tiffany's spot

I should probably not be blogging at all in the days leading up to Blogtober (how clever is that! not really? whatever), but the house is overwhelmingly full of toys, uncleaned bathrooms, unmopped floors, unwiped counters, and 87 bags of groceries to put away, and I'm feeling very unmotivated. Usually I feel somewhat unmotivated to blog daily, but it's the activity that takes the least energy today. Last night was a real bummer. The kids took until 4:30 to 7:00 to clean up the basement. It was supposed to be a way for me to get them to do it without being ogre mom (you know, yelling, stomping, smoking from the ears), but somehow it unravelled to that anyway. My intentions are always so good. I love the kids, I love their goofiness, I love that they're such a big part of my life. I wouldn't trade them. That being said, they drive me nuts sometimes. I wish that I could always be calm and levelheaded, but sometimes it's just so hard. I justify my big mean reactions ...

Sometimes I think that the longer I'm a parent, the less I know about being one.

My kids are rotten sometimes. Today is the first day that I've told them that they need to clean up before having supper. At 4:30 I went downstairs, turned off the T.V., and let them know that soon it would be supper time and that they needed to clean up the toys before they came up. It's now 6:30. I've even gone so far as to warn them that if they weren't done by 7:00pm I was just going to put their plates away and they'd have their bath and story time as usual, but they wouldn't be getting any supper. Are they cleaning? Nope. It actually sounds like they're taking out more toys. I'm seriously following through.

Which is good, because she'll be stuck there for at least 12 more years after this one. The first week she'd come home and find something to mope or pout about. She'd say she missed me and I wasn't there, she'd say she wanted to come home, and again, I wasn't there. She was unimpressed because she was trying to colour a dolphin and she had to stand at attention with her arms at her side after putting her crayon down. There was the boy in line who would hit her with her backpack. She didn't get to stand in line with her friend. She doesn't get to sit at her friend's table. Did I mention that I forgot to send her a snack on the first day of school? Apparently, Jordan does NOT forget, because she reminds me of that all the time. Did I mention that the first time I left her in the front lobby to maneuver her way to her classroom she got lost and cried? Any time I'd ask her about school, these are the kinds of things she'd tell me. Now she tells ...

Today is the day I'm going to start making the kids clean the basement before they get to come up for dinner. I'm going to be fair about it. Supper is usually 5:20 or so, sometimes as late as 6:00, so I think I'll start going down there at 4:30 and telling them it's time to clean up. They can go back down after supper if they want and pull toys out again, it's not like they're not allowed to play with them, but this way they'll all be cleaned up once a day and the basement won't get so messy anymore. *** My friend Candice has suggested a month of blogging each and every day. I'm up for it. I suggested October. I'm hoping that the odd picture post counts! Anyone else in?

At 9:30 this morning I sent the kids downstairs to clean up the basement. I told them they had to stay down there until they cleaned up their toys. A few weeks ago I sorted everything, pulled out garbage, stuff they don't play with anymore, etc. so it's actually very manageable. All they have to do is take the stuff off the floor and put it in the buckets. I told them that if they hurried up and cleaned up that I'd make them tea and a snack. Had I been standing over them and snapping at them to keep going they'd have done it in ten minutes. It's now 2:30. In the last five hours I've cleaned three bathrooms, done about six loads of laundry (some I hang to dry, some is still going), picked up the entire upstairs, fed Elliot a few times, fed Mitchie and put him down for a nap and made egg salad sandwiches, among other things. The kids? They've been playing, fighting, trying to sneak back upstairs, had two time outs, whined about being hungry and cleaned about ...

I'm sorry, I really am, I just can't help showcasing how clever I truly am.

Mitchell is so much closer to his normal self today. Good thing - I hate when they're sick. It's no fun for anyone. Now Jordan is in kindergarten (or maternelle as the frenchies call it) and Tennyson is in nursery school two mornings a week, so for two mornings a week it is just me, Mitchell and Elliot. She mostly sleeps. For the first time in forever I actually get to spend time with just Mitchell. It's kind of cool. He's a funny little kid, but often his humor and silliness is entirely dwarfed by the big kids. They're a lot more rambunctious than he is. Today we cuddled, he watched me surf the net for a bit, he drove matchbox cars on his baby's face, you know, normal stuff. I read him a book and he actually got to point out the dog, tree, ocean, Charley's dad, etc. without Jordan and Tennyson jumping in and beating him to the punch line. Try explaining to a five year old that you know she knows what a cloud is. She still thinks you're just favoring t...

In response to Candice's What's in a Name blog post: Choosing a baby name is both fun and a royal pain in the youknowwhat . Steven and I could never agree. I'd suggest names and he's hum and haw and say no. And then he wouldn't suggest anything either! I had chosen Jordan Patricia for my firstborn daughter when I was 16. I knew that someday I'd get married and my first baby would be a girl and that my husband would just let me use the name I loved all those years! With Tennyson (and I always said I'd never use a T name) I suggested names constantly and Steven would say no, until one day one of us came up with Tennyson. We argue over whose idea it was. Steven really really loved it, and I liked it but worried that it was too weird for the general public. We used it. The general public can mind their own business sometimes. Mitchell - we never agreed on a name. In August I finally said that unless he came up with something better we were going to name the bab...

On Monday Mitchell and I had our first ambulance ride together. I hope it'll be our last. We were at my friend Amy's house. The kids had been playing all morning there (playing, wreaking havoc, you decide) when it occurred to us that Mitchie had been lazier than usual, sitting in my lap and watching t.v. That's when I realized that he was burning up. He'd been fine earlier that morning at home - he ate a big bowl of breakfast, threw some toys at the other kids, normal Mitchie stuff. Amy offered me some tylenol , but I kind of figured that I could wait until we got home and just give him some there. We weren't going to be there much more than half an hour longer anyway. We headed to the kitchen for a snack, and Mitchell crawled into my lap to eat his. We visited, drank coffee and ate almost an entire pan of apple crisp when I noticed Mitchell was making an odd face. "Mitchell?" I asked, a little concerned. Then his eyes rolled back and he stiffened and ...

If you haven't seen this already, you have GOT to check out this video. Especially if you have kids. And a minivan. Seriously - click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-N3F1FhW4

I'm currently (not curr a ntly , those are gross) sitting here playing with my laptop. I wonder, does using the computer constitute playing ? I wonder if playing is the best verb to use. The kids will even tell me that Daddy is busy playing computer. Using the computer? Computing? Whatever. I'm sitting here computing . The kids are finally in bed after multiple hugs, kisses, and insistences that we did not just hug and kiss them and that they most certainly needed to be hugged and kissed again. And their rooms are too dark. And they have to pee. Because the pee they had two seconds ago wasn't enough. And they need to suddenly make their blankets better so there are no wrinkles. And they need to hug and kiss each other. And Daddy needs to play spider man on his uke just one last time. And where's the kiss? They're in bed. I'm computering . Not playing. Computering . Computing. The table is still a mess, the dishes are piled on the counter, the floor remains u...

My kids are nuts. Right now Jordan and Tennyson are fighting. I could hear them downstairs a few minutes ago, screaming and crying at each other. You know how you can tell that they're crying and angry and hurting each other at the same time? Well I could. I called down at them to knock it off a few times, but to no avail. I went down and gave them each a spank. Now they're down there crying because they got a spank, and fighting over whose fault it is that they had a spank. Some days there is no winning.

Did you know that bed bugs are apparently a problem? I didn't. I live in a bubble. Apparently someone spilled some oil somewhere too. Steven and I were talking about the bedbugs the other day. I figured they should bring back that DDT stuff that's been banned and spray it all over. Steven said it was bad. I asked how bad. He said very bad. "No, seriously, is it exceptionally toxic?" "Yeah, it was killing animals, like foxes." "Foxes?" "And other ones too. It's pretty bad." " Okaaaay , how bad is it for people?" "Well, it's not that good for you." "It's not like I'm going to spray it on my sandwich." Har har har . Maybe you needed to be there. Whatever. Tomorrow I'm parent helping at Tennyson's nursery school. Jordan used to be so excited when I'd help out at nursery school. "Tennyson, next time you go to nursery school I'm going to stay and be the parent helper!" Im...

I was glad that Jordan was still smiling when I picked her up this morning! It wasn't until she was buckled into the van that she started moping about kindergarten. I think her day would have been better if her mother wasn't the only mother to forget to pack a snack. It's not even that I forgot, I didn't know that they had snacks in kindergarten. The other moms must have all come in last week to drop off their kids school supplies. I did not. Considering that the school supplies consisted of a backpack, indoor running shoes, a cup and a cheque for everything else I didn't figure it would be too taxing to just bring them on the first day of school. But I didn't get the letter before today. The letter that mentioned snacks. Poor Jordan. I think she was also told to stand nicely when lining up for things. Heaven forbid! Silly girl, she doesn't stand still very well, and to have the teacher call her on it was tragic! She still wants to go back to school tomorrow...

She really is. She's getting thicker around the middle, her double chin is filling out and she's growing her thigh rolls big enough that I actually have to stretch out her skin to wash her little legs properly. It's adorable! I love picking her up and feeling her weight in my arms. She's a perfect little chunk of fudge. I will have pictures on here tomorrow for sure. If I remember. Maybe.

He bought me a laptop for my birthday. It's a little extravagant. But I LOVE it! I guess I have to admit that I'm not actually 26. I'm probably a little closer to 30. I know I'm supposed to feel all mopey about being 30, and I do joke about it, but seriously, I'm cool with it. I'm actually looking forward to my 30s - for real. At least half of my friends have beat me to this 4 th decade, and they're not so bad. I'm sure that if they can pull it off so can I. Did I mention that there are a lot of things I'm leaving being in my 20s? Stuff I'm really excited about: Not being pregnant. Seriously, I got pregnant for the first time at 24 and finally had my last baby at 29. Years of being pregnant. I bet you're glad too, because now I don't have to complain about it anymore. Our lives taking a financial upswing. No more university or the loans that come with it. My hubby is doing a job he really likes and will only move forward in. I'm doi...