In which there is adventure, nudity, and friendship

I have a good friend, Heidi. I met her through the Twins n' More Club here and she and I instantly connected. She is a true kindred spirit and I've never waved her off without having laughed till I cried at least once in the hours spent together. Heidi is always up for an adventure and is the kind of person things just happen to and happen around so she always has the craziest stories to tell. If you ever come to visit and meet Heidi make sure you get her to tell you the story of the Newfie she met while living in New Brunswick who moments after introducing herself to Heidi began talking about her "veegoina".

As I said I met Heidi through the twins club so obviously she also has twins - a set of boys who are only six weeks younger than Tristan and Ava. She also has a six year old daughter, who along with Sebastian we consider the bookends to all our 3 year olds. She is the kind of mom I always thought I'd be and she consistently inspires me to be more creative and spontaneous in my parenting. Heidi is the mom who makes pirate swords with cardboard and tin foil and plans treasure hunts. She will set up a store in their basement and takes her turn as the cashier...and she actually loves it! She's the one who said to me on the phone one evening, "Oh, the neighbourhood kids all got their jammies on and are here for story time so I better get to the playhouse." She has a strict dance in the rain rule and everytime it rains she and her kids run outside for a moment of magic. A while ago we were driving down some back alley when I saw a cheetah-print footstool sitting beside a dumpster and Heidi loves animal prints. "Stop the van! I said to Hugh, "I need to get that stool for Heidi!" There are very few people I would consider giving something I got from a dumspter as a gift and even fewer people who would love getting it.

A few months ago while both our husbands were working during the annual city festival, Spectrum, we decided to take our gaggle on an adventure together. Because the festival was happening in the downtown core where parking is next to nil, the city was offering free bus rides all weekend and we thought it would be a fun adventure to take the bus and check out the festival. We met at Heidi's bright and early on the Saturday morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the children were doing little happy dances of joy and so we walked (the kids skipped) a few blocks up the street to catch the bus at our neighbourhood MAC'S. All was sweetness and light and thrilling adventure until we had been waiting at the dodgy bus stop for 20 minutes and the kids began getting restless. I wonder if we should have checked the bus schedule," Heidi said.
"It's free bus rides all weekend for Spectrum, they must be running the buses pretty regularly," I said. "I'm sure it'll be along any minute."
30 minutes passes and the kids are complaining about being hot and thirsty so we pull out the large ziploc of goldfish crackers and bottles of water that we packed for just such an emergency though frankly we had not expected to need it so soon. We carefully ration the water because the last thing we need is to be stuck on the bus and have someone announce they need to pee. And you know they only tell you they need to go when they absolutely cannot hold it for one second longer. At this point no other passengers have shown up at the bus stop, which is the main stop in our area of town, and we are seriously wondering if these city buses even exist.
45 minutes and every child but Sebastian has been in some form of timeout or another and I'm feeling like if I have ask my kids one more time to stop putting stuff from the ground in their mouths I am going to LOSE IT!
55 minutes and suddenly people are coming from every direction to catch the bus and hope is revived in our listless little ones who all jump off the bench to see who can be the first one to spot the city bus which must be arriving momentarily...
10 or 15 more minutes pass and apparently it really is mostly the crazies who take the bus. We have now officially waited for the bus in the hot sun with 6 kids, most of whom are at an age not typically associated with patience and long attention spans, for over an hour. Finally, to a chorus of the shrillest excitement the bus arrives and as I manhandle my stroller onto the bus Heidi casually mentions the long wait time to the driver.
"Oh," he says, "that's because on Saturday mornings untill 11:00 it's dial-a-ride."
Dial-a-ride? Dial-a-ride! Please tell me if there is any another city you can call for a bus like it's a cheap taxi.

As it turned out the bus ride ended up being the highlight of the Festival and minus a brief hour where we walked through a street or two we spent the entire day riding the bus and the kids were so thoroughly entertained and so good that Heidi and I had the unheard of wonder of an almost entirely uninterrupted conversation. Who knew a bus ride could be such bliss?

When we did first get off the bus downtown we figured since the kids did drink all that water at the bus stop and we had been fortunate up to this point the first thing we needed to do was find a bathroom. And since it was incredibly busy because of the festival we ended up with all eight of us and my stroller crammed into one bathroom in Tim Horton's to take turns peeing. We quickly developed a system and because I was jammed between the sink and my stroller I was the hand-washer and Heidi was the pant puller-downer and back -upper and the toilet hopper-onner and -offer. You know you're good friends when....I thought as Heidi wiped Ava's bum and hopped her off the toilet. Then it was Tristan's turn. Why does one of them always have to have some sort of neurotic issue? A few weeks earlier Tristan had been sitting on an automatic flush toilet that flushed, very loudly, while he was still on it and he now refused to pee sitting down in any public toilet. No matter how much I assured him this one wouldn't flush by itself and wouldn't be loud Tristan stood in front of the toilet with his hands over his ears. That is not the best place to have your hands if you are a boy standing in front of a toilet with your pants down. Which I think he realized because he started shouting, "Mom! Hold my penis! Hold my penis!" But I was wedged between the sink and the stroller and the lineup of children. I looked at Tristan. Heidi looked at Tristan. We looked at each other. Then Heidi, my friend of the crazy stories shrugged her shoulders and reached out.

I may not be an Olympic athlete but...

We've been watching the Olympics with our kids.
They loved the Opening Ceremonies - Ava loved the drummers and kept asking if we could just watch that and Tristan spent almost every moment between each section of fireworks asking when the next ones were coming. So we really enjoyed it....

As for the events, they love the diving and think every replay is a new dive, could care less about the gymnastics unless the people are falling off things and can't tell the difference between the men and the women in the swimming.

The other day I pointed out that there was a Canadian in the swimming so we should cheer for him because we're Canadians to which my kids responded, "NO! NO! We live in Medicine Hat!" This prompted a discussion on country which is not as easy as it sounds when your kids think the house they live in is Medicine Hat. I'm not sure where we are in our local Starbucks drive-through but as my kids have very passionately argued, it is NOT MEDICINE HAT! I'm still working on my arguements for that so I kept it simple, Medicine Hat is a city in the country of Canada (I wasn't touching provinces or territories with a 10 foot pole!) and therefore we are Canadians. The end. Because I said so. I dare you to argue.
After pondering that idea for awhile Tristan looked and me and said, "Mom, you are a fabulous Canadian."

And this is where I call home?

So I've been on a small blogging hiatus...

Sorry about that. We had Hugh's parents for a week and Grandpa Don got to meet his newest grandbaby and then a week later the Elliott's came for almost 3 weeks of laughter and adventure. I have a few posts up my sleeve that I'll try to get out in the next little while plus the one I was writing and going to finish the next day....ahem.

Until then, I was reading through the classifieds today and came across this ad:

FOR SALE:
2 large wagon wheels, in excellent shape.
Small animals tattooing kit.

Blast!

I just finished a new blog entry and my server kicked me off the internet. When I restarted I discovered my entry is nowhere to be found. Stupid autosave. I'll try again tomorrow.

Proof that there's just no point in colour-coding

A couple of weeks ago while the kids were in preschool I went to the Superstore to pick up a few things. Normally I hate using those precious hours for something as mundane as grocery shopping but I weighed it out and decided it was worth it to skip reading in Starbucks so I could push just one cart to get my groceries.

As I was wandering leisurely through the produce section, (oh the leisure of one cart!) an older gentleman stopped me so he could peer into the carseat. "Oh!" he says in the same tone of voice I must have used the first time I tasted chocoloate, "Oh! Look at her! She is just gorgeous! And look at that red hair! I am such a sucker for baby girls. We should have had mittfuls of girls but all we had were boys. I just love baby girls and then when they have red hair...Oh! Oh! Oh! I just can't get enough! She is so beautiful!"

I looked at my red-headed baby dressed in blue from head to toe. I looked at the earnest face of the sweet old man.
And I said, "Thank you."

And he wasn't even wearing this....


Poor Sebastian. Poor last baby.

This bib is sort of like that really old pair of granny panties that are in my drawer. When those are the only underwear option I have, the laundry situation is getting pretty desperate. But seriously why is this bib even allowed in the pile as a last resort? It's not like my laundry day underwear is men's briefs!

I guess it'll be just one more thing he can add to his list of "things I will need to talk about in therapy".

Please tell me there's a light at the end of this long dark tunnel

Potty training Tristan has been a nightmare. Nightmare with a capital "might as well put a bullet in my brain".

Ava was easy. One day she decided she was ready and that was it. She stopped wearing diapers, had one accident and then was potty trained. It was so easy it was ridiculous. Except that she would not, I mean WOULD NOT sit on the toilet in public bathrooms. I would have had more luck selling beef-on-a-stick to a vegetarian. And if the toilet seat was BLACK? And then IF I FLUSHED? For months, six of them, I carried around a portable potty seat wrapped in a plastic bag should the need for public bathroom peeing arise. Lord that was irritating.

Even more irritating? The fact that Tristan has been potty training for over a year and yet I cannot say with confidence, yes he is successfully potty trained. He started off well. One day he came upstairs and said, "Mom! Take off my diaper I have to pee!" And then he hopped up on the toilet and peed. And that was that. He didn't have an accident for 2 days, even during a 5 hour drive to Banff to meet my parents so we could go to Mexico kid-free, and we thought "wow, who knew potty training could be so easy?" And we practically wrenched our arms out of their sockets patting ourselves on the back. When we picked them up a week later, Tristan had been put back in diapers due to all the accidents. Hindsight is always 20/20 and in hindsight what I probably should have done was just leave the diapers on until Tristan decided he was ready again. Instead, the minute we got home we took the diapers off and said you're potty trained now so pee in the toilet and you'll get a jelly bean. Which worked beautifully until he got bored of the jelly beans. I'm not sure which is worse, changing diapers or doing laundry every other day because Tristan has peed through all 15 pairs of his underwear. Again.

Since then I have literally tried everything. I've tried stickers, candles, and balloons and pretty much every bribe I could think of, which would all work until he got bored of them. I tried bathing him everytime he had an accident to make peeing his pants more inconvenient than just stopping play to pee in the toilet quick. But after 6 baths in one day with no results, I quit. I took away his pants and underwear and he went au naturel with great success, not a single accident! But, A) that's sort of awkward at playgroup, and B) he played with himself all the time and, I know it's all normal and part of development and everything but quite frankly, it just weirded me out. So, at my wits end, I even tried making it a discipline issue.

He can tell his therapist all about it in 20 or 30 years.

Finally, after being at it for over six months I tried diapers again. After wearing one for an hour he took it off to pee in the toilet. Success! Or so I thought. The next day we were back to the pant-peeing and I felt like going back to diapers would be giving up and I. Was. Not. Giving. Up. Especially after HE. HAD. BEEN. POTTY. TRAINED. Dammit.

In September they started preschool and here's something interesting, Tristan never pees his pants at preschool. So WHY GOD WHY can I not get him to take himself pee on his own at home? After every accident (or "on purpose" I can't decide) we always have the same talk.
"Tristan you have to be the boss of your body. You have to go to the bathroom BEFORE you pee in your pants, okay?"
"Okay Mommy."
"I want you to show Mommy what a big boy you are and pee in the toilet NOT your pants. Do you understand."
"I understand Mommy. I will pee in the toilet NOT my pants."

Today we were at the park for our Twins Club playdate when Tristan was inflicted with sudden hearing loss. At least I assume that's why he kept taking off his shoes when I had just asked him to keep them on and throwing his hat on the ground when I had just asked him to leave it on. I was faced with a decision. Engage in a battle of the wills and likely end up going home or leave it alone and get some real honest-to-goodness, I-really-am-a-human-being-not-just-a-mom conversation. I opted for the adults but on the way home I said to Tristan, "You were not a very good listener today. You need to obey Mommy the first time I ask you to do something. Yes, Mom?"
"Yes, Mom."
If this happens next time we will just leave, no warnings. You have to obey Mom, understand?"
"I understand."
"Okay. So what will you do next time?"
"I will pee in the toilet, NOT my pants."

I'm here...heavily sedated, but here

Just a quick little note to let you know that we've moved, we're mostly settled and I'll post some pictures once we're all done with head colds, throat infections and pink eye....and you should see the kids!