Ahhh Summer!

3.5 days of school left!! I am feeling a little anxious about the summer.  Its not that my kids are naughty or even require a lot of attention.  Its that they are home and I feel guilty for not giving them the attention.  I feel like I should be taking them places, doing things, entertaining them, playing with them.  My downfall is that I am not one of THOSE moms.  You know the perfect Mom who does all of the above, or at least says they do all of the above and loves to tell everyone what fun they have with their kids everyday.  In retrospect I really should have thought harder about this whole parenthood thing before I committed to it.  I wanted kids, I really did.  Hell I paid enough to get my kids!  Its just sometimes I don't know if I am cut out for this.  However let me say and make this perfectly clear....I love my kids, I would not change it for the world now that I have them, they are the best kids in the world, and I have every faith that they are going to do amazing things with their lives. (As long as Princess never decides to take up dancing!)

I suppose I must be doing something right.  My kids are not brats and most people tell me they love them.  They are polite, they listen, they rarely have meltdowns (I could probably count on one hand the number of times anything like that has happened) and they are very loving and understanding of me when I tell them I am busy working.  So reading this you must all think I am a terrible Mom.  Why would I not want to spend my summer doing fun things with them?  The answer is...I don't know.....I just like my own free time, I'm selfish I know.  To be brutally honest I find it draining to have to do stuff and go places and watch them all the time to ensure they are safe and not in danger.  Even grocery shopping becomes more taxing, and more expensive, I find myself agreeing to buy things just to bribe them and get through the trip quicker, and sometimes out of guilt that I never treat them enough compared to their friends.

Now don't get me wrong, its not like I never do anything with them, we go camping, we do lots of trips over the summer, we canoe, we bike ride, we spend time on the beach and I love it.  BUT I also love it when I can have some quiet time, some time to myself when I don't have to worry about who is doing what, who needs lunch, who is outside playing in the street, and where is the other one, and then with the constant opening and closing of the front door...has anyone let the monster dog out into the street, cause if so we are all in trouble.

Regardless I am going to try this summer to be a better parent.  To take them to the splash pad, to let them have friends over for play dates, and if it means I have to work more in the evenings and have less time to read and relax then so be it.  I will try and look at the positives, no more rushing in the morning to get everyone breakfast and get lunches made. Peanut butter is again an allowed food selection for lunch and of course no more last minute trying to get homework done 5 minutes before walking out the door in the morning!    Of course....that does not mean that I will not be happy when that first week school in September gets here!


And yes I am aware the above paragraph is hi-lighted in white...I have no idea why, and I don't feel like deleting it and retyping it!

random musings

Firstly let me apologize for the lack of posts.  In fact I have had so little time lately I have not even been reading the blogs I follow, and have a good 27 or so posts to catch up on.  I started a new job, well sort of new.  Its a volunteer position that I had been doing since March, but have ended up being promoted? taking on a whole bunch more responsibility.  Sadly I have come to realize that when I am doing a job I enjoy, I am a little bit of a work-a-holic.  Hence the lack of blog posts.

I have no real topic to write about today, so will give you some random musings.

• I have the strangest dog.  Her taste buds extend past shoes, plastic and dolls. She goes frantic over bananas and watermelon too!  
• I have finally lost it with being woken at the crack of dawn by giggling and loud talking.  (always by the Princess - but they both get the blame as she would not be awake if Diggle did not wake her up!)  Therefore from today they lose out on treats everyday I get woken before my alarm clock. - They were not impressed when told this 1st thing morning.  Lets hope for my sanity and beauty sleep that it works!
• I think I have lost my mind cause I signed up to run another 5K, this time in two weeks, middle of summer, and I don't do well in the heat!  I am praying for a cold front to sweep through on this weekend!
• I am  feeling old!  All the people I work with are younger than me.  I guess its a good thing I won the weekly draw from a fancy skin care place this week...maybe they have a miracle anti-aging cream that can take 10 years off me.
• The kids have a future in crime.  Well cyber crime.  I heard them discussing in great detail how to hack into the school system to see the teachers network???  They are 7!! What?
• 4.5 school days left till summer break!  2 whole months, 9 weeks of the kids at home!  I don't need to say more on this topic do I?  You may be getting more blog posts out of me, either that or I will be locked away in a padded cell before long.

• 7 weeks till my household jumps from 4 to 8.  Yes we are getting another two kids and two adults.  Should be fun?  My brother is immigrating, so his family and him need a place to stay till they have jobs and find themselves a house.  Padded cell anyone?  - It's looking more and more inviting.....no I jest (or do I?) I love my brother and have not seen him in about 6 years so I can't wait to have them living close. I may have to give them names for the blog though! 

More gems that come out of my childrens mouths

Just some pearls of wisdom or not that have sprouted from my kids recently...

"Mom, you really should ask us what we want for breakfast before just giving us stuff."   - To which I replied..." Princess, you really should eat what I give you and be thankful I am giving you breakfast and not sending you off to school hungry."
 Her reply..."oh!"  -  She ate her breakfast.

Overheard between the two of them...
Princess "How many speeding tickets can you get before the police arrest you?"
Diggle "I think two"
Princess "Moms gonna get arrested then!"

Diggle put his half finished dinner plate on the counter.....
Me "I thought you were hungry?"
Diggle "I was, till I saw what was for dinner - can I have desert please?"

While I am fixing the TV and fiddling behind it with the wires so I can re-set everything.
Diggle "Mom, if the house goes on fire now, its been nice knowing you" - Its nice to know he has faith in me!

Diggle typing out an answer on the computer as to why he should be on TV "Because I am super cool"
Princess "Well if he gets to go on TV I will tell them I must go too, cause I am super pretty, and that's just like being super cool, only.....prettier!"

The best one recently, and one that scared me the most was the other day when they wanted money to take to school for the book fair.
Me: "I'm not sure if I have any cash, we will have to look and see in my wallet"
Princess:  "That's ok Mommy, just give us your credit card and we can take that to school!"
WHA??? Ermmm, no!

Relaxing weekend?

Finally a summer weekend when I don't feel rushed!  You see previous years we would book our camping trips with only one weekend at home between them.  This meant that that weekend was spent trying to unpack and repack for the next trip!  Not all that relaxing!  This year we more sensibly left two weekends between our trips and booked a few longer trips.  

That means that today is house clean up day..it looks like Hicksville around here.  I have piles of clothes on the floor, a pile that is too big for me, a pile that is too small for the kids, a pile of clean washing that needs to be put away, a pile hat needs altering and fixing (yes I sew), but you get the picture!  We also need to mow the grass and do the yard work, and valet the cars cause not only the inside of the house looks like Hicksville!  The poor monster dog is having to bound through the garden so she doesn't get lost in the grass, and the neighbours must think we have vacated the lot....but no, they probably saw us sitting outside with our friends across the road last night.  

Tonight I get a girls night out with my two bf's from the street, at least that will give me some down time to recover from my day of cleaning - we all know I'm not used to that sort of manual labour.

Oh and to start the day off right, Diggle is wondering around the house with orange stripes in his hair, and princess with pink stripes, I guess they are my kids after all!

Things I used to want for my kids

I used to want them to always be dressed cute, to always look nice.  Now I just want them to be wearing something without holes and preferable no food stains.

I used to want them to have time alone from each other, develop their own personalities - more so because they are twins and always with each other.  Now I just want them to play together so I dont have one complaining they are bored and that their sibling does not want to play

I used to want them to eat, to grow and gain weight (they were born preemie),  now I wish they would stop nibbling on anything they can find.

I used to want them to have lots of friends, ok I still want them to have lots of friends, I just wish they would stop wanting them to come inside and play...its nice weather outside, go out there!

I used to want them to stand up for themselves and each other, and yes I still do, just not to me!  The backchat and arguing with me needs to stop.

I used to want them to have the best of everything, now I just want them to get through the day in one piece, without any new cuts, scrapes, bruises and emotional trauma.

I used to want them to be successful when they grew up, now I just want them to be happy and healthy...-although I would not complain if they earn enough to keep me when I am older ;) 

I used to want them to always love me, and always love each other,....hey, what do you know, I still want that, although I am willing to concede that we will not always like each other. ;)

1st camping trip of the season

Yesterday morning my wonderful, adorable kids (if I type what I thought at the time someone would call child services) woke up at 6:00am and decided to help me by packing their own clothes for our upcoming camping trip.   I looked in their cases this evening and they had packed every pair of underwear they own,  at least 7 pairs of pajamas each (both summer and winter), and a few pairs of shorts.  Oh and every swim suit they could find, both last years and this years.  There were no shirts, no warm clothes, oh and did I mention we are only going for 3 nights?  

On one hand at least we know they are excited and looking forward to it, on the other, I had to spend a whole bunch of extra time this evening putting all their clothes back away.  I guess I will repack the cases myself tomorrow while they are at school.

Of course they could just be excited that they get a day off school on Friday, which I will admit was always enough for me to get excited about when I was their age.  

I still have a ton of packing to do, because as usual I have left most stuff till the last minute. I have done the shopping, but the clean clothes are still all piled on the chair needing to be put away before I can even think about what to pack for myself, and then I still have to do all the little things like pack food and medicines - a major job because I go to the extreme of being over prepared in case someone gets mauled by a bear or breaks a leg on hike. If you are reading that and thinking WTF?? well, meet my family! 

The whole packing thing seems to come together in the end, so I won't stress too much about it, after all I have another whole 24 hours before I need to panic.   

Mothers day

To all the wonderfully dysfunctional    mothers out there....happy mothers day.  We are what makes the world interesting.  I hope you get a day of peace, where no one fights with each other, no one pees on the floor, and maybe the kids remember to flush for a change.  A day where the kids let you sleep in past 7:00am, and give you an extra special hug in the morning.

I know we often beat ourselves up on our mothering skills,(ok, maybe not, maybe we realize that we are not perfect...but being perfect sucks anyway!) but look around, I am pretty sure it's not hard to find kids a lot worse behaved than yours.....we must be doing something vaguely right.  

In our family we don't usually do anything overly special for mothers day, the kids give me something small,  I know they have made something from school, as they would not let me look in their bags on Friday (Diggle is getting better at this secret keeping thing).  DH helps the kids make me a nice breakfast and then it's pretty much a usual day.  We will be packing the trailer, as we never got it finished today, I will be doing laundry and maybe if I am lucky I can use the fact that it is mothers day to bribe some good behavior from the kids.

Whatever your situation, take whatever love and kindness is shown to you and embrace it knowing you deserve it and a million times more, because without us Moms around ......well Lord of the flies springs to mind.

Oh and this is the card I expect to get from DH tomorrow ;)