Where's that mother of the year crown....

I know I left it around here somewhere...my friends and I have a virtual crown that we pass around when we make a bonehead parenting move. I'm about to share my most recent entry for mother of the year.

So, if you're looking for a perfect parenting blog, keep looking, clearly this isn't it.

My kids are old enough to spend the night alone. Well one is an adult and very capable of watching out for his sisters so I took advantage of that fact last night and had a date with my husband. Glorious! I came home to reality today though, to a sink full of dishes and a messy house. Clothes that were left out and food that was not put away. Glorious to gross in 60 seconds flat.

I got most of that straightened away, with begrudged help from the guilty parties, and came up to my office to find Karissa, my youngest, had changed my dry erase calendar. Ok I will admit that this is really silly but I am pretty controlling when it comes to things like calendars. Its how I know what I have to do and I am really precise about what goes on there. She asked if she could do it this month because its her birthday but I had specifically told her not to do it, that I would handle it when I got home. She was very proud of herself and told me that she had worked really hard on it and figured out the dates all by herself but instead of using that moment as a chance to praise her initiative I took the low road and chose to use it as a moment of discipline. I reminded her that I told her to not to do it when she asked yesterday and that I had a lot of things that needed to go on it so the numbers needed to be small because of it. She was upset and while I comforted her I still didn't give in. I really should have taken the high road and saw the good in it but at that point it was just one more thing that hadnt been done the way I asked for them to be done. I took a break and prayed about it. I was reminded that it wasn't too long ago that she couldn't make numbers small enough to fit on that calendar at all, and that in the grand scheme of things, it was really a tiny little blip. She made a huge step to help and I shot her down. I hate being wrong but I knew I was. Enough excuses. I had to make it right.

I brought her back upstairs. I sat down with her and apologized and told her that I was wrong. I said that parents aren't perfect and while she still disobeyed me I knew that she was trying to help. She was excited to be responsible enough to do the calendar and to help me. So I erased everything and we started all over. I wrote down the things I needed to do and she got to write in all the dates and make the rest of the notes. She walked away with her head held high and proud of herself again.

This is one of those parenting moments when you feel like an utter failure. I feel absolutely petty and honestly, pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. I salvaged what I could and I hope she remembers that I was woman enough to admit that I was wrong and tried to fix it.

Stop the Mommy Wars!

There was a piece today on Good Morning America about the mommy wars, this particular story was about moms who are feeling stressed out or intimidated by the pictures and projects that other mommies post online. Either on Pinterest or blogs of people going all out with, in this case super cakes, for their kids birthdays. Moms who feel like they dont measure up because they can't bake that cake or whatever example you want to use. Some are intimidated by others who garden or others whose kids appear to excel at everything they try. While Pinterest and blogs can be a great source of inspiration, they can also stress people out thinking they dont measure up.

There are few things that bother me more than the concept of "Mommy Wars". Here's the thing, there is no war! There are people who will try to tell you that you aren't doing it right or you aren't good enough but you do NOT have to join the battle! That's the best thing about it, you can choose not to compete! Mega cakes not your thing? Don't worry about, that's what bakers are for! Don't know how to do something? If you want to do it, learn! There are videos on YouTube on just about every subject or even better, find a friend who IS good at it and ask her to show you! If it turns out you're not good at that either, find what you are good at and what you enjoy and do that, love that, let that become your super mommy skill. The most important thing to remember is that you are EXACTLY what your children need! If you are stressed out about competing with other self proclaimed super moms you are not only hurting yourself, you are cheating your kids from the wonderful mother you already are!


The other thing about is that if more moms would take this stand, do you realize how liberating it would be? You show up with a great gift in a beautifully wrapped package and instead of letting other people think you managed to squeeze that in between scouts, baseball, soccer, Bible study and mommy and me yoga, you bring a handful of business cards and pass them out to the rest of the moms and say "I didn't do this, but aren't they amazing? Try this person next time!"
Then maybe, just maybe someone would say "you know that mom over there? She is really awesome at wrapping gifts, maybe I can pay her, or trade with her, to wrap mine next time!" I use this example because wrapping presents is NOT my gift! I would totally hire someone to wrap presents for me! The point is, as women and moms we have to let go of this notion that we have to be able to do all of these things perfectly to be a great mom, that simply is NOT true! My Sister in Law over at The Pink Patisserie http://pinkpatisserie.blogspot.com/ makes amazing cakes and other beautiful creations. I love reading her blog and seeing the amazing things she creates. I am not gifted in this area either though so guess what? When I need a cake next time, she'll be getting a phone call. I'm ok with that. I need to be ok with that because I am totally awesome at other things. So I will gladly pass out her cards, or her website and not claim to have made any of it and we should ALL be ok with doing that! We should all be ok with showing up somewhere with something that you didnt create and be totally proud of that fact! Youre HUMAN, congratulations!

How amazing would that be?? How utterly freeing as well! Not only are you telling others you aren't perfect, you're telling them its ok for them not to be perfect too! Sure it's a risk, but for the brave soul to start it, think of the rewards! No more staying up all hours of the night trying to juggle 20 different things in order to pretend to be someone you're not, no more trying to one-up the rest of the mommies in your group, you're just you, the one God made you to be, the one your kids already love! Be that mom! You are great just the way you are!

So take a deep breath mommas, as my friend Sheila just told me, we need to be kind to each other and maybe more importantly, be kind to ourselves. You can do this! I believe in you.

A little bit of Thanksgiving

We are dual citizens in our house, Half American/Half Canadian. We live in the States now and I try to honour as many of the Canadian traditions as I can, this includes having TWO Thanksgivings. Yes its a lot of work but as we say around here "You can never be too Thankful" Come Christmas time, I am ready for ham or prime rib as I have kind of had my fill of turkey :)

I just dont think it should end there though, you know? We have been going through a lot lately and I just realized that we haven't really taken the time to be thankful for the good stuff in our lives. There is SO much good stuff, we are truly blessed beyond words. So, in addition to the two I will already be doing this year, today is sort of a "remember to the Thankful, Thanksgiving". And what better way than to go all out with a turkey dinner?

Here is a little look at what Thanksgiving day looks like in our house.

Turkey of course... stuffed with apples, onions, and bacon. Yes Bacon. This is a tip I learned from my mother in law. Instead of putting butter on your turkey, use bacon grease, it tastes SO much better! So here what goes in the turkey

I didn't have any fresh onions and really didn't have the energy to go to the store so dried onion to the rescue. I could be all crunchy and tell you I dried the onions from own garden but for $3. at Costco, why bother? A little trick to stuffing your turkey, put it in a large bowl and then just slide everything in. I don't know why no one ever told me that, its the easiest way to do it. Rub the bacon grease over the outside and whatever spices you want. I dont really add any more salt because the bacon takes care of that. This next part is kind of sacrilegious, so if you're a purist skip this, go on... I'll wait. For the rest of you, use a turkey bag, yes really! It makes a really moist turkey, with brown crispy skin and it cuts your cooking time way down. 3 hours for a 20 pound bird? Sign me up!

OK Purists, you can come back now :) Now put your turkey in the oven, mine is in there right now so no pictures yet.

I made my husband peel potatoes, if the kids are around they get the job too. Why? Because I hate it. Its the worst job in the kitchen as far as I'm concerned, I dont know why it just is. He wouldnt let me take pictures of him though. Take my word for it he looked adorable... oh and the potatoes are great too. I like to soak the potatoes for a couple of hours in salted water before boiling them. I dont have any really sound reason for this but its how my mum did it, so that's what I do. I will turn the heat on an hour or so before the turkey is ready to come out and then mash them with canned milk and butter.


Dessert is cooking too, how many ovens do I have? Just one. I am making baked apples with a crumble top in the crock pot. They smell heavenly. I used a basic crumble recipe, I call it the 1/2 cup recipe. 1/2 cup of butter, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats and a 1/2 cup of flour. I throw in some pumpkin pie spice too because I love it. Mix with a pastry cutter, or if youre like me and have no idea where yours is, use a couple of forks, or your hands... I had some left over so I threw some frozen blueberries in a small oven safe dish and put the rest of the crumble on top of it and threw it on the oven while it was preheating. YUM!

I cored the apples without cutting off the bottoms then cut out a bit more space then stuffed the crumb topping in. Cook on low for 4 hours.

Rolls are a basic roll recipe that I make in bulk and freeze. It also doubles as a pizza dough recipe so its great to keep on hand, just let it thaw on the counter and then shape into rolls and bake. Stuffing and corn will follow.

So that is a little look at what our "remember to be Thankful, Thanksgiving" will be tonight. We all have so much to be thankful for, sometimes we forget that when we are so focused on what we want rather than what we have. Time to remedy that. What are you thankful for?

What a difference a day makes

As those of us with chronic illnesses will attest to, a day (or a night) can make all the difference in the world in how we feel. We can be absolutely fine in the evening and awake the next morning barely able to move. The opposite can also be true, we can be miserable one day and the next have seemingly all the energy in the world. It can be utterly frustrating and depressing when you have to cancel on something you were really looking forward to or it can be a wonderful gift to feel like you can get something done that you didn't expect!

I had a high energy day last week and I did a lot of baking and cooking. I try to do this when I'm having a good day so when I don't feel well my family still eats well. It eases my guilt a little and we all know there are plenty of guilty feelings to go around anyway. A friend made a comment about how I am always so ambitious and it made me smile. I really do appreciate the compliments like that because there are so many days when I feel like I don't get anything done or that I don't "carry my own weight" around here. I hoard those compliments in my heart, they make me remember that even through the bad days, tomorrow may just be the best day! This is what I do on my good days, I cook... a lot. I make a lot of meals ahead of time so my family can just take them out of the freezer and I know they're eating something decent.

A friend of mine is an amazing author. Her name is Kathi Lipp , she has written a lot of great books "The Marriage Project" The Me Project" "The get yourself Organized Project" all of them are wonderful but she is also one of my favourite resources for freezer cooking! This woman is a master (Mistress??) at freezer cooking! The "Whats for dinner Solution" book will change your life, especially if you are like me and need to do a lot of cooking at one time. Its so nice to know that I don't have to be in the kitchen all day every day and that, on those days when I just *cant* do it, at least I know I have done something for my family and that is one less burden to carry. I cant thank Kathi enough for the gift of her writing, it has been such a blessing to me and so many others.

This week hasn't been bad, its been a little emotional, ok a lot emotional. We are still waiting to hear about a possible job promotion for my husband (prayers please if you're so inclined!) which would bring about major life changes for us but good ones I think. The kids are all settling back into school, though I have no idea how I all of a sudden have a Senior in High School! I think I may be in denial about that still. I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety lately, which doesnt help the flare ups but overall they have been in check.

I am so grateful for the good days. I'm even grateful for the bad ones, because lets face it, being here is a gift. "Growing older is a gift, a privilege denied to many". So as Gaelic Storm puts it, "Here's to one more day above the roses"!

Its a big day in our house!

I've talked about our daughter Karissa before. She is a special needs child with no solid diagnosis. I wanted to tell you a little more about her before I tell you about her accomplishment today. (You can also look back on this page to the "Special Needs parent" post from a few months ago)

Karissa is our 3rd child and is 11 months younger than her sister. Needless to say she was a surprise but of the very best kind! They weren't able to tell us at the ultrasound if we were having a boy or a girl and for some reason I really needed to know. I had this dream a few nights later of a little blonde haired, hazel eyed girl running through a field of daisies. She was beautiful and had the brightest smile. She stopped right in front of me and said "Hi mommy, I'm a girl and my name is Karissa Rose but you'll call me Rissa Roo." I woke up with a start and shook my husband who mumbled something along the lines of "that's nice dear" and went back to sleep. I was through sleeping at that point so I got up and looked it up in the baby name book. I have no idea where the name came from, it wasn't on our list at all but that is what I found: Karissa (Carissa) means "Beloved, Grace" Remember that for the end of this story....


Today Karissa started the "Lose the Training Wheels" camp. Its a week long camp to help kids with disabilities to learn to ride a bike. Most people take riding a bike for granted, its just part of growing up, right? Well many special needs kids lack the coordination and motor skills to pedal and steer at the same time or simply cant manage to balance on a bike.

That may not matter to a lot of people but to these kids it could mean the world! Its a huge self confidence boost to get to be "normal" for awhile. I've often watched Karissa stare at much younger kids blazing down the streets on their bikes and I know she is wondering why she cant do that. Its conquering a fear that has been around for a very long time and as we all know, that alone makes you feel great! For many kids they may never be able to drive so riding a bike could be the only way to get back and forth to work. It could mean the difference between living independently and needing to have assistance. Its great exercise and while the obesity rate for peer kids is high it is much higher for special needs kids. On top of all of that its FUN! Its also something we can do as a family.

We went into the meeting last night nervous, excited and anxious all at once. This program has an 80% success rate. Meaning 80% of the kids leave this program after a week able to ride independently! Wow. That alone is staggering. I will admit to having my doubts. Karissa was nervous to say the least but they dont hesitate. They introduce themselves and get the kids on a bike in just a few moments. They are specialty bikes with rollers as a back wheel that get progressively more tapered as the rider advances. Karissa was stressed at first but by the end of the first session she relaxed and had a huge smile on her face! She could do it!!!


This is the child we were told might never walk or talk and she would certainly never be "normal" We were even told we might want to look into assisted living. This is also the same child who made honour roll this year!

I asked you to remember what the name Karissa means. A few months ago 3 separate, non connected friends mentioned a singer named Tyrone Wells so I was curious. I looked him up and fell in love with his music. If you haven't heard of him please go take a listen. I promise it will be worth your time! I slowly made it through most of his songs and stopped in my tracks when I found this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVxtAy2M9Lg "Grace is Dancing" So today, there is dancing in my house. Rejoicing in the Beloved gift of Grace that we have been given and celebrating the fact that fears can be overcome and "nothing is impossible if you will just believe" Thanks for that, Tyrone. Keep dancing friends.