My Halloween horror story
I'm not really a Halloween person. Put another way: I hate it. If you're having a Halloween party, don't invite me because even if I really like you a lot, I won't want to come. I don't like dressing up, I don't like being chased down the street by the sound of screeching Cherry Bombs, I don't like eating my body weight in Smarties (I have no choice; when it comes to Smarties, if they're there, I have to eat them).
The holiday's big shot at redemption came when I had a kid. Even an avowed Halloween hater like myself has a hard time scowling at an adorable pint-sized trick-or-treater. Things started out okay: Her first Halloween she was 7 months and basically still immobile. She wore a yellow fuzzy suit with a duck bill hood and cried; I took her to the neighbour's house, she cried some more, we came home and called it a night. All things considered, not too bad. Fast forward a year. I sewed - let me repeat that, I sewed - her a costume only to have her go ballistic when I tried to put it on. We made a last minute change, went to a friend's house where she choked on a Tootsie Roll, vomited, and then bawled hysterically. Last year things got better. She was a haphazard sort of cat, we trick-or-treated, she had fun. I was one of the only adults in costume at the costume party, but other than that all was good.
Enter this year. Mads was flip-flopping between wanting to be a witch and a fairy, only to combine the two and decide - okay, demand - that I come up with a "fairy witch" costume. Which I did, and it was adorable. We then carved a jack-o-lantern, which the dog prompty ate (don't ask). But still, I was feeling pretty good about things. Until the night before Halloween, when I came down with swine flu. Freaking swine flu! What the... I've basically been drinking hand sanitizer and living in a bubble, so how I got swine flu I have no idea. But I did. So off she went trick-or-treating while I stayed home, watching Cape Fear and vomiting. But F, bless him, brought along the camera and documented the whole thing for me: The costume, the candy, even her hiking up stairs and knocking on doors. As soon as I was able to drag my sorry ass off the couch, I downloaded them to the computer so I could see what I'd missed out on. But the computer promptly crashed, taking the Halloween photos and everything else on the hard drive with it.
Nicely done, Halloween. I'll see you in hell.
November 10, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Beauty & the beast
Maddie’s stressing me out these days. It feels as though my heartbreakingly sweet, semi-independent 3-year-old has suddenly morphed into a hyperactive, clingy, borderline obnoxious preteen. I can’t even go pee anymore without her throwing open the door and whining, “This is taking too looong, Mommy!”
The other night I was heading out to see some friends – keep in mind that at 4 months pregnant I just look like I’ve packed on a few pounds so picking out clothes is pretty torturous – when she pointed at me and said, “Ew, your shirt has dead flowers on it” and then started laughing her ass off. Hello? Ever see Season 4 of Sex and the City? Fake flower accessories are – okay, were, whatever – totally in.
Then there’s the angry faces, the foot stomping, the table slapping – she knows that if she actually throws something or hits someone she’ll have to suffer the wrath, so instead just shoots me death glares and smacks whatever hard surface is within reach. Most suggestions – even the super duper fun ones like going to a movie – are met with, “I don’t want to do that. I’m going to stay home. [Insert foot stomp.]” And when I tried to get her to help me pick out a Christmas storybook the other day she dismissed the entire idea by announcing, “I don’t want books. I only want toys.” Well, la di da.
The thing is, most of the time she is so sweet and lovely and I just want to inhale and memorize every tiny thing about her: Every question, every discovery, every time she smiles or wraps her little arms tightly around my neck at bedtime. Last week she traced the letters of her name with a wobbly purple crayon and I actually cried as I sat there watching her. Then, boom! She’s telling me she hates my wardrobe and declaring, “I’m never going to tell you!” when I dare ask what she did that day at preschool. Serenity now.
I remind myself that it’s all just part of her growing into whoever she’s going to become, and, of course, that this too shall pass. But it’s the back and forth of it all that makes it so… tiring. If this is what 3.5 is like, how am I ever going to survive 13??
November 9, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
My best girl
On the way out of the 7-11 - my reward to myself for getting pregnant was to finally break my 4-year long Slurpee hiatus. Go womb! - I gave Mads a dollar and told her she could give it to the man who was sitting outside the store with his hat on the ground.
"Thanks a lot, little sister," he said when she chucked it into the cap.
Mads: "Little sister? Mommy, this guy called me little sister, but he's not my sister. That's funny! Isn't that crazy?"Me: "Yup, that's pretty crazy."
Mads: "Why did he want some money?"
Me: "I don't know, hon. But we have an extra dollar and he needs a dollar, so we can give him ours."
Mads: "I think I'll give him something every single day I come here. I hope he's going to be here. Oh no! What if he's not going to be here?!"
Me: "That's really nice, Mads. We'll probably see him again."
Mads: "And I think maybe he will go and find someone else who needs money and he will give our money to that person. That's called a trade, Mommy."
Me: "That's called helping someone, too."
Mads: "Yes, that's called a helping trade."
She breaks my heart sometimes, for real.
October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Run down and ribbon dancing
Still here, still pregnant, still utterly exhausted from the roots of my hair down to my fingernails. Seriously, even my hair feels tired.
I’m realizing that it’s a whole different ballgame being pregnant with #2. The first time around I would drag my sorry self home from work, plop straight into bed and nap for 2 hours. Unfortunately Mads doesn’t do a lot of lounging about in the evenings so a nap for Mommy is pretty much out of the question.
She’s like a little Tasmanian Devil when F and I get home: She runs, yelling, to the door to let us in and then it’s “Let’s play parade!” and “I’ll be Cinderella!” and “You do tricks!” (this is a vague one, but seems to involve me improvising a gymnastics-inspired floor routine of sorts while she cheers. Think Will Ferrell’s ribbon dance in Old School) straight through until bedtime. By the time she’s settled it’s 9pm, then I eat, load the dishwasher, make a pathetic and laughable attempt at tidying up, do some work in front of the TV and then fall into a comatose state until morning. Or, technically, until I have to get up to go pee, which happens three fricking times a night. I’ve been considering a bedpan but oddly F is stubbornly refusing. Go figure.
You know, I’m starting to think that all those times over the past couple of years that I bitched about being tired… that was just a warm-up for the real thing. I’m starting to worry that me and my one-child self have no idea what tired even means and that all you moms of two and three and four and, god help me, five, have been sitting there (or, I guess, standing there, because as if you have time to sit) laughing at me all along.
I’m starting to wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
October 22, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Never say never...
I was trying to think of a witty or at least a somewhat memorable way to announce this, but I think I'll just skip all that and cut to the chase: I'm pregnant. Knocked up. In the family way. Insert the euphemism of your choice, what it boils down to is that 6 months from now - knock on wood - I'll be a mom-of-two.
Let me try to sum up how I've been feeling in the month-and-a-half or so since I found out, just so you're up to speed: Shocked, relieved, exhausted, nauseous, nervous, happy, hormonal. And terrified. Let's not forget terrified.
Last night F and I went out to dinner - where we spent much of the time talking about how we'll never be able to go out for dinner anymore - and when I got home I went and hung my coat up in the spare room, which is soon-to-be the nursery. And as I put the hanger back in the closet I had a sudden panic attack.
"Where are we going to hang our coats?" I asked F once I returned, pale and stricken, to the living room. "Once the baby gets here. Where will our coats go?? We never thought about that when we made this big decision, did we?"
For a long, long time I honestly thought I would never be pregnant again. I swore it up and down to anyone who would listen. I would have put money on it. I very distinctly remember the day I packed all of my maternity clothes up in a garbage bag and dropped them off in the Goodwill bin, thinking to myself that there's no way I'd ever be needing those again. I did the same with all of Mads' baby clothes and toys - I didn't keep a single thing. (Yeah, I'm kind of regretting that decision now.)
Then somewhere along the way I guess I changed my mind. Not entirely, but enough. And so here we are, happy and terrified.
My track record with new motherhood is less than stellar. I spent too many of Mads' early days numb and in tears and just the thought of going through that again is scary as hell. On the other hand, what would my life be now without Mads? What was it before her? I don't even remember. All I know is that sometimes when I see her big eyes and her toothy grin my heart literally aches to know that I've been entrusted with something so beautiful and so important. I am beyond blessed and grateful to have her in my life and I know that, whatever may happen along the way, I'll be blessed to know this new baby, too.
(ps - If you're expecting or know someone who is and might be interested I've taken over the Babycenter pregnancy blog for the next 6 months or so.)
October 11, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Sleep is for the weak
I went to bed last night being serenaded by the not-so-soothing sounds of Old MacDonald has a Farm, which was being sung by my three-year-old... who was STILL AWAKE.
To her credit, she wasn't banging on the door or kicking up a fuss - though I did hear the occasional thump of a size 10 foot against her bedroom wall (the girl has monster feet - we can just about share our shoe collections). She was just lying there, singing. Loudly. Three hours after her bedtime.
Once you have a kid, basically nothing matters as much as sleep.Their sleep, your sleep - it's just about all you think about. We become sleep junkies. An 8-hour snooze used to be commonplace, now it's this mythical mecca. You hear it exists, you dream of one day getting there. But you can't really see any way in hell it's going to happen.
I really can't complain. Mads slept through the night early. She moved to a big girl bed without a fuss - well, nothing a little bribery couldn't fix at least. She doesn't get up and wander the halls at all hours of the night. Mainly because she's locked in her room, but whatever - I still consider it a victory.
The thing is, though, when you tuck your baby in at night, you never really know how it's going to go. It's a toss-up. She could just snuggle into her blankets and drift sweetly off to dreamland for 11 hours. Or all hell could break loose. There are just so many variables involved: Teething, head colds, monsters in the closet, too dark/too light, too loud/too quiet, too hot/too cold, bedtime anxieties, early morning nightmares, potty trips, upset tummies, lost blankies, 5am wake-up calls. Or maybe she just feels like singing at 11:30pm. Who knows?
Maybe all of this sleep deprivation is some kind of twisted rite of passage. I distinctly remember being about 6 years old, sitting with my dad in the early morning hours in tears because I'd had a bad dream about a German Shephard - I had dog issues back then. I don't remember exactly what kind and calming things he said, but now I know what he was probably thinking: For the love of god, girl - shut up and let me get some sleep! What goes around comes around.
October 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Wardrobe malfunctions
“NO!!! Not that shirt!!!”
(Side note: Why must everything be yelled? I’m standing right beside you, we’re the only two people in the room, I’m not hearing impaired – yet – and we don’t live on a railroad crossing. Can’t we just talk like normal people?)
Me: “What’s wrong with this shirt?”
Mads: “I don’t want the monkey shirt, I want the rainbow shirt!”
Me: “The rainbow shirt is in the wash because it has pudding all over it.”
Mads: “But the teacher doesn’t sing a song about monkeys.”
So I had to explain that our clothes don’t always need to match the song we’ll be singing that day. That would be a dangerous trend to start. Really, how many pairs of apple-bottomed jeans and boots-with-the-fur can a girl own?
That didn’t settle it, though.
Mads: “But what will the kids say if I wear the monkey shirt?”
Me: “Um… maybe they’ll say, ‘Wow, nice shirt, Mads.’”
Mads: “No, maybe they’ll say, ‘That’s a bad shirt, I don’t like it!’”
Wow. Is this really starting already? She’s three years old and worried what other kids will think of her monkey T-shirt? For some reason I figured I had another half dozen years or so before these wardrobe complexities set in. If she asks me for a pair of Hannah Montana hot pants, I am out of here.
For the record, she did refuse to wear the monkey shirt come time to leave for preschool, replacing it with something that was “much more sparklier.” I sense a world of trouble ahead.
September 25, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Can you feel the love?
Here’s a sweet little conversation that took place in the car on our weekly pilgrimage to Home Depot:
Mads (yelling as if she’s three cars over instead of just a foot from my ear, in her car seat): “What are you talking about up there, guys?”
Me: “We’re just talking about what we’re going to do today, Mads.”
Mads: “Stop talking about that please, okay?”
Me: “Um… what do you want us to talk about?”
Mads: “Don’t talk about nothing, okay? Sometimes when you talk too much, Mommy, it makes my ears hurt.”
Me (sarcastically, over the sound of F’s laughter): “Well, what if I talk quietly, do you think that would be okay?”
Mads: “Okay, you talk very quietly, Mommy, because if you talk and talk and talk my ears will hurt and then I have to cover them with my hands like this (demonstrating)... okay, Mommy?”
Me: “Yeah, I got it. Thanks.”
At least she doles out the sunshine in equal doses: Later, as F was singing along to the radio, he was told, “Daddy, you don’t sing that good, actually.”
September 14, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Friday Finds: Munch, the family restaurant
I've decided to try to make myself a bit more useful and so am taking a tiny break today from treating the blog as a dumping ground for my neurotic maternal tendencies. Instead, I'm going to use it to pass along a great new find: Munch!
Those of you who live elsewhere, unless you're willing to hop a flight for dinner, this won't be of much use to you at all. So, um, sorry about that. But I promise to add an international flair to my Friday Finds from time to time. Happy? Good!
Now, onto Munch. Before I go any further, I need to say that this entire fabulous culinary concept was my idea and it has, clearly, been stolen. Don't you just hate it when that happens? You come up with a completely genius idea and then while you're sitting around doing jack squat about it someone else decides to be all pro-active and energetic and stuff and actually make it happen? SO irritating. But I will be the bigger person and go ahead and recommend this place anyways.
Munch, formerly known as Baby Eats, is a restaurant in North Vancouver that makes dining out with kids... wait for it... enjoyable. The tables are situated around a gigantic play area that is full of books, dolls, trucks, trains, a play kitchen, a playhouse, dress-up gear, ride on toys. You name it, it's there. Of course, being that we're in North Van, it's all wooden and organic and non-toxic, as is the food on the menu (well, not wooden, but the food is local, organic and, presumably, non-toxic).
The food is also completely delicious. Chicken curry? Heavenly. Chicken penne? Well, considering I ate a quarter of F's meal while he took Mads to the washroom, it must've been pretty damn good. I should be honest and admit that our 3-year-old would not recommend the turkey and quinoa meatballs - surprise, surprise. The quesadillas were a hit, though - once I asked for extra ketchup.
But best of all, we've been there twice now and not once have I broken out into a cold sweat or swallowed my food without chewing in effort to get the bill and get the hell out before complete chaos erupts. F and I actually managed to have a conversation over dinner. A conversation that didn't start with the words "I spy with my little eye." Oh, and did I mention they have a wine list? That's what I call paradise, my friends.
I wouldn't say it's cheap, but it's worth every penny.
Find the details here: munchmunch.ca
September 4, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
Preschool panic
This morning I had to wear a sweater to work. I walked to the bus stop in my flip flops through grass wet with dew, feeling a chill in the air that felt unmistakably like Fall. Already.
While I was hoping to get a bit more use out of that string bikini (ha! haha!) I’m not sad to see the new season on its way in. I love Fall, with its slowly turning leaves and crisp blue skies. Stews and turtlenecks and the return - hallelujah! - of good TV. And this Fall will be unlike any other, because this Fall my Mads starts preschool.
I must admit that for the first time I feel a twinge of heartache over the fact that I’m a working mom. I happily faced up to the fact that I’m not quite SAHM material long ago, but I so badly wish that I could walk her to school, holding her mucky little hand in mine as we cross the street, seeing her take her first tiny steps toward independence, toward experiences that are completely her own.
I didn't think that the whole preschool thing would get to me, but I find myself... well, not exactly bawling, but a little misty-eyed sometimes. I have flashes of myself clinging to a classroom doorknob, dabbing my eyes with a soggy shred of tissue and screeching something along the lines of, "Mommy loves you, Mads! Mommy always loves you!!"
It just seems entirely insane that she is going to exist in the world, out there, without me. On the one hand I'm so completely excited for her, and on the other I'm in an all-out cold-sweat panic. What if they don't appreciate her? What if they don't understand her unique charms, her quirks, her complexities? What if they don't realize that when she falls down it's her pride that's hurt more than her scraped knee... That even though she says she's never scared, sometimes she is... That she desperately needs for things to be fair... That though it can take her ages to get a sentence out, it's always worth waiting for... That she likes to have conversations with her food before she'll eat it. What if they don't recognize the fact that she's perfect and precious? It's taken me 3 1/2 years to get to know her, and most of the time I feel I'm still only just getting there.
I try to tell myself that this is the journey, but honestly, it's not all that comforting. I'm reminded for the thousandth time of a saying I heard before I ever set foot down this parenting path: That in the end our job is to teach our kids to live in the world without us. I guess I just didn't realize it would all start so soon.
August 26, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) | ↑ Back to Top
deep thoughts
"Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children."i also write here
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