Thanks for the good luck wishes, but only some of them stuck. 

Eirinn slept well; better than expected.  Getting her to sleep was a chore (a violently loud and tantrum-y chore), but she slept clean through the night with nary a shift in position.  We took turns sleeping with her, so the bed wasn’t a cramped sardine can.

She also didn’t fall over the side of the boat when she went fishing with her Disney Princess fishing pole.  Shelurved riding in the boat.  She has been waiting for weeks to go for a ride and it didn’t disappoint.  She also loved fishing, but that mainly involved her passing the pole to Babba or Papa and letting Mommy take unbearably embarrassing pictures of them fishing with a two foot pink and purple Princess pole.

The baby didn’t fall out.  I’m not even joking when I say that at my doctor’s appointment on Friday afternoon I made him do a physical examination to assure me that baby falling out was an unlikely scenario.  Not that the trailer is in the middle of nowhere, there’s a hospital no more than 15 minutes away, but who wants to have their baby fall out in a boat in the middle of the lake?

The mosquitoes and black flies were certainly hungry, but the buffet was closed, my evil, winged, blood-thirsty nemesis.  We all armed ourselves with a bug patch (I’m not sure if this is the exact brand, but you get the idea), which, in all honesty, is God’s Gift to Northern/Central Ontarians, where we have two seasons - Winter and Bugs (as opposed to the seasons in the GTA, which are Winter and Construction).  There were so many bugs that if we opened our mouths to speak, we would have had to floss them out of our teeth, but none of us got a single bite.  Not one.

BUT.  The rain.  Come on, you guys.  You could have done a little better on the good weather wishes.  Oh, and the cold.  The rain and the cold sucked.  Good thing my parents’ trailer has a plasma tv with satellite or I would have been totally and uncontrollably enraged.

By the way, just a tip to whom it may concern: four dogs is too many at a trailer.  Four is too many for the two hour ride up in a cramped van, filled to capacity with luggage.  Four is too many stuck in a trailer in a rain storm.  Four is too many at night when all of them are used to sleeping in beds.  And four is WAY too many to take on a boat ride with four adults, a toddler, a cooler full of toddler snacks, exactly 26 fishing poles, my suitcase-sized camera bag, and a port-a-potty, even if the boat is an 18 foot pontoon.  Four dogs is too many.  

But at least mine wasn’t the one who still goes pee and poo on puppy pads inside the fully loaded trailer, which are always mysteriously and inconveniently located in the middle of the living room where we can all watch her squat and squeeze (Sophie…). 

And at least mine isn’t the one who snores like a drunk asthmatic trucker (Gizmo…). 

And at least mine isn’t the biggest and toughest and the only one afraid of fire works and shakes and cries and cowers for hours after a single, distant pop (Murphy…). 

However, I will admit without hesitation that mine was the loudest and undoubtedly the most annoying with his high-pitched barking and yipping and squawking. 

Today I met my mom and Eirinn at Rotten Ronnie’s for lunch.  It was a “special treat” because my mom didn’t have any other kids and Eirinn claims to like chicken nuggets (even though the discarded bag containing half of her order tells me otherwise).  The food actually grosses me out and makes me feel like a bad person and ashamed of myself after I eat it.  That’s why it’s a “special treat.”

She also loves the playroom and is pretty sure that every restaurant should have one.  Frankly, I do too.  Wouldn’t it be nice if places that served something other than cow lips and arseholes had a playground!  indoors!  so kids would actually want to eat there too?  Just a suggestion.

Eirinn is technically too young (ages 3-10) to use the playroom, but I let her if there are just well behaved younger kids in there with her.  As soon as the roughhousing hooligans pile in, running and screaming and threatening each other, I pull her out for fear I’ll never see her with all her limbs again.

Today, thankfully, it was a nice calm day, playroom-wise.  Eirinn general sticks to using the slide, which is harmless enough for my tender heart.  On her 894th time down, she emerged, sliding on her tummy, head-first, with a giant grin on her face.  As she struggled to stand up and climb out I noticed what was so amusing. 

Her pants were down around her knees.  And she thought this was brilliant. 

Not only was she the laughing stock of the restaurant (which, to her, was a very good thing, the little performer that she is), but everyone got to see that she was wearing Big Girl Disney Princess Pull Ups and not baby diapers.

My three thoughts were:

1.  Girl needs to grow a butt.  Those of us with J. Lo gadunk-a-dunks have never had the experience of our pants falling down.

2.  Where on earth was my camera at a time like this? 

and

3.  Boy am I glad I have a blog to share with the world my legions of fans a couple of people my mom (who was there) this kind of future humiliation.

After weeks of eating completely healthy 100% of the timemostly healthy 85% of the time, something was bound to give.  I had turned myself into a regular Betty Crocker in months previous, after all, so a stick of pure butter, several cups of sugar, and a couple of egg yolks were bound to find their own way into a bowl, mix themselves together, fload their way into the oven and bake themselves into cookies.  And wouldn’t it be rude if I didn’t eat them all after they went to so much trouble?  I think it would be terribly ungrateful of me not to eat them all.

Ok, so no magic cookies, but after reading this, I felt compelled by the power of Jesus to whip up a batch of my World’s Greatest Chocolate Chip Cookies.  By the way, how much do you have to change a recipe before you can officially call them  your own?  ‘Cause I’ve done quite a bit of tweaking to this recipe and I feel rightful in calling them “my” cookies.  Especially when they are so darn delicious and irresistable.  Just ask Carly’s husband.

Carly called them Devil Cookies, which I completely disagree with.  Not only are they not Devil Cookies, but I think they were sent down by a higher power, in a gift basket, with a card signed “Enjoy - G.”  I’m just saying…they are that good.  In fact, I’ll be right back…

*burp*

In an attempt to escape doing puzzles for the entire morning on Saturday, Eirinn and I decided to make these together.  It went much better than I expected.  Nothing “accidentally” broke.  “No one” had a fit.  And I think she enjoyed herself.  Mostly she watched me while asking “You need this?” of every measuring spoon, mixing utensil, and ingredient.  She helped me pour in the chocolate chips, receiving a handful of chips as a reward.

  She was an excellent chocolate chip pourer.  She didn’t spill one.  Or at least she ate up her mess before I saw it.

  Then we waited the long, torturous 15 minutes of baking time.  That heavenly smell was enough to send Eirinn into madness.

  See?  This is what she was driven to do while we waited.  Soccer in oven mitts.  Not an act of a sane person.  Is anyone else mesmerized by the Doras on her pants?  They are hypnotizing me into eating more cookies…

  And the prize for waiting?  Yummy cookies.  Well, at least yummy, melty chocolate chips.  She ate the cookie part about two hours later.