So the finale of The Amazing Race is next week. Any predictions from the watchers?

I have to say, this season hasn’t been as good as the others. I found there was too much “bunching” of the racers in the middle of each leg, so the first 45 minutes of each show was rendered irrelevant. Plus, this season there is an unusually high number of racers that I don’t like, which makes it hard to get excited about the ending. If Kris and Jon don’t win, I’ll be pretty peeved.

I still have hope for next season, though. , the next series starts on March 1 if you’d like to check it out. Amber and Boston Rob — from Survivor — will be one of the couples, but don’t let that discourage you :).

I had a totally crappy morning today. The First Lady screamed for an hour and a half, after hours of being unable to fall asleep on her own or stay asleep once I put her down. Captain Jelly Belly was uber-cranky and while the baby was screaming, took the opportunity to throw stuff around, climb up the stairs that he’s supposed to be staying off of, and cry when I wouldn’t let him watch TV.

After lunch the First Lady had a huge poop in her crib that covered everything, and was happy again. After I gave her a bath, put all the poopy stuff in the laundry, and settled the Captain down for a nap, I finally had a chance to call my friend Andrea, who was supposed to come over this morning but I never got around to calling her, as if she wanted to be here for all the screaming anyway.

So I was explaining why I didn’t call her, and she said, “I don’t know how you do it — you make it look so easy!” And I laughed, because clearly she missed the part of the morning where I considered slipping both kids some Nyquil so I could get a half hour of peace to sob on the couch while eating ice cream and watching The Price Is Right. But it also amazed me because I think *she* makes it look so easy — she has two kids the same ages as mine, but her older son is quite a bit more, shall we say, *active* than my son, and I could never cope with the constant need for supervision, time outs, and mess-cleanup.

So I guess when it’s your own situation, you find a way to deal, and someone else’s different situation always seems harder because you have nothing in your bag of tricks for that one. Huh.

I feel alive with life wisdom! Someday I’ll tell my kids this anecdote many, many times over and drive them bonkers.

Have you seen Singles?

On Friday evening Sir Monkeypants flipped the TV to a CSI rerun then promptly fell asleep on the couch. I should have gone to bed too but instead I stayed up watching the show, which was especially stupid because I really, really hate CSI. It’s not a matter of just not liking the show; watching it actually angers me.

This episode was no different. It was about a roller coaster that comes off the track and kills the people on board. I was intrigued because there were only five people in the coaster, but six dead bodies — someone had been killed earlier and the body had mixed in with the coaster crash. I thought they’d come up with some clever way that the killer used the crash as a cover up for the first murder, but NO, OF COURSE NOT. In the end it turned out that it was PURE COINCIDENCE that the coaster HAPPENED to land on the very car containing the very body that the murderer (and also the coaster sabateour) had killed hours earlier. AS IF!

On top of that there were at least three scenes in which the CSI people questioned/confronted suspects with NO POLICE PRESENT. I hate that crap. It’s one thing to create a show like Buffy or Star Trek that is pure fantasy, but years of experience with cop shows has shown the world that there are, like, DETECTIVES involved when there’s a murder. GACK!

Three days later and I’m still angry enough to make a post full of capital letters at 4 o’clock in the morning. I really, really should not stay up late watching CSI any more.

I love Entertainment Weekly. A few years ago they had a massive “Pop Culture Quiz” that I was obsessed with. It was so popular that they now have a mini-quiz every other week on their back page.

This year is their 15th anniversary so they will be devoting their back-page quizzes to specific years, starting in 1990.

Here’s this week’s 1990 quiz, which drove me crazy as everything sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite remember most of the answers. Enjoy!

1. In November 1990, the Grammy committee took back the Best New Artist award they had given to Milli Vanilli after it turned out the duo had not sung a single note on their album. What was the name of this album?

2. Everyone knows that TV’s The Simpsons is set in a town called Springfield. But on what street does America’s favourite yellow-skinned family live?

3. Which of these celebs did NOT have a talk show in 1990? Chevy Chase, Pat Sajak, Arsenio Hall, or Joan Rivers?

4. What was the name of Mary McDonnell’s character in Dances With Wolves?

5. Name the two long-maned brothers who fronted the group Nelson.

6. Who was the canine member of the Bush family who “wrote” a best-selling book about living in the White House?

7. Edith Fore, a 74-year-old retired nurse, uttered what famous seven words on a TV ad that soon became a national catchphrase?

8. What was the name of the silent propulsion system that powered the titular Russian submarine in The Hunt For Red October?

9. Julia Roberts followed up her success in Pretty Woman with what movie (in which she met her then boyfriend Kiefer Sutherland)?

10. What character was NOT a recurring character on Twin Peaks? The Log Lady, BOB, The Coffee Man, or The Giant?

Captain Jelly Belly told his first joke yesterday.

He likes this show called Peep and The Big Wide World, which features a yellow chick (Peep), a blue duck (Quack), and a red robin (Chirp). Every day for the past two months, we have colouring time, and he asks me to draw a picture of the three main characters. I always ask him what colour to use for each — for example, he’ll say, “Peep?” and I’ll say, “What colour is Peep?” and he’ll say “Yellow!” and so I’ll draw a yellow Peep.

Yesterday this same exchange happened for the millionith time, but when I asked what colour to use for Peep — and was already reaching for the yellow crayon — he said, “Red!!” then burst out laughing.

Because the very idea of a red chick is just so hilarious.

Hee hee hee!

Today Captain Jelly Belly, who is very into colour identification, pointed to his teeth and said, “White.”

Then he pointed to Sir Monkeypants’ teeth, and said, “Yellow.”

This morning Sir Monkeypants was despairing that his brain isn’t big enough to retain all the memories of all the great moments of his life. So for his benefit, I relate here the incident that led to his lamenting.

I was putting on some Chapstick, and the Captain asked for it, because there’s nothing he likes better than little tubes of stuff, lip balm in particular. Sir Monkeypants asked the Captain for some, and the Captain “applied” the Chapstick (with the lid still on, and quite possibly using the wrong end) to Sir Monkeypants’ lips, which was just adorable.

And then, as he is wont to do with things he really, really loves, Captain Jelly Belly put the Chapstick down on the floor and ran around it in circles while giggling. Usually he chants the name of the item he is running around but he’s not too good at saying “lip balm.”

And so Sir Monkeypants sat the Captain down on the floor, and ran around him in circles chanting the Captain’s name.

Awwww.

I thought, while I was sharing my favourite baby words of wisdom in the post below, I’d also share my favourite wedding words of wisdom.

Many, many years ago, we attended the wedding of our pals SmokingToaster and CapnPlanet. At the wedding CapnPlanet gave a speech in which he quoted his older sister, Susan. Susan had, at the time, been married for 10 years, so CapnPlanet asked her what the secret was to a successful union. She said, “The first five years…they were really hard. The next five years…well, they were pretty hard too.”

Funny but also oh, so true. I’ve never forgotten that phrase and I haul it out every time Sir Monkeypants and I have a tiff. It’s just a little reminder that getting married is just the start of the story — that keeping a happy marriage going takes a lot of work.

That said, I think I might amend the quote for future generations to be, “The first year was really, really hard. The remaining years settled down into just really hard.”

When we had the Captain, we got lots of advice, some of it good, most of it bad, and a bit of it downright scary. The best words of wisdom we got, in my opinion, came from our good friend Chantal. She’s the mother of three boys and also has been boss/mentor to both me and Sir Monkeypants at various times in the past 10 years, and we adore her.

Anyway, she came to visit me in the hospital on the day that the Captain was born, and I told her I was already overwhelmed at the newness and the responsibility and the feelings of inadequacy. And she said sympathetically, “The first four months are the hardest.” And I totally freaked out, thinking that I wasn’t going to survive the first week if I didn’t come up with a master plan and fail-safe schedule, let alone four months.

But Chantal was so, so right. It takes about four months to really get to know your baby — what her cries mean, what her preferred routine is. After four months or so, you finally start to feel like you’re falling into a rhythm. Many, many times in the first four months of the Captain’s life, I repeated that phrase to myself — “The first four months are the hardest.” It got me through late night feedings, days when napping just did not go well, times of great barfing, and times of great crying. Just saying the phrase over and over kept me sane.

I was a lot calmer with Gal Smiley but I still found myself returning to the phrase a few times for comfort. Gal Smiley will be four months old next week, so I’m pretty happy and proud to say that I made it this far yet again. And indeed, things are just now starting to feel like I can manage to get through a day with relative predictability.

Chantal came over a couple of weeks ago and we told her the Captain was beginning to show signs of willfulness, and she nodded sagely and said, “Around age 4, that magically all goes away.” Now that’s my new child care mantra: whenever the Captain is cranky, or whiny, or screamy, a little voice in my head says, “Around age 4, this magically all goes away.” And all is well.

Thanks, Chantal!

Yesterday I chipped one of my two front teeth. I was repairing my son’s beloved stuffed monkey, Big Wheel, and I stupidly pulled on a stuck needle with my teeth.

(The monkey survived surgery just fine. He is recovering nicely at home.)

I’m wondering what I should do about it. It doesn’t hurt although the edge is sharp, and I worry about doing further damage if I bite into something hard. Also, although Sir Monkeypants assures me that it’s barely noticeable, I feel self-concious about it. Should I dash to my dentist for repairs? If so, what kind of repair?

Keep in mind that I have crappy luck with dentists, at least here in Ottawa. My first in-town dentist convinced me to having a “polishing” for my fillings, which caused them all to immediately loosen and require replacement. I was pretty peeved so I ditched him. Dentist #2 replaced all my fillings, but one of them started to hurt so much that, after two more replacements, I finally went for a root canal. Turned out that tooth was cracked, and I’m not sure whether Dentist #1 or Dentist #2 was responsible.

A couple of years ago Dentist #2 retired so I started seeing Dentist #3. He discovered one of my fillings was chipped, which personally I think was caused by the hygenist, who was a little too enthusiastic with the plaque scraping. Anyway, he replaced that filling, which immediately started to hurt, and I was such a huge baby about it (as Sir Monkeypants can attest) that I had to go in for an emergency appointment that night to have it filed down. Now Sir Monkeypants calls him “The Butcher.”

Hm…do I really want The Butcher fixing my newly chipped tooth? Won’t my future modelling career be in jeopardy either way?