I just have to brag here. I can't believe it.

Franklin had friends over and NO ONE GOT UPSET!
He was a sharing pro. Of course, it helps when you have an fisher price airport, a gazillion hot wheels, a huge Thomas track, enough dump trucks for a league of Tonka people, and a running dvd of Thomas' Snowy Surprise.
The only thing off limit was the custom made play dough tailored coats we had made earlier in the afternoon.

"Mum, Thomas is chilly. Brrrrrr!"

The two boys who came to visit were great examples for my son. They are 13 months apart and are out of necessity, seasoned sharers. Of course, they've put Franklin through a crash course in fighting for what you want many times as well.

The kicker though?
The two of us? The moms?
We sat down and drank coffee during this playdate. I found this to be both an amazing and beautiful experience - maybe even right up there with sex, giving birth and what tart graphics calls "messing around" with a new design for my website (but what I would call spending a frustrating 2 weeks with a pirated version of photoshop).

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You know, I have just realized that I haven't said a word about my Christmas.
It was great - if you can call me being medusa incarnate on Christmas day a good time...
I just couldn't seem to get a hold on my emotions - and this was before I found out about the earthquake.

I actually made everyone leave the house so I could vacuum.

Vacuum.

Yes, I was a bitch.
I have apologized to my family, but I want to do it again - in front of the internet.
So sorry guys.

I felt better on boxing day though - especially after I kicked some pathetic butt in Clue.
(I only say pathetic because I made you play such a pathetic game, not that any one of my family is pathetic at all, ever...)
Aren't you all glad I'm in your family? Aren't you glad I'm raising your only nephew? I'll bet there was a collective sigh of relief when I started to "wear the red beret" this week.

All in all, it was a good Christmas.

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And well, you know I was going to..
Hell, I live on the Pacific West Coast after all...

You see, although we don't live on the Indian Ocean, my brother has informed me that when the big one hits over here, the entire island will be engulfed by the ocean and no one will survive - not even the ones who follow the rules.

After scouring all the sites I am able to look into tonight (without doing too much damage to my fragile emotional state) I haven't found any evidence to support this swallowing-island-ocean-theory yet.

Thank Poseidon.

Nevertheless, I'm glued to all the earthquake science out there.
Pretty cool stuff - if you're not in Sumatra.

A friend came to visit, some call her Aunt Flo and others Cap'n Bloodsnatch. She's a fickle character and apparently not a stickler for time.

While she's here, I figure we'll have lunch - perhaps a little ketchup with my steak and some dracula tea. We can get all "Martha" and decorate my snatch box with roses while we discuss how the banks of the Nile are overflowing and running red.
The woman keeps trying to tell me that the Communists have invaded the summer house but I assured her everything is fine. Hell, I could even cure the plague in my condition so she has nothing to worry about.
Eccentric one, she is.

I'm not sure how long she's staying but we're off now - going out in the red car to drive to the house of the moon. I thought I'd show her the Red Roof Inn and then walk along the beach in soft focus.

If Red Skelton drops by before we get back, tell him the faucet is dripping.

Sorry for the drama.

Forget about my suspected pregnancy for a moment. I haven't taken a test yet. I'm waiting for a bit - I have tender breasts and I feel like I was drinking all last night so I'm about on par with the last time I was pregnant but, I'm still waiting.
Last time I took a home pregnancy test it was negative. I was 6 weeks pregnant.
I'm waiting to see my doctor. Those tests suck.

I am thinking about a lot these days.
I'm trying to keep up with the news in Asia without watching televisions images of children who are all Franklin in my eyes.
This means I'm listening to the radio at 1 in the morning when everything is quiet and no one can see or hear me cry.

Attempting to sleep is horrible. My imagination is my enemy right now.
What the hell am I doing?

Here are some things we could do instead of buying that boxing sale gift you didn't get for Christmas.

Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders

Asian Earthquake/Floods Relief
Oxfam Canada

Unicef

Canadian Red Cross

Why does it always seem to me that those from the poorest areas of the world, in the most vulnerable positions, receive the worst.
I will never let Franklin forget how fortunate he is to live here.

We attempted to go to Polar Express this afternoon. You are all probably aware of this but large screen theatres with surround sound are not the place for a two year old. I remember going to those baby-friendly movie outings in the middle of the day when he was about 4 months old. I also remember feeling exhilaratingly free in all my motherly competence as I watched Catherine Zeta Jones prance across the screen in Chicago while breast-feeding (me, not Catherine). I would have seen Renee Zellwigger but she was so thin she blended into the background and was lost in the stage lights.

Going to the movies then was nothing like it is now. Franklin was holding both my hands so tightly and kept repeating, "I want to go, it's too daaark."
The train in the beginning held his attention but when the main character lost his ticket, the show was ruined for Franklin. I guess he's not into the overly emotional stuff either. Perhaps my earlier mention of my own sensitivity is an indication that my emotional maturity has shrunk to the level of a two year old.
Hurray for me.

Have a mentioned? My period? It's still late.

Oooh, break, excuse me - time to tuck the little precocious-atrocious into bed.

I was just upstairs reading Franklin a bedtime story.
I usually have a three story maximum and then it's a song, a kiss and plenty of "I love you", "You're a good boy" and "Night Night Franklin". Otherwise it can get out of hand and I end up reading Tom Kitten to a barely conscious toddler.

Tonight, his pick was "Thomas' New Snowplow", "Nib the Subway Mouse" and "Bear On the Train" - note the train theme in all three books? I'm getting a little tired of trains.

Have I ever shared with you my actual fear of real live trains?
Yes, I have one.
I'm just hoping he grows out of this before he graduates from highschool.

Speaking of the stories though, it has come to the point that although two out of the three books we read tonight are completely new to him (Christmas stocking stuffers), he already knows them so well that I can't do the ol' skip a couple of words of Thomas' script or paraphrase the gripping drama that is Nib's jellybean triumph. Franklin will catch me red handed and amazingly, correct me.

For instance, tonight I was whipping through the stories - all too aware that we are seriously behind our bedtime schedule. The hour of Franklin's bedtime is directly proportional to the ungodly early hour he wakes up in the morning. So... tonight, when Nip's friend Lola gets fed up searching for Tunnel's End and sits on a feather to make her point clear, Franklin holds my hand, looks up and says,

"No Mum, Lola plucks a feather from under the rail...

Franklin's bedtime is 7:30 - unless you are late and try to hurry by reading the stories wrong. Then it's 8:30.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. My period's late.

What does it say about me that I'm blogging on Christmas day?
Shouldn't I be spending quality time with the family?

Well, Franklin's asleep - most likely dreaming of trains, trains and more trains... So are Dickson and my mother.

My father and my brothers are watching a movie that started with a five year old boy getting shot. I can't watch that stuff anymore. I can't watch Law and Order, trailers to violent movies, Fahrenheit 911, or commercials about children who aren't getting anything for Christmas.
I suck at the emotional stuff. I don't know why or how it's gotten to this point. It has been escalating since Franklin was born.
People assured me that this would tone down after awhile but it hasn't. The old mantra of "it's only a movie / commercial / tv" doesn't work. I've started a new one where I say "it's not Franklin" over and over again. That's not working either.
Should I see someone about this?

My period is late.

Ahhh what the hell, eh?
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you cooked your turkey on time (Claire, your chickpea salad was great).

If any of you are looking for something to do on a Sunday morning, check out St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church here in the city. There's a lady in the choir who has one amazing voice.

That's my little gift to you...
You can always count on me for the latest rock'in social scene in Victoria.

So...

Along with the destruction of my archives, I have lost my new design as well.

Why did I not save all of this stuff to my hard drive many of you ask?
Well, because I'm an idiot.
Really, you shouldn't be surprised. I've been half-assing at this weblog thing for about 4 years and had always dismissed it as a little hobby. I wasn't that serious about it - until I lost it for good. Now I'm incredibly serious about it...
Did you hear that Yahoo!? I'm serious.

I am still hopeful that everything will work out.
What with archive.org, google caches, my Father's inability to read things off a computer screen and subsequent heavy use of his printer, and a couple of word documents I had kicking around... I may be able to piece together the last 4 years or so.
Seriously.

Plus there's the added fact that I just got a cryptic message from Yahoo! that may have to do with getting access to my "file". I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I think I may have all of you to thank for this. I haven't really emailed that wacko company since they hung up on me... twice.... in a row...

So, I'm trying to keep a level head - which considering the stuff that is going on right now in my life and my general level of crazy, it's a pretty high expectation.

I've also noticed that my webpage looks terrible. I think I mentioned up there near the start of my post that I've lost my new design I was working on. I'm not too upset about that because I wasn't very in love with it anyway.
There wasn't enough colour and dirtyolive-ness.

The thing about the webpage as it looks now is that I have such a rudimentary knowledge of html (yes, only html folks, I'm as old as old school gets - I'm ignorant old school). My page looks okay at home, on my ibm klunker. However, at work I use a mac and my page looks like a primary school report with extra large font and a spaced out design. It's really terrible. I could do something about font size but the point is, I need something new, as in not this. I want something that looks cool on everyone's computer. I want to BE cool to EVERYONE.

Haha

I'm kidding - as in not serious.
Seriously.

Does anyone want to design a website for me - for free? I look at the templates and I don't see anything that makes me go WOW! I want to steal that!
I have emailed someone from tart graphics about one of their designs. Lets see what happens there.

Meanwhile, about that child-rearing...
Franklin and I have had a couple of pretty touching experiences to and from daycare. There is a song that has a special place in Franklin's heart, some ubiquitous "Mommy Song" that I think he made up on his own.

The child can sing the entire precocious and atrocious song of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious but the "Mommy Song" sounds like Mommy Mommy Mommy repeated over and over again. I think this might be one of the sweetest things in the entire world... in the entire history of the world... in the entire history of the universe.

Seriously
I'm not exaggerating.

The whole "Mommy Song" thing started a couple of weeks ago as we were coming home one afternoon. I've tried to ask his daycare what this is but they don't know anything about it - which is why I am certain it's his own little thing.

There is no Daddy Song.

If this was a daycare thing, there would be a Daddy Song.
Trust me.

Last night, as I was in the rocking chair with Franklin, we sang the "Mommy Song" together. It's something I want to remember forever, cradling Franklin in my arms and singing Mommy Mommy Mommy over and over again.

It was better than everything and anything, ever.

Seriously.

Dear Yahoo!

Apparently you don't accept my credit card because it is Canadian. (edit: International).

Apparently you didn't find it necessary to warn me that my site was about to cancelled.

Apparently it is acceptable to hang up on me when I tell you it's not.

I'm not sure if you aware of this. It certainly doesn't seem to be getting through but, my archives are being held hostage by your patriotic website.
The thought of losing these memories due to narrow-minded, underpaid customer service representatives and unexplicable policy makes me sick.
I think I will send you my vomit in a plastic baggies until you release my work, my pictures, and my correspondence.

I have never felt so angry and frustrated.

I realize that there are people starving in the world and this little problem isn't so big.. but to tell me to get an American Express or my archives will be erased in 30 days is a really crappy form of extortion if I ever saw one.

I have purposely moved to a Canadian webhost - because dammit, they were polite.

If anyone wants to send Yahoo! a messagel on my behalf please do so. Thanks.

- Ada