you know youre a parent when...

this post is an ode to lazy parenting, relaxed parenting, grumpy parenting, tired parenting, and i-just-can't-find-it-in-me-to-give-a-damn parenting.

so you know you're a parent when?

for me it is when i find myself climbing the stairs of my house with a baby in one arm and three trays of frozen blueberries in another because i just can't make a trip up or down the stairs without relocating something.

when i find myself trying to latch my fussy baby on the boob for the ten time in a minute because maybe one of those times will be the magic moment where she will finally take it.

when i lash out and yell "whatever, just do it. you're just gonna do what you want anyway" because a condescending guilt trip is the best way to interact with your kids.

when i let two of my four kids sleep with me because i'm just too darn lazy to put them to bed properly.  i also love me some good cuddling.

when i find myself spouting the same crap my mother said to me when i was a kid because i guess im just not original enough to come up with new threats.

when i force my oldest to do projects he says doesn't really want to do because i know if he had his way he would build lego or dig in his mud pit all day every day. 

just a few things i had to get off of my chest tonight. :D

of birthdays and sunday mornings

we begin our drive to magical mystical granite bay late saturday afternoon.  we pass newt crossings (i personally save two with my expert driving and swerving), a puking turkey vulture, and a trail of balloons.  we drive up the driveway and face off with a giant hill of squishy sand (the van wins!) and meet up with the lovelies setting up in the clearing.  after much tarp raisage and fire startage the picnic table fills up with delicious foods and we start to eat.  in the morning the idea will be raised to name the types of rain we experience based on a scale of how much activity you can do in it but for now we eat, make smores, drink tea and fireball and beer. we dance in the field under a tarp wearing rain pants and rain jackets and gumboots.  some fire spin, others breakdance in full rain regalia and all are talking and laughing.

  next morning, after a bucket downpour that brings the tents to the not-so-good-side of waterproofness, waffles and eggs benny are had by all and our weekend sojourn comes to a close.  thank you granite bay and all our friends new and old that gathered with us. love you!

the REAL new year

laying down (i do all of my writing laying down) in my room and listening to the wonderful sounds of the neighbours' septic tank being pumped and of a frustrated child that wont let me help him.  sigh.......ash is all registered up with hands-on-home learning and i hope that the double schooling will make luce more inclined to work on projects with us.  we still have some planning worksheets to work through and help us develop a rudimentary plan for the year.  several ideas in the works.  i just made an arctic landscape collage  and the kids are making animals to populate it with now.  we have only searched google once yet today.  looking up the life cycle of crickets. need to do something salmon oriented, the other day we were trying to remember what kind of salmon spawned in our creek. trying to organized but it seems i am better at organizing things rather than actions or events. 

dessert recycling

so, i went to make cupcakes yesterday and daydreamed myself past the recipe modification i had planned. looking into my fridge for some berries or whatever i found some blackberry pie stowed away.  so here are my first ever and probably only ever Blackberry Pie Cupcakes with Sour Cream Frosting (my new favorite, i cant get enough)

an evening stroll in the garden

ahhhh, the taste of a bean eaten right from the bush but shush dont tell anyone cause they aren't really ready yet.  im just cheating.  just a few thoughts as i wander through the garden and check on the state of things.  first stop, the greenhouse, it needs more mulch. more, more, and then, even more.  i water like crazy and it is still dry.  hmmm, dead bird must clean that up.  think about bells for the cats.  check out my replanting of carrots, fix the stakes that sort of keep the cats out, eat a few shelling peas that are just not plumping up.  ::frown:: oh! the calendula is starting to bloom.  i have released the raspberries to the kids.  no more picking and freezing for me.  eat a few more peas (snap, this time) and then onto the aformentioned beans.  decide to dig up another garden tomorrow for winter plantings.  it is full of lemon balm, stuff grows like weeds so no big loss there.  need to harvest my biggest bunch of rhubarb soon.  what is wrong with my dill.  aphids? fuck.

ok, done with the garden now onto some school things we have been doing.  so yeah, starting to get a little worried that the math book goal for the end of summer will not be completed.  need to focus on everyday.  havent done a page in a day in about a month.  but we have swum, stargazed, bushwacked, neighbour visited, baked, baked, and baked our way through the summer pretty good so far. 

conserving valuable resources or too cheap to buy a new bbq scrubber?

middle of the night musings

so here i am smoking and wrapped up in my Peanuts blankie up on top of my neighbourhood.  at least being on my roof feels like that.  if i cant see everything from up here, i sure can hear it.  the deer in the yard across the street testing the gate as part of some pre-dawnly routine, the dried alder leaves scritching across the roof, my cats, obnoxiously cleaning themselves as they accompany me on the roof.  there is also the ocean, so close if i only turned around to face it, sounding so far away, the waves crashing more like surf than they usually are.  three meteors have passed since i came up here and i keep imagining i see a brightening of light on the edge of my perception but im sure it is just cause i really want to see northern lights even if it is just a glimmer but this gets me thinking about the freaky light cally and scott have been seeing in their yard.  stopping and starting, brighter and dimmer, zigzagging around.  it starts to freak me out and THAT gets me thinking about the light elizabeth and i saw at the bottom of milford or topcliff rds.  it came up to our car and circled round, stopping and hovering until it just flew off again.  ok, it is official, i am off of this roof now!  crack goes the gutter as i fumble over it onto the roof below and tumble in my bedroom window.  of course knocking over previously mentioned obnoxious cats and disturbing children along the way.  and i still cant sleep so i clean some drawers in the kitchen and write this post. 

taken from my new favorite view.  g. roy gravel pit

hello hello hello

i just have so many thoughts running through my mind that i cant settle on one thing to concentrate on.  there is the red, red sky  two days ago with clouds streaking across the panorama making for a dramatic sunset, enjoying a drink on the beach with friends at the spit.  there is the hot cedar fueled fire the same night that sizzled my hair while i was trying to save my dogs from becoming tinder.  there is the thick brine smell in the air for the past two weeks that reminds me every time i step outside that the ocean is only 100ft from my door.   there is dancing barefoot at the pub for hours with my eyes closed, jello shots that make me shudder, 3 year old daughters opening birthday presents, chocolate chip birthday cakes with pink icing, and the CUPCAKES!  cherry vanilla, chocolate peanut butter, buttercake, lemon meringue, chocolate huckleberry........sigh.  what else do i have?  oh yeah, there is that homeschooling thing :)  i am a little irritated that lucien's "teacher" will not be returning in the fall, again.  we didnt bond as closely with the second sarah as we did with the first so i guess it isn't such a huge deal.  i still miss her, lucien misses her.  other than that, i really hope we can get his grade three math book finished over the summer and move onto grade four when real school starts in the fall.  he seems to have caught the money making bug recently, has been selling gnomes that he has made himself and after he had a blowup cause i pointed out he could be selling them for more because of how much time he put into them he declared he was done with gnomes and has now moved onto drawing cartoon books. hmmmm, i think we need to have a money talk soon.  off to the creek now and maybe a little wedding crashing, will be back with some pics to share.