tiffany's spot

My "baby" is coming up on her fourth birthday. Kind of crazy. Sigh. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to find pictures of each kid at around the same age, so here they are!  

My kids are all sitting at the table, colouring various pictures, posters and colouring books. They've been constantly bickering since getting home from school. Elliot takes a pieces of paper, and scribbles it with ten different colours before lifting it up in front of her, pausing for dramatic effect, and beginning: "Once upon a time, there was a boy named Tennyson. He was going for a walk. Naked." The room erupts in laughter from Mitchell and Jordan, screaming from Tennyson, and laughter from Elliot, until the angry bear slaps the paper out of her hand, resulting in her shrieking proclamation: "You Wecked My Paper!" I'm in the kitchen, trying not to laugh because it is kind of funny. I yell at them all to knock it off. They settle. Tennyson tells Elliot she's mean. She is offended. A moment later, she has smoothed out her "story." She gives it a shake, lifts it up, clears her throat, and begins again. "Once upon a time, there ...

Elliot : (from "somewhere" down the hall) Can someone wipe my bum! Me : (from the living room) Hang on! Elliot : Wipe my bum RIGHT NOW. Me : Excuse me? Elliot : Excuse me? Me : You are being very rude. Elliot : You are being very rude. Me : I'm gonna spank you! Elliot : I'm gonna spank you! A short recess while I realize my across-the-house threats and scolding are not very, well, threatening. Elliot : Wipe! My! Bum! Me : In a sec. I fire up another game of solitaire on the computer. Elliot : WIPE MY BUM! I finish the game. I head to the bathroom. The princess is sitting happily grinning at me from her throne. Me : You are not being very nice. Elliot : I like you! Me : Yeah. That's because I'm nice. Superior parenting happens in my house in a moment by moment basis. I always figure if I dawdle she'll be more eager to start looking after her own toileting. I think usually she just gives up and leaves, sans wiping. Actually no, ...

It took me close to two hours to prime my dining room ceiling. Dusting/Priming/Painting the ceiling is the most hateful job in the world . I'm not even kidding. I don't know how people do it without turning to alcohol. Anyway. See the little black spots? Those are holes. My little pot lights are going to go in there. It's now 2:50. At this point I'm starting to reconsider my original plan to "quickly prime the dining room after lunch and then carry on about my day." Chances are fairly good that I'll have to pick up  my kids from school at some point, and likely this will still not be done. Also, we settled on green. Actually, I picked out 48 green choices to ponder, Steven came by, threw out about half of them, told me to just pick something already, since they were all the same colour, waited until I narrowed it down to about four choices and selected one. And then today I went to the paint store and picked the one I really wanted. Sorry honey...

Our poor little old dining room has come a long way. Previous home owners thought it would be a great idea to increase living space by simply adding a few walls, some really cheap single pane windows, a roof and a whole lot of paneling to the old deck and call it a dining room. We kind of ignored the crappiness of it. The extra space was really nice, but the freezing cold floors in teh winter, and the wind that blew through here in January (and all year, but January really seems to stand out. Strange eh?), and the slant that slowly grew slantier eventually made some upgrades necessary. Did I mention that the whole room was held up by four 2x6 beams sitting on patio blocks? Or that one of those beams didn't even actually reach the patio block it was supposed to sit on? Did I tell you about the time that the room shifted so much over a couple of days that I went to let the dog out in the morning and then couldn't shut the door because suddenly the door knob didn't mat...

Hey Tennyson, do you need that overflow?

Today we celebrated Brooks and Riley's birthdays. They have a combined age of 51. I know, they look fantastic. Also, they refused to both look and smile handsomely at the camera at the same time. And when they finally did, it became apparent that I should probably stop taking pictures with my iphone in drkened rooms, especially of small moving people. Regardless. It was fun. And this was not me taking a picture of my toddler, drinking a giant pop, in a bar. Happy Birthday Brooks and Riley!!