Hey, Mrs. Wilson!

I was invited to participate in a trades show in White City tonight.  Since I’d neither participated in a trades show nor been to White City, I decided to give it a try.

It was dark when I left.  All the way dark.  I don’t do dark.

I got into the van (after checking (from the outside) to make sure that there were no serial killers waiting for me in the back seats), started it, and put it into reverse. That’s when I heard the sound that nearly made me jump out of my skin.

“All righty boys. Let’s go!”

After my heart attack, I heard,“Y’all know that’s right.”

You know who it was?

Jada Pinkett Smith.

Aka Gloria.

In all her motion-detected Happy Meal toy glory.

Note to self: When checking for serial killers, also check for Jada Pinkett Smith.

2 whole litres. Who wants to bet they’re gone by Monday.

I have recently introduced Liliana to Dora the Explorer.  It’s great for times when I want to get the dishes done or when she has to settle down a bit, but apparently it’s not so great for when you’re trying to get her to do tricks.

My dear little girl has a special way of “hugging” and “kissing”.

The little dude laying on the floor is Baby B.  He spends his time being either extremely laid back or extremely agitated.  I prefer the extremely laid back times, like the one above.  Obviously.

I’m not exactly sure where Liliana got the idea of a kiss being a pinch on the cheek.  I’ve never seen that done in our house before.

I’ll be the first to admit that my baby is strange.

It’s hard to find the inspiration for these NaBloPoMo posts every day.  What do you have to share when your day has been babies, poopie diapers, baking, poopie diapers, making dinner, (did I mention poopie diapers?) and you haven’t left the house in almost two days?  But don’t worry.  Only five more days and I won’t bore you to tears anymore.

Do you know what today is?  Well, besides being my baby’s 19-month birthday, it’s also exactly a month before Christmas.  CHRISTMAS!!  Noah reminded me a couple hundred times this weekend that I’d better start the Christmas baking since December 1st at 12:01am (when Christmas starts in our house, and not a minute earlier) is creeping upon us very quickly.

I made Noah happy with Naniamo bars yesterday (his favorite) and chocolate peanut butter bars (which I eat a tray or five of every year) today.  They went straight to the freezer though, since they’re not allowed to be touched until December 1st at 12:01am. He’s informed me that I’m making a new treat every day.  Alrighty then.

Have I mentioned December 1st at 12:01am too many times?  Well, if you’re new here, then you don’t know of my husband’s obsession love of Christmas.  Words cannot even describe it.  He starts looking for Christmas CDs on eBay in July.  JULY!!!  Then he excitedly checks the mail every day to see if the CD has arrived, and when it does, he quickly uploads it into iTunes, puts it on his iPod, and doesn’t let himself listen to it until December 1st at 12:01am.  There’s that date again.  Sheesh.

The dude has me take all the Christmas stuff out of storage (yes me, he doesn’t know the system of the storage room and if he goes in there he might wreck it) a couple days in advance, buys himself some egg nog (yuck!  raw eggs!), and plans out what and where he is going to decorate once the clock turns to December 1st and 12:01am.  He even pours himself a glass of egg nog a couple minutes early, so that when that magical time does come, he’s ready and waiting.

I’m not even sure when this whole thing started, but when we were at Briercrest, his dorm buddies told me stories of previous Christmases that they’d spend in Noah’s room because he had it lit up like a Christmas tree (Actually, he even had a Christmas tree in there.  A little one, but still a Christmas tree.) and he always seemed to have egg nog.  He’d keep it between his curtains and the window, becuase in -50 Saskatchewan weather, it stayed cold enough in a spot like that.  I finally witnessed this with my own eyes at the first Open Dorms after December 1st at 12:01am in 2004.  I was shocked and amazed.

Decorating isn’t going to be as fun this year as it was last year.  Last year, we were house-sitting for Noah’s parents and were in a 5-bedroom 3,000-square-foot house.  This year, we’re in a 2-bedroom 860-square-foot apartment.  But that’s okay.  We’re happy here, there just isn’t two living rooms for two Christmas trees anymore.  (In fact, we’re not even allowed to have a real Christmas tree in here.)  We will survive.

You know, I was wondering.  You know all those people who boycot the whole “Merry Christmas” thing?  And they say “Happy Holidays” instead?  Well what do you say on Christmas day?  Do you say Happy Holiday?  I don’t know how that works.  I’m really curious.  Do you have Santa Claus?  Because isn’t he a (secular) Christmas character? And if you’re not celebrating Christmas, then you shouldn’t get to use the (secular) Christmascharacters. If he says “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night”, do you say, “Happy Holiday to all and to all a good night”?  It just doesn’t sound the same.  I’ve been thinking about this all day (okay not all day) and it just doesn’t make sense.  Maybe it’s just me.

Can you tell what we’ve been up to?

On Friday I finally went into the doctor for the knives I was swallowing and the smoker’s cough this non-smoker was coughing already for 8 days.  (Like I’ve said before, I hate going to the doctor.)  I had the girls with me and on the way to the clinic Kaylie said that her throat hurt.  Since I hadn’t said anything about why we were going to the clinic, I took her mostly seriously.  (Power of suggestion is huge in our house.)

The doctor checked me out, told me my tonsils are HUGE and RED and wrote me a prescription for amoxicillin.  I then asked her to check Kaylie as well, as she’d been complaining about her throat.  Another check and another prescription.  I didn’t even think to get Liliana checked, as she’d been her normal happy (sometime tantrumy) self.

Fast forward a couple hours and Liliana was a mess.  I figured it was just because her nap was all wonky that day, and put her to bed a bit early.  She was quite whiny on the weekend and cried when we put her down at night and for her naps (which is very unusual for her).  Then when Noah took the girls Christmas shopping, she screamed whenever the wind hit her.  Daddy predicted that she had an ear infection.

Today we found out that he was right.  I didn’t have one of my regular babies today, and the other one only lasted an hour and a half before I called his mom due to changing three very runny dirty diapers in half an hour.  The flu?  No thanks.

After he was picked up, I decided to take Liliana in to get checked out.  (I was going to later in the day anyway when C had gone, and figured the earlier the better.)  Liliana was not a fan of being checked out, but we were told that she had a (double?) ear infection.  Poor girl.

I don’t think this many members of our family have been on antibiotics before.  It’s fun. Actually, the funny part was when we were on our way to pick up Noah after his last class and Liliana kept opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue.  She didn’t want to do it for the doctor, but apparently she wanted to show me that she could do it.  If she wanted to.

Noah’s been getting a kick out of my voice, as it’s scratchy during the day and really scratchy after about 9pm.  He says it sounds like I’m going through puberty.  Yup, married, two kids, and a minivan later and I finally hit puberty.