You thought wrong, brotha: I've just been too busy being Mega Successful In Every Way to bother with blogging. Or cleaning, laundry-doing, cooking, and generally being an acceptable human being. Also, "Mega Successful" might possibly be the teensiest-tiniest overstatement of fact, but "modestly adequate" doesn't sell the doughnuts, now, does it?
Enough of this pleasant banter. To business*! What the hell I've been doing with my time business!
--Lucy The Goose--
This one hasn't shut up since approximately July, when she learned the tune and syllable count of every children's song ever, and began belting them out at the top of her piping little baby voice with only occasional word placement success. My favourites so far are "Ginkle, Ginkle, Little Stah" and "Fosty Da Doughman", although her "Deedus Luf Meee" is improving daily.
Should she get herself worked up into a lather - and, having been born with a more than average endowment of Personality, she will - all you need to do to push her back into a state of innocent wonder and excitement is to whisper "brush your teeth" in her ear.
Seriously.
She's also figured out books, and will greet you at the door with "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus", shoving it at you until you drop everything to pick her up and read it. If I died in the middle of the day, Seth would come home from work to find Lucy bellowing "Pigeon?! PIGEON!" into my dead face while prying open my cold, unresponsive hand and trying to close it over the book.
--Oscar Baggins--
This one is growing into his true hobbit heritage more and more, and has taken to exclaiming like a querulous old man whenever anything goes wrong. Dropped a toy behind the couch? "Oh no, oh no. What will I do now?" Hit his head on the train table? "Ooooh, no. Ooooooh, nooo."
I didn't think it was possible, but he walks Norah to school even slower than he used to. He still comes to a full stop to say anything, but has managed to master walking and breathing, so at least there's that.
His big accomplishment over the year? Learning to wink. This kid winks with his whole body, and it's a sight to see.
Trust me, this only a meagre sampling of both the awesomeness that is Oscar winking, and my attempts to document it. Seth's informal count is that one in five of the pictures I took this year was of Oscar winking.
--Norah, the Budding Nerd--
This one can read. And write. And come downstairs in the morning with body parts labelled and - conveniently, I suppose, depending on how macabre your imagination runs - numbered, too. So no more writing implements in bed? Right.
Did I mention reading? I did, didn't I? I have high hopes of turning out a kid who will bring books to school, who will cheer (quietly) when the teacher announces that it's free reading time, who will stay up past bedtime to sneakily read more books, who will - when finally called away from a book to eat - will surface groggily from another world like she's been at the bottom of the ocean for the last hour, and who will rather read on a Friday night than to out with all the silly kids. An honest-to-God bookworm, that's what I'm pulling for.
In the meantime, she's becoming her mother in more than one way:
(And it's not just the eye-catching money-rug, either. That's my nightgown, my sheets, and my Little Ballerina book. Nerdliness is very, very catching.)
Cumulatively, our children watched 4,327 episodes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in 2013. Or else the entire twelve episodes that comprise the show 360.5 times.
It's made a (slight) impact.
Seth and I can only describe 2013 as The Year of Who, during which we managed to watch the entire modern canon, despite having more than one job each, three children, a house that only very recently started cleaning itself (or something), and stupid bodies that need to sleep and eat and poop, etc. What's that they say? Nobody's more zealous than a recent convert? Yeah. That.
Last year, I baked bread approximately never, hung my clothes out to dry once (Labour Day), didn't even glance in the direction of a coupon, and didn't get pregnant. It was a banner year. I enjoyed it immensely, but will probably re-institute the bread and clothesline.
Me and coupons? We're through. Me and babies? Through, but without the triumphant feeling that kicking coupons to the curb gives me. I love my babies, but I'm ready to say goodbye to diapers forever, goodbye to booster chairs, goodbye to five-point harness safety seats, and goodbye to bibs, cribs, and nimmies, and hello to kids who can wipe themselves, put on their own shoes, and get kicked out to play in the backyard by themselves so Mommy Can Think in Peace.
2014 is the year of spreadsheets, one last kick at the potty-training can, and Oscar heading off to school. It's the year - so help me, but it's happening come hell or some height of water - Seth and I head to Stratford (again) alone (again) for a two day debauch of food and wine and - ahem - "alone time". It's the year in which I connect a little better with dear friends. and write a little more haphazardly both here and on That Other Blog as I find some kind of equilibrium between life and work and Mt. Laundry.
2014 is also the year in which I received this in the mail.
So we're starting off on the right foot, yeah? I think it's a friendly reminder to give Leslie her pants back.
*Simian business, that is. None of that other stuff here. This here's a 100% business free Cone of Nonsense guaranteed site. I think I have that site badge around here somewhere...
