Really? I can't believe it...

I thought I was a good girl, but apparently using the word fuck/fucking and sex is not for virgin eyes...

Reasons I fear more progeny

I have always said that I wanted to have 3 or 4 children. Some may call me crazy. I have also gone on record as saying that I wanted to space them 18 mos apart (give or take, depending on the number of times the room is a-rockin). Sacha is now 10 months old, and we are not trying.

Our friends had their first baby this morning, a baby boy named Jack. I was sure that when I went to visit that I would be struck with the baby-fever and want to go home and ravage my husband and plant some babies in my dear old friend, Miss Uterus. I went to visit, and he is a total doll. Sacha tried to feed him a cookie and steal his blanket, but that's another tale.

I am, however, still not sure about the next baby. How could that be? Don't I love babies? Well, yes. In theory. In practice, there are some points to consider when preparing to go about knocking myself up again.

1. Lack of sleep. I know, I know. I expected to have some difficulty in the sleep department for the first few months, nursing all night, yadda yadda. But at 10 months?!?! Sacha still wakes up numerous times during the night. He is not a steady sleeper, and I can never predict whether it will be a

• good night - wakes up 2 times or less


• moderate night - more than two awakenings


• bad night - many awakenings and a covert pooperation in the mix


• fucking awful night - is awake more then asleep and my dear husband hears none of it

This is NOT the norm, right? And yes, I will most likely have a wonderful sleeper the next times around. But what if I don't? I'll get up to nurse baby #2 and S will wake up and want me to read to him. Or later, S will wake up, wake his little sibling up, and have a midnight diaper swap and poop party. I may never sleep again. It makes my uterus cringe in fear.

2. I just bought a car, and I know that those damn double strollers will not fit in a car. And I am not giving up my car! I do not want a fucking minivan right now just so I can put a damn double stroller in it!

3. I like my body again. It's sexy (other than the saggy milk bags) and can make heads turn in a good way. Not so sure if I want to pack on another 44 lbs and have my breasts inflate like dingys.

4. I like the ME TIME I have now that S goes to bed at 7. This gives me 3 or 4 hours of time to do as I please, watch a non Treehouse channel and listen to music with as many fucking swears as I fucking want.

5. I can have caffeine again. The first 6 months of nursing, I couldn't have the slightest bit of caffeine as it sent S into a tizzy and he became Mr Cranky McFussalot. This exasperated #1.

6. Same can be said of onions, which I use prolifically in all my cooking. I remember having to eat macaroni and cheese for a week in the early days so as not to set his little stomach off into pukes-ville. Other off limits foods were cabbage, asparagus, anything spicy, anything tasty.

7. Now that my dear friend Mr. Advil and I have become reacquainted, I don't know if I am ready to part ways.

8. Same can be said for my other friend, Ms Chocolate Martini.

9. I like keeping my food down, and I would rather not have it revisit my palate every morning for 4 months while the little parasite screws around with my hormones.

Now, I know that there are some pluses to being pregnant and having another baby:

1. Having a good excuse to not put out.

2. Having more credibility as a whiny, stressed out mother.

After that, I've got nothing. Care to add to my list?

The Ladies Man

Remember that guy? The one every girl drooled over and fawned around in high school? The gorgeous hunk of testosterone that made your ovaries tingle and scream out "I WILL BEAR YOUR CHILDREN!" ? The one I obsessed over (and over) for most of my adolescence until I had him but had to share him with another girl(s)?

Well, I have bred one of those guys. He lives in the body of a little boy named Sacha. I fear for the future of the female sistas out there. He already has an girlfriend who attends to all of his needs (of the food, drink and soother variety), but whom he also puts in her place when she demands some lovin' by casually shrugging off her hugs and kisses and moves on to more important things, like his car. Now, one girl is not enough.
Yesterday, we went to a polar bear habitat to see polar bears (shocking, I know). He loved the bears, but equally so the ladies watching the polar bears. With a flash of a smile and batting of his oceanic blue eyes, the ladies swoon. The men swoon and are jealous of the attention stolen from their women. Even the female polar bear loved him, as she paced back and forth in front of him, putting on her little show of belly scratching and preening in his presence as though she could attract him to live in her bear den and have little bear-bum babies with him. (I don't think she was hungry...)

Tonight, we decided to go out for supper with my parents who are visiting from out-of-province. With Sacha in tow, a trip to a restaurant is always...well...if you have kids, you know what kind of adjective can be used there. However, in total player-style, the little dude was a total doll, despite his tantrum-throwing resistance to an afternoon nap. He walked around the restaurant, stopping at EVERY table, looking at the people to see if they were ogling him, and if they were, he flashed them a brilliant zoolander pose and smile and talked their ears off with his stories of "da-da-da, GAW!" Then, he'd move on to the next table and repeat this over and over until we'd visited and shared the love with every eater in the house. Including single old men who eat alone (that's another story for another day). The server even brought him some free corn-bread to munch on with his supper (a purée of steak and potatoes with corn, made by Mama herself). He gladly accepted the bread with a smile that could slay a dragon. Or at least the lustful lady-dragon on Shrek. You know, the one who is scamming on Donkey and ends up having babies with him (I will also let that one slide for another post).  Oh, the joys of having a player for a son...

The Gospel...with some dumbfucks thrown in for good measure

I will preface this post with the following: I am Roman Catholic. I have a minor in religious studies, and I have a lot of background in church ministries.

Now, I will tell you this:

Read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

I have never actually laughed out loud while reading something, despite the ubiquitous use of the LOL and LMAO in my comments of blogs. While reading this book, I laughed so loud that I snorted my tea through my nose to stifle the sound so as not to wake the little dude in the next room.

It is a highly irreverent look at the missing years in Christ's life, namely from birth to age 30, as told by Jesus' best friend, Levi aka Biff. Making matters more LOLable, Biff has the gift of tongues, which enables him to tell the story using today's language and linguistic idioms - hence the use of the word dumbfuck, asswipe, and so on. If you ever imagined how bunnies came to be associated with Easter, it's in this book. Don't know where sarcasm was born? Read this book. What about Judo? Here it is. What would it have been like if Jesus did martial arts? Take a gander into the pages. This book does not really touch on any of the gospel stories, rather a speculative behind-the-scenes look at Jesus' life. A "Making-Of" featurette that could appear on the bonus disc of the Bible's DVD companion, if you will.

The first question people ask when I talk about this book is "Is Jesus married in it? He doesn't sin, does he?" Not to spoil anything, but no, the author maintains Jesus' integrity as the Messiah in that sense. What he also shows, however, is an imaginary view of what Jesus would have been like "off the record." And he seems like he would have known how to have a good time.

Any one else read this book? What did you think?

Toes are not pretty

Have you ever stubbed your toe? That's a dumb question. Everyone has stubbed their toe and screamed out "Holy St. Polycarp" to protect their children's virgin ears.

Well, I more than stubbed it this time. I fell down some stairs and my big toe broke my fall. I was holding Sacha at the time, so the toe took one for the team, and let me tell you, there were more explicit words out of my mouth than "Fiddle dee dee."

The pain was outrageous and immediately called for the comfort of a good friend, Mr. Advil Liquigel (bearing in mind that one cannot have an epidural for such injuries). It throbbed all night, and I was almost convinced that I had broken it. This morning it throbbed even more, and the bruising began. Small and pink at first, it spread like leprosy on my toe. Sacha, obviously intrigued by the strange formations taking hold on my toe, began poking it. Initially, I pretended it hurt, just to get a rise out of him. Then he stepped on it. I howled like a cat in heat, to which he giggled with glee and stomped on it even harder. Oh sweet merciful poptarts! He roared with laughter. I bit my lip and attempted to extricated him from my toe's immediate environment, but it was now a game. A horrible masochistic game that only a dutiful and wretchedly loving mother would tolerate.

Until daddy got off the can and saved me from my firstborn.

The damage:



(I tried to improve my podiatric appearance with pink polish, but nothing can make that big ugly toe look as pretty as it's sisters.)

My mom is watching Borat

My parents are visiting me for a couple of weeks. Well, they are really here to see Sacha, but in the evenings, we get some well deserved adult-time.
Tonight, my mom wanted to watch a movie. My step-dad looked through my vast selection and chose Borat, since us "kids" (my siblings included) keep quoting things from the movie.
As I look at my mom right now, the look on her face is priceless. I don't know if she is offended, if she understands the humour (my dad used to say that before she met him, she thought oral sex was talking about it), or if she's just grossed out.  It should be interesting when we get to the infamous naked wrestling scene.

Just to clarify, Sacha was NOT named after Sacha Baron Cohen.  It is just a wonderful coincidence...

Scary...

I knit the Mother a pair of slipper-socks (henceforth known as slocks) with leftover yarn from previous projects.  I had a scant 2 feet (give or take) of yarn when I was done.  Scary, my fellow knitters, scary.  Especially since the yarn was purchased from a store in Edmonton, and I am in Ontario (3000 km away, for those that don't know).



That green string is all that remained...

Canadian Idol: Can I pick 'em or what?!

Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Two of those boys that I loved from Monday night went on to top 22.  Out of all 200 people, 2 of my picks got through: Greg Neufeld and Andrew Austin.  I seriously think that I should be a judge, or at least given a free ticket to the show (airfare please!) and huge banner that says "Hot Sarah Sure Can Pick 'Em!"

Plus, did I mention that Greg is easy on the eyes?

Since I did not watch last year, I really didn't know that he was almost top 10 last season.  That makes my pick even MORE amazing, don't you think?

Did I mention that Greg is nice to look at?

Maybe he'll do better this year with the shorter haircut (yes, I looked at pics from last season after realizing that he has a fan club, not that I would ever join...)

Canadian Idol + Instruments = It's about time!

Herecy!!

I don't watch Canadian Idol. The talent on there, don't hate me for saying it, is worse than its American counterpart. I do NOT believe that Canadians are less talented. I think that all the REALLY good Canadian talent doesn't give a hoot about being an Idol and that they don't even bother to audition (I maintain this as my excuse for never auditioning...). That, or the judging is different and they draw different types of musicians and entertainers. I don't watch American Idol, either. I almost got caught in the Taylor Hicks fever last year, but got so tired of watching that pipsqueak Kevin get pushed through week after week and I feared that his singing would eventually lead my ears into a spiral of depression and ultimately end in their self-mutilation.

But last night, I tuned in. Why? Well, my cousin (Spencer - he's the 7th one in...go see, you know you wanna!) made it into the top 200 and got his golden ticket to Toronto. Woot! I've never heard the guy sing, but hey...I had visions if he went through, I could go to TO with my big banner that says "Baba's posse" and the camera would pan to me while he sings and the subtitle would read "Spencer's hot cousin, Sarah." All part of the plan. So I turned on the tube, ate my corn on the cob and steak (courtesy of T) and watched.

I was pleasantly surprised. Not necessarily by the singing (I had to protect my ears with some duct tape and ear muffs), but by the fact that they allowed the vocalists to accompany themselves on guitar or piano. SWEET! This is so much more realistic than singing a cappella. Most young hopefuls play and sing at the same time (no easy feat, I'll tell you) and to me, it shows a more well-rounded musician than someone who wears the oh-so-short skirt and oh-my-boobies low-cut top while belting out some version of "Dirrty." I was totally enthralled with the threesome of guys who sang together and all played their guitars. For having very little sleep, the harmony was great and the energy in their playing and performance was über enjoyable (as was their appearance...nothing sexier than a guy at one with his guitar, and if there's 3 of them? Oh my...). I then decided it was safe to peel off the duct tape.

I will probably tune in tonight to make sure those boys get through to the top 22 (Greg Neufeld, Andrew Austin and Paul Filek).

Oh, and my cousin didn't get through, but he has a band back in his hometown. You can listen to them here.

OOOHHH, Kelly Clarkson!

No, I am not having my chest waxed.

I was on iTunes and saw that Kelly Clarkson, the only American Idol to really make a career for herself (her, and maybe Carrie Underwood, but I'm not a country gal) is releasing a new CD next week. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

I haven't been this excited since Avril's CD came out in April.  Interesting that Avril means April in French...

Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball

A mother is a lot like the little wombat

Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball

So no one can see me, because I'm so small

Sometimes I like to jump as high as I can

Spreading my wings to soar above the sand

Sometimes I like to scream ever so loud

Trying to escape this madness and praying to be found

Sometimes I seem to just walk round and round

I cannot move forward, my soul firmly planted in the ground

Sometimes I wish I could stand as still as a tree

Without anyone climbing, crying, flailing on me

Sometimes I know I should just hold my tongue

And appreciate the support that I get from the one that I love

Sometimes I let things get into a real mess

Not knowing what to do, burying my head in my chest

Sometimes I wish I could run ever so fast

Away from the pressure, the worry, the daunting task

But when the day ends and the sun starts to fall

Then I remember why I do it at all

I look into his eyes, so full for one so small

And I cuddle him close to my heart

As we curl up in a ball

**As I read Sacha's favourite book for the umpteenth time tonight, I found myself rewriting it in my head. This is what came of it.

I thought it was a good idea

I have been told that my son is cute. Obviously, I think he's ridiculously, but I am biased. My mother tells me he's adorable, as do my grandparents, but they are also biased. Random people in the mall tell me that he is gorgeous and has the greatest blue eyes they've ever seen. Although they're not biased, it's a fact that his eyes are gorgeous and bodaciously blue. The ladies at T's work go on and on about how I should put him in a commercial or something. Believe me, nothing would please me more than to have my baby boy flaunting his bum for Lever 2000 or for Huggies with that flex stuff around the waist, even though I choose to use cloth diapers. If I wanted to have a Leak-a-Thon to raise money for the R&D people at Huggies so that their dumb diapers actually FIT a baby's bum rather than just my Cabbage Patch doll, maybe I'd jump on board. But I digress.

I received an newsletter from a clothing store I frequent, saying that they are having a Canadian Cutie contest for Canada day. The prize is not huge, but it's the principle of the proving to the world that my son is a bonafide cutie.

I began taking picture after picture:

oh wait, the picture is supposed to show him wearing clothes purchased from THAT store.

Hmmm...this shirt IS from that store, but it's covered with cookie mung, and is not distinctively from there.

I am pretty sure that sleeper is from there, but I think the olive hat is highlighted most here. Keep looking...

He's not really smiling here. I think he may have been pooping. Let's try again.

Why does S look like he was born with one leg?

He's all smiles, but the background really sucks. I think that chair should be declared legally dead.

Ready to give Maman a massage? It looks sort of blurry, though...maybe let's try again.

Oh shit. Back to the diaper pictures. He's eating a red pepper: do I get extra brownie points for being an amazing mother that gets her son to eat vegetables of his own accord? Come on...

So, even though I know my son is cute and has ocean-blue eyes and a smile that can crack a stone heart, I realize now that I cannot capture HIM on film.

Not the way I see him.

Not the way I love him.

For the love of Krishna! I could fry an perogy on my forehead!

It has been over 30 degrees* all week here.  In fact, we were the second hottest city in Canada on Wednesday, sitting at 33 with a humidex of 36.  It is so hot in our house: Sacha spent the day in his diaper yesterday, accompanied by his mother wearing a tank top and panties.   The nights are awful - Sacha doesn't sleep, Tony sweats and snorts, and I lie awake and wonder what I did in my past life to merit such torture.

Too bad I am opposed (in principle) to central air in homes...damn global warming!!

*I am talking celcius, people.  To change it to fahrenheit, you do 1.8 x Tc + 32.  In this case, 1.8 x 30 + 32 = 86 degrees fahrenheit.

Doggone it!

I need some advice.

There is a dog in the neighbourhood.  It is a beautiful dog - a golden retriever.   By all means, it should be a lovely dog.  I couldn't really attest to this, however, as its careless owners let it roam free.  In everyone's yards.  It poops on my lawn, pees on my driveway, barks and growls at Sacha, and has come dangerously close to jumping the fence and hopping into our backyard while chasing a cat.  I growled back at it and chased it away - "Go away! Go on! Get! Stay tuned for an all-new Ally McBeal!"

I will admit, I am not a dog person.  But aren't leash laws in place for a reason?  Any suggestions from the crowd as to how to deal with this?

Marriage = changing your name?

An informal tagging in this meme about names has led me here. "Names" in general terms seems to be a broad topic, and after naming my son Sacha, I have spoken out numersiou times about the validity of naming a boy Sacha (even though it is originally a boy's name in Russian, Greek, and the like). This is not the road I will choose today, as frankly, it tires me when people assume things about a person simply by what their name is.

Instead, I want to tell you a little tale of two people who were madly in love and planning to spend their lives together. They decided to wed, and the Wonderful Selfless Man volunteered (of his own free will, no bribes of sex or the like involved) to give up his name and assume his fiancée's name once they were married. He had never met her father, and since he had passed away leaving but three daughters, there was no one left to carry on the family name. The beautiful young woman was astonished, as she had never heard of this before, but was so taken aback by her love's proposition and glad that she would not have to come up with a new signature that she went along with it.

Wonderful Selfless Man's family had no qualms about him taking his wife's name. Beautiful Young Foxy Lady's family was elated that a man would want to honor her father in that way, and many tears of joy were shed.

The wedding came and went, and then began the real show. Wonderful Selfless Man went to have his driver's license changed into his new name: no problem! Wonderful Selfless Man wanted to have his passport changed: easy peasy! Wonderful Selfless Man calls the government to update his name on his social insurance number. Bitch Lady tells him that he is not allowed to change his name as it is not "social custom." Wonderful Selfless Man hangs up, dials the 1-800 number again, gets new operator, and account is updated.

Wonderful Selfless Man bears the brunt of many light-hearted jokes from friends regarding his "maiden" name. Beautiful Young Foxy Lady becomes a teacher and realizes that it may be easier for her students to simply call her "Mme N."

Wonderful Selfless Man applies to write his licensing exam to become a pharmacist. Pharmacy examining board tells him that they do not accept his new name (despite the fact that the passport office is A-OK with it) and that he must file for a legal name change. (In case you do not know the difference, a legal name change deletes all existing documents in your birth name and redrafts them in your new name. This includes your birth certificate. Changing your name after marriage is "assuming" a name, and simply adds this new name, so to speak, on to your existing identity.) Wonderful Selfless Man opens a can of whoop-ass and tells them that they are discriminating against him because he is a man and that if this were the reverse situation (ie: a woman took her husband's name) they would not be having this conversation. He threatens legal action, at which point the head honcho of the pharmacy examining board apologizes profusely for his employee's behaviour.

Happy couple move to new province and must change their driver's licenses. Beautiful Young Foxy Lady changes hers with no questions asked. Wonderful Selfless Man is not permitted to change his, despite the fact that his PASSPORT and all other legal documents are in his new name, until they see a valid marriage certificate. Wonderful Selfless Man protests, saying that he has all the proper documentation required and that it doesn't say he needs to show a marriage certificate. Psycho-hose Beast Lady tells him that it was his choice to do something weird such as take on my name and that he must deal with the consequences of that choice. Obviously, one needs a driver's license to drive, so Wonderful Selfless Man express-ordered the marriage certificate from home province to complete the transaction.

Even after all this hassle, Wonderful Selfless Man still says if he had to do it over again, he would still take my name.

That is love.

And that is my name meme.

Tagging time: Let's say...somewhatmalcontent, kristagrothoff, st.magoo, and girl'slife
Have at 'er!

Bikini after baby?

Momentous occasion: Bring out the brew!

I am proud to say that I lost all of my pregnancy weight!

I would like to take this time to thank my son, the Little Dude, for sucking the calories away from me with the intense nursing when he was a newborn. If it hadn't been for him, I would not have lost 30 lbs in the first 2 weeks of his life. Mind you, I wouldn't have gained 44 lbs to begin with. Maybe I should rethink this thanking.

I would like to thank the Value Drug Mart for bestowing upon T last January a $4000 scholarship, which I promptly used my powers of persuasion (aka I am having your baby, ergo you do this for me NOW) to get T to buy an elliptical cross-trainer.

I would also like to thank my friend and neighbour, Lynn, who had supper with me and our brood of kids while T was in Ottawa. Thanks to her meals, which always included a great portion of green leafy goodness, I finally tipped below the 130 lbs mark, which I have been above since Christmas 2005.

Thank you to my mother for giving me good genes in the body-after-baby department. I owe you BIG.

And lastly, thank you to my dear husband for allowing me to lounge in our backyard pool and parents' hot tub wearing this:

It's like thrash metal to my ears

Sacha has an inner ear infection.  No funny story there, just endless screaming and thrashing from the pain of it all.  Sacha cried a lot, too.  Praise Vishnu the antibiotic tastes like banana and the Little Dude gulps it back much in the same way I gulped back my double latté this morning.

Being as tired as I am, I cannot muster much sense to post anything really deep, funny, or inspiring.  I leave that to her.

Freaken planograms

I went to the store to buy some hot chocolate powder as I have a mean hankering for some warm choco-goodness. I get home, boil my water, get out my favourite mug and realize that it's chocolate MILK powder. WHY?! WHY ?! WHY?! Why do bad things happen to good people?! I JUST WANT MY DAMN HOT CHOCOLATE!

And yes, I know that you can warm up milk and use the chocolate milk powder. But have you ever made it? It's grainy, doesn't dissolve very well, and it's just NOT AS CONVENIENT!

DAMN YOU STORE PLANOGRAMS PLACING THE HOT CHOCOLATE POWDER AND CHOCOLATE MILK POWDER NEXT TO EACH OTHER TO LURE UNSUSPECTING HOT CHOCOLATE LOVERS TO BUY AN INFERIOR PRODUCT, THUS MAKING THEM RETURN AND SPEND MORE MONEY TO BUY THE CORRECT PRODUCT!

DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!

My first project for ME

I have finally completed a project for my own use. After 6 months of knitting, I realized that I have nothing of my own to show for it. Thus, I knit these:



They were knit with the bright and colourful Gjestal Naturgarn and are currently residing on my cold feet. Yes, it is June, but my feet are cold as I am fighting off some sort of head/stuffy nose/sore throat thing. Sacha gave it to me. Damn kids.

A hat for Arlo

NOTE: A boring post about knitting!!

I knit this up a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't want to post the pictures until the hat was received by its new owner. Sacha is, once again, my willing and cute model for your appreciative purposes. The pattern is from Itty Bitty Hats. Believe it or not, finding an appropriate colour of green to use for the olives was no small task. Most greens out there are in the sage-forest spectrum, with very little in the olive-martini area. I finally settled on some Red Heart Cotton Twist, the last skein of its colour in the store, and it did the trick. Now, I have a whole lot of olive coloured yarn left. Must make more hats.

Day 3: The poopsmith

Oh my. Due to last night's events, I did not sleep well. I dreamed of Arlo, cuddled with Sacha, slept with the cat, and kept waking to the sound of thunder roaring through the wind in my backyard. I think that I may prepare a pitch for Tim Horton's as to why they should offer a delivery service for moms in the morning.

4:00 pm

While getting ready to head over to neighbour PSM's house for supper, I figured I'd better change Sacha, as we were WET with sweat from the mugginess that is northern Ontario. I got his little bum naked and let it air out a it as, let's face it, little boys love letting it all hang out. In fact, they like it a little too much, and insist on adding to the hanging. I went to get him a new diaper and clean clothes, and returned to find him standing, bracing himself against the hamper, and letting the poop spray out of his butt, then topping it off with a urine swirl. I raced over, but it was too late. His foot found the poop. He did a little dance, made a little love in the poop, which was now being painted across the floor. I scooped him up, but realized that if he touched me, I'd get the poo on me. He made that decision easier by laughing and grabbing on to me with full force, dragging his feces up and down my leg with his feet. Brilliant. We are a poopy mess.

I hobbled over to the tub, while S wiggled and giggled like a mad hatter. Did I mention that he has been discovering his penis lately and is marvelled by what comes out of it? Of course, this means that he was tugging on it and poking it, causing pee to dribble all the way down the hallway, and down my leg. Fabulous. We are now official bio-hazards.

I put him in the tub and turn on the water and washed him off with a facecloth and warm soapy water. He was totally and utterly pissed off at me for washing the ooey goodness off of him, but I kept at it. Once he was clean, I started washing my own brown legs off. I must remember to throw out that facecloth. We made out way back to Sacha's room, and the phone rang. As I answered it, Sacha sat naked and looked at his penis in awe. I then heard the oh-so-familiar piddling sound, and saw pee spraying out of him as he sat. Of course, I had but one hand to deal with it, and he had already taken to splashing in it. Did I mention he learned how to splash in water?

Pee is easier to clean than poop, but by this point, I could care less if he had urine on his hands. We finally got dressed and wandered over to my neighbour's house for supper.

6:30

Supper being over, I decided that it was time to get Sacha in the tub (and REALLY scrub him clean). We packed up our stuff and went home. I turn the doorknob, but it will not budge. Ho. Ly. Shit. Did I REALLY lock myself out? With the spare key sitting ON my dresser? Stupid mommy. I've broken into my fair share of houses (moslty on account of losing my keys), so I knew where to go first. I tried the bedroom window, but it is closed and robber-proof (good for me if I'm INSIDE). I then remembered that there is a window underneath our deck. I brought S back to my neighbour's and went back to my house to break in, secret-agent style. I opened the window (as I hadn't locked it since the last time I opened it...good for me if I'm OUTSIDE), and climbed in. Not so easy to get to ground level, however. There is a shelf there with some tools, but it is not so sturdy, as I soon discovered. I managed to scale down the wall à la Sydney Bristow, only breaking the recycling bins on my way down and knocking over my ironing board and iron. If anyone wants a good secret agent, don't hire me.

7:00

Sacha is in bed, but the cat was MIA.  The rain was POURING outside, and our street was a veritable slip-and-slide of wet fun.  Unfortunately, I could not remember if I had closed the basement window after my clandestine operation, and I feared Mr. Dash may have snuck out. Being the devoted person that I am (and in no way fearing the misery that would ensue if I had to tell T that we lost yet ANOTHER cat to the great outdoors), I braved the storm and went a-lookin'.  I checked the pool while outside, to find that it had rained so hard the water was shooting out of the overflow like the Niagara.  I was wet, I was annoyed,  I was still catless.  I called my neighbour, just in case she had seen Mr. Dash.  She hadn't, but her 4-year-old son wanted to talk to me.  He got on the phone: "Miss Sarah, I think your pool is filled up!"  Yes, Connor, it is very filled up.

7:15

Out of the ceiling tiles comes Mr Dash.  Frickin cat.  Makes me wander out looking for him when he's hiding in the damn ceiling the whole time.  He is SO cut off of his Temptations!

Baby Seasen is here!

The wait is over! My wonderful sister-in-law has given birth last night to a beautiful baby boy, Arlo, weighing at 7 lbs 15 oz. I assume that he is beautiful, even though I will not get to see him until August (WAH!).

I'm sure that Andi will be writing about it eventually when she gets a break from being the Moo-my and explaining to Elliot what a penis is.

Single Mom - Day 2

Am tired, but not as bad as yesterday. Of course, just because Tony is away, S had to have a rough night. But slept in (!) until 8:30. Am wondering whether Tim Horton's has a delivery service.

Single Mom - Day 1

T is gone to a conference in good old Ottawa for the next 6 days. This makes me a single mom until June 6th. Oh joy.

Here's how it's gone so far:

Sacha woke up at 5:50 am. Tried to put him back down, but he started crying 15 minutes later. Turns out he was working on a covert pooperation. Changed his dirty bum in the dark (to avoid total wakening) but failed miserably and smeared poo all over self and S. Frick. Guess we'll wake up. Wonder if too early to call neighbour for a visit.

Zombie-like state of awareness until 8, when I turned on Treehouse only to find that evil bitch Dora telling me to say some damn Spanish word. Sacha watched it, while I laid on the couch. I close my eyes, thinking "I won't fall asleep." Next thing I hear is S crying and laying on his side, as he must have fallen or lost his balance sitting.  I saw nothing as was sleeping with eyes open.  Bad mom! I take him upstairs and he goes down for a nap, and so do I.

Doorbell rings. Twice. I have no clue what time it is, and I look worse than the poo smears. It's my neighbour, Lynn (who is also playing the single mom game) with her daughter and a Tim Horton's coffee. Hallelujah! I will survive!

Afternoon call from the husband.  Says Ottawa is beautiful.  I say 3 covert poops, probably more to follow.  He laughs.  It's not funny, I say.  Should inquire with Canada Post regarding policy on poop-mail.

Supper with other pretend single mom (PSM) and her 2 kids.  Sacha grabs Smarties from my hand and pops in his mouth.  Gets extremely pissed when good mommy pries them out of there as most likely a choking hazard.  Plus, they're MY freaken Smarties!

Decide to bathe Sacha and other PSM's 23 month old daughter together for shits and giggles.  Speaking of shits,  we have covert poop number 4.  Sacha flails arms maniacally around in the tub to splash with enough force to knock self backward and into water.  Now Sacha is pissed off, and bathing fun is over.

Read Moo Baa La La La for the quadrillionth time.  Sing.  Night night Sacha.

Go to pour stiff drink for Mommy.  Realize out of alcohol.  Die a little.  Only 5 days to go.