First and most important things first: Today Montrealers remember that 17 years ago Marc Lepine killed 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique for no other reason than they were women and he hated that they were in his Engineering courses where women “didn’t” belong.

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Last night, when Hayley FINALLY fell asleep (and it was an ordeal and a half, what with repeatedly getting up to ask me how Saint Nicholas would get in and wasn’t I going to bed so he could come, blablabla), I set up the loot in both kids’ shoes. I really love this tradition.

In Breanna’s we put two cute pairs of socks with the little grippy treads on the bottom, a soft stuffed cow, two lollipops, and an Aero chocolate bar; obviously she won’t get to actually eat the last two, but she can have a small taste of each before they’re passed over. In fact, the chocolate bar will be eaten by ME as soon as this entry is done, other than one small square that I’ll save for her.

In Hayley’s shoes, we squeezed in two pairs of socks (specifically chosen because they look like George’s socks so that she would actually consent to wearing them), a Disney Princess lip gloss, Princess hair elastics, and also the two lollipops and Aero bar. She also had a dinosaur coloring set with markers that didn’t fit.

This morning, apparently Hayley woke George up at 4:30 because she was so excited. I feel fortunate that I missed out on it. He managed to convince her to watch some Treehouse in the living room for a few more hours and to give her credit, although I know she looked at the shoes she never touched them and didn’t take anything out of them which is pretty good.

Once she was sent off to get me up (and Breanna by default), they both checked out their gifts.

You can see the set on Flickr – there are only six but they’re cute.

And that was pretty much the highlight of an other wise dreary day. Well that, and two funny anecdotes:

An exchange between myself and Hayley:

Hayley: Look Mommy! There are Christmas lights outside!
Sherry: Out front? But there are no buildings out there.
Hayley: No look hard Mommy! They’re red! And now they’re green.
Sherry: … Red and … green? (looking) Hayley! That’s the traffic light!
Hayley: Oh!

And Breanna’s contribution to the humour of the day:

What with having this obnoxious cold, Breanna has seen me blow my nose a lot (as well as Hayley and now George). As mentioned, she HATES the bulb. I guess she’s trying to solve that problem because she pointed at the box of kleenex and grunted “ah. ah. ah.” at me (which is becoming increasingly common, translating to “I want, I want, I want”). I took one out and handed it to her, to see what she would do, since she currently had a very leaky nose anyway.

She took it, looked at it, and wadded it up carefully.

Then she stuck it to the side of her head and blew her nose all over herself.

But you know, at least the idea is there!