I’m heading out to shovel the driveway.
This involves:

• bundling the kids up in winter gear.  This always takes about fifteen minutes longer than I expect it to.  You think I’d learn.  But I’m positive I can get it done in under five this time…  Really.
• Sticking them both in the double stroller.  Munchkin will object, and Baby Bear will cry until we get moving.
• Walking until Baby Bear goes to sleep.  On a related note, I suggest that “pushing double stroller through snow” be added to the roster of Olympic events.
• Walk back home.
• Remove Munchkin from stroller without waking the baby.
• And then finally it’s on to shovelling snow.  Munchkin helps with her little red plastic shovel.

With any luck, I’ll finish before Baby Bear wakes up.

Or I could just make myself a nice hot cup of tea and leave it for M.

Okay, okay, I’m going.

Girls night out! Erm… well, out to dinner at least. Though M asked me if it was all just a cover and we were really going to see the Chippendales. Sadly, we were not.

Or not so sadly, because it was Indian food, and oh my goodness was it ever so yummy. I love going out to Indian food because the buffet had four meat dishes on one side of it and everything else I could eat! Although it would have been much harder if I was actually being a good vegan as ther was dairy in a lot of it, but I’m not even going to pretend to be trying right now. Although for someone who isn’t trying, I am pretty close to it these days just because I’ve gotten out of the habit of buying cheese, and that is the one food I’ve always had problems with. Now I can’t even remember the last time when I had cheese at home that wasn’t on a pizza.

I was naughty and stayed out ’til 10:00. What a rebel am I!

Well… it was a bit naughty. I had said that I’d be home by nineish, and M. tried to call me but I didn’t hear the phone because it was loud in there, so then he was worried as the roads are a bit slick and I’m still not very used to driving in ice and snow.

I wish M liked Indian food, because it was so good that I absolutely have to go back for more sometime. But alas, he doesn’t, so I’ll just have to take someone else along again.

I’ve been out a fair amount lately. Relative to previously for me, not for anyone else. I think I might actually be starting to get a tiny smidgeon of a life. Who knew it was possible for me?

Unfortunately, the novel sputtered, coughed and died.  It happened in Matheran, not for from Bombay, a small hill station with some onkeys but no tea estates.  It’s a misery pecular to would-be-writers.  […] Your story is emotionally dead, that’s the crux of it.  The discovery is something sou-destroying, I tell you.  It leaves you with an aching hunger. 

From Matheran I mailed the notes of my failed novel.  I mailed them to a fictitious address in Siberia, with a return address, equally fictitious, in Bolivia.  After the clerk had stamped the envelope and thrown it into a sorting bin, I sat down, glum and disheartened.  “What now, Tolstoy?  What other bright ideas do you have for your life?”  I asked myself.

from Life of Pi by Yann Martel, page VII

So I’ve finished the author’s note, which that passage comes from, and read about thirty pages of the actual story.  That leaves me roughtly 324 pages to read by dinnertime tonight if I’m going to book club this evening.  My head hurts and my kids are very needy today (they’ve been sick) and my house is a mess and there’s so much to do.  324 pages seems as insurmountable as Moby Dick and Love and Peace combined at the moment.

Why yes, I have read three of four other books (and please let us not mention the copious amounts of fanfiction) since I checked this one out of the library.  What’s your point?

Is it bedtime yet?

I’ve been up for nearly three hours.  That counts as a day, right?

Need more coffee.  Need more advil.

It’s in the house.  I know it is.

Because my kind and generous husband brought home a chocolate bar for me.  Only I didn’t eat all of it, and he put the rest away somewhere for me to eat today.

But alas, I didn’t see where he put it.

And now it’s someplace in my kitchen, and it’s calling me.  It’s saying “Haha, I’m right here, and you-ou can’t find me.”

It’s using that sing-song voice that chocolate prefers to use when it knows that it is both wanted and safe.

I’ve searched in the cabinets.  I’ve searched in the fridge.  I’ve searched in the drawers and the freezer and then in the cabinets again.  It is nowhere to be found.

And yet I can still hear it mocking me.

I want that chocolate.  It will be MINE!

I even twice tried calling M. at work to ask where he’d put it before I remembered that he’s on course today and so not in the office.  I’m hoping he calls me on lunch from the cell.  I don’t want to call him in case he forgot to turn it off and it rings during class - always an embarrasment.

You-hoo, Chocolate, where are you?

In other news, I stayed up until nearly one last night chatting in the Edmonton wrimos chatroom (not the general nanowrimo one).  This was quite foolish and might have something to do with just how bad my head hurts this morning.  And yet I recall a time when going to bed at one in the morning was an early night.  I’m getting old, I am.

- I have been in the big goodwill stuff several times, and I have yet to find anything in Munchkin’s size but a paltry selection of summer clothes. There’s a large baby section which ends at size twenty-four months, and there is a large selection of cltohes in the 5t and above section, but nothing for Munchkin. There must be an area that I am missing.

- We did find a Little Tykes basketball net similar to this one but without the graphic and very faded for twelve bucks. We called it a very late birthday present and we pick it up tomorrow.

- Did I mention that lunch was very, very, very good?

- I was outbid by fifty cents in the last ten seconds of an Ebay auction. I’m being rather unreasonably annoyed by this considering how often I snipe auctions. Which actually isn’t that often since I’ve only bought a handful of things of Ebay, but is still a good percentage of what I have bought.

- Why does shipping to Canada have to be so insanely expensive? And why is it often even more expensive to have shipped within Canada than it is to have it shipped to or from the US?

- I am currently kicking myself because I completely forgot to bid in an auction for a cute sweater and matching tights for Munchkin. They ended up not going for very much, and the shipping charges were quite reasonable for once. Why didn’t I check the auctions I was watching today?

- Munchkin picked this bear out of a bin at Ikea today and claimed that she had to have it. It’s amazing how happy something that costs three bucks can make a kid. It’s also amazing just how many stuffed animals she has - I have no idea how her collection grew to such a size.

- Poor Baby Bear, on the other hand, only has one stuffed animal. He had none until a few weeks ago when I was wandering through the kids section of Ikea and felt the need to at least start to remedy the inequity of the stuffed animal situation. So we bought him this bunny which is so cute and soft and the carrot is a rattle.

- Someday one or the other of my kids will get this because it cracks me up every time I see it. I have no idea why, it just does.

- We also looked at new living room furniture today. I think we’re going to be able to get a new set soon - I hope it’s before our current stuff falls apart completely. I also need a new rocking chair somewhat sooner than we’d get everything else. Like right now.

- I bought Baby Bear a pacifier the yesterday in the hopes that it might solve our recent sleep problem (all of a sudden he is impossible to put down while sleeping, and he won’t sleep at all if he’s not cuddled up to me. It might be teething.) He wouldn’t take one one he was younger, but another mother was just telling me the other day that her baby didn’t start taking one until four or five months. So I thought I might as well try. Of course he wanted nothing to do with it. On the other hand, Munchkin, who also wanted absolutley nothing to do with one as a baby - keeps putting it in her mouth and claiming to be a baby. Suddenly I am reminded of just why we tossed the ones we bought him when he was younger.

- I was out shopping by myself (how strange!) for a bit yesterday. I kept looking around for my children in a panic until I’d remember two seconds later that they were at home with M. Does everyone else do this?

- Am I the only one obsessively checking the Nanowrimo forums to see if they have re-launched yet? I never did get around to posting before they went down, and I’ve been actively lurking since July! Only about three more hours until they are officially late in getting them back online. Oh, and I am so going to fail misserably this year. But that’s okay.

- OHMYGOODNESS IT IS OCTOBER ALREADY!!!!

What we didn’t do this weekend: take part in the breastfeeding challenge which was held at the West Edmonton Mall again yesterday. Last year I was sick. I can’t remember why I didn’t take part the year before that. The year before that Munchkin was just a itty-bitty baby and I was too disorganized to get us out the door for anything scheduled.

So I swore that this would be the year we would make it. But one just doesn’t take a child with a high fever out and about, much less to a place where there will be a lot of babies who might be infected. So we skipped it again.

What we did do: Munchkin was feeling much better today, so after a quick visit to Ikea we headed to out to a special buffet lunch at a vegan restaurant in celebration of World Vegetarian day. The food was absolutely delicious as always, and I ate way too much. It’s a good thing they are all the way across town from us or we’d be there every night.

Their special celebration buffets are always really well attended. Since we generally neglect to call ahead, all of the small table are often in ue or reserved when we arrive, so several times we’ve ended up at a large table sitting with strangers. This is fine with us, and last time we went we ened up with a family with a child around Munchin’s age, so all was good.

This time we ened up with a nice elderly couple and a gentlemen with a lovely accent that I won’t even attempt to place because I would surely be wrong. I’m not clear of the couple and the gentlement knew each other before - they may have just met as we had. We talked to them briefly, but mostly we were focused on our food and our kids and not on the conversation across the table. Also, it was quite a large table and amidst a noisy atmosphere so I couldn’t hear them very well.

But I did hear snippets.

There was much talk of auras and energy and spirital matters, but that was all fine if a bit new-agey. Then I caught bits about being from the future and coming back to heal a time rift and about the Philadelphia Experiment (which I hadn’t heard of before, thank you Wikipedia). Then I heard something about fighting evil and oversouls, the latter of which there are apparently about five hundred and some of. And I just thought to look oversoul up in Wikipedia as well, and they probably were talking about something along these lines. They discussed a few particular over-souls by name - particularly the one they believed the other man at the table to belong to, and I wish I’d remembered the names to look up.
At first I was wondering what science fiction series they were talking about. Then, as I realized they were talking about themselves, I waited to hear what game they were roleplaying for. Eventually it became clear that they weren’t playing a game.

O_o

My parents’ car just pulled away.  It will take them about twenty hours of driving spread over two days to get home.

Munchkin is sitting on the floor watching tv for the first time since last Saturday.  Baby Bear is on the floor too playing with his toys.

Nothing is really different than it was a week or two weeks or a month ago.  Yet somehow my home seems very lonely today.

Tonight we took advantage of my parents’ presence to leave the kids at home and go out to dinner just us for the first time in, oh, about forever.  It was great.  We could actually talk without constant interuptions!
We’d thought of going someplace nice, but alas, I still can’t fit in to any of my nice clothes, and I’m not willing to buy new nice clothes when they would be too big (I hope) long before I got the chance to wear them again.
So we went to Boston Pizza primarily because I was craving their spinach artichoke dip.  I was a little worried that they wouldn’t have it due to the current spinach scare, but I figured it was probably well cooked spinach from frozen spinach or canned spinach, not fresh, so surely they would.  And even if they didn’t, they could just leave the spinach out and make me an artichoke dip, right?

Alas, not so.  They were too scared to serve it, and it came premade, so they couldn’t just leave out the spinach.  What a dissapointment.  And the worst is, I’m still craving the darn stuff.  If I’d known, we would have gone someplace where it was easier to find something vegan, because if I’m going to cheat it should be for something worthwhile rather than just for the mediocre vegetarian lasagne I ended up ordering.  I’d been so good lately, too.

And so to console myself, and because we were sans children, I ordered a coffee drink off their drinks menu.  I think they put about four shots in it.  At least I’m telling myself that, beause the alternative is embarassing, but about halfway into it I could definately feel the affects and by the time I’d finished two thirds I decided that I better stop there and it was a good thing I wasn’t the one driving because it didn’t feel as if it would be legal or safe.  Nevermind that it didn’t taste as if it had that much alcohol in it and M telling me that there is no way it had more than one shot for that price.

Meh, I guess I’m just a cheap date.  See what years of not drinking will do to you?

Someday we might even have to find a local babysitter - scary thought! - so we can do this more often.

Whee!

First they were supposed to leave Monday.  Then the cat got sick.  Then the person who was supposed to house sit backed out of it.  Then there was talk of just sending my father up on a plane since he hasn’t met the little baby bear yet.

Then things got better and there was the plan to leave on Wednesday and drive over through Yellowstone for a few days before heading up here.  But then there was the forcast for snow in Yellowstone and the procrastination and confusion and my poor stressed out mother, and nothing was clear.

But they left yesterday, so that makes it real

I got a call that from them this morning that they have decided to visit Yellowstone, so they will be here Saturday sometime instead of tonight, which is of the good because my house is still such a mess.  Must get it clean before Mom shows up to criticize.

But I’m happy their coming, so all is of the good.

And Munchkin is quite excited.  She keeps talking about making a cake because I told her back on her birthday that we could make another cake when Grandma and Grandpa came and pretend it’s her birthday again since they just missed that.

But now I’m a bit worried about them because it is a long drive and it’s supposed to snow and they still don’t have a cell phone.

But they do have a nifty new car since I last saw them - a Toyota Prius hybrid - so I’m quite excited to see that as well.

Just a few days left to clean…

To the nice Grandmother I chatted with at playgroup the other day:

I enjoyed chatting with you. I thought it was nice of you to come along with your daughter and grandchildren. But I’m sort of hoping you don’t come to any other events.

See, I thought quite highly of you up until it happened. There I was in the public restroom taking my daughter over to the sink to wash her hands when you breezed in, entered a stall, took care of your business, and breezed right out again.

Did you think I would’t notice? Did you think about it at all? I mean, I understand that out of laziness or something some people just can’t be bothered to wash their hands, but to demonstrate this in front of a witness? A witness who isn’t quite a complete stranger and who you will probably run into again from time to time since you are a part of the same group?

Have you no shame at all?

Just please don’t touch my kids. Or, you know, touch anything they might touch. Just don’t touch anything at all.

Thanks.

Signed,

So Not Going To Shake Your Hand

Labor day has come and gone and other people’s children have gone back to school.  Leaves are still green but the days are getting shorter and oh, summer, where did you go?  Soon it will be cold again.

Yesterday afternoon/evening we went up to the legislature grounds to wade in the fountains for what will most likely be the last time this year.  Munchkin had great fun and splashed with abandon before demanding ice cream.  Getting ice cream just before leaving the fountain is an unfortunate tradition we started the first time we went there and kept up because she expected it and we couldn’t bear to dissapoint her.  It will not be continued next year - I’m hoping that she will have forgotten by then. I wish the ice cream cart was a little farther away and not right there where it was impossible to miss.

In one of the best areas for wading, there are these raised parts with little bubbling pools in them.  I see little babies sitting with their legs in them all the time and it’s so cute, so yesterday I brought a swim diaper for Baby Bar and stuck his toes in.  Alas, the water was too cold, and he would have none of it.  But he did enjoy riding around in the sling while we chased after Munchkin.

I saw something sad though too.  There was this couple - at least I thought they were a couple at first - fighting rather loudly and publically in an argument rather liberally laced with variations of the word “fuck” all the while the woman was holding a little girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen months.  Now I don’t know if he was the father or just a concerned friend, but apparently they weren’t together, because part of the argument was about how there she stood with her little girl in her arms and yet she’s taking up with a bank robber again.  And I have to wonder did they mean someone who litterally robbed banks?

Despite the language and the public airing of dirty laundry, I sort of liked the man, just because he seemed so concerned about the little girl.  And the woman looked so lost - I felt bad for her.  And that poor little girl…

How do people let themselves get into things like that?

And why do people go to beautiful places and stink it up with their foul cigarette smoke?  Especially with their small children standing righ there?

Oh, and a note to all parents: if you have a young child and there is any possibility that you will be visiting a public fountain or water park, please keep a swim diaper in your diaper bag or car or something.  Because seriously, kids going in naked but for their underwear is one thing, but soggy disposable diapers so full of fountain water that they are practically dragging the child down are just disgusting.

As we sat on the grass eating our ice cream just before we left, I watched a little boy toddle around (thankfully properly dressed) and it struck me that the next time we go there, my Baby Bear will be big like that and most likely walking, and I’ll most likely never have a little baby ever again.  It just doesn’t seem fair somehow that everything has to be so linear.

She really, really wants to play with her finger paints.

But she hates to get her fingers goopy.

This is causing her much angst.

I just lost The Game.

It was mistressindi’s fault.

So now you all get to lose it to.

I’d been winning since last November.

soooooooo hungry

can’t get up (or use left hand) due to two kids sleeping on me

help!

someone bring me some food.

I’m so tired I could fall down and die right now. I should be sleeping. I could be sleeping even because Munchkin is asleep in her bed and Baby Bear is asleep here in my lap all ready to go to bed.

Yet here I sit randomly clicking my way round round the Internet. I’ve refreshed my livejournal friends list about twenty-seven-bazillion-and-three times in the past hour even though no one seems to be up and writing tonight and booju has gone bananas - really expensive bananas - and that’s just about enough to make anyone call it a night.
I meant to clean up before I went to bed. And then as time passed and I hadn’t started, cleaning turned to picking up the living room and putting away the food that’s still out back in the fridge. And then the living room idea dropped and now all I need to do is put away the food. And get ready for bed. That’s it. Then I can sleep.

But it’s just too much work. I’m too tired to do all that. So here I sit. And oh, look, that weblog which is only updated once a month or so still hasn’t been updated since I last checked six-and-a-half minutes ago. It just took me about thirty seconds to write that last sentence. Perhaps it was updated during that time. Should I check?

I am so pathetic. But not so pathetic as all of you out there who are sleeping instead of keeping me entertained. As if I was actually capable of comprehending anything written.

Oh, just, I am so pathetic. And everything feels so very unstubstantial tonight, as if the world could just crack open and shatter to dust and I’d be left sitting there in the middle of nothing - empty space. And there’s a sadness there and I feel as if I should cry. Not like crying or as if I want to cry, just as if I should cry, as if it would be right somehow, and I can’t attach a reason to that feeling.

Yes. Bed. Going.

I remember in my younger days sometimes when I’d been up several nights in a row studying or on a project or working unti lfour in the morning, I’d come home and just fall into bed and crash with my clothes and my watch still on and my hair up. Once or twice I didn’t even kick off my shoes. I remember I always felt horribly gross in the morning, or whenever I rose to face the world again, but all the same, I wish I could still do that sometimes.

Really. Going.

Goodnight.

I was just sitting here bemoaning my lack of writing time when it crossed my mind that hey - I could be writing right now!  I’m sitting here with a sleeping baby in my lap and the computer within easy reach and I could put that time to good use instead of wittering away time reading random weblogs and fanfiction sites and looking at endles pictures of baby slings for ideas to steal because I’m off to purchase fabric to make a new one tomorrow.

Perhaps the baby carrier part isn’t a waste of time - though I’ve looked at so many pictures that I doubt there are any exciting new design ideas left to discover - but the rest certainly is.

So I could use this time to write.  But I’m so tired.  Not sleey-tired so much, but brain dead any sort of creation is just way too much effort tired.  Think original thoughts?  Well, sort of original thoughts?  Okay, write completely derivative fiction?  Even that is so far beyond me.  And M. is watching TV and he sound from that is clashing rather horribly with Munchkin’s sleepytime CD and Munchkin herself isn’t helping matters because she still isn’t asleep and I can hear her moving about and chattering to her dolls.  She had a long nap this afternoon and that always plays havoc with her going to bed, but she was just so tired that I didn’t have the heart to keep her up then.

The point of that last paragraph, before I got sidetracked in bedtime woes, was that all this conflicting noise does not bode well for concentration.

Meh.  Sometimes I wonder why I even pretend.

Watch this

Bet they fell off a dozen times before they got it right

Is there some rule no one’s bothered to inform me of that says that people will only ring my doorbell when I’m not wearing pants?

Guess who is currently making snow flour angels in the kitchen?  Munchkin made quite a mess today.

I can see most of my kitchen from the chair where I usually sit for Sean to nurse. But one side is hidden from view, and that’s where she was. I thought she was just playing with her letter magnets on the fridge though, since that’s what she usually does when she’s over there.

Nope. She found the flour and managed to get it open. It was probably stupid of me to leave it in a cabinet she can get in to, but she’s never shown any interest in it before.

I didn’t even suspect anything until I noticed the white footprints she was leaving whenever she came into view.

I got out the broom to start cleaning it up, but then I figured my kitchen was already a disaster area and couldn’t get much worse, so I might as well let her have her fun for a bit before I get to work. Thus the current snow angel situation.  Although she actually calls them “snow bears” from seeing cartoon bears making them. Silly girl!

And hey, at least it was the white flour which had been sitting in there for ages and probably would have been thrown out eventually anyway since I never use it.  Now if it had been the organic whole wheat…