Possibly the ugliest gingerbread house ever made

When I was a kid, my aunt used to make gingerbread houses and invite us over to decorate them. She was a pro - she had all the cool icing bags and tips, she could make icicles, she could do anything. We made really cool houses every year and loaded up on a ton of candy in the process.

In an attempt to recapture my youth, I bought a gingerbread house kit. If you want to make a house as cool as mine, here's how:

1. Cut the tip of the icing bag WAY too big so that any fancy decorating is completely impossible.

2. Try to cover up the bad icing job with tons of candy. Like so:

3. Do not follow any colour scheme or motif. Motifs are for losers. Chaos works better:

4. Make sure that the icing that comes with your kit does not set. Despite following all instructions to the letter, what you really want is for your roof to fall off after you've tossed a pound of candy on it to cover your bad decorating job:

 

5. Use boxes to hold the roof in place so that it doesn't cave in anymore. Pose like a dumb-ass next to your decorating abomination:

The first, but probably not the last

Picture it: Boxing day, 2007. A little boy woke up way too early and brought his daddy along for the ride. His mommy promised daddy that she would take Sacha out of the house in the afternoon to give him a break, since Sacha is purely a daddy's boy.

His mommy decided to brave the mall and pick up some calendars for 50% off (because she's smart and thrifty like that) with the little dude in tow. They shared an ice cream cone and seemed to be having a good time. Mommy then decided to go to a department store and see if she could find some sales on kids' stuff, mostly bedding. She found some, and then browsed the aisles to waste time with the dude. The little dude came across one of those push-around popcorn popper things and he pushed it around the entire store with pure glee in his smile. It was pretty cheap, so Mommy decided to buy it.

Then things got ugly.

While Mommy tried to wait in line at the cashier, Sacha and the popcorn popper took off, trying to make a run for it out of the store.

Mommy ran after him, grabbed him, and put him in his stroller.

The little dude managed to slide himself out of the stroller and take off. Again.

Mommy tried to strap him into the stroller. He collapsed into a pile of rubber on the floor, kicking and screaming. I hauled him over my shoulder, and he screamed more.

Then I thought about the situation: the little dude clearly did not deserve this popcorn popper thing, no matter how cute it was to see him push it around the entire store. Being a little shit totally disqualifies one from receiving toys, IMO. So I left the items at the cash register, and marched out of the store with the dude tucked under my arm like a football, and let him have his temper tantrum in the area outside the store.

I managed to get him strapped in to the stroller and we left the mall. Of course, he stopped crying as soon as he realized that he was not getting the toy, and tried to make amends with me by being all cute and cuddly. Ha ha. Too late for that, kiddo.

So there.  That initiates me into the "parents of toddlers" club, right?  Please use the comments section  to remind me that I am not alone.

A different kind of fairy tale

Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Buttfuck, ON, there lived a beautiful, organized, clean, and culinarily gifted woman.  She had a husband who occasionally had to work through his lunch break.  Because she is such a wonderful wife (and mother), she packed her husband a wonderful lunch, which she assumed he ate.

Some time later, let's say months later, the beautiful wife found a lunch bag in her computer room closet.  She opened the bag only to discover a container filled with rotting, molding contents.  She was shocked and insulted that her husband not only failed to eat the lunch she had prepared, but also that he had left the bag to rot.  When she confronted him, he immediately groveled at her feet and begged her forgiveness.  He swore it would never happen again and that he would take care of the fungal garden growing within the bag.

Some time later, let's say months later, the beautiful wife's memory-challenged husband came to her, carrying the lunch bag.  He smugly told her that when she packed a lunch for their son, she should really try and remember to dispose of any leftovers posthaste, as the lunch bag was now rotting.

Shocked and again insulted that her husband would even think that she could be responsible for such a disgusting mess, she firmly reminded him that this was the same lunch bag that he had used, placed in the closet, sworn to clean months ago, clearly never did, and put back in the closet.  She banished him from her sight, refusing to touch the bag.  She told him to throw the entire bag out.  There was no saving the plastic containers within.  They were too far gone.

Later that night, as the beautiful wife performed her wifely duties of loading the dishwasher, she noticed a horrible smell coming from the dishwasher.  It smelt of rotting fish guts, blue cheese rubbed on cracked feet, and ass.  Lo and behold, it was THE container.  In the dishwasher.  Open.  Infested with all sorts of organisms that would probably cause a spontaneous abortion if inhaled or consumed by a pregnant woman.  She fumed until smoke bellowed from her ears, but the husband did not seem to notice a thing.

Swallowing her pride, she hurled the container from the dishwasher into the garbage and swore never to make her husband a lunch again.  And we shall see how they live ever after.  We shall see...

What gross things have you discovered in your closets? 

A visual aid

In reference to my last post, I knew that I had some good pictures of the last Christmas we spent with our family (back home - 2005). Maybe now you will fully understand the good times we will be missing:

Mullets were all the rage, even among Babas

We all played with our rods - gifts in preparation for our houseboating trip

 Hair metal is BACK!

My sister brings out the best in people, including my step-dad

The crazy aunts

See?  Don't you wanna be like her?

Ooh!  Atari!  I wanna play pong next!

Puppies say Woof Woof!

Yo Ariel, I'll be right there as soon as I ditch this sausage fest.  Wear those shells that I love, will ya?

 How could you NOT want to party with my family?

I won't be home for Christmas

Christmas is going to be very different for me this year.  This will be the first time that we are alone - Tony, Sacha and I.  We have no family coming to visit, and we were unable to go back home to visit family as T could not get the time off.

Growing up with a francophone mother and a ukrainian-slovak father, there was never any shortage of people to celebrate the holidays with.  Christmas eve involved midnight mass followed by a reveillion at my Memère's (grandma's) house: feasting, singing, playing games, and general merry-making until 3 or 4 in the morning. Christmas day was traditionally spent with my Baba and Gedo and my dad's family, eating perogies, holubtsi, nalesnyky, 5 kinds of pies, and lots of games: Rummoli was always a favourite.

Then there was the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.  It seemed as though everyday involved some sort of house party or get together,  involving more food, more games and merry good times.  My mom usually throws a mean-ass New Year's Eve party for family and friends, and age doesn't seem to factor in to the level of fun you can have.

This year, Christmas will be silent.  We will go to Christmas eve mass, although we will be going to the 5:00 mass so that it doesn't interfere with Sacha's bedtime.  We will most likely go to bed around 10 because we know that Sacha will wake up at 6 or so, and then we will spend the day much as our other days are spent: play, Dora, Elmo, lunch, nap, play, attack the kitty, supper, bedtime.

It just doesn't feel like Christmas.  Too quiet.  Too empty.

I am still clinging to some sort of fantasy that someone is planning on surprising us and flying out here at the last minute.  Although I am certain that this will only leave me more disappointed when the day comes and no one else is here.

I'll put on a brave face and pretend that it doesn't bother me that we are alone.  I will smile and try to make the best Christmas I can for Sacha, but it will not be easy.  All I can do is count down the days until we are back among family next summer and I can sleep soundly in the assurance that we will never again be left in such isolation during this most special time of year.

For someone who has it all

This is such a neat gift idea that I thought, in the midst of this season of giving, I should share it with you. Go here. Read it. I'll wait.

All done? Aren't you glad you went there? Are you filled with gift giving ideas for those people who have everything?

It is probably too late to do something like this for this Christmas, but think of the possibilities for next year!

Wordless Wednesday: Proof of my small offspring

Left: Sacha, 15.5 mos
Right: Jack (friends' son) 5.5 mos

Any questions?

Since you've all shown me yours

After reading this post on Temporarily Me, I decided to let it all out.



My feed count. See that little pink widget in my sidebar? Yeah, it says 17. Now is time for a little explanation. Is my feed count really 17? Probably not. The tricksy thing is that since I am on WP, my blog automatically has a WP feed. Then I signed up for feedburner some 6 months later when WP stopped giving us feed stats. Many people do not even know that I have 2 feeds, but I do. One of them is tracked by the wonderful Feedburner, the other is lost in oblivion somewhere, but I infer from my regular commentators (like YOU!) that I have more than 17 readers and that they are probably reading my wordpress feed.

I have been hiding my FB stats for a while, but I'm letting it all out. I have no shame in my low number anymore. That doesn't mean I wouldn't love it if you all switched to my FB feed so I could really know how many readers I actually have, but if you don't, I'm ok with that.

So revel in the beautiful pink widget. I'll give you a moment.

The B&B race continues

Here we are!

20 weeks along with baby #2 and here is the belly:

This is where you ask: what belly? Ah, well, the belly is still a little behind in the race, and the boobs still seem to be in the lead. The belly to boob ratio is still less than 1 (as you recall, ratios can be expressed in three ways - in words, as a fraction or with a colon.  Here, I am opting for the fraction format as I refer to 1 as the whole, or 1/1. So a ratio less than 1 would be, in this case as an example,  1/2 meaning that the belly is half the size of the boobs.  Roughly. As an approximation. That is your math lesson for the day. You are now smarter than a 6th grader.)

But I guess it's not really fair to poor old baby-bump-belly, since there are two boobs and only one little baby to push that belly out.  I guess I have to eat more Ichiban.

The state of things

Overheard in our house

Moments ago:

Me: We need to put these clothes away. I need to use the baskets.
Tony: What? We don't put laundry away. We just wait until next week when we do laundry again.
Me: Tony, this is last week's laundry.
Tony: Oh. my. gosh.

****

While sitting down in the living room after putting the Dude to bed:

Me: What the...why is our house so clean?
Tony: I was wondering the same thing myself.
Me: Weird.

Ramenolicious!

A while ago, my mom called me to ask what Tony and I wanted for Christmas. We really didn't know what to say. I guess you get to a certain point in your life when you realize that Christmas really is for the kids. At least the whole gift-getting part of it. When you are a self-sufficient adult, you pretty much just go and buy something when you want it. There are no wish lists or "pretty pretty pleases" to your parents to buy it for you.

In the meantime, pregnancy cravings kicked in and I'll be damned if I couldn't find what I craved in the stores! Such a simple product that I had grown up loving for its salty goodness, and yet here, in Buttfuck Ontario, it was nowhere to be found. What's more, no one even knew what I was talking about. I mentioned this to my mom, who laughed and wondered how I could stand eating the stuff as it is so salty. But to a pregnant woman, the stuff is like candy. Salty goodness candy. It is SO not the same as Mr. Noodles. Period. And I am not the only one who affirms its superiority.

This arrived today as an early Christmas gift:

I may have already eaten some. For breakfast.

My mommy is good to me.

Knit Happens

It is finished.

After 4 months of work, which began basically when I found out that I was pregnant, I have completed my first sweater!

So you may all be wondering, why does Sacha have an H on his sweater? What's his middle name? What is the Mustard's real last name? Well, I am sorry to tell you that the answer to the H lies in none of those questions. Sacha wears an H as homage to Harry Potter.

I bought this knitting book in the summer, determined to learn how to make a sweater and that Sacha could wear it this winter. It was going really well until I started getting sick from the pregnancy. I then put down my needles and didn't touch then until late October. I had almost completed the sweater when I decided to try it on him: the damn thing wouldn't fit over his head. Aw crap. I think it was partially from the pattern, partially from my binding-off too tight. So I had to take apart the collar and make it larger than the pattern asked, then I was able to sew the piece together and voilà!

Pretty cute, if I do toot my own horn. And I have been known to toot on occasion...

My Top Ten

So you are a fellow blogger, you may have noticed that I have been absent from the blogosphere as of late, especially in the comments county.  I could give some epic poem describing why this has occurred, but I opted instead for a succinct and reader-friendly list:

Mrs. Mustard's Top Ten Reasons for Giving the Blogosphere the Cold Shoulder as of late:

1. The Tudors


2. My son's growing head and its consequences on my knitting.


3. Thwarting  my son's evil plans to devour any and all chocolate on the premise by carelessly leaving some unsweetened baker's chocolate lying around.


4. Knitting


5. Rotavirus and its yucky partner in crime, diarrhea.


6. Christmas present making for the parents. Please notice that says MAKING and not shopping.  There is a crucial difference in time consumption.


7. Feeding my cravings for chai tea.


8. Meticulously, though unintentionally, executing a plan that will make my son hate me forever - it's called "Daddy is superior to Maman in every way and as long as Daddy is in sight, I will scream at Maman as though she placed me at the brunt of some sort of vicious chocolate conspiracy.  Everything bad in this life is due to Maman.  Daddy is the bearer of sunshine and sugar-coated tootsie rolls."


9. Letting the batteries on our cordless keyboard die and fail to find any suitable replacement batteries around the house.


10. I'm lazy and can't think of a #10.

There.  I think that's a pretty good list.  It covers most of the events of the last week.  And just so you know, the rotavirus was in ME.  Here's praying that he doesn't get it, because I don't think I could handle that much poo coming out of a bum that doesn't wipe itself.

Meet my Alien Baby

I went for my first ultrasound yesterday. I am 18 weeks along, and I haven't felt the baby move. at. all. At this time with Sacha, he was already making his presence known, so I have had the old mother panic that I wasn't really pregnant, that there was no baby, that I was getting fat for nothing. Well, I guess eating ice cream and chocolate every day would do that to me anyway.

The ultrasound was an eye opener in several ways:

1. There really is a baby in there.


2. The baby really knows how to boogie!  It made for a very long ultrasound process, as it wouldn't sit still long enough to get the photos and measurements they need for morphology.


3.  In the future, I should totally disregard their requirements to drink 4-8 oz glasses of water, having been sent to the bathroom not once, but twice, to empty first a cup and a half, then 2 cups.  Anyone who has had to do this knows it is not easy to just let a little pee out.  And then there I am, the Power Pee-er.  I can void an overflowing bladder in under 10 seconds.  Probably closer to 5.  I was chanting to myself "hold it, hold it, drip drip drip."  It seemed to do the trick, but I was still in very near danger of dribbling in my pants.


4. The baby will be a girl.  We don't know this from the ultrasound, but hear me out.  Look at this picture of our little joy-bundle:

It looks like an alien, no?  Aliens are green.  Ivy is green.  Therefore it will be a girl and her name will be Ivy.

Flawless reasoning.

PS - Tony actually thinks he saw a penis, but honestly, the way that kid was moving, it could have been ANYTHING, like a little pink bow or a cute barrette. I hold true to my logic.

Oh Baby!

One of my good bloggy friends, Krista, just gave birth to her first baby!  She has not posted about it yet, but that doesn't mean you can't head on over to her place and congratulate her.

Oh, and she named her son Torsten.  The kid exudes cool and he's not even a week old...

Just call me Whoopi

There has been some confusion in the world lately, especially after people started reading my google meme. The particular trouble lay in this image, which was supposed to represent my nickname:



I never realized that people would be confused. But they were. Even those who know me best.

As the story was told to me, my pooty SIL saw this and exclaimed "Sarah's nickname is Whoopi??"
Her husband then said, "I think her nickname is Sarafina."
"Who would call her that?" pooty asked.
"Who would call her WHOOPI??" her husband said.

Exactly.  Who would call me Whoopi? Then again, if even my amazingly intelligent, astute and beautifully flat-tummied SIL (your welcome, Andi) thought people called me Whoopi, maybe there is something to the name that I have not considered before.  I have been known to let Whoopi-type sounds escape me.  Maybe the name really does suit me...

Ill-logic

Overheard in the Mustard house last night, as if we don't already have enough issues with dental care around here:

Me: Where's my toothbrush?
Tony: It's under the sink. Sacha used it to scrub the toilet. He also used it to wipe the snot from under his nose.
Me: Gross. Well, I guess I'll have to get a new one tomorrow.
Tony: Why? It's still good.
Me: You use it then!
Tony: No - you used it.

Getting Holy With It

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=nwYw3EY0kGE]

My life according to Google images

As much time as some memes seem to take, this one, which Krista tagged me for, intrigued me, as I do so LOVE a random google search.

How it works: Type the answer to each question in a Google image search and post the 1st picture result.

Age at my next birthday:

 

Place I'd like to travel:

Favourite place:

Favourite object:

 

Favourite food:

Favourite colour:

 

Nick name:

 

Place you were born:

 

I hereby tag Heather and Andi, because I am sure the pictures they would come up with would be awesome. And anyone else pining for blog fodder, have at 'er!

Jonathan Rhys Meyers could behead me anytime

As a good politically aware Canadian girl, I watch the Rick Mercer Report religiously.  The dude rocks.  Although I am slightly disappointed, as I am sure many are, that he plays for the other team.  But I digress.

After RMR, there are always sultry, intriguing previews for The Tudors. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Henry VIII? Man, if only the pompous lusty royal really looked like that!  He could behead me anytime!  I really wanted to watch the show, but it is all sequential, and I had already missed the first 5 episodes.  What's a poor maiden to do?

Hello, my good friend, BitTorrent. Within one night, I had all 10 episodes at my disposal, ready to indulge in the royal fantasy.  And indulge I did.  It has me completely hooked.  Not only on his Highness's bod, but on the actual history itself.  I have the encyclopedia out, wikipedia is open on my laptop, and I am researching until my eyes can't focus on his lovely face anymore.

In fact, my research led me to a trailer for The Other Boleyn Girl, which led me here and then here, which led me to the library to get a copy of this book, which I am devouring like leftover Halloween treats..  I am indeed addicted.  I may have to seek some sort of 12 step program once the show ends and I have finished all of Gregory's books.  Alas, I cannot bear to think of it: the pain is too great...

Help me find the bandwagon!

Last night was amazing.  Not in any sexy-time sort of way.

Sacha slept through the night.   For the fifth time.  Ever.  That's right, at 15 months, my son has slept straight through the night 5 times in total.

For the past three weeks or so, he was been waking up 3+ times a night, often requiring Daddy's constant night vigil over the ghools and goblins in his room.  Apparently, Mommy is one of these ghools, as he screams bloody murder whenever I would try and put him back to sleep.

And then last night, for some reason, the sleep deities smiled down on us and he slept through the night. From 7 until 7.  Brilliant!

Now if only we could figure out wtf we did to make that happen.  Maybe we could get on this sleeping-through-the-night bandwagon that every parent says is so wonderful.  At this point, I would settle for a one-man-harmonica-toting-accordion-playing-bandwagon.  Maybe even just a wagon.  No band necessary.  Maybe the band is what keeps him up at night...

He was someone's baby

I heard the phone ring, checked the caller ID, and saw that it was my Baba (grandma, for all you non-ukrainians).  She usually calls to check in on me, and mostly her little sunshine, Sacha.  Sacha is her first and only great grandchild, and she lives for him.

This conversation was not a check-in. She was calling to tell me that a little boy in my hometown was killed in a quading accident.  I knew this boy.  Well, I remember him as a preschooler, which, at 12 years of age, he no longer was.   She told me the details as she knew them, and spoke of his mother, crying out to her son to wake up.  "I know how she feels," my Baba said, a distinct tear in her voice. 'I know how she feels."

It's not the same, I thought.  This was a young boy, killed in a senseless accident.  My dad died at 41 years of age, and although it was an accident, he had lived a life, married, and had children.  He was an adult.  How could it be the same?

After hanging up the phone, I realized it is the same.  The young boy was his mother's baby.  My dad was my Baba's baby.  He may have been 41, but she cried for him and held him on his death bed just as I hold Sacha when he bonks his head or cries in the night, with all the love and care a mother has for her baby.  When she  thinks of him, she thinks of her lost baby.  Just as Sacha is, and will always be, my baby.

I looked at Sacha differently after that conversation.  Yes, he is my 15 month old baby boy, but he will always be my baby boy, that I'll live to love and protect as long as I live.  And that must be the hardest part for my Baba - feeling like she didn't protect her baby when she should have.

It isn't right for a mother to outlive her child.  It just shouldn't happen.  But it does, and no matter whether the baby is 2 months old, 12 years old, or 41 years old, it pierces the soul in a way that cannot be repaired nor explained.

And I pray that I will never have to explain it.

Bad blogger!

I recently posted a meme involving seven random things about myself, saying that I was tagged by Team Effort.  Little did I know that I was also tagged by Charming Bitch. The thing is, I read Charming Bitch every day!  How did I miss that??

So, as penance for my bad speed reading, here are seven more random things you probably wish you didn't know about me:

1. I made out with 3 different guys in about 24 hours.  I'm not proud of it, but that's what being 17 is all about, right?


2.  In total contrast to that, my husband and I made a conscious decision to NOT have sex until we were married.


3. My husband and I lived together for 6 months before we got married, making #2 very difficult.


4. I loathe American Idol, but I heart Kelly Clarkson.  Carrie Underwood, too.


5. I also heart Avril Lavigne.  Girlfriend is such a bitchin' song!  When I saw her in concert, my sister and I were standing next to a 40-something man who was just givin'er to the music.  He was alone.  At an Avril Lavigne concert.  Scary.


6. Sometimes, in the middle of the night when my cat starts meowing to no relent, I want to find a 24-hour humane society drop-off.


7. I admit, I tried to eat my iPhone.  I'm so glad CNN told me not to.

No taggies this time, as it is totally my bad for missing my being tagged in the first place.

Instead, you can all ponder how an engaged couple can live together for 6 months and not do it.

It's not easy being green

Kermit was no competition for my husband last night.

I've NEVER seen anyone get sick like that in my life.  Tony kept saying that he was having stomach contractions, and finally, one of them gave birth to the contents of his stomach and his bowel.  At the same time.

He was good enough about it to not get me to help him clean it up.

I feel über-bad about it, though, since the reason he got sick was because of my suggestion to go to one of our favourite restaurants in town to have fish and chips.  I came out unscathed.  He didn't.

Food poisoning at its best.

Now the question is, should I go back to the restaurant and tell them what happened?

Percentiles drive me MAD

Normally, Sacha's doctor appointments are pretty straight forward: we sit in the waiting room for an hour, we get into our room and sit there for a while, then Sacha has his check-up, gets his shots (oh joy), he screams, he gets a sucker, gets over the pain, and we go home.

Today was destined to be atypical.

It usually takes three of us to hold Sacha so that he doesn't squirm as the needles go in. Today, newbie nurse did his shots. She is unaware of this. The first shot goes in fine. After all, Sacha wasn't expecting it. The second shot, however, was a different story. The two of us could not hold him down, and even though she tried to give him the shot, he wriggled as it went in. She then had to dispose of the sharp, get a new one, and start over. By this time, Sacha is in a total state. Newbie nurse goes and gets another nurse to help us out. Three of us are now holding Sacha down and we finally get the needle in properly, although not without damaging our eardrums from the screaming.

Of course, this wasn't all.

He now had to have his regular check-up. Why it wasn't done before all the screaming, I don't know. Sacha screamed as the nurse tried to weigh him, he screeched as we measured his height, he yelped as I measured his head. Then he finally got his sucker. It was too little, too late. He cried as long as the sucker lasted.

The doctor finally comes in to look over Sacha chart. He notices something unusual. Sacha had not gained any weight in 3 months. He weighed him again, and with the new measurement, it showed that Sacha had gained 1 lb in 3 months. Not really enough. He began plotting the numbers on those wonderful percentile charts, only to discover that his weight percentile has been decreasing over the past 8 months, or so. He is now concerned. He checks his height and head circumference percentiles, and notices that these are in good shape and are staying steady, if not increasing (my boy's head is not as small as I once thought, actually).

So now, we are being referred to a pediatrician to see if there is a medical reason that he is not gaining weight. Really, Sacha eats very well. He eats the same food we eat, substituting the occasional dish when it wouldn't suit his palate (like spicy Mexican or Indian foods). The only thing I can think of is that he refuses to drink milk. He'll eat dairy products, but he will NOT drink milk. Would that make a huge difference? I don't really know.

I was not really concerned with Sacha, thinking that he must be gaining weight if he's eating the way he is. Now, thanks to those damn percentile charts, I am concerned.

Have any of you had to deal with the madness of percentiles and realizing that your kid is not really where he should be? Please tell me...

How I began dating the husband

Get caught up with parts 1, 2 and 3 of this epic series.


Tony called me the next day.  I believe he may have called me more than once.  Not that he was needy.  He (and I) both like talking.  Phones were invented for people like us.

As much as I liked him, I wasn't sure about getting involved with someone new.  I didn't know if I was ready for another relationship with all the drama of my previous one.  So I played it cool.  I basically set all the stupid dating games aside and just acted completely natural around him, the way I do with my family. I may have farted in his presence. I figured, if it was truly meant to be, he would like me for me and not care about  my insanity.

Sure enough, he liked me for me.  He went in for a kiss a few days later, and I turned away from it. I told him that I wasn't really ready for a relationship yet, but that I liked being friends with him.  Had I known that Tony had been hearing this excuse his entire life, I may have come up with something a little more flashy.  Like I had cholera and only weeks to live, and I wanted to devote my life to helping crack-heads get off the street.  But I wasn't that creative, and I thought I was being true to myself.

So things went casually.  On my end, I was happy with the way things were going.  I found myself more and more attracted to him each day.  I told myself to wait one month, and if I still felt this way, then I would make my move.  On Tony's end, he claims that I devastated him, that he skipped school for a couple of days and did nothing but mope around the house.  Apparently he was hit on by a very pretty girl at the grocery store, who asked him which type of pasta sauce he liked, and he stuttered and mumbled "Umn...catelli is good," because all he kept thinking about was me.

Then one evening two weeks later, a Friday the 13th with a full moon, he invited me over to watch a movie with his friends.  I met his friends, as well as a cute little mouse living in Tony's walls, which made an appearance and sent Tony racing onto a chair as he squealed for someone to kill it with a broom.  Despite this totally laughable scene, I felt even more attracted to him.  He wasn't afraid to show his vulnerabilities, which is more than I could say about any of the guys I had dated before.

When the night was over, he drove me home and walked me to the door.  I flung my arms around him and planted a good kiss squarely on his lips.

The rest, as they say, is history.

And that wily mouse managed to outsmart all of our traps, a hunting cat, and lived to eat all of Tony's soda crackers in his cupboard.

Randomness

I was tagged for the seven random things meme by el burro over at Team Effort. Seeing how I am never one to let a meme go unnoticed, here goes:

1. If my husband were in charge of this meme, every answer would contain the word boobies.


2. I am an accomplished pianist with over 18 years of experience and training.


3. When I started university, I wore a 34A bra. One year later, I wore a 34C. No surgery involved.


4. On a trip to Paris with my husband, I spent approximately 49% of the time looking for washrooms or toilets or somewhere to pee. Damn "Hors Service" signs on those damn street pay-toilets!!!


5. I am an expert at french-braiding my own hair, but can't do it worth shit on someone else.


6. I have two brothers-in-law named Jason. It was almost three, but one engagement didn't make it to the aisle.


7. When my son has massive poops, I leave the dirty cloth-diapers in the toilet for my husband to deal with when he gets home. The alternative would be him cleaning up my vomit.

And now for the tagging: Cate, Jackie, Krista, Dory, and Heather. Have at 'er!

How I met the Husband: the first date

Get caught up with parts 1 and 2 of this epic series.

The friday came for our date.  We agreed to meet after classes were over and go have coffee somewhere on campus.  At this point, I did not drink coffee, but feeling as though that's what all the real students did, I thought that a coffee date was oh-so-classy. I remember carefully choosing what I would wear: a tight black top, accentuating my toned upper-half, some red hip-hugger jeans, and gold hoops in my ears. The combo was casual, but to die for, and my husband says he will never forget the way I looked that day.

Tony, in turn, was wearing a gray top and jeans. The top was one that definitely made him look built, and he had a dog tag around his neck with the initials WWJD. Good christian boy: check!

We went for coffee and neither of us shut up for the entire 2 hours we were there.  If you know us in real life, you would attest to that as completely probable.  We had so much to talk about, in fact, that we decided to continue our date over dinner.  Being students, however, meant that we had limited means of transport.  Tony had made prior arrangements with his older sister to borrow her ride, should it be needed.  So, we walked about 10 blocks to her basement suite, where he picked up the keys and a little note from the mailbox.  I later found out that the note said "Good luck with the love wagon," or something to true poot and cubby effect.  Wagon, you ask?  Yup.  A blue Ford Windstar minivan.  It just oozed cool.

We drove to the Olive Garden, where we ate.  And we talked.  And ate.  And talked more. After a couple of hours of conversation, we still felt that there was MORE to talk about.So Tony and his love wagon drove me back to my place, where we watched a movie.  As a sign of just how much he must have been smittin, he agreed (excitedly) to watch Shakespeare in Love. Oh so manly!  Be still my heart!

On a total side note, for those who think "how could she let a strange guy into her house?"  I lived with 3 roommates, one of whom was a man, so my poonani was protected.

The date ended with a hug.  Nothing more, nothing less.

And then I waited for the call-back.

How long did it take?  Check back here for more! 

Becoming my mother

Reasons I hope to be like my mother:

• My mom is funny. She is naive when it comes to some really raunchy humour, but we're helping her work through that.


• She doesn't die her hair some weird, unnatural colour.


• She cares about her appearance, but not in the plastic-surgery/botox way.


• Contrary to most mothers, especially mothers who have adult children, she does NOT wear mom jeans:

• My mom wears hip huggers. And low-rise jeans. And she wears thongs and g-strings. Yowza!


• She buys her bras and PJs at La Senza.


• Did I mention she can practically eat anything and not gain weight?

Now, you may be thinking, why do I want to know about Mrs. Mustard's old mom?

I'll show you why:

There she is with her three daughters at her wedding to my step-dad. I think my sister Stef may kill me for this one.

Looking stunning at my wedding, waiting for things to get rolling.

That's my mom. She's 47, a grandmother, and still working it. I only hope that I can inherit that quality.

For those keeping score: Boobs - 1, Belly - 0

Here I am, 15 weeks along with baby #2. I think this picture makes me look pretty good. There are some weird shadow effects going on in my living room.  The boobs are definitely winning the race so far!  Yikes!

On a total side note, I had a trim for my bangs yesterday.  Very nice!

How I met the husband: who is he?

For part one, see this post.

I replied to the e-mail, telling him a little about myself while trying not to divulge too much information.  I wasn't really looking for a relationship at that point, seeing how I still felt some attachment to that other guy.

That night, however, I had made plans to see the other guy and some friends while visiting my hometown.  We went out clubbing, and then he came back to my place and spent the night.  Sleeping, and I am being totally honest here.  Just sleep.  Turns out that I had been gone three weeks and he had already found himself not only a girlfriend, but the most annoying girlfriend that I could possibly imagine!  Seriously, I thought?  I'm gone three weeks and you just COULDN'T be alone?  Frick! Whatever, man!

The marginal attachment being thrown out the window, I decided to meet the mystery e-mail boy in real life that week in class.  I wore some fantastic forest green pants that made me look slender to make the best first impression. I eyed up all the boys in the front row, and decided that my e-mail boy had to be the cute dorky blonde boy.  He was a total keener and participated to the max in all of the class discussions, but he was smart.  Not your typical nerd who just likes to hear his own voice.  He spoke in well-constructed sentences and thought-processes, and I tended to share most of his opinions on all that literature crap.

I approached him after class.  He gave me a huge smile, and we talked as we walked toward our next classes (they were in neighbouring buildings).  By the end of the conversation, I knew that I wanted to see him again.  He, however, was completely unable to ask me out, as he seemed to have been suddenly struck with some sort of stuttering-mumbling disease.  I saved him from his ailment and asked him out for coffee on the following Friday.

It was a date.

Oooh, now it's getting interesting.  You'll have to check back here for more details!

How I met the Husband

My last post revealed that I met the Husband after moving to a new city and forgetting to let the other guy know that I was moving on to fresher and greener pastures. Some may wonder how I could be so cold hearted, but they don't the story of how I met my husband, or how I came to be a Mrs.

I was in my first year of university, planning on pursuing a degree in commerce (as my scholarship dictated), and I was taking all the typical first year courses: calculus (which is totally my bag), English, economics, statistics, cellular biology, the works. I was living in a new city and knew no one. My father had just died 6 months prior, and leaving my family was ridiculously difficult. I wanted to find friends, but had no idea how to go about doing that.

I managed to hitch a ride back home for a weekend three weeks after I moved. While there, I made plans to meet up with all my old friends, go clubbing, etc. I still had homework to do, so I went over to my grandmother's house to use her computer (my mom didn't have one). Part of our English course requirements were to discuss our readings on a class webboard, on which we were required to post at least once a week. I went to check my e-mail, and found one from a sender I did not recognize: Tony van WHAT??

I opened it (viruses were not a concern back in the good old days of dial-up internet) and found it to be seriously cute. He said that he was in my English class and that he found my webboard posts most interesting. He complimented my intelligence without mentioning my breasts (although they were quite small compared to their current size) and I was intrigued. I wondered who this mystery boy was. He said that he sat in the front row and answered a lot of questions in class.  I also sat in the front, and I was having a hard time picturing a guy who answered a lot of questions. Then, it hit me. He was probably the blonde boy with the glasses and dorky hair. Cute, but so in need of some fashion tips.

I called my best friend and told her about the e-mail, asking her what I should do.  She was in a similar situation with a new guy, and we decided to go for it.  So I e-mailed him back.

What happened next?  Stay tuned for more juicy details!

I forgot

I read a post by the brilliant Jennifer at Breed Em And Weep a while back, and have been stewing over this for some time, unsure of whether this story was best left in a closed book. Now, I know that I need to make peace with myself, if not with the other person of which this story speaks.

Before my husband, there He was. He was my first love, my best friend, and often my loathed enemy. It was rocky, unstable, and unconventional, but it was ours and we were ok with that. We weren't always exclusive, but He was always there, waiting in the wings to hold me and watch the sunrise over the river valley.

Things went awry after my dad passed away, leaving me with many emotional questions and wondering what should be and what should be let go. I let Him go, but I forgot to tell Him that. We were living in different cities, and I thought it was implied that we would each keep that love in our hearts, but move on. I forgot to tell Him that, too.

I met this boy in university and we decided to commit our lives to each other, but I forgot to tell Him that. He never spoke to me again. He treated me with disdain, hatred, and anger. Certain He hated me, I never spoke to him either, although always wondering and wishing that He would get on with his life, fulfill his potential, and move on. We had mutual friends, so I always knew how He was doing, but I doubted if He took the same interest in my doings.

Then I got a letter. An explanation. An apology. He hadn't known how to move on, only how to be angry. Being angry was the only way He knew how to deal with the fact that I had moved on without telling Him, without giving Him a chance to say goodbye or to tell me what he really felt. He says this spared him more tears than He could have ever lived to cry.

Tears catch up with you, though, and I'm pretty sure that's what inspired the letter.

No matter how much I love my husband, He will always be a part of me. I just wish that I hadn't forgotten to tell Him that. Then maybe we could have both shed the tears we needed to and learned how to move on, together but apart, and not hurt each other like we did.

Safety First - Wordless Wednesday

Every morning when Tony is putting his shoes and jacket on to go to work, Sacha rushes down the stairs and grabs his bicycle helmet. He hands it to Tony and expects him to put it on.



Daddy is wearing his helmet, he is now safe!  You can go to work now!

First date

I'm going out on a limb.  I have a date tomorrow night.  A coffee date with a prospective mommy-friend.  This shouldn't be so nerve-racking, but it is.

I don't really have any friends in this town since a certain friend MOVED (but that's another story) and I get pretty lonely going to playgroups and watching the other mommies have a grand old time visiting and gossiping while I pretend to be thoroughly engrossed with Sacha's tremendous painting skills. Don't get me wrong, the kid is Picasso reincarnated, but I'm really not that into art.

This is all very absurd.  I'm wondering what to wear, what to order when I get there, should I talk about mommy things or should I try and strike up a conversation about, oh, the booming Canadian economy and our fantastic dollar.  Do I tell her that I knit?  Oh no, what if she thinks that's nerdy.  Or that I have been known to obsess about fashion, or my looks, or my acne, or...

Sigh.  Making friends was so much easier when I was the kid in the playgroup: You wanna be friends?  Ok!

I can only hope that she doesn't read my blog and then discover that I am writing about her and OMG that I am a total loser for obsessing over this.

Ugh.

Really, though, what are the odds that she reads my blog? No ones reads my blog.

Except you :P

Fortunate by unfortunate means

After writing my last post, I feel I should explain something (unless you know me in real life, then this post is old news to you).

I do not have a student loan. Yes, I did complete 5 years of university and I have a B.Ed to show for it (with distinction, if I can toot my own horn). My parents were not rich. They were barely middle class. I was the eldest of the children, and I used to watch my mom balance her cheque book (did I mention that I am a math nerd?) and see all the negative signs. I knew they had no money. I knew there was no money for me to go to school. I knew that I would have to rely on scholarships and loans if I were to get a higher education.

In January of my senior year, I received notice from the University of Alberta that I had received a $4000 open scholarship and several faculty specific scholarships. The most valuable of these was from the faculty of engineering, offering an additional $2000 in comparison to the other faculties. I had no desire to be an engineer. I didn't even know what an engineer did. To be honest, I am still not quite sure. My dad saw the scholarship letter, and was ecstatic. "Just because you don't know what an engineer does doesn't mean you won't like it. Try it for a year, then you'll know." I laughed, because we both knew that the fancy scholarship was the main motivation behind this.

At this point, I was not sure whether I would even attend the U of A. I had been considering going to a technical college and becoming an X-Ray tech and continuing on to sonography. No technical colleges were calling me up and offering thousands of dollars to study there, and so I decided that the U of A would most likely be my destination.

In February of that same year, my father was killed in a work-related accident. Because his death was the result of a workplace incident, my mother began receiving a pension from the workman's compensation board in addition to the regular life insurance that he had. This workman's compensation money is what enabled me to go to school and not worry about the money. Granted, I still kept my grades up in order to earn scholarships and I worked hard in the summer to help pay for my education, but my dad is the reason that my sisters and I do not have loans.

I was able to graduate without worrying about debt or securing a job - any job - just to make my loan payments. I was free to choose what I wanted. Not all graduates have this luxury. My dad didn't even this luxury. He died working underpaid at a job that he did not like, just to pay the bills. Just to pay for piano lessons, dance lessons and hockey equipment for his daughters.

I was fortunate. But if I could trade it all to spend another day with my dad and introduce him to my husband and his grandson, I would.

Money is not everything.

I've got an idea

Our financial adviser just called us, and it got me thinking about RESPs.  Most people come out of university (or any post secondary education) with student loans.  Student loans are a bitch and, if they are the government loans that most students in Canada get, can take 10 years to pay off at a rate of prime + 5%.    In the meantime, these ex-students get married, have kids, and can barely afford to put money into their kids' RESPs because they are spending hundreds of dollars every month paying off their loans.

In our case, my husband had a mere $10,000 loan for 6 years of university (he's smart and got a whackload of scholarships).  Be that as it may, his loan payments were amortized over 10 years and the payments were to be over $100 a month. That's a piddly loan comparison to most people.  I'm sure most people are paying over $300 or $400 a month to pay their schooling off.

Here's my idea: give some sort of cut or lower interest rate to loan-payers who are contributing to an RESP.  Really, by contributing to the RESP, you are trying to ensure that your child will not have to take out as large of a loan as you did, so you are helping the loan company (government, bank, mafia) not have to lend as much of their precious money in the future.  Makes sense, no?

I should run for office, I know.  I'm just that good.

All Hallow's Eve at the Mustard House

With full intentions of taking the little dude out to score me some sweets show off his costume introduce Sacha to trick or treating, that is not how the night went:

1. Sacha, despite his total love affair with Elmo and all things Elmo-related, did not want to wear his costume for more than 20 minutes.


2. A visit to Tony's work with Sacha-Elmo in tow provided a large bag of Cheetos, Smarties, Lipton Raspberry White Tea (Sacha's favourite) and assorted other sugary substances. It was enough to give even a pregnant lady a sugar high.


3. Sacha's desire to consume all of said items in the shortest time possible made him a total loon for the rest of the afternoon.


4. Sacha also discovered the wonderful sweet sugary taste of rockets, which were one of the candies we were giving out. He got very upset when I started giving them to strangers knocking at the door.


5. The weather turned totally foul right at trick-or-treating time. By foul, I mean wind that blows full garbage cans into the road and rain that bounces back up from the ground. And hits you sideways.

So what can I say? We didn't go out this year. Instead, we spent the night doling out candy to kids in droves. I even gave a couple of teenagers shit for showing up at the door in minimal festive attire and muttering "hey" instead of the standard "trick-or-treat." I told him that his voice was deep enough that he probably had enough money to buy his own candy, and the least he could do was say trick or treat if he expected anything from me. Oh yeah, I went there. It burns my ass that kids that old are out ringing my bell for free candy, then probably taking it to their car, hotboxing the damn thing and snorting crushed rockets. Oh, and then having a lot of sex with equally annoying scantily clad girls.

We shut the place down at 7:00, by which time we'd already had 180 kids and ran out of candy. We turned off all the lights, put Sacha to bed, and sat in the dark watching TV. Despite all these obvious signs that we had no candy left, some speedfreak kids showed up at 7:45 and rang the doorbell like their finger was glued to it. It was enough to wake up Sacha. This, coupled with Tony's inherent distaste for adolescents, sent him racing down the street in the rain after the kids to give him a piece of his mind. Sadly, kids can outrun my husband, so I got to hear a lecture about the ills of their generation when he returned.

The evening ended with some good old ANTM. Ya, I can be shallow like that. It's my guilty pleasure.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Halloween!

Want more WW? Go here!

Are you smarter than a...

This site is sweet.  It tests your vocabulary, something which I think would interest most bloggers.

Free Rice

The words start off somewhat easy, and the more you get right, the more difficult they become. There are 50 levels, it's rare to make it to 48.  I got up to 36.  Try it out and leave a comment with your highest score.  It's more addicting than you think!

Don't knock it 'til you tried it

Overheard at a maternity clothing store while waiting in line to pay for my 2 items and maternity thongs (YES!):

Preggo Gal: I went bra-shopping with my mom last week and we got fitted.
Non-preggo friend: Oh yeah?
Preggo Gal: I was sized at a 40DD. I'll have to go to Walmart to pick up some bras.
Non-preggo friend: looking up at the vast nursing bra section right in front of them You don't want to try any of these on? They would have your size here.
Preggo Gal: No, these are nursing bras.
Non-preggo friend: You're not going to nurse?
Preggo Gal: Oh no. I'm having none of that.
Non-preggo friend: Why not?
Preggo Gal: I just can't see myself doing something like that. I don't think it's my thing.
Non-preggo friend: Why do you say that?
Preggo Gal: gets a look of disgust on her face It's just not something I would do.

Here's my commentary:

HOW DO YOU KNOW UNTIL YOU'VE TRIED IT, DUMBASS????  With all of the literature out there about how breast is best, bonding between mother and baby, how could you stand there in a maternity store and look disgusted when someone mentions breastfeeding?  Or think that it probably isn't your thing?  How the fuck do you know that?  You've never had a baby before!!!  You've never NURSED before!  You've never had a screaming baby in the middle of the night wanting to be fed while you thank God for giving you breasts that you can just whip out instead of fussing over a bottle of formula and getting it to the right temperature.

Ugh.

I will admit, the first time the nurse brought Sacha to me and plopped him next to me and tried to help him latch on, I had my doubts about this boobie business.  I mean, my breast was bigger than his head!  I couldn't see his face when he nursed, and he demanded immediate hunger satisfaction, which is not really how it goes in those first few days before your milk comes in. The little bugger wouldn't stay latched for more than a few seconds, which is not enough in those first days to get much of anything. He screamed, I cried.  One nurse even told me that "you can't force a baby to breastfeed.  You can force a bottle, but not a breast." Bah!

I promptly requested another nurse, who set up a little syringe and feeding tube with formula in it to tape onto my breast. That way, when he latched on, I would push the plunger just enough to get him motivated to stay latched.  Then, I took away the syringe and he stayed on for as long as I let him.   That nurse was a saint to show me that trick.  It saved my sanity in those first 2 days before the goods came in, which I discovered totally by surprise when I accidentally squirted a different nurse in the face.

And then, nursing seemed to just get easier by the day.

I even set up little obstacles for myself, just to see how far it would go.  I could sit on one corner of the couch and spray the opposite end of the coffee table.  Score one for me!

Ok, don't pretend you haven't done it.  What else are you supposed to do to stay sane when you're stuck in the house with an infant and a cat?  Make your own fun.

Ah, if preggo gal only knew what she'll be missing.

Halloween-ku

Halloween Party
Crying kids, too much candy
Fun for who, I ask??

 

Tastes like lemon

I'm coming out with it:   I like fat.  I dislike things that are non-fat or low-fat. Really, a good Ukrainian girl would.  Why bake something when you can fry it up in a pound of lard with some bacon tossed in for good measure?  Who needs sauce when you've got butter?  Loads and loads of butter.  But in my everyday, regular eating habits, this is why I've gone back to fat:

A while ago, my father-in-law was having a conversation with us about yogurt.  At the time, I was infatuated with the yumminess of Source yogurt.  (I never bought yogurt unless it was fat free, and Source yogurt is even sugar and aspartame free.  It is sweetened with Splenda.)  He came right out and said that he didn't know how we could eat the stuff because all fat free yogurt "tastes like lemon.  I don't know why they bother having different flavours because it all tastes like lemon."  I laughed.  Tony laughed and said that was the dairy farmer in him talking.

When I started buying those little Minigo yogurts for Sacha (obviously not fat-free because he needs all the fat he can get), I started nibbling on them.  Boy, are they good!  I started buying fatty yogurt for myself and it is So. Much. Better.  Period.

I bought some Source yogurt a month ago after indulging in the yummy fattiness of whole yogurt for the past  8 months or so.  The flavours sounded amazing: peach-passion fruit, coconut-pineapple-banana (or something) and more.  When I tasted them, I noticed something.  Fat free yogurt DOES taste like lemon!   Bah!  I couldn't even eat them.  I went and bought some fatty yogurt instead.  Activia is my bag, baby.

So there it is.  From Mrs. Mustard's mouth to yours:

Whole fat yogurt = good.

Non-fat yogurt = lemons.

Blogroll? What the hell is that?

Attention all readers and linky-love seekers:

It has come to my attention that my blogroll is in need of some updating.  In fact, many of you probably don't even realize that I have a blogroll: it was getting so long that I took it out of my sidebar and put it on its own page, called Good Reads.

So here's what I want you to do: Go and have a peek, check and see if you are there, and if your link goes where it should. If the link doesn't work, or you want to be added to the roll, leave me a comment.

Merci!

Wordless Wednesday: Little Pumpkin

More WW

Fart-ku

Pregnancy secret:
I walk all day making noise
A smell left behind

 

The Calm after the storm

Sacha can be a huge ball of energy. Sometimes, even 2 parents aren't enough to contain his force. I present for your viewing Exhibit A:



Then, there are times when he's so quiet and content in his own world, that I just have to stop whatever I'm doing (in this case, making dinner) and watch him, as you will see in Exhibit B:



Man, I love this kid!

Stranger than fiction

I've heard from many women that they all had strange and vivid dreams while pregnant. I did not encounter this with Sacha. This time around, I sometimes wake up and believe that what I dreamed actually happened, then call my sister to make sure she didn't die, or call my friend to make sure he wasn't trampled in a horrible running-of-the-cow parade.

Last night's siesta took the cake.

I dreamed I had triplets, all boys, and had to nurse them all at the same time.  I had them placed on a couch and did the old "lean over" method. Sweet jebus!   To make it more interesting, as they nursed, they morphed into toddlers, and all started biting me!

I woke up petrified. Wouldn't you?

95 is the loneliest number

I don't know how many of you are on cre8buzz, but if you are, you will know that 95 is a lonely number. And this most humble blog? It's ranked at 259. That's not so great. In fact, it licks goat bum. My blog is licking goat's bum, people, and that hurts the soul, not to mention the tongue.

So what can you do? If you are members of cre8buzz, go and check out my page. I just purdied it up this weekend, and if you so desire, you can leave your most humble of opinions (in the form of ratings) on the Cheeze blog. If you are not members, go and check it out. It may be your cup of tea to rate my blog sign up.

I am nothing if not shameless.

Pimp-mama

While wasting time one afternoon, mainly avoiding the massacre of dishes piled up in my sink, Sacha and I headed to the mall for some lessons in mall ratology.  I took him to a display on fire safety, where they were handing out free suckers.  I watched him run around, making cute faces at strangers and showing everyone his sucker. We explored some sales at the bookstore, pondered the delights of milkshakes and ice cream, and then studied the wonder of the vending machine.  Sacha played with the dial you turn to vend the candy, and tried to stick his sucker in the coin slot. He suddenly abandons his sucker and is fingering something shiny in his palm.  I grab his hand and pry it open - a toonie*.  The kid found a toonie in the vending machine!  Score for me!  My kid made me some sweet cash!

In summary:

1. Take my kid to hang out at a mall, like all the classy parents do


2. Give my kid a sucker to get him doped up on sugar, like all the classy parents do


3. My kid earns me $2. I let him play with it for a while, but eventually take it away (choking hazard, no?) and buy myself a beverage.


4. From now on, just call me pimp-mama.

*For my friends to the south, toonie is our colloquial word for our $2 coin, which is currently worth about $2.06 US.  That has never happened in my lifetime, so it bears mentioning on here.

Food-ku

The cravings are here
Whispering to me at night
Salsa and sour cream

 +++++++++++++

Wanna join the fun? Visit Haiku Fridays!

Smiles!

This is way overdue, but since Sacha is napping, and I AM smiling, I thought it was time to pass on the Smiles Award that Whymommy awarded me for this. As much of a great piece of literature that post was, I feel that there are many more deserving people to pass this on to:

Jennifer the Binky Bitch at Playgroups Are No Place for Children for this great post about the Red Ball Chase

 

Cate at Monkeys and Marbles for living with a farting husband (don't we all?!)

 

Mrs. Chicky at Chicky Chicky Baby in celebration of finally getting her Zofran (too bad our friends to the south don't have Diclectin)

 

Jackie at Jackie's Life for warning us about more dangerous toys made in China

 

Mrs. Flinger for her potty mouth

 

Scarbie Doll at Martinis for Milk for battling it out with a newborn and a toddler (my life in 7 months).

Wordless Wednesday: Boobie fest

 

Thanks to LMJ for this fantastic montage. I, unfortunately, do not have any pictures of me breastfeeding Sacha. I do, however, have pictures of me trying to shoo away a cat while holding a baby on a nursing pillow shortly after having breastfed.

Stupid settings on stupid flickr because of stupid orkut

So after reading about the nasty things some people are doing on Orkut, I went and changed the privacy settings on many of my photos.  This, however, seemed to have screwed up the photos on my blog, even the ones that I didn't change, so I am trying to figure THAT out.

In short, people WILL plagiarize off the net, and whether I post pictures on flickr, my own personal website, or on here, they are up for scrutiny and possible theft.  I don't want my pictures floating around on some stranger's personal site, but I am not going to live in an internet bubble because of it.

So if my pictures seem wonky or aren't working, I am on it like a fat kid on smarties.

I've become THAT woman

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The ultimate parenting question

Which would you rather have?

a) a child that sleeps through the night but wakes up at 5 am every day

b) a child that wakes once during the night, but sleeps until 6:30 or 7?

c) THERE IS NO OPTION C!  You gotta work with what you've got!  And what do I have?  A kid who either wakes up in the night or wakes up for the day at the ass crack of dawn that is 5:00 am.  Sometimes 4:45.  13 month olds suck in the sleep department.

How do your kids fare? Please send some words of consolation or encouragement, or I may off myself by chocolate.

Working the White Carpet

Obviously, Sacha needs to entertain himself when I am cooking.  There are many toys available to him, and he is now fully equipped with wax crayons, paper and so on.  So, what does he choose to do?



This was not my first choice of activities, but what the heck. He's quiet, occupied, and I can get some stuff done!  But this was only phase one.  He then took each individual bag and threw it down the stairs.

This is what my dear sweet husband saw when he came home from work: now he can practice his strut on the white carpet!

Glutton for punishment: the mommy trinity at work

Once upon a time, there was a mommy and her toddler son. The mommy was no ordinary mommy, though. She was pregnant, and as everyone knows, pregnant mommies are prone to terrible personality swings and disorders of intelligence and judgement. Especially when they are awoken at 5 in the morning by their toddler boy who is itching to get out of his crib and play. But this tale does not take place in the morning. Rather, it occurs at dinner time, when both mommy and boy are tired from the day's activities of floor-pooping, food-throwing and kitty-torturing.

Toddler boy is not the most adventurous eater. He has his favourites and sticks to them: Reese Peanut Butter Puffs cereal, yogurt, fruit, most definitely ketchup, but NOT meat. No ham and cheese sandwiches, no spaghetti sauce, no chicken fingers, no fish sticks. No. Meat.

Imagine Pregnant Mommy's surprise and delight when she is making pizza for supper (which Pregnant Mommy is TOTALLY scamming on), he's "helping" by fingering all the toppings and Toddler boy starts eating the pepperoni! Oh rapture! Oh pure joy! At first, the pepperoni she was using was the salami-style, so it was not very spicy. She runs out of that, however, and out come the hot pepperoni sticks. Hot even for her. Toddler boy grabs one and starts chewing. Smart Mommy winces in fear of what may happen. To her total amazement, he loves it. He keeps gnawing at it and scraping the meat off the rough casing with his front teeth, smiling away. Stupid Mommy thinks to herself: this is great! He's eating meat!

Suddenly, Smart Mommy looks over at him and his eyes are welled up and he's got tears pouring down his cheeks. He's still maniacally chewing on his pepperoni. Then the screeching starts.

Stupid Mommy gives him his sippy cup: he downs the whole 9 oz. Then he shoves the damn pepperoni back in his mouth! Frick. Stupid Mommy: you should've taken that away first.

Pregnant Mommy, who thinks that food is the solution to any problem, gives him some yogurt out: he marfs it down. She tries to pry the pepperoni out of his hands, but he's WAILING at her, fighting tooth and nail for the damn pepperoni, even though it IS the root of this whole fiasco. Finally, she tears it away, leaving shards of meat under his nails, and he's sucking on his hands like there will never be pepperoni ever again.

Smart Mommy then takes over and washes his hands so that he doesn't rub the spices into his eyes (because things just aren't enough fun around here).

Eventually, Smart Mommy gets the pizza in the oven and they über-enjoy the pizza for dinner as Pregnant Mommy is craving pizza something fierce these past few days and the heartburn from the pepperoni and banana peppers is totally worth it.

And they live ever after. Not always happily, just ever after.

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On a totally unrelated note, it's delurking time!  If you are passing by la Maison Mustard, leave a comment, any comment.  Even if it's just "I'm delurking.  Your blog is moderately entertaining." If you're new here, maybe hook my feed into your reader... :P

Here's an idea - can someone make it happen?

Attention all chemists, pharmacists, researchers, nerds:

I believe that there is a great need out there that is not being filled. Sick pregnant women, like me, have to rely on diclectin and supplementing that with gravol, just to make it through the day. There is a need for a control-release anti-nausea patch. That's right. A patch. Clamp it to your arm and let the druggy goodness soak in for, say, 3 months? If that is pushing it, I would even accept one month at a time. I have taken this issue up with my pharmacist husband, and he says that he will get right on it after he invents a control-release caffeine patch to wear to work. Selfish bastard.

THERE IS A MARKET FOR THIS! I am already taking 6 diclectin plus 2 or more gravol a day, and I still feel like frozen poop on the bottom of a farmer's boot. A patch would be a godsend. God. Send. Actually, God, if you could send some sort of relief on the sick side of things, that'd be great.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Mustard.

These are my confessions

Since I have been trouble sleeping at night (pregnancy makes me more of an insomniac than I already am), I have compiled a list of totally random things I want to get off my chest.

• I hate being pregnant. It sucks. I know that many women glow and shine when they're pregnant, but I don't. My house is a disaster because all I feel like doing is lying on the couch and moaning. I cannot stand the smell of my kitchen, so that is a total gong show, and everything I want to eat has tons of salt, loads of trans fat, and about 5000 calories. Bring me my fat pants!


• I do not care for lobster. I don't know what all the fuss is about.


• I wish that I could leave Sacha with a sitter once in a while so that I could have time to actually be myself again.


• To my locker neighbour in high school: I had a crush on you, but I was too embarrassed to say anything because you considered to be dorky (like I'm not a dork, I know...). I was super glad that you were my locker buddy for 4 years, because it gave me a chance to hang with you without anyone wondering why. I am such a tool.


• I once heard a guy refer to me a "chubby, not the kind of girl you date." This was a decisive moment in the start of my weight issues, leading to anorexia and then learning how to live with it (I don't believe that you can truly be cured of it).


• I often feel left out from my sisters, who are a lot closer to each other than they are to me. I must have been too much of a bitch to them growing up. Wait, I know I was to Talia. Still am, even from thousands of km away. How do I do that??


• Paul: I miss my friends a lot, but I miss you most because I miss how you seemed to look up to me and ask me for advice, help with school, and how I felt like you needed me, but then again, even if I was still living close to you, you really wouldn't need me anymore.


• I have not touched my knitting needles in 3 weeks. The thought of knitting makes me nauseous. I don't understand the reason behind it, but it's true. Same goes for reading. Books = pukeville.


• I am scared of what Sacha is going to do when I am in the hospital having the baby. No family here, no one he's comfortable with to stay with. I am fearing the worst.


• I miss my mom. I wish she had holidays left so that she could come take care of me and Sacha so that I could be gross and sick and my house would not fall apart.


• I need to make supper, but the though of cooking makes me want to yak, and I've already ordered take-out way too many times this week. Did I mention that I hate being pregnant? Maybe I'll have some ice cream. Ew, no, I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit from thinking of it.

Haiku Fun!

Tony's not home but
He laughs: Sacha's bum explodes
Diarrhea sucks.

 

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Let me have my moment

When Sacha turned 1 at the end of August, I had some professional photos taken of him. I just picked them up yesterday and now, I just HAVE to show you. Let me have my moment of pride and bragging rights!