It's funny because I've done my time.

Did you know that they teach "Parenting" in high school now? I didn't until Raven filled out her course calendar last spring. It's part of the Humanities group of courses for Social Science credits. It's a whole course! Here's the description, "This course focuses on the skills and knowledge needed to promote the positive and healthy nurturing of children, with particular emphasis on the critical importance of the early years to human development. Students will learn how to meet the developmental needs of young children, communicate and discipline effectively, and guide early behaviour. They will have practical experiences with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, and will learn skills in researching and investigating questions relating to parenting. Sign up for this course to gain essential knowledge and skills for effective, healthy and happy parenting or leading to a career working with children."

I was both impressed AND somewhat concerned that Ray wanted to take this course but last night any doubts I may have had were laid to rest. In my opinion, this course should be mandatory for all students, like English or Math. You see, they have robot babies. Oh yes, robot babies that scream and cry and need attention. Bags of flour cannot do that.

This photo was taken just 10 hours into the care of her little robot baby, Fez. In this photo she's having a meltdown because he was crying uncontrollably. I thought it was so funny that I just had to share.

Fez is completely computerized, has a flexible neck and limbs, he wakes her up through the night, he has fussy periods and needs to be fed, burped, rocked, and changed. She wears a bracelet with a chip in it so that she is the only one who can care for him. The bracelet cannot be removed without a tool that the teacher possesses. The diapers and bottles also have chips so the computer knows that she's changed him or how long the bottle has been held there. He needs to burp in the middle of feedings and she has to figure this all out on her own, just like the rest of us once did. The computer will also log if the head hasn't been supported (and he cries if this happens) or if she missed responding to his needs. She's got 2 days of blissful motherhood to look forward to and she's already batshite crazy. Wicked!

She has to carry her little bundle of joy around to all of her classes and assemblies today and will have to try to quiet him while her classmates look on. Teehee...

It was a rough night for our little Raven and I think she now has a much deeper appreciation for the physical demands and the psychological stress of parenthood. That being said, it's been a pretty cool experience so far. Of course, I can say that because I slept all night. Bahahahaa... He did wake me up briefly at 4am though (I guess I haven't completely lost my mother-ears) but she's already noticed the different types of crying and associated some of the needs to them. I had to show her how to buckle in the car seat and held him through a fussy period for just a minute while she had a pee break, other than that she's been a very good Mama. However, she has decided that maybe a life as a crazy cat lady is more her style.

I'm okay with that.... for at least another 10-15 years anyway.

Gimme an "R"!

Today's post is a photo blog of sorts with photos pulled from my phone.

First, you should know that...

...and here's why:

Mr. B delights in the same silly humour that I do.

I'm sure that Mr. MacIntyre would revoke my Grade 12 Writer's English credit if he were to read any of these blogs so perhaps I should not be so judgmental. However, there is just no excuse for this. Shame on you Wal-Mart.

Today's post brought to you by every letter other than "R"... apparently he's busy elsewhere.

The Language Spoken Here

I had hoped to get some of our veggie adventures posted in the "mostly meatless kitchen" but Mr. B was home for a few days and so I was stuck to him like glue. I've started to document an unfortunate situation for an unsuspecting eggplant and I'll head back over there once I'm finished here.

We went out for dinner Friday night sans bebes and I really wish I had brought my camera with me. It was oh-so mouthwateringly delicious! Is that even a word? If it's not, it should be! We shared a caramelized onion and kalmata olive flatbread for starters. For our main, I had butternut squash ravioli with goat cheese and pine nuts and he had pan seared sea bass on wilted spinach au gratin and some sort of yummy vegetables that I cannot remember. Then, came dessert! I don't have dessert very often (or go out for dinner to a place that doesn't have a kids menu with food named like superheros or something equally as cheesy) so I decided to get my all time favourite. Creme brule. Oh, how I love the sound of the crisp sugar crust cracking under my spoon. I love the taste, the smell, the temperature, and the texture. If I could have dessert every day without fear of gaining 100lbs a week, I'd have creme brule everyday. Mr. B had New York cheesecake with strawberry coulis. An excellent choice! If you were to humanize the relationship between me and my favourite desserts, creme brule would be my sexy-smart-intriguing husband and cheesecake would be the object of a torrid affair.

Anyway, all that to say that dinner was amazing. What was not so wonderful though was walking home on the most beautiful night of the season carrying a 10lb food-baby and that being the only thing I could think of. Oh. My. It was way too much food to consume in one sitting and so it was rather uncomfortable. I think one has to do that every now and then just as a reminder that one does indeed have limits. It was nothing that jammies, a movie, and slipping into a coma couldn't fix. ;)

We talked, we planned, we made fun of each other's food-baby and most importantly, Mr. B did not let me sleep on the neighbour's lawn until I could walk comfortably. I begged him to go on without me and just leave me there until morning. Instead he held my hand and told me jokes to make me laugh so I could keep my mind off the fact that I really just wanted to sleep off the impending food paralysis

That made me think of all the reasons we've made it this far. There is really no need to get into the sticky mess that is our past, but let's sum it up by saying that many couples we know have split for much less than what we've endured. Even when things are bad, we still have a secret language that helps us communicate when all the other words are just too difficult to comprehend. Laughter. Fun.

We built a new house last year and our builder was sometimes very frustrating to deal with. One of the annoyances was the lack of lawn until late into the summer. It was a drag. The kids had no soft green space to play on and our house was constantly covered in a layer of dust or mud. We could have been real jerks about it but instead, we chose to do this:



Eventually, it looked like this and we were happy. Then we had to find other ways to entertain ourselves though.



You know my rule... when life hands you lemons, make lemon scones.

I've been uber-busy with my little business lately and so that I still get to spend time with Mr. B when he's home without letting my orders slide, he joins me in the dungeon and we play a little game we used to play a long time ago. When we were younger and the babies were still babies, we never went out because we were always so tired and besides that, we never had any money to go out even if we wanted to and so we used to play video games, watch movies, and play "stump Marnie". (Get it out of the gutter!) How it works is that Mr. B plays a clip of a song and tries to stump me. I can't remember where I put my car keys 1 minute after I put them down but I can remember a song I heard once or twice when I was 14 years old. He searches songs on Blip, I build jewelry and pluck the song out of my dusty brain and shout it out. Mr. B continues to search. Music. Another magical language.

We also know how to have fun. Yes we do! The next photo captures an impromptu party that broke out with the kids... on a Tuesday night.


Loud music, dancing, soda pop and snackies for the kids, a glass (or two) of wine for Mama. Good times.

Oh, and this one is for you Ellen. I've taken your advice and I've chosen to avoid seeing tumours. Instead, my peppers now have bums.


The language here is sometimes a little different from what others speak. Sometimes the dialect is a little funny, quirky, dark, or silly but we all understand it and that's enough for us.

An open letter to Django

Dear Django,

I would just like to say thank you. "For what?", you might ask. Well my dear dog, for everything you did to make my Sunday so perfect.

It was so thoughtful of you to jump up on my bed a dozen times throughout the night and walk around to make sure the bed was safe for me to continue sleeping in. It was also really nice of you to kick me in the face with your enormous, club-like paws. I read somewhere that if you sleep too deeply, your body can actually forget to breathe and die. I thought maybe that was just a myth but you must know about that theory too and so you kicked me now and then to make sure I was still alive. You're the best.

Thank you for biting off pieces of the bone you were nomming on last night and then throwing them up all over my bedroom carpet at 6:30am this morning. It was really time I got up anyway and you can never clean brand new carpet too often. After all, sleeping in and relaxing on a Sunday after driving around running errands all day on Saturday and being dragged around by you when we went to the groomers is really overrated. Sleep is for wussies. Anything more than 4 hours is a waste of time, I always say.

Also thank you for continuing to empty the contents of your stomach downstairs. What was really awesome was when you walked all over while vomiting. It's so much more adventurous to follow you around and guess where you left the next puddle while I was cleaning up the last one. It's kind of like an early Easter Egg hunt.

I'm sure the neighbours would also like to thank you for barking at the birds when I let you out at 7:00am, 7:15am, and 7:35am. It was time those lazy bones got up and your bark is like the singing of angels compared to the tweeting of birds.

It was also so nice of you to step in your own poo while you were out there and then walk all over the house and lay on the ottoman. You know, when I was at the store yesterday picking up those little soy candle things I like so much, I thought to myself, "Gee, I really wish they had these in poo scent. I think my family and our visitors would really like that. Oh well, berries will just have to suffice." Well, my wish has been granted. Now my house smells exactly like poo and it's just lovely.

Finally, thank you so much for supplying all of this early morning adventure and then curling up on the couch to sleep. All of that must have been exhausting for you. It really makes me so happy to see you sleeping like a little baby while I'm wide awake and have stomach acid burning through my flesh inside. I know the Doctor said that I am supposed to try to relax and reduce my stress level but what does he know anyway? I mean, he only went to school for a gazillion years. He can't really be that smart. Besides, isn't spending the entire weekend running around for others and cleaning an entire house relaxing? Well! If it's not, I don't know what is. That's precisely why I do it every weekend.

Love,

Mom

P.S. - Thank you for still loving me unconditionally despite the fact that my gratitude is dripping with sarcasm. Thank you for adding humour to my life because tomorrow, this will all be funny.

One Way Conversations

As you know, Mr. B works out of town. It can be tough but we don't let the distance damage our relationship. In fact, I think in some very important ways it has made it stronger. We still communicate constantly by way of text message, facebook, email, phone and, of course, this blog. One thing that we've learned to do that we seldom did before is communicate more effectively. When you can only send a few text messages a day at 140 characters each, you learn very quickly to pick and choose the important subjects and the best words to describe them.

I know that some people would argue that this is no way for a couple to live, at one time I would have been one of them. This life is certainly not for everyone and it can be very challenging. However, with hard work comes great rewards. We are providing a life for our children that we NEVER thought we could have. Sure Mr. B is gone for up to two weeks sometimes but then he comes home for a week or more and spends every minute of it with us. He can also come and go as he pleases so when we need him, he's always here. In many ways, it has made us all closer and certainly has made us appreciate the time we have together.

Finally, it has allowed us to have fun little facebook interactions such as this:
(warning! contains some graphic content)

Note: The following chat takes place between 1:19pm and 1:43pm.

Kevin is offline.

Marnie
Where did you go? You were there a second ago!

Kevin is online.

Marnie
Hey baby!!
hello?
are you ignoring me?
I can see you're there.
Your little ball thingy is green.
Hello!
Kevin
I'm going to keep typing until you answer me.
blah blah blah
I like turtles
Coca cola should be a food group
Kevin has a really big....
....watch
If our house was a salad...
...I would be the cherry tomatoes
...and you would be the cheese...
Deez Nuts!
WHERE ARE YOU??
okay, this isn't as much fun as I thought it would be.
I'm going to go and stalk someone else now.
BOO!
Did I scare you?
*le sigh*
Do you even know how to use this thing?
Prolly not.
hellllllooooooooo????
you're not very good at this facebook chat thing, are you?
We're going to have to work on your computer skillzzzzz...
Gaaawwwwddd...
where's my chapstick
You talk to me right now Mister or I'm gonna spend all of your money while you're gone.
Well, I'll probably do that anyway but talk to me dammit!
You're sitting there watching me ramble on, aren't you?
Yeah. I knew it!
You're probably huddled around the computer with your guys just having a good laugh at the torture you're putting me through.
Well sir... I have a cure for that.
(.)(.)
There!
I just flashed you.
that's sad.
remember when they used to look like this.. (`)(`)
okay, they were never that perky... but close.
*le sigh encore*
can I get a boob job?
You might have to work a few more days for that. ;)
(*)(*)
(.)(:) <--- superfluous nipple
lmso
lmao too
HaHa... I kill me.
K, I got nothing else.
Can you talk to me now?
Please?

Kevin is offline.

Marnie
One way conversations are sometimes better than none at all.

Kevin is online.
Kevin is offline.

Although it was just me rambling away I have to admit that I had a great time imagining him sitting there watching each line pop up. After the first few lines I knew that Facebook was just being Facebook and that he wasn't really still online but then I had the stroke of genius to realize that this would make a great blog. I kept going.

He's going to love this one. :)