In honor of Halloween, I thought that I would share the story of one of the most terrifying things I have ever experienced. It’s taken me awhile to muster up enough courage to find the words to properly describe the horror of it. I must warn you, though, that if you decide to go ahead and read it, you will likely be as distressed as I was. If I were you, I’d read it during the daylight hours and maybe while someone is in the room with you. You may have nightmares, the shakes and/or nausea after reading it. You’ll probably want your mommy. If you’re like me, you’ll regress back to childhood and find yourself in a corner, sucking your thumb and holding your blanky.

Still reading? Ok, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

A Tale of Terror
by WWS

Back fat.

The End.

It’s true. I’ve come face to back face with pure evil. Thankfully, I’m still here to tell the tale, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s always there, following me wherever I go. I turn around and see nothing yet I know it’s behind me. I’ve been told that I must exercise the evil if I want it to get off my back and leave me alone. I was given the name of a good exercist. It’s called aquasize. I will likely have a meeting with it in order to find out if it can help me. I hope it can. I don’t have much time left.

My friend’s wedding is in two months.

Hold me.

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Me by WWS (Lynn) - 1 Comment →

You know the part in my About section where it says “likes to throw passive-aggressive tantrums“? Well, I’ve been throwing one mother of a tantrum over the past couple of days. Allow me to explain:

There’s not a lot of parking at my son’s elementary school. In front of the school, a lot of the street is a no-parking zone for various reasons (bus stops, etc). There are a limited number of side roads near the doors as well, leaving the strip mall parking across the street from the school. It’s a large parking lot, and the parents use the row of stalls nearest the school as a drop off/pick up zone. It’s quick and easy with parents clearing out quickly after dropping off their kids. It worked well. 

Until yesterday morning. Yesterday morning, there were two minions in yellow security jackets, along with a dude writing out parking tickets. Apparently, if we park in the lot to drop off our kids, we will now be presented with shiny, new $35 parking tickets. I stood in a row with several other parents, wearing identical “what the crap are we supposed to do now?” expressions as the news was delivered. We looked helplessly at the crowded street in front of the school and did the only thing we could at the moment – cleared out of the parking lot.

After thinking about it for awhile and trying to come up with alternate plans, I came to the conclusion that there really was no good solution. There is limited parking near the school. It is what it is. During the spring and fall, it isn’t a big deal to park a couple of blocks away, but in the winter time? Do I really want to haul two kids through drifting snow banks in minus 30 degree weather to get to school? My son will have a legitimate “I walked for an hour uphill (both ways!) in the snow to get to school” story to tell his grandkids one day.

Later that afternoon, I arrived at school 15 minutes early to pick him up, parked in a no-parking zone because there was nowhere else to go and went into the school to have a word with the principal. I was told that she was going to try and get ahold of the person who owns the complex across the street to see if she could get permission for parents to use a single row of stalls for 15 minutes in the morning and afternoon. Other than that, their hands are tied.

This morning, the evil parking nazi was patrolling the lot again. It was chaos beside the school. There were cars double-parked in front of the school, cars parked in bus zones, cars angled partway into too-small parallel spots with their back ends out in the street and parents letting their kids out in the middle of the road. All the while, the parking nazi was strolling back and forth across the empty parking lot in her stupid yellow “security” vest, turning a blind eye to the chaos around her. Maybe she hadn’t noticed, but at 8:30 am, nothing but the gas station is open in that strip mall.

I parked along a side road in a space marked “no parking”, hustled my son out of the car and walked past the nazi, audibly muttering something about how ridiculous the whole situation was. Now, I do realize that she is only a bylaw minion and just doing her job, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to smack the self-satisfied expression off her face as she strolled back and forth, back and forth through the deserted lot with her hands clasped behind her back.

Yesterday, while waiting for our children, a few moms and I had a big, fat bitchfest about it. We knew that if it was this bad now, finding a place to park in the winter would be a waking nightmare. In wintertime, the city plows the streets and leaves windrows, or snow banks, along the curbs like this:

(Although where I come from, I’d have to say that the windrows are usually double that height…)

In the middle of winter, when all the roads have windrows against the curb (which don’t get plowed away by the city), we have no choice but to park beside the windrow when dropping off or picking up our children. The road in front of the school becomes an absolute madhouse. With triple the number of vehicles trying to park in the middle of the road, the idea of one of our children being hit by a car doesn’t seem too farfetched. My stress levels are way higher than they should have to be when bringing my child to school.

Hopefully the principal will be able to come to an agreement with the strip mall owner. If not, I may very well continue to overreact and freak out until the day comes when the school in my neighborhood is up and running.

Two years of parking hell. Two years. Two. Tw. T.

Yeah. I’m going to be a complete nutjob by then.

Unless I’m in jail for mowing down that smug parking nazi as she patrols the otherwise empty and unused lot.

Just sayin.’

Filed under: Just My Luck, Pity Party by WWS (Lynn) - 3 Comments →

For the last several weeks, my sweet, adorable, innocent, baby daughter has been channelling Sean Connery. In fact, if she wasn’t young, short, female and Canadian, I would say that she quite possibly is Sean Connery. (Minus the facial hair.) (And the whole eyebrow-raising thing.) (Oh, and the baldness.) 

“Thish is Sean Connery shpeaking. And, yesh. I would love to shee shome proof that I am related to thish little girl.”

For reasons unknown to me, The Girl has decided that the letter “s” should never, ever be unaccompanied by the letter “h”. I’m not sure where she learned it, but it’s become as natural to her as playing dress up. Or, say, sitting down when she’s tired.

Mommy, can you shing me a shong?

I don’t like thish shupper. It’sh yucky.  

Can you read thish shtory to me?

This is all well and good (cute, even) until we are in a public place (*cough* church *cough*) and my daughter busts out with something along the lines of:

I need to sit!

Mommy, can I sit on you?

I’m going to go sit over here!

and then it crosses the line from cute to mortifying.

Do you know what it’s like to witness your barely-turned-four year old drop multiple s-bombs in front of random strangers? After a few nervous titters, I find myself quickly and loudly parroting my daughter’s comments (Oh? You need to SIT? You’re tired and want to SIT down?) in an attempt to prove that I am not a bad mother! What are you looking at?

In closing, if you ever see a sweet, curly haired little girl talking shit in random public places, I’ll be the frazzled, red-faced woman with her, embrarrassedly mumbling, ”She said sit! Sit!! Why won’t you believe me? She said SIT!”

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

Happy fourth birthday to my sweet angel. I love you!

Filed under: Offspring by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

Recently, I signed on to be a contributor over at Blissfully Domestic. I’m contributing articles, photos and how-to’s in the Photo Bliss category. As of this afternoon, my very first how-to post is up! I feel like a kid at Christmas. Yippee! Do me a favour, go check it out over here and tell me what you think!

Filed under: Happy Happy, Me by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

I am so completely, frustratingly blocked right now. I’d like to smack myself in the forehead but I’m pretty sure that I’d just end up with a headache. I don’t like headaches so I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to fire off a list of completely random, unrelated “stuff” that I’ve had sitting in my drafts folder for a month. Some would call it useless filler but I call it… well… useless filler. But it’s my blog and I’m publishing it. So there.

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Yesterday, The Girl jumped on her brother’s bed and hit her shin. Much crying ensued. She spent the rest of the evening bum-crawling around the house, claiming that she had sprained her ankle and couldn’t possibly walk, what with her one non-functioning leg and all. Then, after dinner when her daddy asked her to get him a pen, she jumped right up and walked across the room and back. We exclaimed, “Hallelujah! She is healed!” When she realized what she had done, she got back down on the floor and continued to bum-crawl, as if hoping we hadn’t noticed her little break from character. I didn’t think that this type of dramatics started up until the dreaded tween years…

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So, today, like most others, I am tired. Really, really tired. I-shouldn’t-be-driving tired. So, I did what I do most every morning and drank a giant mug of coffee. Now, I am jittery and slightly nauseous, on top of being tired. While my heart is attempting to jail-break the confines of my chest, my eyes are sitting at half-mast, coming precariously close to giving up the battle. I am so conflicted!

———————–

Whenever I’m walking down stairs of any type, I can’t help but imagine myself falling down them and somehow injuring myself. Maybe it’s a reflection on my state of mind, I don’t know. But I do know one thing: I am a mighty careful stair-walker.

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When we were kids, my brother and I were constantly threatening to give each other socks and underwear for Christmas. One year, I decided to make good on my threat, so I went into his room, took a pair of his own underwear from the drawer, wrapped it up and gave it to him. When he opened it on Christmas morning, disappointment was written all over his face but he valiantly tried to be gracious, worked up a smile and thanked me for them. He didn’t even realize that I’d wrapped up and given him a pair of his own underwear. Needless to say, he was pretty happy to find out that I had also gotten him a “real” gift. I can’t remember what I bought him for Christmas that year, but it could have been total crap and my brother would still have been thrilled just for the fact that it wasn’t underwear. The moral of this story? Aim low. That way, you can always outdo yourself and come out looking like a hero.

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I have an issue with randomly picturing myself getting injured. I was walking down the stairs with a big sewing needle and imagined tripping and sticking it in my eye. So there I was, twitching and contorting my face like an epileptic with an unfortunate tick, all because I imagined that I somehow stuck a  needle in my eye. Who does that?

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The other day, The Boy was upset that I was sending a sandwich along for his lunch when what he really wanted was mac and cheese. In his desperation to get me to make some noodles instead, he said, “But Mom, the sandwiches are too big! The lunch lady told me I’m not allowed to bring sandwiches for lunch anymore.”

I’m surprised his nose didn’t start growing with that one. He wasn’t too pleased when I called him out on his lie but, boy, please. You’re going to have to brush up on your fibbing skills. Saying you’re not allowed to bring sandwiches to school for lunch is like saying you’re not allowed to show up naked to a nude beach.

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I took The Boy with me to Walmart so I could pick up a couple of last-minute birthday supplies for The Girl’s party. He looked up at me and earnestly said, in his little 6 year old voice, “Mom, I can’t believe she’s turning four years old already! She’s just growing up SO fast…”

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Me, Phoning it in by WWS (Lynn) - 1 Comment →

Today, we had a party for my girl’s fourth birthday. Her actual birthday is in a couple of days, but at this age, she really doesn’t know the difference, so she pretty much figured that today was “the day.” I haven’t uploaded any of the pictures from the event yet, so instead, I thought I’d share a blog post I wrote last year (under a different name and blog address.) I didn’t include the creepy video I made because I can’t change my username on YouTube (and that old persona is not who I want to be anymore), so consider this the “almost there” version. I’ll be back later with this year’s update (minus the creepy, murdering doll).

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This weekend was the wacky weekend of switcheroo birthdays. The Girl’s birthday is technically today (I’d talk about how I can’t believe she’s three already and where did the time go, really? but that’s nothing new. I think about it constantly.), but we had the party yesterday. My mom’s birthday is technically tomorrow, but we did a brunch for her today. The poor kiddos had no idea whose birthday was when, but they knew that, regardless, this weekend meant exciting things like cake and balloons. Really, that’s the most important thing when you’re 3 and 5 anyway…

The Girl is all about princesses. I’m not sure when it first started and I’m pretty sure I didn’t introduce her to the concept, but over the course of her three years on this earth, she has developed a hardcore obsession with them. And so, when I asked her what kind of birthday cake she’d like this year, she answered “Cinderella.” Having decorated many a cake for birthdays passed, I foolishly thought, “How hard can it be?” And so, I rented this pan from the local party store:

On some level, I knew that decorating a cake with a relatively realistic face on it would be a challenge, but I didn’t think it would be such a massive pain in the caboose. I started mixing colored icing at shortly after 8pm and finally put the damn cake, covered in plastic wrap, to bed in the fridge nearly 4 hours later. Cinderella sported a toothpick in the eye and another in the heart, put there as my own silent form of revenge for putting me through such hell all evening. Believe you me, I had some choice words for the good people at Wilton as I laboured over that princess. The kicker is that even though I tried as hard as I could, my Cinderella just didn’t have the same pizzazz as the Cinderella on the instruction sheet. My Cinderella would more easily pass for one of the ugly stepsisters. That cake is lucky I didn’t throw it against the wall. I considered it, but figured the blue icing would stain my lovely beige paint job.

Thankfully, The Girl loved her cake and gleefully applauded all the way through the birthday song as it was brought out to her. That girl loves her princesses, even horribly misshapen pig-faced ones…

Once we had played some (ok, one) party games, eaten lunch and had cake, it was time for The Girl to open her presents. As always, the kid cleaned house and I am still trying to figure out where to put all the clothes, toys, puzzles and colouring books she received. Most of her gifts were typical little girl fare: Princess books and puzzles, Ponyville ponies (this is her secondary obsession) and cute little outfits from Old Navy. And then she opened Chucky:

My mother-in-law purchased a doll called Amazing Amanda to give to The Girl for her birthday and was so excited about giving it to her that I’m amazed she didn’t cry when everyone else at the party began joking about how creepy the doll was. To tell the truth, good old Amanda provided some pretty quality entertainment for the adults at the party. She can have two-way conversations, “eat” and recognize different plastic foods, sing songs, and – this is the worst part – goes to the potty. She actually grunts and grimaces. Ew!! Despite the ick-factor, I do have to admit that it really is amazing what the doll can do, and I love that my mother-in-law put so much thought into it (she even programmed the doll the night before) but it still gives me the heebie jeebies.

If you don’t see an update on this blog for more than a couple of days, please send help. It’s likely that Amazing Amanda came after the family…

Filed under: Offspring, Phoning it in by WWS (Lynn) - 3 Comments →

Black patent leather Mary Janes from Value Village: $2
Bottle of red glitter paint: $1.50
Pride and joy on the face of my girl as she creates and wears her very own ruby slippers: priceless

Guess who’s going as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz for Halloween this year?

Filed under: Happy Happy, Offspring by WWS (Lynn) - 6 Comments →