"Christmas: in one sentence"

The Best Christmas since 1984: there was true santa magical belief, family (my sister and the german), too much food, spontaneous socializing, merry music making (two guitar playing germans), alcohol fountains, sleeping in, staying up, card games, snow storms and street play, a big party (new year's eve), lack of routine, a real christmas tree, and on top of all of that, the discovery that topical application of honey to zits, helps them go away. 

Love: take 2

My sister and the german

Love: take 1

Lew and his blankie

Civil War

Now they're making clubs...

CURRENT KICK #5009

This is a health kick:
1. floss regularly
2. take my vitamins (D and a multi)

I've decided to forever.

Recipe for super fantastic FUN

2 Germans

3 Guitars

6 small children

15 imported beers

2 singing sisters

1 pot of pasta

2 episodes of Moonlighting

Throw into one big house, cook until boiling over, repeat until bedtime.

How to not do your homework

1. forget you have any.

2. leave it to the last minute to "remember."

3. Lie about what is expected of you.

4. fake a sickness: "isn't it more important that I rest 'cause I'm sick than I get my homework done?" then wince, grab your side, collapse (on the side of the road), and say you need to lie down (project due in less than 24 hours).

5. draw all over your hand instead of on your paper.

6. insist that doing the minimum is just fine, thank you very much.

7. make your mother pour herself a drink from the stress of it all.

Right NOW

I'm compulsively eating marsh mellow snow men.

Feels better now that I've shared that.

Top Most Annoying Toddler Habits

I love my son. I just hate what he does sometimes. I've had a 1.5 to 3.5 year old (definition of a toddler?) for years (5-ish maybe) with no breaks, and I'm ready to move on. I'm not joking.

Behaviours I've had enough of:

1. Screaming: Frustration screaming. Deafen you in one ear cause you've thrown them over your shoulder to save their lives screaming. Silence a party while everyone turns to you and your wild out of control child screaming. Everything is mine don't touch it screaming. I want everything that you have screaming. Life is so unfair I think I'm dying/you're murdering me screaming.

2. Compulsive coloring: With anything on anything. Pen/marker/pencil vigilance is at its all time high. On our newly painted walls and couch with permanent marker hurt me the most.

3. Constant spills of all liquids during each meal.

4. Diapers: the diaper change and how the desire to get it done rests only with me. The constant striping of ones clothes followed by diaper and if I'm lucky, oh if I'm lucky, poop smearing. His recent habit of taking his clothes/diaper off during the night and peeing all over his bedding. So charming. 

5. The trashing. His ability to empty all containers (schoolbags, purses, clean laundry hampers) and hide their contents. His little fingers are excellent at opening zippers.

6. The wrestle: to dress, diaper change, shoe, car seat this toddler; the unwilling I've-got-a-wasting-muscle-disease-and-am-totally-limp collapse; The "I Refuse to DO THAT cause I've Noticed you're Arms are TOO Full to Drag Me" Tantrum. 

7. Trouble making: his near-genius ability to find Trouble in any room and Get Into It. Thus the need for constant shadowing and limited blinking. 

8. Complete lack of rational.  There is no explaining to these humans, no "don't you understand? If you eat/do that you'll get worms/AIDS/killed!" 

9. Food all over the house. It's as if he's leaving a trail to find his way home.

10. Assholes who comment: "you'll miss this, Believe ME, you will" (Living with an insane terrorist on speed? Just watch me not)

Right now the little wildabeast is eating a slab of dark chocolate. 

Sigh. 

Only one year to go.

Tell Me: #15

What should I do (please, I have absolutely no drive to decide on my own):

 

Real tree versus Fake tree?

Real tree pros: it's real and smelly and it's realness is its fun-ness cause it's real fun to have a tree that's real. And fun. And disposably fun and real-ly disposable. 

Fake tree pros: it's fake and it's clean and it's not real so imaginary? Like santa: so, in the spirit?  meh. But it's clean and plastic-y and plastic-y clean and storable and reusable. 

Someone told me they hate people like me (or potential future me), who buy fake christmas trees. So there is also THAT to consider. 

Note to all four yous: we used to have a little living tree as our xmas tree until I neglected it to death last year. (Asshole score: 6/10). 

december to-do list

1. make cookies

2. have spontaneous parties at my kitchen table with all kinds of people

3. buy as little as possible

4. be more accepting of all the assholes in the world

5. try to be less of an asshole

6. drink moderately at least some of the time

7. avoid parades

8. teach lew that poop-play does not win you friends (at this rate he'll have a shit fetish by the time he's eight)

9. buy candy canes

10. finish my clone prototype

11. get my shit together

12. plan a faux vacation

13. buy some socks

14. do as little as possible

15. start not doing stuff tomorrow

Current KICK #7880

Compulsively listening to the same song over and over and over and over again, making the people in my world happy headphones were invented. 

Parenting milestone #6(?): Emergency Surgery

Pros of hospital life:

1. near complete isolation (we weren't even allowed out of the room for the first three days): a break from the stresses of my life which include people, work/school, daily tasks like eating, bathing and cleaning. A chance to reflect and get my shit together. I really hope I get my shit together.  

2. One-on-one time with Lew for 23 hours a day (I get to leave for about an hour to forage for food and clean myself).

3. Cable TV! Galore. 

4. It's cold outside but I don't have to feel it!

5. I'm improving my text messaging skills.

6. They bring meals (for Lew anyway).

7. free coffee!

8. I get to sleep in until 8.

Cons of hospital life:

1. No access to facebook. Big Brother thinks it's a Bad Thing, a Time Waster even, and has the site blocked. 

2. Oh right, my super sick baby.

3. I'm only eating chocolate and coffee.

4. I've officially missed EVERY deadline I ever had. I'm probably going to get fired/kicked out/go to jail.

5. I sleep on things made of plastic. 

6. Student nurses who talk baby talk, pull him out of bed when I'm trying to get him to nap, who hover, who insist on doing procedures (like blood pressure) because "it's what's expected of them".  

7. My near constant institution-induced headache.

8. the IV that is ALWAYS going off. Day and Night. Mostly between 1-5 a.m. 

I think we're in here for the weekend. Although we may get a Day Pass, for a few hours. The little guy is doing better. Phew.

Snap-shots of the future

Driving to Loblaws (a grocery store), 4:45 pm, me and six-year-old Dex, our conversation:

D: "How do people get married?"

Me: "Well, they go to a church, say a bunch of words about forevers, and then sign some papers."

D:  "How do you know who to marry?"

Me: "Well, you find one person you really like and who you think you can spend the rest of your life with. And you have a little faith that you're choosing The Right Person."

D:  "Finding one person. That sounds Really Hard."

Me: "Yeah, it is."

D: "I don't want to get married...What I really want to know, is how you get a credit card...."

Jesus.

CURRENT KICK #5567

Condiments. I do not lie. I was trying to google search a word that started with 'c' yesterday and instead wrote the word condiments. They are on my mind. What the hell is wrong with me? So I went and got a veggie dog (a $2.75 condiment vehicle) from the chip truck on the street. I'm afraid of myself. Is this a form of pica? 

On my mind.

Craving #3457, 3458, 3459

A couch to flop on.

A TV to stare at.

Someone to make me dinner.

Tooth Ferry

As discussed over snack yesterday, after inquiring how Dex's loose tooth was doing, we have three working hypotheses as to the nature of the tooth fairy:

1. The tooth fairy is an actual fairy. But as Dexter pointed out, fairy's don't exist so...

2. The tooth fairy is a super good person who gives money he/she's found, comes to the door, rings the doorbell and is let in (Dexter's idea)

3. The tooth fairy is a boat (get it? See title). 

Number three was Neville's contribution. What a little punster.

CURRENT KICK #4567

All coffee/alcohol diet. 

No hyperboles necessary

How to move in 10 easy steps:

1. Decide on Saturday that you'll move on Sunday. Sleep in on Sunday.

2. Drink a quart of coffee, make pancakes, and turn up the Bob Marley tunes.

3. Have a reggae dance party.

4. Finish digging the trench in the backyard. Tap into septic system, create river of sewage in backyard. Give up and Walk Away.

5. Try to eat all the food in fridge for lunch. Discover milk of broccoli cereal is really fucking gross. Wonder why this didn't occur to you before you decided to try to eat it.

6. Miss a boat (first car to NOT get on). 

7. Take a nap.

8. Say fuckit, leave the island house a mess, grab our back packs and catch the next boat. Feel a microsecond of sentiment. Get over it. 

9. Eat out: notice that child number three is only wearing a plaid shirt, diaper, and one rubber boot. Start trashing the joint like rockstars when the food takes one too many minutes to arrive.  

10. Discover: New house has no hot water downstairs, no cold water upstairs, a completely plugged kitchen sink, a layer of drywall dust still on everything, and that Neville has a raging fever. 

Am shocked that my eyes feel they are going to pop right out of my head. Laugh it off. Like a wild animal.

Wishes

I wish I could say that we've successfully moved to our new house and spend all of our now free time stolen from boat rides doing things like making gourmet meals and sitting around with relaxed smiles on our faces. I wish I could say that I found a pot of gold. I wish I could say that I know what I'm doing with my life. I wish I could tell you that I've done all the work I need to do and am On Top Of IT. I wish I could say that I've been going to the gym everyday for four hours and that my abs are so strong that I have to buy new shirts cause they keep ripping out of all the shirts I own. I wish I could claim my diet is nutritionally sound and didn't consist almost entirely of Tim Horton's meals (our national coffee shop). I'd love to be able to claim I didn't get drunk last night. Or eat one too many free veggie burgers. I wish I could regale you with stories of self composure, cool and calm. Or a semblance of self-control. 

But alas. I cannot. And fuckit. I'm okay with that.

Postcards from my vacation

Dear _______,
I'm having a lovely vacation here on the fourth floor of Crainy Hall. Everyday is very comfortable: weather never happens (it is climate controlled and there are no windows), there are no people as this is not a well known vacation destination, and the sensory deprivation room (the back office) is Perfect for long afternoon naps, as long as the chairs don't drift too far apart. Yesterday I ate all of the left over food in the communal fridge (thanks Stu for the 5 day old perogies!) so even my "dining" costs have been kept to a minimum. I've been working on my abilities to pass the day away and accomplish Absolutely Nothing. Thursday was a record setter when I actually decided I was too disinterested to use the bathroom! That was a good day. I will be bringing you some lovely trinkets: a bag of dried rat shit, some bloody syringes, and a pile of used paper towel. You can thank me later!

Well, just wanted to let you know that Yes, I'm still alive but I've been away. On my vacation. I'll be back sometime next week. I hope.

later skater.
e

Nova Scotia in the summertime

5 things I learned on my NS wedding journey:
1. I can sleep for 3 hours and then drive for 16
2. That I can talk non-stop for 12 hours
3. That my crazy amount of energy/mania is most certainly inherited (from my grandpop to my mother to me)
4. My family can throw a mean party (some said NS was better than Amsterdam)
5. There are three kinds of biting bugs in NS at the end of July: no-see-ems/mosquitoes/deer flies

5 things I did on my NS wedding journey:
1. Made a wedding cake (who knew I could do that)
2. Climbed a waterfall, stared at the starry sky
3. swam naked
4. had a spoon fight
5. slept on the floor, in a Uni dorm, and sometimes, if I was lucky, a bed

5 things I ate on my NS wedding journey:
1. donair pizza!
2. lobster
3. poutine
4. schnitzel
5. HAM (thanks Pop)

Word of the day

Banannibalism: bananas, eating bananas.

In a sentence: "Where did all the bananas go? Must be those banannibalistic bananas again!"

(seriously, my kids eat too many bananas)

On a parenting note: Is it wrong that my six year old knows about cannibalism? And that we made a joke about it? And laughed. A lot?

I'm going to make some very strange people. At least I'll finally have some company.

Beachtastic

A bonus of island living.

Our new house: 110 Earl Street

STATS
Occupancy date: September-ish
Number of floors: 3
Size of backyard: post-it note;
Distance from school/work/downtown: five minute walk, 2 second sprint, 10 minute messy drunken stagger.
Amount of renovations: I don't want to talk about it; it makes my nose bleed.
Number of tricks I need to turn to pay for renovations: 15,000, give or take (however you like it, baby).
Number of future spontaneous events that will occur: hundreds! millions!
Number of ferries needed to take to get home: ZERO
Number of coffees I've had today: 3
Are we selling our island house? No. Although talk on the street says yes.
Are we OUT OF OUR FREAKING MINDS? Most certainly. Have we met?
Am I pregnant? Hahahahaahaahahaa. ahhhhhh. NO
Will we rent our island place? only to people who can pooh gold bars and play banjos. We also have a preference for people with hermaphraditic pets. Please put the word out!
Do we need furniture? Peshaw: furniture is for babies and communists.
Am I stressed? No, cause all I think about are rainbows and unicorns.

From the street

The backyard: just the way I like it, paved! Lawns are for sissies.

Fabulous Lew

Lew in all his sweetness:



Lew in all his naughtiness:

The puddle visibly shrank as Lew's diaper soaked up the water.

When my kids get thirsty I send them to the "drinking hole."

Caught red-handed helping himself to water melon.

Dreaded transition # 100

When the two year old learns to get our of their crib.

Thus begins the two or three (crap it could eight this time) weeks of 2 hour nightly struggle.

Wish me luck.

And patience.

And a steady supply of post-bedtime alcohol.

Surprises for the unsurprisable

Sweet Neville came running into the kitchen minutes ago and and said: "Mommy, I've got a surprise for you!" He had his hands behind his back and the most delightful smile on his fair face. "Tell me, Nev, what is it?" And from behind his back he produces five daisies. "I found them in the grass by the puddle" says he.

Darling, gentle Neville. Thank you.

Happiness and Longing

On a happiness note:
I've been ridiculously happy of late. Maybe it's the hot weather; or that things really are just right; maybe it's from the most obscenely chocolately cake I made on Monday that blasted all of the dopamine in my feel-good neurons; or the flash Down-Pour friends and I got caught in the other night while headed to a birthday party; or possibly that my polaroid camera is loaded and ready to go. I know nothing except this: I can't get enough of the song "in it" by Don Brownrigg, a dude from Newfoundland. It's got that Atlantic Canadian spirit. Makes me want to crack jokes, celebrate, cannon ball into the lake with my clothes on, spin in circles under the sky, go home to Nova Scotia, kiss and hug and run and jump and love, all with a silly grin on my face.

On a longing note:
Sometimes a person doesn't even know they miss something until it turns up in their mind for the 5090th time. What's been on my mind? The ocean. I really miss the ocean. I keep seeing and hearing it in movies and I have this odd body memory, those memories of childhood that feel more like limbs than thoughts. There is nothing like salt-water skin, salt-water hair, sand blasted feet, jellyfish stings. I've had some real life moments to the sounds of waves crashing. The next time I find myself at the ocean I will not even pause: I'll just take it full force and throw myself in.

I can't wait.

I think I'm crazy

How does a person know when they've lost their mind?
Is it even possible to know?
Or does your reality just slowly shift until eventually you find yourself in "crazy land" most of the time and it's been so gradual that it's your new normal?

All I know is this:

Moving/renovating + finding new childcare/being without reliable childcare + two adults who work 60+ hour weeks + an island + MASSIVE REPRESSIVE UNRELENTING parent/life guilt = CRAZY

Brain scrambling, mind numbing, certifiable craziness.

At least it's not snowing.

Mother's Day for a Mother

Saturday night:

6 p.m.
Lewis vomits while eating dinner. Like a Roman, he pukes on the floor, turns back to his food, and keeps on eating. I'm marginally horrified.

7 p.m.
I hear Lew coughing in his crib and go in just in time to see him vomit all over his bed.

7:15 p.m.
Cancel the babysitter and our plans to go out for drinks.

11: 25 p.m.
Neville wakes up complaining of aching legs. He crawls into bed with Duncan.

3:15 a.m. Mother's Day
Neville vomits all over the bed, Duncan, and the bathroom. (Note to selves: DO NOT MOVE A VOMITING CHILD.) I spend the next hour scrubbing the bathroom with bleach and washing laundry. I fall asleep to sounds of the an unbalanced washing machine bouncing around the laundry room.

7:15 a.m.
"Happy Mother's Day"
Oh, right. I say.

Lupdate

Lupdate = life update

1. Taxes are due in 2.5 days (holy freak show: an organized emily: could it happen?).

2. The new house closes in one week. Excuse me, I'm just going to go throw up a little in my mouth. Our new era: cash poor, house rich.

3. I'm over my new musical obsession: Eskobar. Thanks to them, I've required spiritual intervention and have picked up Buddhism (as of Saturday).

4. I cycled 20 km in a rain storm the other day on my road bike. When I got home, I actually poured rain out of my shoe. It was bliss. And the best part: a delicious steak was waiting for me. I cried tears of happy joy while I ate the shit right out of that red meat nirvana.

5. A miracle is currently under way: Spring!! The tides of the universe have shifted and I (that would be me) spent a good portion of the last weekend sun tanning various parts of my body. It was 27 Canadian degrees. I couldn't not lie in it. Naked.

The view from my belly

6. I almost lost my new cell phone. The reason I have a new cell phone: I lost the old one. Twice.

7. I'm growing hair. Luckily, it's on my head, right where it should be (I've routinely shaved it for over a year). I have no idea what this new hair growth is leading to.

8. Lewis has learned how to take his clothes off. Compulsively.

Everything grows.

Today is Neville's 4th birthday. He is my favorite Neville in the whole world. He is the child I dreamed I would have: long, lean, blue eyed and white haired.

The past four years of Neville have been a real go. He came into the world after an excruciating labour (I seriously thought I was going to die: once he was born I declared "it's a fucking miracle!" to which everyone replied "of course, a baby is born!" to which I clarified "no, the fact that I survived, that is the miracle!"). But he made up for it by being a delightful, easy, lovely little human. This, of course, was all due to my incredible genes and my incredible parenting.

But then, like lightning, like life, he morphed seemingly overnight into toddlerhood. For an entire year and a half (age 2-3.5) he attempted to gas light his parents, leaving us heaving on the floor, disoriented and drooling (on the good days!). To this day, he continues to know exactly what he wants and how he wants it but luckily is significantly less schizophrenic. Usually he is gentle, caring, and silly. Often he is whiny and stubborn. But he is always Neville. And I adore him.

Ritual-free

Being heathens/atheists, it's difficult to participate in customs that don't carry any personal significance. And for some reason it feels worse to only indulge in the fluffy side of the rituals, like the easter bunny. Alas, that is all we did this year: colored eggs, anticipated the coming of the Bunny, and then ate his/her/its chocolately offerings.

The Easter bunny (me) accidentally left all the chocolate in the car the day before easter and the beautifully formed chocolate bunnies I had purchased, melted. Luckily, the kids didn't seem to notice the mashed nature of the little creatures and enjoyed them all the same. (PS: no baskets here...we used bowls.) Such a lazy Easter Bunny.

The coloring...

Progress...

Complete!

In no particular order...

Nev. With a black eye (he mysteriously fell on his face-he takes after his mother) and chocolate embellishments.

Dex, shaggy and chocolated.

Lew, wishing he was a big kid.

Parenting Milestone #6: childhood disease

Well, in six years of having children, this is the first time one of them has had a significant illness, significant enough to make a parent want to vomit, to not think, to look the other way. I've considered myself very lucky. I've also figured it's only a matter of time before someone gets something.

This morning, looking grave, The Plastic Surgeon walked onto the boat. Wow, I thought, it's not often that she looks this stressed. Seconds later, she turned to us and said: "Well, the consensus [herself and the dermatologist] is that we're going to treat it like a melanoma. So, I'm going to take him back into the OR and remove a wack more skin, which will need to then be grafted. But no lymph node biopsy." We then went on to discuss where she would take the graft from: the groin? No, as he risks growing pubic hair on his hand. From his wrist? No, as he'll look like he attempted suicide as a teen.

This will be a longer operation, with bigger wounds. I'm not sure what to think. I'm pleased that they are taking it seriously, being cautious, and treating it like cancer. In the same breath, it fucking freaks me out that they are treating it like cancer. When future doctor-people ask, "any significant childhood diseases in his past?" do I say "yeah, melanoma?" Fuck. It makes my mind spin. However, I also thank my lucky stars that this is all that it is. And that Dex probably won't die anytime soon, from cancer at least.

The C-word

One and a half weeks ago Dex had the minor surgery to remove the growth on his thumb. For a 10 minute actual operation, we were at the hospital for five hours. This included check-in, waiting to be called to the OR, putting him under (which I got to witness), the operation, and then waiting for him to wake up. Dex was very brave and didn't cry once. Duncan and I were very brave too, not realizing how emotional the whole event was until after the fact, when we found ourselves exhausted. Since then, we've been tending to his wound with daily applications of polysporin and not two, but three bandaides.

Yesterday we (me and the three boys) went back to The Plastic Surgeon for Dex's one week post-op check-up. She spent the first little bit cleaning up the wound and removing the last of the dissolving stitches. As she was finishing up, I asked "So, did they do a biopsy?" fully expecting her to report a confirmation of the "hari-horrible-itis." Instead, she grabbed the pathology report and came in close: a doctor's way of saying "you're going to need to sit down for this."

"It's not what I expected," she said. Okay. "It's a junctional spitz nevus." Okay. "And there is some controversy about it's diagnosis. It could be a low-grade melanoma. I've referred him to a dermatologist to see how she thinks we should proceed. The question is whether or not we should biopsy his lymph nodes."

Melanoma. The C-word. Holy FUCK.

"Don't freak out Yet" she said.

So, I took the boys for sundaes and tried not to freak out.

Winter

Stats:
1. This weekend it snowed for 2 days. Complete with ice pellets. And wind straight from the North Pole. Total snow: 25-50 cm.
2. This morning when I woke up: -20
3. Date: March 10th.
4. Number of cars I got stuck in the snow this morning: 2
5. Number of extra minutes it took the boat to cross: 10
6. Forecast for Tomorrow: -12
7. Number of suicidal thoughts in the past 48 hours: 24

FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY, WINTER FUCK OFF, FOR FUCK SAKE.
Like the end of a pregnancy, when you've resigned yourself to being pregnant FOREVER, that this is your new state of always being, I have resigned myself to winter. Spring will never come. It does not exist.

Parenting Milestone #5

On Monday morning Dexter will go in for surgery to remove that "thing" on his thumb. In our parental panic last month we had him referred to a plastic surgeon (the same one who made me more beautiful) for consultation. Her conclusion: hari-horrible-itis, associated with a significant chance of developing cancer (and sprouting hair-ick) later in life. Come off it must!! And because he's so little and it's rather large, she decided that putting him under (general anesthetic) is the easiest, least scary for him, way to go.

This is the first time one of my offspring has needed surgery. It is minor. However, no matter how minor, being generally anesthetized is not something to be taken lightly. The Plan: He'll be first in the OR Monday morning, so we (Dex and I) have to be on the first boat. I wish Duncan could be there but we are shit out of luck when it comes to finding childcare that early. If ever there was a good time to have an extended family member near by, now would be it. But alas, we do not. So, he'll stay with the other babes while I brave the OR with Dex. Times have changed since I had surgery as a kid and I will get to be in there with him while he's put under. Essentially, they will breath him down with gas, keep him sedated for about three minutes (or as long as it takes to remove and stitch up the thing), and then bring him out.

It will be an adventure! I'm really not that nervous and am presenting it as an "experience" to Dex. And best of all: that hari-horrible-itis will be gone.

The marginally funny part: Saturday night Duncan and I are going out with The Plastic Surgeon and her husband to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship at a bar. I can't wait for the bloody fight fest.

Birthday Botox

All of a sudden I've turned into a shitty (read: lazy) blogger. I'm sorry. I promise I will make it up to you.

Updates:
So I turned 31 this week. This completely blows my mind. I never imagined myself in my 30s, only as an adult: age undefined. But alas, I am growing old, which I guess is better than the alternative (death). My 31st b-day was remarkably unremarkable. I ran experiments, hung out with my rats, experienced a small depression because I was spending the day alone with my rats (who by the way, did not wish me happy birthday), but then rallied with a lovely sushi dinner and divine chocolate cake. I don't expect people to do anything for my birthday: after all, I'm a grown up, such expectations are childish. I counteract this expectation by trying to plan things for myself to do and doing things for others (e.g., buying rounds of drinks). Last year I did 30 things I've never done (in one day). It was too much fun. This year, frankly, I was uninspired: thirty-one is such a dull number, almost not worthy of celebration.

But just then there was some excitement: on one of my boat rides home I was having a talk with my plastic surgeon friend who will be opening her practice in a few months. For advertising, she's offering discounted procedures in hopes that people will be so happy, they'll brag her up to all the rich, saggy people. For the third time, she mentioned that she had some "unclaimed" botox in her fridge. I've been thinking about getting some botox for a long time: I've got "thinking" lines between my eyes that make people say, "Are you tired? Angry? Stressed?" even when I'm not. Her offer, one day before my unplanned birthday, was what I needed. On Friday morning, I got the botox. And I love it. And I think this is the beginning of a trend: my lovely surgeon friend showed me all the cool equipment she's buying and will be anxious to try out. On me. I'll look like Cher in no time! Oh, and have more friends, make more money and be famous.

I'll post a photo of me trying my best to look thoughtful soon.

Seriously now

I know I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again: I'm done with age one. Seriously. The destruction, the impulsiveness, the non-verbal yelling, the five second attention span, the constant climbing on the kitchen table, the octopus-like creature that refuses to sit still for a millisecond in order to get dressed making the process seem infinite, the chewed food that's been spit out all over the house. It's. Driving. Me. Insane. And, boy, it's a really effective form of birth control.

Blinking: it gets me every time.

2008: The Plan

Well, it's a new year. This is what I plan to accomplish in 2008:

1. Exercise until my nose bleeds three times (at least) a week
2. Be a production machine: publish three papers and win some scholarships/fame
3. Refrain from drinking to excess on most days
4. Eat, preferably foods with nutritional value
5. Do as many new things as I can
6. Write some poetry
7. Spend some really excellent quality time with my children, everyday
8. Be a good person. Okay, be a not-so-bad person.
9. Live. Well. And hard.
10. World Domination.