Friday, April 27, 2012

Don't make me push the button!

I need something, something like the movie-version President of the United States has.  I need a big, red button that I can hover over, threateningly, whenever my girls are fighting and generally  making my life miserable.  I need a button that says "you know what girls?  I can end this, right here, right now.  You know why?  Because I'm the effing President of your little lives, serving consecutive terms until you are 18 years old.  Welcome to My Democracy!!!!!!  Bwahahahahaha!"

Charlize Theron will play me in the movie (wait, can Linda Evangelista act?)  Gollum and The Kraken will play Edie and Grace, respectively.

That's where I'm at today.


Thursday, April 26, 2012

It's not like I'm trying to get them to eat escargots.....

I have a quick question (oh, it’s never quick, is it Meanie). After 10 years of being a Mom I have learned that Dr. Google and parenting books only make me paranoid and feel like a sub-par parent (omg, did you read What to Expect When You’re Expecting? Remember that part where she wrote that if at the end of the week you are craving a sweet treat, to indulge in her recipe for homemade muffins sweetened with prune puree? Haaaaaaa, when I was pregnant, I needed a sweet fix at the end of every day/hour/minute and fed myself at the trough of the local Bulk Barn!)

 But I digress. My girls are pretty picky eaters. Grace is much better now though, and at least has a willingness, when coaxed, to try something new. For a while she wanted us to pay her a dollar to eat, but even without consulting Google/parenting books I know that is wrong (right?) Edie’s idea of trying something new is to lick it and then loudly proclaim that she doesn’t like it (you imagine this is done as eloquently and discretely as a member of royalty. I like picturing Queen Elizabeth doing the same thing).

 I am so tired of eating “kid-friendly” fare and developing menus for the 10 and under crowd and another for the 29 and under crowd (shut up). This week I started a new strategy, again, without consulting any professionals. I decided to make one meal each night, the kids have to try it, and if they don’t like it, the peanut butter, bread, jam and VERY dull butter knife (you don’t know my kids) is laid out on the counter for them to make themselves a sandwich. Themselves. They have to make it. Not me. I’m eating/enjoying something with more than three ingredients and likely multicoloured/multi-textured. Am I going to create nutritionally challenged kids? Is this cruel? Will this send them to the therapy couch down the road (well, they are headed there anyways, this can just be added to their laundry list of complaints).

Tell me though, does this seem like a fair tactic? I really want your opinion. (Oh, and my parents did make me eat escargots. They didn't tell me what they were though, all I knew is that I loved the garlic butter the little snails were bathed in. I must of been kind of stupid though, what else could they have been?)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

(A few) Reasons Edie Will Need Therapy

-Today, putting away her laundry I smiled at a particularly cute, polka dotted pair of undies. So tiny, so sweet....so size TWO! Omg, I have been cramming Petitie Edie's butt into size 2 underwear for my own cute fix. The shame.....(she's 7....)

-Again, putting away her laundry, I grimaced over the inevitable single clean sock when lo and behold, I spotted it's (dirty) mate by her bed. Did I do what a good mother would do and toss the dirty one in the laundry? Hell no. I assessed it as being not that dirty (yeah, I smelled it, judge away) and bundled it with the clean one. Let's be clear that this is not about laziness folks, it is about my desire for perfect order somewhere in my life, and so be it if it is in Edie's sock drawer.

-When Edie brought home ANOTHER sparkly Rainbow Magic I didn't even hide my groan of anguish. Luckily I'm sick so I was able to cover and say it was a weird cough, but still, have you read these things? They are so inane, so mind numbingly boring where the same verbs "beaming" and "grinning" are used ad nauseum and the use of "and then she disappeared into fairy sparkle" is used wayyyyy to often as a means to end a chapter. I HATE THEM! But Edie loves them, so yeah, I'm screwed.

-This one is for both girls, I remind them daily the perils of scurvy and go into detail of how it affected the crew of Franklin's lost Arctic Expedition when I empty their lunch bag and see uneaten fruit/veggies. 128 people died yo.

So yeah, I have my own reasons for requiring therapy, who am I to not leave a legacy of sorts?

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Anatomy of a Cold

I was so sick yesterday. The most horribly sick I have a felt in a long time. As I lolled about on my bed, in and out of consciousness, I told myself that I should write about my experiences.

Friday: Windy day, a strange little feeling in the back of my throat – like a crumb from my Cobb’s Bakery (darlings I live in Oakville now!) scone got lodged on my uvula and no amount of throat clearing, sniffing and, errr, snorting (sorry!) would disengage it.

Saturday: Awoke with a slightly sore throat, but no matter, it was Gracie’s first big swim meet and all attention was focused on her. Edie a little pale, complaining of a sore throat and she had a runny nose, but this did not stop me from engaging in some serious cuddles/kisses/sharing of water bottle (when will I learn?) throughout the day. After the swim meet we went off to the pub (en famille, no roster of babysitters established yet in this here town). Throat feeling mighty tickily now, but two pints of Guinness later, tickly quickly turns to warm and fuzzy.

Sunday: Gah, stupid feeling still at the back of my throat and I feel kinda tired. No matter, I have dinner guests coming tonight! Edie looking quite pale, dramatically languishing on the couch with only iCarly bringing her any respite. I call the dinner guests to warn of impending plague, but this gal lives life on the edge and happily came with her family anyways. Sneezing begins. I wishful think and convince myself that I must be getting some allergies - my Mom equates all sneezing/running noses/coughing/red eyes with “every damn thing is in bloom right now”! Dinner party is fun, wraps up early enough for me to go to bed at a decent. I am a hockey play off widow now, so any witty banter/night cap before bedtime has all evaporated. I am exhausted, I retire.

Early Monday morning: I am officially dying. My throat, my Gawd my throat! I am in so much pain, how can Jo just, just, just SLEEP there while I lie here in such agony! I take a Tylenol and fitfully go back to sleep. The cruel alarm sounds and I have to get up. I have to make the girls their lunch and get them to the bus stop. Wasn’t I making my own lunch at their age (ahhh, no, in fact, Mom made it til I went off to university). Can’t they walk themselves to the bus stop? (ummm, no, who would carry their backpacks for them?) Like a fevered Sherpa, I escorted them to the bus stop and carried their scooters home. Based on my appearance, the neighbours probably thought I got my drink on early that morning and was drunkenly taking my parenting responsibilities quite seriously. I get home and pass out reading the Hunger Games.

Lunch time: I awake, almost crying, because I woke up thinking that if I was ever the Hunger Games, feeling sick like I did, I would have been killed. Katniss could kick my sick ass. Sniff. Poor me. I start watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall, heh heh. Funny. I feel a little better. Gah, I don’t feel better, at all! I am sooooo sick! I can’t move! Who will get the kids off the bus? I pick up the phone and call, the Father. Can you pleaaaaase come home? I can’t lift my finger let alone my body to collect the girls this afternoon (I rarely ask Jo to come home like that, he knows I am now officially dying). God I am so sick. I take my temperature to confirm this, in case I need medical evidence – yes, there is a fever registering. I pass out, knowing he will take care of everything.

Late afternoon: I kind of hear the girls come home – Jo must have told them how sick I was – I vaguely remember them staring at me wide eyed from the doorway – I feel sad, wondering how they will live without me because I AM DYING. Edie solemnly presents me with a Lego pyramid. We make eye contact and acknowledge this is likely the last gift she will ever give me. Grace yells at me from across the house and asks for a glass of water, then sighs “never mind, I’ll get it myself”. Touching gestures from both children.

Dinner time: I attempt to explain dinner preps to Jo, kids still need to eat all food groups and stick to their schedule, even if I’m unwell. I’m told later they had frozen pizza and ate at difference times. Sniff. The family unit is already falling apart without me.

Early evening: They brought me the crappy laptop upstairs. Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I don’t want to get my social media on – but I can’t get internet connection on the damn laptop, so I just stare at the “sorry” page and feel sorry for myself until I pass out, again.

This morning: I awoke in the spare bedroom – two possible scenarios - I either made like a wounded animal and snuck off to die quietly or Jo was snoring and seriously compromising my “get a good night’s sleep” instructions from everyone. The fever broke though, and while I am far from feeling 100% better, I’ve made it to lunchtime without crying out of pity for myself.

But seriously, how would you survive the Hunger Games with a cold? Oh, and how do 7 year kids bounce back so quickly?

*This is dedicated to all the single parents out there because wow, I could not have gotten through yesterday without the second parent.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Let's just say I was growing ever so frustrated tonight when I couldn't figure out how to log into blogger.com. After many attempts, I realized I was trying to log into something called blobber.com, whooops, it's been awhile.

I WISH I had tons of things to report, but I don't. I bought a Mac, and I like it but I hate auto-correct, mostly because it makes me realize that I have a humungo vocabulary of strictly made up words (like humungo, I had to correct the auto-correct, humungo is a word dammit, oh god, my poor children).

Are you all DYING to know what I have been up to? Well, I am one very domesticated individual. That sentence makes me sound like I was feral at one point and a move to Oakville has tamed me. Well, I wasn't exactly feral before, but some days I feel like one of those long haired white cats that people put bows in their bangs, whereas in Ottawa I NEVER felt like that - if anything I felt like that cat with a chewed ear and leaky eye (sniff, I miss my drinking buddies!).

I kid, I kid. I am meeting some wonderbar (gah, again, auto-correct! Wonderbar is a perfectly decent descriptive word!) people. I've got my wine drinking buddy, coffee buddies, movie buddies and I've targeted a few other wine drinking buddies for future binges (I'm looking at you Dana and Julie). The one demographic I haven't penetrated yet (heh heh, penetrated) are the Gays. I miss you. Is there gay-ban in Oakville? Must research. I've tried googling gays in Oakville but let's just say the search results are not intended for a 39 year old minivan driving mother of two.

I've ventured into Toronto on a few occasions and simultaneously felt Alive! and drastically Out of Touch! Time to clamour for the fashion news - gah! What's this? Fashion Television has been cancelled????? But wait, I don't want to wear flowery shorts pulled up to my rib cage with an ironic fedora sooooooo ....

Anyhoooo, I'm good, I'm good. Here is where I make my false promise that I will blog everyday, but you can't take my first born if I don't. Wait, actually you can take her, but that's a blog entry for another day (I just felt like the Friendly Giant, you may get the reference if you are old like me).