Before I discuss what’s up with the Gal Smiley bus-kisser, let me say that dealing with this situation has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do so far as a parent. Up until now, I’ve felt like the way was fairly clear cut — not always easy to execute on, but at least I knew what I ideally wanted to see happen, and felt I knew what the right answer was. If others had criticism about my past actions, I felt pretty strongly that I had done what was best for us as a family and best for my own kid, and I stood by that.

This one has been a little more fuzzy, however. Sir Monkeypants and I are still not sure how to handle it right.

Anyway, I had a talk with Gal Smiley on Sunday night about how we don’t like it that Big A is kissing her all the time. I asked her to tell him not to do it anymore, and then to sit somewhere else on the bus if necessary. We talked about other girls who ride the bus, and I suggested she sit with one of them. I admit I wasn’t very good at following XUP’s suggestions, about telling her about it being her choice and all that — instead I just kind of told her to knock it off. I also didn’t do as Mike suggested, which was to clearly explain why Big A’s kisses are “different” than kisses from Mommy or Daddy or Captain Jelly Belly — mostly because I am fuzzy on that myself. Although, I should mention that Big A does refer to Gal Smiley as his “girlfriend” and he kisses her in an attempt to be romantic, as opposed to just being a friend. I guess I’m just not ready for the talk where I scare her straight with tales of unwanted pregnancies and getting a reputation as “that girl.”

So on Monday she went off to school and she was very nervous. She asked me to pick her up but I thought it was best to just throw her in there and see what happened.

At bus time she got on the bus and sat with Big A at first. Then she remembered that she was supposed to sit with someone else. So she went up to several other girls on the bus and asked to sit with them and THEY ALL SAID NO.

LITTLE BASTARDS.

So Gal Smiley spent the ride home crying in the aisle because no one wanted to be her friend, and by the time she got home, she was good and upset. I didn’t find out what had happened until bedtime because she was too fragile to talk about it.

Gal Smiley is someone who is very defined by her social connections. She loves her friends and does not play well alone. If I tell her that I’m too busy to play, or Captain Jelly Belly wants to do something she doesn’t like, like play video games, then she takes that very personally. She’ll sit in a corner and sulk and feel totally rejected by the whole world. Any time one of her school friends chooses a game that does not involve her, she is devastated.

So she’s not really the type to sit happily by herself on the bus and laugh it off. It really means a lot to her that Big A invites her to sit with him every day — he’s her posse. Before he came along, she always sat alone, which she hated and which made her sad.

I felt really awful for her, so it was off to plan B. First, I told her it was okay to sit with Big A if she wanted, and she was visibly very happy about that. Then we talked about how the most important thing is that no one gets to touch her or kiss her unless she says yes. It is totally her decision, and she shouldn’t feel like she can’t say no. Also, she should never feel like she has to do something she doesn’t want to (i.e. kiss him back, if she doesn’t want to, although I think she’d be more than happy to give him a friendly kiss and see it as no different than giving a goodbye kiss to one of her female friends).

So basically, we don’t plan to call the boy’s parents or speak to the principal or anything like that. We just want what is best for Gal Smiley. Although I fear that, at four, I’m supposed to be making these personal space issues for her…for now, we will trust her to do what is right for her. She doesn’t seem to be upset or feel uncomfortable about the kissing; he isn’t pushing her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I just can’t drive away her bus friend, who makes her feel included and safe and happy, for reasons that I can’t quite articulate to her. So, return to status quo, I guess.

She seems happier. Buses were cancelled today due to the Big Ice Storm (that still hasn’t happened…whatever), so we’ll have to test out the new situation tomorrow.

We’ll keep an eye on things — I intend to talk to her often to make sure that everything is still okay, that she still feels good about the situation and that no other kids are bothering her or harassing her because she has a “boyfriend.” And I might still change my mind. Like I said, we’re really not sure what the best thing to do here is…we’re still figuring it all out.

Plus I must admit that I am very happy that while winter continues, she’s protected head to toe with winter wear. I’m sure it won’t seem weird at all when we send her to school in May wearing snowpants and a coat. Totally not weird at all!

Well, it seems we are developing a cottage industry over here of newly invented games. Someday we’ll be rich, I tell you, rich!

The kids filled out their little store-bought valentines today, painstakingly writing their names in the “From” box and putting a sparkly heart, flower, or Hot Wheels sticker in the “To” box (kindergarteners are not supposed to address their valentines by name, because they usually aren’t able to read well enough to be able to pass them out by themselves).

At the end they each had some valentines left over and so far we’ve invented three new games to play with extra valentines.

Captain Jelly Belly had Star Wars valentines (of course). All by himself he came up with Star Wars Charades — he puts the extra valentines in a pile, then pulls one from the pile without showing anyone else. Then he acts out that Star Wars character and we have to guess who he is going to be.

Later we used the Star Wars valentines for a game of War. We divided the extras into two piles, one for him, and one for me. Then we’d each flip one and whichever character was “stronger” — i.e. would win in a fight — would win the matchup, and the winner would get both cards. Whoever takes all the valentines at the end wins the game.

Just for the fans out there, we’ve decided that: Yoda beats Obiwan, who beats Anakin, who beats General Grievous (the Grievous/Anakin ordering was hotly debated), who beats Captain Rex, who beats Random Storm Trooper Guy, who beats C3P0 (poor useless golden robot).

Gal Smiley had Tinkerbell valentines (adorable movie, by the way, I loved it). For her we’ve created a form of Guess Who. She picks one of the cards in secret and hides it from me. Then I have to ask questions like, “Does your fairy have brown eyes?” or “Does your fairy have a blue dress?” and then narrow it down until I can guess which fairy she is holding. The hardest part of this game is remembering all the fairy names. That damn Iridessa gets me every time.

In other news, our unprecedented run of sick-free days seems to be coming to an end, as Little Miss Sunshine has woken up from her nap with a runny nose full of goop and Captain Jelly Belly has a light cough. Good thing we have games to keep us busy!

Remember when we were anxiously waiting for Little Miss Sunshine to get teeth? Then she finally broke through her bottom two teeth when she was 15 months old, and there was much joy in the land?

I bet you thought that since then, she’s been merrily teething away with no issues. After all, no news is good news, right?

Wrong!

Since she got the middle two teeth on the bottom more than three months ago, we’ve seen…nothing at all. No more teeth. Are they even in there?

For the past month or so, we’ve thought that she was “teething” — red cheeks, swollen gums, loss of appetite for anything other than applesauce and mushy cereal.

I think I can officially say that she is the SLOWEST TEETHER EVER.

Then, yesterday…OH MY GOD! Two little razor-sharp edges on the top!

She’ll be 19 months old in a week, an age at which most kids have 16 teeth, and some even have 20.

But we’re pretty darn excited about our four little ones.

Know what this means? BITING. Actual biting of foods!

Can chewing be very far away?

My mother turns 65 years old next month, so my sister FameThrowa thought that we should do something to celebrate.

It seems so reasonable, doesn’t it? But my mother…well. She is not the kind of person who likes to be the centre of attention, no how, no way. She is not the type of person who likes having a fuss made over her.

When she turned 60 a few years ago, we set up a nice lunch at a country club of her choosing, with all her daughters and their families, as well as a couple of her cousins that she is very close to. It was classy with good food and I announced I was pregnant with Gal Smiley and everyone was all happy and close and celebratory.

She still refers to that event as that time we “played a trick on her” and “made fun of her on her birthday.”

So you see, it’s kind of a sensitive area.

FameThrowa has been working on an idea for a while, though, for our mother’s 65th…and it’s just way too good to pass up. She’s assembled a set of my mom’s most famous catchphrases, and we’re having them immortalized on a mug. Just a small printing — one mug for her and one for each of her four daughters.

I must say, the list of catchphrases is SO HILARIOUS, I can’t even look at the mug mock-up without literally falling over on the floor laughing.

When someone is really excited, they’re “goin’ to beat blazes” or maybe they’ve “got their teeth together.”

When we were all in the living room watching TV, while my mom was working in the kitchen, she’d come in and holler, “What is this, the local flophouse?”

If we were cranky, we’d be aiming to get a “swift kick in the rear,” or maybe we’d be sent off to bed with a “Goodnight, Irene!”

Something that is broken has “had the biscuit,” and when we wanted a ride somewhere, but weren’t exactly sure how to get there, then she’d say, “I’m not driving all over hell’s creation!”

Excuse me while I laugh a kidney out my eyeball.

We fully expect our mother to be NOT AMUSED at this gift. But seriously, it is too wonderful, too classic, too gosh darn funny to give up. As God as my witness, I will have my mug!

The making of this mug has made me really think about my own catchphrases, especially the less-than-flattering ones that come out when I’m mad. I’d list them here but hell, I don’t want to give my kids a hand at making their own mugs when I turn 65.

Actually I have to say, I would not be aware of most of my own verbal tics were it not for Gal Smiley. When she is playing dolls (or even when she is futilely trying to boss around her big brother) she will use a lot of the sayings that I do. Apparently I say, “Shush up!” a lot when people are getting repetitive. Also I seem to say “Jesus!” a fair bit and “Don’t even think about it!” more often than not. And when something gets spilled, apparently I bust out, “Oh, GREAT.”

And I said I wasn’t going to help them. Jesus!

Just a quick post to let those of you who live in Ottawa know that you will be able to see the International Space Station pass overhead tonight. It’ll go over from west to east at around 5:54pm, and it apparently moves quite quickly — faster than an airplane — so you best be out there early if you don’t want to miss it.

There’s more details on what to watch for, as well as who and what is up there, on the Ottawa Citizen website.

We’ll be outside with our little space men for sure!

When I was training for World Trivia Night, I got out the Trivial Pursuit cards and I had the kids quiz me.

Well, seeing as how they can’t read and stuff, it was really like me quizzing myself while they watched. And they were fascinated. Not so much by my amazing powers of recall, but by the little pie-shaped pieces and pies in the game.

They really, really wanted to play. And hey, I love trivia.

So we played.

Now it’s a semi-regular thing. The Captain especially loves the “pie game” and asks for it every now and again.

When I’m playing with the kids, I answer questions from the cards but I make up the questions for the kids on the fly.

Blue is People and Places. I ask things like, “What is our address?’, “Where do penguins live?”, and “What’s the name of our country?” I also ask stuff like, “What do you call Daddy’s mommy?” and, “What is the name of your youngest cousin?”

Pink is Entertainment and this is the easiest category. There are TV questions like, “What is the name of Caillou’s younger sister,” movie questions like, “What colour is Mace Windu’s lightsaber?” and music questions like, “Who sings the song ‘Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy’?”

Yellow is History/Current Events, so I ask questions about holidays and things that have happened recently. I might ask, “What did you dress up as for Halloween this year?” or “When is your birthday?” or “What did we have for dinner last night?”

Brown is Books and this is actually the hardest category, I find. I ask things like, “What is the name of Curious George’s best friend?” and “Where does Madeline live?” and “What does Little Pea hate to eat?”

Green is Science; in this category, the Captain gets much harder questions than Gal Smiley. Gal gets, “What happens to water when it gets really cold?” and “Who is heavier, you or Little Miss Sunshine?” The Captain gets stuff like, “How long does it take the earth to go around the sun?” or “Do grapes float or sink?” or “What colour do you get when you mix red and yellow?”

Orange is Sports and Games, Gal Smiley’s favourite category. I ask stuff like, “What colours do Daddy’s favourite football team, the Minnesota Vikings, wear?”, “What sport has a black and white ball?”, “What is the name of the game where you draw squares with chalk on the ground, and write numbers in them?” and “In Uno, if a red 4 is showing, what are the cards you could play?”

It gets to be a bit of work after a while, thinking up all the questions, but I so love this game. I love it that my kids are getting into trivia, and I love it that it’s a game where we can talk about things that have happened or things that they’ve learned and help improve their memories.

And it’s nice family time, too.