I got 99 problems...

...and a witch ain't one.



(Oh my gawd you have no idea how long I've been holding on to that one, I could not have possibly waited until Halloween!)

But seriously I do have like 99 kabillion problems that will all culminate in me sitting here.



Sitting here will be when my problem odometer will roll over from 99 kabillion back to zero. Because duh, look at it. It is naturey, Adirondack, family cottage awesomeness. This is not a stock photo, that is really the family cottage (camp if you're fluent in American, which I am) and I have been going there since I was a fetus. I was totally aware of its peaceful serenity even then because I was a precocious fetus.

Its the getting to that misty morning goodness that is posing 99 kabillion problems. Because the only thing suckier than travelling with toddlers and babies, is preparing to travel with toddlers and babies. Especially preparing to travel with toddlers and babies to the wilderness.

So 99 kabillion problems is what I got.

But 99 kabillion problems is peanuts for this.




And because even though I'm all grown up with 99 kabillion problems it will always feel like this.




Red bathing suits get the job done. Did I not tell you I was leggy?!

the story of my Sawyer

This was a guest post I wrote for the lovely Cheryl at Mommypants. I thought it would be appropriate to repost on today of all days, it being a good day to turn 3 years old.

To my baby boy who will always know how very wanted he is.


The story of my Sawyer's beginning is at the ending of another's. When the ache of motherhood was new in my heart and the need to fill the emptiness, left us feeling anxious and lost and wild.

And with the rising temperatures of that summer and the unforgiving sun beating down on us, we gave way to that wildness and maniac revelry in which it was easy to forget that,what was missing. Our irresponsibility, an abandonment and blatant disregard to the responsible, carried us through the months of long nights and left us in the end sunburned and tired and wanting.

The wanting being an uninvited guest who nagged and pestered and made its presence known in the wake of happy news from friends, we being at the age of happy news. Until the wanting, no longer content to stand behind wavering smiles and choked congratulations, found its way into my frenzied thoughts, driving me towards a preoccupation with recapturing what I had lost. Leaving me bewildered with my own inability, my failure.

The wanting had made permanent residence within, its consumptive nature peering out from behind my eyes. Until he, pained too, took my sullen face in his hands, looked into the green depth of where the wanting lay and said stop.

And I stopped.

In that airy, light time, leaves blew across our path and the coolness on our skin felt better. We felt better. And we laughed and embraced in the face of our new found betterment. Betterment being a more welcome companion to the wanting.

So that our own happy news, didn't seem news at all on that cold November night. Its arrival just being delayed. We forgave it it's tardiness and waited.

We waited for things to take. For it to be okay. To get past the point where it had ended before. When things had gone awry.

We were hopeful, filled with cautious anticipation, singing Beatles songs. Pleading with it to hold on. To stay.

But then there was blood. It's familiarity allowing me a sense of composure, a numbness.

And this composure carried me on wooden legs, into a darkened ultrasound room where I explained to the woman technician that this was not the first and that I expected the worst. And because of the numbness my words were wooden too, hollow.

Maybe it was that hollowness in my voice or the glassiness of my eyes or maybe it was just that she was a mom too. But whatever her reasoning, she broke protocol and turned the screen so that both her and I would see the silvery images there.

Her voice was soothing and murmuring as she moved the wand across my still flat belly, searching. She held her breath when she stopped and I did too.

"There," she said quietly, with warmth, pointing to the screen.

One blinking pixel.

One blinking pixel, until I am no more, will be the single most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes upon.

And many months later, in the glow of a summer heat, my Sawyer was placed in my arms. Where I marvelled at the miracle of him and how I thought he had been lost save for the hope I'd found in that one blinking pixel.

I give good 32 year old mom face

A eye wrinkles, newly acquired over the last 3 years of smiling. Smiling at holding my babies for the first time, smiling at funny sleeping faces, smiling at first steps, first words, first bites into pickles and strawberries, smiling at inside family jokes because we are a family now, us four, and have inside family jokes even if they are about poop and toots and pirate dinosaurs. Smiling, always smiling.


B slightly off-colour teeth, stained with pots upon pots of coffee necessary to fuel this mom machine. (also red wine may or may not have played a small part)


C unwashed hair. Hair washing consumes precious showering time. With a baby screaming from the confines of her crib and trains being launched in through the shower curtain, you need to stick to the basics. Washed hair is a privilege only earned through creative parenting (giving your kids a box of 36 tampons, taking each one out and putting each one back in again gives you practically enough time for a spa treatment) and time management (waiting for nap time).


D deep wrinkle between my eyes. Acquired through brow furrowing at miscellaneous stains and damp spots on the couch. Also from contorting my face to assume the identity of each of The Three Bears, various monsters and Sir Topham Hatt.

E strong arms and broad shoulders. Used to lift breastfed babies who find themselves in the 90th percentile for height and weight. Also to bear the load of many, many hard decisions we mothers have to make. To sleep train, to not sleep train, when to wean, should I vaccinate, what about circumcision, am I doing the right thing, am I fucking my kids up by letting them watch TV, what sunscreen should I be using (I have red haired kids, skipping sunscreen is not an option)? Shouldering this burden of decision making, of being completely responsible for another's wellness, is perhaps the hardest mom job of all.

F unshaven armpits. Again with the sticking to showering basics and having to make tough decisions. Legs or arm pits? Legs if only to stop the incessant, "Mommy, you're picky". Which is usually exclaimed in a toddler whisper (adult shout) in the line at the grocery store.

G stainguarded, microfibre sectional couch. Stainguarded because, duh. Microfibre because we can't have nice things and its extraordinary ability to absorb mass amounts of breast milk (we're talking 2 week postpartum, mid-day letdown amounts) gives me a sense of well being and security I've never known with any other piece of furniture. Sectional because what the hell else are you going to use as a pirate ship.

H tank top. Part of my two piece mom body armour, the other piece being black yoga pants (and flip flops if I'm venturing farther than the yard).

I boobs. -sigh- That is all.

J I'm-32-years-old-and-its-wonderfully-awesomer-than-I-thought-it-ever-could-be eye sparkle. Which is the best kind of eye sparkle to have.

love him

Five years ago today it was very beautiful.




Five years later it still is.

my face getting stepped on is not pictured here

Because that is what happened right after taking this picture.




I would like to say that this was the first time my face was stepped on by my toddler. I would like to say that this was the last time my face was stepped on by my toddler.

But when you lie down on a hill to look at clouds, with said toddler, that is the risk you need to be willing to take.

Live dangerously my friends.

the smell of vinegar should have tipped you off

To the fact that I am a rather large douche.

Can I just address for a moment the ridiculousness of douche. Who invented douche anyhow? I think it must have been a man, because what woman in their right mind would shoot vinegar and chemicals into their vaginas and think that it was not massively ridiculous. That has man written all over it. And not the normal run of the mill, lovely, woman-respecting, natural-vagina-loving man but a bad man, a bad, ridiculous man. But then what man who prefers the company of women, finds the scent of vinegar more appealing than vagina? Its a mystery. But I will say this, vaginas are like self-cleaning ovens kids, self-cleaning.

Now what is not a mystery is why I am a huge douche, this is very clear. And why I am a douche mainly lays in the fact that I have been ridiculous, ridiculous like the act of douching because I have received awards over the last month, maybe months and have not only not said thank you, thank you for being awesome and taking the time out of your busy day to send my ungrateful, douchey ass an award but I have not even posted my thanks in a blog entry let alone an email. I am not even going to justify the doucheyness of this faux pas, but I will say that I am flaky and given to fits of flightiness. Those of you who know me are nodding your heads right now, you damn traitors, you told me I was getting less flaky with age! I mean I really am slightly less flaky then I was, its not like I've forgotten my kids anywhere, lately.

And to prove to you that I am not that flaky and no longer wish to be a douche, I am going to tell you all about these awesome, fabulous bloggers who used to not think that I was a douche (although since practically a month(s) has passed since I have received some of these awards, their opinions may have changed) and have bestowed upon me some shiny things, knowing that I love shiny things.

Susie Kline at Motherhoot graced me with this ray of sunshine

Susie Q is darling and wears a rocking tiara. You will go for the yummy recipes but stay for the pictures of Rick Springfield. (Seriously Rick quit being a douche and follow this woman on twitter, being a douche is lonely Rick, really lonely)

The Happy Nester also sent this award my way.

The Happy Nester is a fellow Canadian, moreover she is a fellow Ontarian. She practically lives up the road in the Muskokas. For those of you who are oblivious to the Muskokas (Americans I may or may not be talking to you), it's gorgeousness is insurmountable, well except for the odd dock spider but once that bastard sees the wrong side of a canoe paddle the unsurmountableness continues. Run on over and tell her that the woman who lit a cigarette next to her while she breastfed her adorable, chubby bunny baby on the beach, is lucky to not have a burn mark in the middle of her forehead. Breastfeeding mothers can be fierce as hell.

Cheri at CheGo2 the Kitchen gave me this substancey award.

Cheri and I go way back. (She can vouch, that my doucheishness is only fleeting) She is from the Philippines and does not fuck around in the kitchen. If you are looking for an awesome recipe to wow your friends with at a dinner party but its probably only lunch for her, go there and wow away.

And guess what? Despite the fact that I regularly use the term 'ass munch' in blog posts, Jen over at Mom vs. The Boys thought I blog with substance, too. Thought this so much in fact she also sent this award my way. Jen does know me in real life and knows that I am not a douche. I mean are people who open bar tabs with there Visa at office Christmas parties douches? That is what is known as a rhetorical question.

Alright now if I were you I would go and read the following two blogs (I am not you because you are probably not a douche, but lets just be hypothetical for a damn minute, its not going to kill you!) These blogs are deserving of millions of awards because their awesomeness is as insurmountable as the Muskokas minus the dock spiders. Read away. And ladies feel free to pick up both awards because you are like substancey sunshine, which is not smoggy at all.

Nattering Nic she is awesome and she will listen to NKOTB full volume. Also she blogs about Charcot Marie Tooth, which is not a dental affliction but is her reality and she just moms her way through it all.

Average Girl over at The Highly Uninteresting Misadventures of Average Girl. If this woman is not going to write a book I will find her and bite her oh so attractive earlobes.

There I feel cleansed and no longer douchey. I am self cleaning like that.

this isn't no Alanis Morissette song

Although it is ironic. Motherhood, that is.

Motherhood has irony by the buttload. For those of you still being all empirical, buttload is not quite as much as shitload but more than a hell of a lot. So needless to say, the buttload of irony in motherhood is quite daunting.

I first began to reflect on the irony of motherhood in the most ironic of places, while a 120 watt bulb was illuminating my cervix. Because you see I used to dread pap smears, dread them. They're messy and cold and 120 watts is not the best lighting for my cervix. To sum it up, pap smears suck. Or they used to. But now, while getting a pap smear? It's kind of relaxing. Like going to the spa but not, because your cervix is exposed and you're not wearing those disposable, foamy flip-flops. But its pretty good (my doctor has a very light touch). Laying there with my feet in the stirrups, I didn't have to fix anybody a snack, no one needed their nose or butt wiped, it was silent, well except for the sound of a speculum being cranked, but quiet none the less. And just then, it was all about me. It was kind of relaxing in a twisted, sad, desperate way. Seeing the relaxing quality of a pap smear when I once used to break out in a cold sweat at the sight of stainless steel and lubricant is the first irony of motherhood that I had considered. Was I on to something?

Because, once I started thinking about it, the ironies that can be found in being a mom are everywhere. Hiding behind corners and jumping out at you all over the place, leaving you wishing you had a panty liner in your purse because you might have peed a little it took you by such surprise. Motherhood is ironic as hell.

Like once your B cup (but perky and cute) self finally gets huge gorgeous boobs, I'm talking you could hold billboards up with these boobs, use these boobs as foundation pillars for apartment complexes. Once you finally get those lovelies, they hurt so fucking bad you don't want anyone to look at them let alone touch them and even if someone did, milk would instantly squirt out at a range that could only be measured in metres, maybe kilometres depending on time of day and that person could be injured in the eye or something. So now that you have these awesome boobs they are like painful deadly weapons and so you can't even use them for your own personal gain, unless you count nurturing your child as gain, which I guess it is. But finally having big boobs only to blind someone with them? Ironic.

Also now that you have reached an age of wisdom and self-assuredness, a time of being comfortable in your own body. A time where you might consider wearing a flirty little dress because you finally appreciate your long legs and have gained a little self-confidence in realizing that long legs are pretty hot and not chicken leggy at all. Now? Now you have a huge pulsating varicose vein right behind your knee that takes flirty dresses out of the equation regardless of how lenghthy your legs are. Gaining enough self-confidence to wear sexy clothes only to have your body ravaged by stretch marks and varicose veins? That is fucking irony for you.

And another thing about self-confidence, it is so wasted on overtired mothers. Because now you are at a point in your long term relationship, where you are comfortable as hell. Yeah that's right leave the lights on because I know I will rock your world and we can be all crazy and dirty and wild. No one's going anywhere, we are solid, so lets have some awesome we're-comfortable-with-each other sex because we've put in the grunt work and know what we're doing, what its all about, we're pretty much professionals at this point, unionized and shit. Well now during this time of awesome sex, we're too damn tired. At the end of the day? Done. This might be the hardest irony to bear, having the tools and knowledge for awesome sex but not having the energy. -sigh-

That brings us to knowledge. After recovering some wherewithal and gaining some ground on the constant loss of brain cells experienced over the four years of your liberal arts education, once the smoke and haze has cleared, you are ready to start forming some opinions and arguing some points beyond whether the vacuum solo in the middle of Phish's set was conducive to the harmony of the vocals and light show, delve into some issues with meaning and weight. Maybe discuss the absurdity of protesting against the evils of capitalism using fire bombs and face masks, um unless you bartered your own services for those goods, you are participating in a capitalist economic system ass munch, or how the exclusion of homosexuality from the Ontario health curriculum is not only negligent but also a violation of human rights, you know real heady stuff. Well just as you are becoming all wise and politically opinionated, the onslaught of braincell loss begins again, but this time at the hands of pregnancy and sleep deprivation and hormones and just being too tired to give a shit what's happening beyond the confines of your own house, alright maybe I'd go as far as the back yard but this is coming from the woman who let her child shit in her backyard, let the poop hammock be a testament to the limit of boundaries in the realm of giving a shit. Becoming wise and experienced enough to have some thoughts and opinions about important issues, only to see your brain cells drain away into the confines of a nursing pad and being to tired to really care? How ironic is that?

What's ironic is just as I'm finishing this post, I hear my kids waking up from their naps. Or is that coincidental?

Whatever. And what's more? I've missed them.

Motherhood. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

june, you're a punk ass

June almost kicked my ass.

It seems that I'm always narrowly escaping an ass kicking whether it be at the hands of , out of control toddlers,potty training stomach flus,poop hammocks, whatever. Its always something around here.

But June, June is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. June is a damn big kettle. I mean its probably the biggest kettle I've ever seen. It makes me crave tea that's how big of a kettle, June is. Except then the tea would probably taste like fish, which just won't do. Not when June is being a big stupid head. The last thing I need is fishy tasting tea.

As I've said before, the fertility patterns in my husband's family are extraordinary, so extraordinary in fact that every single family member has a birthday in June. Every single one. Resulting in a lot of celebration. Now I am so not against celebration, I'll snap on a birthday hat with the best of them. Its cake fuelled toddlers I abhor. There is nothing worse than a toddler all amped up on cake. Well maybe dock spiders, but after dock spiders cake frenzied almost-3-year-olds. Cake-frenzied-almost-3-year-olds are intolerable.

So needless to say June has been an exercise in shit shows and various scenes of chaos. In looking back at June, getting a pap smear and going on a few job interviews were the most relaxing parts of the month. -sigh- But then came July.

July with its hot, humidity, sitting in the backyard with your feet in a kiddy pool kind of days. Welcome hazy, lazy days (yes I am fully aware why the days appear so hazy but for fuck sakes I live in Canada where a summer is a summer and a little smogginess is not going to stop me from summering it up). Come stay a while.

Living in Canada with the Vitamin D deficiencies, the summer worship, the affinity for sitting outside with frosty beverages and everything else that living in Canada entails, I feel that I should make explanation for my goneness. Because I will surely be gone.

Gone fishing.
Gone sitting on the dock.
Gone reading books in Adirondack chairs.
Gone breaking up sandbox brawls.
Gone to family reunions.
Gone napping in small, wood-panelled rooms with whispery curtains.
Gone listening to Jane's Addiction, because Jane Says.
Gone drinking red wine on the deck.
Gone riding trains.
Gone holding hands and kissing.
Gone to the land of dial-up and no connection.
Gone blowing out birthday candles.
Gone cuddling water-logged babies.
Gone to the zoo to watch the otters.
Gone listening to the blues in sweaty bars.
Gone being all not caring, wearing flowy sundresses, in and out of reality because its summer and that is what one does in the summer.

Of course I'll promise to write when I can.

Wish you were here.