Mums the Word

In a world full of tweens getting dropped off with their stuff hanging out, it's very hard to not comment.  I always tell the kids to keep their negative comments to themselves and i usually like to follow my own advice but that can be a challenge some days.  With children always in earshot, I bite my tongue as much as possible but sometimes it's early and the caffeine hasn't fully worked it's way into my bloodstream.  I'm afraid the children will learn that if they want the uncensored truth about something they should ask morning mom.  In the moments of unfiltered judgment, when I actually can stop the words, there is no controlling my face.  I can only do so much. There are moments when I've been unable to stop the words and muttered things I'd rather forget.  Don't ask me my feelings on black lace or Tiger Woods.  See also: why can't I have this dress and people I'd like to see loose.   Honestly, though, have you seen what's going on out...

Every generation has tried to pinpoint why the next will fail.  Possibly because adulthood spawns existential crisis and possibly because every generation wants to be the best generation, which is a branch of existentialism in its own right.... In the throws of a migraine my kids are arguing about the usual nothingness. Screams from outside suggest it's over the front seat.  I reluctantly get in the car and ask them to get it together and act like adults.   Then I imagine my grown sister and I fighting over the front seat and what that would look like.  Naturally, I would win.  I've given birth naturally to a multitude of children and I could break her like a twig.  I smile at the thought, then remind myself, they're just kids and this is pretty standard.  I explain I have a migraine and would like them all to keep to volume down.  As they jump out of the car and walk towards the school arguing over a random unopened bag of Jimmy Johns chips the...

If you're raising young girls, or girls of any age, you know there's going to be drama.  Heck, I'm a grown woman and sometimes feel I'm in a Real Housewives episode with some of the grown up drama I see.  So how do we combat this and teach our girls to be Switzerland in the constant hormone war of female dominance?  How do we teach them not to be the mean girl? Well, with all problems, I think we need to identify what a 'mean girl' does so that we can know what not to do. I just did this excersice with my nine year olds.  We had an open conversation about what might be a mean girl thing to say or do and we did some role playing. I said, 'You might be behaving like a mean girl if you.....' 1.  Say, 'I don't want to be your friend anymore.' because you didn't get your way.  Real friends talk about things and work through their problems.  Friends never hold their friendship randsom or blackmail each other.  People comfortable doing th...

'I want a dog!' The one phrase most parents anticipate and dread all at once.  You know it's coming.  It's only a matter of time. However, maybe like me, you think lets get ahead of the game and try to satisfy these people with a low maintenance replacement pet. A fish.  Yes.  They don't take up much room or cost much.  They don't move or destroy things like every other living thing in your house.  The upkeep is minimal and if they die, oh well, you flush them down the toilet and have a cup of tea. Sadly, kids like fish for about a week.  That's the shelf life of excitement on a fish.  Then all the sudden you're scrubbing a bowl weekly, conditioning water and feeding a pet that doesn't have the ability to love.  Lame. After the fish, they will come at you with something else.  For us it was parakeets.  My oldest wanted a parakeet.  But then she said we should go ahead and get two because they do better in pairs.  ...

Every morning my kids ask for candy.  I'm not talking donuts or pastries, I'm talking straight up sugar.  There's probably no difference nutritionally but I'm setting principles for life.  If I let them eat candy in the morning what's next?  Crack?  I hear sugar is a gateway drug.  Just saying. It's not like they need a pick me up either.  They wake up between 5:45 and 6:30 like they've been robbed.  Like something amazing has been happening all night and they have just waisted the last 12 hours.  God help me!  While I avoid giving them sugar before noon, an arbitrary line i've drawn in the sand, I try to get as much caffeine into my system asap so I can ride that roller coaster the remainder of the day until bedtime.  Don't judge, these people shoot out of bed with the sun and immediately start interrogating me about our plans for the day.  I'm not even awake and have agreed to all sorts of things, in hindsight that may be wh...

In a house with four kids, to prevent chaos, there must be rules.  Some rules are a given such as:  No hitting, kicking or biting.  No name calling.  No throwing food at the table (when not at the table, anything is game of course).  However some rules you never foresaw having to make.  Here are some of our ridiculous house rules. 1.  No weapons before 9am!  In fact take all the weapons outside!  Nothing like getting shot in the face with a nerf gun while making your morning cup of tea.  NO!!!! 2.  Don't wipe your boogers or poop on the floor or wall.  If your hands come in contact with anything suspect, please wash them.  For the love of all that is good and decent, wash them. 3.  Don't put your butt in other peoples faces especially if it is naked, no exceptions...unless your married and then you won't have any interest. 4.  No shorts while there's still snow on the ground.  I will just go ahead and hi...

There are so very few people in our lives that love us unconditionally.  They are the ones constantly wondering how they can make our lives better.  Usually it's the people who play a pivotal roll in our upbringing and journey through life.  The ones that teach us the difficult lessons and share the joy in our discoveries.  The ones that journey beside us and lead us through, and to, some of our greatest adventures. These people, with their 'what can I do for you' mentality are irreplaceable. For most adults out there, we've lost a few.  It's the people we think of in the hard times and wonder if they are watching.  Are they proud?... The more of these people we loose, the more we take on their roll.  However big their shoes were, we try to fill them because if they were important to us, then everything that they stood for and believed in was important.  While we will never be them, we will try to be like them. And it will be hard. ...

I used to run all the time.  Then I had kids....and if you've ever done that you know they can kind of mess up your schedule (and also ruin your body but its fine I'm not bitter).  Anyways, I went on a bit of a hiatus.  So after four kids I started running again.  Everything was going well but I was feeling really tight and sore.  While looking for something to counterbalance my running, I found yoga. Long story short, I tried it, loved it and would like to recommend it to all my mommy friends. If you are anything like this mom, you are gonna need at least three good reasons to add anything new to your schedule, and you will need that list to be concise because you are probably in between getting the kids a snack and picking up the next disaster, so here: 1.  It's a full on work out, wet t-shirt included, especially with a good teacher who kills it.    You can push yourself or pull back to get the kind work out you need.    Lots...

Note to readers:  I will use italics to illustrate sarcasm and ridiculous statements. I just read an outstanding article on why we should all have just one child! Just kidding.  It was crap and I'm not just saying that because I have four kids.   The case for having just one kid was crap because the reasoning was unsubstantial and horribly argued.   This article gives a top 10 reason list on why someone should only have one child which I would love to dispel right here: 1.   It's eco-friendly .  I would like to know how.  Are you raising your child to be more aware of our environment?  Do you recycle/reuse everything?  Do you grow your own produce?  Do you use less gas/petrol?  Do you buy second hand? Doubtful.  Very Doubtful.  I would love to write a separate article on this alone.  Thanks for the inspiration.  If you are raising eco-friendly children and environmentally conscious yourself, the...

When the kids are sick,  You're in lock down. Not enough puke buckets  to go around. No one can get to the toilet in time even if they're standing right next to it, You hate to yell and make to demands,  but you've got to be kidding me with that shit! Every time you hear your name, you jump up to do damage control, minimizing the radius of projectile things, well, lets face it, that is your main goal. With Lysol wipes you get every surface,  going from one room to the next, the only way to communicate with the outside world  is only via text. The books and toys covering the floor,  seem to go on for miles. The laundry, clean or dirty,  only comes in piles. You're so f*&^%$#  tired,  you cannot stand the light, God please don't let them throw up  in the middle of the night.  Because the thought of stripping one more bed  or wiping up one more mess, is giving you a migra...

These shoes used to be great!  I remember buying them for my oldest, who is now almost eight.  They went with everything, looked cute and were easy to get on and off herself (their true winning feature). Then there was a boy who had no use for them.  Next came twin girls who took turns wearing them into this raggedy state.  Now they are too small and as I'm going through a current cull of all our things, I grab these to put in the give away bag and a sudden sadness snares me. I'm not an overly emotional person so this doesn't happen often but  as I sit with these shoes on my lap I bite my lip and will myself to not cry over THIS. I think of how stressful life is with four kids.  I think of how much they need me and how much time I spend longing for a time when I don't have to wipe anyone's butt. I look forward to them being in school just so I can get a freaking break and you know, use the bathroom without someone sitting on my lap. None of these help me ch...

So I'm torn.  My initial hope for this blog was to be a light hearted, funny take on life with four kids because let's face it, if we didn't laugh, we'd cry....or at least loose the will to live.  So, I'm a bit torn on taking on a real subject.  Life can be too real sometimes and much too serious, blah!  However ultimately, we need to be able to dig deep and address the hard stuff.  I still think it's important to find humor where you can but the more I live, the more difficult I find it to brush off the real subjects. For instance:  Am I a good mom?  Don't answer, it's rhetorical and I don't need you to affirm me.  It's this subject that resonates with all of us:  Am I doing a good job? I chose to be a mom and one that stays at home which means this is my full-time, life defining roll.  Am I giving it my all and where am I falling short?  My list of NEEDS IMPROVEMENT seems to follow me everywhere, but what am I doing about it? ...

Every time I fly I think of my dad.  I remember every apect of traveling with him.  The drive with 'classic' music we would sing along to, unloading at the paking spot where my dad would flag down the driver, as if he didn't see us in the designated pick up spot.  Then he would proceed to talk to everyone on the bus giving them our whole life story.  Funny, people would usually tell us there's.  We would then check in and hit security which was always fun because dad would always be pulled aside and hassled.  We joked that he fit some sort of criminal description.  We totally looked suspicious.  After we boarded the plane he would tell some jokes and familiarize himself with everyone within a 10ft radius and become best friends with the flight staff.  As a benefit, I got to see more cockpits than most children.  When we took off and landed my ears would hurt with the air pressure.  Dad would distract me by talking about our trip and...

Dear young people, I used to be you.  I could stay up all night, drink whatever mixture was put in front of me and wake up the next morning like nothing happened. Well, maybe not like nothing happened but minimal suffering with a possible fuzzy feeling.  And nothing bad enough to detour me from doing it all again the next night.  (Although there was one night I did 7 shots of tequila and I had to take a week off.) Oh and did I eat that entire pizza???  When you're young you can party how you please and it's all good in the morning.  If not, go back to bed and sleep it off. Welcome to adulthood, things are different.  For starters I have four kids, so there is no such thing as sleeping in.  'Sleeping in' is making 6:30 without WWIII breaking out.  Once up there is no going back, just counting the hours until bedtime.  Just staying up late, will cause you to wake up feeling like you have a hangover.  Then add an actual hangover and yo...

Kids are funny.  Their minds are learning something new and how to use it every minute.  The younger they are, the more they can take in.  They are so dependent on us, their medial higher power.  Maybe the less control one has, the more likely they are to accept change.  Kids lives are already a whirlwind of transformation.  This world demands they must cope and adapt and because of this, they become better at accepting change. Death is change. When my dad was dying, we explained that 'Poppy was going to heaven'.  The younger kids (who were four and under) took it like any other news.  I could have said, 'It's going to rain today' and had the exact same response.  I didn't want them to miss what I was saying so I explained further that dying is when you go to heaven to be with Jesus and we wouldn't see him for a long time, until it was our turn to go to heaven.  My four year old expressed his dissatisfaction and appealed for that to not...

Today on the Corrie farm we learned about corn, soy bean seeds and planting. The hot topic of the day was GMO's. Scary right?  Things that we don't understand can be.  I may have been a little uneasy with GMO's before my conversation with these farmers.  Luckily they were ready for my questions and possibly majored in bio chemistry with an emphasis in 'I can use big words'. Anyways, for the general public I'm going to break it down for you.  GMO's are genetically modified organisms.  Monks actually came up with this stuff...naturally.  It's when you mix different plant genes to get a certain type of plant, as in one that will be the most viable in it's allocated environment.  This may be a helpful example:  if you plant spicy peppers in your garden right next to lettuce, you may get a salad with a kick.  True story. GMO's have created a Gattaca-like world of plants.  Gattaca is a movie featuring Ethan Hawke and Jude Law (Ooo Law la...

You new moms are so adorable!  You care about everything, worry about everything and are so easily overwhelmed.  I love it as much as I love that new baby smell. Welcome to the fraternity called Motherhood.  Why not sorority you say?  Oh because in a sorority, freshmen are revered and doted on.  Fraternity's on the other hand, make their freshman earn it! When I think of what you're in for, I smile.  Why? Because all of us sustainers have had to suffer through our 'freshmen year'.  We lure you new pledges in with fun stories of our precious moments and playgroups and then, BAM, you're up all night with a screaming baby and a husband who can't hear a damn thing.  It may or may not be instinct.  You will argue about this. Anyways, unlike seniors in a fraternity, we seasoned moms are here for you.  We will gladly lend a hand, give advice and that much needed pat on the back of encouragement.  No, no, it's not us you need to worry ...

So lately there has been a movement to tell moms to be more grateful.  'Treasure every moment!', 'It goes by so fast!', 'You'll wish you could go back when they are older!'  and my personal favorite 'These are the best days of your life.' These people that have such pearls of wisdom for your life don't have enough on their plate.  Are you currently in charge of keeping four small children off the street?  No? Then shut your face!  If someone can see you are in a personal storm and tells you 'These are the best days of your life', that person is an asshole. Here's the truth:  I am grateful.  I have four, beautiful, healthy, fairly happy but headstrong children. Raising them up, teaching them right from wrong and spending all my time with them can be rewarding.  I love them more than anything and I chose this life but here's the thing....it's hard as shit.  I think there is something to be said for living in the moment, I...

Crib. Check.  Stroller.  Check. Car seat.  Check.  Swing and/or bouncer. Check. What's next? Here's my list: 1.   Diaper bag .  The bigger the better.  Needs to fit your entire life in it.  Always have a least one change of baby clothes.  The second you step out the front door, they are going to have an up the back blow out.  It's fine.  Also consider the fact that they are only a baby for a little while and if you are going to spend crazy money on this you may want something you can use after the 'baby days'.  I had an OiOi and after four it was destroyed but I highly recommend. 2.  Bedding .  The only thing you really need is fitted sheets.  I said 'sheets', plural.  Get a few.  I recommend getting waterproof flannel crib pads.  They are easy to pull and wash, without having to wash entire fitted sheet.  I also like sleep sacks for babies once they are done with being swaddled. 3....

I'm watching my three year old twins run through an obstacle course at their gymnastics class.  The teacher is at one station helping them do backwards rolls and so not really paying attention to the rest of the class.  Part of the course includes hanging from a bar across a pit of foam blocks.  A little boy climbs out onto the bar and hangs there.  One of my girls climbs up next to the bar, leans across and peels his fingers back one by one until he screams and plummets into the pit.  Then she throws her head back, laughing hysterically, and cannon balls into the pit on top of him. This isn't the first time I've seen this type of thing.  One day at school a little boy told her not to touch a door.  Poor dear.  She looks him up and down, then walks across to 'the door' and starts rubbing it while flashing him a look that said, 'What this door??? Oh, I'm gonna touch THIS door all day long.  Why?  Because I can see it bothers you.'  ...