For Canada Day this year, I convinced Lucky to leave work early so we could go together to check out the various patriotic events in the city. We had initially planned to do the standard face-painting-patriotic-tattoo-sticking-jumpy-house-jumping-cotton-candy-eating thing at a park in town. When we got there, however, we noticed a CARNIVAL!! across the street and abruptly changed course. There’s really nothing like spinning your kids all around for a few hours to subdue the little characters into blissfully quiet silence for the rest of the day.

We started them out gently on the swing ride. Logan has freaked out mid-ride in the past, forcing the operator to let him off lest he die! right! there! but I remain convinced that the only reason he did so was because a) the ride was bigger and b) he allowed himself to get all worked-up beforehand. This time, there was a very short line (less time for him to think about the certain doom that lay ahead) and the operator was letting kids on the ride as we walked up. Lily passed her tickets over like a pro and trotted over to the first swing she saw. Logan started backing up, mumbling something about maybe not wanting to go on this ride after all.

“Oops! Too late!” I exclaimed, giving him a little nudge forward. “Your sister is already on! Can’t let her go by herself! Don’t hold up the line!”

(I know. I’m a super great mom. I’ll let you in on my secret later.)

Logan ambled over to the swing beside his sister, throwing dubious glances at me over his shoulder.

“Woo hoo! This is great! Right on!” I called to him. “Don’t listen to that little voice inside telling you to run away! Self-preservation is highly overrated!”

(Okay, fine. I may not have uttered that last part. I’m not completely heartless.)

By the second revolution, Logan had clearly decided that the ride wasn’t out to prematurely end his life and flashed a happy thumbs-up on his way by.

Yaaaaay! This is fun!

Ride number one was a success!

The kids went on a couple of tame, kiddy rides before Logan decided that he wanted to tackle the Gravitron. Not even Lily felt brave enough to tackle the Gravitron. A big spaceship-thingy that sucks you to the wall and holds you there while spinning like a top? No thank you!

Logan was unwavering in his decision to go on, though. I worried that he’d completely lose it when the door shut, but a couple of kids promised me that they’d ride beside him and he’d have the best time ever, so I bit my tongue and sent him on his merry way.

Baaaaaaarffffffffff…….

Logan bounded off the ride like a jumping bean and exclaimed, “Hey, Mom! Did you know that if you turn yourself upside-down in there, you stick to the wall? Upside-down? It was awesome!”

“Just make sure you turn yourself right side-up again before the ride stops or you’ll land on your head!” I told him, grinning like a fool because my kid was actually enjoying himself! On rides! Maybe Disney World wouldn’t be a complete disaster after all!

By this point, we were running low on tickets and the kids were running high on adrenaline. They decided that they were ready to take on the giant Hurricane. Lily barely met the height requirement to ride, but the fact that she could hardly see over the front of the car didn’t stop her from hopping right in like a champ.

It wasn’t until the lap bar had been snapped into place that the kids started to wonder whether or not they had made the best choice in riding the Hurricane.

Uh, Mom?

We’re wondering whether or not we made the best choice here…

If I die, I’m coming back to haunt you for the rest of your life…

The ride filled up quickly and before we knew it, they were off.

Logan: Holy crap! Why am I on this death trap?
Lily: What? I can’t see a thing!

*terrified silence*

Not a peep was to be heard from either one of them and Lucky and I strained to catch a glimpse of their tiny little faces. All we could gather was that the pair of them were plastered to the outside edge of the car, frozen into absolute stillness.

Ruh-roh.

When they made their way off the ride, I asked, “So, how was it?”

How do you think it was, you crazy woman?

“It was the worst ride in the world, MOM! I hated it!” Logan exclaimed in disgust.

Let me just get back to you when I can stand up straight without falling over, mmmkay?

“Not so fun,” Lily replied somberly.

The only upside to the Hurricane was that it provided Lucky and me with the perfect segue into talking about our upcoming trip to Disney World.

Me: The rides at Disney are so much better than these ones!

Lucky: Right! They’re way smoother and won’t squish you to the sides or anything!

Me: Yeah! If you can ride this ride, you can take anything Disney World has to dish out!

Lucky: Exactly! The rides at Disney are all fun!

Me: And totally won’t hurt you at all!

Lucky: And you’ll have the best time EVER!

Kids: Can we just lay down somewhere for a few minutes? You know, just to catch our breath? Ooh! Look at that lovely bench!

The kids capped off their riding experience with one (smaller!) last (and slower!) ride and then climbed exhaustedly into the car. Needless to say, the rest of our evening was quiet and mellow and bedtime was a breeze.

I was left wondering why I couldn’t get them to go on MY favourite ride, though.

Any ideas?

Filed under: Happy Happy, Keepin' it Real, Me, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

It was either this or inviting you over to watch a slide show…

Ladybug on the Move! from Walking With Scissors on Vimeo.

Filed under: Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes by WWS (Lynn) - No Comments →

On Friday afternoon, Logan had his much-anticipated birthday party. Knowing how difficult it is to keep boys entertained for any length of time, I got smart this year and held the party at an indoor playground. Here’s how the party was laid out:

4:00pm-5:00pm – arrival, check-in and playtime!
5:00pm-5:45pm – party room for pizza, cake and presents
5:45pm-6:00pm – playtime while laser tag is being set up
6:00pm-6:15pm – laser tag!
6:15pm-6:30pm – video games and going home!!

Looking at the schedule, you’d think that the party was too short. You’d think that there was no way that the boys would be able to fit in all the fun they’re capable of having in just 2.5 short hours. You’d think that a group of ten boys would be able to keep themselves entertained at a giant playground for longer than thirty minutes. You’d think that, but you’d be so wrong. Every one of those kids lined up at the concession stand after exactly half an hour so that they could lament to their party coach just how boooored they were.

Thankfully, the above-mentioned party coach was fifty shades of awesome and immediately threw down the gauntlet.

“I bet you can’t beat me to the top of the playground,” he taunted with a grin.

A rousing game of tag with a real, live teenager was just what the boys needed to get back into the spirit of things. They played happily, but only as long as the much-admired party coach, or “Coach,” as he was dubbed, played with them.

Hey, Coach! Come get me!

Where’s Coach?

The girls, on the other hand, could have admired their reflections in the fun-house mirror all day and night without ever losing interest.

That’s just the difference between boys and girls, I guess.

The party venue was fantastic until we were ushered into the party room and soundly closed in. If you’ve ever wondered exactly how much noise ten boys and two girls can produce, suffice it to say that it’s a lot. A whole lot. It was a struggle to keep those boys focused long enough to eat their dinner and sing Happy Birthday to Logan. They were just itching to get back out to the playground again. (Funny how a place so darn boooring still managed to have so much appeal.)

The boys were getting so unruly that at one point, Logan (who has a hard time processing really loud noises), clapped his hands over his ears and yelled, “Be quiet! You’re too LOUD!”

With the food consumed and the presents opened, the boys seemed to realize that the party would soon be drawing to a close and tumbled out of the party room like a litter of puppies, eager to get back to the business of playing. The word “bored” wasn’t uttered again as the kids were desperate to fit as much fun as possible into the last minutes of their party experience.

Laser tag and video games were played, tickets were redeemed for crappy little prizes, and kids dripping with sweat ran amok until, one by one, the parents began to arrive.

After the last kid was picked up, our little family exited the party site, ears ringing, and headed home – exhausted but happy.

The best part of all? We left the mess behind us!

Can I get an amen?

Filed under: Happy Happy, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes by WWS (Lynn) - No Comments →

A very happy Moth’s Day to all of the moths out there from our family to yours.

Filed under: Happy Happy, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

When I picked Lily up from Kindergarten today, her teacher popped her head out of the classroom because she “just had to” tell me what Lily said today during her special question and answer time.

When one of the kids asked Lily if her mom plays with her, apparently her answer was, “no, my mom is lazy. And she has hormones.”

That’s my girl. I guess doing crafts and reading and playing board games and playing with sidewalk chalk and going to the park don’t count. Whatever, goober.

(Uh, what hormones?)

_____________________

The other day, the kids were arguing over who was going to go first. First for what, I can’t remember. What I do remember is the way Lily chose to resolve the conflict. A rousing rendition of “eeny meeny miny mo”.

Lily, pointing back and forth between herself and Logan: Eeny meeny miny mo, catch a tiger by the toe (etc)

Lily, pointing at herself: MY mother said to pick the very best one and

Lily, pointing at Logan: YOU are NOT IT!!!

It was so funny that Logan gave her a free pass to go first, on account of the good laugh we all got.

Because I didn’t have a camera on her at the time, here is a subdued, somewhat self-conscious re-creation:

Eeny meeny from Walking With Scissors on Vimeo.

Well, that’s about it for now. Gotta get back to being lazy and hormonal!

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 6 Comments →

For Easter this year, my mother-in-law got each of the kids a book. Up until that moment, I thought I’d be happy with any age-appropriate book given to my children because: Reading! Always awesome! I will ALWAYS encourage reading! Of course, that was until I saw the name of the main character in this series.

Oh, man. This poor kid is going to spend his life trying to run away from the ass-beatings that his name has guaranteed him… I mean, really. Look at his face. He looks embarrassed, like he’s all, “Yeah, you read it right. Please don’t punish me for the cruelty of my parents.”

So, anyway. You know what this means, right? It means that as long as Logan has this book in his hot little hands, he has an automatic pass to use the word dink any time he pleases. In fact, upon receiving this book, he laughed hysterically for several minutes and then proceeded to say “dink” about fifteen times in thirty seconds.

(Of course, the fact that a room full of adults were busy laughing right along with him probably helped to encourage his Tourettes-esque usage of the word…)

Once he’d gotten it out of his system, Logan exclaimed, “Mom! This is such a NAME FAIL! You need to put this on Fail Blog!”

(That’s my boy.)

(Plus, he has a point. That’s an ultimate name fail. Seriously.)

(Well, unless the writer was smart enough to realize that ALL little boys EVERYWHERE would find the name Dink funny and thus used it to get them reading the book, even if just to get them to giggle every time they came across it in a sentence.)

(Because only little boys would do such a childish thing.)

After seeing the back cover of the book and giggling just like the above-mentioned school boy gasping with my shock and outrage, a memory began to make its way into the front of my mind.

Last summer, armed with a Margaritaville blender and an obscene amount of Bellini mix, a group of my girlfriends and I noticed another book from this series on our hostess’ coffee table. Naturally, the first thing we thought of to do was to search through the book for innocent words and phrases that we could twist into something dirty…

Bahahaha….

BAHAHAHA!!!

(It’s a super fun and cheap party game! Thanks, author of this children’s book series with the inappropriately-named main character.)

After digging through my archives to find the above photographic proof of my childishness, I decided to have a quick peek through the book Logan received. You know. Just to see if he’d have any trouble, ah, reading it. Or something.

Unfortunately, the only could-be-pervy sentence I could find in the whole thing was this one:

Mmmm. Creamy.

Hmm. I must be losing my touch. I think I’ll go through it again with a tipsy group of my peers and see if we can come up with anything more.

Filed under: Me, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

So, yeah. It’s just about the weekend again and I’m finally getting around to writing about what happened during the last one. I’m awesome.

I spent the weekend with five gorgeous, wonderful and creative women. We had pillow fights in our panties and spent the weekend tickling each other and squirting whipped cream into each other’s mouths.

Wait. That’s what my husband thinks happened. (Keep dreaming, honey.)

Here’s what really happened:

We drove out to a cute little bed and breakfast and, having rented both the top and bottom floors, proceeded to move all the furniture around to create a five table scrapbooking extravaganza of a work space. We talked, laughed, ate homemade pizzas, hummus, fruit and veggies, and drank coolers in the hot tub. Oh, and we scrapbooked, too.

Things in the daylight hours were fantastic. Actually, things in the dark were pretty cool, too. Everyone set up their fabulous little work lights when it got dark outside and continued scrapbooking to the wee hours.

It wasn’t until I got ready for bed each night that I remembered that I have issues.

Knowing that I am someone who really appreciates her sleep, my friends put me in the quietest bedroom in the cabin. Otherwise known as the boiler room. (Dun dun DUN!) The picture on the website shows a sweet, cheery room off a charming kitchenette:

You know what? Pictures lie. That room was a house of horrors in my twisted little mind. The floor? Concrete. Windows? What windows? The bunk bed? Homemade (try staring up at particle board and rusted metal hinges all night), lumpy and uncomfortable. What the filthy, lying whore of a picture doesn’t show is the washer and dryer on one side, the giant accordian wall on another (I was too scared to open it and see what was behind it. Torture chamber? A bunch of scurrying rats? Serial killer?) and the mysterious door on the final wall. I felt germy in there. Icky. The feelings were completely and totally irrational, but I’m quirky like that. It’s why I take medication for anxiety. I laid down on my left side, facing the ladder, and didn’t move all night. I tried to keep the blanket over my ear in case something icky fell on me from the bunk above. (I’m thinking rust, bugs, sawdust. You know, the usual things that people think about at night. *cough*) I didn’t lay on my back and didn’t turn to my right side. (I didn’t want to face the wall and certainly wasn’t about to turn my back on the accordian-wall-of-doom because if you’re about to be murdered in your bed, of course you’re going to want to see it happen.).

Luckily, I didn’t spend much time down there. The bulk of my time was spent upstairs in the airy, clean and bright makeshift scrapbook room. I stayed up late each night and fell into bed only when I knew I was too exhausted to stay awake. (During the day, all of my weird little idiosyncrasies seem to melt away.)

On the way home on Sunday evening, we stopped for dinner at a cute little cafe with a crappy waitress. We took a few photos to remember our time there.

When I got home, I was greeted with a package at the door:

It was from Lily and when I opened it up, I found a card that she had written all by herself:

(Aw, you make me happy too, sweetie!)

Then, on the counter in the kitchen, I found this:

Hmm. I’m beginning to sense a theme here.

Lily knows how to work the guilt trips. At least this time it was only cards and gifts. A couple of years ago when I returned from a weeklong trip, I had to change into my pajamas before putting her to bed each night so she could be absolutely positive that I wasn’t going to leave her again. ‘Cause her life is rough without me.

Making living room forts with Daddy, eating seafood, playing at the indoor playground and hanging out with Grandma all weekend. Yep, it’s a tough life all right.

Despite my weird little “don’t feed the gremlin after midnight” germ issues, I had a great time and I am SO going to the next scrapbooking retreat. It’ll be worth it, even if the serial killer behind the accordian door comes out to get me while I’m sleeping.

Filed under: Confessions, Happy Happy, Keepin' it Real, Me, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes by WWS (Lynn) - 7 Comments →

Two weeks ago, I bought a vinyl wall decal off Etsy.

(When Lucky noticed the receipt in our inbox, he exclaimed, “Quit buying crap off Etsy!” Apparently, he’s not as into crafting as I am. Wonder what he’ll say when he finds out that I have big plans to hock sell crap beautifully handcrafted items of my own on Etsy one of these days? But I digress…)

Until it arrived yesterday, I’d been not-so-patiently waiting for my new purchase. (I love new stuff! I love mail! WOooO!!) I had it out of the box and up on the wall less than ten minutes after I noticed it on my front porch.

Cute, right? An “enjoy your meal” sign, complete with cutlery, right above the pantry. Hey? Right?

When my husband saw it, he wasn’t exactly on the same page as me.

Bon Appetit? Really?

Yeah, isn’t it cute? I really love the cutlery.

Well, yeah. I guess. Without the cutlery, it would look really stupid.

According to Lucky, my wall art only looks a little stupid. For him, that’s almost a compliment. And after he determined that yes, it does come off if we ever tire of it, he dismissed the whole thing from his mind and will probably never notice it again.

___________________

We’ve been in this house for about 3.5 years now and slowly but surely, I’m starting to fill the walls with art. I’ve noticed a bit of an unintentional trend with the things I’ve been choosing:

French…

French…

French…

Two of the pieces are for bathrooms and one is for the pantry. Apparently, all of these locations need a bit of classing up and what better way to do it than being all so-fist-ee-kated with my fancy French artwork? (By sophisticated, I mean that one was purchased off Etsy for $14, one was purchased at Zellers for $9.95 and one was purchased at Walmart for $4.95. I’m a big spender, folks.)

_________________________

Yesterday, using a combination of stickers, a pen and her own imagination, Lily came up with this:

That would be her, marrying her brother. At age five, she thinks it’s the most normal thing ever. When she hits about twelve, I think I’ll show it to her again, just to watch her dissolve into fits of, “EwwwwwwUH. Gross!“, because that’s just the kind of loving mother I am.

_______________________

Speaking of Lily, the little princess had her ears pierced last month. She was bound and determined that she wanted beautiful earrings and promised that she would sit still and be brave, even if it hurt. She pinky swore that she would take good care of her earrings. Pinky swearing is a big deal. How could I refuse?

This ear is so teeny tiny! It’s a sweet little squishy ball of cuteness. I can’t believe I’m about to pay someone to disfigure it…

The ear piercer is marking off the spot with a pen and Lily is getting mighty nervous. Luckily for her (and me!) they had two ear piercers on staff that day and she had them both done at once.

Victory! There were a few tears, but they were nothing a glance in the mirror, a sucker and a chance to sit on a tiny too-small-for-her carousel couldn’t fix.

Aww. Tiny little pink flowers!

Even with holes poked in them, Lily’s ears are still teeny, tiny, squishy, adorable little balls of cuteness…
________________________

Just after Christmas, we purchased two budgies to replace the ones that suddenly, and mysteriously passed away a few weeks earlier. (It sucks, we don’t know what happened. I’m not going to dwell on it here, though.) The new budgies are jittery and somewhat bitey sweet, but, if I may say so, dumb as a box of rocks.

The budgies have a habit of sitting in their food and water dishes. They back their little bums right up in there. And, as budgies are wont to do, they poop. A lot. In their food and water dishes. Now, I know that budgie enthusiasts claim that they are roughly as intelligent as a three year old child, but to that, I say this: My children knew (long before the age of three, might I add) that food is for eating, not pooping on. Even further, I’d wager that most three year olds know that food is for eating, not pooping on. In my opinion, any creature that thinks pooping on its food is an acceptable thing to do is less intelligent than the average human toddler. Seriously. Gross little creatures…

__________________

And last, but not least, allow me to draw your attention over to my review blog. I have three fantastic giveaways up there right now. If you’re a parent of boys or a parent of girls, or a parent of both, you’ll want to go there and comment for a chance to win. No strings attached. Just good old-fashioned giveaway goodness! (Just do it. You know you want to.) Clicky clicky!

Filed under: Happy Happy, Keepin' it Real, Me, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 1 Comment →

A special New Year’s joke, courtesy of my delicate little flower, Lily:

Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Butt.
Butt who?
Butt poo pee fart!

Hope 2010 is the best year ever!

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Offspring, Out of the Mouths of Babes by WWS (Lynn) - 3 Comments →

This weekend has been one of those revelatory weekends wherein I realize that pathetic isn’t even close to describing just how far I’ve let all things relating to myself go. I’m in a deep pit and it’s going to take a long time to claw myself up out of it.

I was watching a Tim Gunn makeover show recently and the recipient of the makeover was a 5’10″ woman. Ordinarily I don’t pay close attention to these shows but because the woman was exactly my height (and thus had the same problems as me in finding clothing to fit her elongated limbs), I settled in to see what types of things she purchased.

My conclusion? Don’t be tall unless you have boatloads of cash and can shop in uber-expensive and exclusive American stores carrying such high-end brand names that most people have never even heard of them before. Because, apparently, stores with non-exorbitant price points have never heard of the term “tall” before. In other words? I be screwed.

Anyway, back to the show. The first thing that Tim Gunn did was to ask the woman being made-over to go to her closet and pick out her top ten “can’t live without” items. And it hit me like a ton of bricks that I don’t have a top ten list of  ”can’t live without”  items. Because I don’t own ten items.

Well, unless you count the clothes that don’t currently fit me due to a combination of my hormones and my tendency toward slothfulness. (And even with those items you can still see the odd tumbleweed roll through my echoey closet)

Here is a list of the clothes that fit me right now:

1. One pair of Gap Long and Lean jeans (the “lean” part is a subjective term)
2. One bra
3. A set of five long-sleeved Old Navy layering tees (in white, black, grey, dark grey and green)
4. A set of four short-sleeved Old Navy layering tees (in white, grey, navy and brown.)
5. Several Old Navy layering tank tops
6. A grey, cable knit sweater
7. A brown, short-sleeved sweater
8. A pair of black dress pants that I haven’t worn since last Christmas and probably don’t even fit me anymore.
9. A bunch of not-pretty underwear
10. Several pairs of socks

So, yeah. I guess if Tim Gunn asked me what my top ten wardrobe essentials are, I’d have to say my whole closet.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something. That something being, “Damn, woman, you need to buy some damn clothes!”

I have decided to make some small changes in my life in order to slowly drag myself out of the hole I’ve created. I started by purchasing another pair of Gap jeans (same style and fit, different wash) off of eBay for a cheap price. (Firstly, because the Gap here doesn’t sell the jeans I’m looking for, and secondly because I can get them online for less than half price and I don’t plan on being big enough to fill out these jeans for long.) They’re marked as “shipped” so hopefully they get here soon. I’m excited, because the wash them, wear them, wash them, wear them cycle I’ve been on with my current jeans is exhausting.

The second thing I did was approach my husband about the prospect of bra shopping on a weekend. I planned ahead and came up with an argument that he just couldn’t refuse. Firstly, I suggested a trip to see Santa at the mall I wanted to go to, which Lucky agreed was a great idea. *

Secondly, I came up with an analogy of sorts to explain my dire need for another bra before he could launch into a tirade about hating shopping on the weekends/shopping before Christmas/shopping for clothes/shopping in general:

Me: Lucky, I need a new bra and before you say anything, let me tell you why.

Lucky: *eye roll* Okay, shoot.

Me:  Right now, at this very moment, my one well-fitting bra is in the wash and I have been forced to wear one that’s too small. Let me tell you how that feels.

Lucky: O-kay…

Me: Imagine for a moment that you are wearing a jock strap. And it’s too small. And, instead of the elastic serving to hold the jock strap in place, it’s instead pinning your tender bits to the inside of your thigh. And, every time you take a step, that elastic shifts around and squishes…

Lucky: *cringe*  *white face*  *full body “protect the junk” pose*  AAAHHH! Okay! Enough! Get a bra. Get a hundred bras! Let’s go right now!

Apparently, judging by the reaction my analogy received, I seriously underestimated the sensitivity of certain parts of the male anatomy. But it served its purpose and I have my new bra so, IGNORANCE WIN!

I still have a long way to go. The clothes I own are baggy and shapeless. I have an immensely hard time finding long enough pants. Not to mention long enough sleeves.  I may, in the future, need to look at what the lone “tall” store in town has to offer. For now, though, I am going to take baby steps.

I am slowly learning that even though I have plans to lose this extra weight, I have to dress the body I have right now in clothes that fit properly. I can’t continue to fall deeper into the pit as I let my life pass me by. I want to get to the point where, if I’m asked for my top ten wardrobe “must-haves”, my first thought isn’t, “I’ll get back to you after I’ve gone shopping.”

Don’t get me wrong: my smaller clothes are looking forward to their chance at a triumphant return. In the meantime, though, they’ll have to share their waiting room with some clothes that fit the body I’m in right now. I think I owe myself that much.

* After seeing Santa, Lily informed us that Santa said, “roight” instead of “right”, which prompted a conversation about how apparently, Santa lived in Jolly Old England before emmigrating to the North Pole.

* Logan seemed pleased that “This Santa was the same one as last year!” which leads me to believe that he’s trying to pull one over on us in terms of his Santa beliefs. Either that, or we were smart enough to have the “Santa can’t be in all the malls at the same time so he sends his helpers along” conversation with him at some point. Fingers crossed!

Filed under: Confessions, Keepin' it Real, Me, Out of the Mouths of Babes, PCOS, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →