Christmas Chaos

Is your house as chaotic as mine right now?

Do you find yourself anxiously crunching on mini-wheats while you think you about all you still have to wrap/clean/bake/fold before you go to bed?

Have you attempted two more batches of sea salted caramels after your first perfect batch only to have them both fail miserably? No, that one's just me?

Are you whispering through clenched teeth to your son that he can not be Thomas the Tank Engine in the Christmas play and that he needs to just put on his Wise Man costume NOW!

Are you overwhelmed by the cookies that abound?

I'm really hoping that this week will be calmer. I think I have everything just about done, and can enjoy the season. Live nativities and time with friends await.

However, in the midst of chaos, I've found that animated robots amuse me. So here you go:

I Tried Again

What Happens When You Stay Up Late Playing On The Computer

Randomness

Because I know you were sitting around today hoping for random facts about me.

Admit it.

Wait, you weren't? Oh. My bad.

Annnnyyyywayyyy....

*The last minute of the William Tell Overture makes me feel like I'm late for math. 12 years after graduating high school. There's some social conditioning for you. (Some hilarious soul thought it would be a great idea to play the last minute of the good ol' WTO over the PA system as warning "get yourself to class before you're late" music.)

*My feet are cold. But sockless. Which is contributing to the problem.

*I like the house at 72 degrees. The Rev does not. Guess who wins? (Not me.)

*There is apparently a whole other British tune to "O Little Town Of Bethlehem." I feel like this is something I should have learned growing up, and now will have to research.

*I cried through all of The Shred day 14. Level Two is kicking my tail. I'm so very afraid of Level Three.

*I put up the Christmas lights outside all by myself. With my sister-in-law. The point is, I did it sans Rev. And now he needs to fix them, because apparently only three strands of lights go on each outlet, and I have four. And two blown fuses to prove it.

*I went to Target yesterday. I want to find a reason to go again today.

*I still can't use the afghan involved in the centipede incident. I'm afraid he still lives there.

*I have successfully avoided cleaning the bathrooms for 3 days now.

*I couldn't finish singing a song in choir practice last night when my friend pointed out that "Feel the holy peace" sounds a lot like "Feel the holy peas" when we sing it. Know the French Peas from Veggie Tales? Yeah...that's what I kept picturing. I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard. My apologies to our choir director.

*I have a pretend puppy. Really it's just Wiggle Man "puhtendin'" to be a puppy.

*I love how he says puhtendin'.

*I have no idea what's for dinner, but since The Rev is at a meeting and won't be home, I'm sure it will be something microwavable.

These are the things of life these days.

Kisses,

The Missus

Lately

We had lunch on a train.



We watched the train "chug."

Then The Rev and I spent a few days on our own little retreat. We were blessed to spend time at a monastery. We read, did a puzzle, drank a lot of tea, and just relaxed. It was wonderful.

Kisses,

Bad Blogger

I'd flog myself for my extreme negligence of this blog, but....meh. I don't think it would make any of you feel any better, and it certainly wouldn't make me feel any better about all this. So, let's just pretend it hasn't been over a month since my last post, and just get on with things, shall we?

Like this:



No, that's not a stringy speck of dirt on my otherwise spotless (ahem) kitchen floor. That, my friends, is a centipede. Another one. Inside my house.

Also, he was the slowest centipede ever. I'm guessing all of the other centipedes used to laugh and call him names (like "stupid"). They probably wouldn't let poor Centy join in all the centipede games (like Monopoly!).

Because he was as slow as molasses.

Which was a good thing for me, because it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what to kill him with. My original choice of one of Wiggle Man's buckets (his "drum set") didn't work. The little slow poke huddled up against the wall, and I couldn't get him. I did, as you can tell, stop to take a picture of him.

When he ran into my pantry, that was the last straw. People, you do not mess with The Missus' pantry. That's where the snacks are.

Seriously.

It was time to bust out the Rev's shoe, and end this once and for all.

So I did.

The End.

Kisses,

Chop, Chop

I did it. I chopped my hair.

Ok, I didn't actually chop it. The lovely stylists at the local Walmarts took care of that for me. But I made the decision to have it chopped.

I've never had short hair before...not this short. A bob's about as short as I've ever done.

Here's the curly version:

I think the Rev is secretly happy that since I've chopped my hair, I'll wear it curly more often. (It's much easier to manage short.)

Also, forgive the picture quality, but these were quick shots taken with the webcam.

Here's the straight version, with Wiggle Man in on the action. He's such a diva; if he knows a picture is being taken, he must be in it.

Also, I feel you should know that as I type this, he is boogey-ing (is that a word? How do you spell it?) to Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling." The Backyardigans sing it and now, so does Wiggle Man. Oh yeah.

The Very Belated Birthday Post

I know. I promised pictures from Wiggle Man's birthday party. Which was over two weeks ago. I humbly beg your most merciful forgiveness, and offer up these. There were lots more pictures, but they tended to feature prominently other people's children, or other personal details.



Here's the Wiggle's Wonder Pets cake, complete with modelling chocolate beads around the edge. Those were a hit with the kids; I think they liked them better than the actual cake. You should have seen their faces when I told them they could eat them!









Here's Wiggle Man casually lounging at the kids' table outside. If I could put a little cartoon bubble from his mouth here, he might be saying, "How YOU doin'?"





After a long day of cake and presents and hot dogs and moon bouncing (thanks for some awesome friends for lending us that!), Wiggle Man was pooped.







Kisses,

From The Mouths Of Babes

We've had a small incident here in our household. Nothing major, mind you. But enough to warrant a trip to the ER this afternoon.

No, not for Wiggle Man. For the Rev.

It seems there was a hole on the golf course yesterday where no hole should be, and the Rev found it with his foot. His ankle is now hugely swollen, words like "avulsion" were thrown around, and I'm trying not to picture what it looks like for ligaments to tear away from bone.

Anyway.

While explaining to Wiggle Man that we were taking Daddy to the hospital this afternoon, he got very excited. He exclaimed, "Daddy have TWO BABIES?"

Um, no.

You see, Wiggle Man's only experience with hospitals is visiting a friend in the hospital when she had her baby, and seeing pictures of me in the hospital when he was born. You see why he made the connection. Hospital=baby. Why two babies, I have no idea, except that another friend is expecting twins.

However, please do not take that as an omen, or prophecy in any way, shape or form.

Just puttin' that out there.

Kisses,

Dorothy, Dorothy and Max

No, Dorothy, Dorothy, Max is not some new version of Duck, Duck, Goose. (But that would change things up a bit, wouldn't it?)

Today is my little man's THIRD BIRTHDAY. Three. The boy is three. He's started pre-school, and HE'S THREE.

Ok, enough shouting. You get the point.

But still. Three.

Well, every time this now-three-year-old goes to the Walmarts, he has to, has to look at the fishies. He luuuuurrrves the fishies. He likes to look at all of the fishies, and find the ones that look the most like Dorothy (of Elmo's World fame, for those of you not living with a pre-schooler.)

Well today, for his birthday, Wiggle Man got to go to the Walmarts, and pick out his very own fishies (while Mommy picked out all the stuff that goes with owning fishies.) I present to you the end result of that trip, plus an hour at home while I tried to get it all put together.



The two goldfish are the Dorothies, and the Black Moor is Max.

I'll post a longer update about his party in a day or so when I have a minute.

Kisses,

Today

Today is decidedly better than yesterday. At least, so far today is better than the scary crazy parts of yesterday. You know, the corroding water heater and the child who lived in time-out and all of that.

I'm happy to report that thanks to the kindness of friends, my child took a bath the night before his first day of school. Also thanks to the help of these same friends, our shiny new water heater is installed. This means I got a shower the night before Wiggle Man's first day of pre-school. Because Mommies need to be clean and shiny the first day of school, too. I mean, I even did my make-up to drop the boy off.

As we speak (as I type?), Wiggle Man is at school, most likely happily playing with trucks if how I left him is any indication. I, on the other hand, got teary-eyed just looking at his little bin where he'll put his papers and letters home. Goodness me.

Now, since I know you all want photographic proof that Wiggle Man really is big enough for school, here you go:

A thousand apologies for the indoor shot; blame it on a Mommy to distracted by her baby growing up to change the settings on her camera. So I tried to cover it by making it look a little artsy. Because that's just how I roll.

Kisses,

Half Mulligan

I was going to write a post about how I wanted a do-over for today. But then I mentally reviewed the day and realised that most of the afternoon was fabulous. Wiggle Man and I met friends for lunch, and the kids played while grown ups had actual conversation.

The rest of the day, however, was less than fabulous.

Wiggle Man has been feisty today. Feisty is the nice way of phrasing it. The child has spent a lot of time in time-out. Mommy has spent a lot of time praying for patience.

I was getting ready to leave for lunch, and thought to myself, "Pants. Pants are probably a dress code requirement at Chik fil-A. Or shorts. Definitely something on my bottom half."

So I went into the laundry room to get shorts to match my clean tank tops. Upon entering the laundry room, my next thought was, "That's odd. My feet normally don't feel wet when I come in here." This caused me to look down and see the water all over the floor.

Awesome.

So I called The Rev, because well, he's a guy. Aren't guys supposed to handle this stuff? The Rev sometimes overestimates my skill in anything involving repair, and started giving me directions to turn off the hot water heater. Or something. I heard levers and breakers and valves....and then I interrupted him and begged him to just come home.

Wiggle Man ended up in time-out again. I can't remember why. It could have been because he thought dropping a pancake on my computer was "a great idea" (his new catch phrase), or it could have been any number of other things--they all start running together in my brain after a day like today.

We eventually made it to lunch, where bliss ensued for about three hours. (The cow at Chik fil-A is becoming very familiar with my son.)

Eventually, though, I had to come home. The insanity continued for the rest of the day. More time-outs over uneaten dinners, potty training "accidents" and the hot water heater? You guessed it--broken. Did I mention Wiggle Man starts pre-school tomorrow?

Sigh.

With that, I'll leave you. We're off to borrow a bath, and maybe another cup of sanity.

Kisses,



PS--thank heaven for spell-check. I spelled "feisty" as fiesty. FIESTA-Y. Definitely not an apt description for our day.

Ponderings

Things I'm wondering about:

Why one of my neighbours needed to start the car at 7 am this morning, blare the radio, then sit in the car--engine and radio roaring--for about 5 minutes before actually pulling out of the driveway. It was 60 degrees this morning. Not 30. Your car doesn't need to warm up. And if I can hear your radio all the way from my bedroom, it's probably too loud.

Why I love chocolate, and I love Oreos, but the new fudge dipped Oreos are not blowing my mind. They should, in theory. But they don't. The new pretzel M&Ms are genius, however.

How in the world Wiggle Man got to be (almost) 3 years old. I'm pretty sure it was just last month The Rev and I were celebrating that we'd survived parenthood for 3 months. (I'm not kidding. When Wiggle Man turned 3 months old, The Rev and I left the baby in the care of loving relatives, headed out to a romantic bed and breakfast, and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours. )

How has it already been a year since we moved down here? Friday was our move-a-versary. It's been a very good year. Southern living has been good to us.

Where did the summer go? And why is it supposed to be back in the 80s next week? The Canadian in me feels very strongly that Labour Day Weekend means cool nights and breezy days. I guess I'm not totally adjusted to southern living yet. Although I do appreciate the sweet tea. And the cobbler. And my mountains. And...well...a lot of things.

And with that, it's time for my (almost) 3 year old to put his curly little head down for the night.

Kisses,

Wiggle-isms

Just a few of the hilarious things Wiggle has said recently:

Wiggle Man: When I grow up, I play saxophone/drive fire truck/play drums/play dulcimer/play soccer/play for Toronto Blue Jays? (Um, totally yes to that last one.)

WM: Ouchie, Mommy, ouchie.
Me: Oh, baby. Does your head still hurt? (He had bumped it pretty hard the night before.)
WM: Yes. I broke me, Mommy. I broke me.

(Upon seeing me first thing this morning, having washed my hair last night and slept on it while wet:)

WM: What's this, Mommy? (Touching my hair.)
Me: That's Mommy's hair when it's curly.
WM: Curly?????
Me: Yes, curly. Mommy hasn't fixed her hair yet.
WM: Your hair broken, Mommy?
Me. Yes. Yes, it's broken.
WM: You fix it? (Grabs a curl.) Boing, boing, boing, boing...

WM: I hungry. I want a snack.
Me: You're hungry?
WM: Yes. I has a snack-ache.

This is why I spend much of the day laughing.

Kisses,

Happy Brithday!

Today is the Rev's birthday. I wont' tell you how old he is, just know he's older than me. Heh.

I tried my hand at homemade spaghetti sauce. It turned out ok, if Wiggle Man's second helping is any indication. The meatballs I made to go with it were pretty yummy, too.

I also tried a great recipe I found online for a birthday cake for the Rev. It turned out not so ok. Apparently the pan, which I thought was deep enough, was nowhere near deep enough. Cake batter adorned the inside of my oven. On the bright side, I finally cleaned my oven.

Wiggle Man was adamant that we needed party hats for Daddy's birthday. Since we didn't have paper big enough for the cone-shaped hats he had in mind, we made party crowns, instead.

Don't we look lovely?

Purple

I have no pictures to prove it, but I survived a weekend with 8 teenagers. Give or take 8 thousand other people.

We spent the weekend with a group of teens from church at a crazy, loud weekend-long rock concert.

I have no eardrums left. I got a combined 12 hours of sleep the whole weekend. (That equals not nearly enough, in case you were wondering.)

I ate a ridiculous amount of junk food.

On the plus side, I got to indulge in one of my favourite things: fried oreos. I haven't had fried oreos since the last time I braved the music festival. Imagine: oreos, dipped in funnel cake batter, then deep fried. It's heavenly, trust me.

I also got a cute scarf. Oh, and I got to spend the weekend with 8 great kids. You know, and that.

I'm gonna leave with a shout-out to ztf.

Peace,

Still Here

Still here, I am. Enjoying summer, I am. Talking like Yoda, I am.

Ok, typing like that is creeping me out. So I'll stop.

But seriously, summer's been good to us. There's playing, and spending time with friends, and having company, and all sorts of wonderful fun things.

I also thought I'd try something different. So, I cut and highlighted my own hair. Because I'm crazy like that. I did a little research online, picked out a colour at the drugstore, turned on the t.v. for Wiggle Man, and went to town.

And here's the result:



The highlights aren't super visible in the picture--I went with red, so the absence of most of my blonde highlights is more noticeable than anything else.

Other than that, since I blogged last I've had a birthday (complete with cake and presents!) and an anniversary, which was celebrated by a fabulously yummy dinner. The memory of that fabulously yummy dinner was in no way ruined by the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night with my tummy all a rumble. It was so worth it.

So there you have it--you're all caught up!

Kisses,

Scenes From My Day

Wiggle Man woke up shrieking at 6:45. AM. (I know, I know--some of you suffer from actual early risers, but in our household, this is early. We're night owls.) This is the second morning in a row; I suspect one of our neighbours is leaving early for work, and Wiggle Man hears the truck leaving, but I can't be sure. (Imagine my dramatic sigh here.)

I managed 20 minutes on the elliptical before I gave in and stopped, for fear of fainting in the cardio room at the Y.

Feeling better, we headed to the library. If you were there, you would have heard a crazed woman scream-whispering the following:

"Wiggle Man! WIGGLE MAN! (Insert child's full name here.) Get OFF the stool. No, put that book back on the shelf. No, no, no, no, NOOOOO! Do you want to leave right now?" Etc.

I decided a mother-son bonding time was needed. We baked cookies. Butter, shortening and sugar in the mixer. ("Mommy, need more sugar." "No, son, we certainly don't. At least, you don't. Mommy actually may need more sugar. Or chocolate. Or wine.") Imagine my surprise to find that my eggs had actually frozen. They were sitting towards the back of the fridge, and apparently, it's cold back there.

Off to the "Food Line" (evidence of Wiggle Man's developing southern drawl?) for eggs.

Me chasing Wiggles around the store. The phrase "Watch where you're going!" was repeated frequently, followed by, "I'm sorry, ma'am."

Then I tried to lie down on the couch. Wiggle Man decided I made a perfect trampoline. Headache ensues.

Now? Dinner's on the stove, and the little cherub is passed out on the chair, fast asleep.

Sweet, sweet silence.

Kisses,

My Hair, Yo

"Where does Wiggle Man get his curly hair?"

I got this question at church last month by more than one person. It threw me for a loop the first time. And then I realised: unless someone ran into me at Food Lion before my hair was done for the day, or if I was having a lazy hair day, most people at church had no idea I had curly hair. It's always nice and straight for Sunday morning service.

So, I decided to go curly for church. This brought different questions. Questions like, "Why in the world don't you leave your hair curly all the time?"

Well, it's simply more practical to straighten my hair. I know that seems weird, so I took some pictures as proof.

Here's me, with my hair all nice and curly:







Here's me, after Wiggle Man has gotten ahold of my hair to play with it, or wrestle with me, or climb up my back, or basically in any way comes in contact with my hair:







And that picture doesn't do the frizz factor justice.

Here's a picture of me with my hair freshly straightened:

And here's me again, after a run-in with Wiggle Man:

See what I mean?

This is why I straighten my hair, friends. At least, that's one reason. Also, I like it better straight, it doesn't feel weird around my face when it's straight, and you can see my highlights better.

The End.

Kisses,

Wiggle-isms

This morning, as we were getting ready to head out to the Y:

The Missus: "Wiggle Man, should we wash the car today?"
Wiggle Man: "No way! That's CRAZY." (Someone is afraid of those drive through car washes.)

At the Starbucks in Target, for our post-Y treat:

WM: "Please can I have coffee drink?"
TM: "No, Wiggles, you need to be bigger before you can have coffee."
Wiggle Man stretches himself to his full height, shows me his "muscles" then says:
WM: "Me big boy now? Coffee drink?"

Ummm...no. Not quite, child. :)

Kisses,


PS--Shameless self-promotion alert--don't forget to check out www.cyberflutelessons.com!

Proof of My Awesomeness

So this first picture isn't so much proof of my awesomeness, besides the awesomeness of my family. This is the first family picture that I really like enough to consider framing. Also, you can see how much Wiggle Man needs a hair cut.

Ok, here's where we get to the awesomeness:

Gorgeous views, aren't they? So worth making it to the top.

Yeah, so I look a little sweaty glisten-y, and maybe a little winded, but c'mon. It was my first hike.

Here's me and my sister-in-law, celebrating our awesomeness. It's an odd angle, because, well, we're on top of a rock. Which doesn't exactly provide for level ground for picture taking. So I'm squashing my vanity, and posting it anyway, because you can see how awesome we are, up on that rock.

So there you have it. Proof of my mad hiking skillz and all that.

Don't forget to check out http://www.cyberflutelessons.com/ if you haven't already, and feel free to, you know, tell all your friends and stuff. And if you want to tell random strangers, that's ok, too.

Kisses,

It's Up!

Did you miss me?

I missed you. No, really. I did. But I've also been enjoying the lake, and hiking up mountains (proof pictures to come when I get them) mountains, people, and just generally loving this summer weather.

But, there have been other things ruminating around in my head, and I'm so pleased to tell you about my newest endeavour:

www.cyberflutelessons.com

It's exactly what it says--I've started a website to advertise for online flute lessons! They will be done via webcam, likely using Skype. I'm pretty pumped about the website, so please go check it out, even if you're not interested in lessons. But, if you would like flute lessons, or know someone who would, by all means, contact me!

I have some other dreams for expanding Studio 10:10 (my site), but for now, I'm just thrilled to have it up and running.

I'm a newbie in the webmastering world, so if you have any tips, or see any mistakes, please let me know!

Kisses,

Beach Bums

I have beach hair.

Not in an attractive, fashion magazine kinda way, though, where it's all tousled but still fab looking. Mine's more like an I-just-made-sandcastles-with-a-toddler-and-I'm-tired-hungry-and-sandy sort of beach hair look.

I wonder if Cosmo would be interested.

One of these days I'll get some video of Wiggle Man singing for you. He's moved out of the monotone phase he was in, and has actual pitches now. Not that they're correct always, but hey, he's modulating his voice. As a musician mommy, I was worried there for a while. Phew.



He rocks some Twinkle, Twinkle, by the way.



Ok, that's it. I need more snacks.



Kisses,