A trip to the Mommy Salon

Before:

During:

After:

The nice thing about...

The nice thing about living right on the ocean is that every so often, when the wind blows just right, your whole house smells like dead shellfish.

The nice thing about having fresh clean floors is that it gives your toddler fantastic traction when he goes tearing around the house.

The nice thing about letting people merge in ahead of you in traffic is that five kilometers down the road you get to be caught behind the 5-car pileup they caused for hours on end.

The nice thing about using cloth diapers is catching a pin under your nail.

The nice thing about attending church in a big beautiful cathedral is getting first dibs on tickets to attend mass with Prince Charles and Camilla P-B. Nevermind the fact that you can attend with God every other week just by walking in off the street.

The nice thing about having children who attend the private school associated with the above-mentioned church is that they will hear about this "event" well in advance and hound you about it forever thereafter.

The nice thing about having a big fat orange tabby is waking up with a mouthful of big fat orange tabby fur.

The nice thing about being a little unknown blog is that nobody really cares when you take a hiatus! ;)

The reader

Maybe it was done like hopscotch

The girls and The Daddy were discussing how his work PT (Physical Training) is like their school PE (Physical Education):

The Daddy: ...so for instance, today we played volleyball.
Lily: Today WE played bench-ball*
Rachel: Today we had a spelling test!

*I have no idea what bench-ball is. She says that you throw around a ball to each other, and then you get to sit on a bench. I think it's like dodge ball for sissies.

Sometimes you just nail the timing

The Daddy [on his way out to pick the girls up from school]: K, I'll be back.
The Mommy: Don't you threaten me.

A day at the beach :)

The elusive Finnigan Crab:

Making friends with local wildlife:

(I think these are harbour seals - Amanda, help me out!)

Parenting GOLD

Ever since Rachel was a baby, she's come running to mommy with every bump, scrape, and boo-boo. Sometimes you can't even tell where she's hurt. She's quite melodramatic that way. Six years of that have led me to the point where I have two rules:

1. No blood = No Bandaid.
2. If I can't see a mark, get over it.

If she's being particularly whiny about it, I offer the option of Home Amputation. That usually resolves the issue.

- Well -

Someone very close to us had had some issues a while back, which led to the amputation of a relatively small bit of one of their extremities. The way it was done led to other issues, most pressingly that it caused a huge amount of pain to them. Eventually, this led to the recently acted-upon decision to amputate a larger part of the extremity and just get rid of the problem area altogether. Because of the pain.

Surely you can see where this is going.

When Rachel heard about this, her eyes got wide as saucers. Someone she actually knew ACTUALLY had a part of them cut off because it hurt. In real life. For REAL. She was floored.

There was that priceless moment where you can practically see the gears turning in her head. Amputation is a real thing. Amputation due to excessive pain is a real thing. If I complain about pain too much Mommy offers to cut it off. Which really happens in real life. Whoa.

Today Finn stabbed her so hard with one of his diaper pins that it got stuck and I had to pull it out. Do you think I heard a peep out of her?

Not a peep. She looked like she was going to pass out, but I got it pulled out and disinfected and dressed and she just sat as still and silent as a stone.

It was such a golden moment.

(To whom this post is about: We love you and hope you feel better soon!)

From felted to fabulous!

For my birthday, I got this beautiful emerald green 100% 2 Ply Cashmere sweater. It was the softest thing I've ever felt. It was the most beautiful, deep, jewel toned colour. It was love.

It was not machine washable.

So now I have a very beautiful 100% 2 Ply Cashmere doll sweater.

Did you know that wool, especially pure wool, makes a naturally waterproof and anti-bacterial diaper cover?

Did you know that Finn wears cloth diapers?

Did you know that I know how to sew?

Thus this:

Became this (they're called "longies" - full pant diaper cover)

And, additionally, this (matching vest):

As you can see, I had a less-than-enthusiastic model.

It's about thirty degrees out, and Finn refuses to take it off. He keeps rubbing his legs and saying "Oooooh, NIIIIIIIIIICE!" I'm glad he enjoys the most luxe diaper cover this side of Angora.

Now to gather up the scraps and make something matching for Gigi, his nightime one-armed giraffe friend.

Children, not necessity, are the mother of invention

My children should be categorized as natural disasters. They should be listed on my tenants insurance right there under Fire, Water, and Acts of God. They walk into a room and things just break. These inanimate objects, they just curl up and die. Today it was two curtain rods. I had a double rod hung over my big front window, and the children came into the room and suddenly the rods were twisted around like pretzels. The curtains were wrapped around the rods and anchors like macrame from the Insane Asylum.

The rods were a total loss. My curtains were salvageable once I extricated them from the twisted mass of aluminum destruction clinging to the center support hook. The set I had up is two panels of cream coloured sheers, two overlay panels of cream/gold brocade, and a two layer valance in cream/sage gingham topped with a creme-based flower-motif embroidered runner ALL SEWN TOGETHER. I made it, and I made it idiot-proof. It's all one piece - easy peasy lemon squeezy, right?

Right.

I'm too cheap to buy new rods, to leery of hanging them, and too lazy to do it anyway. So we went old school.

I took that complicated mass of fabric, and I stapled that bitch to the wall. Oh yes, I did. God bless the Staple Gun. And you know what? Looks exactly the same. It's too thick to rip through, so if they pull it down again (should I ever let them out of their rooms) it'll take 10 seconds and 1/2 a cent worth of aluminum to fix it. It's affixed to the strip of wood hung for the curtain rods anyway, so it's as secure as the upholstery on my couch. So far the only damage to that is a quarter-sized hole Lily cut out with scissors. Matches the hole in her head.

*Brushes imaginary dust off hands*

This concludes our lesson on how to decorate a grown-up home with frat-boy ingenuity.

Consider this your formal notice

That Christmas is at MY HOUSE this year - quite possibly WITH The Daddy!

I have room to sleep 7 extras, as is. You are also welcome to bring an RV and park it outside.
First to commit gets first choice of beds.

:)

Multi-tasking

Have to train them young - and save water too!

Can I count this as my workout?

Today I rearranged the furniture. Like, ALL of the furniture. I brought pieces down from upstairs, I took pieces from downstairs and put them upstairs, I turned the whole living room setup 90 degrees... You know what I learned? I have some heavy-ass furniture. Also, when you move stuff around in a room you THOUGHT was clean, you will learn that it is not clean, and you will now have to clean that room all over again. Le sigh. But I like the change of perspective. I like being able to look out my front window without having to climb over the couch to do it. I like that my TV is now in a corner instead of the center of the known universe. I like that it no longer looks like my living room is a centerfuge that is pressing my furniture against every inch of wall space. I also like that you no longer have to walk between the TV and the couch to go between rooms.

I especially like that I uncovered the two huge floor grates, and Finn is totally freaked out by them. Hehehehe.

I'll try to post pics once I've cleaned all the newly-discovered crayon drawings off the walls. (walls = plural)

Welcome to Canada/Bienvenue a Canada

Population: ME!

Dear deer

Bugger off and leave my petunias alone.

Sincerely,

The Mommy

Is it EVER *really* 'done'?

Also, just how much punctuation can one person use in ONE blog title?
I digress...
I spent three hours today cleaning my kitchen, and another two cleaning my storage & laundry rooms (the storage room is off the laundry room, which is off the kitchen. This house was built in the '50's, and the layout is ridiculous.) and it occurred to me that I will never, ever run out of things to do. Allow me to 'splain.

First I did all the dishes. Then I had to put them away in order to clear off & clean the counters. Then I had to remove everything from the counters (coffee maker, knife block, etc.) to sanitize the counters. Then I couldn't very well put these things back dirty, so I had to clean them too. Then the windowsill, which is just above the counter - along with everything on it.

Then I washed the walls, appliances, and furniture. Then went over it all with bleach cleaner.

Then I noticed that the linens on the buffet bench are dirty, so they need to be washed, and the chairs got wiped down and the buffet itself.

I wiped down the cupboards, and noticed that the inside of all my cupboards are full of crumbs/pancake mix/loose chocolate chips/Finn sized chocolate fingerprints/God knows what.

I gave up on that room. I'll do the floors tonight and then I REFUSE TO CARE THAT MY CUPBOARDS ARE DIRTY INSIDE. *Sobbing*

The laundry room had a pile of junk on the floor from when I pulled everything out of the damastered storage room. Little junk too, like screws and picture hangers, and zap straps. And for some inexplicable reason, a season's worth of clothes for Barbie. Now it's swept and picked up, but I know the cat food scoop needs to be put back in the cat food bucket, and although there are only three loads left in the laundry sorter, the laundry baskets in the rooms upstairs are nearing capacity and will be needing to be brought down soon. There's a pile of stuff under my laundry sink that need to be painted before they can be put in/out/to use. So I gave up on that room.

I pulled all the junk out of the storage room, sorted it, stacked it, bagged and tagged it, and as I sit here now there are two shoe boxes full of just... SHIT that needs to be put away! I don't know where it comes from, it just appears! AAAAAAAAHHH!!!

Is there ever a point where you are really and truly done, or is there always that last box of crap that sits there mocking you? That perpetual stack of dirty dishes, that eternal 'final' load of laundry. That dirty footprint on the clean floor of my LIFE!

I haven't even started dinner yet, and there are already dirty dishes in the sink. I could just cry.

The girls' rooms are spotless. SPOTLESS spotless. They washed their walls and all their furniture, mopped their floors, and have made up their beds with fresh bedding. They even windexed and organized their closets. Awesome!

This is what The Daddy has been up to:

Reference pic:

Tattoo! On his ribs! (Minus the post-dinner lasagne disaster, hehehe):

Note: If you look kind of below and to the left of the Finnigan tattoo, you can see the faint stencil of the future Rachel tattoo - The Daddy just couldn't sit through all three portraits at once. More to come!

He's GOING!

Yeah baby! This train is back on track.
(Now honey, don't get blown up over there, k? Because coming home in a mason jar would be really really... ironic after all of this. As much as I love irony, let's not go there.)

So here's the thing

We've been green-lighted for The Daddy to go back on tour. We're just awaiting the official decision from the highest-ups, who can still shit-can it.

(As an aside, if you type a naughty word, does your mama make you wash your fingers with soap?)

This just proves that no good can come from Walmart

Because I'm such a glutton for punishment, I went to Walmart tonight with a neighbour. Bum tooth and all. Of course, halfway through our shopping excursion, Hellmart gets evacuated.

No, I don't know why. But for some unknown, karmic reason, when the TV news crew shows up they zero in on ME to interview. Meanwhile, my meds are wearing off, I can't open my jaw even halfway due to the BITCHIN' TMJ I've been rocking ever since I had my jaw propped open for three freakin' hours, and let's not even talk about my hair.

I'm sure I was totally awesome.

Hopefully all they'll show is that mouthy asshole who was demanding $100 Sprawlmart giftcards to everyone for their "inconvenience". Good luck to him.

Women have been lying to you this whole time

I gotta come clean, folks, gotta spill on the biggest lie of womenhood. Childbirth is NOT the worst pain on the planet.

Root canals are.

Terrible. I kind of wanted to die. I've done the med-free, 9lb baby, back labour, stitched from one end to the other thing, and root canal after pain is worse.

My appologies to women everywhere, but I couldn't keep it in any longer.

My tooth frickin' HURTS.