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Leave your toes alone!
We have an apointment tomorrow afternoon to have some professional pictures taken of Jake. We've been meaning to do this for ages - like, since he was born - and I can't quite account for why we haven't done it. So I've chosen an outfit for him of shorts and a tshirts. I want to see his chubby bare legs and adorable toes! No socks or shoes.
This plan may get thrown out the window though if the little guy won't look up at the camera because he's too busy playing with his toes. Last summer, when his toes were frequently bare, he was too young to appreciate them. Recently, he's had socks or one-piece pyjamas on so his toes have been fairly elusive to him.
But after a bath or if he just happens to be sock-less, his toes are of great interest to him, so we'll see about the bare feet in the photo.
Think of me tomorrow afternoon, waving a toy around and shouting, "Jake! Look up here, honey! Leave your toes alone!"
The wonderful thing about Tiggers...
Stephen and I took Jake to get his photo taken today and it was quite the affair. Don't let anyone ever tell you that photographing a one-year old is easy!
When we arrived, I changed him into a tshirt and shorts and stripped him of his shoes and socks. In fresh new clothes and fluffy clean hair, he looked absolutely adorable and I brimmed with pride. We chose a background for the first picture - a Spring-like scene with grass and flowers - and sat him up on the table. The photographer surrounded him with fake foliage and the process began.
I predicted yesterday that I wouldn't be able to divert his attention from his toes but I was sorely mistaken. His toes were, I'm sure, the last thing on his mind. Instead, he stared at the photographer, then at me or Stephen, and looked utterly confused. I waved toys around, I coo'ed and jumped up and down, I hid my face behind my hands and cried 'boo' as I revealed it... Hell, I even sang the Tigger song. Do you think we could get the child to smile? Not on your life.
Seven photos were taken in all and we got a bit of a half-smile in only one of them. The rest are of a very serious-faced Jake. Just a wide-eyed, shocked kinda look.
We finally gave up and chose two of the photos; the half-smiling photo and an adorable picture of Jake in a cowboy hat. It's going to take three weeks to get the photos back (we pick them up on May 24th) and I'll post them here as soon as they're scanned.
The cowboy one is hilarious but ever-so-cute!
Ouch!
See that bruise in the middle of my forehead? That happened yesterday. I wanted Ruth's dessert plate (I don't know why), so I grabbed it and tried to pull it away from her. I pulled and pulled and eventually Ruth lost her grip. Unfortunately, my head was right there and it smacked me right in the middle of the forehead. I cried... a lot.
But I'm feeling better now and I'm back to my mischievous self.
But if you feel so-inclined, 'get well' cards and gifts can be sent to...
Mother's Day over here
It's Mother's Day here in Canada on Sunday and I will get to celebrate my second official Mother's Day. I say 'official' because I've been a stepmother longer than that.
So Stephen, the girls and Jake have all gone out shopping, which makes me feel special. That leaves me home all by my lonesome. So I've cracked open a beer and gotten into my pyjamas. It's only 4:09pm, but what the hell.
(I suppose that I should explain why I'm in my pjs so early. I made lasagna earlier and I managed to splatter tomato sauce all over myself. Knowing that I had to get changed after cooking, I couldn't think of anything more comfy to wear. But what does that say about me? It's Friday evening and I'm in my pyjamas at just past 4pm...)
Anyway, Sunday is not only Mother's Day, but it is also the day that we have to pick up Stephen's sister and niece from the airport in Montreal. They're spending 2 weeks with us, which should be nice. So we'll spend the evening with my Mum - we'll bring flowers and a card - and then go to the airport around 8pm.
In 'Jake' news: he can climb the stairs! Yikes! From now on, when he's upstairs, the gate will go at the top of the stairs and when he's downstairs, it'll be at the bottom. He's also spent a lot of the day standing unaided. He doesn't take steps yet, but it seems not too far away. My life, I'm sure, is about to become a bit more hectic!
What to write...
We bought a new mailbox today. It's much nicer than our old one. And it will be much more convenient for the mailman to put our mail in, as well as for us to retrieve our mail from. It's bigger and shinier than the other one too.
Can you tell that I have nothing of any interest to write about today?
Guess what we did, Munch!
No, wait. I do have something to write about...
I had a really vivid dream early this morning where my friend Christina and I swam across the ocean. I'm not sure which direction we were going in or where we went but suffice to say that we swam across and back again. The tides were strong and we were worried that we'd be pushed off-course, but we finally made it back safely.
Walking back to our homes, we stopped by the local shop to brag to Detective John Munch (from Law and Order: SVU) about what we'd done. He was there talking to his buddy who worked there. He didn't seem very impressed, so we left...
"Mamamamama!!" Jake's awake.
Damn, I like Detective Munch. I wish we'd gotten to spent more time together...
Crushed gerbil?
We recently bought 2 female gerbils, along with the cage, food and everything else that goes along with them. Within about a week of having them though, we were surprised to see that one of the gerbils had had 4 pups. She must have been pregnant when we bought her and nobody, not even the sales assistant, knew it.
So we bought another cages and waited the recommended number of weeks before we seperated the boys from the girls. It was important not to wait too long, as we didn't want them breeding and giving us even more gerbils to care for. We now have 3 females in one cage and 3 males in the other. That worked out well!
The night before last, I went to bed around 10:30pm and fell into a nice, deep sleep. Around 12:30am, Stephen arrived home from work and got himself a sandwich. He went downstairs to the basement to check his email before bed.
Just past 1am, I heard him come upstairs. Unfortunately, he wasn't on his way to bed. Instead, he informed me that 2 of the females had chewed their way out and had been running wild through the basement. He and Ruth had just caught the adult female, but a pup was still loose. They'd tried everything to catch it and were now enlisting my help as a third pair of hands.
Stephen, Ruth and I had the couch up on it's end, we pulled the piano away from the wall, we lay towels across the floor in front of doorways so that the gerbil couldn't go under the door. The thing was so small and so fast!
After a little while of chasing it around the room and moving furniture around frantically, the room stood still. The gerbil was nowhere to be found. It no longer came out from under furniture or scurried from here to there. We wondered if we'd crushed it under the piano.
We finally went to bed, discouraged and upset that we may have killed her and that if we hadn't already, it may not have been long before she died of starvation.
Anyway, the following morning, our houseguest, Michelle, came running upstairs to say that a gerbil had just ran into her room. We darted downstairs and closed her door. On our hands and knees, we moved furniture and lifted everything. Finally, the little devil came out and ran directly into Michelle's waiting hands. She expertly slipped the gerbil back into the cage and all was well again.
Now where were you at 1 o'clock last night when we needed you?!
