Come Listen To a Story.

The six year old finally lost her front tooth. It was a long process. You may remember it was kicked loose back in June. It re-settled back into her gum for a while but has been wiggly ever since.

In the last week it got very wiggly - I was sure each morning that today would be the day. Each night - it would still be there.
Finally, one morning it was hanging by a thread and the six year old announced she would like it pulled out.

We assembled Orajel for anaesthesia, ice for numbing, tissues for any blood, the camera, a towel, a stuffy to cuddle. Ready.
We tugged, twisted and hauled. The tooth stayed put.

The six year was undaunted but the husband and I felt nauseous so we took a break.
The tooth dangled.
It made it hard for the six year old to eat - so I made 'cob on the corn' to kill two birds with one stone. The tooth remained.

It was still there TWO days later. By now it hung so low, when she smiled it sat on the outside of her bottom lip - she looked like a cast member of The Beverly Hillbillies. People were staring. Children were recoiling - afraid of the child pirate before them.

We got out our tooth removal kit again and hauled. The tooth stayed firm. HOW?
It could swivel 360. By now even the six year old was over it. I called the dentist to have it removed. Less than five minutes later the six year old strolls by with a huge gap front and center.
"Where is your tooth?!"
I thought it had been swallowed and she hadn't noticed.
"Oh, it came out. Can we go to the park?"

Just like that the four day drama was over and the tooth was nestled under a pillow awaiting the tooth fairy.

p.s. My apologies to those who now have The Beverly Hillbillies theme tune stuck in their heads....

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Camp Tales - Part Two.

Have you noticed that no matter where you go camping or how well the campsite is managed there are five things you can always find on the ground?

1. The little plastic clip that closes bread bags.
2. Used bandaids.
3. Hair ties.
4. Beer bottle tops.
5. Juice box straw wrappers.

Our last night of camping we were ready for calm and sleep. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way. The kids went down two hours earlier and seemed grateful to go.
The husband and I gave them an hour to fall deeply asleep then decided to turn in ourselves.
Just as I was about to turn the lamp out - I spotted a spider. Not huge but not one I was willing to share my tent with. I tried to encourage him out. He didn't oblige and instead got into my bed.

I'm not particularly freaked out by bugs. I've slept on the ground in the Australian Outback where the critters have intentions. However, when it comes to my babies I am more cautious.

So, I went on Safari. The spider was fast - I just couldn't grab him.
"Pass me a shoe." I said to The Husband.

"How big is it?" said he.

"What? Pass me a shoe!"

"Where did it go?"

It's here - get me a shoe!"

"I'll get it - where is it."

"It's going to get away - GET ME A SHOE!"

OK, so at this point I may have raised my voice and woken the children. Ooops.

"Ssssh!"

"THEY ARE AWAKE NOW - PASS ME A DAMN SHOE!"

"Stop shouting at me."

"THEN PASS ME A SHOE!"

Do you hear the whistling as a shoe flies past my ear?
I 'caught' the spider and tossed it out the tent.

We re-settled the children. I listened to The husband grumbling about 2,000 years of evolution and male response - then we finally slept.

Aaah - the great outdoors.

Part three will run along the lines of just how amazing it is that so much of the great outdoors manages to come indoors with us after camping.

Camp Tales - Part One.

What an eventful weekend. I have been to this campground before. It was peaceful, and very beautiful. It was not a weekend.

It was still beautiful, towering Redwood trees and Giant Sequoia are everywhere making it an adventure wonderland for the kids. The air is delicious and the river perfect for swimming in. We were with a large group, spread out over 3 sites. It seemed everyone else had the same idea. The woods were vibrant with excited kids and relaxed adults.

Trying to get 7 kids to bed should have been a challenge, especially when you throw sugary marshmallows into the mix but all the fresh air and running around took it's toll and we got them all down without much resistance.

Pity we couldn't say the same about the adults! There's something about beer and campfire that makes grown ups with kids forget they will be back up again at 6am.
We turned in way too late. The kid free campers in the site next to ours decided this was a good time to start the drunken singing - sigh.

By 3am everything was finally quiet and peaceful. Cue drama.
I had just given the baby her middle of the night bottle (ask me sometime how I keep a bottle warm in a tent for several hours!) when there was a sudden burst of panicked shouting through the forest.
We were not in bear county so I knew it wasn't that. It turns out some poor soul was having a medical emergency. Thankfully we had cell reception (the wonders of modern science) so the fire department and EMT's were quickly on their way. A firetruck with flashing lights is an odd thing in a campground. It is so LOUD and the lights are so bright. Kids started to wake.
The six year old and the baby were still sleeping and I was so grateful. Then the helicopter came.
Turns out the man needed to go to a hospital and ground transport would be too slow.
A helicopter. I think we can now safely assume there is not a kid asleep in any neighboring houses - never mind tents.

By 4.30am all was calm again. The helicopter was safely transporting the man to hospital. The firetruck was gone and almost instantly the forest was quiet again.
Except for the 30 kids who were now wide awake and pretending to be helicopter pilots....

As it turned out the man was fine and actually back at camp in time for breakfast!
We were all very pleased about a happy ending, pleased in a bleary eyed, no sleep, too much beer and dealing with over-tired, cranky kids kind of way.

Did I mention how much I love camping?

S'more!

S'more laundry. S'more packing. S'more food shopping, cooking and packaging.
S'more driving.
S'more lugging, pitching and unpacking.

S'more fire building, cork popping and S'more ingestion.

I LOVE CAMPING!

We are off for a walk (sleep and pee) in the woods.
It's really my favorite thing to do but I'm thinking that some enterprising young boy scouts could make a fortune loitering at camp sites and setting up camp for a fee.

I will regale you all with our adventures when we return.

In the meantime, thanks for reading - I just rolled over 10,000 hits which feels like a milestone. If you miss me while I'm gone - there's always the archives...

The Walls Have Ears.

We've had guests. I find that my parenting takes a back seat when I have guests.
Firstly, they were from Scotland so my liver needs rehab.
Secondly, they have teenagers - the six year old is still in a daze of awe.
Thirdly, they go back to high school days so my head is stuffed full of memories.
Most of which involve huge 80's hair and ex-boyfriends.

It's hard to be a responsible parent when you are transported back to teenage years yourself. My accent re-surged so strongly that the baby kept giving me confused looks and the six year old asked for constant translation.

We spent so much time talking about TV shows from our childhood that we there was smoke coming from the laptop as we 'YouTubed' each one to show snippets to the six year old.
I barely ate a vegetable all weekend and the kids were fed on the run the entire time.
It's character building right?

I stuck to some of my principles. Much to the teenagers chagrin we didn't allow the TV to be turned on until the kids were in bed. There was a high incidence of drive thru's but we brought alternatives for our kids. The candy count was high but I still successfully diverted with organic ice cream.

On the last night we planned a big dinner and purchased an unfeasible amount of wine.
I bathed the kids and tucked them up after a story.
We opened our first bottle while cooking. Our tongues got loose. We started competition storytelling from our youth.
By the time we were on dessert we were in full adult only conversation.

Far too late and far too many glasses (bottles?) later we crawled up to bed. The six year old's door was open - hmmmm.
There in the hall, which is open to the living room, was a little blanket and pillow.
Hmmmm.

In the morning, bleary eyed and with a thumping sore head, I asked the six year old about the little camp in the hallway.
"Oh yes - that was me. I stayed up to listen to you all night."
Groan.
"What did you hear us talking about Sweetie?"
A huge grin breaks across the six year old's face as she confirms the power of her knowledge.
"Oh everything."

I will need a bigger wallet for what this will cost me..........

Why Is He Doing That?

The six year old and I had a long over due mommy and me date. The impact of the baby has finally hit. We've had lots of tears and pouting. I have been fighting the guilt but the guilt won.
So, I bought tickets to a show.

We got dressed up, left the baby with Daddy and went for dinner. It was super cute.
We had 'grown up table talk' and the six year old wore an ear to ear grin for the entire time. Then we went to the show.

Now I will be the first to admit it was very exciting. There were acrobats and magic, stilt and tight rope walkers, rings of fire and clowns. It was loud and bright.
There was so much to see and apparently SO much to ask about.

"Why is he doing that Mummy?"
"Well it's a show - he's entertaining us."

"Well why is he is doing that?"
"For fun."

"Why is he doing that now?"
"To show us all his tricks."

"Why is he doing that thing."
"Because."

"Because what?"

"Just because - let's just watch the show."

"OK."







"What's happening now?"

"Aaaaaargh!"


Bonding moment completed.
Mission accomplished - sort of.

Lucky Number.

Yesterday I:

Opened the fridge 34 times and the freezer 15 times.

Bent to pick something of the floor 28 times.

Called the chiropractor once.

Replaced discarded clothes 7 times.

Changed 5 diapers.

Made 11 separate meals or snacks.

Flushed 3 toilets I didn't use.

Answered (wait for it) 78 questions.

Cleaned 3 sets of teeth. (All in mouths)

Gave 5 hugs.

Read 4 books more than once.

Cleaned up the kitchen 4 times.

Drove in or out of the garage 8 times.

Did 3 loads of laundry.

Made 3 business calls.

Paid 2 bills.

Went to 2 shops.

Played "Person, Place, Thing or Animal" 11 times.

Sang 7 songs without adult content and 2 with.

Had one hot cup of tea and 2 cold.

Slept 6 hours.

If these turn out to be winning lottery numbers it will all have been worth it.

Blog Curious?

Do you have a secret desire to blog?

Come out of the blogger closet with The Parenting Myth.

I will post one guest, parent-related, blog a week.
You can be anonymous if you like.

Email your post to: Joy-McG@sbcglobal.net




small print: Blog entries may be edited for content especially if your writing is better than mine.

Water Wings.

It's hot. Very hot. The kids are leaving a trail of clothing everywhere they go.
The baby likes to strip then get really frustrated trying to put it all back on. Inevitably, I re-dress her only to find her naked again five minutes later.

The six year old has a slightly different take on it. She tries every possible combination within her closet to find the prettiest, cool outfit. It usually involves wings.....

Our favorite cool down activity is water play. Who doesn't love water play? A mom working on her laptop - that's who. I can't get the six year old to understand that there are times I need to remain dry. For the record - I spent several hours yesterday filling and throwing water balloons and filling and firing squirt bottles. I just also needed to pay bills and do some work.

"Put your swimsuit on mom!"
How to explain why I will not be running around our driveway in my swimsuit?
"Mom needs to stay dressed in case........there's an earthquake?"

Also, why is it that when I spend a very long time filling water balloons the preferred way to play with them is to make a tiny little hole in them and drink them?
We have cups, they are easy to fill and don't involve a knot.
It's possible that I am a little too left brained for parenting.

Parenting 101.

Before I had children I was a health care professional. I helped people rehab from accident or illness. I worked with people to adjust to their disability or even impending death. It was challenging work. It was a cake walk compared to being a full time mom.

On Friday the six year old disappeared into her room for over an hour. When she emerged she was exuding pride and joy.
"Momma - I made a book!"
"Oooh! Let me see."

As we sat on the bottom step of our stairs to read it, I made mental note that the fifteen month old had gone upstairs. The book was glorious. I quickly became engrossed by the six year old's creativity and imagination. It was easy to follow the story by the pictures. It had heart, beauty and intrigue.
I was delighted and felt happy and proud.

My oohing and aahing caught the attention of the baby who came to see what we were doing. In my mind the following events happened in slow motion.
She made it down two steps while I jumped up to get her before she fell. Too late. Watching the baby bounce down the stairs, floppy and banging her head was horrific.
Her face was panic stricken. I caught her after about six steps.
Thankfully she was essentially unhurt but very scared. I held her tight as she howled.

The six year old looked stricken and started to howl too. I held out an arm for her but she pulled back.
"She's OK - don't worry."
She started screaming.
"Honey - it's OK, she'll be fine - she's just scared."

"YOU RUINED MY BOOK!"
I was stunned. I'm not sure how I stayed quiet but I sat there holding the still sobbing baby while I let the emotion of the situation wash over me.
At first I felt incredulous at the six year old's lack of compassion, then anger took hold and finally, after some time, I felt compassion for the six year old's disappointment.
Inevitably, guilt settled on me.

I knew the baby had gone upstairs and I should have made her safe before we started reading the book. I remembered the crushing disappointment of having your parent dismiss you when you had something to show off. If it was to give their attention to a sibling - even worse. I felt a strong sense of failure. I had got it wrong for both of them, One was physically hurt and the other emotionally stung.
In that five minutes I had gone from feeling happy, blessed and relaxed to feeling overwhelmed and a failure.

I sat the six year old down and explained. How I couldn't leave the baby to get hurt.
How I loved her book and how I understood what an important thing it was. Her first book! How being a mommy is hard and how I will make mistakes.

The hardest bit for me is that there was no-one to sit me down and talk me through it.
Once I had smoothed everything over with the kids and they were back to playing and laughing - I was still shaken and upset.
That's the challenge of motherhood - absorbing an enormous amount of intensity and emotion and then shrugging it off in time to move on to the next thing. In kidland you usually have about a five minute window.

I went to college for four years, full time, to get my degree. I didn't even get one text book with the babies. What's wrong with that picture?

Little Joy.

Being a parent is such a trip down memory lane but I have been struck lately by how different the kids childhoods are to mine.

The six year old loves 'Little Joy' stories. In my head they are illustrated and we often have to look things up on the computer so she can see the differences.
It makes me feel a little old.

Take her new passion for example. Here's what I skated on,
at the time I thought they were the coolest thing ever.










When I bought candy (sweeties) they came like this. They had their own designated shop and the smell in that shop is childhood encapsulated for me.












Even as we look things up on my laptop, I remember the day our high school got a computer. That's right - singular. We sat around it in a semi-circle and stepped forward to take a turn pressing the buttons! We never did have one at home.











We sat in the back seat of a car without seat belts - never mind car seats or boosters. Plane trips were an exotic fantasy. Eating out at a restaurant was for grown ups. TV was black and white and had 3 channels - I was the remote.
Laundry had a dedicated day and took all day - OK so some things haven't changed.




It's a relief that the most important things you give your child are the same no matter what year you were born in.

Pride and Joy.

The six year old decided she wanted to roller skate. There was a rink at our resort so it wasn't exactly an unprompted ambition. I was skeptical. It's really an ice rink so the floor, in Summer, is solid concrete. I tried to convince her she'd have more fun doing other things - to no avail. She was determined. So, we went to rent the skates, helmet, knee and elbow pads. If you know me you can now picture my indignant face when they inform me there are only skates for rent. OK, I can deal with this - where can I buy bubble wrap....

If you are a parent you will know that an imploring child is hard to over-rule so, against all better judgement, I take her onto the bone splintering rink. All around us kids are face planting hard onto the unforgiving floor.
The six year old is unfazed.
"Momma - I don't need you to teach me - I can do it."
"Well honey, you've never done it before so I think I'll just show you a little bit."
"NO Momma! I want to do it by myself."
The husband gently encourages me off the rink with the promise of a gin and tonic.
There's a bar at the side of the rink - genius!

I am filled with trepidation. What if she breaks her arm? Knocks out more teeth?
Gets concussion. I gulp down my G&T to remain calm.
Meanwhile the six tear old starts gliding by.
She is a natural. Her delight is delicious to watch.
She is so proud of herself. I make a fool of myself getting tearful and cheering her on too loudly. The husband thoughtfully captured the moment.
Enjoy!

8,600.

So, it turns out it's actually really difficult (and expensive) to have fireworks go off outside your house at the exact moment you open this page. I may have overestimated my ability to provide hoopla. My apologies. Instead I will say that I really appreciate you reading 100 of my offerings and I really hope you'll stay for the next 100.

As you know, I was on vacation. I like vacation. Sleeping late, lounging by the pool, sipping cocktails, eating luxuriously long and delicious dinners. I however, was on a family vacation. Getting up even earlier with over excited kids, playing Marco Polo for hours in the pool, having my drink knocked over by the toddler and inhaling over priced food in under 10 minutes before the kids destroy the restaurant.

We did have lots of golden moments too. The kids LOVED having the husband to climb on for a whole week. Their joy at being able to go to the pool everyday, sometimes twice a day was infectious. Being allowed to eat ice cream everyday has parental benefits too!

We were in the mountains, at a ski resort. In the summer you can ride the gondola and chair lifts to either mountain bike or hike. We decided to go up for the ride and have some tree hugging time out in nature. Riding a chairlift to 8,600 feet with a squirming toddler was entertaining to say the least. I had her secured in a sling but she was was very determined to get out and sit on the seat next to her sister. Each chair we passed found our endless chorus of distraction with Pat-a-cake and Old MacDonald very amusing.

Finally we alighted at the top of the mountain - I felt more than a little bit relieved.
If only I had known that things would get much more dramatic, I might just have jumped right back on that chairlift with enthusiasm.

It was a hot day. In the high 80's. I am usually so over prepared the husband finds it maddening. For the first time (maybe in my life) I had decided not to carry a big bag of extra clothes, snacks, hats etc. We set off on a little hike. It was glorious. The views were endless - miles of mountains and distant lakes. We collected interesting rocks and twigs and tried to feed chipmunks (chickmunks to the six year old.) We were having a lovely time.

Literally within minutes the sky went from azure blue to black and it started to rain.
We weren't overly concerned, it was still really warm and we could shelter under the trees. Then the boom of thunder started. It was thrilling until the lightening started flashing.
"We better head back" the husband said wisely.
As we walked it started to hail. Cute teeny hail that was fun to suck.
The cute little hail got bigger and it started to sting our skin. We started to run.
We made it back to the lift just as the hail became gumball sized.

As we sheltered under a small awning, people poured out of the woods. In the end about 70 of us were squeezed under the roof for some shelter.
The temperature plummeted. We were in shorts and short sleeved t-shirts, including the baby.
I will let you imagine the conversation we had about why I like to carry extra stuff....

"It'll blow through" the staff re-assured us.
One hour later, the ground around us was completely white with hail and we were all very cold.
"Bad news" said the lift operator, "The lifts will not be running again today because of the lightening, state law, sorry."
"What do we do now?" asked the husband.
"You can hike down" says the ever smiling lift operator.

Hmmmm - hike down several thousand feet in hail with thunder and lightening crashing around us. I was delighted when not one person in the group thought this was doable.
An hour passed, we got colder.
I had just begun to get concerned. My concern very quickly turned to guilt. What the hell was I thinking bringing a fourteen month old up here in shorts and a t-shirt. What if we have to stay the night, what if the bears realize we are here, what if.....

"Good news!" says the lift operator, "They're sending trucks for you."
"The trucks can take 6 people at a time and we have three that can make it up here."
I did the math - it was going to take a long time to get us all down.

When the first truck rolled in nearly an hour later - I will freely admit that when it was suggested 'the baby' should go first - I bolted for that truck. You couldn't see me for dust. I had the six year old, husband and baby tucked inside before anyone could say otherwise. We did share the truck with the two little old ladies who were also there.

It was a scary ride, down a slick mountain track with drop offs. I was VERY glad to set my feet on solid, flat ground.
After hot baths and hot drinks we were all feeling it was a great adventure.
Aaahh vacation.