This is my favourite tree, yesterday at 4:30pm

The same tree again today, at 4:30pm

Winter has arrived in Chicago!

Over 40,000 people have watched this

You know what that means?

Yep, I should totally have my own cooking show

The last few days of school holidays saw us squeezing in all the stuff I’m promised the girls we’d do

That I didn’t really want to do

And had been putting off

Leaving me 4 days to do it all

Fucking idiot

We started with rock-climbing Thursday and then moved onto a play date at MacDonalds

I know, all the parents right now just involuntarily shuddered

MacDonald’s playground? During the school holidays? On a fucking FRIDAY?!?

Fucking idiot

If you ever want to see the worst of human nature – from hygiene to parenting

That place is where you’ll find it, in one closed in, germ loaded, trans fat filled building

Then we moved on to iceskating on Saturday

No children were harmed in the fun making process, but there’s a Mummy with sore legs and ears. Yep, I said EARS. The fuck?

Sunday was rollerskating

At a rink that doesn’t give a fuck that it’s 2012. It was built in the sixties and convinced that it’s 70′s decor is the shit and ahead of the curve

Dudes, I actually busted out laughing when we walked in

And of course, fell in love with the place

Except for some arsehole there who, I shit you not, threw a roller-skate at his (maybe 6 year old) daughter, because she said her feet hurt and she didn’t want to skate anymore

I looked straight at him, put my phone to my ear and mouthed the words *DCFS, MOTHERFUCKER

I didn’t see him after that. he was probably outside, cutting the brake lines on my car

The highlight of the afternoon was seeing just how easy it was to embarrass our kids

Diamond and I had a couple’s skate to Skater Boy  (think, ‘You’re the One That I Want’ done to Avril Lavigne. Oh yes we did)

Magoo went a special shade of purple, and Macaroni hid in the toilet ’til the song was over

Today, they couldn’t get out of the house fast enough to go back to school

And now I have no one to play with

I see you in the kitchen putting your hand up, Diamond.

* DCFS = Department of Children and Family Services

I had told the kids about a little boy named Cole

(read about him here)

Who is really sick, and is going to spend his 5th birthday (Monday) in the hospital

I asked if they wanted to help me pick out a birthday card

Because his Aunty had written about him – asking people from everywhere to send him a card

To help make his birthday extra special

They decided it would be WAY better if they made cards for him

They were right

I’m off to the post office to send them

Along with about as much love that one envelope can hold

UPDATE – Cole passed away January 16th. But not before receiving thousands of birthday wishes from all over the world. RIP Beautiful boy xx