This n' That

We measured Simon yesterday and he's grown a whole inch since August 29 (last measurement). The little tyke is actually sprouting!

I experienced one of my first 'rights of passage' as a parent yesterday: our first "school pictures morning". Me trying to get his hair to do anything but fall flat on his head, make sure he didn't get any Cheerios stuck to his nice sweater and find pants that don't have some sort of stain on them. All at 6:45am. We'll see how the photos come out - we're supposed to get them in early December so I hope to include them in our Christmas cards.

I was in Toronto last week for work meetings which led me to catch the inevitable "plane cold" which I always snag while traveling. Screwed up my weekend but I'm all better now and have so far managed to NOT transmit it to the rest of the family.

We had a mouse (please let there just be one!) in our house for the past week. We woke up to the sound of scampering feet (but we don't have pets!) last Thursday which we knew could only mean one thing. Our second floor tenants get mice every freeze and thaw but we've never had them on our floor before. I was, of course, a nervous wreck in my own home for over a week. Laundry that was folded in the basket remained there because I was too afraid to go through it in case Mickey was dozing inside the clothes. We set out traps last Friday but finally only caught the bugger last night in the trap behind my dresser in the bedroom. Yes, our bedroom of all damned places. Ick. Fig Newtons ended up being the bait of choice.

Halloween is right around the corner. I hope to get to the Botanical Gardens on the weekend to see their pumpkin exhibit or to Old Montreal where there are some festivities going on for kids in different museums. Simon will dress up as Tigger for his daycare party on Monday and will either be Tigger again for trick or treating, or a horse depending on the weather AND if the horse costume fits him. I haven't tried it on him yet because I know he won't let me take it off once it's on!

I hope to get out today to buy something for my soon-to-be Goddaughter, Alexa. Yes, I finally get to have a Goddaughter! Her Christening is November 13 and I don't want to leave it to the last minute. While I'm out, I should find something to wear to the event too. Yikes, this means another morning of trying to get Simon dressed up!

Betty Crocker - Kiss My A$$!

A couple of nights ago I almost burned my house down by making rice. I was making some brown rice for the next night's dinner and DID check it several times and made sure there was always enough water in the pot. The heat, however, was too high and it caught. The pisser is, it caught while I was downstairs putting a load of laundry in the washer and I only noticed the smoke when I was coming up the stairs to the sound of my smoke alarm. I ran through the cloud of smoke and grabbed the offending pot to throw outside. On the way out, the burning pot touched my kitchen curtain and melted a nice hole in it. I put the pot down on the cedar bench outside not realizing that it would burn a black circle into the wood within seconds. I aired out the house as best as I could but the stench of burning field was there for good. It still stinks. The pot remains outside on the burnt bench waiting to be either cleaned out (Rich's suggestion) or tossed (my suggestion).

Another story that centres around the stove - last Monday we were all off for the Thanksgiving holiday and I thought it would be fun to make some cookies with Simon. I had bought those ready-made lazy-ass holiday sugar cookies from Pillsbury that are decked out with little pumpkins for Halloween . Everything started out picture perfect: Simon standing at the counter on a kitchen chair arranging the cookies on the sheets and having fun, being so proud and walking with his little pan and oven mitts to show Daddy. And then it came time to put them in the oven. My oven is a gas stainless steel beast that doesn't have a window on the door so you can't see inside it. When I slid in the cookies and closed the door, Simon pretty much concluded that I had taken his new toys away from him and put them out of sight. He was not pleased. What I thought would be a nice Mother/Son moment turned into a full tantrum meltdown on the kitchen floor. I tried explaining the physics of raw cookies and how they have to cook to become yummy and edible but this just didn't take. Fifteen minutes later when they were ready, he tasted one and didn't even like it in the end.

After these two episodes, it's been Kraft Dinner and cold cuts for dinner every night.