The Monkey's Turning 4. Help Me.

Preparations for our almost 4 year Monkey are in full swing.

There are balloons covering the living room floor. Crap from the dollar store all over the kitchen counters. Birthday cereal is in the pantry. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I am sitting here in my chair by the living room window all decked out in a pink flowery butterflied heart emblazoned pointy party hat. You need to test these things out and make sure they fit. AND LEAVE IT ON. According to the 4 year old minus one day birthday girl, anyways.

(Yes. Murphy's Law being what it is, the DINKS from next door just walked by the window. I didn't wave.)

I found myself a tad melancholy today as I realized that our family is no longer going to have a 3 year old. I love three year olds. It's one of my favourite ages. Still innocent but toilet trained and independent with so many things. And not too much lip.

The Monkey was our holy crap surprise child and I've loved 96% of these years with her in our lives. But tomorrow she turns 4.

And I know what's coming.

Attitude.

Lip.

Snottiness.

Did I mention the attitude?

In the midst of today's melancholy, I asked The Monkey what we should write on her birthday cake tomorrow.

"Hmmmmm.....how 'bout......Gimme my presents!!!"

And then I bought beer.

A Movie Party

An 8 year old's birthday party. Movie style.

You needed one of these to get in.



The Princess greeted her guests with one of these.



We played games to collect a bunch of these.



So you could line up here.



And buy whatever you wanted to watch the movie.



The Eldest and The Boyfriend got in on the fun. The Monkey bought a lot of candy.



1 headache, 1 spilled pop, popcorn covering the ground, nary a vegetable eaten (and they were FREE - I don't get it) and 3 hours later, the 8 year old's movie party came to a close.

"Take your popcorn containers! Here, let me stuff them with more candy to eat on the way home!"

Then I tucked The Princess into bed and she said, "Thank you for doing all that stuff for me today, Mom. It was really good. *pause* What theme are we going to do for my 9th birthday?"

Happy Birthday, My Princess. Next year's theme is "Let's go swimming at your father's pool/skate at his ice rink". Oh, but I've scheduled a massage for that day so I can't be there.

Goodnight.

The Aging Boy

I saw the play Mom's The Word: Remixed at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island this weekend. Go see it if you live locally. If you live outside Vancouver, look for it when they start touring. As long as you don't mind seeing the odd middle aged woman streaking across the stage, it's a must see for all moms. I laughed until I cried. And sometimes I just cried.

The timing was perfect for me as I'm in the throws of reminiscing about motherhood and all it's highs and lows. My little baby is turning 15 in two very short days. 15. He's growing a mustache and half the time I don't recognize him when he walks around the corner and catches me off guard.

Where did my little boy go? The train loving, dirt digging, pokemon and digimon addicted, read me 118 books in one sitting little boy.....he's gone. I used to catch glimpses of him. Here and there. A smirk. A laugh. A whine or two.

But that little boy has been gone for a while. I've known it in my heart. In two sleeps, my son will wake up and make me feel that much older. Oh, how my heart hurts about it. Time keeps on slipping slipping slipping.....

But I'm the mom. I'll put on a stiff upper lip. I'll serve him Panago pizza as requested and bake him his chocolate cake. I don't even get to go birthday present shopping because he wants cash instead.

My little boy. Turning into a man and saving up to buy his own laptop.

Motherhood. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes you laugh until you cry. Sometimes you just have to go have a little cry all by yourself in the bathroom with the door locked and the water running so no one hears you and then go bake a chocolate cake.

Baby's Birthday Bangs

3 years ago today, I birthed a monkey.

A chubby little thing with massive cheeks, adorable fingers and toes, and a solid foundation of hair on her head.

Her birth was a glimpse into the future.....a future full of getting herself into trouble. In utero, she managed to wrap the umbilical cord so tightly around her neck, the nurse couldn't even get her finger between the cord and the neck.

And she's been getting herself into trouble ever since.

Yesterday morning's fiasco with giving herself a mullet ended poorly. I can't believe I paid $15 for a 'hairdresser' to do this:



"Even it out" is a difficult concept, I guess.

It's not the greatest picture. I apologize. But after taking 17 shots, 14 of them blurry because The Baby had things to do and places to be and standing in front of a wall STAYING STILL wasn't one of those things, I decided to call it a day.

You may notice the shadow on the left side of her chin. That would be a massive black and green bruise from wiping out in the backyard last week.

Yup. The 3 year birthday girl pictures are going to be beautiful.

Maybe a big bow and pictures taken in some candlelight.........

A Monumental Day

My baby graduated from high school yesterday.

The 8 pound 3 ounce bundle that arrived after 26 hours of labour and made The Husband and me parents. That was just last year, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Wasn't it just 6 months ago that I left her sitting on the floor in her new kindergarten room? Was it not yesterday we dropped her off in front of her new high school, scared out of her mind at starting a new school and not knowing a soul.

And yesterday, I watched my baby walk into her school gymnasium donned in cap and gown. I watched her receive the "Excellence in Textiles" award, a $1,000 scholarship, and of course her high school diploma.

Yes. I cried.

The Eldest and The Boyfriend. The future is theirs.

And here are the proud parents. See? I think I hid my 'holy crap I am not old enough to have a high school graduate' feelings fairly well.

The afternoon was spent getting hair and make up done by my brother's girlfriend. She did an incredible job.

And here is the result:

That's my little girl there....looking like a woman.

Yes, I course I cried. I'm not made of stone.

All in all, it was a great day. A very busy day. The Husband got to dance with his little princess at her prom (then they kicked all the parents out). We drove home and talked about how the day had been a whirlwind of activity and monumental moments.

When we got home, I asked The Boy if he thought his grad in 3 years would be such a production. His eyerolls lead me to believe it won't if he has anything to do with it.

Since I had volunteered The Husband to deal poker all night at the grad's dry grad (which took place back at their school after their dinner/dance), he decided to go have a nap. When I went to wake him up, this is what I found:


Apparently, the day was exhausting for everyone.

This morning, I woke up to The Princess asking if she could go downstairs. I looked at the clock and couldn't believe the time. "Wow," I thought. "We were all wiped! The Baby never sleeps this late."

No. The Baby really never sleeps in late.

Can you guess what this is?

Here are the mug shots.

My Baby with a mullet. Nice.

We're off to the hairdresser's today. Apparently.

Tomorrow she turns 3. Everyone can use a new birthday 'do, right?

St. Paddy's Day

Top 'o the mornin' to ya.

Irish people everywhere are pouring Guinness into their morning cereal. Stew is being placed on the fire. Soda bread is being mixed as we speak.

And green is the colour of the day.

The Princess woke me up this morning in a state of panic because she couldn't find tights to go with her green, er, ensemble.

There are a lot of shades of green. Many of them should not be worn together.

As I sit here trying to avoid the fact that I need to go upstairs and colour my hair so there are no grey roots in my driver's license photo that I have to go renew today, I am pondering the oddness of this day for me.

My name is Colleen.
I was born on St. Patrick's Day.
I married a man with the last name Mahoney.
Yes, his family is Irish.
My favourite colour is green.

I have never been in a pub on March 17th.
I have never had a sip of green beer.
I have only a drop of Irish blood in me.
I've only liked beer for the last 2 and a half years.

All my children have Irish names.
Even the Dog.

On this day of shamrocks, everyone's a little bit Irish.

How about you? Can you find a drop of Irish in you?

Ode to My 30's

Today is my last day in the decade known as my '30's.

It feels about the same way as the day before a scheduled root canal. It's a day you've been dreading for weeks, stewing over, trying to think of any excuse you can to skip the appointment, but eventually have to come to the conclusion that you best just get it over with.

Except I've never had a root canal. I prefer to just let my teeth fall out. I've got a little problem going on with the dentist.

But I think that's probably what it would feel like.

The past 10 years have been pretty awesome. A lot of stuff happened. Mostly good, some bad. A fair amount of Griswold luck. We bought our first home and added two more children into our brood. I've worked, I've stayed home, I've learned how to bake pumpkin scones.

I parented for a full 10 years with the occasional vacation paired with food poisoning. I discovered that marriage gets better as you both get older and 'mature' (snort!).

I aged 10 years. I think I'm officially a grown up. At least I think I should be since I'm going to be officially middle aged.

I'm going to miss being 39.

But there's lots to look forward to in my 40's.

The Eldest graduating.

The Baby starting school.

Going back to work.

The Boy graduating.

Vacations.

Menopause.

My boobs falling down to my stretch marks.

Dentures.

Weddings.

Grandchildren.

Oh, god, I just threw up in my mouth.

I'm going to go have a cry, then apply some moisturizer to my crows feet.

And go enjoy my last day of being in my thirties by taking the Princess ice skating and hopefully not breaking my bum hip.

Birthday Cereal

It's time for another edition of:















The Princess' 7th birthday brought on a slew of questions from family and friends. Everyone had the same burning question.

"What birthday cereal did she choose?"














She chose a box full of food colouring, refined sugar and highly processed grain and it lasted 2 and a half days.

What makes a box of Lucky Charms a box of birthday fun?

Read on.

A long time ago, on an island far far away, I made a new friend named Shannon. She lived across the street from me, went to our church, and her house wasn't perfect. It was wonderful.

Shannon changed my life.

She introduced me to the 'Birthday Cereal' rule, saving me from years of whiny children in the grocery store.

Ok....saving me from years of whiny children in the cereal aisle in the grocery store.

The rule is simple. The birthday child gets to pick one box of WHATEVER sugar filled, fake fruity, gagging chocolaty, dye laden cereal that their little heart desires. Their mother will not say 'no', although she will inform the checkout clerk the reason she's spending 8 bucks on a box of junk and that she doesn't always let her children rot their teeth on such stuff.

There is a secondary rule. It is to be shared amongst their assorted siblings.

The third rule is that this is the only time in the entire year that their mother will buy junk cereal. No exceptions.

It's brilliant. It eliminates whining for the rest of the year when it comes to begging their saintly mother to purchase junk cereal. Which she won't. And doesn't. Except on their birthday.

Conversations in the cereal aisle revolve around what cereal they're going to choose on their next birthday (even if it's 11 months away). But they don't ask if I'll buy it. When they were younger and they DID ask, I didn't need to answer 'no', but rather, 'on your birthday'.

And it's turned into a great family birthday tradition.

Works for me Wednesday is now being hosted over at We Are THAT Family. Head on over to check out some other great ideas linked on her blog.

The Princess' Party

What a weekend.

Birthday party, grandparents visiting, and an Irish dancing competition that required leaving the house at 6:20 in the morning. Which of course meant the Princess came down with a fever Sunday night, started vomiting at 3 am and breathed her sicky germs all over me for the rest of the night.

Hence the delay in my promised post on the big party.

The party went well. Next year's will be anywhere but in my house. I think I'll start saving up now.

But I did pull off the party for under $100 bucks. I hope you're impressed.

We did two crafts. I wanted to paint tea pots, but since I couldn't find any under a dollar apiece (and I needed 12) I settled for painting mini terracotta plant pots, which I found 3 for a dollar. I bought pipe cleaners and foam flowers and letters that were sticky on the back. And the girl created these:

Some of the girls spelled out their names on the flowers. It was a great craft.

Total: $16. But I still have a ton of paint left, assorted paint brushes that I wanted for the craft cupboard, some pipe cleaners and a bunch of the foam flowers and letters.

The second craft we made was paper hats. In hindsight, I wish we had skipped it because it was time consuming and the party ended up running late, but they still had fun. It's an easy craft to do, but you need two adults - one to hold the paper in place and one to tape around the child's head with masking tape.

See? Fun!

I purchased fake flowers, assorted pretty stickers and tissue paper for decorations. My mom, from whom I learned all my pack ratting skills, donated a bunch of ribbon to use. Plus I scouted out some ribbon at the Salvation Army and Valentine's clearance at the grocery store.

Total: $12. But, I still have a ton of tissue paper left over that I can use for future gift bag wrapping. Plus, the Princess has a lovely vase full of fake flowers in her room (I know, garish. But she loves them.) There's lots of stickers left that will go in the craft cupboard. And a ton of ribbon. All the girls fell in love with this massive roll of strawberries ribbon I got for 50 cents, and I even have a bunch of that left too.

I had the party between lunch and dinner time, so I didn't have to serve an entire meal. I put out little sandwiches, banana bread (again! Thanks Mom!!), cheesies, shoestring potato chips, a huge fruit platter with strawberries, grapes, and oranges, and fruit juice and pop.

Total: $22. I had lots of the bread left over, as well as fruit and pop.

The cake? You may recall that the Princess wanted a Tinkerbell cake. But I didn't want to spend $30 on a cake that looks great but 90% of it gets thrown out anyways. Someone needs to create a birthday cake that is just made from icing. That would get eaten.

So I went searching around and found paper Tinkerbell baking cups and a great Tinkerbell birthday candle. I bought a confetti cupcake mix, icing and some star decorating candy. The girls all got to decorate their own cupcakes (I already had other decorating sprinkles, etc, in the pantry, so there was quite a selection). The Princess had the Tinkerbell candle on her cupcake, plus 7 sparkly candles. It looked great.

Total: $15. Plus I have lots of the sprinkles left over, baking cups and icing. I wish I could say I still have the candle, but Tinkerbell was decapitated. Accidentally. I don't want to talk about it.

At the end of the party, after present opening, we had a treasure hunt that culminated in the girls finding their goody bags. I wrote out clues, one for each girl and hid them around the house. We did this last year and it was a hit. In fact, it was the first question 3 of the girls asked me when they arrived. "Are we doing the treasure hunt again?"

The clues are easy enough to write. I like to make them rhyme and have something about each girl. Here's an example:

"Fairy Jenny has curly hair.
Her curls shine oh so bright.
She flits and flies right up the stairs,
To look where the Queen sleeps at night."

And then the next clue was hiding under the Princess' pillow. Having each girl on a clue helps for turn taking too. Each girl has a chance to find a clue, which helps when you have a pack of 12 children running from room to room!

Gift bags. Again....thanks to my mom, I got a bunch of fabric and sewed the gift bags. I found some Tinkerbell skipping ropes for $1.50 each, and some Fairy sticker books @ 3 for a dollar. I bought some fuzzy peach candy, gummy frogs, candy rockets and tiny boxes of 'nerds'. I put the candy in zip lock bags.

Total: $32, which means each bag cost $2.70. Plus, there was candy left over that I put out on the snack table. I also used some of the leftover boxes of nerds for an 'unwrap the present game'.

The grand total for a Fairy Princess Tea Party? $97.

I think I did ok. I kept it under $100, plus I have a lot of stuff left over.

The Princess had a great time and so did her friends. And that's really what it's all about.

Oh, and the Baby had a great time too. In there like a dirty shirt. After the last friend left, she sat down on the couch. 30 seconds later....

Birthday Preparations

The Princess turns 7 this Friday.

Faced with a myriad of possibilities, the Princess decided that a birthday party at home was the most wonderful place on earth to celebrate this momentous occasion. I happen to agree with her....because it's only Tuesday right now and there are not 11 girls dancing to High School Musical in my living room at this moment in time.

The Princess thinks she made the decision, but if I were being honest with you, I would share with you the fact that I played every mom card in my repertoire and also was quite conniving and fairly diabolical in my quest to get her to choose a home party.

Why? Because I'm cheap.

"Bowling? What a great idea......oh....but Jane is having her party there. I suppose your friends wouldn't mind doing the exact same thing AGAIN for your party."

"Gymnastics? Why yes, that WOULD be fun. You won't be able to wear your beautiful princess dress, but you won't mind right?"

"Ice skating? Wow! No one has had a party there! Hey, remember the first time you went skating and fell and had that bruise on your knee for two weeks? And, oh! Those helmets they make you wear! You sure thought those were ugly! Haha."

So a party at home it is. She had her 6th birthday party at home as well. It was awesome if I don't mind saying so. But a group of 7 ish year olds is different that a group of 6ish year olds, so my brain has been in overdrive coming up with crafts and games to play without repeating last year's fun.

The suppressed Early Childhood Educator in me loves home birthday parties. The Anxiety Manipulator in me worries about impressing 7 year olds and what they may share with their mothers about the table decorations and the state of my pantry. I don't pretend that I'm completely sane.

The Cheapo in me has decided to keep track of exactly how much this fiasco is going to cost. I'm into it for $28 dollars so far.

Stay tuned.

And does anyone know where I can find really inexpensive tea cups or teapots that can be painted?

Dreaming and Cleaning

As my 40th birthday is gearing up to sucker punch me in the stomach, I'm finding myself pondering the dark and cobwebby corners of my life.

Yet another place I haven't cleaned in quite some time. If I was being honest with you, I'd tell you that I really haven't done a good cleaning since the big 3-0. But admitting that in a public forum would be stupid.

So what have I found as I've been dusting out the cobwebs of my mind? A whole lot of stuff. I am apparently a bit of a pack rat in my mental life as well.

I suppose that's why God invented 40th birthdays. Well, in today's world. Statistically, 200 years ago God invented 40th birthdays for my children to remember to put a spring of flowers on my grave to mark the anniversary of my death. And that, my friends, can really put everything into perspective for a person who's whining about turning 40 when she actually should be thanking God for modern medicine and well, heck, the discovery of a thing called germs.

But about this cleaning of my cranium.

There's a lot of stuff up there in the 'future dreams and aspirations' corner. I couldn't believe what I've found. Just when I think I found the last of it, more unattained dreams appear out of nowhere.

Lest you think I'm about to publish these unmet aspirations, fear not. I may be old, but I'm not as stupid as I look. Telling you that my dream of traveling to Prince Edward Island so I could kneel at the window in Anne's room in the house of Green Gables, pretending that a storm is raging and realizing that I really do love Gilbert...yet he's dying....SOB!....is a dream from about 25 years ago, so I don't even know why that's still up here anyways. Should have gotten rid of it when I took that last load of stuff out.

The point is that I've had a lot of dreams that I thought would be realized by my 40th birthday. And they haven't. I'm discovering things I haven't thought about in years. 40th birthdays seem to have a way of doing that. All of a sudden, life seems to be gaining speed at an atrocious speed and I'm starting to get a bit carsick.

The other thing I'm discovering is that I dreamed about a lot of 'things', like a big fancy house or a 10 year old minivan. And I'm finding that letting go of these dreams is pretty easy. They aren't really that important to me anymore and it's easy to toss them out my left ear and keep on sorting.

It's the personal things and accomplishments that I lament over. I find myself mulling over them at length, thinking about when those dreams started and why I haven't fulfilled them. Where life has taken me and the reasons they remain a dream not realized.

I've had to throw out a dream or two. Let's face it. I'm never going to be doctor. Some dreams I've polished up, taken a hammer to, and banged out their dents. Some I've picked up, smiled at and lovingly put back on the shelf, knowing that it's yet not their time but they will one day have their day in the sun.

I've pulled a few out and placed them on my 'to do' list. Given myself a stern talking to and told myself there will be no beer at the end of the day if I don't start working on them. I'm a mom. I know how to motivate a person.

And I'm learning to be grateful for some dreams left unfulfilled. Now that I'm old and wise, I can look back and see that some unfulfilled dreams have led me down new paths that have allowed other dreams to flourish.

So I'm off to make waffles for my brood. Which is pretty fantastic. I just remembered that for years I had a dream of standing in a kitchen in our own home, listening to music as I made brunch for the family. Peace. Sun streaming through the window. Coffee brewing. A simple moment in time that for years I never though would happen.

I think that's what I'll do next. Make a list of dreams fulfilled.

I know it will be a long list.

The Boy

My baby boy turned 14 yesterday.

He's grown from being an easy going baby to an easy going teenager.

He loves jokes, things with buttons and an assortment of sports.

He is loved, although on most days, he'd only admit this under torture.

He is a man of few words, 'grmmmmmm' being his favourite.

He is a great big brother who is always looking out for his little sisters.

He puts up with his big sister.

He has to deal with a whole lot of estrogen on a daily basis. He has a great relationship with his father.

I can't wait to see what he grows up to be........engineer? Architect? Video game developer?

Whatever it is, he'll be great at it. When he likes doing something, he puts his all into it.

Happy Birthday, Buddy!

The Winner

Well, the comments were awesome. I loved all of them except the one from my Mom asking if I was pregnant.

It was a tough choice. I needed a day to think about it. But now that commenter TentativeEquinox is pestering me, I have to concur. K. Arneson wins it with her hilarious comment about her flea free husband.

So, Miss K, drop me a line and let me know if you want the scones or candles.

And a big surprise 2nd place goes to TentativeEquinox. Despite the latest comment where T.E. is acting all big sisterish, she wrote the most comments, so she gets the leftovers. Whatever K.A. doesn't want....you get, T.E.

I'm just that generous.

Coming up, later on....a tribute to my son, who turns 14 today.

I'm just that old.

Happy Birthday, Buddy.

Birthday!

Keeley's officially 2. The cake, the kids, the chaos. It was a great day.

Having our entire extended family over is wonderful. (Although it makes me long for a finished basement and deck.) We have a lot of family. And that makes for a perfect party for Keeley. She's the quintessential 4th child. Loves a crowd. The more the merrier, as long as she's in the middle of it. She was in her glory...balloons, family everywhere, a bowl of cheesies within her reach and a mom too busy to stop her from eating as many as she pleases.

The only problem with the day is that I was so busy doing 'stuff'' it was a bit of a blurr. But I'm a lucky lady. My brother Bill has a camera attached to each hip (I think he takes them off to shower). So my 2 year old's perfect day was completely chronicled with a picture diary courtesy of Bill (and to be fair, my sister Elizabeth stole his camera and took some pics too).

At one point, I was preparing food in the kitchen and looked over to see Bill taking a picture of the birthday cake. I thought, "Geez, that's a good idea." Oddly enough, I think I have 14 pictures of Kaitlyn's 2nd birthday cake that I personally took...but she's a first child. Things were different back then. And I found Bill gave me a funny look when I asked if he was able to take some pics of Keeley blowing out the birthday candles. He didn't say anything but I think he was thinking, "I've been taking documentation of all family events for the past, oh, 6 years. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the importance of taking a picture or two of a two year old spitting on her birthday cake." I could be wrong.

So...all in all, a great day, great pictures with speedy service (Bill uploaded the pics within 4 hours of leaving my house) and no invoice in the mail for photography services rendered.

I love family.

Turning Two

Keeley is my baby.

My baby is turning two on Sunday. In a blink of an eye she's gone from this:

To this:

She loves stickers.

She loves her Daddy.

She loves her Eilidh, Katie and Patrick.

She loves going for walks that have no destination but the discovery of an ant, a rock or a slug.

She loves cuddles and kisses and giving spontaneous leg hugs.

She loves life.

We're so blessed.