A two-year old chatterbox coupled with potty training and an inquisitive mind (”Why? How? What that?”) leads to interesting conversations in our house.

When Sacha got out of the tub last night, his naked butt came storming into the living room where I was sitting with my parents and Memère (grandmother), and he started chanting that he had babies in his testicles.  I couldn’t quite understand what he meant, so Tony explained the conversation Sacha and him had in the bathroom:

Sacha (lifting his man-organ to see underneath it): What these under mine pennis?

Tony: Those are your testicles.

Sacha: What hard thing in mine tessicle?

Tony:  What do you think it is?

Sacha: Bubbles.

Tony: Bubbles?

Sacha (changing his mind): No, not bubbles.  Babies.  Babies in mine tessicle.

Tony: Babies? How many babies do you have in your testicles?

Sacha: Two babies. One named Jacob.

Tony: Jacob? Like your friend Jacob or like Jacob in the Bible?

Sacha (truly thinking about this one): Like mine friend Jacob.

Once Tony was finished telling the tale, Sacha, realizing that my Memère was there, asks me: Maman, what tessicle in Fwench?

I turned to Memère, who was red from laughing: C’est une TRÈS bonne question, Sacha.  Memère, connais-tu le mot testicle en français? (That is a GOOD question, Sacha.  Memère, do you know the French word for testicle?)

Memère: Non.  Je vais chercher dans le dictionnaire à la maison et te le dire. (No.  I’ll look it up in the dictionary when I get home and tell you.)

As it turns out, the answer is testicule.  And one of them is named Jacob.

Overheard in our garage while my Baba prepared to take Sacha to the park:

Baba: Can Baba ride in your wagon, Sacha?

Sacha: No.  You too fat.

Oh dear.

Sacha is a bonafide chatterbox.  I don’t know if it was the speech therapy or his finally being ready to talk, but the kid does not shut up from dawn until dusk.  Sometimes, Tony and I just stare at each other, gaping mouthed, amazed that he can speak so much without sparing even a second to take a breath.

Sometimes this is a good thing: he tells himself stories, clasping his hands together on his lap and staring off into the distance saying “Once upon time, ay-cay-no (volcano) EXPLODE EVERYWHERE!”  Before he sleeps, he now says his prayers by himself (a mixture of two prayers that we have been saying since he was 8 months old): “Faddah, Son, Ho-wee Spiit Amen.  Sun shines, I in bed, rest sweepy head. Keep me safe frew night, I wake morning wight, Amen.  Faddah, Son, Ho-wee Spiit Amen!”

He has also decided that his name is no longer Sacha, but rather Chicken Little. In fact, if you address him as Sacha, he will either ignore you or spurt while shaking his head: “Mine name Sacha ANYMORE!  Mine name Chicken Little!

There are the WHY questions, which I often cannot answer to his full satisfaction: Why Maddahs have boobs?  Why Kees cry?  Why mine name Sacha?  Why Daddy go work?  Why we need money?  Why rain outside?  Why peepee come out mine penis?  Why Kees good baby?  Why Daddy good daddy?  Why Daddy name Tony?  Why Maman name Sarah?  Why need say prayers? Why Auntie Teewah go way?  Why me like bacon?

I often think that I am shortchanging his little curious mind when I cut the crap and give him a quick, boring answer “Because bacon is yummy.  Because Grandma liked the name Tony.”  I have so much to do, and the questions are so non-stop that I cannot wrap my head around creating a reasonable teacher-like answer to satisfy him.  Or, for that matter, spend enough time with him doing all the 2-year-old things he wants to do, since I have another son on the verge of walking and demanding a lot of my time using my fingers as a balance apparatus while Sacha plays play-doh by himself or pours himself some “coffee” (juice) and goes to “work” (his bedroom) to “help people.” There’s only so much I can do for two kids at the same time.  And I feel guilty that I cannot do more. Or that I lack the energy to do it.

Then last night, before bed, Sacha leaned in and told Tony: Maman is good mudder.

I guess I need not worry anymore.  Sacha said so.

My sisters and I are close. We don’t hide anything, we don’t spare each other’s feelings when we need to get something off our chest. But it seems as though we rarely take the time to utter the positive words brewing in our brains.

I am immensely proud of my youngest sister.

If you recall, I posted this letter to my youngest sister about 18 months ago.

Now, she is a fully (mostly) self-sufficient adult*. She loves her work and is fantastic at her job. On top of that, she seems to be finally understanding the meaning of budget and financial planning. I never thought I would say those words about her!

She is a part of the social committee at said work (I think she heads up the committee) and organizes charity fund raisers and so on. She has a wonderful man in her life, who supports her in everything she does and who grounds her in reality and humour. And she supports him, even when things seem not so great (he was recently laid off – a sign of the times, in this case). Now I cannot wait for them to get married so that I can stop calling him my favourite brother-in-common-law.

I am also deeply proud of my other sister.

She took a bold leap, quit her job (which paid well, but she loathed) and decided to take the plunge and go back to school to get an animal biology degree. This involved uprooting her and her husband, moving 500 km away, taking upgrading courses just to get into university, and working part time to support her nasty schooling habit. All the while, she has aced every course she tackled. I think she got 97% on her Chemistry 101 final. That or 100%. I cannot keep her ridiculously high grades straight. She is definitely heading towards a scholarship. All the while, she still manages to keep the glimmer of hope alive that she will, someday, provide my children with cousins. I will keep all my baby gear just for you, my sweets.

I love you, Talia & Stef. I am so proud of both of you.

Now make babies, k?

* I say mostly because she still calls me every friggin time she makes scotch meatloaves, even though I have given her the recipe numerous times, and it is posted on my blog.

My husband is out of town for a work-related conference.  I am thus left with the boys: a 2-year-old who doesn’t know how to sleep and a 10 month old with a nasty-ass cough.

He called me yesterday, telling me how tired he was.

“Why?”

“Oh,  we were partying until 2:30 in the morning. Then we had to wake up at six.”

“Was the party in your room?”

“No.”

“Well, then you could have left and went to sleep.  No sympathy from me.  You want to know how my night was?”

“How bad was it?”

“Kees woke up at 11:30, Sacha woke up at 3:30, Kees woke up at 5:20, Sacha woke up at 6, then I slept in his bed until 8:00 when we all woke up.”

Then he told me he had to go  because the taxi taking them all to the dinner theater was leaving.

Bite me.  I feel so bad for you.

We are one week into Lent 2009.

For those of you who know absolutely NOTHING about Lent, it is a time when Christians are called to reflect on their lives and sacrifice/fast in the way Jesus did for 40 days in the desert, where he was tempted by Satan.  Lent is over at Easter.  Although if you add up the total number of days from Ash Wednesday to the beginning of the Triduum (the 3 days encompassing Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday), you don’t get 40. You get 45.  Many people say that this allows you to cheat on Sundays (of which there are 5 in lent).  In fact, every Sunday is a mini-Easter, and a celebration of the resurrection, even during Lent.  So if you cheat on Sundays and indulge in your chocolate mini eggs (which I gave up one year and thoroughly regretted), you won’t go to hell.

This year, however, I am not cheating at all.  No Sunday sneaking.

I gave up Facebook for Lent.

The moment I realized that I was a crackbook addict was when a good friend of mine changed his relationship status, thus making me think that he had split up with his girlfriend of 2 years and that he never told me about it. How could he do that??  I had just talked to him and he never mentioned anything!  This is insane!  So I sent him a quick note asking what was going on.  He told me that they are still together.  They just decided that people take FB way too seriously and that they would remove that sort of personal information from their pages.  I am obviously one of these people, as I actually thought that he would announce his breakup to the world on FB and neglect to tell me in person about such a serious change in his life.

I thought that deactivating my account would be difficult, but it has proved to be a relief.  No more inbox full of notifications, no more obsessively checking for photos or updates from my friends.  I have been back into regular old knitting and reading, and talking to people on the good old telephone, which suits me just fine. I am now contemplating whether or not I will even reactivate my account when Lent is over.

So for now, you won’t find me on FB.  I won’t be posting photos of the kids or of the fantastic time I had at my step-brother’s wedding (first time we left the kids EVER).  I’ll be enjoying my life in the real world.  And here in real life to talk to you about it.

It was my husband’s birthday yesterday.  I may have let the ball drop a little.