Wild Horses

This week I've been parenting solo while Chris has been on a road trip.  Thankfully he's coming back tonight.

Two things have become very clear to me about how my life would be different as a single parent*:

1) I would eat cereal for dinner almost every night. 
2) Jack would never wear shoes, like ever, further supporting his caveman penchant for smashing stuff while squealing wildly.

A very sick Bam Bam this past Halloween.

My first morning solo I managed to get the kids fed and dressed and then brought them downstairs to get their coats and shoes on with plenty of time to spare.

I was briefly distracted by Jack's immediate need for more milk and made the mistake of leaving the minions unattended while I was in the kitchen.  When I returned Jack's shoes were missing.  I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find them.  So I tried to put him in one of his other two pairs of running shoes, but failed.  He curled up his toes, bucked wildly, screamed and acted like I was brandishing a hammer and nails for horseshoes.

Finally, after I'd almost given up, Molly toddled over to me and said, "Jack, Sha, Cha".  For the next 10 minutes I ran around the house playing Hot & Cold with Molly (also known as Lassie for toddlers) until I finally found Jack`s shoes hidden under a chair in our living room. 

I managed to get him into shoes, although he pulled them off in the car on the way to daycare and smashed them against his car seat.

It's been an exhausting week, so Barney please hurry home, Bam Bam misses you dearly...and Pebbles has started calling the cat Dada.

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*Beyond being hella hard.  Props to all the single parents.

High and Dry

Last month we discovered that Molly possessed some mad magic skills.  In fact she's a regular Harold Houdini or Hermione Granger.*  Molly has managed to contort herself out of her high chair on a regular basis, no matter how we secure her.  She'll then stand up and giggle.  When you ask her to sit down, she'll gleefully sing at you, "Sit down, sit down." 
The first time it was cute, now it's just annoying, as Chris and I await the next phase of operation highchair escape when she tries to jump down.

Miss Molly in her highchair, before her time at Hogwarts.

Chris and I debated between our choices, fashioning additional security measures - likely some sort of shoulder harness to keep her in the seated position or moving on.  Since it would only be a matter of time before she was able to delve deeper into the art of escapology and the minions eat at a miniature table and chair at daycare five days a week, we bit the bullet and purchased a table and chair set from IKEA. 

 Helping dad put together the table...

Awaiting their meal.

For the most part it has gone well....however....

1. I now fully understand the expression herding cats.  Meal time is a constant struggle of trying to convince Molly and Jack WHY they should sit at their table.**
2. Stolen food is better food, whether it's Jack stealing food off his sister's plate or either child toddling over to Chris and I to beg for food from our plates - even though we are eating the exact same meal as the children.  Dinner each night has become that scene from Lady in The Tramp when the dogs are eating scraps at the Italian restaurant.***
3. Instead of mess being contained to the walls and floor right around the highchairs the children now have the option of take out - take out the food and smear it EVERYWHERE: into each other's hair, on the fridge, or my personal favourite walking over to mom and dad to offer them a half chewed carrot to show how good they are at sharing.

Jack eating the rest of his sister's bananas.

As soon as it gets warm enough outside I'm going to feed the minions on a tarp and then clean them off with the garden hose.  No allen key necessary.


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*The fact that the only famous female magician I can name is fictional gives me a great deal of proof towards women today and their stellar career choices that steer them away from idiots like David Blaine.
**The correct answer is chocolate pudding.
***Only less Disney more dog fight.

Let it Out

Many years ago, in a far away land, in a long since failed relationship, a young university graduate Sarabeth went on a month long journey to Greece with her then boyfriend.  Despite this being the worst relationship of my life*, we actually got along fairly well on this trip.  I blame this on a pseudo-Stockholm Syndrome caused by the fact that I didn't speak more than about 10 words of Greek and was desperately dependent on him in order to survive.

On our last day in Athens we slid the keys to the apartment we were staying at under the door and headed to the airport.  After an hour in line we were informed that we had been bumped from our flight and would have to take another flight home, late the next night.  I was upset, and a bit panicked that we had very little money left and no place to stay for the night, but tried to stay calm and positive.  We had credit cards for an emergency or could wait at the airport.  It would be okay. While we waited on standby I called my parents to prepare them for the fact that I would likely not be making it home for close to another 48 hours.

The instant my father picked up the phone I burst into tears.  I couldn't help myself.  It just happened naturally.  In the end, we managed to make it on to our original flight.** 

Miss Molly, In her mom's shoes.

It seems I experience something very similar to my telephone break down any time one of the minions fall ill.  On Friday night Chris and I were sitting down to watch some television.  For about twenty minutes the baby monitor went crazy.  Molly has been recovering from a nasty cough, one that sometimes triggers her gag reflex.  Much to Chris's chagrin, I didn't wait until the commercial break to go and see if Molly was okay, I rushed upstairs to her side, where she immediately puked all over me and the bathroom floor.  It was as if she was waiting for me to get there to puke.  Chris is convinced that I am a trigger to the children throwing up, a figurative gag reflex.

At first I laughed, because that's ridiculous.  Then I thought about it, and the number of times that I have been puked on over the past 19 months.  It's insane.  If I had a quarter for every time I've been puked on by one of my children I'd probably have enough money to buy a decent bottle of wine.***

I think that a lot of this ties into comfort with your parent, because you know they are there - you can let it out.  Why are children better behaved for a sitter or the grandparents than they are for their own parents?  My mom calls this anomaly The Hansel and Gretel effect.  I like to think that it's comfort rather than the threat of being eaten by a cannibalistic witch.  Chris rarely gets puked on....and he comforts them all the time, maybe it's a mama thing or maybe I'm just lucky.

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*A relationship akin to Kay and Michael Corleone.
**Apparently he made Olympic Air an offer that they couldn't refuse.
***Decent bottle is subjective I suppose.

Liebster Award

Happy Friday Everyone!  My lovely fellow twin mama, Sarah N. at Cure for Boredom has just selected me for the honour of being a recipient of a Liebster Award.  Thank you Sarah.

The Liebster award is one that is given to newer blogs or those with less than 200(ish) followers. I'm to answer 5 questions and pass it along.  Awards like the Liebster introduce people to some great lesser known blogs.  Hopefully I introduce some of my readers onto a great new blog you've never come across or you learn something new about me. 

My Liebster Award Recipients (check them out - they are great!)
Life In Pint Sized
F Yeah Ugly 90's Clothes
Music on Vinyl
Yes, I'm Going to Marry A Carrot - Back on Blogging after 6 month hiatus
The Momplex



5 Questions to Answer:

1- If your kid developed a massive unibrow, when would you start plucking it?

Immediately - don't get me started on what I'd do with blackheads.

2- What is your favourite geographic location?

My home, Toronto, followed by New York.

3- What book do you recommend most to others?

This is a tough one.  Either a childhood fav: The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton A teen fav: Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut Or Adult fav: Lamb by Christopher Moore.

4- What's the latest life lesson you've learned?
Sometimes Spray and Wash and Oxyclean won't do the job....just throw it out and move on.

5- What would you make me for dinner if I came over? (And then feel free to invite me!)
If it was warm outside I'd fire up the BBQ for steak or burgers, or kabobs if it was winter I'd make you my spinach and cheese lasagna.


5 Questions to ask of those I've nominated:

1. If you could only listen to 5 albums for the rest of your life, what would they be?
2. Who is your (guilty) celebrity crush?
3. What is your favourite blog posting you've ever posted?
4. What is the weirdest search term that has led someone to your blog?
5. Who is your favourite writer?

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Downtown Train

It happens at least once a week, usually more.  I'm on the subway, it's rush hour and it's crowded.  There are many people standing and seats are like a four leaf clover.*  Then there's that person.  The woman who thinks that her purse needs a seat beside her or that guy who thinks that his lunch is really tired and should take a load off, not on his lap but on the neighbouring seat.

I often lament that if I were dating someone and I were to find out that they were prone to this type of behaviour, that it would be a deal breaker and I would have to break up with them.  It's just the tip of the iceberg in a tendency towards self-centredness and selfish behaviour. 

My favourite incident happened when I was nearly eight months pregnant with the minions.  A woman had her backpack on the chair beside her while she ignored me, a pregnant woman who was standing, huffing and puffing through a hot June commute into work directly above her.**  Absurdly, she was reading a book on fertility.

As we work towards teaching the minions about manners and why it's not okay to hit mom when she takes the remote control away from you, (JACK) I am going to say right now that if I ever see either of my children engage in any of the above mentioned transit faux pas I am going to bring them a world of hurt beyond their wildest imaginations.

Baby Jack navigates the roads of his play mat.

Last week a friend sent me an article on the dangers of driving while pregnant.  Interesting article, although it pains me to see another choice a mother makes being brought to question.  It's hard enough being pregnant and having everything you do questioned, why not add in driving to make sure the infected mother is trapped at home while she waits for her parasite to descend upon the world?  This is why we have toddlers in helmets and rubber playground floors.  Accidents happen, make your own choices.  Thoughts on this article? 

That being said, we should all probably drive less - pregnant or not.  If you're pregnant and in a car and can, sit in the back seat sometimes, learn how to properly and safely secure your seat belt.  Enough said?

To everyone else.  You pay one fare on transit, so take up one seat.  Stop pretending to be asleep and offer up your seat to that expectant mom, guy with a cane or someone else, just because. 

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*I think I must still be in a Guiness induced St. Paddy's state of mind.
**My rage over seat suckers encompasses Big Bad Wolf magnitudes, I assure you.

Hello?

Whenever I refer to my children as my minions it's because I was secretly hoping that they'd be a lot more helpful than they actually are by now.  Like any super villain I am unsatisfied with the slave labour they provide.  Let's face it Skelator was never satisfied with Beast Man's job performance, and all I wanted was for them to fetch me things: bring me slippers, wine, do my bidding..usual super villain progeny stuff and they've failed miserably.  The most we've managed is that Molly will fetch her own shoes so you can put them on her or, but she's generally retrieving them after she hurled them across the room and yelled, "Uh-Oh." as if it was some sort of accident.  Sometimes, if they are feeling generous they'll hand their sibling some milk or raisins, but that's been the upper limit...until now.

First off, this no call list thing is garbage.  I still get so many telemarketing calls and most calls come in half way through nap time or about 30 minutes after we've gotten Molly and Jack to sleep for the night, serving no purpose but to annoy us and provide us with angry screaming babies.  When I was a kid a friend of my mother's boasted about how she used to keep a whistle by the phone to blow into the ears of the telemarketer.*

Jack and his Thomas the Train cell phone....that is constantly stuck on number 8

When I was a teenager, a friend of mine secured a job as a telemarketer for a local dance studio.  She was offering one free dance lesson and I guess after they got them in for their lesson it would be up to the instructors to provide the hard sell, time-share worthy sales pitch.  It was a terrible job and the people she called were ruthless, however one strange trend showed up each and every night she worked: the number of people who would tell her that they had no legs and hang up the phone.  Apparently in the 1990's over 2% of the population called had no legs.**

This week Jack has been promoted to first assistant for his new services as minion.  I have to say that I'm a little disappointed in Miss Molly, I was always convinced that the force was strong with this one, and that we could rule the dark side together, maybe next month.

The boy is obsessed with remote controls, phones, baby monitors or anything with buttons that makes noise, so with call display as our friend, Chris started to hand him the phone whenever a telemarketer call comes in.   The result?  He giggles a lot in his low throaty Beavis type way and then presses a series of buttons in the telemarketers ear.***  It's not quite a whistle, but he's finally starting to earn his keep.




*I know that the job of a telemarketer sucks, especially when some angry mom is blowing a whistle in your ears, that no one wants to talk to you and no one aspires to be a telemarketer when they grow-up.  That being said I still don't want you to call me.
**I will not be held responsible if this statistic is not accurate.
***I recognize that this probably says something profound about Chris and my maturity level.

Pop Goes the World

Dear Eddie Bauer,

I don't want to alarm you*, but your engineers are sticking it to some of your customers - parents specifically.  I haven't had much experience with your brand, until I became a parent.  I was a big fan of your backpacks in the 1990's and begged my parents to purchase me one for back to school when I was 15 years old.  Unfortunately they felt that $60 was too much to pay for a backpack and opted for a cheaper $17 Bi-way model instead.**

When we became parents we inherited three Eddie Bauer products (yeah sorry this isn't even a complaint from a paying customer).  Your pack and play playpen is the bomb.  It folds down quickly and fits in our tiny trunk easily.  It works well for travel, camping, play and creates an excellent confinement space (aka the naughty corner) for time-outs.

Miss Molly camping in one of our playpens (ironically) not the Eddie Bauer One.

We also received two Eddie Bauer Car Seats that we thought were identical.  They were not.  One model is a normally functioning car seat with a standard issue seat belt, the other model has a special feature that appears to hold no purpose besides making life more difficult for the parent trying to get their toddler into their car seat securely and quickly.  The problematic model has a special feature which makes the seat belt impossible to fasten until you are able to put two puzzle piece shaped metal fasteners together in a specific order before you are able to click the belt into place.  This puzzle piece function does not provide extra security on the belt, making it more difficult for the child to escape, it simply comes apart constantly while I try to fasten it as Molly does pelvic thrusts causing the puzzle pieces to break apart and me to have to start over again.  Since when do parents need it to be more difficult to leave their house with toddlers?***

This past weekend Chris and I made a stop at the liquor store on the way to a friend's house.  Chris ran in to grab the wine while I sat in the car "supervising" the minions.  The children were bored so I gave Jack a set of plastic keys to play with and Molly a foam stress ball in the shape of a globe that I had received at a conference. 

A moment later, while I was rocking out to the sweet sounds of Falco's, Rock Me Amadeus on the radio I heard the distinct sound of Molly choking.  I quickly reacted: swept her mouth once, pulled her out of her car seat and removed giant chunks of the foam globe that she had consumed.  My daughter choked while attempting to eat the world - at least she dreams big.  I had saved the world, however Molly was now furious with me for 1) removing the tasty foam globe from her airways and 2) taking the globe away from her.  As I tried to return her to the confines of her car seat, my normally docile and somewhat housebroken toddler began screaming and bucking like a wild bull while I tried to fasten two stupid puzzle pieces together to get her safely into her car seat.  I broke a nail, I pinched my skin, and hers (which made her even more pleasant) and I had a ton of blue and green foam earth in my hair.

After nine tries I was able to get her into her car seat safely, although she was still screaming as I wouldn't give her the earth back. 
I want you to pass the following message on to your engineers: What is wrong with you?  Have you never heard of market testing? YOU SUCK!

Sincerely,
Sarabeth



*Upon further research I have discovered that although Eddie Bauer was a real person he passed away in 1986, so this letter is over 15 years too late. 
**It was probably for the best because my mother would have lost her mind when I professed my love for Nine Inch Nails in white out on said $60 backpack.
***Since never you sick sadistic engineering bastards!

Where's my Remote Control?

There were some things that I was prepared for when I became a parent.  I was prepared for sleepless nights, a mountain of laundry and an increase to the grocery bill.  I wasn't prepared for two things: illness and loneliness.

I'm going to preface this entry with a warning: It has not been a great winter and it's beginning to take a toll on Chris and I both.  I have been really blue the past week and have felt very alienated from a lot of people who I was close to before we had the kids.  This is a cross that I imagine many people who are the first to have kids bear and it's a fact of life as we all age and change.*

Saturday was a rare occasion.  We were invited to an event where our children were not only included, they were welcomed.  The timing didn't interfere with the nap schedule so we could actually bring the minions out with limited fear of entering Meltdown City - Population 2 angry toddlers, 2 frustrated parents.

I had picked a dress that we'd received as a gift for Molly ages ago, that she is on the verge of outgrowing, to wear out to the co-ed cocktail(ish) baby shower.  When the minions woke up from their afternoon nap a little bit late, Chris was skeptical and I was in denial.  With make-up on and almost ready to head out the door, we took their temperatures and determined that they both had fevers bordering around 101 degrees.

Disappointingly I took off my party shoes and texted the host that we couldn't go.  There were too many other pregnant guests for me to risk us being the jerks who infected everyone with a double dose of toddler germs.  I contacted my friend who we were supposed to visit later that night to see if she wanted to risk inviting the plague pair into her home.  She knew how much having some semblance of a social life meant to us and welcomed us into her home with open arms.  I've created a greeting card below that summarizes the conclusion of our evening when Jack's coughing fit brought on the following:

Thank you for not freaking out when our son vomited on your couch....

 

 

I don't know why people don't invite us out more often.

The next day I had a complete meltdown about our lives, how hard we work, how broke we are, how little time we have for each other, how lonely parenting can be, how few people I have to talk about it with and how many things we have to cancel because of illness.  My mom caught the tail end of it when she called to see how the kids were doing.  She was patient and then reminded me about the trip to Hawaii she missed because I had the measles - Mom induced Humble Pie Smackdown - the one-upance edition.*** 

Yesterday night I went out to a music lesson for half an hour....I came home to Molly standing in the hallway in nothing but a diaper and Chris frantically scrubbing everything in the living room down. "Molly just projectile vomited almond milk all over ALL OF OUR REMOTE CONTROLS!" Clearly it was bath time.

Thankfully we purchased another two sets of crib sheets from IKEA this weekend, because the six sets of sheets we owned just wasn't enough - seriously.  Our remotes are still working, even though they're leaking water from the purification process Chris felt they had to undergo. 

I know in my heart that we have friends and family who love us and our children dearly...in sleepless fortnights, like we're living right now, it's hard not to feel like you're trapped on baby island without a raft...a special thanks to those who help us out by letting our sick son drool on your shoulder while you rock him to sleep or pretending not to be grossed out when our snot laden daughter gives you a hug.

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*Okay, I'm done with the "woe is me" speech, and I assure you I will be having cheese with my wine tonight.....Lots of tasty cheese.
**Foolishly.
***Suddenly a few cancelled plans and an unworn outgrown party dress didn't seem so earth shattering, Aloha!

No Woman, No Cry

When Chris and I first started dating, nearly a decade ago, we reminisced about how much we loved the 1990's.  In a time of early relationship hibernation we spent a lot of time cuddled up on a couch watching endless marathons of television series, spending every waking moment learning EVERYTHING about the other person - and eating take-out, at restaurants and fully embracing all other date food related ceremonies.*

One weekend we decided that it would be a good idea to revisit the television series My So Called Life.  We both agreed that it was a great show and we couldn't believe that it got cancelled after only one season.  That winter we learned something important.  Some things don't age well and and some paths should not be traveled EVER again.  The sad fact was, that show was never good.  Angela Chase cried about everything, each episode without fail as she watched the idiots around her spin. "Jordan why can't you read? Boo hoo.", "Rayanne, why do you drink too much?  It makes me so sad!", "Dad, why are you having an affair, Wahhhhh!", "Ricky, I'm sad because it's hard for you being gay.....sob, sob, sob." and "Brian Krakow, why won't you realize that I don't even like you....sniff, sniff."  You get the picture - it was ridiculous.**

To be an accurate portrayal of the movie, Clare Danes really should be crying...Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

I think Chris and I made it through the entire season, or at least most of it, but only because it was like a car accident and we couldn't look away.  My friend and her husband also tried to go back and watch My So Called Life earlier this winter.  They barely made it through the first episode.  Their lack of dedication is a shame, because by enduring an entire season of My So Called Life it makes it that much more pleasurable to watch Jared Leto get his ass kicked in Fight Club.***  If you watch an interview with Jared Leto about his band 30 Seconds to Mars before watching Fight Club it will double your pleasure in the infamous beat down scene.

On Friday night, at around 8:30 I was loading the dishwasher and Chris came into the kitchen from running laundry.  He asked me if I noticed anything strange about the evening, I shrugged. "Molly didn't cry once today." he said.  I recounted in my head, daycare pick-up, grocery shopping, dinner, play time, bath time, story time and even our goodnight.  No tears.  It was possible.  We felt victorious.  A day without baby drama is in the cards and we didn't even know it.  Little did we know that it was the calm before yet another epic no sleep, lots of scream, tear laden weekend.  Only this time the part of Angela Chase would be played by a male lead, our son Jack.



*I know everyone talks about the freshman 15, but what they're too scared to talk about is the serious relationship 20.
**And I'm out of crying descriptors.
***Spoiler alert, Jared Leto gets his faced punched in during the movie Fight Club.  I'm sorry if I've ruined a movie for anyone who's put off watching it for 14 years.

The Chicken Dance

I don't recommend playing chicken with your toddler, unfortunately I am not talking about some fun barnyard game where you teach your children about animals, I am talking about sleep training chicken.  A game that nobody wins....there is a lot of crying and very little sleep for everyone involved.

I am aware that my children are both, generally, really good sleepers (illness and teething aside) and have been since a really young age - but that doesn't exclude my right to complain about Jack. Chris and I have each had no more than four hours of sleep (or two consecutive hours) in the last three days because of the boy child.

A silent look at our nights as of late

Sunday night he woke up at 1AM famished....consumed over 12 ounces of milk and then went back to bed, woke up again at 3AM because he crapped his pants and then wouldn't go back to sleep.*  Monday at 2AM he drank back to back bottles followed by a two hour opera entitled, Mom & Dad Why Can't I Please Sleep In Your Bed?

Tuesday night we decided that we'd take matters into our own hands by feeding him a ton.  In the hours between 5:30pm and 8:30pm the boy ate: Four eight ounce bottles of whole milk (can you buy stock in homo milk?), 1/2 cup of sultana raisins, rice, strawberries, broccoli, chicken, oatmeal and arrowroot cookies.

How did he thank us for his bountiful evening feast?  By screaming, moaning and fussing from 2AM-6AM - straight.  Molly woke up briefly at 3AM to point at Jack's second empty bottle and yell, "MORE!" before we grabbed her a bottle of milk.  She then blissfully fell asleep - the only one able to tune her brother out completely - a skill that she will find helpful for the rest of her life.

We knew what Jack wanted, he wanted us to take him to bed with us, and it wasn't going to happen.  Instead Chris and I took our usual modified ferberization method of sleep training.  Light levels of "cry it out" have given us kids who generally fall asleep within 5-10 minutes after bed time or who play and talk to each other in their room before they fall asleep.  At night we get up with the crying child, solve their problem (hunger, diaper, comfort, etc.) and then put them back to bed.  The next time they start crying we wait 10 minutes, then we check in on them, comfort them, and extend it to 20 minutes, repeated until usually the child falls asleep.  By 5AM last night I put in ear plugs because I couldn't take it any more, no matter how much we did, he wouldn't stop.  Ear plugs won't block out the mama spidey sense making you VERY AWARE just how upset your child is, neither will sleeping on another floor - you can still hear them.  The most frustrating part is that there wasn't anything wrong with him.  He just wanted to play, and be in our bed beside us - because our bed is awesome, and comfortable.** 

I've been told that this could be the result a growth spurt, although if it goes on much longer I'm going to be fastening bottles around his crib like water bottles in a hamster cage.  I've been told that it could be a case of 18 month sleep regression (one month late, but this isn't that surprising because we were hit with something similar at 14 months) - apparently this is one of the more difficult sleep regression phases because it involves discipline and children developing their own free will.***  This can be tied into developmental milestones such as learning to talk, but suddenly hearing his little "Thank You" when I hand him yet another course in his nightly feast isn't cutting the mustard.  For this level of exhaustion I want to hear him speak Latin, or recite the periodic table, basically if you keep me up that long you need to show me something beyond the value of me having to splurge on MAC under-eye concealer.

If it is sleep transgression then we likely have another 11-42 days to go according to the experts.  If it's a growth spree then I'll be shopping the bargain bins looking for the next size in toddler pants any day now.  I don't like either option.  I prefer to think that he's just screwing with us, that's got to get boring before a fortnight passes and it won't cost us anything - beyond sleep and sanity.





*I get being hungry.  That's why we fed him - twice.  I get not wanting to sleep covered in feces, that's why we changed him.  It's the hours of screaming after that I have an issue with.
**You know what makes our bed super awesome?  That my son isn't in it kicking me in the chest and snoring loudly.  I want it to stay that way!
***Which is a good thing, but not at 3AM.

Different Stokes

Different things motivate different people.  I get that.  Some people (or twins) have an A type personality.*  They love to receive praise for their accomplishments and seek to excel in grades, athletics, anything measurable - even from a really young age.  Others not so much. 

A few months ago, when we were trying to get Jack to walk, one of the staff of our daycare said something that resonated with me when I asked how he was doing with his walking.  "Jack can do it.  He's just lazy." she said simply.  A little harsh, maybe, but also completely true.  We often talk about how the boy will live with us into his thirties while Molly becomes CEO of the universe.

Jack's slow tempo reminds me of mine as a child.  In the first grade I had a classmate who found our teacher's grading system inadequate.  Her marking scheme of Perfect, Almost Perfect, Good, You can Do It wasn't cutting the mustard for him.  He asked her, in front of the entire class, if she could provide his grades in percentiles.  I clearly remember being pleased with the rainbow sticker I got on my test and thinking, "You're six, who cares."

In retrospect I wish I had more of my You're Young - Enjoy Life, stop being such a nerd Michael attitude today.** 

Jackie says walking is for chumps.

Recently we've been attempting to get the minions to walk up the pathway, out of daycare and to the car.  This was encouraged by daycare to allow us to complete drop off and pick up without having to roll a child under each arm as if they're a keg of beer.  

In the morning we are usually running too late and are too preoccupied about getting into work on time to worry about making them walk the path.***  We grab one child each, direct them towards their toys and friends, fill out some paper work**** and sprint back to the car so we can head to the subway and get stuck in a massive transit delay.   This leaves pick-up for us to work on the big walk up the path.

Molly loves the walk up the path to the car.  She stops, waves and blows kisses at other parents and kids, literally, like she's running for office, while she slowly makes her way to the car...easy peasy.  The boy, not so much.  When you pick Jackie up from daycare, you physically must pick him up from daycare.  Otherwise he throws himself onto the ground and sobs like you're breaking his heart.  This has gone on for over a week now - until yesterday.

There is that old expression about food being the key to a man's heart.  Arrowroot cookies and Smarties are the key to Jack's new found ability to walk the path.  Who doesn't need a snack while they watch Queen Molly greets her royal subjects on the red carpet? 

So when you see me pushing my future eight year old in a stroller, please don't judge or my daughter will give you a piece of her mind.

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*Miss Molly has embraced her role as twin A, Type A, Older sister and tattle tale by age 19 months.  Do something wrong, I dare you, go play with that plug outlet.  She will point at you and wag her finger at you and maybe yell, "Jack No!"
**Then again I'm sure my parents wouldn't appreciate me living under the pool table in the basement at 34 years of age.  
***This is often caused by a chain of dirty diapers produced several times in the 20 minutes between awake minions and out the door minions.
****Basically signing a promise that we will eventually pick up our progeny from daycare.

Whale Song

Women in my family are known for a lot of things: strong will, grudge-holding ability, obsessiveness, matriarchal leadership and our over-active mama bear gene. We are not known for our house-keeping skills. No one is ever going to say, "Man did she keep that place spotless." after any of us are dead and gone.

My grandmother, the twin, was notorious for wanting things a specific way. She hired help to clean the house because she didn't have the time to tend to the house herself and then insisted that my father and aunt clean their house before the housekeeper arrived because she didn't want the housekeeper to think that they lived like savage beasts - negating the actual need for a housekeeper.  Or how she bought pies at the bakery, presented them as her own handmade treats and become irrationally livid should anyone imply otherwise.

I, like many before me, am not a born housekeeper - however at this point in time the idea of indulging in a maid service is unaffordable and pointless because of the constant spill cycle in our house.  Add in that I am a giant klutz. I spill, I slop, I fall down - a lot more than I would ever like to admit and unfortunately I think that Jack has inherited this quality as well.*  As a parent of two toddlers I also know that you have to stay fairly tidy because they get into EVERYTHING. 

Even I, a self-declared non-neat-freak, am being driven to the brink of madness because of toddlerodiousrepugnantitus** a disease caused because my children are crazy forces who have their own complicated logic.

LOUD Equals AWESOME
Loud equals awesome is responsible for the fact that we only have 3 bread plates left. 

DISGUSTING Equals BRILLIANCE
Both minions must be convinced that they are the hen who laid the golden egg. Every time they produce a nugget they need to get their hands on it IMMEDIATELY. The amount of defence required to change a number two diaper is NHL power play worthy.

The Sound SPLAT is Akin to ANGELS SINGING
Throwing food, specifically brightly coloured yams or yogurt is fun.  Almost as much fun as using your sippy cup to paint the floor with milk.

Photo from Creative Commons, Courtesy of: RonWLS

Which brings me to my white whale.***  Our floors.  I never paid much attention to our floors pre-babygeddon, or even pre-crawling, but now....I am that idiot mom in the Swiffer Wet Jet commercial.****  I would say that on average Chris and I sweep the floor 2-6 times a day, we spot mop constantly and real mop frequently, but it's never enough.  Our floor has never been clean enough to eat off of, yet now it's the world's dirtiest buffet table.  I have scrubbed the paint off of our wall, yet the stains remain.

Two days ago I went to the dollar store with yogurt stains all over my pants, but that's okay...I now have built in camouflage.  I can just lay down on our kitchen floor and blend in.        

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*A couple of weeks ago I had to fill out an accident report for Jack at daycare because he ran into a door and bruised his forehead.   Last week he was playing with the front gate while I carried him into daycare and he slammed it into his head giving him a giant gash while I dropped him off.  I didn't notice, asked him why he was being so difficult and was generally unsympathetic until someone else pointed out that he was bleeding.
**Patent Pending.
***Definition: An obsession or nemesis that becomes your entire life - ultimately destroying you.
****Note to Swiffer Mom, if you complete the Am I A Cool Mom Quiz you are automatically not a cool mom.