Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Mood Poisoning

Know how a few bad experiences in a day can just kind of snowball and put you in a terrible mood? I've always been pretty low on immunity to this kind of Mood Poisoning. Worst are when those bad moments happen early in the day, then my entire day can be tainted with the grumpiness.

But - I'm delighted to discover that it works the opposite way, too. And that there is an effect of magnitude and integrity. When the pathogen is particularly compelling, passionate, enthusiastic, or clearly truthful, the effects last way, way longer. 

I had the pleasure of listening to a very inspiring speaker recently, and although I already felt quite passionate about my work, this person's passion really infected me, and I've been carrying it for a week now. 

The lovely thing is it also makes me immune to the other type of communicable moods. People can't bring me down, no matter how hard they try!


  • Parent who cut me off to drive the wrong way down the daycare parking lot...gee, I'm sorry you are in such a hurry. I hope you made it to work on time!
  • Seven cars that failed to stop when my kids and I were trying to cross the street to get to the bus stop...so sorry that your bosses must all be such jerks. It must suck to have to drive like that. 
So given that I've noticed an awful lot of myself in my kids - this is my new mission - to make sure that I infect them with some Good Mood Poisioning early in their day, every day.


Thursday, January 9, 2014

Boy The Elder's Star Wars Birthday Party

Well, it isn't six months late yet! Better late than never, right?

This is the Star Wars themed 5th birthday party we had for Boy the Elder this summer. We just booked a multipurpose room at our local community centre and did it all ourselves. Luckily there was lots of themed decorations available that fit just perfectly. But the food, some of the favours, and the games and entertainment were all done by us.

This sign was at the top of the stairs, leading down to the party space:


Each Padawan was given a Jedi robe (made with Intentionally Katie's no-sew pattern) to wear for the party and they chose a pool noodle light saber - very telling who chose light side and who chose dark side colours...



The party food was all set up after the Padawans played light saber balloon games for a while...which quickly devolved into beating each other with their sabers.





Eating time! And there was WAY too much food, we were eating leftover Hutt Dogs and Han Burgers for days after...

We played a few games - Light Saber Training (keeping balloons in the air with the noodle sabers)

Star Wars Bingo (got these cards from Etsy seller TrulyBillEve). It was totally more fun than it looks.

Use The Force (disc tossing game)

And the goody "bags"- a collector cup with a Han Solo Rolo (Han Solo in carbonite caramel filled chocolate, using this mold) and a Millennium Falc-Oreo (Oreo cookie inside a molded chocolate Millennium Falcon, using this mold).


And that was it! We had a really fun time, and it was the party I've personally dreamed about for around 18 years or so...

May the Force Be With You!


Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Kind of an Askhole

It seems like my Boy The Younger's Whyarrhea hasn't improved, in fact maybe it's gotten a wee bit worse. That boy can grill me like a cheese sandwich. He is SO going to follow in my footsteps and end up working in something research-related. There's no way he'll be as good at anything else as he is at asking questions.

Of course, as he gets closer to 4 years old, his questions have really branched out and now include all five W's and a lot of H's.

In the past few days I've had to explain the following, at least sixty times each:

  1. What his choices for breakfast are, and in corollary, what they are not.
  2. Where he can put his dirty laundry, which has never changed since it became his job to look after his own dirty laundry.
  3. When we are going to go on an airplane next.
  4. How much longer until he gets to start Kindergarten.
  5. Why Mommy decided to get a different job (ok, maybe he hasn't actually asked about this, but I wanna tell them all about it!).
  6. Who Mayor Nenshi is.


It is exhausting being this boy's mother. And of course, it's been the holidays, so he's been home from daycare for 2 weeks, which gave him extra time to think about all his questions (thankfully I have not been home much, it's been Daddy's turn!).

After one particular long session, he even made a shocking self-observation: "Mommy, I ask a lot of questions." Without really thinking about it, I said "Yes, you kind of are an askhole."

I'm glad that in addition to my curiosity, he also has my sense of humour and, like me, enjoys a good curse word now and then.