Sarah - 19
Miss - 16
Mr. Lady - 23
Ashley - 18
Hockeyman - 18
Colleen - 13
A Whole Lot of Nothing - 17
Secret Agent Mama - 17
Red Food Colouring - 15
The Planet of Janet - 22
Vancityrockgirl - 18
Eve Grey - 17
Maria - 19

For those who are not finding the pattern automatically in the numbers - rent Pi; and hold off on your Mensa application (pattern recognition is a sign of high genius, I’m not just being a snarky bitch) - and celebrate Mr. Lady’s triumphant win. Sarah, Janet and Maria, I need your addresses too, for a consolation prize!

Thanks for playing, kids.

Speaking of playing…

A cautionary tale.

Please promise me that you will never see something wrong with your theme or blog platform and go, “Hey, you know what? I’m just going to reinstall Wordpress and then restore my shit and it will all work out wonderfully.”

Because, if you’re me, it won’t and your entire blog will disappear. All 207 posts, five pages, 23 categories, and 2011 comments. And you will stuck in a tiny, over-crowded apartment with a toddler who hasn’t napped and has attempted to live her last 24 hours solely on chocolate, candy and juice. And you might just lose your shit a little.

But then, say you were to ignore my advice, hopefully a knight in shining armour would be online and you could hand him whatever identity he needed, to wherever and BAM! He will have fixed it. Personally, I find that much more romantic than flowers. A man that can fix my blog.

Wait. I take that back. I’m going to declare myself an eFeminist. Ya, that’s it…

But for now, how about a nice, old fashioned head-explosion. Here’s how you can guarantee yourself to see Zoeyjane’s brains:

• Make her stay up until almost 3am cleaning the night before moving;
• Wake her up at 7am;
• Have a toddler who wakes up late, like, when she should already be at the babysitter’s house, clean and fed and dressed;
• Then make the movers half an hour late;
• Make sure they don’t speak English;
• Except make sure they can speak enough to complain about how many stairs her building has;
• Make sure they’re also bad drivers, who almost take out three different signs on the sidewalk outside her new building;
• And that it takes them five hours to move her one-bedroom apartment’s furnishings a block;
• Her new suite? It should be unfinished. The ceiling will still need repair, the appliances will be unclean, the stove and oven (which she needs to cook and bake tomorrow for Isobel’s birthday party on Saturday) will have nary a temperature gauge on it, a window will be missing blinds, and just for fun, the bathroom sink will be clogged with what seems to be potting soil;
• Then let her tetris all of her furniture around into a semi-livable way, only to find out the next day that everything has to move, for the internet to be hooked up to the correct sockets;
• Let her notice, suddenly, that she only has five cupboards in the kitchen. For everything. Make two of those cupboards the width of your hand;
• Also draw to her attention that of the three little closets she has, two are basically unusable;
• Who needs a room temperature above five degrees? Not Zoeyjane, cuz she’s living in an igloo, apparently;
• Put Isobel to bed an hour late, with a bleedingly-heinous diaper rash, after a day with no nap, with six or seven bug bites, on a fireworks night;
• Let her unpack in silence and floor squeaking bliss, listening to Portishead and occassionally sneaking downstairs for a half-smoke, but then, remind her that everything will have to move tomorrow and that she can’t take out her moving garbage with Isobel in tow. Suggest she store said empty boxes and bags of newspaper in the bathtub, where Isobel will not eff with them until they can go out;
• Let her miss the Internet, looking forward to the morning when the techician will come to hook it up. Then tell her no technician’s coming (so she really doesn’t have to wait around all day, like she’s about to do with a super cranky, whiny child), but that the company will Purolator a modem to her, at five fucking pm;
• Let her go to bed at 2am, having been awake for (counts on fingers) 19 hours. Allow her a comforting mug of hot chocolate and bowl of ramen. Only to wake up with…

Fifteen fucking red welts on her leg.

The kind of welts that only two things can cause: fleas or bed bugs. My neighbourhood has it’s own fucking page on the Bed Bug Registry, what’s how infested it is. And I have no pets, nor have seen anything jumping around. Guess whose assuming it’s bed bugs and FingTFO?

Ironically, all I want to do is go to bed.

Now, I have to go plan a fucking birthday party that’s probably going to get rained out. Pass Mommy the vodka, please.

Poop meaning moving stuff.

And rain and cloudy skies. And sorry, but it was crazy enough that I was going to do the half naked show in the sun, I’m definitely not doing it on a virtually hottie-less beach when it’s 15 degrees and cloudy. But I did still get all whorey-looking. Just for yous.

I could still go through with the contest, but that would mean holding onto the shirt for even longer, and that’s just not fair, considering that it will lower the number of potential contestants for the end-of-year prize.

[For the record, my boobs normally look way better than that. Ahem.]

So here’s the deal, yo. You leave me a comment with your bestest answers to the following. Each response will be scored on a 1-5 scale, giving a final score for each entry. Answers will be scored based on wit, calculated cruelty, blunt and self-esteem-damaging honesty, creativity and the always important compliment factor.

I’ll announce the winner and post the final scores when I have internet service again - likely on the evening of the 31st. The winner takes the shirt and the next top three will get a special pressie from me. If you don’t want the shirt, still enter and let me know cuz I will totally send you something good* if you win.

Your questions (blanks can be filled in with as many damn words as you want):

1. Zoeyjane ___________________ too much.
2. Isobel is the __________________________.
3. Moving sucks ________________________.
4. If I won a million dollars on the same day I found out I was going to die in a month, I would _______________________________.
5. I write a blog. This means I’m ____________________.

* Hint, hint: it may have something to do with being naked.

The shit has been hitting the fan recently. Momentous, heart-attack causing incidents have been followed by solutions that are often better. Case in point?

Picture it: Friday night, about 11:30pm. I was online (of course) and get an email from my movers telling me that [long story short] cuz of a miscommunication, they’ve booked my moving slot on the 31st with another customer - did I still want the 1st? But. But. I have to be out of my apartment by 1pm on the 31st! What the hell am I going to do now?

I start freaking out, picturing asking a friend if we can stay with her family on the night of the 31st, if her mom will let us rent a truck on her credit card, if she can babysit and her husband can help me load up the truck and then park it at their building.

Next day, a panicked message to my new landlord about whether it would be okay to move in early, since the movers responded to my thinly veiled bitchiness with the offer of an earlier date. Landlord says sure, fine.

The world is a wonderful place.

This was going somewhere.

This morning, first thing (ish), I called the utilities providers to switch my account to the new place. Power? No problem. Even a lower rate at the new place, by like $8 a month. The phone/internet provider? I might want to hack them up into little pieces. Because the soonest they could have a technician out to hook up my service would be the 8th.

Um. I’m moving on the 30th. Wanna take bets on how long I could let that go, not being able to sit on the internet and do nothing, all night (and day)? Yeah, about 2 hours. Oh, and the kicker was that another technician would have to come to disconnect the service at this suite - and the soonest that could happen is the 5th.

So. I FTFO. I plurked it. I steamed and smoked. Honestly, I even kicked Isobel’s doggy, but don’t tell her that. I was a little upset.

Then I called the complete and hugest fall back provider, ever. And they offered me a free laptop, a phone bundle that gives me three services for the price of one and long distance, a free modem and a technician will come set it all up for me. On the 31st.

So ladies and gents (I see you two, lurking in the shadows), you won’t see me on plurk for pretty much all of the 30th and some large amount of the 31st. But, it’s not a nine-day hiatus, so, let’s all try to be okay with it, alright?

Now that we know you’re cool, let me bore you.

I now have two and a half days to pack and clean my apartment before the movers arrive.

I was counting on having all of JDawg’s visit to work on it today, but unfortunately, he needed to go to the doctor and I volunteered to go with them, knowing Isobel would be a handful for him alone. He hurt his knee somehow and it’s been getting worse each day, so today he finally decided he had to get it checked - during visit time.

Sigh.

I still ended up having about three hours, so I got almost all of my kitchen packed. Still left is food and Isobel’s dishes and the bare minimum that I’ll need for the next two days. Which includes a coffee mug and my shot glass.

Then I was all in a tizzy. Cuz me and starting and stopping just don’t mix. So Isobel had some quiet time with Toopie and I got some more stuff accomplished. After which I chucked her in the bathtub with some toys and bubbles - while I washed the walls in the bathroom. She’s self cleaning, you see. Walls are not.

I haven’t finished painting her nightstands yet. It’s a bit of a job to do when you can only tackle it in the evenings - and evenings are generally for Plurking. Truly, only one coat, on one of the two, is done. But I don’t expect to have everything accomplished upon move-in, anyways. It’ll be a long, piecemeal road.

So, onto more work. Tonight, I’ll get at least a load of laundry (of the two that remain) done, the bathroom finished and start on finishing the kitchen cleaning.

In the morning, what’s my first goal after making a cup of coffee and having half a smoke? Getting a babysitter for this week’s mornings, so I can just plow through.

Yup, told ya I’d be back. While you did not slap me across the face today, you did bite me in the shoulder, kick my shins a few times and poke me in the eye repeatedly with your sunglasses. I think this was an improvement. Obviously, I’m lowering the bar, here, honey.

So, in honour of your second birthday, I’m going to talk about who you are today. Because it seems like I woke up a short while ago and you were a person and not just a reflection of myself, at your age. And though I realize that you’ve always been your own person, I see so much less of myself or your father in you now. I see you.

You know what you want, when you want it and you want it now. So much so that I cannot tell you what the future holds because you will expect the chicken to be cooked, your dad to walk in the door or a birthday party at that moment.

When you’re making a choice - and you make a lot of choices, for a two year old, I think - you will put your finger to your pursed lips and say, “um.” This just started about two days ago, but it’s one of the cutest quirks I’ve seen, to date. I have no idea where you learned to mull things over in such a way, nor so carefully. But to you, whether you have milk or a juice box is very important and requires about 30 seconds of decision making. This shows me that you’re not ready to drive or operate dangerous machinery, yet.

You’re a slave to routine but totally against having decisions made for you. You’d like to decide your routine, it seems. Now, we both know that if we let that happen, your day would be something like this: Dora, Princesses, Toopie, juice box, OUTSIDE, Toopie, change bum, juice box, milk, milk, OUTSIDE, milk, apple sauce, Dora, Jungle Book, OUTSIDE, ‘donalds and Princesses. We can’t let that happen, or your toddler-required quota of Blue’s Clues and goldfish would never be met. And I want you to grow. As long as I don’t have to carry you around as much.

You really hate going in a stroller now, but you’re not that into walking. So I end up carrying you all over the place, sometimes with you leaning waaaaay out and other times with her head on my shoulder, making me feel like the most important thing in the world to you. Except for your doggies, that is. And Dora. And Princesses. Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead.

Spitting has become pretty standard. Not in a cute tomboy going up to bat kind of way, but in a way that seems one step away from a hiss. Usually if someone gets in your face after you’ve shown them your raspberry, they’re in for some sort of brawl. You slap, kick, punch, poke, pinch (which you seem to equate with being itchy and it does not help, for the record), bite ocassionally and throw things at other kids or me or your father.

We’re working on using our words instead of bodies. And I say to you a lot, “don’t hit me, I never hit you. Tell me what you would like.” What’s made it semi-entertaining is when you’ve gone to play with Sprite, and her mom (who is one of two women you call Mommy, me not being one of them.) and I are dishing in the kitchen and we hear the two of you. You’ve such similar and conflicting personalities, you want the same things at the same time and aren’t afraid to stand up for it. There’s a lot of tug wars and “Go AWAY”s. So HCM taught you how to say nicely, “go away, please” when Sprite was in your space, so you wouldn’t yell it and she wouldn’t react to you yelling at her negatively. You sing-songing “go away, please” is so sweet, I forget to start telling you it’s rude.

You’re sleeping better, when you choose to sleep. This means you’ve decided that naps are pretty much a waste of your time, though you will sit fairly happily with 14 toys, five books and four ‘friends’ in your crib with you for a couple of hours sometimes. This also means a fairly predictable melt down around dinner time, so that’s when I’m guaranteed to start counting down to bedsies. Sorry, about that. But when you have your own kiddos, you’ll know.

I know that I’m going to be pretty screwed over for that quiet time when you move into your big girl bed, soon. I’m half-heartedly hoping that you just won’t take to the bed, yet, and I won’t have to worry about you pounding on your bedroom door, saying, “Mama, I want to get out.” Because you are not much of a quiet time kid. Sitting and watching a movie without dancing and leaping and climbing just doesn’t happen. It’s cool, you’ve gotta move, I get that. I’ve, contrarily, gotta sit.

You’ve pretty much cut bread out of your diet. This means all other forms of bread products, too. No crackers, rice cakes, pitas, toast, pancakes…all of the foods that you used to love that would make your poop easy to clean up. Cuz I invariably end up eating whatever you don’t, you eat meat and produce and I eat bread, crackers and rice cakes. This is killing my waistline, honey. It’s gotta stop.

I switched you to rice milk from the kind that comes from a ‘moo.’ About that. Why won’t you say ‘cow’? I know you can. You just refuse. What’s up with that? Anyway. Since switching you, you haven’t gotten one more ear infection, which means no more antibioltics, which has finally led to a lack of bleeding, raw toddler ass. I think we’re both feeling happy about that. And I buy the vanilla kind, since I know you get off on the sweetness.

You’ve been asking for candy lately, never having had it. Well, you’ve had these organic fruit juice bears that we get at the health food store. And those, to you, are candy. You have no idea how much I hold onto that on those days when I feel like a horrible mother. That you don’t know what real candy is. And that you know mama needs a coffee every time we leave the house.

But, just to throw it out there, you do know the great lust that is sugar addiction. You love the icing from the mini cupcake I will buy for you once a week and you recognize the taste of chocolate, even if it’s in a smoothie format. You’re no so much into cake and a cookie is only oatmeal raisin, to you, but you do know junk food. Just in a modified form. Like brown rice chips, instead of potato; protein smoothies instead of milkshakes; Power Bars instead of chocolate bars.

The addiction that I really must argue with is the dresses. You are not a, how should I put this?, clean child. You think nothing of wearing your Princess Dress in the sand at the beach and dumping a smoothie all over it. I’m not a pretreater and never will be - it takes too much time, commitment and space - and at this rate, you’re not going to own one dress without a stain on the chest and/or ass. it kind of defeats the girly fashion look - just sayin’.

And speaking of chests. Why have you suddenly become fascinated by my boobs? You’ve always been into my bras. And why not? You could fit one side perfectly right over your face! But my boobs? You haven’t breatfed for two days short of a year now - why did they suddenly reappear on your radar? It’s not like you’re seeking nourishment, you just want to grab and poke and cup them, but uh…well, you gave them back to me. Get your own.

What else is so great about you? You learn so much stuff every day. Every hour, it seems. Colours and names and faces and even haircuts. You’ve taught yourself how to use possessive Ss and you will ask for whatever you want or need. You will also yell (or sing - see above) whatever you don’t want. Usually followed by throwing something, spitting or hitting - but hey, you’re getting there.

You’re the most social two year old I’ve ever witnessed. That’s not bragging or being your biased mom. I’ve never seen a toddler who spends 90% of her time with her mother who was so willing to love others. You play with other kids, especially older ones - getting along best with 3 to 4 year olds. You love their moms and you gasp babies’ names in awe of their fragility. You are so damn easy when it comes to socializing, it astounds me.

You teach me on a daily basis. And that’s exactly what I wanted. To be a guide and to be guided. To teach and be taught. To learn what you are capable of and what I am. Every day you challenge, captivate and awe me. To me, even if you are a little evil, sometimes, you are perfect. Why?

Because you’re you and you’ve made me Me.

I love you so much my heart hurts,
Mama

Today, at 5:40am, you turned two. You’ve been two spiritually for about 11 months, but at that time, your body caught up with your soul. I could start off witha deluge of memories from the duration of your life. I could create a photo collage of all of your best images - even those from when you still looked like an angry, old man. Worse, I could talk about what I want for you in the next year.

I’m not sure why it’s worse to me, but it has something to do with plans never coming to fruition and me being a big, fat liar. I don’t want to break any promises or oaths to you.

So I will write about who you are today and what you can accomplish and the emotion you stir in me.

Tomorrow. When we’re both happier with each other. Because today, when I sang you ‘Happy Birthday’ first thing in the morning and you slapped me across the face…it kind of set us up for a crappy day.

I still love you, even though you’re such a meanie, sometimes.

And I acknowledge that I am, too.

Love,

Mama