Like a Phoenix....rising from the ashes of good intentions.

Why hello there reader,

I wish I had some exciting excuse for letting this blog go dormant for over a year. Maybe we moved to Tibet and were too busy learning to milk a yak, or we decided to go off the grid and live under the ocean where there isn't any Wi-Fi. The truth is sometimes life just isn't that exciting, and it's just the day-to-day quicksand of laundry and crumbs that gets in the way. I have missed my little outlet though, so here I am, returning from the ashes of good intentions, ready to once again regale you with tales of my amazing life. Or maybe not. Only time will tell. 

So I guess in all fairness I should do a quick recap of the last year. Some of these things I will go over in greater detail in future blog posts, but for now I think a quick rundown will be sufficient.

I am still married, though I think I may have to change my husband's pseudonym because we are no longer living on a ranch, and we have sold all of our horses (yes, that would be "Big Change Number One" in the life of Blue). Instead he has been working as a medic, away from home, which has presented a whole new set of challenges in our crazy little life. I will go into that more another day though. We are in the midst of packing to move to a new area, a new rental and a new school (sort of!). Did you see what I did just there? I said "in the midst" so you think I am actually actively packing instead of writing to you in the middle of a half-sorted disaster. Ha, I am so smart sometimes. This move means we are transitioning a whole lot in a short period of time. We are embarking on a home school journey as of the end of this month. I am both excited and terrified (mostly terrified) about the daunting challenge of teaching 3 different grades of littles (preschool, kindergarten and grade 5) to 3 very different little girls. I think it will be good for all of us though, and three hours a day on the bus is the alternative, which isn't very appealing. Neither is leaving the house before 7am. So here we are, heading into yet another challenge that I am sure will provide entertainment to those of you that are sticking around despite my completely unexpected and lengthy hiatus. 

The girls have changed a lot in the last year as well.

Bookworm is now nearly 11 and fully entrenched in the preteen angst stage, training bras and all. We have a lot of door slamming, stomping and "not fair" in the air these days. She is still a lover of literature, math is growing on her, and she is as bossy as I was at her age. That's pretty bossy by the way.

Sunshine turned 5 this year and has really come out of her shell. She is a lot less shy, and really enjoys school. I have a bit (ok a lot) of guilt about pulling her out of public school but she seems excited about home-school. Like her elder sister there is a lot of screaming, stomping and door slamming when she doesn't get her way.

Stormy will be 4 in a couple of months, and she still exists almost exclusively in tutus and dresses. Smart and quick she is also brutally honest in the way only a preschooler can be.

Apple is not so much a baby anymore! She is 20 months old now and talking all the time. She still refuses to walk, even though we have seen her take as many as 5 steps at a time and our doctor has said she is perfectly capable of walking, just stubborn. Are you seeing a trend here dear reader? 4 very strong willed and stubborn little girls. One exhausted mommy who keeps telling herself that one day these character traits will make them great successes. I hope.

Lastly there is me, in the last year I have overcome a lot. I have lost almost 50 pounds. To answer the inevitable questions I did NOT use any miracle drug/shake/supplement/program. I did not sacrifice a goat under a full moon, lick a psychedelic toad or click my heels while reciting the Canadian National Anthem backwards. There is no magic. I just moved my fat ass on the treadmill until I looked like a disgusting drowned rat for 35 minutes a day, and tried to keep my food intake closer to a healthy person's and less like a carny. I fell off that proverbial wagon a bit but I have made a bet with myself that involves actual cash so I am feeling motivated again. It is, however, only day 2 so who the heck knows. I was also diagnosed with postpartum depression, which was preceded with a large can of worms, and followed by even more cans of worms. I will get into that onion another day, because this post is already starting to look like I am writing a sequel to Moby Dick. I just realized I have never read Moby Dick. What kind of a Literature major am I?!? 

So there you have it, a mound of excuses for not writing, a slew of fodder for future blog posts and the promise that I am back, like the Backstreet boys but with less glitter and more patterned leggings. 

Hope you stick around to read where this goes next!

Black (Legging) Death.

So a second blog post in a single day is usually either a really fantastic sign (something amazing has happened that I just can't wait to share!) or something especially terrible (I am here because I just need to write out all of this frustration!). This time it is neither...although I could argue that the death of a favourite clothing item is a pretty terrible thing. 

I am one of those moms that only own a single pair of jeans. I usually reserve them for special "casual dress" occasions like the school BBQ or going shopping in town when I want to look like I spent more than 5 minutes throwing my outfit together (like 8...). Today is not one of those days. Today is one of the other 360 days of the year where I have pulled on a pair of my old faithful black leggings. 

So for those of you that haven't been privy to the new trend - leggings are now considered pants. This is an amazing development for those of us that have been wearing them for years as an alternative to actually getting 'dressed' and are now considered 'trendy'. I am still not brave enough to don the bold patterned style that I see everywhere (that and I am not exactly a size 2...I am pretty sure my legs in giant rainbows would scare small children!) but my black leggings have gone from a staple in my closet to.... a 'trendy' staple in my closet. So hence my dismay when this afternoon I noticed a small hole on the inside thigh seam of the pair I was wearing. Now those of you who wear leggings know that there are two types of people when it comes to finding holes in our clothes. There are those that will whip out the needle and thread and stitch that bad boy up good as new lickity split, then there are those that will poke at that little hole until the previously wearable pair of leggings now look like something out of an 80's music video. I will give you one guess as to which type of person I am. 

So here I am, mourning the loss of one of my closest friends, whose blackness previously covered up all of the lovely varicose veins four pregnancies has left me with, and whose stretchy firmness helped lift the bum that my 30's have seen descend into a realm significantly lower than it resided in my 20's. 

Rest in Pieces Black Leggings...see you later in the scrap pile where I will Pinterest you into something magical my kids can use...like Barbie sleeping bags...

Memories Made in Mud

When my oldest daughter was little my mother always told me to write down the little hilarious things she said because otherwise I would forget them. She was right. I try hard to make note of the especially adorable things she says but recently Facebook has been reminding me (thanks memories!) of some gems I had forgotten completely about. Some of my favourites include referring to herself as "drinky" instead of thirsty, her best friend the snail (I have a video of her talking about how she tried to teach him to go fast but he only goes slow...made especially adorable by the fact that she was only about 4 and she could not say the letter "L") and her proclivity as a toddler to add "ah" to the end of almost all of her words ("I'm" turned into "Imah" so "I'm thirsty" would have been "Imah Drinky" omg adorable.) I have done the same with all of the following girls but I swear I am going to need a book when it comes to Stormy! At just over 2 1/2 years old she has the vocabulary and speech patterns of an elementary school student. She uses this amazing vocabulary to have some of the most amazing and bizarre conversations I have ever heard in my life. 

Yesterday she came running up to me as fast as her little legs could carry her 

Stormy, "Mommy! Mommy! Oh no there is a squirrel in trouble!"

Me, "Oh no! Where is he?" (These things are so much more entertaining if you play along)

Stormy, "He is trapped! His tail is stuck in the dragons mouth!"

Me, "What should we do?"

Stormy, "We need to save him so he can go back to his house up in the tree and eat some NUTS!"

It’s hard to remember sometimes that she is only 2 1/2! Today I overheard her talking in a squeaky little voice, saying, "Help! This CHILD is going to CHOKE me!" I went into her room and asked who was going to choke her and she was very indignant in telling me that it wasn't her that said that...it was her toy unicorn. Apparently she was going to give her a time out by tying her up with a scarf...

All of my verbal children are this way (I am sure Apple will follow suite but right now her conversational ability is limited to screeches and DADA) and I think its because we have always spoken to them using the same language that we would use for other adults. We don't "dumb down" what we say to the kids - and they generally either understand what we are saying by the context, or they ask and therefore expand their vocabulary a little more. We have always had the kids that say "Children" instead of "Kids"..."Bicycle" rather than "Bike" and so on. They will hopefully be kids that understand what LMAO and SMH mean but still feel the need to take the time to type complete sentences when interacting on social media.

Oh yes, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. I understand that time is precious, but there is no excuse for butchering the English language for the sake of shaving a few letters off of a typed word or a few milliseconds of typing out of the day. In a world of Cliff's notes and Google searches, we are trying to encourage our kids to love reading and research and appreciate the call of a good (complete) story. So far it seems to be working. Bookworm is very aptly nicknamed; she reads everything she can get her hands on. She is currently reading books in the Dear Canada series (if you haven't heard of them and have a "tween" or young teen girl I encourage you to check them out!) while impatiently waiting for the newest installment in the Harry Potter saga to arrive. We preordered it last month from Scholastic (an amazing program!) and she has been talking about it ever since. The middle girls are still pre-readers so they look at pictures, making up their own stories, or beg Mommy, Daddy or their big sister to read to them. Stormy doesn't always have the patience to sit through a whole story but since the arrival of several "Frozen" series books her attention span has miraculously increased exponentially. 

All in all we are doing our best to raise the girls to appreciate technology (the older 3 do all have iPad Minis they got for Christmas last year) but not to rely so heavily on it that they are unable to enjoy life outside the screen. We limit screen time (though probably not as much as we should, but let's be honest, sometimes its the only thing giving enough precious silence to allow Apple to fall asleep at nap times) but more so we encourage non-screen time. The girls have Barbies, dolls, dozens of model Schleich horses and accessories; play kitchen equipment and all sorts of other imagination sparking paraphernalia. They also spend a significant amount of time outside, walking up to visit the horses, riding bikes on the driveway and otherwise exploring the world around them in a very real and tactile way. Ever since our oldest was old enough to repeat it we have been telling the girls that "Everything is washable...including you" and encouraging them to explore and get dirty. It is sometimes a challenge (last summer Sunshine figured out how to turn on the hose and the girls turned our newly planted yard space into the biggest mud puddle possible - I wanted to both laugh and cry when I saw three little girls so covered in mud that they looked like they belonged in an issue of National Geographic- Cowboy well...he wasn't pleased) but always an adventure. 

That pretty much sums up life with four little girls though...it is definitely an adventure. I had better go now though, as it seems the next adventure family Blue is dealing with is a seven month old (yes Apple is seven months today!) that has been woken up prematurely from her nap by her older sisters...

Mommy Worry Allowance

So the thing about raising four girls, all at different ages and stages, is that there is always a problem. Ok, yes there is also always a blessing too...a new stage or skill that’s very exciting. Let's face it though, as parents there are more tears shed and hair greyed over the challenges than the blessings. 

Before I had four daughters I could never have imagined how completely different in personality four little girls can be. 

My eldest daughter has always been extremely cautious. She was the kid on the playground that stuck to the swings because there was always the possibility she may fall off of the climbing equipment. She learned to walk late because she would not let go of the couch until she was certain she would not fall. As she has gotten older that caution has extended into many other aspects of her life, which makes it difficult to get her to try things outside her comfort zone. She has a tendency, like many girls her age, to believe the world will actually fall apart if she doesn't succeed at absolutely everything she attempts. The newest installment of "The Dramatic Tribulations of Bookworm" is her extreme distaste with the world of mathematics. You see, she has had the mixed blessing and curse of having a natural inclination towards reading, and to a lesser degree, writing. She taught herself to read in the summer between preschool and kindergarten, and has been fully immersed in the literature world ever since. Reading comes easily to her, and is enjoyable, so she has always been several grade levels above her age in that category. You can imagine her chagrin however, when she realized that just because reading came easily to her, it didn't mean everything else would. In fact, I still don't know if she fully embraces the concept that she may actually need to WORK at learning something. I have tried the mom spiels of "learning means practice" and "practice makes perfect" but her general reaction towards a difficult math concept is to slam the book shut and proclaim, "I can't do it, this is stupid." So here is where we are now...with a stupid mathbook full of things she can't do. The silly thing is, when I sit down with her and go through the problem solving steps, she CAN do it. As soon as I leave and she is left to her own devices she shuts down and won't even attempt it. After talking with some other parents I am not sure if this is personality or age related, but I guess I won't know that until Sunshine gets a few years older. In the meantime, Bookworm has entered a new school this year and their academic focus for the year is...you guessed it...numeracy. So perhaps things will change if her challenge is one that the children around her are sharing. Thankfully her proclivity towards caution does not extend to making friends, as she approaches everyone with openhearted good nature and is one of the best friends I have ever met. She really does enjoy putting others first, and because of that she generally does not have any problem making friends. One less thing to expend my "Mom Worry Allowance" on.

I do believe that as parents we have a certain amount of worry that we can withstand before we lose our shit. (You have to love a blog that is peppered with both curse words, and vocabulary choices that may have some of my readers reaching for a dictionary...blame my background in English Literature and marrying truck drivers...but I digress...). I don't think I have actually exceeded that threshold, but I would be lying if I said I didn't walk the line on a regular basis. My other "problem child" of the moment would be Stormy. This isn't really unusual, as she is most definitely the little firecracker in my bunch. At two and a half years old, Stormy has a vocabulary that rivals most first graders, and an attitude to match. Whoever told her all little girls can be a princess if they want to should be shot. This little girl truly believes she was destined to be royalty and should be treated as such. A petite twenty-three pounds of tutu-wearing fury, Stormy has big ideas and no lack of self-confidence to get her there. Our current challenge is with the concept of potty training. Both of Stormy’s older sisters followed the same progression when it was time to ditch the diapers. First I suggested that perhaps they would like to get rid of the diapers and try big girl underwear! This was followed by a fight to get said child to even SIT on the potty, then every bribe imaginable, followed lastly by tears (from Mommy) and a resignation that they were not going to even attempt to potty train. In both cases, within a month of my momentous failure to interest them in the concept, they decided that diapers were for babies and trained themselves. Then along came Stormy. She has a completely different relationship with diapers. She LOVES them. They are her security blanket. Not only has she flat out refused any attempt to bribe her to try training pants or a potty, but she actually gets hysterical at the idea of letting them go. So I decided to follow the same pattern as before, backing off and watching for her interest to pique on its own. It’s been 5 months. I asked her yesterday if she was interested in trying on some Frozen undies and she threw herself on the box of pull-ups sobbing that she "can't" because the diapers are hers and she "NEEDS" them! Back to the drawing board. This is the child that just walked up to me writing this and said "I would love you to get up off of the couch and get me some crackers" she is a tiny dictator I am telling you. Now before the SanctiMommies start crawling all over me, we do not allow the kids to speak to us disrespectfully and I did have her repeat herself using the appropriate please and thank you. I just find it funny that her natural inclination is to speak as if she truly is the princess she believes she was born to be. 

Well, that is enough rambling for today. I am off to try and convince my girls that the hurricane look is not a good one for a bedroom to have, and that cheese and crackers do not count as a vegetable.

Hang in there mommies.

Mama Blue Out.