Birthday season is drawing to a close

Our family gets hit pretty hard with birthdays it seems. The husband is a bit before the holiday season, I’m just weeks before Santa arrives and then Isabelle is two months later followed up by the twins a month later! It’s a lot!!! I basically need to sell organs on the black market to afford anything from September to April!

Isabelle invited 2 friends to go bowling, have dinner at Harvey’s(her choice, not ours) and then home for cake and gifts and a sleepover! Isabelle asked from the beginning that her brother and sister not be involved in much of her birthday party. We agreed to a point. Her party was on her actual birthday this year. We decided with her that it would just be her and her friends to go bowling. Then we would meet up as a family for dinner. Later at the house we would do our best to entertain the twins so that Izzy and her friends could just have some girl time.

This almost went well. Izzy agreed to everything but also insisted that Madeline not be allowed to sleep in her room for the sleepover part. We understand that Isabelle needs her space and she should be allowed to have it. She just goes about it all wrong. Instead of saying nicely or asking Madeline nicely, she was pretty rude about the whole thing. Face palm. The husband and I smoothed things over with Madeline. Aidan was more than happy to let her camp out on his bedroom floor. One condition of Madeline not sleeping in her own room, decided by Madeline, was that she would be taking their little radio with her into Aidan’s room. Isabelle was not impressed but I shot her a “Mommy isn’t putting up with anymore crap tonight!” look and Isabelle let it go. Mommy fact: I have  been known to sing “Let it Go” loudly and off key on purpose to the kids when moments like this occur. They hate it. Ahahahahahahahahahah!!!

The rest of the night went fairly well. Madeline only cried a handful of times because they didn’t want her around and she just kept going back for more. All in all, it went well and gave me a smidgen of hope for the two parties yet to come.

The twins have separate parties. They have separate friends. They like different things. Honestly, it’s like they aren’t twins at all.

Aidan had his party over March Break. I realized a little late that I am working solid weekends until the end of April and likely will be in May. It’s hard to have sleep overs during the week, what with getting their education interfering. Thankfully Aidan is not big on birthday parties. He only wanted to invite his bestie over. We took them to Springz, and indoor trampoline place. Then we headed to Aidan’s fav place for ribs, Rock Bottom. Then it was home for cake and presents and another sleep over. This time it was more Isabelle who struggled with not feeling included in what the boys were doing. I was constantly after her to leave them alone. I tried to have her recall what we went through for her party less than a month before. That didn’t seem to matter of course. In the end fun was had and Isabelle pouted for a while but eventually seems to have gotten over it.

Madeline is having her party this weekend. The twins birthday is this weekend. So again, she is doing something with just her friends and then we will meet up with the husband and other two spawn for dinner at Maddy’s fav spot, Swiss Chalet and then home for cake, gifts and sleep over. Already, Isabelle is demanding that she get to take the radio when she has to sleep in Aidan’s room. She has been making sure we are aware of this tidbit for the past two weeks. She is going to make sure she gets exactly what Madeline got. There is no doubt in my mind that my entire evening will be spent refereeing Isabelle away from Madeline and her friends.

This brings me to the talk I will be having with the kids tonight over dinner. If this crap continues during Madeline’s party. Then this is the last party that will happen in this house where friends are invited. It’s takes away from the enjoyment of parties when the grown ups have to police the kids. Not to mention how much fun are they really having when they spend more time arguing with siblings than just hanging out with their friends. So, if there is any crap pulled this weekend it will be family only birthday parties until they can show us that they are capable of not being assholes to one another(this could take a few years I think…..)

I will post a brief update on this situation next week!

 

10 teeth

Last Wednesday was a big day for someone in our house. Aidan had his first visit to the dental surgeon. Both Isabelle and Madeline have already had at least two trips each to have some teeth extracted. Aidan was the lucky guy who got 10 teeth all at once removed.

All of our kids are blessed with my tiny jaw it seems. There are a whole lot of teeth that need to come in, but have no where to go. It also seems that all of  my kids teeth are going to hold on for as long as possible. The roots on some of their teeth that have been pulled are crazy!!

Aidan has only had his two front bottom teeth come out without the help from a dental professional. I may have popped them out, but I certainly do not hold a dental certificate of any kind. All the kids see an Orthodontist and he is the one who said these teeth needed to come out. Aidan has a tiny jaw, some big teeth and not a lot of room for any of them. He already had a permanent tooth growing in sideways because the baby teeth were not about to come out. Rather than having to send Aidan twice, we decided it would be best to take them all in one shot.

The morning of his procedure he was up bright and early. We were told to get some EMLA patches. It’s pretty much what they use to numb the skin before inserting a needle into people. We got him all patched up and hung out a little watching some Netflix. His apt was nice and early so he could spend the rest of the day just relaxing at home.

Once we were in the procedure room, Aidan seemed relatively calm. He got on the scale for the nurse and then hoped up into the chair. It wasn’t until he was having stickers for the various monitors and the chair laid down that he started to panic. This is not my first time so I did my best to calmly talk to Aidan, the nurse also helped out with this and we chatted about movies to watch on Netflix later in the day or shows to find that her kids say are really good for boys Aidan’s age. He calmed down and was just about to relax until the Dr came in. That was much cue to kiss the boy goodbye and tell him he was going to do awesome. I was out the door and back to the waiting room.

I think it was about 30 to 40 minutes later that I was called to the recovery area to sit with Aidan as he woke up out of the anesthesia. He was a little worried about the needle still in his arm, but was also sleepy enough to get over it quickly. It was removed shortly afterwards. We had him sitting up and choosing some stickers while I paid and was given care instructions.

Once home, he settled into a nice cozy spot on the couch and crushed quite a bit of Netflix for the rest of the day. He did really well. He’s been enjoying his pudding, ice cream, yogurt and other soft foods. We have kept him home the rest of the week just to ensure that he doesn’t injure his very exposed gums and to cut down on the chance of any infection (kids put a lot of weird shit in their mouth when parents aren’t around!!!)

I’m really proud of him, he’s done really well for having 10 teeth removed. He sounds absolutely adorable when he speaks. He’s having his friend over on March Break to help his celebrate his upcoming birthday. I don’t think he will have many teeth in just yet, but he still wants to go to Rock Bottoms for Rib Night!! I can’t wait to get a picture of that!!! Here’s some photos of his big day.

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Proud Mama

On June my Grandma came to my house. We had lots of fun. We even got grabbed my Grandma? I love her and she loves me.

My March Break was awesome because my Grandma came to my house and we went to the mall. And we have fun together. Then we went out for lunch and it was yummy.

On Mother’s Day. My Mom loves me and I love her too. My family loves her too. We went out for supper and my Mom and the rest of us too had lots of fun.

On Father’s Day we had supper with my Nana and Papa. We had tacos for supper. And it was my Papa’s birthday. We had vanilla cake and is was delicious. Dad had two pieces of cake. I had one piece of cake. It was delicious.

 

One day I went out with my Aunt. We went to a park with my cousin Cooper. We had lots of fun. He loved to chase me. We also had Timbits. We loved the Timbits.

This was a bit of a tough year for Isabelle at school. We knew that she wasn’t doing well in the French Immersion and I had wanted to switch her to English before the start of Grade 2, yet we didn’t. We were told by many that it would simply just “click” when she was in the 2nd grade.

There was no “click”.

There was a lot of tears. There was a lot of self doubt. There was a lot of emotions that I personally feel no 7/8 year old should feel. No one should hate school in the second grade. After 3 days of pleading with the principal to let us change her to English half way through the year, I am so happy to say that Isabelle loves school!

We have seen such a wonderful change in the work she brings home. Yes, she is a little behind in some areas but her teacher has been wonderful and working very hard with her. Isabelle should be caught up to speed a few months into the third grade. I am going to do my best to work with her over the summer. Her teacher has given us some great, simple, idea of ways to work with her in ways that doesn’t feel like “work” over the summer break.

I was going through Isabelle’s back pack tonight. It’s the end of year so there is lots of paper work coming home. I found a few things I thought I would share with you.

Isabelle is a bit behind in her spelling. This is largely because they are told in French to sound out the word and just write what they hear. They are taught a little differently in English. She’s catching up but it’s going to take the work this summer to get her where she needs to be.

I’m so proud of her and all the hard work she’s done this year. Most of all, I’m just happy that Isabelle is happy. I should have listened to my gut and had her switch over to English sooner, but thankfully she doesn’t hold that against me!

 

 

Defeated

According to Google this is the translation.

de·feat·ed

dəˈfēdəd/

adjective

adjective: defeated

1. having been beaten in a battle or other contest.

   “the defeated army”

   • demoralized and overcome by adversity.

    

This is how I am feeling today. I recently got some really great news, which I can’t share here just yet, and I should be really pumped. However, I am feeling defeated and that’s getting in the way of my joy.

Here’s hoping tomorrow is a better day.

Bad Mood Monday

8 year old woke up in a bad mood. Sigh. This generally leads to the rest of us ending up in a bad mood as well. I am happy to report that we managed to avoid this. Hooray. Sometimes I never know if I should try to be calm and understanding or just cut straight to the cut the crap, I’m not putting up with it. Today, it had to be cut the crap. I needed to keep my head in a good place. I needed the 7 year olds to be in a good place also.

My kids are sort of like dominoes. When one falls the rest do too.

I have been job hunting for the past few weeks. Today I had a meeting for a job and needed to be calm and relaxed before this. The husband is working days so I have to deal with the kids in the morning, getting them ready, fed, lunches made and then get myself half ready too.

Sometimes the 8 year old just needs to be put in her place. I explained to her, that if she needed to discuss her feelings about this morning we could do so after school. She seemed cool with that idea. Phew.

I am happy to say that this mornings meeting went well. No job yet, but a successful first step towards a job that I really hope to get!

Here’s something I thought I’d never have to say

The kids and I had been running errands for most of the afternoon. I had one last stop which was the grocery store. The girls had had enough of shopping and wanted to stay in the van and Aidan was happy to accompany me into the store.

It was a nice day. Not hot, but not cold either. I cracked the windows for the kids just for fresh air. I reminded them that they are NOT to open the doors for anyone!! I made them both look me in the eye and repeat it back to me.

I was about to close the van door and walk away when I thought I should perhaps say one more thing to them before leaving.

“Girls, do NOT sit in here and scream your heads of just for fun. It seems fun, but what is not fun is when a stranger thinks I’m a bad parent and just leaves my chidren in a car and phones the police.”

What irritates me is that I actually have to tell my children this. I should just be able to leave my kids in a vehicle, go into the store and come back without someone deciding I must be a careless parent. People are fun. The girls didn’t take me seriously at first. So I once again made them repeat out loud that they are not to scream their heads off for the two minutes I am gone.

Thankfully the girls behaved and there was no police officer waiting for me to come out of the grocery store.

Adulting is hard….

Especially when your husband has to go out of town for work. We “think” he will be home in time for the twins birthday on Friday. Madeline has her toes and fingers crossed to help ensure his return.

Our brand new roof is still freaking leaking. The roofing guy is in no big hurry to return with a solution. This is not awesome with the impending amounts of rain we could receive starting tomorrow. My hope is that because it’s not melting snow sitting on the roof that the chances of water coming into my office will be minimal. I hope.

Kids and I were off to a good start today and then life dumped all over that by the end of the day. As I always say, I love my children. Like, love them it hurts. But tonight I wanted to put them at the end of the driveway with a “free to good home” sign. I wish I had had more summer jobs as a referee. It’s possible I would be slightly more equipped to deal with some of their crap.

Madeline is fed up with Isabelle. Isabelle is so pissed off at Madeline she felt it necessary to punch her. Aidan is slightly over tired and therefore easily set into a crying and stomping fit.

Deep breath in. Annnnd exhale.

They will all be over tired and cranky in the morning and that’s partly my fault. I bought the kids Minecraft for our Xbox. Before dinner we were all taking some turns trying it out. I was trying my best to ref them while also running upstairs to get dinner started before having to run out to pick up Madeline from a friends. Isabelle and Aidan can’t just try and rationally talk one another through a problem in the game. One has to be right, the other has to be more right and then they are screaming at each other and then Aidan cries. Several times I had to ask them to please keep an open mind with each other. Try to listen to what the other is saying and work together to solve whatever the problem is. This works for all of 5 minutes before they are shouting at each other again.

Pick up Madeline, who as usual does not want to come home. Has to be told that if she keeps this up there will be no more going to friends houses and no friends will be allowed over. Finally get her in van. She then asserts herself and doesn’t want to put on seat belt. So being the mother of the year that I am, I said “FINE!” And proceeded to back out of the driveway. Madeline is now freaking out that I’m driving while she doesn’t have her seatbelt on. I just ignore her freak out and eventually hear the “click” of the seatbelt. Get home, thankful house has not burnt down with our dinner inside it. Eat.

Explain to spawn that we will be tidying our bedrooms after dinner. Does not have to be perfect as we can work on it Friday, however if you want to Minecraft anymore tonight this will be done. Cue Aidan losing his shit because he feels like his room is going to take a long time. Again in my mother of the year attitude, I explain to him that if he didn’t leave his stuff all over the floor all the time it would not take so long to clean up.

Rooms done. Head to basement for more Minecraft torture. Madeline’s turn. God save us all. It will be Madeline who one day throws a controller and smashes the TV screen. She manages for about 5 minutes before losing her shit because she doesn’t know how to turn around. I am trying to show her and explain it to her but she is sitting arms crossed pissed off making some kind of Poltergeist sound.

As you can imagine my patience is at about -25. I tell her she has a choice. She can cease and desist with her Poltergeist noise or she can go upstairs, go to bed and no Minecraft for the rest of the week……she stops. She watches and learns and then sets off in her world again for all of 10 minutes before freaking out again.

Aidan’s turn again. He got about 2 minutes of play time when I realized it was 8:30!!!! Good job Mom. When husband is away I always have the kids in bed early. By 7:30 and no later! Since I have to deal with the morning, afterschool, dinner, after dinner, pre bed time and bed time. It’s best they are in bed by 7:30. Let’s throw in it’s a school night too!

As I type, it’s not 9:30. Madeline has been down to see me three times. One of those times because Isabelle punched her. Madeline said she would like me to move my office to the basement so she can have her room down here. I’m not sure I could handle that kid on the same floor as me. If anyone moves it might have to be Aidan. The girls can have upstairs but at least separate rooms.

I just had a weekend away. I had thought I was fully recharged and ready to take on the husband going away. What’s funny is that even if he was here, this crap would still be going on and I’d still be the one to deal with it. However, he’s my back up. For the most part when the kids have pushed the red button he just has to look at them and all is better. Haha. Tonight, I’m missing my back up. He had an incredibly long and aggravating day today. He only just made it to his hotel a short while ago. They were stuck in crappy traffic for far too long. I’d take the three spawn over the traffic jam any day!

Now that the spawn are sleeping, I’m going to go throw some dishes around the kitchen and hope they make it into the dishwasher. Try to tidy up the kitchen and start some laundry, sign Madeline’s permission form for her Choir trip! She is super pumped. Her choir is taking part in a board-wide concert in April! I am going to find out if parents can attend. Thankfully it’s happening before we leave on our little vacation. She’d be crushed if she had to miss it. She has been doing super awesome at keeping her songs a secret from us as she wants ut to hear her perform them with her choir.

Kids are gross and they know it!!

While I was away visiting friends my husband sent me an email titled “Your daughter Madeline!!”

I knew this was going to be good. Madeline never disappoints when it comes to something funny.

Here’s the email:

So I tuck the girls in. I’ve hugged Maddy and now I’ve hugged Isabelle. Just as I’m ready to walk out of their room Maddy says (all cute) “Daddy, can you hug me again?” So I go over and bend over to give her a nice big hug. As I get in close she says “Smelllllllllll anythiiiiiiiiing?” And starts laughing like a psycho! She had farted and her asking for a second hug was just a clever ruse to get me in close for a quasi-dutch oven!

What kind of daughter are you raising?!

Your shocked and confused husband,

_________

 

I laughed and proceeded to read it to my friends, I think they understood me through my laughter. I don’t know why my husband is so confused because she totally learned this from him!!!

What the $&^* Lakeshore Disc.

Yesterday the buses were cancelled for the county. We are close enough that my kids go to school regardless. I debated letting them stay home to enjoy the bit of snow we had but I knew Isabelle wanted to be at school on her birthday. So the above meme is for the kids.

Now, to direct my attention and anger to the school.

I went to pick up the spawn after school. I arrived a little early because I knew the parking lot would fill up quickly and it wasn’t plowed, slushy and had a bunch of drifting snow in it. Found my spot and settled in to wait. Of course most of the parents were opting to use the bus parking lane today as the buses would not be coming.

At 3:17 I exited the van and walked to the gate to wait for the 3:20 bell. The school is having solar panels installed and the crew doing that was working away in the school yard with their fork lift. When the bell rang at 3:20 and the flood of children did not come from the back doors onto the playground I had assumed it was because the forklift was in motion. Made sense that they wouldn’t let all the kids run out if it was moving around.

I waited a few more minutes. Some of the parents who just wait in their vehicles also wandered over to the gate. I then started second guessing if I had actually heard the bell as the fork lift made a similar sound when backing up. The parents around me were now all getting a little anxious as the kids still weren’t coming out of the school.

We all started in to the school grounds. A pack of concerend parents wondering where the hell our children were. We passed a parent who said she thought maybe we had to go to the kids doors to collect them. Another parent passing by said that they were keeping all the kids in the gym.

The gym? Why the heck are they in the gym?

As I’m walking through the back playground and towards the gym I decide to call the office. The secretary tells me we are to be using the Kiss n’ Ride in the front. Uh, no thanks. I use the parking lot at the rear of the school that you guys make us use. Where are my kids. Well they are in the gym and you have to use Kiss n’ Ride, when there tell the teacher outside who your kids are, they will radio into the gym and send your kids out.

What the #(@&$*(@ is this? When did they start this? I hung up with her and was at the front door of the school at this point. As I enter the front hall way it seems as though the teachers decided to move all the kids into this area. Right away I see my three. Isabelle is about to break down into tears. She immediately demands to know where I was and why I wasn’t coming to get them. I hug her and tell her I would never just leave them at school and that I had NO IDEA they were not coming out their ususal way.

So Lakeshore Discovery….apparently you need to be reminded that you have a Facebook account, Twitter account and the Principal has a personal Twitter account, as well as this Remind App you made us all download at the start of the school year!

USE THEM!! I highly doubt that in this area there isn’t a parent who doesn’t have access to social media!! You want a fast, easy way to let us all know that you are going to change how you dismiss kids on a snow day then this is the way to do it!!!!!

Because you failed to let us know that our children would not be exiting the school in their usual fashion, you not only pissed off a bunch of parents, myself included, you managed to scare the shit out of my kid!!

Well done Lakeshore Discovery. You are not making it easy for me to tell people why your school is the school they should want their children to attend.

Happy 8th Birthday!

 

Dear Isabelle,

Today you turn 8 years old and I am thrilled! I also managed to get a little weepy today in the van while driving and thinking about how you are turned 8 today. Sometimes when I think back to your first birthday I am sort of glad you can’t remember it! We were living in a hotel in Inuvik because I was ginormously pregnant with your siblings. This is likely the first time they screwed something up for you! They do love you though!!

Back to the hotel. We did our best to give you a fun little birthday party. I made sure I had ordered you some new toys to arrive before we had moved from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik. You didn’t really understand what was the point in being given something that was wrapped in pretty paper. You sort of just sat there until I started to rip one open for you. Since then, you have been a lover of ripping presents open!

Just days before your first birthday you started walking. It was amazing. The best pre birthday gift to yourself ever!! This did complicate things for me being ginromously pregnant. However it was part of the reason the Dr had to write a note for Daddy to be off work early so he could come stay with us and look after you! Hooray!

I have often felt like you got a bit of a bum deal. The twins arrival 13 months to the day after your birthday has always made me feel a bit sad that I didn’t give you enough attention. I know this is just crazy mommy talking but the guilt is real. However you were and still are a very happy child. So I can rest easy knowing we didn’t damage you in anyway. If anything this has helped you to become an amazing sister. The twins are lucky to have you. You are a mini mommy in training. I know you will do well when you have children of your own if you can get over the fact that babies come out of vaginas. I will never forget the look on your face when you found that out. You asked and my policy is always honesty. I sort of wish I had taken a photo hahaha.

You are a very smart, beautiful, sassy, sweet, thoughtful, noisy(but in a good way), all in all an amazing daughter. You are my little firecracker! You love to bake and I am going to make a promise to start doing that with you more. I love how you sing really loud(and not always on key) to music and have dance parties in your room, maybe one day you sister won’t think it’s torture. Perhaps this is your genius plan to get your own room!? Well played Isabelle, well played. 😉

Every day I enjoy seeing the person you are becoming and look forward to seeing you grow. You are loved Isabelle. I am honoured to be your Mommy.