And the Mother of the Year Award Goes to....

Many of the bloggers that I read have children around age 2 or 2-1/2. Many of these bloggers have also posted about how these two-year-olds are busting their balls with what is believed to be typical two-year-old behaviour. I have read a couple of posts where the child has pushed his or her parent so far that the parent has given the child a smack. Not a belt to the head or anything violent, but a smack that would have been deemed perfectly fine about twenty years ago. I'm not judging anyone here. As a parent with a child in the same age range, I completely understand how this happens. It did occur to me to swat my daughter in the head as I watched her take a swig of juice, and then open her mouth to deliberately spill all the juice on the couch. When I see her torment the dogs, it does occur to me to give her a taste of her own medicine. So far I have managed to not act on any impulses, but I don't think that I deserve a medal after yesterday morning.

Pumpkin woke up 1-1/2 hours earlier than usual, screaming and crying. Naturally I jumped right out of bed since this is not her typical awakening. She was fine. She said something about her teddy bear, but I couldn't really figure out what she was saying due to her voice being so high-pitched and whiny. I know that the sound of one's own kid whining is one of the most annoying sounds for any parent, but somehow this was worse than usual. It didn't help that I had to jump out of bed like that instead of my usual, slow arising, which allows me to get the whole morning-sickness thing under control before I start my day. She wasn't going to go back to bed, so I had to start the morning ritual at a pretty early hour for us. I took her downstairs, gave her some milk, fed the dogs, flipped on the TV, and assumed a horizontal position on the couch to try and get my stomach under control before I took on any further activity. I started to dose off to the sounds of Dora, or Max and Ruby, or whatever show they had on, when WHACK! Shaking my head to try and figure out what the hell just happened, I realized that Pumpkin had swatted me in the face with a metal dog food bowl, with enough force to really hurt. Did I smack her back? No. Did I act on impulse? Yes. As soon as I gained some sort of consciousness, I shouted at her in my most hostile voice, "WILL YOU JUST FUCK RIGHT OFF!!!" She just carried on with what she was doing, but I know she filed those words away. They're in there, and I know they'll be making an appearance one of these days. Up until now, I have managed to refrain from foul language anywhere near her. I don't even tell the dogs to shut up - I shush them instead. I've been really careful. So now I've dropped the F-bomb directly at my daughter, and there isn't a thing I can do to change that. It's only a matter of time before I get black-listed on the play-date circuit because my daughter has become a bad influence. Apologies in advance.

Blah Blah Blah (again)

I don't really want to do a post about morning sickness. No one wants to read about that, I'm sure. I'm sure no one wants to hear about my evening sickness either, so I will do my best to refrain. Let's see....what else is there......(crickets chirping). Ok, here is an anecdote: Since I have been feeling really ill, I have been avoiding some parenting duties in favour of letting Pumpkin watch a Wiggles video pretty much every day after her nap. We have done this for enough weeks now that I think I will forever associate Wiggles music with feelings of nausea. The music itself is starting to cause the nausea. I think I kinda just posted about morning /evening sickness, didn't I? Sorry.

I Do Realize that this isn't a Real Problem but Still...

We need new furniture for the basement. Actually, we need furniture for the basement period. The couch down there right now is just being stored with us by my brother-in-law, who is temporarily living in England, but we think he plans to take it back soon. We also hate his couch, but that's another story. So yesterday we set out to find a sectional sofa that would work for home theatre, as well as work with our lifestyle. The last time we shopped for a sofa, we were just the two of us, living in a condo, with nothing to spend our money on but ourselves. Back then, we shopped in "nice " furniture stores. Stores that only sold furniture, and not TVs and appliances too. We didn't worry about whether or not it would get dirty, or ruined, because there was no reason for such concerns. Heading out to find something yesterday, we realized that we are no longer in that market. Not only do we have toddler messes to contend with, but newborn spit-up is coming our way, and don't forget those two big dogs of ours. Leather is great for cleaning up the kid's messes, but not so good for dog claws. "Why don't we just not let the dogs on the couch?", you might ask. Good question! I won the battle of not having dogs on the bed, but hubby isn't going to give up his poochy cuddle time on the couch. No one told him that you are supposed to demote your dogs when human children come along. So it looks like we have to go with fabric, which means that it will be covered with dog hair, playdough, and whatever else comes our way. Slightly higher maintenance than I would like. Knowing full well that this new couch will be ruined eventually, we have to accept that there is no point in buying anything nice, since nice comes with a price-tag that can't be justified. You see this beautiful, Scandinavian, sectional with reclining seats:

We can't have that.

With comfort being the main feature that we are going for now, we eliminated the cheapest stuff which has no support, and found that ultimately the typical Lazyboy-style reclining sofas are going to work best for us. So are we this market now?:

'fraid so.

I was s'phisticated once.

Can You Get Pregnant from Blogging?

It's a reasonable question. I'm always reading about bloggers getting pregnant, being pregnant, or giving birth. That is why I have to wonder if blogging has anything to do with the morning sickness that I've been dealing with for the past six weeks or so. Yup, it's official. I'm at the 11-week mark. I saw my doctor for the first time yesterday, and he confirmed that there was in fact a good reason for my pukeyness. I did do a home test over a month ago, but I still worried that the ultrasound would reveal that the test was wrong. Nope. There really is a fetus in there, and only one, which satisfied another concern of mine. I broke this news to a group of bloggers when I crashed the MBT pub night last night, so I figured I'd out myself to the rest of the blogosphere today. Think about this - I had to go through the whole NaBloPoMo episode without mentioning my news, which was really quite a challenge on those days when I had nothing of any consequence to post about. So this should give me some fodder for the next little while. I'll try to keep the puke stories down to a minimum, but hopefully I'm almost past that part of the pregnancy. I haven't been ill since last Friday when I considered trying to make some potato latkes. Maybe I'll hold off on that until next year.

Happy, uhm...Merry, er...

Ya know, without the pressure to post everyday such as I did in November, I haven't managed to come up with a heck of a lot to say. In November, anything was bloggable. Now, not so much. I think I need to hang on to a bit of that motivation or else this space is just going to fill up with dust-bunnies. Anyhow, since it is still Hanukkah, I'll stick with that theme for today.

Last week when I was reading kgirl's post about picking and choosing her holidays, I became a little jealous. You see, while I was growing up, my family celebrated all of the desirable Christian and Jewish holidays too. Although my mom converted to Judaism when she married my dad, she still hung on to Christmas and Easter. Not the religious part of it, but the toys/food/candy part of it. At Christmas, we had a mini tree, there were presents under it, and it was exciting. The Jewish celebrations tended to happen in the homes of my aunts and uncles, which were also fun and exciting. When my parents split and my mom moved us from Montreal to Toronto, we pretty much lost our Jewish-ness as we had no family in Toronto to keep the traditions alive, and none of us really had a lot of interest in learning what we were supposed to do. So around this time of year, we were mainly excited about Christmas, and we would look forward to all the many celebrations with friends, family, step-family, etc. Then I got involved with J, the man I would eventually marry. He had what one would call a "typical" Jewish upbringing. Christmas was just something that he viewed as a hectic time for those poor saps who have to spend crazy amounts of time and money at the mall every year. He wasn't altogether wrong, as it is easy to get caught up in that aspect of it, but regardless, it wasn't his holiday. Now that I am officially a Jewish wife and mother, I've pretty much abandoned Christmas, as it is not something that hubby is comfortable with. We still do something with my mom every year, including gifts, and a turkey dinner, but it is much more low-key than it used to be. A Christmas tree is kind-of inappropriate, and it wouldn't really go over too well with the in-laws. I feel that I have to hide any sort of Christmas reference from them as they have been worried about my lack of Jewish-ness from the very beginning. Yes, there is a whole other issue lurking behind the scenes, but I'm not going there. Suffice to say, the excitement is gone. It would be nice if I could pick up Hanukkah and make it as fun as Christmas used to be, but I can't. It doesn't really feel like my holiday, not having grown up celebrating it. We've been lighting the candles, and Pumpkin has received a few gifts, but I'm just not feeling the love. I realize that Hanukkah is not a replacement for Christmas, they just happen to fall close to one another, but I still wish I had something spirited l to celebrate around this time of year. I believe that as Pumpkin gets older, her excitement will feed mine, and we will find our way. For now though, I'm all "Bah, Humbug" with a touch of "Oy Vey". Merry whatever.

Maybe I'll Get It Right by Day 8

It's a good thing that there are eight days of Hanukkah, because I've blown the first two, and I need to redeem myself on the remaining six. Last night was the first night, but hubby came home late, and Pumpkin was already ready for bed, so essentially we forgot. Bad. So tonight, Hubby is out at a basket ball game, so just Pumpkin and I were here to light the candles. In the midst of getting us fed, I completely missed the appropriate candle-lighting time, and did it too late. Next was the issue of the blessings that go with the candle lighting, which I don't actually know. I pulled out my copy of Judaism for Dummies (no joke), looked up the blessings, and attempted to sing the Hebrew version, since the musical aspect of it is more likely to attract Pumpkin's attention than an English prayer. The blessing was spelled out phonetically, but I still couldn't quite match it up to the tune, and wasn't confident that I knew the tune. Meanwhile, Pumpkin was looking at the candles and started singing, "Happy Birthday to you...", and then attempted to blow them out. To top it off, I had to blow them out before I was really supposed to because Pumpkin was being really bad, and I couldn't keep her away from the flames. Sigh, It was so much easier when there was only myself to disappoint.

Watch the National on CBC Tonight!!!!

The National will be airing a story tonight that takes a look at how people are dealing with their holiday toy shopping in the wake of recent toy recalls. As you are probably aware, the recalled toys were pulled off the shelves due to lead content, loose magnets, and in the case of one toy, hallucinogenics! It is important for us to stay current on this issue as many of us are concerned parents who need to be aware of safety issues that affect our children. It is also a good idea to catch this particular news clip because, provided the editors are kind, you will catch an interview with me! That's right! Me! As it turns out, leaving a comment on someone else's blog is a new way of being discovered. Kas Roussy from CBC found me over at Postcards from the Mothership, and contacted me to see if I was doing anything about the recalls. When she found out that I participated in the Blog Blast that was orchestrated by the Parent Bloggers Network and the Consumer's Union, she set up the interview! I am very excited to know that there is still a push to get the message out there, and that the issue is not being swept under any rugs. The more awareness that can be raised, the safer our children will be. (It's also pretty cool that I'll be pimping my blog on national television, but that's a minor detail.)