Long Winter's Nap

Raine and Talia have a game they play, Daddy sings "Super Baby!" and flies her through the air like a superhero. Talia loves it, everytime. Little does she know, her super power is sleeping. She routinely sleeps through the night only to go back to bed for a four hour nap almost every morning. All that napping wears her out, so she follows it up with another few hours in the afternoon, and then grabs a quick snooze after supper, before bedtime. Here's a pic of her catching 40 winks over the course of 5 HOURS the other day, in the middle of the living room floor, as life went on all around her.

Unfortunately, her other superpower is socializing, so when we're out and about she's far too busy making eyes at everyone to have a sleep. So you will be unlikely to witness Super Baby in action should we be out visiting at a location near you!!

Back from the Land of Half Perms...

Well, Littlenose and I are back from our big trip to mommy's hometown. We were pleasantly surprised to see several people still rockin' the half perm. Some things never change. Awesome.

We had a quick trip to visit Grammie and Grampy this week. Check out these pics - Grammie playing patty cake, Grampy whispering farming secrets to his grandbaby, and Littlenose with a soother in her mouth and one in her hand - otherwise she spends all evening "pulling the plug" and ticking herself off. Thanks to my friend Jac for the 1 in the mouth, 1 in each hand tip!

To give you an indication of how our visit went, here is a transcript of a conversation I had with Grampy just a few months ago when the Internet came to the Parkland....:

M'Dad: Suse!

Me: Dad!

M'Dad: Suse, I need some help with the computer!

Me: Don't you have Kent's number? Ha ha ha ha ha!

M'Dad: C'mon, I need to know how to get to that YouFace.

Me: What?

M'Dad: You know, YouFace. You can go there and look people up and see what they're doing and stuff. I tried to click there and I ended up in some god damned singles club!!!

Me: Oh! You mean Facebook!

M'Dad: Yeah, whatever. How do you do it?

Me: Well, don't click on anything that says LavaLife. That will keep you out of the singles club. Then you have to sign up and make a profile for yourself, then you can add people as friends and they can see the pictures you add, read your status updates, stuff like that.

M'Dad: What?!? Who the hell would want to read about me?

Me: Bingo.

Someday m'baby will have conversations like this with me. Sigh.

Consider us showered.....

Whew! Busy day yesterday. Talia and I were lucky enough to take in 2 tea parties yesterday. First, we met up with our friends Tammy, Michelle and Kade for the Caddy Lake Tea - a couple of hours of craft sale, bake sale, mystery jar bar, "OMG, your baby is so tiny!!," enjoying tea and dainties, and one little girl's burned hand - boo. I took a chance on a lumpy, foil covered, very heavy plate at the bake sale only to be pleasantly surprised by an entire pan full of chocolate chip cookie bars. Victory was mine.

After the Tea, we zipped over to Auntie Shannon's house where we were spoiled, spoiled, spoiled!!! Good friends, good food, guaranteed good times. How can you go wrong at a party with not one, not two, but three beautiful babies to snuggle with?? Not to mention a variety of small children with balloons, a diaper cake, and fairy wands. What a perfect day. Check out these pics - Mrs. Mc's specialty, the diaper cake, followed by gorgeous Hannah the baby whisperer (this is right before she asked me if she could take Talia home with her), and finally Auntie Shannon, giving Talia a super safe toy for a 4 month old baby.

Thanks to all you rule-breakers who did not let your presence be your gift, and special thanks to Shan, Erin and Courtney for putting on a great afternoon!

Peek-A-Boo-hoo-hoo

Yesterday my little friend and I spent hours and hours playing peek-a-boo. The Monkey loved it. She laughed and giggled and squealed all day long. When Daddy got home, I thought it would be great to show off our new game, so I started hiding, thinking smugly to myself that Daddy would be so impressed...... too bad Monkey was not! One round in, she screamed and cried and was inconsolable. Bad Mommy.

Yesterday we also bailed out on Shan, it was Bring a Friend night at the Running Room, but was also Get Your Face Scratched Out By The Ice Storm night, so I decided it was not the best evening to get back into running. Fortunately, The Monkey is ready for any and all ice storms. Check out her fancy new snow suit!

Ow, my freakin' ears...

Yesterday my Monkey and I packed up our colds and took them to the mall to meet our friends for some mall walking, now that our Stroller Fit class is over. Little did we know, it is Fire Drill Week at the mall. This means that the fire alarm goes off between 9:15 and 10:00am everyday, all week. And I don't mean it randomly rings for 30 seconds at some point between 9:15 and 10:00am, I mean it rings continuously. At full volume. For the full 45 minutes. Yikes! Our babies were not impressed, so we ducked into Wal-Mart to spend a lot of money, I mean, get away from the noise. It's clearly the universe telling me not to exercise.

Things that happened at the mall yesterday:

- the aforementioned fire alarm

- strangers stopped me to chat about my extremely good lookin' baby and point out she wasn't wearing socks

- 2 people complimented me on Monkey's skin colour and asked what ethnic background her Daddy is - and did not seem convinced when informed he is a plain old whitey from Ontario

We came home from the mall to be greeted by a call from the PC Party of Manitoba. They call here about once a month or so, just to check in. Now, those of you who know my good friend Erin also know that Erin likes to do things like sign up vegetarians to Meat of the Month clubs, etc. I can only assume that she has somehow signed me up with the Conservatives. I'm onto you, Erin!!!

ps - if you are following this blog, you may have noticed I'm trying out a variety of nicknames for the baby in an effort to get away from calling her "Stinky." Any suggestions are welcome. I'm clearly Mother of the Year.

pps - if you want to talk to Monkey, she is now taking calls - here's a pic of her chattin' up her Grammie

Ernie, you look delicious....

We are in dire straits for groceries around here, Bert and Ernie are in danger of being eaten if someone doesn't get to the store ASAP.

We are under the weather at the McRaine house. I am sitting here at the computer, listening to my peanut whistling away her nap on the baby monitor. What to do for a stuffed up baby? All she wants is her soother, only to find out she actually wants oxygen more, so she spits it out to breathe, and then wants it again..... a vicious cycle, I tell you. I hope we are all ship-shape later this week when we go running with Shan and Sooz!