Category: Home + LIfe

When You Can’t Find Your Child

This post first appeared on the Huffington Post Canada:
To Those Judging The Mom Of The 4-Year-Old Boy At The Cincinnati Zoo

You will lose track of your kids at some point. Maybe for a moment, maybe for an hour. It does not matter how carefully you watch them. And I think that it’s the worst when your kids are about four years old.

At four, my middle child saw life as a giant hide-and-go seek game to be played with gusto. I still remember the relief I felt when a security guard brought her back to me after I lost her at the Royal Botanical Gardens. She wasn’t lost, she was hiding behind a big plant — and her gleeful snickering gave her away.

Four-year-olds. They find trouble where ever they go.

On Saturday, I heard the story of a four-year-old boy who fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. A 400-pound-plus gorilla took the boy — gently at first but then more aggressively as he became agitated by the noise made by panicked spectators. After about 10 minutes, the zoo’s dangerous animal response team shot and killed the gorilla in order to save the little boy’s life.

I have nothing but sympathy for the poor mother, so I was stunned to read comment after comment on Facebook condemning her for not keeping her son safe. What? How could she have anticipated that? Who would think a child could be capable of getting anywhere near a gorilla at a zoo? And any parent can tell you that when it comes to escaping your watchful eye, Houdini had nothing on a typical four-year-old.

Or any kid, for that matter. Even my oldest child has gotten lost a few times, as cautious as she is. Last year, I lost her at the Royal Ontario Museum. She was seven at the time, and a very careful, responsible girl. We were waiting in an elevator lobby. When the elevator door opened, there was suddenly a crush of people all needing to go different ways. I couldn’t navigate my stroller through the crowd but my oldest had no trouble darting through the people. She was the only one on the elevator when the door began to close. I saw the fear in her eyes as she watched me struggle to get through to her. Then she was gone.

There were no numbers above the doors to indicate if the elevator went up or down. I looked around for a set of stairs, thinking that if I ran fast enough I could catch up with her — not likely with two kids in my arms. I was in tears and I didn’t know what to do. My four-year-old sensed that I was distracted and, being four and full of mischief, tried to run away and hide, already laughing with delight. I quickly grabbed her by the arm and sat her down on the ground beside the baby.

“Don’t move!” I barked.

I felt like the room was spinning. I had to think. Should I go downstairs with the kids to see if she got off the elevator? What if she stayed on and was on her way back? What if she had gone upstairs instead of down? My four-year-old jumped up to run away again.

I roughly sat her back down on the ground again and yelled, “DON’T MOVE!!”

From behind me, I heard some people muttering about my less-than-stellar parenting skills. Another person quietly replied that I had just lost my child on the elevator. I spun around to see a whole group of people just watching me. No one offered to help. I pointed at a random person and yelled for him to run downstairs and see if my daughter was waiting for me on the main floor. As he turned to go the elevator doors opened again and we all turned to look inside. It became strangely quiet.

Nobody got off. We just looked at the passengers and they looked back at us. After a moment, I asked if anyone had seen an unattended girl on the elevator. A woman replied that oh yes, the girl was quite upset; she was waiting with a security guard downstairs.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why no one shared this information the second the doors opened to reveal me and my panicky, tear-stained face. My kids and I grabbed the next elevator down to the main floor. We saw my daughter immediately –she ran into my arms and we both cried some more and the security guard who found her came over to tell me that I really must try to watch my kids, as if this whole parenting-thing was new to me. I thanked him for his advice. I am Canadian, after all.

These days, each time we take an elevator, my kids and I rehearse what we’ll do if we ever get separated again. As a parent, I do everything I can to protect and prepare my children, but I know that I can’t see everything coming. Elevators aren’t a part of our everyday lives, so it never occurred to me to have an elevator drill before that trip to the ROM.

We also don’t have a gorilla-escaping protocol either — that would definitely fall under “unexpected”. That’s why it’s so important that we as parents and people in general all band together when the unexpected happens. There is no need to judge — all kids get away from us at some point. Some more dramatically than others.

To the mother of the four-year-old boy at the Cincinnati Zoo: I heard you call out “Mommy loves you” so calmly while I was about to fall to pieces just watching the video. You’re the kind of mom that I want in my village when I have a crisis. And as a fellow mom of two past four-year-olds and one future four-year-old: I’m so glad your little boy is safe.

June 5, 2016
The One Item Every Settlers of Catan Fan Needs from Ikea

This post contains affiliate links.

Thank you for visiting Unhurried Home: Life in the Slow Lane! I hope this post helps make your next game night a little more fun. 🙂 If you enjoy this post, be sure to check out my other top blog posts from 2016.

About a month ago, my eight-year-old complained that it’s not fair that she has to go to church on Sunday morning when she is tired from watching movies on Saturday night. I can’t see the connection myself, given that she’s up to all hours of the night reading anyway, but I was fine with switching movie night to Thursdays instead.

At first, both girls were happy with this new night (because I’m pretty sure the whole conversation took place on a Thursday afternoon), but when Saturday evening rolled around, they were both upset that there was nothing to look forward to. And that there was no popcorn on the agenda.

Enter family game night.

We’ve been collecting a lot of board games over the year – mostly cooperative games for Harbour from Peaceable Kingdom. I wanted something a bit more challenging to play with River so I sent James out to buy Settlers of Catan Jr, which is a simplified version of the regular Settlers of Catan. It was instant love.

The rules were confusing at first, but only for a moment. Once you start playing, it’s easy to catch on. River and I played on Saturday night, and then we played again on Sunday night, this time with James joining us. It was fun, and I was happy.

We played each Saturday night for a few weeks in a row. Sometimes five-year-old Harbour joined in as the designated “ghost pirate” mover; other times she sat beside me and we played one of her games at the same time.

After about a month of playing the Junior version, I brought the regular version of Settlers upstairs from the basement. James and I bought it years ago, but I honestly don’t know if we’ve ever even played it at all. I went to the Settlers website and watched the little game demo, and then I showed River how the game works. Since we’d been playing the Junior version for a month, she picked up the rules without any trouble at all. We made some popcorn and started a game.

And it was great — I’ve been looking forward to playing board games as a family ever since River was born, and sitting around the table with my girls and my husband was such a satisfying experience.

We all loved the game – EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.

In Settlers of Catan, you arrange the hexagonal pieces differently each time you play so that your game is always fresh and new. But the pieces slide around when you bump them and it’s SOOOOO irritating. Especially when your five-year-old is “helping” you put pieces on the board.

Fellow Settlers fans: I know this picture makes you cringe.

Settlers of Catan: How to Keep the Pieces Together

Last week we went to Ikea and James was determined to buy a piece of glass to set over the board.

Really? A random piece of glass? And just what would I do with it the rest of the week? I had visions of one-year-old Forest finding it and running through the house, holding the glass up high over his head while the rest of us ran after him. But James had decided that we could not play another game without some sort of board protector and so every time we passed a piece of glass, he measured it to see if it was big enough. I thought I was doomed when he found something that could work beautifully – until we arrived in the picture frame department.

That’s where we saw the glass-free Saxnas frame, which is as cheap as they come. We paid $5.99 Canadian, so given the exchange rate, I can only imagine that Ikea in the US actually pays it’s customers to take them home.

On Saturday night, we set up our Catan board with the hexagonal shapes and the number discs, then we placed the frame carefully over top to keep everything in place. It fit perfectly. Like, so perfectly that every future Settlers game should come with a $6 gift card to Ikea. We played our settlement and road pieces right on top of the plastic and everything underneath stayed put. If you play Settlers of Catan, get to an Ikea and get yourself a Saxnas frame right away.

For the rest of the week, the frame hangs on the wall in our hallway. We decided that the winner gets to put a picture behind it for the family to enjoy until the next game — I thought the girls would get a kick out of adding some of their artwork. But as luck would have it, James won the game on Saturday and he picked a picture of Steve McQueen.

So this is what I see every time I leave the bathroom:

I’m not sure how I’m going to top that, but I have at least a week to figure it out. Any suggestions?

If you enjoy this post, be sure to check out my other top blog posts from 2016.

April 11, 2016
Trashing the Basement Floor
There was a fantastic storm last Thursday night: tons of rain, some lightning, and really loud thunder. Our roof was just replaced the weekend before, so instead of spending the stormy evening worried about shingles flying away and water pouring in, I worked on my blog. That’s right – I was so confident in our invincibility that I didn’t even unplug my computer. And I’ve had a computer zapped by lightning before, so I’m normally pretty good about unplugging.

It’s not just computers. During lightning storms I’m afraid to:
- be outside
- be under trees
- be under shrubs, because they’re just like little trees
- plug in my phone
- sit near a window
- talk on a phone with a cord
- wash dishes
- take a shower
- take a bath
Am I crazy? I don’t think so.

But last weekend I was feeling good. Leave-the-computer-plugged-in kind of good. That is, until I heard my husband slam the door downstairs.

I went down. “What’s wrong?”

“Water is coming through the door!” he replied.

And it was. Water was seeping through the door because the drain was clogged. Possibly even with debris leftover from having our roof done. Oops.

We’ve lived in our house for more than five years and we’ve never had a problem with water getting in the basement. In fact, we were so confident in our dry basement that we put down a laminate floor to double our living space. Well, our storage space. I can’t say we do a lot of living in the basement when it’s so full of stuff.

But suddenly the laminate was wet. Not with tons of water, mind you. There was a bit of water on the tile and we mopped that up right away. In fact, I thought we were in the clear at first. Then I started walking around.

To my dismay, water squished up in the cracks I stepped on one plank, then disappeared when I moved my weight to another spot. My husband and I just kept walking around in silence, listening for the squooshy sound of water underneath the flooring. I knew immediately that it would have to come up. Plus, the Facebook hive mind was unanimous – the laminate had to come up or I’d risk mold. And I’m more afraid of mold than I am of washing dishes in a lightning storm.

We got started the next day. The first piece of laminate was really hard to get up – in the end, my husband had to break it in half. The next few pieces were still pretty hard to free. It was exhausting, but I refused to admit defeat, for an hour at least. Then I admitted defeat. And I went to bed.

The next day I pulled up half our basement floor during Forest’s nap time. At first, I tried to be careful, hoping that we could salvage some of it. Then a friend came over to reassure me that 1) there is no way we’re going to find the exact same laminate to replace what we pull up, and 2) we cannot just put something completely different down and expect no one to notice. He said that the whole floor had to come up. In a way that was reassuring, because I was afraid that I had gone overboard. From that moment on, it’s been a free-for-all, pulling up flooring in every spare moment. Right now we just have laminate left at the dry ends of the room, so I’m taking a break and instead I’m washing the dust off the floor. Which is next to impossible because we’re having the basement bathroom renovated this week, and that brings a truckload of its own dust.

It’s been an experience, for sure. I wanted to write a hilarious post about the seven stages of discovering your basement is wet – you know, despair, guilt, bargaining – but I don’t feel those emotions. I mostly feel completely overwhelmed by the enormous job of pulling up a floor and redoing it… and also a bit of gratitude. Which is weird, I know. Yet I just feel so thankful that James noticed the leaking early on in the evening instead of the next day. I’m thankful that my friend came by on Saturday to check on the floor for me. I’m grateful that my dad was able to help me over the phone. I’m grateful that my cousin is working on my bathroom this week and he is able to calm me down when I start to feel panicky. He is grateful that he’s already scheduled to be here to work on my bathroom, so he’s being paid to calm me down. I’m grateful to all my friends that hounded their husbands for advice. I’m grateful for the people that have offered to take Forest out of the house so I can get a bit more work done.

Yeah, it sucks that we put so much money into a floor that now we’re throwing away. But I’m not angry; I don’t feel guilty; I’m not bitter. To be honest, given how fearful I am of mold, I’m actually a teeny bit happy that we will have an unfinished floor now that I can monitor at all times. Paranoid people like me don’t cope well with nice flooring. Or lightning storms.
April 7, 2016
4000 Tiny reasons the You Shouldn’t Take Advice from Pinterest

My house is covered in lentils.

There was an evening this past week where my toddler, Forest, howled with anger every time I put him down on the ground. My eight-year-old was fighting with my five-year-old and the noise was driving me crazy. I just wanted some peace so that I could focus on getting supper on the stove. Delicious meatballs, in case you were wondering. Sweet and sour and oh-so-good. The kind of meatballs that kids live for. Well, not mine. All three of my kids hate meatballs.

But I love meatballs and James loves meatballs and I was determined to get supper going. I was trying to be frugal by substituting lentils for a portion of the hamburger meat, so I had a bag of lentils on the counter. When Forest started grabbing for the bag, I figured that a handful or two of dried lentils might buy me a few minutes to roll up the meat. I put Forest on the floor with the bag and a mixing bowl and a measuring cup and he immediately started scooping the lentils out. Awesome. I turned back to the counter.

A moment later, I heard the distinctive sound that approximately four thousand lentils hitting the floor makes. Like a whooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It was kind of soothing, actually. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Forest had emptied half the bag onto the floor. Meh. Lentils are super cheap. With my blessing, Forest smeared the lentils across the floor.

A mess, you ask? Try a “healthy sensory activity”. That’s what Pinterest tells me, at least.

Never take advice from Pinterest.

But back to the meatballs. I filled up two trays, popped them in the oven for 15 minutes, and then started on the sauce. I grabbed the vinegar, soy sauce and cornstarch from the cupboard, then picked some lentils off the bottom of my socks. I added brown sugar and ground ginger to the pot, then used my foot to brush some of the lentils on the floor off to the side so I wouldn’t keep stepping on them. What next? Water and orange juice, which I hoped would be a decent substitute for pineapple juice.

As the sauce began to simmer, I stopped to pick more lentils off my socks. Then I grabbed the broom and swept a lentil-free path alongside the counter. Forest had moved his lentil scooping operation to the dining area, which was helpful because I had to open the oven and get the meatballs out.

They smelled good.

I grabbed the cutting board, plus a few peppers, five carrots, and a stabby pineapple. Then I took off my socks because I was tired of lentils sticking to them. I could feel every tiny one pressing on the bottom of my foot like 4000 tiny massage stones — except annoying more than relaxing.

Next came the rice. When I pulled the huge bag out of the pantry, Forest immediately ran back into the kitchen. Do you know what’s better than dried lentils? Dried rice. Ha! Not this time, kiddo. I quickly measured out two cups and put the bag away. While the meatballs and the rice simmered gently on the stove, I grabbed the broom again and kept sweeping. And sweeping. And sweeping. And for the rest of the night, it’s pretty much all I did.

The lentils were everywhere. They were all over the floor. By bedtime, they had taken over every room in the house. They were against the baseboards. They covered the kitchen floor. They spread to my living room couch, the bathroom floor, and burrowed into all three bedroom carpets.

They were in my bed.

Every room had lentils, plus an abandoned lentil-covered sock or two.

My house looks like a confetti bomb went off. Or maybe a lentil-filled pinata, which would be the saddest birthday party surprise ever. Actually, it reminds me of grade nine, when my best friend turned 14 and I surprised her by dumping a bottle of glitter in her locker. Glitter, of course, is the devil. You can’t get it off of anything. Years later, we checked to see if the glitter was still there. It was. Looking back, I’m surprised I wasn’t billed for damage to school property.

And that is what I’m dealing with a day later. The pulse-equivalent of glitter. Forest and I spent an entire morning washing the floors, removing every lentil by hand — but they keep coming back. And every time I put Forest down on the ground so that I can sweep them up, Forest howls in protest. Though I might have some luck right now if I try. He’s busy playing with magic markers, so that should keep him busy for a bit. And what could go wrong with that?

March 12, 2016
How My FitBit Helps Me Slow Down

About a month ago, I discovered that I somehow had earned enough points on my credit card to get a FitBit Charge. What?! Cool! Wait – how much have I have been using my credit card? Whatever – I pushed aside any concerns and ordered my FitBit on the spot.

A FitBit is a fancy step counter. My Charge counts the number of steps I take, how far I’ve walked, how many flights of stairs I’ve climbed and even how many times I was restless during the night. It’s supposed to calculate the amount of calories I’ve burned too, but I don’t see how that’s possible given that it can’t tell when I’ve got a 20lb baby strapped to my back.

I’ve wanted a FitBit for ages because I want to know if I actually spend all day on my feet like I think I do. When I swear that I’ve put in miles and miles just returning toys from the living room back to the bedrooms, am I exaggerating? Because if feels like I never, ever stop. I’m sure you know the feeling.

Take a typical 15 minutes from some random day: we finish breakfast and I start clearing dishes from the table. Forest is still happily sitting in his high chair playing patty cake with the yoghurt that now coats his tray, so I take this opportunity to dash down the stairs to throw a load of laundry in the washer.

When I turn to leave the laundry room, I step squarely in a pile of cat puke. Now I have to hop up the entire flight of stairs and all the way to the bathroom so that I don’t accidentally leave a trail of kitty vomit covered with bits of kibble and tufts of cat fur. I get to the bathroom and wash off my disgusting foot, then rush back to the kitchen table because Forest is getting antsy. Oh, and he’s covered in yoghurt.

I rush back to the bathroom to grab a cloth and then run back to the kitchen table to wipe down his hands and his face, which is apparently one of the 53 recognized ways to torture a one year old. My normally chill baby screeches in protest, flinging his head from side to side, but I’m persistent and I get the job done. I put the baby down on the floor and – what was I doing? Right, the dishes.

I take a quick lap around the house to find any stray dishes from the night before and then realize that I’ve left the dishwasher open, which means that a) Forest has climbed up on the door and is now jumping on it or b) he’s chosen to forgo his favourite trampoline and instead he’s made a beeline for the cutlery tray. Why oh why do use so many knives in this house? And forks?

I run back to the kitchen to find that it’s actually: c) he’s systematically pulling the glass bakeware out and throwing it to the ground. I move him away from the dishwasher and he howls with rage for 2.8 seconds because now he sees the pantry door has been left open. I let him run over to the pantry while I make myself more tea and start washing the dishes that don’t go in the dishwasher. Forest happily plays with vinegar and I figure that’s the best possible thing for him to mess around with, because if it spills, it’s like cleaning the floor by accident. Win.

OK, the kitchen is looking good and the baby is happy – I run out of the kitchen and up the hall to tell River that we’re going to start math soon, then run back to the kitchen to find that Forest has opened a bottle of Worcestershire sauce and is dragging it into the living room. I run to the bathroom to wet a clean cloth and I try to wipe the thick sauce off his hands before he can make it to the couch. It’s much harder this time around because he’s not strapped in a high chair and he thinks this new game of tag is hilarious. Do I look like a fun mom that plays tag? No – I cut him off and then hold him down between my knees so that I can clean his hands.

Then I wipe the floor and run half way to the kitchen before I realize that I left the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the living room and, yes, Forest has it again. I grab it from him and then head back to the kitchen for another cloth to clean the floor with. In the kitchen, I find Harbour stuffing dish towels into the drawer. She tells me that she spilled all of her milk but that she cleaned it up herself life a big girl. Using every single towel in the drawer, of course. Despite this, I shower her with praise because this really is progress, and then I gather up all the towels in my arms and carry them straight to the laundry room. Where I step in cat puke. Oh, right. That.

Sigh.

While, not always in this order, all these things have happened to me so many times that I’ve lost count. The worst part is that I never, ever stop moving long enough to rest or regroup or realize that keeping the Worcestershire sauce in the bottom drawer of the pantry is stupid.

But I decided that FitBit was going to fix this, because it would actually confirm that yes, I spend all day running around. A FitBit would to justify my exhaustion at the end of the day. It will give me tangible proof to wave in my husband’s face that I did not spend all day on Facebook – well, ok, I did spend all day on Facebook, but it was from my phone while I chased the kids down the street and not sitting in front of the computer.

The FitBit will give me permission to take a break.

Because these days, I don’t even know how to take one.

I’m not very good at taking breaks. I have a hard time sitting down and doing something I enjoy, like knitting or blogging, when my house is a mess. And, yes, I know that having a clean house isn’t the most important thing in life (save your comments), but right now I have a newly minted ONE year old (sob) that wants to put everything in his mouth, and if I stop for a second, he is going to find that tasty Barbie shoe hidden under a towel or the meatball that Harbour stashed under the living room chair or the cat barf in the laundry room. Crud – have I not cleaned that up yet? Seriously, why do we even own cats when we’re already outnumbered by kids?

But listen – I need a break. I’ve been reading so many great books lately about the need for rest and I’m sold. We need to rest. Mothers need to rest so much more than we do – and I have some thoughts on why that is. If I’m ever going to get around to writing about them, I’m going to need to find some time to myself.

With that in mind, I have set two goals for the next two weeks. First, I want to try and get my 10,000 steps by the kids’ bedtime, and then I want to stop, guilt-free. Second, I want my Sundays to be different from the other days of the week (another thing I hope to write about as soon as I have a chance) – I want to see a noticeable decrease in my step count on those days as proof that my days was not spent rushing from room to room to room. I think those are both reasonable goals, no?

Today (a Sunday) has gone pretty well so far. Forest had a good 90 minute nap and I was able to work on this post. My step count is under 5000, which makes me happy – that’s a lot of sitting! And to top it all off, I know without a doubt that I don’t have to worry about the Worcestershire sauce spilling today, because Forest hid it a week ago and I haven’t found it back yet. Except that I might need it for dinner tonight so I suppose I need to find it.

Huh.

I guess I better get moving.

October 25, 2015
Goodbye to Tea for Three

Sometimes you need a change of scenery.

When my kids are at their absolute worst, I like to throw them in the car and head out for a hike. We have a trail just ten minutes from my house that’s perfect. Sometimes when we’re hiking, we see unbelievably long carp swimming in the stream under the bridge – apparently they bring luck. Other times we see toads hopping across the path, only to magically disappear against a rock. Swans often swim up close to us and wait for my kids to toss handfuls of food into the water. Chickadees and nuthatches will eat seeds right out of our hands – it’s like being in a Disney movie.

It doesn’t matter what mood we are in when we arrive – the quiet peace of the forest always brings us joy and we leave the trail in a much better state of mind.

Of course, there are other times when my kids are at their absolute worst and I just put on a movie. Then I lock myself in the bathroom with a bowl of heavenly hash ice cream and let the birds land on Snow White’s hands instead. After all, I’m not supermom.

Either way, sometimes we all need a change of scenery. And that’s how I feel about my blog right now. I need to shake things up.

Why? Because I’m not sure what Tea for Three is about any more. I used to write to promote babywearing. Then I wrote personal posts because I wanted people who shopped my babywearing store to know that I was a real person, not a faceless, feeling-less storefront. But now? I pretty much just write for the enjoyment of writing. In fact, I write lots of posts that I don’t publish because I don’t know if they “fit” my blog’s theme. Except that I don’t really have any overall theme.

I decided that I’d like a blog with a theme.

So allow me to introduce Unhurried Home, a blog about choosing a slower pace of life. For our family, that means homeschooling, cooking our own food, and (someday) growing our own food. It means focusing on handicrafts instead of insta-crafts that are finished in 20 minutes and then left to collect dust for 20 months before I toss them while my kids are out of the house. Ok, so maybe that’s not that different than Tea for Three,.

So how will the new blog be different?

1) For one thing, there will be less photos of my kids. Hardly any, in fact. As my children get older, I worry more about their privacy. Do I have the right to post their photos online for everyone to see? Is it fair to them to have their lives broadcast to the world? I decided that removing their photos from my blog would be a simple first step towards protecting and respecting them.

2) Next, I gave the kids new names, mostly because writing out The Princess and The Pixie is awkward. I also hate the baggage that comes with the word “Princess” – I’d hate for new readers to automatically picture my sweet seven year old as a spoiled, demanding child. I mean, it’s cute at three, but not so much at seven. So goodbye to The Princess, goodbye to The Pixie. Hello River, Harbour and Forest.

3) I also plan to write about homeschooling a lot more. Because homeschooling is our life and our life is wrapped up in homeschooling. Even if you don’t care about math curriculums and art programs, I hope that these posts will still be interesting. I mean, I know lots of people (aka my family) wonder what we do all day…

4) Finally, there will be more affiliate links. I’ve actually been doing some paid ghost writing for other bloggers lately, and I realized that if they’re making money off of my writing, then there is no reason that I can’t do the same, right? And have you seen the price of food lately? I figure that even a little bit of income helps. I hope the ads and affiliate links won’t scare you off though.

You might be wondering what will happen to Tea for Three. I had planned to leave it online, but after I moved over a bunch of the posts and removed a ton of the personal photos, the blog just wasn’t the same. So rather than abandoning a stripped down version of Tea for Three to collect cyber-dust, I’m in the process of copying all of my old posts and photos to my computer. I’m planning to format them nicely, print the pages off and then have them bound into a book. Doesn’t that sound lovely? I love the thought of physically holding all that work in my hands – something that I can treasure and even pass on to my kids when they have their first babies.

In the mean time, it will be good to have a book of memories – a book that I can flip through to remind myself why I signed up for this parenting gig in the first place. Maybe I’ll save it for the days when my kids are at their worst and I feel like I’m going to snap. Maybe it’ll be the book that I turn to when I’ve locked myself in a room with a bowl of heavenly hash ice cream while my children watch Snow White for the 87th time.

July 21, 2015
2 Easy April Fools’ Day Tricks to Pull on your Kids
We were able to pull off a few April Fools’ Day tricks on River this morning.

We stayed up late last night to get them set up – super late because just like Christmas Eves and the nights before birthdays, River couldn’t fall asleep and was awake until after midnight. When she fell asleep, we sprang into action. Well, sprang is probably the wrong word. Stumbled sleepily through the kitchen would be more accurate.

Here’s how it went down:
1. I prepared a bowl of cheerios with milk and put it in the freezer.
2. James poured two glasses of “juice” using Jello mix and put them in the fridge to set.
3. I added Kool-Aid to the remaining milk in the jug. I wanted to add food colouring, but we couldn’t find it anywhere and we used Kool-Aid instead. A word to the wise — Kool-Aid a bad idea. It curdles the milk and comes out like grape-scented vomit. Don’t worry — I didn’t include pictures of that one. Ew.
This morning, I couldn’t wait for River to come in for breakfast. As soon as she got up, I told her to start eating because we needed to meet the homeschool group for a hike.

Then April Fools’ Day began.

River was served a bowl of frozen cheerios that she couldn’t dig her spoon into. Once we were all done giggling at her confusion, we gave her the box of Cheerios and the jug of milk so she could pour a fresh bowl – and purple milk poured out of the bag. More laughs. Finally, she tried to drink her “juice” and it stayed firmly in the bottom of the cup.

River was absolutely delighted with each gag – she loves the idea of April Fools’ Day. She loves to listen to the Spring Sillies episode of Sparkle Stories all year round, and every time she hears it, she spends the rest of the day trying to come up with a good prank to pull on the next April 1. Which is actually a bit terrifying, because seven-year-olds don’t quite know where that delicate line is between a joke and total disaster.

One day she ran into the kitchen to ask me if my husband would be working on April Fools’ Day. We checked the calendar and found that he would be off for the day. She was disappointed. Her plan was to fill his work boots with water so that when as he rushed out the door for work, he’d discover that his feet were soaking wet. I laughed, but it was that nervous sort of this-girl-is-going-to-destroy-the-family kind of laughter.

So far it’s been okay: she offered to brush my hair, then used a brush that she ran under the tap first so that my hair would get wet. “APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!”

Hopefully, that’s the best she’s got. Either way, I’ll be hiding my suede boots until the day is over. And maybe James’ work boots too.
April 1, 2015
My Misadventures with Chalk Paint

My husband and I took the girls to a frog exhibit a few weeks ago. When we passed by the gift shop, the girls noticed the small aquariums with the African Dwarf Frogs for sale. They of course asked if we could buy one and I of course said no and my husband of course said yes and so, of course, I vowed that he will not be coming out with us anywhere ever again.

Luckily we didn’t buy a frog right then – my husband figured they’d be cheaper at a fish store and that we could use one of the five aquariums that we have stashed in the basement. Perfect, I thought. Everyone will forget about buying a frog by the time we get home.

Never underestimate the determination of a man with five empty aquariums.

The next day, my husband wandered from room to room, trying to find an acceptable place to set up. We finally agreed that it would go on top of the credenza that’s behind the couch (and by credenza I mean the old dresser that was passed down to us).

Picking a Paint Colour

You might remember this dresser from my kitchen, pre-reno. White. Kind of boring. I’ve been meaning to paint it for the last year or two or seven but I never had the time or motivation. Suddenly I knew it had to be painted immediately or I wouldn’t get the chance again until we upgrade to a larger tank. And goodness knows I’m going to fight that with every fibre of my being.

When I saw my husband hauling aquariums up from the basement, I knew I didn’t have long. I pulled out my collection of chalk paint sample jars and started holding them up to the couch, squinting at them through one eye and then the other. My husband looked at me with disbelief, certain that I was just looking for ways to stall his aquarium set up.

I promised that if he would just let me paint, everything would be done by the next day. And that it wouldn’t even cost anything since I already had everything I needed. I even had clear wax for finishing.

But first I had to decide on a colour. I knew I had to pick fast – no time to paint sample swatches. I turned to Facebook instead.

I got some good advice and lots of encouragement and one perfectly-timed quip:

The general consensus was that my favourite, the light aqua colour, wouldn’t look terrible. Good enough. That I needed so that evening I grabbed a brush and started painting.

The paint went on beautifully and the colour was gorgeous. But when I stepped back to admire my work, I realized that the aqua was somehow different than I expected and I was pretty sure I hated it. It looked terrible with my couch.

Uh oh.

Also? I was running out of paint, which was going to put me over my budget of “spending nothing.”

The next morning, I sat on a chair and stared at the dresser. The morning light was more flattering but I still wasn’t certain that I liked it. Then I threw a chartreuse-coloured table runner over top and suddenly, like magic, it was perfect. The table runner colour matched both my couch AND my new turquoise dresser and I was much happier.

Sealing the Paint with Wax

As soon as my husband woke up, I left him with the kids and drove across town to buy more paint so I could finish up. I also decided to switch my clear wax for dark wax after an hour or two of looking at chalk-painted projects on Pinterest.

The dark wax adds more depth and an aged look and seemed easy enough to use. Thankfully, the store was kind enough to exchange my clear wax for dark wax. I asked if I’d need supplies, since most people used fancy wax brushes in the YouTube tutorials that I watched.

“Nope, just a cloth, like an old t-shirt.”

Perfect. I went home with my paint and new dark wax.

We finished up the painting that afternoon. The drawers were painted a slightly different colour, a green/turquoise blend, on the suggestion of my seven year old and over all, the dresser looked fabulous. I love chalk paint.

My husband wasn’t convince though. “This stuff scratches right off?! It’s useless!”

“Well that’s what the wax is for,” I assured him. “It seals the paint.”

That evening, I was set to wax the dresser. My husband was raring to get the fish tank set up so I had to finish my project ASAP.

“Are you going to do it in the living room?” he asked. I thought I would. I mean, the wax has virtually no odour; I specifically asked about that when I bought my can of clear wax a couple months back. The sweet girl working at the store assuring me that it hardly smells at all – she even let me smell an open can and I could barely detect an odour. After all, it’s wax, right? That word makes me think of happy bees.

My husband looked at the can. “It says you need a layer of clear wax first.”

“What? No it doesn’t.”

“Yes, right here.”

“Nobody told me that!” It was 5:30. The store was closed for the day.

The next morning, as soon as my husband woke up, I left him with the kids and I drove across town to buy more wax.

When I got home, my husband asked once again if I wouldn’t prefer to wax it in the garage. Sigh. Oh, fine. We (okay, he) hauled the dresser downstairs and into the garage and finally I got to work.

As the World Turns

The wax actually did have an odor once you start to work with it, but it was tolerable. I happily worked on the six drawers, and then I stood up straight the garage suddenly tilted a bit to the left.

Whoa. I attributed my shakiness to the sudden change in temperature – the garage is way colder than our living room.

Just to be safe, I closed the door from the garage to the house so that they wouldn’t smell it upstairs.

I began to work on the dresser body. My head started to feel terrible. I opened the garage door, despite the fact that it was 15° below zero. I worked as fast as I could so that I could get away from the wax. What kind of sadistic bees made this stuff? Probably the petroleum-based, man-made kind of bees.

Finally I went upstairs and casually mentioned to my husband that I didn’t feel so good.

“Because you’re as high as a kite?” he asked.

Um … what? I was confused. I definitely wasn’t as high as a kite – maybe a telephone pole, but certainly not a kite. And the thought of a kite spinning through the air was making my head feel worse. Do kites spin? I don’t know. I leaned against the refrigerator.

My husband walked to the back of the house to open the bedroom windows.

“We can smell it back here,” he called. “I was just coming to open the garage door.”

I sank to the floor, still leaning against the fridge. “I opened the door 15 minutes ago, but I didn’t know it it was that bad.” I responded weakly.

This was actually comical – I’m always complaining that his model paints stink and opening the windows dramatically while my husband swears he doesn’t smell a thing.

I closed my eyes. “Some of the YouTube tutorial videos were inside. Nobody mentioned the smell in them.”

My husband came back to the kitchen and opened both windows wide.

“One video even had a kid making faces behind her mother. And another one had a baby laughing adorably somewhere off camera.” I continued feebly.

“Maybe they used a different wax.” he suggested.

I lay across the floor. “No, it’s the same name brand and there are only two options, clear and dark.”

“Well then maybe the laughing baby was high too.” he responded.

“That’s a terrible thing to say!” then suddenly I realized my three children were all exposed to this horrid stuff too and immediately began to cry. Because, you know, I was pretty loopy.

“I’ve damaged our baby!” I blubbered. “Can he breathe? Is he okay?” And then I whispered “Am I going to die?”

I should probably mention at this point that I have the same reaction to fabric softener and perfume and scented room plug-ins. Walking down the detergent aisle at the grocery store is akin to torture. I might be a teeny bit sensitive to chemicals. And a touch hypocondriac.

My husband looked at me and gave me an encouraging hug. Because sometimes the only thing you can do when your overly-sensitive wife is sprawled across the kitchen floor crying that the baby has just caught cancer is to just humour her as best you can. And hide your laughter.

“No, Tamara, people huff turpentine and paint thinner and stuff like that to get high. On purpose.”

I don’t know if that’s true, but it was encouraging.

We left the garage door open for the rest of the day.

The next day, I woke up with a sore throat but a clear head. My husband asked me if I was planning to do coat of dark wax. Are you kidding me? I told him that I wanted that stuff out of my house as soon as possible.

For some reason, my husband decided that he would do it himself. He assured me that he would wear a mask and gloves and have the garage door open and even seal the door between the house and the garage with duct tape before he started. I told him that I wasn’t certain that I wanted to sacrifice my husband in the pursuit of pretty furniture but he didn’t listen and off he went to the garage.

An hour later, he came back inside and had a coffee. He wasn’t bothered in the least. That’s annoying.

We left the garage door open all day again. The next day, we brought the drawers up to the living room, but even though I tried to pretend they weren’t bothering me, my husband brought them right back down with barely a word and opened the garage door again to air them out.

The next day, we brought everything up and admired our work. It was over zero outside and I figured this might be out only chance to throw open all the windows if we needed to (clearly I had no idea today was going to be so nice).

Anyway, it’s done. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the colours so, so much.

I don’t know if I’m ready to paint anything else though. I might try something small and using a different brand of wax. I’ve heard of a Canadian brand that uses actual beeswax and is supposed to smell amazing. I might even try my own concoction. Or I might just wait until a windy summer when I can be sure the breeze will carry any offending odor quickly away. From my husband. I’m not touching that stuff again.

I’ve had a sore throat for a couple days now but I’m not sure if it’s related to this adventure. I’m not seeing double anymore, although I suppose that wouldn’t be the worst thing. This dresser turned out so well that I wouldn’t even mind seeing two of them, spinning around above me with a kite or two as I lay on the kitchen floor.

March 10, 2015
Unexpectedly TV-Free

This post contains affiliate links.

My four-year-old and I do not see eye to eye on the value of potty training, and she reminds me three to four times a day that I have no control over the situation.

No control? Oh, we’ll see about that. A couple weeks ago, after yet another accident, I finally decided to Assert My Authority and to Create Concrete Consequences (I’ve been reading parenting books again): I told her that there would be no more television until she’s figured out the toilet thing.

So now I’m locked into a battle of wills and my opponent is a four-year-old child. It’s difficult to predict who is going to win.

This is the kid that asks if she can watch TV before she opens her eyes in the morning. This is the kid that nags us all day long because there is nothing she likes better than passively being entertained. Of course, I don’t give in right away. I tell her 463 times that it’s not time yet – we don’t let the kids watch TV until 3:00 at the earliest.

Why 3:00? Because that’s when I need a break. I kick the kids out of the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine or a cup of tea, and start cleaning the kitchen and prepping dinner. I listen to the radio or some podcasts and poke around Facebook for awhile. 3:00 is mom o’clock, and TV makes that happen.

And now I’ve gone and taken it away.

But here’s the thing: it’s going great.

The day I told Harbour that she had lost her TV privileges, she just said OK and went on her way. The next day, as I changed her, I reminded her that TV was off limits. She listed off the shows that she wasn’t going to watch and then ran off to play. On the third day, I changed her and reminded her that there would be no TV. With a look of utter exasperation that would befit a teenager, she replied “I know, mommy.”

And that was that.

Huh.

I thought it would be hard. I thought we’d give in after days and days of relentless nagging but our days have been better by far. Even River has grudgingly accepted that books are the new Netflix.

On most days, the girls play for hours, sometimes together and sometimes apart. I hear so much less “I’m bored” – I suppose that’s been code for “can we watch TV” but I didn’t pick up on it.

They’re not completely free of screens. River has been playing on the Wii and doing a lot of math games on the iPad. Harbour tends to sit and watch her, but somehow I don’t mind as much. Because really – watching your sister answer math questions? How long can that possibly last?

Famous last words, I’m sure.

Almost two weeks into our TV-free life, I backed down a bit and agreed that we would do a movie night once a week, regardless of the progress made in the bathroom.

The first movie night featured popcorn and donuts and hot chocolate and Megamind. I was afraid that I would undue all the progress that we made, and it took a few days for my four-year-old to get that movie night isn’t a daily ritual but we more or less survived.

I can’t say we’ve been perfect though. A week or so ago, we all got sick and I sent the girls downstairs to overdose on Disney while I stayed upstairs with the baby to catch up on Downton Abbey. A few days later, once the worst of it had passed, we all turned off the screens, emerged from our rooms and let our eyes readjust to natural light. I don’t mind the lapse – movie marathons are a part of being sick, right?

Though I do have to admit that since that week, I haven’t been as strict as I was before. I’ve been letting Harbour watch a show or two on the iPad while she sits on the toilet. My hope is that an episode of Bubble Guppies will help her relax and keep her there longer, and she humours me by making grunting noises if I walk by the bathroom.

Which means she might have won our battle of wills after all.

Crap.

Update: I’m amazed at how many parents talked to me after this post about their own four and five years olds that had trouble toilet trained. I really felt like we were the only ones, but it is so much more common than I realized. The book that really helped me was It’s No Accident: Breakthrough Solutions To Your Child’s Wetting, Constipation, UTIs, And Other Potty Problems by Steve J. Hodges, MD, is a pediatric urologist. He believes that bedwetting and delayed toilet trained can be caused by chronic constipation — which I never would have guessed, given the consistency and frequency of my daughter’s bowel movements. However, he described my daughter so perfectly that I’m convinced that constipation was the culprit. I recommend it for any parents struggling with toilet training.

March 6, 2015
Our Nursery is Done!

This post contains affiliate links.

Last night we finished decorating the baby’s room. Yeah, yeah, I know he’ll be five months old on Saturday, but what can I say? He’s kept us busy.

When we first decided to give him a room of his own, we weren’t even planning to decorate it. I mean, sure, I figured eventually we’d paint over the pink walls someday, but I certainly wasn’t in any rush. Why would a baby care what colour his walls are?

Then, a week before my due date, the nesting instinct kicked into overdrive and I went to the store to buy a gallon of paint, some curtains and a throw pillow. I’m not sure my husband totally believed me when I told him that we would be redoing the room that day, but when he saw me and my 39-week belly pulling furniture away from the wall, he knew he had no choice but to help out. So that day he edged and I rollered and Harbour tasted and we freaked out because eating paint can NOT be good for you — and then before we knew it, the room was a gorgeous shade of aqua. A fresh new colour for our little bundle of boy.

Didn’t it turn out great? I love the colours. And half of the stuff we used to decorate with was already stashed in our basement so the makeover was pretty cheap.

Like these adorably retro alphabet cards – I bought them years ago when we first decided to try homeschooling River. I downloaded the files for free from Handmade Home and then had them printed on cardstock at Staples – the whole set cost me maybe $10-$15 in total? The cards match the room so perfectly that you’d think that the whole colour scheme off of them.

This print came from Etsy too. I bought it on a whim because it’s fun and it matches the room perfectly and I like the idea of using a fair or carnival as a decorating theme someday.

The fabric bunting cost me next to nothing. I raided the discount section of Fabricland for orange printed fabric, and then I cut it into strips and tied the pieces to some twine along with the alphabet cards. Quick and colourful and easy.

These lanterns were packed away in the basement. They’re a hit — the baby loves staring at them. Or maybe he’s afraid that they’re going to fall down on his head and crush him — it’s hard to say. I originally made little paper baskets to hang under them so they’d look like whimsical hot air balloons – that’s why there are little flags around the middle. But the baskets looked awful. A total Pinterest fail. Oh well, you can’t win all the time.

And, well… these are just some wraps. Sorry, I know they don’t have anything to do with the room decor, but what can I say? I’m easily distracted by pretty wraps.

And by babies too.

Munch, munch, munch.

Back to the nursery. We just moved this chaise up from the basement last week. I’m far to lazy for rocking chairs — I like to put my feet up when I nurse. This is the Kivik chaise from Ikea and it’s ridiculously comfortable. I love having it in the nursery — it was going to waste in the basement. Now I can put up my feet, quietly watch Downton Abbey on the iPad and knit while the baby sleeps. That is, if the girls haven’t already grabbed a book and claimed it for themselves. I don’t blame them though. It’s a delightful room to be in.

Curious about the teaforthree.ca copyright? That’s the name of my old blog. Not stolen, just never rebranded! 🙂

February 18, 2015