100th Post (and nothing momentous to say)

In less than 12 hours, I have changed pee sheets 4 times. Jack at 8 pm, Ethan at 11 pm, Jack again at 2:30 am and Ethan at 7 am. I don’t know what the F is going on in my house but I am more than ready to leave for my weekend in Seattle with the girls.

I made a phone call while in the car yesterday, and after I hung up I started to relay the conversation to Ethan and Jack in the back seat. Silly me, I thought they would be interested! Ethan interrupted me to say, “Umm, Mummy? You know we can HEAR your part of the conversation when you’re on the phone, right? Cause you don’t ACTUALLY have to tell us everything again.” Smartass.

I am just sick to death of wearing pink. I vowed to wear pink every day this month, to honour Breast Cancer Awareness month. And I have followed it faithfully. Every single pinkalicious day. I used to like pink. Now, not so much! And to be perfectly honest, one day I wore all blue, except for pink socks and wearing pink pyjamas that night. (Are you singing in your head, or maybe out loud if you’re like that, about the lady who’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes when she comes? And riding six white horses? ‘Cause I am.) So I felt like I was breaking the pact but I could not bear to wear another pink sweater. Today – another pink sweater. Anyway I will keep going with this until October 31st – thankfully my Halloween costume has pink in it too. But my costume’s still a secret so I can’t confess what it is.

Jack has started belting me in the eye every time I bend over to kiss him. I’m starting to get a complex. I asked him why he keeps punching me and he just said, “Oh, sorry, Mummy” like it just never occurred to him NOT to hit me. He can be quite affectionate, but also just plain ol’ violent. I told him to go upstairs about an hour before bedtime last night because he’d just hit me in the face again. Unfortunately I told him that I didn’t want to look at him right now. Great parenting, eh? Ethan cried out dramatically, “Why can’t everyone stop fighting and get along?” Gulp. Then a few minutes later when I saw Jack again, he asked me plaintively if we were friends again. Gulp gulp gulp. Oh, the guilt. This parenting thing will be the death of me.

I went to my Self-defense class on Sunday. I was feeling all strong and powerful, and a little self-confident too, until I got home. Then Mike laughed at me for trying to look tough and POOF – I’m back at square one. It was good, though, and I learned a lot. I was a very good kicker. I nearly punched myself in the face once or twice, but I escaped from my partner’s grasp and even from a choke hold with no problems. The instructor (a double black belt) used me as an anatomy chart of sorts when he was demonstrating where on the neck and throat you can poke to drop someone like a ton of bricks. He didn’t want to press too hard on the trapezoid pinch but I asked him what was the worst that would happen if he really pinched me hard there. I wanted to see what it really felt like. He said, “a bruise, and your legs will buckle” so I said go for it. One millisecond I was standing there, and the next I was on the floor. I never even saw it coming. The good news is that it didn’t hurt and I have no bruise, but the other ladies said it looked pretty gross to see him lift my trapezoid muscle up like that. Anyway, it was valuable and worthwhile and I really think that every woman should learn some basic self-defence in order to protect themselves from becoming a potential victim. My most valuable lesson of the day was about appearance. If your attacker thinks you may be too difficult to prey on, he may not choose you. And that’s a good thing. Be aware of your surroundings, be confident, and you may not end up a victim.

Jen, Shannon, Sonia and I saw Secret Life of Bees on Monday night. All I have to say about that is that you’d better have Kleenex. And backup Kleenex for when the purse-size one runs out. And greasy popcorn-butter napkins ready for when THOSE run out. Sonia and I agree that we would like to hunt Queen Latifah down in a completely non-creepy way and ask her if she will adopt us. That woman is beyond awesome and I love her.

Our lives have settled into a routine of school, soccer, and storytime. We’ve also done some skating and the boys are starting their skating lessons at the end of November. Oh wow, and in other great news, Jack had his pediatric allergy appointment and he tested negative for EVERYTHING! Yippee! Woohoo! We are staying nut-free here in the house, but it’s nice to know that I don’t have to send an Epi-pen with Jack to school.

PS Ethan is currently singing upstairs at the top of his lungs: “O Canada, I just pooed in the toilet! God keep our land, poo poo poo poo poo poooooo!” He’s very patriotic like that.