My Mom took Frankie and Nicholas overnight tonight. It’s the first time they’ve been away overnight in AGES…in fact, I think the last place they stayed overnight was at Joanne’s house months before she died…so three years or so.

With our dwindling family, sleepovers are few and far between. We have Joe’s sister around the corner, but for whatever reason, there has never been an invite. Mark is waaaaay up in buckchuck nowhere and he already has three girls to tend to so there’s no way I’d burden him with another two! My Mom has been dealing with the death of my Pampy and the illness of my Nanny, so she hasn’t been in Canada alot of late. Joe’s Mom lives with us, so there’s one less relative’s house to stay at, so like I said, sleepovers are scarce for my boys. Needless to say, the excitement was aplenty today. Nicholas could hardly contain himself when Grandma arrived tonight!

I remember, as a child, many of my friends would spend weekends and in the summer, full weeks at their grandparents’ houses. I remember feeling so envious because, although I was blessed enough to have all four grandparents, they all lived in England. Sleepovers came once every couple of years when we went to visit them for a week. That made me so sad.

Tonight, as I sit here in the quiet house, I realize how much I miss them. I am not used to peace and quiet. I was looking forward to it, but tonight, I feel a little empty. I am thrilled for the boys that they are spending quality time with Grandma and I am thrilled for my Mom that she is being loved on by the boys, but I miss them. Joe is upstairs with Julesy and I am in the family room, sipping on my wine. I should be enjoying the moment, but I’m not. How weird is THAT?

Time to start counting down the hours until they come home. ;o) OK…maybe it’s not THAT bad! LOL!

Preface: I wrote this entry a couple of weeks ago, when my blog took ill. I saved it into Word and even now that everything seems fixed, my blog keeps spitting this post out. It is a good one, so I am retyping it.

Remember this? and this?

Well, it’s been a while since I updated you on the antics of the White Trash Fam (”WTF”) and there have been many happenings, so here goes:

Their rat dog still runs loose on the street and poops wherever his heart butt desires. Except my property. Our family has worked hard to ensure that he doesn’t feel welcome here. Every time that little thing would come near our house, we would chase him back across the street. Also, every time he pooped on my lawn, I picked it up with a shovel and gently returned it to its rightful owner…on their lawn. So, the dog, at least is no longer a problem for us.

A few weeks ago, I noticed lots of different peeps coming and going from WTF’s house. In speaking with another neighbour, it was determined, from hearsay evidence, that the two older boys (approximately 22 and 24 years old), had moved their girlfriends and one of the girlfriend’s kids into the WTF dwelling. So get this…

The WTF home is the same model as my home. There are two master bedrooms, each with their own ensuites and two regular bedrooms, which share an ensuite. Their basement is not finished (their youngest son is in Nicholas’ class, so he gets the juice). The house is 2,900 square feet. So, in this house, we have Mom and Pop WT, Mom WT’s three kids from her previous relationship (2 boys, 24 and 22ish and a daughter, 18ish), two boys from Mom and Pop WT’s fruitfulness, ages 10 and 9), one dog, and umpteen insects (10 year old boy is a bug collector). As of tonight, there are also two girlfriends, two extra kids from the previous relationship and a cat.

I ask you, where are these people all sleeping???

Anyway….as I said, tonight, we “met” the horrid black cat. It’s name is so very appropriate….”Nightmare”. UGH. Anyone who knows me, knows I HATE cats. I despise them. I LOATHE them.

Anyhoo…

I love birds. I have feeders both in the front and in the back of the house. Julian loves to watch them and so do I. That’s how I met Nightmare. He was crouched down, under my tree in the front yard, watching my little birdies, waiting to pounce. I lost it. I took off my shoe and whipped it at him. I missed. I yelled at it as I retrieved my poorly aimed weapon and took aim again. This time, I got a bullseye and he ran across the street. That little bastard had better count his blessings that I was wearing flip flops and not construction boots!

10 year old WT boy saw me throw my shoe and told me, not so politely, not to throw stuff at “his” cat. Did I mention that I lost it? Well, I lost it AGAIN! I told WT Boy to keep his stupid animal off my property. I warned him that I would throw a shoe at the stupid thing if it stepped foot on my property.

Well, little Jordanna from down the street was there and she interrupted me to tell me I had said a bad word (”stupid”). I apologized profusely and turned my focus back to WT boy. “Tell your parents to keep your animals OFF my property or ELSE!”

He went back across the street, picked up the vermin and took it inside. I haven’t seen it since.

Something tells me it’s going to be a loooooooooooong summer.

“I’ll get you my little WT Boy! And your little dog (and cat) too!!! Eeeeheeeeheeeeheeeeeheeeee!!!!!”

Post-Script: Since this post was written, I have not seen the likes of the dog OR the cat. Mwahahahaha!

My blog is back to her healthy self, thanks to the wonderful, awesome, amazing, intelligent, patient LUNA!!!

Luna makes AMAZING custom blog templates, including mine. Give her a visit…you won’t be disappointed.

She had NO obligation to help me over the last few days because my blog’s illness was completely unrelated to anything to do with her…she helped me out of the goodness of her heart. Turns out my blog was uploaded incorrectly from the get go and (oooops) I didn’t upgrade my Wordpress version. Sigh.

Luna…I am so sorry for the inconvenience…even through eating bad Arby’s sandwiches, you were there for me…I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart!!!

I owe you one….LARGE!

And I cried…ALOT.  I watched America’s Got Talent tonight and this little guy can sing! Watch this little man and listen to the story…tell me you don’t feel a little pang.

This weekend, my privacy was violated.

I went grocery shopping on Friday afternoon. I had Julian with me and I guess in the hubbub of getting him and all of the $284 worth of groceries out of the car, I forgot to press the lock button on my key remote.

Sometime between 5:00 on Friday night and 11:00 on Saturday morning, someone took advantage of my carelessness.

Julian and I had an appointment at York University for the infant study he has been involved in since he was six months old. We took Joe’s van because the stroller and diaper bag were already in there. When I pulled into the driveway at 11:00, I noticed that my front passenger door was ajar. I thought it was kind of weird and went to have a look. I opened the door and found all of my CD’s scattered over the passenger seat. The boys were with me and Joe had come outside to meet us, so I asked them all who went through my CD’s. They all denied it. Next, I noticed that the file folder that I had on the front seat was wet…because the door was left ajar, the torrential rain got into the car.

It suddenly hit me that someone, a stranger, had gone through all my things.

I started taking a panicked inventory…thank God I had my purse with me in Joe’s van, so that was safe…I have a TERRIBLE habit of leaving my purse in my car. I also have a terrible habit of leaving my credit card in the cup holder. After rushing to Joe’s van and counting my credit cards, I knew I was OK there. My Sirius radio was still in its holster on the dash, but there were no coins in my coin tray…I figure they got away with about $5.00 max. They even took all the pennies.

Then it hit me. My Blackberry was gone. I frantically searched the car, under the seats, in the back, around the ground outside…but it was gone. Bastards. I was not concerned about the integrity of the information in the Blackberry because it belongs to my company and it has a password that allows ten chances to get it right and then it automatically locks up. My concern was that there are photos on it of Pampy. Last photos of him that I hadn’t yet uploaded. That pisses me off. The Blackberry is no good to them…they can’t use it, so they probably attempted 10 passwords, realized that they locked it up and then threw it away. Bastards.

I have felt sick about it ever since. I feel sick that someone was in my car, going through and touching my things. Someone stole something that was MINE. How DARE they?! I feel dirty when I get in the car, knowing that they had their disgusting hands all over my stuff. It truly makes me feel sick.

My boss was wonderful about it, basically saying, “Crap happens” and assuring me that it was OK, but as much as she told me not to worry about it, I have. It has eaten me up since Saturday.

I hope the thief is wrought with guilt. I hope he feels terrible. I hope he gets caught the next time he does this. I hope he never succeeds in taking someone elses’ stuff again. I hope he gets his just reward some day.

Bastard.

I am not a censorship kinda gal. If I feel that something is inappropriate for my kids, I don’t let them watch it…plain and simple.

I need to make my own decisions on what is appropriate for several reasons:

1. Many of the people who sit on the censorship board don’t share the same opinion as me as far as what is appropriate. There are people on that censorship board who feel certain episodes of “Little House on the Prairie” are inappropriate…not me;

2. No one knows my kids like I do. Every child is different, even within the same family. There are things that I would let Nicholas watch and not Frankie. Clearly not decided on age, but on the child;

3. Our world is an ever-changing place. On September 12th, I would not let my kids watch anything remotely related to the events of September 11th. I just wouldn’t.

But…(and there is always a but, isn’t there?)

There is a new movie playing right now called “Young People F**ing”. It was apparently part of the 2007 Toronto Film Festival. You can check out the website and the trailer here. It is rated 14A. Now, I have to admit, I am basing my opinion on the trailer. It’s a quick highlight of what the movie is about and to be quite honest, it looks funny. In fact, I may have to go to see it because it has intigued me.

But…(and there is always a but, isn’t there?)

I don’t think that this movie is appropriate for kids. 14A or not. I think this should be rated R. Again, it is based purely on a title and a trailer, but that’s my opinion.

I think I may have Joe take me to see it this week just to see if I am way off base (and to maybe laugh a little, as it looks very funny). I’ll keep you posted.

Have any of you seen it? What is your opinion?

Nicholas turned 9 at 2:14 this morning. Nine. Wow.

He *almost* shared his birthday with Frankie, but decided to wait a couple of hours so that he wouuld have his own special day. Can’t say I blame him.

Nicholas Joseph…no traditions to follow with his name…he is second in line to the throne, so the rules that applied to Frankie don’t apply to him. He got the cool name. Nicholas because I liked it and Joseph because it flowed nicely and it happened to be his Dad’s name. Originally, Nicholas was to be called Nicholas Christopher, but Joseph flowed better and a month or so before he was born, I changed it.

Happy Birthday Nicholas with the cool name.

I love you tons and tons!

Three years old today! Where DOES the time go???

We’ve shared so much….laughs, tears, hormones, anger, jubilation, devastation, depression, anxiety, excitement, pride….EVERYTHING.

Happy Birthday Blog!

Oh…and get well soon. :o(

Francesco was named after his two grandfathers. I HATE the name Francesco…I always have. But out of respect to Joe’s Dad, we named him Francesco…who was I to break generations worth of going back and forth with Francesco and Giuseppe? Yeah…me…the mangiacake misfit followed Italian tradition….ev.

We had every intention of calling him Francesco because it was the least ugly of all of the shortforms…Frankie, Franco, Frank. They are all awful…I guess it could have been worse…Joe’s Dad’s name could have been Pasquale or Luigi….shudder. For those of you who don’t know, Francesco is pronounced “Franchesko”. Anyway…on day 4 of little Francesco’s life, we took him for a routine check up. The nurse called his name, “Francisco B***” She misprounced both his first AND last names. Our last name is truly not a hard one to get right…honestly. From that point forward, he was Frankie. If people were going to get his last name wrong, at least with Frankie, they would get his first name right. UGH.

Frankie turns 12 today. At exactly 5:23 pm, he will be 12. And I have to admit, there is no other name that would suit him….Frankie is a Frankie. He just IS. I still hate the name, but I can’t imagine now whatever else I could have called him that would have fit. So, Frankie he is and Frankie he always will be.

Happy last birthday as a preteen baby…you make me proud to be your Mom.

I love you tons…ugly name and all! ;o)

Dare I say it?

I think Luna fixed my blog!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Luna!!!! You are AWESOME!!!!!!!