Things that change.

Only a parent can fully understand the level of sacrifice needed to bring babies from that innocent, vulnerable, defenseless, stage of a human’s life to a stage where they can be somewhat self-sufficient (although I think that stage seems to be quite prolonged now compared to the not-too-distant past).  This sacrifice alone might actually be the one hardest aspects of the entire parenting processes.  When you have a baby a person needs to be prepared that their life will never, ever be quite the same as it was before.  Some people handle that aspect like champs, some people completely lose control and once seemingly decent people (or perhaps moderately seeming decent people) can turn into disasters after bringing a child into this world.  I think whatever the situation a parent can honestly say that there are several things they do now that they would have NEVER have done in the past.

Here are just a few examples of things that change:

Shopping.  You almost never find yourself shopping in a store that interests you because they usually involve a million breakable items that you would be a fool to take your kids near or tiny change rooms the stroller definitely won’t fit in.  When you have to do most of your shopping with the kids you find yourself waiting to go until you’re down to your last cracker, egg, banana and in my house milk (pretty sure we should have gotten our self a Jersey Cow to satisfy my son’s appetite).  I was never a big shopper to begin with but I definitely enjoyed it 10 times more before the kids learned that in big crowds mom probably won’t punish us as harshly.

Traveling:  I’ve always loved to travel, see new sights and explore foreign customs.  As soon as you have kids tagging along traveling becomes more like a new brand of torture.  We thought we got off lucky because my daughter is a really good traveler.  I apparently should have stopped having kids after her if I wanted to continue with the level of traveling that I’ve always dreamed of.  My son is what people refer to as a “homebody.”  We still attempt to take him with us, although on a few trips we considered leaving him behind.  It’s now become this crazy circus like production for us to go anywhere, even if it’s just a weekend trip.  You start to examine amenities such as playgrounds, hotel swimming pools, kid friendly restaurants, stroller accessible accommodations or flight options like a pro-sleuth before daring to book anything.  A place that you would have once avoided like the plague has become the number one pick on your list.  Once you’ve decided you’re going to leave it takes two months of careful planning, packing, re-packing (because they’ve outgrown the pants by two sizes already) and downright insanity to get out the door.  By the time you leave you have your entire house contents somehow crammed into every nook and cranny of your vehicle and you’ll definitely still have forgotten something vital (sometimes one of the children).  For some reason though I never seem to learn.  I have such a draw to go and see the world that I fool myself into thinking this time it’s going to be easier.  I am about to actually embark on my very first adults only trip since I’ve had the kids.  I’m now scared of two things.  One I’m going to miss the little buggers so much I’ll be homesick for the first time in my life or two that I’m going to enjoy myself so much that I’m going to disappear into the jungle to never be found.

Adult time: I’m not sure how many parents reading this will consent but adult time is starting to look like locking the door while going to the bathroom (even if the kids are on the other side of the door knocking and yelling for you), filling your car up with gas because you can’t hear the kids in the car with all the doors shut, the blissful 10 minutes between the time you put your kids to bed and when you go to sleep because you’re too exhausted to stay up past 9:00pm and other such moments.  When I have other people around that will watch the kids for me I’m so grateful to be able to have a shower without children underfoot or to be able to run to the store for supplies.  Going out for a night of dinner and movies with your partner is like a fantastical dream even then however you will find yourself talking about the children all night.  I’m not sure that will ever change now.

There are also several small things that you find yourself doing now that you are a parent but NEVER would have dreamed of doing before:  Watching the absolute worst shows on TV because it keeps your kid quiet for half an hour. Eating the leftovers your children leave on their plate (doesn’t matter if they’ve spit it out because they don’t like it).  Going out of your way to watch a parade (I hate parades, didn’t even like them as a kid, but my kids unfortunately love them). Choosing to eat at a restaurant you don’t like because it’s kid-friendly.  Buying a mini-van for your main family vehicle (hey they’re roomy and still decent on fuel).  I could probably go on forever.

On that note I have not had to yell at my kids to leave me alone for the past 5 sentences. This makes me scared because when you do actually get a moment to yourself and the kids are completely quiet in the background you know that they are probably up to something that may require bringing the pressure washer in to fix.

               

Weird Update

I’m currently writing this new blog update from the comfort of my new home approximately 6000km away from the comfort of my previous home.  I am not going to rehash how bad of a blogger I am, I mean really why re-state the obvious?  I will just pretend that the 10,000 topics or more that I have thought of between my last entry and this one have actually made the journey from my brain to the cyber world and continue on my way.

I have also contemplated how one would go on catching up on so much crap that has happened in the past several months (I’d insert a more specific timeline here but I’ve lost count) and I’ve decided a quick version is the best.  So here it goes:  After several months of renovations, garage sales, packing and preparations, usually sans moi husband and avec moi crazy, rambunctious children we hauled all of our crap literally across the second largest country in the world.   We barely got here and the hubby went MIA (or back to work so he says…btw honey it’s a joke so I don’t need to be reprimanded after you read this) and I spent the next month, with my very nice and amazing parents, unpacking and organizing.  During this time my grandmother got very sick and ended up in the hospital.  Unfortunately she went from living independently, then to us trying to find a long term care facility for her, to her passing away in the matter of two months.  It was a rough go around.  We moved all her belongings into my gigantic empty basement and sorted through the remainder of her belongings.  My grandmother, not being as she would describe as a “go-go girl,” wishes included for us NOT to hold a funeral for her.  Instead we decided we would have a family reunion in her honor (she would have loved that).  The month following her passing then was held in planning and preparation to house the family and pay tribute to a woman who would have been able to carry it off single handedly in the past.  Then to bring us up to the present moment the past week has been all about finishing up the final loads of laundry and clean-up after the reunion (which was truly lovely I might add) and now I have found myself in a position I have not been in for what feels like a millennium…

                Depending on the hour of the day I might describe my current situation with thoughts such as “Freedom”, “Without Purpose”, “Bored”, “Relieved”, “Scared,” “Burnt Out,” “Drifting,” etc.  Whatever it is that I’m feeling I know that I’m not used to having no plans or no stressors to put me on a path.  I mean don’t get me wrong I’ve got mini goals and other basic daily functions that need to happen in order to maintain some semblance of order but to not have a HUGE stressor looming over my head is a weird feeling.  My whole life has been filled with major projects or goals I want to achieve.  My husband keeps trying to tell me to relax and enjoy it, more than ANYTHING in the world that’s what I’d like to do but I think it’s going to take some time.  It’s hard to retrain your brain to just chill.  So maybe that will be my goal, to learn how to slow down and savor the moment.  That and try to spend some of that quality time with my children that we’ve missed out so much on because of us focusing on what’s to come. Ok so now are we caught up?  Not really, well too bad, you’ll have to piece the rest together with my ramblings forth.

                I would like to now point out a few strange experiences that can only come with moving to a town where you know basically no one.  First experience is in regards to my daughter’s first day of preschool.  The move was a bit of a disappointment for my 3 year old daughter.  She was used to having tones of friends and people around that she knew and was used to.   I mean of course she was excited to hang out with her Grandma and Poppa but after she realized that they were about as exciting as me (in other words “not very”) she was wondering where the other kids were.  She began to name her toys after various friends we had left behind, she started talking to the wall and introducing me to her imaginary friends with strange names such as “Shada” or “Cunfringning”, she started spending an awful amount more time harassing her brother but then I had to draw the line after she started to kiss the leeches from the lake and claim them as her “best girls ever”.  This is when I decided I should start looking into preschools so she would at least have a couple days a week where she could interact with some little, loud people other than her brother.  Like a good mom I did a lot of research.  I called several facilities to talk with their directors, I read reviews online, I asked questions of people such as my hairdresser and our friendly neighbors who had children that once went to some of the schools.  Then I made the decision she would begin attending the Tuesday/Thursday morning classes of a particular program I liked the sound of (another good blog topic perhaps). 

The first day of preschool started just as I’d imagined it would.  We got her all dressed up in her new school clothes, took several pictures of her donned in her school backpack, both me and the hubby drove her to her first day and dropped her off.  She did not give a second thought about us leaving and I surprisingly enough was ok with the drop off too.  The weird experience actually didn’t come until after we went to pick her up to come home.  We went in to pick her up, put our signature on the sign-out sheet, she came running out to us with a huge grin on her face, got her packed up and strapped into her car seat in the van.  On the drive home both my husband and I excitedly grilled her asking several questions that resembled “What did you learn today?” and “Did you meet any friends and what were their names?”  She said nothing. Then this is when the really strange feeling washed over me.  It was the very first time I had left my daughter with virtual strangers, which didn’t struck me as odd because I had been mentally preparing myself for that, it was the fact I had zero idea what the last three hours for her held.  She wasn’t telling me and the teachers, unlike a sitter or a friend watching her for the past three hours that would have dished out details, don’t have time to consult with every parent after a class unless something (usually memorable and bad) had happened.   It dawned on me that this was the beginning of it.  She was going to start coming home with stories, songs and ideas that I haven’t planted there and I may not be able to interpret.  It was also going to be from people that I only had as much information on as Google and the few sources available to me could tell.  It was a really scary feeling.

The second experience actually just happened to me a couple days ago and has now extended into tonight.  For anyone who knows me I’m an extremely extroverted and outgoing person.  I don’t usually run out of things to talk about and tend to enjoy meeting new people quite a bit.  Since I’ve moved here I haven’t really had to be social in an unfamiliar group or friend like setting.  I do have some really nice neighbors I was starting to be acquainted with but unfortunately they are moving just after Christmas to another country.  I have to say though that I’m feeling quite out of practice. 

On my husband’s last full day home before he was scheduled to head off for work we decided to go out and have some fun with the kids.  My daughter had preschool so we went to drop her off first and then decided we would take our son to the park.  You see it’s pretty tough on the little guy as he watches his sister disappear into a building that sports a tantalizing playground with kids laughing on the outside and a plethora of exciting looking toys on the inside.  To lessen the blow I usually attempt to do something fun with him for the first half of our alone time together before trying to scratch some lines through my “to-do” list.  We actually drove around to a few of the park options available in town but settled on the driest of the available selection.  Upon arrival we realized that we weren’t alone.  I in fact have not ever seen another human at this park prior to this so to me it seemed busy.  There were construction workers doing what looked like some aesthetic maintenance to the playground portion and another father spending some quality time with his daughter.  The father/daughter duo did not stay long as it was a little chilly out and they both looked as they had already been there for a while.  However shortly after they left another group showed up consisting of two women and three children (actually two small kids, a girl and a boy looking to be the same ages of my girl and boy, and one small baby in a stroller).  My son immediately proceeded to run up to the boy his age and stole the cookie out of his hand and began to eat it.  After prying the cookie from my son and handing it back to the now crying boy I apologized.   I then joked and said to the woman who I presumed to be the mom “Wouldn’t it be a strange world if I just walked up to you and stole the coffee out of your hand and said thanks for the coffee.”  To which she replied “Yeah maybe next time could you hold on the sugar please?”  I proceeded then to do what I always do best and talk way too much.  To my surprise, but pleasure when they decided to leave the park she handed me her telephone number, told me of her schedule and said to call her if I wanted someone to hang out with.  I had pretty much already told her my whole life story of the move, how I know absolutely no one here and blah blah blah.  For my mother, who will eventually read this blog entry, this may come as a surprise, but I was actually a little nervous about talking to someone new.  I mean you wouldn’t know it while I was spewing out my innermost secrets, several times I thought to myself “these people must think I’m a total loon and seriously desparate.”  I also put a lot of thought in how exactly one makes the phone call starting with “Hey I’m the girl with the kids you met at the park the other day.”  Back in the day I wouldn’t have thought twice but I was pretty nervous this time.  I now know what it’s like for people who haven’t been dating for several years on the-how-to go-about-meeting people sort of thing.  I wasn’t sure how I should start the conversation and how to not come across as being a total weirdo.  It turns out when I did call was of course when she was super busy in the middle of getting her kids ready for bed but it definitely sounds promising and she was very gracious to note she was glad I called.  For me it’s a weird experience because for the past 10 years I’ve not had to meet anyone new on my own, it’s usually been done in a group setting or through other friends and I have usually been the one introducing people.  Maybe it’s good for me; maybe it’s time for me to step out of my comfort zone again.  I mean how else do we grow?

Oh and a final note.  Preschool finally was able to do with my daughter that I was never able to…potty train her.  Apparently the need to “fit in” is greater than anything that a mom can ever offer, yay peer pressure!!

Blogging from my iPhone

Once again I'm on Vacation. I'm fortunate enough to travel all the time but let me tell ya I'm just about done hauling all this kid crap around. I actually forgot the kid's carseats this trip, have battled with a SUPER jerk on the airplane, brought the kids to a tonne of attractions and activities but all deserve more of a tale than my fingers will allow on my iPhone. In fact they're going numb as I type so I'll now sign off. I just wanted to prove I'm a little more committed to this as opposed to my previous attempts!! Ciao until next week!!

Leporiphobia must be a genetic childhood ailment.

Oh Google. I just knew that if I looked up the technical name for the fear of rabbits that I would, at the press of the enter key, get the desired result. I also discovered that acerophobia is the fear of sourness, globophobia is the fear of balloons, vuteuthindion is the fear of picnics and there are even a whole slew of names for fear different cultures like the French, the English, people from Singapore and the Walloon people (had to “Google” that one too and to save you the time Wikipedia states “Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia“). Anyway not here nor there I have discovered that both my daughter and I share a childhood version of a fear of the Easter Bunny.

The first Easter I can remember (my mom said I was around 4 years old) lying in bed the night before envisioning this giant, adult human sized rabbit hiding eggs for me. By the morning I reeeeally wanted to partake in the search for treats but there was NO WAY I was going out there on my own in case he hadn‘t left. Rabbits were my favourite animal but I knew they had big sharp teeth and I’d was pretty sure I didn’t want to see one that big. My mom said her and dad tried everything but were unsuccessful in their attempt to get me to go out to the livingroom by myself (I think they just wanted to sleep in for a bit).

Flash forward to yesterday and my girlfriend decided to take my daughter to the mall to do some shopping. There was a display out at the mall in celebration of the Easter Holiday. The first time they walked by there were just decorations and Easter paraphernalia arranged for the kids to look at. The second time they walked by they had someone dressed in an Easter Bunny suit so the kids could go meet him and take their picture with him. Apparently once the Bunny waved at my daughter she was not impressed. Since then I’ve lost count in the number of times we’ve discussed that the Easter Bunny does not in fact EAT children but just leaves chocolates and candies for them to find.

We did however have a very successful egg hunt this year. The same friend who took my daughter to the mall has two boys and has been apparently doing egg hunts for several years in a park near her house. She invited a bunch of us to dinner and designated a couple of us to be responsible for stuffing plastic eggs with treats that we can use to hide. It was really fun. The kids thought it was amazing and I think secretly us parents get to live vicariously through them and re-live a bit of our own past. It was a really great group of kids and I’m truly going to miss this family we’ve created when we leave here in a couple months.








It’s really endearing right now to be able to relate to my kids on this kind of level. I know that these are the good moments and that these kind of events are where the stories come from. I’m not looking forward to the day that I won’t be able to get involved and our issues become older and bigger. One can say I suffer from a bit of Ephebiphobia. I’ll let you look that one up!

Trip down memory lane

I just went through and read all 10 entries of my previous attempts at blogging. I've come to the realization that I'm heading down the path I've been asking for the past couple years.

I'm in a much better frame of mind when it comes to parenting. That unnecessary guilty consciousness of not being the best parent in the world is no longer taking up a vast amount of space in my brain. I no longer have to squish all belongings into every nook and cranny of my vehicle when going on road trips because we invested in a definite “Mommy Wagon” (Dodge Caravan minivan). Then there’s my wish of moving close to my parents which is drawing nearer and nearer. In fact the hubby and I purchased an amazing lake front house in January but our move in day isn‘t until July 1st. I seriously cannot stop fantasizing about spending our mornings drinking hot beverages on the deck, our afternoons swimming with the kiddies and soaking up the sun, hanging out with my parents and the evenings relaxing in the hot tub possibly drinking something with a little more zip than tea.
I noticed in a previous blog that I was already planning for this move and began purging the house from all of our so called “unnecessary baggage“. Although this task was already done once in the not too distant past I just finished doing the exact same thing over again. It’s funny how your priority list changes from when it’s just the notion of moving as opposed to the OMG we’re ACTUALLY moving in about two months.

During this recent purge of accumulated junk I happened to go through a tote I have labelled “Sam’s Memories.” In this box I have several different types of bits of nostalgia that I haven’t been willing to part with. There are things in this box such as my baby blankets, my journals that I kept every day of every year of my adolescence and really bad poetry I wrote as a teenager. While going through some of these memories I realized how fast life really does fly by. After going through my own memories I’ve tackled two more recently labelled totes of my kids memories. My children are still considered babies in the grand scheme of a human life but it’s amazing how much has changed in just a couple short years.

I pulled out items like the first outfit each of them came home in, pictures, the mini cast my daughter wore when she broke her first bone, baby books (mostly filled out…wow I’m glad I did that). It helps to look through this stuff every once and awhile because I think it reminds you to really cherish this time you have. Soon it will be my kids going through their old belongings deciding what they want to take with them when the move from place to place.

It’s weird to think that they are going to have no memories of living in British Columbia at a young age. They’re going to grow up feeling as if they are Nova Scotians. It’s funny how you can’t predict where life is going to bring you, nor can you change your past and history. But that’s where we spend most of our time in our heads as humans, in your memories and dreaming of the future. For now my goal is to enjoy today. Today is the day I am really living in and this is the stage my kids are at. While it’s good to take a peek down memory lane to remind you of your lessons learned and it’s never a bad thing to have dreams and goals, it’s more important to love the moment you’re in because it’s truly the only one that exists!

Potty Training Blues

I've always heard toilet training is one of the hardest skills to teach your children. Even people with very gifted children can have problems. I have what I believe to be the near insurmountable challenge of training my daughter.

I try to not get sucked into the “normal age" idea that people have of when your children should be reaching such and such milestones but I’m starting to feel the pressure of this one. Not because I think that she’s not developing properly but because I am tired of changing shitty diapers. It’s bad enough that I have had to change two small children roughly 5-6 times a day for the past couple years but also for the past decade my job has required me to keep people’s bums clean. If there was some sort of tally system or tracking record in the proverbial place in the sky putting a tick on the board every time I changed a bum that somehow brings me closer to Nirvana I believe my reincarnation days are over.

Even though my daughter is smart, beautiful and a truly unique individual she has unfortunately inherited her father’s stubbornness and procrastination skills. We have used every trick in the books to try to motivate, encourage and coerce her into this next stage of her life but she is digging her heels in like a mule and refusing to budge. There are days when she seems really close and uses the potty every time so we think we’re just about there and then the next day she will be playing and just up and disappear. She’s a hider. Loves to hide in a corner to do her business. We at first thought this was really funny and it’s sometimes a good indicator when you can catch her but at this point I’m not really laughing about it anymore.

Another annoying aspect of potty training is how the kid has learned to use it to her advantage. It is the perfect tool for kids to use to try and get out of doing whatever it is they do not want to do.  When we are having a meal my daughter is not too fussy on. “I have to use the potty.” “Do you…really?” Then there is the times when she's just been put to bed, she's already used the potty, had a bath, a drink, has her favourite toy and it’s “I need to pee on the potty mom.” “You’ve already gone!” “I have to pee on the potty, PLEASE mom!” Sigh.

I’ve also found that using the potty is now a source of entertainment for her. We’ve made the mistake of stocking the bathroom with really cool toys and books to amuse her while she sits and waits to do her business. More often than not the bathroom has become so exciting that I catch her in there reading her books on the floor and her brother is busy sticking his hands in the toilet and scrubbing the walls with the toilet brush. Not to mention the various places in town she has decided it’s fun to go to the bathroom in while we’re out trying to shop or partake in other activities. She for some reason loves the bathroom at the grocery store. It’s a super pain in the arse to take her into that bathroom because it is on the very last aisle when our shopping is just about complete. I have to leave the cart in the hall, fish my purse out from under all the groceries I’ve piled on top of it, yank the baby out of the carriage part and usually by this point my patience level is completely depleted and I just want to get the hell out of there. To make matters worse she NEVER actually goes to the bathroom there, it’s just fun for the little bugger.

Did you know there is an app for that? I actually have three Potty Training applications on my iPhone. There is a potty that calls the kid to remind them of when to go, there are games on the app and even videos for the kids to watch. I have used sticker charts, bribing techniques with presents and treats, learned every potty song and dance they have made, bought her a special potty of her own (which she refuses to sit on), I’ve even tried reverse psychology by trying to tell her she isn’t allowed to use the potty anymore.

To my greatest annoyance my 18 month son came up to me yesterday and said “Poop mommy.” I out of sheer curiosity took him to the toilet and sat him down on the potty. He released a bunch of gas and said “All done“. He didn’t quite use the toilet but I can tell he understands. If he is potty trained before she is I’m totally saving it as another fun story I get to spill when she starts to bring marriage prospects home, now how’s that for pay back?  For now I'm just going to keep at it.  Maybe one day I won't have to change bums anymore, but it's not today.

Life as a mother

So it's been a few months short of a year since I've wrote in my blog. I apologise to my four followers. Yes, me included. I think it's so easy to put things like this on the back burner when you are the mom of two very young babies.

Bringing us all up to date will surely be a good place to start. I left off with my son around the 9 month old mark and my daughter just over 2 years old. They are now 1.5 and just 3 respectively. Looking back on the past several months it's actually not a surprise that I didn't write. Ok this is not true. I wrote quite a few drafts half worked on but never posted. I may go through them and see if there was anything interesting to re-visit but alas those mangled thoughts haven't been added to Cyber Space.

I also have the excuse of several added stressors on top of general parenthood that may have something do to with my lack of time to write. There has been a fun but also very trying trip to Europe with the kiddies in tow, a sale of one of our properties, a purchase of a new property 6000 something kilometres away, extensive house renovations in our current home so we can afford the upcoming move which is going to literally bring us across the country. The hubby also took a new job working in the US of A and is gone for a month at a time with 2 weeks in between to come home. Needless to say all busy times of life for the average family and more challenging with two mini daredevils in tow.

There also has been a very recent shift in the way I’m looking at parenthood and in fact my own life since the last blog.  When reading the last entry I can hear the stress in my tone and the internal mental struggle I was denying that I was having. There are still elements of that struggle that sometimes emerge daily but it’s no longer a so called “elephant in the room.”

Several months ago my very good friend and I were talking about how it felt to be a child. The freedom and lack of stress, the enjoyment and wonderment of life, the pureness. We both said that we would be ecstatic if we could feel like that again. What I recently realized that through my own children and watching them grow and learn and go through those feelings of wonderment you can bring yourself back to those feelings if you just go with it. You do what you can to the best of your abilities and let go of the guilt of trying to be the perfect parent. You can not protect your children from stress and the struggle of the world but you can try to make it a better place by being there along side them for the ride and try to guide them through the tough times.

The life of a mother is not normally a relaxed place, it’s not a stress free place, it’s definitely NOT a quiet place, but it’s a good place. It’s a place that one should honour by enjoying it to the fullest and being there in the moment as often as possible.