I'm only a little bit pretty
So I'm at my kickboxing class the other morning, and this super-needy 50-ish woman decides that I'm her chosen one and attaches herself to me. When she discovers what street I live on (why oh why did I give her a street name?) she proceeds to ask me if I know "Maria". When I asked her to describe to me what "Maria" looks like, she looks at me quite thoughtfully and says, "Oh, she is quite tall and a little bit prettier than you are". My god, I know it was early in the morning, and I was a little bit hungover, but c'mon, you just don't say that to people!

Had the week off last week, hung out with the girls and Jo, in the pool everyday, soggy 'lil swimmers, soggy wet bathing suits and soggy wet towels left lying around everywhere tend to attract earwigs, fyi. My little dream is coming true though of people just popping in for swims, it's great, I don't to go anywhere or bring Grace anywhere, we have playdates on rotation in our backyard!

Grace is swimming like a pro and is now insulted if we ask her to put on floaties or a lifejacket. Edie has finally found her happy place by the pool: butt-naked on the steps with a little bowl of damp, chlorinated chips all to herself (it does sound kind of nice, doesn't it?)

If anyone knows of anyone who would rent me a parking spot downtown Ottawa three days a week, please let me know. I switch jobs mid-month and don't want to pay through the nose for parking.

Thanks to those who prayed for me - I survived Jo's absence, a little bruised, a little emotionally drained, but pretty much in one piece. One little Murphy's law thing though - why is it Edie was up 6:30/7:00 a.m. when Jo was gone, and this morning, after I was long gone to work, she slept until 8:30? (I know, some parents have much earlier wake-up calls, so I shouldn't complain).

A rundown of my life (who am I kidding, I don't have a life!) Let me rephrase, a quick run-down of the past few days:

-John Lee Hooker Jr. and Etta James on Thursday night with my Dad and my sister (wait! I do have a life!) this was an amazing concert and possibly the most beautiful summer night in Ottawa so far this year. A cold beer has never tasted so good.

-Friday, can't remember, must have erased it from my brain for some reason.

-Saturday, booked a sitter for Edie and took Grace to most unhappy place in the world, a place called Midway, where I later learned some shootings took place last year. It cost $18 for Grace to play on an indoor play structure (where I had to discipline a nasty little child for pushing Grace and for being a nasty little human being - where were his parents?); play some germ covered games and ride a motorized kiddie car around in circles for 5 minutes. Oh well, she had fun.

-Saturday again, felt like Britney Spears when invited for dinner to a new friend's house. This woman has two kids, 4 and 2 1/2, her house is clean, her kids listen to her, both kids still sit in highchairs where they are happily restrained, her daughter clears the table after dinner (!). Meanwhile, when I was distracted trying to discipline Grace for something or another, Edie fell down some stairs (just two, and they were carpeted, so no biggie in my books). The new friend looked a little horrified. The kicker is when we were leaving, she had the nerve to offer me homemade jam. You just don't offer homemade jam to people like me, who can't even get it together enough to make homemade anything!

-Sunday-day. Friends came over and spent the morning with us the pool....yippee! Almost had to kill their son though when he woke up Edie from her nap (he just wanted to see how cute she is when she's sleeping, unfortuntally for me, she isn't so cute for the rest of the afternoon when she only naps for an hour!)

-Sunday-night. Jonas walks through the door, and I pretty much walk out, head to Starbucks/Chapters, read Star and People for an hour and return home refreshed and in love with my kids again.

Website of the day: http://www.tistasty.com/jamstand.htm Just in case I ever have time to make homemade jam.

Pray for me - Jonas may be gone for a whole week leaving me alone with our two little enchiladas. Send back-up if I don't post by next week.....may the gods have mercy on my soul.

CHECK THE CRYING BABY
I'm all for letting little ones crying it out sometimes, but when a kid who usually settles for the night quite peacefully decides to kick up a fuss and howl and cry, it might be worth checking out. The other night Jonas and I were doing shots and dancing on the tables (okay, we were folding laundry together) and Edie started howling. When I went into her room, her foot was stuck between the bars of her crib and she really couldn't get it out! This is not the first time this has happened, so why does she keep doing it if the outcome is always the same: great pain/discomfort, interrupted sleep, harsh glaring light turned on so Mom and Dad can operate, Vaseline rubbed on foot to slide it out of bars and Mom and Dad rotating foot around to make sure no bones are broken. After the trauma though, there are some awesome cuddles before she gets put back in her crib. Maybe it's all worth it just for those few minutes rocking on the Lazyboy? I heard her attempting to do it again last night before she fell asleep, but Mr. Sandman got her before the crib bars could get her feet.

Thanks to Jimmy for the great picture of Edie!

Website of the day: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8TeNdsoCIgc&search=ernest%20and%20bertram

Just back from a week off with the family! Gotta admit, it felt kind of good to sit at my desk, sip at my coffee, and review my emails with no interruptions. In hindsight, it was a great week off - three awesome days at the cottage for our annual Absolut Canada Day weekend (great group this year, lots of laughs, kids were great - I don't think there was one "time-out", though a crayfish was dismembered....) Once home, we had lots of outings to keep everyone occupied, the best, by far, was the trip to Mt. Cascades Water Park - Grace and I joined friends there and I felt like I was four years old again...I was racing Grace up and down the slides and giggling and not wanting to go home - I sort of know how she feels now when we have to peel her away from something super-fun. We also signed Grace up at Douvris School of martial Arts (I can almost hear the collective "gulp" of people reading this). Sensei Dave assured me that while yes, they do train people to kill, they also teach them to not ever have a situation go that far. If I don't show up at work one day, chances are I've denied Grace some gummy bears or something and she's tossed me like a rag doll. Anyhoooo, I think it will be a great experience for her, and I'm going to take some kick-boxing at the same time to spice up my workout routine.

Edie, Edie, Edie.....why did you have to pick the week that I was off to become a cranky, miserable, hold me don't hold me feed me but don't feed me that give me that toy NO THAT TOY baby? Jonas and I determined the following: at sixteen months and having only four teeth, the others must be doing the Hustle above her little gumline and are going to all break through at once and b) it has been two weeks since her MMR shot, and the doctor said if she was going to react (c'mon, this is Edie, OF COURSE she is going to react!) it would be in two weeks time. So, Edie wasn't super-fun this past week, but she made up for it with moments of super-cuteness.

WE SWAM IN OUR POOL YESTERDAY! It's not perfect yet, but the whole fan-damily took the plunge and we swam. Grace is doing great, can swim without her life-jacket now (though we do insist on a life-jacket when we are with Edie or not focused on her 110%). Edie floats around in this little floating raft, not really knowing what is going on, but seems to enjoy it. Jonas has been working very hard on the pool, and while sometimes I can see the rage boiling beneath his calm surface, his determination to get this pool going has become his goal in life.

To end our vacation, we pic-nikked with friends with kids last night at Mooney's Bay. It was a beautiful night, great food, kids had a ton of fun. The only drawback was the psycho mom whose daughter latched on to our kids, which was fine, but she latched for two hours, ate our food, bossed our kids around, taught them naughty things and followed us everywhere. When Grace had to go pee, she asked if she could come to, I said sure. Our friend thought maybe the mother (who was nowhere to be seen for these two hours) should know, so he went and told her that her daughter was with me off to the washroom. He got "fuck-you mind your own business" as a reply. Huh? Then, the woman came to washrooms, grabbed her daughter, and proceeded to drop f-bombs left, right and centre, in front of the kids! I'm no prude, and I do occasionally swear, but never, in anger, in front of my kids. No wonder this kid latched on to us, I wouldn't want to be with her mother either. Sad.

Whew! I'm spent. I'm sure there is more to write, but my coffee is getting cold.

Website of the day:
http://www.montcascades.ca/
Seriously, it rocks. Go to Costco and buy your passes there - it's less expensive that way (it's not a cheap outing).