Busy is not a Virtue.

I'm not sure about other Moms out there, but I sometimes feel "over-blogged". There are so many people and articles telling us (yes, YOU..you Momma!) what to think, how to feel, and where to buy your next cocktail dress. 

Since this Momma has long lost any familiarity with dress shops, I've dropped by with something else to say. And you can totally ignore it if you want to, but it is something that has been on my heart for a while. 

It started a few years ago, when I began venturing out of the house with a kid, and then two kids, and then even more kids. People would stop, smile, chat, and then drop that sentence on me like a stealthy, snide bomb:

"Oh, you think you're busy now? Just wait till they're older...."

Why? Just why?

It's like telling someone who is drowning that things aren't so bad yet.... just wait for that waterfall that's around the next corner.

Cheers, my friend. Thanks for the advice. I'll ponder it while I drown my sorrows in a tall glass of purple juice and 4 loads of laundry that need to be folded.

I'm here to argue that statement. Or at least convince people to meet me at the halfsies point. Because I don't think life with older kids is busier. And I don't think that life with little kids is busier, either. 

I think they're DIFFERENT BUSY.

Gasp. Yes, it's a new concept.

There is something so intimidating to a Mom of young kids to hear that life is just going to get more insane as the kids get older. But what these Moms of older kids are conveniently forgetting to tell us is that some of those crazy moments that we deal with now will also disappear as our kids age. 

Consider Scenario 1: You are told that when your kids get older, they will be involved in more activities in the evenings, and your nights will be spent as "Taxi Mom". You start to look for your hyperventilating bag because now, once those kids are in bed, you savour that precious alone time. After all, it's the only quiet you've had all day.
What they're forgetting to tell you is that once your kids are older, they're not going to be attached to your hip, back, or bosom 24/7. Once those kids are older, and more independent, you may actually get to go pee by yourself. Alone time during the day? What a novel concept!

Scenario 2: Helpful Hilda tells you that you will have no free time when you're kids are older because you will fill that now-available daytime with volunteering, school activities, or maybe working part time. And don't forget that there are still the regular household activities that still need to be done, regardless of your child's age.
True story. I'm not even going to argue that one. But may I point out scenario 1's answer again, as well as the fact that some of these "older kid commitments" can be carefully selected or even politely turned down? (pretty sure I can't turn down my crying baby, or naughty toddler during the day, no matter how polite I am.)

Scenario 3: Having older kids is so much busier and harder because their problems are bigger, and more stressful. When you have small kids, their problems are small and easy to fix.
First of all, I'm going to recommend that you don't say this to a Mom that has a child with anxiety, behavioral problems, or any type of issue. In fact, play it safe and don't say this at all. Because there's a good chance you have NO idea how big the problems are of that Mom and her young child. 
But let's just say that we're dealing with your classic little kid problem versus big kid problem. Then I'd have to agree. I'm sure that big kid problems are tough to deal with. But, when it's my turn, I'm counting on having a full nights worth of sleep to tackle those problems with my older child. Because getting up at night with a baby, and then up for the day at 5:30am with my cheerful 3 year old barely leaves me with the ability to tie shoes.  

But the idea I'd really like you to leave with is this:

Busy is NOT a Virtue. It's not a competition. It's not even a thing. So let's stop pretending that it is. 

Instead, can we all just work on ENCOURAGING all Moms, no matter what stage we're at? If I can be totally honest, I'd probably melt into a sappy puddle if someone said to me, "Good job, Momma. Keep going!"

As they say, 
The days are long, but the years are short. 

(sometimes the days feel really, REALLY long. But I suppose to an experienced Momma, those years must sometimes feel really, REALLY short and long ago! 

When Genetics Come to Play.

My family is blessed with AWESOME genetics. We're academic, athletic, artistic, and musical. And especially modest! 
Actually, the list above is somewhat accurate. It's just that each of the 4 kids in my family possesses one of those traits in abundance, and the rest....not as much. I'll leave you to guess which trait fits who! Genetics is also responsible for the beautiful eyes in my family. Beautiful eyes...that can't see properly. I am the only one who escaped full-time glasses.  

Take Jess. She got the Peters' eyes. (well, the Peters problem. Those cool colours you see are all hers! It's called a Nevus, and it's basically like a mole in your eye.)

And then there's little Lisa. She was the most beautiful baby you ever did see. But the poor girl had such a lazy eye (Amblyopia), that she was patched and had glasses before she was two. She then had surgery at age 4. 

Interestingly enough, Jessica's son had a similar problem to Lisa. These genetics like to skip around the family. Although my little nephew did not have surgery, he was in glasses at 17 months.  

Wasn't he the cutest little poopie?

 Well, genetics decided to come over to my house too. And no small wonder. It's not as if Colin's family has escaped eye issues. So here's my little Hankiepants, looking so spiffy in his new specs. I was really hoping he could get cool 'scientist' glasses like his cousin, but he's not quite big enough for those yet!

And I'd like to take this moment to encourage all of you to take care of your childrens' eyes! (and yours too, of course!) If you ask any family doctor, he'll tell you that your child should have his eyes checked by the time he starts school... at the very least! If you suspect something, or there are strong family genetics, I'd suggest going earlier! I see a regular optician with my kids at first, but if there are any issues I immediately ask my family doctor for a referral to the Pediatric Opthomology Clinic at the Stollery. They've been treating my family for the last 20 years! And if your child does need glasses, I highly recommend MDO's in St Albert.

One last crazy look at genetics. You know it's crazy when you take your son in to get his glasses fitted, and they take one look at him and say "He looks just like Lisa!"  

It must be those liquid brown eyes!

And Now We Are Old.

And Now We Are Six Old. ...and it's time to face fears again. 

I've never had an issue with 'getting older'. In fact, most of the time, I've been excited about it. Take when I was 19, for example. I was ECSTATIC to turn 20. Mostly because I could now tell those people who could not believe I was married that is was okay....because I was in my 20's. (They didn't have to know that I was 20 and a few days, right?)

30 is a weird age, though. When I look around at other 30-year-old women, it's hard to tell where I fit in. I've 'finished' most of the things that women my age are just starting to do. And because you tend to gravitate towards people at the same stage of life as you, most of my acquaintances (outside of church friends) are at least 5-10 years older. ( And as a side note: Do you have any idea how hard it is to figure out how to dress? There needs to be a section in clothing stores for the "wants to be trendy, but too old to dress like a teenager" women like me.) 

It's tough for me to figure out why turning 30 is seriously freaking me out. It's really not that old. And now my age actually kind of matches what I've 'accomplished' in life. (have you seen how big peoples' eyes get when you tell them you have 4 kids, and you're not 30 yet?) 

So I've decided I'm not going to try and figure it out....I'll just try to roll with it. 

Ready to celebrate the last night of my 20's!

Birthday Martini's on the house!

All of us celebrate birthdays within 1 month of each other,
so we went to an awesome dueling piano bar. The boys made
pests of themselves by requesting obscure songs, while the
ladies sang loudly, laughed a lot, and danced a little.
Okay, so it was just me and Colin dancing.....

One of these girls just doesn't belong here.
One of these girl just isn't the same.
One of these girls isn't 30.
Now it's time to guess her name,
It's time to guess her name! 

If you've never been to a dueling piano bar, I'd highly recommend the Bourbon Room in St Albert. Such a blast! I have to say, our table was definitely the life of the party.

Apparently "Brittany" had no idea there was a Cher

cover of Walking in Memphis!

 

Another one of our many requests. The boys requested

everything from Bon Jovi, Roxette, Shania Twain, to Linkin Park.

It was a little crazy.....

And I'd like to give a shout-out to my 20's. It was an awesome decade:

I got married (okay, I did that a few months before...)

I finished post-secondary.

I had a few awesome jobs, and a few kick-ass opportunities. (like working with the Spanish Men's Soccer Team, and participating in a research project in Pediatric Oncology.)

I had 4 kids.

I moved 3 times.

I grew up a TON.

I'm a little sad to see those 20's go... after all:

And I got to Marry Him!

Ever have a flashback? I'm not sure if I'm unusual, but I have little 'out of body' experiences that are triggered by all sorts of things. It could be a smell, an article of clothing, anything really. For example: A5-35? That's totally basketball season. 

But it's the weirdest feeling. I'll be sitting there, and suddenly it's as if a subconscious of mine from 10, 15, or 20 years ago is watching what is currently taking place. And it's freaking out. I have to admit, it's awesome. I don't usually tell people, because I get looked at a little oddly.

Well, this week I had it again. I was putting away my Christmas lights, and I moved a box over. The box fell down, and its contents spilled out. The box was labelled "Andrea's Stuff", and I had forgotten is existed. This is what was at the top:

 Fun stuff, right? A book our class made in Grade 3/4, when we had the coolest substitute teacher ever. The champagne bottle my parents popped when Colin and I got engaged. A box full of medals, trophies, and awards. (I must say, I wasn't terribly well-rounded in high school. It's all sports.) 

Then I dug a little deeper and found this:

A box FULL of notes that Colin and I wrote back and forth. For those of you who don't know how Colin and I 'met', I'll give you the condensed version:

Where I come from, there are two options as to how you met your spouse. 

a) You both went to the same church, and just eventually noticed each other.

b) You moved to a different area for post-secondary, went to the nearest Can. Ref. Church, and lived happily ever after with the first person you met that wasn't related to you. 

See? Not entirely romantic. Colin and I fit in to Option A. The difference is, we don't actually remember each other. My only memory of Colin in school is watching him play basketball at the annual Credo vs PICS tournament. I was in grade 7, and Colin was this mega basketball star in grade 12. (Interestingly enough, Credo had a basketball star who was also #7, also in grade 12, also named Colin, and who's last name started with a "Veld". Creepy?) 

I do have another memory of a younger Colin, but I'm a little embarrassed to mention it. Let's just say it has something to do with watching him walk into church behind this older couple, and me thinking that it was so kind that this older couple took in their grandson. Which usually led me to wondering just where his parents were. See? A little embarrassing, considering that 'older couple' are now my in-laws.  

So while we knew of each other, we really didn't get to know each other till I was in grade 10, and I joined the basketball team. And the rest is history.

While I don't recommend dating your coach, it worked out well for us. Obviously. We did have to work around some things. We had a "No Dating at Basketball Events" rule, and that explains all our notes. Colin and I would pass notes to each other much like giggling grade 2 kids. 

Needless to say, I pretty much wasted the entire day today reading them again. 

But the greatest treasure I re-found was this:

(And I apologize, because I've spent the last 15 minutes trying to flip the photo, but I can't figure it out. Newbie alert!)

This is a book Colin gave me as a gift when we got engaged. Now Colin is the sweetest man, with an abundance of great qualities. So many in fact, that I am able to easily overlook that he sometimes lacks in the thoughtful gift-giving department. He's not the most sentimental guy, but that just makes two of us! And what makes this gift was so special. 

Long before texts existed, couples wrote letters. Well, we were somewhere in between. Colin saved every single email we ever wrote back and forth. And it begins WELL before we started dating. Here's the first sentence from the first email:

" Hey Coach, here are my practice and workout plans for the summer..."

Yep, we started emailing when I was about to start grade 10. Colin had requested that the team email him their practice plans for the summer so he could keep in touch and see how we were doing. I'm pretty sure that I was the ONLY one who kept it up. 

These emails continued all the way until we got engaged. It's like a play-by-play book of our relationship. My favourite is the email I wrote to Colin at 2am after my sweet sister secretly confided that Colin had hoped to ask me out that evening...only to find out I had just started 'dating' someone else. I won't bore you with the details though..... 

Which brings me back to my out of body experience. Every once and awhile I will look across the room at Colin, and my head will tell me. " Seriously?! You ended up with him?? How did that happen?"  It's like my own head can't fathom how I ended up with someone as fantastic and unbelievable as him. 

It's usually at this point that Colin will look up at me, and question why I'm staring at him so oddly. I just smile. 

And then I tell my brain "Yes. I know. I am the luckiest woman on this planet."

Who's Kid is it, anyways?!

There was a time when I gave up reading anything and everything to do with parenting. It seemed that everything I read screamed that I was doing it wrong....

" Be firm....but don't break her spirit!"
" Don't overdress your child...but make sure they don't get too cold!"

" Give them responsibilities.....but remember, they're just kids!"

" Never wake a sleeping child....but wake them to protect their sleep schedule."

If it wasn't the literature, it was the 'well-meaning' person in the check out line, handing you yet another piece of advice. These people are sneaky. They seem like they're trying to help, but there's always this underlying tone that you're doing something completely wrong.

It appears it really does take a village to raise a child. And the 'village' seems to know best.

At least the village thinks it does.

But whatever happened to differentiated parenting? 

(sorry, I'm shamelessly stealing the current 'buzzword' in teaching, and applying it to parenting!)

Why can't we all agree that every family has different rules, freedoms, and methods of discipline? Wherever I turn, there's yet another article floating around Facebook, criticising 'helicopter' parents. But in the same breath, they accuse the Mother of the boy who fell out of a tree of 'negligent parenting'.

I get it. There are two ends of the spectrum. And most people I know float happily in the middle. The point is, every parent has reasons for parenting the way they do. So please let us parent. Every parent (who loves their child) is doing the best job they can!

Yesterday I wasn't sure whether to laugh, or scream.

My kids have this awesome set up in the yard. They've shovelled most of the snow in a pile beside the shed, and then they took a long strip of MDF board and leaned it from the roof down to the ground. Then they set up a ladder to climb onto the roof. A Dutchman's Jungle Gym, if you will. It has been so much fun for them! Clara and Andrew spend hours out there, climbing, sliding, and lying on the roof while they stare at the stars. 

Yesterday, Clara decided to sit on the roof and watch for Andrew to come home. I was in the kitchen making supper when the doorbell rang. Someone driving by informed me, rather urgently, that my daughter was on the shed roof. When I thanked her and told her I was aware of it, her eyes widened. Then she mumbled, "Okay....", and walked away, shaking her head.

It wasn't over.

I went downstairs to grab some laundry. As I was changing the load, I heard someone yelling. I ran up the stairs, turned the corner to the front door, and there was a women standing in my house! Not just standing there, but shouting as loud as she could. Apparently she was so concerned for my daughter that she stopped her car, ran up my steps, and INTO my house. And when she didn't see me, she decided to yell for me.

Effectively waking my two sleeping sons.

So I laughed it off with Colin when he came home. But as I was thinking about it later, it really started to bother me. I happen to think I'm a good parent. Are you surprised I said that? Yes I have failings, but I am good at the important stuff. So it terrifies me to think of what could happen if the wrong person sees me letting my kids just be kids. Will I have the cops on my doorstep someday? Will I be featured in an article as a negligent parent? I pray not. We can debate over who should have the final say when it comes to children, but one fact remains: They're not the Government's kids. They're not the Legal System's kids. They're not even my children.

They are God's children.

So, what about you? What are your concerns with law or government involvement with parenting? I'd love to hear your input!

You need a hobby.

Right. I need a hobby about as much as an Olympic athlete needs to go for a run after training for 8 hours straight.

Truth is, I’m not sure where to start. If you look up the definition of hobby, you’ll find this:

“An activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” (emphasis mine)

So that narrows the list a bit.

No sewing. No quilting. No scrapbooking. No knitting. No handy-craft of any kind because, let’s face it, I can’t use any of those words and pleasure in the same sentence.

So what else?

I like to read, but that’s a necessity, not a hobby. I love rearranging my house and designing crazy renovation ideas, but there is only so many times you can move a sofa, and only so much money you can convince your husband to spend.

And apparently cleaning doesn’t count as a hobby. (Why not? It gives me pleasure….)

So, in short, I turned to writing. Problem was, I didn’t have an ‘outlet’. I would spend the majority of my ‘mindless chore time’ writing all sorts of things in my head. Editorial responses, witty articles, letters to friends, and the list goes on.

Then I had the brilliant idea to start a blog. Not to attract a following, but simply as an outlet for the things rolling around in my head.

So, to whomever reads this, follow if and when you’d like. But I caution you.

I don’t write particularly well. I am not always funny. I am not always witty. I am not always inspirational. I am not always happy (or sad). I am not perfect, but neither will I write about my imperfect moments to make you feel better.

I will simply be me.