On Sunday we were fishing around for something to do that would get us out of the house, and Sir Monkeypants said to me, “Why don’t we all go out for dinner?” And the minute it was out of his mouth, you could tell he totally regretted saying it and wished he could turn back time, like Superman. But it was far, far too late for him to escape — I’d had a hard week, and the thought of not only not cooking, but having someone else bring me food while I sat in the comfort of a vinyl-lined booth was too intoxicating to pass up.

We were actually already out in the car when this big idea came up, so after a lot of debate and last-minute lane changes, we decided to go to the Swiss Chalet. It seemed family-friendly and we’d actually get a real waitress.

When we got there we realized we had no idea what was safe for the Captain to eat, and calling FameThrowa on the phone to have her check their website didn’t pan out because her stupid network was on the stupid fritz again. But happily, it turns out the Swiss Chalet is the ultimate destination for those with food allergies. They have a massive chart that they hand out for free that lists around fifteen different allergens, cross-referenced with every item on the menu (even dressings and sauces), marking each for their allergen content. Rockin’ awesome! We were surprised and happy to find several items that were safe for the Captain.

So there we were, at dinnertime, in a real…ish restaurant, ordering food, getting service…it was amazing. I felt like a member of high society. Before kids, it was so easy to just hop in the car and dash off for a dinner out, any night of the week. Now it’s a whole production and you never know just how it’s going to go. This time, the Captain ate more than I’ve ever seen him eat, Gal Smiley sat happily in her high chair and coloured, and and I ate semi-nutritious food that I did not prepare, and did not have a big yellow M on the side.

It just felt like the biggest, most amazing success in the world. Watch out, Joneses of the world! The TurtleHeads are all cosmo now!

When I was growing up I had the usual sibling rivalry with my sisters. My older sister and I are only two years apart and we had the usual squabbles, both wanting the same thing at the same time just because the other one had it. I always wanted the one that she had, and vice versa.

Around the time that I turned 10, I decided I had had enough. I remember making a conscious decision about this — that from now on, whatever SocialButterfly didn’t want, was the one that I’d be taking. The breaking point actually came courtesy of my grandparents; we always used to fight over who got to sit behind Nana in the car, who would sit next to Nana at dinner, and who loved Nana the best. As part of my revolution in attitude, I decided that Papa was now my favourite, and he was so pleased, that I knew I was on to something good. This explains why I have never, ever, cared for M*A*S*H, my older sister’s favourite TV show.

One of the biggest changes was that I was no longer “stuck” with a crappy freezie flavour. My sisters always wanted the white ones first, followed by grape, and so on down the line, until they scraped the bottom of the barrel with blue. I decided that blue would now be my favourite freezie flavour. Instead of a big pile of blue left at the end, with my mother threatening us all to “eat the blue or there will be NO MORE FREEZIES EVER,” I’d gladly take the blue as my first choice, and then…my first choice was always available! Any time I was feeling like a little tasty freeze, there would be a friendly blue, waiting for me.

Over time, blue actually did become my favourite flavour. I actually sought out the raspberry flavour in other things — candies, pies, fruit. Mmmm, blue.

So this morning, Gal Smiley wasn’t feeling too well and we always keep freezies in our freezer for sore throat occasions. I went to get a freezie out for her, and one for CJB as well (because they still haven’t learned of my fabulous life-changing selection process, and still are in the stage when they want whatever the other one has). And what did I find there? A big ol’ pile of purple and orange. Purple and orange! They suck! They were my sisters’ favourites! It turns out my own preferences, combined with the colour of Thomas The Tank Engine, have conspired against me, and now my own kids prefer blue (and my backup colour, red) to all other flavours.

So now I’m like, “Eat the grape or there will be NO MORE FREEZIES EVER!” It’s crazy how times change.

Before we had kids, I used to sometimes give my day a letter grade. Like, I’d have an A+ day, or a B day, or maybe a C- day. Since Gal Smiley was born, I now often give my letter grade to myself, ranking my Mommy skills. I might say, “Today was an A Mommy day” or “Today was only a C+ Mommy day.” It depends on how well I dealt with the various crises that come up on a day to day basis, and how well I managed to find things for the kids to do to fill up their day, and how well I did at coming up with creative and fun meals…that sort of thing.

I suspect this kind of grading is not very healthy. I’m too used to being praised and, in general, doing well at stuff, and being a mom isn’t really something you can compare to getting a good review at work or getting an A on a test. I remember MyFriendJen telling me she felt the same when her first was born — what she missed the most about being a stay-at-home mom was the positive feedback. There wasn’t anyone there to say, “Great job, Jen, good diaper change!” Instead, the baby was all about complaining and crying when things were bad, and you had to take the quiet moments — sleeping or just sitting quietly — as your sources of approval.

Anyway, I still can’t seem to stop myself from doing it, but I did learn a long time ago that when you have a Bad Mommy Day, there’s not too much you can do except a) tell your kids you’re sorry you were sad/angry/lazy, and b) vow to try again tomorrow.

That said, today was a really truly awful, bad bad mommy day. I’d have to give myself an F, and although there have been hard times, and frustrating times, and screamy times, I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten worse than a D before. The main problem is that we are potty training Gal Smiley, and she is a stubborn one, and I am spending way, way too much time fretting about what our friends are doing in this respect (because, in all other households, potty training always seems to go so smoothly, and at a much younger age). Plus, I am pregnant, and thus hormonal and super tired all the time. So I freak out, and get frustrated, and she won’t listen, and then we reach a point where I am calling Sir Monkeypants at work to have a good cry, while the kids have honey-on-saltines for dinner and watch Super Password for entertainment while wearing no pants.

Thank goodness Sir Monkeypants is an awesome dad, and an understanding husband, and today he rushed home and took the kids out for dinner, so I could spend some time blogging and playing Bejeweled Online. And now I feel a little better (although, I am gearing up for the dreaded haircut — see below). I’m sure that, as Scarlett says, tomorrow is another day. And that day will be better than this one.

I’m getting my hair cut in a couple of hours. My history of haircuts follows a cyclical pattern, as follows:

• get haircut; feel ambivalent about haircut, as I hate change of any kind
• let haircut grow out for a couple of weeks; fall in love with haircut
• look fabulous for two weeks
• hair starts to get too long, begin extended phase of pinning hair back/wearing a ponytail
• continue to wear hair pinned back every day for approximately six months, until hair is so long I occasionally, accidentally, swallow a chunk that is still attached to my head
• begin to think about getting a haircut; fret about what to have done, and when I will find the time, and how much it is going to cost
• finally force myself to make an appointment, with my awesome hairdresser who, by the way, always remembers me even though I only see him once a year
• get haircut; repeat cycle.

Tonight I’ve decided I’m sick of the barrette look, so I’m planning on going fairly short, with shorter still around the face (but probably not all the way into bangs territory). This cut will have to last me well past the birth of the baby so it better be a good one. Already I’m in a near panic about how it is going to turn out, but if I just double check the cycle above, and reassure myself I’ll look fabulous in two weeks (for a duration of two weeks), then I should be good.

That is, if I can talk myself into actually going out the door. Crap!

I have a really bad habit of getting obsessed with one particular breakfast cereal, and eating it every day for weeks, and then dumping it like a boyfriend who still lives with his mother. As a result we have, like, 20 boxes of cereal in the house, mostly half-full versions of cereals I used to adore, but now can’t eat. Sir Monkeypants is very indulgent with me on this front but he does like to call me Seinfeld.

Captain Jelly Belly has picked up this trait — this is how I know he is my kid, because heaven knows, he and Gal Smiley don’t look a thing like me. Since he has a limited diet as it is, and cereal is one of his primary sources of iron, I’m always ready to spring for a new box if that’s what he wants to eat. A couple of weeks ago, he was all about the Multigrain Cheerios — morning, noon, night, and at snack times. Then we went to visit my mom, and she’d bought some Cap’n Crunch for Sir Monkeypants, and CJB loved it. When we got home we bought the economy size (enough for a whole fleet of sailors to eat for a week) and he snacked happily.

Then last week, at his school, they had a Teddy Bear Picnic, and had Honeycomb as a snack. Now, the Cap’n is out on his ass, and it’s all about the Honeycombs. The day before yesterday CJB asked me to call Sir Monkeypants at work and ask him to pick some up on the way home. Since then, I don’t think we have had a meal or a snack that did not centre around Honeycomb. We’re already 3/4 of the way through the box…which is great, because our cereal cabinet is now so full, there actually isn’t any room for the Honeycomb box!

So yesterday, Sir Monkeypants was over at the Superstore and ran into one of our neighbours from across the street. Sir Monkeypants mentioned how strange it was that no one ever came to claim the abandoned car from the empty lot next door, and that we always assumed that it belonged to someone on the street. Our neighbour, Ben, said that, in fact, it did belong to someone on our street. Hmmmmm.

Ben didn’t elaborate and Sir Monkeypants didn’t pry (what kind of a nosy neighbour is he?? I need information, man!). So we have no idea who actually owned the car, or why they were perfectly content to see it towed away, rather than claim it as their own.

It’s a mysterious mystery!

After almost two and a half years, the empty lot next door has finally been sold. They started digging today, and we should see a backfilled foundation in there within a couple of weeks. Yay!

One of the crappiest things about living next to an empty lot is that everyone used it as a dumping ground for their crap. The construction crews around here (we live in a very new subdivision) were the worst — the site was full of bricks, concrete chunks, shears of wood, gravel piles, and leftover tubing. Random other people were bad too, though, and the lot had lots of garbage and accumulated yard waste in it.

The weirdest thing in the lot, though, was a car. Late last summer, someone parked their car in the lot on a shallow, flat edge, and left it there. Apparently, forever. Although it was an older car, it had a fairly current license plate on it (an AK prefix) and nothing seemed to be wrong with it. It sat there all winter though, buried in snow, and no one came calling.

Today the big digger truck worked around it and I was wondering what would happen. Just now, a tow truck pulled up to claim the prize. The tow truck driver didn’t have any trouble starting it and backing it out of the lot, so it was definitely in running order. Several of our neighbours came out to watch the towing of the car, so I assume the car didn’t belong to any of them.

I just don’t get how someone could take something like a car, and leave it somewhere. It’s not like losing your keys, or forgetting where you left your glasses. It’s a car. Even if it was damaged in some way, there are places that will tow it away for free, or you could even sell it off for parts for a few hundred dollars.

Whatever. I’m just so happy it’s gone, and with the digging today, most of the garbage and crap is gone too. Yay yay yay! A fence and an actual, finished yard are in our future!

The Captain and I just had a reading from the dictionary, and I burst out laughing not once, not twice, but three times! Here are the culprits:

people – Creatures walking around on two legs are people, unless they are bears. It is usually fairly easy to tell which are people. People means humans. You are a human. One human is a person. A bunch of persons are people.

permission – If you ask your parents to let you go to Africa to hunt penguins, you ask for their permission. If they give you their permission, they permit you to go. It’s not very likely they will give their permission. Penguins do not live in Africa. They live near the South Pole.

picture – A picture is a drawing or photograph of something. You could draw a picture of your favorite pork chop, or you could use a camera to take a picture of it. Whichever way you do it, people could look at your picture and say, “Wow, that’s a great pork chop!”

Oh, Mr. Ertel, you rooster-hating, pork-chop-loving, hilarious dude, you.

A few years ago, Sir Monkeypants’ parents downsized to a bungalow, and as a result, got rid of a lot of stuff. We tossed out most of the kid-related things — half-made crafts, old artwork, broken and dried up school supplies. There were a few kids’ books too that we gave away, but at the last minute, Sir Monkeypants rescued this one book from the pile.

The book is called “My Fun With Words Dictionary,” by James Ertel. It’s a book meant to introduce preschoolers to new words — each page has six words on it defined in bright colours with an illustration. It seemed pretty basic at first, so we dumped it into the “give away” pile, but then, while leafing through it, we discovered a wonderful thing: this is, simply, the most hilarious book ever written.

Here’s a random sampling of definitions from the book — keep in mind that this is aimed at people who are like, 4 or 5 years old.

paste – Paste is stuff you use to make one piece of paper stick to another piece of pater. You also use past when you want to paste wallpaper on a wall. Make sure you don’t paste that wallpaper across the door. It will be hard to find out how to get out of the room.

moment – Moment is a strange word. It’s sort of slippery. “I’ll be there in a moment,” says your friend. Nobody knows how long that moment is. It might be ten seconds or ten minutes. Then there is that moment when you win the prize for growing the biggest pumpkin. That is a moment you will remember.

rubber – Rubber is unusual stuff. It can stretch way out and then snap back. It can bend any which way and then come back to its original shape. Rubber is used to make tires, erasers, and toys. Rubber is made from the sap of a rubber tree. A rubber band is not a musical group.

rooster — A rooster is a very noisy chicken. A rooster is a male chicken. Roosters have a habit of yelling, “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” or something like that, when the sun comes up. This habit is very annoying to some people.

Clearly, Mr. Ertel has some serious issues with roosters, not to mention a wickedly dry sense of humour.

The other day I was tidying up and found this book and stuck it on the kids’ bookshelf. Here, I should mention the very important fact that we only have the second volume in the series — letters L-Z. A-K are mysteriously AWOL. Anyway, the Captain found the book and now is totally obsessed with it, and for his bedtime “story,” he now gets to read a few pages of definitions. We can hardly keep a straight face, but we have to try our best, because explaining what is hilarious about this book would take all night, and we’re trying to get CJB into bed. But seriously, it’s entertainment for the masses.

We all love the book so much that yesterday I looked on eBay to see if I could find the first volume. I was shocked to find at least 10 copies for sale — plus you can get several through Amazon.com. The edition we have was published in 1974, but it was reprinted in 1980, and again in 1991, apparently with no edits or updates to the inside text. Crazy!

It will cost us at least $25 US to buy the book and pay to have it shipped to Canada (sadly, we could not find any Canadian sellers). But we’re thinking it over. I can’t imagine what Mr. Ertel has to say about Apples, Dogs, or Invisible.

For the past several years, my mother has been making Family Pyjamas for her daughters and all their progeny. They are all made from the same pattern — a big top with a V-neck and single big button, combined with simple elastic waist pants. There are summer varieties — short sleeves and shorts, made from cotton — and winter varieties — long sleeves and pants, made from flannel.

My mom is a sucker for the remnant table, and she can’t resist a good deal on a piece of fabric, so we often get odd and out-of-season prints used for our PJs. Plus, she adores big, bold colours and patterns, so while FameThrowa continues to emphasize that she prefers PJs that are neutral, plain colours, she continues to actually receive PJs that are bright purple with a pattern of pink and green hearts. Us Turtleheads pretty easy going on the material front, so this past Christmas, I got new new flannel sets — one bright red with a pattern of huge purple and yellow ladybugs, and one bright pink with a pattern of green frogs. Cute, comfy, and warm — what’s not to like?

In the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve noticed an exciting new trend — on several occasions, I’ve seen teenagers, boys or girls, out and about in exactly these types of pants. I’m talking flannel PJ pants, in bright colours and patterns. The first time I saw a teenaged girl at the mall in her PJ pants, she was with her parents, and I admit I gave her my best look of sympathy, because I thought she must be very, very ill, maybe terminally ill, if her parents let her come to the mall in her jammies. But since then, there have been at least three other mall sightings, and the other day, when I was driving past the local high school, I spotted at least two more flannel jammie pants on kids as they huddled for warmth out front like a gaggle of penguins.

My point here is this: I have an opportunity here to join the cutting edge of fashion merely by wearing my pyjamas out of the house. Think of it! Not only are we talking maximum comfort — my jammie pants are even more comfy than my maternity pants — but also, extreme ease of dressing. Basically, I’d just have to roll out of bed in the morning, pull on a sweater, and good to go. And the kids would be just as easy — no more chasing them down and hog-tying them just to get clothes on them before we leave the house. Instead, I’d just pull a sweatshirt over their PJ tops and voila! fashion forward outfits for all.

I think it’s safe to say this is one trend I’ll be embracing. In fact, I’m off to the grocery store…these blue and green plaid flannel PJ pants should fit right in!