meanoldmommy

2012-02-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

Ying and Yang

Item 1) Grace received her first “grounding” yesterday. From 1:00 to bedtime she was sequestered to her room as punishment for her crimes. The hilarity that ensued (I had to hide my admiration in her abilities) was in the form of sticky notes on a fishing rod she fashioned out of silly putty, yarn and a stick. Edie was recruited as the town cryer to announce when a new note had been drafted for my literary consumption – a job she took very seriously as she planted a chair at the base of the stairs for the better part of the afternoon to await a new note. The notes were basically an almost 10 year olds rendition of Johnny Cochrane pleading not guilty. It actually made for a very peaceful afternoon. Which leads me to....

Item 2) I found my Pixies CD when unpacking a box during my peaceful afternoon. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. It’s for sure good thing Martha Stuart styles because the Pixies are amazing, and you should like them, and they bring out all kinds of feelings and memories for me. It’s for sure a bad thing because they bring out all kinds of memories for me. Memories like going to a Pixies concert when I was super young, across the river from where we lived, with an older guy who had a car who I had only met via telephone. I lied to my parents about who I was going with, I gave no information to anybody about who I was going with and I just went in youthful bliss and fearlessness. I didn’t focus too hard on how I was going to get home, what time I was going to get home, or what repercussions there might be. I was just focused on the moment of me going to the Pixies concert. It all turned out okay, the guy wasn’t a creep, (or he wasn’t into 90 lbs when wet white painted face/hair dyed black young teenage girls). Thank goodness.

While I can bask in the memories, shake my head at my selfish and scary antics, I can’t help but think oh eff, I’m the parent now, and I’m going to be on the receiving end of whatever craziness my own girls heap on me. Yesterday Grace was quickly and swiftly schooled on what happens when you break the rules. After my trip down memory lane, I fear the day when I might not know what rules are being broken.

Ugh, why do I have to analyze EVERYTHING!

2012-01-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

Follow up to the last post - sooooome drama has been abatted. I worked in Edie's classroom on Monday, and will continue to do so until I find work and can't do it anymore. Am I helicoptering my child? I dunno, maybe. She's just so damn smotherable. I guess I need to feel like I'm doing everything I can to help her through this rough patch. Besides, I get to wear a special badge and pinney with a big orange X on it identifying me as a volunteer. That's pretty special, don't deny it. That being said, when I did volunteer on Monday, I did hear a couple of kids invite her to play with them and she shyly declined. When I asked her about it she said she would rather hang out with the recess monitor because she (Edie)is her official helper. I introduced myself to the helper (identified by the special pinney and badge, I hope I look as cool as she does) and she is a lovely woman, kind and warm and I get why Edie feels safe with her. Maybe Edie is networking in her own little way, attaching herself to an authority figure, who kids flock to at recess, and Edie gets to meet them this way, slowly, on her own terms.

I did observe in the Grade 1 classroom The Table though. Oh you know it girlfriends, the table of 4 girls who form that exclusive club that is oh so difficult to break into. They just have that air about themselves, they are the "It" girls and they know it. I don't think Edie realizes these girls are mean girls yet; she did try to sit at their table but she was shooed away (I managed to retract my claws, forked tongue and medusa hair JUST in time) but Edie did seem unfazed by them and moved to a different table fairly seamlessly.

I think I have figured things out though. In Ottawa Edie grew with her friends from daycare, preschool to public school. Same kids from the beginning. Edie is quirky, no doubt about it, but that is all her friends knew about her, so they were accustomed to her and accepting of it. If Edie wanted to sit in a corner and talk to imaginary unicorns and spread glitter all around, it was fine. If the next day she wanted to join in on that game of hide and go seek, perfect. That's just Edie. Maybe it is just going to take a bit of time before things settle. Meanwhile, I need to diplomatically teach her that mean girls=suckage, confident unique girls=awesome.

I promise in my next post I will be back to blogging about what a crappy mom I am and how much wine I drink, pinky swear promise!

2012-01-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Sad.

When I was brushing Edie's hair this morning, she looked in the mirror and burst out crying "I don't like myself!" and the tears flowed and she crumbled into my lap, burying her head into my neck and sobbed. I couldn't get the reason for the breakdown out of her, she just repeated that she just doesn't like herself very much. Fighting back my own tears, I cooed all the things a Mommy should say, how wonderfully smart and funny and amazing she is. Shhhh shhhhh you are so very special and so many people love you.

She eventually calmed, the bus long gone at this point. Grace, Edie and I cuddled on the couch and read a Fly Guy book (always good to put a smile on anyone's face) and the sadness was over. I drove them to school, looking in the rearview mirror for hints of sadness, depression or anxiety in her beautiful, beautiful eyes, but there were none.

The knots have not left my stomach yet. I have not battled depression or anxiety for awhile now, but I will always remember what it felt like. And to hear my little Edie utter those words, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I would take that punch over her suffering any ill thoughts against herself.

I fought back more tears when she came home today with this picture:

Toughest. Job. In. The. World.

2012-01-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

I am either the worst parent in the world, or the best. And I'm really not sure which it is.

My kids love me. They adore me. And I have discovered since being a homemaker, and being home with them over the Christmas "holidays" (the word holiday to a stay at home mom, is just effing cruel), that my children really dig me. They like me so much that I can barely raise an eyebrow without them asking me "what are you doing why did you do that are you leaving the room? can i do what your doing? i'll just sit here with you do you want play a game? i'll go outside if you go outside, what should I wear today you pick it out! do you like this show I'll like it if you like it......you get the picture. They have made friends in the hood and at school, which is great, but at the end of the day they want me. I should be eating this up. I should be tickled that they adore me so much. But I hesitate to think it is because they think that I Am The Best. I think I traumatized them somewhere along the way and they fear abandonment for some reason. I can't remember abandoning them ever, and no, weekly date nights don't count. But they seem angsty when they think I'm going disappear on them. I don't drink THAT heavily that I would have accidentally abandoned them somewhere, so where is this coming from? I can't blame the move, because they have always kind of been this way, but I'm noticing it ten-fold now that I am home with them. Huh. June Cleaver or Mommy Dearest? I really don't know which tattoo to get.

2011-12-11T18:55:00.000-08:00

*Musings*

This is a mememe post, and it will be brief. But I need to document these things in case what I am going through is a descent into a madness of some kind and the FBI needs to investigate(or the Canadian version, what is that anyways? Not as brawny sounding as FBI, it's probably like HSSBTMMNWFIBWWWUSRRBHBWGITBOPB - Headquarters of Seemingly Suspicious Behaviour That May or May Not Warrant Further Investigation But We Will Wait Until Something Really Really Bad Happens Before We Get Involved And Then Blame Other People Bureau/French equivalent). Glork! Total tangent.

What I want to write about tonight is the first thing that I have noticed that is a little off about my behaviour since moving. It is my reaction to my neighbour, who came over with twin poinsettias, a box of shortbread, and an invite to her open house on Christmas Eve to meet the other neighbours. I said, (ugh, it hurts to re-type this), I said: "Awwwwww, You are such a sweetie, that is just the sweetest".

*crickets*.

Ummmm, if you know me AT ALL, the word sweetie is not something I call people. The only acceptable use of the word sweetie was when my Scottish Nana was alive and she would call candies sweeties. That's IT, that's all. I would like to think that I would cut someone who ever called me a sweetie (well, cut them with my eye at least, I am a mom). And to think I used two versions of the word sweet in one sentence? Ughhhh! I hate me!

It was really sweet of her though though.

In the words of Zoolander, Who Am I? (21 seconds of your life, click on it, hilarious)

2011-12-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

Tap tap, is this thing on????

Allow me to introduce you to Oakville Meanie, a lot like Ottawa Meanie, but kinda stepford-y.

So Jo and I moved to Oakville last week - we had originally had our hearts set on Toronto, the city, but the hoods we desired proved to be too expensive for us. To afford a house there, a child would have been sold (hmmmm) a second child would have had to sell her zhu zhu pet collection and recorder (hmmmmmmmm) and the husband would have had to sell his 50" plasma t.v. which is perpetually tuned into a football game (hmmmm) in order to afford one. Waaaaiiiit a minute, WTF????? That would have been perfect!

All kidding aside, the homes that we could have afforded in TO were absolutely minuscule, expensive, and not necessarily in the school district we wanted. So, we started looking in Oakville, where the houses are bigger, more affordable and there is room to run and make noise. Jo works in Mississauge so his commute makes sense. I am not working at the moment so it doesn't really matter where I am. And really, I can online shop anywhere you plop me, so whatevs.

The girls are attending what is turning out to be THE BEST SCHOOL EVER!!!!!!! Grace announced to me that the teacher has a fidget box for kids who need to fidget with things whilst being instructed. Amazing. Edie came home from her second day at school beaming because WE DON'T HAVE TO LEARN MOMMY, TODAY WE MADE PLAYDOUGH!!!!!!!!!! Uh huh Edie, and how did you make the playdough? Well, we meathured 1 cup of baking thoda (she's missing a front tooth) wif 1/2 a cup of corn thtarch and some water!!!!!!!! Yup, she didn't learn anything there at all. And today they are off to meet Robert Munsch on a field trip. Nothing against their school in Ottawa, but that is pretty effing kick ass. Next thing you know there will be a field trip to go see Social Distortion. Yeah, I'll be volunteering for that one.

As for me, I'm easing into things. As you can imagine, I was VERY popular in Ottawa, turning down invitations left right and centre, feted by all walks of life just for being me. Okay, I exagerrate. But I did have a really solid group of friends (you know who you are, don't make me write your names). And by solid I mean I did that Oprah thing a few years ago where I got rid of all those people in my life who were negative in any way (or made me feel fat), so you can imagine what an amazing circle of friends I left behind, some of whom I saw on an almost daily basis. Thank Latoya Jackson for email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and....ummm, am I missing anything? No, don't tell me, I don't need anymore distractions.
Anyhoooo, with all these methods of communicating, I feel like I'm still in the loop somewhat. But, I do have to get out there and meet some people. I think I'll start next week.

But here I am, blogging again, Christopher, Lexie, consider this one dedicated to......you. I'll try and be better at it.

2011-09-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

Oh my gods with everything going on in my life I have nothing to write about. Like nothing. As if I’m planning the biggest move of my life and I have nothing to say about it. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to ruin everything with my bad karma juju. I don’t want to write too much about “How To Sell Your Home and Buy a Home in City Much Larger and Much More Expensive Than Your Current City”. But can I blog bitch slap the people who have come through my house and made comments such as “I am disappointed in the landscaping”. The word “disappointed” is sooooo pretentious. I would much prefer that you say “I effing hate the landscaping”. It would make me feel all punk rock and growly instead of kind of ashamed, like I disappointed my grade 1 teacher. I also want to freak out a little bit at the person who opened our drawers. Yup, my unmentionables drawer was open (trust me, I checked that they were closed before our open house - I like to set traps for people). What were you looking for nosy parker? The drawers are not part of the sale, there was no need for you to take a peek in there. I know IKEA Malm furniture is almost irresistible to touch and explore, but c’mon. You’re lucky you got my pretty things and not Jo’s collection of Joe boxers. I also don’t particularly like it when I get a message that someone wants to come through our house, in 45 minutes. And I live about 20 minutes from work. And of course that call came the day that I relaxed a little and left the house looking like someone actually lives in it (because god forbid someone walks through your house thinking it has something of a personality.....no, we are going for complete sterile anonymity here with a splash of life in the form of a strategically place pine comb).

Please, buy my house. I will even throw in my chest of drawers if you do!

And now the Happy Portion of today’s blog post.

Movie review. Well, I felt like a dirty birdy last week when I went to go see Drive with Ryan Gosling. Have you seen this movie yet? OMG, if you have, and you are a lady (or a gay-dy I s’pose) you KNOW what I’m talking about when I say elevator scene. Sweet baby Beiber if Gosling could put those kisses in a can and sell them.....

Another movie review (putting smart glasses on). 50/50. Was privy to an advanced screening (wow, the glasses really work, that intro did sound smart didn’t it!?) of this flick and it is put-your- popcorn-down good. It’s about cancer, which is bad, but it has so many “real” moments in it (did I mention my glasses are also hipster glasses?) that you literally laugh and cry and feel really uncomfortable at times. Go.

Another movie review (smart glasses off, pants off too whaaaatttt???) Crazy Stoopid Love. Again, if you have seen this, I Had the Time of My Life will never be the same for you either.

T.V. Review. Ummmm, not really a review, but just curious if the X Factor has made anyone cry more than twice? Me neither, but that would be really crazy if it did, right?

Well, that’s about it. I wish I had more interesting stuff to write about but my regular little subjects (Grace and Edie) have no stimulation at home (because when you are selling your home you have to hide every toy, crayon, object o’ fun) and so I find them slack jawed in front of the t.v. wayyyy too much and that doesn’t provide much blogging fodder.

2011-09-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

This just struck me as hilarious. Edie had one of her epic meltdowns the other afternoon, right around dinner time. We opted for option A: go to your room and cool down (option B would have had Children's Aid on our doorstep in record time).

This meltdown involved blood, sweat and tears (well, not blood, it just reads better that way) which resulted in her hair being all medusa-like and askew.

When dinner was ready, Jo looked over at me and said "Should we release the Kraken?"

This is how nicknames are born people.

2011-09-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

Hey kids, want to feel better about your day?

Against my better judgement, I stayed up too late and watched the final episode of "The Kennedys". Against my better judgement, I read one too many chapters of BossyPants by Tina Fey (so funny). My lack of judgement made me go to bed wayyyy past my bedtime.

I awoke from a brutal nightmare (I couldn't find my minivan and there was a terrorist attack going down) at around 2 a.m. I got back to sleep eventually, only to be woken up by Edie who also had a brutal nightmare (giants yo). After a game of musical beds/pillows we settled in her bed and fell asleep. I was woken up by Grace around 4:30 who was suffering from nightmares too scary to even talk about (wasn't sure if I should call bullshit on that or not). Too tired to fight, I flopped into her bed, amazed at her strength and ability to wrestle all the blankets from her mother and I curled up the fetal position and sucked my thumb until I fell asleep.

When the cruel cruel alarm went of from my bedroom at 6:45, I was still in Grace's room and couldn't whack the snooze button so I HAD to get up to shut the damn thing off. Whoops. Something was amiss. Oh, one of my eyes was sealed shut, that's all Have I mentioned that I have brutal seasonal allergies? Well, this week they have manifested themselves into various eye pleasing ways, such as the golf ball sized hive on my forehead a couple of days ago (I don't have bangs, just sayin') and a crusty shut right eye this morning. But life must go on. I attempted to wake the girls who were very cranky from their disturbed slumber last night and I had to get them out the door by 8:00 for their camp outing today. While I was trying to get them up, the phone began ringing incessantly. When I finally picked up the phone (I have the ability to say WHAT! FUCK! with a simple chilly "Hello" in these instances) it was Jonas reminding me to empty the pool skimmer or elsebadthingswillhappenanditwillallbemyfault (he's been out of town this week).

Okay, so, with one eye shut and my robe falling open I went outside to empty the stupid damn skimmer. When I picked it up I let out a blood curdling scream because there was a dead frog floating in it. I am irrationally scared of 3 things in life 1) Zombies 2) Cannibalism (have you seen The Road?) and 3) Frogs. So, kindly picture a one eyed, robe flapping open crazy haired mama screaming and running around in her back yard, all while her little darlings are inside watching Phineas and Ferb, eating their Cheerios, oblivious to it all.

I won't even go into the epic fit Edie pitched when I attempted to get her moving towards the door, but it did involve her slamming Lambey to the floor (poor Lambey, NOT his fault) and a few solid rounds of "you don't love me". While this chaos was going done, Grace thought it would be a good time to ask me about Halloween and what she should dress up as, what hood in Toronto we were going to trick or treat in etc etc. Forgive me Grace for not engaging in this particular conversation at this particular moment in time.

And, not sure who I think I am, but I also put on white jeans just to tempt the Fates this morning.

Feel better about your morning? You're welcome.

2011-08-31T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ummmm, I had kind of a fun night last night. And a quick disclaimer, nobody reads this blog, and I am certainly not being paid by anybody to write reviews or promote anything, so these words are pure.

A friend of mine who is a good friend to have because she is so freaking gung ho and enthusiastic about EVERYTHING (let's run the 1/2 marathon! let's train for it 4x a week at 5:45 in the morning! Let's go for a hike in Gatineau! Let's do this! Let's do that!) signed us up for something called Supperworks. This is one of those services where you go with a group of other people and basically put meals together for your freezer for quick and easy week night meal preparations. Now, I'm usually wary of these things because it involves a) other people (stranger danger! stranger danger!) b) work stations that involve measuring which means a potential for math (they used my voice for Teen Talk Barbie whose recorded message was "Math is Hard!" c) these things usually take place in strange parts of town with names like Orleans and involve highway driving and roundabouts to get there and d) did I mention I don't like strangers?

Well, after a bumpy start (we got lost getting to this "Orleans" place) the night quickly took turn a turn for the better when the hostess for the evening asked me "red or white" and upon hearing my answer promptly handed a glass of wine. Well played Supperworks. I then looked around the room where I would be spending the next 2.5 hours and saw 7 bright and clean stainless steel workstations with recipes, instructions and fresh ingredients posted above them. Ummm, Gwyneth Paltrow - is that you hiding in the corner????

My friend and I had picked 9 meals to make (which we split in 2, sharesies y'all) and off we went. My friend made me do the first one (to get over my fear of "new") and I did great. While she made the second meal I took time to reflect on the other clients in the room and promptly judged and categorized them in about 5 minutes flat. Here are a few that stood out:

1) The Unusually Diverse Couple. I am all for diversity and mixing up the cultures but this couple really stumped me. He in his mid-fifties I'd say, white, and ringing my gaydar loud and clear. She, East Indian I'd say, early forties and super attentive to her partner. I think they were romantically linked because the touched each other a lot. I tried to eavesdrop to determine the nature of their relationship and whether or not they had kids, but they didn't give ANY clues as to their status. Hmmmm. Very interesting.

2) The "We Don't Eat White Rice/Food Ever" mother daughter team. Well. These two crawled up my ass immediately. I was making a fish dish beside them and was asking my friend about what rice to compliment the meal, white or brown? Well, if Mother didn't pipe in with one of those country club jaw clenched voices and state that her and her daughter NEVER eat anything white and that brown EVERYTHING is soooo superior to anything white. And daughter looked at us kind of evil kind of snobby and reinforced the words NEVER and EVERYTHING after her mother spoke them. Really? Do you two really exist? And they marched around the place without ever smiling. What really frustrated me was the daughter was soooo pretty and had a lipstick on that I really wanted to ask her about, but she was just one of those people I didn't want to give the satisfaction of knowing that someone coveted something she owned. Yeah yeah yeah, don't worry, I know I have issues.

3) The CEO/CFO Of An Important Company Who Doesn't Have Time For Idle Chit Chat. This lady killed me. She obviously came from work as she was still in her power suit. She did trade her heels for birkenstocks, which I suspect she matched to her outfit (for all you readers, this isn't really necessary, same goes for Crocs and Uggs, in fact, I think matching them with your outfit might make it kinda worse). Anyhoooo, I attempted a little chit chat with her while casually making quesidillas beside her but I could I tell that I thoroughly disgusted her with my pointless conversation and wine drinking. What took me 2.5 hours to do she was done within 45 minutes and she had merged Apple and Microsoft in the process (I kid, I kid).

4) The Lost Guy. I'm not really sure what his story was. He seemed to be there by himself. Maybe he signed up to meet chicks? I'm not really sure. It's like he signed up, realized it was not at all what he expected, but couldn't just leave, but also didn't really want to put nine meals together by himself for the next couple of hours. He did drink his glass of wine (I was watching him in case he didn't, I would have asked if I could have his share) but I kind of lost track of him. I think he just left.

5) Lady Just Had a Baby and Just Had to Get Out of The House for Couple of Hours. I left this woman alone. I heard her talk to the hostess and my spidey senses told me not to make friendly with her. She just wanted to be alone, anonymous and drink wine for the next 2.5 hours. I'm pretty sure she was the last to leave.

There were more people there but these ones really stood out. The "We Don't Eat White Rice/Food Ever" mother daughter team gave us snark when we were settling up at the end of the evening so it gave me extra satisfaction to ask the hostess lots and lots and lots and lots of questions so I could hold them up even longer than necessary (which is kind of mean, maybe their brown rice was kicking in?) I really am a meanie sometimes.

So, long story short, I would totally do this again. I have nine meals in my freezer ready to go which I'm sure Jo and I will enjoy immensely (the girls will laugh in my face when I suggest they try them, of this I am sure as well).

2011-08-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have really really bad allergies. When I woke up this morning I looked in the mirror and my eyes did not look like my own. So I did what any normal woman would do and pretended that I FINALLY had the Elaine Erwin eyes (fyi favorite supermodel of the 80's/90's, and yes she was a supermodel) that I have always coveted. I spritzed on my Chanel no. 19, got dressed in a flowy feminine top and white jeans and catwalked to the kitchen channeling my inner goddess. There may or may not have been an internal soundtrack playing Salt'n'Pepa in my head.

Elaine Erwin alter ego was quickly crushed, no decimated, by a husband who snorted and said I looked like I got beat up in my sleep, and by the girls who kept asking me what was wrong me and why did I look so weird.

Huh. So now I am channeling Rocky Balboa in drag.

2011-08-18T07:08:00.001-07:00

And I thought I was bad....

So, when you decide to move, you quickly realize how much crap you have. How does this happen? My nature, my natural instinct is to hate and repel clutter and random bits and pieces that don't serve a purpose yet here I am cleaning out cupboards and drawers and baskets and shelves and clearing out the CRAP. Three-quarters of our worldly possessions are now at the Salvation Army. Many of these worldly possessions include the girls' precious items. And by precious items I mean CRAP. If I had tried to get rid of this stuff when they were home there would of have been Greek tragedy of sorts composed right there on the spot. Everything is special, nothing can be thrown out, yadda yadda yadda. Where do these little mini hoarder instincts come from? Even an old container of bubble gum bubble bath that proved to cause mysterious rashes on the girls after bathing in it was deemed too special to throw out (I know, I know, why didn't I throw it out myself after the mystery hives appeared? I have my own issues I suppose). A bottle of dried up nail polish could not be tossed - Edie claimed she could resuscitate it with some *magical fairy water*.

To make a long story short, after a visit to my parents house, the mystery of the girls tendency to amass and store their riches was at least partially solved. It's in their DNA . When looking for some Tums in my mom and dad's medicine cabinet, look what I found:

I'm pretty sure this can be tossed now.

2011-08-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

Gaaaack!

As you may have read, we are moving. Packing up, picking up and leaving for Toronto. I really think people with children should reconsider ever moving anywhere until the kids are launched. A few reasons:

1) Children will dig up toys with 10,000+ pieces that they haven't played with in months once they get a whiff that tidy house is required. These toys are intricate enough that they require days upon days of setting up, and any hint of dismantling or putting them away will result in tears, devastation, and cries of "Why do we haaaaaaave to moooooove!" Grace currently has a structure composed of hundreds of bright, colourful straws and joints in the the works - and this is being engineered in the hallway of course because she doesn't want her own room cluttered. Edie is currently throwing down a story-line akin to Gone With the Wind, which is being re-enacted by a kajillion Polly Pockets (epic, absolutely epic stuff with multiple costume changes, and no, the discarded costumes do not get put away in the designated Polly Pocket box).

2) They will also detect freshly painted walls and washed windows and draaaaaaag their fingers along them,which is a crime in itself, but a travesty of justice after they have consumed freshly baked, warm and oozy peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.

3) They will cry with zero abandon over the loss of friendships due to the move, and then after I work my ass off to arrange play dates they flippantly state that they would rather stay home with me, actually.

4) When asked to clean their rooms up, they will do a seemingly remarkable job, but when I go to do their laundry I go gray with the realization that they have stuffed their clean, neatly folded laundry (that I asked them to put away days ago) into their dirty laundry bags, and there is no way to way to distinguish the clean from the dirty. I outta just shove the kids in my frontloader at the end of the day.

5) They will prove over and over again, that at ages 6 and 9, they are indeed not too old for sippy cups (buy stock in paper towels yo). Milk, orange juice, apple juice, it all gets spilled. Except water. They are remarkably adept at not spilling water.

Actually, husbands get in the way of a move tremendously as well, for the following 2 reasons:

1) They (and by they I mean Jo) give no warning at all that they painted the floor of the utility room, and look put-off when you tell them you walked through their wet paint.

2) The beautiful marble counter tops that have been buffed and polished to a sheen that they have never had before are immaculate and void of any clutter, except for a lone, homeless baseball cap. If eyes could bleed.......

Someone should do a head count at the end of the day our our first Open House - I can't guarantee their safety after these episodes.

2011-08-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Guess what folks, I'm moving! The Meanie family is picking and moving to
Toronto at the end of the month/early September. It's been a long time
coming - we have been trying to leave Ottawa for the past, oh, 11 years or
so. The first move was to be to Bermuda. Jo and I couldn't get pregnant,
so we decided to take advantage of our childless status and a job
opportunity in Bermuda for Jonas beckoned us. Pretty much the day we
popped our visas in them mail, I found out Grace had taken up residence in
my uterus. Well, Ottawa is a nice place to start a family, right? The
next adventure came approximately 4 years later, with an opportunity in
Toronto. Yay! We thought. Bright lights, big city, here we come! We
sold our house really quickly in Ottawa, headed to Toronto in February to
look for a home and then realized a) Toronto is really, really expensive b)
I loved my job at the time and c) Jo wasn't crazy about the job that was
taking him to the big smoke. Retreat! Retreat! A new home in Ottawa was
purchased and the Meanies huddled together surrounded by familiarity. The
next attempt was Edmonton - now I don't want to knock Edmonton, but I'll
just say it was not our first choice to live there, and I wasn't terribly
disappointed when this opportunity was squished by personal matters at
home. Now, by this point in time, we were rocking our 'hood, mingling with
the 'A' listers in our neighbourhood every weekend, the girls had a solid
group of friends on rotation in and out of our home and I was reigning
Queen of Christmas Cookie Exchange (overseeing approx, 14 subjects I might
add) and this has been status quo for the past 5 years.

So, what changed? I don't know, change is just in the air. Jo has an
amazing opportunity career wise, and it happens to be in Toronto. My
career is at a bit of a lull at the moment, so I have no problem bidding it
adieu and seeing what opportunities might await me there. Grace and Edie
for the most part are pretty stoked for the move, looking forward to
hanging out with their cousins who they rarely get to see (ummmm, they
might also think that they will get to go to Toronto's Wonderland every
weekend).

Most people have the same reaction when I tell them what we are doing, they
smile and say I will love it there. A few people have reacted with a
"Toronto sucks balls". I know Toronto is not for everyone - but I'm
optimistic that it is for us. I know we will never duplicate our life in
Ottawa where we have a generous sized home, enough parking for 4 cars, and
pool in the back yard, but that is what this adventure is all about -
shaking things up a bit.

I don't know too many people in Toronto, I'll have to work my way up to
Queen of Christmas Cookie Exchange again in a new city, but I'm really
looking forward to this adventure.

(I'm also looking for work in TO. Here is a link to my "other" blog with
my background and c.v., please take a look and share it if you think you
can help me out!)

2011-07-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Guest-blogger today folks! Allow me to introduce my brother Kevin. As my shoulders slowly reach my ears over the thought of spending a long period of time in the car with Grace and Edie, he thoughtfully compiled some amazing childhood memories of our own road trips with our parents. Read on.

Have a super-awesome 7 hour trip. Instead of trying to figure out how to keep Grace and Edie occupied why not just do what our progressive parents did:

-keep all of the windows closed at all times to avoid a stiff neck caused by the breeze coming in the window;

-provide them with one poster (the kind with the black "velvet" outlines) to colour. This should take up about an hour of their time. Oh, and make them car sick;

-let them listen to their Walkman. But only give them enough batteries to last 4 hours. And don't buy them more batteries. They're expensive you know.

-power through the 7 hours and don't stop at restaurants, roadside attractions, bathrooms, scenic lakes or anything else that might disrupt the schedule because we all know that getting there on time is more important THAN ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE WORLD;

-keep a barf bowl handy. Preferably a green plastic one that, no matter what you do, will always smell just a little bit like vomit;

- yell at them every once in a while and make sure that they know that there are lots of little children in the world who would LOVE to be going on vacation but they can't because they don't have parents who love them. This is especially good for their self-esteem later in life;

-play "eye spy with my little eye". Always good for hours of driving fun. This will be fun for Edie since she's so good at focusing on one task for an extended period of time;

-provide them with plenty of liquids. Half a can of pop each is more than enough for a 7 hour road trip;

-be sure to make them share a seat in the van. They're sisters and they love each other very much so they'll be happy as clams sitting right beside each other for 7 hours. Remember how much fun WE thought it was??

Good luck!

So thanks Kevin, I am feeling oh so much better about the road trip now, and whatever I do to my kids in those hours that we are confined to the mini-van cannot be worse than what we went through.

2011-07-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

Oh my god I have the BEST post being tossed around and created in my grey matter but I don't have time to put it together (it is a multi-media installation). Let's just say it involves The Beach Boys, Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Billy Idol.

I'm going on holidays soon so it will just. have. to. wait.

2011-06-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

Best follow-up story ever....

So, if you didn’t read my last post, take a moment to scroll down and read it, it’s okay, I’ll wait. Doobey doobey doo, doobey doo doo doobey doobey doo doobey doo doo (hum to Strangers in the Night)....see how easy it is for me to entertain myself while I wait? Okay, ready? Great.

So I pick up Edie from school yesterday and she told me that her friends’ mom told Edie that she saw a picture of Edie downtown on a wall. I probed Edie for more details, but that was all she had and she was ready to move on to a conversation with a butterfly – we know there is no stopping that dialogue. Well, this just drove me nuts. Where was the picture? Who took it? If it was a candid photo, was I in the background, with my gut hanging out, rib hanging from my mouth with one open one eye closed? To make matters worse, I have a bit of an imagination myself, particularly when Jo is out of town (which he had been all week) and I started going on a crazy tangent in my head of Edie and our family being stalked by some crazy person and photos of Edie were being posted downtown and someone was hunting us down and and and (note to self: Stop, just stop watching Criminal Minds).

The most rational thing I could do was call the Mom in question, leave a crazy ass message on her answering machine (during the dinner hour, nice timing Meanie) and chew my finger nails until she called back. She did call back, and this is what got lost in translation:

She had told her that she had seen picture of Edie/taken downtown/on my Facebook Wall.

Mystery solved. Stalkers kept at bay, for now........

2011-06-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

Let me collect my thoughts....

This post will be a bit of a ramble, bear with me.

So Blog Out Loud Ottawa is coming up, July 7 to be precise, and reading about who will be, well, reading, makes me really want to go. Most of it is just plain old curiosity – what the hell do these people look like who I spend way too much of my time reading? I’m a very visual person and just so damn curious. I’m also in awe of them – I would love to have the cahones to get up and read something from my blog, but I fear my knocking knees would drown out my voice (oh and that I would look up to a sleeping audience). I think it is a fairly competitive process, to be chosen to read, and I don’t want to kid myself that I would be chosen, but it would be great to have that, confidence I guess? To get up there and out yourself on stage.

This brings me to my youngest daughter. Most of the members of my little family are pretty shy – until you get to know us. Jo, Grace and I all have pretty clear comfort zones of what we will do and won’t do in public, in front of strangers. And then there is Edie.

We went downtown for Ribfest on Saturday, with a strict agenda to get us some ribs and get out again, y’know, before the meat sweats kicked in. Well, after we polished off our meaty little treats, the sun came out, so we decided to walk around a bit and take in the glorious, glorious sun (which I’m sure caused the grease to reflect off my face and cause a car accident somewhere). Anyhoooo, we came upon a busker who was just setting up. He was pretty damn funny and engaging so we decided to stick around. Now, usually at these things I like to observe from afar and NEVER make eye contact to protect myself from being called from the audience to assist with something. (I’m a public service facilitator’s worst nightmare – I can’t stand those icebreaker activities and often find myself in the bathroom when they are going on). On this day though, we were front row centre. And he was looking for volunteers. The little hand I had been holding disengaged and shot into the air. Omg omg omg, Edie had violated the Meanie Family Code of Conduct and was voluntarily putting herself in a position to bring on attention! And of course she was chosen by the busker. And in front of a crowd that had swelled to about, oh, 50 or so, Edie assisted the busker with his performance. My heart was racing, scared she was going to burst out in tears at any moment, but she appeared to love every moment, confessing later that she was a little freaked out at one point, but wanted to see what was going to happen next. When it was over, she received a generous round of applause, skipped back over to us and couldn’t have looked more please with herself.

Way to go Edie, I wish I could be more like you.

Oh, and come check out Blog Out Loud Ottawa, it's a pretty cool night. I'll be the one lurking in the back of the room.

BLOG OUT LOUD 2011
WHERE: The Prescott, 379 Preston Street, at Preston and Beech
WHEN: Thursday, July 7, 2011 from 7pm to 10pm
WHO: 20+ bloggers reading their favourite post from the past year; plus several photo bloggers displaying their art
WHO'S INVITED: Anyone who likes to hear good writing.

2011-06-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

I Wanted a Kitty-Cat!

End of school year BBQ was this past Friday – it’s pretty much the social event of the year for the nine and under crowd. Grace and Edie quiver with excitement over this annual blow out, which in reality is just a dunk tank, a hotdog/hamburger stand, a face painting area and a dessert table. Oh, and approx 200kids (as if they stand still long enough to be counted) running around like banshees who have not tasted freedom in a hundred years. This year though there was an added attraction – a balloon shape shifting dude (or God in the eyes of Edie). Edie clamped her big ole blue eyes on this guy from the get go and decided that she was to be recipient of a balloon shape shifted into a.....kitty cat.

A little back ground story – I had a pep talk with the girls prior to the BBQ as I knew I would have to extrapolate them from the masses a little earlier than usual as we had another engagement to attend. They both nodded solemnly, convincing me of their earnest commitment to honour my request. Why oh why do I give them the benefit of the doubt?

So, Edie wanted a kitty cat. And she wanted to eat and run and play and get dunked and get a face painting (a shooting starrrrrrr) AND get a kitty cat. I noted that the line up for the balloon animals was moving as fast as me on a Monday morning so I strongly she suggested that she get in line if she wanted one. She ignored my reasonable, logical suggestion. When Edie finally got in line, she camped out for about ½ an hour before I had to pull her to leave. She wasn’t even remotely close to getting her kitty.

Well, I should have put on some camouflage because apparently I just started a full on war. Edie waged a battle against me so intense, so horrific, I almost waved the white flag. But I couldn’t and dammit, I had to prove that I was the commander, not her, and to be damned with her if she couldn’t handle the truth. It escalated. As if in slow motion, surrounded by all of her little 6 year old friends and their parents, Edie raised the hostilities to the next level and....and.....she hit me. In her sassy little paisley-with-a-ruffle-off-one-shoulder bathing suit, she actually hit me. In front of everyone. So what does one do when this happens? Well, first I give the biggest stink eye to one of the moms who was watching the scene unfold with a look of judgy horror on her face (she actually covered her daughters ears to shield her from Edie’s cries), then I organized my lone supporting soldier (Grace) to collect our things. I marched my prisoner Edie through the school grounds, while she screamed her little pony-tailed head off. The poor balloon guy sensed the issue was a deficit of balloon animals in Edie’s greedy little arms, so he whipped up an odd looking balloon bug? bird? Still not sure what it was – to which Edie screamed “I wanted a cat!” Oh you little ungrateful shit. I could have died.

In the car, the ultimate outcome was:

a) I was the worst mother in the world;
b) The insect? Bird? Balloon was stupid;
c) This was the worst day ever;
d) Edie no longer felt love in her heart for me and her heart was turning black and
e) I removed Max and Ruby from her life for a solid 7 days (this may not sound like much a punishment to you, but for Edie this is akin to taking water/air away from the rest of us.

And of course she woke up sick two days later. This always happens but I never clue in at the time. When they are at their most monster-like, they are usually incubating something evil in their little bodies.

Feel better about your life now? And just what the hell do you think that balloon is meant to be?

2011-06-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Addendum to my post of yesterday, I found a picture! It's fuzzy but you can see the omnipresent Ronald....doesn't he look corrupted?

2011-06-16T10:07:00.001-07:00

A Room of One's Own.

Or a place of one's own.

One bit of advice I am definitely going to dole out to Grace and Edie when the time comes is for them to live on their own for awhile.

Last night I spent a lovely evening with the divine Lexie, a "younger" friend who is all kinds of hip and cool, and she just moved into her own apartment. The apartment is everything I would want in my own - second-hand furniture re-finished with a personal funky touch; art work that speaks volumes of the dwellers' taste, personal travels and experiences (just hers, no one else's); favourite books here and there and everywhere just begging to be read during a free moment and a small-ish kitchen that may or may not get used all that often (which really strikes a cord with me because pretty much from the moment I get home from work and get the girls off the bus I am in my own, roomy kitchen preparing snacks, dinner, washing dishes and prepping for the next days meals). Her new apartment is downtown, and with the summer heat the windows are perpetually propped open, letting in the sounds of conversations from neighbouring balconies, people talking on the street, cars going by, bike bells dinging and ringing. And then there's the breeze from being on a higher floor, with the occasional waft of cigarette smoke sneaking in, which I just love. There are PEOPLE out there.

I have never lived on my own. When I went away to university, I lived in a dorm, which was great for a shy gal like me because I'm pretty sure if I had lived off-campus I would never had made any friends, learned how to tap a keg or follow the trend of wearing construction boots with jean shorts (gah, that actually would have been a good thing). Sure I decorated my little dorm room with lots of angst-y posters and posted quotes from some pretttty deep poetry I had latched onto (gawd I must have been so annoying) but it was a tiny space, and my door was always open with people coming and going and I never really liked being there all that much.

The following year I moved in with my bestie, and we didn't really have time for aesthetics - we were to busy partying yo! I do remember an attempt at ambiance with candles stuck in wine bottles and granny throws over couches, but that was before shabby chic was en vogue so I suspect we were just covering up a vomit/wine/beer/poutine stain with those blankets.

The next year my bestie and I moved into a new a house......with 10 other boys. Yup, we were two girls with ten boys. I had to take my showers on campus at the gym because our bathroom was disgusting (one fella took pride in spelling his name out in pubic hair in our shower) and by the end of the year the hallway was dubbed "Hall of Porn" with the boys' favourite graphic images taped to the wall - weep with me (they weren't even hung straight). So you can imagine how much say I had in the decor of this house. The point of pride of this happy, bustling home was a Ronald McDonald statue the boys had knocked down and stolen from the fast food restaurant. Poor Ronald was placed in the corner of our living room with a cigarette crammed in his grinning mouth and a king-can of 50 taped to his hand.

After university, I moved back home, into my old room, still decorated in my mom's taste, bearing no indication of the theatre major, expert on the Classics turned radical feminist who was now occupying the room (you know I'm talking about me, right?) I didn't last long. But by then I had met Jo, and we decided to move in together, and since then we have lived in 5 different places of varying shapes and sizes. And while I have a pretty strong voice in how we decorate, it is not only my voice that gets the say, I have to let Jo have an opinion.

All this to say that if I have any regrets in life it is that I never been able to call a space my own.

Lexie said I could borrow her place when she goes out of town.

2011-05-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

Both kids had friends over yesterday. As soon as the sun came out they burst outside into the front yard and made the most of the one hour reprieve from the doom and gloom we experienced this past weekend. Buoyed by their good spirits I went to the freezer and dug out some freezies to pass around, which put even bigger smiles on their faces. Warm fuzzies all around! (Oh, by the way, you can pretty much blame the Ottawa dandelion infestation on Edie – she is obsessed with scattering the little fluffy dead dandelion heads around in any way possible – via blowing, twirling, throwing, kicking – my neighbours must haaaaaate us). Anyhooo, they were loud. Their voices carried. Simultaneous games of tag/bubble blowing/ball/chalk drawing/scooter riding/dandelion spawning/hide and go seek/freezie headache competitions (yeah, odd) were underway. I became mother bear and initiated a mass killing of mosquitoes so they wouldn’t bite my charges (Edie of course welts up at the mere sight of a mosquito. Grace, ever in control, has somehow negotiated with the Don Mosquio that she doesn’t get bitten at all).

There was a sudden hush to all the activity. I stopped my mosquito whacking to see why the kid-commotion had all but stopped. There, at the end of the driveway was a mother, two daughters and son. They are a new family down our street who have just arrived from Kenya. I have said hello to them before, but we haven’t had much chance to interact because our kids go to different schools. I smiled and said hello, and the Mom, in her killer-amazing-you-are-so-much-more-exotic-than-me accent said, point-blank: Your kids are having so much fun. My youngest daughter is terribly lonely since moving here and I would like her to play with your children – please, is this okay.

Oh my god, all at once I wanted to cry, I wanted to hug this lonely little girl and tell her everything was going to be okay, that she would make lots of friends and it’s so hard starting over and that she has a beautiful smile and and and and......

Instead I stay composed and smiled and said of course she could join the girls and play, and said “Right, girls?” in that way only Mom’s can do. The mom said thank you, we exchanged information, and she said she would be back in an hour to collect her. The girls asked her if she wanted a freezie and that was that. Games resumed. Unfortunately the rain resumed as well, so they tumbled back down to the basement, with the new girl fully integrated within minutes, actually seconds, into their little group.

I’m not sure why this made me so emotional. I think it has something to do with me having some profoundly lonely moments as a little girl, and it just breaks my heart to see any child feeling that way. I think I was also extremely touched that this woman sensed that our family would be approachable enough to make such a, well, let’s face it - such a bold request in this day and age and to trust us with her daughter. I was also feeling all mushy inside knowing that we have the kind of kids that we can count on to make this little gal feel completely comfortable and include her in all the nonsense they were getting up to that afternoon.

So awesome.

I still feel a little choked up.

2011-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Awesome trip memory.

I'm a pretty big Elvis fan - I sort of worked backwards to get here. When
I was younger I had a crush on a rockabilly boy; when I had a crush back in
the day, I would commit myself, rather pathetically, to learning everything about the
individuals' likes and dislikes (stalker, right? - shut up, it's endearing when you are 14) Anyhoooo, originally entrenched in punk music at the time, this rockabilly boy opened my world to the world of, well, rockabilly music. Starting with 80's rockabilly, I worked my way back, and after few years, long after the crush was over, I made my way to the King. He is one of the only singers who gives me goosebumps, makes me cry and tap my toes, and this is just after listening to one side of an album (oh yeah, we're talking vinyl here).

Anyhooooo, in 2001 Jo and I went on a trip to New Orleans, and thought it
would be fun to rent a car and take a little road trip to Memphis. I was
pregnant at the time, and the allure of flashing my boobies in the French
Quarter was non-existent. So, on an impulse, we packed up and hit the road (heh heh, Jo might have wanted to stick around with those boobs everywhere). It became obvious we were heading in the right direction as the closer we got, the more garish the ads for Elvis Everything became. We decided to hit Graceland at night and see what it looked like lit up in the late evening. What we did not know was that it was the 25th anniversary of his death. As we approached Graceland, we saw literally thousands of white, tinkly lights. As we got closer, we realized that there was a candlelight vigil going on in honour of him. There were thousands upon thousands of people, snaking their way to Graceland, to pay homage to the King. There were babies and toddlers with grease in their hair, slicked back into pompadours. There were impersonators gallore, whole families gathered together and many a fan had glistening, tear streaked cheeks. I remember at one point I laughed out loud, pretty much out of the shock of what I was witnessing. I wasn't laughing out of disrespect, but rather it was a reaction to something I just never, ever dreamed of bearing witness too. Close to me, a man was quite agitated by my laugh, and told me to have a little respect. He looked a combination of mad and sad. We spent the next couple of quiet hours there, lining up with everyone else in the dark, staring up at the former home of Elvis Presley, flooded with light.

I remember feeling very deeply, not one feeling in particular, but an overwhelming crush of emotions. I remember rubbing my fluttery belly, my first daughter trying out her legs in utero, thinking about the story I would tell her, what she was kind of present for. Of course that little gal's name is Grace, and yes, she knows the story, I have oft repeated it to her, and as the years go by, I feel like she is putting more and more importance to the story. She complains about a lot of my music, but never about Elvis, and for a recent school project she had to create an imaginary country, which she called Las Gracie. The national anthem of this little
town is Viva Las Gracie. If she doesn't get a good grade on this project I will kick her teacher's ass whilst blasting Hound Dog through the school speakers (note to self, that would be a great scene for the movie-script in my head. Yes, there is a movie about my life in my head, shut-up).

Just a neat little memory I thought I would share - you like?

2011-05-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ugh, I've been so delinquent as of late when it comes to blogging.

Sometimes I'll have moments of inspiration, writing a new post in my head, then never getting to the keyboard to pound it out. I could have written about the Royal Wedding, how I didn't tell Edie it was happening the night before for fear she wouldn't sleep because of the excitement of it all, and then my disappointment when I woke her to watch it she was more than unimpressed. Not sparkly enough, not enough colours, boring boring boring. Errrr, not everyone can get married under the sea with singing lobsters and grinning sea anenomes, Sunshine. So that was a little deflating. And on the topic of the Royal Wedding, I swear I have almost gotten into fistacuffs with people because, I'll say it, I liked Beatrice's fascinator. So the freak what? Leave me alone.

I am also perilously distracted by Keeping Up with the Kardashians. This is my new crack. And they put back to back episodes on E!, so I'll be all like I'll turn it off at 10:00, for sure I'll turn it off at 10:00, and then they show a teaser of Bruce Jenner looking aghast (haha he actually always looks like that) at something that happened, something that could possibly have global implications, so I can't turn it off. I have to watch the next show, and throughout the night after watching episode upon episode I slowly convince myself that I only really need 4 hours sleep anyway. I mean look how busy Kim is and she remains gorgeous, so I can too, right? Ugh. Spoken and justified like a true addict. Other lesser drugs include It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Raising Hope, two very funny shows. The reason Jo and I need to get the girls to bed at a reasonable hour is because of Six Feet Under - this is Our show. We are watching the entire series on DVD and we are both addicted, co-dependents. So good.

I also stopped blogging because I really really really hurt my neck and arm/shoulder. I'm fixed now, but I went to see a chiro, physiotherapist and massage therapist simultaneously so I don't know what fixed me, which stresses me out to no end because next time it happens I'll have to do the whole three ring circus again because I don't know who was miracle worker! Stress!

I also bought two new pairs of shoes. One of which is beige-ish. Jo said "you have a pair just like that", and I said "no I don't, these have an almond toe. I don't have any beige shoes with an almond toe". I went to work the other day and lo and behold, under my desk, a pair of beige-ish shoes with an almond toe. See how distracted I've been as of late? Even my material desires are being compromised.
I could make up a bajillion excuses to my legions of readers, but I guess I'm just going through a dry spell. Well, dry at writing. My wine consumption has not taken a hit at all. Maybe I should blog tipsy.

Oh, but something positive, very very positive. I ran 15K this past weekend. But even better than that the girls are into it. The signed up for the 1K and will be doing the 2K in May. They are very sassy with their little visors on, sneaks little capri leggings, doing exagerrated stretches. All kinds of girl awesome.

Jesus, next time I get frustrated at Edie's inability to focus on anything, please direct me to this blog post.

2011-04-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

Quickly, before my arm siezes:

1) Last night Jo and I were conversing at the dinner table, ignoring the girls to best of our ability until we heard Grace say to Edie: Hey, it's like soft porn! SCREEECH! What was that? Turns out she was eating a croissant like corn on the cob and actually said Hey, it's like soft cornas in corn on the cob. What a relief, I haven't gotten to that chapter in the parents manual yet.

2) I was called home on Thursday to pick up a teary Edie (they actually put her on the phone so I could hear how pathetic she sounded - emotional blackmail). Apparently she just wasn't herself and the school thought I should come an get her. The real story? She had punched herself by accident when trying to unjam a rogue zipper and this upset her terribly (the confession came bedtime when I coudn't figure out what the hell was wrong with her. It was only after she had been given jello, medicine, 1/2 a Tums and an extra book and extra snuggle to make her feel better that she enlightened me).

3) The girls' fighting reached a new low this weekend when they were stacking pudding containers into various shapes and fighting over who's turn it was/who did a better job etc etc. I looked at the Wii, the My Little Pony Crystal Castle and Lego sets and cried a little.

2011-04-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

Can't post. Arm hurts. Typing is torture. Send help. I need a robot arm. My body has been compromised. Gaaaaaah.

2011-04-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

Stretched a little thin but liking it.....

I picked up a contract a couple of weeks ago. And it looks like I am about to be engaged to do another one. Yes, I still work at my day job, and these contracts are done early weekend mornings when the kids tend to ignore me over SpongeBob’s incessant chatting anyways and Jo prefers Suduko and coffee over my company, so why not get paid to do something I love?

Something has to give though. It was going to be my bass lessons, but last night I learned I Wanna be Sedated by the Ramones, and the rush that gave me, well, I don’t think I can part with that. I would quit my day job, but I don’t like Kraft Dinner THAT much. I could get rid of a child, but that would leave the other one all anxious and weirded out that they could go next. I could get rid of both kids, but then the house would feel too big and decadent for just Jo and I. I could get rid of Jo, but he takes out the garbage and separates the raw chicken I buy in bulk to put in the freezer (ugh, can’t touch raw meat without gagging). I could give up my morning runs, but I really like them and fear the wrath of my ass if I gave them up (and who’s kidding who, that’s what goes first when I’m feeling tired). I could give up making dinner every night, but I draw great sadistic pleasure from sneaking cauliflower and tofu into the kids food and watching them eat it up. I could give up some of the girls’ activities, but to be honest, I like them because they come home physically exhausted and fall asleep more easily than usual. I could give up supervising and forcing homework time after school, but then they might fail academically and end up living at home forever because they can’t get a job adn they would be socially awkward and old enough to drink my wine. I could give up Facebook, but (oh shit, lightning just struck! How did Mark Zuckerberg do that?!)

Anyways, maybe I’ll give up my subscription to Us magazine. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

How do you do it all?

2011-03-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

I just left a comment on petitgourmand's blog and said she should keep blogging because think of how fun it will be to re-read when she turns 80.

Which got me to thinking.....

Have you seen The Notebook? Well, I'm totally imagining a movie called The Blog, where a handsome, older Jo (mmmm, played by Colin Firth with super- wrinkley make up on), reads to his ailing wife Meanie (duh, Charize Theron with just a little wrinkley make up on because Meanie is MUCH younger than Jo). Meanie is on an Anthropologie style chaise lounge, wrapped in the prerequisite upper middle class beige cashmere blanket and has perfectly styled still blonde hair.

Jo reads entries from Meanie's blog to her, with their loving daughters Grace (played by Jessica Biel, she's the most athletic looking actress I can think of) and Edie (Zooey Deschanel, google her, you'll get it) lovingly rubbing Meanie's shoulders, and they get all gooey and lovey with each other reminiscing about the stories from the blog.

And then after reading a few entries, they realize the bulk of the blog mocks them or is one big long complaint about them.

And then there is an awkward silence. Crickets if you will. Cue Celine Dion as Jo, Grace and Edie look at Meanie, with cocked heads and disgusted looks on their faces and file out the door. Grace re-enters, but only to grab the cashmere blanket off of Meanie.

And Meanie ponders the moment, then reaches for her social networking device (they will look really cool by then)and updates her Facebook status to read "WTF? you won't believe what they did now....."

Keep on blogging folks! It will give you something to talk about when you're old.

2011-03-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Bon Kid Bad Kid

The dynamics in a house of two kids, two girls, three years apart has
provided lots of blogging fodder (wtf? spell check doesn't recognize the
word blogging? How can my raison d'etre not even been considered a word?)

The more sophisticated they get, the more interesting the arguments get. I
never had much patience for who had what toy first, who hit who, etc etc,
and therefore tried as much as possible to ignore the cacaphony (I got to
use that word AGAIN!) around me. Now, I'm getting drawn into the ring
because I simply find it fascinating to witness just how much brain power
and effort they are willing to exert in order to get in my good books and
have the other removed from my favour.

Examples.

Edie: Mommy, who do you love more, me, or candy?
Me: Why you of course!
Edie: Haha "candy" is what I secretly call Gracie, that means you love me
morrrrrrrrrrrrre.

Me: Well good morning gorgeous!
Grace: 'morning - Hey Edie, did Mommy say good morning gorgeous to you?
Edie: No
Grace: Haha, Mommy thinks you're ugly!

See what I mean?

And they are like little detectives, sleuthing out things that the other
has done that may cause me offense. Ratting each other out if one has left
the lights on/not washed their hands/put their socks in the dirty laundry
etc etc. Proudly reporting to me all infractions, waiting for the
punishment to be handed down, and severely, SEVERELY disillusioned when I
don't sentence the criminal to life without parol. And they are soooo
offended when the tables are turned and they are the one being told on -
"Tattler!" they accuse, as if they have never once finked on their sister.

I honestly find it amusing, and love how it all gets shelved when there is
a mutual task at hand. They bury the hatchet because they know they need
each other to build the fort. They call an unspoken truce because a Wii
partner is required. Grace has even been known to help Edie go to sleep
when being baby sat and Edie has been known to be sure that Grace's iPod is
being recharged and that Grace gets a snack as well.

Sisters - so exhausting, but equally fascinating.

2011-03-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

Mini Van Break In!

So last night I forgot to lock up my van and didn't put it in the garage, leaving it in the driveway instead. This morning when I was loading up the kids, I stepped back because something was amiss - the van had been turned upside down. Now, it did take a second for this to register because the van is usually something of a Petri dish at the best of times.

Once I realized what had happened, I didn't know whether to laugh or be really embarrassed. Here is a small inventory of what was strewn all over my beast on wheels:

1) Autobiography of Ozzy Osborne on CD;

2) Unauthorized biography of Angelina Jolie on CD;

3) Biography of Belinda Carlisle on CD (dramatically titled "My Lips - Unsealed);

4) David Sedaris' "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" (redeemed!);

5) Rejected Shamrock Shakes (I was convinced they would love them, but they are pretty disgusting);

6) Baggies of portioned out roasted soy beans (emergency snack);

7) Box of books on their way to the good will store, including "Bible Stories for Beginners" (pretty sure the spine wasn't even cracked on that one) and a series of very sparkly "Rainbow Magic Fairy" chapter books" (Grace might or might not have used these to wipe her boots with. Not much interest in all things that sparkle and shine with that girl);

8) Stock piled "art" and "treasures" that Edie made me promise I would bring to work and decorate my cubicle with (had to hide that from her pretty fast!);

9) Hard as rock bagel remains;

10) Ariel hair ties that are a pain to fasten so I hid them from Edie in one of the consoles. At least she is happy the petty thefts found them;

11) A DS, which I'm sure they didn't steal because it has been attacked numerous times by a bedazzler. No true tough guy/girl could be caught dead with this electronic device;

12) Various game cartridges for Edie's Leapster with names such as "Princess Party" and "Let's Get Puzzled!" (what, no demand for those at the local pawn shop?);

13) and finally pennies. Lots and lots of pennies. Like a jackpot of pennies. I hate pennies so much, I remove them from my wallet regularly and put them in my coffee cup holder until I get around to rolling them for the kids (I would love to throw them in garbage but Jo said that act is illegal);

I bet my van is the worst car that they ever broke in to. As far as I can tell, absolutely NOTHING was taken.

2011-03-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

Things I do that MUST drive Jo crazy:

1) Cram justonemorething into the garbage under the sink instead of taking it out the garage and put a new bag in the can;

2) Cram the teeny tiny compost container when it can't even fit another fuzzy blueberry in it because a) I don't know how to make the origami newspaper liner that Jo is so good at doing and b) I'm a little too lazy to bring it outside to empty it (it's still kinda cold outside guys);

3) My loading of the dishwasher. Lets just say it is a less than mathematical process. I'm an artsy fartsy girl and it's sort of a free for all how I do it. From what I've been hearing, some people are very particular about how they load the dishwasher - like anal retentive about it. Jo is one of these people (accountant, need I say more?), but he re-organizes it quietly without making a fuss about my shit effort;

4) My rotation of "stuff". Whether I move furniture around (constantly), try out new places for our artwork (shut up, I'm over 35, I can call it artwork), add new throw rugs/pillows/blankets/vases/candle sticks to our mix (I have an in at Pier 1 Imports), add/remove children on a whim (kidding), Jo rarely comments at all. He's very accepting of the instability of our household accessories and does not grow terribly attached to anything (well, he's grown a little attached to the kids).

I did find his breaking point though. He very calmly the other day asked me to try and make more of an effort to close my drawers after using them. I didn't know this was a bad habit of mine (and I'm surprised it is because an open closet door will cause me to breathe fire, spew venom and scamper on all fours to close it), but apparently Jo kept turning the corner of our bedroom and nailing his thigh on the corner of the open drawer. He bruises easily, and his leg had been taking a beating.

I upped his complaint with a complaint of my own, and let him know that my breaking point was almost reached and I might cut him if he insisted on cutting bread/bagels/english muffins free-style(no cutting board), leaving crumbs EVERYWHERE.

Since then I have been a saint and closing my drawers all the time. And Jo has been using the cutting board.

Ummm, not sure what the point of this post is, I guess I just felt chatty. Do you have any breaking points?

2011-03-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

The sounds in my head

Ah dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun

*that's the sound of me practising my bass guitar. I started my lessons on
Tuesday. I'm probably the most excited person to ever strum the same string over and over and over again.

Cwaaaaaaaa! Cwaaaaaaaaaaaa! Cwaaaaaaaaa! Cwaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Cwee?

*that's the sound of the annoying effing crow that greets me every morning.
I imagine he's saying "cwaaaaaaaaaa! It rained A LOT last night!!!!!!"
"cwaaaaaaaaa! It's still bite ass cold outside!!!!!!!!!!!"
"cwaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! You are so effing lazy you didn't go for your run this
morning!" (The "cweeee!!!!!!!" sound is the noise it makes when it feels
the little imaginary bb gun bullets I pepper it with)

Mommmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

*that's the sound of the mile long whine that seems to accompany my name
these days by both girls. Followed by a complaint that in their minds qualifies for a call to 911 (Can you just imagine? "Yes, hello, 911? My younger daughter just grabbed my older daughters' Bendaroo WITHOUT EVEN ASKING!!!!!!!!! Yes? Okay, okay, I'll remain calm. Okay, I think I hear the sirens now. Thank you, thank you so much for sending help. God save us all").

Tappety tap tip tap tap tap tappety

*that's the sound of me online shopping after the girls go to bed. I tell
them not to call my name for water/to fix blankets/adjust global
temperatures because I am very busy working on a Very Important Document
for work and can't be distracted. Ha. Get it? Meanoldmommy.

Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep BLEEP bleep

*that's the sound of Mario bros. Wii coming from the basement where I have
taken to locking the children. Ha ha, if you know this sound now it's
stuck in your head.

thwwwwunk!

*that's the sound the cork out of my wine bottle is going to make tonight. Actually, I think it's a screwtop, but I don't know how to make that sounds. Craaaack? Twhiiiick? It's not working for me.

Have a great weekend!

Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep BLEEP bleep..........

2011-03-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

Random convo with Edie, lunch time:

Me to Edie: bleah bleah bleah bleah dee bleah and that is why boys have penises and girls have vaginas.

Edie: (looking super confused). But I've seen boys with vaginas before.

Me: huh?

Edie: Daddy has vaginas, lots of them!

Me: Whaaaa? (in my head - where the efffff is this going I don't think I want to go to there)

Edie: He wears them to bed!

(omg, she though pyjamas=vaginas. I need Geoffrey Rush to help me with my enunciation).

2011-02-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

Last night’s lesson.

Dinner last night was horrendous. Not the meal itself, if was actually quite enjoyable (lemon butter chicken served on a bed of whole wheat couscous yum!) It was those damn children wreaking all kinds of havoc at the table. I had literally finished my meal, (and I’m a chew each mouthful a billion times before swallowing kind of gal) and they had not even put a dent in their meal due to goofing off, teasing each other, blowing bubbles in their milk and other nonsense that makes razors pop out of my knuckles, claws grow out of my toes and pop a new wrinkle out. This was not an isolated incident; in fact, it has become the norm lately with Jo and I getting angrier and angrier at the table (well, not AT the table, the table didn’t do anything wrong, just we feel angry whilst sitting at the table witnessing our offspring acting like feral beasts). So the scenario has become I slave away in the kitchen to make a nice meal, can’t enjoy it because the kids make me angry, then waste time sitting at the table in negotiations with them while I could be cleaning up and moving on with the evening. Funnnnnnn.

Last night, instead of losing my shit and freaking out, I quietly got up, cleared my dishes, went to my happy couch and picked up my magazine (new Rolling Stone with Justin Bieber on the front – interesting article on the Clash fyi). I also put on my headphones and completely tuned out the cacophony (haha I said caca) going on at the table.

Of course this action raised the eyebrows of the nine and under crowd. They HATE it when I ignore them. I simply stated that I had no desire to dine with them if they could not behave in an appropriate manner (I have to admit, I said it in the most condescending way possible) and when they could prove that they could meet my dining expectations, (I listed them again, even though they know perfectly well what they are) I would consider re-joining them. There were protests, tears (Edie, obviously) and “give us one more chance!” begging. Uh uh. Headphones back on, return to reading article. I didn’t put my music on as I wanted to hear the ensuing conversation. Grace eventually asked Edie about her bus ride that day, Edie replied. They conversed. They ate. They called me every two minutes asking if I would re-join them. I declined, as I had already finished my meal, and told them to focus on their own. When they were finished, they cleared their dishes without being asked. It worked.

I always forget that a bit of tough love works. It is a lot of work, you have to put up with a lot of shit, and if you are like me, made to feel soooo guilty about laying down the law (Edie has no problem accusing me of breaking her heart and screeching “you don’t even love me if you do dat!”). I am not going to lie, that shit works on me, she’s got me figured out. Grace pulls the old “all my friends are allowed to stay up late/watch this show/get Fruit by the Foot in their lunches” – again, sometimes this works. Pretty weak, right?

I was reading a great post by RudeCactus (Feb. 24 post) the other day and it really hit a nerve with me. I don’t want coddled, spoiled kids who don’t ever have consequences to their actions. I have been lazy lately in this department, and it is way too easy to become complacent and give them whatever they want, whenever they want, and let them win.

I’m putting on my suit of armour and putting an impenetrable cage around my heart. Meanoldmommy is back in town.

2011-02-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

Letter to Grace on her 9th

My sweet, what a year. The year of electronics. The year we said good bye to toys and hello to iPods, DS’s and Wii’s. The year we finally let go and let you go on sleep-overs. The year we let you walk to your friends’ house all on your own. The year you stopped complaining and even started enjoying meals created for the family, and didn’t require a separate menu at dinner time. The year you became content to read to yourself at bedtime, proving yourself to be a voracious reader. The year I’m pretty sure I saw a boy flirting with you, not just playing with you – there was something more there, and your shy smile back at him makes me think you realize this as well. The year you didn’t necessarily want me volunteering every Friday at lunch time - the thrill of Mom popping in for a midday visit obviously disappearing.

With your impending move towards independence I have to make an effort to stay in the loop. Having a nine year old is easier in many ways – you are happy to go to the basement and play Mario Cart – but I have to get my butt down there more often and giggle with you and play Just Dance with you so you can see that I can have fun too. The other night you shyly asked me to read to you – I was taken aback but so happy you still wanted me. You are also slowly culling all of my skull accessories – my hats, socks, t-shirts – I love that you like this little part of me. You make me proud of the company you keep – so far oblivious to Girl Drama that can occur at this age.

I can’t help but compare myself to you at the this age – you are so much stronger than I was – unafraid to question things, more confident and more persevering. I could use negative words here – to question things could be misread as disrespectful; your confidence could be misconstrued as cocky and your perseverance mistaken as stubborn. It can be challenging at times to deal with these traits, but I honestly believe, for a girl, these are valuable traits that will get you far and I never want to discourage your voice from being heard.

I love you Gracie, happy birthday.

2011-02-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Meatloaf.

Not the singer. The food sillies.

Last night I made a meatloaf. When it was cooking it smelled oh-so-good. I was also roasting some sweet potatoes alongside. Really, the humble bungalow smelled like an honest to goodness leave it beaver 1960's home. There should have been a scratch and sniff sticker of my house - it smelled that good. I even had an apron on and playfully tousled the children's hair whilst they quietly did their homework at the kitchen table *ahem*.

Anyhooo, come dinner time you'd think I'd served up bowl of arsenic with a bit of ketchup when I presented the kiddies with their dinner. The barrage of complaints BEFORE THEY EVEN TASTED IT would have made Stephen Harper cry. I'm pretty tough and used of the abuse so I let them get it out of their ungrateful little systems before letting them know I didn't give a damn what their pathetically underdeveloped palates thought, this was what for dinner so deal with it and whipped off my apron to let them know crazy-mom was back. They ate it. Grudgingly. They cleared their dishes. Grudgingly. Then I tried it. Ummmm, not so good. It's not that it was bad, but it seriously lacked any, ummm, what's that word....oh yeah, flavour. And the oats in it did make it kind of ugly.

Now, I've had good meat loaf before. I've just never made a good one. I don't remember my Mom making meatloaf, so I can't go to her for a long loved family recipe.

This is where I need you. Please send me your tried and true, delicious, comforting, kid-friendly (well, in my house, I'll take kid-tolerated-won't-cause-them-to-dramatically-gag-and-pretend-to-die-which-leads-to-them-trying-to-outdo-each other-over-who-is-dying-the-most-agonizing-death meat loaf recipe. We are also a vegetarian friendly* household, so feel free to provide me with your best lentil loaf, quinoa-based, TVP recipe if it tastes good.

*well, they don't really know we are vegetarian friendly. I use so much meat substitute in my recipes, they have no frickin' idea. Ha.

2011-02-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

After hours of analysing a stoopid boring spreadsheet for work the other day, I started to daydream about what it would be like to get paid for work I actually enjoy doing. Thus my official list of Things I Wish I Got Paid to Do:

1) I would like to get paid for the good two minutes I spend at night hovering over the girls' heads when they are sleeping Jedi-Mind trick like, in an attempt to wake them. I just like it when they open their eyes and sleepily smile or mutter something incoherent. I'm also a head smeller. It would be nice to get paid for that. Re-reading this I would like to get paid for writing run-on sentences.

2) Practising the "if I were famous this is the surprise face I would make" in the mirror (there are variations). I don't do this often, usually only after watching TMZ, and if Jo is out for the night (kind of embarrassing).

3) Building snow forts. I spent about three hours yesterday building one, kept on going long after the girls lost interest, revelling in comments from the folks walking by (I just realized their smiles may have been ones of pity, not admiration).

4) Colour coding my closet, and debating with myself whether I should organize it by length of garment, colour of garment or type of garment (current status is by type AND colour. It's working quite well thank you!)

5) Organizing my record album. Same issues apply as above, should it be organized by genre or alphabetical order? I should also get paid for time spent thinking about it. Like professional planning fees. I should also like to get paid for time spend wondering why I bought a certain album (The O-Jays come to mind).

6) Lighting candles. It currently looks like a candle factory barfed in my house because candles make me feel warmer. But it takes a long time light all these damn candles (especially when Edie follows me around and blows them out as I light them - hysterical game).

7) Time spent setting up Wii games. Not my forte. Don't actually enjoy this job. Should demand overtime.

8) Facebooking. I'm pretty good at it.

9) Taking shit away. This weekend I confiscated gum, a DS, and an episode of Max and Ruby. I wish I could say I don't enjoy this job, but I feel so f*&^ing powerful when I take stuff away. They just look at me like I'm God.

10) Counting Canada Goose coats. Did everyone get one for Christmas this year?????

2011-01-21T08:08:00.000-08:00

Random...

I love grapefruit. I do not love grapefruit and coffee. Which puts me in a pickle and forces me to redefine grapefruits as a breakfast-y thingy.

I am on day 21 of my no-sugar/no booze "lifestyle" change. (All the experts say not to call it a diet and I like experts to tell me what to do, so...) I feel REALLY good. I mean, when Edie is headlining, in marquis lights "The Shit Show" at dinner time, I still kinda shake for a glass of red, but other than that it is going really well. The sugar thing astounds me - I'm pretty sure I had more sugar than water in my body over xmas, and now I don't even crave it. The "experts" are right. Feb. 1 marks the end of the "lifestyle" change, I'm really curious how that will go. Will I revert to old habits or cruise along as I am now?

Oh! I should mention as a result of this "lifestyle" change I nearly called 911 the other morning when I looked in the mirror and saw a dent it my stomach, and then realized that I wasn't broken, but an ab muscle had revealed itself! Sweet!

And now I bring you to the literary portion of our program *putting smart glasses on*

'Twas my quest in the new year to be well read, and pursue literature like Lindsay Lohan pursues coke (see how I did that? That's called a simili, you should put your your smart glasses on too).

Turns out you need time to read, which I don't have a whole lot of. So, I discovered books on CD, which I listen to on my commute to and from work. So far this year I have enjoyed:

I'm Down a Memoir by Mishna Wolf (realllllly funny)

The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe by Randy Taraborrelli (kinda sad, but super interesting)

Symptoms of Withdrawal by Christopher Kennedy Lawford (v. interesting look at the Kennedy's - definitely does not shed positive light on them)

High on Arrival, by Mackenzie Philips (scandalous!)

Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper (hmmm, thought provoking)

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott (awwww, tee hee, cleans my brain after listening to Mackenzie Philips)

Into the Wild by John Krakauer (turned it off, much better to read than listen to)

Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort (currently listening to this - I pray for traffic jams. Sooooo good)

If you have any recommendations, books you think would transfer well onto audio, please let me know *smart glasses coming off*. I do like smut, so I won't judge if you suggest Tommy Lee's autobiography or something.

There. Random.

2011-01-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

I think I have figured out what Edie has been put on earth for. Now that William Shakespeare is dead (well, it has been a few years) it occurs to me that we don’t have a great writer of tragedy. I suspect Edie is Shakespeare incarnate, but with a modern vocabulary (and slight lisp due to missing teeth). Who else could spin the mundane into epic tales of being wronged? Some examples:

1) When informed it was Grace’s turn for her skating lesson and not hers, the tears flowed, the whining built up to a climax of “THIS IS MY WORST SKATING DAY EVER!”

2) When informed her DS had to be recharged and would not function until recharged, the tears again flowed, and the whining progressed to crying and finally peaked at “THIS IS MY WORST DS DAY EVER!”

3) When having her teeth brushed, with a parent holding her little jaw still (this is a jaw that never stops, yes, it is necessary to hold it still) the sessions ends with a brief soliloquy of “IT FEELS LIKE YOU BROKE MY BONES!!!”

4) When denied a pit stop for hot chocolate for some misdeed, I’m pretty sure there was a Greek chorus in the minivan supporting her cries of “MY HEART IS TURNING BLACK! NOW IT’S TURNING GRAY! NOW IT’S TURNING YELLOW! NOW IT’S TURNING RAINBOW!” (We made the mistake of saying that it was nice that her heart was turning rainbow, this amped up the tears tenfold).

So, Edie is just cutting her teeth at being a great playwright. Maybe it’s not too early to get her started. I can just picture an audience of dressed up 5 year olds tearing up at the great injustice of being denied hot chocolate/DS/skating lessons/Max and Ruby.

*Oh and hey! Thanks for de-lurking! Always fun to get comments.

2011-01-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

So a certain loyal reader (Holla C.D.!) complained that my frequency in posting is on the decline. I complained in my best whiny voice (he loves that) that nobody leaves me comments, nobody likes me, and I might as well go eat worms (oh WHERE does Edie get her dramatics from?)

It happens to be International (or National? Local? I dunno) De-Lurking Day. So give me the warm and fuzzies, say hi to me.....it would make me feel so good. And it will stop me from whining (well about blogging, I will still whine about lots of over things. I have a very hard and difficult life you know).

I am also including a picture of myself with a laser eye that I will cut you with if you don't leave a comment. *shiver*

2011-01-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

And we’re off!

2011 is going to be my bitch. Well, that is the intent. The Meanie household has declared the month of 2011 to be “Dry January” in which no booze is consumed and no sugar ingested. I said it. It’s out there. Now that the DT’s are gone and I don’t want to lick sugar off of Grace and Edie’s fingers after they eat a cookie, I feel pretty good. And I’ve de-puffed. I’m not sure if any actual weight has fallen off (not the goal, really) but I’m not as puffy and squidgy. So, I don’t imagine my social life will be killer this month (hey, a sober Meanie can be fun, please still invite me places! I might suck on your wine cork though).

Early to bed is also part of the agenda, which I’ve been following but it’s really hard. Santa bought me Room which I have a VERY hard time putting down at night in order to achieve 8 hours sleep, and we were also given the entire series of 6 Feet Under. It is so hard to stop at one episode when all those little boxes are crying out to be watched. Discipline Meanie!

We also got all growed up over the holidays and bought a dresser for the Master Bedroom (sounds very important when in capitals). Seriously, my clothes were in plastic storage containers before. We also bought a bed frame for our bed, in the Master Bedroom. And curtains! And one of those blankets that goes on top of your real blanket, but you don’t actually use it, it just looks pretty. Our Master Bedroom looks like the Master Bedroom of 30/40 somethings now – not so college. Dare me to buy some useless pillows for the bed – just dare me to! I got a HomeSense gift card for Christmas and I’m not afraid to use it.

So we are off to a nice, healthy start. Oh, just so you don’t think I’m all full of myself and stuff I’m still a bit of a f*&^-up because:

a) I brought my laptop home over the holidays to do some work and forgot it at home on my first day back and

b) Yesterday I was pulled over by the police at a major intersection and......actually, that’s another blog post. Still too traumatized to write about it :)

2010-12-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

Will I ever sleep again?

Sleep has always been an issue in our house. When the girls were wee, they slept amazingly well, but I was usually spinning with anxiety (post partum depression) and could never get a good night’s sleep. Once the anxieties were lifted, being a light sleeper oft kept me awake (I can hear a nose whistler from down the street). Finally, likely from sheer exhaustion of having years of no sleep, I became a star pupil at sleeping, until Grace developed her night time anxieties, which have awoken me most nights for the past 3 years. With some tools under our belts we are able to get her back to sleep much faster now, but some nights it was hours before there was peace.

Well, last week was a good week. No night time waking at all. Finally, an unbroken, 8 hours (if I was smart enough to go to bed at the right time) of sleep. Ahhh, I thought to myself. We will sleep again. We will be rested and that will give us the ability to laugh, play board games, talk about our feelings, wear things from the LL bean catalogue, use cloth napkins and shake our heads fondly at our childrens’ antics (what, isn’t that wall all normal families do)?

Well, my idyllic dream crashing down on me the other night when, while working at the dining room table, up past my bedtime, Grace came stumbling out her bedroom, glazed eyes and obviously not really “there”. She was sleep-walking. And she headed right for the front door, put on her fathers’ shoes (ha, that was kinda funny) and started pawing at the deadlock and door knob, trying to get out. Hmmm. We tried talking to her, with no success. Jo realized right away she was sleep-walking and was a pro in gently guiding her back to her room. I kept getting in her face trying to see if she registered me at all. It’s really strange seeing your kid in that state – it was like she didn’t even see me, and she didn’t speak, just made creepy little noises *shiver*.

Anyhooo, we happened to be up past our bedtime. What if we hadn’t been? What if we were tucked in our beds, sound asleep when Grace was heading out the door? Remember this dream? It’s a little too real for me.

That night I’m not sure I went back to sleep, pre-occupied with listening for her rise from her bed again. I even got up and checked on her a few times to make sure she was still there. Jo seemed more at ease with the whole situation, sleeping like a log beside me.

Thank god it’s Christmas time, and bells are easily accessible. We have them attached to points of exit of the house so we will hear a cheerful little chime before she again tries to enter the cold abyss.

I don’t like sleepwalking! It’s dumb, make it go away. Have you had experiences with it? What do you do about it? When will it go away? When will I sleep again?

2010-12-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

Christmas fail!

Saw Cirque du Soleil in Kingston on Monday night (after a massive dinner) and declared Diet Time! after watching those sinewy bodies doing things no body should be able to do while I mowed on pastries, downing them with wine. Who the buck proclaims diet time during the Christmas season?

Started heading to work yesterday, but turned around because sitting in traffic was not my idea of a day at Disney and my book on tape had just ended, leaving me no choice but to listen to the radio (ears. bleeding). Fanstastic, I thought. This will give me a chance to wrap all the gifts! Wouldn't you know that I ran out of tape halfway through? And there were no more Jersey Shore's PVR'd. What a waste of a snow day.

Read the girls the Little Drummer Boy last night and cried. Who does that? For some reason the story made me so profoundly sad, and as we were singing the pa rum pum pum part I started crying, traumatizing the 8 and under crowd. Duh.

The advent activity for last night was star gazing. I wrapped my charges up and out we went in a blizzard. I was determined to see a star, as were they. Cloud coverage hindered that activity, so I convinced them a passing airplane was a shooting star yay! lets go inside now.

And now settle something for me - Jo's Santa wrapped every freaking item in his stocking, down to a toothbrush. My family's Santa did not. What does your Santa do? (Please say your Santa does it the Meanie way!) Keep in mind there is a tape shortage at my house.....

2010-12-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Frank Loyd Wright did not have children.

We live in an open concept bungalow. Very open. It is a late 1960’s
construction that used to have lots of little rooms that the previous owner
blew out to create one big open room. From my Station (the kitchen) I can
see all – what the 8 and unders are playing on the computer, what they are
watching on t.v., what they are eating, what caused the latest “I’m telling
on you!”. I can hear the bleeps of the DS and the blips of the Leapster.
At bedtime, I can even see who is sneaking another book when look-down has
been called. Sounds like a harmonious, idyllic situation, non? Non. It’s
driving me effing crazy. In an open concept home you have no place to call
your own. I had claimed the couch in front of the fire place as mine,
with my books, candles and special blanket my Mom made me spread out just
so. That lasted about a day until I sat on a Webkinz (oh you just know
where that rhinoceros horn went) and found a Polly pocket shoe at the
bottom of my wine* glass.

I can handle pretty much all of the above, particularly when I am self
medicating*. What I cannot handle is when my phone calls are interrupted
with 8 and under Drama (oh yes, I used a capital D). The other day I was
expecting a phone call for an update on a loved one’s operation. The call
came and as soon as I was being updated, Drama broke out. I could barely hear
the person on the phone due to the shrieks of injustice, mutilation and
torture that were going on in the background (see? Drama). I was
mortified. You would think the Angel of Death was visiting our bright
little bungalow. When off the phone, I discovered that the Angel of Death
was merely a pencil eraser crime, the eraser touching the 5 year old via the 8 year old. Most definitely no need for Drama. I was about to show Grace and Edie my
own little Drama. The scary, open a can of whoop ass kind of Drama. It is
not news to them that I want some decorum when I am on the phone or
entertaining. I reached deep into my thespian repertoire of Mom characters and opted for Scary Quiet Lady. I quietly walked over to them, phone still in hand. In my most pointed, quiet voice, I informed them that no computers would be played that night (I’m pretty sure Grace shouted out “I’m melting!” to that one) and that they would be spending the rest of the evening in the basement (to which Edie’s eyes grew even rounder).

Now one would think that medieval torture goes on in our basement. The resistance
movement against the basement is worthy of a chapter in a high school text
book. The girls avoid it at all costs. You would think that there are ghosts
clanging their chains in the closet, large spiders scurrying across the
floor and the Spectre Boredom always on the ready to pounce.

The reality is our basement was re-done with the kids in mind. A nice new berber, bright lighting, a television, comfy couches, a Wii, a play structure and an array of other toys I keep throwing down there akin to a donkey's carrot.

I know, Jo and I should be locked away for the conditions we expect the girls
play in. There’s a freaking play structure in my basement people! A play
structure!

So down they went, without a word (you don’t fuck with Scary Quiet Lady).
And lo and behold, they stayed. They played. They watched t.v. When I
told them to come up, they asked for 5 more minutes, please. When they did
come up, I’m pretty sure they were cleaner than when they went down and
with their manners re-charged. When they were in the basement, I sat on my
couch in front of the fireplace, wrapped in my blankie and genuinely enjoyed looking at magazines with pictures of open concept bungalows, in peace and quiet. And I was
re-charged as well, genuinely pleased to see them re-surface. So maybe I don't have a place I can call my own, but at least I can call 1/2 and hour my own. Sometimes.

(ugh, sorry about the layout on this - New Years resolution to clean up damn blog).

2010-12-02T10:01:00.001-08:00

Best reaction ever:

So Grace and I were watching Fear Factor last night (this is her new favourite show) and the contestants were twin men vs. twin women. The whole theme of the show was boys against girls. At the end, the women won all the challenges. All throughout the show everyone kept exclaiming how they couldn't believe the women were beating the men.

At the end of the show Grace asked me why everyone was making a big deal about the women beating the men. I realized it has never occurred to my strong willed, athletic, intelligent 8 year old girl that sometimes it is assumed that men are better at some things than women are.

Yesssss.

2010-11-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

Fuuuuuuuccccckkkkkk.

So todays to-do list:

Deal with the fact that it is Monday - check

Ice on driveway - check

Fall on driveway with sexy boots on - check

No longer feel sexy - check

Ice all over van - check

One ice scraper, two girls who want to help scrape - check

One five year falling right on her ass in a puddle - check

One five year not wearing splash pants because I was in too much of a rush to put them on her - check

Get to school and realize the back up pants I packed are actually the 8 year olds skinny jeans - check

5 year old takes about 10 hours putting on the back up pants - check

The nice man who treats me to valet parking at my lot is not in today - check

I have to park in the shittiest pot holiest spot in the lot - check

Get home, make high caloric comfort meal, everyone enjoys it - check (yay! bright spot!)

Get jammies on, 5 year proceeds to remind me that it is her turn to bring the sharing snack tomorrow, and it has to be celery - check

No celery in house - check

Drive to grocery store with 5 year old, 5 year old falls HARD in parking lot - check

5 year old insists on checking for blood by the foggy light in the middle of the parking lot - check

I chose to go to the grocery store in the sketchiest part of the 'hood - check

Tears and snot create dreadlocks in 5 year olds hair - check

Too late for a shampoo, spray untangler spray in wet hair instead - check

Check label, what I actual sprayed in her hair was Banana Boat SPF 30 sunscreen and have to proceed with shower after all - check

Rather than support me, family laughs at me - check

How was your Monday?

2010-11-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

At least Edie thinks I'm good at something.....

Edie cried in frustration the other day complaining that she wasn't "any
good at anything!" She was in the process of trying to draw high heels on
the princess she just drew, and, well, let's just say the shoes would
satisfy any fetishist with a thing for stilettos. These shoes were bad
ass, but completely inappropriate for a princess (shout out to you Kate
Middleton, congrats on the engagement!)

I cooed and hugged the tears away, and taught her how to draw real princess
shoes - my signature ovals on their side with a line on the back of each of
them. Very smart looking. Edie looked up at me with her big blue eyes, a
solitary tear on the cusp of dropping from her eyelash and told me that I
am the bestest Mommy ever and good at everything I do. I thanked her
graciously, accepting the compliment, but it got me thinking, and the
thinking got me a little depressed. I'm actually not really good at
anything. I'm kinda average at a lot of stuff. I dabble in arts and
crafts, I'm okay at my job, I'm a pretty good Mom (but I get cases of the
yellsitis on occasion) and my next endeavour, to learn how to play bass
guitar (thanks to HellaStella) will likely prove to be another less than
stand out effort. I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself, I just haven't
had that a-ha moment yet dictating what I am great at.

I am good at appreciating other people's amazingness. I have an ear for
music, an eye for art work (and I do consider fashion to be art), and a
great understanding of literature. And I'm good at re-arranging furniture.
Poor Jo will stumble in after hours and bruise his shin on the ottoman that
I just had to move at eleven o'clock at night. But I don't want my
tombstone to read "Good at re-arranging furniture and pretty average at
other stuff".

It makes me a little sad, the older I get, because I know with training,
education and experience I very likely could have been a great at a few different
things that I'm truly passionate about, but I really feel like it is too
late to pursue because a) I'm getting older and b) financially, I just
don't have the luxury of quitting my job to focus on a new career.

Kind of a debbie downer of a post, but this is what is on my mind today.

2010-10-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

HAPPIER TIMES

The death of Meap.

Grace's fish died over the weekend. It was suicide. We were out of town, my brother was tasked with coming to feed the fish, and it was he who discovered the body of Meap just outside the aquarium. The aquarium does have a lid on it, but I suspect Grace forget to close it before we left. Meap threw himself out of his home. Maybe it wasn't suicide - maybe he was looking for adventure (this is what I told Grace ).

Now Meap was a crazy mother f*%&er. He would bash his body around the tank, against his walls, and glare at poor Ariel (Edie's fish, in the aquarium beside him). Luckily Ariel is much like Edie, oblivious to threats and stare-downs, happy to swim around and catch glimpses of her reflection.

When we picked up Grace from her grandparents, I walked her to the gate to tell her the news. She howled noooooo! and started to cry. When coached to the van, the DS was left untouched and books unread. It broke my heart to look to the back of the van and see her tear streaked face, processing the loss of her fish. I crawled to the back of the van (ew) and sat between her and Edie, arm wrapped around Grace, trying to console.

This is Grace's first experience with death. We didn't sugar coat it, it's all part of life. We did offer to buy a new one, to which she said yes, but not for another week, as she wants to think about Meap.

Meap is currently in our freezer, awaiting his final fate. There is talk about a proper funeral, but because it is the haunting season, Grace fears his spirit may come and haunt her from the garden. There was also talk of a good old fashioned flushing, but that seems so undignified for the Mighty Meap Who Took a Leap. There is also talk of putting him under the microscope - a pretty good indication to me that the mourning session is almost complete.

2010-10-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

Small things.

My house is like any other house with kids I'm sure. I puncture my feet on Lego that is left lying around, the sight of Polly Pocket shoes lying on the ground makes me twitch a little and while I have made the girls' dirty laundry hamper entirely accessible, welcoming and even a little fun, I still find dirty socks rolled up like donuts (one was stuck on a door handle the other day - yuck!) and underwear strewn on the ground. I nag constantly for the girls to pick up after themselves, and cackle when I hear their reaction down the hall to me putting all their dirty underwear on their pillows (yes I'm evil). I put more pressure on Grace to keep things tidy because she's older and should be helping out more. Edie I pressure, but pulling her down from whatever cloud she is visiting is too damn difficult sometimes.

The battles are not epic, but I do feel a little like Cinderella at times cleaning up after everyone all the time, with no respect or a thanks Mom youarenice comment. I also snap about once a month a show them a little crazy and get them to clean and put away their "treasures" (oh yes, everything is a "treasure", god forbid you suggest throwing it out or giving it away).

The other morning I had to pick up my boss in my van. Now, my van is a petrie dish. I don't go beyond the front seats. There is likely primordial ooze bubbling in the back seats somewhere. Gollum would be perfectly at home in one of the two rows reserved for the 8 and under crowd - I wouldn't be surprised if I turned around and saw him sitting on a booster seat playing DS. There is a garbage bag provided to them to dispose of their debris, but to rub salt in the wound, I often find wrappers on the floor, a quarter inch from the provided bag. I just don't look anymore to save me from having a complete aneuryism.

The day I was picking up my boss though, I was dropping the girls off at school first. Thinking about the boss man's comfort in my mini-van I took a quick look in the back and am pretty sure I dropped a big old f-bomb in reaction to the mess back there. Grace asked what was wrong and I not so calmly told her I was picking up my boss in 15 minutes and the state of the van could make him question the hygiene of our family. Do you know what that kid did? She calmly began cleaning the van, quietly placing all the garbage in the bag, not even complaining that she was picking up her sister's trash. It was tidy within five minutes. The only thing left to pick up was my jaw off the floor.

I love it when they surprise you like that.

2010-09-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

I had a terrible dream last night. I dreamt that Grace and I had a horrible fight. It was a balls out yelling and screaming match, and she threatened to run away from home. I reacted by yelling fine! You do that! She was her real age in my dream, 8 years old. She had on her pink sparkly sneakers, shorts and the little pageboy cap she has been favouring lately. I don't know what the fight was about, but it was horrible, and in my dream I rationalized my horrible reaction by saying to myself she'll turn around and come home in no time. Then it became night time in my dream, and still no sign of Grace. And a snowstorm was suddenly whipped up. I felt physically sick to my stomach in my dream. I drove around the neighbourhood, in the blizzard, looking for her. Knocking on friends' doors, asking them if they had seen her. I can't even explain the anxiety I was feeling, it was off the charts. I wanted to wake from my dream so badly, I was losing my mind but couldn't wake up. In my dream I shakily called 911, to officially report her missing, reeling with different realities that could happen to lost 8 year old girls, in shorts and sneakers, in a snow storm. I wanted to wake up so badly from this nightmare but just couldn't. And then, a little voice called out to me - "Mommy"? and again, more insistent "Mama"? I searched for her frantically in my dream, not able to find where the voice was coming from. I then realized the little voice was actually waking me from my night terror. My Grace was calling for me from her room down the hall. She pulled me from my nightmare. And she only wanted to say hi and have a cuddle.

I believe our brains work on levels that we don't understand. And last night I truly believe that somehow, Grace, in her sleep, sensed I was suffering in my own slumber and she came to my rescue.

Do you think I'm crazy?

2010-09-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Why I believe in bribing....

In my line of work, I have been sent on training to have the notion of bribing=bad drilled through my head. I have had to sit through hours of CPAC hearings with toothpicks propping my eyes open so I understand the evils of bribing a-la Clockwork Orange (kidding, but good visual, right?)

Just because in my professional life I don't do bribery, it doesn't mean I can't participate in my personal life .

Enter one sleep deprived Meanie and her cranky husband Mr. Meanie. Since mid-summer we have been suffering the late night calls of Grace, scared of shadows, scared of ghosts, scared of dust particles and scared of air molecules. I won't bore you more details, if really interested, just read down, I think it has been the subject matter of every second blog post.

Enter one tooth challenged Edie. She has lost two baby teeth now and a big one is growing in. And, at the mature age of 5, she is Queen of the Soothers, still taking one at bed time to fall asleep.

Severely sleep deprived, and with the fear of having a snaggle toothed daughter with expensive dental bills, we decided to put an end to some of the insanity in our household. Did we do this by talking calmly, lovingly and reassuringly to our charges? Nay. Did we do this with charts and statistics supporting our arguments for this nonsense to cease and desist? Nope.

All it took was a trip to our neighbours. Grace's dear little friend has recently acquired a Beta fish. The girls covet this fish. They want it. So. Bad. See where this is going? It's this easy folks. You want a Beta fish girls? Give me seven nights. Seven nights of no waking us up. Seven nights of no soothers. You eff up and we go back to square one, start all over again.

Heh heh. We're going to Billings Bridge tonight to get Grace's fish. Edie has three days left for her reward. I feel remarkably rested and so okay with my bribing ways.

I should write a book.

2010-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

I done got beat with a boring stick!

Hey, what happened? I feel like with back to school I suddenly matured overnight. I'm 37, but for the most part have never really behaved my age. I like to giggle, have been accused of being flighty, and definitely like to have a good time that usually involves ending up dancing somewhere, sometimes all by myself, but always with a smile on my face. I used to love reading celebrity gossip, fashion magazine, uploading my face on to hair style websites to see what I would like. I used to troll Facebook nightly and spy on everyone's day. I binged regularly on junk food, would get really really hyper, then run around in circles and crash. I would stay up too late watching t.v., then wake up way too early to drag myself to work. And at work I was always happy to jump into any conversation, trade a witty comment with anyone, anything to get up from my desk.

What changed? Well, I've been going to bed at a decent hour, waking at a decent hour, exercising, eating really REALLY well, I don't turn the tv on at night, I am losing touch with celebrity (who are Blake Lively and Chace Crawford?) and I merely glimpse at Facebook, and at work my head is down, my fingers type and I rarely waste a minute of time anymore. And when I do get up from my desk it is to do those stretches that you see old people doing because my back and shoulders hurt a little. I am uber organized, prioritizing things and getting things done. I feel great, am losing a bit of the mommy tummy I have always fought with and am rested and content.

One problem, I feel so status quo and boring. It feels really strange being mature, I feel like I should have grown up a long time ago, and somehow just missed the day I was supposed to switch from immature to mature.

Will they take away my Social Distortion license plate for my conforming ways?

Warning, this blog may become really, really dull with my new found maturity.

Oh, but to liven things up I am going to pull a plane tomorrow and then go to a 40th b.d. party in Montreal - I hope end up on the dance floor!

2010-08-31T05:48:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh memories.....

Grace's week before school anxiety kicked in last week, which results in a nightly wake up call at two a.m. for us. She calls me into her room to ask for Jo (why wake up only one parent when she can wake up two of them?) We've pretty much accepted this little glitch in Grace's system - the glitch being that whenever there is big change on the horizon, or an uber-exciting even tcoming up (think Hallowe'en, Christmas) there will be a sleep disruption.

She is entering grade 3. Apparently this is a killer year for kids, they have some provincial testing that they have to go through and from what I gather, the teacher breathes fire on them to help them prepare for this big important test and all the fun of being a grade 3 kid is incinerated.

A Facebook thread got me thinking the other day when a couple of childhood friends made comments about our Grade 3 experiences. I don't think we had standardized testing then, but I do remember it being the worst year of my life *polish drama queen crown now*.

Allow me to paint a picture of myself for you, at the tender age of 7-ish. I had legs up to my armpits, a bowl cut that resembled a pyramid because my hair is so thick, madly spaced teeth and the early onset of acne. Cute, right? I also favoured rugby pants with a wildly patterned shirts made of material you might be able to wrap food in if you had to. And so, you might be surprised that I was not the reigning queen of popularity.

Our teacher that year, Mme Bunston, had that wonderful ability (that all good, solid teachers should have) to pick favourites in her class. She saved her nicest, most serene and loving smiles for the prettiest, smartest girls. I craved her attention so badly but she could hardly hide her disdain for me. Like the abused in an abusive relationship, I worked hard at my school work, tried to tame my hair with bad bows and crooked barrettes and emulate the pretty girls as much as possible. All these efforts and I never received a word of praise or one of her beatific smiles that she reserved for her angels. My little 7 year feelings were pummelled on a daily basis by this woman in her simple act of ignoring.

One day Mme Bunston stood in front of the class with a box of chocolates. You know those Laura Secord chocolates, the mint kind? Half are brown and the other green. Soooo good. Anyhooo, she stood in front of the squirming class and asked in her most charming voice, who would like a chocolate? Hands shot up in the air, reaching for heights never before attained. My own hand reached for the speckled square tiles on the ceiling. And miracle of miracles, she called my name. Kids swung around in their chairs, and gave me that look that all kids want to be on the receiving end of - the look of envy. I made my way to front of the class, forgiving Mme Bunston of all her sins, seeing a future of popularity, flat hair and clear skin. She held out the box of chocolates and told me to choose one. I reached for a green, my favourite. She asked me what I should say and I sweetly said merci Mme Bunston. I brought the chocolate to my lips, opened my mouth and bit down.....I bit down on a hard, plastic pretend candy. Mme Bunston exploded into laughter telling the class that the chocolates were fake. The class erupted into laughter as well. The joke went on for what seemed to be an eternity, I felt shamed and humiliated and quickly put back into my place.

From that day forward I didn't give a rat's ass what Mme Bunston thought of me, I had no desire to get on her good side. Even at age 7-ish, I knew teachers shouldn't dick around little kids like that.

Sigh, I hope Grace has a nice teacher this year.

*names have not been changed in this story because she was really really mean.

2010-08-26T05:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, that was a big bloggy break, wasn't it?

I'm rested now after three weeks off. It was the best three weeks of my
life. That may be a slight exaggeration, or maybe not, I'll have to think
about that.
Anyhoooo, here it is in a nutshell:

1) We camped, we jumped in the waves, we slept on squishy air mattresses,
we made sand castles. I fearfully trekked to the outdoor bathrooms at the
campsite in the middle of the night to go pee (the simple solution to this
would be to stop drinking after dinner, but, I was just having so much
fun!) We met up with friends in New Hampshire and met up with family in
Massachusetts. We discovered North Conway outlet shopping, and
re-discovered the girls aversion to shopping. I confirmed that I still
don't like lobster. I touched everything at Target and the Liquor Depot.
I spent too much time in potato chip aisles (soo many fun flavours in the
U.S.). We touched starfish at the Boston Aquarium and watched sharks and
penguins get fed. We waited an hour and a half at the border and prayed
thanks to the makers of DS.

2) With us back home the 2nd week and Jo back to work, the girls and I swam
everyday, I hosted (too many) playdates, organized stuff, made messes,
cleaned up messes, popped the girls in day care for a 1/2 day so I could
have a day to myself (ahhhh).

3) My third and final week my bestie flew into town and we immediately
donned appropriate attire and then wisely cabbed over to Barrymore's for 80's Night (we hit the dance floor at 9:45 and closed the place at 2:00). It wasn't pretty
the next day as I had to replace my side ponytail with my Mom hat and be
all mom-like with a terrible hangover. We did fun kid-things during the
day (Saunders Farm, Science and Tech, Mooney's Bay, Ramona and Beezus,
Marmaduke y'know, the usual) and fun things at night (old-girls dinner,
beers at the Prescott, Absolut Comedy, backyard bbq's).

Last night we put the girls to bed at a reasonable hour, knowing today we
would be back to the old grind. Jo and I flopped into bed at 9:45. When I
closed my eyes, welcoming the sweet mistress Sleep to take me, I
immediately started thinking about work and stayed awake until about
midnight. Argh! Oh well, it was a great vacation and I am so grateful at
how much it kicked ass this summer.

2010-07-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

I don't remember when it happened, but I started resenting, instead of loving. Was I eleven when it started? Or earlier? I remember revelling in walking over to my mom, after dinner, and having her rest her chin on my head. It made me feel so special, so loved. Not saying anything, just listening to the adult chatter over coffee, feeling like I was being included in something special while I lingered there. Later, she would call me over and I would reluctantly go, eyes rolling, but still going over - she would have to strain her neck a little bit to rest her chin on my head. And eventually the little ritual stopped. I grew too tall for her to rest her chin. I also grew sullen, resentful, rude and awful. The first three years of my teen years were intense, dramatic and sad. I was a bundle of insecurities with a dash of depression and I lashed out against the ones who loved me most. There was bile in my voice when I spoke to them and I did everything I could to infuriate them, alienate them, mock them and make them feel sub-human. That they put up with it is incredible. And that they decided to no longer put up with it and expel me from their home is also incredible, but ultimately what saved me from myself. My departure from home for that chunk of time returned me to them no longer full of hate and anger. A little vulnerable, a little bruised, but no longer lashing out against them.

I'm thinking about this today after getting off the phone with my parents, who are meeting us on our camping trip. We are going to the same destination that they used to take us every second year when we were kids. Those vacations where Dad didn't shave everyday and we played Scrabble at night (they still tell me that I used to beat them at Scrabble, ahhh the pride of parents). Everyone is excited to relive memories and create new ones with our kids. Sometimes it knocks my breath out thinking about those years that almost destroyed us and to think about where we are now.

2010-07-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

My facebook status update today.....help!

2 things, looonnnngggg car ride coming up:
1) I'm looking for recommendations for DS games that don't require any reading;
2) Ottawa friends, looking to buy used DS games suitable for Grace/Edie

Grateful for anything you can throw at me!

2010-07-26T05:29:00.000-07:00

Jo and I have camped. We've camped a lot, Jo and I. The two of us have greatly enjoyed camping. We make a great couple at camping. A flawless pair, a real dynamic duo. And we are going to do it again. But with two little edits to our past experiences. Two little edits named Grace and Edie.

Jo and I were certainly the types who stated that having babies would not prevent us from our adventures. Once pregnant, we bought one of those fancy backpacks you stick your babe in and planned on lacing up the hiking shoes. Then the kids actually came. And I became a neurotic scheduler. Naps and bedtime were to take place at a certain time in one's own crib/bed. And I became neurotic about a lot of other things (I can sterilized anything with one hand strapped behind my back and closed eyes). And I became the queen of the what-ifs (what if they cry/get sick//lost/bitten/lifted by hawks/adopted by wolves/swallowed by the earth or god forbid GET THROWN OFF THEIR SCHEDULE and so we never went.

Well, I'm happy to say that the post-partum fog lifted years ago (I don't even use hand sanitizer anymore and bedtime is merely a suggestion in the summer months), but a series of events have prevented us from taking camping trips.

This summer we are heading off. I'm excited. I'm also a little apprehensive for a few reasons, but am trying not to dwell on them. For example, for she-who-likes-to-be-swathed-in-velvet, how will she react to the humble sleeping bag? And for she-who-spikes-a-fever-upon-stubbing-her-toe, how will she navigate the tree-stump laden campsites? And of course Jo and I are a little softer now and a little spoiled; how will we-who-depend-on-the-coffee-maker-with-a-timer deal with making coffee ourselves over the little coleman stove (boil mother-effer!)? And what the eff do you cook for a family of 4 on a camping trip? Variations on the hot dog? I suppose we will learn all these things as we go along. If you have any tips though please pass them along!

*Oh, this is very important. We have borrowed a DS for Edie, who does not yet read. Do you have any game suggestions that don't require reading?
**the "effing" as opposed to the tradition f*%&ing is for Grace's benefit. She just caught on that I keep a blog.

2010-07-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Last night was peaceful, relaxing, and found me draped languoriously (ummm, it's a word, okay spell check?) on my new Couch (if you follow me on facebook, you know why the Couch deserves a capital C!) watching a documentary on the Jersey Shore (ahem).

A far cry from last Sunday.

Last Sunday, I gave Jo the kitchen pass to go to Bluesfest (I used up my pass on Joan Jett and Hole......aweeeesommme!)
I put Grace and a complaining Edie to bed. This is the problem with a child who cries wolf 24-7, complaints for her at bedtime is akin to me pouring a glass of wine at dinner. It just happens.

Anyhooo, once asleep, Edie settled for about an hour or so, and then she woke up. And her complaints were minor no more, they were positively off the charts. The poor thing was banging her head on wall, scratching herself here there and everywhere, and crying "I can't take it anymore!" (Can you imagine? These words from a 5 year old? I thought this stream of consciousness was reserved for 37 year old public servants). Now normally Edie is settled with some intense cuddling and crooning, but not that night. I was helpless. I let it go on for a little over an hour before I called Jo away from his revelry and asked him to come home (this has only happened once before, that I have called him home, on an equally dramatic night).

I ended up going to CHEO at about 1:30 in the morning, and the drive there was agonizing, with her screaming in the back, and me with two hands on the wheel trying to keep it together, trying not to cry. Once there, the bright shiny lights of CHEO and attentions of medical staff did much to distract, comfort, and if possible, energize her. The entire wait there she didn't cry, but she did pretty much ask me every question known to mankind about every possible subject. It's really hard to explain genetics to a five year old at 3 in the morning. Just sayin.

We were seen by a lovely doctor, who did not reassure me at all when he took a look at her, chewed on his pen, said hmmmm, and left the room saying he would be back in 5 minutes (we all know what 5 minutes is in CHEO-land, right?) Actually, it wasn't that bad. He did return with another doctor, who assessed Edie and said it could be this, it could be that, or maybe it could be something completely different. He wrote me a prescription for a very expensive medication, that is very powerful, that may or may not help, and whatever you do discontinue use after 5 days.

Okay.

We returned home in the wee hours of the morning, both collapsing with exhaustion. When Grace woke the next morning (and god bless the child who sleeps through all this drama and is genuinely shocked that Edie and I left the house, returned and she never had an inkling of it). Grace then got out her hot lamp, directed it at me and put me through the inquisition all the while inspecting Edie's war wounds and compiling information to assess the situation at hand (hmmm, maybe she'll be a doctor, or work for CSIS questioning questionables).

I then made an appointment to see the family doctor, realizing I wasn't completely satisfied with CHEO's, or Grace's prognosis. This visit wasn't much better, but I did get the okay to dole out some over the counter meds to help with the discomfort. That night was slightly less dramatic, but still, this is Edie, it did involve some Oscar worthy moments.

Okay, so three doctors. No answers.

My mom and dad stopped by the following day to drop of my laundry (a blog post for another day). My dad, who is really smart, took one look and said looks like chicken pox. My mom, who is also super smart concurred. They both have medical backgrounds, so they weren't just making shit up.

This made sense to me! Insanely itchy? Check. Unsightly? Check. Other symptoms? Check. It isn't confirmed by anyone, and I still want to follow-up with a specialist, but man, if this is chicken pox, and not one of three doctors we saw were able to identify it, I'm going to be genuinely freaked out with the doctors I did see.

So, send us some healthy vibes. Oh, and she didn't touch Giant Hog Weed.

2010-07-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

And now a short commercial break....

Getting married? Having a baby? Throwing a party? Just like pretty paper, ribbon and fun cards? (and all the things you can do with it)? Check out my brother's store, Urbanfête , which he opened with his friend Christine back in May. This is a unique little shop, something fresh that Ottawa hasn't seen until now. It reminds me of strolling through SoHo and happening upon a funky little shop with lots of little surprises tucked in all the corners. Kevin and Christine will welcome you with friendly smiles and walk you through the invite process or leave you to pick that perfect card for someone.

You also have to check out their paper - some of these pieces are works of art in themselves and are begging to be framed. I have big plans for the girls' bedrooms with some of the quirky owl paper.

So, you've done Westboro, you've done the Glebe, why not go for a stroll down Rideau Street to Urbanfête, tell them Meanie sent you! After your visit, you can either hit up Frenchies for a Famous Burger or to Culinary Conspiracy which is supposed to be a ridiculously good place for some fine food on the go. If you want to sit for a meal, the Sunflower Cafe sounds like another delightful, unique dining experience.

Their store was recently written up on the apt613 blog - where they write much better than I do. Read all about it there :)

urbanfête | 517 Rideau Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 5Z5 | 613-422-4537
Tuesday to Friday: 10 am to 6 pm, Saturday 10 am to 5 pm

2010-07-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

Because you didn't ask......

I am feeling better, thank you! So wrong on so many levels. And my throat still kinda hurts but I am ignoring it (if I ignore my children they eventually go away, why should a sore throat be any different?) What a strange summer cold. Speaking of summer.....

The weather is glorious and I give the mighty third finger to those of you who are complaining about it. This is how summer should be. Speaking of hot.......

Our pool is clear and awesome. Do you know anyone who designs floating dinner trays? Cause it would be really convenient if we didn't have to get out of the pool to eat. Speaking of eating.....

Edie is driving me bananas with her finicky eating these days. She resists her meal then after we all done she then wants her plate back, wants be to feed her like a baby, etc etc. I hate dealing with food with the kids because I never know what the "right" message is to be sending. Clear the plate/don't clear the plate; eat some and get dessert; try something new or not...ugh. I don't want kids who end up with eating disorders because of something we did as parents that messed them up. Speaking of eating disorders.....

I clearly don't have one because I was walking the other day and felt something odd. I realize it was my thighs rubbing against each other. I am not cricket. My legs should not be rubbing together as a means of communication. I am a 37 year old woman who needs to resolve this stat! Speaking of being 37......

I am slathering myself in 50 spf these days in a fruitless effort to reverse sun damage from my mis-spent youth. Am seriously considering bringing my face into the shop for some maintenance. Have you contemplated this yet? Be honest! Speaking of being honest....

I am feeling less than inspired with the olde blog these days. Be honest, should I publish random shit or wait until inspiration hits and hit ya with doozy now an then? Speaking of blogging.....

I had every intention of attending BOLO this year (look it up you non-blog geeks) but something better came up. Seriously. A date with my dad (see item 4) and sister to go see the Gypsy Kings. For all those going, have fun!

2010-06-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

A few reasons why summer colds suck by Beamie (that’s how you say Meanie with a cold)

-No one really believes you can be sick when it is so beautiful outside. Especially the 8-and-under-crowd who just want you to run and play tag with them.

-The pool is finally open, my husband has worked his ass off cleaning it, wrapping himself, the children and random neighbourhood animals in tinfoil to attract rays of sunshine, forcing them to bob in the pool in order to heat it up to an agreeable temperature for me and I don’t want to go in because I have the Sicks.*

-Everyone says it must be allergies. I have intimate knowledge of my body people. I know the difference between an allergy sneeze (achew!-achew!) and a cold sneeze (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-fuck-meeeeeee-chooooo-that-hurt!)

-The four walls between I which I work has woman going through menopausal hot flashes draped in fur coats, who refuses to take off her fur coats, controlling the air conditioner and insists on keeping the temperature at sub-arctic temperatures so she can remain draped in her furs and not break a sweat.**

-Going home sick in the summer sucks. It is so much better being sick on the couch in the winter, wrapped in blankets, watching Pretty in Pink for the bazillionth time while fat snowflakes fall from the sky. It’s nice and cosy and comforting. It just feels depressing when it is beautiful outside and you can’t see your t.v. due to the glare of the sun and because your windows are open you can hear people laughing outside having un-sick fun.

-ough cough. That’s why summer colds suck. Sniff.

*Jo didn’t really do this but I like the visual
**Actually, a guy named Dave controls our temperature but he just ignores my calls pleading with him to turn down (or up?) the AC so I am forced to create an unsavoury character for him. That’s what happens when you cross me.

2010-06-21T06:54:00.001-07:00

I read certain blogs faithfully. They are bookmarked as my favourite, I tend to visit them daily to see if they have been updated, and sometimes comment (not my strength). There are about 10 of these blogs – I rarely stray. I will continue to remain faithful to them, but I would like to add a few more to my list.

I have two questions for you – if blogs began to operate on a cost-recovery basis, would you pay to read? And if so, which blogs would you shell out to continue reading?

2010-06-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

Did I mention the Sadness that was my and Jo’s last wedding anniversary? On May 21 we (should have) celebrated 11 years of wedded bliss. Instead, I completely forgot about it. Jo remembered around 11 a.m. the blessed event that is our union and called me at work, wished me a Happy Anniversary, to which I said ditto, and then the monkey started turning the crank in my back so I would keep on typing my Very Important Document, and that was that.

We will never be accused of being Ottawa’s most Romantic Couple (no no, we’ll save that for the couple on my bus route who practically sit on each other and stare miserably at the world, as if the rest of us can’t understand their love – chill Romeo and Juliet, you’ll procreate one day and get desk jobs and forget about each other soon enough). However, we can be forgiven for forgetting to celebrate the miracle of Us. We had booked a weekend in the not so distant future to celebrate our anniversary. A weekend where the stars aligned and the heaven’s opened and my in-laws proclaimed “and on this weekend we shall take your spawn and feed them sugary treats and let them stay up too late and take over our quiet lives”. A weekend where we will eat and sleep to our hearts content (hmmmm, I feel like I’m forgetting something here).

This is where I need your help. Our destination is Kingston. I don’t know much about this town, do you? What do you recommend? Shops? Restaurants? Galleries?

(If you recommend Chuck E Cheese I’ll bitch slap you).

2010-06-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

Money.

I hate money. I hate talking about it, I hate stressing about it, I hate carrying it on me, I hate not having it on me.

I sometimes wish we were like the Swiss Family Robinson, living in tree forts and wearing the clothes we were ship-wrecked in (as long I was ship-wrecked wearing something fab with amazing shoes on and my Uggs in my oversized purse, for the times I want to be cozy on our little island and I want Jo to be ship-wrecked in his poker shirt and Lucky jeans because that is what he looks best in). I digress.

I need to talk about groceries, because I am in my own little world and have no idea what is a normal amount to be spending on groceries for a family of 4 per week. I am a pretty responsible menu planner, with lunches and dinners written out for the week. I also am on the organic band wagon for certain items, but had to fall off said-wagon for other items because it was just getting too pricey for me. I’m a store-hopper, if there is a particularly good deal at one store I’ll hit it in addition to my regular haunts.

So, what does it cost to fuel Meanie’s household for a week? This past Friday I spent a total of $122.58 – this included groceries and my own special grape juices with fancy names like Malbec and Pinot Grigio. This was a good week – usually it is upwards of $150 if I hit a Costco, or if Joe Fresh has a stooopid-cute bathing suit that I just have to get Edie or Grace (Gah! Have you seem of their stuff? Your heart is made of dark things if you don’t just swoon over some of their stock).

Is this normal? Am I doing well or am I hurtling my wee family of four into debt with my free-spending ways?

2010-06-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

The Glue
(Dedicated to Marla, Mara and Mindy (anonymity is important to me – haha).

Last night I went out for dinner with three fabulous women, all three of whom have been friends for a long time. I felt a little bit like we were the cast from Sex and the City, sitting at a fabulous restaurant, wearing fabulous clothes, eating tapas, drinking wine and dishing about every topic you can imagine. I think we were all even having good hair days.

I thought I had made all the friends I needed to make in life, and was quite content to rely on my small circle of friends for my shits and giggles and everything else life throws at me. Then four years ago I moved. I only moved one neighbourhood over, but it was still a substantial move away from direct friends and neighbours. And having young kids, the first thing you do is scope out the hood for other young families, hoping you will like the parents, and your kids will like their kids and that nobody is too weird.

This is where Marla comes in. If memory serves me correctly, I seem to recall that another friend of mine from the old neighbourhood, worried about me settling in the hood, saw Marla walking with her kids down my street. The old friend pretty much accosted Marla, and said that her and I would (not should) become friends. And we did. And our girls and her son became friends. And while Marla intimidates me with her homemade preserves, flawlessly decorated Easter cakes and perfectly behaved children, oh, and her church going, she also hosts some pretty kick-ass shakers (seriously, grown men passed out on her front lawn, people taking their tops off, people rubbing lotion on each other, all while she is serving Coquilles St.Jacques with a perfectly paired wine and a smile on her face). She also hosts play dates, didn’t outwardly judge me when my youngest pooped on her (white) carpet and she lets my whole family swim in her pool when ours is too cold. She rocks. And she introduced me Mara and Mindy. These ladies I do not know as well but have been getting to know them over the past year. As soon as I met them I knew I liked them. Mindy is one of the sweetest, most generous spirits I have encountered, with love for celebrity gossip and movies, just like me. And Mara I also instantly liked for her biting sarcasm and wit, but also for her ability to balance her salt with a little sugar.

At dinner last night we were talking about girlie getaways together, scheduling in dinner parties and filling up our summer calendars. Reflecting on that evening, I am thinking how lucky am I. To be embraced by this group of gals, who really have no need for a new friend and have their own history together. It made me think that not many people would do that, welcome an outsider into their group of friends, be it because they are too busy or don’t want to take the time to invest in getting to know someone new. I’m so glad Marla the Glue (you have to say that with a Marlon Brando voice a-la Godfather) invited me into her circle of friends (even though I don’t own Coach anything). Thanks ladies – you and what you have is pretty special.

2010-06-07T08:19:00.001-07:00

Jo has made new golf buddies (Balls! Why did I encourage him to expand his social network?) and last Saturday he was committed to these new friends for 9 hours (I started counting after 6 hours had passed).

Now I have a pretty healthy social life – no complaints in that department. But my social life takes me on outings that last 2, 3 hours tops. Then I return to the loving arms of my husband and freshly scrubbed cherubs asleep in their beds. Whooooops, that’s the fantasy version. So what if the reality is that I come home to a husband basked in the blue glow of the television and children, who are thankfully asleep, but caked with summer substance (that interesting combination of melted freezies, sand, sunscreen and OFF!) It’s still all good because I have ducked domestic duties for a couple of hours and that always leaves me feeling refreshed

But back to this golf thing. And I remember my dad doing this two. Saturday, one of the two days of the weekend, some men-folk leave the marital home and swing their club around (the metal one sillies) for MINIMUM six hours. If I complain, Jo says I’m welcome to do the same. But tell me gentle reader, what activity would take me out of the home for 6-9 hours? I certainly don’t need to do this every weekend, contrary to popular belief I enjoy spending time with Grace and Edie, but I would like to have something in my back pocket, to pull out now and then if I feel like a substantial escape.

Suggestions?

2010-06-02T05:31:00.000-07:00

Project Management

Last weekend, I pulled together a team, carefully picked to exploit the current economic market. I had to be ruthless in my decision, knowing that the wrong personality and ill-suited skill set could quash any plans of financial success.

I found the players in my own house.

Edie was chosen for her eyelashes, her smile, and willingness to sit, focused on the task at hand for hours at a time (as long as something sparkly was available to play with).

Grace was chosen for her athleticism (to troll for customers) ability to tell the difference between a quarter, a dime and a nickel, and her ability to spell.

Me? I was chosen for my talent at making the best darn lemonade on the block.

My team made $4.50. These girls were ruthless and didn’t give it away, even to the thirstiest. They weren’t even distracted by the topless, adorable college (god I hope they were at least college age) boys who stopped by via roller blades to sample their wares.

There was barely enough left over for gin of the Project Lead (moi) that night.

I see a bright future ahead of these young ladies.

2010-05-26T12:22:00.001-07:00

This is really strange. Last night I dreamt that Edie had been attacked by birds, they kept pecking at her back and she was screaming and crying. I finally got to her, scattered the birds, lifted her shirt and there were these horrible marks on her back.
Fast forward to this morning, Edie wakes up, complaining that her back hurts. How crazy is that?

Which nicely leads me to another childhood memory. I just remembered this crazy recurring dream I used to have. It involved a picture of the baby Jesus with pastel coloured triangle shapes that were stained glass as the frame. This was one of those dreams that felt so real, I could never be sure if it actually happened or not (well, it never could have happened because we didn't have a baybay jeeesus picture). Anyhooo, I would be sleeping, and in my dream I would have this urge to go to the hall (my bedroom was on the second floor). There in the hallway would be the picture Jesus just floating in the air. It would then float down the hallway, down the first little flight of stairs, and I would follow it. It would then float down the second flight of stairs, very slowly. I would follow it. Then mid-way down the stairs IT WOULD SPEED UP REALLY REALLY FAST AND CRASH TO FLOOR AND SHATTER IN A MILLION PIECES! (sorry for yelling, but I'm trying to convey how scary it was) and then I would follow, tumble down the stairs, and get all cut up by shards of baby Jesus glass.
Then I would wake up, in my bed.
I used to have this dream over and over again.

What's your recurring dream? Is it as freak-ay as mine?

2010-05-19T10:44:00.001-07:00

Hunting Nazis.

So this weekend Grace had a playdate. I arrange playdates not so I can play with other people’s children, I arrange them to keep my own children out of my hair so I can do laundry, garden, clean, cook, read, rock back and forth in a corner and suck my thumb. Basically, play with my child so I can have a couple of hours to myself.

Within ten minutes of the playdate starting, the little girl visiting was all over me. Wondering what I was doing, telling me stories that didn’t appear to have any point to them, asking me for food, etc. Then Grace got in the mix, then Edie, and next thing I know I have a wide eyed audience of 8-and-unders, severely compromising my Facebook time (ummm, chello, do you think those witty status updates get dreamt up that easily?) This happens often, even though I’m a meanie, children seem to be drawn to me on these playdates
.
Go play! I commanded. Play what? They asked.

I listed items, told them to use their imaginations and t.v., DS and Wii were off limits. They eventually scampered off, but it is apparent that the brain cell responsible for dreaming up games for the 8-and-under crowd is underdeveloped with this crew.

Which brings me to an awesome memory. Nazi Hunting.

Growing up I had field across the street from my house that was being developed for housing. There were mountains of dirt, pits a whole body length deep and crazy obstacles everywhere. Everything about this site screamed “I AM A PERFECT PLACE FOR YOU TO DEVELOP AN AFFECTED GERMAN ACCENT AND PRETEND YOU ARE A POST WWII NAZI HUNTER!!!!”. My bestie and I made quick business of using this field to hunt down imaginary Nazis, jumping in pits when spotted by them, being snipers atop mountains and throwing grenades (chunks of dirt, or waiiiit a minute, maybe they were cow patties) at the imaginary offenders. We would tirelessly play this game for ever, perfecting our accents and pretty much making up history as we went along. I can’t remember what retired the game, we must have hunted the Nazis so effectively that there were no more to capture.

What makes me sad is I have NEVER heard my girls take on a heavy responsibility like Nazi hunting. Edie can talk the ear off a dust-bunny, I have no doubt the child has an imagination (or has a serious mental illness, jury's out on that one) but I have never seen either one engaged in a balls-out game of creativity and action.

I just may have to dust off the old Nazi hunting uniform and show these kids how it’s done.

Do you have an awesome game you played as a kid that just involved a keen imagination?

2010-05-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

Alright, this post is really just for me. For when I'm reading this damn thing in 10 years, thinking about when my kids loved me.

Me: Humming "Here Comes the Sun" while tucking Edie in.
Edie: My brain is dancing to your humming.

Gaaack! The sweetness should be illegal.

2010-05-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

The kiddies have failed to inspire/provide blog fodder for the past view, but you can indulge me (in me?) over here! New post.....

2010-04-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

So quirky!

They both had me smiling today...

I was talking about having babies in the U.S. and how pricey it can me, and how my friend Paula had to "pay through the nose" to have just a normal hospital birth. Grace looked at me puzzled and troubled, and said "does it hurt to have a baby out of your nose?"

*ahem, Dalton, are you listening? In case us well intentioned parents are missing the big picture at home, sex ed in the classroom might be a good idea!*

And Edie, well, Edie just kept telling me this morning how much she love, love, loves her pinkies.

That's just awesome Edie. I love your pinkies too.

2010-04-29T05:36:00.000-07:00

What colour is your parachute?

I’m not sure how this happened, but I have ended up being a circle in a square work environment, Everything about my job is counter-intuitive to me. It’s been a very personal thing for me as someone who has sort of breezed though things, professionally speaking. The people are quite nice, but I have to work really really hard to stay on top of the work, while I suspect others don’t struggle as much. Lately I have been wondering how I ended up doing what I do. In a world that makes sense, I would be employed doing something completely different, excelling at it, loving it and whistling while I work. Instead, lately, I feel sorta mediocre, not loving it so much, and sighing a lot while I work. I am the type of person who tries to make the best of things, and I am acknowledging that I am acquiring a whole new skill set in this job, even though it is not a skill set I really want. I try my best to smile through it all, but sometimes the pull to be at home with Edie on her “helping” chair assisting me with baking while Grace chats away in the background is so strong it hurts. If I was doing something I loved, that pull wouldn’t be so strong, I know, I’ve been there before where work is worth the sacrifice of not being there to get the kids off of the bus.

Before kids, I had a small company (read: I was the CEO, CFO, consultant and photocopier extraordinaire). I always worked at a salary job as well, but I would pick up these contracts and do what I loved to do. I recently picked up a contract on the side, and it was such a wonderful feeling doing what I love to do, being a circle and fitting into a circle. Does that make sense?

This is a bit of a ramble, I’m not sure what kind of feedback I’m looking for, I guess I just want to know if there are circles like me out there trying to fit into a square hole.

*Big sigh*

2010-04-21T10:25:00.001-07:00

Did you grow up with dessert? We grew up with dessert. Not sand - that is desert (I had to look it up). Every night, we sat as a family in the dining room, with a table cloth, cloth napkins and all, to a three course meal. Dinner, salad, (yes, we ate salad second) and then dessert. And, in general, we had high expectations for dessert - when Mom on occasion would serve us fruit salad for dessert, it was greeted, from me anyways, with moans, dirty looks and all round exaggerated unenthusiasm (I think the sound Gaaaaaaahhhhhh! was produced). Looking back, we were so spoiled - I totally have memories of cakes and tarts and pies for dessert, like EVERY NIGHT - maybe my brother or sister will correct me on this one, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

So I totally don't do that now, but dessert is definitely considered a "course" in our household. The problem is, every night was turning into ice cream night, cookies night and eat easter candy night. Well, I have laid down the law and "super-fun" desserts are to be reserved for the weekend, and a more balanced, healthy option will be offered during the week. Awesome, right? Awesome, except I have to deliver now. Little eager eyes, sold on the healthy lifestyle speech I gave last week are now expecting wholesome, but yummy, desserts on their plates after dinner. Help me out folks, give me some healthy recipes for desserts that kids will like (warning: Grace and Edie can smell flax from a mile away, errrr, so can Jo).

Bring them on! I'm counting on you! (If you want to make if for me too I will give you my address).

2010-04-19T04:47:00.000-07:00

GirlaboutOTown recently presented me an award....I have never received a
blogging award before, and, well, I'm not sure I've received any award
before in my entire life (I was voted best feet in grade 7, I suspect it's
because the camp counsellor felt sorry for me because I hadn't been voted
for anything). Anyhoooo, thank you! I do enjoy reading GAOT's blog
(ouuuuch, unfortunate acronym) as she adds a touch of style to this town of
ours and I suspect her shoe collection could beat my shoe collection.

So, because we are adults, the award comes with rules. These are cool
rules though because it is to encourage us bloggers to continue spreading
the smiles and to get to know each other better in the process. Here they
are:

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
2. Copy the award logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link the person who has nominated you for the award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs to let them know they have been
nominated.

Mememememmemeeeeeee....Interesting or certifiable, you be the judge.

1) I learned a song called "Popcorn" on the piano when I was really little
(may 6 years old?) and to this day whenever I get nervous I play the song
on my finger tips. It makes me look wacko I'm sure but I guess I find it
soothing.

2) This is how I eat: I try a bite of each thing on plate once to determine
an order of favourites and then eat in that order. So, least favourite
goes down the hatch first, then mid-favourite, saving the bestest for last!
If I don't do this I am usually DEVASTATED that I saved something ick for
the end.

3) I can't sing. I really really can't. When I'm in the car alone I often
test my vocals to see if anything has changed since last time I tried. Of
course I consistently suck. It saddens me to no end that I can't sing. I
always feel like a vocal cord might snap when I'm trying and when it does snap,
released will the most beautiful tinkly voice ever that has been suppressed
by the evil vocal chord. Sigh.

4) My fantasy is to go to an open mic event, saunter up to a stool in front
of the microphone, and just belt out Piece of my Heart by Janice Joplin,
blowing away the crowd and everyone would be like oh my god I had no idea
Meanie could sing, did you? She's awesome and she looks so pretty when she
sings too and she's really nice and I really like her shoes.

5) When I run I'm usually plugged in and my MP3 is loaded with songs by
Social Distortion, Joan Jett and lots of rockabilly stuff and I often get
caught up in a daydream where I'm playing the bass on stage for one of
these bands in a really small club and I'm totally killing it and my girls
are even in the bar with little headphones on because I'm rocking so hard
and loud and I don't want them to get their hearing damaged. I'm always
wearing a white t-shirt and my leather jeans, but my hair changes
constantly in these scenerios and even though I don't smoke I have a ciggie
tucked behind my ear because it looks cool yo. I can run for a really long
time when I get a really good daydream going.

6) I have systems. Each person in my house has their own laundry basket to
make putting away laundry easier. I have a binder organized with all
household items in it so no bits of stray papers are on my counter top. I
have a calender for menus (including lunches) for each day of the week with
colums for grocery shopping so I can stay totally organized. I am a basket
freak with very specific tasks assigned to each tasket. Fuck with my
systems and I'll cut you.

7) Heat. I love heat. I love walking out the door and feeling the heat
hitting me in the face and spreading itself all over my body. I get
stressed if I feel a cool front coming in when it is supposed to be hot
out. I get so scared that I will be robbed of summer heat. I hate air
conditioning. I love a good cross breeze. I want my doctor to write me a
note saying that I need to work from home during the summer months because
of my extreme aversion to air conditioning. It makes me angry to hear air
conditioning, and even angrier when I feel outright cold/goose pimply. I
also hate wind. It drives me nuts, and it usually brings The Cold. There
is a difference between cross breeze and wind.

And now you know.

And I nominate:

mindful merchant because she does homework for me!
jdscrappy blog because we go way back and i think it's cool she is a
blogger
missmannered because we went to high school and i'm not sure how we
reconnected but here we are in the blogging universe together!
virtually there because she is about to have a baby and i'm sure she has
nothing better to do than this (hahahhaha)
lara at gliding through motherhood because she commented on my blog the other day for the first time and that's always neat for me to see a new name
pauline at brightestblue because she is a loyal commenter but i don't think i have ever met her before!
and sassyredhead because, well, because she is sassy!

of course i love and read many more blogs, but i'm just giving some love to some newish people in my favourites folder. Happy reading!

2010-04-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

I found myself resting at home for extended periods this week, which drove me crazy bored. I found myself consoling myelf with my vinyl collection quite a bit, then my camera got involved, then, a new blog was born.

Meet my new baby! Not a mommy blog, my records don't talk back and provide me with "entertaining" fodder. But it sure is fun for me to pick through the collection and walk down memory lane.

If you are so inclined, join me, won't you?

http://stackomatic.blogspot.com/

2010-04-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

"Whatever character you give your children shall be their future".

Ugggghhh. I just steeped myself a Yogi Tea, ever had that kind before? Best herbal teas ever, and they have a cute little mantra on each tea bag. This is mine tonight. And I'm fucked, and my children are fucked if it's true.

A little background. I usually like me as a mother, pretty comfortable with how I rule the roost and how I dole out praise and discipline. On Tuesday I found myself in the emergency room at the General undergoing a minor, but very painful procedure. I continue to be in quite a bit of a pain now, and didn't take my happy pills tonight because Jo had to go out and I wanted to be of sound mind when alone with the kiddies. Well, they would likely have been better off with me doped up. I was such a witch tonight, on those poor kids for every little infraction. How many mothers do you know get upset when their kid asks for another apple? Now you know one, and I don't blame you if you cut me out of your friend list. I'm not a yeller, and I yelled tonight. Grace actually took over bedtime and took Edie to the bathroom and got her organized for bed. Once I calmed down, I was able to tuck them in, apologize PROFUSELY for my sins. They forgave. They hugged. Grace said she understood, she feels that way when she had a headache. Edie asked me if I wanted a bandaid. They smelled good and they were fluffy.

So, I really hope I didn't teach my kids tonight the character of raging bitch, because they are so nice, I don't want them to spoil.

2010-03-31T05:47:00.000-07:00

I hate hate hate it when my schedule is thrown off. I am a control freak. I like to control certain things in my life with a rigidity that would make Howard Hughes’ jaw drop. Okay, I exaggerate. But I do like to do things a certain way, at a certain time, in a certain order. I fully admit that I get all kerfuffled* when I am thrown off my path of comfort. If I detect a change of routine in my future, I like to introduce it slowly, delicately, as to not upset my fragile disposition too much.

The past few weeks have been utterly chaotic for me. I have had to work overtime, which throws a big fat pickle into my daily routine. I have not been able to exercise at all, plan the family meals adequately or do my laundry rotation (yes, I have a laundry rotation, shut up). Perhaps, most upsetting of all is I have missed the last two episodes of America’s Next Top Model. Oh, and the children, yeah, they are getting the short end of the stick as well.

The one good thing about all this is I have discovered something awesome. It’s called sleep. Have you tried it? I used to make a half-ass effort at sleep, staying up way past my bedtime and then waking up with the birds. But because the past couple of weeks have been so crazy for me I have been going to bed at 9:30-10:00, and waking up feeling rested and energized. I like sleep. And while the world continues without me while I’m sleeping, not much is happening, well, at least nothing that I can’t get caught up on when I wake up all perky and stuff in the morning.

And so, the glass is half-full, while I am not enjoying the little hell that is work right now, I am enjoying my new discovery of sleep.

How much sleep do you get a night? I was getting by on about 6 hrs (usually interrupted by a call for water/nightmare/random questions in the middle of the night) and I am discovering that 8-9 hours sleep feels like happy pills.

*growing up word, unique to my family?

2010-03-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

lmshmp ciddhsfh adshf fsadhghui *chewing* gulp.

oh, excuse me.

what i was trying to ask is licorice allsorts - yes or no?

if yes, which little shape is your favourite one and why?

fdjasjfal fshgh shump *resumes chewing*

2010-03-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

Toygate!

In true Meanie fashion, Edie has been in tears pretty much every morning this week because she wants to wear either a gown, tiara or carry a wand (or do all three at the same time) and we have said No! At the beginning of the school year, a letter was sent home, respectively asking parents to refrain from sending kids to school with toys/costumes. I totally get this, I can see the problems it could potentially cause (seriously, how many princesses can one JK class handle? How many lightsabers can be wielded until someone loses an eye (or at least until someone is lightly tapped by one, takes it the wrong way, and cries as if they have been stabbed by the most jagged of knives ever).

So, yesterday was no exception. And I was lucky enough to have the morning shift (gawd I hate the morning shift and long for my cubicle, coffee and silence). With Edie by hand (still teary from being banned of all things sparkly and ethereal), we walked into the daycare and lo and behold, did I not count 1, not 2, but 3 members of royalty happily having a most royal tea party. There was no mistaking that we were in presence of royalty, there were tiaras and sparkly dresses present – what more proof do you need? Edie’s eyeslashes must have grown an inch, and her tear ducts ramped up production needs as soon as she saw her peers in all their splendour. How could I deny her royal roots when her friends were allowed?

How indeed. I spoke with the daycare leader and asked her straight up what the fuck is the rule here because we certainly don’t need the drama at home if Edie is indeed allowed to express herself (I didn’t use the f-word, just in my imagination I did, all Goodfellas-like). The leader agreed with me and said she would speak with the other parents. And so, when I picked up my little charges yesterday, and hung out and talked with other parents while the kids played, there is no denying that I have officially caused Toygate 2010 at the school (Ihave not confessed my role in Toygate yet, I'm playing it cool).

Oops. But seriously, what would you do? Tell Edie to suck it up buttercup or do what I did and try and get down to the bottom of things?

2010-03-17T08:54:00.001-07:00

Just a quickie to make you feel better about yourself on this fine morning….

Feeling a little bloated and frumpy this morning I put on my bestest skinny black jeans, super-fun ipod listening penguin belt and flattering black top (loose and tight in all the right places). Instantly I felt better, confident, ready to open a can of whoop on the day.

Fast forward to 11:30 a.m. I have yogurt dribbles down my shirt, hommus smeared on my jeans and when I went to the bathroom I had a crumb (chocolate, of course) on my cheek.

Ever have a day (morning) like that? so long confidence, hello safety of sun- deprived cubicle.

2010-03-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

I am working this week, highly resentful and full of guilt. It is March Break here and while some kids are lucky enough to be sleeping in and going on fun trips (even if just a road trip) my poor kids are being schlepped to daycare for the whole day. It just isn’t an option to take time off work right now, fiscal year end, stakeholder review bleahdeeboringbleah, so the children suffer. I do have Friday off, however, this is the “funnest” day at daycare because, wait for it, wait for it, it’s pyjama day, movie day, and the government stipulated rest time of 1 hour is ignored! Hoorah! The girls want to go to daycare that day just to be able to give mandatory rest time a big fuck you (ahem, my words, not theirs, I hope!)

This brings me to a New York Story. I was staying in the Tribeca/SoHo area, lots of young families around and a couple of parks/schools nearby. My first afternoon there I found my Starbucks, found a park, and positioned myself for some hardcore people watching. Did I spot celebrities frolicking at the park with their young ones? Nope. Was I witness to a crime scene being filmed for Law and Order? Nope. Did I have to fight off talent/modelling agents, telling them I’m just not interested in fame and fortune? Yes, but that’s a given (juuuuuussssssttttt kidding). What I witnessed was the high ratio of little white children to little non-white women. The park was at capacity with nannies and their charges. I started talking to some of the nannies, asking about their jobs and their hours. They laughed at me when I asked what time the parents get home from work and relieve them of their duties. As clichéd as it sounds, the mothers of some of these children did not work. They were just busy with other things (insert nannies eye rolls here). Literally. Shopping, lunching, excercising, committee work, etc. etc.

I don’t consider myself a judgy person, but I can’t help but judge this. I guess I feel pretty raw right now, wishing I could be at home with the kids instead of working period. And these women obviously have the means to be at home, and choose not to. I totally get needing a day/few hours/minutes to yourself, but to engage someone else to look after your children on a full-time basis (some of these nannies see the children wake up and put them to bed) just kills me. I can see an argument against me, asking why I don’t insist on downsizing everything in our lives, but that just isn’t realistic right now, and I do feel the need keep up my “skills” in the workplace because you never know what the future holds – it’s a security thing for me.

Oh, and you should have seen how pimped out these NY strollers are. Probably more expensive than my mini-van!

2010-03-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

I WILL blog about New York, I'm just a short snippet kinda girl and there is so much to say so I am going to wait until I have the energy to write all about it.

I am going to document what I bought though:

1) Pair of clogs (ummm, hellloooo, they are in alllll the magazines right now)

2) Adorable top that I want to look good on me, but doesn't because my boobs are too big, but if I wear three sports bras and strap 'em down it could potentially look like it's supposed to look.

3) Jeans. Jeans that make my legs look like they go on for miles and miles. Paired with les clogs and strapped down boobs-shirt, ooo-la-la.

4) Suit jacket. Made of sweatshirt material, lined with silk. It's freaking nirvana! I'm wearing sweats to work, but no one can protest because it has a fancy silk lining! Take that Mr. Man!

5) Balloon boats, fake poop and some other stuff (for my hyuk hyuk side).

6) Jeans that are more casual, but make me feel like I might look a little like Jennifer Aniston on a fat day, so that's good for me.

7) Fun things you can only buy in american grocery/drug stores like odd flavoured chips and stuff.

8) Marlboro (Lights, I'm just a little bad ass, and only about once a month).

9) An orange purse. You might want to lick it next time you see me. I might let you.

Okay, that's all I can remember, but I haven't blogged in ages and will use this post as a place holder.

2010-03-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

Move over Corey.

Okay, you’ve heard of Bryan Adams, right? Well, when I was growing up, when Brian Adams was on the charts, so was Corey Hart. In my mind, we had to pick sides; we had to decide which one we liked. My little fist sized heart belonged to Corey Hart. Never Surrender made me cry, Boy in Box made me rock out (gawd, how embarrassing). I was that girl at his concert, booing Katrina and Waves off stage to make room for the Hart Attack (sorry Katrina, Walking on Sunshine really is a nice happy song!) I was also that girl who sobbed from the moment Corey walked on stage, prrrrrety sure he was singing to me (there was eye contact, I’m sure. And of course he would seek me out in the audience, what 20 something rock-star wouldn’t be looking for pre-pubescent pimply girl in rugby pants, sneakers and a paisley patterned sweatshirt? I mean come on!) And you can just imagine how I imploded when he threw a ball into the audience and I touched it. Sit with that for a moment, will you? I touched something Corey Hart touched. Girls around me touched my hand, the one that touched the ball, and cried because they had touched something that had touched something that Corey Hart had touched. It should be pretty clear now that there was NO time for Bryan Adams.

I recently picked up a record at Value Village by Bryan Adams called Reckless. I can’t tell you how much I am enjoying it! It is pretty awesome. I have called up other Bryan Adam’s songs on the ‘puter and I’m really digging them! Of course there is some cheese that I just can’t stomach, and I definitely favour his early stuff over what he has produced in later years. His early stuff is the stuff I missed out on when I was worshipping the almighty spikey haired, sweaty Cory Hart. This is probably for the best. I’m not sure my pre-adolescent psyche could have handled two loves like that.

As an aside, I wonder, at 11 years old, what I was hoping for if Corey Hart had invited me back stage? Some intense hand-holding? Cuddling on the couch while watching Degrassi Junior High? I wasn’t yet even close to having any knowledge of what could transpire between man and woman (ahem).

Ahhhh innocence.

Who set your heart aflutter when you were still drinking milk at bedtime?

(I just know some people are going to make fun of for this confession!)

2010-03-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

Start Spreading the News…..

On Thursday morning I am going to scrape the playdoh from my fingernails, hang up my bus pass and work pass, jot down a few instructions and make some meals and stick-em in the freezer, trade in my sensible work clothes for something a little funkier and hop on a plane.

This is not an “I wish scenario” this is the honest to goodness bees knees truth.
I did something really good in a past life to have this coming weekend bestowed on me. I think Edie waved her little fairy wand and wished to have her meanoldmommy banished for a few days. And banished I am, banished for 4 days and 3 nights to New York freaking City. Oh, it gets better. My fancy girlfriend’s husband keeps an apartment in SoHo. The fancy girlfriend’s husband and my Jo conspired to send us worn out frauleins to the city that never sleeps to hang out, giggle, shop, go see a show, eat and hit every Starbucks we can. We only have one thing scheduled - that is to go see Jersey Boys on Saturday night – beyond that we are up for anything.

Have you been to NYC? What is a must-do experience in your opinion? I’ve been before, but only with kids in tow. Send your ideas – I’m keeping a list of things to do (including knowing where all the cushy bathrooms on our walking route for the inevitable pee-breaks).

2010-02-25T05:20:00.001-08:00

This week was kind of the shits for me. Because I am smart and work a four-day work week, my week is now over. Because I am striving to be a half glass full kinda gal (it can be a half glass of hard liquor, right?) I am going to highlight the positive:

Things that made me smile this week:

Grace, looking at me accusingly
“Mommy, you laugh a lot”.

Edie explaining a picture that she drew to me of a box with lots of colourful blobs around it. Turns out it is a prototype (my word, not hers) of a butterfly machine she wants to make so she can crank out butterflies on a whim.

So many pretty shiny medals!

Sitting in massive over-stuffed chairs at Zoe’s (tucked to the left of the lobby at the Chateau Laurier) with some super-funny ex-colleagues, sipping on a whiskey sour and eating fancy cheese.

My mom talking about “the email” like she owns it.

Edie skiing and being all like “whatever” when she made it down the hill herself without falling/losing control.

Hearing one of Gracie’s friends saying “that’s so random” TOTALLY out of context.

Friends who are happy (I’m typing at you Mr. Friendly Neighbourhood Curator!)

Here’s to next week being better, and Go Canada Go!

(I need some of those Olympic mitts to bring to a friend in the States next week, if anyone has a lead, please let me know where I can get them).

2010-02-23T05:24:00.001-08:00

You know what drives me crazy? Songs that have sirens in them when I’m driving. I always look the fool checking my side mirrors, rear view mirror, craning my neck to look beyond the front window and use my x-ray vision to look past the stoooopid van with no windows that is inevitably in front of me therefore totally obscuring my vision completely of anything 10 feet in front of me. I also have the girls turn off all DS’s and Leapster components so I can figure out where the siren is coming from. In split seconds I plan my good-citizen route as to where to pull over on the road in order to allow the emergency vehicle to pass and go save a life (all the while imagining the firemen/policmen/ambulance driver giving me a thumbs up for being so cooperative and then saying to each other “wow, why can’t all drivers be like her, and did you see how beautiful and poised she was? Whoever married her is a lucky man”.
And when I finally turn off the stereo to better detect where the siren is coming from, I realize that the siren was coming from my Run DMC CD.

D’oh.

2010-02-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

And Now for Edie....

My little Edie Bikini, you are turning 5 tomorrow! I guess it’s time to stop treating you like my little baby (never!)

A few little things I want to keep in my Edie Archives forever:

I love how you tell me you love me before you go to bed, and you say love so many times that you run out of breath and heave a big sigh at the end, like you are completely spent.

I love the way you will exclaim that something is the most specialist thing to have ever been bestowed on to you, and then you offer to share it with whoever is in the room. It kills me, it is so sweet.

The way you look at me when you say you hate something, because you know I hate the word hate (hypocrite, I know) – that look shows me you will test the waters with me ten-fold in the future.

Okay, this actually drives me crazy, but I suspect it will be endearing one day. You are a messy child. The messiest little girl ever. You spill everything, you knock things down, your markers roll off the table constantly, your face is always covered in something, your always touching me with your grubby little hands, and you do all this with a tiara and princess dress on.

I love the way you call your stuffed dog Puppy Puppy Puff Puff, and you give him to me to sleep with because you feel badly that I don't have a stuffie. I love finding him on our bed.

I love that you call Lambey's fluffiest bits "The Soft".

I love that you don't walk, you hop, and I super-love that this past week even you noticed that you don't walk anywhere when you asked me if I noticed that you hop instead of walk.

I love how when you are sleeping, you look like you are hard at work, recharging your batteries.

What freaks me out is that I was such an insecure first-time Mom with Gracie, thinking that I was doing everything wrong, that I actually said out loud that I wouldn't have another child. Even when pregnant I was filled with doubt that I could do it all over again. My little girl, you've made it as easy as pie.

Love you to the stars Edie.

2010-02-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

For Grace....

And so my dear, you turn 8 tomorrow, and your old, cliched mom just can’t believe how quickly time has passed.

Here are just a few things about you that I want to hold forever in my memory:

-Your thoughtfulness. I love love love, when posed a question that requires some thinking, the way you shift your gaze to the side, as if to block out all other stimulation, so you can give the question your full attention.

-Your interaction with Edie. While it hasn’t always been a bed of roses, this past year you have really grown into your role as big sister by reading to Edie, helping her with her “homework” and letting her tag along when you have a friend over. You still bug the crap out of her and tease her relentlessly, but the good and the bad is more balanced now.

-Your obsessive compulsiveness. Okay, I know I shouldn’t love this, but I appreciate how you need everything in order before you go to bed, with nothing on the floor and things tidied up on your desk and dresser.

-Your sense of style. Girlfriend, while your friends have been sucked into the vortex of all things sparkly, Hannah Montana-ey, Camp Rock-ey and Bratz-ey, you still like to cruise around in your velvet leisure suits. Awesome. This isn’t really new this year, but I love that you are true to your style.

-Your MP3 player! I took a chance and loaded it up with songs I feel are important to anyone just starting to listen to music, and am so tickled that you are partial to the Beach Boys, the Ramones and the Clash (I can’t put Social Distortion on there yet because he says fuck too much).

-Your diligence. You treat homework with respect, and for the most part enjoy the challenges you bring home. Except that time with the subtraction and addition patterns. That sucked.

-Your vulnerability. I don’t necessarily like being woken up at three in the morning, but I do love the confused little face that greets me when I go into your room. You don’t know what scares you, or why it scares you, it just does. And I love comforting you (and then waking your father to come lie with you because your bed is a single and mine is a king, so, y’know).

-Your attitude towards health. You are so aware of what is good for you and what isn’t. Your mantra is “healthy before junky”. You love candy, but you also know to balance things out.

-Your front crawl. God, you look so graceful doing it. I always looked like a baby giraffe going through heroin withdrawal when I did the front crawl. Likely still do. You just cut through the water.

-Your communication methods. You were so mad at me once this year that you stormed to your room and slammed your door. After a few minutes, something came flying out from under your door. It was a cartoon, frame by frame, outlining what a bitch I was being. I love that you used art as an outlet. I’m going to save that cartoon forever.

-I love that you still reach for my hand on our walks together. Those are tears of joy and love kiddo, nothing else.

These are a few things that stick out in my mind about you right now. There are a million more, and I wish I could tell you them all, pump you up with accolades for every day that you venture out into the real world. But you know what kid? You’re so awesome, you don’t need to hear it. The way you carry yourself, you unconsciously already know.

Love you to the moon.

2010-02-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

Crap.
I have nothing to write about. I could tell you about the new wines my folks told me about that under $8 but that might bore you. I could tell you about my indulgent behaviour over the weekend, how I went to the Bytown to see a movie and then sat there when it was over and decided to stick around for the second feature, but that probably doesn't excite you (Tolstoy though man, pretty interesting cat). I could write about going to the canal on Saturday with Grace and a BOY, and Gracie being so pissed that she wasn't as good a skater as said BOY that I could see the steam coming out of her ears. And then tell you about the dinner with the BOY, by candlelight (is there any other way to eat chicken nuggets?) I could relay to you the divine conditions at the ski hill on Sunday that my hubbie and I enjoyed after we dropped the kids off for their lessons, but you don't want to hear how wonderful that one hour was, of not being hunched over a child, guiding them down the hill at a snails pace, and instead bombing and turning and feeling the mountain (now THAT was a long sentence). And you likely don't want to read about the trip to the canal today that I suspect was motivated by a chance meeting with a Beavertail (haha, nope, we were there purely for the fresh air and excercise).

Instead dear reader, I'm going to leave you with this, and let you decide if I'm the luckiest lady in the world or did something really, really tacky in a previous life.....

2010-02-08T05:56:00.000-08:00

I’m kind of mad. Grace came home from Brownie’s last week a little upset because she said she didn’t shower enough. I probed a bit and apparently they were talking about personal hygiene and one of the things they said was that kids should bathe once a day. Maybe I’m going to get slapped here but this is certainly not how we role at our house. Particularly in the winter when they just don’t have the same opportunities to get dirty.

The kids used to get bathed daily when they were babes. But they were also a lot grosser then (poo, spit up) and it was also part of that all-important routine we had going on (bath, books, bed). Then they got older and all bowel functions were neatly deposited into the toilet and food remained in their stomachs. Now Edie has ridic dry skin, so unless she has rolled in jello and lint (don’t put anything past this kid) I try to limit her spa treatment to 2x a week. I still give her a little daily scrub to keep her clean, but her hair doesn’t get greasy yet, and she just doesn’t get all that dirty. Same with Grace. Gracie is our jock, she’ll sweat it out in the summer months playing soccer and doing track, but in the winter there just isn’t a whole lot opportunity to justify a bath everyday.

Personally, I tend to shower on a daily basis (not necessarily washing my hair each time) but I do roll around in jello and lint on a daily basis. Kidding, just checking to see if you were still reading. Okay, so I shower daily but I also have an unhealthy relationship with my treadmill that makes me sweat on a near-daily basis, so shower=good.

I resent this woman putting ideas into Gracie’s head about our society’s obsession with dictating our standards of clean. I have managed to talk her off the edge, but now I’m curious about other people’s habits – do you stir your kids in the porcelain cauldron on a daily basis?

2010-02-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get mocked for my internet addiction. But, here are a few good things the internet has done for me lately:

1) I copied this, recipe and later made it and the whole family ate it, and I felt like polishing my halo, because, y'know, lentils people, lentils is where it is at.

2) I turned MD for a few hours, diagnosing and arriving at the conclusion that Grace does not have pink eye (I would take off my stethoscope and smart glasses for more serious symptoms, don't worry).

3) I became Scorcese for a little bit and uploaded some home movies for friends and family to view on YouTube (whatevs, my Mom impresses easily - she thinks only I can do these things, therefore am a
computer AND filmmaking genius, why burst her bubble?)

4) I saved money by selecting a bunch of stuff online, proceeding to check out, and then not buying because for the masseeeve shipping expenses.

5) I burned some calories and dug up my old combat boots after watching this video.

6) I decided against this mascara and decided on this one instead after putting my smart glasses on and reading some reviews on this website.

7) I donated to Haiti.

8) I bust a gut watching this clip from the Golden Globes over and over and over again.

9) I sort translated some Norwegian stuff because I have a friend on Facebook who does her status updates in Norwegian, then all her Norwegian friends reply, and there are always lots of smiley faces and exclamation marks and my curiosity gets the better of me and I have to know what they are talking about!

10) I tried on different hairstyles from the 80's.

Being the multi-tasker (ADD) person I am, this all took place in about a 45 minute time span. I'm that good.

2010-01-27T18:35:00.000-08:00

Oh man did I ever have a bad case of the Mondays.

First of all, it was Monday. I always find it hard to get back into the groove of things on Monday. The writing was on the wall at 7:00 a.m. at work when I knocked my coffee grains all over the common kitchen - do you know how hard it is to pick that shit up without a broom? And without a coffee in your system to deal with what just went down?

Work is, well challenging these days, and that Monday proved that challenging would be amped to shitshow. And I'll just leave it at that.

When I went to pick the girls up at daycare I was greeted not with hugs but rather a chorus of awwwws, what's for dinner and general crankiness (I guess kids can get the Mondays as well). Here's where it really gets high drama. Remember how mild it was last Monday? Well, the schoolyard had been cordoned off due to severe slushy conditions. Edie wanted to go play, and I said no. But I didn't say no quickly enough because she ran off into the slushy yonder, which was knee deep for her (yup, knee deep in icy slush) and she promptly lost a boot in it. Grace tried to help, but she also fell victim to the slush. I had to meander out there in my fancy work boots and rescue them. It felt like the last hour of the Titanic, only no cute Leo Dicaprio was helping me out. I had to carry Edie to the minivan, and Grace heroically carried both backpacks and Edie's sopping wet boot.

Could it get worse? You betcha! You know how your trunk allows you a certain amount of clearance so you don't smash your head on it when you stand up (too quickly due to mild rage)? Yeah, well mine decided not to go up all the way up for some reason and my head was punished for all the sins I have committed throughout my life.

So, into the safety of the car. Kids strapped in, check (Edie I suspect is mildly hypothermic at this point but I can easily distract her by shoving a Leapster in her hand....we call it a DS for 4 year olds, heh heh, she doesn't really get the difference yet). Anyhoooo, for all you mini-van drivers out there, did you pimp yours out with a "Magic Button"? The one that open and closes one of the back doors so you don't have to, god forbid, shut it yourself? We did, and loved it for years until the first week of January, when we had our car safetied, and the door was deemed unsafe (it was working fine for us), so we had to fork out much dollars to fix it. Yeah right, fix it. That Monday, when Grace pressed the Magic Button to seal us into our happy place, the door, shut. Then opened. Then shut again, then opened again. It took on a life of its own and seemed to be teasing me "Wanna go home, go ahead, oh! Hold On! Not yet! Now go, haha! Whoops! Not just yet little lady!" When I finally found the master switch and shut the beast of a door down, Grace started to cry a bit, worried that the door would open and expel her onto the road. Then Edie remembered that her foot was cold. Then I remembered that my head hurt and my feet were cold. I kept my tears in (I was close to the edge), reassured Grace (an emergency tootsie pop may have been involved) and drove off.

When we got home, I took a deep breath and ordered everyone out of their wet clothes and into some cozy jammies. Awesome. The worst part of the day was over. Time for bonding over a nice meal and cuddles on the couch. The girls scampered to their rooms and Edie called out to me. She needed help with her jammies. She lay on her bed, froggy style. I leaned over her to tickle her (god I’m an idiot). This kid loves a good tickle and reacts with her whole body. See where I’m going with this? One little poke in her armpit propelled her little tiny feet straight into my teeth up into my nose with the force of Hercules. I was okay, nothing broken, the chicklets felt a little tender, as did the nose, but no long-term damage.

It was at this point I let myself cry.

2010-01-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

Who cleans up after you?

I love neat and tidy. I love organized and compartmentalized. Magazines like Style at Home, Dwell and Real Simple are like porn for me. And porn is fantasy, an escape from reality, something to daydream about. Because my house is nothing like the homes in these magazines. And that’s okay. I have kids who have developed a magic potion to multiply Polly Pocket accessories and make them go viral on our floors, in our closets, in our beds. I have a wonderful husband who has a very important collection of baseball caps (whatever) that live in the couch cushions, on my record player, the kitchen counter and the dining room table. And I’m not perfect. While I can never find a hair elastic when I need one, on any given day you can see them scattered under couches (getting humped by dustbunnies).

Weekends we do the big de-clutter. Jo calls them whirlwinds. Everything gets put back where it belongs. Children are placed in their rooms to put things away (which usually results in them taking more things out – on Saturday Edie re-discovered her bucket of 1000+ melt beads…..yayyyyy). And the house looks amazing.

But. Oh yes, there is a but. It lacks that pinesol smell. That one chemical smell I like because it means things have been scrubbed, sanitized, purified and cleaned. That smell has be lacking for a few weeks now as we have lost yet another cleaning service. I have gone through so many cleaning people throughout the years, after our last one left us (you know who you are) we have decided enough with it, we can do it on our own. Or can we? Growing up, I always had a cleaning lady. Her name was Doris. Her cleaning days were called Doris Day, haha, get it? So Doris came every Wednesday, she scrubbed and laundered, while I daydreamed and resented her for occupying the t.v. in the afternoon because she watched her soaps while she ironed. So I blame my childhood, which has resulted in me being so adverse to cleaning, and generally sucking at it.

And so, Jo and I are going to start doing it on our own. But cleaning a whole house at once is a daunting task. Our house isn’t big, but there seems to be a lot of space to clean. And so dear reader, I ask you, what is your strategy in cleaning? Do you tackle a room a day? Do you suck it up for 4 hours a week and just give ‘er? Or do you just fork out cold hard cash to someone to do it for you?

2010-01-20T17:57:00.001-08:00

When you were a kid did you ever stick pantyhose on your head, flip it around and pretend it was long hair?

Did you ever fashion a paper clip into a retainer and stick it in your mouth and pretend you had orthodontics?

Did you ever convince yourself that your dolls and teddy bears actually did move out of the corner of your eye?

Sigh. While Grace was explaining the world of rhombus (rhombiis???) octogons, hectagons and some other gons during homework time, I was daydreaming about the above.

I looked hot with long (pantyhose) hair.

2010-01-18T06:08:00.000-08:00

I’d never done a de-lurking thing before. I’m so glad I did – I’m not sure why it feels so good knowing that people are reading me, but it does! I’ve never been one who needs too much in the way of affirmation/accolades, but your comments made me feel really, really good. I have this great memory of my Nana, who would love nothing more than receive a letter from someone. When she received a letter, she would read it and reread it, relishing every word, read between the lines, and just really revel in the details of the letter. I feel that way – a keen appreciation for all the comments you left. Thank you.

This weekend I saw the damage that we have inflicted on Edie being the baby of the family. We decided this year is the year that the Meanie’s ski. All of us. Gracie is in her third year of skiing, and Edie in her first. Grace is in group lessons, Edie, being a 4-year old Mariah Carey, has been enrolled in private lessons. Last week was the first week, and there weren’t enough instructors, so Jo and I had to instruct Mariah ourselves. Little Miss Thing held on to our poles as we dragged her to the magic carpet to go up the bunny hill (god forbid she attempt to get here herself yo). We then helped her down the hill whatever way we could, pizza pie from the front, from the back. We employed hula hoops, ski poles, hand holding….you get the picture. So this week, there was an instructor, Carl (he’s French, how do you say Carl in French? Try it, it’s really hard). Carl is pretty much too cool for school. I fretted to him that Ms. Mariah had never skied on her own before. He was non-plussed. And so the lesson began. Carl said “Let’s go” to Edie and didn’t even offer a pole for her to hand on to! He made Mariah glide all the way to the Magic Carpet….and she did it! When Jo and I were on the chair lift, we looked down at the bunny hill to see what trick he was employing to help Edie ski down the hill. From the looks of things he said “and now you ski”. There she was, pizza pie-ing down the hill with no help at all! God only knows how many runs they did – once Jo and I saw that things were going well we scooted off and got a few runs in ourselves. At the end of the lesson, we picked up Edie. Carl said she did great and next week “we practice turns” and off he went. Jo and I looked at Edie, who morphed back into Mariah, held our her little hand and said “drag me”. And we did.

2010-01-14T18:17:00.000-08:00

Who are you?

So this blog started off as way to stay in touch with family and friends from afar, who desperately needed information on my most exciting life as a public servant at large and servant to the under 10 set (and the over-40 set?) And they quickly bored of me and buggered off.

But there are a few out there who I know read me (Hi Alison! Hi Xup! Hi Hannah! Hi Nat! Hi Chantal (not strong in leaving comments, but you show me love on you reading list!)Hi Friendly Anonymous Curator (get yourself a blog), Hi Japanese Spammer (grrrr)!) and I love getting your comments, I really really do! But I'm curious who is else is out there reading, hanging on to every word I type?

It's Delurking Day, a day for those who don't normally comment to leave a comment and let bloggers know that you are reading - so please, let me know and tell me where you are from by leaving a comment! (Except for you robot spammer, you can go make robot love to someone else's blog).

Thanks!

(Ummmm, and if no one leaves a comment, Nat, Alison, Xup, FAC and Hannah, y'know, could you say hi so I can feel good about myself? Shanks.)

Son of a gun, this is good (at 2:05 he says fuck heh heh):

2010-01-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

Make-em laugh…..

Awhile back over breakfast, I had too-quick conversation with the most knowledgeable Maven. I was complaining a little bit about Gracie’s explosive temper and uber-sensitive personality. Grace, though she has dead straight hair, reminds me of that poem by Henry Wadsworth Lonfellow (no I’m not that smart, I had to google it):

“There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.”

Okay, I could never call my child horrid, but when she is unhappy about something, girlfriend can lose her shit like no other.

So, I was s’plaining this to the Maven and she mentioned the book “The Explosive Child”. She summarized the book for me, basically stating we need to lighten up a bit, see the humour, learn to laugh. I’m sure the 200 or so pages of this book goes into more detail, but I took Maven’s little pearl of wisdom and we’ve been applying it.

A case study: Last night Grace lost it because she couldn’t draw a PERFECT three dimensional image of a box containing markers (her homework simply required her to find something shaped like a rectangle in our house and render it on paper. It is Grace who places high expectations on herself and insists on taking it to the next level). So. She freaked out, pushed markers aside, stomped, cried and couldn’t be calmed down. Then she started to turn on her sister. We sent her to her room to calm down. She screamed all the way there, and screamed a bit while in there. We don’t time her out anymore, we just give ask her to go to her room and let her be the judge as to when she should come out.

Now, the old Meanie and Jo would call it a time out, banter back and forth with her, making the situation worse and worse, causing it to last much longer. Now, we simply knock on her door and ask her if she wants to talk. If she does, great, we work it out. If she doesn’t, we wisely walk away. The old us might take away a privilege in the heat of the moment, which really makes it worse. The new us talk it out after the fact, when things have calmed down, when she is in a more reasonable state. Without boring you too much, last night she came out of her room, a little sheepish looking. She mentioned that she screamed so loud her throat hurt. I told her I thought the dogs down the street probably heard it. We smiled, we laughed, we called it a doozy. She went back to her homework, finished it without issue. Later on, I explained that she would have some money docked from her allowance (she said some unacceptable stuff to Edie, who really was just minding her business when the bomb went off). She accepted this (of course she protested, there is no cure for 7 year old).

What is interesting is that since applying this new tactic, she is exploding less frequently, and is recovering more quickly from her outbursts.

2010-01-07T05:50:00.000-08:00

Rambling post – I have to get it written before I forget……

As I was drifting off to sleep last night (normally I don’t drift, it’s more of a thud) and a most random memory lurched me awake. About 20 years ago (!) when I was in my OAC year in high school (do OAC’s still exist?) I was a peer counsellor to, well, my peers. I was selected to be a peer counsellor by my own over zealous guidance counsellor. At the time it was one of those experimental programs that schools are always doing, and I was chosen, along with 2 others, to be a counsellor. My mom must have leaked to my guidance counsellor that I had been an extreme fuck-up in my early teens. I suspect she did this for two reasons: 1) because she was proud that I had come so far and 2) so he would see potential danger signs of me fucking up again. This was my fourth, and final high school. The high school I would graduate from.

I had a small group of friends. I did not seek out the spotlight and was content to keep my head down, work hard, and graduate with good grades.

So. I was asked to be a peer counsellor. I imagine my counsellor thought that because I had messed up early on and came out on top, maybe I could talk to other “kids” and help them. I took my job pretty seriously. I was laughed at/mocked by some kids when I brought them NA or AA literature. I even brought a couple of kids to NA meetings and helped ship one off to rehab. Some acted too cool for school when we had our “counselling” sessions, but from what I can remember, they always showed up for our after-school appointments.

What lurched me out of near slumber last night was a memory of a certain girl who was appointed to me. I was asked to counsel a just-turned 14 year-old girl who was pregnant. Looking back now, she was so young and soooo vulnerable. When we first started meeting, she was very early on in her pregnancy. Her parents still didn’t know, nor did her boyfriend. We discussed all the options – abortion, adoption, and keeping the baby. Keep in mind that I was just 17 or 18 years old at the time, and I was counselling this girl on life-changing decisions. I don’t remember giving my opinion, one way or another. Abortion wasn’t something she wanted to do. I was with her when she told her boyfriend (oh my God he was so young!). I counselled her on how to tell her parents (what the hell did I know about this stuff!) I was there for her when she told her parents (she was sent packing, but soon after took her back home). I was there for her all throughout her pregnancy (we usually met in the smoking area as we were both smokers). Then one day she was gone. I asked my guidance counsellor about her and he wasn’t allowed to tell me anything. I was so pissed off. I knew more about this girl than anyone else. These adults had placed a HUGE responsibility on me that I took seriously; to counsel this girl throughout a highly stressful situation, and I was shut out.

So I lay awake last night, wondering about that girl (I don’t even remember her name). Did she adopt? Did she keep her baby? Her baby would be about 19-20 years old now. She would be about 34. Huh. I haven’t thought about her for years and years and years.

2010-01-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

Gift Card dilemma
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! As usual, friends and family were generous beyond words, and there was so much love and warm fuzzies around me all Christmas season, I feel truly blessed. That being said, I was tempted to crush the myth of Santa Clause once or twice because “he” brought the girls the Wii, therefore they hold him in much higher esteem than they hold Jo and I. Oh well.

Family members were a little surprised that Grace is still a believer. It’s pretty standard for an almost 8 year to still believe, right?

On to today’s topic.

I wish my mind were as uncluttered as the girls. They received Gift Cards for Christmas. Each received an Old Navy g.c. and a Chapters g.c. In they marched to Chapters and Grace bought the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (and read them ALL in a span of 5 days!) and Edie bought a paper-dog-complete-with-fairy-and-princess-costumes that she has been coveting (there was a day when I wondered to myself “Who buys this shit?” Now I know). At Old Navy, Grace bought some fleece stuff (a little affronted that Old Navy does not specialize in velvet) and Edie bought two sparkly tutu-like skirts (natch) in different colours. Done. Gift Cards spent. Onwards and upwards.

Me? I also received gift cards from Michaels (I’m crafty!) and Pier 1 (I oft get mocked at how much Pier 1 I have in my home). I also have a g.c. from LAST year for Holt Renfrew. I have issues with gift cards. I can’t seem to focus and decide what to buy with them. I literally get stressed out trying to decide what to purchase with them. I pick things up, put them down, break out into a sweat and return home empty handed. It’s like I’m scared that I will make the wrong decision. I’m scared new stock will come in and there will be something even better that I should have bought instead. I’m pretty much handing over my Pier 1 card to my brother to pick out some curtains for me. I have an idea as to what to get at Michaels, but the Holt Renfrew one is throwing me for a loop. It’s for $75, so I can either put it towards a nice something and pay a kajillion dollars to make up the difference, or I can buy some real nice beauty product.

There are a lot of beauty products to choose from. Any recommendations?

I hope all my 2010 problems are this tough.