punked?

Dear Children,

Am I being punked this week? It sure feels like it.

At first I thought it was a coincidence that you were all acting up at the same time. On Monday I thought you guys were exhausted from the busy weekend. My excuse for you on Tuesday was that you were tired from staying for lunch at school and not eating enough. Then Wednesday rolled around and brought with it a fresh batch of misery. That’s when I started to get suspicious.

I’m wondering when you hold your secret planning meetings? Do you meet at night when Daddy and I are sleeping? Who chairs those meetings? Maybe you meet by the water fountain at school, make your plans and then bring your brother up to speed when you get home? I’m really curious.

I’m thinking it goes something like this: “Things have been running too smoothly around here lately. It’s time to SHAKE it up and turn the house upside down. We need to band together and tag team if we are going to make this happen. Mr. Baby, you need to start waking up yelling at 5:45. As soon as Mom crawls back into bed, G and Tuck will start a fight in the bathroom. Then they need to keep fighting over EVERY.LITTLE.THING.FOR.AS.LONG.AS.POSSIBLE. Got that? FIGHT LOTS. And don’t forget to cry. Especially at bedtime. We all need to have HUGE flailing temper tantrums every night for absolutely no reason. Refuse to brush your teeth. Cry when you have to wear long sleeved pj’s but then cry harder if they let you change them. Cry about everything! What else? Oh, yeah! Mom hates it when we don’t eat. Let’s all go on a total food strike! Refuse to eat anything, especially our favourites. Got all that? Don’t sleep, don’t eat, temper tantrums, make messes, fight lots. Goooooooo team!”.

However it goes down, I’M ON TO YOU! The next time you hold one of your little meetings you better remind yourselves who knows where the stash of Halloween candy is…

Lots of love,

Mom

this took me four days to write

If it’s not yet obvious, I dropped the nablopomo ball this year. Whoops! I was too busy this weekend and my head would have exploded.

This past weekend was nuts! We rushed around like maniacs on Saturday and then tossed everyone in the car and drove to my brother and SIL’s house. Mr. T, the kids and my brother held down the fort (which might or might not have included a minor panic over an unplugged breadmaker) while my SIL and I checked out a poshy-posh spa. I know. It was rough. I got the best massage of my life. Seriously good. Thanks Ruby! When we finally dragged ourselves back to the house, we put the kids to bed and had a late dinner (I’ll be needing that recipe!). The evening was rolling right along until I looked at the time and nearly flipped out when I realized it was 12:10! We finally managed to pull away from the curb at 12:40 (it takes time to gather up all our crap, load up sleeping kids, disassemble the playpen, run back in with a picture we forgot in the car earlier…) putting us home at 1:45 AM, a mere 4.5 hours from the little man’s normal wake up time. The second we pulled into the garage Baby J started puking. At least he spared us the screeching to the side of the road drama that normally insures (he gets really bad car sickness and I have a problem remembering the Gravol). Since I got covered extracting him from the car, I took car of cleaning him (and me) up and then putting him back to bed while Mr. T got the other two to bed (which, ironically enough was no easy task that night).

We fully expected to be awakened by baby chatter at 6:15 AM but instead, a small MIRACLE occurred! Mr. Baby slept until 8:40! That was FANTASTIC except for the fact that we were meeting my sister and her FIANCE at church and needed to be out the door by 9:15. Amazingly enough we were pulling out of the driveway at 9:25 coffee and bagels in hand.

After church Bisto and Mr. Bisto came to our place so we could celebrate their engagement. While we didn’t pull out all the stops and serve a 5 course meal like some other members of my family, we did put together a nice antipasto platter and some tasty pot-du-cremes. Yum! At lunch we were all excited to be asked to be part of the wedding party. Tuck is going to be ring bearer, Beauty will be the flower girl, Mr. Baby will be the cute yet unpredictable nephew, Mr. T will be a groomsman and I have the distinguished role of Matron of Honour. Thanks for including us guys. We’re pumped!

The rest of the day was spent wrestling, clamoring for attention, attempting conversation over children’s heads, playing big boy video games (once the kids were in bed), drooling and putting a big gingerbread house together. Needless to say, the kids were thrilled with the vast amounts of icing and candy they consumed! I also got photographic evidence of Mr. Baby sitting cheerfully on my sister’s lap. It was a great day.

irony

Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of irony in my life as a parent. For example, I am running around like an absolute LUNATIC today trying to get a million things done so that I can go to the spa and relax this afternoon. Or the times I’ve yelled “speak nicely” or “calm down” at my children. Or the morning our baby slept until 8:00 AM and I laid in bed FULLY AWAKE worrying that he had surely perished during the night. When I dreamed of becoming a parent, I forgot to imagine the part where you feel kind of nuts half the time!

baking

Here’s the deal, I’m a pretty darn good cook. My oldest will tell you that I’m the greatest cooker in the universe so it must be true, right? RIGHT! While I’m good with a knife and a saucepan, my specialty is baking. I love to bake. Cookies, muffins, cinnamon buns, fancy desserts, bread… really anything you can put flour or chocolate in works for me!

Today I have a step by step guide to perfect baking for you. I realize most of the pictures are crappy but hey, that’s the way they worked out this time around!

1. Pull out a favourite recipe.

2. Grab a helper.

3. Gather your ingredients.

4. Put that kid to work!

5. Start mixing your ingredients and then change things up as you go along (today I replaced half the butter with applesauce to please my sister and then did one third all purpose flour, one third whole wheat flour and one third oatmeal).

6. Stop to figure out why your helper is dragging the crockpot base around (not to mention where he got it from).

7. Resume mixing, taking care not to overwork your batter.

8. Pause to change an offensive diaper.

9. Taste test chocolate before adding.

10. Sing some songs and do funny dance moves when your helper taps out early.

11. Pour into pans and bake until JUST done.

12. Let cool and then devour!

Really, it’s quite easy once you get the hang of it! If you want to keep it interesting, try employing the help of three little people.

hard

Know what’s hard? Being a baby. All that hugging and kissing and being fed and bathed and tickled. Tough stuff. Know what’s harder? All the work babies have to do. Like snacking. Now that can wear a baby out!

job description

Recently I found a pin that perfectly describes my job description:

Yup, that about sums it up!

love letter

Dear Mr. T (that’s what I’m going to call you here if you don’t mind- and I hope you don’t because I find it very amusing!),

This morning I would like to tell you some of the many reasons why I love you.

I love you because you instinctively roll over to warm me up after I’ve been up with one of the children at night. You are my human blanket.

Because you change diapers without making a big freaking deal about it (except that time a certain little boy peed right in your MOUTH while you were cooing at him! Or the time his big brother EXPLODED all over you, the walls and the furniture). Thanks for just making that something we both do.

I love you because you explain things patiently to our kids and help them to really understand even when it makes the job ten times longer.

I love you because you can cook better than Gordan Ramsay or Jamie Oliver and you look cute in a red apron. I love that you try to wash up as you go, that you are way more apt to clean the stove than me and that you always sharpen the knives.

Because you have never referred to the time you spend alone with our children as babysitting. Not to mention that you take our kids out so I can sleep in peace or have some alone time.

I love you because you have arranged your work schedule so that I can volunteer in our kids classrooms. I also love that it’s as important to you as it is to me and that you will go in my place if I can’t make it.

I love you because even after all these years, you still surprise me. Watching you rap to Beastie Boys the other night was one of the GREATEST and FUNNIEST things I’ve ever seen. It was totally worth every penny you’ve ever spent on Rock Band (but I still don’t think you need a wireless guitar).

I could go on and on because there are so many things I love about you. Mostly, I just love waking up next to you every morning knowing that we have one more day to spend together.

You are my rock.

And you are HOT!

shell

Happy Monday! It’s gonna be a good week… I can tell these things.

This morning brought THREE happy kids. Even our little sicko had a smile on her face so we’re working the happy vibe as much as possible.

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of creative. It must be the colder weather and the fact that CHRISTMAS is coming! I don’t have a lot of time to really lose myself in a project so I’ve been trying to blast out some fast ones. Stuff I can do with a baby hanging off my leg and four extra hands getting in the mix. Saturday I pulled out some shells we collected a year and a half ago (hello backlog!), a deep frame and my glue gun. 10 minutes later we had a framed memory of our White Rock friends and the wicked time we spent with them just before we moved (they are adding TWINS to their family soon so they are on our minds a lot). Now every time I walk into my kitchen I think about GREAT friends, Indian food, the smell of “bathroom” and a lot of laughter. Love you guys!

lazy day

Today was one of those cold, dreary days that makes you want to hole up inside the house and keep warm. That is just what we did! While Daddy got a little extra beauty sleep the kids and I had a crafty morning.

The two oldest painted some beautiful pictures for our inspiration wire.

Our little one made a funky sculpture with a bagel and some drool.

I finally got to work on a little finger puppet project I’ve been dreaming up.

Around lunch time our beauty erupted into tears and ended up in bed. After a sobbing session, a chat and a hug, I realized she had a fever and that the “growing pains” she had been complaining about were the beginnings of the flu. She and I spent the rest of the day in my bed. She slept tucked into my side while I did a few hours of editing. I felt badly that she was sick but I have to admit, it sure was nice to be the only one she wanted and to have my independent little girl need me to just be there.

Our littlest man was a puddle of tears by supper so we’re hoping that he isn’t the next one to be stuck down with the flu.

missed

Clearly I missed the subject in this picture! I like it anyway because it reminds me of the morning my little one and I spent sitting in a pool of sunshine playing with a can of salmon and a canning ring.

I also love this one of the top of his head. He’s got a curly mohawk that makes me laugh.