The World's Best Mom!

My parents
I wanted to write something special for Mother's Day. Something to pay tribute to my mom. I was trying to figure out what one wonderful thing she did, what she would say - something that encapsulated my mom completely.
I can remember a million things about growing up; all of them made my mom special. I remember the rainy days where we jumped in puddles (now I do that with my son), I remember her telling me the story about how she lost her boot in the snow every time I asked (and now I tell my son that story) and I remember her laughing one time when I spilled an entire container of flour on the floor, and was certain I would be in trouble (now I laugh, not shout, when my son spills things).
But above all, what makes my mom special is just who she is.
When you think about a really good mother, or person in general, you don't necessarily think of their attibutes -
just their being.
I think that's what people would say of my mom. Sometimes she's funny. Sometimes she's deep. Sometimes she's quiet. Sometimes she talks a lot. Sometimes she's stunningly beautiful, sometimes she looks pretty in a very simple, uncomplicated kind of way.
But no matter what, her loving kindness shines through.
My mom is cool. She's the mom who welcomed my friends over. She's the mom who was welcome to come into my bedroom when my friends and I were talking about our days, laughing about things that happened and complaining about our teachers. She would chat with us, listen, laugh at our jokes (that probably weren't as funny to her), and then leave before she wore out her welcome.
She was also strict. There were rules and consequences. But there was the other side too. I knew that if I was ever out somewhere and didn't know what to do I could call and she would pick me up - no questions asked. I also always knew that if I ever doubted if I should be doing something I could invoke the name of my mother and she would back me up.
I've grown up, and some things have changed. But, not that much has changed. She's still the person who joins me for coffee and a chat. If I take a day off of work, I usually end up going to her house for coffee. She's still welcome if I'm hanging out with friends, and she still has a pretty good idea of what's going on in my life.
The other day someone was in my office talking about Mother's Day, and I said "oh yeah, here want to see my mom?" and I pulled up her blog. I thought it was pretty normal. But, the person was like "wow. you are like your mom."
Yes.. I am. And to me that's the biggest compliment you can pay me.
When I look at my mom she inspires me. I look to her for advice and guidance. One day I hope that I can be half the woman she is. She's pretty amazing.
So Happy Mother's Day Mom.
And to all of you other incredible moms out there - the same to you!
Have a good one. We all deserve it. (and I hope if you're reading this on Mother's Day morning you are in bed with breakfast and coffee that's been lovingly prepared for you ... yeah right!)
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!!!

A Little Judgement for a Friday Evening

Tonight my husband and I went on a date. Our daycare had a special evening for the kids (a pizza party) so that the parents could have an evening off. It was wonderful and the kids had a blast. So did we.
After a lovely dinner Mike and I decided to grab coffee and go for a walk by the lake. It was a perfect night. We had a great time.
The way our lake front park is set up is that there is a boardwalk and then there is a lower walk by the water. There is a ledge between the upper and lower boardwalks.
As we were walking along we saw a family. I heard them first. The father in particular. He was yelling to him maybe 5 year old son not to lean over the ledge (from the upper to lower boardwalk). I totally get that. I looked because I was close enough that if a kid was going to fall I would have run over.
But the child stopped as his dad shouted "if you lean over the ledge I'm going to tan your hide."
Okay, not my form of discipline, but whatever. It wasn't so much the words that stopped me, it was the tone. It was chilling. I stopped.
We were maybe two feet away.
The child stopped. Dead in his tracks.
The father came over to him and started to shout. As he shouted the little boy didn't cry, but his younger sister did.
And the the father picked him up. And he pretended to throw hom over the ledge. The whole time he was shouting "this is what will happen. this is what will happen."
The boy was hysterical. His sister was hysterical. The baby his mother was pushing in the stroller was hysterical. I was almost hysterical.
The mother stood quietly by. Watching. Waiting.
I was horrified.
I didn't want to intervene because by the end he was holding his child with one hand.
I was frozen to my spot.
Mike wanted to go. I waited until he put the child down. And then in the loudest voice I oculd muster I said "what was that? who treats a child like that?"
They heard me. I did nothing else.
I wish I had. I felt for those kids. And I was angry. How do you treat kids like that?
I know this is judgemental. I really do.
But really. I could not care LESS if you breastfeed or co-sleep, if you give time outs or count. I wouldn't blink an eye if your child ate ice cream for breakfast and wore mismatched clothes. All of that is inconsequential.
But this - chilling.
And I wish i did something else.
Mike told me to leave it. He said that the wife would probably say something later. And, he said I was just probably shocked because parents don't do that now. Twenty years ago it wouldn't have shocked me.
I guess.
But I wish I'd done something. Said something.
Truthfully I don't think it would have done much. I would have angered the dad, and in fairness, he didn't hurt the child. Just scared him.
But still ...
And then I reminded Mike that if he EVER did something like that the repercussions would be huge. But, in all honesty, I think that's why I married who I did, because I know with every fibre of my being that he would never ever do such a thing.
But, if I ever see something like that again I will say something.
And, tonight I'll hug Matt just a little tighter just so he knows he safe.

Camel Toes, Cleavage and Quality Time

I love to shop. I love shopping even more when I get to sip a latte, pick clothes for someone, judge outfits and have a really good laugh.
Luckily for me, one of my friends wanted to go shopping at Winners. I love this store. It's exhilerating to go through a million racks to find that perfect item. I far prefer shopping at Winners to a lot of other stores because of the variety and, sometimes, the prices.
We started off in the shoe section. My friend (who will remain unnamed) is quite a bit taller than I am. This isnt hard considering i am 5'2, but while she tried on some stunning platform sandals while I hovered nearby in flip flops the evening became hysterically funny.
The true mission of the night was to find capris and sunglasses. First stop - sunglasses.
Now Winners, as I am sure you know, has some great stuff. They also have some stuff that can be rightly considered a fashion don't. This was true of the first pair of sun glasses my friend tried on.
I looked at her and thought she looked like a bug. So, she left the sunglasses on and buzzed, like a bug, while browsing. To me this seemed somewhat normal but to the others looking at sunglasses it seemed odd.
We quickly found a pair and continued on to the clothing racks.
In true shopping spree style we took everything that we thought may be appropriate. We loaded the cart with pants, jeans, capris and shorts and proceeded to the change room.
I learned one very important lesson - when shopping with someone whose legs are approximately twice the length of your own, it is impossible to guage pant length. While i happily flit between the regular and petites section long legged people cannot. Petite length capris are more like hot pants on someone with long legs.
So we made it to the fitting room. Six items were allowed at a time so i ran back and forth a fair bit while she tried on pants.
As she was trying clothes on we were laughing and chatting and telling stories. At one point a woman came out of her dressing room to tell me that we were the best entertainment she had ever had at Winners.
I think we were a little loud!
At one point i was telling a story about the time i tried on a dress that was too small for me. The zipper got stuck and they had to cut it off of me (it was totally relevant to the fact that my friend could not get a pair of too tight jeans off of her!)
Suddenly from two dressing rooms down a woman shouted, "so did you have to pay for the dress??"
The answer was no.
This sent us into hysterical giggles just as my friend opened the door to show off the most hideous pair of shorts known to man.
They were a tight hoochie momma pair of terry irwin inspired shorts that displayed the world's worst camel toe.
It was hilarious.
Not only were the shorts horrible, but this friend is about as likely as i am to wear any garment made to be worn in the outback.
When we saw thosw shorts we lost it. Tears were running down my cheeks. She was snorting she was laughing so hard. It was truly funny.
We decided against the shorts and moved on to brassiers.

Exact same shorts & camel toe

I sware by the bras at Winners. I once read that you have to buy a bra based on breast shape. So, if your boobs are particularly round you want a rounder bra whereas if they are more oblong you want more of any oblong shape. This is why me and my round boobs dont like La Senza so much.
We like Winners. My friend was looking for cleavage enhancement. I just wanted a new bra.
We must have gone through everything on the rack. Who knew that they had blinged up bras at Winners???
In order to keep them untangled we simply hung our bras on the outside of the cart. Again we took about a zillion in - you know we had to try everything.
For some strange reason the fitting room is on the exact opposite side of the store as the bras so off we went our "bra buggy" leading the way.
It was all fun and games till we found the only men shopping in the store. They just did not quite know where to look when the bra buggy and two giggly girls walked past them en route to the changerooms. When we saw their look we really were gone.
Unfortunately we did not get the cleavage we were looking for. Well, I did. Too much. The lovely push up bra I tried on could only be described as startling. So I did not get it. (I did, however, find another one I loved, a little less cleavagey, but quite nice which I broke when I tried it on this morning. Oops!). And, as for my friend. Well, the goal of cleavage would have happened if we had gone back to get more sizes, but just as we discovered that the bedazzled bra was indeed the wrong size the store announced they were closing ... and we had to leave.
All in all a lovely evening. But it looks like we'll be going back. Soon.

Change is in the Air

Like my new layout?
I decided the other day that I was ready for a change. I've been blogging a little over a year, and I was bored of my layout, so I decided to make it a little more exciting.
Well, really I asked someone to do it for me. Sam was incredible, and knew exactly what I wanted with very little to go on. LOVE it!

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And today, well today was great. I feel like spring is officially here. Tonight I came home and gardened. Yep. I know. I'm not a green thumb. But, now that we are homeowners and have a yard we've been trying our hands at gardening.
We started this weekend with the little garden that was already there, but decided to take it to the next level. Together Mike and I cut out a new front garden. Right now it's just dirt, but we went and bought some flowers. I can't wait to plant everything and make our house really pretty.
Matt decided to help us as well. He loved digging in the dirt with his own little shovel. So, as long as he didn't dig up our already planted flowers we were happy. He's also a pro with the watering can.
Once we had dug out the garden we went over to the garden store (in a lovely rented van since our car is in for repairs) and were able to get a ton of stuff. Matt had a wonderful time picking out all of the flowers. It was hilarious. He sat on the special wagons at the garden store and pointed out all the things he liked.
Of course our evening would not have been complete without a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house. (we needed to borrow a rake and have coffee). It was such a pleasure to visit because Matt feels so at home with my parents. And, he and Grandpa built lego towers.
Plus, when it was time to go Matt actually started helping putting toys away - without any prompting. It was amazing.
And, to top off the night, on the way home Matt said to us "tonight was wonderful!!!"

I agree.

Tired

Lately I've been really tired.
I know I'm a mother, with a pre-schooler who has a ton of energy. And I work full time. And I've been running.
So, in a sense maybe I'm a little burnt out.
But, it's not just that.
Ever since the Virginia Tech Massacre I haven't slept properly.
For the longest time I refused to read about it. I saw the headlines and I didn't completely bury my head in the sand, but I refused to read all of the specifics. Right now I don't want to know the names of those killed. I don't want to know why. Maybe that's a little cold of me. But, I don't.
I remember when Columbine happened. I was fixated on the news. I needed to know why. I think that behind my morbid curiousity was this feeling that was if I knew why they did it I would rest a little easier. I wouldn't need to fear for my safety or the safety of my loved ones.
But, as sad and as scary as Columbine was - it's different now.
I have a child.
And, lately I have found it hard to sleep.
My son is in daycare. I love his daycare. But, it's in a highschool. Sometimes I worry that someone in the highschool will bring a gun. That scares me.
I try to remember that it is unlikely.
I also can think of a million other reasons why it's unlikely. We moved to a safer neighbourhood than we were in. We are part of a community. The school his daycare is in is a great school with a great community. I don't think there's any graffiti on the walls.
But, I still worry.
And, at night, when I'm trying to sleep, I get scared.
I know there will be many more things I need to worry about. I know that on a practical level Matt will be in a zillion fights and have lots of battles to face that will never be as bad as someone coming in and shooting people.
But, logic doesn't always help at night - when you can close your eyes and picture the worst. And, last night these nightmares extended to my nieces. Could I protect them to? Ahhh. It's horrible.
And so I'm tired. Because so many nights I've had horrible nightmares of what could be. And they wake me up. And it's really hard to go back to sleep when you have such a horrible vision in your mind.
I know it's normal. Thank goodness for other parents who have the same fears, who tell me that being scared and concerned makes me a good parent, not a bad one.
But still.
One night's sleep. A good sound sleep ...
Really that's all I ask.
World peace would be good too.