Shoe Shopping Troubles.

So I learned this week that you need to buy winter boots for your toddler in August. A trip to Kiddie Kobbler prooved a waste of time as buying boots in December is impossible. Not a single pair in her size. Luckily a friend told me about www.tinysoles.com. Not only were they fully stocked but also signifigantly cheaper than here. With the dollar near par and free shipping, you can't lose. The website even has a sizing chart you can print out. but with free shipping you can expect a delay of weeks so if you are like me a waiting till december you may have to bump up to priority shipping. Oops :(

So if you have a infant or toddler, check it out. Thanks Andrea for saving my daughters winter!

2.5 going on 12!

My baby girl is growing up before my eyes! I watch her in awe as she behaves in what I think is well beyond her years. She takes colouring so seriously that she concentrates so hard I have to remind her to eat her snack. Snack is a bowl of tostitoes and a cup of milk. Seriously, when did my 2.5 year old start lying on her belly with her ankles crossed colouring and casually munching on chips! Where did my baby go?

Recently Anna has taken to using my tactics against me. When it was time for bed but she wanted to watch Dora or Pooh, I would tell her they were gone DODO's. Then when pre-school started in September and she didn't want to go see Natasha (the teacher), she very seriously told me "Tata Dodo's! (Side bar: now when she is mad at me she cries out for Tata. complete 360 in 3 months.)

I have also been using the counting method to get her to listen. You know, you have till 5 to pick up your toys...followed by a timeout. I was shocked when after her nap today she yelled into the monitor "mommy come get me" She then proceeded to count to 5 and then yelled "time out". How do you not Laugh your A$$ off at that!

The Power of Words

I love music! I love music I can sing to, dance to, and most of all relate to.

There are numerous songs out there I love and that I when I listen to them I think they were written for me (not for real real). but a few are on my ipod as comfort songs that I listen to when I need to remember someone or something or when I just need to escape to the past or a favorite memory. Such songs include "The house that built me" by Miranda Lambert, and "Brand New Day" by Joshua Radin. "Tough Little boys" by Gary Allen which is how I always felt about my dad and of course "feels like Home" by Chantal Kreviazuk, which was the song I walked down the aisle to because it expressed how I felt perfectly. These are songs I often play on repeat.

But a few have "hit home" more than others...

I remember driving to work only a few months after my dad passed away and I heard Crystal Shawanda's "You can Let go now", I instantly thought it was a beautiful song and was sad that i would not get to use it as my father daughter song for my wedding. Then the song got to the third verse and I was transformed into a bawling mess. Not quite the father daughter song I initially thought it was. However, It turned out to be exactly the most perfect song for me to relate to. It seemed as though the writer was in the room the night my dad passed away. If you want to know what went down that night, listen to this song.

Most recently and what sparked me to write this post was my introduction to Brad Paisley "Anything Like Me". I listen to this song and initially I wondered if Max would be like my husband, Guy. Oiy! From the stories I have heard I will have my hands full. But this song also got me thinking as I interact with Annabelle. When Anna gives me attitude or is 'mean' to me. I feel so terrible because a)she's my baby and b)I now know how my mom felt. I know everyone says that you will understand and appreciate your mom so much better once you become a mom yourself and I have to say that if Anna is anything like me then I need to climb a mountain and shout to the world my apology to my mom. I wasn't, and am still not, the easiest daughter. Mom, if you read this far, I promise to do better. I love you! I realize Anna is like me, and I am more like you than i ever imagined I would be.

I watch TV to escape my life and live vicariously through others. I listen to music to embrace my life and relive special aspects of it on repeat!

It's Pat?!

I use to watch Saturday night live religiously and i think "It's Pat" may have been one of my favorite sketches. The story of a person with a gender neutral name who looked like they could be either a male or female. Hilarious! until your child is the butt of the questions.

a lack of hair at birth runs in both mine and guys families. Both Anna and Max were bald at birth and at 2 and a half Anna is still what I call "follicly challenged". She has very little hair. I think she is freaking adorable but I am starting to really get tired of confirming that she is in a fact a SHE. Almost everyday someone refers to her as he, little guy, him, or my son! SERIOUSLY people, she has her ears pierced, her coat is pink, she wears skirts, and her face is the angelic face of a girl.

It seems society has such a stereotype of what little girls and little boys look like that people cannot look past the major defining features on the outside to see someone for who they really are. My Annabelle is girl thru and thru. She plays dress up with princess costumes, takes care of her babies, and LOVES shoes!

I love her the way she is but I often stare at her wondering what she will look like with long hair that I can put in ponytails or braids. I know someday I will find out but in the meantime I need to buy more pink.

My "I will never list" with kudos to another blog.

A facebook friend and fellow mom recently posted this link on her page, I decided to give it a read and have since shared it with many mommies. Here is the link to their top 10 "oh now I get it moments"

http://www.rantsfrommommyland.com/2010/07/sgw-my-top-10-oh-now-i-get-it-moments.html

As I did, I am sure at least some of you will find yourself nodding and laughing as you read these. You will also, no doubted find yourself coming up with some of your own moments. This entry will share with you my "I will never list" which in turn has become my "oh now I get it list". I have embraced parenthood with the ability to accept the things i cannot change.

Here we go.

1. I will never let my child out of the house dirty or in unmatching clothes!

Basically when i found out I was having a girl, I had dreams of bows in her hair, beautiful dresses, and painted nails. she was going to be my real live doll. And she was...until she could move! Now if she leaves the house in weather appropriate clothes I am happy. She has left our house in pink and blue striped tights and an orange shirt with white polka dots. She went to a party in a pretty dress with a flannel pajama top as the cardigan. Should I at least be happy that she got the layering thing figured out? in the spring I hid her snow boots as she didn't understand or care that you don't wear snow boots without snow and one day during the 40 degree heatwave she found them and wore them on our evening walk. This wonderful sense of style goes hand in hand with the marker all over her arms and the pasta sauce or chocolate cookie that is all over her face that she often sports. But she is happy and for that I now get it.

2. I will never let my child play with stickers!

For those who know me, I hate stickers with a passion! I threw up at the metcalfe fair because someone stuck a sticker to me. Mind you I was pregnant but still I hate stickers! Everyone said I would never be able to keep Anna away from stickers but I thought if I I never introduce them to her she won't know what she is missing. I would even take them off the fruit as soon as they came in the house. What I didn't account for was friends and daycare and doctors offices and mean ole mommy friends who want to see me squirm! Now Anna loves stickers! But just because I have decided that her not throwing herself on the floor in a tantrum is worth a few stickers, I have not gotten over my issue. She once went to bed with a sticker on each hand and only woke up with one GASP! I tore her bed apart until I found the lost sticker because I was not going to be surprised by a gross disgusting dirty sticker in her bed. OK, so this is more my issue than a parenting thing. I am working on it!

3. I will never let my child throw a tantrum in a store!

I guess I thought because I was a child and youth worker with loads of experience caring for kids, I would magically have the best behaved, well mannered children to exist. I didn't account for the fact that children all have their own personalities that no amount of wonderful rolemodeling can change. My Anna loves to be silly. I have patience so I walk around the store following her while she is silly but when its time to go and she throws herself on the ground because I had to give the friggin rubbermaid bin to the cashier so she could scan it, I just went about my business and watched all the faces of the people around me who I know where thinking "my child will never do that". Oh ya, wait and see!


4 I will never make my people talk to my child on the phone!

I have talked to my neices, nephews, and friends kids on the phone and while I love them, I was ready for the call the end. I think moms think that everyone understands their kids the way they do and everyone finds them speaking cute. but its not true. Only moms and dads and maybe grandparents find it cute. Yet I still expose everyone who calls to my little Annabelles voice and I am blinded by my momminess because I still stand by the fact that everyone wants to talk to her!

So thats my contribution to this list. Considering I thought my life with kids would be a flawless fairytale I am sure there are many more things that could be added but I love life with my kids so much that I don't even remember or care about what I thought life would be like. it is what it is and I am embracing every moment.

stupid people make shopping with kids impossible!

When I was on Mat leave with Anna i often complained about the disrespectful people that would use the elevators when they dont have a stroller or disability. Even more annoying is when a mom takes her brood in the elevator and leaves no room for waiting strollers or wheelchairs. I got so annoyed over the year that I started voicing my beef with people, even getting in a verbal spat with a middle aged woman who was perfectly able to take the escalator. I mean seriously they are stairs that move, you don't even have to move your legs. How lazy are you. Once a woman in her 30's said to me after the 4th elevator passed (that I could not fit in because it was full of able bodied people) that she understood how i felt because she had a baby at home but then she and her husband who appeared to be in great shape, proceeded to enter the elevator. What part of "priority to strollers and wheelchairs" do these people not understand!

okay now that that is out of my system. Here is todays shopping beef! I now understand why priority parking exists for people with small children. Because we need space to romove car seats, strollers, kids, etc from our car. Today I discovered that since I can't let ignorance go unnoticed, I will always carry a pen and paper in my console. today a pen and tim hortons bag worked.

After a few hours shopping, I proceeded to my car to find that the Jack@#$ next to me parked so close I couldn't even walk between the cars, let alone open the door and put in a car seat. (See picture). To make this situation even dumber is the fact that there had to have been no way s/he could have gotten out of the drivers door unless they were abnormally small. the other side of their car had a post and they left about 4 feet of clearance. There was nothing I wanted more than for them to come out so I could give them a piece of my mind but i settled for the following note on their window.

"Thank you for parking so close that I had to leave my infant unattended while I moved my car out so i could put him in. Furthermore there is no way you got out of your car without hitting mine. I have taken down your license and will report any damage. Next time think before you park so stupidly signed: a disgruntled mom"

Maybe I was too harsh but man I am getting sick of ignorant people. For the record I did not leave Max unattended I struggled and put him in the car through the otherside, over the other carseat. Of course this resulted in waking him from his slumber and listening to crying for the next 10 minutes.

But it felt good to give a piece of my mind and it likely won't be the last time I do it.

To take care of herself!

Even before kids, I suffered from an annoying problem of my hair falling out. I mean I am not going to go bald or anything, but when I wash my hair it comes out in my hands and after i brush it I need to clean out my brush. This problem was only compounded when I got pregnant and my hormones started raging.

As a solution to this problem my mother in law told me she heard that Tre-semme shampoo does wonders for this issue. I decided to try it out. For the past year or so I have used Tre-Semme shampoo. I have used 2 different bottles and found a winner.

Tre-Semme Anti-breakage with B12 and Gelatin seriously, honestly, stops your hair from breaking or falling out, whatever may have been happening. I thought it was the Keratin in the shampoo that does the trick but they all have Keratin in them but only this bottle stops the problem.

So if you are faced with this problem either because you have kids or just because, try this shampoo. It takes a month or so to start working but tried and tested, I can tell you this shampoo will keep your hair where it belongs...on your head!