Man, I HATE it when I read something that is supposedly an example of someone being a really bad mother, and then realise I’ve done that myself. A couple of months ago, I read a book review of a memoir written by some lady who had a drinking problem and worked to overcome it. A quote from the review highlights a passage in the book where, to illustrate just how wretched her drinking problem had become, she describes her horrible guilt at having fed her children corn flakes for dinner, because she was too sloshed to cook.

I haven’t exactly stooped to corn flakes but I can definitely see that happening, and I don’t even drink on a regular basis (although, I am thinking of starting now, just to have the excuse). I hate, hate, hate cooking, and my kids basically have the same five meals over and over and over again, and some days when I’m tired and cranky and facing yet another day of going into the dreaded kitchen to prepare yet another meal of noodles and oven fries, it’s just too much. At least twice this past month the kids have had toast, sliced cheese, and apples for dinner. Barely one step above corn flakes, I’d say.

Since I read that review I’ve been in a bit of a mommy-hood funk. I feel as though other moms out there are busy whipping up meatloaf and mashed potatoes with a side of homemade cornbread and braised carrots on a daily basis. It didn’t help that we recently visited LittleSis, an awesome cook, and she was feeding her baby a self-created recipe of spinach and chickpeas rolled into crunchy oven-baked balls of goodness, while I was feeding my kids Cheerios and granola bars for lunch.

Corn flakes suck.

I’ve been finding it hard to find the energy to post lately, but just for completeness, I thought I’d mention that I finally saw my first “B” license plate the weekend before last. Fame Throwa had already called me on Friday morning to tell me that she saw one while driving the night before, so I knew to be on high alert. Then, coming home from the mall on Saturday, we saw a BABD. Rockin’ awesome! Sir Monkeypants had already warned me that I had better keep my reaction low-key, so as to avoid an accident, but I couldn’t help a little squeal.

I must say, although that was almost two weeks ago, I haven’t seen another one. I guess they’ll be slow to trickle out at this time of year…December doesn’t seem like a big new-car buying time. You’d think that now that the seal has been broken I could give up this crazy obsession, but I guess license plate watching is in my blood…the tally continues!

I was never into Lego as a kid, but in university I met lots of guys who had big fond memories of spending hours building stuff (that’s what happens when you major in engineering). I’m sure they all still had (have?) massive bins of colour-coded blocks in their basement.

One of the things they often complained about is how “Lego these days” was killing the imaginative free-play of their youth. Too many pieces were pre-formed for custom uses, and the Lego now comes in sets with these pre-formed pieces that suggest that you build this one thing — a pirate ship, say, or a rocket — and that’s it. They’d go on and on about how they could use the basic pieces to build whatever they wanted, whereas modern whippersnappers would open the box, build the one thing, and that would be it. Then they’d pop their false teeth in, throw back a shot of prune juice, and ask Evelyn if she was interested in hitting the sock hop later.

I guess I agreed with them, but a couple of weeks ago, Captain Jelly Belly got this set as a gift from his grandparents. It’s a Duplo set that is meant to construct Cranky, the crane from Thomas The Tank Engine land. We actually recommended the Duplo set to Ba and Dada because buying the “real” Cranky, the moulded plastic one, costs at least twice as much as the Duplo version. We really didn’t expect the Captain to do much other than build Cranky and leave it at that, but Cranky is a good piece to have when you’re playing trains, so there was still plenty of play value there.

To my surprise, though, he’s been really imaginative with it. Although all the pieces are very specific shapes — Cranky’s base, or Cranky’s face, or Cranky’s lifter hook thing — he’s managed to build all kinds of different things. He’s made a coal hopper and a water tower and an engine shed. He’s put Cranky’s head on wheels to make a funky car and he’s used the luggage to make a rockslide to challenge his trains. In fact, Cranky has spent very little time as the actual Cranky. The Captain finds it much more entertaining, and hilarious, to break up the crane and build exciting new constructs.

So I guess that goes to show that Lego is Lego, no matter what. The geezers I knew in university can rest easy — the imaginations of today’s youth live on!

Today I was at the toy store with Gal Smiley, and it got to be time that we were leaving, to pick up Captain Jelly Belly at preschool. So I tried to convince Gal to come along, quietly now, but she is two years old, and nothing comes easy or quietly when you are two. She started getting mad and I could smell a meltdown brewing on the horizon.

Then I said, “But [the Captain] needs us! He’s waiting! In fact, I hear him calling you!”

Then I called quietly under my breath, “[Gal Smiley]! [Gal Smiley]!”

She immediately went into high alert mode. “[Captain] is sad! He needs help!” she said, and was out the door like lightening. We rushed to the car and raced to his aid.

Am I a bad Mommy that I find it pretty hilarious? This is a trick that is not going to get old!

Now that I’m all into recycling and stuff, I find I have questions that the flyers from the City Of Ottawa can’t answer. Does anyone know if the following are recyclable?

• metal tops/bottoms from frozen juice cans
• window envelopes
• kleenex boxes — I always tear out the plastic part at the top, but Kleenex brand tissues now come with a plastic label that wraps under the cardboard seam and can’t be removed
• corrugated cardboard boxes with packing tape/scotch tape on it
• boxboard boxes that contained food (specifically, Tim Hortons timbit boxes that may have traces of sugary goodness smeared on the inside)
• pizza boxes with oily stains where the pizza was

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

This past weekend we drove down to Toronto to visit the folks. A couple of weeks ago I spotted an AZR-prefixed license plate here in Ottawa, so I was sure that the traffic on the 401 would provide the first “B” prefix sighting. I was so excited!

But sadly, it was not to be. The latest one I saw was an AZW. Sigh.

I’d love to have the BAAA plate. Then I’d call my car the “Baaa-mobile” and I’d paint a lovely pastural of grazing sheep in a mural along the side. I’d be famous, baby!

The word “lackadaisical” reminds me of one of my Senior Public schoolteachers, Mr. Burns.

I had Mr. Burns for “core,” which meant he taught math, English, and spelling. He was an okay English teacher, but he was terrible at math. I was good at math, and I often corrected him in class, then complained about the too-easy level of his classes. I don’t remember ever consciously thinking that I was smarter than him, but I don’t think I hid my contempt for his skills very well.

Needless to say, Mr. Burns did not like me very much. Over the course of the year, he hid his dislike less and less well. He never called on me in class. He never chose me to be Pupil Of The Month, an award traditionally given to the highest ranking student, even though I graduated top in my class that year. He even hauled me out into the hallway a few times to discuss my “bad attitude.” I wasn’t too bitter — well, maybe a little about that Pupil Of The Month thing.

For spelling class we had to make up our own word lists, complete with definitions for each word and a sentence illustrating its use. One week I included the word “lackadaisical,” which was in a novel I was reading. Mr. Burns accused me, in front of the whole class, of inventing this word to make him look stupid. Seriously! I was incensed that he would call me a flat-out liar. A quick visit to the dictionary proved me right and I’m sure I did my fair share of gloating. Certainly the story has entered my family history as The Time Lynn Showed Up Stupid Teachers Everywhere.

The weird thing is that I never really hated Mr. Burns very much. I had a lot going on that year — I was in Stage One puberty and was dealing with a lot of Very Important Boy Stuff, plus several run-ins with the local bully and the big question of Who Was My Best Friend. I had a lot of other teachers too, most of whom I liked and respected, and if it wasn’t for the whole “lackadaisical” thing, I doubt I’d even remember Mr. Burns. But on his side of the fence, I turned into this Tracy Flick-like nemesis, the so-good-she’s-evil student who persecuted him, thwarted him, and mocked him at every turn. The one person who, with her too-perky manner and know-it-all sneer reminded him on a daily basis of his failure as a novelist, his destiny to be stuck in a dead-end job teaching pre-teens forever and ever.

The one thing I do credit Mr. Burns with is the creation of a Grade 8 journal. Every day in English class he’d write a topic on the board, and then we had a few minutes to write on that topic in a top-secret journal, a book that he would never read or mark. This was supposed to develop our writing skills by allowing us to capture our free form thoughts, but I totally took advantage of the never-read rule to use it as my personal diary. I’d write a few sentences on the topic — in case Mr. Burns looked over my shoulder, as he often did — but then I’d veer off into a discussion of whether The Boy looked at me today, or what I would wear to my best friend’s birthday party, or whether I should run home after school like a coward or meet the bully in the bathroom as commanded. I think that journal really saved me that year by letting me vent a lot of pent-up emotions, and also by helping develop my writing skills, something I really value. So, thanks for that, Mr. Burns.

I kept the journal for a long time in my bottom drawer. I always thought it would be fun to go back and read it as an adult. I found it when I was packing up my stuff after university to move into my first place of my own. I casually flipped it open and read a few pages and I could hardly bear it. It was just too raw, too emotional — it brought back every memory of being a confused, sad, dramatic teenager. All the horrors of that year — and even the highs, which were scary in their extremes — came rushing back and I didn’t like the feeling at all. So, I chucked it. Now I wish I hadn’t — I think I have the emotional strength now to read something like that — but it’s gone, and that’s a sad thing.

I guess I’ll just have to rely on my “lackadaisical” memory to keep me warm.

Last night, for the first time in ages, I got 8 hours of solid sleep. I didn’t hear a peep from the kids (although, the cold medication I took just before bed probably helped me filter it out, plus Sir Monkeypants was the Parent On Call for most of the night). I went to bed at 10pm and slept like the dead until 6am. Sweeet.

Today I feel like superwoman. Usually while Gal Smiley is having her nap, all I can do is flake on the couch while the Captain watches a Thomas video. Not today! Today I’ve already: registered the Captain for swim lessons at the pool, Christmas shopped with Gal Smiley, totally reorganized the basement, played hockey with the Captain, cleaned up the kitchen, done the dishes, brought in the garbage bins, and done three loads of laundry. Domestic Power!

Tonight is poker night and usually when I show up there, all I can talk about is how freakin’ tired I am. Not tonight! Tonight I will be invincible at the poker table and the snack table! I cannot be denied!

I’m starting to believe that the secret to all the world’s problems is just a good, solid night’s worth of sleep. If I got a full 8 hours every night, I could conquer all! I could finish my novel! I could have a clean house! I could solve world hunger! I could remember stuff that Sir Monkeypants told me less than five minutes ago!

When the kids finally move out…I will be unstoppable!

Captain Jelly Belly has a Thomas matching game, featuring cards on which are pictures of the trains. He has invented a new game where he takes a subset of the cards and lays them out in a row, then asks fairly complex trivia questions, and you have to select the right train. He might ask something like, “Which train likes to pull Annie and Clarabel?” or “Which little green train likes to take the mail?” or “Which brown train was almost sent to the museum?” (Answers: Thomas, Percy, and Toby, respectively.)

The best part about this game is how he hams it up as a game show host. If you take too long to answer, he starts to hover his finger over the correct train, slowly circling in, both timing you and offering a hint towards the answer. And once you name the right engine, he points to it and gives a loud, “Bing!” signalling the correct response. Then he tells you that you have a done a very good job before going on to the next question.

I have to say, if he ends up being a game show host I might die of pride. It’s like, my ultimate fantasy job. So cool!

I hereby cast Connie Britton to play MyFriendJen.

The FriendJens just moved in to a new house five doors down from ours, so I’m hoping to get a “crazy neighbour” type part in her movie :).