Tuesday, November 30, 2010

PreKindergarten Chanukah play the fourth time around

In 1998 at his nursery school graduation Zack slithered across the floor of his classroom to accept his diploma. Cleve nearly had a coronary. When your eldest slithers like a snake in front of a room full of strangers it means that he may not get into Harvard.

In 2000 Mikey never even made it to graduation. He dropped out of nursery in October. He made slithering look 'normal'.

In 2003 Benji belted out Look at me I'm a Chanukah Latka like it was nobody's business, Cleve beamed with pride, panicked at the idea of being able to afford Harvard but he still wasn't over the drop out or the slither.

This morning Matthew had his PreK Chanukah play. He had a bowl of chocolate syrup for breakfast, wore two different shoes and glued his shirt to his forehead. It was perfect.

Of course no hour is complete without some reminder that gluing one's shirt to their forehead really is child's play. As I was filming the latka dance, a message from the high school office appeared on my screen:


Skipping school? Zack? Maybe they had the wrong kid? Maybe he was helping clean up some litter in the hall way? Maybe they just didn't see him because he had slithered into class after recess? Couldn't let me just enjoy the damn latka dance, could he.

As it turns out Zack wasn't skipping school at all (yay! Zack). The complete message read:
The wake up alarm on his phone is going off in our safe!

The morning was beautiful, Matthew ate 14 cookies and 12 chocolate dredyls for lunch and I managed to send Cleve off to give a McGill lecture with a small momento of the occasion. 

He had no clue until some doctors asked why he had paint on his head. 

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Skating Rink, Part II

Today all four boys helped put the liner down for the rink. Now all we need is water and some really cold weather. 














nicerink.com

And my favourite part of the day...

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Four kids and the flu

Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease that affects birds and mammals. The most common symptoms of the disease are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness/fatigue and general discomfort. Typically, influenza is transmitted through the air by coughs or sneezes.

Influenza in my house, commonly referred to as the I-can't believe-you-let-HIM-stay-home-but-you-never-let-me-stay-home flu, is a fake disease that affects siblings of children with the actual flu who don't want to go to school so that they can stay home and play X-box.

Here is the note I sent to school this morning to excuse Mikey from class:
Mikey is not in school this morning. He has come down with a terrible case of you-let-HIM-stay-home yesterday-and-he-was-totally-faking-you-love-him-more-I-have-gym-first-I swear-you can-check-if-you-make-me-go-I'll-resent-you-forever flu. Very serious. Hopefully he'll be there after TSN's top ten plays of the night... I mean after he sleeps it off for a bit. I'm sure he has a sub or six anyway today.

Thankfully I have one painfully honest child who actually admitted to wanting to fake sick every day this week but couldn't bring himself to lie at the last minute. 

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

WWJS?

Cleve: Hi, I've never called you to ask your medical opinion before but I have a lovely young pregnant girl in front of me who says she hasn't slept a full night in two years and I was thinking... Insomnia is my middle name... I can totally relate to her... Poor girl... that you could go over to house and talk to HER instead of me so that she can fall asleep.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Strict bedtime makes for a healthy home

Doesn't he look cozy... lying on the hallway area rug?
And because transferring him too soon would've woken him up for the night we left him there for a couple of hours.

me: Has anyone seen Matthew?
B: He's asleep in the hall
me: Oh, ok, nobody step on him please and let me know when the second period is starting

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Cegeps are tough to get into and now this...

In the car on the way to school this morning...

Z: I didn't do well at all. I don't know what happened. I studied. I concentrated.... I don't know.
Did I just hear correctly? Remorse for a bad test? Admitting that studying actually helps? Huh?

M: How did everyone else do?
Kids helping each other? Brothers venting? Wha...?

Z: Brody did the best but I'm not sure about everyone else.
Damn that Brody! Oh, did I say that out loud? No? Well good then. Damn that Brody.

M: What are you going to do?
Yes! What are you going to do???? Talk it out!!! Well??? Answer your brother!!!!

Z: I don't know. I'm a little freaked. I don't want to talk about it.
Poor kid... maybe this will be the day he starts to really apply himself... 

Me: Something I need to know?

Z: I know you're not going to believe this but I'm two games out of my fantasy football playoff pool.

Great, now I need to find a fantasy football tutor.

Monday, November 15, 2010

We're not a doctor but we play one on TV

Who needs an MD when Antichambre is on 6 nights a week?
RDS is reporting that Andrei Markov, who is yet to have an MRI, will be out for three months with a re-injured knee. When I saw him go down on Saturday night I was sure it was his elbow and that he wouldn't be out longer than 2 weeks. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a blogger, not a real journalist.

If RDS is going to play doctor they should stick to what they do best. Proctology.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

I'm starting to think that the pregnancy brain cells I lost never came back

The latest marks from Bialik High School: 1.5, 4.5, 5.5, 5, 1.5, 5, 4.5, 5. I want to be proud. Really, I do. I also want to take an Advil and get in touch with a math translator. Is this for real or have the kids taken over the ministry of education?

Me: Uh.... that sounds good.... is it good?
Zack: Ya, it's good! MERKED!! And on competency 3 I got a 5!
Me: What is competency 3?
Zack: It's the language of the course
Me: What does that mean?
Zack: It means I can talk science
Me: Great, because you can't talk English... what is a competency 2?
Zack: Like doing the questions right
Me: So where's competency 1? 
Zack: There is no competency 1
Me: So it's like Spinal Tap? Unlike standard counting which typically starts at one, Quebec starts at two so as to seem.... uh... smarter? These go to three?
Zack: Uh... I don't know? Good news is that we had gym today for the third time this year, though. We played Vodjkee.
Me: You played what? 
Zack: Vodjkee. It's a Bialik made up game that if we tried to figure out the rules it would take five years according to our gym teacher
Me: Are you just  messing with my head?
Zack: Siiiiiiiickkkkkkkkk

On the other side of the maturity scale Matthew wanted to sleep with his pet pineapple last night. I'm not sure which is funnier.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Is there a better place to hide a chocolate bar?

But my brothers hide chocolate bars in their pants all the time!
Yes Matthew, but not directly against their skin.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Glad to see the PP is working better - Habs 2, Canucks 0

Seems the meds are working as Roman Hamrlik scored on the ailing PP last night

Monday, November 8, 2010

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Attention Deficit Update

Me: Mikey, remember when I bought the new laundry bin I explained how you need to actually open the bin to put the clothes inside?
Mikey: I didn't know there was a lid
Mikey has a math test tomorrow. I'm a little concerned. 

Question:
If a train leaves the station in Montreal going 200 mph and another train leaves the station in Toronto going 175 mph, how loud does your mother have to yell to get you to pick up your laundry?

Answer:
It doesn't matter because I'll just crank up the volume on the football game to drown her out.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Dinner out with the family

Reservation, check
Appetite, check
Wallet, check
Advil, check...
Cage for 4 year old.... shit!

CAGE UPDATE: 
4:53 pm: I found a legal solution
5:07 pm: Matthew escaped the box and is currently tracing a pineapple with a sharpee.

Fisher Price is for babies

The toy screwdriver just doesn't take out someone's eye as well as the real thing
On the positive this may deter any friends from being allowed to play at our house.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Why does my family think that the question "how's dinner?" is actually a question?

All I want to hear is thank you.

Tonight the cous cous grains were too small and the salt grains were too big. Good thing no one choked on the tip of the ceramic knife that I broke off in the frozen chicken as I was trying to pry it apart because cous cous grains too big, salt grains too small AND daddy performing that tracheotomy with the Dora the Explorer straw on himself might've put me over the edge.

God forbid, ptuh, ptuh, ptuh.

Monday, November 1, 2010

It's November 1st people

Pre-K update

Me: Bye Matthew
Matthew: Wait!! Wait!!! I love you! Wave your hand!!
Me: I love you too, I'm not waving my hand but I'll do the chicken dance
Matthew: I love the shape of your oval face do you love the shape of my circle face?
Me: Can you tutor Michael in math?
Matthew: But do you love your oval face?
Me: I find my eyes are a little too close together if you want to know the truth...
Matthew: NO MU-MMY! STOP!! DO YOU LOVE IT?
Me: Yes, yes I love your circle face now go...
clinging to my ankles
Matt: I'll miss you! I'LL MISS YOU!
Me: You're not going off to war, I'll see you in 4 hours
Matt: BYYYYYYYYE!!!!!!!!!

Paxil anyone?