me:  keyzia, why are you poking yourself like that?

keyzia:  oh, momma, i had to fix my vagina! ((poke, poke))  there!  that's better!

ephraim and i have what ja calls a "thing".  "it's just your 'thing' with your son, honey."  anyways, we have several arguments about what things are called.  one goes like this...

me:  cuppa!

ephraim:  bobble!

me:  cu-PA!

ephraim:  bo-BLE!

me:  CU-PA!!

ephraim:  BO-BLE!

ja:  ephraim, it's a cuppa!

ephraim:  cuppa!

me:  yay!  cuppa!

ephraim:  BOBBLE!

another one, which just started with the onset of orange season happened last night.  i got out an orange for after dinner and...

ephraim:  apple!

me:  no, handsome, it's an orange.  ORANGE.

ephraim:  apple!

me:  orange!

(((this went on for a little while, and i finally did get an apple to show him the difference.  ja, of course, no help at all, is laughing hysterically.)))

me:  this is an apple. ((holding out the apple))  and this is the orange.  ((holding out the orange.))

me:  what's this?  ((holding out the apple))

ephraim:  apple!

me:  yay!  what's this??  ((holding out the orange))

ephraim:  (grinning like the beast that he is)  APPLE!

i give up.

and so is poop.  puke is also hard to scrub out of carpets.  when i have my own house, probably many many years in the future when banks no longer laugh hysterically when we ask for a mortgage, we are going to either have bamboo floors or cork floors.  because, of course, by the time we can afford to get our own house, we will easily be able to afford this kind of flooring!  and really, think of the money we would save in the long run in cleaning bills...

but, i digress.  back to the important thing.  the importance of all the poop, pee and puke being out of our carpets!

we've been in this apartment for just about three years now.  we had the carpets cleaned just before ephraim was born, which was also just before toilet training and just before the great poop cannon struck the house in 2003.  we have also since then just recently had the great diarrhea incident of 2004.

oh man, the poop that this tiny apartment has seen over the past few weeks.  ephraim has had a nasty case of diarrhea.  diarrhea that no diaper can hold.  and not just any kind of diarrhea either, but the worst smelling nastiest consistency of water stuff that you can imagine.  and yes, it got on and into the carpets. 

i bet you can imagine how beautiful my apartment has smelled over the last little while.

but, now, oh now...  the smell...  ahhhh...  it's lovely.  it's funny how you don't notice how bad something is until it's fixed!  and now, i have candles going to add to that lovely clean smell, and not just to override the smell of urine and feces.  the guy who did it (Kevco) was fabulous.  and cheap.  i'd recommend him to anyone.

yes.  the smell of clean and the smell of cranberry scented candles is definitely better than what this place used to smell like.

i wonder if i can get one of those cleaners to use on my children?

ephraim went down for a nap at 12:30 this aft.  he got up at 4:45 this evening.  that means he slept for 4 hours and fifteen minutes. 

keyzia, on the other hand, slept for maybe an hour.  stinker.

wow.  what a weekend!  and here it is, monday once again.  my children are sleeping...  well, they are in their room...  the christmas music is playing, and the tea is hot.  it is definitely time to tell my story.  such that it is.

saturday was a little bit crazy.  first off we went to look at a house with sharlene and peter, ja's cousin and her hubby....  the house had a beautiful basement...  AND THE TAP ON THE TUB CAME OUT OF THE SIDE INSTEAD OF THE END!!  oh ya.  that's what i'm talking about.  that's definitely the way it should be!!  but, alas, it was not to be.  not the house for us.

my dad brought my sista ashley up so that we could take advantage of her (again) and have her sit for us while we went to ja's christmas party that night.  it was LOVELY.  much fun.  the food was great, turkey, roast beef, ham, all the fixin's...  the music was good.  the company was fun...  THE.  BOOZE.  WAS.  FREE.  i know.  i was amazed myself.  so, i decided to try a white russian.  okay, two white russians.  and a couple of coolers.  and a glass of wine.  and something else.  but that's it!  i swear!  ja's company is so great, they paid for us to take a cab to the banquet centre, and to take us home again.  good for us because we HAD NO MONEY TO SPEAK OF, and otherwise i would have been the dd for sure.  i looked fabulous, if i do say so myself...  i made myself this very pretty angora triangular shawl type thing to wear over top of a black top...  and, my dad slipped me some moola for a hair cut...  my hair guy even did something a bit fancy, put velcro rollers in it...  very fun.  never done that one before!  the best part of the whole evening, did i mention??  IT DID NOT COST US ONE CENT.  lovely.  and, we stayed up past 11!!

you know, it's very funny tho, you finally get out without the kidlets, and what do you end up talking about?  the kidlets.  you tell kidlet stories to people without kidlets, you seek out and find the other kidlet people, and you swap kidlet stories with them...  i remember the days when i used to have intelligent conversations about literature...  the only literature i read nowadays is stuff like "Everyone Poops" and "Clifford's Bedtime".  stunning topics of conversation...  really.  it's also funny how the people without kidlets manage to run away as fast as they can as soon as you start into a kidlet story.  "oh, you have children?  i'm going to go over there now."

yesterday we were having ja's parentals for dinner...  which meant, of course, that we had to clean up the place a bit before they got here.  my dad came up to steal my baby sister away from me (can't we keep her???  pleeeeease????) and brought the gifts for my kidlets from the sears christmas party.  ephraim got this crazy riding toy...  a jeep kamikaze trike.  and keyzia got this weird doll thing.  we didn't end up going down for the party because ephraim's been very sick, pukey and poopy and stuff (sorry ash!!).  but, i will leave all that talk about the poop that no diaper can possibly hold for another day...  another post.

ja's parentals made it in time for dinner, through horrendous weather that forced them to spend the night.  we had a lovely evening, played play-doh with the kidlets...  play-doh that keyzia and ephraim got from the domtech kids christmas party... and then the adults got to play cards.  we were nicely in bed by 10...  i can't handle this staying up past 11 stuff too often!!

so, all in all it was a lovely weekend.  except for some spatting with the hubby, everyone was well behaved and great.  and hey, i got to go out, talk to adults, and i didn't even cut up anyone's meat!

the #1 Word of the Year for 2004 was

wow!  when my son decides to go for it, he goes for it!  tooth number six popped through today!

no wonder he's been so miserable.

thank God for tempera!

the hubby and i are going out tomorrow night.  just the two of us.  WITH. OUT. ANY. CHILDREN.  there will be no one clinging on my leg...  no one saying, "momma, momma, momma," no one needing their meat cut up at dinner...  no one smearing gravy on me...

ja booked us a taxi that will pick us up here and bring us home again.  do you know what that means?  that means that i can have more than just half a glass of wine!  there will even be other adults there.  other couples.  we will be able to have adult conversation without having to say, "don't touch that, put that down....  get back here!"

ahhh yes.  it should be lovely.  i think i might even shave my legs.

ahhh yes, the wonderful world of "no."  my darling, sweet, easy going son has discovered the word no, and most of our days go something like this;

ephraim:  cookie?

me:  how about a rice cake?

ephraim:  no.

me:  would you like an apple?

ephraim:  apple?  no.

me:  ephraim...

ephraim: no.

ephraim:  na na na na na naaaaa NO!

keyzia:  want to play with me, ephraim?

ephraim:  no.  mine.

ahhh yes, and sometimes when we're driving somewhere, he just sits in his carseat and yells no repeatedly...  then giggles.

we're working on yes right now.

and he finally has tooth number five!!  poor ephraim has been teething since he was about five months old...  sprouted his top and bottom teeth at virtually the same time just before his first birthday, and now, finally, we have a fifth tooth!  an eye tooth on the right hand side!  wahoo!!

not that not having teeth has slowed him down at all...  the boy eats steak, popcorn, pretzels, chicken nuggets...  you name it, he eats it!

hmmmm...  i wonder who his father is?