Last time I posted I told you about all the great LeapFrog products my daughters and I received for testing, and now it’s time to tell you how the testing party went over.

In a word: FABULOUS! Read the rest of this entry »

Back in November, the nice folks at LeapFrog asked if I would like to participate in a toy review program. I have to admit: I was interested. When my kids were younger, I was an avid purchaser of LeapFrog products. We owned a Leapster, LeapPad (now replaced by the Tag System), LeapPad Junior and one of my all-time favourite toys (which my kids still love) is the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics kit (except for the fact that they don’t have a Canadian version with “zed” instead of “zee” for the letter Z, but that’s just my own personal issue!)

So yes, I was interested. But I was also slightly skeptical…my kids are in grades one and four respectively…aren’t LeapFrog toys geared more at the preschooler age group? Read the rest of this entry »

These things I resolve to stop doing:

1. Arguing with my daughters. It’s not a feather in one’s cap to win an argument with a six year-old.

2. Yelling at my daughters. See above.

3. Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions.

Three things. Three simple things I resolve to do to improve my life.

This is Gopher, our pet guinea pig. Actually, she’s “officially” Girl2’s pet. Insofar as any pet ever “belongs” to a child and not, in reality, to the mother.

our pet guinea pig

We adopted Gopher a little over a year ago. Gopher was free. Gopher came with a name (Gopher), a cage, a bag of shavings and a bag of guinea pig pellet food. The only instructions Gopher came with were not to feed her iceberg lettuce. Gopher also came with the assurance – verified by the vet, we were told – that Gopher was a female guinea pig.

For the record, it didn’t matter to us one bit if Gopher was male or female. But Gopher’s previous owners told us she was a she.

And despite my initial (serious) reservations, Gopher turned out to be a really okay pet. The kids adore her, and all she does is pretty much look (and sound) cute in her cage. She doesn’t need to be walked. She doesn’t make a big mess. Overall, I’ve been impressed with Gopher’s mom-friendly status as a pet.

But lately, Gopher just hasn’t been her usual self. She’s been rather lethargic, and has lost her appetite. She hasn’t been making her cute little guinea pig vocalizations (they really do make very cute sounds), and she has not pooped in a few days (a mean feat for a guinea pig, let me tell ya). So today I made the trip down to the Avian and Exotic Pet Clinic to have her examined, and for the $70 examination fee I learned a lot about our little Gopher. Read the rest of this entry »

Ahhhh!

So, so much has been going on in my life lately that I can’t possibly fill you in on it all. Why? Because that damn IRL stuff has been sadly overwhelming my online life. (“Stupid IRL”, she says in her best Homer Simpson voice)

For shorts, you can read this. It’ll give you an idea of the really, really big life and death (for real) issues that I’m talking about.

Then, just for the hell of it, read this, too. Just ’cause I think it was kinda funny and thought-provoking. (If I do say so myself. And I do!)

And now, for some funny in a sad, maybe-I-should-actually-be-mad way stuff:

So. I am living with my sister and her family in Toronto. Why? Read the first link above, doofus. My Mom is in the last stages of her fight against cancer and I’m here to help, okay? And after nearly four weeks here alone, my daughters came out to join me. So all three of us are living with my sister and her family. Which means there are four cousins, all under the age of ten, living together in one (rather smallish, but beautiful nonetheless) house. And because three of them are girls, and they’re young, and stupid unsupervised; they decided yesterday to give themselves (and the neighbour kid, thankyouverymuch) homemade “marker tattoos”.

Yes, marker tatoos. Read the rest of this entry »