Now that it’s officially summer, it’s also the season of the mall fair. You know the kind, the little ones that travel around and set up for a week in parking lots outside shopping centers. When we went to visit my parents for Father’s Day, Hayley spotted one near them and wanted to go right away, but we had no time for stopping that day. Luckily for her, there was one nearby this past weekend so we were able to take her on Saturday.

The last time we went to a fair, she was only about two years old and she was too nervous to go on any of the little rides so we just took her on the carousel a few times; she enjoyed that. This year, she’s a Big Girl, so she went on pretty much every ride that fits her age group, and she had no problem with it at all.

She also showed me that she’s her mother’s daughter. I am terrified of heights but I will go on any roller coaster. And when I get off the roller coaster, I talk too loud, I have too much energy, and I usually find myself screaming at people about how I would really like to get in line for the next roller coaster RIGHT NOW, COME ON LET’S GO! Apparently, this is Hayley too. First we went on the kids’ roller coaster together (and it was pretty good, actually, I totally enjoyed it!).

Then she got off and, like I do, she was loud and excited and wanted to go on the Pirate Ship.

That was a total No Way In Hell. I don’t think she’d be tall enough to be allowed on anyway, but she couldn’t go on alone and there was not a chance that either George or I were going on it with her. She was really disappointed. But then she ran around going on all the other rides and we went on the roller coaster again with the remaining tickets at the end of the day.

All in all it was a lot of fun. I always wondered if going to fairs would be boring as a parent since you can’t go on all the big rides, but it was great to watch her. Even Breanna had fun because she is still young enough that she didn’t know to be outraged that she was missing out on all the rides. For her it was just fun to watch and she enjoyed yelling “Hi Ay-lay!” every time Hayley went by. George went on a strawberry-shaped version of the Tilt-a-Whirl with Hayley and Breanna thought it was hilarious – she kept laughing and saying, “Dada! HAHAHA!” every time they whirled past.

And then we stopped by McDonalds where Breanna got to play on the slide, so at least she had a bit of fun too.

You can see the whole fair set over here.

The other day – Thursday, to be specific – we had a hellish day of epic proportions here. It doesn’t really matter what each specific detail was, it just sucked. Some highlights included, but were not limited to:

• Sibling bickering at 7:30 in the morning while I was still trying to get my eyes to focus on Canada AM so I could wake up.
• Angry stamping of feet before I had even made myself a cup of coffee so I could wake up, and at an hour that was early enough that the people downstairs are probably looking for a house right now.
• A certain tiny person SCREAMING “Where Caca?!” (“Where’s Caillou”) for the entire five minutes that I dared to take a shower. How selfish of me to want to be clean! I think she may have shattered mirrors and windows somewhere with her screamfest.
• Hayley putting on her bright red kids’ lipstick and somehow ending up getting it on the mirror, the counter, and inexplicably, the deep freezer.
• The stupid cat walking around with lipstick mysteriously painted on his mouth. Have you ever seen a cat with bright red lips? I wish I had taken a picture but I was not.in.the.mood. I may go put some on him just for the photo op.

Anyway, it went on like that all day from 7:30 am until a little past 8 pm with tantrums and arguing and messes, and I was ready to set myself on fire. When George bravely took Hayley to the grocery store I told him, through clenched teeth, “I.need.BROWNIES.”

Possibly fearing for his life, he brought back a bag of those two-bite brownies which are so good that women everywhere could gladly give up sex forever if they could just have an unlimited supply of said brownies. After the kids were in bed and George was out working on music, I put together a plate of goodness that will beat any bad day into submission. At least until morning.

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I am going to see if Hayley would like me to make this cake for her birthday in September. It is SO cool. I anticipate a lot of cursing, but that’s standard procedure for me when I make cakes.

My birthday is July 7th. I wonder if I can convince someone to get me this t-shirt. That is AWESOME. (Thank you Kerflop!

I’ve gone ahead and started up a new review blog in order to keep things on the straight and narrow for BlogHer ads’ terms, and also to keep all my reviews in one place. I’ll be moving stuff over there, but for now, my review of the book Vaccinated is over here.

I’m going to spruce up the design a bit, as soon as I can catch a breath or two.

Be sure to drop by periodically because although I’ll link from here when I do a big review, I also intend to review everyday items that I use from time to time as well.

This is a great list of fun theme ideas for parents with kids who are too young to go to any kind of summer camp. Awesome!

Today, I was trying to eat my lunch (and the operative word here is “try” because my GOD it’s hard to eat a meal straight through with two kids), when Breanna whined “night night!” at me. She was tired and wanted a nap and I am so relieved to have a child who actually wants to go to bed that I try to accommodate her as best as I can. I asked her, though, to please just let me finish the last five bites of my sandwich and then she could go to sleep.

Two minutes later I found this:

She started to stir and got halfway through saying “Night night!” again before I picked her up, whisked her down the hall, and put her in the crib where she continued napping (and is still sleeping at this moment).

When Hayley was a baby, I marveled at the pictures people would post that showed their baby passed out asleep under the coffee table with a toy car still in their fist, or a kid face-planted on their high chair tray after falling asleep halfway through lunch. I was amazed, because by the time she was about three days old, Hayley treated sleep as though it was a horror to be avoided at all costs and she NEVER fell asleep like that.

So having a kid like Breanna is amazing to me because it still takes me by surprise that she will ask for sleep and if she doesn’t get there quickly enough, she’ll find somewhere to do it herself. Her current favorite place to sleep is on the couch; not long ago (last week maybe?), she climbed on the couch, bounced around wildly, and then abruptly threw herself over a pillow and immediately conked out for two hours.

Now if only I could convince myself to go to sleep when I’m tired just like Breanna does, I would probably not have to drag myself to the coffee every morning.

Breanna has some of those “My First Words” books. For awhile her favorite has been the book of clothes, but now she’s obsessed with the one about food. Yesterday she brought it to me, imploring me to read it with her by throwing it in my lap and saying, “boooooooooog”. Well okay then!

I flipped through each page, pointing at the picture and saying the word that goes with it, and she would repeat each word after me, to the best of her ability.

“Apple”
“Ap-paw”

“Bread”
“Bed”

“Cheese”
“Jeez”

“Carrot”
“Caddob”

“Candy”
“MINE!”

Ha! Ah, mine, one of Hayley’s contributions to Breanna’s rapidly growing vocabulary. Nowadays it’s not unusual for me to hear a chorus of back-and-forth “Mine!” “MINE!” at any given moment of the day. Fun times, this sibling rivalry stuff!

I can’t WAIT until they’re teenagers and they’re both screaming “MINE!” as they fight over a dress, money, the TV remote, a boy… That should be awesome. All I know is the other day, Hayley was ticked off, Breanna was crying, and I was getting frustrated with everyone and George looked around and announced that when the time comes that we all have PMS at the same time, he’s moving out.

Today, The Parent Blogger’s Network and Sk*rt want to know what you’re hiding under your skirt.

Ah, my skirt. I don’t wear skirts very often. They aren’t practical since I’m often crawling around the floor with my kids or climbing up slides with them at the park. If it’s warm enough for a skirt I’d rather wear a pair of shorts. If it’s winter, I’d rather wear pants because I hate wearing tights or nylons. Every once in awhile though, I will go ahead and bite the bullet and wear one. And then I have to spend the rest of the day remembering to sit like a lady instead of putting my feet up on my desk or sitting cross-legged on the floor.

When I went to work at the studio back when I first met George, our boss once made a comment about how I never wore a skirt. He even joked that I was actually a “man with breasts”. (Yes, I could have called sexual harassment on that but a – we were all friends by then and b – a lot of people there could have filed the same charge against me!) I explained my lack of interest in wearing skirts too often by recounting this incredibly embarrassing true story:

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Hayley’s bottom tooth was loose for about a month, and it was driving her crazy because she felt like it was taking forever to come out. She kept wiggling it and poking at it, but it was still in there. She couldn’t wait for it to fall out so she could leave it for the tooth fairy. We even have a special container for it that my aunt gave her so that it can be left out on a night table (so the tooth fairy doesn’t disturb you by feeling around for a tiny tooth under your pillow) and she was excited about getting some money in exchange for the tooth.

Then on Saturday we went out for a birthday BBQ party. Hayley had a blast splashing around in the pool with some of those floating noodles and by the time all the kids showed up, she was in the pool more than she was out.

(Meanwhile, Breanna wanted NOTHING to do with the pool or the sprinkler, and settled for playing with a Dora ball, throwing pebbles, and clinging to my neck.)

Everything was fine until we had supper, which included corn on the cob. Hayley loves corn. You see where this is going right? She took a little nibble and said it hurt. I asked if she wanted me to cut the corn off but she refused. Two minutes later there was screaming and crying because her tooth had been knocked to one side and it hurt very much. Poor Hayley ended up not eating much of anything after that, except for half a small piece of cake, which wasn’t so bad because it was a mousse cake.

She whimpered about it on and off whenever it moved too much and we were really hoping it would just fall out already. It was so cute when she went to bed, because she curled up in a complicated little ball on her side, saying that she didn’t want to lie on her back in case her tooth fell out; she was very worried she’d swallow it in her sleep.

The next day, we headed out so Hayley could have her official soccer photos taken (so cute, I can’t wait!) and then we went to visit my parents for Father’s Day. My mom hugged Hayley with a big, tight squeeze and Hayley suddenly jumped back and said, “My tooth came out!” With no fanfare at all, it had just popped right out in her mouth. Thank GOD.

She was very excited and showed my mom and dad the big space where the tooth used to be. When we went to see George’s parents, she ran around showing them too. She couldn’t wait to put her tooth away for the tooth fairy, and was wondering what she would get in return.

And then we came home and she burst into tears because she didn’t want to give her tooth away. “But I love it!” she kept saying, over and over. We gently tried to persuade her to put it out because she would get some money for it and then she could go buy something at the store with her loot, whereas she couldn’t do much of anything with an old tooth. That didn’t work at all.

George even tried to see if she would consider lending the tooth fairy her tooth but not a chance! In the end, George got some paper and wrote a nice letter to the tooth fairy explaining that Hayley wasn’t ready to let go of her tooth yet, so to please not take it. Then we put the tooth in the container, taped it shut, and stuck the note to it. It’s a good thing that the tooth fairy can read!

As of this moment, she’s considering lending it out after all, as long as she can get it back another time. Also, she showed me that the tooth next to it is also loose, so she’s thinking she might keep the first one and give away the second one. The other alternative is that she knows the tooth fairy (*cough*) makes jewelry for other fairies out of old teeth so maybe the tooth fairy will bring her a little necklace with a “pearl” made from her tooth. We’ll see what she thinks.

I just can’t believe that she’s losing her teeth. She’s not even five yet, but now she looks so big. Last night at the soccer game, she was so proud to show off her lost tooth to her coach, her team, random parents, anyone who would look in her mouth.

I still remember when she first got those teeth. I can’t believe they’re starting to fall out already!