this is not funny

I'm waving my white flag today.

I'm weary of this week, it having beaten me.

There was puke in the night from a little boy who has never puked. And it was scary and smelly.

Luckily puke in the night is an effective remedy for going to bed angry with one another. Puke being a good cement for cohesiveness and unity.

My funny is hanging on the line with a teddy bear and a Thomas the Tank Engine pillow case. It will be back shortly, all sun streaky and fresh airy smelling.

Until then here is a little Shel Silverstein, because that is what we do when there were angry words and puke in the night and when a little boy is laying next to you on the couch.



And because V is decidedly better than no V at all.

true dat

In my decades of motherhood, alright I've only really been a mother for 3 years but it feels like decades and I'm a glorious exaggerator which I'm told is endearing so decades it is.

As I was saying, after centuries of motherhood, I've come to recognize some truths of mothering (or parenting but I'm a mom so get off my ass and quit arguing semantics). These truths are the constants of motherhood, the adages which reveal themselves through the challenges and obstacles we as mothers face every day, every damn day. And once these truth are recognized and reflected upon, they are filed away in the artillery of mom wisdoms and if deemed worthy are coined, Rules of Mum.

Rule of Mum #87 Fibre is your friend, you don't have time for this shit (literally).

Rule of Mum #21 Babies hurt, seriously they fucking hurt but mostly they hurt your vagina, don't ever forget that.

Rule of Mum #383 When you have a fully stocked diaper bag it becomes extra baggage, when you decide to leave it at home just to run to the store to get bread, shit will be all over the car seat.

Rule of Mum #109 If your period is late just go grocery shopping without a tampon in your purse if this doesn't work you are screwed.

Rule of Mum #921 Babies are really sneaky, especially when they are sleepy and cuddly. Do not let them trick you into thinking this is the way it will always be if you have another one. Refer to pictures of yourself 2 weeks postpartum and remember Rule of Mum #21.

Rule of Mum #453 Just when you are about to have the big O, I mean the torches are lit ready to ignite the fireworks, the cannons are being rolled out for the playing of the 1812 Overture, you got your O face on, at this moment a baby will always cry out over the monitor, babies have no fucking sense of timing.

Which brings me to Rule of Mum #454 Always turn off the monitor first. Always.

Rule of Mum #74 Where there is a mess there is a kid.

Rule of Mum #621 A clean tank top now constitutes as lingerie, be wary.

Rule of Mum #58 When lunch is all over the floor, your toddler has spilled juice on the cat and the phone is ringing, someone will have shit their pants.

Rules of Mum are essential to the preservation of my sanity and are important tools in forging forward as a mom.

This sunshiny long weekend (Oh Canada) was but another opportunity to add another Rule of Mum to the ever expanding list. Our long weekend was filled with sunny days playing in the backyard, cool evenings drinking red wine by the fire and late mornings spent snoozing in (its difficult to sleep in with two kids driving cars on top of you in a Queen-sized bed filled with said cars and a snoring husband, but snoozing is do-able). Rule of Mum #951 became apparent on Monday night as I climbed into bed to feel a familiar grittiness. Was that sand? In my bed? The marital bed?

Rule of Mum #951 Never let your kids play with cars from the sandbox in your bed, even if it does afford you some snoozing time.

Subsequently Rule of Mum #952 was found to be, when life gives you sand have sex on the beach.

if I wasn't married already, I'd never get laid in this neighborhood

And just when my reputation was recovering after being seen eating popcorn off my own breast by the house full of university kids next door, now this happens. The poop hammock. I've just given up on the dream of ever becoming a block parent.

I might of mentioned once or twice that I am potty training my son. I'm sure I must have said something about it, a tweet or two, a facebook status or four. Anyways, to anyone left in the world that is unaware, I am potty training this week and it is the bane of my existence, the pain in my ass, the thorn in my side. Sorry for those of you who haven't yet reached this milestone, but I am just going to lay it down straight as an arrow. You might as well stock up on red wine by the crate, kiss your partner goodbye because after what you are going to see and do it will take a while for you to get your sexy back, and self-medicate using some form of barbiturates.

So having been bound to my house all week to get the potty thing under control, we've spent a lot of time playing in the backyard with the potty within bums reach. However while my son gets that you need to go on the potty when its time, he is not a pre-planner and is often caught off guard by the urge to purge. And when I hear that warning bell I need to move fast to get that butt on the potty.

This was exactly the case on the afternoon of the poop hammock. My son bolts up out of the sandbox and announces loudly that he is pooping. Now after carefully covering that very sandbox every night so that neighborhood cats do not use it as a litter box, I was not about to go down like that. Not on my watch. The potty was in my sight line and I knew I could make it (I ran track in high school). I grabbed him, whipped his pants down but alas my previous mediocre attempts at the 100m were all for not. And my son laid a big patch right there in the grass, next to the patio. In full view of the next door neighbors' (nerdy university kids) living room window, where I am sure they were all sitting around on lawn chair furniture debating Sudoku strategies until their revelry was interrupted by the kid of the boob popcorn eater taking a shit 25 feet from their door.

This thing was monumental, obviously my son has a very healthy colon and obviously I feed my kids too much corn. So now I'm standing there having to deal with this problem, this rather big problem, this drift wood sized problem. I couldn't just leave it there and hosing it down might have endangered the water supply on our street. So I did what any other self-respecting mother at the end of the day, wishing that her husband would for once get his ass home before 5:30 when shit (no pun intended) like this always seems to happen. I made a poop hammock.

How does one construct a poop hammock, you ask? Well first I should inform you that I do have two degrees and a more than casual knowledge of quantum physics (I watched Quantum Leap in the '80s which is pretty much the same thing). First you lay done three or four paper towels to act as the actual hammock. Then you grab another three or four paper towels, this of course being your extracting device. You are then ready to extract your target from the grass and gingerly place it onto the hammock. Then and only then are you ready to carry it into the house to be disposed of in the proper receptacle (the downstairs powder room).

Now kids safety first, so I buckled on my back brace before actually lifting up the poop hammock. And I must admit I thrilled to the danger of the whole ordeal. I felt like a World War 1 field officer carrying wounded soldiers from the trenches, only this was way more dangerous because I buy the cheap brand of paper towels and I new anything could happen on my path from the backyard to the toilet.

Needless to say I was victorious on my mission. There was a ticker tape parade and I was given a key to the city. And finally I just might have eradicated The Boob Popcorn Eater moniker I had so deservedly acquired, it being replaced by Poop Hammock Wrangler is moot.

So you have something funnier than a Poop Hammock, well bring it bitch. Head on over to Crazy Town and Link up. You gots to get that shit out in the open.

I have no words, only this

It is empty, as are all paper towel rolls in this house. That is all. Also, fuck!!!

its like a vacation but not really at all

I'm nailing a sign written on a Huggies size 6 diaper to the front door. Desperately scrawled in a shaky hand, with my own tears, (look closely) are the words, "Gone Potty Training".

As soon as I get this kid potty trained, I assume I'll be able to collect my 'Mother of the Year' award. So the bell has rung. I'm back in the ring, looking lean, looking mean. I'm weaving in and out of arced streams because I forgot to put on the penis guard, I'm armed with a spray bottle of vinegar and water and a roll of paper towels, I'm shuffling a little butt over to the closest available potty (which sometimes turns out to be in the backyard). The neighbors are going to think we've adopted a large dog, like a lab or something or one of those mastiffs. (I kid, I kid! I'm a firm supporter of scoop and poop by-laws).

In the mean time feast your eyes on these bad boys. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, those are double Sunshine awards! I'm only going to copy and paste one because I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint, but imagine two of them in all their sunshiny glory.



Who would house such awesomeness in but a mere humans body, of course it's

Real Mommy 365
Who has a family of 8 kids, the kind of kids that make you momentarily consider the possibility of maybe being able to do 8 kids, some of the time (right now down in the basement my husband is tilting his head wondering, 'Did I just feel a uterine tremor'). Rest assured my love, I am however, seriously considering asking to be adopted into the Real Mommy 365's family.

and

Stacy, Miss Farrell if you're nasty, over at My Perspective. Cuteness personified. She'll rock a Taco Bell run after a night on the town and has officially joined the ranks of parents who have been walked in on while having relations with their significant others. You are not alone sweetie, my son is stealth, I need to put a bell on that kid.

So skip on over and love them up.

Now is the time when I revel in my omnipotence and pass these awards on like biblical plagues. If I was you (which I'm not, I'm me, meaning right now I am waist deep in a pile of wet 3T Thomas the Tank Engine briefs and am no where as awesome as you are) I would stomp on over to the following blogs:
The Dirty Mommy Club, who doesn't like to get dirty every once in a while and her post-it notes always makes me think that she perhaps is looking through my kitchen window and witnessing the horrors of my life first hand, well get in line Steph (we're tight like that) I have a passel of university kids next door to impress with my full bosoms and yoga pant clad bum (I didn't say a*s because the next award recipient is a minor).

Baby E over at Good Day Regular People. Baby E is the offspring of the Empress, who is fantabulous in her own right, and has commandeered his mother's blog on Mondays. The thing about Baby E is he is awesome (I have a weakness for awesome kids) and has mad writing skills. The kid keeps a journal all week long and then just spills the beans on all kinds of topics from Asian beetle infestations to his mom's fake nice voice. Mondays are definitely sunnier because of Baby E. And he is probably going to be the future president of the United States so I would get on his good side a.s.a.p.!

Alright I've said my piece. I am currently taking offers to come to my house and potty train my son (email me for my address) we could play beer pong with the potty (that being the most use it will have seen yet) and take turns reading 'Everybody Poops' in foreign accents, just because.

see ya, wouldn't want to be ya

Okay, I don't have much time because the Echo is packed up and idling in the driveway. (we have idling bylaws, because we be green like that) I am on my way to Crazy Town! Its like I'm coming home! So walk, run, hop, skip, crawl, stumble because you are still a little tipsy from Saturday night. What? Oh, that's just me? Well then, just get your ass over there by whatever means you deem appropriate. The Mayor and I could be related, blood tests are pending. See what you think.

My Awesomeness at Crazytown!

psst... there's a picture of a mummy and a mommy, can you tell the difference?

the magnificent princess

Its Friday Funny over at Crazytown, so if you have something funnier than boob popcorn (which is pretty unlikely, boob popcorn being hilarious and all) then hop on the Friday Funny bandwagon and let the whole world laugh at you.

First of all I must confess that I am nude in front of my children a lot, being that I haven't locked a door since 2007 and have been known to pee with a baby on my lap. Also we are all about the proper names for our genitalia, you might say we are pro penis and vagina. So there is a lot of penis talk being thrown around lately. And since we rock the double bath on occasion the vagina has worked its way into conversations as well. Vaginas are sneaky like that.

Despite our constant babble about penises (is that right or is it peni, I've only had to deal with them one at a time, so I don't know) and vaginas, Monkeybone is still working it out, what belongs to who. "Mommy, where did your penis go?", is a question I have to field a lot.

So I was not at all surprised, when walking out of the shower, to have Monkeybone look up from his trains and ask, "Is that your penis?". Taking this as a teachable moment, I explain, "No girls don't have penises (peni?), what do girls have?"

What was his reply, this child whom I have been very careful to be gender neutral with, who as far as I was concerned had escaped gender stereotyping up until know.

His reply was, "Girls, have princesses."

Well, you said a mouth full there, my boy.

And so let it be known throughout the land, that a princess reigns supreme in this house. My husband is, as of yet, unaware of his past brushes with royalty.

I thought you should know

That there was a time when nothing was funny, when there was no jokes, no smiles. When the technician standing in front of the monitor, holding the wand shook her head, just slightly but I saw it. And she said to go home and wait for my midwife to call. And so commenced the longest I had ever gone without laughing.

There was a time when I sat on my couch and learned that it was not to be, as sometimes happens. When I cried into his chest and could not look into his blues eyes. When we held each other and were silenced in our mutual loss.

There was a time when women hearing of it, reached out their hands from near and far as women are apt to do when one of their own is hurting. When hands folded me into arms, hands wiped my tears and sometimes those of their own, hands laid my head into laps and stroked my hair, hands picked up phones and whispered comforting words.

There was a time when my mother was called and said she would be there in two hours, which is extraordinary because she lived three hours away. And she sailed through my door like a Spanish galleon in full mast. I'm stealing from Lucy Maude Montgomery's description of Cornelia Bryant here, but such a description is fitting to how my mother descended upon us, cleaning and cooking spaghetti sauce. And she put me to bed and sat with me until I found sleep. Not once did I see her cry, which I was thankful for. There are many things of which I can endure, my mother's tears not being one of them.

There was a time when I did not go to work for many days and it was over. The midwife came and held my hand, touched my cheek. She took my blood reasoning that it would already be done for when I got pregnant again. I was grateful for the when instead of the if, sometimes conjunctions make all the difference.

There was a time when I lay in bed and when that was over I worked in my garden. Gardening as therapy is solely underestimated. I planted a clematis and moved iris bulbs from the patch behind the shed. The clematis never grew, clematis being finicky until they take root, only then will they become hardy. Iris bulbs are different, only needing of gentle hands to place them into the soil where they will bloom just as though they had always been there. Finding happiness in iris being a sweet foreshadowing of things to come.

There was a time when my grief was surprising, the difference nine weeks had made. And upon hearing this a friend with more motherly wisdom than I would ever have, said that for some of us we as mothers emerge at the sight of two pink lines and are forever changed because of it.

With motherhood comes great joy and great sorrow.

There was a time four years ago this May, at the cusp of twenty eight, I only had had the sorrow and it changed me. For without it I would not be the mother I am today.

And now is when I go snuggle babies, sleepy from their naps. And nuzzle their heads which will smell of spaghetti and feel their hands on my cheeks. Because that is what time it is now.

please read, unless you have a crack addiction

Gather 'round lambs, its time for Friday Funny. Its the only bloggy themey thingy that can contain a free spirited, wild child such as myself. So if you have a funny to share and want to stick it to the man (you rebel you, I love the smell of danger) then hop over here and link it up at Crazy Town, so that your notoriety will be known throughout the land.

While off on my little sexcapade earlier on in the week, I left my two and half year old son in the care of my mother.

Monkeybone, as he is so affectionately referred too, has a bit of a soother addiction. We're talking A&E Intervention addition. Raging like a meth head addiction. Trading in his teddy bear and offering up cuddles just for one suck addiction.

Yeah he's closing in on three and still uses a soother and is not potty trained. I'm comfortable with being a parenting FAIL.

Now I've weened him, by way of a 12 step program, to only using it at night. But him being the wily little fox that he is, sneaks a quick suck here and there from the soother he keeps under his pillow. Now having routinely witnessed this phenomenon and as well as having seen my fair share of Intervention episodes, my sister and I jokingly call this (out of what I thought was earshot)'taking a haul' off his soother. Much the same way a crack addict would desperately take a haul off a crack pipe, he sneaks up to his room, takes a quick suck and then comes back out looking all guilty and sheepish.

Whilst I was away, Monkeybone snuck away from my mom. My mom having called his name, discovered that he had gone into his room. When she asked what he was doing, he replied, "taking a haul off my soother".


Note to self:
1) even though Monkeybone appears to be hearing impaired when asked to pick up his toys or to stop sitting on the cat, he does in fact have some sort of superhuman ability to hear low murmurs from metres away
2)do not use drug lingo when referring to the activities of your children
3)mentally catalogue what other unsavoury things you've talked about while assuming your children were not listening
4)when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me

it just got a whole lot dirtier around here

I cleaned out the closets and swept all the Cheerio crumbs and cat hair under the rugs. I've made an attempt to corral the toys in the appropriate bins but there is only so much one can do while wearing one of those french maid get-ups!

Isn't that what you're supposed to wear while housecleaning? No? Well that's what my hus...wait a minute, are you saying that my husband has purposely misinformed me about the suitable attire one should wear when cleaning the house, to suit his own perverse sexual desires? I don't believe it! And he was such a sweetie bringing me home this battery operated personal massager. Well I must go have a word with him.

While I do that, The Dirty Mommy from over at the The Dirty Mommy Club has graced us with her presence (hence all the cleaning in the first place). She's lovely with capitals and italics. But if the phone rings while she's here, don't answer it, girlfriend has a wicked late charge at Blockbuster and they are out for blood. But its probably best to keep that hush.


Ode to Moms


Years ago, I ran into a girl I used to go to high school with in the grocery store. We hadn’t seen each other in ten years. Ten years! So much had happened to each of us in that time it was hard to decide where to begin. So I asked her what she had been up to. I was expecting an abbreviated synopsis of her life. Instead, her first sentence was “I’m a mom to two boys”.

What?! Excuse me? In ten years, all you have managed to do is reproduce? Seriously, I didn’t know where to go from there. Obviously she had been living a very sheltered life.

This occurred in 2001 BC, or ‘Before Children’ as I have come to name those fondly remembered years. I was out in the world, making my mark, living it up, getting educated, getting drunk, and getting jobs. The world was my oyster (with a slice of lemon and a dash of Tabasco).

In all of my BC years, I could not have ever envisioned (even with narcotics) what AC years were all about. Keep up, I’m talking about ‘After Children’. But here I am, in my AC years. And now I get it.

When I ran into that old high school friend, she wasn’t telling me about her boys because that is all she had done with those past ten years. She was telling me about her boys because her entire universe had shifted when they entered her life. They were her abbreviated synopsis.

So, for all of you in the AC club, this is my ode to you…


Here’s to cracked nipples and saggy boobs,

Celebrating flabby bellies and fallopian tubes,

Nine months of weight gain and nine years to lose it,

Cesarean, epidural or natural – you can’t choose it,

Incontinence, mucus plugs and the bloody show,

Waddling and chaffing wherever you go,

All this for the chance to never sleep again,

To ask of your teenager ‘Where have you been?’

To first lose your hair and then it turns grey,

To covering those bags under your eyes each day,

For the battle against hormones and cravings and such,

It can really all appear to be just too much,

And just as you’re about to yell ‘I’m through!’

Come the hugs, the love and the kisses too,

All of this rejuvenates you heart and your soul,

And simply getting through the day is no longer the goal,

So bring on the puke, the tantrums and shit,

Because this lady’s got a job that she won’t quit,

I’m someone’s Mom, and I’m proud to say

That you Moms all rock! Happy Mother’s Day.

ahhhh...that was good

I brushed it off, that piece of advice given to us by the officiant at our wedding. "Put yourselves, your marriage ahead of everything else, even your kids."

At the time, with my still silver-screened perception of motherhood, I thought fiercely, "nothing would ever come ahead of my children, nothing."

This was the time before round the clock feedings, before potty training and diaper blow-outs, when parenting seemed so predictable and not all-consuming. A time when mothering was so black and white, so literal, so linear. That mother bear attitude, in my mind was how it's done, what's expected. To put everything second to your kids. My naivety, my inexperience is all I can offer up as excuse for the dismissal of such sage advice.

It's stuck with me however, the making your marriage, your relationship a priority, the priority. And though he didn't get into the logistics, what he meant was, when things get real hairy, like when your breastfeeding every twenty minutes, when you are covered in excrement for over 75% of the day, when you are crying in the shower because its so hard, when sleep only comes in 90 minute intervals, when you've only eaten what was left on the highchair, when you have to bandage your first bloody head wound, when you drop a whole 10oz bottle of breast milk on the floor (the only spilt milk I have ever actually cried over), when there's no heartbeat on the ultrasound, when you're stitched up, when you don't have the answers, when you're unsure, when you're tired, when you're done, it's then when you will need each other the most. It is then, when even though it just seems like one more thing added to the long list of one more things, that maintenance of the partnership, the sense of cohesiveness while adrift on the rough waters of parenthood, will make or break you.

It isn't a ticket to self-indulgence, this advice. Its about creating and maintaining a solid foundation, to weather the storms, to remain uncracked through the frosts and thaws. Happy parents equals happy kids. Its such a simple equation. And if our marriage is the basement of our family unit, then we just got renovated.

Maybe it was the sitting by the lake,

or the hot tubbing,

it very well could have been the wine,

or the sleeping in until the ungodly hour of 10 o'clock,

or maybe it was the spa treatments,

it could have just been the dressing up for two hour dinners, with coffee and creme brulee.


Whatever it was, we have that new marriage smell and I like it.

what, what!

Mom of the Perpetually Grounded is pretty much good. Like Tim Horton's double double good, or eggs benedict good. She is a good writer, a good mother, a good daughter, just good. If you want to soak up some goodness then run over and read her. Also she is good because she recognized my bad ass with an Honest Scrap award, with no strings. See? Good.



The thing I just love about these sorts of things is spreading the word about other great reads. I'm an avid reader both on and off line and I wouldn't want to say I'm a bit snobbish when it comes to what I read, but I totally am. Especially when it comes to blogs because normally I have some can't-put-it-down book on the go (right now I'm nose deep into Carol Shields' Unless and it is some serious business) so a blog has to be worthy of my at a premium, napping-when-I-don't-have-a kid-in-my-arms time. If you can tear me away from a book then consider yourself having arrived. Not really but it means I like you, which is almost as good.

So here are some blogs that right now lure me away from Carol Shields (um just so you know that is pretty cool, her being a Pulitzer Prize winner and all, and if I'm reading you instead of her then maybe you should give up the 50 bones entry fee and throw your hat in the ring too, just saying). So if you want to read some possible future Pulitzer Prize winning material in the non-existent category of blogs have at it.

For coolest Northern Ontarian: Shanunadnauseam.

For making getting your period on an amusement park ride sound exciting: alabaster cow.

For singing Leonard Cohen lullabies: My life as a Libra.

For having the ability to live with me in a 20x15 room and for being an uber-mom: Are We There Yet?

For effective use of a sock monkey in her profile pic, and for being decidedly hilarious in Edmonton: Mommy By Day.

Alright ladies, so here's the deal, if you are all about the blog bling and want to copy and paste this award in your own space so that everyone is jealous of your brilliance and obvious betterness than those around you, please do so, if you have some reads of your own that you want to shout from the top of the blogisphere, do that too, if you want to be more subtle and just print this award out and pin it to your bra so that you are reminded of you accomplishments all day long then that would be appropriate as well. Its what I would do.

take your protein pills and put your helmet on

I bid you adieu.

I am going. I won't be here, because I will be having sex. Lots of sex. Sex not in our house. Sex hundreds of kilometres away from our baby monitor.

I might eat some yummy food and maybe sit in a hot tub beside a lake, drinking wine and reading a good book. But then I am going to have sex again. And its going to be fantastic.

We honeymooned here (5 years ago this July) and now we are going back for a couple of days of sex. And eating yummy food. And hot tubbing. And more sex.



Look at us. I miss my hair -sniffle- and my ass -sob-.

If you need me I won't be here.

Because I will be having sex.