I haven’t written much this past week.

 
I guess I got caught up in what’s happening in the news around the world the way we all have. I sometimes find it hard or insignificant to write about the day-to-day musings of my kids and family life when there’s so much unnecessary violence and savage attacks on innocent people on every screen.

 
Then a little voice said, “That’s what the terrorists would want.” They want everyone to shut down and stop finding the good in things and happiness in a six year old asking, “Mom, can you go and get me a pen?” and me replying, “I think you can get it yourself” and her saying, “Well that would be a good job for you since you’re my Mom, for now.”

 
And what have the terrorists ever done for me? They haven’t once “liked” my blog on any social media outlets (at least not that I’m aware of but I did recently come into millions after one of my distant relatives in Nigeria reached out. The details seemed a bit sketchy).

 
So, our Chloe turned six today which means a couple of things.

 
1) I really need to stop blaming this last few pounds on pregnancy weight and
2) I can probably stop breast feeding—and that goes for the older kids too!

 
We agreed since Chloe is our least favourite of our three kids we were going to cut down on the number of “big” gifts and focus on a few small things for her to enjoy.

 
The truth is, with two older siblings (both girls) we have enough random stuff kicking around that it no longer looks like a well maintained toy aisle at Toys R Us but rather the stock room at Costco, tires and all. It’s ridiculous and it needed to stop. Sorry our sweet, third born had to be the one to live out our apology to the world for our over-consumption but she was surprisingly excited this morning.

 
First, there was a sign on the table and balloons taped to every chair. This is standard birthday fair in our house.

 
“Oh Mommy, you made me the sign with the LOUD letters (block letters) with hearts inside!” I sure did. Score one, el-cheapo.

 
She asked for chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast but on a school day, making pancakes from scratch was a tall order. Also, she doesn’t really care for the pancake part so much as the chocolate chip part and digs them out with her fork leaving the doughy bits, a cemetery of crumbs on the breakfast table.

 
I opted instead to give her the usual; mini-bagel, a mini-orange and SIX chocolate chips, one for each year she has enhanced our lives.

 
I know some of you are thinking, “Just six?” But you are probably terrorists. Six units of chocolate for any kid heading to school is six too many! (my Mother’s voice is with me wherever I go) but it’s one day out of the year and she isn’t opening an iphone or an ipad or an eye patch just a few small gifts, crafts and a couple of dresses soon to be stained with six chocolate chips.

 
Ellie made Chloe some coupons that I thought were pretty special.

1) This coupon is good for one, Ellie hug
2) This coupon is good for you picking one, family movie
3) This coupon is good for you playing one game on my ipad

 
And I thought we were cheap.

Greg suggested I am likely now on some sort of “sites to watch” list given the several references to terrorists. This can only help my readership. Once again, the terrorists lose.