Dirty Goldfish, Dirty Diapers

Banoffee goes fishing! (Idea stolen from here.) I love how in the photograph in the link the person uses a pristine white sink for her elf to fish in; I have no such sinks quite that pristine or free from possible midnight, half-sleeping handwashes. I used a bowl instead.

(And imagining the kids could eat the Goldfish in the morning, I took extra care when putting this scene together, until I tipped my baby plant off the windowsill right into the Goldfish bowl. And then Lolly ate the Goldfish before I could stop her anyway, potting soil and all. Ew.)

Well, in light of my emotastic post last night, I had a good day. Following a not-so-good night where Jaguar wanted to crawl out of his cot for an hour (and in which I mentally devised a brilliant sewing pattern for a Grobag-style baby sleeping bag which I intended, but did not manage, to make today to keep his legs from being able to stretch high enough to climb out of his cot while simultaneously keeping him warm in this cold weather), I got the kids dressed (no school again), dressed myself (put on that eyeliner and all) and drove into town to spend the day with my old BFF Devon and her kids. It was a nice, chilled day complete with dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and a cheeky wee glass of afternoon wine. And a cheeky wee trip to Target, where I bought my cat a scratching post, my son a box of nappies, my daughters some stocking fillers, and my husband a six-pack of Guinness.

School is back on tomorrow, and I'm grateful, because I have a million plus one things I need to do before leaving for Seattle on Thursday. I need to arrange a doctor's appointment for Fifi, purchase those sewing notions needed for creating my baby-sleeping trap, drop some stuff at my mom's, take Lolly to the library to see Santa, and pack all the bags for the weekend - the kids bags for Mimi's house and ours for holiday.

I can't believe there are only 15 days until Christmas. My shopping is nearly complete. My wrapping hasn't even begun. Our Christmas tree has a skirt under it now (thanks, Devon!), and my mom put a wreath on our door. Ho ho ho, Santa Claus is coming to town!

Oh yeah, and our Advent Activity today. It was supposed to be that cut snowflakes one. We didn't get around to it, which is no big deal since the kids sailed that ship days ago.

I have all these ideas for things to write about - particulary loads of ideas from you, my dear readers, from November that I still intend to write about: hair dye, acceptance, tattoos, regret, to name a few. I will get to all of them eventually as time and inspiration allow. But tonight, I'm hitting the sack. No wise words from me tonight. Just a silly elf catching dirty fish. But I'll leave you with this one story, which I am reminded of thanks to Lolly's dirty-fish-eating habits. Hold on to your stomachs, this one's a doozy.

When Lolly was around 18-months, toddling all around the house getting into things, we had one of those diaper-genie trash bin contraptions that you shove the dirty disposable diapers into and it twists the bin bag around it. Well, ours wasn't quite so sophisticated - it didn't twist the bag around. It just closed off the bag at the top until you shoved another diaper down into it. Lolly was the child with which I never really used cloth nappies.

One day, I saw my toddling imp wandering around the house with a piece of buttery toast. Funny, I thought, I can't remember the last time I made toast. But the mind of a mother with two small children is easily distracted, and I put the thought out of my head. I continued on my merry, absent-minded way until I saw her later that same day eating another slice of seemingly fresh, buttery toast. This time I stopped to ponder. It had been days since I'd made the children toast, so she couldn't have stashed this in a toy box or some place without it growing hard. I watched Lolly bewilderingly with her toast. She took a bite, then toddled her way into the hall where all the nappy changing supplies were. She opened the diaper-genie. She pulled out another slice of moist, buttery toast. She took another bite. I screamed like a banshee and yanked the toast out of her hand. I removed the other slices of carefully stored toast from the bin. It was all still soggy - not from butter, but from being in the moist environment of the dirty diaper pail for three days.

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Good night, folks!