We had our first lemonade sale today. The Monkey was so excited about it yesterday she could hardly sleep. Of course, I was blasé about it. I’ve often wished I could get as excited about such mundane family activities as going to the park or Canada’s Wonderland, as I do about going to the kid movies, like Toy Story 3 or Despicable Me (can’t wait for that one!), or eating muffins together at, erm, Starbucks.

But I’m working on it. See, I noticed something. I’ve been tired lately. I mean, seriously, tired. Anyone who’s either gone out with me or attempted to go out with me in the past month or so will have noticed. I am tired. Granted, my whole lifestyle has changed. I now no longer have any free time to myself. I go from working 9am-1pm to tending to a very high-maintenance little Rascal, then picking up his sister,  entertaining them both until dinner (which, of course, has to be cooked at some point), and, finally, completing my at-home work hours, cleaning up and making camp lunches in the evening.

So, I haven’t been able to blog much. What, once a week, max? It’s not so much because I can’t make the time, but because I don’t have the energy, because I am tired. And — surprise surprise — I blame Starbucks.

See, it’s like a drug. No, it’s not like a drug; it IS a drug. The more I drink it, the more I want it. In case you don’t already know, I’m talking about the devil itself: grande soy no-water tazo chai latte. Rolls off the tongue, it does….

Most of you know well how hard I’ve battled with this mad drink. MAD. I’ve known it was bad for me, even though everyone else was whatevs about it. I’ve unintentionally gotten a bunch of you Gorgeouses hooked on this demonic drink. Well, now I’m serious. I mean, I mean business. It’s a drug.

Like any hardcore drug, I went off it for a few days, and I was tired — major withdrawal. But now? Three days later (I made it!)? NOT TIRED. Miraculously NOT TIRED. No massive mid-day slump. NONE. I can WALK again at 3pm.

It’s a drug, I repeat. A DRUG. Like any hardcore drug, the more you drink it, the more you want it. One chai in the morning was no longer satisfying my NEED. And there was no way I was going to start buying a second chai in the afternoon, so I was passing out for want of it. Tired. Beyond tired. So, I quit it. Quit it for good. No joke. I never EVER want to feel that tiredness again.

So, lemonade stand! Already I’m excited again…. Not mundane at all. She made a sign!

And he made a sign to go with it (couldn’t you just…OY!)….

Unfortunately (my former addicted self may have said fortunately), I had to skip out for a bit to do a work assignment at the Distillery District downtown. Isn’t it fab?

It was like a mini vacation. No Starbucks required. And the whole excursion took me an hour and half….

I returned home to a topless Rascal and bikini-clad monkey enjoying some swimming in our neighbour’s front yard. Heaven! I loved this day! Maybe next week we’ll go to the Distillery District….

How was your weekend? Stay off that chai, Gorgoueses, okay? Take it from me. I’m so serious.

Love! xo Haley-O

ARTICLE ROUNDUP (my latest Today’s Parent / Canadian Parents Online articles):

Toys That Make You Go Hmmm…: The 9 most curious children’s toys ever made (This one ended up on the home page of MSN – woohoo! And it’s a funny one! If you check any of them, check THIS ONE!)

So you want to be a mom blogger: six things you need to know

11 Baby Shower Games

10 Maternity-wear Must-haves

Is It OK to Drink When You’re Pregnant

Of course, please check out my celeb blog CELEBRITY CANDY for constant updates.

Keeping up with my blog now that I have a full-time writing job is proving très challenging — mostly because, by the end of the night, when my day-writing is done, and the kids are finally in bed, I’m wiped, and my brain is mush.

Plus, I’ve been getting up early in the morning. I mean, really early. Before I started working at Today’s Parent I used to drag myself out of bed as late as humanly possible — I was exhausted from writing late, I mean, really late, into the night. Now, I’m dragging myself out of bed as early as humanly possible. Why? The answer is threefold (I just said that with a Spanish accent, FYI):

The First. Because I want to get to work by 8:30am.

The Second. Because THE RASCAL slows me down — he’s beyond stubborn and demanding in the morning. I sense the beginnings of lower-back pain because, you know, he sleeps on top of me, and, then, the minute I wake up to start on The Third, he’s up, too….

The Third. Because I’ve decided I want to get in shape, I’ve been walking for half an hour every day before work. Only the complications around this fold are twofold:

The First. The Rascal freaks out when I leave the house so early. He needs to drink from his sippy cup and rub my back for at least half an hour before we get out of bed. (So, I wake up even earlier…for the back rub…the awesome back rub.) #highmaintenance

The Second. The dog. I have to take Betty White with me on the walk, or else I have to walk her again later, and there’s no time for that, as you can see…. But, the problem is, she’s a reluctant walker. The vet who lives down the street has never seen such a thing — a puppy who doesn’t want to go for walks. Of course, it deserves pictorial elaboration….

Betty White at the beginning of the morning walk:

Betty White during the walk:

She basically runs as fast as she can to get home the entire time. I know this because she gets even faster on the way back. Silver lining? Makes for an awesome pacer….

And it’s not just the morning walks. Here’s Betty White at the beginning of our family walk later that day….

Underbite.

When we came home from Toy Story 3 that same night, it was pouring rain. Josh had to drag her outside, of course. Imagine that. I don’t have a great picture of Betty White refusing to walk in the rain. But I DO have a picture of Josh-O carrying the only umbrella we could find (which is even better)….

I know once I get used to this routine, and the morning “swamp smoothies” (that my co-workers were gagging at this morning) start kicking in, I’ll be able to do this, or to do more, or be less mushy — inside and out.

Oh, and I’m on Day 2 of quitting chai lattes…, again. At this point in my chai-quitting career, quitting alone is enough to turn my brain to mush. A thousand fold.

Goodnight!

Love! xo Haley-O

While, yes, this blog remains a priority for me, I can’t really blog tonight because I’m busy exchanging “voice notes” with my sister via blackberry. Newly discovered. Have you tried it? We’re mostly swearing back and forth at each other. I feel a little like a child with her very first walkie-talkie. Only my sister and I are both over 30….

When we were little we tried to make a language out of knocking on our bedroom walls after bedtime. I think we got from 1 to 6 knocks. For the life of me, I can’t remember what any of those knocks signified.

I hope my latest voice note worked. I said: “You’re a nerd. G’night. F** off.” Hold on a sec. Let me check.

I think it worked. Oh, there she is. Dara and I — the only two people on the planet who don’t own iPhones. And so we send each other voice notes. She better not get an iPhone, or I’ll have no one to voice note with.

At least for now, I don’t DO iPhones. But, I said the same thing about Facebook not long ago, didn’t I…? “I WILL NEVER!!!!!11″ I’m not a hypocrite. Just a pushover. Still, I don’t know about the iPhone with these thumbs of mine — which, I hereby declare, from now on are to be called “Megan Fox” thumbs instead of “toe thumbs.”

…Just noticing the funky toe thumb-lengthening diagonal-nail-polish trick she’s done there. Hmmm….

I’m going to bed. Well, I have one more Celebrity blog post to write, and THEN I’m going to bed.

Truth is, I’m writing like a dog for work. Like THIS:

Her underbite’s so big she can’t kiss you without scraping you with her buck canines…. It’s awesome.

I love all this writing I get to do for work, but I admit I’m drained. With all the Junior Kindergarten and Preschool end-of-the-year parties, the running running running, grocery shopping ONCE a week (what IS that?!), I’m drained. Drained of ability to string words together in intelligible sentences past 10pm. Remember when I used to blog at 3AM? The days FROM HELL when Rascal was a baby and the Monkey was just over two? OMG. Well, that’s physically impossible now. I guess that’s what happens when you’re 35…….., and, in all fairness to myself, ahem, when you’re all-of-a-sudden working again AND taking care of the kids in the afternoon, AND then working nights, and eating like crap, you’re entitled. No?

So I’m going to go easy on myself tonight. I WILL not edit this post after I press publish. I’ll let it go. Into the amazing infinite non-space that is the Internet. Goodbye, post. Hello voice notes. Gotta go. mysisterCANNOThavethelastwordBYE!

LOVE! xo Haley-O

The couple months have been crazy for me. Recap: tooth trauma, new job (aka lifestyle overhaul), new dog “Betty White” (aka lifestyle overhaul), new nephew, loved one in hospital (was released TODAY). I think it’s time for a little mundanity, don’t you? Checkit….

I just ate a slice of raw vegan strawberry cheesecake from Live. It’s yummy, but a little too walnut-y. Someone snuck a cheaty little taste before I could slice into it.

There’s a family of cardinals living in our backyard. Deep inside this tree….

It’s rare that you see a female cardinal, you know. But we see the mama bird all the time. Isn’t she beautiful?

I watched the daddy cardinal feed the baby — beak to beak. Amazing. Needless to say, Betty White’s not allowed in the backyard when the birds are hunting. I hardly want her near MINDEN….

(legs….)

(she wears short-shorts….)

In the course of writing this post, my children have come down the stairs four times.

The Rascal and I went on a moonlit midnight walk with Betty White just last night….

Tonight he’s wearing a Paul Frank T-shirt and bathing-suit shorts to bed. I asked him why he was wearing bathing-suit shorts, and he said because “I yike to, Mama.”

The Monkey says “babing suit” instead of “bathing suit.” and I like it better. Really. Otherwise the Monkey’s quite articulate.

I took Monkey, Rascal and Josh-O to the office the other day to retrieve the whatchamacallit I dropped down the elevator shaft in front of an elevator full of men — all heads bobbed as the whatchamacallit bounded off the elevator ledge and into the shaft (plop). Facilities went down, way down, and got it for me.

This is what they did at 4pm on Father’s Day….

Josh-O’s a great dad. Too bad he doesn’t read my blog. Or is it? If he did read my blog, I wouldn’t be able to call him a nutball, or tell you about the astronomical parking ticket I got illegally parking in front of Starbucks the other day — which I totally just quit, again, just now — now would I? He’s laughing at me right now because I couldn’t figure out that my whatchamacallit thingy I dropped down the elevator shaft is called a “parking pass.”

This morning, at work, I wrote about Kim Kardashian’s cleavage of the buttocks. When I took breaks, I spun around in my chair and looked at the great view by my desk….

Did you know ornithology is the most popular hobby in the world? Loved One told me when had brunch at the hospital yesterday morning. Apparently heard it on the radio.

I was going to do a “Wordless Wednesday” blog post this evening. But Wednesday’s basically over, and I don’t think it’s possible for me to be wordless. Although, I have to tell you, I’m way too exhausted to be writing right now. It’s only my second week into the new job at Today’s Parent, after five years of working at home. Second week in and I’m just loving working in this industry — with these totally nice, creative people. But, it’s obviously a massive adjustment for someone accustomed to working alone at Starbucks most mornings, with her evil friend, Chai Latte, or, you know, interacting solely with the under-5 crowd.

Did you see my first Today’s Parent article made it onto MSN (the lifestyle homepage no less)? All very exciting…, different…, new!

I’m also legitimately tired because poor Rascal’s not sleeping through the night, and he’s constantly clinging to me, saying, “I WAN YO, MAMA! I WAN YOOOOO!” It’s actually really, really hard right now….

Fortunately, I still get to spend a lot of time with him (and, in a way, more, since we get up 2 hours earlier, walk the dog together, feed ALL our animals, etc.), but I’m farther away part of the day — and he senses it. And I feel it in my heart when I’m sitting at my desk between emails, meetings, articles. It’s a major adjustment. But work keeps me good and distracted until we run into each others arms, and spend our special time together before we pick his sister up from school.

The Monkey, on the other hand, is adjusting very well to her mama’s new life — particularly my new work wardrobe…. She’s a cheaty little fashionista, that one!

Anyway, without further ado, I give you what WOULD have been a Wordless Wednesday post. (Even though it has a title.)

In honour of poor Betty White, who’s sleeping alone in a cage at the vet tonight because she was spayed earlier today — MISS! — I give you….

“UNDERBITE”

Have a great day!

Love!

xo Haley-O