Happy Wednesday!

I’m getting a bit of a groove going when doing this post.  I do this great blog hop on Tuesdays called Twisted Mixed Tape where we share music based on a weekly theme.  I actually post that one Monday evenings – and check out a few that evening before crashing.  Then Tuesday evening rolls around and I prep this post while listening to what others have posted on that hop.

So I’m busy listening to scary music (this week’s theme), while prepping the hodgepodge.

Which fits – because we’re Halloween-themed over here this week too.

So back to the Hodgepodge.  Joyce over at From This Side of the Pond posts some varied questions each week and then folks post their answers on Wednesday and link up.

Do click the button and surf about!

Here are this week’s questions:

1. What’s something you’re dealing with that might be described as tricky?

Honestly?  I feel that life at the moment is just one jumble of non-stop tricky.   In September my husband returned to work after parental leave; our 1-year-old started daycare and our  4-year-old started kindergarten so we’re navigating a whole new worlds of …. necessarily well-coordinated “structure” in a way we’ve never really had to before.

Concerns/daily drama ranging from, and in no particular order:

• concerns about whether our 4-year-old’s language skills are where they should be and if she’s getting bullied.  So we’re busy trying to teach her to stand up for herself without just hitting back or bursting into tears.  Oh! And scheduling a second check up with an audiologist, on recommendation from her teacher, to see if there is any issue with her hearing that may be impacting her picking up language.  We tested her two years ago – but maybe something has changed.
• Dealing with the reality of the day-care circuit and two working parents with shifting work schedules (one of which involves shift work).  So whose dropping off; whose picking up; whose doing dinner; whose actually home for dinner; when there’s time to grocery shop (turns out, yesterday, after day-care pick-up, with two kids along for the ride because I’m ever so slightly masochistic).
• Figuring out where those nice extras like laundry, cleaning, yard work, downtime, couple time, friend time and sleep are supposed to fit in.

By the time kids are in bed I usually consider the day a win if:

A) I haven’t succumbed to more than one glass of wine: last night a win!  No empty booze calories!

B) My husband and I haven’t snipped at each other over something inane: last night a fail!  I spent about an hour after work cleaning and moved a box with speakers he had left in the living room to his side of the basement.  He snipped that I always “dump” things on his side; I snipped back that maybe the conversation could have started with “Hey thanks for taking an hour out of your day to clean up the house.  I really appreciate it!  So sorry I just dumped all my stuff in the living room!”  We took a deep breath, admitted collective exhaustion, apologized, and that was that – but a shining marriage moment it wasn’t.

C) Neither of us have accidentally sworn in front of the children: last night a win!  Earlier this week, however, demonstration of what I suspect is a compilation of previous fails.   I’m in the car with my 4-year-old when, from the back-seat, she informs me that “F*ck me! I forgot my IPhone!”  It was a proud parenting moment – what with her using the word in proper context and all.  I also briefly considered cancelling the appointment with the audiologist given I suspect this is a pretty good example of how her hearing is just AWESOME.  In seriousness though, I was right horrified.  We had a talk about bad words and how we shouldn’t use them.  We’re now making a concerted effort to curb all potty talk around her.

2.  What’s your treat of choice?

See A above.  A nice glass of wine at the end of a long day.  Bliss.  Just not EVERY day.  If the question was really about candy?  Post dieting (I lost 30 lbs in the first half of this year) I pretty much avoid it; but before that I was a huge fuzzy peach/sour patch kid fan.

3. Did you/will you carve a jack-o-lantern this month? Which real (living or dead) or fictional ‘Jack’ would you most like to meet in person? Why?

We carved our pumpkins this past Monday evening with friends and have a yearly tradition of doing so.  Here’s the fruit of our labour from this year (included the one with the lights on so you can see the Picasso Pumpkin done by my friend’s two-year-old son):

As for which Jack I’d most like to meet?  Well, given my Wednesday Whine in response to Q1 above, I think I might like to meet the actual “Jack of all Trades” and invite him over so he can lend us a hand.  But having just googled the term, I’d now like to go one better and, more specifically, I’d instead like to invite his Elizabethan ancestor, “Johnny do-it-all”.  I don’t care about the negative connotation.  My glass of wine is half full (or it WILL BE once Jack or Johnny or whatever his name is swings by to top it off for me) – he sounds fabulous!

4.  In your opinion, what’s the grossest sounding word in the English language?

For this one I had to google “gross sounding words” for inspiration.  I should apparently dislike “moist”.  Meh.  Looking at various lists, I’d have to concur I’m not really a fan of “phlegm”.

That said, on the issue of words, the current fun I’m having – given we are raising our kids in a bilingual family (I’m English and my husband is French) – is finding words that are “better” in English than French.  While I appreciate the utter subjectivity of this, I’m totally enjoying it.

My current English winner?  Octopus.  So much better than the French: Pieuvre.  Seriously?  Can I answer Question 4 in French?  Ugh.

5. When did your heart last skip a beat?

My now 4-year-old had eye surgery at this time last year to correct a lazy eye.  The whole day was pretty scary for me as a parent (I like to think my child didn’t really know what was happening until it happened so wasn’t too scared, and then just felt a bit groggy but got a dolly for her troubles).  Anyway, they ask the parent to hold the child (to be there for comfort) as they put them under general anesthesia.  I knew everything would be fine, but watching her cry and struggle as they put her down before the operation and knowing they were cutting into her eye – yeah, that was “skip a beat” moment.

Everything went great; everything was over in less than half a day; after about 3 days you couldn’t even see the stitches; and her eye is so much better now. But that moment as she passed out.  Yeah; worry for her; worry if we made the right choice; very much heart skipping a beat.

6. Monster Mash by Bobby ‘Boris’ Picket, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon, or Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters…your favorite ‘scary’ tune?

From this list Ghostbusters is a favourite.  We had to do “aerobics routines” in Grade 8 gym class (the boys had a wrestling unit – always thought aerobics was a bit of an odd choice for “girl option”, but I digress…). My friend and I decided to lead the class using this one because, well, it was hard enough to take the aerobics unit seriously, so we just went for broke.

7.   It was a dark and stormy night when____________.

Huh.  I actually really enjoy night storms.  Sometimes when there’s good lightning and thunder my husband and I go out on the front porch to watch and listen and just be impressed with nature.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the week of Halloween fun.  Tonight my husband’s work has a kiddy party.  He works on Parliament Hill here in Ottawa (I use to as well, it’s where we met) and the Speaker of the House of Commons puts on something known as Hilloween for staff and their kids.  So I’m leaving work early to take both our kids.  My eldest is excited to go to the “castle” again.  Then, of course, I’m looking forward to trick or treating with the kids on Thursday.  My brother and sister-in-law are coming over to help us out – handing out candy and taking our kids down the street to visit a few of the neighbours’ houses.

That’s it for me today.  Happy Halloween everyone!