The grand prize

Every year, Faith's school has a magazine fundraiser. All the kids who sell magazines get their name in the draw for various prizes. This year, Faith won the grand prize....an IPod Touch 8GB! Holy cow!

The future

My eyes are a little buggy from watching CNN the last couple of days...they even had holograms!?! What?

I flipped on the tv this morning to get the final election results and see some snippets of the Obama acceptance speech. This was out of the normal pattern for our mornings, which usually sees Faith laying on the couch eating breakfast and watching the Family Channel (the bane of our adult existence) while I make my lunch and eat some oatmeal.

So, when Faith asked to watch yet another episode of The Suite Life, I explained that I wanted to watch the news because it was historic.

"Why?"

"Well, they elected the president of the United States." [Onscreen is Obama.]

"So." (The Suite Life trumps politics.)

"Well, he's the first black president of the United States."

Pause.

"What's black?"

This is where I had to stop and realize that, holy crap, she really didn't know what this meant. At all. Wow. I almost cried. Then, I had to figure out how to explain it. Her response afterwards?

"Well, E. has darker skin than me, and she's my friend. It doesn't make any difference."

What money can buy...

I let Blake play in the downstairs bathroom sink quite a bit. He splashes around and gets the bathroom wet, but it keeps him amused while I'm making dinner. Yes...I need two hands to cut vegetables, which he doesn't quite understand.

Today, my wet babysitting plan went a little off course though. Blake took me to the bathroom to show me the pink-striped sock (Faith's) that he had decided to throw in the toilet. Great. I grabbed a plastic bag to fish it out, but, of course, Faith had to see the excitement first. After the inspection, I was ready to grab the sock, but then had a brilliant parenting idea.

"Faith, I'll give you $2.00 to get the sock out of the toilet."

"$2 bucks? OK!"

And, just like that, she grabbed the plastic bag, and de-sockified the toilet. While smiling!

"Two dollars please!"

Best two bucks I ever spent.

Boo!

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Originally uploaded by Robin's Nest3

Faith has a pirate (Elizabeth Swann), and Blake was a cowboy (mostly because he wouldn't put on the pumpkin, the bee, or the lion costumes). Halloween was crazy in our neighbourhood this year. Warm evening + no rain = tonne o' kids. We ran out of candy for the first time ever. As Faith said, "My bag was overflowing!"

Best costume

Best costume
Originally uploaded by Robin's Nest3

Faith's riding stable had a Halloween party on Sunday...and she won the Best Costume prize. She dressed up as a pirate (specifically Elizabeth, from Pirates of the Carribean), complete with sword and gold-painted shirt. (My craftiness is limitless...I mean limited.) She also said she "put on a cute face" so she won. When she demonstrated, it was somewhere between sad puppy dog and cute kitten.

Her prize? A light-up pumpkin. George was thrilled. :)

How many heart attacks in one afternoon???

I picked the kids up from school today and settled in for what I thought was a normal, afterschool experience. Well, except for the voting. We toddled over to the school gym to vote in the federal election. After doing my civic duty, it was off to the house for snacks, etc.

It all started out normally enough...until Faith proceeded to dump all of caterpillar's poop onto the kitchen table. Yes. She has a pet caterpillar right now, and the bugger won't die. She brings it to school, plays with it at home, and feeds it leaves she plucks from outside. And, it poops. A lot apparently. Picture rabbit turns, but about 100 times smaller. Anyway, I cleaned up about a hundred of these from my kitchen table and then gave the kids a snack while the little caterpillar dude became free-range as Faith cleaned out his home.

Then, Blake decided to check out the fish tank while I checked out some emails. This means I'm standing right beside him. He's really taken to the fish lately, and likes to open the top of the tank to terrorize...I mean study...them. All of a sudden, I hear BANG and a wail. He had climbed into Faith's doll stroller to get a better look, overbalanced and banged his chin on the table holding the tank. This resulted in a mild heart attack on my part, a scrape on his chin, and major tears.

As I'm trying to calm him down, I see a piece of white on his tongue. "Oh my god! He chipped his tooth." So, I'm panicking and call the dentist to see what I should do. After we determine that I'll wait and see if I can get a better look in his mouth, and he spits out another piece of white substance, I realized that he had snuck a couple pieces of cauliflower when I was chopping it up for supper. Doh!

Then, as I'm making supper a little later, I look over at the kitchen table to see Blake standing ON THE ARM of the captain's chair, his little toes curled around the edge, reaching into the second shelf of the china cabinet with a look of intense concentration. I ran across the room to grab him and found that he was trying his best to reach past the good wine glasses to snag a small Russian doll!! Good grief!

When he spilled half the container of brown sugar on the floor, this seemed like a cake walk. He even tried to clean it up.

It was at this point I just wanted to put everyone to bed and have a glass of wine...and it was only 5:00.

How many years?

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Originally uploaded by Robin's Nest3

It's Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad. I'd say how many years, but then you could figure out how old I am. :)