Family Photo
It really happened Friday
Just have to pick one

It was so much fun
Her antics made us all laugh
Except Cameron

What a deadpan face!
He cracked a smile in two pics
Ian ruined the shots

With biting his lip
And looking away from her
Photoshop is dear*

To cut and paste him
Would cost 75 bucks
For an hour of work

Got Ian’s hair cut
Hard to believe what it cost
Wow, $15

It wasn’t worth it
For a kid’s cut - believe it
I cut it better

His cowlick sticks up
The hair growing gone to waste
She chopped it all off

I said, “make him look cute”
She might have heard “cut it short”
Thanks, Regis Salon

* Expensive

I don’t complain much; on or offline. But here’s thirteen things that are getting on ma t***. Yes, toes.

In order of annoyance.

1. OLD NAVY.
Three times they’ve sent me the wrong colour of something because they ran out mid-transaction. The reason? “The red 12-18 months brushed cotton shirt must have been in the same bin as the brown and they just sent out the red instead. It’s sold out now.” Translation: WE LIE. And we want your money, so here’s a colour you didn’t want. The store agrees with me too.

2. No Christmas snow. We had snow all the way up to mid-December. That sucks. Ian was gutted.

This is up the one side of my house taken mid-December

3. The Christmas lights blew a fuse and it was impossible to repair it easily. Plus, it was minus-something degrees outside. The clincher? I told Ian that the Christmas lights were there so Santa could find us. They went out Christmas EVE.

4. Buying Parenting books to solve Cameron’s 11 months of sleep issues and that night and just days later, he fixed EVERYTHING himself. It’s not smart and it’s not clever.

5. Bruise-free kids until a week before our first ever professional family picture. Then I got the flu. We cancelled that morning.

6. eBay listing/auction end gouging fees. You’re already loaded, knock it off.

7. The Flu. And not being able to take anything for it.

8. Taking two doses of Mucinex DM and realising too late it has Pseudofed in it. Good thing Cameron is almost a year old now.

9. Old ladies, parking spaces and Christmas traffic. Bryan sat and waited for a lady to get in her car, back up and vacate a space, only to have a gormless old biddy steal it from him and not even bat an eyelash. I should have smacked her with my umbrella. Old people suck. They smell bad too. Look, I’m complaining, just let me go.

10. Memes. I still do them and I still like it, even if I complain about it.

11. Having to watch the Queen’s Christmas speech online. Now THAT’S quality broadcasting.

12. Being too sick to make Christmas fudge for my friends. Now they’ll think I really suck. I’m making it tomorrow though.

13. Having to drive 45 miles to recycle Christmas boxes a-go-go because the local garbage service:
a) won’t let your wheelie bin’s lid be at more than a 45 degree angle without an extra fee.
b) won’t let your garbage weigh more than the alloted amount for the size of the bin. Try guessing it though.
c) comes at 4 a.m.

Hogmanay (hog’ma-nay):

The last day of the year, when children traditionally went from house to house asking for presents. It also refers a small cake given to children on New Year’s day. More recently it has become a raucous New Year’s Eve party in many Scottish cities.

Usage: The traditional Hogmanay includes “first footing,” welcoming a tall, dark stranger at the stroke of midnight. First-footers should bring a gift such as uisge beatha “water of life” (Scotch, it’s a drink, not a nationality *snort*), a lump of coal, or a bannock, a simple oat cake. This tradition reaches back to the Viking era, when the blond, blue-eyed Vikings brought only bad luck to whomever they visited. Today groups of friends gather and visit other friends. Whichever party you join this year, look out for the accent on the final syllable of today’s word.

Suggested Usage:
If you would like to add a bit of innovation in your end-of-the-year greetings, try “Merry Christmas and a Happy Hogmanay!” for a change. If you go to the Hogmanay street party in Edinburgh or Glasgow, though, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to hear you.

Etymology:
The sense of “Hogmanay” corresponds to that of Old French aguillanneuf “the last day of the year, new year’s gift.” In modern French dialects it survives as “aiguilan,” “guilané,” and “guilanneau” but in Normandy it is “hoguignettes” or “hoguinané,” whence it probably invaded Scottish English. The French term survives today in the phrase au gui l’an neuf! “(kiss) under the New Year’s mistletoe.” Others speculated that “hogmanay” itself comes either from the Anglo-Saxon haleg monath “holy month” or Gaelic oge maidne “new morning.”

My life has been a lethargic haze to this point since having Cameron.  By 6½ weeks he was doing amazing and sleeping five hours all by himself.  At seven months old, we left for Yellowstone and then on to Utah.  While we were in Island Park, Idaho we slept in a trailer.  To save on space and issues, rather than put the Pack N’ Play up, we decided to let Cameron sleep with us.  Since then, it has been an uphill battle to say the least.  We essentially started over again after we returned home.

Going from self-soothing and drifting off to sleep to the other spectrum of needing us near him has been exhausting and taxing on me to say the least.  Bryan works very early shift, so I have tried not to disturb him if possible.  We kept him in our room (not in our bed) until recently, moving him into his own room (a GOOD 100 feet from ours.  Try walking it, bleary-eyed at 4 a.m.) at ten months old.  This has been very successful and I have been getting a lot more sleep than I had to this point.  Previously, he was waking every two hours like a newborn again and I had been a walking zombie on a good day.  After moving him, he was staying asleep for four hours.

I have known all-too-well that by this age, he should have been sleeping through the night.  I kept a pretty rigid nighttime routine with Ian with which I was by the book.  I had to give the book back and didn’t bother buying it (I’m totally serious!).  I figured I knew what I was doing.  It was so nice to have a little one around again that I got sucked into the I’ll-rock-him-to-sleep-til-he’s-unconscious trap and that was my (other) downfall.  Something had to change and I realised I needed help.  A friend gave me a gift certificate to an online store and I bought me some Supernanny books.  I figured I needed them for Ian too.  Last night I sat in bed until 1 a.m. pouring over its pages trying to learn all I could on techniques to remedy the situation and make everyone’s life a little easier.  The technique is:  The baby wakes, you go in after two minutes of them crying and rub his/her back and soothe them with a comforting noise, but don’t talk.  Don’t pick them up and don’t feed them.  When they have calmed down (but are not asleep), walk out the room.  Double the time increments you wait until you re-enter the room until they stay asleep.  It may be a long night, and a very long week to say the least.

The little bugger slept right through until 9 o’clock this morning.

Went to pre-school Tues(day)
Sat in with them to eat snacks
The next day was bad

I hate being sick
Cameron got sick with me
I caught the darn flu

Aching bones and pains
Thankfully I didn’t throw up
Cameron did though

Loving the night sweats
And the temp of 1-0-1
Oh, please make it stop

Thursday Thirteen gone
And I would have posted too
Lost my chance to blog

cludgie:

A familiar term for a toilet, sometimes shortened to cludge.

What’s keepin you in that cludgie? Writin yer memoirs?”

You seem a little perturbed, how was your day?
The usual, kept the boys alive.  Barely.

Anything unusual going on at all?
Well, last Wednesday, Cameron was walking with his head turned to the side looking at something intently and smacked into the side of the t.v.  Luckily the goose egg went down, but it left a nasty bruise.  Friday night, I sent the boys into Ian’s room to play while I finished making dinner to get them from under my feet.  Not even a minute later, Cameron was screaming, then it went quiet, so I figured it couldn’t be too bad.  When I got there, he was doing the silent-scream-not-breathing technique.  Ian was hiding under the covers, he knew he’d done it now.

What happened?
Cameron had been playing with one of Ian’s toys (come on, he was IN HIS ROOM), Ian snatched it from him and pushed him over - right on top of another toy, with an edge no less.  He had a huge goose egg in the centre of his head and it was purple.

Kids bounce back so quick, they heal so fast.
Yes, you’re right, they do, thanks for the sympathy.  His scar is better, in fact it improved overnight.

There’s something else, isn’t there?
There’s always something else.  Toddlers/Pre-schoolers like to practice the art of walking or running looking directly behind themselves.  Ian is no stranger to attempting this maneouver; despite on-going safety warnings for the past eighteen or so months.  Today was a classic example.  At 4:20, Ian decided to run from Cameron who was in the kitchen with him and practice again.  Only this time, he smacked his face full force into the bird’s cage and took it with him, breaking the stand’s fall with his leg.  He’s ok, but his eye is still swollen and scratched.

Kids are like that, he’ll get scraped up more.  Has he ever fallen over the cage before?
True, he will inevitably get more bumps and bruises.  And no, he has not.  But you see the thing is, that’s not my issue of teeth-gritting complaint, we’ve never had a family portrait taken.  Never ever.  EVER.  We finally decided to do one this year with the boys–make it special, you know?

When is it?
Wednesday.

      

And here’s a lovely update:

Notice the swelling and bruising. Sweet.

Vacuum, oh what love!
Your HEPA filter wooed me
Green light - all clean now

Hooverlicious beast
My 6-year-old one really sucked
Then we brought you home

Coveted a Brit
For style or hype, who’s to know?
Great reviews for you

They say you’re better
And half the price too, great deal!
Bad month to buy - skint

1.  Maintain the look of the Christmas tree, even if you have to tweak it.

2.  Cover blank spaces on selective walls.

3.  Start reading again.  No, Llama Llama Red Pajama does not count.

4.  Spend your birthday money on yourself, not the house.  This includes the mission of goal #2.

“dis-uh-BEEL”, 5.  Get the boys to start and end the day wearing trousers.  See dictionary.com Word of the Day: dishabillenoun:
1) The state of being carelessly or partially dressed.
2) Casual or lounging attire.
3) An intentionally careless or casual manner.

6.  Stop attending Pampered Chef Parties.  Attendance to date:  August, October, November, December.  Break the cycle, youcandoit!

7.  Stop spending and start spendthrifting.

8.  Ignore any and all self-advice regarding budgetting.  It will be your quiet ruin.

9.  Use the new vacuum to bribe small children.

10.  Eat Santa’s cookies shamelessly.

11.  Stop mentally writing blogs in your head as you fall asleep.  You’re already sentimental, no need for plain auld mental.

12.  Spray Pre-school with a 6% bleach solution and thank the MOTHER(!) who brought their kid to school with PINK EYE.  That’s conjunctivitis to me and you.

13.  Maintain the secrecy of spouse’s Christmas gift for the first year ever.
Last year was a dismal failure.  After DH signed up with Amazon Prime last year, it would have been a GOOD idea to make sure the CONFIRMATION OF DELIVERY e-mail went unnoticed.  DH’s train of though:  “your package has been shipped(?)  What package?  *Click*  Oh.”  Being 38 weeks pregnant I did what any good gestating woman would have done.  I bawled my wee Scottish eyes out.

** I may even be inclined to post photographic proof of any of the above points as evidence materialises.  Watch this Space.

far enough:

The phrase I could see it far enough is used when someone can’t be bothered with the thing in question:

“Christmas isny the same when it’s jist yersels in the hoose.  To be honest wi’ ye, Ah could see it far enough.”

It is sometimes also used in reference to people;

“It’s no that Ah don’t like them but sometimes Ah could see them far enough.”