Riding in a handbasket

Ouch

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:28:08 PST

The other day Hana mentioned to me that she likes listening in on the conversations Ed and I have sometimes, just to hear what grown-ups talk about.

"Is that because we're smart and interesting?" I asked.

"No!" she said. Then she paused. "Well, Daddy's smart."

"Gee thanks, Hana."

"Daddy's smart, but you're funny."

"Oh, I'm funny, am I? Well I guess that's something..."

Hana pauses and looks thoughtful for a moment. "Actually, Daddy can be pretty funny, too."

Great.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A couple of days later, while driving Jamie to daycare, he started to ask me how car engines work. I started to provide him with my limited knowledge of the subject, then realized I didn't really know the details. "You should probably ask your Dad about this," I said, thinking back to my earlier conversation with Hana. "He knows more about engines than I do."

"You know about other stuff."

"Yes!" I said enthusiastically, pleased that this kid was at least acknowledging that there are things I know about. I'm smart about different stuff!

"Daddy knows about engines, but you know about killing zombies."

"Um, yah..."

"Daddy doesn't really know much about killing zombies. That's what you know, Mom."

We all have our talents.

Pajama Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:13:49 PST

Today is pajama day at Hana's school, so she went off on the bus today wearing her PJs under her winter coat and snow pants. Tucked in her backpack are her slippers (which look like panda bears) and one of her favourite stuffies, a polar bear named Puffy.

A couple of days ago, when Hana first told me that Friday was Pajama Day, I realized I'd be going into the school that day to volunteer at the library. It would be fun, I thought, to see all the kids dressed up in their bedtime clothes.

"It's pajama day for the whole school, not just your class, right Hana?" I asked her.

"Yup, the whole school."

"Cool! I'll be in at the library to volunteer on Friday. I'm looking forward to being there on pajama day," I said.

Suddenly a look of horror came over Hana's face.

"You're NOT going to wear your pajamas, ARE YOU?!?"

I thought for a brief moment of answering yes, just to pull her leg, but somehow reined myself in.

"No, I'm not going to wear pajamas."

"GOOD!"

We have taught her well

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:07:27 PST

As Ed took the last swig of grapefruit juice, I noticed the bottle's french label. "Pamplemousse has got to be one of the funniest words in any language," I said.

"I know funnier words," opined Hana.

"Like what?" I asked.

"No...'what' isn't a very funny word." replied Hana, a satisfied smirk appearing on her face.

Her father and I were very proud.

And now, some Pomplamoose:

This year...

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:58:38 PST

A lot of the bloggers I follow have been doing posts this week with their resolutions for 2012. I've never been all that much for resolutions, but for some reason I feel a pull this year to set a few goals for myself. Maybe I feel that making a few resolutions will set me off on the right foot better than last year. Maybe if I'd set a few goals I wouldn't have let myself fall into such a deep funk last year.

So, let's do some goal-setting, shall we? Here's what I have:

Exercise more: I need to get off my duff and start moving again. I'm starting that this afternoon by heading to the Y to exercise a bit. Even if all I do is walk around the indoor track for half an hour it'll be more exercise than I've had in months. If the weather was cooler, I would head to that awesome new outdoor rink in Markham, but it's hovering at +5 Celsius today, so that'll have to wait till next week.

Eat and drink less: I've been falling into a habit of using food and alcohol as a pick-me-up after a long day, and I need to rein that in. Chocolate, cheese & crackers, red wine, cookies...these things are all fine in moderation, but in the last year I've been less-than-moderate with all of them. I'm going to try to cut back on the weekday splurges and leave the treats for weekends.

Read more: The amount I read really varies drastically from year-to-year. Last year I barely read anything. This year I'm participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge and setting a goal for myself to read thirty books this year. I've certainly read that many in past years, but it's still a stretch-goal given how few I read last year. So far I've finished one book, Annabel by Kathleen Winter, which I loved.

So that's it. Those are my goals. Wish me luck!

Buh-bye to 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:40:51 PST

I know I'm a day or two late with my Adios to 2011 post, but better late than never, eh? I suspect part of me just didn't want to go back and look at the early parts of the year. However, I think I'd like to do a bit of a recap just because there was so much that happened that I didn't blog about.

January 2011 kicked the crap right out of me. After a lovely New Years Eve, the whole family came down with the flu. After we started to recover from that I got an ear infection, which was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. I felt nauseous and exhausted for days afterward. When I finally started to get over that, I noticed that I had lost some movement on the left side of my face. After an hour or so of completely panicking, thinking I'd had a stroke (and madly searching Wikipedia for medical info) I realized it was much more likely that I had Bells Palsy. That turned out to be the case. Unfortunately, the facial paralysis got a whole lot worse before it got better. By the time I saw my doctor, the left side of my face was completely paralyzed. I couldn't blink on that side, I couldn't move my mouth to smile on that side, and I couldn't chew food properly, either.

This is one of the few photos I took of myself during that time:

That's me attempting to smile, but ending up with a sneer. I got put onto meds immediately, but it still took over 6 weeks for my face to fully recover. Even now the left side of my face droops a bit when I'm especially tired.

Oh, and in the midst of all that (after the ear infection, just as the Bells Palsy was settling in) we discovered the entire family had lice. Just lovely. So amid all the other shit going on, Ed and I had to take time off work to bag up all the clothing, linens, and stuffed animals in the house, throw half the stuff in the garage for the next 2 - 3 weeks, and cart the rest of the stuff to a local laundromat where we washed load, after load, after load. And we had to shampoo everyone's hair with delousing shampoo multiple times over the course of two or three weeks.

So like I said, January kicked the crap right out of me.

The rest of the year was a whole lot better. In February our family went to Disneyland with my parents. Never have I needed a vacation so badly. By that time the Bells Palsy was mostly gone, but I just felt completely wiped out by the experience. The week away in the beautiful Florida sunshine was exactly what we needed. Although I felt a tad Disney-ed out by the end, we had a fantastic time.

In March, we went to Hana's graduation for the Karate Kids program she'd been participating in at school. We ended up signing her up for Karate through the Markham location of Northern Karate Schools. We were a little surprised just how much Hana's taken to karate, as I wouldn't have thought she would enjoy the physicality of it as much as she does. However, the experience has been great for her coordination and her confidence.

In April, the big event in our family was that we adopted two cats from Toronto Animal Services. Now Penny and Simon seem such a part of a household that it's hard to remember we didn't have them a year ago.

Penny:

Simon:

In May, we had a great cottage weekend away with friends near Huntsville, Ontario and we mulled over the idea of buying a cottage up there. That obsession kept us busy for a couple of months till we decided it just wasn't the right time financially. Fun to dream, though. Our friends, on the other had, bought a fix-me-upper cottage on a beautiful lake just north of Huntsville.

In June, Ed and I enjoyed a wonderful weekend away in Toronto to celebrate my birthday while my parents watched the kids. A friend of ours from San Diego was in town, so we met up with him for dinner. I had some sticky toffee pudding for dessert, which was FABULOUS.

I also bought Ed his smoker that month, for a combo Father's Day/Birthday gift, and even though it looks suspiciously like a Dalek, we've really been enjoying it. So far it hasn't threatened to exterminate us.

In July, Hana was enrolled in a whole bunch of camps, including her first ever week away at an overnight camp. I don't know who was more nervous about the whole thing, her or me, but it ended up going better than I ever could have anticipated. She loved it and she's dying to go back again next year. That same month, Jamie decided to join karate, after months of insisting he wasn't interested.

In August, we did a week away at the cottage resort we've gone to for the past few years. It was a bittersweet week, as it was our last stay there. Next year we'll be staying at a cottage near the one that our friends bought.

In September, school started again, so we were back into the crazy routine of homework, lunches, and racing to the catch the bus, plus chauffeuring the kids to a ton of extracurricular activities (karate, skating, swimming). In late September, I also underwent an operation to help with some annoying difficulties I've been experiencing post-pregnancy. The operation was straight-forward enough, but it did take a while longer to recover than I'd anticipated. The good news is that it seems to have been successful. Not to go into too much detail, but I can now do jumping jacks to my heart's content, and I'm no longer terrified of any sudden sneezes.

In October, I took a few tentative steps towards getting back into blogging again. It was hard to write the first few posts, as I just wasn't sure I had any more things to write about.

In November, I proved I had plenty more still to say by successfully completing NaBloPoMo for the fourth year straight. We also painted our dining room and got a brand new dining set.

It was a busy month!

And that brings us to December, which really has been a wonderful month. We've had a fantastic Christmas, enjoyed the company of good friends and family, and lots of relaxation time with the kids. For a year that started out so badly, it actually ended very well. I guess 2011 wasn't such a bad year after all.

Having too much fun to blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:56:22 PST

Well hey! How's it going? Hope all of you have been having a fantastic holiday season. We have had just a lovely week. There was a lot of rushing about and prepping for hosting family Christmas Day, but since that time we've really been able to enjoy a week of quality family time. I've been so distracted I didn't even notice the 4th anniversary of my blog go flitting by on December 28th until a day after the fact.

Anyway, here are the highlights of the past week:

Christmas dinner ended up going well, though for a while there we thought we were in for a major turkey disaster. We decided we would do a rotisserie turkey on the barbecue, which we have done before with success. This time, however, it did not go well. The turkey was just ever-so-slightly bigger and rounder than the last time we barbecued one. This was Ed's Facebook update at the end of the day December 25th describing our attempts to get the damned bird to fit on the barbecue:

"Had a very merry Christmas despite battling the turkey that did not want to be cooked. Through the course of the afternoon, the turkey was stabbed repeatedly, bound, spun on a rotisserie in the barbeque, "affectionately" named "Trouble", unbound, stuffed into the oven and even managed to defy the laws of thermodynamics a couple of times along the way. Somehow, she ended up being tasty and succulent and enjoyed by all."
After our Christmas dinner, we exchanged gifts with Ed's family and my parents. I ended up with four bottles of wine and a copy of Unquenchable. I do believe I might have a bit of a reputation!
The kids loved the kitty calendars we made for them. Jamie was especially happy to get it as it's the first time he's had a calendar for his own room.
I didn't do a whole lot of baking before Christmas, but I did make a few sugar cookies and these ginger-chocolate cookies I discovered a few years ago and now make every December. My mom also left us with about a dozen of her fabulous butter tarts to enjoy. I may have gained a pound or two this week.
To counteract that last point, I may have found a new exercise routine for the new year. The other day we took the kids to skate on the a new outdoor skating rink that's been built at the Markham Civic Centre. The rink is great! It's a nice size for skating around, the ice is in good shape, and they've got speakers blasting out fun 80's tunes, which are perfect for skating to. After the kids were tuckered out and wanted off the ice, Ed took them to play in the snow while I spent a few minutes zipping around the rink. It was so much fun! I'm not a great skater, but I really enjoy it, so it's exercise that doesn't feel like exercise. I think I'll be stopping by the rink on a regular basis in the next few months.
Ed and I have assisted in the assembly of a LOT of LEGO this week. Also, I'm impressed with how good Jamie is getting at following the "inscructions."
We've also played a LOT of Wii Phineas and Ferb.
Jamie got the game Hedbanz for Christmas and it turns out he might be just a tad young for it. Apparently 5-year-olds just canNOT resist the urge to cheat. Furthermore, they are not logical enough to understand that it's not plausible for someone to correctly guess, "Am I a pig?" on their very first turn.

"Jamie! You're not supposed to look at your card!"

"What! I didn't!"
The kids and I have been a tad obsessed with Plants versus Zombies this week. Because really, nothing says festive more than blasting a ton of brain-eating zombies with pea-shooters, watermelon catapults and exploding cherries.
The kids are also completely obsessed with everything Pokemon, but that obsession I don't share in the least. It amazes me how they can keep track of all the different characters and the powers they have. It amazes me, too, that somewhere in the world there are adults who come up with all this stuff.
We had a wonderful evening out with good friends last night to ring in the New Year. We did the champagne toast at 10:00 so that we wouldn't have the kids up too late, but as it turned out Ed and I didn't end up collecting our kids to go home until after midnight. And then they let us sleep in this morning! What a great way to start off the New Year

All the best to all of you in 2012.

The Year of the Kitties

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:51:15 PST

"Mom, I'd like a cat calendar again this year," Hana says to me a couple of weeks ago.

"Sure!" I say, thinking that this should be an easy gift. I've seen lots of cat calendars at the mall.

"But with photos of Penny and Simon in it," she says.

"I want that too!" shouts Jamie.

Oh boy.

I am an Awesome Mom. (Credit also to Awesome Dad for his outstanding photography, and to the Awesome Cats for putting up with us following them about with a camera.)

Sport for the fun of it

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:20:21 PST

The other day Hana and I were chatting about the various classes she's taking in school when the subject of gym came up.

"Do you like gym class?" I asked her.

"I love it!" she answered, much to my pleasure. "It's fun!"

You would never have heard the same answer from me, at any point during my school career. Gym was difficult, frustrating, humiliating. It most certainly was not fun.

When I was in school, back in the 70's and 80's, gym was too focused on competitive sports. For a kid like me who was a little overweight and a whole lot uncoordinated, the competitiveness of gym sucked all the fun out of it. I hated coming in last in almost every race. I hate swinging and missing almost every time I was up to bat. I hated seeing the volleyball come toward me and just knowing I was going to miss volleying it. I dropped out of gym classes as soon as I could, which did nothing to help the whole uncoordinated/overweight thing. I defined myself as someone who wasn't very good at sports. I gave up even trying.

In my mid-20s that changed. I decided I needed to lose weight and to accomplish that goal, I started exercising. I started out by walking, then stair-climbing. At the time I lived in Hamilton, near the escarpment, so I didn't even need to belong to a gym. I had 300+ steps available to climb right there, in the great outdoors. Eventually I decided to try running, and to my surprise, I discovered I was a pretty decent runner. I was never going to win any races, but I did okay. School had made me feel like just "doing okay" was pointless. As an adult, I learned that doing my best at fitness had personal rewards.

Since that time, I've exercised off and on, depending on what other things are going on in my life. At several points I've managed to get myself in very fit shape. At other times (like at the current moment), I get a bit pudgy and soft. I need to get back into exercising...I know that. I just have to get into the right frame of mind to start on a regimen. At least now I know that I am capable of being fit.

We've been careful to try to instill if not a love of sport, at least a strong like for physical activity in our kids. Both kids participate in swimming, skating and karate on a regular basis. Like me, neither of them are inherently super-coordinated. But with practice and discipline they've both been getting better at their various activities. Best of all, they've learned at a much earlier age that sports are fun. Hope that feeling lasts.

Seasonal stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:56:48 PST

For some reason this year I seem to be particularly on-the-ball with getting ready for Christmas. I pretty much have all the gifts bought except for teacher gifts, which I'm hoping to finish up on either today or Monday. We've got the house partially decorated, so I'll be spending most of next week getting the rest of it all set up for having a bunch of family over on Christmas Day. I'm not even feeling the slightest bit panicky about it all, which pretty much guarantees that there some vitally important thing that I'm completely forgetting about.

Last night, fortunately, we did not forget to go to Jamie's SK Christmas concert. The kids were all super cute, if a tad shout-y in the singing department. JIN-GLE BELLS! JIN-GLE BELLS! JIN-GLE ALL THE WAY! (with the accent on EVERY syllable). It was hilariously wonderful.

Here's Jamie singing LET IT SNOW!

I was a little disappointed they didn't sing/shout SI-LENT NIGHT! HO-LY NIGHT! as I would have enjoyed the irony immensely.

Also last night, after the kids were nestled all snug in their beds, I took a bit of time to set up Portable North Pole videos for the two of them. Last year they had three slightly different variations of the video that you could choose from, which I must say was a nice touch for a family with more than one kid. This year the kids' videos ended up being extremely similar to each other, except for a few minor details. Maybe they think kids won't notice, but Hana is very detail-oriented. While watching her video, she noted, "Hey, that's exactly what Santa said to Jamie," and, "The elves did that in Jamie's video, too!"

"Hmmm..." I responded in a non-committal sort of way. Why must she be such a clever child?

Don't call her "baby"

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:24:53 PST

I've been taking the kids to the Melonhead location at Markville Mall ever since their very first haircuts. I know some people find their prices to be a bit high, but I've almost always had good experiences there, so I keep going back. The hairdressers are used to dealing with kids, so they know how to cut hair on a moving target. Plus the kids have always liked the crazy-looking chairs, the little helicopter ride they get to go on when their cut's done, and the lollipop they get, too.

Or at least they both used to like all that.

Last weekend I booked appointments for both kids for Saturday morning. When we arrived it was a bit of a zoo, since I guess lots of kids are getting pre-Christmas haircuts these days. The kids were booked with two different hairdressers, but only one was available. Jamie volunteered to go first for his cut, and he chose to sit on a unicorn chair, which his sister sometimes selects, too. All the other seats were occupied.

Within 5 minutes, Hana's hairdresser was ready to see her, and by then two more seats were open...a choo-choo train and a Dora the Explorer car. The unicorn was still occupied by Jamie, and Hana's other favourite seat, a police motorcycle, had been nabbed by another boy just after we'd arrived.

"Well, where would you like to sit?" I asked, trying to sound chipper.

Hana sighed and pointed to the Dora car. "There, I guess."

She climbed a step stool up into the seat, then tried to sit down. There wasn't much legroom, so her knees went up to chest level. The look on her face betrayed her annoyance.

The hairdresser started cutting Hana's hair, while she looked around the room. She showed no interest at all in the television on the wall, tuned to Treehouse. Her brother was mesmerized by whatever cartoon it had on, but it didn't capture Hana's interest whatsoever.

Things didn't get much better after that. The hairdresser tugged and pulled at Hana's hair a little more that Hana would have liked. She has a sensitive scalp and has a very low tolerance for having her hair played with. Worst of all, she kept calling Hana "baby," which would drive any seven-year-old around the bend.

"Can you put your chin down and look at the floor? That's it, baby!"

"Now try to hold still, baby, so I can cut near your ears."

"Close your eyes, baby."

It was obviously a term of endearment the hairdresser uses regularly, but I could see from the look on Hana's face she did NOT approve. The more sure heard it, the more annoyed she looked. After a while I imagined Hana was mulling over slugging the woman the next time she said it (which thankfully she didn't actually do).

By the end of the haircut, Hana looked fed up.

"Do you want sparkles in your hair, baby?"

"No! Can I get down, please?"

After I finished up paying, the kids picked out lollipops, then I walked them over to the helicopter ride. Jamie bounded up onto the seat, but Hana stayed beside me. "Aren't you going to on the ride, too?" I asked.

"No...I'm just not in the mood," she said.

"Hana, do you want to go to a regular hairdresser next time instead of here?"

"Yes, please!"

"Okay."

"But can I still have a lollipop after my haircut?"

"Sure!" I said, happy to see my little girl wasn't completely done with being a kid. "I can still get you a lollipop."

Overheard anatomy lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:37:00 PST

While I was busy in the kitchen, I overheard this conversation between Hana and Jamie:

Jamie: "I'm going to poke you in the bladder with this pen!"

Hana: "Do you even know what a bladder is?"

Jamie: "Yes!"

(A moment passes.)

Hana, sounding exasperated: "No, Jamie, that's my leg."

A good weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:18:35 PST

I know the weekend was a few days ago, but this is the first chance I've had to write about it. I figure it's not too late to tell you what we were up to, eh?

It's been a good few days around here since NaBloPoMo ended and I was able to stop compulsively posting on a daily basis. On Friday we took the kids to see Unionville's Olde Tyme Christmas parade, which thankfully was not as much of a colde tyme Christmas parade as it has been in previous years.

At the end of the parade, we got to see the big guy.

This is Santa saying, "Yo peeps!" Santa's been perfecting his rapper moves, apparently.

The kids had a great time at the parade. We met up with a number of friends and family to watch everything, so it was a good social event. Plus the kids got to play with fire!

Kids and fire...always an excellent combination.

The rest of the weekend went by in a bit of a blur. We had friends over for dinner Saturday night, so there was much running around and cleaning and cooking beforehand, then a lot of eating and drinking and chatting during, and finally, a fair bit of flopping into bed and cashing out from exhaustion afterward. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

On Sunday we pulled out these babies:

and I spent a good hour lovingly unwrapping each one and oohing and ahhing over the ones that are particularly meaningful. The kids got a kick out of seeing ornaments that they'd made in previous years, and the ones holding photos of them as babies. The ornaments are a bit of a hodge-podge, but that's how I like them.

As usual, Ed and I got to enjoy the fun of getting the strings of lights onto the tree before we let the kids help us put up the ornaments. This year's version of fun included testing several strings of lights that completely died between last Christmas and this Christmas, then a trip to Home Depot to get some new lights, then another trip to Home Depot to return said lights as they were not exactly what we wanted, and then a trip to Walmart to get another set of lights that were much better, except for the fact that Ed had to step foot in a Walmart to get them, which pained him so.

But I digress...

The actual putting up of the ornaments was lots of fun, though it did make me realize just how much the kids have changed in the past year. Every December we have them put the ornaments on the lower branches of the tree, while Ed and I do the higher ones. This year the "lower branches" reached far past mid-height of the tree! When did the kids get so tall?!?

After all the work was done, this was our wonderful hodge-podge of a tree.

And with that up, the holiday season has officially begun in our household. I may even put on some Christmas music soon...maybe in a week or two.

Order of importance

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:20:04 PST

After the school day is finished, Hana attends an aftercare program that's located in her school. The program uses two different classrooms—one for the younger kids, and one for the older kids. At the beginning of the year, Hana was put in the younger kids' classroom, but recently she and one of her friends were moved up to be with the older kids.

A couple of days ago I went to pick up Hana, and for the first time since she'd moved classrooms, I had Jamie with me. The two kids were funny. Jamie went running straight over to Hana, and his sister responded with a big hug. Then they proceeded to pick at each other while I attempted to talk to one of the caregivers.

The caregiver said she hadn't realized that Hana had a younger brother.

I turned to Hana, "Did you not tell everyone you have a little brother?"

"Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-om!" Hana said, making the word thirteen syllables wrong in order to let me know that I was embarrassing her AGAIN.

The caregiver and I laughed. And then a thought occurred to me.

"I bet you knew she has pet cats, though, didn't you?"

"Oh yes! The cats I know about!" said Hana's caregiver.

"Hana! You mentioned the cats, but not your brother?!?"

"Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-om!"

Some things are just more important to mention than others, I guess.

That good ol' sense of accomplishment

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:20:00 PST

Hey look! It's another year of NaBloPoMo under my belt! Does it make me look fat? Please don't answer that.

This post wraps up my fourth run at NaBloPoMo. Of all the times I've taken part, this was the one that I had the most doubts about at the beginning. I'd barely blogged at all in the past year, so I'd started to suspect that I'd run out of stories to tell. Guess I was wrong, because I ended up finding the whole process to be slightly easier than the previous three times. Part of that, I think, is because I didn't put a whole lot of pressure on myself to write anything too ambitious. I mean I think I did okay. I only relied once on a haiku post. But I didn't push myself to write any blogging masterpieces. My main reason for throwing myself into this crazy thing for a fourth time was just to see if I still had some blogging in me.

You know what? I think I do.

Needless to say, I'm probably going to take a few days off, but after that I promise to keep blogging on a not-too-sporadic basis. I feel reconnected to my blog and I'd like to stay that way.

Thanks for reading!

Cat on a Hot Pink T-Shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:13:16 PST

I was at the computer the other day, probably blogging, or reading blogs, or commenting on a blog, or tweeting, or reading Twitter, or replying to a tweet, or...well you get the idea. Basically, I was on the computer doing VERY IMPORTANT STUFF, when I heard Hana calling me in a muffled sort of a way.

"Mmhfom! Mmhfom! Take a pfhicture!"

So I grabbed my iPhone (which is apparently the camera of choice these days...the camera of lazy people who don't want to spend time searching for their actual camera that they paid good money for), turned around, and saw this:

"Um, Hana, what are you doing?" I asked.

(Note: I'm giving up on typing muffled speech so from here on out you're just going to have to use your own damned imaginations, okay?)

"Penny fell asleep on me," she replied.

"In that position?"

"Well, no...she used to be on my stomach, but she slid."

"Okay...can you breathe?"

"Yeah. So mom, can you take a picture?"

"Sure. You betcha."

A while later Ed gets home and I show him the picture. He stares at it for a bit and says, "it looks like they fell out of a tree."

And you know...it actually does.

At least they had a couch to land on.

Why I would go crazy if I homeschooled

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:43:51 PST

I've probably mentioned before that Hana is enrolled in a French Immersion program at school. The other day, while driving in the car, Hana mentioned that sometimes it's hard to remember rules in French.

"Like, sometimes it's hard to remember if words are masculine or feminine, and if they have an 'e' at the end or not, and if they have 'le' or 'la' before them."

"Yup, that kind of stuff can be difficult to learn." I said to Hana. "But English can also be tough to learn as a second language. It has some strange things that are hard to remember."

"Like what?"

"Well for instance, in English you usually put an 's' at the end of a word to show that it's plural, so you would say there's one kid, but two kids, or one dog, but two dogs. But sometimes there are different rules, like you'd say there's one child, but two children, or one goose, but two geese."

Hana starts to giggle. "Haha! Geese! Goose Geese!"

"Yes, Hana. But do you get what I'm saying?"

"I once got bit by a goose, mom."

Sigh. "Yes, silly girl."

Pulling up his socks

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 08:54:28 PST

I give Jamie a pair of socks to wear in the morning.

"Not those ones," he says. "They don't stay up."

"Did the ones you wore yesterday stay up?"

"Yes."

"Well, these are exactly the same socks, but with a different pattern."

"Nooooo! Those ones don't have stripes so they don't stay up."

"What do stripes have to do with it?"

"Stripes hold the socks up. Otherwise they get all scrunchy."

"Thats silly, Jamie. Really...these are exactly the same as yesterday's."

"Nooooo! I need stripey socks!"

"Fine then," I say, reaching into Jamie's sock drawer and pulling out a different pair of socks. "How about these? They're striped."

"Yes! Those ones! Striped just like yesterday's."

"Yes, well they are a completely different brand than yesterday's striped socks."

"Stripes keep socks up!"

"Oh nevermind..."

Flipping out

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:05:22 PST

I am looking for a spatula. More specifically, I'm looking for a crappy spatula. I don't want some fancy-schmancy nylon spatula with a special ergonomic padded handle. I just want a plain ol' cheapy plastic flipper that works.

Because here's the thing: what I've found is that the fancier and more expensive the spatula, the worse they are at flipping foods. When you're trying to flip an egg or a pancake, you need a spatula that's super thin, so that you can slide the little sucker underneath the stuff you want to flip.

Here's our current spatula, which I quite like:

It's not fancy, but it's thin and flexible, and it slides under eggs with ease. We used to have another spatula just like it, only slightly narrower, but that spatula broke a few months ago. Since then, I've been trying to find a replacement spatula of the same type. Unfortunately, all I seem to be able to find are metal spatulas (which are no good on our non-stick pans) and spatulas like this one:

which is too stiff to maneuver under an egg or a pancake very well, or like this one:

which is to thick easily slide under the food you want to flip.

Sure, they look prettier, but they'll also bust the hell out of your egg, causing the yolk to spill out all over the pan. That's just sad. Broken yolks are sad, sad, sad.

Plus why should I care about having a fancy ergonomic handle for an egg flipper? Is there some spatula-related carpal tunnel syndrome epidemic going around that I'm not aware of? Because I'm fairly sure this whole ergonomic grip thing is just a way to scam people into spending a whole lot of money for something that is really a pretty basic cooking utensil.

Unfortunately, I just can't find any crappy spatulas anymore. Even at the dollar store, they have the non-bendy, thick, fancy spatulas. It's gotten so that you just kind find crappy things anymore.

Ummm...

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:55:01 PST

It's late on a Friday night, I have a couple of glasses of wine in me, and I'm exhausted (but quite happy) after a full day of shopping for Christmas presents. Ed took the day off and the two of us went to beautiful Port Perry to stroll around the shops. We've gone there every year for the last four or five years to do Christmas shopping, and we always find gifts that are much more interesting than we can find at the local mall.

Then this evening Ed and I ended up dropping the kids off at my brother's house so that we could enjoy a nice date-night out, just the two of us, in Unionville. I am happy. It's been a treat of a day.

More things that made me very happy:

Alejna did a ThThTh post!
My very funny friend Trisha started blogging a few weeks ago, but she is now feeling brave enough about the whole thing to let other people know. Stop by and check out what she has to say.
And since coincidence seems to be my theme this week, COINCIDENTALLY, both Alejna and Trisha studied linguistics. I dunno if this makes me happy, per se. It doesn't make me UNhappy. It's just a little fact I'm putting out there for you to know.
Did I mention I've had wine?

One of those days

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 19:54:35 PST

The day did not start off well. This morning I arrived at work, went all the way up to my office, unpacked my stuff, then went to lock up my computer only to find I didn't have my keys with me. I search my purse, my pockets, and all around my desk, but couldn't find them. So I schlepped all the way back down tot he car again, convinced I'd left them in the lock of the trunk of my car. Got down to the parking lot, walked to may car and...nope, not there.

What the hell?!? Had I dropped them on the ground? I scanned the ground as I walked back to the office...no keys. Had someone found them? Maybe someone took them to Security?

I stomped back toward my cubicle, mumbling obscenities under my breath (something I never ever would have done before becoming a regular reader of Bibliomama's blog). What a way to start the day. As I turned the last corner toward my cubicle, a sense of déjà vu came over me, which only seemed natural since I'd only just done this whole walk-to-my-office thing 10 minutes before.

As I got closer to arriving at my cubicle, the memory of my last arrival became clearer. I remembered entering it and immediately putting the keys into the lock of my cabinet. Phh! That's silly...why would I have done that? I had my laptop with me...and the only reason I would have to unlock my cabinet would be to get my laptop out.

So I entered my cubicle, looked over at my cabinet, and there were my keys in the lock. Just waiting for me. Ohferpetessake.

And then the rest of the work day just kind of went downhill from there. I have a deadline approaching and it feels like there's just too much to do, with too little time. Add computer hassles to the mix and by the end of the work day I just felt completely frazzled.

Thankfully, my evening at home has gone much better. Ed and I decided to skip taking the kids to karate tonight so that we could just have a low-key evening. After supper, we put on a Pokemon movie we'd picked up recently for the kids, then Ed sent my upstairs to have some time to myself. I got to relax and read, sip a wee glass of wine, and enjoy the company of our very snuggly cat. Amazingly enough, the kids came up to bed with very little fuss, and were full of snuggles for mom, too. I think they sensed I needed the pick-me-up. Turned out to be not such a bad day after all.

Huh! Whaddayaknow

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:51:32 PST

So it never occurred to me before I posted yesterday's post that having a lot of interesting coincidental things happen in one's life was at all out-of-the ordinary. I figured everyone had stories like that. But maybe it's just me and Nylonthread.

So allow me to continue providing you with evidence that I have crazy freaky karma.

When I was growing up we lived on the shores of a lake, about a 10 minute drive outside of town. I grew up in a rural area where the two major industries were tourism and logging. One day when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, my mom was driving me into town when we had a very close call. As we drove towards town on the highway, we came upon a logging truck that was driving in the opposite direction. As the vehicles approached each other, my mom saw the truck's load do a bit of a wobble. At the same time, the truck driver felt his load of logs shift and realized something was amiss. He managed to jerk the truck slightly to the right, so that the logs shifted away from us for long enough that my mom was able to drive our car past the truck. A couple of seconds later the entire load of logs came falling off the truck, onto the road.

I was a kid, so I don't remember feeling any fear. I do remember my mom pulling the car over, and seeing the logs on the road. I remember a certain sort of tension or excitement in the air as the adults talked about what could have happened. But mainly I remember the story from hearing my parents tell it.

Ten years later, I was in high school. For some reason, I started to tell the story of the time our car almost got squished by logs to a group of my friends. My friend Lisa, who I'd met in grade nine, exclaimed something like, "that's so weird! Something like that happened to my dad back when he was driving logging trucks. He almost had a load of logs fall on someone's car."

Hmm...it couldn't be...could it?

So I went home and asked my mom who it was that had been driving the truck. Yup...sure enough, it had been my friend Lisa's dad. He'd kept those logs from falling on our car and squishing us, and then 10 years later his daughter was one of my best friends.

And I think that's it for my weird, coincidental, crazy karma stories.

P.S. In other news, one of my tweets got quoted by Mashable today (#7 in the slideshow)!

What a coincidence!

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:03:34 PST

I've always been fascinated by coincidences and how they make the world seem so much smaller than it is. I remember when I was in my teens our next door neighbours went on a trip to New Zealand for a month. A couple of weeks after they left, they sent a postcard to my dad that said, "Bob, your uncle and aunt say hello." This confused my dad because he didn't have an uncle and aunt in New Zealand. Turns out that our neighbours had come across a couple wearing Canadian flag pins and they'd struck up a conversation. The other couple was from Alberta, so when they asked our neighbours where they were from, they replied it was a small town in Ontario they'd probably never heard of. The couple asked what town. When our neighbours told them, the couple reacted with surprise and asked them if they knew my dad. Indeed they did!

Here's another one: a few years after Ed and I married, I found a friend on Facebook that I'd met at a Science & Technology summer camp when I was in high school. I sent him a friend request, and he accepted it. Then a little while later he sent me a message, "What? You're married to Ed?!?" Turns out he and Ed knew each other through one of Ed's closest university friends. They'd even worked together on a business venture a few years before Ed and I met. Small world.

But my favourite coincidence story is this one: in about 1983 my parents and I went on a trip out to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. While staying on Cape Breton Island, we decided to drive the Cabot Trail, which loops around the rocky northernmost tip of the island. It's beautiful scenic trail with lots of twists and turns and hills to make the drive especially interesting. Anyway, we were about 2/3 of the way around the trail when all of a sudden we started to experience some car trouble. More specifically, my dad was having trouble with the brakes working inconsistently. Sometimes he'd but his foot on the brake and it just didn't seem to have any effect, but other times it worked fine. It was pretty scary, since this was happening on a rocky seaside road. As soon as we got to a place where it was safe to pull over, my dad pulled the car to the side, and thankfully he was able to get it to stop. A while later some people pulled over to help us and ended up driving my dad to a mechanic's shop in the next town.

A few years later, after my first year of university, I spent the summer working in Ottawa at an insurance company near Sparks Street. One day at lunch, midway through the summer, I was chit-chatting with a few coworkers about trips we'd been on. I happened to mention that on a trip around the Cabot Trail we'd had a scare when the car had brake problems. One of my coworkers, a woman in her 40's, turned to me with the funniest look on her face.

"Was it just you and your mom and dad in the car?" she asked.

"Yes."

Was your car blue?"

"Um, yeah...."

"And when your dad is upset does he stand with his hands up high on his hips like this?" she asked, demonstrating exactly the stance my dad takes when he's upset about something.

"Yeah..."

It turns out she and her husband were the couple that pulled over to help us out. We'd been working together for the past two months, but it wasn't until then that we realized we'd met each other before. And if I hadn't told that story, we might never have known.

So what coincidences have happened in your lives? I'd love to hear your coincidence stories, either in the comments here, or if you're taking part in NaBloPoMo and you're in desperate need of a post, feel free to write about it on your own blog.

Thanks guys

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:46:13 PST

We've reached that point in NaBloPoMo where I'm cursing myself just a little bit for getting into this mess. I'm tired after a busy weekend, distracted by work stuff, nursing a crampy and sore right hand that is apparently unused to rolling paint onto walls, and drained after playing a game of Wii Party with the kids that ended in tears. When are the kids going to get past the stage of having to win everything?!?

Suffice it to say, I don't have much energy to dredge up a real blog post.

I do, however, have the energy to thank all of you for your encouraging comments over the last three weeks. After taking such a long break from blogging, I wasn't sure I wanted to get back into it again, but you know what? It's been good. I've been having fun with it, and I've really enjoyed getting back into the rhythm of reading blogs, being on Twitter, and getting connected to everyone again. Y'all rock!

Thanks especially for all the kind comments about my butt.

Weekend odds & ends

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:55:14 PST

It's been a good weekend. Yesterday we managed to do two coats of paint on the living room/dining room before calling it quits for the day. We ended up having to do just one more coat this afternoon to finish up the job.

Ta-da! Done:

Now we just have to get all the furniture back in its place, which will probably take us a few more days. Note: that's the table we bought on a whim at Ikea last weekend. (We don't normally position the coffee table underneath the dining room table. That would be silly. It was just there while we were painting.)

In other news, last night, for the first time, I tried making the molten dark chocolate lava cakes recipe that's printed on the back on the Baker's Premium Dark Chocolate package, and damned if it wasn't super easy to make AND incredibly delicious to eat. This is probably something I shouldn't have tried, because now I know! That damned package of chocolate's going to be calling out to me until I use it up.

And now it is time for Ed and I to continue with the Eureka marathon we've been participating in for the last few weeks. We're now well into season three and still thoroughly enjoying the show. That Colin Ferguson...he's not so tough on the eyes. And he's Canadian, too!

They paint, too

noreply@blogger.com (Mary Lynn) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:23:53 PST

When we got back from the kids' swimming lessons this morning, we got straight to work on painting our living room/dining room area. We actually bought the paints for this project over two years ago, but it's taken that long for us to will up the energy required to lug all the furniture out of the room, tape up the window frames and baseboards, put down plastic sheeting, and get to work painting.

The good part about waiting an extra couple of years is that the kids are now old enough to be good little helpers. We let them have a little bit of fun before we really got going on the first coat of paint.

They both wrote their names.

Jamie added a picture of a rocket, then decided afterward that it looked more like a butterfly. Hana had been threatening to draw some art, too.

"Mom, you know what I'm going to draw on the wall? I'm gonna draw your butt!"

"Hana, I don't think there's enough wall space for that, hon."

I guess she proved me wrong.

The cat can't believe the immature house she ended up in.

Neither can I, Penny...neither can I.