Is it okay to win?
Last night Grace and I played Snakes and Ladders before bedtime. We have been doing this quite a bit lately, and trying to teach her the virtues of playing by the rules and not cheating. As luck would have it, she has been winning every time. Last night, her lucky winning streak came to an end, and I won. I really didn’t want to, but I figured it was a life lesson, and I should go ahead and take the win. I really wasn’t prepared for how upset she became. She wasn’t angry and she didn’t throw a temper tantrum, she just sobbed. She was crushed. It gave me real insight into our little girl, her competitiveness and her desire to be the very best. I’m glad she wants to be the best, I think this will bode well for her later on in life, we just need to teach her that it is perfectly fine to be the best that she can be and to be okay with that.
That little life lesson made my heart ache.

Wow, it’s getting harder and harder to find the time to write in this thing. I feel like I’m filled with enough clever little stories to write here everyday, but alas, i never get around to it.
Okay, enough about me, more about the family. A check list of this weekends activities:

1) Friends drove Grace to karate in the a.m., yippee! Jo and I were able to drink coffee and read the paper in relaxo-time (Edie was trucking around somewhere, but she’s pretty happy doing just that without much interference on our part).
2) I did my kick boxing class for the first time in two weeks! Felt great! It’s really starting to irk me how the instructor flirts with all the cute girls though. It’s just so…..obvious.
3) During Edie’s nap (went down on the attempt #2) Jonas put up the xmas lights (only a small amount of blood shed). Grace karate kicked down our scarecrow…good-bye Fall, hello Winter!)
4) Paid $15 to go the Museum of Nature, where we only explored the first floor dinosaur exhibit. Spent another $15 in the gift shop on a bouncy ball (lost) and magnet (confiscated).
5) Watched a disturbing movie “The Shape of Things”….good, but icky.
6) Went to Mom and Dad’s for Jo’s birthday breakfast. Jo and Grace then went swimming, Edie and I napped at their house. Cosy.
7) Little hang time with Edie the Bikini, who kills me with her funny ways (I wish I had a video of her dancing, the only way to describe it is….earnest).
8) Grey Cup/football on the new plasma for Jo, girls take refuge in our bedroom and watch Shrek (well, sort of watched it…I think there was five minutes of calm, the rest of the time was spent tickling, breaking up fights, me trying to control the crumb crisis occurring in our bed).
9) Spontaneous walk where Grace kept squishing my shadow. Hmmm, pent up resentment towards Mommy?
10) Ridiculously chaotic dinner (“Grace, ON YOUR BUM! Why isn’t Edie eating anything! Grace, I’m counting, 1-2- that’s your last warning! Edie, keep the chicken IN your mouth! Grace, sit back down…Jonas, pour me a glass of wine……”
11) 8:30, peace and quiet. Good night.

and on the 50th day she posted pictures...

This is my 50th post! Who knew I had so much to ramble on about! Total cop-out today, too lazy to write, so enjoy our Hallowe'en pictures and revel in the girls' cuteness (Jonas wouldn't let me snap him in his costume!)

She was a dancing queen...I was starting to worry about myself and my inability to have fun. It seems that even on nights when we have a babysitter, I can’t completely relax because I’m constantly thinking about functioning the next day. One more glass of wine could equal a hangover, and it’s not much fun parenting with a head ache. One more hour out means I’m not getting enough rest, and I suck at life when I’m not rested. Well, I proved to myself this weekend that I can still have fun and relax – I just need to remove myself from home and my children in order to do so.
On Saturday morning, Jonas drove Terrie, Maureen and me to the train station so we could catch our ride to Montreal. We arrived at noon, scarfed down smoked meat sandwiches and promptly started spending money. We shopped like pro’s, and we shopped well together. Nobody shadowed anybody, we were all happy to split up and meet later.
Four hours later we hit the hotel and Maureen had the foresight to pack some wine. Getting hungry, we got ourselves all gussied up (I dusted off the knee-high leapord skin boots for this night) and head on out for a night out on the town. Gotta love Montreal for it’s bring your own bottle restaurants. Once again, Maureen was smart enough to suggest that two bottles would be better than one. Dinner was okay, conversation was great. And, lo and behold, it was 11 o’clock and I wasn’t even tired. We were ready for some dancing (we had done some research and located some 80’s music clubs). We went here: http://www.worldsbestbars.com/city/montreal/a-gogo-lounge-montreal.htm
and here http://www.clubsmontreal.com/en/electricavenue/home.html
There is something about hearing New Order and old Billy Idol that makes me positively giddy!
We danced up a storm and didn't put our heads to pillow until about 4:30 a.m. Not bad for a couple of old girls.
We were a little slow moving the next morning, and we all crashed hard on the train ride home, but my faith in myself has been renewed, I’m not dead yet and I can get still get a groove on. (And my leopard skin