We used to think Gal Smiley was unbribe-able.

Back when we were toilet training the Captain, we didn’t have candy or desserts very often, so he would basically do anything we wanted for a Smartie. It was so easy to get him to sit on the potty whenever we thought it was time by dangling a Skittle or an Oreo in front of his face. The lure of candy faltered when it came to pooping in the toilet, though — for that, we had to step up the game. After weeks of successful pees, but no poops, I went out and bought him a Rheneas train with Rock Crusher Cars, part of the Thomas set. I revealed it at home…and man, he could not get to the potty fast enough. The first day he sat there for almost two hours, refusing to get up for fear that he would miss the poo. Needless to say, it was $45 worth of train goods well spent — he pooped and we’ve never looked back.

Since that time, though, daily treats have become a routine. Gal Smiley is used to getting Smarties at least a couple times a week, and often the kids get to have a cookie after lunch. So toilet training this time around was a lot harder. She was totally uninterested in any food bribes and cajoling and threats just roll off her back. Basically we just had to wait around until she decided she was good and ready.

Now we’re at the same stage that we were with the Captain when Rheneas came to live with us. She’s peeing all the time, but refuses to poop in the potty. I figured it was time for some heavy-duty bribery, but what could possibly sway the Gal? She doesn’t have a special thing that she is into, as the Captain was with trains. She likes to do things like play outside or ride her bike, but the promise of such activies isn’t enough to get her to do something she doesn’t want to do.

Last weekend I went out with the Captain and we bought a bag full of poop treats. (New catch phrase for this blog: “Now with poop treats!”) We hit the WalMart and looked for a wide assortment of things that cost less than $2 — some glitter glue, tiny stuffed animals, a plastic beaded necklace, some KinderSurprise. There was one “big” treat too, a stuffed bear ($5) that she had had her eye on before. I was hoping that something in there, anything, would be the one thing she was interested in enough to cause some pooping action.

Since I had the Captain with me, he got excited about the shopping and I thought it was kind of unfair that I was buying all this stuff for the Gal, and nothing for the Captain. So with a couple of the items — KinderSurprise, and some little snow globes I got on sale for $2 at Chapters — I bought an extra one for him too. I told him that he could have his item when Gal Smiley picked her same item out of the bag.

So home we went, and Gal Smiley was pretty impressed with the bag of stuff. As expected, she really really wants that bear — she’s already named him Teddy and wants to sleep with him. But not badly enough to poop on the potty.

Then, the other day, something interesting happened. She’d already done her daily poop in a pullup but later, when using the toilet, a very small bit of leftovers fell in the potty. Naturally we made a huge deal of this enormously important event. I told the Gal that now, finally, she had earned her Teddy, and we ran to the bag to get him.

But the Captain got wind of this huge event, and he ran in too, in case Gal Smiley picked one of the things that would mean he would get something too.

And the Gal…because she is so sweet and kind and loves her brother SO much…decided to pass over Teddy in favour of KinderSurprise. Because then the Captain could get something too.

That makes me feel like we are possibly doing something right, as parents.

So although we haven’t magically started a poop in the potty transformation, the Gal is more interested in trying now, and sometimes makes the effort. And why? Not so that she can have a treat…but because the Captain wants his treat, and it’s so important to him, that she will do it for him. Essentially, we can exploit the fact that Captain Jelly Belly is bribe-able to get Gal Smiley to do stuff.

Sibling rivalry? Never heard of it!

When Captain Jelly Belly was about 8 months old, I took him to the mall for a walk, because that’s what old people and stay-at-home moms call a rockin’ good time in this town. I met two of my girlfriends there, both of whom had a baby boy a couple of months older than the Captain.

At the time we were having some difficulty getting the Captain to eat solids. Later we found out that it was due to his allergies — some of the food we were giving him was making him feel sick, and it’s no wonder he grew to be distrustful of the little spoonfuls of potential nausea we were trying to get him to put in his mouth. One of my two girlfriends that day was having similar problems, also due, it turned out, to food allergies.

The third friend, though, had a real eater on her hands. She pulled out a jar of peas she’d brought for snack, and man, she could not spoon it in fast enough. Her son sucked through that puppy in less than five minutes and then was ready for a bottle of formula as a chaser. The whole time she was feeding him, my friend said stuff like, “This is incredible! Look at him eat! Can you believe this?” And my other friend and I exchanged looks that said, “No, actually we cannot believe it. Is your baby actually human? Or is is just that we are the worst mothers ever?”

Later, Gal Smiley’s introduction to solids was also not quite the joyous buffet I’d seen at the mall. She doesn’t have any food allergies, but she was a very tiny baby, still is around the 0% percentile for height and weight. We predict she’ll be in her car seat until at least 13 years old, poor kid. So when it came to solid food, she was a dainty eater; a typical meal was a teaspoon or so of food. I had this schedule of feeding that suggested that a 6-month-old would be eating “2-4 Tablespoons” of cereal or vegetables three times a day, and I used to just laugh and laugh at it like it was a Canadian game show. Totally Ludacris! Redikulus! And other famous rappers!

Now we have the Wee One, and I seriously do not know what to do with her. She’s an eater! Who would have thought it?

It’s been a couple of weeks now that she has been on solids and man, does she ever love it. When it’s mealtime, she shakes with excitement and squeals with delight when we present her with her own spoon. She almost always finishes all her food, and last night, she ate a whole half-jar of sweet potatoes and then cried because I couldn’t scrape any more out of the bowl. And she loves everything, too, it’s always, “Mother, have you tried this squash? Because it’s divine! So good it’s Ridikulus!” I can’t wait until we get around to chocolate ice cream. It’s gonna blow her mind.

So I guess I just…keep letting her eat. Lots. It just seems to easy. Thank goodness we finally won the baby eating lottery!

Gal Smiley, sighing: I have to get married today.

sirmonkeypants: Oh really? Okay then. Who are you going to marry?

Gal Smiley: Um…a boy.

sirmonkeypants: Does this boy have a name?

Gal Smiley: Um…it’s you!

sirmonkeypants: Oh good! How nice!

Gal Smiley: Now we have to go upstairs to get married.

sirmonkeypants: No, let’s stay down here.

Gal Smiley: NO! We have to go upstairs!!

sirmonkeypants: Hm. I don’t think I can marry someone who is so bossy.

I used to think that the writers’ strike was actually a good thing. I was falling so far behind on the shows that I wanted to watch that was beginning to make that weird growling noise he makes when he’s really anxious about the number of hours we have left on the PVR. Plus, I have at least a hundred movies that have come out in the last five years that I’d like to see sometime, and I also thought it’d be a good time to check out some other TV shows like Life and Pushing Daisies that I’ve heard such good things about. And now that I’m watching Jeopardy! every day and actually making an effort to keep up with the news of the day as part of my World Trivia Night training, I barely have time for scripted TV and movies anymore, anyway.

But now, there’s a problem. Two words, my friends.

American Gladiators.

I was a total AG addict during its first run. Which, by the way, I am astonished to discover ran while I was in university, presumably when I was adding to my intellect and focusing on higher pursuits…so much for my education, Mom! My favourite was Skye. She was so cool. I wonder where she is now, and if she wants to be my friend. Or my bodyguard.

Now, due to the writers’ strike, it’s back, baby. Pretty much identical to the original show. So far there’s been a two-hour premiere and a one-hour follow up show aired, and I already know all the names of the Gladiators. Crush is my favourite. She is so cool.

We caught the beginning of the first episode on Monday night and asked me if I would like to record it, and I was like, “Um, I can’t believe you actually had to ask me that question.” I only made it through the first hour, however, before I had to go to bed.

So the next day, when I had had enough of Doodlebops and Toopy And Binoo…there it was, just sitting there on the PVR. Taking up valuable room, which might at any moment lead to more growling.

The kids would enjoy it, wouldn’t they? It was like a sporting event! Only with fancier lighting! And costumes and fire pits and people throwing other people around like rag dolls! Fun for the whole family!

Captain Jelly Belly claims he likes the show. He was even excited about watching Tuesday’s episode the next morning. But he’s never quite sure where his allegiances lie — should he support the Contender, or should he cheer for the Gladiator? Does he want Wolf or Mayhem to fall in the water, where their powers to stomp all over people in the Captain’s nightmares are doused…or does he want to cheer for the Gladiators, so they don’t come after him later for revenge? And so, he captures the dichotomy of emotion common to all AG viewers.

Gal Smiley also claimed to enjoy the show. During the first episode, she was full of interesting questions like, “Why is there fire?” — totally not believing us when we explained that it was just to look good on television — and “Why do some people have microphones?” — totally not grasping the concept of “host.” Oh and also, “Why is that man with the microphone the Contender’s brother?” — I must send a quick note to Hulk Hogan asking him not to refer to all the male contestants as “brother” in his interviews.

But during today’s episode, when Gladiator Venom pulled the Red Contender Girl from the rings into the water during Hanging Tough — poor Gal Smiley cried. She just felt so bad for Red Contender Girl. Meanwhile, at the other end of the couch, Captain Jelly Belly was asking me in a quavering voice to vow that Daddy and I would never, ever, not in a million years, go on this show. Because he would miss us too much. After the Gladiators totally stomped all over us.

So I’m thinking, maybe, not so much on the family-friendly programming. Of course I totally blame the writers’ strike for the fact that my children will never sleep soundly again.

Speaking of bad parenting, over at finslippy a winner has been declared in the Bad Mommy competition. It’s well worth a read, if you have time — doesn’t hold a candle to my AG story!

Both the Captain and Gal Smiley have ever-changing and growing senses of humour. Some phases are pretty hilarious, but some fall flat.

I like the phase that the Gal is in right now. She likes to make up her own knock-knock jokes by looking around at stuff in the room, like this:

Gal: Knock knock!
Me: Who’s there?
Gal: Um…magazine!
Me: Magazine who?
Gal: Magazine…tablecloth! Ha ha ha ha!

She also likes to preface most of her daily activities by saying, “I have a little song about that.” For example, when brushing her teeth: “I have a little song about that…[tunelessly] ‘Brushing my teeth, brushing my teeth, brush brush!’ Like that.”

The Captain is also in an interesting humour phase right now that is sometimes funny, but more often annoying. He’s learned from school that funny = attention, and he’s pretty much in constant stand-up mode these days, which can really try our patience when we’re trying to get him to listen to or to eat or go to bed. One of his favourite pratfalls is to smack himself in the head, roll his eyes and stick out his tongue, then collapse to the floor. Not a big hit around here, as I do not enjoy seeing my kid get hit in the head even if it is of his own volition, but I suspect it goes over big with the JK crowd.

He also likes to do goofy things with words that he passes off as totally hilarious jokes. One of his more annoying habits is to replace a word any given sentence with the Wee One’s name, like this:

Gal: I want some juice from the fridge.
Captain: Hee hee hee…I want some juice from the WEE ONE, GET IT, GET IT????

Also he finds dropping the first letter of someone’s name to be screamingly funny, as in:

Sirmonkeypants: Captain, it’s time to get your jammies on.
Captain: ADDY! ADDY! Your name is ADDY!! GET IT, GET IT????

Oh, I’ve got something for you to GET, buddy.

He does occasionally crack me up with this schtick, though, which only encourages him. The other morning I was feeding the Wee One with the usual two spoons, one for her, and one for me. Hers was orange and mine was pink, and the Captain came running by chanting, “Orange Baby! Pink Mommy! Orange Baby! Pink Mommy!” and for some reason I lost it to the point where I spat out my juice.

Legends Of Comedy in the making, right here, oh yeah.

Alice over at finslippy posted yesterday that she had screamed at her son until her throat hurt, and now was feeling pretty guilty about it. She asked her readers to post their own Bad Mommy stories to make her feel better and last I checked, there were 180 replies. There’s dozens of stories there that I’ve lived through myself, times when parents had a meltdown when their kid wouldn’t put any socks on or yelled at their kid in the mall for asking for a toy just ONE. MORE. TIME.

I was all set to add my own tale to the list — an event from a few weeks back when the Captain and I had a miscommunication, and 30 tsk-tsking grandmothers watched me bounce him down the escalator at Zellers, where he wound up with ripped pants and a bloodied forehead. But someone actually beat me to it — they’d had almost exactly the same experience. Nothing like the internet to let you know that no matter how crappy a parent you are, someone has been there before!

The other day I was talking to FameThrowa and I was telling her how surprised I was that, every now and then, something comes out of my mouth that sounds just like our mother. I warned her that someday, if she has kids, it’ll happen to her too, and she shook her head in total disbelief. I think it’s quite common for people who don’t have kids to think that they would never scream at their kids in frustration, never physically force their kids into their beds, never have an unreasonable, over-the-top reaction to a small infraction. But I say this to all parents, everywhere: it will happen to you. No one can be patient and loving and understanding all the time. No one can be at their best every hour of every day. No parent — no human being — can take having their buttons pushed over and over and over again without blowing a gasket every now and again.

I think it’s important to know that it’s going to happen, so that when it does, you don’t overreact and give the kids away to social services while locking yourself in your basement as penance. What’s important is to figure out how you’re going to handle it when an unfortunate parenting incident like this does happen.

Sir Monkeypants and I work well as a parenting team, and when one of us is losing patience, the other one usually notices and steps in, telling the other in a supportive way to take a little break, and then diffusing the situation. When I’m at home alone with the kids though, there are times when I’ve shrieked, there are times when I’ve slammed doors, and there are times when I’ve sent kids upstairs to their rooms for their own safety. After I’ve calmed down, instead of acting like everything is forgotten now, or worse, acting like everything was my kids’ fault (as my own parents were wont to do), I try to talk to my kids about what happened. I explain why Mommy was mad. I explain that yelling isn’t a good thing, and I apologize. I try to make sure that they calm down themselves, and we talk about how we can try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

Then I try to put it behind me, and try again tomorrow with a clean slate.

Being a parent is really, really hard. You just have to try to do the best you can, and when you have a failing day, pick yourself up and try for that A+ the next day.

We’ve been saying for ages and ages now that we have to get a freezer. The little drawer on the bottom of our fridge just is not adequate to store all the frozen stuff I need to have on hand, let alone extra crockpot leftovers and frozen pizza on sale and veggie burgers bought in bulk, all of which I would like to have on hand.

I finally got around to shopping for one online in the week after Christmas, because my mom and Sir Monkeypants’ mom and my grandmother had all given us a little bit of money, and if I didn’t use it to get a freezer I think my mother was going to have a coronary, that’s how much she loves to buy in bulk. We found a good boxing day sale on a small upright unit at Sears and ordered it online and everything, thus craftily avoiding actually going to the store during the horror that is boxing day shopping in Ontario.

We picked it up on the weekend and and MyFriendJen’s husband brought it down to the basement and plugged it in. Then we went out and bought three frozen pizzas and popped them in there.

I seriously cannot convey my joy and excitement over this freezer. There’s so much space! For frozen stuff! As much as I want! I can crockpot for 50, and still store it all, for up to six months at a time! We can make a run for Captain-safe bread — there’s only one brand name in the city that he can eat, and they don’t sell it at the Superstore — just once a month, and store loaves upon loaves in our new freezer! Bring on the BIG BOX OF WAFFLES!

Plus, do you know what this means? We once again have room in this house for ice cream!

It’s kind of ironic that, in a country where the weather is routinely below zero for four or five months of the year, I have a need for 8 cubic feet of extra freezer space. Although with today’s weather — 9 degrees and raining — I may have to crawl inside the new freezer just to feel Canadian again.

I like to think I don’t have too many pet peeves (Sir Monkeypants, I can hear you laughing).

But it does bother me when people use the sugar bowl spoon to stir their coffee.

And it bugs me even more when they put the wet spoon back in the sugar bowl.

Man, I’m cranky this morning.

I’ve finished reading Ken Jennings’ book, and it was, as Sir Monkeypants says, “Both gripping and boring as poo.” We both liked the parts where Ken described his own personal experiences on Jeopardy, as well as time he spent at other trivia events. The chapters on the history of trivia, though, are a wee bit dry.

Anyway, one throwaway line in one of the chapters happens to mention that the biggest single-day trivia event in North America is World Trivia Night…which takes place in none other than Ottawa, Canada!

A few years back a friend of mine mentioned the trivia contest and tried to get a team together, but no one from our little circle except me responded to his email. But this year, I am determined to pull it together. We need a team of 10 people of varying specialities, ages, and backgrounds. How hard can it be to find ten people actually interested in a night of trivia? With food? And possibly funny hats? And the glory of attending an event that is on the radar of Ken Jennings? It practically sells itself.

World Trivia Night is held every year in November — ooh, it’ll be like a little birthday party for myself. So I have about 10 months to find a team…and more importantly, to train.

KenJen describes in his book how he studied up on certain common Jeopardy categories before going in, and it paid off. I might get around to such focused work, but before that, I feel like I just need to limber up my brain a little bit. The lack of sleep and lack of adult conversation lately has left me in a truly addled state, and sometimes I can’t even remember the name of that actress who played Daphne on Frasier. You know, red hair, English accent? It’s killing me!

So in these early days of training, I’m focusing on watching as many trivia-based game shows as I can. Weakest Link and Jeopardy are the best, because the fast pace of these shows means lots of trivia crammed into a short period of time. In fact, I think I should start taping Jeopardy every day — the writers’ strike means I have a lot of free TV hours on my hand to train, especially now that I’ve FINALLY caught up with all those back-episodes of Heroes that were kicking around on the PVR.

After my game show orgy, I hope my brain will be stirred enough to handle a few run-throughs of all the cards in the Trivial Pursuit box we have. Maybe I’ll head out for a few games of NTN at the East Side Mario’s.

And after that, I hear that the same people that run World Trivia Night run a weekly trivia event at the Barley Mow, which is nice and closeby. Once I get my crack team of trivia buffs (or just avid snackers, whatever) together, maybe we can do a few nights at the Mow to warm up. Go team go!

Then, it’s on to World Trivia Night! Last year, the top two teams tied with a perfect score — they answered all 110 questions correctly. I’ll be happy to get in the 70-80 range this year, mostly because I have no idea what to expect from the questions or if the Wee One will (SO HELP ME GOD) be sleeping through the night by then.

But just the thought of participating…it has me salivating. People I know…consider yourselves targets for recruitment! Let’s DO THIS THING!