As I’m sitting here tonight with some heartburn because I stupidly ate too many cookies, I have to admit I wish I had some AcidCalm, a hearburn and acid reflux remedy. I’ve always been vulnerable to heartburn but ever since my first pregnancy, I’ve gotten acid reflux as well. AcidCalm has done well in clinical studies, showing it’s 99% effective, which sounds like a great percentage to me. It uses nanotechnology to work as well as it does, it starts working quickly, and after anywhere from two to five months of regular use, it can reverse your acid reflux completely. I like the fact that it’s all-natural as I’ve had a very positive experience with natural products to soothe my various ailments. I’m thinking I should definitely give AcidCalm a try.

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First of all, apropos of nothing, I know that pretty much everyone in the free world has already linked to it, but if you haven’t seen Justin Timberlake’s “Dick in a Box” skit from Saturday Night Live, for God’s sake, go watch it now (well, assuming you have an open-minded office or your young kids aren’t around). And then when you’re done, another great, quick video is this one of Stewie Griffin from The Family Guy; that little 30-second video sums up my life with Hayley.

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We’re getting there slowly but surely with the shopping. I still hate doing it; I told George that I think when I was born I was missing that gene that the majority of women have, the one that makes them enjoy shopping. I mean, if you gave me $5000 and set me down in the middle of Best Buy, I’d be very happy to shop for, say a laptop and some mp3 players or something, but generally shopping is not something that I enjoy very much. Add in the crowds at this time of year and yikes. However, it went well today. We managed to get the vanity from Santa, and we also picked up a package with accessories, like a hair dryer, brush, etc. I think she’s going to be ecstatic.

We got Breanna a little farm set with soft vehicles and animals, and it comes with a fold-out playmat with the fields and roads. It will go well with the barn that we already have. We also got her a little electronic tambourine that plays different songs.

Then we were at the grocery superstore and just for fun I said we should peek at the toy department because I know Hayley also wants a Diego Rescue Pack, and that would be good to get her from us. They didn’t have any (bah, I guess we do have to go to Toys R Us after all), but we found Breanna’s big gift from Santa, the Fisher-Price Baby Grand Piano. We didn’t get it right then because we had only brought a limited amount of money, but they had at least seven of them and not many people shop for toys at the grocery store, so I’m sure they’ll still have some in a day or two. It’s going to be perfect; I tried the demo on that site to see what it’s like and just from that Breanna was dancing around the living room and laughing. I can’t wait! As a bonus, that means we don’t have to bother going to Ikea at this time of year for that bead rollercoaster because we’ll have everything we need for Breanna (on top of those gifts both girls are also getting that ball pit, so it’s plenty) and we can get it some other time when we’re heading out that way anyway.

Now we just need the Rescue Pack for Hayley, although we’re also debating the Diego Rescue Center playset, and one other little thing. Plus stocking stuffers. Eep. But we always do stocking stuff at the dollar store so that will be okay.

Hayley’s also getting a really neat present from my mom. I don’t know if it’s the exact model but I think it might be this Cinderella castle, which is really awesome.

As strange as it may sound, I am really looking forward to the fact that I get to assemble all these things for the girls. I always loved that as a kid, sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table and watching my parents put toys together, putting stickers on them, and setting them up. We never did that thing some people do where anything requiring assembly was done the night before, so it’s a tradition that I enjoy carrying on.

So we’re getting there. One big gift for Breanna, two gifts for Hayley, stuff for our family (but at least we have an idea of what we’re getting them), and stockings. Pajamas for the girls on Christmas eve are done, so that pretty much covers it. We may be down to the wire but we’ll manage it.

I did tell George today that although it’s mildly stressful to wait this long to get everything, in some ways it’s good too. It means less time for me to wait before giving them stuff. I’m terrible with the patience factor. Right now I’m practically bouncing, knowing what is waiting for Hayley from Santa in George’s parents’ garage, and I can barely stand to wait until next Monday to give it to her. If I bought all my stuff in October I’d go nuts. We’ve had the ball pit since November and I am freaking out wanting to give it to them NOW.

So sometimes last minute isn’t all that bad. As long as we can manage to avoid any big ticket items on the 24th, I’ll be okay. I can deal with stocking stuffers the day before Christmas, anything else and I’ll need to breathe into a paper bag.

And for the record, I’m still laughing every time I see that picture of Breanna with Santa.

People keep asking me about PayPerPost, because I guess that with all the stories you find online, it sounds like it’s too good to be true. It’s not. It actually works. So far I’ve made over $30 with a few posts here and there. I currently have $50 coming to me that was already put into my paypal account by PayPerPost and I’m just waiting until Wednesday for it to transfer into my bank account. By writing a handful of reviews for products or services that I feel don’t harm my integrity, I can take that $50 and buy one or two more Christmas presents for the kids. That money is real and it doesn’t take forever to accumulate like advertising services do. All I have to do is pick a product or service that I’m comfortable with, write about it on my site, and let PayPerPost know. They either approve it or they reject it (in all of mine I’ve been rejected once for something minor and they let me fix it and re-submit it immediately, and it was then accepted within 15 minutes). Then you just have to wait a month – sponsors don’t want to pay and have you immediately remove the post, that’s why you have to wait – and then your money starts coming in. I’ve been trying to keep up with posting at least one per day, sometimes two. It’s been a great and easy way for me to make a little extra money. I love it!

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It turns out that there were so many people out today that by the time we got through Breanna’s nap and got out of here, the shopping center was packed enough that it took us 20 minutes just to drive into the parking lot, change our minds, and drive back out. Seriously. We’ll go one morning this week, either tomorrow or Tuesday and get the stuff we need to get for the kids. Luckily, there is another place close to home that isn’t as crazy as the shopping centers are, and we were able to go there for Santa pictures. There was a grand total of one little girl ahead of us so that was fast and easy.

Hayley was really excited and happy to see Santa, but she was also really shy about the whole thing. She was happy to sit and smile though.

At first she was disappointed because she realized after the fact that she had forgotten to tell him what she wanted, but I reminded her that we had sent him a letter (and she got one back from him too) so he already had her gift on his list, so that made her happy. She was also thrilled to get a handful of little candy canes from him.

And Breanna… well. There’s always next year for her to appreciate the joys of Santa Claus. Because it certainly wasn’t this year.

What’s that? You’re laughing at Breanna’s picture and you feel terrible about it? Well don’t worry. I laugh every time I look at it. Just like I laugh at Hayley’s picture from the year that she was 15 months.

I don’t know, maybe it makes me a bad parent, but when I look at these pictures of my screaming children with Santa, I actually feel more sorry for SANTA than I do for the kids.

Ho ho ho!

I’ve never made it a secret that I write sponsored posts for PayPerPost, but it was never necessary to disclose on an individual post basis that I was doing so. Things are changing and as of Monday, PayPerPost writers must either disclose that they have written sponsored blog ads within each post or by displaying a policy that explains some of their posts have been paid for by advertisers.

I have no problem with this whatsoever. Like I said, I don’t hide that I do it, and it doesn’t bother me to state when a post is sponsored. I make sure I pick sponsors that I’m okay with and I don’t write for someone I am negative about if they insist on positive posts. I won’t write up services that help create more spam, for instance. But I will write about calendars, ways to save money, and telescopes because those are all things I can get on board with.

I think it could be an interesting new dynamic to disclose each time.

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Today I took the kids out for a walk thinking the temperature didn’t look too bad. I optimistically took my camera, thinking I’d snap some shots. I took very few because it was deceptively cold out. The base temperature wasn’t bad but I had forgotten to take good old Canadian wind chills into consideration and the wind made it so that we took a brisk (brisk = “come on Hayley, walk faster… no, faster! Okay, let’s race to that mailbox!”) stroll around the block and that was it.

I did catch the above though, of a fairly large inflatable Santa on an equally large inflatable polar bear. I can never decide whether these things are funny, normal, or gaudy. I have to get a picture of the house near George’s parents where the owners have a ginormous inflatable Santa, bear, and rotating carousel, all of them fully lit up. It’s a little frightening, really.

I also managed a picture of Hayley and Ernie. Ernie comes everywhere with us.

Breanna sang in her “ahhhhh laahhh” way, and didn’t seem to mind the cold until we turned the last corner and had the wind coming straight at us. Then she started saying “oh! ooh!” in a rather unimpressed way, and I think she was happy to come inside. I didn’t get any pictures of her outside at all, but after I took her coat off, I did take a shot of her in the Best Hat Ever. I love it because it’s cute and also because the velcro means she can’t rip it off like every other hat I’ve tried.

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I’ve always known that I had a gene that makes me an incredible sap, crying over all kinds of lame things, but tonight I think I reached an all-time low. I watched “Elf” for the first time because it was playing on CBS. It was great, and I loved it. And I cried during the last ten minutes.

What the HELL is wrong with me?!

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There’s a commercial that has aired a few times over the holiday season so far and I can not for the life of me remember what it’s for. I’m pretty sure it’s for some big store chain and a sale they’re having. All I know is that it shows a family opening gifts and then the husband opens his and it’s a digital camera. He’s insanely excited about it and starts taking pictures right away.

Then he takes pictures of the food. And his wife clearing plates for the dishwasher. And his kid sitting around looking bored. And his wife while she takes a shower.

After we saw it, George looked at me and said, “that’s you.”

It’s sadly accurate.

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Tomorrow we’re taking the kids to see Santa and then we’ll drop them off with George’s parents because I want to go to pick up Hayley’s big ticket gift from Santa because if they happen to all sell out we will honestly have to go to every damn Walfart in the entire city until we find it. We’re going to get her this vanity. At first I thought it was a bit overkill since we were looking for a plain one with pretend styling tools, but considering how much she loves to sing, I think it will be a big hit.

Please think good thoughts as I try to fight my way through the crowds of other freaked out mothers looking for THE perfect gift. Yeesh.

I’m a little behind on my blog reading so I only noticed this morning that Andrea invited me to a come-as-you-are blog party. Which meant, grab your camera, snap a picture, no changing your clothes or fixing yourself up. So here you go, Andrea, I came to your party in a grey t-shirt, shower-damp hair, and no make-up. Sheesh.

(Then you get to “invite” three people to your own party, so I tag Amanda, Carol, and Chantal.)

Lately Hayley’s favorite thing to do is to try to hide and then surprise whoever happens to come along first. Take the photo above for instance. I was folding up some bedding and she knew that. She also knew where the bedding goes – in the linen closet. I was doing this in the living room so she wandered down the hall, then closed the door to her room. I thought she had gone inside. She often closes it if she’s changing her clothes or if she wants to play with something inappropriate for Breanna. I thought nothing of it.

And then I opened the linen closet and nearly peed myself when Hayley shouted “SURPRISE!” from her contorted position on the shelf.

Naturally, I asked her to stay there while I got my camera. Then when she’s a teenager and thinks I am lame, I can show her that once upon a time she thought I was enough fun to scare the crap out of me.

In other Hayley news, today I was thinking about Ikea because I want to get this for Breanna, and for some stupid reason Ikea is the only place that carries it around here. Ikea is a store I hate going to, partly because it’s crowded and a bit of a maze, but also because I always want to pile everything I can onto a palette and bring it all home. When I get an Ikea catalog in the mail, it’s kind of like porn – I horde it and look at it repeatedly, preferably when I’m all alone and can drool openly.

Anyway, despite the fact that I was thinking about Ikea, I didn’t actually mention it out loud. Hayley was playing with my old Sesame Street playset in the middle of the living room floor. She piled Big Bird, Maria, and Cookie Monster into the garbage truck and drove it across the floor and then pulled up next to some blocks. She made Maria get out of the truck and had her announce, “Okay, everyone! We’re at Ikea, let’s go shopping!”

It must be genetic.

These two pictures have nothing to do with today’s entry, they just happened to be two that I took today and loved, so I posted them. Breanna thinks these cat ears are incredibly funny.

And Hayley just looks pretty with them on.

Today was one step towards getting on with Christmas. Two games for Hayley arrived today, via super secret FedEx. Well, sort of secret. Just in the sense that Hayley was playing in her room with the door closed and had her music blasting (wait a minute… is she a teenager already?!) and didn’t hear the guy come to the door. They’re both Cranium games, and I can barely wait to give them to her but I will wrap them up and just hang in there. One is called Cariboo, and it’s a treasure hunt game that she’s played once before at a friend’s house. They were all only three back then and she’s much more into games now so I think she’ll be really happy; it’s a very cute game. The other one is called Hullaballoo and I’m very interested in this one because it seems like a very good activity game for long and cold winter days. It’s almost like a combination of statue, twister, and musical chairs. I look forward to playing them with her.

Playing games was a big part of my own childhood. We regularly played board games like Mastermind, Parcheesi, Life, Battleship, Clue, and many more than I can’t even think of right now. To this day I still love board games but my circle of friends doesn’t really do that. George and I played Scrabble once, many years ago in Halifax but haven’t since, despite having a set in our cupboard. I don’t know why, it’s one of my favorites. I also love Boggle, also because of the word geek factor, and I love Scattergories which is my current favorite of all. I’m equally open to card games too, and have fond memories of exciting rounds of 31 and May I? with my family, especially my grandmother on my dad’s side; we spend many summer afternoons having lunch at her table and then playing cards.

When we used to go to Vermont for a week with my aunt and uncle, and sometimes my cousins, we would sit in the add-on room of the trailer, facing Lake Champlain in a really nice, fairly quiet recreational trailer park. There, at about 9 pm, we would start to play a board game called Balderdash. The object is to try to fake people out. When it’s your turn, you read out an obscure word. Everyone then makes up some sort of definition (or the real one if they should happen to know it), and then you read all the definitions plus the real one. People guess what the real definition is; players get points if they fake you out and anyone guessing the actual meaning of the word gets bonus points.

Typed out it sounds tame. In reality it is a hysterically funny game. The level of ridiculousness we would reach in our phony definitions – and the fact that people, usually my poor aunt – would believe the craziest ones, would have us laughing so loud that I’m surprised we never got kicked out or at least given a warning. What with the lake right there in front of us, I’m sure there must have been some echo factor that carried our voices and our incredulous outbursts – “you really believed it was a special brush made for detangling a skunk’s fur?!” – all over the park.

I miss playing games. I’m glad Hayley likes them too. We play Snakes and Ladders, obnoxious though it may be sometimes, and we play the farm Hide and Seek board game that she loves so much. In between, we play Go Fish. I know my dad has gotten her the Dora version of Candyland and I look forward to that as well as our two new games. It’s a really nice way for us to pass Breanna’s nap time. When she gets a little older, I want to introduce her to other childhood favorites, like the ones mentioned earlier, plus Operation, Mousetrap, and even games like Connect Four.

The only game that will be conspicuously missing from our collection, much to my sister’s disappointment will be Monopoly. There have been games I have loved and games that were mediocre but acceptable. Monopoly is the one game I flat out despise and refuse to play again.

Sorry Amanda! Maybe you can get yourself a Monopoly set and Hayley can come play it with you!

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