Canada Day weekend? Oh yeah, we hung around here, didn’t do anything.
We didn’t go to a cottage or on a road trip. We didn’t go to the Pride festivities or to Rib Fest. We didn’t check out any fireworks. I didn’t catch up on the laundry or finish sorting out the playroom. I didn’t manage to write any of the things that I should have and I somehow forgot to go grocery shopping.
But, you know, it was fine.
That’s the story I’ll tell myself. But it wasn’t fine. It was so much better than fine.
It’s the last day of school! Woohoo! Tonight I shall go out for drinks with my sister and not make anybody a lunch and not bother to set the alarm.
Then we will while away our days drinking lemonade and mint juleps on my wraparound veranda, the sweet smell of honeysuckle in the air. (Actually, come to think of it, that last part might be lifted from a Tennessee Williams play.)
And when I do finally rise in the morning the children will be happily reading nursery rhymes to one another as the morning light streams through the window. I will quickly and efficiently prepare them a wholesome breakfast and then take care of my housework while they play catch and blow bubbles in the backyard.
My rambling thoughts about cereal are brought to you by General Mills.
Somebody sent me a box of cereal to try. Somebody sent me a box of cereal to try out for myself. It wasn’t for the kids. It was for me.
I have been in the trenches trying to feed and nourish three young children for so long, you guys, that I didn’t even know what I was looking for in a cereal. I mean, what I usually look for could be charted somewhere toward the top of a parabola where the likelihood of my kids’ eating is compared with the nutritional value of the cereal. But me? Well, I usually just drink a pot of coffee before lunch. Is that … bad?
1. Pack up 3/4 of their toys and then cycle them back in so they don’t get tired of them.
Great! I just need to figure out where I shall send my kids for a week while I sort through and pack up toys according to three different and ever-changing gender or taste and age-range groupings and then hope they have no medium term memory whatsoever about that toy they never played with ever but must have RIGHT NOW since it’s been packed away. I need to build a storage unit for all of the boxes too while I’m at it and then padlock it against my children.
Screw balancing act. My life is like a seesaw. And it’s not like those spring mounted teeter totters our precious children have now that rock up and down ever so smoothly either. No, it’s more like the wooden kind that always gave you inner thigh splinters and would send you flying six inches into the air every time your big brother brought his side down as fast as he could and then crashed hard when he’d suddenly jump off.
I’ve been feeling like I’ve been riding high on the work side of the teeter totter while my poor, neglected children and house were left bumping up and down on the dirt ground. Their side has been weighted down with piles of tasks left undone and the ensuing chaos. What’s that? Enough with the see saw metaphor? Okay, fine.
Thank you to Foresters for sponsoring this post.
“Can I just watch Wild Kratts?” Colum said, already halfway to the TV.
“Dinner is going to be ready in, like, five minutes. So I don’t think —”
The TV was turned on and Irene instantly materialized to join him. Well, fine.
“Mary,” I called down to the playroom. “You want to watch TV with Colum? You want to see some animals on TV? Mary likes animals.”
She’s really too young to be downstairs by herself and I was trying to get dinner finished.I strained the pasta and then, just before adding the penne to the sauteed veggies, I picked up my phone and checked in with Twitter. I replied to a couple people and double checked that I hadn’t missed any important emails at the end of the business day.
“Guys, dinners ready.”
“…”
“Dinner’s ready! It’s served! Guys!”
“…”
“COLUM. COLUM. COLUM!”
“What?”
“Pause that show. Dinner is ready.”
“Oh.”
They all came tumbling into the kitchen and climbed onto their stools. Mary and Irene both ate the noodles and sausage, ignoring the perfectly seasoned Ontario asparagus, what is their problem, and red pepper. Then Irene was suddenly back in the living room with the TV and Colum was about to abandon his own meal half-eaten to join her.
“No,” I said and marched over to the TV. “Nobody gets to watch anything until everybody is finished eating. And then you can finish this episode and that is it.”
They watched the rest of the show and then an episode of Doc McStuffins, I think. I don’t know. I was on my phone.
Not pictured: The glow of the tablet streaming Netflix on Irene’s lap.
At the risk of hurting my hip, urban family image (just play along), I will admit that I shop at Costco. That’s right, I’m a member. Every year I agonize over whether the membership fees are worth it but I am drawn to the big boxes of breakfast cereal, bundles of colourful kids’ socks and cheap diapers.
So I trek out the burbs every so often to stock up on staples and see what they have on sale. Then I bring it all home and try to figure out where to put it. Clearly I need some of these to save even more money.
A fridge-sized freezer. Nothing will ever go bad again. Not that you would actually eat anything you find at the back of this beast. But the electricity bill alone will cut your Costco visits in half. Think of the savings.
Apologies to the majority of my readers who couldn’t care less about Twitter. I will have something entertaining up shortly but right now I have to rant.
I had a few spare moments the other night, so I checked in with Twitter. I keep one private list for my favourite Twitter people and everybody else just falls into my default feed. (Of course you are on the list. You don’t even have to ask.) I am pretty much done with listing, grouping, circling or otherwise classifying everybody I have ever interacted with. Who has time for that?
This post is part of YummyMummyClub.ca‘s support of the Dove® Unstoppable Moms for Unstoppable Girls Contest. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors. Go to www.UnstoppableMoms.ca to enter by sharing how you inspire girls to reach their full potential.
I held the tray full of drinks up over my head and turned sideways. Gently laying a hand on the back in front of me — no sudden moves, please — I slid effortlessly through the crowded dance floor. Winding my way past tables and through the narrow crevices between one group of friends and another, I found my way to the right spot, traded my full glasses for empty ones, and turned back to do my server’s ballet once more.
Being thin was about more than just looks for me. It informed how I moved and how I experienced the world. It was simply how I was built and I never had to worry about it one way or the other.
10. In bed.
Yeah right. They suss me out every morning no matter how hard I pretend to still be asleep.
9. The bathroom.
This is a classic. Bring your phone, a book, a magazine and a selection of forbidden treats. Of course, I never get more than three minutes tops before a toddler is climbing onto my lap and another kid is dragging a collection of scarves in for me to untangle.