Hayley and I were playing with some Barbies earlier. I had Ken give her Barbie a rose. “Here’s a flower for you, Barbie,” I had him say.

And Hayley lifted Barbie’s dress and made her loudly fart at him and run away.

If we encourage this, we won’t ever have to worry about Hayley dating.

Sometimes I look at my kids and I wonder if they really came from me. A handful of people always said Hayley looked like me but I didn’t really see it, thinking she looked more like George. As for Breanna, I often joked that when I delivered, they pulled another baby out from under the bed and did a switch because she didn’t look like anyone.

Then on Sunday we went to see my parents. I pulled out my baby book because I wanted to see a few of my milestones in comparison to Hayley and Breanna. I found some pictures and was a little stunned to see that although my girls may not look like me right now, there’s a little bit of them in old pictures of me.

My poor mother must have been disappointed that she gave birth to an alien. Someone alert the Scientologists!

Luckily for her – and me! – I then morphed into an actual human child. In this picture at age two I can finally see a bit of Breanna in me.

(Actually, I had to turn that picture over to read whose name was on the back, because at first I was sure it had to be my sister. Which I guess reinforces what George’s dad said a year ago, when he looked at Breanna and said he thought she looked a bit like Amanda.)

But then in this picture, at 2 1/2 years, I see Hayley.

Then I found some dorky school pictures, grade one and grade two (ages 6 and 7) respectively.

(You know, you’d think the teacher would have maybe fixed my barrettes so that they were even first.)

(And that one just makes me shake my head sadly at the GINORMOUS glasses.)

So I guess I really am their mother and I didn’t just imagine all that pregnancy and labour.

Apropos of nothing to do with me (imagine that!), I also took a picture of my grandmother and her family way back when. That’s my grandmother right in the middle and that’s my mother as a little girl way down in the bottom corner. I love old pictures like this.

In other news, on Friday night I took the girls down the street to a magic show at the church. Hayley really enjoyed it. The magician invited all the kids to come and sit on the floor in front of him. Breanna obviously wasn’t interested in the show at all but she had fun running all around the room, peeking under the pews and chasing another kid around. Because I was following her around to make sure she didn’t tip over the holy water or sneak into the other side of the church, I didn’t see much of the show, but Hayley said it was fun. I kept peeking down the aisle every time I walked past to make sure she was okay and because I had just cut her hair that day I only recognized her because of her red shirt and her overalls.

She was really excited to get a purple balloon animal cat at intermission. Then, as we were getting our coats on to come home, she dropped it just as someone turned around and they stepped on it. There was a brief flood of tears but we went back in and the magician was nice enough to make her a new one, so that was a good save.

He had made a mouse for Breanna. As you can see, she was completely unimpressed.

Of course, then she started pulling it apart, and then she tried to bite it so I took it away, “lost” it, and then distracted her so that she wouldn’t keep looking for it. There’s a reason Breanna didn’t have any balloons at her birthday party, it was because she’s not getting any until she stops trying to eat them.

It was a pretty good weekend overall, between the magic show, Hayley getting to visit with George’s sister, and then seeing my parents. Compared to some other weekends where we’ve all just sort of looked at the walls, it was nice to have a few things to do.

If you like to read and never know what to crack open when you’re finished a book, you can go to What Should I Read Next? for advice. Enter the title and/or author of a book that you enjoyed and it will scour a database of favourite books that have been entered by real people, and it will give you some suggestions of new books you may enjoy reading.

Turn your favorite t-shirts into a pair of underwear! (thanks to Oh My Stinkin’ Heck for the link!

No, not the blog. Hayley’s hair – so LONG. And then I snapped and it was farewell.

I’ve said I was going to do it but I always shied away in the end, but last night was the final straw for me, and for her too, apparently. I washed it and then I loaded it up with conditioner and when I tried to untangle it, there was a lot of screaming involved and crying. I’ve often been afraid of having the cops knock on our door because the knots were always so bad – no matter how many times I brushed them out – that she would end up screaming, “stop it Mommy! Please Mommy, please don’t! Not so hard, Mommy STOP!” I swear, it must have sounded like I was in here beating her senseless and I’m surprised the neighbors never ever called the cops on us.

Last night I imagined doing the same fight every single day and imagined trying to do it at 7 am before school and that was when I snapped. I asked, “Do you want me to CUT YOUR HAIR?!”

And with a dramatic sniffle she answered, “Yes.”

It wasn’t the first time she had said yes, so I said, “Okay. Tomorrow, we cut it.”

I reminded her today and she really wanted to do it so we got all set up.

All.that.freakin’.hair.

Gathered up:

Snippity snip!

Ta-da!

She’s actually thrilled with her new hair – the only reason she looks unimpressed in this shot is because I dared to interrupt her movie with a photo request. Please pretend her lips aren’t blue, I have no idea why there was a blue lipstick in her play makeup set.

I know that so many people loved her hair. I heard it all the time, how beautiful her hair was, how incredible it was. And it WAS. But it was an enormous pain in the ass for me and it was just painful for Hayley. After I cut it I wet it and then blow dried it. Then I ran a brush through it and it offered no resistance at all. Not one knot. And tonight she went to bed without braids for the first time in ages. She’s so happy to be able to leave her hair down if she wants now; before it had to stay braided or it got tangled if the breeze blew.

I love it. You know, except for the fact that she looks so much older all of a sudden.

Okay so I asked you guys for questions and now I have to actually think and come up with answers. Sheesh.

1. Chantal asked: Who is your favourite Beatle?

Answer: Paul. That’s probably predictable, but true. I love his voice, I like his position on a lot of things, and I am so dreadfully sorry that he was insane enough to marry someone without a pre-nuptial agreement because I think Heather Mills is a lying bitch. I hope she falls flat on her face on Dancing With the Stars.

2. Closs asked: What do you like best about where you live?

Answer: I like Montreal’s diversity and multicultural atmosphere. It’s a great place to immerse yourself in a lot of different ethnic ways of life without even leaving your home city. I particularly love our Chinatown. It’s nowhere near as big as the one in Toronto (you can walk from one end to the other in under ten minutes) but the food is good, the prices are ridiculously awesome, and the atmosphere is great.

3. Liz asked: Just curious….how do you plan your day around blogging?

Answer: I don’t really. I do it when I can. If there’s something I really want to write, I try to do it when I get the chance. If it seems like it’s not going to happen because my blogging bug has bad timing, I at least try to jot the topic down on a paper – I have tons of old envelopes and post-it notes with little scrawls about this blog topic or that blog topic. Then I go and write about it later. The easiest time is first thing in the morning when the kids are in their best mood or at night when they’re in bed. And any design stuff generally happens at night.

Whew, lots of fun questions, keep reading…

Continue reading →

Last night while preparing to serve dinner, the cat was grooming herself in the living room.

George: Angel! Stop licking your ass out here!
Hayley: Dad!* It’s good to keep your ass clean.

Snort.

*When did my first born child become old enough to use Dad instead of Daddy?

(By the way, if you’re not seeing the new design, hit refresh. I went with a goofy header image because I was in a silly, slap-happy, sleep deprived mood last night.)

There is so much constant hooplah about how Antonella Barba shouldn’t be on American Idol because of her racy photos from her past. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the pictures she took. I don’t think she should be on the show because she sings like shit. I wish people would stop voting for her just because she’s pretty. It’s a singing competition, not America’s Next Top Model.

Okay, I have nothing to blog about really. I’ve been trapped in this apartment for too long between weather and an under-the-weather Breanna. Unless you want me to sit here and write about the very exciting walk I took to the store the other day to buy a new digital thermometer for Breanna or about how I love the fact that George is not the kind of guy who is squeamish about the fact that he had to go out and buy me pads today, well I just don’t really have much to say at the moment (though I’ve been keeping busy writing stuff over at PittWatch).

So I’m totally ripping off the so very awesome Chantal who is also automatically cool because she’s Canadian too. She had a blogging blank going on too and so she asked people to comment with some questions for her to answer.

My rules: No more than three questions per person. Go ahead and ask me something serious, something heavy, something silly, or something embarrassing. Keep it PG-13 though please, my family reads here. I won’t answer anything dirty, sorry!

Okay, go ahead, ask away!

After four very long days, Breanna’s fever finally broke. It kept going down and then coming back and it was just ridiculous. She didn’t experience any other symptoms after the fever disappeared so I guess there was no weird virus going on, just the damn teeth. We’ve had some alarming diaper changes but that’s about it.

It was just really nice today to see her smiling and laughing like she usually does. She was still tired and a bit clingy but I actually managed to have a shower without any screaming and I got the dishes done TWICE today, so go me. That’s a vast improvement over the past few days, trust me.

She sure was a cute little sickie though, playing with my old Sesame Street set on Saturday night at 11 pm when she should have been sleeping but was too hot and feverish to rest:

Thank goodness for a return to normal life, such that it is!