A new home

Some days I have so much to say and I just can't say it on here. I am pretty sure there are people reading this blog that I really don't want reading it. So I'm starting a new one, over at Wordpress so I can have password protected posts. I'll keep this one for regular posts, it's a little like my first child...I made lots of mistakes and as much as it drives me crazy I really do love it. Not that I've been posting a lot lately. Life. It just gets in the way of blogging sometimes. But on a positive note, my house is pretty clean. And I've read lots of books. Oooohhh, and I met up with Joy again for a cup of coffee (well, a green tea latte, but it's so much easier just to say coffee) and this time I was also lucky enough to meet Dawn, who was absolutely fantastic and a pleasure to meet. And her kids? Have really unique names. I love unique names. I did not get to meet Debbie though, but there is always hope! I do actually have to go to her place of work to pick something up, so perhaps I will look for her to say hello. But probably not, because really I am quite shy. So maybe I'll just wait for that coffee. But not a green tea latte if we go to Starbucks, because they were quite horrid compared to the ones at Second Cup. I loves me some Second Cup. You Americans and English and Irish and Australians and Singaporians (is that how it's said?) are really missing out. And did you enjoy my fantastic display of grammar there?

Sigh. Can you tell it's after midnight? This is such a mish mash of babbling. I was only going to post to tell you to email me for the new site and the password. It should be up this week, I think. You don't have to follow me there, but I would certainly appreciate it.

Oh yeah...emmamcdonnell@shaw.ca.

Duh.

Emma is...

...thinking she has no energy to blog.

(That was totally a facebook reference, I love those status updates!)

So it's point form for you all.

- Book swap packages have started arriving, I'll update the sidebar this weekend.
- Taylor's meet the teacher is tomorrow night. Have to talk to the principal and see what they are doing with the extra funding the school receives for her due to her gifted coding. Certainly not being used for Taylor.
- Have promised Taylor $100 if she makes the honour roll this term, $200 if she gets over 90% in all her core subjects plus French. Will she do it? She has the potential, but not the attitiude. She's saving for a laptop though, so this might be incentive enough.
- Have successfully removed lice from my house. Shaved Liam's head (almost makes the lice worth it- he looks adorable!), used tea tree oil on Saoirse, Taylor and myself. Gone the next day! Still checking everyday and doing another treatment just to be safe.
- Stayed off the computer all day today. I thought it would be hard due to my total addcition but it wasn't too bad. Did start getting a bit antsy about 7.30 though.
- Sophie going through a growth spurt? Holy freaking miserable child! Adorable when she wants to give a kiss though. Smacks her lips and comes on in for one or two or ten.
- Saoirse was a bit grumpy this afternoon so I asked if she wanted to have a rest and she said "No, I just want to have a cuddle." All together now...aaaawwwww! So we cuddled for an hour and then she decided to use my legs as a diving board and the floor as her pool.
-William back to work today so my money stresses temporarily relieved. (Didn't actually post about it, but I was getting a tad stressed.)
- Still want him to get a job with benefits, holiday pay and sick days.
- Want to quit my job and stay home. I will even clean the house and learn to make some decent meals to stay home.
- Hate working.
- Hate it. Haaattteee.
-Fuck, forgot to make playschool calendar.
- What sort of stupid eejit am I for signing up to be room rep.
-Got to go make calendar.

He's just a baby himself.

Taylor's homeroom teacher, who also teaches her religion, is 23.

Did you hear that? Twenty three! That is some young, folks. When I commented on his baby-ness (and really? he looks about 18..skinny, shaggy hair and those black glasses...very cute in a geeky sort of way) Taylor says "Well, he's going to be 24 soon."

Since 24 is a long time gone in my corner of the world, this did not reassure me. Not that I'm worried. I am sure he is a perfectly fine teacher. It's just that here is at 23- almost 24- with a proper job. At 23, I was the mother of 2 toddlers.

So other than giving birth, just what have I done with my life?

It's the same old story with me...what am I going to do when I grow up?

I know I need to go back to school. How to pay for it though? What to do? I can take a $285 medical terminology course and become a unit clerk, or I can actually go back to school and do something that will allow me to make a reasonable amount of money. I'm thinking xray tech. One of the techs at work was saying that in the next 5 years they are expecting that they will have a huge shortage. Same with nursing, which I know I could never do. (This weekend some units were actually closed to admissions because they didn't have the nurses to work the shifts...it's insane here right now.) So maybe. Possibly. God, I'd have to upgrade. My math and sciences were shite I tell ya.

Must start looking into doing something with my life. I wonder if facebook is hiring?

Middle Name Meme

Chris over at Ms Cellania tagged me for this meme in which "You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog."


My middle name is Jayne and as I try and think of words with those letters I am cursing my mother for adding that y to be different from everyone else in my dad's family. Jane was my dad's grandmother name and I believe that almost every family descended from her has a daughter with Jane as either the first or middle name. I sort of regret not using Jane as a middle name for one of my girls. You know, considering Saoirse is the only one with a name I actually like (Saoirse Maeve, in case you were wondering.) Ah well, no point in regretting what is already done.

So...

J- Jealous. God, that's horrid to say. I think I was a very jealous person, but as I've gotten older I've realized there really is no point. Why should I be jealous of what others have that I don't? Who knows what else is going on in their life? I have noticed that if I genuinely like someone I don't feel jealousy, I would say I was happy for them in situations which otherwise might make me a tad jealous. I asked William what j word would describe me and he said joyous. Which made me laugh really, really hard.

A- Astute. Well, I'm not entirely stupid. I could have said asinine, which I occasionally am also. Oh, and I'm am an Albertan. Which usually isn't something I proclaim with joy. Alberta is like America's Alabama. Don't be offended people from Alabama, I needed an "A" state. And Arizona and Alaska just aren't quite right. Maybe I should have said Arkansas.

Y- Young. You know, if you're 88 I am. If you're 22...I'm not.

N- Nice. I am. My kids won't always say I am, but that's just because I'm a bich if you aren't inside the computer. Okay, that's not entirely true. I am only a bitch if you are between the ages of 11 and 12 and I spent anywhere from 8 to 36 hours pushing you out of my vajayjay while you were sunny side up. If that doesn't describe you then I am really freaking nice. So nice I get awards in fact. That I will one day post and pass on. Oh, shush, I know you've all got them by now.

E- English. Ex-pat. An English ex-pat. Oh, you can say I can't really say I'm English and I suppose other than the missing birth certificate and the expired passport there really is no proof. There is no accent, I am pretty much Canadianized. But my mother says I am English, and since she almost died pushing me out of her vajayjay, I am bloody well English, goddamn it. Though I'd rather be Irish. Which really pisses her off. You'd think that after 12 years she would have forgiven my father. And...I'm an Edmontonian. Yes, Edmonton, a little island of liberal red in a sea of conservative blue.

I'm supposed to tag people whose names begin with the letters J A Y N E.

Hmmm... Joy, Catwoman, Alissa*...ummm that's it I think. I would have thought someone's name started with an E. Is there not an Elizabeth out there? No Elaine? No Nicole? No Yvonne? And since I'm nosy, if you feel like just telling me your middle name, go for it. I love names.

* I know you have been tagged for this already. And I know you never do these things. But I think we have been bloggy friends for long enough that I can insist you do it.

The book swap and postcards.

Don't forget that the mail out deadline is tomorrow for the book swap. Once you've received your package please let me know via email or a comment and I will update the sidebar so others can see what book you received. Yeah, you definitely have to post about it. Did I not put that into the original post? Sorry!

And....

Terri, who has just moved to Alaska, is looking for postcards for her daughter Madison, who is doing a project in her Grade Once class. So if you're willing to send a card pop over to her site and get the school address. Madison, I will be mailing my postcard tomorrow, and I will be asking my brother to mail one from where he lives in BC.

Because apparently I wronged someone in a past life

So Liam has lice. Well, the lice is all gone, but the nits... 6 hours of combing and the nits are still there. William is cutting his hair tonight, which will include many tears on Liam's part and much yelling on mine I am sure. Oh no, it won't because I am going to meet the teacher at his school tonight.

And Saoirse had lice. Only a few, all gone now. There were only a few nits as well. As I looked through her hair this morning I saw a couple I had missed and picked them out. There's probably a few more, that I will catch when I can and hopefully before they hatch. You can only get an almost 3 year old to sit still for so long.

But guess who else has lice?

Not Taylor, who wore her hair in a ponytail and covered it in half a bottle of hairspray.

Not Sophie, who has almost no hair for them to enjoy.

Not William, who shaves his head.

Who does that leave?


MMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh God it was awful. Last night before I went to bed, my head started itching. I brushed my hair over the sink and 4 or 5 licey ucky things landed in the sink. No nits thank God, so I did a quick wash and went to bed. This morning there was no itching, no lice but I'm still doing a treatment once Sophie is down for her nap. better to be safe than sorry.

I hope that was it. If this goes on for weeks and weeks as I hear it is likely to do I will honestly have a breakdown.

Guess what's in my house?

Just guess. Just fucking guess.




LICE!!!! Two of my four kids have lice.


In 12 years of parenting I have yet to deal with this, and I am appalled.

Freaking Liam picking up lice and passing it off to Saoirse.

I'm off to buy nit treatments, freeze all the pillows and wash all the bedding.

Ack. I'm so ucked out.

You see what I get for making Liam wash his hair??? Freaking LICE.

You say you've got a terrible mother...

I missed Sophie's first birthday update/letter. I was going to a grand one for her 13 month birthday but here it is, almost 11 pm on the 10th of September, she is 13 months and almost 12 hours old and what have I done?

Nothing. Feck all. Not a picture posted, there is no list of all the things she is doing, there is no record of how suddenly the whole house went quiet and then I found her drinking toilet water, no mention of her 6 teeth or her screaming everywhere she goes just to let us know she has left or entered a room. No writing about her shoe obsession and her funky new purple hightops. Or her love of books and giving hugs.

No there's none of that here, because I happen to be a shitty, crappy mother.

Oh, and my dad's here, which just takes all the fun out of sitting at the computer all by my lonesome.

But he gave me money so I can live with it.

And anyway, Sophie will never know.

Since you'll all be reading this on Tuesday go wish a happy birthday to the fantastically funny Catwoman, a girl who makes me smile everytime I read her. And sometimes? I even have a depends moment. Although she does somehow work it out so that she beats me at that scrabble game on facebook.

Fun Monday number something or other.

Nikki is hosting this weeks Fun Monday and she served up a doozy of one:

We've seen your shelves, peeked inside your cabinets, looked at what your house looks like in both the summer and winter, viewed at some of our handmade pieces and even talked about our best friends. Now it's time we do something. Have you ever had someone out of the goodness of their heart do something for you without anything asked in return? Offered you money when you needed it the most? Helped you change a flat tire in the pouring rain or even just simply held the door open for you when you had your hands full? For Monday, September 10th, we are challenged with doing a good deed. I am not looking for a story of when you have offered your help in the past, I actually want you in the next two weeks to go out and help someone. Go visit a nursing home, cook dinner for someone sick or with a new baby, donate to a charity or even send just a "thinking of you card" to someone who needs it. It doesn't matter what your good deed is, or how great it is. It just needs to help someone!

This one was really hard. And when I first saw it, I said there is no way I can commit a good deed in the next week and a bit. Because, really? That's not the way my boat floats. I may be a nice person (well, Chrisb and Tiger Lamb Girl seem to think so anyway) but I am not really a doer. School volunteering has yet to start, I've not mailed a card for no reason in ages, and although I did have an elderly patient comment on how nice I was all I did was chat with her, so I don't think that qualifies. Oh, and me cooking for someone? Is more a punishment for the both of us than it would be a good deed.

So I almost didn't do this Fun Monday, but then something happened that may not technically qualify but I am going to claim it as my good deed anyway.

Last Monday was Labour Day and I am required to work all holidays. That weekend at work was totally fucked up. The other evening shift person didn't show up on Saturday so the guy working mid day did some overtime. The girl who was supposed to work the evening shift with me on Sunday didn't show up. I was starting to wonder if people had something against working with me. They ended up calling in the guy who is normally supposed to work that shift, who had taken a vacation day.

Monday was a total mess. The girl who hadn't shown up on Sunday came in at 7.30 in the morning, which she wasn't scheduled for. She then misread the schedule and assumed she was to come in at 2.30 that afternoon. She called our very new boss who said okay come in at 2.30. When I arrived at 11 (I was supposed to work at 3.30 but the fella originally scheduled for that shift needed to trade...hey, that was my first good deed!) they told me all this and I said "She's not meant to work at 2.30, A is.") We didn't have a number for her, so left it. She arrives at about 2, and we go over the schedule together. I say to her that if she wants to stay, I will go home if it okay with our boss. Because it would suck for her to travel 45 minutes into work twice only to be sent home twice. That's 3 hours on the road total for 0 pay. And with the way gas is these days! Crazy. She says "Let's see whether A. arrives or not."

2.30 arrives and not only does A arrive, but so does the girl who was supposed to work on Saturday. We called the boss and he said that I could go home so that one of the other two could stay. I think it was fairly nice of me to give up 4 hours of time and a half (As an aside, what is holiday pay where you are? William got double time in Australia, I have a friend who gets triple time on the big holidays- New Year's Eve, Christmas Day; am I totally getting ripped off at time and a half?) but I don't know that it was really a good deed.

But since I was a bitch the rest of the week (PMSing, weren't you dying to know?) it'll have to do.

Head over to Nikki's to see who really performed a good deed this week.

Taking a bloggy break

My house is a mess. A total and complete mess. I'm blaming you guys. Because, you see, I am too busy reading your blogs to clean. I promise myself I won't turn the computer on but the temptation to see what is going on in your lives is much too great. Oh, and I'm spending way too much time on facebook, which is actually affecting my blog reading. I'm addicted to those bumper stickers. Like these ones:




This support love one is my favourite:



So where was I? Oh right, blaming you for my messy house. Can I help it if every single time I go on facebook someone is there? Or if I remember that, say, it was Catwoman's Little Man's second birthday and I just have to read her monthly letter? Or that Terri is showing pictures of the view from her new house in Alaska? Or that everyone else has such interesting lives? Is it my fault that I have to know what is going on with you?

No, I didn't think so. So while the blame lies with you people, I can hardly make you come over and clean my house and cook my family dinner (though if someone would offer to do that one for me, I'd be eternally grateful? How about you just email me your favourite easy-to-cook-even-fussy-people-will-eat-it recipes? Please!)

Because my pipes are falling apart (today I discovered leaking underneath the kitchen sink, to go along with 2 of the bathrooms, I am just waiting for the third to fall apart.) I have to have a plumber in. That means that I have to clean out my junk cupboard underneath the sink, the cupboard underneath the kids bathroom sink, my bedroom has to be spotless, along with my bathroom, my garage needs to be cleaned because the one bathroom has created a large hole in there and they will need to look at it and I have to clean my basement of the boxes that haven't been unpacked in a year just in case they need to shut off my water supply. While I'm at that, I might as well as finish sorting all the outgrown kids clothes that I am going to try and sell on kijiji. I should take before and after pictures just to prove that I didn't sit and watch chick flicks and eat bon bons for the next few days.

I'll be back Monday, for Fun Monday.

Unless I start having withdrawal shakes or something. Or if it's really dead at work on the weekend I might read some blogs. Or if I work like a madwoman all day tomorrow I'll be back on. Uh yeah, we are talking about me here. There's no working like a madwoman in my world.

Do you like the way I totally put the blame onto you guys instead of accepting responsibility?

I actually feel sick thinking about going without facebook for four days. Holy feck, there better be a lot of friend requests when I next check! I'm determined to get you all on there.

Little Miss Bossy Boots

Saoirse is very bossy. Usually it is with Taylor and Liam, most often demanding that they play with her or leave her alone or that they clean their rooms.

Yesterday, I had reminded Liam that he needed a shower and as he was getting ready to go he realized that Saoirse had discovered his Game Boy (a no no for him in my books after the incident.) He wasn't very pleased and he desperately wanted it back and she just was not having it. She was hiding around my legs and yelling at him "Go away Liam! Go have your bath! GO NOW LIAM!!!"

As yesterday was the last day of the summer holidays, no one was outside after the dinner hour. Until the children of the crazy lady next door decided to go outside at about 20 after 8. This includes Saoirse's "best friend" Alex. She could hearing him laughing so went to the door and yelled out "Alex! Go inside! It's bedtime!"

Needless to say, he didn't listen to her. It did, though, provide William with much amusement.

Fat Arse Friday and my terrible week

Yeah. I know it's Saturday. Well, technically it is Sunday but I just got home from work so it's still Saturday in my world. Friday was busy in my house. I did not turn on my computer, which is saying a lot. I forgot to way myself until Saturday morning.
So...

Total weight loss- Zero.

Total weight gain- 12 ozs.

I know. I suck. I'm not entirely disappointed though, as on Wednesday I was up 3lbs. And with all the chocolate almonds I ate? I can live with 12 ozs.

So from Wednesday on my week sucked.

First we have a leak from our shower. And where does it leak? Onto my craft table, destroying a file folder of tags destined for Beccy This is the second leak, the other one is from the kids shower and drips onto the freezer in the garage. Our pipes need a major seeing to apparently.

And then there was Liam. God forbid, I could have swung for that child. Wednesday afternoon the girls had an appointment at the pediatrician (it is quite alright that Saoirse doesn't eat...she is holding steady in the 50th percentile. Sophie was Sophie. Friendly and talkative, the doctor proclaimed her as perfect. She too is sitting around the 50th percentile for both weight and height. Sophie is such a people person, I don't know where it comes from, because neither William or I are. Everyone just loves her. They don't see the temper tantrums!)

So anyway, Liam. Taylor had met my mum at the mall as she was buying Taylor a new fall coat and the girls and I were at the hospital. Before I left I took some money out of William's wallet as I was planning on meeting Taylor at the mall and treating her to her first ever manicure. Liam had slept over at a friends and didn't want to come. He was still at his friend's when we left so I didn't lock the door.

While at the mall I called to see if William was home and while we were talking he looked into his wallet. "How much money did you take?" he asks. I tell him and he says what has happened to all the money in there, there's at least $500 missing and so on. He has only a $100 bill in there, and I say that I know that I left at least a $20 as well. We narrow our culprit down to Liam. Who else could it have been? Taylor was with me, if someone had just walked in they wouldn't have left the big bill. It could only have been Liam.

As I'm walking home Liam calls out to me from the park and walks over. I ask him if he had been home. "Yeah" he said. "Did Tyler come in with you?" He says no, and I say that William is missing money from his wallet. Suddenly he hasn't been intp the house, he thought I said "Did you NOT go into the house?"

And you know, I so badly wanted to believe him. I did not want to believe that my son was capable of stealing off of his parents. I wanted to believe that it was Tyler's idea. We've always thought he was a bit of a troublemaker and, at a year older than Liam, he is definitely the leader. So I say to him that he had better think really hard about what happened and he better be home soon.

I get home and tell William that Liam hadn't been home. Like I said, I so wanted to believe him. But, I went to go to the bathroom and there was pee on the toilet seat. Classic Liam. As William and I talked I discovered that he came home to the door wide open and I knew that I had closed it over. So we knew that it was definitely Liam.

Confronted with these facts, he still denied it. And kept on denying it. We were pretty calm, surprisingly, since I especially tend to be a yeller. I was just too disappointed to yell. William said to him at one point that he was going to talk to Tyler and so Liam said "Ok I took $20 but I lost it at the park." As William and Liam were going to look for the money I said to William that I was going to go talk to Tyler's mom. This really upset Liam.

His mom wasn't home, but Tyler answered the door. I asked if he and Liam had gone to the store. Yes, he says. I asked where they got the money and he said Liam had some money. I said that actually, that money was taken from William's wallet and so I would definitely need to talk to his mom.

When I got home I said to Liam that I knew he had taken the money, and asked what they had done. He tells me they had gone to the movies. I said "And you paid for Tyler?" Yes, he says. I ask how he managed to pay for two tickets with only $20 and he says "Okay, I took $40" and he starts crying.

I called Tyler, said I know you guys went to the movies, and because you benefited from this you can pay half. I was, at this point, pretty sure Tyler was involved in this even though Liam was denying it. He had lied about everything else, why start telling the truth now?

The following things were said to Liam:

"If you can steal from your parents, that means you would steal from anyone. And, I swear to God Liam, if you ever get caught shoplifting, I will have them press charges against you."

"It's not as though we never give you money. If you ever want money for the store, we give it to you. If you had asked to go to movies, we would have given it to you. Why did you need to steal it?"

This is the sentence that made me start crying, and had Liam sobbing: "I have never in my life been so disappointed in anyone. I am absolutely devastated that you could do this." And honestly? I really haven't. Except for in myself, for having raised a thief.

I later talked to Tyler's mother. I had told her that I thought Tyler should have to pay half and she didn't agree with me, because she said Tyler didn't know that Liam had stolen the money. I did say to her that Tyler is not a stupid boy, that he should know that Liam is not the type to have enough money to treat a friend to a movie. I know that this is Liam's fault, I really do. I just don't believe that Tyler is entirely innocent in this. And I know that had the situation been reversed I would have offered her half the money whether Liam had been involved in the actual theft or not because he still benefitted from it. William disagrees with me on this one, as I suspect most people will.

The timing of this was just terrible. William had had a really small paycheque and with back to school things going on that $40 was needed. Taylor and I had just talked about how much back to school preperations (clothes, school supplies, haircuts, school fees, bus passes, so on) will end up costing and it is well over a thousand dollars. So for a family that makes very little money $40 matters at this time of the year. And it is fine to say that Liam can pay us back by working it off, but I wanted the cash in hand!

I am still so frustrated with him. I honestly think he doesn't care. I think he thinks we will forget all about this in a few days. When I was a kid, if I got in trouble I did all I could to please my mum. Clean my room? You betcha, it would be spotless just so she had nothing else to pick on. Liam? Clean his room? No, couldn't be arsed. Unpack the suitcase he has been asked to unpack everyday for 3 weeks? Nah. Even when I asked him to help me in the basement he did such a half assed job I just ended up yelling. At the rate he's going it'll be months before he's paid us back.

Just to cheer myself up I shall leave you with something Saoirse said (because she makes my day...I really wish Liam was 2 again. He was so sweet...what happened to that little boy?)

Saoirse likes to climb up onto the counter to get into the snack cupboard. She and William have a game where he plays monster and she runs away laughing. So this one day he goes into the kitchen, playing monster, but she has just climbed onto the counter. Can't run away so she yells "Look, Daddy, I don't want any trouble!"

Seriously, I love that girl.

Oh, and today I asked Sophie where her dummy was and I swear she said "daddysgotit" All fast and run on like that. Also, I called home from work tonight and she answered the phone (because she is always playing with it) and babbled away to me-even pausing when I was talking- for a good two minutes and then hung up on me.

I love that girl too.

And I love Taylor because she relented and got her hair cut, not as short as I would have liked, but about 4 or 5 inches were chopped off.

But Liam? I'm not even in like* at the moment.

And me? I am still wondering where exactly I went wrong.


*Before someone gets all therapy-ish on me and tells me that we are supposed to love our children no matter what, I never said I didn't love him, I love him very much, but I just don't like him very much at the moment. Sometimes? Liking is way harder than loving.