I’ve been under the weather the past few days. But that doesn’t mean there’s been nothing to blog about. There’s been hella lots to blog about. My favourite, though — and we’re keeping this short because I’m still under the weather (even as it SNOWED today) — has to be a certain birthday card that a certain cheaty little artist made for PAPA’SHERE on his birthday….

I’ll give you a tour of the card starting from that square thing, bottom-middle. Shall we? Okay. Bottom middle, you’ll find a BIRTHDAY CAKE. How convenient on a birthday card, right? I love it! To the left, you’ll find a PEPPERMINT. The next several pieces, culminating in that orange boxy-swirly thing on the right, are “BIRTHDAY KLITES” (kites). And, then, at last, BOTTOM RIGHT, we have Papa himself, apparently, reclining on the couch. Shall we have a closeup on that one?

Yes, my friends, this is phallic art at its finest. “Monkey,” I asked, “what’s that thing there in the middle of Papa?” “It’s a stick, Mama!” Of course, a stick. How convenient on a birthday card.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAPA!

Love!

xo Haley-O

The Monkey got a new colouring book at Starbucks this morning (do NOT ask me what I was drinking there — especially because you ALL know what it was, and you ALL know my shame).

As with ALL Starbucks products, it was stupid pricey, but so awesome, and I was determined to keep the kids busy so I could maybe finish reading the 300 pages I have left of my monthly book club book in time for our meeting Wednesday — my ONE PERSONAL GOAL IN LIFE at this very busy time being that I read the book-club book in time for the meeting…, for Wednesday. GAH! Why did DENGUY have to pick the longest book EVER for this month’s read? Good thing the book is AH-MAY-ZING.

As I was saying, the Monkey’s new colouring book is awesome — especially for a kid who really is a natural artist. I mean, ALL kids are natural artists, but she’s a little more artsy, more “artistically mature” than others. She’s not one to kick a ball or master the monkey bars (despite her internet name), but the girl can DRAW.

That said, I was a little surprised at how she tackled the book’s prompt to “make a strawberry cake”:

She coloured the whole thing black, as you can see. And added, erm, a strawberry.

Closeup on the strawberry….

I have no words for this strawberry. Well, I do. Have words. But, they don’t need to be said. Do they.

She fared a little better with the, erm, cherry pie….

I love all the delicate details — her trademark. They always make me go “hmmm…,” and “wow”….

I never finished the 300 pages of my book. I was too busy laughing at strawberries. But, we all had a great time together, and there are two more days ’til Wednesday.

I’m a bit of an anxious basket case lately. I kind of always am when fall turns to winter, and the smells of the shifting seasons — damp leaves, home cooking, smoke from neighborhood fireplaces — emerge full force, subtly bringing me back to the dark, prenatal depressions of my pregnancies. And it’s togetherness that’s getting me by. Nightly “CUDDAH”s (cuddles) with the Rascal, reading fairy books in a fairy nook with the Monkey, playing a family game of Hungry Hippos on a Sunday afternoon….

Monkey’s favourite doll played the yellow hippo while I captured the moment…. For some unknown reason, she’s named the doll “Marshmallow”…

Again, no words.

The monkey loves making beds for “Marshmallow,” and she carries “Marshmallow” EVERYWHERE with her….

I love it. It’s adorable.

I LOVE my hilariously talented, quirky little Monkey.

Seriously, no words.

With the advent of twitter lists (which I doubt I’ll ever get around to making myself because I hardly have time to write to-do or shopping lists let alone SEVERAL lists dividing my friends into groups — high school much? — and unintentionally snubbing them, which is bound to happen)…what was I saying? I forget because I got distracted by Whitney and Jay’s conversation on this eve’s rerun of MTV’s The City….

That picture is so last year, like, when Jay and Whitney were still together. But I didn’t have time to find any current pics of them. But I DID have time to watch THIS WEEK’s episode just now. And I just want to say that, if Elle Magazine wants to interview bloggers — because, as Joe Zee (Elle’s creative director) puts it, “blogs are the places where news is breaking right now” — they should come TO ME, and my SLIPPERS…. Remember these?

Still wearing ‘em! There’s nothing these two less famous bloggers have that I don’t, right? I blog in my pajamas, too, and shop with my mother…? No? Yes? Elle?

If I don’t get into Elle Magazine, can I at least get on X-WEIGHTED? I need to lose these last 15. Or maybe I’ll just curl up on my couch with my Puffins and make twitter lists, instead. It’s safer here in my comfort zone…. Except right now. Because Josh just made clam chowder, and it STINKS in here.

So, I do have a little list JUST for this blog because my poor blog gets pushed aside so often these days for other more “pressing” things, and this really shouldn’t be, really saddens me, really has to stop because I love blogging…, and if one more thing goes to sh*t because I’m working too much, then something’s got to give. Because DOGGONE IT, I’m important.

So my list, ahem.

1. I love the way Rascal says “banana” — “badanan,” as in, “MO BADANAN, MAMA! MO BADANAN.”

2. Rascal eats too many badanans.

3. The Monkey is addicted to hugging. In the middle of the Swine Flu pandemic, she’s hugging strangers (not that it really matters because Swine Flu is air born).

4. I had Kabocha squash for dinner.

5. Rascal can count to two now. It’s official: “One, Doo, ONE!”

6. Monkey is obsessed with drawing me without a body because, apparently, “it’s too hard” to draw my body….

7. WHICH I choose to take as a compliment, because why not and DOGGONE IT!

8. I’m the disembodied turbaned head on the far left of the drawing — next to me is the artiste herself, her brother, and a caterpillar.

8. I am NOT too old to love The City, OR The Hills….

9. I also love the Glee, The Office, The Tudors, So You Think You Can Dance and Survivor.

10. I did watch V, but I will never watch it again.

11. Just like I will never watch Fringe again.

12. Or the Y&R, which I quit a month ago, WHICH should be a post in itself because it’s a big f-ing deal.

13. I want Russell to win Survivor.

14. I can’t end on #13 not because it’s “bad luck” but because it’s just a weird number to end on.

15. #15 is a better number to end on than #14.

16. I always go for the odd numbers.

17. OCD.

18. But, #18 is an ideal number to end LISTS on.

19. Even though it’s an odd number.

20. I think I’m into even now.

After last week’s text-heavy blog posts, the weekend’s fairs and birthday parties and long walks with SUDDENLY-STUBBORN 2-year-old, I’m a little burnt out. And I’m going to LISTEN to my burn-out this time and HONOUR it by making YOU do the work today.

See, just like Chef Gustave says in Ratatouille — “ANYONE can COOK,” which I don’t entirely believe, by the way — ANYONE can BLOG!

So, checkit. I got to take a walk through the Monkey’s Kindergarten class today, and I nearly FELL OVER when I saw this painting she made and the caption under it….

Now for the caption she gave it:

My Brother Playing in the Garden.

Bwah! Her brother playing in the garden? How sweet of her to think of him when she’s at school. But, ummmm….

Okay, now it’s your turn. As BLOGGERS par excellence, YOU are going to make me a more fitting caption for this painting. K?

Ready, set, CAPTION ME!

I am sick as a dog. If you’re following me on Twitter, this is old news. I’ve been sick as a dawg for, like, 4 days already. This CAN’T be The Swine. It’s just a BAD (i.e., B.A.D.) head cold, complete with fevers and pains everywhere — worst of all in my jaw, making it excruciating for me to hold my mouth open just to BREATHE.

I probably SHOULDN’T have gone to the Bunch Family Dance Party on Saturday — to celebrate the launch of Canada Moms Blog. By the way, have you seen my latest post there yet — where I get very close to controversy again, but tread MUCH more carefully this time, so help me GOD. We all know I don’t DO criticism, so why DARE I invite it?? MIND YOU, I was just listening to THE Erica Ehm on my favourite radio station this morning, and SHE said that if everyone loves you, you’re boring. That made me feel better…. And, by the way, and speaking of which…, did you hear the Canadian Olympic team REFUSED to wear seal fur on their uniforms (after Canadian parliamentarians proposed it) to protest the European Parliament’s ban on Canadian seal-fur products? HOLLAHHH! And, here’s a cute video with typical great Canadian humour LAUGHING at the proposition that the team wear fur and demonstrating that most of us Canadians (over 60%), in fact, do oppose the hunt…. I care. I really really really freakin’ care about this….

And, by the way, how do I get my little Rascal to stop HITTING everyone. Feeling as carpy as I do right now, the LAST thing I need is all this HITTING me in the achy head with a metal toy school bus. ARRGH.

AND, by the way, I now have 2 cats on my lap…. Here’s Meeno (aka Minden, of course)….

MWAH!

ANYWAY! Happy Mother’s Day to all the MOMS out there — including moms of pets (this is your day, too, Gorgeouses!). I spent the day in bed, freezing and then sweating and then freezing and then sweating. It was awesome.

This post is all over the place. I’m too sick to write coherently. Hopefully, I’ll be better tomorrow. So, we’re just chatting today, right? This is aiight, right?

So, as I started saying earlier…. It’s kind of exciting! I actually went to a blogger event this weekend to celebrate the Canada Moms Blog official launch! Now, I SHOULDN’T have been there with this DREADFUL cold. But, I KNEW if I didn’t show up, everyone would think I copped out — because who can REALLY tell if your sick from behind your computer screen. I NEVER go to blog events (because I sort-of made this deal with myself early on that I’d stay behind the screen), so I KNEW that if I didn’t go, they’d all think I wimped out and wasn’t committed. But, AM COMMITTED. LOOK HOW COMMITTED. I went to the event SHVITZING with fever!

Again, don’t worry, it’s not The Swine…. (Although I cannot IMAGINE being any sicker than this…!)

So, the party was well worth going to — even sick as a DAWG. (Bunch sure knows how to throw a PAR-TAY!) I hung out with some of my favourite bloggers! SWEET Katie ~ Motherbumper, the one-and-only Her Bad Mother Catherine Connors, Sandra from Mamalooper, Emma Willer from (I love this…) Where there’s a Willer…, and, last but NOT LEAST, my good ol’ friend Ali, of Cheaper Than Therapy whom I haven’t seen in MONTHS (because I am a BAD FRIEND, BAD!).

I really didn’t get enough pictures. Mostly because Rascal was clinging to me FOR DEAR LIFE for the first hour and a half of the party. After that, he warmed up and started running to the middle of the dance floor and, erm, dancing!! It was so adorable. I was so proud….

I also didn’t get enough pictures because it was just too much work for my sick self to keep digging my camera out of my bottomless purse…. It was also too much work for my sick self to say NO to Monkey getting a cotton candy — which, I (and my strong opinions!) think has to be the grossest excuse for candy ever invented….

You know you’re sick when…you let your daughter eat COTTON CANDY. Ew. I managed to steer the Rascal away from it with COOKIE….

Best of all, I think, has to be the picture Monkey drew at the party. I HAVE to share it….

Yeah, Happy Mother’s Day to ME. I’m the big POTATO in the middle of the picture. Rascal is the hilarious sad thing on the left (seriously? how funny is that?), and Josh is on the right…. Just when I was feeling SLIMMER (after a 5-pound weight loss, courtesy of being SICK AS DAWG), Monkey draws me LIKE THAT? A big fat potato. Oh man….

Okay. BACK TO BED.

Happy Mother’s Day, Gorgeouses!

Love!

xo Haley-O

If you haven’t already, go check CHEATY GOODIES for our EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS contest. Only Canadians are eligible for this one, but (again) the post and video will make everyone think.