Bodily functions and responsibility

1. Adder pooped in the tub. Again. I think this makes it six times. Maybe more. I think it might be more efficient if we just start bathing her in the toilet.

2. Eva is the "Responsable" today. This means she is in charge of telling the other kids the date, writing the weather on the board, and checking the temperature. In kindergarten, all of this is a pretty big deal and she started talking about it last week. She told me last night she also plans to inform the class that Barack Obama is being sworn in as the 44th President of the United States today. You go, my girl.

3. Also last night:

Eva: "My button is too tight. I can't undo my pants...can you undo them? I have to pee"

Me (undoing button): "What do you do at school when you have to go?"

Eva: "What school?"

Me: "The school where you spend your day. What do you do when you have to pee there?"

Eva: "I go to the bathroom"

Sigh.

Rotter

1. Do you jam out on your kid's best friend TWICE in a row because your kid is behaving like a doofus???

Last week Eva was being rotten BEYOND WEEK-OLD COMPOST IN THE HEAT OF SUMMER. As a result, we wound up cancelling a "playdate" with her friend Emie.
Eva cried, Emie cried, and Etienne and I felt waves of guilt wash over our coal black hearts, because Eva's punishment had an impact on her sweet little friend. But hey, collateral damage, right? Lessons must be taught here.

Anyway, this week Emie was over at our house. For "fun", I painted their faces...painstakingly drawing matching flowers, butterflies, and hearts on their cheeks and foreheads (believe me, this stretched the limits of my artistic capability and it STILL looked like they had been painted on by a blind person suffering a seizure).

Then, horror of horrors.

Eva smudged her butterfly. Ever so slightly.

And you'd have thought the freaking APOCALYPSE had arrived.

Tears, foot-stomping, the whole bit.

"EMIE IS PRETTIER THAN MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

Of course we told her to suck it up and whispered threats to send Emie home. But my heart just wasn't in that response, because Emie's big brown eyes were looking at me and I just couldn't stand bombing her playdate twice in a row.

So Emie wound up staying.

And once again, I wound up second-guessing my parenting skills.

Sometimes I feel like such a SUCKAH.

2. Addie ate Chinese food for the first time tonight. A child who often refuses to eat ANYTHING sat there and double-fisted lemon chicken and shrimp fried rice so fast, it was like watching a freaking hummingbird attack the plate. I was afraid to get my hands near her mouth.

Her fortune cookie read: "You are next in line for promotion in your firm"

She ate the cookie while whirling like a dervish to Les Cowboys Fringants' Manifestation song.

Eva's said, "Time is the wisest counsellor".

Good. Because Mom clearly isn't.

3. Eva says my friend Louise lives outside of Regina...so it's not Saskatchewan. Kid can find 40 countries on a globe, but doesn't know that a FARM near REGINA is still SASKATCHEWAN.

4. Etienne was talking tonight about a conversation with his manager (who is female).

Eva (shocked): "Your boss is a GIRL?"

(at this point, I quietly began choking on my stir fried vegetables)

Etienne: "Yes, she is"

Eva: "WHAT, ARE YOU CRAZY, THEN?"

It's been a long night.

Here we go

I've always known that outside influences have to work on my child.  You only really have them for the first couple of years, and then the OTHER stuff starts to work on them.  The kids at school get hold of them.  I've known this forever.

But I admit, I still wasn't quite ready for what Eva said to me while soaking in the tub last night.

The question I've been dreading since September, knowing that once this snowball starts rolling, it'll swallow us all.

"MAMA...WHAT'S HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL?"

Although it came out as "Mama, what's I School Musical?"

My daughter goes to a French school, so the kids there pronounce "High" without the "H".

I said, "Um...I don't know that much about it.  Do all the kids know about it?"

Eva:  "Not all.  Some do"

And we left it at that.

But it's coming.  I know it's coming.

My parents bought her a little black hoodie for her birthday last year that she wears all the time.  It has High School Musical on it and she adores it because it has metallic writing and sparkly pink cuteness.  

I still haven't told her what exactly it says on the front.

She hasn't asked.  And she hasn't been enterprising enough to read it herself.

But she will.

Heavy, soul-sucking sigh.

I'm sure my parents felt the same way when I discovered Corey Hart.

The only difference...

COREY HART WAS WAY COOL.

My b*by is growing up

Packing Eva's lunch in the morning, I selected a small pink spoon for her to use to eat her yogurt.   It's a spoon she has taken to school many times before.

Eva (horrified):  "Mom.  Not that spoon."

Me:  "Why?  It's pink.  It's little.  You love this spoon.  You take it all the time"

Eva (as though explaining to a retarded child): "MOM.   I can take a little spoon...just...not that one.   Look what it says on it."

Me:  "HEINZ BABY BASICS"

Aha.

The kids at school can read now.

What's next? Mani-Pedi during math class?

Eva: "Today we are having a SPECIAL relaxation to help us sleep during the nap."

Me:  "What?  What could be special relaxation during a kindergarten nap?"

Eva:  "We will have a massage first.  Then we have to roll over and get more massage.  THEN we do the nap.  It will help us sleep"

A MASSAGE?  What the hell?

I want to go to kindergarten!!!

Although personally, if I was the teacher, I'd just use tranquilizer darts.

Much quicker.

Another fudge drop? Yes, I believe I will

1.  I just made fudge drop cookies.  Easiest, tastiest cookie EVER.  They take like, NEGATIVE time to make and the payoff is pretty much like chocolate bars that you can trick yourself into believing are healthy because they have coconut and oats.  You can just eat six chocolatey cookies for breakfast and tell folks you had oatmeal.      

2.  Tonight I dis-assembled (is that a word?) the highchair and cleaned out all its innards.  I now think Addie must eat less than nothing because she is clearly hiding every scrap of food under her ass.  Remember that Mr. Bean episode where he hides the steak tartare in every nook and cranny of the restaurant?  And then blames the dude sitting beside him?  That's my daughter.  No wonder the kid's shaped like a Brazilian supermodel.  Oooh, I JUST ATE A PEA AND I'M SO FULL!!!

3.  Eva WILL NOT go to bed and just go to sleep.  "I'm hot with the covers up and cold with the covers off".  Every night.  Every freaking night.  I swear that kid is either pregnant or menopausal.

4.  Tomorrow is Adder's flu shot booster shot.  I hate holding my baby down while someone jabs her with a needle.  Eva's totally stoic...she always has been, when it comes to medical stuff - really my little hero - sticks her arm out and demands a sticker afterwards.  But Adder flails and drools and screams louder than a showering Janet Leigh.  Some parts of motherhood really suck donkey.

5.  Went to a movie today with Etienne.  We're off this week and spending the time going to movies (and holding down our children while strangers stab them with sharp objects filled with dead viruses).  It's been a while since we've actually been to a movie in a theatre.  When the hell did they stop making those moving pitcher stories in black and white, and start making them IN COLOUR?  And who is this young Brad Pitt feller?  

Benjamin Button was okay.  I found it long...and at the end when he turns into a baby and finally checks out, it made me think I should cry but didn't quite get me there.  I hate to say it but I thought Brad Pitt as an old man was laughably bad, although he got better as his character morphed closer to his real-life age.  Cate Blanchett is LUMINOUS and totally my girl crush.  They should give her an Oscar every year, just for showing up for work.   Tomorrow Etienne and I are going to Valse Bashir.  Or Waltz with Bashir.  Or something like that.  Oh yeah.

6.  The last prickly remnant of Christmas is now lounging in the back yard, waiting for tomorrow's "COLLECTE DES ARBRES DE NOEL".   It made me a little sad to sweep up the six TRILLION AND I DO MEAN TRILLION WITH A "TR" little needles that exploded throughout my home as the tree was forced through the back door.  Bye, tree.  Thanks for growing for five years so we could chop you down, hang stuff on you, and enjoy you for three weeks.  Have fun reliving the end of Fargo.

7.  I got a bit misty wrapping up the two little stocking ornaments with the girls' photos on them, made at school and daycare.  Flashing forward 15 years to me unwrapping those ornaments and hanging them on the tree, excited because the girls will be coming home soon for Christmas.    

This ride goes too damned fast.

 

Off to have some oatmeal before bed.

Here's the recipe:

===============================

Fudge drop cookies

2 cups sugar

6tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1/3 cup margarine (I use butter)

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 cups quick cooking rolled oats

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

-In a medium saucepan, mix sugar, cocoa, evaporated milk, and butter.  Cook and stir over medium-high heat until mixture comes to a boil.  Boil for 1 minute, stirring the whole time.

-Take off heat and stir in the vanilla.  Add rolled oats and coconut and mix.  Drop by tablespoonfuls on baking sheets lined with wax paper.  Refrigerate for about an hour...I store them in the fridge but they won't die at room temperature, either.

    

  

On my shoulder? It's just a bit of snot.

I know it's been two weeks.

But it's been a busy two weeks.

1.  The happy Ho Ho Ho came and went.  

Trolls got great prizes.  We travelled/ate/drank/made merry very muchly and are now still in the lengthy (and slightly depressing) period of unpacking and re-adjusting our diets to include things that aren't picked up with fingers out of a small decorative bowl...or dipped in chocolate...or scooped from a buffet table.   Hope your Ho Ho Ho (or Hanukah) was happy, too.

2.   Addie was sick as a dog for the entire week. 

Our girls almost never get sick.  I'm not sure if it's because we eat a very healthy diet or if it's because they're hardy French-Canadian/Aboriginal stock.  But generally, viruses tend to take a hike after a day or two.  

Not this time.

Under normal circumstances, when the cold sent up from the depths of hell isn't taking over her body and beating her white blood cells into snotty submission, Addie is sweet, funny, and never stops moving for more than 0.04 seconds at a time.  She's Indiana Jones, Houdini, and Lucille Ball wrapped up into a wee little package.  

At the daycare, they call her "the stuntwoman". 

But for a solid week, she didn't move.  Didn't eat.  Didn't drink.  

Didn't MOVE.

She just kind of lay there...like a rumpled little blob, bubbling hot green snot like Old Faithful. She radiated heat for days and all she seemed to want to do was lie on us, whining and complaining because WE WERE BREATHING.  Or because THE AIR WAS TOUCHING HER.  Or because TIME WAS PASSING.

It was really, really awful.  And really, really long.  

And for a parent, horrible to watch.  Horrible.  It really made me think of parents in third-world countries...or here in North America a hundred years ago...when a child was fighting a virus and there was NOTHING that could be done about it.  You didn't have the option of going to the hospital for oxygen if it crept into her lungs...or antibiotics for the ear infections that seem to often follow bad colds...or the luxury of Tylenol to bring down the fever and provide a bit of comfort.  Nothing.

So it was that despite watching my poor little troll fight off a virus for seven days...while fighting with her to let me mop up the radioactive snot from her tomato-red little face...I felt fortunate.  I actually felt lucky.

And eventually...finally...my little girlie won the battle.    

Screw you, virus from hell.

3.  My girls vomited on me four times in five days over Christmas.  Lovely.  If they vomit on me one more time, I SWEAR I will simply disintegrate from the buildup of stomach acid.  When it comes to bodily fluids and so on, there's little that disgusts me by this point.  Vomit?  Been there.  Poop in the tub?  Done that (over and over and freaking overrrr).  But heaving your cookies down my shirt FOUR TIMES IN FIVE DAYS...COME ON, GIRLS.  WHAT DID MAMA DO TO DESERVE SUCH LOVE???  Instead of a stuffed animal, Eva now cuddles a saucepan when she sleeps.    

4.  Tonight in the five minute cuddle and talk at bedtime, Eva said brightly,  "Okay.  For the talk tonight, let's count to a MILLION!  I'll start."  

Um...no?  How about we count to ten and call it a day?  

  

5.  My feelings towards my rapidly drying-out Christmas tree are becoming alarmingly similar to my feelings toward the end of the ninth month of pregnancy.  Sooner or later, that sucker's gotta shoot out of its comfy, cozy home through a VERY. SMALL. PORTAL.  

And it's going to leave a helluva mess when it leaves.  

Sigh.

Tuesday.

Tuesday, I'll tear down Christmas and vacuum it up.

It's been a good one...despite the abundance of snot and vomit and diarrhea and is there any other bodily fluid I haven't mentioned?  

Two healthy trolls.

We are so damned lucky.