tiffany's spot

I'm sitting on the floor, playing Giant Dr. Mario on our new giant tv, having finally wrestled it away from the kids. They've all disappeared except Tennyson, who is on the love seat playing on his DS.  Out of nowhere he sniffs, and announces in an amused seven-year-old way, "my armpits are smelly." He giggles.  "Really?" "Yeah." More giggles. Boys are awesome.  I roll my eyes. "Do you want to shower?" "Yeah." He continues playing his game.  "Well go!" I exclaim.  He tosses his DS to the side. "Finally!" he shouts, before running off to the bathroom.  Because, you know, we stand in the way of his hygiene. 

Well, I made it through almost the entire Christmas season without taking any pictures. Not a one. I'm not even kidding. My kids gleefully ripped through their gifts on Christmas morning - no pictures. My long-lost brother came out from Alberta to spend the holidays with us - no pictures. We had Christmas with all my family out in Austin, and Christmas here with Steven's maternal family in Portage - no pictures. I am probably not going to win instagram's mother of the year award this year. It's been a weird Christmas. Tennyson was kind of sickly last Thursday and Friday, but we sent him to school anyway, and he recovered just fine. Jordan felt crummy on Sunday and it lasted until boxing day. Nothing is more fun than going somewhere on Christmas day only to realize at some point that your daughter is missing, and then find her sitting in the washroom crying because she wishes she could throw up but can't, and then having to take her home early. Although . . . w

I'm cleaning the toilet in the en suite. Elliot appears in the doorway. Elliot : We are doing a good job of taking care of Lizzy. (our gecko) Me : Yep. Elliot : Yeah. She's not even dead. Me : Well, that's a good thing... Elliot : Remember when I pulled off all the tails? She watches me for a second. Elliot : Mommy? Me : Hm? Elliot : I know how you get the potty water too high. Me : How? Elliot : You just put in a lot of toilet paper. She skips away, and I hear her in the other bathroom. Me (hollering): Elliot! Do not flush the toilet! Elliot (reappearing) : I didn't do that .  I'm sure she rolled her eyes at my accusation.  She's a little scarier every day.

Remember all that stuff I put in my last post about missing my kids? Right. Well you know what I don't miss when we are all separated? THE DAMN FIGHTING What is the deal with the scrapping? They love each other, they want to play together, they like to organize play and games around each other - so why the heck is my house suddenly a haven of bickering? Good thing I stocked up when I thought the LC was going on strike.

I am substitute teaching again this school year (after a 5 year break!) and am really enjoying it. There are seven schools in this town and I sort of bounce around between all seven fairly evenly, if you don't count the high school, where I'd always imagined I'd end up. In that, I've definitely gained a bigger appreciation of the middle years, where I really enjoy hanging out, and a reminder that I'm not cut out for a career in the early years. Because they're nuts. And they cry. And they can't tie their shoes. And there are always little hands touching me. It's actually much like the Labyrinth. Anyway, I sincerely don't mind subbing in there, but I think I will leave the grade 1s for someone with  much more patience. Elliot is in daycare and she had no problems adjusting. She goes to the home of a friend of mine, and her daughter is the same age as Ellie and they get along swimmingly. It definitely makes it easier to drop her off every

I could be doing a multitude of things. Cleaning my room. Taking the kids on the bike ride they've been begging to go on. Clearing my island so it looks like an island instead of the start of what promises to be an impressive hoarder house. Instead I'm sitting here updating my facebook status 100 times, finally deciding I may as well just blog. It's time for my every-second-month post anyway. Jordan just left to go to a corn maze with a very good friend and her parents. It's strange having someone call here to snatch a kid for the day. It's stranger still to have my daughter have her own social life. Although I must say, that she does seem to gravitate towards very nice girls, and I hope she continues to seek out such friendships as she moves through her child/teenager years. Next year she'll be in middle school. It would be nicer to see her surround herself with niceness than bitchiness and drama. This morning I told her she should take a hoodie along, be

I've been a bad picture-taking mother lately. I plan family things or we are invited to family things, and by the time we get doing what we are doing, and I organize the kids, and I take part in the festivities, and days and weeks go by, it never occurs to me to pull out a camera. I used to take more iphone pictures, but they're kind of crummy, as far as pictures go, so that's deterred me from snapping a lot of pictures that way. We went camping this last weekend with Steven's sister Deanne and her husband and boys, and Steven's dad and Step-Mom, and when the weekend was almost over my sister-in-law Deanne pulled out her camera to take a picture of Travis teeter-tottering with the kids and I realized that I haven't taken any camping pictures at all this year, despite this being our third trip, so I grabbed my camera too. Here is the one lonely camping picture I have taken this year: I know. You don't have to tell me, I freely admit it: This

 The kids played soccer again this year, and between the four of them we spent four  nights a week at the soccer fields. Unlike last year, there was no cancelling games for rain, so the season was nice and long. It's interesting to watch the kids' personalities and interests diverge. Jordan, who came into her own on the field last year decided this year that she was again afraid of the ball, and despite being one of the most energetic kids I know she kind of dawdled around the field, more or less trying to sneakily avoid the action, as opposed to her wicked defense last year, where she was a heck of the obstacle for the other team to get around, with a powerful kick that often sent the ball back into the other end zone. But she had fun, enjoyed being part of the team and spent her fair share of goofing around and heckling other players - mostly those on her own team. Gotta love her. Tennyson again hit the field with an aggressive determination that any goals scored would

September 2013 June 2014

My "baby" is coming up on her fourth birthday. Kind of crazy. Sigh. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to find pictures of each kid at around the same age, so here they are!  

My kids are all sitting at the table, colouring various pictures, posters and colouring books. They've been constantly bickering since getting home from school. Elliot takes a pieces of paper, and scribbles it with ten different colours before lifting it up in front of her, pausing for dramatic effect, and beginning: "Once upon a time, there was a boy named Tennyson. He was going for a walk. Naked." The room erupts in laughter from Mitchell and Jordan, screaming from Tennyson, and laughter from Elliot, until the angry bear slaps the paper out of her hand, resulting in her shrieking proclamation: "You Wecked My Paper!" I'm in the kitchen, trying not to laugh because it is kind of funny. I yell at them all to knock it off. They settle. Tennyson tells Elliot she's mean. She is offended. A moment later, she has smoothed out her "story." She gives it a shake, lifts it up, clears her throat, and begins again. "Once upon a time, there

Elliot : (from "somewhere" down the hall) Can someone wipe my bum! Me : (from the living room) Hang on! Elliot : Wipe my bum RIGHT NOW. Me : Excuse me? Elliot : Excuse me? Me : You are being very rude. Elliot : You are being very rude. Me : I'm gonna spank you! Elliot : I'm gonna spank you! A short recess while I realize my across-the-house threats and scolding are not very, well, threatening. Elliot : Wipe! My! Bum! Me : In a sec. I fire up another game of solitaire on the computer. Elliot : WIPE MY BUM! I finish the game. I head to the bathroom. The princess is sitting happily grinning at me from her throne. Me : You are not being very nice. Elliot : I like you! Me : Yeah. That's because I'm nice. Superior parenting happens in my house in a moment by moment basis. I always figure if I dawdle she'll be more eager to start looking after her own toileting. I think usually she just gives up and leaves, sans wiping. Actually no,

It took me close to two hours to prime my dining room ceiling. Dusting/Priming/Painting the ceiling is the most hateful job in the world . I'm not even kidding. I don't know how people do it without turning to alcohol. Anyway. See the little black spots? Those are holes. My little pot lights are going to go in there. It's now 2:50. At this point I'm starting to reconsider my original plan to "quickly prime the dining room after lunch and then carry on about my day." Chances are fairly good that I'll have to pick up  my kids from school at some point, and likely this will still not be done. Also, we settled on green. Actually, I picked out 48 green choices to ponder, Steven came by, threw out about half of them, told me to just pick something already, since they were all the same colour, waited until I narrowed it down to about four choices and selected one. And then today I went to the paint store and picked the one I really wanted. Sorry honey

Our poor little old dining room has come a long way. Previous home owners thought it would be a great idea to increase living space by simply adding a few walls, some really cheap single pane windows, a roof and a whole lot of paneling to the old deck and call it a dining room. We kind of ignored the crappiness of it. The extra space was really nice, but the freezing cold floors in teh winter, and the wind that blew through here in January (and all year, but January really seems to stand out. Strange eh?), and the slant that slowly grew slantier eventually made some upgrades necessary. Did I mention that the whole room was held up by four 2x6 beams sitting on patio blocks? Or that one of those beams didn't even actually reach the patio block it was supposed to sit on? Did I tell you about the time that the room shifted so much over a couple of days that I went to let the dog out in the morning and then couldn't shut the door because suddenly the door knob didn't mat

Hey Tennyson, do you need that overflow?

Today we celebrated Brooks and Riley's birthdays. They have a combined age of 51. I know, they look fantastic. Also, they refused to both look and smile handsomely at the camera at the same time. And when they finally did, it became apparent that I should probably stop taking pictures with my iphone in drkened rooms, especially of small moving people. Regardless. It was fun. And this was not me taking a picture of my toddler, drinking a giant pop, in a bar. Happy Birthday Brooks and Riley!!

Tonight at the nursery school swim party fundraiser (I'm sure that was the actual name. The fliers were rolled scrolls that were sent home with all the parents) I was talking to another woman who runs sometimes. I actually think the conversation started with where to buy nice shapely sports bras and ended with something like "Oh yeah, I run outside all the time, it's super fun and nobody who is a runner would ever consider bitching about winter, and all you really need is running shoes, and it's not even slippery and seriously, you're a total jerk for not running outside." And I was all like, well shit, if she can do it I can probably maybe consider doing it. Then I got home and the weather was beautiful and I wondered just how slippery the streets really were. Steven was a few minutes behind me in his truck, and I was in the driveway with a van load of kids who should have been in bed an hour or so earlier, but why wouldn't I run to the stop sign and