Une grenouille au pays des ours blancs

It's the Day Before Mother's Day, which means that Husband just left for Destination Unknown, with An Idea (I don't know which part worries me most), and the girls go "EEEEEE GO AWAY" every time I try and open any effing door in the house.

The only room I was still allowed to enter ten minutes ago was the kitchen (because I am baking and my kids are no fools), and then Tadpole showed up and said, OK, mum, now whatever you do, don't look right. And then I attempted to turn to my left and she yelled "RAAAAAAHHHH LEFT! DON'T LOOK LEFT!"

This turned out to not mean that I could, actually, look right. No, according to her I shouldn't look left OR right. In fact, I shouldn't look anywhere at all. I sarcastically suggested blindfolding, and by the way her face lit up I believe she missed the sarcastic part.

Which is when I fled. Right now I am sitting in the library with my back to the world.

Tomorrow morning I will have to wait patiently until the girls are 1) up, and 2) ready to bring me my Explosive Breakfast in Bed, after which I suspect that I'll have to change the sheets, like I do every year after Breakfast in Bed turns into Coffee on My Lap with a side order of Croissant Under My Pillow. I probably won't get any flowers because last week was the Ice Show and THERE ISN'T A SINGLE VASE IN OUR HOUSE THAT ISN'T ALREADY OCCUPIED BY THE FLOWERS THE GIRLS GOT. (No, I am not even kidding.) Also, I don't even like the concept of Mother's Day.

So somebody please explain to me why I am looking forward to this so much? Because dude -- I totally am.

ETA Tadpole: Are you impatient to be tomorrow? Mother's Day?
Me *prudently* yes?
Tadpole *beaming*: GOOD! Because I have LOTS of SURPRISES!
And then Tadpole, my little night owl, got up and said, "I am going to bed now, because I have to be up early tomorrow morning to make BREAKFAST for MUM!"
Awwwwwww.

She's small and delicate and very pretty, with her silky hair and impish smile. You can never quite see her eyes, cos her bangs have the deplorable habit to grow over them in no time, so trust me on this: she has big, very beautiful, very dark eyes, and the most expressive little face.

And she sees everything. EVERYTHING. She is a finder of lost items and shed hairs. If she doesn't decide to work with animals when she grows up, she'll make a very good CSI.

She has a complete rabbit fetish. She owns at least 6 or 7 stuffed rabbits, and she loves each and every one of them to death. She squeals with delight every time she sees a rabbit. She wants a live rabbit of her own "when the cat is dead, mummy!"

She loves our cat, too, though. She really does. A bit too much at times, even.

She is as cuddly as a tiny kitten. She liked to be held, and petted, and kissed. She doesn't like to sleep on her own and still slips into bed with us in the middle of the night often enough.

She's as stubborn as a mule. She will not do anything she does not want to do, or is too shy to do, or is too bored to do (especially at school *rolls eyes*). We are trying to teach her how to use her determination to her advantage, but it's not easy because of TEH STUBBORN OMG!

And she's five today.

Happy Birthday, Tadpole, my love. I am blessed to have you in my life. *hugs her Tadpole*

In other news: the main computer in the house had three harddrives divided into 5 logical drives, and to my great relief, it's the XP system disk that died -- and I do mean died. It's not just lost data, it's a disk that simply refuses to do anything. It's physically broken.

So we have to re-install everything, and I have lost all my chat logs, but since I save EVERYTHING onto my data disk, including my outlook mailboxes! my data is miraculously intact. I can't access it yet (Husband is still working on the re-installation -- he was a lot less thrilled than I am to realize that the system was the only thing that had been wiped out), but it's still there. HURRAH!

Many thanks for all the good wishes, the sympathy and the offers of help, much appreciated.