A topic that has created a little bit of confusion this year. Can you believe that the issue of playing at a friend or having them play at your house can be such a huge decision.
Caley (my Madam Fluff) is my little social butterfly and the play date requests start almost as soon as I have picked her up at school, seriously, there are times where she is asking me to go to so-n-so's house before I even get a hello Mom. Every single day it is somebody new and because she is at a new school, naturally I don't even know half of the people, which brings me to my first debacle. How can I just allow her to go to somebody's house when I have no idea who the parents are, where they live and what standards of dicipline or lack there of they show in their homes, and of course not to mention the obvious that is every parents' nightmare. (Remember I am the "uptight, overbearing, overprotective", so I am told mom). When I try to explian to Madam Fluff that I don't know the people, she doesn't seem to grasp what I am saying, which is understandable for a four and a half year old. I could explain it until the cows come home but all she hears is NO and then the tears, screaming, kicking etc etc begins, of course I stick to my guns because in my rule book a NO is always a NO. I am quite happy for the kids to come to our house but then that brings me to my next issue; Kade and his homework and of course his *love* of homework.
Kade gets homework everyday bar Fridays, so I thought it would be easy enough to just make a rule that friends and play dates can happen on a Friday. This wasn't as easy a decision as I previously anticipated; picture all three kids bringing a friend home on a Friday afternoon, I guess while some mother's could probably handle it, I found it a little overwhelming having 6 kids running around, literally wrecking the place.
Thankfully my little snuggle bug Connor, doesn't talk yet and still has an afternoon nap so he hasn't started on the whole play date thing. At his school he has a play day every morning with all his buds.
Should I let Madam Fluff play where and when ever she wants, considering the fact that she doesn't have to do homework yet. Or should I stick to a once a week day that would hopefully suit the other parents as well (after I have had them thoroughly background checked by the CIA, FBI and IRS first of course).
If anybody has a stead fast play date rule that works for you, I would love it if you would share it.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Where does a mother go to resign?
I must admit I've been having a little bit of an "off" day, well actually a couple of off days. I have been going through a teenage phase of "I don't want to!".(actually that sounds more like my 3 year old) When my alarm goes off at 5.30 am, I just don't want to get up; I get to the kitchen and just don't want to make breakfast or lunches or fight over who hasn't even taken a bite of their food in the last half an hour it's been in front of them. I don't want to argue over who gets to put the toothpaste on the toothbrushes or which shoes go with that outfit or who gets to sit in front in the car. Every day we pretty much follow the same routine and have the same arguments and fights every day, it's become almost like clockwork. I'm tired of playing seargent major 24/7.
I am actually not really sure if I'm just too uptight, I must admit I can be a bit of a perfectionist. I absolutely love my family to bits, but surely any normal mother needs some place or time to just get away and say no! I don't want to.
Mark and I recently had a bit of an argument about "time out". I had asked him to please be home at a specific time one Friday afternoon so that I could take Kade to the Youth group at our church. Low and behold if I don't call him 15 min before he's supposed to be home and he's sitting in a pub around the corner. To make a long story short, if possible, he accused me of only allowing him "time out" when it suited me and my daily schedule, admittedly I would prefer it if he came home after work, helped out as much as he felt he could and have the rest of the night off once the kids were in bed. This clearly did not suit him. I threw one straight back saying that I am only allowed to take time off when it suits all of them and lets just for a moment imagine the chaos if I were to decide right here and now to just walk out the door and go shopping because it was convenient for me at the time and, well, stuff all of you!!
I suppose what gets me down is that while he is able to get up and go on a whim, because I am always there, but it becomes a different story when the tables are turned. In order for me to plan a night out , I have to make sure he's actually going to be in town; make sure that he doesn't have any plans and then I usually make sure the kids are all bathed, fed, and almost put to bed before I try to leave.
While being a mom and wife is my top priority and as my own mother reminds me ..constantly... a mother's job is to sacrifice, put a smile on your dial and just get on with it without complaining, because that might push him away and then he'll look elsewhere......Although life and love will always come with sacrifice, I still can't help wondering if being a mother and wife means having to sacrifice your entire being until you no longer know who you are, what you enjoy anymore and wake up to realise you don't have a friend in the world because you've sacrificed them all.
There are certainly days when you wouldn't trade your life or your family for anything in the entire world and then there are days where you stop and think , hold on, please tell me where did I actually sign up for this, stop the bus please, it's just going too fast.
To make a long story even shorter, I'm really tired and would just love a day off, to go out and spend a day being pampered and spoilt, doing what ever I please and then of course coming home to my happy brady bunch, a spotlessly clean house and a three course dinner.
I am actually not really sure if I'm just too uptight, I must admit I can be a bit of a perfectionist. I absolutely love my family to bits, but surely any normal mother needs some place or time to just get away and say no! I don't want to.
Mark and I recently had a bit of an argument about "time out". I had asked him to please be home at a specific time one Friday afternoon so that I could take Kade to the Youth group at our church. Low and behold if I don't call him 15 min before he's supposed to be home and he's sitting in a pub around the corner. To make a long story short, if possible, he accused me of only allowing him "time out" when it suited me and my daily schedule, admittedly I would prefer it if he came home after work, helped out as much as he felt he could and have the rest of the night off once the kids were in bed. This clearly did not suit him. I threw one straight back saying that I am only allowed to take time off when it suits all of them and lets just for a moment imagine the chaos if I were to decide right here and now to just walk out the door and go shopping because it was convenient for me at the time and, well, stuff all of you!!
I suppose what gets me down is that while he is able to get up and go on a whim, because I am always there, but it becomes a different story when the tables are turned. In order for me to plan a night out , I have to make sure he's actually going to be in town; make sure that he doesn't have any plans and then I usually make sure the kids are all bathed, fed, and almost put to bed before I try to leave.
While being a mom and wife is my top priority and as my own mother reminds me ..constantly... a mother's job is to sacrifice, put a smile on your dial and just get on with it without complaining, because that might push him away and then he'll look elsewhere......Although life and love will always come with sacrifice, I still can't help wondering if being a mother and wife means having to sacrifice your entire being until you no longer know who you are, what you enjoy anymore and wake up to realise you don't have a friend in the world because you've sacrificed them all.
There are certainly days when you wouldn't trade your life or your family for anything in the entire world and then there are days where you stop and think , hold on, please tell me where did I actually sign up for this, stop the bus please, it's just going too fast.
To make a long story even shorter, I'm really tired and would just love a day off, to go out and spend a day being pampered and spoilt, doing what ever I please and then of course coming home to my happy brady bunch, a spotlessly clean house and a three course dinner.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
The tooth fairy and the tooth monster
Kade has a loose tooth, yay. It's the fourth one now, but let me tell you this, loosing teeth in this house does not pass by as uneventfully as I am assuming it does in others. Kade's new teeth are so excited to come out that they can't seem to wait for the milk teeth to fall out first. We basically have our very own "Jaws" in the house, running around with two rows of teeth.
The last time Jaws appeared we ended up having to make a visit to the dentist to remove the stubborn little buggers, that, although were as loose as they could possibly be, just refused to bugde!
The second time around and slightly more relaxed about the phenomenon than I was the first time, we decided to give it a few more days to see if the reluctant tooth would fall out, we tried the wriggling, pulling on it and every conceivable pain free method we could think of. Alas! the tooth is still there and today we're off to the dentist again!! Kade is actually quite excited about this, here's why; the last visit to the dentist was his first and I was so stressed out that this dentist would put him off for life (as I am) that I basically threatend the dentist and bribed Kade. The deal that the "tooth fairy" was prepared to make with Kade was, that for being so very brave and going to the dentist to have his teeth removed, he would get double the usual fairy pay out!!! One part for the tooth and the balance for bravery. I can't help but wonder somehow if he is keeping the teeth in there on purpose for double fairy pay outs?? This unusual occurance surely doesn't happen more than once?? Perhaps it had something to do with the brilliant way the dentist handled this first time visitor, by playing "space ship" on his gadgety dentist's chair and beaming him "up to the light", which, even I thought, was very cool!
Personally I am rather saddened that when you get to my age that the tooth fairy doesn't stop by anymore. Since my pregnancies I have had endless problems with my teeth and I now have the tooth monster stopping by, chipping away at my teeth in the still of the night, and then again sometimes in broad daylight. Some mornings I wake up to feel little grains of tooth in my mouth, the other day a cashew nut was the culprit and the one before that a block of ice. In fact my new best friend is Myprodol!! I suppose the tooth fairy only offers money for healthy teeth that are still all in one piece and not if they just fall apart bit by bit!
For Kade's sake I have to put on a very brave face at the dentist ,when, in fact I have openly admitted that I would quite happily give birth again before I have a root canal.
Wish me luck, my appointment is next week.
The last time Jaws appeared we ended up having to make a visit to the dentist to remove the stubborn little buggers, that, although were as loose as they could possibly be, just refused to bugde!
The second time around and slightly more relaxed about the phenomenon than I was the first time, we decided to give it a few more days to see if the reluctant tooth would fall out, we tried the wriggling, pulling on it and every conceivable pain free method we could think of. Alas! the tooth is still there and today we're off to the dentist again!! Kade is actually quite excited about this, here's why; the last visit to the dentist was his first and I was so stressed out that this dentist would put him off for life (as I am) that I basically threatend the dentist and bribed Kade. The deal that the "tooth fairy" was prepared to make with Kade was, that for being so very brave and going to the dentist to have his teeth removed, he would get double the usual fairy pay out!!! One part for the tooth and the balance for bravery. I can't help but wonder somehow if he is keeping the teeth in there on purpose for double fairy pay outs?? This unusual occurance surely doesn't happen more than once?? Perhaps it had something to do with the brilliant way the dentist handled this first time visitor, by playing "space ship" on his gadgety dentist's chair and beaming him "up to the light", which, even I thought, was very cool!
Personally I am rather saddened that when you get to my age that the tooth fairy doesn't stop by anymore. Since my pregnancies I have had endless problems with my teeth and I now have the tooth monster stopping by, chipping away at my teeth in the still of the night, and then again sometimes in broad daylight. Some mornings I wake up to feel little grains of tooth in my mouth, the other day a cashew nut was the culprit and the one before that a block of ice. In fact my new best friend is Myprodol!! I suppose the tooth fairy only offers money for healthy teeth that are still all in one piece and not if they just fall apart bit by bit!
For Kade's sake I have to put on a very brave face at the dentist ,when, in fact I have openly admitted that I would quite happily give birth again before I have a root canal.
Wish me luck, my appointment is next week.
Monday, 18 February 2008
How time fies
How time fies I suppose that the real art of blogging is to keep it up and do it regularly. As you can see, it's been about two weeks if not more since I attempted the blogging craze. Well to be honest I've been doing the "normal Mom" thing, running around after three kids, dizzying myself between getting dressed, eating breakfast, taking them all to school, three seperate ones no less, rushing home to do my husbands admin, which I recently had the pleasure of taking over. We have agreed that he should stick to what he knows best!
Before I know it school's almost out and I have to do the afternoon pick ups, how considerate of the schools to coordinate their closing times so that I have exactly 15 minutes to get to the next school, try and find parking and then await my little munchkin with a non flustered look on my face as though I have been waiting for just this moment all morning. If I'm lucky lunch will pass by quickly and uneventfully and then the homework, aahh the homework.
My eldest son Kade started Grade 1 this year, has been doing homework all of 6 weeks and hates it. The excuses he comes up with to find any reason not to count from 1 - 20 and then backwards to 1 again. We could practically count the excuses to 20 and then back to one again. The days that he does cooperate (with a little bribery and corruption) homework takes all of 5 - 10 minutes but it seems like eternity, now for the both of us. To top it all off my daughter, Caley tries to either assist, interfere or take the attention away from the situation on to her, which ends up with somebody or everybody having a meltdown.
Once homework is evetually done, it's time to start making dinner. I have always loved cooking and experimenting with dishes and doing the whole 10 yards with funny faces or cartoon type dinners, sadly we have now resorted to how to make a meal feed 5 in 10 minutes or less and still have it taste like something. Thankfully bath time is a favourite pass time in our household, but alas, pandemonium will still creep into the situation with more mediating taking place for who gets first place into the bath and who get to put the bubbles in. I did try just throwing them all in at the same time but regretted my decision almost as soon as they jumped in. That is a story completely on its own.
Great, with everybody smelling good and clean and fresh and after having almost called flood control to rescue my bathroom floors and cupboards. It is time for them to "relax" with their juice while I clean up the dinner dishes. Hopefully if I've timed it well enough it should be almost time for bed. While Kade and Caley drift off relatively easily Connor will drag it out until about 9.30pm to the point where as I'm about to do something either illegal to the child or to myself, he drifts off to sleep.
Phew. I say a quick hi to my husband Mark who quietly floated in at some point between , bath, supper or bed. Try and sit down for a few minutes and just before I completely realx, it is time to clean the house
Before I know it school's almost out and I have to do the afternoon pick ups, how considerate of the schools to coordinate their closing times so that I have exactly 15 minutes to get to the next school, try and find parking and then await my little munchkin with a non flustered look on my face as though I have been waiting for just this moment all morning. If I'm lucky lunch will pass by quickly and uneventfully and then the homework, aahh the homework.
My eldest son Kade started Grade 1 this year, has been doing homework all of 6 weeks and hates it. The excuses he comes up with to find any reason not to count from 1 - 20 and then backwards to 1 again. We could practically count the excuses to 20 and then back to one again. The days that he does cooperate (with a little bribery and corruption) homework takes all of 5 - 10 minutes but it seems like eternity, now for the both of us. To top it all off my daughter, Caley tries to either assist, interfere or take the attention away from the situation on to her, which ends up with somebody or everybody having a meltdown.
Once homework is evetually done, it's time to start making dinner. I have always loved cooking and experimenting with dishes and doing the whole 10 yards with funny faces or cartoon type dinners, sadly we have now resorted to how to make a meal feed 5 in 10 minutes or less and still have it taste like something. Thankfully bath time is a favourite pass time in our household, but alas, pandemonium will still creep into the situation with more mediating taking place for who gets first place into the bath and who get to put the bubbles in. I did try just throwing them all in at the same time but regretted my decision almost as soon as they jumped in. That is a story completely on its own.
Great, with everybody smelling good and clean and fresh and after having almost called flood control to rescue my bathroom floors and cupboards. It is time for them to "relax" with their juice while I clean up the dinner dishes. Hopefully if I've timed it well enough it should be almost time for bed. While Kade and Caley drift off relatively easily Connor will drag it out until about 9.30pm to the point where as I'm about to do something either illegal to the child or to myself, he drifts off to sleep.
Phew. I say a quick hi to my husband Mark who quietly floated in at some point between , bath, supper or bed. Try and sit down for a few minutes and just before I completely realx, it is time to clean the house
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