So What's New With You?

I am probably the world's worst blogger.

I'm guessing that most people who do this update every day, but either A) they have far more interesting lives than I do and/or B) they do not have four children who are now home all the time.

Nope, it's not March/Spring break here yet.

We are homeschoolers.

Yep, you read right...homeschoolers.

We decided to take the plunge one month ago...telling the kids that this is an experiment (and one that can end at any time if they or I decide that things are not going well and we can no longer stand the sight of each other)...but so far, things have been going remarkably well...my biggest fears were that the four of them would be so sick of being around one another that there would be massive fights and screaming that could be heard from Ottawa to Toronto...or that I would be curled into the fetal position by the end of the day, hiding from them, Brian and the pets...

There have been a few moments where the boys have tried to beat each other about the head, but I put that up to them being boys (and brothers)...but the weird (and wonderful) thing has been the stunning lack of fighting, screaming and temper tantrums (from them too)...

Being home with the children all day means a few things for me...things that I was aware of, but hadn't really focussed on...like the fact that there is very little "me" time (not that there was a whole hell of a lot of it to begin with, mind you)...but that marathon I was training for? Yeah, that's going to have to wait...and updating this blog? Well, I'm a little slow on that too...

And along with home schooling, there have, of course, been new health issues to deal with...specifically, celiac disease.

I've known for quite some time now that something was up with me; I just didn't know what...and no, it's not official yet, but since I went gluten free a few days ago and last night ate one (one) piece of garlic toast with my (gluten free) dinner and my stomach blew up five inches larger than it had been before I ate the toast and was so painful I wanted to scream and because of the ten most common symptoms of the disease I have six of them and fall into the two major groups of people who have celiac disease (Type 1 diabetics and those of European descent - Scotland and Ireland are included in that - damn Viking raiders)...I'm placing my money on celiac disease...I'm actually pretty good at self-diagnosis and don't jump on any bandwagon, but yes, before you say anything, I do have a doctor's appointment on Monday and will be bringing this up with him...

By the way, the brown rice bread I bought on the weekend tastes like mdf...going gluten free is NOT something I would do if I felt I had a choice...well, I do have a choice, I suppose...I could keep eating gluten loaded stuff and suffer excruciating pain and eventually become malnourished, but I elect not to do that...

Want to know what else has been going on that has prevented me from posting here as frequently? Well, the puppy keeps eating our floors, for starters...

Yes. Eating. the. floors.

Seems Max has some separation anxiety issues and to deal with things, he has destroyed shoes (mainly mine, although Brian did lose one pair a few months ago), furniture, toys, pencils, books, boots, mittens, hats and now the linoleum floor in the hallway...

Max now has a cage...which he actually seems to enjoy, although he apparently might have to share it with Emma, who told me several times yesterday that she wanted to be in the cage too (locked in)...and when I told her it was against the law for parents to lock their children in cages, she pointed a finger at me and told me accusingly, "You never let me do anything!"

My life may be crazy, but it's good...

All The News That's Fit to Print...

It has been over a month since I posted (which seems to be something I say regularly)...

Ian is dealing with being bullied at school...

Avery is officially a Brownie...

Emma has lost her two bottom teeth and received the requisite payment from the Tooth Fairy...

Jamie has become the world's foremost authority on Wii bowling...

Brian has learned to survive (and just barely) on three to four hours of sleep a night due to his workload...

Max the puppy is now the size of a small pony...

Murphy has decided that Max is allowed to chew on her ears, but only for so long before she tries to bite his face off...

Taffy the cat remains as disdainful as ever...

And me?

I am now officially an Examiner...

My area of "expertise"?

Parenting.

Go figure...

Is Hell Freezing Over?...

...because we are going on a date...an actual-just-the-two-of-us-no-children-anywhere-in-sight-date...

Ok, it's just a movie, but it's one that is not animated, does not require four backhoes worth of popcorn to get through and is one where we won't have to answer fifty million questions about what that guy said and why that girl is holding a stick...

It will be a very strange experience, to say the least...

I wonder if I'll still be awake at the end of the previews?

It's Going to be a Long 40 Days and Nights...

This week saw the beginning of Lent...that time of year when some of us take a few moments to ponder what it is we will give up in the name of Jesus to somehow make ourselves a little holier. For some people, every Ash Wednesday brings the annual chocolate, coffee or wine break...for others it's choosing to spend 40 days trying to be more God-like through prayer or fasting.

And me? This year I decided to give up yelling at the kids for forty days and nights. I figured if Jesus could go without food and sleep in the desert for that long, I should be able to do something this simple, right?

I can hear you laughing, you know...

It's Awfully Quiet In Here...

Emma woke up around 2:45 am this morning and crawled into bed with us. Although she has been sleeping through the night since we switched her medication last week, for some reason she was awake for about two hours today.

She woke up with no problems and went off to school quite happily with her brothers and sister.

At some point this morning, that cheerful little girl left the building and was replaced by a frightful creature who prefers spitting and hitting to hugs and kisses. I realized that my daughter was exhausted and sent her off to bed for a wee nap (this after she tried to physically remove Jamie's head from his body because he was playing on Club Penguin and Emma wanted her turn...)...

And as I sit her typing, I realize that it is eerily quiet in this house...and that this peaceful moment is merely a foretaste of what every day will be like in a couple of years, when all four children are in school all day long...

I'm not really sure I'm going to like it...

And the winner is...

An update to the battle between Emma and I over whether she would eat her dinner...

I won.

Without having to bribe, force feed her or tie her to a chair.

Although I may have scared the other three a wee bit when I told Emma that if she kept refusing to eat, eventually she would end up in the hospital with a feeding tube down her throat and an iv in her arm...

Emma didn't seem to care.

Ian, Avery and Jamie, however, may have developed a sudden, although not irrational, fear of hospitals and may need therapy a few years from now...

In This Corner...

In a battle of wills betwen an adult and a four year old, who will emerge victorious?

At this point, if you're guessing the four year old, I'm thinking you might be right.

Emma refused to eat her dinner last night. Absolutely refused to open her mouth. Since I don't believe in forcefully shoving food down her throat (and just how would one do that anyway? I mean, you could get it into her mouth, I suppose, but how could you make her swallow?), that meant no dinner. (And no, I did not offer her anything other than what was on the table; I am not setting that as a precedent)

This morning she had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. She had a pumpkin muffin a bit later, and has eaten nothing since.

Did I mention that it is now close to dinner?

I did offer her the plate from last night (reheated, of course) while her brothers and sister enjoyed their lunch.

Again she refused.

At snack time, she attempted to block me from giving the others their food (she was unsucessful), and told me (several times over) that she wanted a "snack food that is not the food from last night".

I informed her that if she wanted something to eat, she was more than welcome to finish her dinner from last night.

You can guess how that idea went over.

So here we are, nearly twenty four hours later, and my youngest daughter has barely eaten. I'm sure she won't starve, but I am not looking forward to dinner tonight. Emma's dinner will once again be her "disgusting" (this adjective for food she hadn't even tasted) dinner from last night. This ain't gonna be pretty folks...

The question is this: just how many times can a plate of food be reheated before it turns into a science experiment?

I guess we'll find out tonight...

So It's Not Just Me...

I was reading Dawn Meehan's blog Because I Said So, and I can completely relate...because as I sit here, I have four children coming at me with four different requests...

Emma wants me to warm her feet up. She refuses to put socks on (the easiest way to warm her tootsies). Oh, no. She wants to sit with her feet under my legs, humming a rather strange little tune in her own language.

Avery insists on doing her homework, despite the fact that it's not due until Friday, the little keener. But this means that she must constantly ask me how to spell things, since she won't wait until after dinner to start her work. And yelling at her younger brother and sister because she needs quiet.

Ian, who has been home sick from school, wants to know if he should play on the computer. If he should, not if he can...

And Jamie wants to finish the letter to Santa that he started last night. Note that today is February 3.

Emma says she thinks she's going to throw up tonight.

No one wants to leave the laptap alone so that I can type.

"Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday..." sings Emma.

"How do you spell late, Mummy?" asks Avery.

"Turn the tv off!" that would be me, yelling at them.

And this is a calm five minutes around here...

A PostScript...I have been trying (unsuccessfully, I might add and am ready to throw this piece of trash laptop through a window) to add a link to Dawn's website at the start of this post...you know, where I mentioned her blog...I thought it would be appropriate there...anyway, it's not working, so here is the link...this had better work....grrr...

Ok, for some reason, unknown to me in all my non-techno abilities, this link is not working...so you can just click on it in the right hand column of my blog...

The Best Job On Earth...

Today was one of those days when I wonder why on earth God made me a mother. I'd like to believe that the kids are the ones to blame, but really, are they? I mean, just because things started off this morning with both boys screaming outside the bedroom door as they chased one another up the stairs (from the basement), jerking me out of a sound sleep that only came after being awake for three hours with Emma during the night, does not necessarily mean that Ian and Jamie are to blame for the tone of today.

And just because four children seemed to forget how to put on four sets of snowsuits and misplace eight mittens, four hats, four scarves and eight boots just as they were getting ready to leave for the school bus doesn't mean they are solely responsible for the pounding headache that began around 8:30 this morning.

Let's also make it clear that Emma and Jamie fighting (to the point of pushing and punching each other) to determine who would get to go to the bathroom first when they got home at noon (despite the fact that we have two bathrooms-yes, I said, two bathrooms...two bathrooms, two children, you'd think it would be simple, no?) did not put me in a bad mood all on its own.

Nor did the constant screaming, fighting, whining and complaining (especially about dinner) in any way, shape or form cause me to blame them for my crankiness.

Oh, wait a minute...yes, it did. And that is why I feel this crushing guilt, now that they are all quietly drifting off to la-la-land...because no matter how crazy the day is, at the end of it, I see Carol Brady and Mrs. Partridge in my head and think, "They would never have yelled like that...", and then I wonder just what kind of mother I am and whether my children will still love me in the morning. After a few minutes of self-pity, I realize that, of course they will, and that today is just one of those days that every parent has to deal with from time to time.

It's too bad that insight didn't come earlier in the day...