George: What do you want for supper tonight?
Sherry: Chips and beer and a big bowl of crack.
George: Okay, I can do that.

I’ve been having some problems with the USB cable for my camera in that it doesn’t seem to connect any longer, but the camera itself works fine. Luckily a friend of ours has a photo printer so George was able to take my memory card, put it in the printer, and then dump the photos for me and bring them home. And so now I will drown you all with a multitude of pictures since I haven’t had any since APRIL..

This is what Breanna’s been doing for the past 2 or 3 weeks. She gets better at it every day and she is Very Proud.

It seems every week or so I have a new favorite picture of the two girls. This is the most recent favorite. I love this picture.

(Click to see the rest of the pictures)

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How did this happen yesterday and yet I only found out today? I remember when I was right on top of celebrity news and gossip. Oh wait. That was before I had kids. Now I guess I’m too busy taking CARE of my kids to keep up with the It List.

Anyway. Apparently, Britney is clueless again. I don’t hold Sean’s fractured skull against her; he fell from a faulty high chair while under the nanny’s supervision. But she was still the one idiotic enough to drive with him on her lap a couple of months ago. And now she’s finally got his strapped into his car seat, BUT! Parents? Where did she go wrong?

Let’s see. Strapped in, good. Oh but wait! Isn’t he only 8 months old? Too bad the AAP states that it’s unsafe to drive with a baby facing forward until he/she is both 20 pounds AND one year old. He’s four months short. Not to mention, I don’t think it’s the safest idea to drive in a convertible with the top down when you have a baby. Facing forward like that, at his age, his neck could snap like a rubber band if she hits something. And with no real protection on the top of the car, he’d be in danger of being crushed if the car flipped.

Another point is the restraint. I’ve seen Hayley manage to slump down a lot when she falls asleep in the car, and even Breanna’s head has flopped over a bit when she’s sleeping in her car seat. In this picture though, his shoulder is really out there. If she has the harness on him, it’s got to be awfully loose for him to be that far forward. If it’s that loose, he’d probably launch straight out of there in an accident; the straps should be tight enough that you can only slip a finger in between the strap and your baby, and once everything is buckled, you’re supposed to bring the clip up to armpit level to keep the harness snug against the body. There’s just no way she did that if he’s hanging forward like that.

Also, I feel I should point out one other detail for my mom’s sake. I’m really lucky, some women have a baby and their mother criticizes every.last.detail of their parenting choices. My mother isn’t like that at all, she respects the difference in choices I have made versus those she may have made. However, the one thing she told me she would never let slip by without saying something is if I ever went out with a baby in the hot sun without a hat because my grandmother’s sister died as a baby from sun stroke. Dude, Britney’s tooling around L.A. in the hot California sun in a convertible – where the hell is his hat?

Poor Britney. She makes it really hard for people to get her. Where is her family? Is there no one around her who has a clue and who can say, “Hey Brit! He’s not ready to face forward! Put a hat on him! And use the minivan for god’s sake.”

And she’s pregnant again, oy.

When I gave birth to Hayley, the recovery period was so full of pain that I took my prescribed Empercet every four hours for two weeks before slowly tapering off. With Breanna I had pretty minimal pain; I took the empercet a few times during my two-day hospital stay but didn’t bother with a prescription. In fact, the pain was so non-intrusive that I didn’t even fill the prescription for the Ibuprofren. All I took was my iron pills (which actually caused more stomach pain than any post-birth-related pain).

Now I wish I had gotten the empercet because I know I would still have some and they’re good for a year. I don’t know what I did yesterday but I did something horrible to my lower back just above my tailbone. For awhile yesterday afternoon I could barely move. To get from one room to another I had to inch along while clinging to the walls. I took a ridiculously hot bath and put some Chinese oil (Qwan Loong Oil) on my back and between that and some decent sleep (plus regular old Tylenol) it’s a bit better today. I still get wicked spasms though and carrying Breanna is a TON OF FUN. I am in some pretty bad pain and I wish I could go (carefully) lie on the bed and cry all day but alas, mothers don’t get days off. Here’s hoping it gets better soon.

In other happier news, Breanna has started saying “mama”. Granted, she’s not attaching the word to me in any way, but it’s a start and it’s fun to pretend that as she’s sitting there saying “mamamamamamama” that what she’s doing is singing my praises (snort!). She’s also saying “buhbuhbuh” a lot, “mmmm-ma” which must mean something good because she flashes a huge smile if you say it back, and occasionally something that sounds like “Afflack”.

She also sits really well and is very proud. She’s been doing it for a few weeks but she’s getting less wobbly as she practices. Last night she fell asleep for half an hour at 7 pm and as a result was in no mood for bed by 8. Luckily for my back, she was happy to sit on the bed with me, laughing hysterically at herself while I watched television. After an hour, she finally settled down and went to sleep.

Speaking of watching television, the rest of this entry will contain spoilers for the season finale of both “CSI: Miami” and “Grey’s Anatomy” so don’t read on if you haven’t caught up yet.

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There are only three words I can say about the first half of the Grey’s Anatomy season finale without giving away what happens thus far:

Holy fucking hell.

I’m just thankful that the second part airs tomorrow so I don’t have to walk around for a full week muttering “ohmygodohmygodohmygod” over and over again.

Happy Mother’s Day to every mother out there.

To every mother of a biological child. To every mother of an adopted child. To every birth mother who has ever given a child up. To every mother who has ever taken in a foster child to try to help make one person live a happier life. To every mother-to-be who is counting down the days until birth. To every mother who has ever lost a child. To every mother who has ever lost the baby they never even held. To every mother who has taken a negative pregnancy test and tried again and again and again, forever hoping for two pink lines. To every surrogate mother who has selflessly carried a baby for another mother. To every mother who is somehow perfect and in full control of everything. To every mother who is floundering and living in chaos. To every mother who weeps tears of joy on her newborn’s head. To every mother who weeps tears of postpartum depression and wonders when it gets better. To every mother who screws up and dusts it all off and tries again tomorrow.

To every woman who is or wants to be a mother in any way, happy Mother’s Day.

Sometimes I overthink things. This happens frequently with children’s things, such as television shows. Like Max and Ruby – where the hell ARE their parents anyway and do they know Ruby leaves Max alone in the bath? How long will Max put up with Ruby’s snotty attitude before he says “kiss my ass, bitch” and sets her on fire? These are the Big Questions keeping me up at night.

But today it’s a song. Who IS this old man? And why is he playing knick knack on all my body parts and my stuff? What does it MEAN anyway, this playing knick knack? Is he doing something dirty? Should I call the authorities and get them to take him in to sober up? Being drunk would explain why he came rolling home.

I think I should call my cable company and get them to replace the children’s networkd with Discovery and National Geographic so that I can watch some nice documentaries on Egyptian mummification rituals and plants in the rainforest. It’s entirely possible that I’m losing my mind a little. Let me know if you see it.

The first part of today sucked in so many little ways but for some reason it ended up feeling like I was on some sort of sitcom where everything goes wrong and the laugh track has a good chuckle at my expense. Which beats having the sort of crappy day where you briefly consider throwing yourself in front of a bus.

Hayley had an eye appointment this morning at 10:30. The day went like this:

-Hayley woke up at 5:55 am. Yawn.

-Breanna woke up too early to stay up until we had to leave but too late to fall asleep soon enough to take a decent nap, so she slept for all of 15 minutes this morning before I had to wake her up to change her diaper and dress her.

-Hayley screamed and cried and wailed because as beautiful as her hair is, it’s a war zone of knots no matter how often I try to prevent it from tangling. If the wind blows two provinces over, Hayley’s hair gets knots in it. Detangler only works about 75% of the time and when she’s tired, forget it. Unfortunately, she couldn’t go out looking like the crazy chick from the B52s.

-Breanna screamed and cried and wailed because she was so tired but I had no choice because as much as I love to comfort her when she needs me, I was not going to the doctor in my spit-up soaked pajamas.

-It took me three times of failing to set the alarm before I realized that the patio doors were open and so DUH, of course the alarm wouldn’t arm itself.

-I had been feeling queasy since getting up and getting in the car didn’t help. I then scared George’s dad by mentioning that I should have rescheduled the appointment because I felt awful; there was a slight hint of panic as he asked if I might like a bit of air as he quickly lowered my window for me.

-I felt my absolute worst as soon as we got on the Decarie expressway which has absolutely nowhere to pull over in case of vomiting emergencies. Luckily the feeling passed when I closed my eyes and leaned my head towards the window.

-I fell asleep approximately one and a half blocks away from the hospital so I was groggy as hell, fumbling to open up the stroller at the door to the hospital because I had just woken up from a 45-second nap.

-While in the bathroom, Hayley loudly announced, “I like your bum, Mommy, it’s funny!” Which echoed. Loudly. Thanks for that. My bum is a riot.

-After getting settled with all eight gazillion things that we had toted along (coats, diaper bag, two toys, etc), we proceeded to sit around for an incredibly long time. I just started to get Breanna settled so I could feed her when we were, naturally, called in.

-Hayley is such a big girl now that she sits all by herself on the chair and does all the exam stuff, so I sat on a chair and nursed Breanna while watching. I was so busy looking at the chart that I didn’t notice Breanna was no longer latched on and I was dripping milk onto my sock and shoe. Then, when I picked her up, she barfed all down my leg. Much appreciated! Clearly I wasted my time putting the burp rag over my shoulder.

-They discussed Hayley’s glasses which were the wrong prescription. I mentioned I had brought them with me but they were in the diaper bag back in the waiting room with George’s dad. On my way out to get them, Breanna barfed over my shoulder, missing me completely but leaving a large deposit on the floor. Oops. Could you pass me a paper towel? Thanks!

-Hayley needed to have drops put in her eyes to dilate her pupils. She was so freaked out by the abrupt stinging of the first drop that she went into hysterics. I had left the stroller in the waiting room as well since the exam rooms aren’t all that big, so I put the burp rag/blanket on the floor, put Breanna on the blanket, begged her not to roll over and attempt crawling on a hard tiled floor, and then it took three of us – myself, the doctor, and the tech – to hold Hayley down enough to get two drops in each eye. No one came in the room but I’m pretty sure people were wondering who was being beaten behind the closed door.

-Hayley walked around looking like a bad drug addict with her massive pupils, and sounded like one as she described how bright and fuzzy everything looked.

-After waiting another 45 minutes we got called back in. I had a horrible internal struggle trying not to laugh because while we were trying to get Hayley to tell us what pictures she saw on the eye chart, Breanna farted and farted and farted like she had just chowed down on a can of baked beans. Luckily the doctor is a mother too and we both giggled together.

-When we FINALLY got out of there, two and a half hours after our arrival, both kids fell asleep thirty seconds into the drive. George’s dad had to make one stop on the way home and I struggled to stay awake the whole time he was gone because I don’t like falling asleep in a parked car, especially with kids in the back seat.

-When we were finally on our way home, I succumbed to the power of sleep. Which would have been fine if I had just slept. For some reason though, I kept jerking awake and realizing that my mouth was hanging wide open. Instead of having a nice quiet snooze, I was that moron that everyone laughs at in the other car, with the tonsils dangling in the wind, the head bobbing from one side to the other, and the flailing limbs as I startled to life. I should just be thankful that I didn’t drool.

It should be noted though that I am truly a geek. And not only a geek, but a geek with a blog. Because halfway through all the crazy crap, I couldn’t help but giggle a little and think, “well at least I can write this and share it with a bunch of people on the internet who will laugh at my expense”.

Thank god the day picked up once we got home. Even though lunch was at 2 pm and I felt like a chicken with its head cut off trying to catch up on the day, it was okay.

Anyway, Hayley’s eyes are so straight that the doctor declared it a total success. Her prescription is weaker now but with a difference in the astigmatism so we have our THIRD bloody prescription for her glasses and we go back in two months to see how things are going. Hayley is only going if there are “no more drops”.

And now that it’s 10:30 maybe I should head to bed. Although the day did definitely improve upon arriving home, it’s not over yet and I don’t want to tempt fate by staying awake to see what else can happen.

We have a friend, Heather, who used to sing in George’s band. One of the biggest tragedies to ever happen to Quebec’s music scene was when Heather moved back to Newfoundland. Anyway, she’s performing in a Karaoke Idol competition and she’s down to the final six. If you would be so kind as to help out a friend of mine I would be most appreciative if you could go to the competition website and cast your vote for Heather Davis (careful, there’s another Heather there too!). If you feel weird about voting for someone you’ve never even heard, you can hear her most recent song off their website too (mp3 format). I know a lot of people drop by here so I’m sure we can help he rout. She’s currently neck and neck for top place and she deserves to win!

Also, as anyone reading longer than five minutes knows, George is a musician and for several months he’s been working with his friend and music partner Perry (hi Perry!) on a production company. They’d both love it if you’d take a few minutes to peruse the Persued Productions website and let me know what you think of the music.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by the letter Q.