And we'll call him George

"Hey mom!" Hana said as she was getting ready to head off to school this morning. "I had the weirdest dream last night."

"Oh yah?"

"I dreamt we got more pets."

"Uh-huh?"

"We got three dachshunds, two birds, and a cowboy!"

"A cowboy?"

"YES!" exclaimed Hana, barely containing her giggles. "Isn't that funny?"

"It really is. What was the cowboy's name?"

"George!" she exclaimed, without even pausing to think, and off she went to catch the school bus.

I forgot to ask her if he came with a horse.

Ouch

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

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

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...

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

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

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

"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.)