Did you know that there is a huge upside to minus twenty temperatures? If you have two sick kids, and they don’t want to drink the amount of liquids that they should be drinking, you can rummage around in the basement to find the box of Freezies left over from the summer, put them outside, and within the hour they will be frozen! Freezies! In the winter! The novelty alone caused the boys to consume many, many of the frozen treats, which caused a mid-afternoon attitude rally. I call THAT a small, sick day miracle.

Oh Lord, I’m bored. I am almost writing a song about being bored. The boys are the kind of sick where they don’t feel like doing anything – stories, crafts, etc. – but watching TV. So, being the great mom that I am, the TV has been on almost all day. Mark summed it up by saying “I don’t want to watch this show. But I’m going to watch it.”

So I’ve been spending the day baking awesome peanut butter cookies, opening Freezies, and tracing and cutting out outlines of bats, the template for which was very kindly made by my younger brother, since my own artistic rendering of a bat looks more like a circle with two lopsided triangles attached to it. And why would I be spending hours cutting out construction paper bats, you might ask? It’s for Mark’s birthday party on Saturday, of course! Because getting sick for your birthday is the COOLEST. Cross your fingers we are all better by then. Mine will be.

Hee hee. That title alone makes me laugh. Is there a less sexualized word than “mom”? Mom jeans. Mom hair. It conjures up an image that is not exactly…attractive. There are “yummy mummies” and “hot mamas”, but “moms”? Not sexy. “Soccer moms” might get the worst of it in terms of image, and I am actually becoming one this year! I guess I will have to find myself a neon windbreaker tracksuit, since I already have a minivan.

Sometimes it’s hard for a stay at home mom to have some good fashion mojo, if you know what I mean. It’s a slippery slope in the fashion department, and this is coming from a woman whose style, nine months out of the year, is characterized by jeans (but low-rise, NEVER mom jeans) and a t-shirt layered underneath a v-neck sweater, in a veritable rainbow of blacks, grays, and browns. Yesterday I received a “fashion magazine” which is put out by The Bay (I don’t know why or how I receive these magazines, but I have for years). Since my wardrobe is as described above, I generally peruse these magazines for style ideas, which remain largely theoretical as I dislike shopping (which is a good prerequisite to being a mother of boys), and whenever I do shop I end up picking up something black, gray, or brown.

Nonetheless, I opened the magazine, and I quote, “Mindful of our mandate to identify the looks that will work effortlessly into your life, we interpret and communicate the major trends”. The magazine then goes on list such lovely ideas as “sensuous…kaftan tunics” and “graphic big-cat animalia prints”. Seriously? Big-cat animalia prints? My grandma looks awesome in those, as well as kaftan tunics; she is a beautiful woman but she is also in her eighties. So I think I’ll pass. There is also a spread on floral-print dresses and cardigans, and while they look sort of cute on the nineteen year old model, I kind of think that I would look frumpy and idiotic in them (again, this is theoretical since I haven’t worn a dress or skirt in several years). Then there is the pair of go-anywhere ubiquitous white pants. With two boys and a dog? Unless I want to cultivate the slovenly, Pigpen-from-Charlie-Brown look, I think I’ll forgo the white pants.

It’s really hard to find clothes that are appropriate and comfortable, but are not from Tan Jay or similar. It seems like once you hit your thirties, unless you are going to a job where you wear nice clothes every day, you are left out of the market. Is anyone else having these struggles? Or is it just me and my monochromatic wardrobe?

There’s something about February, despite the shortness of the month, which makes it feel really long. Maybe it’s the arctic climate that does it, and the fact that it is still a really long time until spring. But nonetheless, here we are, in March!

The weekend wasn’t much fun because I’m husbandless for the majority of the week, and as experience has indicated, the anticipation is worse than the reality. In other words, everyone was out of sorts all weekend long. The boys were super-sensitive and weepy, and I was feeling sour, not the least because my dear husband chose Saturday to tell me about the company golf tournament in Jasper for a weekend in June. Honey! Let me get through the week’s absence before we talk about you leaving again! And for a golf tournament no less. Anyway.

But he’s gone now and the boys and I are settled into our usual routine. I know that there is a parenting sect that disapproves of routines and schedules, but I am all for it. Nothing is quite as comforting to me and the kids as our routine, mundane though it might be. Since today is Monday, our routine includes – hold onto your hats! – Cleaning the Entire House. I know what you’re thinking: what a crazy life she lives, and how do I get that kind of life? Truly though, I don’t find cleaning that oppressive. A not-insignificant number of my friends have a “cleaning lady” but that is something I just wouldn’t spend money on. (A personal chef? Now THAT is my dream. I would spend a lot of money on that. Alas.) For one thing, my house just isn’t that big. More importantly, the boys love to help with various household chores, and I think it is particularly vital for boys to develop the necessary life skill of Cleaning the House. I think it’s important that they learn hey, washing the floor and cleaning the bathroom is a good and necessary thing, and one that doesn’t just happen on its own. Also it’s cute to see them, so intent with their Swiffer dusters and the vacuum, busy as bees, focused on Cleaning the House, because it’s Monday.

I was going to write a funny post about all the hilariously varied things you might find in my (or any other mother’s) cart at Wal-Mart – Spiderman party favours! Mini muffin pans! Sleeping pills! Sugar-free candy! Personal lubricant! Ziploc bags! – but my sense of humour is GONE, people. Gone. I am a bitch. I am the kind of bitch you might be if, say, you had been enjoying the sunshine and the melting snow and you had been thinking about your gorgeous perennial garden, and suddenly it’s minus twenty and snowing. Say.

Yesterday when the cold weather hit I actually thought, it will be so pleasant to have a nice indoors-y day. But suddenly, my goodness, the kids were SO IRRITATING, what with their constant need for a snack, and for attention, and for all the other things that young children might need in a day. And since that’s my job, for goodness’ sake, I had to attend to those needs, and they were SO IRRITATING. Of course as my husband points out, the children are not so much more irritating than normal, it’s me: I am more irritable. Hmm. He has a point. My mood isn’t exactly improving with the thought that he is out of town next week, which really puts a cramp in my style, if you know what I’m saying. I mean, I like me my vino and NYPD Blue reruns and all, but I’m sad about it. Boo hoo, poor me.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the boys went to preschool this afternoon and I am left, with my bitchiness, to take the dog for a nice long FREEZING walk on the icy, treacherous sidewalks. So here I go.

I’m not sure why we have toys in the house. Okay, I know why we have toys. However – and believe me, believe me, this is not a complaint – the kids’ toys are suffering from extreme neglect. And this is a good thing. It’s all about creative play around here these days; it’s great, the kids have been getting along so well that it makes me wish I could really capture this moment and make it last, if not forever, then for a very long time. Remember in Little House in the Big Woods how Laura and Mary play in the attic for months, with only corncob dolls and pumpkins for playthings? It’s like that, but instead of corncob dolls it is pieces of string and old Valentines, and instead of pumpkins it is an old exercise mat and a couch cushion. Here is a list of the games that have been played for, literally, hours during the past few days:

1) Couch fishing. Sit on the couch with a long piece of string, and every few minutes shriek “I caught something!” followed by “Oh, it’s just an old tire.”
2) Couch canoeing. Pull cushions off of the couch and pretend that you are rowing in a canoe. Shriek “Man overboard!” and jump off. Repeat.
3) Mud puddle. Lie on old exercise mat while your brother yells “I can’t believe you got in the mud again!” Then run into the bathroom, stand in the bathtub, and pretend to take a shower. Repeat.
4) Mail delivery. Obtain a pile of last year’s Valentines. Run through the house looking for cupboard doors to hide them in. Say “I never fail to deliver the mail” emphatically many, many times. Run through the house retrieving hidden Valentines. Repeat.
5) Build a giant tower with Mega Blocks. Start shrieking “Jack, Jack, Jack” which will cause brother to “load” the tower with “dynamite”. Kick the tower down while shrieking “Clear the site!”. Repeat.

Note that there are a couple of commonalities in this list: first, there is a lot of shrieking and noise in my house. Second, there is a lot of repetition. Third, with the exception of the Mega Blocks, not one of these games actually requires a toy. Sometimes I look at my house and imagine all of the molded plastic toys in a landfill somewhere, and I am incredibly ashamed at our environmental footprint. Of course the boys do play with their toys, of course they do enjoy their things, but mostly I feel there is so much we could do without.

This ties into the way I feel about the current economic situation. I was reading an article that stated over the past decade, average consumer debt has been almost double disposable household income in the US. In other words, for every dollar earned, nearly two were being spent. Of those discretionary expenditures, how much could have been done without?

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. We had some great conversation, the topics ranging from the global economic situation to vomit. Yes, between bites of delicious spinach lasagna and sips of lovely cabernet, we discussed our children and vomiting. And that is how you know that we all have young children: our complete immunity to the grossness of bodily functions. I remember, pre-kids, having lunch with a co-worker who discussed in great and specific detail the particulars of his daughter’s toilet training. I was revolted! Who ever would discuss that over a meal? What kind of sick person thinks that it’s okay to discuss bowel movements while eating? But something happens when you have kids, it’s like the part of your brain that controls the “eww” factor dies. I always laugh when non-parents talk about diaper changes with consternation and revulsion, because once you’ve changed your first couple hundred diapers, nothing in said diapers can faze you anymore.

But what we were really talking about were milestones. The milestone in particular that we have passed with Jake is vomiting in the toilet. Oh happy day, when children no longer barf all over themselves and the floor, but actually go into the bathroom and throw up in the toilet. It is, to me, a milestone that is right up there with putting on shoes and the ability to drink from a cup with no lid. Certainly cause for celebration, a celebration with maybe a delicious spinach lasagna and a lovely cabernet.