Friday, July 23, 2010

Telling It Like It Is

Parenting is a hard and mostly thankless job. Yes, of course your kids love you and of course you love them back but even that amount of love doesn't make the job any easier. Especially on the days when you don't actually like your children very much.

I've been so happy to see the recent acknowledgement of the fact that parenting really isn't the rose colored dream that you picture when you are planning a family. In my dream we were all dressed in white and happily skipping hand-in-hand through a meadow. In actuality the meadow is the back yard, because I haven't had the time to cut the grass, and the children are busy trying to outrun one another so that they don't get whacked with a stick or a toy. You would find me collapsed on a lawn chair praying that no one gets hurt so that I could have even a few minutes to myself. Now that's an honest day in parenting.

This morning while my children were screaming at me like possessed banshees demanding pop, yeah right, I found this post on From the Cheap Seats. I thought the post was fantastic and she did a great job describing parenting/mothering.

Read it. You'll enjoy it.

Readers, how do you find parenting?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Murphy Was Definately Not a Mother!

I know all about Murphy's Law, but I'm  wondering if there is such a thing out there that just applies to the laws of mothering. A Mother's Law if you will. Maybe I should start one...

Mother's Law
  1. When you are busy rushing around trying to get way too many things done in way too little time, one or more of your children will sabotage you. Yes, sabotage you. The most common form is the "innocent sabotage." Someone will need an emergency trip to the doctor; a mess of unimaginable proportions will be made; someone will get an earache; the list goes on. You know what I'm talking about. Quit while you're ahead. Seriously.

I just took a job making 300 dainties for a wedding this Saturday. They are being picked up tomorrow and I started today. I've been busy rushing about the kitchen in a well ordered chaos. My plan was perfect and it's all about timing. Nothing should go wrong. This should be easy. Bake one pan and prepare another batch while the first one is in the oven. Repeat this process about 10 times. My plan was being executed perfectly and I even had time to sit down and grab a quick bite of supper with my little guys. We are finishing about 2 minutes before the timer goes off when I hear the sound of running water. Wait a minute, running water falling onto the floor. What the??? It sounds close. Really close. Like sitting across the table close. I glance down at the floor and see that my would-be-potty-trainer is in the process of emptying his King Kong sized bladder all over his chair! Ding Ding  that would be my oven timer!  Shit, shit, shit!!! If only mom's could freeze time. I would have been able to at least save the pile of books that I had placed on the floor. But no. I had squares to save and a lake of pee to clean. Then I had to wash the floor, wash the chair, wash Mikah and wash myself. And as I'm wont to do when the going gets tough, take a few minutes to blog about it. My timing is off and my schedule is down the crapper.

Speaking of crappers, just as I'm about to get back to work Lukas decides to make me a present.  Sweet.

Friendly Friday Follow


Here I am! I'm so happy that you stopped by to check out my musings on life, motherhood and food from the Canadian Prairies! I'm looking forward to checking out other blogs and hopefully getting to know some more fabulous people!

May my blog make you smile :)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Boogers, Burgers and Babies

We have had 3 nice days in a row here in Saskatoon. Yes, I said it. 3 sunny days in a row. Frankly, this is amazing blog worthy weather for this summer. Mostly it's amazing because I'm cheap. What does being cheap have to do with nice sunny warm weather you're wondering? It's important, because in the early spring I bought a big pool for the backyard. I had visions of lazily floating around the pool in the afternoon; watching Alek and his friends happily splashing away for hours; and introducing the two little ones to the magic that is a pool.

Well, here we are in the middle of July and I have managed to climb into the pool a grand total of 4 times. Alek maybe 6 times. And my babies have been in twice. There have been rain and storms here almost everyday this summer. On the plus side, the rain has kept the pool filled but it has ruined my dream of lazy-sunny-floating afternoons. Or has it? Maybe we are just off to a slow start.

As I type this I am currently blogging beside the pool while watching Alek and his BFF snort, splash and swim. So far so good. The truly exciting part? This is the third day in a row that we have been able to use the pool!!! Alek loves it, his friends love it, I love it, Mikah tolerates it and Lukas strongly dislikes it.

Are you wondering about the booger part? Well, Mikah and Lukas both have head colds. Let's just say that a healthy dose of salt water and a head cold does not a pleasant swimming experience make. I'm sure that the swimming pool is just a glorified Nettie Pot to them. And Alek's friend. ~sorry, I just gagged a bit at the thought of all that snot.~

A quick recap... I'm loving the pool, when I get a chance to use it; pool water + babies = boogers; and sitting outside in the warn sunny weather really makes me want to BBQ some burgers. Too bad we ran out of propane.

Potty Training Setback

Mikah has been doing really well at the "going on the potty" business. His grandpa took him for a little over a week about a month ago and they worked hard at getting the consistency down. I find it's really hard to be consistent when we both work and the kids are at a babysitters for the day. Anyway, in the last month he has had maybe a handful of accidents. Pretty darn good!

Then there was yesterday.

Yes, Mikah peed in the potty.
He also peed on the couch. Twice.
At the bottom of the stairs. Once.
In his shorts. Well, everytime.
In an empty box on the living room floor. Once.
On a big weed outside. Twice.

My poor carpet cleaner got a workout. The funny thing was that since Mikah's been in-training, lukas has decided that he should be too. Lukas is also our resident streaker so I naturally assumed that all of the potty accidents were due to his diaperless bum. But no, his bare bum was dry and Mikah's clothed one was always wet.

Poor, poor Mikah. Hopefully today will be better.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Little Kisses

Mikah just came upstairs with a sweet mischievious grin on his face and a story to share with me about his daycare friend.


M:  "Mommy, today Bailey and me had lots of kisses."

Me: "You and Bailey had lots of kisses?"

M: "Yes. We had lots of kisses in her room. Then we wiped our mouths and said, yucky, yucky and went back to play."

Ahhh, sweet little kids.