I’m a new box in the “demographic” column

It’s tax time which means math time which means headache time, which means grouchy time which means liquor store time which means needs money time which means work time which means income time which means tax time.

It really does all come back to death and taxes.

In “moving ever closer to death news,” I turned 40 on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the absolute worst day to have a birthday because people can now forget both days at once which is time-saving and convenient if you’re a positive thinker and reason for a rampage if you’re not. I heard from all the people I cared to, and the ones I didn’t don’t matter. So, so far, 40= apathy.

Being 40 is about as good as I expected it to be which is not-at-all good, although that feeling of “no longer giving a shit”  all you 40 years old+ people told me about is kicking in, and so far it’s very refreshing.

And, well, 40 is not dead (yet) so there’s that.

This is depressing me, and likely you, so go read the funny I wrote at MamaPop.com recently. I’ll be back soon with more of my trademark inspirational jibber-jabber.

CBS Bans Excessive Skin On Grammy Night, Securing Status As “Get Off My Lawn Network”

“America Is A Nation Of Excuses:” Fox News Guest Says Being Fat Negates ALl Adele’s Accomplishments

Search For Best Mom Ever Ends As Sweetest Adopted Baby Announcement Of All Time Surfaces 

 

 

This post contains words but says little and is written primarily out of guilt, much like a birthday card from a distant relative

Happy New Year, everyone. When can we stop saying that? What’s the protocol on seasonal greetings? I’m not much on protocol. Or etiquette, or hygiene.

But I do like tradition. A few days ago it was my most favourite day of the entire Holiday Season. It was the day when I fling my Christmas tree onto the front lawn and yell, “Toodle-loo, MOTHAFUCKA!“

I love Christmas, but no longer wish to impale my feet on pine needles trying to turn on the television, and having my house smell like a cinnamon stick factory next to a pine forest was getting old.

A few days ago, my friend Katja asked me if I was writing a New Year’s post on my blog. At first I was like, “I have a blog? Oh, crap! My blog!” and then I ran here to make sure it was still alive. Really, this thing needs more attention than a naked toddler near a basket of clean laundry. I haven’t posted since before Christmas and the break was lovely. Not that I don’t enjoy writing – I do, almost more than anything else I do.*

*I don’t do much.

So Katja and some other Internet friends (not the kind who size you up for making blazers from your skin..I think) have been busy coming up with their words for the year. They range from serious to funny and everything in between. These are the words they will focus on and remember in their endeavors in the coming 12 months. While I’m not quite sure what word I will use for 2013, I do happen to have a list of words for the departing 2012.

They include:

• Hey, 2012! Go &%$# yourself!
• Excuse me? 2012? Eat $%(* and die.
• (Holds 2012 in a choke hold.)
• Hahaha SPITE

I let you know when I’m ready with my 2013, so I guess for now it’s just “WAIT.”

What’s your word?

Tip Thursday: Enjoying a stress-free Christmas

There is so much to get done during the holidays that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Once you factor in baking, decorating, and wrapping gifts, there’s hardly any time left for sobbing into your eggnog because the only Christmas card you received was from your divorce lawyer.

Just me?

In any event, here are some Christmas tips for today’s Tip Thursday that  I hope help you manage holiday stress a bit better. I’ve used them all to varying degrees of success.

1. Elf on the Shelf – Get rid of it. If you’ve got more than one kid, the truth is you don’t need it. You’ve got a built-in Elf on the Shelf every day of the year. I’ve got two kids, and I’ve even given them both incentives to reporting behaviour. For example, one tattle earns a square of toilet paper. Two tattles? You get a sheet on your bed tonight! Three? That’s big time, helper child, and you’ve just gotten yourself a full glass of milk with dinner. Now nothing happens in this house without me knowing about it, and if something is so well thought out that it involves both children, I don’t want to know about it.

2. Caroling – Just say no. Seriously, does anyone even do this anymore? If you must participate in this tradition, make it easy for yourself: drive around the neighbourhood with your car windows open, cranking Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas CD.

3. Baking – Today’s home chef can make treats rivalling those found in European bakeries. Thanks to speciality shops and pushy friends selling Pampered Chef products, you too can churn out delectable, gorgeous treats just like those in a bakery. Have I said “bakery’ enough to indicate you should just GO TO A BAKERY? No one will know. Jab a few of the cookies with your finger, and maybe throw a couple into the toaster oven to burn the bottoms if you’re worried about appearing too perfect. I wish I had your problems.

4. Gift wrapping – Fancy papers, ribbons and bows, personalized name tags…Where does the madness end? You’re already getting a present. You expect me to spend 30 minutes carefully wrapping it in foil paper with co-ordinating hand-punched calligraphy name tag? Take a cue from my Ex-husband: wrap everything in the bag it came in and seal it up with whatever roll of tape is in the junk drawer. Some of the nicest things I ever got came in duct taped Wal-Mart bag. (And by nice I mean okay. And by okay I mean not good at all.)

5. Decorating - Right now my lawnmower is sitting out, mid-lawn, right where it ran out of gas in August. I just threw some lights on it and called it a day, so maybe go elsewhere for decorating tips.

6. Meals  - Planning nutritious meals for your family while you’re busy with things like shopping and crying, or wrapping and crying, or trimming the tree and crying can be hard. Well, wipe those tears away, friends! For I bring to you one of the greatest gifts God bestowed on the Universe: the grocery store rotisserie chicken.  This golden BBQ bird has saved my hide (and potential calls to Children’s Services for suspected neglect) many, many times. In fact, in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” the verse “partridge in a pear tree” was originally “A chicken in my buggy.”

7. Parties - Make them “BYOBAFAYNLUEICU” : Bring Your Own Booze and Food and You’re Not Leaving Until Everything is Cleaned Up. Enforce this. Hide people’s coats, their keys, whatever you have to under piles of crusty dishes and empty wine bottles. They clean the mess, they find their stuff! This is also a great way to keep guests entertained. You’ll secure a reputation for being the “hostess with the mostest” employing this technique.

I’ll check back after the holidays to see how it all worked out for you. Please, add your tips in the comments if you’ve got some to share.

Merry Christmas!

Dear Santa, please get it right this year.

The holiday season is upon us and my children have started compiling their Christmas lists. This Christmas my son is eight years-old, and my daughter is on the cusp of 14.

What this really means is that I need a goddamn money truck.
 
My son’s gift list consists of things which have been marketed to him with words like “blaster action,” “rev speed,” and “guaranteed to diminish your mother’s will to live.” Everything he wants is going to damage something I own in some way, be it the fabric on my living room sofa or my sanity.

Only one of these items was made by IKEA and is definitely more durable than the other.
 
My daughter wants trendy clothing, “Apple” products, a dog, and possibly a dog named “Apple” who wears trendy clothes.
 
I do most of my shopping at the mall. (It’s where the best “Flying Blaster Action Super-Speed Starter Pack” is sold. I was on one such trip to the mall earlier this week when I parked my car and headed for the entrance nearest the food court. (I like to enter places at their most Chinese-food-smellingest point.)

Our local mall decorates for the holidays and that includes posting large billboard style pictures along the outside walls. Each giant square depicts some variation of a joyful winter scene:  one panel shows a young couple having a playful snowball fight, while another presents a smiling family gathered around a fire, cradling hot mugs, their skis propped against the cabin door frame behind them. Everyone looks festive and happy. The scenes are meant to inspire you to have such bliss in your own life; bliss which can apparently be achieved by entering the mall.

But one scene in particular stuck out. It’s right above the Chinese-food-smellingest entrance, and it is my most very favourite Christmas scene ever.  
 
Now, I don’t know if my kids are going to be thrilled with what they get for Christmas this year. All I ask is this: that they don’t look as miserable as this poor guy:

A hockey stick? WTF?
I wanted a Flying Blaster Action Super-Speed Starter Pack!
I AM NOT MY BROTHER.

You’re driving me to drink, Charlie Brown

“And so, Charlie Brown, that’s why life is hopeless and there’s nothing to be happy about, ever. Happy Holidays!”

Get your comfy “line standing shoes” polished up and dust off that one man pup-tent!

Yes; pack a lunch and a soup can to pee in, because “Charlie Brown” the movie is coming to the big screen and there is gonna be a line-up for tickets the likes of which you won’t believe! This thing is gonna put “The Hunger Games” pre-sale to shame and I…I can’t do this.

I discovered this exciting cinematic revelation on Google a few weeks ago. I was feeling pretty good – too good, in fact – and realized I needed to be taken down a peg or two on the happiness ladder. Nothing takes me down faster than the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special,” so I Googled it up and it did not disappoint.  It was just as depressing as I remembered.

My cousins and I watched it every year, locked in my Grandmother’s small front room with a kitchen towel wedged in the door frame. I have no idea what possessed adults to inflict this torture on their offspring, other than maybe payback for horrific labours and stolen youth.

Even as a child I thought that Charlie Brown television specials were probably the most depressing children’s programming that ever there was. To be fair, “Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired in 1965, and while this was long before the concept of self-esteem for children was part of the parenting “toolbox,” I still think someone at the originating network was a kid-hater. Five minutes into my YouTube revival and the Peanuts kids had already called each other “stupid,” “hopeless,” and “dumb.” I’m pretty confident “asshole” and “douche-bag” sit reluctantly on the cutting room floor, due only to FCC interference.

So, hey, MERRY FREAKIN’ CHRISTMAS, ya stupid dipshit blockhead!

I read several of the articles outlining the upcoming movie and it appears  that Charles Schultz’s son and grandson will write the movie screenplay, which sounds like a lot of work when you first think about it. But really, how much work is needed for something consisting mostly of depressing tuba music and a lot of WahWahWAH?

Children’s television programming completely devoid of parental presence freaks me out. It’s best not to give my kids get any ideas. I’ve seen the way my son eyes me up after an episode of “Max and Ruby.” Like Max, my son also has a big sister, and the rooms in our house are an odd jumble of coloured, mismatched wallpapers. This boy could be living “la vida orphan” if given the opportunity. No; best not provide a match for that fire.

There’s no word yet on the upcoming movie’s plot, but I’m hoping it somehow explains why so many children in the Peanuts gang have only four greasy hairs on their head. Was having the hair of a retired plumbing parts salesman from Indiana normal for the children of this era? And I’m no professional, but why isn’t Charlie Brown seeing a self-esteem therapist? And could someone please just lock Lucy in a cold cellar?

Charlie Brown television and movie plots really are just the most depressing media events ever. I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the new original movie.Stay tuned until 2015 for my review on “Save our Playground/Abandoned Nuclear Reactor Plant, Charlie Brown!”

I hope they all get “Hair Club” memberships for Christmas

Halloween Redux

Halloween nowadays…Uh oh. I just said “nowadays.” Damn kids. Get off my lawn! Turn that music down! Sit up straight! Okay… I think it’s out of my system now.

Anyways, Halloween nowadays is fun, sure, but it’s nothing like when we were young. Halloween during the 1970′s was a whole other ballgame. Today parents and children work in tandem to think up creative costumes and often spend hours at department stores and fabric shops to ensure successful costumes.

We also make sure our kids eat a balanced meal, rich in protein and complex carbohydrates with the perfect ratio of vitamins and minerals before trick-or-treating so that any sugar consumption after dinner is absorbed and metabolized less harmfully.

Trick-or-treaters use flashlights and reflective arm bands and are accompanied door-to-door by watchful parents in large groups. Merriment is structured and there are always “pleases” and “thank-yous” even from the most frightful witch or goblin (wearing a latex-free masks with safety breathing holes, of course.)

Candy is checked, and re-checked. And checked again. Do we know where it came from? Is it fresh? Is it more than 36% sugar and food colouring? Can it be frozen for the doling out of joy in thimblefuls through the winter?

BRUSH YOUR TEETH. And use the fluoride-free cavity protection rinse the dentist recommended!

Pumpkins lining tidy pathways of tidy two-storey subdivision homes are well-lit and rival museum works of art. They are not jack-o-lanterns; they are “Post-Modern Gourd Carvings.” They are beautiful and fragile and no one touch it.

This is in stark opposition to Halloween of my youth (and yours too, dear reader, if you are between 25-100.)  Our parents often scrambled a costume at 4pm on Halloween evening, using couch cushions and old curtains. Mom’s red lipstick and some clip on earrings transformed 6-year-olds into “pregnant housewife circa 1974″ in the time it took to mix another Tom Collins.

Kids had little to no say in what costume they would wear. If it was bought, it was bought on sale by your mother when she was at the grocery store, thrown into a cart with Cheeez-Whiz and Wagon Wheels. More likely  it was made, and no matter what, you smiled for the damn picture.

Pumpkins came in three standard carving patterns: scary face, funny face, or uncarved. They were lit by stub wax candles, lit ourselves with wooden matches or a leaky Zippo.

Dinner was unnecessary – you’d be eating all night anyway, so why waste money on a formal supper when the bank wants 18.5% for the damn mortgage and the union might strike?

“Let me fill my pocket flask and we’ll go, fathers said. They stood in groups, sipping and chatting at the bottoms of driveways while we ran – ran - no pleases, no thank-you, Yes, Mrs. Patterson, I will tell my mother you like my costume.

We ran and we screamed and we laughed and we showed no awareness of orderly merriment.

Then we were home and tired, make-up washed from our face.

Smelling of Noxema and Pond’s Cold Cream,  our scrubbed faces shone as we sorted and traded and sorted and traded again.

We ate ourselves just this side of sick. We hadn’t had dinner, you know.

It was Halloween.

It was Halloween.

Canadian Thanksgiving – if you choke, the hospital visit is “No Charge.”

This weekend is the Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. Canadians have Thanksgiving in October, instead of November like Americans. That’s because we use the metric system. Metric is also why we pay approximately $1.40 /L ($5.29/gallon) for gasoline.

I think “metric” loosely translated is: “You got universal health care and strong beer. What else do you people want?”

This year the kids are going to see their Dad and his family on Sunday. On holiday Monday I will take them with me to have dinner with friends and family (not mine; most of them don’t like me.) My house smells wonderful from all of the cooking I’m doing. I haven’t hosted a party or big meal since 2007 when my ex and I separated and that’s what I miss most. Well, that and having someone to shovel the driveway in the winter.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will not pillage your land and destroy your cultural and social histories, but rather share with you a few things I am thankful for:

I am thankful for the old man who drives a motorized scooter down my street. He wears 1970’s ski goggles with yellow lenses and his scooter has a flag and a basket. He drives down the wrong side of the street and every time I see him I think about how bad-ass I’m going to be when I’m old.

I am thankful for a person who tells me it’s all going to be okay, even when it probably won’t, and then who keeps saying “Yes it will!” despite how hard I am pinching his nipples to make him admit IT IS NOT GOING TO BE OKAY.

I am thankful for kids like this:

I am thankful that my refrigerator always has food in it and that my children will likely never know the feeling of going to bed with a stomach sore and a spirit numb from hunger.

I am thankful for blog posts like these:

From GDRPEmpress She’s one of the nicest people on the internet – nay, the WORLD - and a fellow member of the “People With Beautiful Brown Haired Boys” club:

Strong Start Day: How you can be a PPD warrior

From SharonDV, whose willingness to try something new and foreign and maybe even scary is pretty cool :

From If You Want to Succeed, be a Quitter

I am thankful I live in a neighbourhood where people don’t complain that I hang my laundry out to dry on a rusty gazebo on a weedy patio.

I am thankful for a friend whose first answer is always “Sure!” and then when things go bad (as they almost always do,) laughs about it with me over bacon and coffee.

I am thankful for an eight year old boy who still curls up in my lap like a kitten.

I am thankful for my student loan debt because it means I live somewhere where I am “permitted” to be an educated woman.

I am thankful for a 13-year-old daughter who…

Hang on. She just slammed the fridge door, charged into the living room and demanded “WHERE IS THE MILK, MOTHER?”

…who is not afraid of confrontation.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

If this blog were scratch-n-sniff, this post would be pumpkin spice

It’s the end of the week! Although to be honest, all the days just sort of blur into one another when you work from home, so seeing the kids in their underwear eating un-toasted freezer waffles at 10am is usually the only indication that it’s not a week day.

Usually. Sometimes this happens on Mondays so maybe I should buy a calendar.

The kids are with their dad this weekend so it’s just me home today. This is when I should be doing things like laundry, bathing, and calendar shopping. I have completed none of these things since the kids departure yesterday, and it’s nearing the “don’t bother” tipping point on Sunday. My Sunday morning was happily wasted at a diner laughing with a girlfriend over mediocre coffee and great eggs.

I hope everyone is having a great autumn weekend, revelling in as many pumpkin-spice scented foods and activities as their olfactory glands can tolerate. If you were going to go on Facebook today, let me save you the trouble. Here are the top 5 updates:

1. Pumpkin patch with the family today!
2. Mmmm, pumpkin spice lattes!
3. Apple picking fun; now warming up with vanilla pumpkin lattes.
4. I love pumpkin and apple spiced coffee after the pumpkin patch!
5. PUMPKINSPICEAPPLEFUNPUMPKINPATCHSPICESSPICESSPICESCOFFEEYUM!

My oven is broken and I can’t burn candles because haveyoumetmyson, so I will live vicariously through the 23 million comments in my timeline.

Here are some things I specifically I enjoyed this week:

This week in paper reading I have Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity by Joel Stein on my nightstand. Follow Joel in his quest to become a “real man” after the birth of his son, when he is taught in part by a 13-year-old boy named “Wiggles.” The first chapter is worth the cost of the book or download alone. (Although I borrowed the book from the library. If you do the same, don’t tell Joel on Twitter. He will scold you.)

Get ye to the book store.

Smacksy

I love Lisa and the way she writes about her family, and the world is lucky it has a Bob.

Jack Straw Lane

On making friends when a playground glance and sharing a juice box is no longer an appropriate social gathering tool.

Mom101

Why you should care about the response to online security breaches, even if you haven’t been affected.

Ann’s Rants

Ann’s fantastic take on “Peter Pam’s” – women who fight the signs of age like I’d fight a toddler for a cookie.

A Little Pregnant

Lies she tells her children. The comments cover almost everything I’ve ever done/believed.

The Mouthy Housewives

Smash Cakes. These are a thing, people.

I also wrote other places this week. At iVillage.ca I wrote about why I don’t have a favourite child, and at Huffington Post Canada with my take on 50 Shades of Grey.

So spark up a “Vanilla Spice Chai Latte Pile of Leaves in a Pumpkin Patch” candle, and get some reading done!

A teenager and wrinkles; I have both. Coincidence? I think not.

Jeni, September 2012

 

The teenage brain is an interesting and scary place. But so is Disneyland, but I’m not forced to live there.

My daughter is now a teen, and while she is by all accounts a great kid and a model student, she is EXHAUSTING me. My 8 year-old son exhausts me physically, but I can handle that. A good night’s sleep after a day with him and I’m back in fighting form.

My 13 year-old daughter is another story. (I actually wrote that “a nother” – two words.) See? She is sucking out my brain power with a lethal mix of hormones and JLo “Glow” body spray.

It’s the third day of school and this morning I had to make three – three – trips because she had forgotten stuff at home. I know it’s a natural part of teen developement to be forgetful due to the growing child’s biological and natural…BlahBlahBlahWhenDoesTheLiquorStoreOpen?

I’m sure I wasn’t like this – no, that can’t possibly be right. I remember my teen years as being filled with meaningful conversations* with friends over coffee**, at the local Tim Horton’s.***

* arguments about our communal copy of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
** beer we stole from our parents
*** my basement/backseat of a van/Ontario farmers field/school smokers pit

Here’s a slice of how I’m being repaid for my own teenage transgressions:

“I’m packing lunches for tomorrow. Can you get me your water bottle, please?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t know where it is.”

“Did you leave it at school?”

“Uh, I don’t think so. Whatever.” She walks away.

This is water bottle #435 since she started school in 2004. Next year I’m sending her with a 2-gallon lambskin canteen so it stands out in the “lost and found” box at school.

“Excuse me? School started three days ago! You need to start taking better care of your things. This is getting expensive.” I can’t help but mutter my current favourite parenting expression. “AND fucking ridiculous.”

“Mother! I do take good care of my things! I just don’t know where most of them are.”

Water, water everywhere…

To say good-bye to summer, we headed out on one last day trip.

I like day trips that include proximity to clean bathrooms, staying dry, and not floating in other people’s urine.  Since these requirements are so rarely met at home, we were all on board. I voted for a quiet day at the air-conditioned library, checking out the latest in contemporary feminist Canadian fiction, but I was over-ruled. It was a record temp’s summer for Ontario, the kids were hot and sticky, and they were not taking it anymore.  

Not even for a good plot, multi-dimensional characters, and controversial themes.

OhMyGodThey’reSoBoring.

Due to a partial water ban in our area, we had to improvise most of our water fun this year. I tried spitting water from a bottle up into the air and onto the kids, but once the neighbourhood moms found out, they made our house a no-fly zone, and my kids were left to suffer.

Damn those helicopter moms; they ruin it for everyone.

So we needed to step it up a little. We don’t have a pool, and my kids haven’t agreed to a bath together since their cumulative ages were 6. My daughter suggested a water park. At least I think that’s what she said. What I heard was “Let’s go to a bacteria convention and lick hospital doorknobs!”

I can think of several ways I’d rather spend the last warm days of summer, one of which includes a major dental extraction. But in effort to take one for the team, I agreed to the water park. Both kids are good swimmers, and thanks to a combination of acting as though bread and pasta are lethal poisons and trying this crazy thing called “loving your body,” I was finally at a point where I wasn’t completely insecure about wearing a bathing suit in public. I consulted some cookbooks and Google to see what kind of picnic lunch best compliments water-borne Hepatitis and floating band-aids, and we were off.

But the day was not as relaxing as I had hoped. My first mistake was thinking that a 55lb 8 year-old boy with zero percent body fat could handle a hurricane-grade wave pool. The child is built from bone and muscle and as it turns out those elements do not float well. I spent the entire afternoon frantic, trying to spot his brown-haired head from a throng of other brown-haired heads.

OhMyGodWeCameHereOnBrownHairBoyDay.

It was terrifying, and every moment I lost sight of him I’d go through the torturous mental exercise of how I’d explain to his father that I’d lost his son “at sea.”

They should rename the “ride” “Kill Your Mom from the Inside!”

My throat was getting hoarse from screaming “DON’T DRINK THE WATER!” but I knew it was time to leave when the kids told me I had to try the park’s zip-line, a horrible looking contraption called “Face Drop.”

I declined.

I’ve been on that goddamn ride since I was 32.