Come on girl, keep it together

I spend a bit of time each day  checking out some of my favourite mommy blogs.  It is a bit lame, I know, but since I started blogging I have become a bit of an addict of them.  On most days, I love them, I learn from them, I laugh from them, I understand and relate to them.  On days like this...................oh no.


On those days that I have had to either 1) randomly scream at the top of my lungs to vent out frustration 2) talk sarcastically and angrily at my child 3) get the children dressed as fast as possible to get them outside in order to avoid a complete mommy meltdown or (and this is my all time favourite) 4) hide out in the bathroom to cry out some frustration.  alone.  for two fucking seconds. (a tactic that stopped working since the toddler learned how to turn the door knob) Or, on a day like today, where I have had to practice all four, those blogs seemed to be filled with fluff.

It seems as if every other mother on earth is living in this bubble completely and constantly blissed out by their children.  There is outright braggery about the amazing, bonding, beautiful experiences they have with their kids, all the fun time craft time play time good times that they ALWAYS have with their absolutely perfect children and their flawless selves.  It makes me feel alien.  Like I am missing that essential mommy element that all the rest of the women in the world were born with.  That, comes so easy, mom element.  That, I was born-to-mother-these-children- and-I-know-exactly-how-to-do-it-without-fucking-my-kids-up element that somehow missed me in the delivery.

Am I a bad mom?  This question enters my mind every single day.  Am I screwing my kids up with my inability to constantly keep it together.  Am I the reason for the whining and the neediness?  I can see my children as flawless and beautiful and amazing because they are, but somehow this motherhood thing has made me take a deeper and much more critical look at myself.  Who am I?  What kind of person am I trying to be?  What kind of mother do I want to be?  A loving one.  Always.  But holy crap, what do I do with all this frustration?  How are those moms so nice and reasonable and mom-like all the time?  What am I missing?

For one thing, I am still wondering when I will graduate to an adult sized emotional stability.When will I finally stop feeling like an extremely hormonal 15 year old girl? When shall I depart that roller coaster ride?  Good lord.........

The only thing that makes sense to me right now is a new episode of Grey's Anatomy (judge me if you must), a glass (or two) of wine and a shit load of Easter chocolate.  Thank you Easter Bunny!

Stupid System, Lovely Babies

SO I had been ranting in may head blog style, just waiting for the moment I could rant and rave about the ridiculousness that is the Quebec health care system.  They have a serious shortage of doctors and no access to (as far as I am aware, the rest of the country has these) a walk in clinic.  If you need any sort of medical attention and you don't have a doctor (which is a large portion of the people in this area that is for sure) than you have to go to the overcrowded, understaffed hospital, at which point you could be waiting for HOURS and HOURS.

Wait, I changed my mind about the rant before I started this post, and yet, just thinking about it gets me riled up.  After a lot of lugging my big boy on my hip and my little man in his car seat on my arm, we finally managed to get a doctor to tell us that Rohan has an double ear infection (his ear was literally oozing infection, so really that was no surprise) and Avery has a bronchial infection. I started my day at 7:30am I was finally finished the medical part around 12:30 - 1pm.  Whew.  I am beat. What a ridiculous day.


Plus side?  The medication was mostly covered, we all survived, I didn't pack my crap up and leave this bloody province in my rage, and, at the end of the day I found out that my new baby niece arrived at 6:15pm.  Okay. I will stay.  I love babies.  You win this time Quebec, but watch your back................

Coddle Pie

The family has been under the weather lately.  Rohan and I especially.  Poor Ro-dog has had a cold for at least a week now which has consisted of a river filled with tears snot and vomit.  On me.  Doesn't faze me to smell like vomit anymore.  This is an incredibly glamourous job, motherhood.  Have I mentioned that before?

Anyway, I have been wrapping the Ro-dog up in a blanket of cuddles and kisses and I love you's.  Basically coddling the crap out of him.  He has eaten it up unlike the food that is on constant offer.  He is a cuddle monster on a good day, on days like this he is an extra limb, without that handiness aspect.

Today was an extra sad day.  He was waking up periodically from 4:30 am on, in tears and sobs and cuddles.  I couldn't get out of him what was wrong before he passed back out.  With personal experience as to how absolutely like shit I feel when I am sick, I get it.  If I could have someone to cry and cuddle with every time I felt like dog turds, I would do it.  Maybe even just because, totally unrelated to feeling ill.  It is just nice to cuddle and cry sometimes..........I digress.

So that was pretty much our day.  Nap, wake up, cry, repeat.  No input, no output.  He wouldn't drink, eat, or pee, nothing.   He had sick breath.  You know that sour, back of the throat, almost phlegmy smell. White paste forming around his sad little mouth. He literally did not have his first pee until, like, 2pm.  How can you force your toddler to drink??  You just can't.  Poor pumpkin.

I normally have issues with our tendency, as a culture, to over medicate.  It takes some serious symptoms for me to bust out the tempra or Tylenol.  God I hate having to give the kiddies drugs, it makes me queezy.  They love it of course, it freaking taste like banana flavoured deliciousness, how could they not?  I gave him some, his temperature was rising, I needed him to feel better.  It was like he emerged from the body of a different child.  He was bouncy and happy, he ate and drank and peed.  Amazing.

I guess it really does take bit more than the big slice of coddle pie that I gave him to gobble up, to make the poor guy feel better.  If only we could love them better.  If only

Montreal

The ride home in the middle of rush hour, a hair pulling experience!

Not totally sure what happened here, we looked, no hole in the building!

View from hotel room

View from hotel room

Rohan's 5 pm nap

Old Montreal

Sleeping princes

MC drinking some infamous Olympico Latte

It took me, literally, months to convince Colin to go to Montreal. I thought it absolutely ridiculous that we had lived a short two hour drive from Montreal for nearly two years and had still not gone.  And what more opportune time than during our mutual break from work.

Finally the weather was on my side, we booked a hotel for the night and drove our way to a mini vacation.  Although I LOVE living in the Gatineau Hills surrounded by farm land and forest, I am a secret city lubber.  I love the freedom that cities and their easily accessible public transportation offers you.  How you can find everything you need within walking distance.  I even love to bare witness to some unsightliness, the dark and dingy, it is a reminder that everything isn't all lolly pops and sunshine.

It pops that bubble that I find starts forming around me when I am not in the heart of it.  Though in the same sense, being constantly bombarded by the disparity of barely living can get pretty hard to deal with (or you develop a desensitization, which is equally upsetting).  In fact we even managed to catch a glimpse of a couple making wookie outside a Chinese temple in China town.  They did have blanket over them (thank god) but there was some very distinct movement going on underneath!  Hilarious, and kind of bizarre.

Either way it was a pretty successful trip.  We went to the Biodome, which was super awesome for Rohan (though I am thinking that he is a pretty smart and sensitive kid and had a feeling that there was something horribly awry) but just completely wrong and upsetting for us.  It doesn't matter how often they told you how eco they are, those were some pretty miserable animals in there.

We also had a wee visit with our lovely friend MC who took us on a little adventure in search of the perfect latte (which was recommended to us from my bro) at Cafe Olympico.  Yum city, reminds me of my days in Scotland strangely enough! 

And that was our whirlwind two day trip to Montreal.  In retrospect, we should have really taken more time so we could have had a more relaxing second day, AND not have had to drive home in rush hour..........we really did not think that through.

Food Scapes

 

 

 

Cheese Omelet Giraffe

 

 

Home made Mac and Cheese Brontosaurus

Skyscape of yummy yums

I don't know if I had mentioned this before in one of my posts (see total memory loss and partial concern about early onset) but most of my meal times with Rohan can be..........challenging.  With battles, made up games and outright refusals, some meal times can cause premature balding (see pulling hair out from extreme frustration) in the whole family. 

After reading this article on food art for kids, eating got a whole lot more interesting.  Although it can still be mildly challenging, I have definitely started to make meal time a bit more fun times.  I enjoy conjuring up some interesting food scapes and Rohan has a great time trying to figure out what the what I am claiming that said food scape resembles!  It's pretty good, though who knows how long my imagination will keep going before it starts getting lame (er)!

Easy street

Our night routine went a little bit different tonight.  Tonight Rohan was a super duper big boy.  With only a minor amount of prompting Rohan peed in the potty, standing up, then dumped the pee from the potty into the toilet.  With his insistance (as if I was going to argue this) he proceeded to wash his own hands in the sink.

So far, amazing, big boy, kind of stuff.  But wait, there's more.  After his bathroom rituals, he came into the living room and continued on his grown up process by putting on his own night time diaper (now if only they would learn that trick early on hey?!) and pants. 

Just when you think it couldn't possibly get better, he brushed his own teeth (I have started him on the electric toothbrush so even if it is a poor attempt at tooth brushing, it is still pretty good), gave me a great big bear hug and huge smooch and is presently reading stories with daddy.  With all the battles we fight  in the daytime (dinner time took a good hour) tonight turned out to be a pleasant stroll down easy street.  

Carrot Frenzy

Avery tried his first, real pureed, on a spoon, food.  It was peas.  Kidding.  It is carrots.  Lord I am funny!  I have given him some fruit cores to suck on just for flavour curiosity, such as apples, pears and also some cantelope.  He has never had any spoon fed food yet, that is until two days ago.  He hasn't quite reached the his required 6 month's but he just wanted our food so much.

The poor little munchkin  would sit at the table with us eyes drawn to our spoon, than mouth, than spoon, drool dripping down his chin.  He was enchanted, he was amazed, he wanted some so bad. I wanted him to experience real food as his introduction, not the completely unappetizing looking powdered rice cereal stuff.  Carrots, yummy, sweet, good for your eyes.  Best first food option I could imagine having!

He tried it and loved it!  He was grabbing at the spoon, shoving in into his gullet.  He would whimper when I pulled the spoon away to scoop up more.  It was AMAZING.  I look forward to future feedings!  Here we go, it's a feeding frenzy.

Baby steps

Avery is slowly turning into more and more of a little person.  He is starting to sit up on his own.  I say starting because he still has the tendency to slide to the side or toward his awaiting toes.  He rolled over for the first time the other day, though in all honesty, I a pretty sure this was not a conscious effort so much as a what are you doing over there mama, maybe I will try to get as close as possible situation.

His motor skills are highly improved from his initial infant flailing.  He can bring stuff to his mouth and he even shakes up his toys in an attempt to entertain himself.  He is also becoming more of an entertainment for Rohan.  Before he was just a lump on the couch that was taking up all of mama's time, but now Rohan can make him laugh and talk his jibberish saliva inducing baby talk.

As Avery get's bigger, stronger and more and more like a baby and not an infant, I get more and more confident venturing out with the two of them in tow.  At first it felt scary, daunting, but now it is way more handle-able.  Just in the nick of time too, as Colin will be heading back to work soon, and as I hear, he will be having incredibly long days for the first little while. I guess I will be dabbling my toes into what it would feel like as a single mom.............scary! 

Facebook answers to my Question

I posted the question of Stranger Danger out to the Facebook world, and here are a few of the answers that I received.  I am putting these up here for the sake of anyone who is reading this but not Facebook, but also, so I can keep it in a more accessible archive for myself.



'This post at Progressive Pioneer addresses the topic a little (mostly about homeless people though): http://www.progressivepioneer.com/progressive-pioneer/2011/03/hard-conversations.html
Although the comment section might be helpful - her posts tend to get a lot of reader comments!'

' I think it probably depends on the child. How social they are and how soon they'll be out of your sight. And I think the thing is to teach caution, not fear.'

• 'what I wanted to say as a non mom but child lover is that I do not remember when my parents had the talk with me-- what I do remember though is always having caution if any stranger/ not a friend of my parents tried to approach me if my mom or dad were not there or occupied-- but never fear.
•  I think as early as 3 or 4 they must have had talks with me about the subject, and even though my family was super cheesy optimistic at the time "strangers are just friends you haven't met yet" I always knew that if anything happened when the units were not around I should tell them... of course this made me the so annoying 4 year old who has a running monologue of everything that I saw, did or see... but this has its benefits too in this case. So, I guess, you should start the dialogue whenever it comes up naturally and it feels right-- seize the 'teachable moments' as they arise-- also, you are so lovely and caring and show love for the world that you will pass this on to those lucky little men in your life-- go with your heart, your gut knows... and there are loads of great children's books that you can read to them that will deliver the message inadvertently and generate discussion so as not to freak them out but also make them careful... does that make sense?'

  
  

   

   

  I also  have a distinct memory of our super special code word, though I am not totally sure when it came up that we should have one.  This is a code word that us kids chose so that we would remember it.  We never had to use this code word, thankfully, but it was a great idea and certainly one I intend to pass along to my children.

  
  

  The purpose of this word was, if someone we didn't know, or knew vaguely, came up to us with the inevitable your mother is sick/had and accident/couldn't make it to pick you up so she asked me to do it for her......... kind of line.  If the person did not provide us with that code word, than we were to assume it was not authentic and to go and tell and adult.

  
  

  Even now, talking about it, it gives me a sense of foreboding.  That feeling like, everything isn't lolly pops and sunshine like I had initially assumed (though in all honesty I wasn't one of those constantly happy go lucky kind of kids).  That pinnacle moment of 'there could be people out there that may want to hurt you.  A scary but absolutely necessary concept.

I smell Spring

I finally managed to clothe both children, strap the youngest to myself into the most amazing baby Ergo carrier, and get our sorry selves outside.  Not as simple a task as it sounds, trust me. As I step outside, I am enveloped by the smell of worms.  That scent that is often the resulting olfactory bombardment of a good spring rain.  I don't remember it raining, in fact I am almost certain that it did not, in fact rain, because there is still mounds of dirty ugly snow everywhere.  But there it was, that very distinct smell of worms.

This isn't well known as a pleasant odour, but it brought the biggest and brightest of smiles to my face.  This, my friends is the beautiful, amazing essence of spring.  And not a minute too soon.  That is not to say that we will not have a rogue and completely disheartening snowfall sometime before the 'real' spring comes upon us.  But it is near, so near.

It has been a long and cold winter and I am very much looking forward to tossing the winter clothes into big cardboard boxes, cutting my daily outdoor  ritual of dress in half, IN HALF, at least.  Nothing necessary but shoes.....hmmm I need to buy shoes actually, the ones I bought last year were worn through due to excessive weight gain, excessive walking, and excessively badly made shoes!

Ahhh worm smell, I have missed you!