Mean

If certain people around here don’t stop calling me mean, I’m going to take it personally and start acting that way.

Letter from hockey coach to 8 year old hockey player

The resulting post below was inspired by an email my 8 year old son Ben sent to his coach upon finding out that he was nominated and will be awarded the Most Valuable Player award on Saturday, despite the fact that his team was eliminated and in 4th (last) place during the House League Season. His coach responded to Ben’s email with the most heart-felt commentary, I just had to share it. A copy of the email (with certain names taken out for privacy reasons) is at the bottom of this post.

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About towels and mud

One thing I never thought about when planning on having babies was that we’d become the kind of people who hoard old towels.

The ugly truth

People who know me, or who read this blog, hear me moan bitch complain about the tiny-ness and claustrophobic-ness of this house occasionally sometimes all the time. We live in a 2-bedroom bungalow that has a basement with two additional rooms and a large-ish space which functions as the kids’ play area.

But it’s still a 2-bedroom bungalow.

Because of the pipe backup into part of the basement and the renovators currently in the basement doing stuff, I have more clutter upstairs in our everyday living space.

Here I would like to offer PROOF that my complaining is valid and completely justified. This is a picture of the state of my living room this morning:

Bad mood

Like some other people, I don’t bake much. (Andrea @missfish comes to mind, I think Sharon @SharonDV too said something to that effect at some point)…it has to do with measuring and exact amounts. Not me, at least not in the kitchen.

But I am in a blah, horrible, depressed, icky mood so I baked cookies. Then I ate one, and it wasn’t baked long enough (even though I followed the instructions exactly).

So then I ate another one. And stuck the rest of them back in the oven.

Emotional exhaustion in kids

Do kids get emotionally exhausted?

I think they do. I remember I used to, later though, as a tween and teenager, not so much as an elementary school kid.

Trying to find the person inside of the parent

We’re well into January and I only now think about the resolutions that maybe I should have thought about before the year began on January 1st. But vacation was so nice and relaxing, I just didn’t feel like sitting down and thinking too hard. So it comes now, with the kids back in school, that I have a moment to process some of my thoughts and jot them down. I feel out of sorts, in some ways, and figured maybe if I officially make some resolutions, maybe it will help me gain focus.

The occasional appeal of indoor playgrounds

Today we took the kids to an indoor playground called Balls of Fun.

I have to commend the ingenious idea of the people who invented these indoor playgrounds. They are fantastic, and we’ve been taking the kids since they were toddlers to this, and similar places.

Crappy Sunday, quite literally

I kept the tv off as much as I could. I avoided Twitter like the plague. I don’t want to hear about innocent children getting murdered, so I try to hug mine a little closer (as long as their faces turn the other way so I don’t get covered in nose-slime or cough-phlegm) and get on with whatever it is we do around here.

I cry when no one is looking. Then I distract myself and go about my day.

So I’m battling the lineups at Walmart (I hate Walmart) so I can get photos printed (I don’t hate Walmart for that) and I get a text just as I’m finishing up at the cashier. Pick up paper towels, rubber gloves and disinfectant.

No way I’m going back into Walmart now that I just finished. Besides, didn’t I just buy a carload of paper towels? And there are rubber gloves in three places at home. And two cans of disinfectant too. Am I the only one in the house who knows where we store stuff?

I get home. He’s covered in icky stuff. He doesn’t look happy.

Endless

I have never felt more exhausted than I do these days parenting these two monkeys.

I have never consumed more wine on a regular basis than I do while parenting these two monkeys.

I have never felt more inadequate than I do while parenting these two monkeys.

I have never felt more sick of my own voice repeating redundant drill-sargent-like repetitive commands that get ignored than when I do while parenting these two monkeys.

And now I work, too. For an income. It’s about to get much more exciting, isn’t it.