Trick or freak

The closest I got this year to dressing up for Halloween was getting my hair all chopped off. While I know it is going to take alot of getting used to (my hair was quite long), it is a nice change. The one really good thing about changing my appearance at this stage of my life is that I don't have to worry about what guys will think or if I will still be able to get a date. Poor Ken is in it for better or worse, and when I told him the hair might all come off, he just rolled his eyes, because that is what I say EVERY time I go to the hairdressers. Happy Halloween honey!!! My new do caused quite a stir at the office. You'd think I shaved my head by the reaction I got from my co-workers. They all said they liked it. My girlfriend M's reaction when I e-mailed her and told her that I got it all whacked off AND got bangs was "NO WAY!!!". I am sure she still doesn't believe me.

The one thing I hate about Halloween (besides dressing up) is all the old kids that come to the house at about 8:30 pm, essentially demanding candy OR ELSE. Because I am not a big fan of smashed pumpkins or dried egg residue on my windows I oblige. I hope those turds enjoy the year old glosette raisin packs that I save each year for the next years batch of bozos.

Ok, now that I have that out, the kiddos had a fantastic time this year with halloween. Ethan especially enjoyed it, and oh what manners my kid has. Just after "trick-or-treat" he would say "now give me my candy please" in his oh-so-cute-and-I-am-only-three-can-you-believe-it voice. At least he said thank-you.

We did have to prepare him for his first "real" trick or treat experience this year. You see, in past years, we have only gone to the neighbours homes (two of them), and because they are retired folk, they shower extra goodies on both boys. They actually give them goodie bags with candy & chocolate and PRESENTS. So when Ethan finally realized that he would be going trick-or-treating to more than just two houses this year, his eyes lit up and he just about peed his pants thinking of all the "presents" he would bring home. I quickly brought him down to earth explaining to him that he would get one small candy for each home he went to. Well, after looking through his loot bag tonight, it seems that I am the cheapest assed candy giver in all of Vancouver. He can't quite figure out how he got such a bag full of loot when he only went to about 6 houses. Go figure.

So of course I have the requisite pictures of both boys. Oh, and check out my pumpkins. I am quite impressed with myself. Ken is not so impressed that I used his drill to do the holes in the small pumpkins.


Nicholas was not liking his costume too much.




Ethan's new favourite thing to do... "Trick-or-treat!"


THIS is how I got a bag full of loot!



Awwwww.....



My pumpkins.

I'm famous! Well, kinda sorta...ok, not really.

I have Rick Mercer's blog as one of my links to the side on your right. He is a very funny Canadian who, in addition to making all kinds of fun of our politicians (and yes, Canadian politics is a joke, but I digress...) loves to challenge his readers to photoshop various pics he puts on his blog. My contribution was the wardrobe malfunction. The scary guy's face is our Prime Minister...

Mmmmm.....

There is a new coffee shop going up near my work. That makes SEVEN within a one-block radius of my office door. None of them are chains either - they are all small, independent very expensive coffee shops. And they are flourishing. Man, us government workers must drink alot of coffee.

It is ironic that just as this new coffee shop is starting, I am thinking about going off of coffee, and drinking alot more water. A few months ago before my brother got married, I was bound and determined to lose a huge amount of weight so I could be waif-like (yeah, I know, 5'10 waif - in my dreams). I lost almost 15 pounds, and as of July 31st, not another ounce has come off, and I am still "dieting". I have actually changed the way I eat for the most part, and most days I do really well. I am trying not to make it a chore or hard to do, so when I crave something, I have it. Unfortunately, I think my body has fixated itself on my current weight, and no matter what I do, it seems that it isn't making a hill of beans of difference (unless someone is screwing with my scale....)

I read somewhere that if you drink lots and lots of water, it will help with the weight loss. I figure that since the can is exactly 104 steps from my desk at work, all that exercise going to the bathroom will burn enough calories to see that last 10-15 just melt away.

Gee thanks honey.

As of right now we are just over 11 days away from Halloween. And thanks to my beloved, we have 3.3 kg (for my friends south of the 49th, that is 7.27 pounds) of chocolate in the house. 245 little candy bars screaming to be eaten, no matter where I hide them. That is about 23 pieces of candy per day until Halloween. I think the kids in the neighbourhood are going to be very, very disappointed when the knock at our door this year. Maybe we'll just hand out bottled water.



I'll post pics of my fat, chocolate filled gut later.

A day of firsts.

Today was a day of firsts. For both Ethan and Nicholas. It all started out this morning with Ethan's preschool - and his first ever show-and-tell. So last night Ethan and I sat down and we talked about what he wanted to take to preschool to show all his new friends. I suggested the usual - cars, trains, teddy bears, mom's catalog of photos she sells to pawn off on said friends parents, etc. Ethan decided pretty quickly what he wanted to take. Nicky. Now I know this is HIS decision, but I tried to explain to him that Nicky wouldn't fit in the show-and-tell bag (well, maybe he would if I folded him in half...). Ethan didn't care. He wanted to bring his brother. So we put a picture of Nicky in the show and tell bag, and when I dropped him off this morning I told his teacher what Ethan wanted and she told us to come back early and she would move show-and-tell to the end of the class so Ethan could show off his brother. So that is what we did. Ethan had a great time, and if I was smart I would have brought my camera....to remind them when they are beating the crap out of each other of what a sweet thing they did when they were young. I did take my camera out today when we went to the park though....







Nicholas had a couple of firsts today. He said the word "cank coo" this morning (translation - "thank you"). Now he has been saying thank you for months. But instead of the words, he has been signing and saying the word "hot". When he first learned some sign language, he got the sign for "hot" and "thank you" mixed up. So he would sign the right sign, but say the wrong word. But we knew what it meant and it was so darned cute...

Nicholas' second first of the day was that he ate meat. And carrots. And potatoes. And red peppers. ALL AT ONCE. Now, for a child who is very picky, and the only meat he eats with any regularity is garlic sausage (translation - pigs lips & assholes) this was a BIG thing. I made a Malaysian curry and cleaned out the fridge, threw it all in the crockpot and voila...he LOVED it. Woo hoo.

Some like it hot...

What I wouldn't give to be on a beach, swimming in the ocean, just being WARM again. Sigh. This is about the best I can do right now - Hawaii, 2003. Enjoy.

Chinese Immersion

I have read quite a bit on kid development and how little baby's brains are just sponges ready to absorb anything and everything around them. Case in point - just utter the word "holy shit" once and it is a permanant part of their limited language. Funny how every word coming out of Nicholas' cute little mouth is almost impossible to decipher, except those he knows damned well he shouldn't be saying in the presence of his older brother's preschool teacher.

I think I have mentioned before that my sons both understand quite a bit of Chinese, even though they don't speak it. It is quite amusing to watch my in-laws talk to the boys in a language that makes absoultely no sense to me, and yet they understand it perfectly. What is even more amusing is when they "forget" that I am caucasian, and speak to me in Chinese for several sentences before they figure out that I don't understand a thing coming out of their mouthes. Believe it or not it has happened more than once. I kind of think of it as a complement really, I have blended in pretty well with the family. I think it must be my chopstick handling and ability to inhale every single Chinese food item my mother-in-law sets in front of me. So I had to chuckle the other day when I came across this photo.




Apparently, this dog's owners up and left, and the SPCA soon figured out that this dog's first language was not English. He was raised in a Chinese household, so the typical "sit" "stay" and "don't shit on the neighbour's lawn" means absoultely nothing.

Did you even look at yourself before you walked out of the house?

I have often wondered what people are thinking when they dress themselves in the morning and step out of the house. It is like there were no mirrors in the place, and stuff was just haphazardly thrown together in the hopes (or not) that everything would look ok. On days that I go into work and have to interact with people who, generally speaking, can string more than four-word-sentences together and cut their own food, I try to look halfway decent. The sweats and ball cap that are my usual uniform when I have children in tow are cast aside three days of the week for more stylish (or so I thought) attire. I actually comb my hair, put on make-up, and give the facade that I might actually know what I am doing when it comes to blending into the adult world.

So last week, with my poker straight hair (I love to iron it out as it is naturally curly, and in this Vancouver rain it may as well be a brillo pad), carefully applied face paint and newly purchased outfit, I thought I was lookin pretty stylin. I even had a few complements at work. Nice. It happened to be the kickoff day for United Way fundraising, so there was lots of food and cameras around (for once, I was not behind said cameras). Yesterday while checking my work e-mail, there was a post from one of the organizers and photo takers, providing a link to a page where there were a few pics posted of the day's festivities.

How is it that I can look in the mirror, think I look ok and somewhat human, yet look like complete and utter crap in a picture? It was like the camera was playing a bad joke and purposely distorted how I looked just to piss me off. What's worse, everyone else in the photo looked fine. YIKES. Maybe I should be taking a better look at myself before I step out of the house.

So easily amused...

In the past couple of weeks it is like a switch has been flipped, and our warm days have been replaced by cool wet weather. This is my favourite time of year (minus the rain of course) when the leaves are all changing colour and everything is just so beautiful.

So we have gone from tearing up the living room couch to making a royal mess outside with the freshly raked leaves. Oh the fun these two had!

The SNIP

Last week Ken had an appointment with one of the leading doctors in the area about his happy sack and man tubes (I couldn't come up with a comical name myself, so I stole from this guy). Ken called me when he got to the clinic, and I could hear the fear in his voice. He said there were a number of men with ashen faces and walking as not to disturb their newly tender, non-sperm containing jewels. Ken was just having a consultation, but for a brief moment he thought that perhaps that was going to be the first day of the rest of his "I'm shooting blanks" life.

I for one, have zero sympathy. The procedure that this particular doctor uses involves no needles and no scalpels and NO STITCHES. It takes only eight minutes. He gets drugs to numb the area before the procedure and copious drugs afterwards to deal with the "pain". Yes I am being mean. This is coming from somone who had hours upon hours of labour with both pregnancies, NO DRUGS to "numb the area" before the birth (even though I begged with child number two), and a few pills afterwards to deal with the PAIN.

Hospitals in our area used to supply all kinds of things for mothers and babies after a birth. Now, they supply very little. I believe my "aftercare" package came with two industrial sized pads, some flimsy mesh paper underwear, and TWO pain pills. Here is a detailed list of the "Vasectomy Supply Kit" that Ken will get after the snip:

- Antibacterial clenser to wash the scrotum nightly for three nights before the snip.
- A man thong to wear for a week after "surgery"
- Gauze
- Anibiotic ointment
- 16 tablets of extra strength tylenol
- 24 tablets of anti-inflammatories
- Gel packs for icing the scrotum.

I must admit though, Ken is being a trooper about the whole thing. In his words he is "taking one for the team". Not like I gave him a choice in the matter.

The not so Amazing Race

Is anyone else ready to give up on this show yet? I have been loving the AR since it began, but come on, if this is just a trek across the US, then I am turning the tube off.

Sigh. It sucks not having cable. Choices are pretty limited!

My kid makes more than me.

Today Nicholas was at a photoshoot for a company that makes kids shoes. Ken has a friend who works for this company (which I can't name right now, but will once the pics come out) and they were looking for kids, and having children that are "ethnically diverse" was a big bonus. I tell ya, my kiddo will have famous legs one day - I don't think they took more than a handful of shots of his whole body - but must have taken a hundred or so of his feet. Can one tell if a child is ethnically diverse by his legs?

He made a bit of coin (more than I make in an hour for about 10 minutes of work) and got a couple of pairs of shoes out of the deal. Not too shabby. All he had to do was play in a bunch of sand and keep his legs still. He thought he was in heaven. Oh yeah, they fed him too. The sand was delicious.

Ethan is up on Wednesday. He has pretty cute legs too.