Save Your Sanity; Lower Your Standards

My husband often refers to me as hurricane as I whirl around trying to get things accomplished causing a path of mess in my route which then adds to the stress I am already creating.  My children are my two tornados, which is kind of self explanatory.  I, have hit hurricane status because of water involvement in my past messes.  So, as you can imagine a house of two tornados and a hurricane can sometimes lead to disaster.  

Each year my stress over the holidays begins to rise in November and peak just before Christmas.  I spend way too much time making lists and trying to do too many things in too short of time.  Honestly, it is a bit of a speciality for me though out the year but, is really apparent during the holiday season.  I always think I can accomplish 4 hours of realistic work into a 45 minute span, then am really disappointed when I don't get everything completed that I had hoped to.

Between my two maternity leaves; the amount of holidays I had upon my first return from maternity leave, and a job share that only ended about six months ago I have not had to work full time during the Christmas season since 2008.  I understand that for most people working full time during the holidays is the norm but it is not mine any longer and I did not adjust well.  In my head I believe I can do all the things that I did when I worked only half the amount of hours outside the home.  However, in reality I have to sleep each night so this is not really possible.

The following is a list of what I had wanted to complete in December 2013 with my family on top of the regularly scheduled activities we are involved in:

Completely finish and furnish dollhouse that was set to arrive on Dec 15th (by furnish I mean me making all the furniture)

Make sugar cookies and decorate them with kids

Do holiday baking for neighbours

Make gingerbread house of our house

Decorate inside and outside of house for Christmas

Go get Christmas tree from tree farm and decorate it

Take kids shopping for husbands gift and gifts for each other

Make an advent calendar

Make special Hors d'oeuvres for Christmas Eve

Go Skating weekly

Go to Santa Claus Parade

Go to See Santa Claus

Buy and wrap gifts for everyone on my list

Volunteer for Dance Recital

Host boxing day dinner

Assist husband grandmother with setting up for Christmas Dinner 

Go away for a night with husband

Attend special Christmas Craft days at the Library

Attend husbands work party

Attend and bring food to family Christmas 

Host a Family Christmas

Even when I look a the list I have crated it seems doable.  I know that most people probably have a similar one; but, I am here to say it is not doable.  At least not for me and my family.  This is how our list actually looked after December

Completed

Decorate inside and outside of house for Christmas

Go get Christmas tree from tree farm and decorate it

Buy and wrap gifts for everyone on my list

Volunteer for Dance Recital

Host boxing day dinner

Go away for a night with husband

Attend husbands work party

Attend and bring food to family Christmas

Host a family Christmas

Not Completed

Completely finish and furnish dollhouse that was set to arrive on Dec 15th (by furnish I mean me making all the furniture)- this got partially finished and I am still working on it

Make sugar cookies and decorate them with kids- nope, but they did decorate cookies at a party

Do holiday baking for neighbours- yes, but not as much as I had planned

Make gingerbread house of our house - this is when things started to get bad!

Take kids shopping for husbands gift and gifts for each other - nope, did this alone

Make an advent calendar - nope

Make special Hors d'oeuvres for Christmas Eve - nope, bought boxed ones

Go Skating weekly - nope

Go to 2 Santa Claus Parades -  nope, we made it to one

Go to See Santa Claus - nope, they did see him at a party

Assist husband grandmother with setting up for Christmas Dinner - not as much as I had planned

Attend special Christmas Craft days at the Library - yes, but late both times

Everything came to ahead over gingerbread.  I had made the gingerbread dough around the 12th of December and stuck it in the fridge to cut out and bake later.   This was already much later then I had intended but due to time restraints I was just trying to fit it in.  The dough sat in the fridge for over a week.  Finally one day I asked my husband who was going to be home with the kids for the day to bake the gingerbread houses.  I know what people are thinking here and yes not only  did I expect him to bake gingerbread houses but I expected him to create a fabulous gingerbread replica of our house that I could assemble and decorate with our kids when I got home.  And yes, I do know in hindsight that this is crazy, but at the time this was my expectation.  When I got home that night to find he did bake the gingerbread houses, but not as I would have hoped ( he baked 5 rectangles each  for each child to have a house with a flat roof) I was less than happy.  I stayed up late trying to carve more house looking shapes with a serrated knife out of the rectangles, then my husband and I moved out to the garage to work on painting, adding window, and shingling the dollhouse.

At about 11 that night he said to me "You have got to lower your standards" and as much as I hated to admit it he was absolutely right.  After that night lots of things got scratched from our list.  I bought boxed Hors d'oeuvres for Christmas Eve, although this may seem like a normal thing for me that was equivalent to me waving a huge white flag, screaming I give.

We then moved onto New Years which may be my favourite time of the year.  Christmas is over and I feel like it is a fresh start each year.  I know most people think resolutions are stupid and people never follow though.  Not surprisingly, I love them.  Last year I reined in my caffein addiction going from upwards of two pots of coffee a day to two in the morning and leeway for one more in the afternoon if really needed.  I went over my new limit a handful of times throughout the year; but, clearly a vast improvement from the couple of pots I was downing daily in 2012.  

So, Cheers to moving forward into 2014, this years goal is to ditch artificial sweeteners.  So far it sucks and I miss Mio -squirt, squirt, squirt.

Food for Thought

Lately I have noticed that my second child, the one I often refer to as "passionate" because it sounds a little less harsh then spastic is particularly "passionate" about her food.  I don't mean that she is being a picky eater, but seems to have strong opinions about how her food is presented to her. 

Sometimes she gets upset if she doesn't have the plate she anticipated getting, or the fork, or the cup, or she has a spoon and wanted a fork, or whatever.   Usually she resolves the frustration she is experiencing by throwing a fit and rolling on the floor while the rest of us carry on with our meal.  Heartless I am, and often hear myself quoting "Pinkalicous" saying "You get what you get".  Other times I give in and tell her to pick the items that she was hoping for, really just depends on the day. 

This has been one of her traits for some time now.  More recently she has begun to get very upset if the actual food on the plate is not presented as she would anticipate.  For example if she wanted a sandwich cut into squares and without thinking I cut it into triangles.  The biggest issue with this problem is that she already could be one of the most indecisive individuals ever.  She says she wants bread in triangles, then squares, then triangles.  So you go with triangles, hand her the plate and she melts because they are not squares.

Recently I took a picture of her while in the midst of one of her fits to show my husband as he had missed it.  She had gone bat sh*t  crazy because I had cut her spaghetti after she had asked me to.  She was unable to eat it long because she cannot twirl noodles on her own.  She would not allow someone to assist her in twirling noodles, thus she wanted it cut.  After it was cut she realized that it was no longer twirlable and lost it.

This instance was pretty funny due to her dramatic response and the epic fit that followed and therefore picture worthy.   Because I possessed the picture, it then became a topic of conversation between me and friends of mine who also have small children.  Friends indicated they attempted to pinch the bread on sandwiches back together to create the desired shape. Others shared trying to stack items into certain shapes or hide food underneath other food all in attempt to satisfy their child.  One girl explained to me that she spent about 10 minutes trying to mush a hamburger patty back together because she thought it would work because her child decided that she did not want it in pieces any longer.

At the very least sharing my photo and story with others has taught me that  I am not alone, and that we all attempt the impossible of putting food back together in some crazy manor.   Please feel free to share some of your own crazy reconstructing moments!

I Wish Someone Told Me

Recently while at a baby shower for a friend of mine I was asked to write down a piece of advice for the mom to be.  I wrote the following:

We all know nothing in the beginning.
We learn as we go.
Everything you think you know is probably wrong.
Best of luck!

This exercise got me thinking a little bit about the few things I did learn about labour & delivery, postpartum, and life after with a baby.  So in honour of my many pregger friends at this time here is a few things I do know, now.

Labour & Delivery
This is way messier then you can ever imagine

After you deliver your baby your body goes into shock as you have been through a major trauma including full out body shakes and shivers.  At this point the nurses will be your best buds piling warm blankets fresh out of the oven onto you and you will love them for it

Post Partum
Although some people's body's bounce back not everybody's does.  I was told that you will still look pregnant when you leave the hospital and I was prepared for that.  I was not prepared to always have an apron of excess skin hanging over my abominate area.  I was never super fit or thin but this was still shocking to me and very upsetting.  I was always the type of person thinking I would age naturally and would not choose plastic surgery; however, now I would be first in line for a mommy makeover.

Not everyone likes their baby instantly.  I loved them but I certainly did not like them until they were about 14 months old.  Life can feel a lot like groundhog day, doing the same tasks day in and day out.  Don't feel inadequate or like you are a bad person for not being over the moon about the baby stage if it isn't necessarily your thing.  I believe everyone has an age that they excel at dealing with.  Unfortunately I think I might currently be in mine which mean things may only go downhill from here.

Life After with your Baby
Your baby is not the same as anyone else's baby and so you need to learn the things that your baby likes and techniques that will work on your baby.

Nothing lasts; just when you think you get things figured out they change.  This is also true for the not so nice phases and none sleeping as well.

Hand warmers work fantastic to warm bottles on the go.

Adopt your new uniform: skinny pants with full tummy coverage; flat slip on shoes that easily go on and off without bending; short or long sleeved t-shirt with scoop neck for easy access if you are breast feeding; scarf to hide stains on said shirt, hide possible uncomfortable cleavage, and wipe  up baby puke; and lastly, a cardigan with pockets to throw pacifiers or whatever in.  The cardigan also works  wonderful to turn around and wear backwards if you are breastfeeding as a cover, when you do forget the expensive actual cover you bought.

So this is it; about all I do know and I hope it is helpful to all I know that will soon be expecting

Defeating Trick or Treating

Last night marked the first successful trick or treating experience in our home.  It also marked the 5th attempt at trick or treating.  Our first three years of trick or treating we actually did in the afternoon to our four neighbours and just went by for visits, so they were fairly uneventful to be perfectly honest. 

Last year was our families' first attempt at evening trick or treating like most other people do.  My husband was on nights and I decided I would attempt to take them out alone.   After work I got home and shoved a quick dinner in front of them.  I got them dressed, which was a huge fight because apparently they no longer wished to wear the costumes they initially chose.  We were out the door at about 6:40pm.  We walked through our yard, and across the road to the neighbours; one kid on each arm with the dog being dragged along behind.  About three steps into our neighbour's yard the younger child decided she wanted to be picked up, so of course then, the older one wanted to be picked up.  Now I had one child on each hip and was dragging the dog behind me.  I attempted to have them walk up to the door to say "trick or treat".  I set them down and the trouble began.

They used the divide and conquer method against me and ran in opposite directions.  I used my best Border Collie abilities to herd them towards the porch of our neighbour's house.  They finally got to the door and were greeted by our neighbour.  She gave them each a bag of candy causing more issues to arise.  Both girls then wanted to eat the candy at precisely that moment and could not fathom the thought that they would have to wait until trick or treating was over.  They both melted in her yard and began rolling around in the grass crying that they really wanted the candy.  It was cold and terrible outside, and I was hot and sweating by this time.  I decided to let them have their candy and we headed back home to eat it; me carrying one child on each hip dragging the dog behind us.

I learned a lot from last year's experience.  This year I prepared dinner the night before, I bribed them to put on their costume by letting them know that costumes equal candy, my husband and I both took them so neither person would be outnumberd, and we brought along a double buggy cart type apparatus to put stuff in.

I am proud to say that despite the fact that it rained the entire time, we walked through our small village and trick or treated at approximately a dozen houses.  Success, and at the end of the night although wet and kind of tired I didn't want to put anyone up for adoption.  Plus, as a bonus by them going to substantially more houses then last year, I now have way more candy to steal from them once they are sleeping.  

Memories Worth Forgetting

There are not many instances when I have been legitimately embarrassed of my children.  Angry, frustrated, self conscience, yes; but embarrassed they belong to me has only happened twice. 

The first time was shortly after my second child was born.  My oldest was about 1 ½ at the time and I had made an appointment to have our dog groomed.  I packed both kids up and headed to town, which is approximately a 30 minute trip.  I dropped the dog off assuming we would have about a 30 minute wait; however, I was unpleasantly surprised to find out it would be around 3-4 hours.    This was too short to go home but too long to stay unprepared.  I attempted to stay in town and by the time we pick up the dog I had two very tired children.  One strapped to my chest in a carrier and the other walking beside me.  We entered the store to get the dog and by this time the youngest was unhappy and crying.  The youngest was whaling really, and my older child was becoming impatient.  When we were trying to leave the oldest decided she would like one of the dog toys and when I told her "no" she started having a full out tantrum; laying on the floor kicking and screaming. 

I stood in the middle of the store with a new baby crying on my chest, my toddler screaming and rolling on the floor and our 85lb dog jumping around on a leash.   I picked the oldest off the floor under my arm and carried her screaming to the car with the other one crying on my chest and the dog tugging at his leash the entire time. 

The second instance was much more recent.  I had decided that we were going to have a fun girl's day.  I thought I would take them skating and then head to the grocery store with the kid's carts.  It was to be my youngest child's first time ever skating.  I knew right from the beginning that it had the potential to be a bad experience, yet I remained optimistic and pursued on. 

We arrived at the area, laced up skates, put on helmets and winter items, and by the time we were going to step foot on the ice I was already exhausted.  I grabbed two plastic bar type things provided to assist little ones on the ice and headed out.  Instantly, the youngest was not interested in using the aide and only wanted to be held.  She started yelling and so I tried to head back to the door to exit.  This made her yell louder and when I mentioned to the older one we might have to get off the ice she began to whine as she was not ready to leave yet.  I hoisted the youngest onto my hip which was apparently against some kind of safety violation and was scolded by the 14 year old monitor.  I injured my back hunched over the youngest while trying to encourage the oldest; all the while trying to act excited and have fun.  Not long after I dragged them off the ice pretty upset.  They then whined  for a treat and I gave in defeated.  There is limited selection at the snack bar so they ended up splitting a chocolate bar.  Bad, bad, bad decision. 

I still had to head to the grocery store to pick up a few thing.  By the time we arrived I has two girls beginning to enter a downward sugar spiral.  They were beginning to become delirious;  but unfortunately our cupboards were bear and so we perserved on into the store.  I bent down to there level and threatened them within inches of life and informed them of how I expected they should behave.  I believe that they could see through my guise and knew they had me.   I mean they had already won the candy bar.  Next races insured through the store as well as a game of bumper carts, and run over mommy's feet all the while I am trying not to bust out my possessed my the devil growl and scream at them.  I did refrain and kept my cool somewhat; however, I am sure onlookers tisked me behind my back.  We made it to the till and my youngest ran over to the greeting cards starting to pull them out.  I ran over and told her "no" which provoked a screaming fit.  People began to stare at me and wonder if she was injured.  I picked her up onto my hip causing her to act out with violence and me trying to restrain her in a publicly appropriate way.  

At this moment my oldest thought it would be fun to run away from me.  Off she goes looking over her shoulder laughing all the way.  I paid for my items, ran after her and grabbed her by the arm. This action caused her to start screaming as well.  I dragged them to the car and secured them into their seats.  I closed the door and screamed at them in my evil voice.  I think I saw them both shutter and the car went silent.

We haven't been back to the store since.

Reasons for Ratings

We are fairly avid car travellers in our house.  I have mentioned in the past how we definitely have our fair share of car trips.  Because of this I am always on the lookout for inexpensive movies to add to our collection.  This is how I first discovered the $5.00 movie bin at Wal-mart.

Each time I walk by the bin I do a quick sift to see if there are any children's movie's I can grab to watch in the car.  I have been doing this for some time now.  Sometimes we have hits and other times we have very big misses.  We have been subject to watching the "Pebble and the Penguin" movie for days on end; it doesn't have the greatest animation or story line.  For some odd reason my 2nd child's favourite movie at about 18 months was "The Cat in the Hat"; not the cartoon but the one staring Mike Myers (probably not appropriate).  I think I actually bought "The Cat in the Hat" three times from the bin as it kept getting scratched.

Looking back I believe it was one of the first times that I ever perused the $5.00 bin that I learned by biggest $5.00 bin lesson.  I had grabbed out a couple of children's movies and through them in my cart.  My oldest was just under two at the time and I had purchased "The Pebble and the Penguin" as well as "Coraline" for her to enjoy; both of these were movies I had never seen but appeared to be child friendly by the cover.

We got home and my husband went into work for the night and so I decided to turn on one of our new movies.  I threw "Coraline" into the DVD player and pressed play.  I was tidying things in the other room and dealing with my second child who was an infant at the time when I heard strange noises coming from the TV.  I walked back into the living room to find a somewhat horror type film playing on our TV.  I quickly turned it off.  Later that night after putting both of my girls to bed I finished watching the move and realized that it was definitely not a movie intended for small children.

The basic story line is a little girl feels neglected by her current family.  She finds a passage into another, alternate world with a new family.  Despite warnings from others she continues to visit this other world until she learns that the "other mother" is evil wants to sew buttons on her eyes and turn her into a ghost child.  Then there is a fight between the girl and the evil other mother and the little girl wins.  After this she learns to appreciate her regular life.  This is clearly, not a kid's movie.

I had kind of forgotten about the whole ordeal and by the weekend we were off on another car trip to visit the zoo.  My husband popped in a DVD for my oldest and attached the player to the back of the head rest.  Not far into the trip and turned around to ask my daughter how the penguin movie was.  I had thought he had put in the much loved "Happy Feet" and noticed she had a strange look on her face.  I looked at her and said "What's wrong, you love the penguin movie?"  To this my husband replied "oh, no I put that new Coraline one on".   I then asked my daughter if she wanted it off and with wide eyes and a horrified face she nodded yes.

And this is when I learned to not judge a movie by its cover and always read the rating first.

Cloudy with a Chance of Screaming

Fairly recently my husband and I have been discussing taking our oldest child to see a movie for the first time.  Since she was fresh and new she has been a TV kid.  She loved the colour and movement as a baby and continues to love shows and movies.  She will actually sit through a movie at our house quietly on the couch. 

Now, our next child does not have this same appreciation.  She rarely stops moving long enough to notice if the television is turned on.  The only show she has any interest in is Bubble Guppies and she can't even sit through a 20 minutes episode of that.  So understandably when I mentioned we all go to the movies together my husband gave me a sideways glance.

The truth is we both wanted to experience going to a movie with our oldest for the first time and I thought I youngest may enjoy it as the screen is so large and didn't want her to miss out.  Even though I didn't want her to miss out on the experience I also was prepared.  I said that if it wasn't working out I would just exit the theatre, no big deal.  I mean it's a kid's movie on a week night, I am sure it won't be busy and should be a fairly kid friendly place.  We had discussed a plan that if the youngest was not cooperative that I would leave with her.

We arrived at the theatre, got our seats, and sat down to wait for the movie to begin.  Our youngest did fantastic during the previews and I began to think she might really be into this.  She seemed tired and cuddly and I dared to think for a moment she might even just go to sleep.  However, as soon as the movie began it was like her cue to become restless.  We were sitting in the very back row and she began getting in and out of seat down the aisle.  There was no one in the row and probably around 15 other people in the entire theatre so it wasn't that big of deal.

This lasted for about 5 minutes or so when she decided she wanted to move.  I picked her up and we walked down to the very front row.  In front of us was a fairly large open area and she was running in it and dancing to the movie.   After about 10 minutes of this behaviour she decided to go back up the stairs.  I took this as my cue to exit the theatre as she was being disruptive.  I placed her onto my side part way up the stairs.

My stride was then interrupted by an incredibly boisterous woman informing me to get control of my child.  She then proceeded to engage in an argument with me in the middle of the theatre.  She informed me that my child was out of control, distracting her, and that she had paid to see this movie.  My response was that it was a children's movie, she should look at the screen and that yes we all did pay to see this movie including me and my child.  I reminded myself that my child was with me and told her to try and set an example for hers, then exited the theatre.

I would have liked to remind that women of instances I am sure she had in the past in which her children did not act perfectly in public situations.  I would have liked to express that my child was acting like a child at a children's movie.  And I would have liked to publically maim her using a lot of profanity.  However, I did not do any of these things, instead I practiced self control because I did want to set an example for my child.  I take away from this a reminder that we has parents are all in this together and to be more understanding for other parents.

After the movie finished my husband exited the theatre with my other child.  I told him what happened and he seemed surprised.  He then told me that he was surprised anyone said anything because he moved to the front of the theatre part way through the movie and there was another family seated beside him with a child that yelled and carried on through the rest of the movie.

I then smiled to myself, thankful for karma.