New and Improved

I'm right over here!

Pages That Have Been Turned ...

Isn't it weird that it has been almost two years since a blog post? I used to love writing. I couldn't wait to write. My life has changed so much from the girl who was a single mom and looking for love and figuring out my way in the world.

Now I am a wife and a mom of five and I'm still figuring out my way in this world. But through a different lens.

Recently some things have come up in our family that have made me realize the benefit of writing and I'm once again finding the joy in writing. I have started a new blog at http://notskywalker.wordpress.com ... It's a little less figuring shit out and a little more Figuring Shit Out.

Change ...

Do we get boring when we get older? As our experiences change, does our ability to convey them? Is it still funny? Meaningful? Is it important to relate?

I'm not the girl in search of love anymore. I don't come home a little tipsy after dancing all night or have funny bad date stories. I don't work for bosses who are crazy or give me wine. I don't go on that many random adventures. I'm not a single mom.

But I do have three kids under the age of four. It is an adventure whenever we all go out together. I have peculiar neighbours and a job that provides funny stories. I'm a mama of four and I struggle with my weight and trying to look cute. We brew wine and beer in our basement and sometimes it tastes good. I have a husband who's my best little friend. We might have more kids sometime! I have a teenager who's alternately one of my other best friends and a crazy little guy full of hormonal emotion. I love this life. And I've stopped biting my nails!

So I want to keep writing. Or, more accurately, start writing again.

Am I Wearing Pants?

A very helpful and useful tool.




















You're welcome.

Importance ...

I got this from Alexandra ... And I. LOVE. IT.

"Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep."

~ Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Nope, He Didn't.

I Need A Genie Or A Lamp ...

I WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO WRITE!

Because then I would write about how I was fish sitting and I accidentally killed it ... Or about how terrible my kids are at going to bed sometimes (and yet every morning when they get up I am excited to see them) ... Or about the other night when the creepiest thing EVER happened and it practically made me afraid of the dark ... Or about how I made a turkey for the first time in my life and now I'm excited to make Christmas dinner ... Or, for that matter, how excited I am about Christmas altogether.

TIIIIIIIIIIIME!

I WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO WRITE!

I have all these thoughts and ideas in my little head and I don't have many opportunities to write about them.

I Love My Home.

I Have Super Powers:

Shopping List ...

I need some garlic. But a special kind of garlic to ward off emotional vampires.

If you have some, let me know.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together!*

I'm currently getting all my ducks in a row to go back to work in September. *sigh* Stupid ducks. Buuuuut hopefully it will be a smooth-ish transition for me and for the kids and I won't need to take all my sick days just because I'm sick with dread and sadness.


*Um, it is coming together, right?

How Old Are You?!

Sometimes I find myself really reflecting on something someone has said to me. It could be a piece of advice or even an off-handed remark that wasn't meant to be sentimental at all. Words really have the power to lift you up or tear you right apart. Yesterday I had one such interaction. With a stranger, at that.

I got ID'd, folks.

Yessss!

Brief Interlude

My best girlfriend said this to me a couple of days ago and for some reason it really resounded in my little black heart.

"Talking and laughing is one of the loveliest things to do and life is short."

Maybe it doesn't even make much of a ripple in your pond but I've reflected on it and it's true.

Elephant

Some days you just feel euphoric like no matter what, everything is going to be ok because you know you've got everything you need right here.

And then some days every decision feels like a fork in the road and it's like a crazy Choose Your Own Adventure and you worry because you can't just turn to page 91 and read what it says and then change your mind.

A Boy's Take on Makeup ...

I was doing my makeup this morning with Joel beside me. He pulled one of my MAC eyeshadows out of my makeup bag. "What's this?" he asked.
"Colours for Mommy's eyes" I said.
Joel began to pull more eyeshadow out of the bag and lay them all on the table in front of him.
"Wheels!" he said.
This kid is all boy.

This Would Look Great on a Resume ...

So I've been taking a cake decorating class. AND LOVING IT. I'm having so stinking much fun. The other day we learned how to make a rose with icing. They look so pretty.

When I showed Jacob he said "cool mom, now you could work at the Safeway bakery or something!"

The Bliss of Two Babies Napping at the Same Time.

Some days your two year old brings the hose in through the patio door and floods the kitchen. And says "uh oh. Mess" as you're pulling out the fridge and stove to sop up all the water.

Some days you put a clean diaper on your littlest just to have him poo an up-the-back-poo two minutes later.

Some days your pre-teen talks to you in a tone that boils your blood. And yet, it's pretty familiar because you once talked that way to your own mom.

Some days you bring your two year old to a park and out of nowhere he tries to roundhouse kick another little kid in the head.

Some days you take them to the store and have the baby crying the whole. Way. Through. Walmart. And then you get home and realize you forgot to pick up eggs, the one thing you went to buy.

Some days all your kid will eat is peanut butter on a spoon.

And yet I am dreading - DREADING - going back to work in two and a half months because I don't want to miss a single second of this.

Character Development

If we could compare our children to characters in Arrested Development, Jacob is the most like Michael, Joel is like Gob and Joshua is Buster.


... Now we just need a Lindsay.

Even Better Than Winning the Lottery:

When our little baby Josh was born, one of his feet was puffy. He wasn't in pain and it was a little bit of edema, but it was still perplexing for the doctors and pediatricians at the hospital. And then a self proclaimed new nurse thought she heard a heart murmur. Josh was immediately brought to the nurses' station but no one else could hear the murmur. Not doctors, not nurses, not even the new nurse when she tried a second time.

The pediatrician and my doctor consulted about it and decided to send us to the department of Genetics at Children's Hospital. The only thing they could come up with as a cause of the puffy foot (and possibly of a heart murmur if there was one) was Noonans. Even so, they said, they were not convinced that this was the cause of Joshua's symptom.

For seven months I worried about my little wiggle. I read about the syndrome. I cried. "You can't cry over a puffy foot, sweetie," Jason said. "All we know is that one of his feet was a bit puffy." But I still cried. And every time Joshua cried I wondered if it was because of his foot. Or another symptom I didn't know about. He smiled around the same age as my other boys. He rolled over, sat up and developed similarly to them as well. And every check up at the doctor's was perfect. No heart murmur. No concerns. But always in the back of my mind was the possibility that my littlest love may never have a normal little kid life.

And then we finally got an appointment at Children's. When I talked to our family doctor about it he said "I think they'll tell you that they haven't seen such a beautiful baby in a long time." I hoped. I braced myself for the worst. I cried. I bit my nails. I snuggled my littlest love. Jason held my hand and kissed my forehead. "It's going to be ok" he said. We met with two very kind doctors. They thoroughly went over Joshua's health and measurements. They interviewed us for a long time.

And then they said the words every parent in our situation would die to hear: "Little Joshua is healthy and we see no reason to have you back here for another meeting"

What an amazing moment!

Please Be Advised:

If you pee on the floor instead of in the potty you do not get a treat.