My Mind Blowingly Awesome Weekend

So, I've been doing this Roller Derby thing for about seven months now. In that time I've experienced a lot of emotions - fear, horror, anxiety, excitement, pride and most recently LOVE.

An established Roller Derby League nearby decided to host a two day Roller Derby bootcamp right here in my city this past weekend. There would be three Coaches - Coach Pauly, Bonnie D. Stroir and Smarty Pants all of whom I'd heard/read about but had no idea how incredible they actually were.

I arrived on Saturday morning feeling incredibly nervous and intimidated, knowing that I would be among the least experienced skaters there. After attending my first session with Bonnie I began to relax. I was doing okay and she was so entertaining and informative that I stopped worrying about anything. Throughout the rest of the day I had some periods of feeling clueless but mostly I had SO MUCH FUN. The other skaters were really great about helping each other out.

My first day ended in a session with Smarty and I completely fell in love. She is the sweetest, most hilarious woman and if that wasn't enough she is the most unreal talented skater and coach. She's the kind of person you meet and you immediately want to be their BFF but you have to chill so as to avoid being creepy.

There was an exhibition scrimmage at the end of the first day which I was totally sure I wouldn't have the opportunity to play in because it stated on our itinerary that the teams would be made up of "All Stars". Now, I'm not being modest when I say I KNEW that did not include me. In the end a decision was made that they didn't have enough time to determine an "All Star" team and didn't want to be unfair so anyone who wanted to participate was welcome to do so. I'd invited my husband and friends and had planned on sitting with them and enjoying the game. I made the decision to go with that original plan instead of skating. I felt mentally and physically unprepared (and unskilled) to throw myself in the mix with these talented women that evening. It was a great game and I only had a few pangs of regret for not playing throughout. Smarty Pants played in the scrimmage which was absolutely thrilling to watch even though I know it was probably not even half as entertaining as watching her skate with her home team on the bank track.

The second day began with something called the "Smarty Party" in which we essentially danced around on skates and Smarty imparted the genius idea that playing derby could be a lot like dancing or moving around in a packed club, that sometimes your body rubs up against someone else's as you try to get by but it's not meant in animosity, you're just trying to get where you need to be. I LOVE this philosophy for blocking and when you see this woman block it is a thing of beauty. This session was easily the most fun I had the entire weekend and as if I didn't have it bad enough already she had to go and mention her love of 80's music and how she liked to pretend she was Molly Ringwald sometimes. Sigh.

There was another scrimmage at the end of the bootcamp and I had decided I would skate in it, unskilled or not. It was a blast and I was so amazed by all the help I received from more experienced players. I even skated a Jam as a Jammer and wasn't horribly slow and I didn't get knocked down. I think I'm beginning to own that I could be intimidating, my size that is. People may think twice about messing with me purely based on that. I have to have something in my favor I guess.

It's not difficult for me to say that although I missed my family like crazy it was one of the best weekends of my life. It's been such a long time since I've felt excited about something this way. Excited about the journey that's ahead of me.

Here's a photo of me and my new hero (my coloring is so strange, I look grey or something) and two videos that demonstrate her fun loving personality and her balls.

Halloween

Fact. Facebook has been the ruination of my blog. I totally take it for granted that most people who read or used to read it are friends of mine there. I know it's not true but I completely convince myself that it is and allow myself to be lazy and not post here. I hate it and it makes me sad. Oh well.

Anyway, to those of you who haven't seen these on facebook - the Halloween costumes!! You may remember Miss A wearing this same costume at 2. Miss A needed some direction with her costume this year so I suggested a Ninja. She was all on board and ordering me to "Buy the costume!!" already. Mysteriously, a short while before Halloween she announced to me that she no longer wanted to be a Ninja. When I asked her why she told me she would be embarrassed. It didn't seem to matter how much prompting I did she wouldn't tell me what had changed her mind. My guess is that when one of her peers asked her what she was dressing up as they replied in one of many ways, such as "Girls don't dress up as Ninja's." "That's weird." "What's a Ninja?" which then made her reject the costume.

I explained that I'd given her time to think about what she wanted to be before I bought her costume and that I wasn't buying another costume. I refuse to be a parent who has to come up with fifteen different costumes before Halloween because their child keeps changing their mind. I asked her if she knew much about how cool Ninja's were. She asked me to tell her about them. I relayed the tiny amount of information I had and showed her this video I found.



As you can imagine, this clinched it for her. Unfortunately, I could find toy Nunchucks so I had to settle for Katana Blades. She ended up embracing her inner Ninja which made me glad and Miss B was just happy to get "Tweets!!"







Incidentally, this video is also very cool. I'd kill for that kind of flexibility.

Disturbing Developments

So you know when you have a daughter or in my case daughters and you joke about how you are dreading the days when boys come into the picture only you're not joking because it really, truly does scare the living crap out of you? Yeah, well, I thought I had some time. You know because after all Miss A is only 5 years old after all.

That's right. On Sunday, my first born child turned FIVE YEARS OLD. I know she already started Kindergarten but the actually turning 5 thing just made it all more... real.

So since her party with friends isn't for another couple of weeks we decided to take her to one of those indoor play places (large play structure, bouncy castles) to celebrate. As per usual, she came over to me within 5 minutes announcing that she'd made a friend. An adorable blond boy came running up to her frantically then and they ran off together laughing.

It turned out that said blond boy was there with two of his friends. My guess is that they were all about 5 or 6 years old. I'm not exactly sure how it happened but somehow innocent play morphed into something weird and unhealthy.

Miss A would be playing somewhere and the boys would locate her and try to bait her into chasing them. At first this seemed like fun to her, but then she was confused. During a bathroom break she told me she thought the boys didn't like her because they kept running away. I told her they did like her which was why they kept trying to get her to chase them.

She tired of this quickly and basically had no interest in playing with them anymore. They continued to seek her out and try to get her to play their game. When she ignored them they tried to get her attention by saying "Hey Girl!" not like "Hey! Girl!" Like "Hey Girl!" a la Justin Timberlake. Next they said "Hey Sexy Lady!" at which point I said "Hey, hey, hey. None of that!" They wandered off for a while but I kept an eye on them and they were completely fixated on her and kept coming over to where she was.

Finally she told me "Mommy, they're bothering me." I told her that she needed to tell them so and she said that she wanted me to do it. I told her I would stay with her when she told them and she marched over to them saying "Listen, you guys are bothering me and I want you to stop please." I was amazed that she actually did it and happy that they seemed shocked to hear her say that to them. This seemed to put an end to their silly behavior and we left shortly thereafter.

The whole scenario left me feeling a little sick to my stomach. I was so totally unprepared for something like this to happen at her age. It made me wonder where in the world those boys ever learned to speak that way at their age, it made me fear for the young men they would grow into and it made me sad because really, I think they were decent kids, albeit, confused.

It makes me realize how important it is that I teach her to stand up for herself. Because I can't always be there. Especially now that she is at school. She needs to know that she can speak her mind. And if someone is bothering you, it's important that you ask them to stop. If they don't stop you MAKE them stop.

I always knew that this face was going to be a blessing and a curse. I just didn't expect to see the downside so soon.

KINDERGARTEN!!!!

Wow. Just wow.

Late

Soooo, before Miss A starts Kindergarten (!!!) next week I thought I would post the pictures from the start and finish of preschool. In my defense, we were having camera issues. That doesn't excuse my total lack of summer blogging but you know... it's something.

So here they are before and after. I don't see the same dramatic change in her as I did with her last years photos and yet several months passed between pictures.





She has grown like a weed this summer. People keep asking me if she's grown. Yes. She has. She comes up to the middle of my tricep. She is well over half as tall as me in less than 5 years. Shudder. "Where's your mom?" "Over there, she's the short one."

This was also taken on the last day of school. It captures their personalities quite well I think.

Introducing "Miss" B

I can't believe it's been two years already. My baby days are pretty much over...

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Seeing What I'm Getting Myself In To

Last Saturday my sister came to stay the night with the girls (my first night away from B) and we went into the city to see a Roller Derby bout.

Two of my best friends accompanied us, one of whom we spent the night with. None of us had ever seen roller derby live before. The seat were pretty uncomfortable and I think it's safe to say that I was more into it than the people I was with but they cheered (or boo-ed) anyway.

There was a girl that played for Fargo whose name was 'Skaty GaGa'. She was my hero. She was an excellent Jammer (point scorer) and played blocker equally well. She wasn't a big girl but man could she throw a hit. And take one!!!

Now that I've seen a live bout I'm confident in saying that I'm sure I can do this. I'm loving it and I'm loving me doing it. I don't know if my body really is changing or if I'm just feeling good about myself because I am amazed at what I've been able to get my body to do ON SKATES!! (Jump, complete 25 laps around the track in 5:21 (I need to do it in 5 minutes, so close!) Use my teammates body to propel myself forward.)

This is a pretty awesome video I found of one of the teams that we saw this weekend which also happens to be a team we could be playing against at some point. Eek!

And What Did I Think?

Eclipse.

First let me say that I think it is a testament to Chris Weitz that this movie didn't blow my socks off as much as I thought it would. Not that I didn't think it was fantastic, I did. I just recall how totally joyous I was that New Moon was SO much better than Twilight. I have since forgiven Catherine Hardwicke because I think she was really up against it making Twilight and did the best (almost) that she could with what she had to work with. It was partly thanks to her that Chris had so much to work with making New Moon.

Eclipse was, as I expected, more dark and creepy. I expected this of David Slade. I think the change of director was the part that didn't sit comfortably for me at first. This movie was like switching gears from the last one. Not better or worse, different. It took me a while to settle in, if you know what I mean.

One thing I noticed is that the actors all seemed very "at home" in their roles. More than ever before I thought. I guess that's normal being that this was the third time around. Or perhaps it was because they filmed this one right after NM so they were at home in the characters.

As a parent I appreciated the attention to detail they paid to Bella's realization and depth of emotion about how much she was going to miss her own parents.

I knew the scary/creepy factor would be there but I wasn't sure if he could nail the romance and capture the feelings you had (for Edward) (ha!) when reading the books. He did. He REALLY did. In several glorious parts I felt myself swooning as I did when I read it. It was... wonderful.

Stand outs for me were -

Jasper. He was finally able to display his stellar acting ability and seeing more of him made the viewer feel at ease about why exactly Alice loves him so much.

The training and fighting scenes. They could have looked stupid and fake but they actually looked pretty awesome.

The tension was believable between Jacob and Edward. The tent scene was pretty fantastic.

My Favorite:

When Bella tries to seduce Edward (this scene was PERFECTION! I do not exaggerate.)

Tonight

In honor of the movie I'll be seeing tonight, or technically early tomorrow morning...

Safety First or well... at least I'm trying

I've had mixed reactions to my decision to pursue roller derby. Most have been along the lines of "That is SO cool! I think you'll be fantastic at it!" some have been more like "Is that really a good idea?" or "Why in the world are you doing that?" and a few have been "What is roller derby?"

I myself have finally made peace with my decision. I no longer feel sick with worry before going to practice, I'm not laying in bed awake thinking about whether I'm being irresponsible to take up a hobby like this.

I've been to several practices now and I'm doing pretty well. I am in love with skating and with all of the challenging things I can make my body do on skates. I was worried about the risk to my body from doing this (which is still a real and logical concern) but I wasn't expecting the improvement. I can actually feel my knees and ankle becoming stronger and more stable because of the muscles that are targeted to do what I'm doing.

As I improve and am trying more difficult things I felt it was especially important to try and protect myself as much as I can. That's why I ordered these (which I think should be a part of every Fresh Meat package)



as well as these for under my kneepads. See. I'm trying to be safe. I am.

I am also going to watch my first bout this weekend. I have no idea what to expect. I'm actually mostly really excited about spending my first night with out Baby B. Yeah!

Oh and by the way. These are my skates, basically.

Worth It

It's that time of year once again. Summer fair time. So please try to ignore the toque Peter is wearing in several of the photos. It wasn't really cold but last year he was under dressed and learned his lesson.

This was Little B's first time riding. Last year she happily rode around in the stroller, content to simply observe the action. This year, not so much. She was, overall, very well behaved until she started to get tired and totally lost it. It brought back traumatic memories of us taking Miss A to the fair at this age. Apparently, we never learned a thing. Ha.

As usual Miss A was fearless. Little B, being small for her age, couldn't go on many rides which was terribly unfortunate because she loved them ALL. She would often be crying on the ride before it began because the anticipation was horrible for her. The Carnie guys kept saying to us "She doesn't want to ride." but we would explain "She just can't wait for it to start!" they would shake their heads at us until they started the ride and she would shut up and start smiling her head off.

We paid an obscene amount for fair food but really, you're missing out on the experience if you don't pay $5 for a corn. dog. Sigh. She only eats one once a year. Also, did you know that blue cotton candy can turn a child's feces the exact same color? Needless to say Miss A and I were both surprised when she hollered at me to join her in the bathroom to see her "Blue Poop!".

Regardless of the cost, I'm always glad we go because they enjoy it so much. Next year should be even better.

Sleeping

Is there anything more beautiful than a sleeping child? Especially when it's your child. Because when they are sleeping they aren't crying. Or whining. Or sassing. Or turning their nose up at the food you made. Or saying "No". They are just quiet. And their small relaxed faces remind you that perhaps it wasn't the worst idea you ever had to go ahead and make babies.










And these moments are pretty good too.

Contraption

The above is a contraption called a Pigg-o-Stat. Baby B had the opportunity to experience it on Tuesday only she wasn't as complacent as the child in the photo. She managed to force her head forward between the plexiglass. We then had to come out from behind the radiation safe wall (Ha!) and reposition her. Awesome.

Turns out she's fine. Just croup related bronchial narrowing. I wish I had been keeping track of the number of times this kid has had croup. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm a terrible blogger as usual. Facebook has been the ruination of this blog. Tell me please if I have any readers who are not also friends of mine on facebook. Not that a quick status update is in any way as awesome as a blog post but I find I keep thinking, aww I don't need to post people know what's up with me. Do you?

I Have Something to Say. Finally.

It's shocking. I actually do. I've been feeling like a freeloader. Reading blogs, feeling connected to the writers and giving nothing in return. Well, except Twilight related videos. Oh and Elmo too. Anyway, I'm here. I really have been writing. I'm 22 pages into a story I started writing on Easter weekend. I'm really excited about it. Really. It's been very all consuming. Also, I just read this story. Frick. I put it down at one point and yelled at Peter for getting me to read it. I asked him, told him, there had better be a good reason why he begged me to read it. Asked him how much more would I have to endure before the @ss kicking I knew had to be coming? I'm glad I soldiered through.

This is the stuff I would appreciate feedback on. Okay. Here goes.

My TaeKwon Do instructor dropped the bomb on me this week that he thinks I should test for my 3rd Degree Black Belt. In November. This came as a gigantic surprise to me. Prior to my previous Black Belt examinations I had been training regularly. I hadn't had two children. I wasn't training a measly 90 minutes a week. I didn't think testing while training so little was even an option which is why the suggestion caught me so off guard.

On one hand I am flattered, that may be the wrong word but I'll go with it, that he has enough faith in me, in the small amount of time that I have to dedicate to training before November, to think I may be ready to test. He also admitted to me and the whole class that he also had somewhat selfish reasons for wanting his black belts to advance. Regardless, although I didn't expect it, I can't deny I'm interested. Of course I want to advance.

Now the other hand. The idea of actually embarking on this journey of training to 3rd Dan scares the crap out of me. Logistically, I have no idea how I'll be able to do it. How I can possibly be ready to test in amount of time I have to prepare. Another thing that worries me is how I will ever live up to my last test. Testing to my 2nd Dan was one of the things I am most proud of ever doing. Not the getting of the rank but the actual test. It was like an out of body experience. I was so prepared, so tuned in that while I was performing each task, especially my patterns by body took over and my mind was all like "Wow. You're doing awesome. Way to go!" and then I was like "Hey. My body is totally in auto pilot and I'm not even really paying attention to what it's doing." Except I was, or I must have been because I didn't mess up. I did awesome. So awesome that I impressed the Master who tested me and was invited to travel 4 hours to his city to train with him on weekends if I could. (I couldn't.) A part of me is really afraid of replacing that memory with one of me having a terrible test Scraping by. Feeling like I don't deserve the new rank.

So I'm not sure what to do. If I make the decision to do it I know I will commit wholeheartedly. Still, wholehearted now and wholehearted before two kids is different. I am finding the whole idea very daunting and I'm thinking it may be impossible to be as ready as I need to be.

AND... then there is this little matter of ROLLER DERBY starting up in my city. Roller. Derby. How cool is that? And I'm SO interested. But I can't do both. There is no way. I really am interested but I'm also wondering if my wanting doing to do it is just a good way to get out of training for my 3rd Dan.

Busy

I'm still writing and therefore, neglecting... In the meantime.

Squeeee!!!!

Good Excuse...

for my blogging laziness. I've been writing! A story. And I think it might be pretty good. So while I'm busy with that, please enjoy this very, very funny video courtesy of Sesame Street.

I Haven't Done This Sort of Thing in a While

Right... Important Stuff

I mentioned our trip to the city and the reason for the appointment, B's eye, and then never said how it went. I'll be perfectly honest, I felt it was a complete waste of time. We went in the night before to avoid bad weather that didn't actually happen and we spent $100 on a hotel room. Our appointment was all of maybe 15 minutes and she was barely looked at. He seems satisfied that she is seeing well and thinks the droop will become less obvious as she gets older. I hope this is all true but is difficult for me to believe that he can determine this with minimal examination.

When complaining to someone else about this they pointed out that her doctor is a specialist and he likely doesn't need to do such a thorough examination in subsequent visits because he can see improvement just by looking and without measuring or using any instruments. Perhaps this is true but I would appreciate it if he spent a little more time, just to humor me and make me feel like it was worth a two hour drive and the cost of a hotel room.

He also said he'd see us "one more time" in six months. Maybe I was reading too much into his tone but it sounded like he thought it would be a waste of time, but he'd look at her again anyway. All I could think was, Dude, if you think it's a waste of time don't waste our time by getting us to come.

I should be happy right? Happy that he thinks it's really nothing, barely worth his time. I just feel like I need a bit more reassurance that everything is indeed okay. I might not get that in six months but I really hope to.

Thank You Notes

I don't know if I've mentioned how much I love Jimmy Fallon before. I do. I love him. He had me at the first sketch he giggled through on SNL. I loved him in 'Fever Pitch' when Drew Barrymore's character wakes up from her flu induced coma to see him brushing her dogs teeth. So it's not a surprise that I enjoy his talk show also. One of my favorite bits that he does is 'thank you notes'. Here is a sample.



So lately I've been coming up with a few of my own...

Thank you to the makers of cheap garbage bags because there is nothing I look for more in a garbage bag than one which rips open when you are taking it to the dumpster leaking various garbagy debris on me, my clothes and or my property.

Thank you preschool for having my child do crafts with sequins stuck to glue, except there is never enough glue so those damn sequins get everywhere, the road, the car, the backpack, MY HOUSE. Don't you know that they are a chocking hazzard!? (I still love you preschool!)

Thank you people who hang 'Truck Nuts' on your vehicles for confirming that you really are the douche bags that I suspected you to be.



Thank you facebook for helping me to reconnect with so many people that I never really knew in the first place but for some reason they've decided that we should be 'facebook friends'.

Thank you guilty conscious for not allowing me to reject people on facebook who I recognize but never knew then and don't really want to know now.

That's all I've got for now. Feel free to leave yours in the comments.

Long Overdue (as usual)

It's me. Remember me? I've been wanting to write. Really. I have. And I've been wanting to comment but I'm really behind. Now I'm just going to write a lengthly, photo filled post instead of several more focused posts.

The Olympics are over. Thank goodness. I have my life back. Oh, and I'm sorry about the closing ceremonies. Pitiful, just pitiful.

Other than that, life has been crazy lately. Have you heard of the Doodlebops? They are the stars of a Canadian kids television show. I found out that they were coming to our city and although Miss A hasn't watched the show in some time I was certain she'd enjoy going. I was not wrong. Here is some photo evidence of the fun.





Isn't it hilarious how crazed she looks here. I LOVE this photo.





Then we traveled into the city for B's eye appointment. We decided we'd better go in the night before to hopefully avoid the freezing rain forecasted when had planned to travel. By the time we decided to go it was pretty late. B slept most of the way and then when we arrived at the hotel she was all NEW PLACE, NOT TIRED despite the fact that Peter and I were very tired indeed.

Note the time on the clock.



She eventually did go to sleep and we all had a relatively good, albeit not at all long enough, sleep. We took B to the pool which was perfect for kids. I felt a twinge of guilt that Miss A was not with us to enjoy. (We plan to take her there in the future.) I marveled at the difference between B and Miss A, pool wise. I am used to A's reckless abandon. How she runs and jumps and gives me fifty heart attacks when we are near/in water. B is excited, yet cautious. She climbs the ladder, carefully sits down and then wiggles down the slide. She hits the water and looks mildly annoyed. She dragged me along to the bigger slides which we only went down a couple of times. Miss A wouldn't go back to the little slides after experiencing the bigger better ones. It's interesting.

I was able to do some shopping for the girls at Old Navy, which I can't do here, so that was nice. I bought them the cutest navy and white gingham dresses. I also bought myself a new bathing suit. Another item which is difficult to buy here. It's actually a mastectomy suit which sounds weird but it turns out it is excellent for me and my need of extreme support. I'm hoping the streamline design is going to help me swim faster and beat my time at the next mini triathlon!

We also were able to briefly get together with an old friend of mine. Due to distance, kids and life we haven't seen each other in a long time. Yet, it always feels like home when I'm with her.

Wow. I've been working on this post for a week. I'm just going to post it and move on.

On Behalf of Canada

So have you been watching the Olympics? I felt I needed to write something about this since it's my country that is hosting.

First, let me speak about the Olympics themselves. I personally love the Olympics. I greatly admire the athletes and the time they devote to their sport. I feel a small fraction of the devastation they must feel when they fail to meet their goals or feel as though they've let their country down. In a society which projects a narrow, cookie cutter image of what physical fitness looks like I appreciate how Olympic athletes show true physical fitness in all its many shapes and sizes. As an individual who struggles with body image I always have a sense of peace and satisfaction seeing athletes who's bodies are similar to my own.

Not unlike any other Olympics, there has been a great deal of protesting. Being anti-poverty and anti-globalization isn't a bad thing. I'm not convinced that vandalizing cars or smashing store windows accomplishes this. It seems misguided and ineffective, at least as far as the goal of the protest is concerned.

Truthfully, I did not watch all of the Opening Ceremonies. I taped them and fast forwarded through the dull parts. We thought Miss A might enjoy watching some of them. She did. She was especially excited when Sarah McLachlan performed "Ordinary Miracle" from Charlotte's Web. Also, being the brilliant child that she is, she recognized the part when the messy haired kid who appeared to be running through a prairie wheat field which was projected on the floor and then started flying through the air as being total crap. That's my girl. Sadly, this was the part which was supposed to represent the particular area of Canada where we live.

I was both amused and confused by the 'Ravers' all dressed in white which lined the aisle when each countries athletes entered. I found them very distracting and also ridiculous. I tried to find video of it for those of you who did not experience the wonder yourselves but no dice. I'd be curious to know who thought that was a good idea. However, I thought K.D. Lang's performance was pure brilliance. I would kill to be able to sing those sliding notes she can. Being a huge fan of both Wayne Gretzky and Steve Nash I totally approved of them being chosen to be that last of the flame carriers. I don't blame either of them for the terribly awkward facial expressions they continually made while the waited for the technical difficulties re: lighting the dang cauldron to either resolve themselves or for someone, anyone, to tell them what the crap they were supposed to do now. I'm going to link this article because it's far better writing than my own and it's also very amusing.

While looking for video of the ceremonies I was horrified to find one of pictures compiled from the luge accident, including one of the poor young man as the paramedics worked on him. I felt compelled to leave a comment for the person who posted it telling them I thought it was in poor taste and that if I was the athlete's mother I would be horrified to discover that someone posted something like that for any reason. As for the accident, I think there is obviously great risk of bodily injury or even death in that particular sport. I sincerely hope that it was not caused by a fault in the track/human error and that it was just a freak accident. Either way, I would hate to have been involved in the construction of that track and I wouldn't be able to feel at ease until all competition on it was complete.

As for the weather. It is laughable. Vancouver is notorious for getting terrible, unpredictable weather. Choosing Vancouver to host means choosing potentially awful weather conditions. Why is anyone (in this country) surprised by this?

In any case, on behalf of Canada I hope that the remainder of the Games are safe, fun, and a demonstration of good sportsmanship and incredible athleticism that they should be.

Nice

Elizasmom passed along a blog award to me. This is awfully nice since I barely consider myself to be a blogger anymore what with all the slacking I've been doing. However...



The rules of this award state that I should list 5 random facts about myself, and then pass it forward to other awesome bloggers.

Very well...

1. I am the last child in a family of five kids. A large family when compared with most people my age. I was born 20 years after my oldest sister and 10 years after my brother who is the closest in age to me. I grew up being closer in age to my nieces and nephews than my siblings. It was kind of strange.

2. When I was in about grade four some friends and I won a lip syncing competition. The funny thing was we were all girls and performed "Fight for your Right" by the Beastie Boys. I had no idea who they were at the time and I think we knew the song from some kind of "Hits" compilation tape. Later I became a huge Beastie Boys fan.

3. I am a pretty athletic person, I have been described as hyper by many people. However I went through a very inactive period during high school which was set in motion by two horrible volleyball coaches who put me on their volleyball team only to cut me after one practice for not picking up game strategies. I am also a stubborn person. This experience made me swear off school sports for the duration of my high school years. (I did make an exception for soccer one year) In my opinion this was a big loss for the school and it was very rewarding to have those two teachers present during my first degree black belt test which I happened to be taking with a coworker of theirs.

4. I have always had very vivid, strange and sometimes horrible dreams. This is seemingly a thing that you can pass down to your children because Miss A suffers from the same thing. Or perhaps it is a coincidence.

5. I met my husband while still dating my high school sweetheart whom I was convinced I was going to marry. I still find it really cool that when I first met him I had absolutely no idea about all the amazing things we were going to do and share together.

And I pass this Kreativ Blogger award on to...

Total Mom Haircut

Life in Sandyland

I love both of these girls. They are both very creative, amazing and deserving.

An Explanation Nonetheless

So. Turns out I am a terrible blogger these days. Can't seem to make it happen. I defend myself by explaining some of the major contributing factors to this. Miss A loves the computer, which in turn means it's not available for me to use. If I do manage to get on it Baby B climbs up with me preventing me from actually getting anything done or turns off the computer or switches off the powerbar all of which make me want to lose my mind with frustration so I tend to just avoid it. Baby B often doesn't go to bed until after 10:30. We've been watching Friday Night Lights. I play the Sims 3 during B's naps instead of writing posts. (Coincidentally, Sim B is much more cooperative than real B. Perhaps that is why I find such pleasure in playing that game.) That pretty much sums it up I think. Some of the excuses I think are quite good and others are rather lame. Ah well...

Here is an interesting discovery that I should have made ages ago. I was watching this video



the other day and it suddenly and strangely (because you can't really see him) occurred to me that Thom Yorke has ptosis just like Baby B. And in the same eye.





I have loved this man for years and have gushed many times about how adorable, what I describe as his squiffy eye, is. How did it take me so long to notice that my sweet baby shares this condition with one of my favorite musicians? It was/is an important discovery for me because somehow knowing this makes me more appreciative of it and less freaked out about it. I almost feel like I can embrace it now. I know this must sound idiotic but it's true. I guess it's knowing that although I noticed his eye when I first saw Thom Yorke in a Radiohead video and wondered why it was the way it was, it soon became yet another quirky thing I loved about him and it in fact made him even more attractive to me because of it. It makes me think that if B doesn't end up having surgery to correct this that it will be a thing that makes her unique and even if people do say things to her about it they will begin to accept it as part of what makes her who she is and that she will be loved regardless of any flaws visible or not.