Revenge of the ringlets

1. Adele has two bad habits. Sucking her thumb...and twirling her hair.

Lately...with the latter...this is the result.

Another view?

See that wee little thumb?

No, of course you can't...because it is SMOTHERED IN KNOTTED HAIR.

This is happening several times a day.

And sometimes during the night.

For more than a week, now.

She'll be sitting there quietly and suddenly start shrieking.

We'll rush over to find her thumb wrapped up over and under and through, turning blue from lack of circulation.

So far, we've always been able to free her...and haven't had to break out the scissors.

But I'm guessing it's only a matter of time.

DOGS learn to avoid behaviours that cause them pain.

With Adele, WE ARE STILL WAITING.

One candy, two candies

1. Girls are in bed now; Eva just wrapped up a PhD student's worth of homework and Addie has been in bed for a while, singing away like an off-key karaoke leader in a tone-deaf crowd of one.

"Un bonbon. Deux bonbons. Deux bonbons. Deux bonbons. Deux savons. Deux savons. Lave les mains! Bravo." Then it all repeats; especially the candy part.

Translated: "One candy. Two candies. Two candies. Two candies. Two soaps. Two soaps. Wash your hands! Good for you!"

My fave part is the furious thumbsucking between refrains - a habit we're trying to break her out of, now that the fall cold (and pandemic) season is almost upon us.

It's one of the last truly BABY things Addie still does.

I'll miss lying in our bed at night and hearing a faint suck-suck-suck sound coming from Adele.

But the heartfelt jingles about candy and personal hygiene kind of make up for it.

2. Adele has nicknamed Etienne and me.

I am "Maminou" and Etienne is "Papitou".

Hearing her say it in her little helium-toddler voice makes me freaking MELT.

OH the sweetness.

And even more randomness

1. Eating an embarrassing amount of breakfast cereal for lunch. It's Maple Oatmeal Crispish sort of cereal and it's super crunchy and yummy and I'm a grownup so I'll eat as much of it as I damn well want. Just so you know.

2. Parents meeting with Eva's grade one teacher last night. All the parents trooped into the classroom and wedged ourselves into wee chairs in front of wee low tables, ready to find out WHAT TO EXPECT FOR THE YEAR.

Then her teacher came in.

Looking...FIFTEEN.

MAYBE.

I was fully expecting her to mention Twilight. Or start texting her mom.

But instead she was totally professional, intelligent, and well, quite fantastic.

We both liked her right off.

I think it's going to be a super year.

3. At one point during the evening's festivities, Catherine - the teacher - gave the parents some time to share homework strategies with one other.

I kind of figured it'd be things like, we do it at the same time every day.

Or, we ask her to do homework before she gets to play outside.

Suddenly, and with shocking speed, the mom next to me wheeled around and whipped out a rectangular plastic packet containing a tall stack of colour-coded flash cards, and slapped them out on the table with a triumphant thump.

Then the woman across from me did the same.

Colour-coded flash cards. Homemade and store-bought.

With pictures.

One parent described playing soccer with her kid, and he can only kick the ball back to her if he correctly spells a word first.

And diligently cutting words into wee bits of paper for the child to go through over breakfast.

Etienne and I just wound up sitting there quietly...we didn't know how to respond.

The colour-coded flashcards - in particular - left me feeling rather overwhelmed and uncreative.

Our strategy?

We ask Eva if she has homework.

If yes...she does it.

Listening to their stories...and all the time and effort they put into making it palatable for their kids..made me realize - once again - we're blessed with an awesome troll.

Two of them.

4. One more cool thing from parent-teacher night - each kid left their parents little cards that read, "Bonjour Maman et Papa. Je vous aime!" (Hello Mom and Dad. I love you!).

They all had little pictures drawn by the kids.

One kid had drawn a checkerboard.

Another, a car.

Eva's picture showed a bunch of children playing, including two little girls with rackets hitting a tennis ball, and an incredibly detailed little girl in the middle with braids.

But the best part: the swordfighting little girl in a wheelchair.

Oh yeah - have I mentioned that my troll is awesome?

Random

1. Eva, walking past a small grocery store that had gone out of business: "Maybe they'd have done better if they'd just labelled everything ORGANIC."

2. I decided to shoot a little home video of Addie in the tub. Not nekkid, just her happy little face as she sang and talked to herself.

The video goes something like this:

Zoom in on face of singing child. Child notices camera and smiles, then sings some more, placidly rocking back and forth.

"Bateau, sur l'eau..."

Zoom out slightly.

Child - known for taking dumps in the tub - then suddenly makes anxious expression and whines:

"Wanna go caca!"

VOICE ON OTHER SIDE OF CAMERA SHRIEKS, "OH!" AS CAMERA SHOT DROPS TO FLOOR NEXT TO TUB. QUICK FADE TO BLACK.

(*we made it, by the way!)

3. Addie does seem to be getting the hang of this potty thing...although she hasn't grasped that the detachable plastic bowl of her little stand-alone potty will hold more than a single turd at a time.

The moment she hears "something" hit the bottom of the potty, she leaps off and whips around to stick her face down in the hole and check it out.

It doesn't matter if she's completely DONE.

SOMETHING happened, and she wants to deal with it RIGHT FREAKING NOW.

So with a flourish and chanting, "Bravo, Adele!" she pulls the potty apart and dumps the offending item in the real toilet...then flushes dramatically - and with a few more rounds of "Bravo, Adele!" reassembles the potty and sits back down to continue her business.

Girl takes longer than a 109 year old man who missed the prunes at lunchtime.

But she gets it done.

Doh

1. Our cat just lost a mouse in the house. What an IDIOT.


Etienne and I were in the kitchen talking, when Coco came wheeling into the kitchen and ran for a corner...at which point we realized she had a mouse.


And then she lost the mouse.

Hilarity ensued as she chased it around for a while - and then it got away and raced under the piano in the living room.


Coco immediately started sweeping her paw under the piano but it didn't go far enough.


Etienne and I tried to help her out with extensible-type household utensils...and we were almost successful - we swept the little wretch out for just a moment, before it disappeared again beneath the piano.


We continued frantically sweeping.


Result:


Two markers
Two massive dust bunnies
One green block in the shape of a half-circle
One cap from a green marker (lost today)
One piece of odd multicoloured wax - melted crayon?
A couple of unidentified bits of paper


But no mouse.


I think it must have realized that it could go UP.


So...despite the fact that the girls had been in bed for an hour already...I began pounding scales on the piano...waiting for one key to ring silent...or at least to give a good plink and then a plunk as the mouse falls to the floor below.


NOTHING.


So now we have a mouse in the piano.


We have a peanut-buttery mousetrap beside the piano.


And we have a cat (who should be verrrry freaking embarrassed) parked by the piano.


DUDE...this is NOT what we pay you for.




2. Eva got her ears pierced last week.


She was ridonkulously brave, I thought...just marched right up and asked the lady to pierce her ears.


The woman told her that she could give her a freezing gel but it takes an hour to take effect.


Eva told the woman no thanks, just go for it.


So she did.


Eva chose her earrings (pink stars)...the woman drew dots on her earlobes...loaded up the little ear-piercing gun...then aimed and fired.


Between the two ears, Eva did breathlessly remark - in a tone suggesting mild hysteria - that IT HURT.


But she didn't cry.


Afterwards, I said, "I was SO PROUD of you...you even refused the freezing gel to make it hurt less!"


Eva whipped her head around with an audible crack and said,


"TO MAKE IT HURT LESS???"


Oops.


Next time, maybe we'll explain the process a BIT more clearly.


At least she'll know when she does her bellybutton, in ten years.




Off to bed. And yeah, I'll sleep just fine with a mouse in my piano.


A spider, on the other hand.....nope.

Gee thanks, kid

Eva's grandmother takes an ancient-looking jar of relish out of her fridge, as we prep our hot-dogs on a lovely late summer day.

She opens it, smells it, examines it carefully, before replacing the lid and setting it aside.

"I think that one's too old. I think it's gone bad, Eva" she says.

Eva sighs, turns, and shoves the jar across the table towards me.

"Here, Mama," she says.

"YOU TRY IT"

Day one, grade one

1. Eva seemed happy as could be, coming home after her first day of grade one. I had a huge a stab of guilt this morning while at work, knowing that Etienne was hauling three (3!) bags of school supplies, a lunch bag, a dazed Eva, and a squirming Adele - who refuses to hold your hand and tries to fling herself on the sidewalk when you lift her - into a school jammed with 200 other screaming and flailing kids all trying to find their classrooms.

But I talked with him afterward and he was cool as a cucumber - no problemo. Wattaguy.

2. Eva told me the first thing she had to do in grade one was to decorate a page with her name on it. The teacher instructed, "No guns, no violence, and no skulls".

Eva drew a mermaid.

Apparently a clamshell bra strapped on a spectacular pair of double DDs is just fine.

3. I have a summer cold and made the mistake of sniffling and coughing in front of Eva.

She chirped cheerfully, "Maybe you have the H1N1 virus".

Note to self: stop letting troll listen to the news.

4. To cap off an awesome day of grade one, she realized this evening that another tooth is preparing to free itself from the confines of her skull. This one is on top, though, which is particularly exciting. It's wiggling just a little, but she's pretty pumped.

My front teeth took about two years to come in after they fell out...and Etienne's were much the same.

If genetics play any role in tooth growth, Eva's gonna be missing her two front chiclets until menopause.

5. A nice day at work. Boss leaving for new job so we had champagne and bagels with cream cheese.

There is no bagel like a Montreal bagel.

Day two, grade one, bring it on.