I swore I’d never tell anyone about this…

To use the language of the youth, last night was a “mommy fail”.

It was my daughters first dance recital and it stated at 5:15 on a muterf’n Wednesday. 5:15 is an almost impossible time to be anywhere. It’s just got home from work time and everybody in the family is being an asshole cause they are hungry time.

So I rush home and roll in at 4:40, it’s a mad dash, I clean the kids best I can, shove food in their faces while yelling -EAT PLEASE. She is to wear tie dye on top and black on the bottom. Oops mommy didn’t do laundry so we are wearing 2 sizes too small faded black pants for this evening’s performance.

So at 5 we call it and we get in the car and try to go a place none of us has been to before. We fight about where it is then sorta find it and go in the back door and walk all over the place then find the gym. Whew. We made it.

“Mommy my pants are wet … and it smells like pee”. Shit.

We go to the bathroom and clean up and attempt to dry the pants with paper towels and a sub par hand dryer. So now its 2 sizes too small pee pee pants for tonight’s performance.

We come out and find her group. I look around and every kid looks like they spent the day getting ready, hair is bunned, outfits on point, tutus ruffled and my kid looks kinda homeless. Sigh.

So her group performs last so we sit wait and clap for 50 mins in a gym that I think had the heat on. The two year old starts to kick up a fuss but we manage.

I also started to notice some parents had brought flowers for their kids. I thought “hmm that would have been cute – oh well, next time.”

So it’s her turn and I hold my breath as I wasn’t sure she would even go out on the stage but she does, and she does beautifully. I swell with pride over my little paper bag princess.

At the end I go meet her as she gets off the stage and I go over and give her a hug and start to say what a good job she did and she looks at me and bursts into tears.

Then she goes full. nuclear. meltdown.

Why? Because we didn’t get her flowers. I was so embarrassed. I didn’t pause to grasp this teaching moment. I feel every other parents judgement and stares. I drag both my screaming kids to the car buckle them up and stand at the back of the car to swear for a bit.

I tell her in the car that she should feel accomplished and proud of herself for learning to dance and being brave enough to show the world. I may have even said flowers don’t mean anything and they just die. I tell her if someone gets you flowers you should feel lucky but it shouldn’t be the reason you do things. She just cried the whole time.

We get home. I’m furious, she’s exhausted and hungry and needs a bath. We take care of all her needs and I start calming down a bit.

I figure we’ll have a heart to heart about being gracious when I can figure out the right words so I tuck her in and kiss her goodnight.

She says sleepily “Mom are you really never going to sign me up for dance ever again?”
Me: ” we’ll see, mommy was pretty angry when she said that so we’ll talk tomorrow”
Her: “I won’t cry at my next recital I promise”
Me: “well that would be nice”
Her: “ya, I’ll just remind you to pick up the flowers on the way there”

Facepalm.

I can’t eat this it’s too yucky

Picture it: the year is 2035. My young adult daughter will have just moved out and will invite me over for dinner. I will graciously accept.

She will come up with a menu and go out and buy the ingredients. She will spend time preparing the food and will be excited to have me over as a guest. She will tidy her place and wait for me.

I will arrive with a bottle of wine and some bread. We will chit chat while she plates the food and then I’ll settle into the seat she’s chosen for me at her table. Maybe some conversation music is playing.

She will set the plate down in front of me and smile proudly. I will look at the plate then look at her, look at the plate then look at her.*

Me: Ew
Her: What!?!
Me: I can’t eat this it’s too yucky.
Her: Mom, don’t be ridiculous. You haven’t even tried it!
Me: It looks disgusting.
Her: It’s one of your favorites, just take a bite!
Me: No. If I eat that I’m afraid my tongue might die.

She’ll get frustrated then mad. I’ll continue to refuse it. She’ll yell at me and I will run away, tell her she’s mean then go in the bathroom and pee my pants.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

*I won’t do any of that. I will eat it all while marveling at this beautiful creature I made out of lemons, blueberry bagels and artichoke hearts.

Funny video of my kids

Ok… Wait

I am starting to get some feedback on this blog and so far it’s pretty positive. If you are enjoying it – thank you. It’s been a lot of fun. My husband is now my official proofreader and he even said to me last night “this is good writing”. What!?! This guy barely talks. That’s like the pope calling you at home and saying “Hey, how’s it going? Listen, I’m not supposed to say anything but you’re totally getting into heaven. No, I’m not kidding,”

Thing is though I have no idea what I’m doing and I thought I hated writing. Seriously, I don’t even like making grocery lists. I used to pretend to have scurvy to get out of writing assignments in school.

Once when I was a kid I wanted to stay home from school and so I thought I’d pull the whole fake fever scam. I got out the thermometer and placed it directly on the lightbulb. Yup, right on there. I left it for, oh I don’t know, let’s say several minutes and then called my mom and jammed that sucker right in my mouth. Three things happened immediately 1) I burned my mouth 2) the glass broke and the mercury poured into my mouth and 3) I panicked and jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom and jumped in the shower. I thought I was going to be in so much trouble for breaking the thermometer and my 11 year old mind thought if you want to play it cool just take a random shower. So of course my mom was like “Why are you showering – I thought you had scurvy?” I broke down and told her the whole thing. I don’t remember the fall out other than having to replace the thermometer so I must not have swallowed the mercury and died. Isn’t that stuff really bad for you?

So I’m worried, what if I run out of ideas? Suppose in a few weeks I’ll have used up all my creative ideas and I’ll just be this empty shell who can’t think of anything to say. Or that mercury poisoning gets around to finally killing me? So stay tuned people because these ideas could dry up or I could literally die at any moment.

Kids are weird

My kids are nuts but in a good way and so different from each other.

The girl is smart, strong and dramatic. She is wildly entertaining and can get almost anyone to do things for her. No joke – I’ve seen her get strangers to carry her up hills before.

The boy is rough, athletic, coordinated and pure. He spends a lot time figuring out how to do things and looking for a ball to throw at your head.

I think if a home alone scenario was to happen the girl would just lay down and wait for death. If you hand her something with a screw on lid she is baffled “well clearly this is impenetrable…” but she can understand concepts like photosynthesis or solar systems and feels bad for Pluto losing its status as a planet.

The boy on the other hand would find a way to make a pie or something. Yet he still thinks banging his head off the ground or growling at me is the best way of expressing he would have preferred water over milk to drink with dinner. Also he takes his shoes off outside and then cries because his socks are dirty and wet.

But one of my wildest dreams have come true – my kids like each other. Sure they fight and once in a while someone gets bit but they truly seem to like each other. The other night the girl ran full tilt into a glass wall at dance class and was very upset. She was sitting with me holding her ice pack and crying and the boy dug out the lip balm from the diaper bag and walked over to her and gently coated the bottom half of her face until she started laughing. Such love.

The Internet made me feel bad about myself

It was a quiz about life skills and you checked off all things you could do.

Do your own taxes – check.
Make pasta with out overcooking or undercooking – check.
Build a fire – ummm.
Long division without a calculator – straight up nope.

My score was like 31 out of 100. If there was a zombie apocalypse I would die from something like improperly placing the jack on a car and having my head crushed and/or trying to change a tire instead of just running during a zombie apocalypse.

Stupid internet.

I worry though, I see much of myself in my kids and my daughter definitely inherited my “uh you do it, that looks hard” gene. It’s way easier to assume you know everything and delegate than to try and fail. So now I have to convince my kids to do the hard things and have confidence. Sounds easy right? We’ll guess who’s going to have to learn all the hard things now – me! They already don’t listen when I talk but copy everything I do. So now I have to pretend to know at least 60% of those life skills. So if you are inclined to mock the chubby middle aged lady who is learning to water ski this summer maybe she’s just trying to teach her kids to be fearless, ok?

Wish you were here

Once in a while I am presented with these alternate realities that maybe could have been my life. You know: exotic travel, dream job, marriage that keeps it spark 24/7.

Why do I sometimes feel like I missed out or need something in order to be happy?

I know for me deciding to be happy has been tremendously helpful. I do my best not to watch life through my phone’s 3.5″ screen and take happy breaks and have dance parties or go outside or spend a few minutes getting to know the people in my life better.

I like doing things, really anything, so if you were interested in taking archery or bullfighting courses or dining in the dark (that’s a thing – look it up) I’m your girl.

But still I sometimes lack fulfillment and I used to think, oh poor me, I’ll feel better when the kids are older or when I’ll wear smaller pants or have more money.

But now I think that’s all bullshit. I feel bad because I’m not doing enough for myself or my family or the world. If you think big maybe the small problems won’t have a chance to creep in.

Or what if I had been born in a country or time ravaged by war or was born into a religion, colour or tribe that was persecuted just for existing. What if I was scared to be me? What if I lived in a place that was so scary I wouldn’t have to spend a small fortune going to amusement parks or spend a night hiding behind a pillow watching scary movies?

I live in a beautiful place and am so lucky and there is so much more I have to give so I’m not going to waste time feeling bad anymore.

P.s. This blog will return to being funny.

P.p.s this post was inspired by some of the books we’ve been reading in our book club such as The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver, Little Bee – Chris Cleave and many others also it was inspired by some Facebook friends who post lovely snapshots of their lives that are so different from mine.

P.p.s. I think my problems are bullshit, not your problems. I love Ash Beckham and fully support the Hard = Hard message.

Look mommy I got girl things!

Before I had kids I didn’t really spend any time thinking about child rearing or how I would parent. I did know I wasn’t crazy about gender stereotypes. I rejected the colour pink until well into my twenties and spent most of my time as a kid riding my bike and hanging out with both guys and girls in equal measure.

Then when I got pregnant and found out it was a girl I started to care about girly toys and a childhood brought to you by Disney princesses. I vowed to keep those things away from her as long as possible. Pink entered her life early on though as most of the clothes she wore were passed on to us through the vast underground network of baby clothes. Then every hair on her head fell out and stayed out till she was practically three so she wore pink so strangers would stop asking how old the little fella was.

Then around three she started getting gifts and they were *gasp* pink and Disney and … not evil. I watched her imagination blossom. She spends hours doing her “games”. There is a special kind of quiet when my kid is off in her own world doing imagination play that makes my heart burst with joy. Her princesses spend most of their time in a complex series of interpersonal conflicts and danger scenarios. I have never once overheard any of them need a prince’s help or wish for a husband. At one point she asked for a prince for her games and so a prince was procured and he spends a lot of time “at work” and sometimes the girls get together and help him out of a jam.

Now we have two kids, one girl and one boy. So naturally we buy two of most things and at first I tried to buy two the same but then they’d fight and that hurts my ears. So I bought the pink stuff for her and she is thrilled. I’ve decided that pink is not evil and does not have the power to change who or how she is. Now this morning she spent time counting how many girl (aka pink things) she got and I was momentarily confused on how to respond but then I did what I usually do and wing it. I told her her stuff is pink because she has decided that, for now it’s her favourite colour and since her brother is still only two he hasn’t told anyone what his favourite colour is yet so he gets red, yellow, orange, blue etc. There are no girl colours or boy colours there are just colours and if his favourite turns out to be pink as well, we’ll just have to start writing everyone’s name on everything.

My boy often plays hockey with a tiara on and loves tea parties and I’ve now decided that the danger might be that he won’t have pink (aka girly) things in his life out of peer pressure. So if you are coming to my house bring what you want and play with whatever you want and be who ever you are cause we are not so fragile that we will be changed by how the outside world works.

First post!

So we are at the grocery store, the daughter and I, and she sighs and says “I wish we could go for the weekend to Ottawa for the tulip festibal”.
Me: “What?”
Her: “You know, tired of winter? Dreaming of spring? You could win a weekend away in Ottawa for the tulip festibal. So can we we win it Mommy?”
Me: laughing hard, “sure baby we’ll try”