Free to a good home

This morning I actually put this in my status on Facebook...

Free! to a good home: One female, almost 8 years old, big brown eyes, likes to sleep in your bed with you at night, loves lots of attention, would do well in a home without other children or animals, or basically anything that might detract from one nanosecond of your time away from her, reply to momslosthermind@Ineedadrinknow.com

After struggling with Kate all morning, doing my damnest to keep her on an even keel, letting her eat the last waffles, giving her my perfect egg that I just cooked for myself, helping her "find" the socks that she had hidden in Elizabeth's dresser, I finally lost it when she freaked out on me while I was trying to brush her hair before putting it in a ponytail. I just couldn't take it any more. So I told her that was it, I was done with her bad attitude, her lack of respect for me and the rest of the family, and the rude way that she constantly speaks to us. I told her until she changes her ways, she will have to fend for herself, because I am tired of her wasting my time and energy. Then I proceeded to finish getting myself ready to leave for school, got my coffee in my go cup and told everyone to head out. Meanwhile Kate was running around in her socks screaming at me to put a ponytail in her hair still. I ignored her and left, scraped the ice off the car windows, closed the doors and drove off down the driveway, leaving her shrieking at me to help her put her shoes on in the open doorway of the basement. Of course, I didn't actually continue to drive, much as I wanted to; I put the van in park, walked back and discovered the door shut and locked. Eventually she opened it back up, and I picked up her backpack, her coat and her shoes under one arm, and picked up her under the other and hauled the whole lot back down the driveway to the van, and chucked her and her gear inside. The whole way to school she shouted at me to give her her shoes, which were on the floor in the front. Once at the school I got out, unloaded the other kids and their stuff and said goodbye and then waited stoically for Kate to emerge from the vehicle. Which she did with shoes and coat on, just as her class was filing inside, joining the end of the line, throwing black looks at me over her shoulder. I'm sure she expected me to follow her in, attempt to hug her or something, but I resisted and maintained my mean mommy demeanor and got back in my van and drove home. Where I posted my "ad" on Facebook, poured myself another cup of coffee and went for a walk outside with the dog, breathing deeply and willing myself not to have a coronary over a 7 year old's power struggle. 


If the addage "that which doesn't break you makes you stronger" is really true, I must be fucking superwoman by now.

Parenting through Neglect

Parenting through neglect. The title says it all. It has truly become the mainstay of my parenting style. I honestly believe that by encouraging my children to entertain themselves within the relatively safe environment of my home, that they are well on their way to becoming independent, imaginative and resourceful people. Yes, sometimes - okay, most of the time - the basement aka the kid zone looks like a bomb literally went off in it, what with the bins full of crayons, markers, papers, ribbons and many other various items with potential for creative transformation, cut up bits of paper on the floor, glue and glitter all over the table and hearth. But I figure it's worth it when I get invited downstairs to the pizza shop they have created for example, complete with take out boxes. Or when I have to help settle a labour dispute caused by Kate firing her sister Emily from the pizza shop, who then went out on her own and opened up a TV shop, and then lured away Kate's employee Jada to go and work for her. Again, I played the role of mediator rather than dictator, allowing each party to air their grievances - Em and Jada were willing to come back to work at the pizza shop if Kate would allow to take their coffee breaks together. This apparently was a sore point for Kate, who was against it as she said the other two would take their coffee break and leave her having to sell the pizza alone, which she didn't like. When they all looked at me I just threw it back to them and asked, well, so what are you going to do about this? and eventually they sorted out the breaks etc and all went back downstairs to sell pizzas and TVs together. How can this not be an invaluable education that will have them well prepared for the real world? And all the while I can just stay upstairs and do whatever I damn well please. Well, pretty much. If cooking dinner, folding laundry and doing the dishes counts. My point is that I COULD just go read a book, dance around the kitchen, or watch Sex and the City re-runs if I wanted to. Because my children are busy ENTERTAINING THEMSELVES. And even better, they aren't even watching TV, or playing video games.I know some would argue that they should be spending more time involved in girl guides and art lessons in addition to the sports that they each already play. But somehow I think we all find it so much more enjoyable to spend that time in more of a free form way, rather than adding on to our already busy scheduled trips to soccer, basketball and curling practices and games. So when my 9 year old calls out from her bedroom "hey mom! how do spell time travel?" I say, how do YOU think you spell it. And when she calls out a moment later, "hey mom, how do you spell machine, with a c or an s?" I say it again, and then smile, wondering when I am going to be called in to go for a trip to another dimension. Now THAT'S the kind of trip I'm up for.

back to square one

I am sad to say that we seem to have had a bit of a set back with Kate. She was doing really well when school first started, sleeping in her bed at night instead of on a mattress on the floor beside my bed, getting through her mornings without melting down, and most of her evenings too. However, slowly but surely we seem to be back where we started again. Evenings have been particularly frustrating for us, we have had no  down time at all in the evening without Kate, and she has been throwing big tantrums every night before bed, that last well into the rest of the evening before she finally exhausts herself and falls asleep, usually beside me on the couch. Mornings have been not much better, stressing about what she is wearing, what she wants to eat, and taking out anger on her sisters and me. I am trying to figure out if we have stopped doing something right, or if this is all in response to something else that is going on with her that I haven't picked up on yet. Today she did pretty well in the morning, she got up and waited for both the daycare girls to come and then got on with her morning without too much hoopla. I will have to try changing up her evenings in some way, maybe having her take a bath every night right after supper or something, to break up the pattern she is in right now. Something is wrong, but I havent' been able to put my finger on it yet. I did have a talk with the other girls this week, just to let them know that I'm aware how hard it is for them at times too, and that I'm trying to figure out what's wrong, so I can help Kate cope with her emotions better. They are so good. Anyway, I knew it wasn't something that was going to magically just go away, that it would take time and I just have to stay positive and continue working with her to improve her coping skills.

go blow your nose

So this has been happening for a while, but I guess the with the novelty of Jessica ever so slightly wearing off Kate has been having more temper tantrums again lately. It definitely still helps hugely most mornings, but there have been more of the good old bad old days creeping back in. The evenings generally are still the worst, once all the other kids are gone for the day. Sigh. She is still finding her way up to our room at night most nights at some point again too. Which is a shame since she just got a new mattress and duvet from her grandparents, and then by her request we switched her to the bottom bunk - which makes all kind of sense to me and where she should have been all along. Not that it seems to have made much difference as far as her coming up in the night, but at least it's much easier for me to lie down with her for a few minutes at bed time if need be. But all this aside, the most troubling thing she has been doing for the past few months is this nose blowing habit she has developed. I'm not sure how it started, other than she probably had a bit of a runny nose at some point around the end of the summer and when she was upset found herself needing to blow her nose more often. Anyway, now it has become a nervous habit. She goes through rolls and rolls of toilet paper - I can't keep Kleenex in the house for any time at all - blowing and blowing every time she is weepy or angry about something. And then she throws it all over the bathroom or her bedroom, regardless of how often she is told not to. Part of the nose blowing ritual? She can't seem to throw it away. Last night up she came for some reason in the middle of night, and proceeded to blow her nose over and over again. Which is awful on many levels. The simplest is just that it's damn noisy and I can't get back to sleep. And it's damn annoying, I can feel my temper starting to boil as the blowing goes on and on. Add to that my frustration and worry over why the hell she is doing this in the first place. It has been a compulsion for her, and that's freaky. Throw in my husbands frustration, worry and desperate need to sleep due to the fact that his back is out at the moment, and you have a room full of people on the edge.

Anyway, eventually we all got back to sleep - Kate and Mike within minutes, me within hours, boooo - and today is another day. I am anticipating an issue after school, or maybe even before if she remembers in time - I'm referring to the fact that Kate has basketball Tuesdays after school, and has fussed about going the last 2 weeks. Once she's there she seems fine, and fine afterwards too, so I have chalked it up to simple anxiety. At least she isn't blowing her nose in the gym so far. Mike once again demanded I make an appointment for her to see the doctor again, which I privately think is futile. Your child has to have some pretty major issues before the medical guys take you seriously. I am pretty sure we will go thru the long process of waiting to see the specialist pediatrician once again, only to be told that yes, she gets worried, and yes the nose blowing is a compulsion and a play for attention, and that it will all pass if we ignore it.

So I tell myself to suck it up and carry on, and hope that she does get over this nose blowing thing before she does some kind of actual damage to her nasal passages. Maybe I need to ban her from all tissue and supply her with handkerchiefs to at least cut down on her massive carbon footprint and environmental waste?

Fall back

Well, one month into a new school year and counting. Feels like fall, getting cool, wet, windy, lots of leaves in the gutter. Had the fireplace lit last night. Kate had a "relapse" morning yesterday, for lack of a better term. Apparently she had been told by her teacher and the school librarian that she had not returned a certain book to the library, and would not be allowed to borrow any more books until said book was returned. However, Kate was quite certain that she had never borrowed the book in question in the first place. In typical Kate fashion, she did not relay this to me calmly, but rather let it stew inside her until she came to me with the story, bursting into tears as she told me about it. I managed to soothe her by assuring her I would personally talk to both her teacher and the librarian and sort it all out. Now, she first told me of all this on Friday. The Thanksgiving long weekend followed, and she didn't mention it once during that time. But then Tuesday morning rolled around. She might have coped alright, except that unfortunately we were not expecting any of my daycare kids that day, in particular her touchstone J. And so she could hold it together no longer, out poured all her fears and tears, and she spent the entire morning before school in a state of total hysteria. Of course it all worked out in the end, I spoke with the teachers, the librarian hunted around and lo and behold located the book on the shelves where it belonged, and she had a conversation with Kate about what had happened. But before all that we - meaning myself and her sisters - had to endure a morning of high emotional distress, not to mention the state that Kate got herself into. Sure, she doesn't lose it maybe as often as she did this time last year. But when she does it is so hard for her to pull it back together again. Not to mention the fact that now when it happens I have noticed that her body odor becomes very strong, not usual for the average 7 year old, but I guess to be expected from one who is going through extreme duress. Once she had finally calmed down slightly yesterday morning I checked her to see if I could smell any trace of B.O., and sure enough there it was. Obviously the last thing I wanted to do was make her feel bad again, so without a word I fetched my deodorant - an all natural brand - from upstairs and showed it to her. She nodded, lifted her shirt and let me apply some to her underarms. Guess this was one case where having an open bathroom door policy helped me out - she has seen me use deodorant daily on myself, and knows what it's for.
Anyway, we survived another emotionally disastrous morning, and today J arrived bright and early, and everything was smooth sailing. I find myself depending heavily on the presence of a 9 year old to get us through our days - perhaps I could clone her so I will never have to be without her?

back to school

I'm back. After a small hiatus this summer, school is back in and I have my computer to myself again. I made a decision to start doing before and after school care for 3 other girls, and took them more or less full time during the month of August, so I got a chance to see how it's going to play out. So far, so great, I have to say. Interestingly, all three girls are only children. They all get along well with my girls, and we had little to no conflicts all month. Now that school is back in, they are only together for a brief period of time before and after school, so hopefully it will continue to be a success for everyone. I have to say that the most exciting development to come out of this so far has been how well Kate has responded to the new situation. She is just a totally different child in the mornings now, and after school too. Where previously she was always very stressed, anxious and aggressive before school, now she is happy, organized, engaged with the other kids. After school she used to have a break down as soon as she got in the car, and it would continue for most if not all of the evening. So far this year she has not only kept it together but has drastically improved her coping skills when tired or bored. The key to this success seems to be her relationship with one of the girls in particular. I have known J since she was in grade 1, when she was in my Sparks (Girl Guides) group with Elizabeth, who was in kindergarten at the time. She is probably the quietest child I have ever known up till now. But that has changed too - she is definitely not quiet in my house! Anyway, she and Kate hit it off, and seem to really click. From what J's mum has told me, J is also very happy, so I am really really hoping that this continues. For both of them! For all of us!!

the talk

I've noticed that my eldest daughter Elizabeth seems to be going through a new phase lately. I call it her roll her eyes and argue with everything I ask her to do phase. Which is usually followed by her shouting that I am not fair and stomping off to her room weeping phase. Anyway, Saturday I decided I had had enough. I was feeling somewhat fragile myself, having just kicked off day one of my menstrual cycle, and it occurred to me that while Elizabeth is only nine and hopefully a few years away still from being initiated into the joys of being a woman, ha ha, she may start to exhibit other symptoms of the oncoming hormonal onslaught. Like, oh say, being in one hell of a bitchy mood and then flipping over into tears moments later for little to no apparent reason. So I figured I should be a proactive mom and have a little talk with her about her recent crabbiness etc. I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and invited her to come and sit on the deck with me for a chat. As we headed outside my husband spotted us and said "oh, hey, I'll come sit with you guys too, it's such a nice morning." I hesitated - don't get me wrong, he's a great dad, and pretty valiant when it comes to girl talk, but I wasn't sure I wanted him present for her first girl talk. Especially since I wasn't entirely sure what I planned on saying in the first place, and didn't really think I was up to any cute comments on the state of my own mind at this particular time of month. So I switched gears and suggested that Elizabeth and I go sit on the front porch instead, while trying to not hurt my husband's feelings too much in the process by assuring him that he could be part of any future girl chats. We had just made it to the front door when her sisters popped around the corner and asked where we going. I told them we were just going to have a little chat on the porch, and of course they immediately asked if they could join us. Sigh. I guess I could have said no, but I had a feeling I wasn't going to get away with saying no to anyone else that morning. So I found myself a moment later seated on the front porch with three captive listeners, eagerly awaiting me to impart some great words of wisdom. Crap. I started by discussing how grumpy E had been lately, and how sometimes you can have good reasons to be grumpy or sad, and sometimes you don't seem to have any reason at all, and then attempted to segue into an explanation of hormones and feelings, and getting your period, and at that point just when I was thinking I was doing pretty well Elizabeth raised her hand. "So okay, Mom, you've explained before about the whole egg and sperm thing, and I get that, I mean it's like salmon, right, the boy salmon fertilizing the eggs that the girl salmon laid, but what I'd like to hear is more about exactly how Dad fertilized your eggs, like how does he get his penis in there, how does he make the sperm come out, you know, that kind of stuff?" And before I could answer Emily says "Oh, I know, he puts it into her vagina, because she keeps her eggs in there instead of laying them like a salmon or say, a chicken, right mom?" And then "But wait, a chicken! How does the sperm get into that hard egg shell anyway?" "Yeah mom, how, are our eggs like that, boy that must be hard work for Dad to get his sperm to break through those shells" and that was it, conversation officially out of my control and over. I suppose I could have reeled it in or at least attempted to at that point, but by then I realized that my neighbors were on the other side of the fence enjoying their morning coffee, and our voices were carrying nicely in the morning breeze. Plus it was all I could do not to break out into hysterical laughter.  Fearing that I might be about to mentally scar them all for life on the subject of sex, I had sudden visions of them saying things like,"my mom says that my dad has to use his penis like a battering ram to break through to her eggs..."or something along those lines being shared amongst their friends at the playground, only to be passed along to all the other parents in our neighborhood, and my phone would start ringing off the hook with calls from outraged mothers wanting to know what kind of disgusting obscenities I have been teaching my children, and I would be thrown off the Parent Advisory Council in shame, never to be able to show my face at school again...so I smiled and said well, I just wanted to talk about feeling cranky and sad, and so if you have any questions about that don't be afraid to ask, and we'll save the rest for another day...and went for another cup of coffee. Maybe I should have let Mike have the talk with her after all.

time out

Although I haven't written often this summer, this week I find myself looking at my blog from a slightly different angle. I know that usually I write of the more humorous moments of my mothering experiences, but now and then something happens to remind me that there is another side to it all. Today I am thinking about another mother of three daughters who I know. She is actually my sister in law's mother, and I sometimes call her my "other" mother in law, as we have gotten to know each other fairly well over the past few years. Anyway, something happened this week, something that I am finding has wrenched at part of me somewhere deep inside, and I think it's because I am looking at this something from a mother's perspective. I find myself being constantly confronted throughout my day by it, in my routine dealings with my daughters, and it literally makes me catch at my breath for a moment as a wave of what I can only describe as sorrow washes over me. What happened was that my other mother in law's oldest daughter died on Tuesday, after losing an amazingly courageous battle with cancer.  And while I knew her daughter, and have been great friends with my sister in law for many years now, what strikes at me the hardest is how my other mother in law's life is forever changed because of what she has lost. I keep thinking of things like Mother's Day, how it will never be the same for her again, that it will always be tinged with some sorrow, no matter how happy and grateful she might be for her remaining two daughters. I guess that is part of life, learning how to live with that and carry on, but what a hole it must leave in your heart.
I am not one of those people who believe that "everything happens for a reason". I don't believe that at all. What purpose does taking a wonderful loving person away from her life serve? None that I can see. I do believe in free will, and making conscious choices to cope with the curve balls that life throws at you. That being said, I find myself holding my girls a little tighter this week, and counting my blessings a little more carefully. I suppose the only good thing I can take away from this tragedy is that it does give one pause; it nudges at me to stop and smell the roses, spend some extra time just enjoying my girls. I'm just sorry that it sometimes takes something terrible to remind us of something good.

sleepovers

We have reached the age of the slumber party, oh my. The girls have all had sleepovers at their grandparents house - which is located about two minutes from my house - since they were babies, but now we are branching out into new territory. Elizabeth started her summer off with two back to back slumber parties, one at a friend's followed the next weekend by a birthday slumber party at our house for a group of nine year old girls. What is it about having a sleepover that is so exciting, so desirable, even at such a young age? I flash back in time to my own preteen/teenage years, and all the slumber parties I attended. As with most all girl events, there is plenty of social stress to go around at some point or another. Who gets to sleep next to who, what kind of pj's you brought to wear, who has the coolest game to play, it's all part of the girl hierarchy that naturally seems to come into play during an evening like this. Here's a question: do boys have slumber parties? They must, but what happens at them? I'm quite sure they are fundamentally different in some way from the girls' version, but how exactly? I have no sons, so I will probably never know the answer to that. All I know is that with the girls there just seems to be a certain amount of angst, as there tends to be in any all girl related gathering, but it seems to be heightened at a slumber party.  Men always seem to envision slumber parties as erotic pillow fighting escapades. I can say from personal experience that while there might be pillow fighting, it is not exactly what I recall as erotic. But there is for sure a certain heightened amount of tension present, and I think it has to do more with the social hierarchy aspect of things - the establishment of a pecking order within the usual pecking order as such. What I mean is that usually only the girls who are within the hostesses inner circle of friends are generally invited to sleepover in the first place. On a daily basis, they stand by each other and each have a sense of comfort in their status as part of their group. However, everything seems to shift at a slumber party. Suddenly, all bets are off, and there is a scramble for acceptance within the group that is palpable. I watched it happen at Elizabeth's party - as the hostess she was granted a certain automatic queen bee status, with the others all competing to fit in somewhere. I watched as one of the girls had clearly been granted special status  - she sat next to E during the movie we played outdoors after dark on our deck, and of course the ultimate gift of being the one who slept next to her that night. A couple of the other girls paired off with each other, and seemed quite happy within the ranks, while a lone girl seemed to be somehow both on the fringe of the group and yet questing for queen status all night. Interestingly, she had not been on the original guest list, but had phoned Elizabeth and managed to somehow wrangle an invite for herself.
Anyway, it's much like summer vacation type memories for me from the same period of time - they are almost visceral in their intensity and definitely evoke an emotional, if not completely nostalgic response in me. It's Sunday morning, and Elizabeth is currently still at a friend's house, having been invited to sleep there last night. I realize that she is entering a new phase of girlhood, has been for some time, but the summer time sleepover thing is what has really made it hit home. Mind you, for all her growing up I noticed that she didn't forget to bring her favorite stuffed dog with her for the evening. And whenever Elizabeth has a sleepover away from home, I get to have a slumber party of my own it would seem. Her twin sisters had great plans last night to sleep in the spare bedroom in the basement. We got them both all tucked in with various stuffies and blankies, said good night and retreated to the living room one floor up. I believe it was 30 seconds later, although Mike says we should "give" them a full minute, that the girls appeared in the living room with all their gear, saying they had changed their minds and would be sleeping in their own room instead. And then about a minute after that Kate appeared and said she couldn't sleep in there without Elizabeth and could she sleep in our room? Followed moments later by Emily saying that she certainly didn't want to sleep all by herself, and could she sleep in our room too? All of which I had been completely prepared for and within in minutes had them both set up on the floor of my bedroom and sound asleep among the laundry hampers of yet to be folded clothes.
The phone just rang and it was my eldest daughter reporting in, due home within the hour. Things must have gone well as her buddy is coming with her to spend the day at our place. Maybe later I will find a way to get them all to take a nap....!

bicycle built for two

Yesterday I underwent what had to be one of the most painful ordeals I have gone through with my children. I attempted to teach the twins how to ride their bikes. Now before I go any further, I need to explain that this wasn't the first time I have tried to do this. I have been trying to get them rolling for about two years. And this isn't just a simple case of let's take off the training wheels. Even with training wheels the girls were afraid to ride their bikes. So last year I said to hell with the training wheels, and got them new bikes, sans training wheels, and set about trying to get them riding them. After several afternoons at the park I gave up, mostly because I thought I was going to have a heart attack from the combination of running back and forth across the field over and over again with both the girls, and from the extreme level of frustration I was experiencing at their total resistance to try to learn. I mean, I nearly picked up both bikes and chucked them into the forest. But somehow I hung on to my sanity, which was severely shredded at that point, and instead I decided to just put the bikes away for another year. So when this summer started, Kate announced that she was going to learn how to ride her bike, and I was highly encouraged to try again. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Kate's version of trying again turned out to consist of her sitting on her bike, inching it forward with her feet on the ground, and then after a few minutes getting off and declaring she was done for the day. She refused to let me near her, which of course made it impossible for me to do what needed to be done - hold on to the seat, run with her to get her rolling and then let go. And then there was Emily. She actually did let me do the run and let go, which was followed by her screaming and falling off her bike and bashing up her elbow, after which she refused to go near her bike again, and said she would be quite happy just riding her scooter forever. Now please understand, I have attempted to take out as many "scary" elements of bike riding for them as I can. They are wearing helmuts, which seems somewhat ridiculous as they move faster walking than they do on their bikes. I am teaching them at the park, so they are either on grass, which may be softer to land upon when they fall, but is much harder to actually ride on in my opinion, or they are on the sandy baseline of the baseball field. But they have continued to be stalwart in their mutual terror. This is a big part of the problem I'm sure, because I just don't get that terror. My inability to patiently teach my children surely stems from the fact that I taught myself to ride a bike at the age of 5 by borrowing a friends bike, parking it at the top of a steep road in our apartment complex, and racing down it over and over again until I felt I had mastered the art of bike riding. Whereupon I announced to my parents that I would like a bike of my own, and they found me one that didn't have any brakes, so I just put my feet down whenever I felt the need to stop. Since we lived at the top of a steep hill, I wore out the soles of my shoes pretty fast, but other than that I thought my bike was pretty great. I have had something of a love affair ever since with bikes, so I couldn't wait for my girls to get rolling with me. Elizabeth was first, and it was a piece of cake. She was five when I took her to the park the first time. After some basic instructions - look straight ahead and don't stop pedaling - I took off running with her and let go. She rode for a ways, fell off, got back up and got back on the bike and took off on her own. And that was that. Now I realize that I attributed much of her ability to learn to my own amazing abilities as a teacher, which of course was completely delusional of me. She would have learned with or without me I suspect. The twins however are a completely different kettle of fish.
So yesterday I was looking to kill some time after lunch, and it occurred to me we could try the bike thing again. Then I thought, what am I, a total sucker for punishment? But no, this is my job as a parent, right? A rite of passage that I must endure with my children, right? As I worked on talking myself into giving it one more shot, I suddenly recalled another rite of passage that I had endured with the girls, and quite successfully - potty training. In fact, I had the twins completely potty trained within 2 weeks of their second birthdays. And how did I do this so quickly, so effectively and at such a young age? Why I used bribery of course. I laid in a big supply of candy, and I bribed my daughters with it to get them to go on the potty. And it worked like a charm. So I thought, hey, I'm not proud. If I have to resort to bribery to get the girls on their bikes, then bribery it is. So I started loading up the bikes into the van, and then when the weeping and the wailing started I smiled and said "today girls, we are going to try something different. If you learn to ride your bikes today, I will stop at the store on the way home and I will buy you a candy of your choice. In fact, I will buy a bonus candy for whichever one of you does it first." As they thought this over - yes, they were still hesitant and mistrustful - I threw in one more offer, "AND I'll make milkshakes for everyone when we get home!" That sealed the deal.As we drove up the hill to the park, Emily piped up from the backseat, asking "Mom, did you just, what do you call it, BRIBE us to ride our bikes?" And I smiled and said, "why yes, Emily, I sure did," once again confirming to my children that yes, mommy is a crazy lady.
Anyway, we got the bikes out and I took some deep breaths and we were off. And after several runs back and forth with Emily shrieking don't let go, I don't want to, I'm scared, I gave her one big push, let go, and screamed keep pedaling, and holy artichokey, she did. Keep pedaling, that is. By now the park was full of other families, flying kites, walking dogs etc, but I was in a happy place all of my own at that moment. I probably looked like a totally deranged lunatic, leaping around woohooing at the top of my lungs as I chased after Em, and when she came to a stop with a look of wonder on her face, I grabbed her off her bike and spun her around till we both fell down laughing onto the grass. Then Elizabeth ran up and joined us too. After we all recovered, we looked around for Kate. She was way across the field sitting on her bike, glaring at us. Hmmmm. I caught my breath, and then went after twin number two. But this wasn't going to be easy. Once again she was refusing to let me give her a push. And then she started to weep as she realized that Em was going to get candy, and a bonus candy at that. Somehow I retained my composure, no easy feat in the face of such dramatic opposition, plus I was sweating like a pig and almost totally out of breath. I didn't know how much longer I could go on. So I started saying things like, hey, come on, focus on the candy, what kind of candy do you think you would like, how about licorice, a whole pack of it, or a big chocolate bar all to yourself, mmmmm, yummy, okay now just let mommy give you a little push, I won't let go, really I won't, well maybe just for a minute but you'll be fine, you can do it, just keep thinking about the candy....and then I gave her a mighty shove and let go, and watched as she froze, legs sticking straight out, screaming her head off, and coasted several yards before coming to a very undramatic stop, whereupon she put her feet down, and just looked at me. While she was deciding whether or not to be completely pissed off at me, I decided that while she didn't technically actually pedal her bike that it was close enough to count and I called it a day. "Woohoo ladies, let's go get us some candy!" I shouted at everybody, and we spent the rest of the afternoon on a comfortable sugar high, all feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. I know that this journey isn't over yet, that I still have to get one of them pedaling, but I am confident that with continued bribery and a fair amount of peer pressure we will soon all be enjoying some summer bike riding adventures together.

July

Good grief, we are well into summer vacation, and it doesn't feel like summer yet, other than the fact I am with my children 24/7 and that definitely makes mommy more than a little stir crazy at times. I had super intentions of "journaling" here daily, in order to get the girls to keep up with summer journals of their own. Well, the girls have been far more faithful than I have. So rather than try to back track and recall every detail of our summer thus far, I will sum up. Sun came out, bought a pool. Played in the pool for a week, then the sun went away and the rain and clouds arrived. Covered the pool up. Only creatures interested in the pool are the raccoons. Devised highly technical plans to keep raccoons away from the pool. This involved sitting up on the deck late into the evening, fortified with wine, covered in bug spray, huddled by the propane heater with a bucket of wet rocks to fling into the wilderness beyond the garage. Was advised to also try stringing empty cans around the pool, but couldn't quite figure out how to do that, so just rattled the plastic bag full of empties now and then in between flinging rocks. Not sure if my plan is responsible, but so far the pool has remained intact and raccoon free. Have channelled my pool obsession to the local outdoor pool as of this week. Was certain that by now the sun would have returned and had visions of spending lazy mornings basking in the heat poolside while the girls took swimming lessons. In reality have found myself hauling several sets of umbrellas, sweaters, lawn chairs and sleeping bags to the pool each day, where we sit damp and chilled, scanning the sky desperately for a break in the clouds, while the steam drifts off the top of the pool, which is apparently the warmest place to be, and where unfortunately I am not.
The weather network taunts me with each extended forecast promising sunshine, only to change by the next day and be postponed just a few more days down the road. Oh, don't get me wrong, we're still out and about, finding things to do, sleeping in etc. But what I am pining for is that put on your bathing suit as soon as you get up, have your coffee on the deck which is already warm under your bare feet, run through the sprinkler, go get a slurpee, smell of the barbecue, taste of fresh salty,buttery corn kind of summer action. You know, where you jump in the pool and then lie down on your towel without drying off because you are going to get to indulge in that awesome sensation of the water evaporating off your body in the heat as you lie there.
Anyway. One more week of July, which doesn't look too special according to the weather channel, so I will focus my summer hopes on August I guess. If I sound glum, I guess I am. Tempers are short around the house, I am not sleeping well, and neither is Kate. Maybe we are both doing some cloudbusting in our sleep. Perhaps today when we get back from the pool I will say to hell with the crappy weather, slather some coconut sunscreen on all of us, crank up some Bob Marley, and hand out some freezies. Inside of course. Meanwhile it is time to go load up the van with rain gear, blankets, umbrellas and heat up some coffee to go.

and so it begins....

Yes, it's the last day of school today before the onset of the kids' two month summer vacation. Actually, it's not even a day, it's an hour and a half, which really translates into about an hour by the time I drop them off, then race back home to retrieve the farewell thank you cards Emily made for her teachers that she forgot and didn't remember until we pulled into the school parking lot, even after I asked them all if they had everything when we were leaving the house....anyway, then I race back to the school to hand over the cards, then home again, and the kids are being "released" at 10:30 after one final assembly which really, couldn't they have taken care of this business yesterday, not that I'm complaining because ultimately it is one last hour of peace before my two month summer boot camp begins. Phew. Some of the other parents asked me if I was staying for the assembly but I just smiled, waved my coffee cup at them and wandered off to my van. I have to psych myself up for summer. Although I have to say, it doesn't feel much like summer today, it's overcast and drizzly, booo. However, as of 10:30am summer is officially on weather cooperating or not, so I'd better get my game on.
Summer tends to be just about the busiest time of year for my husband's business, which translates into us basically spending the summer at home. The girls and I generally become tourists in our own city - I have a couple of guide books to loads of parks, lakes, beaches and trails all around the greater Vancouver area to keep us occupied. We pack some lunch and some water and take off to explore most days of the week. My rule of thumb is, if it's free then I'm all over it! With three kids it's just not financially realistic to take advantage of any of the day camps that run all summer long, much as both myself and the girls would like to at times. Not to mention that even if it were affordable it would still be a logistical nightmare trying to coordinate all three of them into something that each girl actually wants to do, so another good reason to just say forget it, and head off to explore, as I call it. Over the past few summers the kids have gotten used to my system, although it still tends to stress Kate out at times when she realizes that I don't always know exactly where I am...however, so far we have always made it out alive, so I think she has a little more faith in me than she used to.
People always ask if we go away during the summer, to which I say no, other than perhaps one weekend of camping squeezed in somewhere. But I think we stay pretty busy, and I think we have a lot of fun. I mean, who wouldn't want to turn their entire backyard hill into a giant slip and slide? It completely destroys the grass, but hey, this is Vancouver, it'll grow back! The only organized activity I put the kids into is swimming lessons at the local outdoor pool, usually for a few weeks midsummer. We love those mornings, with the girls taking turns in the pool, and whoever isn't swimming is hanging out on a towel with me, reading a book, or whatever. And lets not forget camping out in our own yard, that is a blast, at least for one or two weekends. All in all, summer vacation is a good time, I have to admit.  Being able to be home with the girls is great, I get to feel just like a kid all over again, doing all those lazy summer day things with them - eating freezies, playing in the sprinkler, hanging out at the pool, playing outside on those long summer evenings when it stays light out for ages.
So okay, while I know that there will be times that I long for some peace and quiet all alone, I also know that it will be a great summer. Really, it will. Of course, ask me how I'm doing a month from now, and my thoughts on summer vacation might be completely different, especially if the sun doesn't get into the act and make a decent appearance....but in the meantime I am successfully psyched up and ready to go.
And speaking of going, I have just enough time to top up my coffee and then it's go time - school's almost out!

put me in coach

Well, the soccer experiment has not really played out, so to speak. Back at the beginning of the spring soccer season, I registered a keen Kate, and dragged a kicking and screaming Emily off to their first practice. With one game left a couple of months later, the situation has completely reversed itself; Kate no longer wants anything to do with soccer, and Emily thinks it's the greatest game on Earth. It's not that Kate isn't athletically inclined - she is, but she thinks too much about what she should be doing, and ends up psyching herself out and blowing it. Whereas Emily - as usual - lives in the moment and throws herself with utter abandon into the game, and ends up doing well. Sigh. While it's great fun to watch Emily turn into quite the little soccer player, it's been equally if not more painful to watch Kate retreat further and further away from the game. Every week she cries before she has to go to practice, and every Saturday night she starts to stress because there is a game the next morning. Oh, and just in case I wasn't aware of how my children feel about soccer or how well they have been performing, their coach made it very clear at practice last week. He made his way over to me just before they finished for the evening to ask if Emily was going to be playing winter soccer this coming season. I answered that she was and he smiled and said "oh that's good, she should play, she is very good." Then before I could reply he went on "oh but Kate, she shouldn't play, she can't play soccer." Well. Seeing as how there were other parents present, not to mention several children, I swallowed hard, smiled and said something like, well, that's fine since Kate actually doesn't want to play any more. And I left it at that. But of course, what I wanted to say and swallowed until I have opportunity for either a private conversation or a formal coach evaluation is that perhaps if her coach had been more encouraging, she might have enjoyed the game more. They are seven years old, for goodness sake. However, I did not want to make a big issue out of it for Kate's sake. Which became even tougher for me at the game that Sunday when after almost 20 minutes of play, Kate was still standing on the sidelines, waiting a turn on the field, a turn that every other child had been given. Again, I didn't want to embarrass her by drawing any unwanted attention to her, but when the coach was about to sub in another child who had already had lots of playing time instead of Kate, I had to do something. So I started waving my arms frantically from where I was watching behind her, and pointing at her head to get the coaches attention. Apparently he got the message, and sent Kate in instead, and then looked back at me and said, oh sorry, I must have missed her by accident...and cue the swallowing of harsh words and tongue biting again.
So anyway, one practice and one game left and then she can retire forever if she wants to. I have officially registered both her sisters for the winter soccer season, but not Kate. We are going to find her an activity of her own, one where she doesn't have to compare herself to her sisters at any rate. While I don't want the other girls to think she is getting some kind of special treatment or whatever, I think in the long run it will be a relief for everyone, and hopefully make up for the stress we have all had to endure from Kate for the past couple of months as she suffered through spring soccer. I don't care what she does really, or whether she is actually any good at it or not, it would just be great to find something that she likes to do, that makes her happy and brings some joy to her worried little face.
Anyone need a barely - and I mean barely! - used pair of kids size 13 soccer shoes?

liar liar

Well, here's a new one for my memoirs...we had plans to go to friends for dinner Saturday night with the girls, so before we left I asked them all to get their soccer gear out and ready to go for the following morning, knowing we would likely be home late and that Sunday morning would come way too early and I would be stuck dealing with three kids running around wailing "where are my cleats? where is my jersey?" and we would once again be late getting to the field. Anyway, the girls did as I asked, and when Sunday morning arrived I got up feeling pretty confident that we were organized and on target to get to the games on time. Until I heard Elizabeth say "what the heck??? I know I put both my shin pads here yesterday, and now one of them is gone!" Fabulous. I looked her in the eye, and asked "tell me the truth. Are you sure you put them both here?" and when she answered a definite yes, I could tell she was for real. Elizabeth is a child who can do a great many things, but one thing she can't do well is tell a lie. So we started hunting, thinking maybe one of them had been accidentally kicked off to the side, but after searching every corner of their dressing room, we widened our search path. While a small part of my brain was still hoping at this point that the dog had picked it up and raced off with it in his mouth to greet someone at the door, the rest of my brain was becoming deeply certain that someone else in our household was the guilty party. Call it mother's intuition or whatever. After searching in all the obvious spaces that the dog might have dropped a shin pad, like the entry, the living room, and basically every other room in the house, I cornered my husband in the kitchen and furtively whispered my suspicions to him. He was very reluctant to go along with me however, and just said, well, you'd better be right. At this point he went outside to start looking around on the off chance that the dog had been the one to take it and perhaps had carried it outside when he greeted us the night before when we got home. I didn't think the dog had gone outside when we got home, but whatever. I returned to the dressing room where the girls were continuing to don their gear, and said "okay, if there is someone in this house who knows where the other shin pad is, you need to tell me now. IF you tell me now, I will not be angry with you. However, if you do NOT tell me now, I will be very upset, and you will be punished." No dice. So I start going through the dresser drawers, opening boxes, really digging through their stuff. Emily says, what are you doing Mom? And I reply, I don't think the shin pad is lost, I think the shin pad has been HIDDEN.
As the girls finish getting ready (minus one shin pad for Elizabeth) and sit down to eat, I continue to tear the house apart. I am now 99% sure I am right, and if I'm not, I will apologize on the spot. But I have no luck. By now Kate is in tears and is insisting that she doesn't know where the shin pad is, I PROMISE I didn't do it, she says, over and over, which is not a good sign, as this is her standard response after whacking one of her sisters in the head during a sibling battle. I am not even asking her if she did, after my initial comment to the girls about 'fessing up to the crime. I smell guilty all over her, but what can I do? I need proof. Finally time runs out, we have no choice but to leave if we are to make it in time. As the girls grab their water bottles and head to the door, Kate makes a detour into the dressing room, and Elizabeth is right on her heels. And sure enough, Kate walks straight over to a Disney Princess suitcase in the corner of the room, unzips it, pulls out the shin pad and says "oh look what I found..."
Honestly, how am I supposed to deal with this one? Since the clock was ticking, I just told Elizabeth to put it on, and everyone else to get in the car. I was feeling both vindicated and totally poleaxed at the same time. What the hell??? Crap. If there was a magic parenting genie that I could call on right now, I would, believe me. But since there isn't that I know of, we head to soccer, and I spend the morning biting my tongue, and basically not speaking to Kate at all. I guess I am a mommy monster, but it's like MY mom always told me, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Several hours later soccer is over, and we are all home, and I get Mike and Kate alone in my room, lock the door and proceed to ask her how she knew where to find the shin pad. And that's about as far as we get, because she goes into melt down mode and just shrieks I didn't do it, over and over. So we calmly say to her that we know that she did do it, and we want to know why, and we want her to know that if she continues to lie to us about doing that she will be punished. We tell her this is her last chance to come clean and tell us the truth. Which she doesn't do, so our hand is forced and we tell her that she will not be allowed to have any play dates or attend any birthday parties for the rest of the school year - one month basically. Still she refuses to confess. So we carry on with our day, while Kate cries, and wails, and yells at everyone, and tries everything she can think of to get us to back down. And finally, finally, finally, after another hour of this, she asks me to come to the living room and sit with her for a minute. When I do she tells me, okay, yesterday Elizabeth hit me and I was mad so I hid her shin pad.
Well. I took a deep breath, and then thanked her for telling me the truth. Then I tried to have a short simple and calm discussion about how that's not a good way to cope with being mad, and that I had given her plenty of chances to come to me with the truth today. And I explained that while I was glad she had finally told me the truth, that she would still be punished for lying to me all morning.
I was bracing myself for another display of hysterics at this point, but she actually took it pretty well, and thankfully we moved on with our day without any further issues. I think by then she was just relieved to have it all off her chest. But what a gong show in the meantime. I swear, I feel like I am constantly being held hostage in my home by a small terrorist. And you know what they say, we don't negotiate with terrorists, right? Right. All I can say now is, Mommy needs a margarita....

we've got talent

Okay, apparently we do have talent in the family! Elizabeth finally got the news yesterday that she made the final cut to get into the talent show. My normally composed child actually ran up and threw her arms around me after school yesterday when I went to pick up the kids, she was that thrilled. Other than knowing she has a scheduled rehearsal on Monday, she still doesn't know when the show will be. I asked her if everyone got in, or if any of the kids were cut, and she seemed to think that only 17 of the 28 original groups who tried out were selected, but then another child told me that she thought that everyone got in, so it's still all a bit of a mystery. However the kids were told to let us parents know that there will some kind of specifics in the school newsletter next week, so I will wait and see. Anyway, after we got home, Elizabeth asked if she could borrow the karaoke machine (which technically belongs to the kids anyway, but I figured that since they couldn't read when it was given to them that we adults would just take care of it for a while) and shortly afterwards the basement was filled with the sounds of her practicing her song for the show. The twins tried to accompany her on the piano for a while, but eventually either got bored or were asked to leave because they both wandered upstairs looking somewhat dejected and in need of something else to do. Who knows? While this could just be a passing phase, inspired by watching American Idol all season to it's finale this week, maybe we are witnessing the birth of a future star....or not. Either way, she's a star to me. Once again I find myself in awe of her confidence in herself. Does she get the things she wants in life because she is confident that she will? Or is sure of herself because she gets the things she wants? Probably a bit of both I guess. So far her complete belief in herself has worked out for her pretty well. As her mom I admit I sometimes worry a little about how she will handle disappointment when it happens. I mean, you can't always win, right? Although she takes the occasional loss in soccer pretty much in stride, I think she still mostly judges a game by her own performance, and if she's happy with that, then the final score doesn't seem to concern her too much. Anyway, I am fascinated by her, and am thoroughly enjoying witnessing her journey through life. If I can help her out along the way, even better. If she'll let me that is!

still auditioning

Hmmmm, this talent show is shaping up to be quite the contest. Unbeknownst to Elizabeth (or perhaps beknownst but forgotten) she had to audition yet again on Tuesday for the impending talent show. Apparently several groups were called back to re-audition. I asked her what the judges told them and she said that they said they did "much better than last time", which is interesting since I'm pretty sure she told me they said "thank you, that's good." Maybe as in okay, we've heard enough! Anyway, I honestly didn't expect this to be such a serious event. I am starting to feel badly for these kids, I mean come on, they have the gumption to get up and give performing a shot, and these teachers are shooting them down, telling them they are not "polished" enough? I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I am starting to wonder what they are actually expecting. Perhaps they have been watching too many episodes of American Idol, or Dancing With The Stars. We're talking about kids in grade 3 to grade 7 here, who feel they have a talent worthy of sharing with the rest of us. Unless they are performing something that's inappropriate for the general rated G viewing audience, it seems to me they should be allowed to enter. Isn't that how talent shows work? You enter, and then we the audience get to decide who we think is the winner? Oh, I forgot, these days EVERYONE'S a winner, there are no losers. At least that's how it works on Fun day, known to those of my generation as Sports Day. No wonder the kids are getting confused over this talent show business. The rules have been switched on them before they even get a chance to start the race!
Anyway, I think most parents would be pleased to have the opportunity to go and watch their kids perform, no matter how great or awful they actually are. It's about the willingness to get up there and TRY that we care about, and for most of us, that's all that matters. That's what I'm proud of Elizabeth for at any rate. Not to mention that I suspect that anything the kids choose to attempt will be highly entertaining in some way or another, whether it's in the way they intend for it to entertain us or not.
So I really really hope that in the end they all get their chance to try. I think I am more anxious now about the whole thing than Elizabeth is. At any rate, I will continue to keep you posted!!

a long weekend

It was the May long weekend here these past four days...yes, four days. The kids had Friday off school as well as Monday. It started off in fine fashion my birthday Friday. The weather was perfect, nothing but sunshine and blue skies, so the girls treated me to a tea party in the garden - they got beautiful little porcelain tea sets from my parents for their birthdays earlier this year, "real tea sets" as the girls call them - and we had a lovely morning out there. I took them for Slurpees later on that afternoon, first really hot day of the year definitely required Slurpees I figured, and apparently so did everyone else in the neighborhood! Usually I have to give them a hand with the Slurpee machine, but I took a chance and sent them over on their own, since I could see quite a few of their friends already over there. They managed quite well of course, although they did put them in the Big Gulp cups instead of the slurpee cups, which caused the cashier to give me the evil eye as she tried to figure out what to charge me, oh well! Then home to lounge on our deck, with some intermittent jump rope action now and then. My mother in law called with exciting news - she and my father in law were on their way to pick up the kids and take them for a sleep over so that Mike and I could go out for dinner, so I sent the girls off to pack up some clothes and before long, I had the house to myself. Now it was time for the ultimate birthday treat...a cold beer and a good book on the deck in the sunshine, ahhhhh. I am really pretty easy to please! In fact, I was so comfortable by the time Mike got home that I suggested we do take out sushi and stay home and watch the hockey game instead of going out. He's pretty easy to please too, so that was the just right end to my just right day.
Woke up the next day to rain. Since we were planning to have our traditional May long weekend barbecue the following day, we went into battle mode, and took advantage of the kids being otherwise occupied at Grammy's house. Made the shopping rounds for our supplies - we were expecting about 12 kids in addition to all their parents, and the forecast called for more rain, so we hit the dollar store and stocked up on a wild variety of crafts and deadly toys made in China - and then worked on getting the house organized. The kids arrived home, and for once didn't go into total post Grammy and Grampa sleepover meltdown, but instead maintained their composure and played fairly decently with each other while Mike and I spent the evening doing really important things to prep for the party, like set up the outdoor canopy, arrange lawn furniture, and test out the new karaoke CD on the machine, you know, to make sure it worked properly...
Anyway, up early for soccer Sunday. The twins were up first. Em was in her usual aggressive form, hit the post twice and the goalie in the face once, but didn't actually score. Kate tripped and fell early on in the game, immediately jumped back up and started to cry, and so we spent the rest of the game telling her she was fine and to go go go! She carried on, just barely. I have a feeling winter soccer is not going to be on her to do list, sigh. Elizabeth was next. She had a great game - the rest of her team was a bit sleepy the first half, but not E, and the second half they all perked up and did well. She didn't score, but seemed happy enough with her performance afterwards. Then it was onto phase 2, the hockey game!
Yes, home to watch the Canucks win another game, a good omen for the rest of the day for sure. And the sun came out! Yes! So by mid afternoon once the game was done the party guests began arriving, and soon we had a yard full of kids gone wild. All the parents either lounged on the deck above, played bocce ball out front, or rocked it out with the karaoke machine in the living room. It was a perfect party with no drama from the kids, other than when one of the boys cracked open his glow in the dark baton, causing it to leak glow in the dark fluid all over his hands which he promptly rubbed in his eyes. By chance I happened to be standing right there, so I grabbed him and hung him upside down in the sink with his face under the tap until his dad came and relieved me. Other than being wet he was fine, phew. Unfortunately after witnessing the incident half the girls were somewhat traumatized and wouldn't go near their glowy batons after that. Probably for the best...!
After being up till nearly midnight, I figured the girls would be disastrous the next day. Maybe it was the sunshine, maybe it was the all day Sweet Life of Zach and Cody on Family channel marathon, but they held it together pretty well. Mike and I actually got to sit on the deck and read for a couple hours that afternoon, with minimal interruptions. When they got antsy after dinner I sent them outside with tin foil pie plates to make "pies" which we got to down and "buy" sometime later on. Other than Emily, who was covered in mud right down to her toes the other two were pretty clean, but it was a good excuse to force showers upon them all and get ready for bed.
It felt like we'd been away for a week when I took them all to school this morning. The twins face the first day with a new teacher, and Elizabeth is supposed to find out whether she is going to be in the talent show, so I will most certainly have some good writing fodder by this evening!

audition update...

So Monday came and there were too many acts to get through in one day, so Elizabeth's groups audition has been pushed back to Thursday this week. She has been following the results from the rest of the auditions, and it sounds like they have their work cut out for them! I was kind of thinking that unless someone showed up with something really goofy that all the kids would make the cut for the talent show, but apparently I am quite wrong. Elizabeth has reported that on the first day all the acts that tried out were sent packing, and none of them made it in, due to a lack of "polish". Now I am actually a little concerned for her, one wrong giggle and they might just blow it! However, she seems totally undaunted, just a little bit nervous now she says. So tomorrow is the big day, I am dying to find out how they do! I will keep you posted...

auditions

So a couple of weeks ago my oldest daughter Elizabeth - aged 8 going on 19, I mean 9 - announces that there is going to be a talent show at school and auditions are in two weeks. I casually ask if she plans to try out and she immediately answers "yes". So I say, oh that's nice, good for you, what are you planning to do? And she looks at me like I'm definitely somewhat dense and says, I'm going to sing, Mom. Right, of course. So I say supportively, great, what will you be singing? And she answers right back, oh you know that song we learned in choir, hey soul sister? Definitely that one. And off she goes, singing away to herself, leaving me in something of a state of wonder. I mean, where does she get such matter of fact confidence like that? So sure of herself, absolutely no question that she would try out for the show in her mind. I am feeling dazed and amazed. I did my share - okay, more than my fair share - of performing in school, but I'm not sure I ever had that sense of confidence that she exudes. And not even in a cocky way, just very matter of fact. Anyway. She comes home a couple days later and tells me that she has decided to sing the song with two of her friends, also from choir, and is wondering if they can have some practices here at our house before the auditions? Because the teachers in charge have issued a notice to all those interested in participating that the acts must be POLISHED. So I consult the calendar (the one that contains everything from my life that I must remember and would otherwise forget if I didn't keep it posted on the wall right in front of me at all times) and tell her sure, and together we figure out a couple days when her friends can come over to rehearse.
So I find myself in a house with seven kids that week, as the girls came on days when I also had my nieces over. The older girls shut themselves in the bedroom, much to the great disappointment of the younger kids, especially the twins, who are not used to having Elizabeth pull that big sister card on them yet, and practice began. Amidst a lot of giggling they did manage to get out at least a few earnest renditions of the song. Okay, I know this because yes, I was totally evesdropping, but come on! They were so cute. Did I mention that one of the cutest things is that the three of them could not look less alike - E with her blonde hair and blue eyes, and then her friends, one is Asian, and the other is from India? And they are singing a song to each other called Soul Sister?
Anyway, I don't know how seriously the other girls are taking the whole thing - they seemed more interested in playing the fort and climbing in the trees out back - but I know Elizabeth is dead keen. Because the other morning I discovered a post it note beside her bed, with the words "Talent show aditshuns Monday May 16"  written on it. And that would be tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes! I tell myself, they are just in grade 3 after all, and apparently they are the only singing act that has signed up to try out. Which leaves me wondering what on earth all the other kids will be doing....

Weddings, soccer, and Mothers day

Again, I know it's been a while since I last wrote. Life seems to have been extra busy lately. I will make an effort to catch up a bit this morning!
This past weekend is a fine example of how hectic it's been around here. We warmed up for our weekend by having a girls night doing our nails, eating popcorn and watching The Wedding Planner, to get us all in the mood for my friend's wedding that the whole family was attending the next day. We stayed up too late, and the next morning the girls woke up too early - of course. Or so I thought. Why is it that I will think we are totally on schedule, and have plenty of time to get everyone organized for an event, and then suddenly I will realize that we have time warped into the future and we find ourselves rushing like crazy people to get out the door? That was the case Saturday morning. Despite all my pre-planning over Thursday and Friday, there I was shrieking at Mike when he accidentally shot shaving cream all over and into my make up bag, while I was attempting to dry/curl/straighten my three daughters hair as well as tame my own, help Mike with his shirt collar which was too tight and appeared to be slowly choking him, and keep the girls from killing each other before we left. Somehow we managed to get it together and remember all the items we needed to bring, and make it there right on time. Well, apparently we did forget one thing, or rather Emily did, which my mother in law discovered at the end of the day when we had dropped the kids off at their house after the wedding was over for a night with Grammy and Grampa. Turns out that Em attended the wedding commando, sans underpants. Which probably explains why she complained that she was so chilly during the ceremony....Anyway, we survived otherwise intact, had a lovely time. As we drove off to deliver the girls to their grandparents for the evening, Kate announced from the back seat that she was in fact, ready for bed - and it was only 4:30 in the afternoon.
After the kids spent a quiet night at my inlaws, and Mike and I spent a rowdy night watching hockey and celebrating Cinco de Mayo with friends - or should I say Pablo and I spent a rowdy night together, since Mike went in a  mariachi outfit, complete with tight shiny black pants, sombrero, guitar and a wig...let's just say the morning arrived a little early for me. But as I lay in bed, I remembered that it was Mother's Day, and I knew I just couldn't miss Elizabeth's early soccer game! The kids had spent the night with Mike's parents, and we knew Grampa was taking E to her game, but we rallied and after a pit stop at Tim Horton's we made it to the game, moments after E scored a Mother's Day goal for me, yay! My mother in law and Em and Kate arrived shortly after, although their game wasn't due to start for over an hour, but they wanted to watch their sister. We all made a brief coffee/bathroom stop at Grammy's house between games, then back to watch the twins play. It had been quite warm out while Elizabeth played, but it had clouded over and the wind had picked up, making the day suddenly much colder than before. Em compensated by racing up and down the field chasing the ball with total abandon, except for when she was subbed out, where she danced around singing a song and watching the clouds race by. Kate was in goal for the second half. She looked very small and lonely at the far end of the field as she waited (I'm sure anxiously) for the action to come her way. Grampa and Elizabeth repositioned themselves over to the side of her for extra support, while we all watched from the other end, waving two thumbs up at her now and then. I was hoping she would remember that she could use her hands, as so many of the kids forget at this age and try to kick the ball away. I need not have worried, I mean, duh, if Kate could read the entire rule book before each game she would. We are talking about an overly prepared child. It is vitally important to her that she do things RIGHT. So when the other team managed to break away with the ball towards her, she didn't hesitate to dash out to meet them, hands out to snatch the ball away. Her form was excellent but unnecessary as it turned out, since the ball actually ended up taking a hard bounce off her thighs and veered off to the side, but a save it was nonetheless. We all cheered madly for her, and she survived the rest of her term in goal unscathed, un-scored upon. Meanwhile our team had run away with the game after a slow start - the other team's first half goalie had stopped everything that came her way, but the poor kid in the second half became completely overwhelmed and just got out of the way every time our team came near her. Their coach finally made a change, and as Em put it afterwards, she ALMOST scored 2 goals! Which seemed to please her about as much as if she had actually scored.
So. We retired home for lunch, and I had the great pleasure of opening the girls mother's day gifts that they had all made for me - the very best kind of course. Handmade clay bird sculptures from the twins, and a pot of parsley from Elizabeth, that she had apparently been hiding in all manner of different hiding spots in the house since bringing it home from school - under her bed, behind her dresser, under the window in the bedroom. She said she had to keep moving it so I wouldn't find it. Like I'm that good of a housekeeper...!Fortunately she had remembered to keep watering it from time to time. We headed over to my inlaws house again for an early dinner of Chinese food and finally made it home for the night just in time for bed. I was so glad to see Monday arrive that was I totally unstressed this morning when Kate pitched a fit as we were leaving, screaming that her shoelaces were double tied wrong - I just gathered her up with her school stuff and packed her into the van with everyone else and drove off to school humming along with the radio. Even she seemed to realize it had been a pretty weak attempt at sabotaging our morning, and smiled and kissed me goodbye when we got there. And now to play catch up with the rest of my life, aka laundry, groceries, and giving the dog some much needed attention. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Late

Yes, yes I know, I have fallen behind on my blogging duty. What can I say? I've been busy...it's hard to sit down and write about the girls when the girls seem to have more days off from school lately than days in school. You would think with all this time off - spring break, followed by professional days, followed by Easter break - that I would be refreshed and recharged and full of patience and wisdom to pass on to my children. After this mornings off to school debacle, I think I can safely say that apparently I am not. Okay, we did manage to get out the door in decent fashion yesterday after a four day Easter hiatus, but I am pretty sure that is due mainly to the fact that I lured the girls out of bed with waffles. I did attempt a repeat performance this morning, but it would seem waffles are only good once, and then after that you have to dig deeper into your morning bag of tricks. Let me preface this by explaining that last night was game 7 of the Canucks vs. Chicago hockey playoff series, which happened to go into overtime. It was already well past bedtime before we headed into sudden death, and there was just no way either myself or my husband were going to start playing bedtime bingo with Kate, so everyone was up until we'd scored the winning goal and done a family version of screaming and jumping up and down and high fives etc. So by the time we were all in bed, it was late. We all looked hungover this morning, which was odd since no one was drinking. So we got up late. And I hadn't made lunches the night before either - give me a small break, I had the kids at soccer practice until 7:30 and then had to race home in a bizarre cloudburst of blinding rain, followed by the most amazing rainbow, and of course the game was well underway by the time we got home, so no, lunches did not get made. Anyway. So as I slapped together sandwiches, the kids silently worked their way through some cereal and one waffle each that I had toasted for them in the hopes that it might perk them all up a bit. We did manage to make it through the morning routine in about 20 minutes, but then it all fell apart. Kate wanted me to help her brush her hair...and that was all it took. I have a rule about hair. If the girls can't take care of it themselves properly, then they have to wear it short. Because I can't handle the ordeal of trying to brush it for them while they scream and writhe around like I am applying hot coals to their scalps. So as you may have guessed by now, the hair brushing didn't go well, and I chose to walk away and put on my jacket and shoes and leave the house with the other girls. Meanwhile Kate was not getting us anywhere, so I ended up having to go pick her up, carry her to the car with her socks and shoes, stuff her in, shut the door on her screaming face, go back to the house, get her back pack and jacket, return to the car, stuff them in, and blast off. Poor Elizabeth was having a heart attack in the meantime, as she hates to be late. I reached behind me and patted her leg to reassure her that everything would be fine. Then we pulled out of our driveway into a line of traffic and burly woman with a stop sign leaped in front of my car and waved at me to pull over and stop. Oh. My. God. Have I mentioned that our road is being completely dug up, moved, basically annihilated to make room for a highway going in a little further down the hill? So there we sit, waiting while traffic from the opposite direction drives slowly past, Elizabeth is wailing, Kate is shrieking that if we're late it's not her fault, and Emily is begging everyone to just be quiet. The last truck approaches the stocky sign holder, but instead of moving past he STOPS. And leans out his window, and starts having a "conversation" with the sign lady, who smiles and walks away from him. He shouts and waves his arms at her, the kids shrieks build to a furious crescendo, and that's it, I snap. I lay on my horn as hard as I can to get the attention of both the truck driver and the sign lady, and then while continuing to lean on my horn I wave my other arm around and make crazy lady faces at them. My windows are not rolled down so I know they can't actually hear me, therefore I just have to look like I'm saying something....the sign lady waves the truck driver on, gives me the go ahead to move, and the truck driver passed me with his tongue stuck out...which the kids really appreciate, and we tear off up the road to school in stony silence. And it must be a morning after a hockey miracle miracle, because although my watch indicates that we are definitely late, the doors have just opened and the kids are just going inside. I call out "have a good day, have a good day, have a good day" three times in succession and get into my car again without looking back. When I get home, I check the paper to see when round two of the playoffs start...tomorrow night. Hmmmm. Looks like I am going to have to stock up on an exciting assortment of breakfast items, plus maybe make a month's worth of lunches and freeze them just to keep up with mornings around here. Perhaps even more importantly, I will have to come up with some form of bribes for the traffic ladies if this is going to continue, maybe special coffees for letting us jump the line so we make it to school on time? Or maybe I just need to reevaluate the whole concept of "late", at least for the remainder of the hockey season...

game day

Well, after an extraordinarily busy week (well, maybe just ordinarily busy) we finally made it to game day. Sunday morning, first soccer games of the spring season for the girls. I had thought ahead and had them all run around and gather up all their various soccer paraphernalia earlier that weekend and place it all where I could actually confirm that everyone did indeed have socks, shin pads, cleats etc. I spent most of Saturday driving all over hells half acre (I know that's an odd phrase, yet somehow apt for the part of town that I eventually ended up in) with Emily trying to locate two pairs of white youth size small soccer shorts, as the twins coach had thoughtfully decided that white shorts would match the girls jerseys better than black. Oh come on, I remember thinking as soon as I heard him utter the words. Obviously he doesn't' do the laundry in HIS house. Not to mention the premonition I had that finding white shorts in the girls size, and two pairs of them would prove to be a challenge. But white shorts were what he wanted, so white shorts I would try to find. And the fates were with me, I tracked down and put on hold what must have been the two last pairs  in the entire greater Vancouver area. So. Sunday morning arrives, I'm up first at 7am, and look anxiously out the window to  - yes! - a blue sky. Which means it's already a good day in my books. We make it through breakfast relatively intact, no last minute meltdowns, and head to the field for the first game of the day, Kate and Em's. Ahhh, little kid soccer. So entertaining! We realize very quickly that the other team may pose a bit of a threat when we hear their coach saying things like "okay, quick pass now, and check your man, and cross that ball" and our coach is saying "okay girls, run faster!". Fortunately most of the parents on our side seem to be in same frame of mind as we are, a little high on that extra morning coffee, and just happy that their child isn't crying. The other team scores two goals against us in rapid succession, as our goalie stands frozen in the net, staring wide eyed at the pack of girls in red race towards her with the ball. So the coach makes a change, and Emily finds herself in goal. As the opposing team dashes yet again towards our goal on a breakaway, I hold my breath and watch as Em smiles hugely and then charges headlong towards them, deflecting the ball away and kicking some shin pads and who knows what else at the same time. Again and again they try to score, and each time Em rushes out of the goal and flings herself every which way to block the ball, smiling a  big gap toothed grin the entire time. When I catch my breath from laughing I wave to get her attention, hold up my hands and shout "use your hands Em! You can use your hands!!" And Em looks at me for a second, then smiles and waves her hands back at me....and continues to use everything but her hands to stop the ball. Whatever works, we all tell ourselves, whatever works. Finally towards the very end of the game something clicks, and our girls suddenly start kicking and chasing the ball down the other end of the field. Kate gets her chance and manages to kick the ball several times in more or less the right direction. She seems pleased enough with herself, and happy to be part of the pack, no pressure. Game time is called but the coaches figure they'll let them play a little longer, and our girls go on to score three quick goals, so the opposing coach decides it's time to stop after all, and that's it, the game is over. We have no idea who won, and really, no one seems too concerned about it. I mean, we're talking about kids who are playing with Barbies on the sidelines while waiting for their turn to go on the field. Now it's time for the big kids' game. Elizabeth has been off warming up with her team for half an hour, and we all make our way over to the field she will be playing on. The sun goes behind a cloud, the wind picks up, and suddenly the whole day seems more serious, less fun. We all zip up our jackets, pull on our hoods, and jump up and down to stay warm while the game begins. Well, the adults do, the twins and their buddy Summer find some sticks and wander off to dig in the dirt for worms. Elizabeth's division is a motley crew of different shapes and sizes. This apparently is what happens between the ages of 8 and 9, suddenly some of the girls REALLY grow, so you end up with teams of kids who range in size from tinier than my 7 year old twins, to tall as some full grown women. Anyway, they take their soccer a lot more seriously. But it's their first game together, they've only had two practices and unfortunately they haven't had enough time to learn each other's names yet, so this poses some challenges for them. Actually not just for them, but also for their coaches, who realize over half way through the game  that the reason Elizabeth isn't listening to them is because they keep calling her Brooke. This does however work in her favor somewhat as she gets to play almost the entire game without being subbed out. As does her friend Brooke, because they think she is Eva. Brooke (the real Brooke) even manages to score a goal. The girls see us all madly jumping up and down on the sidelines and think we are super excited, cheering them on, not realizing that we are actually all just trying to keep our fingers and toes from going numb. Finally the game is over, a tie (we think). Elizabeth is fairly disgusted, as she played defense the whole game, and wanted a chance to play up front. Despite our assurances that she was amazing on defense, and how important that is, blah blah blah, I could tell she remained unconvinced. Oh well. Maybe once the coaches actually get to know everyone's names better, she will get her chance!

soccer practice

So I bit the bullet and registered all three of my girls for spring soccer. Elizabeth is fantastically keen to play - she just finished winter soccer which ran from August through March, so no problem there. Emily and Kate have never played before though, but I felt it was time they take the plunge into organized sports. They did bring home forms to sign up for baseball, which I almost went for  - it would be a natural really, since my husband not only played for years himself but coached too, and it happens to be my favorite spectator sport by far, I really love my baseball - but then I started thinking about it....how the spotlight is just on you when you're at the plate, and then how the spotlight is just on you when you have to field a ball, throw a ball, catch a ball....and I just couldn't see that sort of high pressure appealing to the girls, Kate in particular. So I had Elizabeth take them outside one day to kick the ball around and tell them how super good they were at that, and they came in afterwards and announced that they wanted to play soccer. Well, Kate did. Em would be quite happy to chase butterflies while the other kids slogged it out on the sports battlefields of life, but I figure she has to at least give it all a shot. Spring soccer sounded pretty perfect, since it's just a short season from April to June, and I figure if she still has no interest after that then I won't bother to make her play again. Anyway. Elizabeth's coach contacted us and she had already had her first practice and I still hadn't heard anything about the twins team. Hmmm. Hoping this wasn't a bad omen,  I sent an email off to the registrar, and within a couple days we had a coach and a team and a plan to practice this weekend. On Saturday I asked the girls if they knew where all their soccer gear was, and was assured that they did...but knowing better I asked them to go and produce it for me, just in case. And sure enough Em was missing a shin pad, which we discovered after much searching in Kate's dresser. Next I asked them to make sure they each had a pair of leggings to wear as the next day would be cool and possibly quite wet. By leggings I meant something long enough to keep their legs warm, and snug enough to keep them from tripping over their pant legs. An argument then ensued as to which leggings were considered appropriate - naturally the girls were all about the fashion, and warmth etc be damned. Pick your battle Lis, pick your battles I said to myself, and walked away from that one. So off we went the following day to practice, and in a somewhat rare show of solidarity, the girls had matching pony tails, matching sweaters and matching shorts on over their sparkly fashion forward leggings. Now we would see which way the ball was going to bounce, so to speak - would they respond positively or negatively to their coach, to their team mates, to the rain that started to fall as soon as we arrived at the already sodden field? The coach seemed very nice, check. Then one of the girls from their class at school showed up, very big check, excellent news. And after that they didn't seem to mind the rain. In fact, they got right into the various drills the coach put them through, and then it was time to play a mock game against each other. Ahhh, I had forgotten what soccer is like at this age. A little pack that chases the ball around the field with one child now and then getting away with it and kicking it towards whichever goal happens to be handiest. My fears for Emily's interest seemed to at least temporarily disappear at this point, as she managed to score one of the first goals of the game - mind you, it did happen to be on her own net, but this didn't seem to phase her in the least, nor any of the other kids.Meanwhile I could tell that Kate of course was taking things a little more seriously, but seemed to be enjoying herself nonetheless. She was particularly happy with the fact that their team jerseys are green, her favorite color. Priorities, priorities. At any rate, they survived their first practice, and so far both seem very excited for the next one this week. Now they are working on thinking up the all important team name, to be voted on at the next practice. Em's suggestion is the Bernese Mountain Dogs, hmmm, and Kate thinks they should be the Pooh Bears...I can only imagine what all the other little 6 and 7 year olds are coming up with. It's shaping up to be an entertaining season if nothing else!

back to reality

Okay, to sum up, spent the rest of spring break going mini golfing, bowling, and finally on the last day which was pouring rain again, I caved and took the kids to a place that gives me the heebie jeebies - Go Bananas. One of those giant indoor germ infested playgrounds, filled with screaming kids with snotty noses, running madly up and down and around and around, conducting secret bullying sessions at the zip line out of the sightline of their parents, who huddle below in a cave like area, clutching coffee cups like zombies while they attempt to read a long forgotten book, but are compelled to jerk their heads up every 30 seconds to check to see if that is their child who just tripped and did a face plant at the very top of the jungle gym and is now shrieking for their mother, who will be totally unable to go to her child's aid, but will instead have to recruit some other manic child passing by to climb up into the maze and drag her injured offspring out to safety. You know the kind of place I'm talking about - is my horror of them terribly obvious? But I was desperate, at the end of my rope, it was the last Friday of our two weeks off, I had exhausted my supply of coupons from my entertainment book, the only one left was for this place...I stared at the deluge of rain outside my kitchen window for a moment, while listening to the kids chasing each other around and around the main floor of my house, yelling things like "I didn't MEAN to hit you, it was an ACCIDENT" and "stop LOOKING at me!!" and that was it, my moment of weakness, and before I could stop myself I had torn out the coupon and was telling the girls to put on their jackets and get in the car, and I grabbed a book and we headed off in the rain. The kids sang and cheered all the way there - about a 25 minute drive - while I clutched the steering wheel in a death grip, wondering what the hell I had just done. I clung to the faint possibility that I might not be able to find the place, I had never been there before, having previously always been strong enough to boycott such outings. Or perhaps they would be closed....but no such luck. The giant green and yellow sign loomed, the open sign was lit, and we were in. The kids took off their shoes so as to be able to slip more easily whilst I filled out some kind of release form in a daze. A buzzer sounded, a gate opened and into the mayhem we went. My three children vanished, and I found myself standing staring like an open mouthed idiot at the other parents in the tiny seating area. They were either trendily dressed, fully loaded with a mass of litterless snack containers on their tables, or scrunched miserably in a corner like a prisoner awaiting sentencing. I dragged a chair to a far corner, got out my book, and attempted to tune out the world around for the next hour and a half. That's the beauty of having three kids. I figured they were in a contained area, they couldn't get out, and no one worse than some other mean kid could get in, and if that happened I would just tell them that three kids are stronger than one, and encourage a swarming style attitude to prevail against opposition. Stick together, stick together, that's my motto to them when they are out in the world.
Anyway, sometime later I realized I was getting both a horrible kink in my right shoulder and more frequent visits from the girls who were thirsty - go use the water fountain - and hungry - I didn't bring food and I'm not buying any, so play or go home and eat, you choose - and I figured our time was coming to an end, so sad. Gathering up sweaters and my book, I practically sprinted to the gate to get out of there, and once outside in the rain I decided that wet air had never smelled so good. Was it worth the trip? I guess. The kids got more than enough exercise, and it definitely killed some time. Plus it was like gold having that outing to dangle over their heads for at least a week or two whenever they started to complain that we never did anything fun. Like during the rest of the weekend, when we eased them back to reality by having to entertain themselves while we did yard work, cleaned out the carports, stuff like that. Only downer is that I still have that kink in my shoulder - I guess that's the price I paid to make it though spring break otherwise unscathed. How will I make it through two months of summer holidays? I'm thinking day camp is starting to sound really good....

spring breakdown week 2

Oh the rain, the rain. After an amazing weekend away, we are back to reality with a bullet. Spent Monday catching up on tons of laundry and actually had the girls help me tidy up the house - okay, I told them they'd get allowance if they helped, I have no problem resorting to bribery. Then when tempers seemed to be teetering, I took the girls out to pick up some craft stuff at the dollar store. Which turned out to be a really good thing, because the next day it was raining again, and I had to pull out all the rainy day stops to keep 6 little girls entertained till dinner time. A last minute change of plans meant I had my two nieces for the day, plus I had agreed to take care of another little girl from school for the day also, so we had a houseful. After breakfast, they got busy making wooden spoon puppets, and pet rocks, painting, gluing etc. Meanwhile I was in the kitchen attempting to make rice krispie squares - I don't know why but I always seem to find myself wrestling with an out of control blob of hot marshmallow and butter, while rice krispies spill all over the place. I assume it's supposed to be easier to make those things, but I find it fairly challenging. My rainy day activity I guess! Then I also always feel the need to jazz them up somehow - plain rice krispie squares seem very boring to me, so I usually end up experimenting with melted chocolate chips, or peanut butter, or both....it doesn't always work out, but today it was pretty darn good. So crafts accomplished, snack time. Then the rain stopped so I kicked them all outside to play for a while. That was entertaining for me anyway - after attempting to play golf, a frisbee game got underway making use of the lid off of an old coffee can. Wasn't long before that ended up over the fence in the neighbors yard. Elizabeth attempted to peek through the fence to locate the lid, noticed a loose fence board which she then took a whack at with her golf club and then all the surrounding fence boards proceeded to fall off the fence on top of her. I was the only one who apparently noticed as she looked around wildly for a little help, everyone else had wandered off to some other part of the yard. Elizabeth managed to extricate herself (good thing, I was too busy laughing to be of much use) and then she looked up at me and asked if she could just go get the frisbee since there was a big hole in the fence now....meanwhile Kate and our extra little girl arrived back inside looking for something else to do. I put a puzzle in front of them, and they got busy - they are both very shy with new people, so they managed to do the entire puzzle through the use of charades and sign language, not speaking any actual words to each other. Then the other kids arrived looking for more entertainment, so I put a container of chalk in their hands and sent them off to draw on the deck. Many hopscotch games later, they all made it back inside for more food. Then I got out the boardgames, and the Wii and the rest of the afternoon was spent taking turns with various games of checkers, trouble, sorry, mastermind and some video bowling and sword fighting. The finale of the day was an extremely long and rambling puppet show put on for me using of course all the wooden spoon puppets from the morning plus various other toys. Everyone's parents eventually arrived, and I retired to finish making dinner, feeling like I made it out alive, another day successfully survived. However, I am a little concerned, since I have seem to have used up all my rainy day tricks in one day, what will I do for the rest of the week??? Stay tuned.

spring fling

And then something amazing happened - we got a break from spring break, so to speak. Thursday evening my in laws volunteered to take the girls for the weekend, and after some quick work on the internet, Mike and I were all set to book off to the island for a couple days of adult R and R. How lucky are we???? The girls got to go shopping for clothes, hang out downtown in Stanley Park, and get their nails done, and we got to...well, you know! And so week 2 begins....

more to follow

Onwards. So last Wednesday and Thursday I had my 2 nieces for the day. What to do to keep 5 little girls happy and entertained for 7 hours? Thank god the sun finally came out. We had lunch and then loaded everybody up into the trusty van and drove about half an hour to Redwood Park, a very cool spot that was started up by two brothers many years ago. They planted several different species of trees from around the world, and today of course they are all very tall and very impressive...there is a giant redwood grove, tons of trails all over the place, meadows full of dragonflies, a giant treehouse, and a great playground. The sun shone, it was warm enough for the kids to run around in their t-shirts and all in all it was a perfect afternoon, other than Kate getting stuck in a prickle bush and getting a thorn stuck in her finger, which of course she wouldn't let me pull out, choosing instead to wander around whimpering and suffering, until I couldn't take it any longer and after coaxing her into my lap, I held her down and yanked out the thorn while she screamed and all the other parents looked on with interest and delight - yes, I had indeed earned the honor of meanest mom on the playground, ah well. At least Kate recovered quickly, and went on to play with the other kids until it was time to head home. And yes, another good day was done. Thursday Mr. Sun was more or less still around, so once again I packed up all the girls and drove about half an hour to Centennial beach. They have a massive playground out there which the kids enjoyed for a while, and then they put on the rain boots and went to play in the sand - the tide was way out, so they had a great time digging and collecting shells etc. I actually got to sit on a log and read my book for while....!!! Now that's a good day. Eventually they were all in various stages of wet and sandy, plus Elizabeth had cut her finger open on a shell plus hunger was setting in so we headed back home before anyone could have a complete meltdown. Had barely arrived and my sister in law showed up to pick up her girls - and yes, yet another successful spring break day achieved. I am on a roll....