. You have 3 options for this.

1) one original, government issued ID with your photo, name and address (drivers license)
2) two pieces of identification with your name and address on them (health card and power bill, for example)
3) you can swear on a stack of bibles and be witnessed by somebody who IS registered in the same polling division and who has proper ID with them. seriously, that's an option.

Ok? So, go register, go vote, if you need more info call one of the numbers or go to Elections Canada site and have a look around.

It'll only take a few minutes out of your day, and then you can carry on with your plans of going for ice cream, or coffee, or groceries, or whatever. Voting day is October 14. Do it. DO it.

And watch this video.

GO VOTE, AMERICA!

but first you have to register. Please, if you have a website, post this link. If you have friends, tell them to register. You tell 5 people, they each tell 5 people, you get the idea.

Just go to this website: www.maps.google.com/vote

As Sarah Silverman says on the ad, you can literally like, do it while you're pooping. If you have a laptop.

Also, you can tell them to watch this video.

That's it for now. I know it seems I'm more interested in the US elections than the Canadian, and I'm not, but there are a lot more people there than here, so I need to keep like, mentioning it. Now I'm going to find out how to get all signed up here in Canada, and post that info!

as much for me as you

I have added a link to the fall premieres on the sidebar over to the left there. It's important to me to know when my shows are on. I've also watched the first episode of True Blood, which airs Sundays at 9eastern, and is pretty sweet. It's on the movie network here, so you'll have to subscribe. You also get Californication and Dexter, so that alone makes it worth the extra $$.