My son the charmer

And on the theme of 'kids say the darndest things': a few days ago, while I was cleaning up the living room, my son came up to me, handed me some dusty crayons and said, "Tiens, ma belle." For those of you out of province, 'tiens, ma belle', the equivalent of 'there you go, doll', is what truckers say to waitresses when they leave a tip or what any other sort of gruff and rough around the edges kind of guy says to a pretty young thing. It's a casual, friendly sort of paternalism. Like being called 'sweetheart' in the post office.

I love it.

Where's the Beef?

I lit the candles for Hannukah this year, as I try to do every year, singing the prayer in Hebrew phonetically, and dripping wax on the table.

This was the first year that my son was aware of Hannukah. On the first night, as I began to light the candles, he started to sing "happy birthday". I told him that this was not in fact a birthday despite the presence of candles. He seemed unconvinced and after listening to me recite the prayer, looked around and asked, "wheres zee cake?"

In other news, I started the boxing. My arm is trembling as I write this post. That's how out of shape I am.

Punch drunk winter stroller

First big snowfall which brought the following thoughts:

1) I can't wait until my son can walk distances greater than two blocks so I can ditch my clunker of a stroller that even the Flintstones wouldn't use. Dervla Murphy says you can get a child to walk (and she really means walk) by the age of three.

2) On that theme, I have realized that pushing said stroller all winter, across snow drifts and over snowplow mountains is not enough to get me in shape. Time to join a gym.

3) And now to make good on my long-term promise to myself to learn how to box.

On that note...

1) People with really bad hair. Wow, it just makes me feel like all is right in the world and that I shouldn't worry so much what the world thinks when I see someone with really bad hair and they're rocking it. I love it.
2) Friends of friends who donate furniture and then help you move it to your house.
3) Zatar sandwhich, all dressed except for onions.
4) My son, listing off all of his friends as he falls asleep (mon ami Ralph, mon ami Georgigiana..)
5) My mum.

Sweet dreams.