Now I'm Scared!

The day I became a mother, I wasn't scared. I had done my homework, practically memorizing every book on motherhood I could find and mentally compiling a job description that I was sure I was prepared for. "I can do this," I thought as I looked down at the sweet, wrinkled miracle placed in my arms. "I'm ready." What I didn't know then was that the tiny daughter meeting my gaze had big plans for us, plans that would require a five-year-old's vocabulary and imagination just to express. And so I spent the next few years believing I was a perfectly sufficient mother, blissfully unaware that my child was waiting to submit her own, more colourful version of my job description.

This just in:

Abby's Mother's Job Description (Revised Edition)

• Feed Abby.
• Clothe Abby.
• Teach Abby about life.
• Take Abby on jungle adventures with the purpose of catching a family of monkeys to raise at home.
• Help Abby open "Abby's Restaurant," an establishment that serves spaghetti and lemonade and caters to neighbourhood children under nine.
• Invite all of Abby's friends and relatives for tea and cupcakes in celebration of Bear's birthday. (Note: Bear's birthday falls on Tuesdays and Fridays.)
• Transform Abby's playroom into a theatre and produce "Abby's Swan Lake," starring Abby, everyone Abby knows, and the Alberta Ballet Company.
• Help Abby create a "Hug Machine" for Valentine's Day. (Note: This device dispenses hugs and sends the huggee happily on his way with a balloon through the use of cutting edge "squeaker-squeak" technology.)
• Dye Abby's purple princess dress blue, add sequins and peacock feathers, make the sleeves longer, and attach several more skirt layers, thereby creating a far superior princess dress.
• Show Abby how to make newspapers and ride a bicycle in the snow so that she can get a job as a paper girl.
• Take Abby to Heaven to see where God lives.
• Build Abby a periscope, a treehouse, a swing set, and a three-ring circus.

Now I'm scared!

Laugh from the Past

Today's post has nothing to do with my children, since in 2001 when I wrote it, Reece and I had only been married a year and hadn't met them yet! Back then, I'd never heard of blogging, but I did send out regular group emails to my friends and family in BC so they could get a picture of our small-town Saskatchewan life. I was looking through those old emails this week and came across this story, which is really too funny not to share again. Hope you enjoy it!

The Cacophonic Country Quintet Catastrophe

This Saturday, a missionary music group was scheduled for an eight o'clock performance at our new church. Because Reece and I thought we’d enjoy a good worship service -- and because we are the new associate pastoral couple, after all -- we decided to make an appearance. I was still putting the finishing touches on a poster for family camp when Reece walked over to the church saying he wanted to get some paperwork done in the last twenty minutes before the evening began. Once it was done, then he'd really be able to relax and enjoy the music.

I entered the church, poster in hand, just as the group was starting things off. I expected Reece to be saving a seat for me but couldn’t actually spot him in the audience, which, considering that the crowd was fairly small and consisted mostly of senior citizens, seemed kind of strange. Pastor Len suggested that Reece had probably run out screaming as soon as the first song started, and it didn’t take me long to understand why. Even as a person with no severe aversions to country music, I was in agony listening to the group. It was the corniest, sappiest, nasaliest, twangiest, warbliest country gospel music I had ever heard. Plus, it was boring and unenthusiastic. Even the lead singer looked liked he'd rather be fishing.

Thinking that Reece must be in another part of the church and wanting to see his reaction to the awful music when he came in, I took a seat in the back row with Pastor Len, close to the exit. After half an hour of waiting there, though, I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't care that "Jesus Loves Billy Bob Too" or that "Truckers Can Be Angels in Disguise." I just wanted to go someplace where guitars didn't twang and singers' voices didn't get stuck inside their noses. I asked Pastor Len if it was okay for me to leave in the middle of the concert, and he said something along the lines of, "Go! Save yourself!" I guessed that Reece must be at home by then, and I wondered what the story was behind his disappearance.

After walking home, I searched the whole house for Reece and still couldn’t find him. Then I saw the message light blinking on the answering machine. I pushed the play button, and a feeble voice emerged. "Please...You've got to help me...I’m think I'm in Hell!" Suddenly I realized what must have happened. Reece had gone into his office at the church and lost track of time. The group began their show while he was still working, and as soon as he heard them start playing, it was too late. Since Reece's office is at the very front of the sanctuary, right beside the stage, he couldn't come out without calling attention to himself and interrupting the concert. It was his worst nightmare come true -- he was trapped in a room full of bad country music, and he couldn't do anything about it!

Reece called again soon after that, probably hoping for a sympathetic ear. Of course, I was laughing much too hard to offer more than a barely choked out, "Poor baby." I advised him to stay calm and wait to see if there was an intermission at nine. If there wasn't, I said he should call me back, and I'd try to help him escape through the window. While Reece counted the seconds until nine o'clock, I naturally called some friends to share the hilarity. In the end, there was no intermission, and the window turned out not to be the kind that you could climb through. Reece was stuck in his chamber of torment for over two hours! In spite of the care package I brought to his window at nine (iced tea, a chocolate bar, CDs, and a walkman with HEADPHONES), Reece still came out of his ordeal a broken man. "You’re actually lucky," I said when it was all over. "At least you never had to go to the bathroom."

Frazzle Dazzle

Tonight as I was putting the girls to bed, I thought about all the housework I still needed to do before falling into bed myself. There was the usual end-of-the-day tidying, some extra cleaning for a playdate tomorrow, fixing the mess that Laureli made, fixing the other mess she made while I was discovering the first mess, washing yet another load of predominantly pink laundry, unloading the dishwasher, sweeping the floor... the list went on. I tried diligently to complete my tasks, but the next hour and a half felt like an exhausting game of Whac-a-Mole as all three girls took turns popping back up as quickly as I could get them down. I grew more and more exasperated until I eventually found myself standing in a messy hallway, hollering at my children to "just go to sleep already!" Then it dawned on me...

I REALLY COULD BE A FANTASTIC MOM,

IF IT WEREN'T FOR ALL THESE KIDS!!!

It's Only Funny Once the Mess Is Gone

Sigh. It happens at least once a day these days. I walk into a room in search of a pencil or some other such benign object, only to discover a colossal mess and two very guilty-looking girls. "Laureli did it!" is Abby's knee-jerk reaction, and usually that's true, although the innocence of watching in delight as one's little sister trashes the house is debatable. Today, I walked into a room and found Laureli alone, caught in an act of blatant tomfoolery. She jerked her head up to meet my glare and quickly blurted the first thing that popped into her head -- "Laureli did it!"

Having Girls

So what did your kids do today?

Mine took turns giving birth -- several times each!

Laureli went first while Abby attended.

(Here's Abby cutting the umbilical cord.)"You did great, Laureli. Congratulations!" Then Abby said, "It's my turn!"

and proceeded to give her impressions of labour.Dr. Laureli stepped in to make sure everything was okay.Not to worry. Abby pulled through.

Another safe delivery and another (rather familiar) baby girl!

Your kids played with blocks, you say?

How very normal of them.

Blogged Down

Because we're already three weeks into January and I would have liked my blog to start from the beginning of the year, I'm trying to catch up. This explains why two of today's posts are in disjointed list form and bear a strong resemblance to my most recent facebook updates. I plan on writing proper posts from now on, though, so don't worry. This is just the beginning.

• We were getting ready for bed after a long day driving home from Abbotsford when Abby suddenly turned to me and gasped, "Oh, no! We forgot!" "What did we forget, Abby?" I asked, worried that we might have left something important in Abbotsford. With eyes wide and palms spread, Abby exclaimed, "Mommy! We forgot to go on a jungle adventure!"
• Reece and I woke up quite festive one morning, since Laureli had decorated us with Christmas trimmings while we slept.
• I was stuck in an enormous line at Superstore while Reece went to get something from one of the aisles. (It wasn't like we were short on time.) Realizing that Laureli wasn't beside me anymore, I scanned around quickly and spotted her one line over. She had both arms lovingly wrapped around some bewildered man's leg and was softly nuzzling her cheek into the denim. I didn't want to go and physically peel her off the poor guy (whose wife was getting a real kick out of the situation), so I kept calling, "Laureli, that's not your daddy!" But she had her eyes closed and just continued to blissfully slow dance with the man's pant leg until he finally picked her up under her arms and held her in front of his face. Amazingly, she didn't cry or anything. She just looked slightly mystified and began searching for her real daddy. Thank goodness Reece reappeared just at that moment, or else Laureli might have freaked out and provided even more entertainment for the other people in line!
• I wiped Laureli's face after supper the other day and was indignantly told, "I want my wips back!"
• Coming into my room, Abby sat down on the bed, put her head in her hands, and sighed the deepest of sighs. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "I'm upset because we're only three sisters, and I need a brother too!" I quizzed her a bit on what a brother would do that her sisters couldn't, and it turns out that she really wants a boy dance partner so he can dip her "like this"! ("Like this" involved Abby jumping up and demonstrating an elaborate back bending ballet move that clearly lacked the proper support. Then she flopped back down onto the bed to resume her despair.)
• Abby and I were watching the Opera Australia version of Pirates of Penzance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3aClrCG874&feature=related), when she turned to me and said, "Hey, that girl looks like you, Mommy!" The girl in question had long red hair, so I was a little surprised and asked what it was about her that reminded Abby of me. "Well," said Abby, "she just has a smiley face!"
• Last night I had a beautiful, long bedtime cuddle session with Cariana, kissing her cheeks and exchanging smiles with her as I watched her eyelids flutter and finally close. Deciding it was time to put her in her crib, I gently lifted her onto my shoulder and whispered a soft, "I love you," into her ear. "BUUUURRRP!!!" came the jarring reply, and judging from the wide-eyed expression on Cariana's face as I shakily laid her down, I wasn't the only one caught off guard!
• Nothing particularly funny happened today, but I did get yet another picture to add to Laureli's "Lucky You're So Cute" scrapbook or "Pill Box" or whatever we end up calling this growing collection. Sheesh.

I Knew It!

Reece and I lived in Saskatchewan during our second year of marriage, and while we were there, we had two cats: Selina Kyle and Paddington. Selina, Reece's cat, was black, sleek, and sophisticated (meaning house-trained), and Paddington was a marmalade cat with soft, puffy fur, a heart-melting personality, and no sense of feline decency. He was my baby. Before moving back to Abbotsford, Reece and I decided to give both cats away, since we knew our BC apartment wasn't big enough for two cats and we just couldn't bear to separate them. They used to wash each other (okay, Selina did most of the washing), and when they slept, we often found them curled up together with their heads at each other's tails. It was adorable.

I've sometimes found myself missing Paddington over the years, but when Laureli was a baby, I told Reece that her personality reminded me of Paddington's -- warm, affectionate, and irresistibly cute. Then Laureli got older and developed a mischievous streak, and I thought, "Ha ha. That's just like Paddington too. Always getting into trouble." Now, we are taking steps in the direction of potty-training, and watching Laureli pee all over my floor lately has brought back even more Paddington memories. But the clincher came when we were in Abbotsford and I woke up one morning to find THIS!

We really should have named that girl Paddington the Second!