Is it...

...a good thing to drink too much wine the night before you meet your only babies' very first 'real' school teachers? You know, the ones who will be spending more waking hours MY babies than myself? The ones who may very well have more influence and more impact on MY babies than I do myself? The ones they may have a crush on? The ones they may say they are in love with?

Teachers. I do love them. All of them. Yes, every single one. For all the reasons that we all know, and that my brain is currently too fuzzy to write about properly, in the fashion they deserve. (I just typed desevred). See? Thank God for teachers.

But I love my babies more. And I wanna make sure they feel the same. But I won't say it out loud, not until they are at least 10 years old, cause at that point, that's just too creepy.

My brother loved his grade 2 teacher so much he cried all day on that last day of grade 2. I was in grade 4. They came and got me to ask me to try to get him out of the boys bathroom. I couldn't, he was crying too much. She let him bring home the class hamster for the whole summer. It made him feel better, that made him feel good. That's what teachers do.

But I love them more.

So, how much Chardonnay is too much the night before you let them go? I am not (I just typed snot) sure.

I'll let you know.

A measure of time

How do you measure time? Let's say four years of time.

For parents : the amazing changes in their children.
For Students : a high school diploma, a university degree
For athletes : the next Olympic Games
For long distance couples : a feelnig of never ending
For couples : a partnership/marriage, either too short or too long
For professionals : just the beginning of a career, or the quick ending of one
For the majority : time to enjoy life working, playing, travelling, hobbies, just about anything and everything.

Four years isn't really that long of a span of time. It's only 5% of one's life if you are 80 year old.
Four years is a very short span of time. It is 100% of one's life to a preschooler.

Four years is a blink of your eye, yet taking the time to think of all the blinks and the tears, it can be just way too much time.

Four years ago today, my mother died. My Mommy. My best friend. My everything.

To me right now, four years feels like forever, yet I will confess to her being gone is in fact a little bit easier in the sense that I don't break down in tears every single time I talk about her, only some of the time.

My mother, Trevor & Ben's grandmother, has missed a lifetime. She died when they were 15 months old, to the day. In that short (long?) four years she has missed seeing them:

- talk
- use the toilet
- start preschool
- swim
- tell jokes
- go to Sunday school
- be in a play
- sing songs
- play the piano
- play baseball
- eat chocolate
- walk the dog (by holding the leash, they still refuse to pick up the poop)
- want to learn every single thing that surrounds them
- play by themselves
- play together
- climb to the highest point of the climbing structure at the park (which is bloody high if you ask me)
- ride a scooter
- go to a birthday party
and so so so much more.

Now she is going to miss them starting school. Real school. Real every day, all day long, with lunch box in tow on the big scary yellow bus, school. This bus will pick them up at the end of our street and drive by her house every day. I KNOW for a fact if she wasn't walking with them to the bus stop every morning at 8:20, she be in her window waving at them. Yes, that would be every day, I promise you that.

Now she waves at them from another place. And I wave to her looking for her hugs to help guide me through this next, very important and exciting chapter of their lives.

You see, I am not ready, not really, to send them away where someone else gets to spend more waking hours with them than myself. My father reminds me, "Your mother went through it too". That helps me, a lot, which will in turn help my babies grow up and gain independence to explore and savour all that life has to offer. It is not fair that she is not here to see them go. She should be here dammit, she deserves to be here, but life is sometimes not fair. I must take confidence in knowing that indirectly my mother is helping them, by helping me.

Even in her absence, she has a great presence.

And will for the next four years.

When does it matter, and should it, really

One of the best things (to me) it being so proud for them, even in the simplest of tasks, like dressing oneself.

B loves to pick his own clothes, and dress himself. He takes such pride in doing it all on his own, right down to doing up the buttons, even if they are crooked. I do straighten them out for him, when he asks.

There are more times than others, when he doesn't really "match". I am not a believer than mismatched clothing on a 5 year old is a fashion faux pas. You can always identify the self-dressers when at the library, the park or the grocery store. I think it is adorable.

Today B dressed himself, comes into my room, "How do I look, Mom?" I held back the gasp at the bright red athletic shorts with the orange and brown plaid dress shirt all buttoned up, and said, "Great my love, but do you think that shirt really goes well with those shorts?" and then was immediately pissed off at myself for saying it. He replied in the calmest of manners, "I don't care if they don't match." To which I replied, "No problem, but remember, we are going to the store later." (Again, statement totally unwarranted but just to protect his ego even in the smallest of ways)

I then get this look, of complete innocence, yet a touch of sophistication (the kind that comes with pride) and says, "Why does that matter?"

I answered, "It doesn't." and he skipped off downstairs to continue his Batman colouring marathon.

It melts my heart when they are so naive, yet so genuinely in tune with themselves. They truly do not care what others think. I love that as much as it worries me.

When does that change? And does it even matter when it does? Or should it?

Ell-oh-ess-eee-are

When your husband has to leave the house at 11:45, and at 11:00 he says "Wife, you have plenty of time to go get the groceries before I leave." You take him up on that cause you get to go childless.

It's not a big list. It is more than do-able.

It's done, you are at the cash paying at 11:35, you give your husband a quick call saying all is on schedule, he is most thankful, and not at all worried, even in the unforeseen possibility of a slight delay.

At 11:40 I am in the parking lot, heading towards my vehicle, when in fact, it is not my vehicle. Oops. I proceed to wander the parking lot, pushing the cart with $138 groceries in tow (remember, I said it was a short list - Bwah ha ha!) for what feels like hours.

BAM! I am smacked in the head with the remembery that I in fact did not drive the van, but the husband's black sedan. Now I can't remember where the HELL I parked the damn thing. I physically approached not one, but TWO black sedans of same make and model and they were both in fact NOT mine, I literally laughed out loud. I am sure the guy getting into what was in fact his car, not mine, thought I was drunk.

I found the car. I was 10 minutes late. And yes, that does qualify one to be a bonafide L-O-S-E-R.

Yours truly.

Let's talk about...

...poo.

OK ok ok....enough already, I know I am way late with the report from the bestest family vacation EV-AH! It's coming, hopefully soon. But for the moment, I gotta talk about...poo.

My boys have absolutely no interest in wiping their own butts. None. We have been preparing (warning?) them that they will learn how before starting school.

This is the now.

Needless to say, one night during our vacation, this question was posed in the middle of supper, "How many more sleeps till we go home?" And after a rather lengthy and amusing conversation, it was solved that the question stemmed from one very disappointed boy who said, "I don't wanna go home cause then I have to wipe my own bum."

Yes my dear, yes, you do.

Now we are in the now. We are working on it. As one may expect, one guy doing a wee bit better than the other. Hopefully it will all work out, and he won't continue to wipe all leftover excrement all the way up his back by September 4. We are really working on that part of the deal.

The other guy? Totally creeped out. He gets all anxious and doesn't wanna get dirty, and even when I HELP him with the process, he is at warp speed to the sink to wash his hands. Tonight cracked me up though. Being the fruit & veggie lover that he is, shall we say he is commonly a softer than harder pooper, make sense? Tonight was no difference. It was a little soft, a triple wipe required. He was NOT impressed. But, are you ready for this?

He gagged.

I did everything I could to just continue to normal pace, not to make a deal out of it, in hopes of teaching him that this is just the way it is, not a big deal, we'll just wash our hands a little longer and all is clean.

He literally gagged.

OK, I cracked up. I explained to him that I'd been cleaning his bum every day of his 5 years, almost 3 months of his life, and that I do it every time with love. That didn't help.

Have you ever seen that America's Funniest Videos collage of all the man gagging while changing diapers? Just like that. Wiping his OWN butt.

So, any tricks to pass along to my anti-wipers that will make the process easier for them?