I resisted the urge to rage at her.  I hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet.  I wanted to yell.

‘WHAT THE FUCK HANNAH!’

Instead I said, “go get me a towel right now.”

“I’m sorry mom,” she said, face turned down, eyes averted.

When she came back I wiped the milk from my skin and told her to sit on the couch and not say a word. 10 minutes later, after I felt the anger subside, I called her to sit on my lap.

“What happened before?  Why did you spit your milk on me?”

“I was trying to give you a fish kiss,” she said.

Breakfast was eaten, but we didn’t watch her favorite show.  Punishment.  She understood. The baby’s nap time rolled around and he was angry.  He resisted.  He yelled.  He cried.  30 minutes and a glass of milk later and he finally slumbered.

I emerge from the bedroom feeling as though I’d won one battle for the day to find Hannah eating peanut butter out of the jar.  She’s supposed to ask before she eats anything. It’s a rule and, I feel, a reasonable one.

I grab a snack and a coloring book and a new pack of crayons for her.  Coffee for me.  I bring this all downstairs to our family room – away from where the baby was napping.  “Here,” I say, “take this and sit down and color. Please show me some good behaviour because you haven’t done this yet today.”  She colors half a page then starts playing with the dog.  Then starts chasing the dog. Then starts yelling and throwing toys for the dog.

I lose it.  I order her to lie on the couch and not move or say a word.

I feel the anger bubbling over and I feel myself retreat inside to find some strength only there’s nothing there.  I feel sick, still having not recovered from an earlier illness.  I feel tired.  I feel emotionally exhausted. I want to get away – to run somewhere where I can be still in quiet.

It gets me thinking about how everytime I’m away from my kids I long to be right back at their side.  If I get away for a haircut..I wonder what they are doing.  If I run to the store for milk, I want to be home tucking them in.  If I’m out at an event I look forward to seeing them again.  I realize that I don’t want to get away from my kids, not really.  I’m not running from them.

Instead I’m running back towards myself.   There isn’t a version of me that exists without them any longer. There is no village here.  There’s me. Day in and day out and day in and day out I’m afloat in the ocean with these kids.  These kids who I adore.  Every waking moment is for them, about them, because of them.

I suppose that’s why I write.  The act of writing is a selfish thing.  It’s MY thing.

When the kids are grown and I come out of this day to day cloud of sing-songs and lunches and cartoons and routines I’m hoping that writing will be the thing that keeps my individual self alive.   Because I’m starting to wonder what will be left of me…it’s all happening so fast. When she moves out and he gets married where does that leave me?  I hope it’s not knitting sweaters for cats and pining for grand kids and feeling lost.  Because I’m already lost. I’ve lost myself in them.

I saw this quote and cracked up….it’s my life in a nutshell

My baby boy really really loves these little Tonka Chuck toy cars and so we just had to put one on his birthday cake.  I kept it pretty simple and clean looking.  I wasn’t pleased with my fondant this time and I think it might have been because the marshmallows were a little stale.  It was a bit tough and wouldn’t roll out very well…and it had a lot of bubbles in it.  Good thing the guest of honor didn’t really care!

Here he is with his pretty good sized piece of cake.  He had no idea what it was but that didn’t stop him from diving in.  This boy likes his food.  See how cute and clean he is?  Oh, and he’s spotting a nice sized bruise on his noggin.  Baby’s always bonk their heads right before mom wants to take a gazzilion pictures of them don’t they?

He flipped the piece over so it was fondant side down and picked all the cake off.  Then, what else was he to do but pick it up and mow down on that last bit?  You could literally see his eyes light up when the sugar kicked in.

I’d say the Tonka Chuck Birthday Cake was a hit!  He loved the marshmallow fondant the best and there really wasn’t much on the ground when he was done.  His face was another matter….

* I have NO affiliation with Tonka or their parent company.  My kid just likes em.  Gee….why all the suspicion? 

When all else fails, Play in to Mom’s Vices

I’ve known Cheryl around the web for about 2 years now.  Her blog link is down there in my sidebar.  I talk to her online pretty much every day.  She is an inspiration and a fighter and an incredible mom to her two girls.  Her youngest daughter Jillian (3 years old) has Cerebral Palsy.  What that means is that her muscles are super tight and it not only causes her pain (you know what your muscles feel like with charley horses right?) but it also causes her to not be able to walk.

There is a treatment that allows her to improve her mobility.  Botox injected into her tight muscles allows for some relaxation, return of mobility and the ability to learn to walk.  Jillian has had one treatment (it was donated) and it did wonders for her.  Cheryl has been trying to get this approved by her insurance company Manulife Financial so that Jillian can continue to learn to walk.  It needs to be administered in a hospital because Jillian needs slight sedation (it’s a lot of needles!) and therefor it’s quite expensive.

Manulife has refused Cheryl’s claim. Cheryl is not giving up. She’s crying out for help from Manulife and she’s asking those of us with social media accounts to help her.

You can read Cheryl’s original post to Manulife HERE.  You can read her follow up post HERE.

If you’d like to help Jillian keep her next appointment for Botox Injections you can find out more about that HERE.

If you can, tweet about this then please do so.  If you can write on the Manulife facebook wall about your thoughts then please do so.  If you can share this story in any way please do so.

Companies like Manulife need to know how we feel about their actions.  They need to know that we’re watching and that we’re aware.  Please don’t let them push around a 3 year old girl because they can choose to help her.  They’re just deciding not to right now.

she just wants to walk beside her big sister

You can make  a different decision.  You can choose to help Cheryl fight for her baby to walk.  As a mom, I don’t see how anyone could decide not to help.  All it takes is a tweet or a facebook post.  You can do that right?

a boy and his mama

The boy is 10 months old now.  TEN.  I can’t believe he’s almost a year old already.  He’s at that cute yet totally annoying stage where he’s old enough to understand a great deal of what we say – yet can’t really communicate back to us so he’s perpetually frustrated by life.  Add this to the fact that he has a big sister who he absolutely adores and wants to emulate and we have a recipe for disaster here people.

And by disaster I mean holy crap my floors. Sticky?  Yes.  Crunchy? Yes.  Furry?  That too.

The boy wants to learn to use a spoon and feed himself with it.  Great.  I’m all for a little independence around here.  If only we could convince the 4 year old to wipe her own arse we’d be making progress.  But yeah, the little dude screamed and screamed and yes, screamed at me at dinner today where I was holding the spoonful of baby oatmeal and trying to avoid his pudgy hands like a blimp trying to avoid King Kong and finally I just snapped and put the bowl in front of him and gave him the spoon.

He looked at me with an expression that said ‘holy crap, I can’t believe you gave in to that‘.  Then his wee face lit up and he started digging around in his bowl with the spoon and he put it in his mouth and grinned a huge grin.  He was so proud of himself.  Then he held the spoon out to show me as if to say ‘see mom, I told you I can do it!‘

I reveled in this small moment of baby joy.  Then I looked down at the floor under his chair.

I sighed a heavy sigh and realized that many of the moments of happiness end up as smudges and dirt and small bits left behind. That’s ok, and I’m pretty flexible with my standards of cleanliness around here.  I want happy kids before I want a clean house.

But there comes a time when enough is enough and OMG if I stick to the floor one more time I might just lose my marbles!

I decided I wanted to get someone in to do some cleaning around here because I was obviously failing in that department.  I stalked the daily group buying sites (Teambuy.ca is my newest obsession) and I fantasized about maids in frilly aprons buzzing around as I played with my kids in the park next door.  And then I saw it.  The deal of a lifetime.  I could get someone in this house to clean for $39 bucks!  Seriously.  I bought it without looking back and can’t wait to schedule them in!  My husband is going to have a week off coming up so we’re going to do some de-cluttering and get the house fit for someone to come in and clean clean CLEAN!

I’m giddy over it.  It makes me feel all fancy just thinking of it.  Tell me to calm down mkay?

*teambuy gave me some teambucks to try out their site.  They didn’t make me write this and the opinions are all mine, baby.