Did you hear me?

Do I speak a different language, or wait no, maybe I am invisible and they can't hear me? Do I exist? Maybe I am a figment of my own imagination. No that can't be right if I was a figment of my imagination I would at least imagine myself rich and thin, with a bevy of servants catering to my every need. Damn I guess I am real and just not yelling loud enough, or maybe I really do speak a different language that no one has bothered to teach the rest of my family.

Now firstly let me say DH and I do speak a second language, not very well, but enough to be able to converse about something if the kids are in the room and we don't want them understanding. This is becoming more vital now that the kids are learning to spell.
However when I clearly say " leave that alone " it's like I don't exist. I'm sorry has your hearing gone? I don't care if you think the mirror that I have leaning up against the wall in my bedroom would look better straight, I have it at an angle for a reason......leave the fucking thing where I put it! Now back out the room and stop glaring at me. How is it possible for a 6 year old to have a drop dead stare down so well?

MAYBE THIS WOULD HELP YOU HEAR ME?
Image by: altemark

DH has a slight excuse, he's a man, and we know they don't listen to anything the wife says anyway....ha, no that's not his excuse that's just a sad fact. DH in fact is deaf in one ear, so it makes him unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time....although I think that is just part of being a man too. Of course if I mutter something under my breath about him being an ass, he hears it no problem, hence I find it easy to just tell him loudly, then he tends to ignore it.

I think sometimes its the mere fact that they don't want to hear what I am saying as it's not deemed important enough. If it's not going to affect their lives in the next 10 minutes don't bother saying it. Of course when you tell them something you clearly remember telling them the day before...like we have to go out now to xyz and they look at you as if to say, "why do I not know about this?"  Well I have no answer.  Somedays I just don't bother telling them things because it's easier on my blood pressure to just spring it on them and feign innocence when they are confused. Hell let's face it they don't know if I have already said it or not.

Things that are too easy!

• Insulting your husband - lets face it once you have been married a while its just second nature, and I am sure he insults me when I am not around too.

• yelling at your kids - this is a given...every day, a couple of times a day, they make it so easy!

• finding an excuse not to run - another thing that is sadly way to easy!  Anything will do,  from I am tired, I'll do it later (which never happens) my ankle is sore and I have other stuff to do are among my favorites. This one I have to stop!

Image by: Ondablv

• finding an excuse to have a drink - nothing wrong with this, apart from the fact that it does not help my diet.  Its 5pm somewhere, and I am sure I have friends in that time zone drinking already - one of the advantages to having friends spread out all over the world.

• deciding to have a pj day and spend it in bed reading.  This does not happen too often, as I have to go and get the kids from school at some stage and the other parents would look at me funny if I was still in my PJ's  (of course I may just have gotten out of them 2 minutes prior to leaving home)

• To wear a hat in winter - it means you dont have to style your hair...hell you dont even have to brush it!  Of course the other day for a change I styled my hair, put product in and everything and had a whole bunch of people tell me how great my hair looks.  Made me wonder if I should put the effort in more often!

• to ignore all that paperwork on your desk.  I have a whole pile sitting right here in front of my keyboard, DH says he does not know how I work here. (Does he even know me?   Work?  What is that word I seem to have heard it somewhere before, oh yes I think I am allergic to it, so I try and avoid it....its what he does to get me my money!)

• To leave your kids  homework till the morning - I know I was always guilty of this as a kid, but I honestly thought it would be better once I was the adult.  It appears not! The time in the morning before school is spent, throwing some clothes together, making lunches, downing a cup of coffee and doing homework. Bear in mind we only have 1  hour from the time the alarm goes off till they need to be out the door. Oh yes and somewhere in there the kids manage to get breakfast in too.

• To give in to the temptation of that cupcake - whoever buys the cupcakes had better stop!  I have no willpower, none at all, if they are there I will eat them, or if there are only two left for the kids I will at least sneak some of the icing off them.  Sadly this is why I am both running and on diet.

My son the creeper

I dont know how he does it, but he has this ability to sneak around almost 100% silently.  It scares the shit out of me when he suddenly appears out of thin air next to me.  It used to be funny (well almost - at least you could justify a nervous giggle while trying to get your heart rate under control), but this was when he did not know exactly what it was he was doing. However, these days he knows what he is doing and gets a kick out of scaring me,  its no longer funny.  Just the other day he snuck behind me in my office, onto the far side of me, squeezed into the little gap between my chair and the wall and tapped me on the shoulder, then packs up laughing when I jump a foot out of the chair.

Not even gonna go there!
Image by: TangoPango

No-one has ever been able to sneak up on me, even when I am sleeping I have always heard everything! I am not sure if its a product of growing up the youngest girl in a house with three older brothers, or a product of growing up in South Africa, where once you were old enough noises at night were to be taken seriously, but I have always been a really light sleeper. I hear if someone gets up to use the washroom or if the dog starts pacing needing to go outside.
Diggle has managed to walk right up next to the bed in the middle  of the night and pinch my nose closed to wake me up...ever woken up  not being able to breath because someone is holding your nose closed?....its a little unnerving.

In our office DH and I share a long desk with both our computers on the desk, Diggle can walk in and stand between our chairs and neither of us knows he is there till you catch a shadow out of the corner of you eye and you know there is a figure there that should not be there, it scares me everytime.  Even worse when you are sitting watching tv by yourself and he sneaks up and stands next to you, especially when he is supposed to be in bed....its like a scene from a horror movie.

I am hoping as he gets older he will make more noise or I am going to have to loosen a few floorboards.  But my one persisting nagging thought is why can he not be that quiet when he is running around in the morning while we are trying to sleep, well that and maybe he has a future as a cat burglar.

Winter!!

I am over it!  In a perfect world we would have 4 distinct seasons. South Africa never had this, it was summer all year, just some of it was humid and some was cooler at night..  Ok, Canada has this part right.   I love the crispness of fall, the cooler nights, the leaves changing colour.  I love the 1st snowfall of winter, the 1st frost. (notice how I said the 1st snowfall and stopped after that?) The warmer days of the spring, the flowers peeking through and the grass turning green.  The heat of summer, time on the beach and in the pool.  However, in my hypothetical perfect world  for winter, we would have ton of snow for about 3 weeks, one week before Christmas, and the two weeks after it.  After this spring needs to start.
I am tired of being cold, I want the kids outside playing.  I want to be able to BBQ my steak without running back inside to warm up in between turning it.
The only thing I don't mind is being able to wear a hat. at least it hides the fact that I often don't have time to do a lot with my hair.

Image by: ank0ku

The funny thing is, this winter seems to have gone really quickly, so why am I already over it?  I mean we are already nearing the end of January. In some ways I think it feels like it never really started,  I think this is due to the fact that we have had very little snow, and to be honest (I cant believe I am admitting this), I actually miss the snow, the kids miss being able to go sledding, I even miss shoveling the driveway, at least it got me out the house.  I have reached a point where it is just cold and blah outside now, and I think thats  worse than blue sky, sunshine and crisp white snow.  I don't even want to take the monster dog out for her evening walks. 

The kids are getting cabin fever, the monster dog can only eat so many mitts, (or can she?  The vet said she is getting fat, so no more mitts for her!). I have a feeling the kids are feeding her their food when I am not looking!  Yes Mom we loved those brussel sprouts!  Can we have some more?  What's not right about that picture?  Ok those of you who know me will call me on that one, you know that even I would feed the dog my brussel sprouts, I have never met one I liked.  So I sure as hell would not be feeding my kids them! 

We did take the kids ice skating yesterday afternoon, so at least that got me out and into an arena, I even had the urge to pull out my skates and try and reteach myself, but my luck on ice is not good, and I was not really in the mood for another ambulance ride, so I held off. 

The last two run ins with ice involved:
 1. A curling attempt (a weird Canadian sport like bowling on ice), which landed me in hospital with a severed temporal artery and 7 stitches in my head. (I blame the green beer for st Patrick's day for this one.)
2. A patch of ice in the kids daycare centre which left me with a broken leg, a dislocated ankle and two surgeries later, a couple of pins and screws in my leg. (I promise there was no alcohol involved in this one!)
I'm just not sure I'm ready for another hospital trip yet, so maybe I guess I'll stay off the ice for now.  On the other hand it may make winter come to an end faster!

Today it's raining and grey again, I really need to get off my butt and run, with being sick with the cold from hell  for the last two weeks I have done nothing.  If I keep this up I will be walking my 1st 5k race in April! 

Things my children will one day understand

• Mommy sometimes says yes, you can eat candy first thing in the morning, this is because she is busy with something and needs you to keep quiet and stay out of her hair, not because it is an acceptable food for breakfast.  Do not think you can ask for it every morning, do not tell your friends and for the love of Bob, do not tell your teacher!

Image by: Morag.Riddell

• When mommy tells you to flush the toilet after you go, she does not mean leave it until you walk in the bathroom and scream eeeeuw yuck it's stinky in here.  Also I tell you to put the lid down for a reason.  Monster dog thinks the toilet bowls are her own personal water bowls, add in not flushing and the way she likes to say good morning and it's not a pleasant thought, please please put the lid down!

• As parents, we love you, however this does not mean we want to be woken up in the morning to the sound of your angelic voices arguing over who is more desperate to pee, we have three, yes three toilets in this house, there are two of you, do the math!

• I cannot believe you all the time, sometimes I get it wrong.  It would be easier if you did not ever fib, make anything up, or try and hide stuff from me, but until that happens, there will be days when I send you to school with a real tummy ache. On these days I promise to come and pick you up a few hours later when the school calls to tell me you are running a fever or have thrown up.  

• When your stories don't match up as to who was to blame, I usually know the correct version, I may say I don't know who to believe, but I do!  I say this to bring an end to the arguing and yelling, if it continues I will join in and someone will get punished.  This is usually a good time to back off and go and watch some tv.

• If you ate something last week/ month and loved it, I will cook it again, do not tell me this time you don't like it and expect something else to appear on the table.  If you don't want to eat it, feel free to go to bed.  I will not be making something else, ask your father, he still eats the fish even though he pulls a face and rolls his eyes.  It's what I made for dinner, I really don't care if it's not what you wanted.

• Saying I'm hungry ten million times after 4pm will not magically make the dinner appear any faster, once it's cooking there is nothing I can do to speed it up, and no you may not have a granola bar, cookie, crackers and cheese, candy, bread, popcorn or chips at this time of day.  You may snack on carrots, broccoli or even an apple, if you don't want these options clearly you are not THAT hungry that you cannot wait 30 minutes for dinner.

• If there is blood curling screaming, there had better be something seriously wrong, a limb had better be broken or dislocated, or there must be blood flowing.  The fact that one of you changed the tv channel cause the movie was too scary is not enough to warrant that sort of screaming.  If you want to see something scary, its my face after having to leap out the bath/shower to come and apply first aid to a kid who is merely unhappy with something.

• Finally, I will always be suspicious after the two of you retreat and start whispering to each other.  However I love that you are each others best friends and co-conspirators.  Please always stay this way, please always love each other and continue to stand up for each other anyway.

I read this in a blog that I follow yesterday, it reminds me that there are a lot of Moms like me out there   "I have the blog.  I still devote my time here because it serves a purpose for me- and one day, I can print out all of the stories, and give them to my kids.  That way they have proof that, though I might have been a shitty parent, I had good intentions.  And shared all of it with strangers." 

The stages of cheapness

Firstly sorry for the delay in new posts, I have had a head cold from hell, and not being able to breath has severely affected my ability to think.

The topic today is all about frugality, the reason why?  Well the other day a very dear friend of mine called me cheap, I called her a bitch.

Let me explain why she called me cheap.  We were at a kids birthday party and Diggle called me over as he needed to blow his nose.  I patted down my jacket pockets in the vague hope I that had something and came out with a bundle of toilet paper.  Hence I am too cheap to buy tissues. 
Now in my defense, I would not usually even have had toilet paper....yes I am one of those moms, the ones who do not carry tissues around for their kids, The polar opposite of my Mom who always had a tissue rolled up in her sleeve.  The only thing I used to carry for my kids was a few snacks in my bag, but that stopped once the monster dog figured my bag was a good place to look for something to eat.  Let's just say chocolate covered granola bars and dogs stomaches are not a good match.
In fact. I only had toilet paper bundled in my pocket as we went ice skating two weeks ago, and after skating Diggle had a nosebleed in the change room.  I staunched the flow of blood with what ever was handy (toilet paper) and stuffed some extra into my jacket pocket in case it started up again on the way home and forgot about it till the runny nose incident.

I saved money cause
it was all on sale!
Image by Iracema Silva

Now I will admit I am  frugal, some would even say thrifty, but I deny being cheap.  I  do use coupons where I can, sadly we don't get anywhere near the coupons like they do down the in the USA, but there are a lot out there if you are willing to look for them. I also like to hit the clearance racks and sales for my clothes, and I relish getting a deal on things.  But if it is something we need or want I will spend the money.  Also I know there are certain things you can go cheap on, and others are a definite no.  Something like toilet paper for example, you don't want to go cheap on this household item, for obvious reasons, and if you are someone who does not care about wiping your butt with sandpaper, then please at least put decent quality paper in your guest bathroom for your poor guests.  I am betting all your family will start using that bathroom more and more and you may be able to piece the puzzle together as to the reason why.

My mother always raised me to be money wise, to not overspend, and to save where you can.  That being said, I love to shop, buy stuff for myself, the house, the kids, (ok, more for myself), but who doesn't ?  And of course when I do spend money on myself I don't feel guilty as I know I have more than saved that money by being frugal in other areas.  I don't have budgets that we adhere to, we spend as and when we need to. If I can get all items I need at one shop in one trip,  I wont take the time to go to two different shops because an item is cheaper at them.

Over all it balances out as I managed to marry a man who is decidedly not frugal, who will not compare prices on general things (he will on large purchases especially photography equipment and electronics - which are pretty much the only things he is in charge of purchasing).  Maybe thats what we look for in a spouse, someone who is opposite of us, after all my friend who called me cheap is married to a man who is even more frugal than me....now see how nice I was there?  I could have called him cheap.

The awesomeness of middle age vs trying to stay young!

I had an idea for my next blog topic shortly after turning out the lights last night.  I lay there and wrote half the blog in my mind, and thought I really should get up and write this down.
It was witty and clever and some really good stuff.  Then I thought no, this is good, I'll remember it and improve on it in the morning when I am more awake.  So, now it's morning and I can't even remember the topic I was planning on.  Is this old age?  Oh wait that reminds me, it had something to do with being middle aged....perhaps it was something to do with memory or lack thereof?  Although my memory went as soon as I had kids, so I totally blame them.

Well since I am not sure what it was I wanted to say I am just going to go ahead and tell you the awesome things I have found about being middle aged.  Yes, at 40 I have finally admitted I am now middle aged.

I'm no longer afraid.  I don't care as much what people will think of me, obviously I don't want to come across to my kids friends parents as a complete loser (so yes, sometimes I have to try and pretend I am grown up and responsible), but in general, there is not this fear of OMG I have an image I have to keep up.  If you don't like what I do and say then go and stuff it.  I am a lot more secure about who I am and what I want.

My friends are no longer dictated by who is in the "in crowd" (not that I ever was, hence my friends mostly never were), but now I know that those things no longer count so I don't feel bad about it, I am better than anyone who was ever in the in crowd.  I have handpicked my friends, or maybe in some cases they picked me, or in others, I think we just stumbled into one another and stuck.  But whatever happened they are pretty awesome.

I am the fittest I have ever been.  Yes I still have along way to go, but I do 5km at least three times a week, and more now than even when I was training up on my swimming for my dive master course. This is the most I have ever done and the longest I have ever stuck with any sort of fitness regime.

Image by dustmans 

Oh, would you look at that, I just remembered something about what I wanted to write....it was about my hair and all the grey in it, and how I used to dye it to be different, and now I dye it to try and stay young......maybe my blog should have been about trying to stay young instead of the awesomeness of middle age.  Wow, now there are two conflicting thoughts? 

So I guess the question that stems from this is do we try to stay young? Do we embrace middle age? Or do we find a happy medium in between?  At this point I am trying to stay young by looking my best and feeling my best in years, but I embrace the wisdom and peace (was going to say maturity - but judging by some our parties lately I will refrain from using that word) that my 40's have brought me.

Right now I am off to dye my hair purple....and not your Grandmothers purple, but rather a nice wicked shade of dark purple!  In my mind I am still 29 and staying that age anyway!

Porn

Porn, yes that's right porn.  I really am typing about this.  If you are reading this and you are my mother or my in-laws, I have never seen any, now turn the computer off and back away slowly, ok, not slowly, just run!  We will never talk of this again.

Strangely enough I cannot find an appropriate picture to include in this blog post, so we will do without!

Anyway back to porn, yes I was privy to catch the late night shows on cable and stopped to look.  Seriously, I remember watching porn in my youth and it was much much better!  Ok, the actors could never act, and I know they are not hired on their acting ability, but seriously, there are enough desperate struggling actors out there that you think they would be able to find some poor starving soul who would be willing to at least make the story slightly believable? 

Also, the 70's show? As porn?  I for one am now mentally scarred at the thought of Red and Kitty in a porno.  It was not something I ever wanted to see, but sadly not all the bleach in the world can erase that image from my mind! 

The sound effects they make are another thing entirely, I swear the one poor girl sounded like a cross between a squeaky door and a donkey braying, I am pretty sure I have never sounded like that!  On one hand I am not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, if I ever find out I'll be sure to let you know, no I wont, I am way to reserved and shy to do that!  Of course the length of time they go for is maybe the reason,  however I am pretty sure if we tried that, one of us would end up in traction (probably DH with his bad back and all).

Maybe I have gotten old, or simply been married too long, but these days I would be more in the mood to jump DH after he has done the housework or watching Ryan Gosling in Crazy,Stupid Love than watching one of those.

Then again maybe it's just the cable company guy who decides what movie to play has bad taste.  (that's a whole different story, could you imagine being that guy writing your job description on your resume?)

Control and lack thereof

I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I have control issues, and it's not something I am afraid to admit.  I always have to know exactly what the plan is.  I am ok with not making decisions, in fact I can be pretty indecisive, unless the person making the decisions is making them wrong.    So if I have these control issues you would think I would be better organized, with stronger willpower, maybe even a litlle OCD.  But you would be wrong.

I am unorganized, or really it's more like organized chaos.  I know where everything is (mostly) and manage somehow to always pay the bills on time and keep track of who has to be where and when, but I am messy.  Yes, my desk is always a mess, my house always looks like a bomb ripped through it (and if it doesn't when you happened to visit me it's cause I knew you were coming and cleaned up).  Please don't open the cupboard or look in the laundry room!  And whatever you do don't go down into the basement, you may not come back up!   It's not that I don't like things to be organized and neat.  In fact set me free in one of those stores that sells all the stuff to help you organize and I will be in heaven. 
I guess I am just intrinsically lazy. 

I know where everything is....yes I do!

Ha, now I have admitted that I am a messy, lazy, control freak, wow, I sound like a real catch.  I'm guessing it's a good thing I got married young when I still had my looks and body to count on. 

Anyway today felt like a spring day, it was 7c and the sun was shining.  We decided to get into the spring cleaning mode, and sort out the basement.  To anyone who maybe went down into my basement in the last 6 months, I apologize, it got out of control.  It was just easy to pretend it was not there and let the kids make a complete mess of it.  When I went down there it was only to run on the treadmill, so I would pick my way through the toys and mess and concentrate on running and whatever was on the iPod.

Well, after a day full of hard work my basement looks semi decent, we have a large pile of toys to give away, and the adults have the  gym area of the basement back under control and neat.  Now next week I will tackle the 6 months of paperwork that needs to filed in my office.

Oh and did I mention the kids go back to school tomorrow!!

Good Parenting

I am sure there is already a book by this name, and I am equally sure none of my examples of parenting will ever make it into any reprints of this book.

Today when Diggle came down to interrupt my treadmill run the 1st thing I growled at him, (ok maybe gasped would be a better description), was "someone had better be bleeding". Sadly he did not look even the slightest bit concerned, but shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to try to mime out what he wanted (he knows I cant hear a thing with my iPod in).
In my defense I had told them not to come and bug me while I was running unless there was an injury or the house was on fire. Sure enough he just had a random question, nothing that could not have waited.

Right now they are both in a bath full of bubbles, it will keep them amused for at least 40 minutes and give me some peace, and the added benefit is that they should both be a little cleaner by the time they get out!

I know there are many many different styles of parenting, and mostly kids turn out ok even after all the shit we subject them to. I am not a parent who lets my kids walk all over me, or get away with much. I have a feeling some of my friends feel I am too strict, but I am still more lenient than my parents were. My guys know how far they can push to get what they want, and like most kids, will try and push it further.  They also know when I am deadly serious and they have overstepped that limit. I remember a few days ago,  after Christmas, the look on their faces when I totally lost it after they had pushed and pushed and I was too tired to argue till I snapped. Diggle was waving his hands in the air saying "its ok Mommy, its ok, we will do it, just calm down, your face has gone all red!" Ah yes....a proud parenting moment indeed, your kid is concerned you are going to stroke out in the kitchen and has caved to your demands.

Image by Sensual Shadows Photography 

Now before I get hate mail and people start threatening to report me to CAS, let me say, my kids are well loved and have a wonderful life. I keep telling them they could have it so much worse, I even offer to let them experience it worse if they don't start behaving! They are not beaten, they are fed, clothed, loved and educated (even if they would rather watch tv all day!), and I am sure when they are older they will not remember that I was only concerned about not being disturbed unless there were bodily injuries, but rather that I let them play in the bath for really long time and did not yell when there were bubbles half way up the wall and all over the floor.

Inspiration

Image by TZA

I have none, nothing, nada, zip.....what am I supposed to write about?  I feel like my brain has turned to mush.  I think it may be the extra junk I have eaten over the festive season slowing me down, or maybe it's the absorption of second hand SpongeBob SquarePants with the kids being home all day.

I could tell you that it's freezing here today, the cars thermometer was reading  -20c when I was driving home from grocery shopping at mid day, but are you really interested in that?  Well those of you living in the tropics may feel glad to be there at that mention, but it's not like it's scintillating reading. 

I could bitch about a craft beading set that I got for the Princess for Christmas that said it was not for those under 3 years old, when in fact it's not for any age, cause it's too damn complicated for me to even do!, or I could complain once again how I still have another 5 days before school starts up, and I am not sure if the kids are going to kill me, or if I am going to maim them in that time, but if I hear another "I'm bored" I am going to throw all their Christmas presents out into the snow, starting with that damn beading set.

I even contemplated doing a post about hangovers after my New Years party, but I felt way to rotten to think, let alone move my fingers across a keyboard.  In fact I slept till lunch time, and was ever so thankful that DH got up and tended to the kids. I have a feeling my neighbor actually tried to kill me with red wine on New Years eve, but he is claiming innocence (I don't believe a word though).

What this all boils down to is, I'm cold, my kids are bored and hangovers suck.  Wow, I could have written this blog in one sentence....but what would have been the fun of that!

Maybe some inspiration will hit me soon.....let's hope!