Category Archives: My failing sanity

May the Fourth Be With You

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Happy Star Wars/ Luke Skywalker Day! Less festively for the fourth day of May, we have been having a blizzard. There was a winter storm warning AND a wind warning last night, which is somewhat disheartening. Have you read The Long Winter, with all the descriptions of the Ingalls family twisting hay to burn for fuel and slowly starving to death because none of the trains could go through and having blizzards last for three days with no one leaving the poorly heated house because they could get lost in the snow and die? So in this day and age it’s not really so dire that it’s snowing in May. There are many, many worse things in the world than a daytime high of 1 degree Celsius and 100 km/hour winds, even on the fourth of May. It is QUITE depressing though.

I loved the Little House books when I was a kid; I desperately wished for long braids, a futile wish since my mother cruelly had my hair cut in one of those horrible early 80’s mushroom cuts. I wanted a sunbonnet and a slate pencil; I longed for my very own tin cup and attic bedroom. The reality is that life was terribly hard and often tragic back then, with disease and death and malnutrition, with much hardship and often thankless, backbreaking work and terrible poverty.

Frequently I will hear someone speak of wanting to live a simpler life, and the solution is generally to just buy less stuff, unpopular though that might be. Idealizing the simple life of yesteryear is somewhat flawed: not many of us would choose to live a life without modern medicine and educational opportunities, a life in which we would wake up to frozen washwater in the winter and the untimely death of a cow meant a significant loss of nutrition for your family. It’s important to remind oneself that we are fortunate to live in the modern age, something I am reminding myself of today because MY WORD the children are driving me crazy with their pent up, very noisy, forced-indoors energy. If May-appropriate weather does not soon return, I am in serious danger of losing my sanity. As it is, people, I am this close to locking myself in the bathroom, cranking up the heat and drinking margaritas while singing Jimmy Buffett tunes. Which sounds kind of fun, actually, although I will settle for some wine after the kids are in bed, which is very soon. Thank goodness for the modern age and the availability of wine.

Gone With The April Snowstorm Wind

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Right now it’s snowing, big thick flakes; our entire yard is blanketed, the whitened trees swaying violently in the wind. After dinner the boys went outside with umbrellas and snow boots, running and screaming with joy in the wind. Wouldn’t it be nice to view an April snowstorm like that, like an unlooked-for and unexpected gift? Instead of a big giant soggy-dog puddles-in-the-mudroom power-threatening-to-go-out pain in the ass?

The boys finally came in, soaked and frozen, after the bizarre thunder and lightning started to accompany the snow, and I felt more like my normal self. All day I had been rehearsing for the starring role of Bitchy Mummy, and I think I was doing quite well at it, if I do say so myself. The problem lies within. My personal philosophy is that if you are a person like me – a stay-at-home mom with no babies or toddlers to look after – then you really should pull more than your weight in the volunteer department. My best friend, who has four children ranging in age from eight months to almost seven, is someone who I think should never be asked to volunteer ever. She is one busy woman. Someone like me…well, I’m not living a particularly hectic life, and so I think I should take on the lion’s share of volunteer work. Which is why I am rocking the role of Bitchy Mummy today.

Evidently I should say no more often. The past few days have seen me baking like a fiend and also, cruelly, refusing to allow the children to eat more than one brownie each. “Can you make brownies again someday?” Mark asked pathetically, like the Dickensian character he suddenly is, given his mother has become suddenly negligent and unreachable. I have been spending hours – HOURS – creating the community soccer schedule and I have been spending much time feeling utterly defeated with my forehead in my hand wondering if that many games can be fielded at one time or do I need to CHANGE IT AGAIN. This is my second year of taking on this job and if my husband has any say in the matter there will not be a third because my normal, fairly cheery personality is gone, people, gone with the April snowstorm wind. I initially volunteered for this job because hey, I used to create linear programs and other mathematical models, how hard could a soccer schedule be? This is called hubris. The soccer schedule is an evil, evil thing. I am having disturbing dreams about the soccer schedule. I am living and breathing the soccer schedule. And the children, the children with their Insatiable Curiosity and Natural Inquisitiveness, the children with their Need for Maternal Attention and their Nutritional Requirements, the children, they are driving me crazy.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and incur the wrath of my neighbours and say that the snowstorm, while it is a giant pain, is also a blessing, a blessing that saw the children outside and absurdly happy, and that reminded me what it’s like to be a kid who sees excitement and fun in an unexpected snowy curveball. It took the Bitchy Mummy right out of me.

AND…repeat.

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I really hope my house is not bugged. Not that I think it is. When I was pregnant with Jake I was reading The Godfather in the waiting room at the doctor’s, and I came to the part where Sonny gets gunned down and the Godfather takes him to his undertaker friend’s and asks him to fix him up. “I don’t want his mother to see him like this.” Hormonally deranged, I burst into tears and called Rob to cry about it. He assured me that he is not a kingpin in some underground mafia and that it is unlikely that our children will be gangsters hunted down at a tollbooth. I stopped crying. Although now that I have written this down horrible and violent, although improbable images are going through my head.

Anyway, I do hope the house is not bugged because it would be very embarrassing, although somewhat enlightening, to hear how often I repeat myself. Perhaps I should invest in a voice recording system that would automatically spew reminders about table manners, reprimands about lacking manners, and random facts about Star Wars, which the boys seem to take me as some kind of authority on, which I kind of am given I grew up with my older brother who is, how shall we say, a FAN. The following statements are repeated countless times a day:

1) “He goes to the Dark Side. That means he is bad. He has to wear that suit because his hand got cut off and he got all burned.”
2) “Jake, you forgot to say please. Try again. No, try the whole sentence again, but with please.”
3) “Mark, sit properly at the table. No. No. Properly. Properly. Yes. Thank you.”
4) “WHO’s a good doggie? WHO’s a good doggie? BARKLEY’s a good doggie. Yes he is. Yes he is.”

Huh. It would seem like I’m playing favourites here, and the favourite is the dog. All of which is to say, I’m still a little tired, and very glad it’s Friday.

Moms Against Time Change

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Daylight Savings Time is my nemesis. Well, not Daylight Savings Time exactly: I mean, I enjoy evening light as much as the next person, although at the risk of expressing an unpopular opinion I actually prefer morning sunshine – I am an early bird after all. I’m sure there are some children out there who are completely unaffected by time changes, but frankly, I don’t really want to know about them.

Upon further reflection, I do know someone who strictly adheres to the Kitty Raymond school of parenting and I am fairly certain that her children sail through time changes unscathed, given that the children are locked in their rooms for a specified number of hours per night come hell or high water. No judgment here though.

But Kitty fans notwithstanding, I’m guessing most of us with young children are kind of tired this week, not just from the “loss” of an hour, no, but from the poor emotionally fraught and confused children in our care. Stretches of time will pass normally, pleasantly even, and then someone will burst into tears for obscure and mysterious reasons, or will fall into a complete pit of despair over a game of Chutes and Ladders.

I’m so tired. This exhaustion is not helped by my husband and his refusal to see time change for its true diabolical self. “I really think you’re overreacting” he said to me, causing steam to come out of my ears and my head to spin around a la Linda Blair. “I AM NOT OVERREACTING” I responded, using the SAHM’s patented number one argument enhancer, “You have NO IDEA what it’s like to be around them during the day.” Then I have to take deep ujjayi breaths and grab a bottle of wine for support.

I think I’m not alone here. So here’s my solution: I’m starting a group called Moms Against Time Change. Maybe we could even get t-shirts. Colour preferences, anyone? We could storm the offices of government officials in charge of Daylight Savings Time decisions, with our irritable children in tow, and our own bitchy selves, and we could force them to take back the time change! Take back the time change!

Are there government officials involved? There must be. Is Daylight Savings a North American thing or is it global? Perhaps I should do more research. Never mind, Moms Against Time Change is still a great idea. Who’s with me?

What day is it? What month is it?

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I’m completely confused. I keep thinking that it is still February, yet simultaneously I believe that it is later in the week than it actually is. I’m thinking “Wow, I can’t believe how warm it is for February” alongside “I’m sure glad it’s Thursday!”

So I’m confused and I feel like I’ve been whirling around like the Tasmanian Devil, minus the drooling and anger. Well, not totally minus the anger since yesterday I felt that I was actually losing my mind, for real this time, because during the entire afternoon there was no ten minute block in which someone was not complaining, arguing, or hitting someone else with a foam sword. Those foam swords, a loot bag item from a long-past birthday party, are the bane of my existence. The boys have created their own special fight club, where they jovially and companionably beat each other with foam swords, until inevitably someone goes too far and the fight gets serious. The first rule about fight club, of course, is that you don’t talk about fight club, so when I intervene in this so-called game, they tell me that they are just having FUN and they’re NOT REALLY FIGHTING and I’m WRECKING THEIR GAME. I can’t imagine my no-fun status improving any time soon.

Along with the fight club and Jake’s fairly disturbing new picture making obsession, (“I’m drawing Anakin. He has a red light saber. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. He is cutting off Anakin’s hand. OH NO. Anakin is Darth Vader! He’s BAAADDDDD!” he narrates as he paints over his picture with dark colours, chuckling evilly to himself) I’ve been busy with the school’s Scholastic Book Fair. It’s such a great fund-raiser for the library, but it has, as always, unhappily resulted in the obtaining of a new Scooby Doo Early Reader. I love reading to the boys. I do. I even willingly read Mark’s favourite Dinosaur Encyclopedia, which is clearly the driest and dullest dinosaur book ever written, due to its propensity to list in grave detail the dates and locations of various fossil discoveries. But, along with foam swords, those Scooby Doo books are a menace to society.

Random Weekend Thoughts

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I’m the opposite of sharp and witty today. I think I’m going to blame the fact that in five days I’ve been to four different places to buy groceries (the grocery shopping has been epic this week) and the fact that my brain is filled with so much useless knowledge such as where, exactly, the Playmobil farm animals are kept in relation to the dinosaur drawer, exactly how many containers of pasta sauce and of ripe bananas are left in the freezer, and the entire lyrics to Parents Just Don’t Understand. Oh, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, your 1987 ditty haunts me.

So, a few random and disjointed thoughts:

1) Now that the torch relay is long over, the kids have a new Olympic-related game: pretending to be short track speed skaters, which manifests itself in noisily running around the house at top speeds and surreptitiously toppling each other over to get in the lead. I’m kind of looking forward to the closing ceremonies.

2) I’ve been one giant sunbeam of optimism since coming home from vacation, and I feel a bit like I’m irritating everyone I run into with my positive outlook on life. Nothing is bothering me, because I’ve just been on! vacation!

3) NEXT WEEKEND IS THE END OF FEBRUARY. This means that Mark’s birthday is fast approaching and I need to start thinking about his birthday party. Children’s birthday parties are the bane of my existence. Last year I planned a superhero-themed party complete with bat crafts, Mr. Freeze dancing, and a basement obstacle course, and I feel that was the pinnacle of my party-planning career. It’s all downhill from here, people.

Happy Homemaker’s Household Hints

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If I had posted yesterday, like I intended to, you may have been concerned for my mental state and perhaps you would have had all sorts of interesting suggestions to combat my case of the Januarys. Or perhaps not. Anyway, people, I have been BLUE. Blue and gloomy and so very very sick of being freezing cold all day long. But it seems that the weather has broken and so has my mood, and this is partly due to the application of my patented anti-sadness formula of…drum roll…housecleaning and bread baking!

Maybe I should rename this blog “The Happy Homemaker”.

You know that kind of activity that is known, when you are pregnant, as nesting but when you are not pregnant it is simply crazed maniacal cleaning? That’s what I have been doing. Crazed maniacal cleaning. Like, baby, I am going to town on those baseboards. I have my spray bottle of cleaner and I am scrubbing the hell out of my kitchen cupboards. All those weird little nooks and crannies are now appropriately disinfected. Or inappropriately disinfected. The problem with this kind of cleaning project is, while it is quite satisfying for me, no one else (read: my husband) can really notice the results. So while I’m showing him the fruits of my labour with a crazed glint in my eyes, he is looking at me in the alarmed and suspicious way that you might look at someone who just spent four hours in a 1950’s housewife stupor.

As an aside, several years ago I received an email, undoubtedly from my mother, entitled “Helpful Household Hints”. I don’t actually remember any of the hints except this one: “Stop throwing out that leftover wine! Instead, freeze it in ice cube trays to use later for sauces!” I am still baffled by that hint. Who has leftover wine? Don’t you just, um, drink it? Especially the amount that would fill an ice cube tray. If you have wine that would make one single ice cube, suck it up and, well, suck it up. That, possibly, is the worst household hint I have ever heard.

But back to the second part of my anti-sadness formula – bread baking. Just when you thought it couldn’t get more exciting than baseboard cleaning, here I am talking about bread. Today I made two baguettes, and they actually look like baguettes! And taste like baguettes! My New Year’s resolution is being kept, and it’s already the ninth! I know it’s a bit late, but maybe I will make another resolution: not to throw out any leftover wine. I’m just going to drink it. It’s going to go great with my baguettes.