A Mom's Hobby

Today at work, I was reminded of what I used to do for a living. A child with autism faced with a broken down elevator that he could not ride, strangers' judgemental stares and comments, a tearful mom trying to explain to me why her son was behaving as he was.

A brief prompted conversation with a little boy who made eye contact with me. Brief. But a connection. A few moments of conversation with a mom whose plate was overflowing with worry and who just needed someone to listen to her for a moment or two.

Driving home, I wanted to call my Mom and tell her about it. I wanted her to tell me I'm doing what I need to for my family, that it's okay, I'm where I'm supposed to be in my life. I needed someone to listen to me for a moment or two.

But of course I couldn't. So I went home and ate a chocolate cupcake and now my gut is the one talking to me and it's telling me it's NOT ok, and actually, I am an idiot. 3 months since my surgery and I'm faced with the grim fact that I am an emotional eater who is about an intestinal foot short of being able to continue to be one.

Anywhoo...I do have conversations in my head with my Mom. Is that weird? Perhaps. But I do try and think about what she would say to me. I've been struggling with it lately, though, and even thinking about the sound of her voice gets harder to pull from the depths of my memory. A friend reminded me online tonight that I knew what she would say. But tonight I just couldn't hear her.

I took The Monkey out on an evening walk tonight. I thought it might help clear my head. But so many thoughts kept spinning in my head...the decisions I've made, the paths I've chosen and everything I've been through in the past while. Am I where I should be? Doing what I should be doing? That little guy at work...God, have I made the right choices?

I just want some ANSWERS, dagnabit.

And then tonight I randomly chose a book from the bookshelf to read for The Monkey's bedtime story. 'The Berenstain Bears Mama's New Job'. I opened the book and there was The Eldest's name written on the inside cover, in sweet 5 year old writing. So many years ago I used to read her bedtime stories and now she's 19 and growing her adult wings. So many years I've been at this parenting gig.

I started reading to The Monkey. In the book they discuss the Bear Family's hobbies. I turned to The Monkey and asked her what her favourite hobby was, as well as the rest of the people in our family. Her responses were cute and predictable...her favourite hobby was colouring and doing crafts, The Princess' was reading, The Eldest's was going out with her boyfriend, The Boy's was staying in his room and playing on his computer, and The Husband's was sleeping.

Then I asked her what she thought my favourite hobby was. She looked at me and smiled.

"Loving me."

Yes, my Keeley. Loving you and my family is my best hobby. The bestest hobby in the world.

Thanks Mom. It was so great to hear you tonight.

Reboot

It's been a rough stretch in The Mahoney family.

The loss of The Husband's Dad.

The Husband's job.

My Mom.

Every door that opened seemed to bring fresh tears, new frustrations, more worry and endless sadness.

And every new hurt brought us further and further down a dark and unknown road with no light at the end. And we don't own a GPS. I can't tell you how many times I've sat down and started to write in this little blog of mine. There were so many things I wanted to say. So many things I wanted to write about. But the hurt was too much and I couldn't get it out. My mom kept telling me to get back at it and write, but what I needed to write about I couldn't let her read.

Despair. Pain. Disbelief. Anger. A lot of swear words.

She wouldn't have approved.

And now she's gone. I stood beside my mom and told her to go. I told my mom it was ok to go, we would all be ok. My heart was screaming don't go, please...I haven't told you I love you enough, you have to see my kids grow up, I still need to talk to you everyday on the phone, don't leave us. I don't want you to go, I don't want you to go.

But I told her it was ok to go. She looked at me, nodded her head and left us. 2 1/2 years battling breast cancer like a warrior, staying with us days longer than medically made any sense.

And I couldn't find it in me to write.

Seriously pathetic.

So I'm giving myself a reboot. Rebooting my blog. Calling a mulligan. A do over. New opportunities for The Husband and our family are on the near horizon and it's going to be all sunshine and double rainbows around this joint. Double fricking rainbows.

Or quite possibly some aurora borealis. And I've always wanted to see me some of that.

I'm back, baby. I'm back.

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.

I Am Not a Vet

Today was a big day in the Mahoney household.

It was time to Bob Barker Charlie the Cat.

"You're going to what?! To my WHAT?!"

I dropped him off at the local vet for his little surgery and the lovely lady behind the desk asked me to fill out some forms. As I was filling them out, we chatted back and forth about what vaccinations he was having done and she wrote some stuff down on her clipboard.

Then she said, "Are both of Charlie's testicles descended?"

To which I responded, "It took me 2 months to figure out what sex he was. I have no idea if he has an undescended testicle."

I mean seriously. Have you seen the size of a 5 1/2 month old cat's nether regions? I'll be perfectly honest with you...I've been sweating taking him to the vet all week because I was worried I was going to be told Charlie was a girl and I was an idiot and quite possibly a moron and I had absolutely no business owning a pet. Plus, the surgery would have been more money and you all know how I feel about that.

So, no. I didn't know if both of Charlie's testicles had descended.

Then I got to drive home having a conversation with an 8 year old girl about undescended testicles and vets hacking off a cat's scrotum and why exactly the vet had to do that. I was very glad I was able to avoid eye contact throughout that whole conversation.

But the day ended well. I mean, it ended well for me. At this particular moment, Charlie is looking at me like he's pretty sure I just ruined his life, but for me the day went well. Two descended testicles it was and that meant a simple surgery and easy recovery for Charlie. And no additional costs for doing whatever a vet has to do to cut off an undescended testicle. And that makes for an easier recovery for me.

So there it is. I don't blog for 6 weeks and when I finally do, I use the word 'testicle' 7 times.

Yep. Things may be back to normal around here.

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.

Do You Think This is Off?

Ya know what I wish? I mean, besides for winning a few million bucks and having someone at my ever beck and call to rub my shoulders? Oh, and that the letter 'a' on this computer would work on the first try?

I wish refrigerators had a self clean button. I just found turkey meat and cranberry sauce in my fridge.

It's January 25th, people.

Hmm. Let's do the math, shall we?

I would like to clarify that I actually cooked that turkey sometime shortly after the New Year. So, we're talking 3 weeks of decay, not four. That doesn't sound nearly as horrific.

So back to my fridge problem. I did some soul searching today and came to a conclusion. Several, actually. None of which makes me come out looking like Suzy Homemaker.

Conclusion #1: I clean out my fridge when I've run out of food storage containers.

Conclusion #2: I have some vague memory of making a pact with the devil to clean out the fridge every Monday, since garbage day was on Tuesday and I had just finished working and was home full time will all this spare time, just a newborn and 3 other kids to take care of and was clearly suffering from post partum insanity. But then our garbage day was changed and even though it's been roughly two years since it was switched, I still find myself being woken up at 6:58 am every Friday morning to the rumble of the garbage truck which causes me to start yelling at The Boy to get up and get the garbage to the curb. From this you may be able to deduce that I never clean out my fridge on Thursdays. So, conclusion #2 is that my fridge would be clean if not for the garbage company's schedule change. See? It's not my fault.

Conclusion #3: I never make soup from all those leftovers I pack up over a week's time that I tell myself would be perfect for making soup and therefore stretch our food budget. Seriously, people. I've been married for 20 years and I don't make soup out of the leftovers. Unless it's turkey. Then I carefully boil the entire carcass and spend 2 hours picking off every bit of meat, making a lovely pot of soup out of it and then let two pounds of turkey breast rot in the back of my fridge because turkey breast would be wasted in the soup and should be saved for making The Husband sandwiches or something.

So, apart from turkey dinners, 20 years and I'm still packing up the leftovers and telling myself they'll be good for soup and letting turkey breast lay forgotten in my fridge. This needs to stop. I'm thinking I should be putting those leftovers into the freezer, giving myself at least 6 months or so until I have to throw them out due to frostbite. I think that will be a better system.

Conclusion #4: If I had a stainless steel fridge, I'd love it more and take care of its insides better than I take care of my white fridge. But then it wouldn't match my stove and dishwasher. And they all need to match. It's one of my life rules. Plus, if I had $3,000 bucks to waste on metallic appliances I certainly wouldn't be pouring water into my van's cooling system every other day. Sigh. Ok. Forget #4.

Conclusion #5: I hate cleaning out the fridge and will use any excuse to justify why I haven't done it. There. I said it. Yet another reason I won't be receiving a Home Maker of the Year award. Put it up there with my love for cleaning under my couches.

So....hours of thought and an hour of blogging to come to the realization that I'm pretty much willing to do a lot of stupid time wasting things to avoid ten minutes of work. And make you waste 5 minutes of your time reading about it.

Especially when you only came here to see if there was a picture of the new kitten.

Well here you go. I'm pretty sure it's Charlie.

Eye of the Storm

God never gives you more than you can handle.

Right?

I found myself praying for strength tonight. Strength to help a 7 year old who was crying in her bed. She was crying because tomorrow wasn't going to be right since her Popeye wasn't going to be at her cousin's baptism.

"I just want him to come back and I know he can't. I don't like it. I just don't like this! I want it to be like it was before. And I won't ever see him again for like, 50 years at least because I won't see him until I go to heaven....and I don't want to go to heaven yet but I want to see him."

Sometimes you just have to let your children hurt. You can't fix it. You can't put a bandaid on it and make it better. And that, my friends, is a horrible horrible feeling.

The Princess episode tonight was just one of many reasons I found myself asking God for strength tonight.

The Eldest is having some major problems with her car.

The laptop is having troubles charging and every single time I type the letter 'a' I have to go back and retype it because the computer keeps putting in a space instead.

The engine light is back on in our car.

The government 'lost' The Eldest's student loan forms.

I've done something to my back and my joints are killing me today.

And we're out of lightbulbs. I'm pretty sure it is not normal to start crying when you discover there are no more light bulbs in the house.

Grieving and all that comes along with it has set everyone in the family on edge. Everyone in our family is raw. And when you pour salt into those wounds, salt being a broken car, bills to pay or a 3 year old that keeps screaming at everyone and everything and then finking that everyone is being rude to her...well....it leads a person to be crying over burned out light bulbs.

And so I pray for strength. Just get through one more day. Just let me know what to say to a grieving 7 year old and a grieving 42 year old. What to tell an 18 year old who has had more crap thrown at her in the last two weeks than an 18 year old should have to deal with in a year.

And then realize that I haven't prayed for answers on dealing with a grieving 15 year old boy who holes himself up in his room shooting at things on his Xbox. So I pray for help...not to let him get lost in all of this.

It's 10:15 pm and I have no idea what the 6 people in this family are wearing to the baptism in the morning. I'm feeling rather numb after this day and I just want to sit with this tiny kitten sleeping under my chin right now. This furry little thing is purring and giving out the odd "mmmrrttt" when it stretches and then pulls itself further up under my chin. The Dog is snoring behind me, guarding the door and giving off the odd fart.

Life goes on. So many people are going through 100x worse than our family. I pray for perspective in all of this. And I'm just going to sit here for a bit and enjoy the company of a kitten curled up on my chest, breathing on my neck and every once in a while licking my chin with its rough little tongue.

Recharge my spirit with the fluff of a kitten.

I should be writing for Hallmark. Gah.

A New Kitten

Meet Sophie.

Or Charlie. We're not quite sure yet.

He or she is a little ball of fluff that has made this little girl smile again.



The Princess has been working on cat ownership for about two years now. We've put it off. We got our dog, Bryn, and the house was busy enough with that. We bought The Princess a fish. But you can't cuddle a fish. We bought The Princess a hamster. Sadly, we found Butterscotch had died on the same day The Husband's dad so unexpectedly passed away.

It was a very bad week indeed.

We promised The Princess a new hamster. But when we went to the pet store, there was a sign on the door.

"We have kittens."

Dear god. No. I looked at The Husband. He looked at me.

We knew we were hooped.

Of course, The Princess hardly glanced at the hamsters. All she wanted to do was play with the kittens through the cage door. The Husband and I have been married for a long time. 20 years. A look between us was all we needed to come to a decision.

It was time.

We left the pet store without a hamster. Instead, The Princess walked out with the promise that we would start looking for the perfect kitten for our family.

We had the past few days to talk about the responsibilities. We researched our options and priced things out. Free kittens are never free (vet fees, shots and spay/neutering costs had to be figured in), and pet store kittens weren't what we wanted to support. There were black kittens at the shelter, but The Princess wanted a kitten with tabby markings.

Today we found Sophie/Charlie, one of four little kittens just ready to leave their mom for their forever home. And I found myself looking at anatomical drawings of cats hinies online, trying to figure out if it's a boy or girl.

Obviously biology wasn't my strongest subject in school. I'm still calling the kitten "It".

The Princess said, "Thank you, Mommy!" about 8,000 times this afternoon and evening. I've filed those thank yous into a corner of my brain so I can draw strength from them when the kitten is clawing up my furniture and The Princess has 'forgotten' to clean the litter box.

But tonight, I'm enjoying the feeling of an 8 week old kitten cuddled on my lap, who occasionally wakes up enough to lick my hand with her...or his rough little tongue.

So sweet.

Life Goes On

It's been a very rough week.

Grieving is hard work. It's exhausting. Mentally exhausting. Physically exhausting.

Lack of sleep starts to play with your mind and you find yourself incapable of performing the most mundane tasks.

Like supervising your 3 year old.

Case in point.

That would be The Monkey's dinner.

The wise man is a nice touch.

Snow Stars

I put away Christmas today.

You knows it's time when your 3 year old tells you the tree is melting.

I packed up all the decorations. Boxed up the glitter and the ribbon and the wrappings. Put away the pictures of sweet children sitting on Santa's knee. I wrapped up the Christmas tree angel that has topped our tree since our first year of marriage and I nestled her back in her box.

After taking down the angel, I took a long look at the sorry sight of a tree. Pine needles all over the floor. Broken branched here and there. Decorations all askew. But my snow stars still graced the branches with delicacy and love.

The first Christmas after The Husband and I were married, one of my oldest friend's mom, Mrs. S gave me a wonderful gift. Snow stars. She made them herself, every one a unique design. I loved them.

For a number of years, the snow stars graced our Christmas tree. I always had comments about how pretty they were. Aside from our angel tree topper, they were my favourite part of our yearly tree. But one fateful year, there was a flood in our crawl space and we lost most of the snow stars to water damage. Then the following year, our few remaining stars ended up as mouse food when a family of rodents moved into our back shed.

No more snow stars to grace our tree. I was still grateful our angel had survived two bouts of Christmas carnage but, oh how I missed those stars.

Fast forward to March 2003. My sweet mom handed me this.



And inside?



She had asked Mrs. S. if she would make me some more snow stars for my birthday. Mrs. S went to town and made me an entirely new and wonderful collection of snow stars. All of them different. All different sizes. All different designs. All wonderfully delicate and sparkly.

Mrs. S refused to let my mom pay for any of them. That's just the kind of person she is. Wonderful. And talented. She included a note in the box to remind me how they're best put on the tree....small on top, medium in the middle and the large ones down below.



Every year when I pull out the old Eaton's box, I have to smile. Every year when I have the sad task of taking down the Christmas tree, I make sure to find that old Eaton's box and carefully tuck the snow stars away amongst the tissue. I look at the card that's tucked inside the box, reminding me to take the hooks off so the stars won't rust. And I say a prayer of thanks for a lovely lady who's work graces my tree every year.

I love the simple things of Christmas. Sitting around and watching The Griswold Christmas Vacation. A sip or three of Bailey's. Taking pictures of what happens when The Eldest and The Princess are left alone while making whipped shortbread.





I love gingerbread houses.





And I love putting baby Jesus in our nativity scene when we get home from Christmas Eve mass. (Which we forgot to do this year and in my defence, The Princess had a fever and had been throwing up and let me tell you I almost threw up myself when I realized that baby Jesus was still hiding behind the poinsettia plant Christmas night.)



And I like my snow stars.


Thanks again, Mrs. S.

Two Pennies

It took two pennies to get me back to blogging.

We went The Princess' theatre class Christmas performance this evening. Yes, it was wonderful. Yes, she was adorable. Yes, I cried when they sang Silent Night.

But I'm not here to blog about that.

On our way home, The Princess said in her small little princess voice that she was so terribly hungry and exactly how long would it be before we got home so she could have just a small bowl of cereal. The kid is brilliant. Perfectly timed to coincide with the appearance of the Golden Arches.

So The Husband turned the corner and entered the drive thru. He ordered his Princess some chicken nuggets and proceeded to the window to pay.

"$3.98 please," said the girl behind the window.

The Husband handed the employee four bucks.

"Do you want your change?" she asked.

The Husband said no, she could keep the two pennies and drove to the next window to pick up the nuggets. Then he rolled his eyes at me going on about the two dang pennies.

Excuse me....but since when is it okay for a clerk to ask if I want my change back?? Where does this stop? Is it okay to ask if I want 3 pennies back? What about a nickel?

Will they move onto a dime? Will we be doing away with the dispensing of change in the near future? What if I wanted those two pennies? I'd be tempted to tell the chick, "Why, yes, I DO want my change. All of it. Give me my two pennies!" Just so I could see her face. And make a point.

I mean, really.

Then my dear Husband just looked and me and said, "What? Are you Seinfeld now?"

That's it. Poke the crazy lady who's told you she just may possibly be nursing a bit of PMS and is carrying around a to do list that is three pages long one short week away from Christmas and was just coughed on repeatedly by a lady sitting behind her at the concert who was apparently missing both hands and elbows and had to resort to coughing on his loving wife's head for an hour.

Two pennies.

I could have used those two pennies to shove up someone's nose, that's what.

The Boy and Halloween

We made The Boy accompany the family to the local pumpkin patch.



He was thrilled.

So thrilled, he wanted me to take the sibling picture again. Just to make sure I captured the perfect moment in time.




Picking the right pumpkin was remarkably easy. He found the perfect pumpkin almost immediately. It was so perfect that he wanted to leave right away.



See? Perfect pumpkin. He was so eager to show it to me that he covered up his face accidentally.



The Boy. 15 and not too cool to hang out with the family in public.

I'm so blessed.

Diary of a Germ Battling Mother

Friday
The Princess complained of a headache when I put her bed. Hope she's not coming down with something.

Saturday
Started the day at 2 am with The Princess coughing on my face. And crying. The heat radiating off of her body reminded me of my days driving around in the old Eggplant.

Coffee was my friend today.

Sunday
The Princess took her temperature every 8 minutes today. Then started crying that she was going to miss Halloween for sure. Every 8 minutes. I assured her that Halloween was still 2 weeks away. Every 8 stinking minutes.

Note: Rum does not taste good in coffee.

Monday
Phoned the doctor at 9 am. Receptionist laughed at me when I ask if there were any available appointments. Headed to the walk in clinic. Waited for an hour and a half in a room with no toys or books due to H1N1 flu scare. The Princess had to wear a face mask and was sure she was dying. The Monkey was sure she could climb the walls. Got up 3 feet. Not bad.

The Monkey felt warm when I put her to bed. I sense some deja vu in my future.

Tuesday
Started the day at 2 am with The Monkey coughing on my face. Thank goodness for Lysol.

Baked Halloween cookies with two sick children. That was fun. As Mom would say, "I'm sure that earned some time off purgatory." Three days at least.

Ate two germ laden cookies. Drank rum to kill the germs.

Wednesday
I spent the morning circling the parking lot of clinic in a vain attempt of a parking space miraculously appearing. Lack of sleep forced me to call The Husband at work to make the decision for me to return home and try again later.

Wanted a Timmy's double double but couldn't decide whether it was worth spending the $1.53. Husband wouldn't answer his phone.

I need sleep.

I comforted The Monkey while she cried inconsolably tonight. "It Hurts. Hurts!" she cried every time she tried to take a breath and started barking like a seal. Started crying myself, wishing I could take away her pain. I wonder how mothers caring for chronically ill children do it day in and day out...see their child in pain and feel so helpless. I could hardly keep it together for 10 minutes with my child in pain. Must remember to say a prayer for all those mothers . God give them strength.

Husband got home late from work. Wanted to scream but then he showed up with beer.

I love him.

Thursday
Kids seem to be on the mend. Not sure what's worse; sick kids sweating all over me for 18 hours straight or entertaining almost better children who have had no human contact but with me for five days. I took a match to Candyland last night after they went to bed. I have no guilt over this.

Managed to hammer my hand while creating a graveyard in our front yard today. My hand looks like it belongs to the dead witch on our front lawn. But....when The Princess looked at our masterpiece, she told me it was going to be the best Halloween ever. My hand will heal.

The Eldest says she has a headache. I wonder if almost 18 year olds still wake up their mothers at 2 am to tell them they're sick.

Note: Buy lottery ticket tomorrow. Need vacation.

Puzzled

Woe to the mother who takes the time to shave her legs in the shower while simultaneously owning 40 (give or take) puzzles all meticulously kept in individualized ziplock baggies.

Mistake #2? Leaving the 15 year old in charge.

The vast majority of our baggie contained puzzle collection ranges from 12 piece to 50 pieces. All of our children have loved puzzles throughout their toddler and preschool years. I also used them when I worked with children with autism. Since I had to travel to children's homes and schools for their therapy, I always carried a box/bag of stuff to use. Puzzles in those flimsy cardboard boxes don't travel well, so I kept all our puzzles in baggies. I labeled each bag with the puzzle name, how many pieces, and a picture of the actual puzzle cut out from the side of the original box.

Nowadays, all those ziplocked puzzles are contained in several plastic bins that sit in our craft and activity cupboard. Having puzzles in baggies is a space saver too. The only problem lies in having The Monkey live in our house.

I suppose I should be grateful that she only took out one of the containers filled with puzzles. We only have about 15 puzzles worth of pieces to sort through.

I asked her what she was doing as she stood at the living room table, mixing all those puzzle pieces together with both hands.

"It's food. Here. Have one."

Imagination is a good thing. Right?

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.

New Tap Shoes

The Monkey loves to walk the aisles of the Salvation Army as much as I do.

Check out what she found a few weeks ago.

There was no way she was leaving the store without those shoes.

$4.99. I bought my child's happiness that day.

She didn't realize that they were tap shoes. She kept calling them her dance shoes. We got home and she got ready to dance. Fortunately for me, I videotaped her first moments in the shoes (again....with my crappy cell phone. Husband. I'm begging you. A new camera for Christmas. Pretty please!). She discovered that they made some pretty awesome noise.

Dancing makes her happy.

She wants to be just like her big sister, who of course promptly started teaching her dance steps. And that makes The Princess happy. Being bossy.

Some days I just love being a mom.

Spot Cleaning

As I was wiping down the kitchen counters this afternoon, I looked up across the island and saw two perfect hand prints on the wall.

Definitely Monkey hand prints.

I rinsed the cloth I was using and walked over to the wall. I wiped off those Monkey marks and walked back to the sink.

I turned around. The Monkey was finger painting in the wet spot on the wall.

The Husband and I just looked at each other and shook our heads.

We stood and watched The Monkey draw with her fingers in that wet spot on the wall. Then she made two distinct hand prints on the wall.

She smiled. Then walked out of the room.

I left the Monkey prints on the wall.

I Have A Problem

I am flummoxed.

I have this feeling about a variety of things in my life.

Money.

Politics.

Why I shop at Stupidstore.

But this latest flummoxation (yes, I'm using that word even though dictionary.com just laughed at me) is sending me over the deep end because it has to do with children. My children. I usually have some sort of an educated answer for child related issues, but I'm finding myself in the middle of a quagmire here.

The Princess has found some new friends. This friendship started last year but for whatever reason, it quickly blew off. I'll be honest. I was relieved. It's not a good friendship for her for a variety of reasons and it was a friendship I did not encourage.

The beginning of this summer changed all that. The doorbell started ringing, and despite my gut feelings, I allowed The Princess to play outside with this sister and brother. Supervised. I sometimes make up excuses as to why The Princess can't play but the doorbell ringing is constant. If we walk past their house, they run out and ask if The Princess can play. When we drive up and are getting out of the minivan, they're calling out from their window asking if The Princess can play. They've discovered each other at school and I'm getting reports that they are playing together at recess and lunch. Plus, The Princess doesn't want me outside supervising her all the time. She's 7 and a half. She wants some independence and I can't blame her for that. But it means I'm not out there supervising all the time.

But, I spent a good portion of my summer and this month of September sitting outside watching children. And telling children who weren't mine to please stop walking all over the neighbour's garden. Please go get the The Monkey's soccer ball that you just kicked down the road. I don't think the neighbour wants you kicking the ball repeatedly against their house. Please put on a helmet if you're going to take our scooters and ride them. Sorry, I can't supervise your friend's little sister as well. You're going to break The Monkey's trike if you keep doing that. Please don't do this, please do that instead.

And I'm the one that's called when the friend has fallen and scraped her knee.

I never see their parents.

There's more I could say about their family life, but what does it really matter?

Except it does. The Husband and I have been going back and forth about what to do with this situation. We don't want her playing with these two children, but at the same time wonder about our obligation to possibly be a positive influence with these kids. It's not like we think we're saints or anything, but these children need some help.

I find myself feeling like an idiot for being all uppity and looking down my nose at another family. I'm pretty sure there are many families on our block that look down their noses at me and my backyard and my old minivan parked outside. And I've worked with children who have had such a hard time making and keeping friendships....who am I to turn and say these neighbours can't play with my children?

But what about The Princess? In the middle of writing this, she's come into the house sobbing because of how the girl has treated her. I took her back outside to help solve the problem but all that was left was paint all over my walkway, paintings, toys strewn all over the lawn. And none of it was The Princess'.

We cleaned up the mess and brought all the toys and paints back to the neighbour's house. The Princess is confused and I don't know what to tell her except it's time to have a break from playing with her new friends.

Help. Am I being a paranoid self centred parent?

How have you balanced your own child's needs with the needs of another?

What would you do? What have you done?

I'd love to hear from all you other moms and dads out there.

You Want To Be What??

This past weekend, The Husband suggested we take the girls to Canadian Tire.

Despite me shouting, "No. That sounds like a crappy idea are you INSANE you can't make me go," I found myself walking down the aisles of automotive parts and Debbie Travis home decor. It's not that I dislike the store. It's super awesome and all. It's just that The Princess was on a tangent about Halloween costume decision making. It's hard to find the right plastic bolts for a car door panel when you're being forced to converse about the need to buy blood red lipstick and agree 18,542 times that her costume will be the awesomest.

The Princess was going to be a spider. I was thrilled with that. If I'm going to have to make a costume, then that would be doable. I've made a number of costumes in this sojourn of motherhood....cat, ghost, bear, mummy....they were all great. Well. Not the mummy. That one sucked big time and The Boy ended up trailing it all over a four block radius. But the other costumes were good. Made without the aide of a pattern or directions. Just a trip to assorted Salvation Armies and stuff from the house. My mother trained me well.

But something about Canadian Tire made The Princess feel that a spider costume was not 'it'. She wasn't feeling it.

All of a sudden my 7 year old said, "What about a corpse bride? That would be so awesome!"

"A what?"

"A corpse bride! Jaclyn was a corpse bride last year and she looked so awesome. Her costume was the best. It was so awesome."

"You want to be a corpse bride??"

"Yes! Oh Mom. It will be awesome. Oh my gosh. It will be so awesome!" *squeal!*

All the while that she was blabbering on and on and on and on about it, all I could think of was, "Will I lose my mothering licence if I let my 7 year old dress up like a dead woman on the day of her nuptials? What will my mother say? What will her grandparents think of me?"

I was also thinking, "How can she talk so fast and exactly how many times is she going to say awesome?"

15 minutes of walking through the store, listening to The Princess go on about all the different things we need to do for her costume, she stopped in her tracks.

"Mom?"

"Ya?"

"What's a corpse bride?"

Aw. My 7 year old isn't as old as I feared. She may think she's too old to dress up in fairy wings and carry a magic wand, but she's still pretty innocent.

I explained what a corpse bride was.

She's thinking about it.

A Slumber Party

I've been to a number of slumber parties in my day.

I was usually 12 and they involved crying over the guy in Grease II and not watching Children of the Corn. I seem to recall some games of truth or dare which always ended up with someone asking someone else if they'd gotten what comes at the end of a sentence yet.

Ah, the cusp of puberty. Good times.

The slumber parties in my teens were usually to celebrate someone's birthday. The talk changed from who was already wearing a bra to who we were madly in love with. (A lovely shout out to my dear friends who never riled me about my love for Ralph Macchio.)

And then we graduated school. No more slumber parties and no more pining for dear ol' Ralph. We all grew up. Moved on. Got jobs. Got married. Had kids.

I moved on to supervising a whole lot of slumber parties with not a lot of slumbering, let me tell you.

Today that all changed. The Princess, The Monkey and I had a slumber party tonight. The living room is proof. A double mattress lies across the floor, smushed between the fireplace and coffee table. Junk food litters assorted tables. Bits of popcorn are on the floor. Two little girls are finally slumbering, with stuffies tucked up under their chins. Hannah Montana has mercifully finished singing the blues and there is very little dill pickle dip left.

The Princess and The Monkey sure like that stuff.

And me? I am putting off slumbering. My bed is calling out to me, but that kind of breaks the spirit of a slumber party. My aching joints are taunting me and trying to convince me that if I just set my alarm for 5 am, I could slink downstairs and park myself on the couch with the girls being none the wiser.

But I'll tough it out. I'm brave like that.

Tune in tomorrow when there will be much whining and gnashing of teeth due to lack of sleep and junk food detoxing. Plus I have a feeling I'll have a tip or two on pumping up a deflating air mattress in the dark at 3am.

'Tis the stuff that summer memories are made of.