There's a kiss for ya

At the dinner table.

Eva, Etienne, and I:  "Addie!  Say brisé"

Addie:  "Bsay"

Eva, Etienne, and I:  "Addie!  Say hello"

Addie:  "Allo!"

Eva, Etienne, and I:  "Addie!  Say I love you!"

Silence.

Then, suddenly, Addie lets rip a roaring fart that rattles the windows and shakes dust from the ceiling.

Good enough for me.

Mother Nature, you're a HO

Etienne just got back from nearly three weeks in Poland.

I have never been so happy to see someone in my entire life.

The first week was uneventful. My mother-in-law stepped in to help out with the kids in the mornings (I work an early shift)...and the lovely neighbour girl dropped by every couple of nights, to play with Eva while I focussed on Miss Independence, who is rather (ahem) demanding. It was all fine.

Fine...until that beeyatch Mother Nature decided to a) pour freezing rain on the city, b) drop temperatures below freezing and c) take a fat white dump on the city.

It was about twenty centimetres (that's about 8 inches, Kulio)...followed by another ten centimetres, three days later. It doesn't sound like that much. But when you live in the middle of a large city, that's pretty much like dumping a cup of flour on an anthill. An anthill that has only two days before been coated in a layer of ice an inch thick. And then paying people to kinda push the snow around just enough to BLOCK YOUR FREAKING CAR COMPLETELY WITH A THREE FOOT WALL OF WHITE. And then dumping ANOTHER cup of flour.

I've already explained how much I love dressing children for winter (drug-free root canal). I've already explained how impossible Addie can be, when it comes to winter gear. Now multiply this by GIANT SNOWBANKS and GIANT BOOTS THAT WEIGH TEN POUNDS EACH and GIANT PARKAS THAT WEIGH A TON AND MAKE YOU HOT AND ITCHY and CHILDREN WHO HATE THE FEELING OF BEING CONFINED and CONSTANTLY SOAKED PANTLEGS and SLOWED TRAFFIC and OH MY LIST OF HATRED GOES ON AND ON AND ON.

And it only got better Saturday.

We got back from brunch at a friend's house and there was nowhere to park except in front of our house...which had temporarily been designated a NO PARKING ZONE because of snow removal. The signs say between 7am and 7pm. Which usually means the plows will show up the next day.

I drove around for about 20 minutes, looking for a place.

NOTHING. ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY NOTHING.

It was about 1pm. I looked both ways and saw no sign of incoming plows.

Normally the plows are preceded by a tow truck that blows its horn loud enough to rattle the windows (and wake the dead) for about ten minutes before the plow arrives. I figured the odds were that it wasn't going to come anyway...and even if it did, I'd have some warning (although it would suck donkey to the highest degree to have to shake the kids awake and race them to the car).

If I hadn't been alone, it would have been no problem. One of us would go in with the kids, while the other would find a safe parking spot.

No such luck when you're alone.

I decided to take my chances.

And lo and behold, luck was on my side. No tow trucks came.

The kids napped, they woke up, and I began to relax.

All that was left was to give them a nice little snack, and then we could quietly head on our way.

I had just strapped the grumpy Addie down and handed her the apple slices, when...

HONKA HONKA HONKA HONKA HONKA HONKA HONKA HONKA

I have never seen Eva move so quickly in my life. Well, except perhaps for the time(s) when Addie shat in the tub with her. She moved pretty quickly then, too.

Addie didn't even have time to bellow her disapproval at seeing her snack dumped in the compost as I jammed her into her snowsuit, grabbed our stuff, and raced to the car. Remember that scene in Home Alone, where the family is racing through the airport? No? How about that scene in Indiana Jones where he's outrunning the giant ball? No? How about that beach scene in Chariots of Fire? That was pretty much us.

We managed to beat the tow truck. BARELY.

But it just reminded me...ONCE AGAIN...how much I appreciate my husband.

And how much I HATE WINTER.

He's back.

And more snow is on the way.

Mother Nature, we can take ya. BRING IT ON, BABY!!!

To the waiter at La Mere Poule

I know it probably isn't the wisest, to take a five year old and a one year old to a restaurant.
But Etienne was working and I just wanted a break.
I wanted to be able to sit in a restaurant and have someone pour me a coffee...to sit back while my children coloured for a couple of minutes, and enjoy a meal that I didn't have to prepare.

The restaurant is one we go to fairly regularly; it serves only breakfast and lunch. It's very kid-friendly...the kids' meals come with little bowls of cut up fresh fruit, and they bring pictures and crayons for the kids to colour. And the food arrives quickly, a big priority when you're packing trolls.

Anyway, we blew into that restaurant like a noisy fart. All three of us poufy in our winter coats and boots, me dragging the squirmy Adele and carrying a purse big enough to haul freight.

They seated us near the window, which seemed like a lovely choice. We settled in...stripping off layers of winter gear and piling it all on the fourth chair. A highchair was provided, Adele tied down, and the colouring commenced.

All was peaceful. I sipped my coffee. The food arrived. We commenced shovelling.

Then the$?%#&! sun came out.

I'm sure you deduced from the previous post that Addie has a short fuse lately. Her teeth are making her crazy.

So when the sun peeped out from behind a cloud and poked a fat yellow thumb in Addie's eye...it pushed her over the top. She started whining and complaining. I tried to distract her with food...she tried one small bite of egg but her poor little mouth hurt too much. She spat it out with enough force to practically knock me off my seat, and started whining.

I picked her up and held her while she played with toast and smeared canteloupe all over herself and me, grunting, squirming, and complaining the entire time.
She wanted so badly to eat, but every bite hurt too much and would start another round of whining.

Of course the entire restaurant looked at me like I was the mother from hell.

I wanted to just pack up and leave, but the food had just arrived and Eva was behaving perfectly. She spends a lot of time compromising for Adele, and I didn't want to haul her out of her favourite restaurant just as her food arrived.

It was so hard not to say something to the faces glaring accusingly at me.

"YOU....the three women at the table behind me. I'm sure your children will be PERFECT and will never make a sound and YOUR LIVES WILL NOT CHANGE ONE BIT WHEN YOU HAVE CHILDREN. MUAHAHAHAA "

"YOU...perfectly-coiffed middle-aged woman and man at that table over there. I am NOT a rotten single mother with two devil spawn...I am on my own today and it is HARD WORK CORRALLING TWO SMALL CHILDREN. I AM TRYING TO GIVE MYSELF A SHORT BREAK SO SCREW OFF."

"YOU...beautiful snippy young couple holding hands over your plates. I know my child looks disgusting as she bubbles snot and smushes melon all over her face. Sorry for ruining your cheesy reverie. And if looking at my messy little family serves as birth control for you, ALL THE BETTER."

It's not like we were that loud - the tables are very close together so it was hard to ignore us.

And in our defence, we always work hard to keep them quiet, we never let them run around, and we always clean up after ourselves (including the floor). We want them to know how to behave in a restaurant.
And Eva did behave beautifully...she coloured, ordered her own meal (saying please and thank you) and ate quietly.

But I guess the people around us didn't know or notice any of that.

The most sympathetic people were the lovely lesbian couple in the corner who smiled at me every time Addie made a sound, and our sweet gay server.
He rushed to pick up every crayon Eva dropped, replaced the spoon Addie chucked, and whisked away our plates as soon as we finished. He also kept my coffee cup filled and told me my children were beautiful, even though I knew at that moment they weren't.

There's a reason I left him a five dollar tip and a grateful smile when I left.

And there's a reason why I regret judging other parents, before I became one.

Sometimes...circumstances create circumstances.

One more lesson my horribly wonderful children have taught me.

Hit me, babies, one more time

I work a morning shift.
I'm up at about 3:30, and finish around noon.
I like this shift; it works well for me.
But if I don't sleep well...or I don't nap...I get exhausted.
Heading into this post, know that I have not been sleeping well.

==========================


Addie seems to be cutting her molars.

Either that or she's pregnant.
Or menopausal.

Seriously...over the past couple of days, my sweet girlie makes that kid from the Exorcist seem mild-mannered.

Actually, if you replace the pea soup with drool, that's pretty much Addie on a good day lately.

At the daycare yesterday afternoon, the teacher said they'd thrown her shirt in the dryer because it was soaking wet. By the time I got her home (a 15 minute drive) her coat was soaked right through. I swear, I could have wrung that sucker out and watered a village for a freaking year. Unbelievable.

Anyway, Addie was absolutely miserable. She normally turns into a little beastie just before supper, but yesterday was SPECTACULAR...she pretty much tore my head off and shrieked black fury into my neck cavity for two straight hours. She ate nothing...just sat there slobbering and whining and grunting like a hairless Tasmanian Devil. Finally I poured her a bath (her fave activity) but even that wouldn't console her. I think she raised the water level two inches from drool, though.

Throughout all of this, Eva sat at the table and drew, scattering an office-tower's worth of papers around. When I asked her to pick them up, she flew into a fury..."but HOW am I going to pick up ALL THOSE PAPERS? NO! NEVER! I can't do it! NEVER!!!" Lovely routine coming from a FIVE YEAR OLD. I told her to pick them up or I would LIGHT THEM ON FIRE AND THROW HER ON TOP AND USE HER BURNING CARCASS TO COOK MARSHMALLOWS. Well, okay I didn't say that. I actually said, "Look, you can neatly put them away or I will put them all in the recycling" She whined and yelled at me again. I kept my cool and took out my meanest mommy threat - A TIME OUT (OOOOOOOHH HOW AWFUL). She kept it up. So finally I fired her into her bedroom and told her to come out when she'd calmed down. She kept yelling at me and stomping on the floor. All the while, Addie has been writhing in my arms and wailing away because of her teeth.

By this point, all I wanted was to quietly head out for A GIN AND TONIC OR FIFTEEN.

Addie passed out pretty much immediately afterwards - one blessing.

As for Eva...we were in the bathroom about to brush her teeth and she deliberately squeezed a golf-ball sized lump of toothpaste into the sink. Then she kind of looked at me sideways and said mildly, "oops". I absolutely hate having to scrape up that crap out of the sink, especially when I've just watched her squeeze it out ON PURPOSE.
And I told her so.

Then (legitimately, by accident) she DROPPED HER PINK STUFFED CAT IN THE TOILET FULL OF PEE.

By this point, I could only sigh. I trundled her off to bed, fished out the cat, and headed downstairs to the laundry room.

And...

Are you ready for this?

THERE WAS A BIG FREAKING SPIDER SITTING ON THE WASHING MACHINE, LIKE A BIG, SPECKED CHERRY ON TOP OF THE FREAKING SUNDAE OF MY DAY.

And it gets better.

I went to wad up a lump of toilet paper to squish her and when I turned around, THE WITCH WAS GONE.

I SWEAR - the only thing I hate worse than seeing a spider is LOSING a spider once I've seen it.

Whoops...gotta run.

My wee Tasmanian Devil is bellowing...naptime is over.

Pray for my safety...I may not make it out alive.