That Time That Shit Got Real...

Good morning, World!  It's 4:00 a.m., and I'm wide awake.  Last week, I discovered that mothers are awake at 3:00 for a variety of reasons, including movie-theatre-induced vomiting.  If you missed that story, I am so sorry... it was a good one!  This morning, I've added another reason why mothers may be awake in the middle of the f'ing night.  But let's back this story up a little...

... Grampy and Nanny (my mom and dad, for those of you new to this terminology) came to visit us for Ella's birthday weekend.  When they left, they took Charlie home with them since we intended to visit them over the long weekend in August, and thought it would be best that Charlie travel in style, with an entire backseat to herself, and an extra week with Nanny and Grampy.  We're kind, and considerate like that.

After Nanny and Grampy left, I had to start planning our trip to NB.  We wanted it to be a surprise for the girls, so during preparations we referred to "an adventure" we would be going on.  Over the course of preparing for this trip, I discovered something... packing and preparing for a family of five is much, much, different than when it was just Danny and I.  It's especially different when you're attempting to keep your destination a secret... and you have a 4-year old who wont stop asking questions.  But I did it.  I rocked the travel preparations.  I did all the laundry, cleaned the entire house, packed all the bags, and made a nutritious lunch for the drive.  I even fooled Nanny and Grampy into thinking we were travelling in the evening and, instead, surprised them by arriving at supper time.  The lack of warning backfired a little on me, because they apparently forgot to turn off the air-conditioners in the house, and the penguins were still hanging out in the living room.  See, my mother is old and apparently in "that stage of life" and thinks that she is melting all the time.  So she keeps the house at a brisk -1, and wears t-shirts and shorts.  My dad used to be normal like us, and combat the craziness of the cold... but sometime over the last four years, my mother has apparently assimilated him into also believing global warming is actually centrally located in their house.

So here we are.  At Grampy and Nanny's house in New Brunswick.  I love visiting because, let's be honest, I get to take a little break from being a parent.  Oh, you want a snack, Ella?  Go ask Nanny!  You want to play outdoors, Gracie?  I'm sure Grampy would love to take you!  Poopy bum, Jax?  Grampy!!  Tonight, the kids were all in bed, and Danny and I headed off to sleep too.  Danny, Jax, and I sleep in the two bedrooms in the basement, and the girls sleep upstairs in the bedrooms across from Nanny and Grampy.  At 12:35, I heard the click-clacking of doggy nails on the ceiling above me. Charlie, who normally sleeps beside Grampy, was apparently restless.  When the pacing didn't stop by 1:00, I figured it out... there's only one reason that dog paces in the middle of the night.  Thunder.  She may hear it an hour before us, but there's no mistaking the nervous prancing of a dog up and down the hall at 1:00 a.m. I headed upstairs in time to hear Gracie yelling, "Nanny!  Charlie wont get off my bed.  Nanny!! Nannnnnny!  NANNY!" I went into Gracie's room where, sure enough, the dog was sitting basically on her face, and panting so heavily the whole bed was shaking.  And then I saw the flash.  I told Gracie that Charlie was nervous because of the thunder and lightning and asked her if she wanted to see the lightning.  I knew that Charlie would not settle down until it was over, so I crawled into bed with the two of them, and Gracie and I watched the light show while Charlie panted and crawled all over the bed.

As a side note... who knew that a 4-year old talks as much at 1:00 a.m., as at 1:00 p.m.  Seriously, the kid would not shut up.  And I was tired, so Lord only knows what I agreed to or signed off on during that time, because she rambled on, and on, and on, and on....

So anyway, we finally made it to the other end of the storm. Gracie had fallen back asleep, and the dog had settled down. This was at 2:00 a.m.  For informational purposes, I heard tons of snoring coming from across the hall, so apparently Nanny and Grampy were not aware of the goings-on in their granddaughter's room (and this, ladies and gentlemen is who I was able to sneak many a suitor into my bedroom during highschool.  Kidding.  Seriously!).  At 2:00, I contemplated heading back to my bed... and then the panting started again.  Round 2!!  By 3:00, the dog was asleep, Gracie was asleep, and I was freaking tired.  I thought about just staying where I was, but smooshed between a clingy dog and a clingy child was not where I wanted to be.  So I shuffled the dog back to Grampy's room, and headed back downstairs.  When I reached the kitchen... I stepped in something.  Something disgusting.  And let's rewind here again...

... Last week, I was talking to Nanny on Skype, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi, Nanny!"

Nanny: "Hello? Are you there?"

Me: "Yes, I'm he..."

Nanny: "Hello? Can you hear me?"

Me: "Yes!  I can hear y..."

Nanny: "What!?!?"

Me: "Stop interrupting, Nanny!  Let me finish a sentence... also, the camera is pointed at the floor, mom.  Look at your screen... see the floor there in the corner.  Yeah, that's what your camera is pointed at.  Good.  Okay.  How are you? How's Charlie? How's the weather?"

Nanny: "I'm good... have a little frostbite on my fingers from the air conditioning, but I like it! Charlie's good.  The weather is hot and muggy.  I think they're calling for thunderstorms tonight."

Me: "Oh, really?  If it starts to thunder, make sure you watch Charlie very carefully.  She gets the nervous poops when it thunders and she will shit all over your floor.  Seriously, don't let her leave the room if it starts to thunder!"

... and back to 3:00 a.m.  So I stepped in a pile of runny, wet, dog shit. Because apparently my parents sleep like rocks and didn't hear the 25 minutes of pacing, or the rumbling thunder, and Charlie got the nervous shits all of the kitchen floor.  I washed my feet in the kitchen sink, observed the damage, looked at the clock, and thought.  Nope.  Not tonight.  Not at 3 a.m.  Not after scrubbing barf of a child and all sorts of surfaces just a few short nights ago.  Not after I just got motor mouth back to sleep, and the dog settled down, and everyone else was snoring away.  I'll just leave the kitchen light on, so my parents wont step on it in the morning like I had the pleasure of doing just now.  I'll help out with this mess when it's daylight.  Don't judge... it was 3 a.m. and I haven't been to sleep yet.  Oh yeah, and - sorry, Mom!!

I dragged my tired ass back to bed to discover that my parents are not the only ones who sleep through anything.  Not that this should be a surprise to any of you, but Danny was still dead asleep.  And sprawled across the entire bed... sideways.  There was no room for me.  And I still kind of smelled like poop, so I came back to the couch in the downstairs living room (because the upstairs smelled like poop, too!) and tried to fall asleep.  Except that, aside from the craziness of the air conditioning, my parents are also apparently crazy about clocks.  They have 4 of them that tick and tock and chime.  All f'ing night long.  The one down here is ticking right now.  Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick (fuck you!) tock. Tick (no sleep for you!) tock. Also, it chimes every half hour.  The three upstairs can also be heard ticking and tocking, and also chime every half hour.  They all chime hourly, of course, and one even sings a lovely little song.  Except none of them have the same time.  So they're chiming all the god-damned time.  Just when I'm about to fall asleep... DING! 3:30! And then, DING! 3:36 (but the clock thinks it's 3:30). And now it's 4:16, and we're about to go through another round of dinging.  I'm going to try to fall asleep before then and maybe get an hour or two of rest... after all, I got some shit to clean up in the morning.

The Birthday Bullshit

Three years ago tonight, our little Miss Ella was born.  She came into this world as a force to be reckoned with, and she has yet to change that about herself.  She is the strongest-willed little person I've ever met, and I anticipate the older she gets, the stronger willed her wills will be! Yes as Shakespeare said, "Though she be but little, she is fierce."

I've heard that the 3's are much more terrible than the terrible 2's.  With Gracie, it has all been mostly easy-going.  But I'm pretty sure Gracie, or some shithead who hates us, talked to Ella and told her she is supposed to be her most horrible during this year of her life... and Ella, for once, listened. The last week has been the most challenging in our short parenting lives.  The attitude and stinky behaviour has seemed to grow exponentially each day.  I'm hoping it's due to the move, and the constant flow of visitors for the last few weeks, and that once we get back to our normal routine and expectations that some sense of normalcy will return to her behaviour.  Because if not, she may not make it to her 4th birthday in one piece!!

We had Ella's birthday party this past weekend.  And we had one for Jax last month.  And I've decided something... I freaking hate birthday parties.  I can't be the only one?  Probably not, but I'm sure I'm the only one who'll admit it out loud, cause I'm obnoxious like that.  But all the planning, and preparations, and cleaning, and money (oh! the money!!).  It's absolutely ridiculous!

So first of all, deciding who to invite is a challenge.  My kids actually know and enjoy a small handful of other children.  But then we have personal friends with kids their age, who we don't want to offend by leaving off the party list.  I was speaking with one parent who said she had to make cuts this year to her son's invite list because between daycare, pre-school, and soccer, she just couldn't have 30 kids at the party.  Yeah.  No shit!  The expectation that you be invited to a party because your kid happens to attend a program that the birthday kid is involved with is ridonculous!  And yet... the expectation is there!  Thank heavens, my kids aren't involved in anything right now (cause they're 3 and 4), so we don't have that added pressure yet - but I totally feel for the parents who get trapped into having birthday parties with 15+ kids... craaaazy!!

Okay, so let's say you do finally figure out the birthday invite list.  Then you're waiting for these parents to RSVP.  Does anybody out there know what RSVP means?  It's means RESPOND, s'ils-vous plait! There's a big difference between 4 kids and 14 kids at a party.  Mainly, the food!  And yeah, let's talk about that for a second!  A birthday cake to feed a ravenous group of kids is like $20.  Unless you get the icecream version, which is like $45.  Then there's snacks for the group.  Most parents these days would like healthy versions, which means fruit trays and veggie trays.  That shit is expensive, so this time I said f' that, and got chips.  That's right!  Chips and cheesies, my friends!  But still... that fried crap is not that cheap either!  You are usually expected to have juice too, so add on a few more dollars.  If you happen to hold the birthday party over lunch time hours, add on hotdogs for a BBQ, or a pizza or five.  And don't forget, kids this age don't stay at parties by themselves, so make sure you have enough to feed the parents, too!  Did you count how easily that food added up??

And the treat bags.  Let's talk about the treat bags shall we?  Even if you do a basic, candy-filled treat bag, you're looking at $40-$50 worth of junk.  And for what??  Thanks for coming to celebrate my kid's birthday, and here's a present for you?  Not to be horribly shitty, but it is my kid's birthday... so why am I the one handing out presents at the end?  Apparently it's tradition, but I honestly don't remember getting goodies to take home when I was a kid.  And we've been to birthdays where the kids not only leave with a treat bag, but with toys too.  Even if you get that shit at the dollar store (which, by the way, is now Dollar Plus - the bastards), it adds up so freaking fast!!  It's insane!  And it's almost expected, which makes it worse.  At Gracie's birthday party in January, I popped popcorn, put it in nice little decorated baggies, with a card that said "Thanks for Poppin' by my Party."  This time, I bought Pixie Stix, and decorated them to look like giant flowers.  Cost me $6.00 total (well $12, cause a bunch of people didn't RSVP, and I had to make sure I had something for them just in case - but hey, those Pixie Stix are mine now!!).  And I got to send home the kids with a stick full of sugar. Heh, heh, heh.

This year at Ella's party, I didn't plan any games or activities.  I sent the kids outside, where they played on the playset, and ran around in the sprinklers for two hours.  We had cake and chips, and glasses of water (yeah, I may have upset a little girl when I told her water was the only option to drink - but I forgot the juice!). Then we opened presents and went back outside to play.  The kids loved it!  We've gone to parties at Roos before, which my kids loooooved!  They always ask me for a party at Roos, and I always say "hellz no."  Respect to the parents that can afford that... but not us.  First of all, we just doubled our mortgage payment and then halved the number of money-earners.  Plus we have three kids.  And I just refuse to choose between Roos or booze.  Okay, so I only said booze because it rhymed, but seriously.  Birthday party?  Food?  Birthday party?  Food?  Easy choice for me.

Growing up, I remember having one birthday party.  It was a surprise birthday party, when I turned 16.  They were all late, so my mom yelled surprise and then we waited for the guests to show up! But that party was awesome.  I don't really remember any other parties when I was a kid, either for me or my friends.  I really feel like this birthday party bullshit has gotten way out of hand, like many other things with raising kids these days!!  It seems like the expectations of parents is to throw a party for every birthday.  Provide food, and games, and entertainment, and treat bags, and all things amazing.  But why?  What is wrong with spending time with your kids and making the day special, just you and them, and maybe a genuinely good friend of theirs - not the entire pre-school class of children whose names you don't know?  Pinterest is packed full of ideas for princess parties, minecraft parties (I still don't know what minecraft is, btw), Frozen parties, cowboy parties, and all of these extravagant ideas on how to make your child's birthday party the best one ever.  I call crazy!  Crazy, crazy, crazy!

These days, it seems we have to have the best of everything for our children.  Not that I don't love my children, but they certainly don't deserve the best of everything!  They deserve the best we can afford, and I don't just mean financially.  Emotionally too.  That means I would much rather spend my daughter's birthday doing our favourite things - going to the zoo, playing in the park, eating at a restaurant - and filling her day full of the best memories possible so that she remembers that we loved her and made her feel special.  My children don't deserve to have a party at Roos just because that's what everyone else is doing.  They don't deserve for me to rent a bouncy castle or two for the front yard and invite the whole neighbourhood over to play.  They deserve only love and awesome memories, and the best that we can do.   I've heard of parents taking out loans to ensure their kids stay in hockey, and a friend of mine told me how she just spent $600.00 on a prom dress for her daughter to go to... wait for it... grade 9 prom!  That's crazy!  This world has gone crazy with the things we are expected to do for our children, and perhaps I am old school, but I am really trying to not get sucked into it!

I think if we spent a little less time trying to fulfil our children's happiness with things, and spent more time filling them with memories our children would be a lot better off.  Put down the phone, and spend time, instead of money.  That's my goal, anyway.  Enough of this birthday bullshit (and in the future, prom bullshit)... we've got memories to make, and I don't need, or want, to spent hundreds of dollars to make them.  Next year, we'll aim to be party-free!  We'll spend time with the friends and family who really mean the most to us, and who don't need juice boxes and party favours!

Home Sweet Home

Whoa... is anybody still out there?  It's been almost two months since I've written, and I doubt if any of y'all are still reading.  I have a good excuse, kind of.  See, when I last left off, we were in the process of moving.  A lot has happened since then... and one thing has been plaguing me since the day we moved...

I've been sick.  Sick, sick, sick.  Danny woke up sick the day we moved, Jax became sick that weekend, and Ella and I got it the following week.  Everybody is back to normal.  Except for me.  I have been hanging onto this cough for well over six weeks now.  And if you rewind two years, you will recall that I stress fractured a rib and strained the interstitial muscles with a persistent cough much like this one.  Which is what I have done again, minus the stress fracture.  So basically, I spent three weeks coughing, fighting an on-again/off-again fever, and general fatigue, only to strain those muscles again (which is about 1000 times more painful than it sounds).  I've spent the last two weeks recovering from that nightmare, and am slowly starting to feel like I'm overcoming it.  I can sometimes cough standing up, instead of curled into the fetal position on the floor... and sneezing rarely makes me burst into tears.  So yeah, getting there!

Amidst all of that sick chaos, we moved into our new house.  The house we have been dreaming of!  The house that would finally solve all of our little-house problems and make our lives better.  Except, really, it's just another house.  Here are some ways the house was supposed to make our lives better... and what actually happened:

1.  More House = More Space

Duh.  We bought a bigger house, so we could have more space.  Except that we have basically left the bottom floor uninhabited.  It took us weeks to get it unpacked, and then we filled it full of visitors.  Which means since we left our 1800-square-foot little house, we have been living in the upstairs only of our 2400-square-foot big house.  Which is actually less space than our entire old house.  So basically, Bigger House + Refusing to Go Downstairs = Less Space.  Mortgage well spent.

2.  Girls Room Upstairs = A Happier Family

In our old house, the girls' room was downstairs while the rest of us were upstairs.  I didn't really mind it at the time, but I thought "wouldn't it be nice for us all to be together."  The answer, apparently, is no.  No it is not.  Because now I can hear them better.  I can hear the laughing and the giggling when I am supposed to be hearing snoring.  Once, Ella told my sister that her favourite thing about bedtime was that she got to say all the potty words she wasn't allowed to say during the day.  And now I can hear those potty words as she yells "Butt-crack!!" "Turdy Birdy!!" and "Gracie, look at my bum!!"  I often find myself encouraging them over and over again to go to sleep.  And of course, by "encouraging" I mean screaming "stop yelling and go to sleeeeeeeep!"  Girls Within Hearing Distance does not equal A Happier Family.  Just so you know.

3.  More Room to Play = Less Fighting

No.  Just no.  Naively, I believed with space to play, the girls would play lovingly and kindly with each other.  Nope.  They will still fight over 1 of the 328 toys in the playroom.  They will still sit basically on top of each other instead of giving each other space.  They will also fight in the playroom, in the hallway, on the stairs leading upstairs, in their room, in the bathroom(s), in Jax's bedroom, on the kitchen floor, in my closet, and basically everywhere else.  More Room to Play = More Spaces to Fight.  

4.  Moving into a Spotless Home = A Home Easier to Keep Clean

Also naively, I had told Danny,"It'll be different when we move into the new house.  All the clutter will be gone, so it'll be much easier to keep organized and clean!"  Organized, perhaps.  Clean?  Hell no.  While it used to take me 10 minutes to vacuum the little house, 10 minutes here barely does the kitchen and living room.  Also, since we lovingly welcomed the shedding furballs back into the house, there is also twice as much fur floating around to vacuum up.  And since our lovely littlest is now on the move and getting into everything, I also have to chase him around the big house and clean up all of his messes.  Tupperware, everywhere.  Snack cupboard, emptied. Tub toys, dumped.  Bigger House = Bigger Mess to Clean.  Plain and simple!

5.  New Neigbourhood = More Opportunities to Meet People

This is actually true.  We have met most of our closest neighbours, and it turns out they are awesome.  Our closest neighbours invite us over to use their pool, came to a BBQ at our house, and are always including us in their activities outdoors.  Another neighbour brings in all the garbage cans off the street on garbage day, and brought us over a box of freshly-picked strawberries... with the green parts already cut off!!  The neighbours and neighbourhood are awesome!  Just what we wanted.  Except I forget sometimes the proximity of our awesome neighbours.  In our little house, our neighbours were awesome, but not close enough to see in our windows.  In our new house, I have to remember to put pants on before coming out to the living room in the morning, lest one of them be walking up the street and wave to me through our front window.  Also, our side neighbour has a lovely view into our bedroom window, which Danny reminded me of one night while I was putting away laundry in my skivvies. Whoops.  Also, last weekend the kids were up early and we had company who slept late, so I took them outside to play at 8 in the morning, while still dressed in my nightshirt.  It didn't take me long to realize that this neighbourhood wakes up earlier than our last one.  There were people everywhere!  Waving, and saying hello... I had to go inside and get dressed, and put on some make-up, in case one of them come up the driveway to have a chat.

Now that we are finally settled in, fully unpacked, and getting into a routine though, it is clear that although the new big house hasn't fulfilled all of our unrealistic and naive hopes and dreams, it is definitely the best place to raise our family for the next four years!  We are very excited to be here, and to be able to call this place our new home sweet home!

We like to move it!

Did you hear we were moving?  After nine years together in this house, Danny and I made the decision to go bigger and better... and in less than two weeks, we become new home owners (again)!  It's crazy how much this house has shrunk in the last nine years.  When we first bought this home, four bedrooms seemed impossible to fill.  And yet, here we are, having completely outgrown our first house!  Knowing that we're here in Greenwood for at least another four years made the decision to move on so much easier.  I really wanted to be in a subdivision, where we could walk, bike, and play without fear of being run down by a car going 90+ km/hour.  We bought a 5-bedroom house in Ravenwood, which means we'll have room for my parents to visit, and a designated playroom.  Although it was not our first-choice house, it quickly became our top choice after losing out on our first love.  And we now love it.  We cannot wait to move.  In fact, have you seen that Scotiabank commercial about the couple who bought a house?  No?  Here it is...

Yeah, that's us... we drive by the house probably every day.  We often go out for drives, and we find ourselves passing by our house, picturing the kids out front, seeing what it looks like in the rain, in the 10 a.m. sun, in the 4 p.m. sun, at midnight with the lights off (kidding!).  We are totally stalking our house.  And since it's in a cul-de-sac, I'm sure that our car has been reported to the police.  So if you live in Ravenwood, and you see these weird people and their three kids driving around day after day, it's just us!  And we're falling in love with our subdivision, thank you very much!

So of course in order to buy a new house, we had to sell this one.  I thought that living with three kids in a house you're trying to sell was torture... everybody told me that once we sold it, we could relax.  We could stop living in complete cleanliness (not an easy task with kids!) and just live our lives.  Yeah... nope.  I have to say that living in a house that has been sold has been a thousand times worse!!  Because after you sell, you have to move.  When you're hoping to sell, everything is in it's place all the time!  Now that we're smack dab in the middle of packing, there is shit everywhere!  And I have three kids.  Not regular, grown up, helpful kids.  But toddlers. Three of them.  Three f'ing toddlers.  One of whom has a vocabulary that consists of "wa-duh?" (what's that), "dat!" (that) and six different versions of a grunt; one of whom has to be asked (told) to do things at least a million times before she'll even consider listening to you; and one of whom is 4 going on 14, and has been opposed to change since the moment she was born.  So packing has not been fun!

Today I packed a box of kids' toys.  When the girls came up from their nap and saw that I had packed their toys, they very suddenly became attached to every. single. thing. that was in that box.  Things they haven't looked at in months, they decided needed to be play with immediately.  And the fact that I refused to unpack the packed box... holy shitballs, ma!!  Gracie flung herself onto the floor and screeched, "It's not faiiiiiir!  I really, really, really wanted to play with that random playdough toy that I couldn't care less about but absolutely need to have right now."  Okay, so she didn't say that exactly, but seriously.  A playdough toy.

I packed up the kitchen last week, and since then we have single-handedly been causing the destruction of the planet. Every meal is served on a paper plate or plastic bowl, with a plastic cup, and plastic cutlery.  Breakfast, snack time, elevensies, lunch, afternoon snack, supper, after-supper snack, and late night snack... all with throw-away dishes.  It's horrible!  And not to mention incredibly annoying!  The plastic garbage bag fills up every day or so, and our paper plates stack the counter waiting to be taken out to the big compost bin.  There is crap everywhere, all the time!  Not to mention that I have decided it's easier to live off of chicken nuggets and chicken noodle soup for the forseeable future.  Cooking?  Ain't nobody got time for that!

I have yet to attempt packing the girls' room.  I'm hoping to get rid of them somehow for a day and pack everything up while they're gone.  They've made packing incredibly difficult, and every time I mention packing up the six-million stuffies on their beds, there is a meltdown of epic proportions.  I told them to pick their three favourites to keep with us, and Ella brought me 13.  Gracie brought me four, but one was a life-size Elsa doll (thanks, Nanny!) so apparently that didn't count.

Time doesn't mean a whole lot to my kids right now, and so when I try to explain that it's only a couple of more weeks and then we'll be back to normal, it might as well be months from now.  It's a rough time for them, seeing their whole lives packed up in a box, and thinking it's vanishing forever.  It's a tough time for me, packing all this shit we've collected over the last nine years, whilst attempting to entertain three toddlers. Ha ha ha.  Entertain?  Keep alive!  That's my goal for the next two weeks.  Don't kill the kids!  Get the house packed, and remember to feed the children.  Oh, have I told you Jax's new favourite obsession?  The toilet.  He now sneaks into the bathroom, closes the door, and plays in the toilet.  Have I told you Ella's new disgusting habit?  Forgetting to flush the toilet.  This is where my "attempt to keep the kids alive" comes into play.  Their two disgusting habits have yet to meet... and I'd kind of like to keep it that way.  But, no promises!

So if you see me out in public over the next couple of weeks, and my eyes look a little hazy (or crazy), the kids are a mess and smell a little funny, and I'm slightly incoherent, at least now you know why.  Moving is crazy!  Moving with three kids is crazier!  But I know that 3 weeks from now, when the new house is all unpacked, and we're settling into our new home, it'll be totally worth it... as long as I can manage to get us all there alive!! :)

Expectations...

You know, it still surprises me sometimes how parenting is somehow an open debate amongst people.  Mommies seem to be the worst to each other, but I see nasty comments on every parenting article I've ever read, on parenting help forums, and in my daily Facebook feed.  Danny and I have a somewhat old-school view on parenting... our kids play outside alone (I can hear them from the open door or window - and check up on them frequently from a distance), they are not allowed in or on our bed unless invited in, they stay in bed until "the sun comes up" (on their alarm clock) even if they are awake before that, and we don't watch TV unless it's the weekend.  I can tell you that the choices we make as parents are some of the ones getting slammed most frequently.  There have been many times I've read comments telling me how I'm destroying my children's chances at a normal, healthy life.  How my children will die a horrible, unsupervised death, because I don't love them enough.  I even hear the "jokes" from my friends telling me how I'm a nazi parent, super strict, selfish, and how uneducated we must be for our choices.

But here's the thing... I have 3 healthy, happy (for the most part), well-adjusted children.  I have been told from numerous people how well-behaved my children are.  I have people ask me all the time, how I can take three children to church (alone) and sit in the front row, where everyone can see us.  I have people stop me in the grocery store to tell me how polite and friendly my kids are.  And every day, and every night, my kids hug me, kiss me, and tell me they love me.  And, ultimately, isn't that the goal of raising children?

I had a woman stop me in church last week and ask me how I get my children to behave in church.  After all, we are stuck to a tiny pew, for over an hour.  Not to mention that, since I run the Sunday School program before church, my kids have been out of the house and on the go since roughly 8:30 every Sunday morning.  By the time church starts, they have already been "behaving" for 3 hours.  She said, how do you do it?  And I told her... "My kids are expected to behave."  And she laughed.  Said, "Oh yeah, like that really works."  But it does, for us at least.  My kids are expected to have good behaviour.  And anything less than that just isn't tolerated.  They are not allowed to yell or scream in church.  They're not allowed to run up and down the aisles.  They're not allowed to fight with each other.  They're not allowed to be rude or disrespectful to me, each other, or anybody else. The same rules apply for everywhere we go, and at home too.  And perhaps that's the difference for my kids... they are expected to act the same way at home as they do in public.  Being in public does not mean special behaviour from my children. They need to be just as kind, polite, and respectful at home as they are when we are out where people can see us.  So behaving is a not a new concept for them, something we bring out only for special occasions.

I understand that my children are still considered "toddlers." After all, Ella is not yet 3 and Gracie is barely over 4.  But from the time they could understand language (which is a lot younger than most people think), our expectations have been very clear.  Be kind, be polite, and be respectful.  Any behaviour contrary to those expectations is corrected.  Whether it's at 9:00 in the morning and we're playing in our living room, or it's 4:30 in the afternoon and we're shopping at the grocery store.  The expectations remain the same, and our corrections remain consistent.  If the girls are downstairs playing and they treat each other unkindly, rudely, or disrespectfully, then that behaviour is addressed, and proper consequences will follow.  Sometimes that's a quick chat about how to talk more kindly to a sister.  Sometimes it's a time-out for being rude.  But always, it is addressed.

I'm not saying that my kids don't misbehave.  That they don't act like 2 and 4-year olds.  They do, they definitely do.  Ella has an issue with listening, and thinking that she runs this house and can do whatever she wants.  And Gracie is 4, going on 16, and her attitude can be out of this world!  But we are consistent, and we are insistent. "We don't do rude" is a saying my kids hear often.  If rude words are spoken, then they need to be re-spoken, politely.  If Ella is unkind, she gets a "No, m'am.  That is not a nice way to ask for that toy.  Please try again."

The thing is, being consistent can be exhausting.  It can be so easy to pretend I don't hear the nasty talk going on downstairs.  It can be easier to shuffle my kids through the grocery store without addressing bad behaviour and possibly having to dole out a time-out in the cracker aisle.  But easier is not consistent, and being inconsistent doesn't enforce our rules... be kind, be polite, be respectful.

I can take my kids to a birthday party and know that they will be polite, and kind, and respectful of other children.  In fact, when we are at a birthday party recently, Gracie got plowed over by a child who was not being respectful and ended up with a nasty gash on her elbow.  I took her outside to calm down, and she said to me, "I know that boy didn't mean to knock me over, but even when we hurt someone not on purpose, we should still say we are sorry.  I think that boy needs to tell me he's sorry."  And she was absolutely right about that.  But she didn't get an apology, or any acknowledgement at all, and her feelings were hurt because "that's not kind, mommy."  They are very much aware, even at this young age, how their behaviour affects others and how feelings can be hurt when they choose to act unkindly, rudely, or disrespectfully.

They are not too young to be taught.  They are not too young to understand.  So when people ask me how I get my kids to behave in public, and I say "it's because it's expected of them," I am not being a horrible, strict, awful parent.  I am being consistent with our rules, inside and outside of our home.  Kids are never too young to be taught kindness, or politeness, or respectfulness and they are never too young to be reminded and encouraged that those are lessons we need to follow no matter where we are, or who we are with.  We have tons of fun with our kids inside and outside of the house.  We play, we make huge messes, we laugh, and yell, and screech.  And we make mistakes, of course.  But correcting mistakes does not make me a "nazi parent." It makes me responsible for the behaviour of children who are still learning and need guidance.  And it makes me damn proud when someone compliments my girls on their attitudes and behaviour.  It makes me confident that my children will have the skills needed to be kind, to be polite, and to be respectful, not only at this young impressionable age, but also as they grow up and go to school, high school, parties, events, work, and everywhere else where kindness seems to be a little bit lacking these days.  I'm hoping that by being consistent with our rules now, maybe my children will be able to teach and carry on those important lessons that seem to be forgotten by children and adults alike.

I'm not an awful parent.  At least, not for this.  

3,650 Days Later...

This is it... today is the day!  Today marks the 10th anniversary of the first time Danny and I went out together!  A decade... a 10th of a century...120 months... 3,650 days.  It's been a long time, baby!

We met when I was 19, and he was 21.  We were young, and pretty, and much hairier back then.  We met first at a bar.  Where we spoke 10 words to each other, and then Danny stared at my behind when I left.  We met next at a friend's house, where we had shots of "holy water" to toast the newly-passed Pope John Paul II.  Then came the date.  It was April 6, 2005.  Danny pulled into my driveway (my parent's driveway, really.  Cause I still lived at home).  He had his white Ford Taurus, with the red velvet interior.   My niece, Jessica, was 2 at the time.  She was watching out the window with me.  I kissed her goodbye, started out the door, and then the car pulled away! "Wait, boy!!!" Jessica yelled. "Your forgot my Aunt Sammy!"  Apparently, Danny thought he had the wrong house.  He came back though, and we proceeded on our first date.  Ah, the first date.  We went to Caps in Kentville, and played some pool.  I almost beat him.  Except that, I found out later, Danny was quite the pool shark in his day, and actually just let me sink a few balls.  Then we went to the movies.  To see "Guess Who." After the movie, we drove around for a while, and then he took me home.  Such a gentleman.

  

And the rest, as they say, is history. 

We dated, and fell in love.  Aww.  I moved away, and we did the long-distance thing for a while.  I moved home.  We moved in.  We bought a house.  We got engaged after 3 years, married after 4.  We went on a honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean.  We decided we wanted kids... and took care of that over the next 4 years together.  3 kids, aged 3 and under.  Some people said we were crazy.  They were probably right.

But here we are, 10 years later.  About to sell our first home in order to move into something that will fit our family for the next 5-10 years.  We never could have predicted when we moved into this house 9 years ago that we would outgrow it... but since then our little family has grown by 3 people, a cat, and a dog.

We've been through a lot, these last 10 years.  Dating, marriage, and now three beautiful kids.

Looking back, 10 years doesn't seem like a lot of time... and yet we've accomplished so much together!  So tonight we drink, not because the kids are driving are us crazy, but in celebration of a decade of togetherness, and in hopes of another decade to come! xox

Love is the answer,

at least for most of the questions in my heart, like
Why are we here? and Where do we go?
and How come it's so hard?
It's not always easy,
and sometimes life can be deceiving.
But I'll tell you one thing,
It's always better when we're together!

I'm from here...

Random person at get-together: "So, we just got posted here from Comox, and I have to say, this is the shittiest shit hole we've ever been.  This place is, like, horrible.  And the people?  OMG.  Total hicks.  You should hear them speak.  They speak so weird!   And have you heard about the South Mountain?? Like, wow!!  So, where are you from?"

Okay, so maybe the dialogue isn't exactly like that... and maybe they're not always from Comox (but, in case you didn't know, Comox is the most amazing place on earth, just ask someone from there!) but the conversations I find myself involved in as a military wife often go a lot like that.  I usually try to keep quiet, and refrain from hick-popping them in the head (let's make that a real thing!), until they ask that inevitable question... and then my answer is usually enough to shock them into silence.

Me: "I'm from here.  And by the way, it's scallllop."

Can I just say that I personally think that Valley peeps are some of the friendliest around?!  I mean, I'm fucking friendly!!!  And the Valley is awesome!  Sure, a lot of us try to escape it, but I think we all desperately miss it, and truly love it deep down.  I moved away once... for a whole 10 months.  And then I came back, and have been here ever since!

I grew up in a military family, but I was lucky enough to spend my entire life here in Nova Scotia.  I was born at the (old) Kentville hospital, lived in Upper Clements until I was 6, and then spent the rest of my life in Kingston.  I met Danny when I was 19, at the time when we still went to the Top Hat on Friday  nights, and the atmosphere there between military and "local" folks was pretty disturbing.  I'm sure Danny has had to defend his dating - and then marrying - a local girl more than once.

I understand that getting posted here from somewhere more exotic may be a culture shock.  But it also seems like people these days are so judgy.  They have their minds made up before they get a chance to really know a place.  Or a person, for that matter.  Any place is only as good as you make it.  Danny and I could be posted to the North Pole, and have to live in an igloo, but I know that as long as we support each other in a positive way, we'd get along just fine... I mean, we'd probably fight because I'd always be turning up the heat, and he'd be leaving the igloo window open, but we'd still make the best of it!

The Valley (and Greenwood) has so much to offer!  Beautiful views, spectacular drives, and hey! we even have a Walmart now!!   Anyway, the moral of this story is... I'm from here.  And here is awesome!