Sunday, December 11, 2011

Keeping Memories

Well, December is a busy month for everyone!  Decorating, shopping, baking, cooking, and then there is all the regular everyday stuff that goes on!  Excuses, excuses... I haven't written anything in 9 days, and I have been thinking of things, and not writing them down...  and now I am done with excuses.

My oldest daughter will be 3 in just 2 months!!  3 years has gone by sooo qucikly. All mothers (and fathers) know that in a blink of an eye, your child is grown up and leaving for college.  Before being a parent, that sounds like joke, but really, my son is almost 10.  Where has 10 years gone??

It seems like 3 is that perfect age where children are brutally honest, and can articulate well enough to be understood. Therefore they leave you feeling embarrassed when they quote you word for word, when it was something you regretting saying the moment it slipped out of your mouth.

Back when my son was a wee little dude, before he had a filter between his brain and mouth, he always said the most hilarious things and I always thought to myself "Oh, I will never forget that he said that!!"  WHAT WAS I THINKING??  Looking back now I wish I had been keeping a note book!

First allow me to share some of the few hilarious things I can remember, and then I will give you all an idea.

We sat in the bathroom after a bath one evening, arguing about cutting finger nails.  Seth did NOT want his finger nails cut.  This little disagreement was happening for WAY too long. Finally I asked why he didn't want them cut and he answered "None of my friends like me with short finger nails"

His cute little mispronunciations like "Ambleeeeance" for Ambulance  and "Hamburmur" for Hamburger and "Roggeee Odge" for Rawley Lodge (which was the resort my parents owned when I was a child, and when he was small)  Those few things I wrote down are things he LOVES to hear about, especially when his little sister says something goofy.

Miriam's crazy quotes

One awful day on the emotional roller coaster that is Miriam's life she said to me "Mom, I just want to marry a prince!"

Just the other day while I was brushing her hair *SIGH* "Someday..... my prince will come"

The morning chaos that happens in every household across this country ended with me BEGGING Miriam to eat something..  "Cereal? Toast? Yogurt? Something? Anything?"
 Miriam very calmly looks over and says "I'll have a chocolate bar!"

My hubby was hard at work the past 2 weeks to make a christmas sweater for a party.  He had never touched a crochet hook before, but decided to take on the task.  And I will admit, he didn't do too badly!!   The morning of the party (which was also the morning he finished making it) he wanted to model it for us.  Miriam looked up and said "Daddy!!  Take that sweater off!!"
                               (show off his talent! hahaha!!)


I know I am not alone here! Once our kids start talking, and start trying to make sense of the world they really do say the darndest things!

I hear my nephew decided to bring some ice home from school last week and stored in it his backpack at recess...  Now that's hilarious!

So here is what I think I am going to do, and hope and pray I can stay on top of this...
I am going to purchase one of the small 8x8 scrapbooks get some fun paper, and colourful pens and write these funny stories.  I know I would love to take a look at some of the crazy/funny things I said as a kid.  We all know the few stories that our parents have told over and over, or the things that we made a big deal about,

A child's mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Innocence, and natural curiousity. Lack of fear (or pronunciation) and just the ability to see things completely differently than adults... can we bottle it and sell it??  All children just seem like they are wired to become inventors!

Friday, December 02, 2011

Parallels between my life and that of Bella Swan/Cullen

A couple of weeks ago my son was is distress...he NEEDED to see the new Adam Sandler movie, "Jack and Jill".   Since my husband had been to TWO concerts recently, I thought it was only fair that I was the one to head to the theatre with him.  We were so excited!!  Seth actually talked about it for days in advance, "Mom!!!!  We are going to the movies on Saturday!!"  and "Mom!!  MOVIES!!" and "I'm so excited for the movie on Saturday, mom!!" and "SATURDAY!!" (if you read the previous post you may notice that he gets this annoying behavior from me!).

So we are ready for the movie to start, waiting in a dark theatre, watching some of the boring movie trivia when the theatre gets even darker.  The projector went out, and therefore the picture went with it... we were only able to listen to the previews.

After several employees coming in to assure us that it would all be fixed very soon, one came in with a pad full of complimentary tickets and told us that the movie would in fact be cancelled.

We were distraught!

Clearly nothing can live up to a Sandler movie, but Seth wasn't ready to leave the theatre, and neither was I.  We came to see a movie, and that was what we were going to do.

So picture if you will, those old British comedies where the cops are chasing the criminal, and the next shot is the criminal chasing the cops, and then somehow there is an other random person and they are all running after each other... that was us.  We ran through the lobby sticking our heads in every theatre to see what was playing and where we could slip in.  Then we ran to the other side and checked all of those theatres, and then we ran back to watch 'Puss in Boots' in 3D.  Thankfully they had the recycling bins from the 3D glasses outside the door to the theatre, so I opened the box, fished out two pairs and in we went to watch what turned out to be a pretty cute movie.

That was a long intro to my point... with one of those complimentary tickets, I went to the theatre and watched 'Breaking Dawn' all by myself.  It was fantastic!!  (The movie, and the being by myself thing)  I didn't have to explain anything to anyone.  No one questioned my desire to see the movie, and no one groaned and moaned when I got all giddy with excitement when Jacob came on the screen. (although I am certain the people behind me thought I had lost my mind)

DISCLAIMER: Here is where it gets nerdy  ----

I will let you in on a secret... There is two, and only two reasons I do not own any 'team Jacob' paraphernalia, I haven't bought myself many new things in the past 5 years, and my husband would tease me mercilessly.  I will come clean on one thing though... Jacob is on the back of my bathroom door in my bedroom, (a poster which my younger brother got me for my birthday a few years ago) so I often stare at him while I am peeing.  I also teach my daughter to call him a hunk, and have to correct her when she calls him "Daddy".  Then I say, "No, he's a hunk.... not daddy!" (I'm horrible, I know!)

One of many, many thoughts that crossed my mind while sitting in the dark theatre alone was, "Why is it so much more romantic for Edward to say he wants to be with Bella forever than it is for my husband to say it?"   to which I replied to myself "because it literally means that he is going to put up with her FOREVER and ever and ever and ever.  Death will not part them!" (and was it just me, or was her dress horrible?)

Later in the movie I had an epiphany.  Me and Mrs. Isabella Cullen are not so different.  I imagine that most mothers could have had the same feeling.  When Edward called their baby a 'thing' she looked hurt, because she was already so in love with their child.  She would have already given her own life so that child could live.  We were both willing and able to love our baby unconditionally, even in adverse situations.  Now my situation was not as adverse as hers, the chance of my baby killing me were slim, the chance of hers killing her were very likely, but I believe I would have had my son, even if pregnancy had a greater risk of death.

I have a secret, which is really not a secret at all if you know me and can do simple math.  I was only 15 when I got pregnant, and 16 when I gave birth to my bouncing baby boy.  My mom will vouch for me... the first words out of my mouth after he was born was, "It's a boy, and he's so beautiful.  I haven't even seen him yet, but I know he is beautiful!" (k, this makes me tear up a little bit)

So there we have it, Bella is just like in the mommy in all of us.  We love them, would give ANYTHING for them, and just to add a christian spin, God loves ME (and you) the same way.

Monday, November 28, 2011

A weekend with Valour

So my nana turned 80 last week.  We had a party.
The adventure was not at the party, but on the way to the party.
Let me start at the beginning, because that is clearly where every great adventure starts.

Last week we received coupons for McCafe...two lattes for the price of one was a deal we could not pass up, so we tried to exercise some self control, and ordered only a large.  Their large is exactly that...LARGE, I thought it was delicious, but for someone who doesn't drink a lot of caffeine beverages, that was a lot of coffee!

Approximately half way through the beverage I am having problems controlling my incessant jabbering...which was also when I reached the 'U' in the alphabet game.  During this time I found it necessary to say "YOU!!!!" or "you..."  or "YYYYYOOOOOOUUUUUU"  over and over and over again.  Yes, I distracted the driver.

Let me explain my husband's car rule.  "If you are in the passenger seat, you are the navigator.  Therefore it is your fault if any wrong turns, or missed turns happen while you are on duty."

We went to the airport.  No, we were not taking any flights to get to our destination, but somehow my fascination with the many different ways, and tones that I could say "You", left us headed to Terminal #1.

After finding our way back to the highway, and after I found the letter "U', and was able to move onto "V" (which I might add is half and as fun to say, and two times more annoying), we ventured off the highway to find a McDonalds, again.  And no, I did not get an other latte, I was beginning to feel like my heart was going to pound right through my chest and land in someone's happy meal.

I failed... I was hoping my job as navigator would be revoked, but more and more responsibility kept getting tossed my way, like "We just passed AN OTHER exit for a McDonalds."  and "How do I turn around and go the opposite direction on the highway when there is no overpass??"  Geez.

Well, I finally concurred the challenge to navigate us to a happy meal, big mac wielding restaurant.

We were able to sit and eat our nuggets in peace, and tried to make a quick exit since all of our detours were beginning to make us a wee bit late.

My daughter, the two year-old, loves to clean up after herself, and this is an obsession I encourage because, well, I'd rather not clean up after her!  So she took her little drink, finished it off, and proceeded to the garbage can and as my husband shuffled her along she started wailing, "My ring, my ring!!!"

A quick scan of the floor led my deductive reasoning to the garbage can.

Yet an other side note.  My husband learned the word "Valour" this weekend. The dictionary describes valour as; Courage in the face of danger.  My husband later described my actions that followed as such...

I run to the garbage can, my son follows behind (I think he was eager to be the hero in this story).  We open it up and look down....full garbage can...gross.

On lookers were looking on, we unlatched the receptacle  and removed the bin, in went the hands and head, and after several minutes of searching, I found the ring!! (and my son ripped it out of my hands and said "Look what I got")  I went to the washroom and scrubbed my hands and face.

True story.

Sometimes we have wade through a lot of garbage for the people we love.  And I would willingly do it again and again.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

My redeeming thoughts on yesterdays post...

I looked over yesterdays post and it goes to prove the very first sentence I wrote, 'I am guilty of NEVER thinking things through.'

I read it an realized that it ended on a pretty sad note. What does that say if I am still not sure if it is worth it or not? Didn't I say I was looking on the bright side of my everyday life?

Here is the 'moral', if you will...
Life is like my battle with the wicker set.  I am frustrated, and bored, but determined to get it done.  My determination is going to get me the very colour I was looking for, the very colour my daughter loved, mostly just for the name.

In life, we go through difficult times, things that stretch us, and tempt us and pull us in every direction, but if we set our eyes on our goals (whether big or small), we will get the outcome we were looking for.  But wait - that is not always true.  Let me rephrase that, we will always get to where we are supposed to be.

I often take comfort in the thought that although this is not where I saw myself living, or what I saw myself doing, this is where God put me, the place God intended me to be in, and isn't that the best place to be??

Friday, November 25, 2011

A recent project. . .

I am guilty of NEVER thinking things through...

like the time my mom and I went on a 'diet', also known as a 'cleanse' or what I would rather call 'starvation'.  You could only eat this vegetable soup for several days, and then add bananas to the mix, but since I am allergic to bananas, I was left solely with soup. . .watery, tomatoey, vegetabley soup.  My confession: I came scarily close to pooping my pants on several occasions.

Or the time I decided to start doing the dishes at the SAME time I was pouring the kettle into the sink.  It was a week before my wedding, and yes, it was my left hand that suffered the consequence.

So when I got an old wicker set from my aunt, I thought to myself, 'I will just spruce it up with some paint!  We will be using it by next weekend.'  HA...  really, wicker vs. paint brush.  nah.

I took my daughters and my husband (while my son was at youth group) to Canadian Tire, chose a wonderful colour called Magic Carpet.  Fantastic!  I was so excited, I got right to work - it took me about 10 minutes to realize this was going to take FOREVER, and I should have got spray paint.

Not only do I never think things through, I also never give up.  So my husband peeked in at me, and saw the boredom/frustration on my face and said "It's not too late, you can still go get spray paint."

"No, I chose this colour, and I am going to do this!"

After approximately 8 hours of work, with a minimum of 2 more ahead of me, it is almost done.  Now all I need is to pick some fabric at the store to make a cover for the cushion.  I am getting exactly the colour I wanted... and all the sore shoulder and neck pain I never asked for.  I am still hoping the end result will be worth it.

This is me....

So I am a mom of 3, babysitter or more, and wife to one (thank goodness).
To start, I was born in Toronto, moved to the country, raised by loving parents, have 3 brothers....too much??
I thought so too.


After having my son, almost 10 years ago, I heard all about post-partum depression, and baby blues and thought to myself, "How could anyone be sad when they hold such an amazing miracle in their hands?"
Well, almost 6 months ago I gave birth to my second daughter, a beautiful baby who I loved with all my heart, but I hit a wall.  There I was, standing in my bathroom thinking, "I love this baby, I love my other 2 kids...what is wrong with me?  Why am I so sad?"


So there it was, call it what you will, 'baby blues' or 'post-partum depression'  I knew it wasn't me...in high school (yes, I know, long time ago, blah blah blah) I used to be so very full of energy, so carefree, and, well, HYPER!  For me to have ZERO energy, was pure craziness.  So I vowed to myself, to my kids and to my husband that I would always look on the bright side of life, see the good in everyday, and let God shed his light on everything I was doing.


Needless to say, 5 months of looking on the bright side has led me to want to share my thoughts, to put them out there in cyberspace, and hope that maybe someday, somehow, it will shed light on a passerby who is trying to do the same.