Spend the day with me part 1

I’ve always wanted to live blog my day, mostly because the number one question that I get asked is “how do you do it all?”

It’s 8:45am as I type this, I am drinking coffee and making breakfast for the kids. I was up at 5:45am, which was a little late for me, but you know, a girl needs to sleep! Before the kids woke up, I responded to some client emails, chatted on instant messaging to a friend about some personal health issues, and consulted with Dr. Google, got mad with the apparent incompetence of Adobe’s customer support people, made a couple small tweaks to a website that I am working on, and then by 7am, the kids were up.

My eldest is sick, so I cuddled with him in bed for a bit while they watched early morning cartoons, and the other 2 had their bottles (yes, the 3 year old has a bottle still…). Once we were downstairs, I washed up some dishes (because, really, I am too exhausted at the end of the day!), while the kids were playing something with large, plastic spoons and throw pillows!

It’s now 9am, this kids are eating, and talking, LOUDLY, and I am pondering the most excellent day that I am sure to have!

I know that you’ll be at the edge of your seat in anticipation for the next update, I mean, clearly I lead a thrilling and exciting life, but please try to have patience, I’ll be back soon!

Coming back to me

For the past 5 years I’ve been pretty much pregnant, breastfeeding, or suffering for some sort of postpartum stress, and as is common with so many of us, I lost myself to motherhood.

Since my last pregnancy, a little more than 2 years ago, I’ve been wearing this exact same pair of DKNY running shoes, yes, through rain, sleet and snow even. I think I’ve even worn them to a wedding once! What’s sad about this is that I love shoes, seriously I.LOVE.SHOES, yet, for the past 5ish years I’ve completely worn out about 3 pairs of shoes and they all look pretty much like the one above.

Last week I looked at my shoes and thought about me, I thought that I can barely recognize myself anymore, I wondered why I get so emotional over the simplest things, I stressed over all the responsibilities that now belonged to me, but most of all I decided that I need new shoes!

You know when I was a non-mommy, I was obsessed with making sure my skin was not dry, so obsessed that I would put both vaseline and baby oil on at night, and now I don’t even use lotion! Surely being a mommy does not means that we need to neglect ourselves… go do something nice for yourself right now! As for me, I’m going to buy new shoes, and perhaps lotion.

Talk to me and the hypocrite within

I like to think that I am an honest person, and most of the time I am, but sometimes, on particularly frustrating days, I think to myself, if my blog readers can see me now, they would probably feel so betrayed! Please accept my apologies for that, I don’t mean to misrepresent myself, it just happens.

In many ways my blog identity is my true identity, I’ve chosen to be my ‘real’ self online which does have its advantages, but also its challenges, and one of the biggest challenges I face is living up to being the mom that I write about in my blog, you know, the mom who can entertain her kids and not get frustrated, the mom who knows how to work from home efficiently, the mom who cooks everyday, the well adjusted wife even.

A while ago I made a decision to try to be inspirational on this blog, to try to help other parents, to add value where I could, and if I had to rant, it would be to open the topic up for discussion and hopefully get to a point where we can all benefit from potential solutions. This meant that on days when I just wanted to scream about how crappy being a mother was, I was forced to write about the more positive aspects, which in general worked out well because it helped me to get over the difficulties and focus on a solutions instead, but did have the distinct disadvantage of making me into a hypocrite at times.

My husband is on a 2 day business trip, and this morning I had the wonderful job of getting all 3 kids fed, cleaned, and dressed so I could take the eldest 2 to school, sadly, I completely lost it and started screaming for them to stop running around with only one shoe and concentrate on what they were supposed to be doing! It was not that it was particularly stressful, but I didn’t take my own advice about routines and schedules, being late was my own fault, being unprepared was my own fault, and ultimately, I didn’t “do as I say”!

I know that most of you would consider me to be a good mom, but at times I feel so unworthy . Do you find that it’s sometimes hard to live up to your parenting ideals or follow your own advice?

Surviving weddings that start at 9pm!

It’s become apparent that Eastern cultures prefer very late weddings, and events in general, we’ve been doing ok taking just 2 kids, but this was the first time we would be taking all 3 of them. Last night, one of our university friends got married and we seriously considered not attending because of the timing and the fact that we have 3 small kids who have very early bedtimes! But you know, and we knew, we had to go – and we wanted to go – so we went, all of us!

We put the kids to nap from 5pm to 8pm (which worked out because we had completely worn them out during the day!), while they were sleeping we got dressed, which meant that when we woke them up, we only had to get them dressed. Now, here is where you need to know your kids – my kids will wake up well and not too cranky – if your kids are cranky-wakers, don’t try this method!

We got there on time and picked a table close to the doors and at the back of the hall, which really is sensible when you’ve got 3 critters in tow! I packed pretty light, so all I had was a small bag with an assortment of snacks, juice, a bottle of milk, and toy cars (diapers and extra clothing remained in the car). They were relatively well behaved, although the people on the neighboring table did have a good laugh as I tried unsuccessfully to cajole them into standing for a group shot.

group shot of the boys!

playing camera peek-a-boo with the baby

it actually worked pretty well and kept him laughing (a little too loudly) for a pretty long time (I took 80 photos at the wedding, and none of the wedding!)

eating ‘nemo’ candy, an alternative to running around the table and screaming

secretly eating extra ‘nemo’ candy because I forgot to bring his toy car!

Parenting Strategies: how to get kids to clean up

My kids are notorious non-tidy-up’ers! They absolutely hate to clean, and it seems that no amount of motivational songs, threats, or rewards can help the situation. It actually amazes me to hear the elaborate excuses that 3 and 4 year olds can think up!

I used to go on for about half an hour trying very hard to convince them that cleaning was ‘fun’, ‘smart’, ‘healthy’, you know, I used just about any adjective I thought would serve as encouragement, and yet nothing. Then, I started with the threats, “I WILL give it away!”, “I WILL throw it in the garbage!”, “I WILL give it to the baby!”, but they would then dare me to do it! Mind you, many of their toys are now sitting in the basement and even more have been given to charity. But I found it hard to just take away the toys that I know they love, and they’d caught on to my weakness.

Recently, I discovered a technique that works so well, I don’t even have to threaten anymore! One day, as they sat ignoring my pleas to remove their toys from the floor before I swept, without warning, I just started sweeping away their toys. I have never seen them work so fast before – they jumped from their seats and ran to remove their toys from my path! Now, when I tell them I am going to sweep away their toys, they instantly start putting everything back into the toy box.

Last night though, they were extremely tired from missing their daytime nap, and when I started to sweep the toys, they both completely lost it and started screaming and crying very loudly, so loudly that I was fearful a neighbor might have called child services! But, the trick is to remain completely calm and unconcerned with their crying. I just calmly gave them the options, and calmly told them that I was going to sweep whether they cried or not (more crying ensued, of course), then the baby got very worried about his toys and started to pick them up. As I neared the end of the living room, I started counting, and told them that they had until I counted to 20 and then the toys would be gone, thankfully this worked and the place was clean by the time I reached 39 (they requested 19 additional counts).

How do you get your kids to clean?