George and I survived the trip to Toys R Us today and it was a raging success. We got everything we wanted, it didn’t take us long to find everything, the castle is absolutely beautiful, and the store wasn’t packed at all. Hooray!

We’re not done, mind you, but I am happy because all the big gifts are done for the girls so I can breathe easy now. We still want to get them a few smaller things and we have to get them each a present for the other, but we can do that on the weekend.

We also have to get the gifts for our families, but I have my list made out of what to get for everyone which is much less stressful than the old, “hmmm let’s see what I can find…” That will also be on the weekend or perhaps Monday. We have to see how our plans go.

While we were out I also got a gingerbread house kit because I think the kids will have a blast with that. I always wanted to do them when I was a kid but we were so busy (plus my mom baked a metric ton of cookies, so it’s not like I was deprived). I told George one of the weirdest things about my youth is that I never put together and decorated a gingerbread house for Christmas until I started dating my Jewish boyfriend when I was 18.

I figure whichever day we don’t go shopping over the weekend can be gingerbread day, but even if we’re too busy, Hayley is off school all next week anyway so we could do it Monday if we had to.

George and I also got ourselves an early Christmas gift. We don’t exchange gifts since having the kids, but we usually buy something for both of us. While I would have loved a Wii (with a Wii Fit!) it wasn’t going to be realistic! Our oven’s wiring is shot. The stove part works fine but the oven doesn’t work. Since we can’t really get a whole new stove right now, we got ourselves a Black & Decker rotisserie and convection oven (it’s this one, though we paid much less than that, it was on sale!). You can cook and bake pretty much anything in it. We had a roast beef tonight and it came out perfect and was delicious.

I’m relieved because for totally unknown, random reasons, our Yule dinner tradition is to have meat pie for supper and that wasn’t going to fit in a toaster oven. I was also disappointed that we’d have to leave store bought cookies out for Santa but I can fit a small baking sheet in the convection oven – making the cookies with the kids is part of the December 24th fun.

I’m just glad I survived the first leg of the shopping. Let’s hope the rest is just as successful!

During the late 80s and early 90s there was a lot of commotion about the Beastie Boys and there was no doubt that I liked them. In fact, I enjoyed their music so much that I actually still have four of their songs on my iPod right now (“Brass Monkey”, “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”, “Sabotage”, and “Fight For Your Right”).

However, while a great deal of people were whoopin’ it up over the Beastie Boys, I actually preferred one of their most direct competitors, rap/hip hop group 3rd Bass. God, I loved 3rd Bass. I had a bit of a thing for Pete Nice, I admit it! I liked most of their songs, really, but one of my favorites was “Brooklyn Queens”.

I had forgotten all about them until I saw Gilbert Gottfried on something on TV last weekend (I think it might have actually been an episode of “Family Guy” now that I think about it). I remembered that he had had a small cameo in a video for a hip hop group way back when and had to look it up. Then, as often happens on YouTube, one click led to another and to another, until I had listened to all their stuff. Some of it twice.

They only had three albums and Pete Nice doesn’t even do music anymore (though Wikipedia says he opened a sports bar in Boston and that it ranks as the number one of that kind in the area), but it’s fun to reminisce!

I’m so confused right now. Logically I know it’s Thursday but the week has been a weird blur for me. First Hayley was off last Friday for a ped day, we had a weekend, and then she was off Monday because of the election (they frequently hold elections in schools). She went to school on Tuesday, then Wednesday was a snow day. She went back today, and I don’t know what it really feels like at this point but I think it should be a weekend now, but alas there is one more day.

I can do one more day. Come on Saturday.

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They managed to clear one of our sidewalks so I was able to go out without having to walk on the street or on top of a snowbank, so that was nice. I hate when sidewalks are left behind while the snow removal goes on. Not all of us drive, and it would be nice to not go out walking with a crazy dog in the bus lane during rush hour, thanks.

There was no snow – though they’re calling for more overnight – but it was pretty cold. I found out Hayley didn’t go out for recess or lunch recess today because the yard was mostly ice so when she got home from school I took the girls and the dog out to play in the snow in the courtyard.

Breanna is my daughter. About 20 minutes passed and the fun stopped for her. The wind was blowing, it wasn’t even sunny, and she said, “Mommy, it’s too cold. We need to go home now.” Meanwhile, Hayley was working on her 35th snow angel and would have stayed out until her limbs froze and fell off. Luckily, the promise of hot chocolate is mighty persuasive.

Poor Breanna ended up with snow all inside her mitts so her hands were freezing. I managed to warm her up and gave out the hot chocolate with some peanut butter banana sandwiches, and I thawed myself out with a cup of green tea.

Tomkorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer, we’ll try again then.

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I meant to mention that I finally finished Breaking Dawn several days ago. The middle was so difficult to wade through, it really was. But the third part of the book was excellent with the last 100 pages being amazing. It got hard to put it down by that point.

And now I have nothing to read. I started something else but it’s not doing it for me. I need a new book. I’m still kind of in vampire mode but I’m not sure. I have a couple of Amazon gift certificates coming my way, anyone have any suggestions as far as books they’ve read lately that they love? Someone mentioned Wake, another young adult novel, and it sounds pretty interesting so I might grab that one, but I don’t know yet.

Suggest away!

*******
I probably wouldn’t be so tired at Dark O’Clock when I take the dog out and wake Hayley up if I’d stop staying up so late. Good night!

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Don’t mind me, I’m just testing something out. Over at b5media, we often use a site called Picapp for photos on our blogs. I get some pictures from major photo sites, but I get a lot of them from Picapp because it’s free, easy, and they work with a lot of photo agencies so there’s a good chance that if there’s some sort of celebrity event, they’ll have it.

Anyway, because I’m registered with them, they asked if we could try out their new WordPress plugin, and that’s what I’m doing. For anyone who is interested, it works really well, letting you search for images right in your WordPress dashboard, which is really convenient.

Stay tuned for a proper Holidailies entry later today.

This morning I was not a happy camper. I went out in the still-dark world at 6:25 am with the dog and discovered that after it had snowed all day yesterday, it had then turned to freezing rain over night. It was still the case when I went out and as a result, the whole world was pretty much solid ice. The poor dog didn’t know what to do since she always picks soft places to pee; she kept squatting, then looking at me with confusion, and trying to find a better spot.

Within half an hour it had changed back to snow and I was thinking about what a nightmare it would be to go out there with Hayley but then it was Happy Dance time when it was announced that her school – along with many others – had been canceled. Hooray!

Alas, there was no going back to bed. For one thing, Hayley had already had breakfast and gotten dressed so she never would have slept anyway. For another, Breanna had been experiencing stomach aches ever since her gastro last week and I was getting worried so we had to get to the clinic by 8 am.

It was a really bad drive and it wasn’t even that far. The roads were such a mess, thank goodness we didn’t have to go all the way downtown. Almost everyone who works at the clinic was late too because of the snow.

The doctor checked Breanna out, but couldn’t see anything urgent. He said it’s likely residual effects from the gastro and that those can take ten days or so to go away sometimes. He said if she suddenly has any other major symptoms or if it persists past the weekend that we should go to the children’s hospital but otherwise we can wait it out. That’s good news, but the bad news is that there’s nothing I can do for her. When it hurts, she curls into a ball and screams and cries and it just about kills me that all I can do is hold her and tell her it’s okay. I really hope it passes quickly.

*******

And while writing that, Breanna woke up briefly. She is currently sniffling mightily in her sleep, sounding very much like Hayley when she had her cold over the weekend. Meanwhile George has been shivering profusely despite the heat being up high and is not feeling very well. I am washing my hands every 15 seconds to avoid catching anything from anyone but it’s probably a lost cause since Breanna coughed in my face earlier today.

I swear, Hayley is like Typhoid Mary whenever she’s in school, bringing home every disease known to man. Is it summer yet?

Apparently not.

I’m not a perfect parent (haha, really?). I always said I didn’t want to be that parent who yells at the kids and yet I do. I mean, I don’t scream non-stop at them all day, every day. But I do yell, especially when they’re pushing the boundaries.

I also have clumsy kids who don’t pay attention to their cups of water/juice and who don’t always listen to us telling them to sit still and stop fooling around before they spill something. And I swear, something gets spilled here on an almost-daily basis. Sometimes it’s multiple times per day. It drives me crazy and I have been known to raise my voice at them. When it’s a genuine accident, not so much, but when either George or I have just finished telling them to settle down and they don’t and they knock a full cup of juice onto the floor, it’s extremely frustrating.

And yet, every time it happens, I am reminded of a day when I was about nine years old, give or take. My parents took us to visit with some people who had two kids of their own – one was roughly my age, the other was a couple of years older. My mother and their mother had worked together at Sunlife and she was really nice, as were the kids. The father was a bit of an asshole – my father actually couldn’t stand him, but he tolerated the guy.

I spent the day in one of the bedrooms with the girls, playing and talking and checking out what they had. They ended up getting me into collecting stickers – they showed me their albums and even gave me a bunch of stickers to get me started. I was having a great time.

They lived in a house with a nice, finished basement, which is where the family room was. We all got a glass of Coke from the mom and went to go downstairs to play, which is where the father was sitting and watching television.

(And as an aside, who does that? I mean, family watching TV while you’re over is one thing, but who has company over and sits down to watch TV? Rude much?)

I was already downstairs and turned to wait for my new friends to join me just in time to see the youngest one lose her footing and tumble head-first down a full flight of stairs. She landed in a heap on the floor at the bottom, sobbing hysterically, clutching herself in pain.

And the asshole father leaped out of his chair and started screaming at his wife to hurry downstairs – so she could clean up the beige carpet before the Coke the girl had been carrying could stain. He berated his crying daughter for ruining their nice carpet. And I was just rooted to the floor, my jaw hanging open, shocked that he never once asked her if she was okay, if she had broken anything, if she was seriously hurt.

I was only little but I was old enough to understand that there was something wrong with a man who cared more about his carpet than his daughter’s well being. She hadn’t been fooling around, skipping down the stairs or balancing her glass on her head, she was just walking like any normal person and she slipped. She could have broken her arm, the way she landed. But he cared about his stuff instead of his child.

I get it, it’s frustrating when your kids ruin the nice things you have, either by accident or on purpose. My end table has so much crayon all over it that I don’t even bother anymore. There have been drawings on walls. We have a stain on the front of our couch from a rogue juice box. But my god, the day I yell and scream at Hayley and Breanna for spilling something while they lie crying on the floor, hurt, I hope someone will grab me by the shoulders, shake me a couple of times, and tell me to get a fucking grip and worry about the more important issues.

The Coke came out of the carpet, and it was fine and you probably couldn’t even tell the next day when it dried. I wonder if SHE was fine the next day. I wonder sometimes if she remembers that day. Because if I can remember it so clearly and can think of it on a regular basis, I have a hard time imagining that she would have forgotten the day her father cared so much about a carpet that he would scream obscenities at her while she lay on it in a crumpled heap.