Naptime for Mummy

Sometimes Mummies need naps.

Now Mummies, I know its hard to remember, especially when you are facing mountains of laundry and sticky surfaces everywhere. Handprints on your TV screen and all around the edges of your coffee table. Milk stains and banana smears on your (stupidly) non-leather furniture. Many many many very small toys scattered everywhere. Dirty toilets. Your husband’s (or domestic partner’s) socks littering the house.

But.

(and this but is very important)

But, you have to, for the love of God, sit down and put those feet up. Or you will literally wear those feet of yours right down to the quick.

Home with V the other day, my parents (who are visiting from Canada) went golfing and V went upstairs for nap-time right after they’d left.

After I put him down, I walked past my bedroom and happened to notice my bed eying me suggestively from the doorway.

“Sleep with me… sleeeeeeeep with me. I want you to,” it seemed to say. I just couldn’t resist those bedroom eyes, stripped down to my underwear, threw my clothes on the floor and crawled in.

20 seconds after snuggling my head into every pillow on the bed, I was out. And I remained out for 2 1/2 hours. Mummy-hood. Tiring.

I was so surprised when I woke up hours later. And damn did I feel good! Thanks, King-sized bed, for that little afternoon delight. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d taken a nap.

It made me think that I really need to make the time for these little things and the laundry can go and ‘eff’ itself. And the fingerprints can as well and M can pick up his own damn socks and clean that f-ing toilet too.

Chatting with my mum in the kitchen later that night, she mentioned something to me.

“Men always seem to think that women can just go go go and never stop. And they never notice when a little assistance would make things so much smoother”. (Or something like that)

And it is true.

So Men, those wives of yours, those mothers of your children, help them find the opportunity to put those feet up. Take a nap. Take a bath. It helps us not only retain our sanity, but also have the energy to do nice things for you in return… Like bj’s… (Ha!! just kidding, no-one who’s married has sex anymore…you know that!). More like back rubs and sweet kisses. I know you want those sweet kisses….

xoxo a.m.

(for some sweet He-Man related artwork, click the above picture)

Mist

Today I took the Little Man to a paint store. Sherwin Williams, to be exact. It’s a few blocks from our house and I am currently in the process of trying to eradicate all traces of the previous owners. The owners who apparently really liked the colours peach (and all shades there-within). The interior of my rooms look like someone vomited flesh all over them. So. Awful.

Manhattan Mist. Much nicer…

I love paint colours. Mostly just the names of the colours. So awesome. Wasabi breeze. Pine nut. Mint haze. Etc…

Anyways, Mist is what I picked for our bedroom. I sampled last weekend. Just a few spots. Alright….. I tested every single wall. Which made it tricky to not paint it in a timely manner…

Anyways. V and I went to the paint store. Unluckily there were a few people inline a head of us.

This was just bad news.

For the first 5 minutes this was not a bad thing. V ran around the store, found some buttons to push and he appeared to be having a good time.

Yay!

Let’s hope that this line won’t take too long.

Guess what. It did! Because the people in front of me had some trouble deciding on what type of paint they wanted. Even though they had been there way longer than I had. And had ample time to make decisions. Clearly no-one is as prepared as me. Colour sample swatches, paint decisions… I am ready.

V was too. He ran.

He found things on the floor to put in his mouth. He ran behind the counter to where they mix the paint. He ran back and forth in front of the door alarm, setting it off endlessly. He put more things in his mouth. Things he shouldn’t put in his mouth. Like screwdrivers. Rollers. Scrapers…. and other ‘paint’ utensils. Whatever he could get his hands on.

I literally could not keep my hands on him. Suddenly I felt like one of those ladies that I have seen around, with those kids that they can’t control. I might not be able to control my child.

Luckily the only people there thought he was adorable. And then they left before he had his tantrum.

Which was an awesome one, by the way. In case you wanted to know.

We left approx 45 minutes later. With paint. One major tantrum. A few extra pieces of garbage in my pocket (pulled from V’s mouth). Those rollers that he had put in his mouth.

We exited the store to the words “Wow, those little dudes sure have a lot of energy”.

This was coming from a girl of approx. 17 years old. Made me laugh.

So how do you do it? Police a child in a store full of pointy, chemically things? V is fully asserting his independence and will not sit in a stroller for extended periods of time. He also wants to dash into people, traffic, other peoples parked cars (that he likes to pat) and generally away from me. If I make a move towards him, he runs away. With a cheeky look on his face.

Argh!

Child of mine is a rather trying at times. But cute. So I don’t mind. I have this feeling that he might be taking after his mother right now. A cute pain in the ass.

Project

Who knew people crocheted skank clothes?

 

Last year I did a lot of crocheting… I made a wee baby blanket for my girlfriend, a wee one for myself (anticipating the arrival of the Little Man), a shawl to snuggle him in while I was breastfeeding. As winter approached, I decided that making a ‘big-boy’ was a wonderful idea too.

How nice for him to have something made by his Mummy to snug the face into at night and keep those toes warm during the harsh Floridian winters… I happily spent my lunch hours and evenings unraveling my many mistakes and raveling them back up…

Post-crochet explosion in our house (and post-pregnancy as well), that yarn that Little Man so helpfully chose for me (by putting it in his mouth) started to grow some bunnies. Dust bunnies, that is… I moved the project from its prominent position in the living-room and its travel bag for its work commute, to another bag in our bedroom. And then that bag was hung up in our closet. And then it started to get warm again and suddenly the whole purpose of the blanket was not so emergent anymore.

I had lots of time to work on it. And because I had lots of time to spend on it, I spent no time at all.

None.

That’s  the way it works, right?

And then we went to Canada.

And then we decided to buy a house.

And then we bought one.

And then we moved.

And now? We are settled. And to kick off this wonderful cool temperature that seems to be moving into the Central Florida area, I thought it would be nice for V to have a blanket to snug his face.

Apparently I only have so many ideas and they just rotate throughout the year… Sad.

Last night I couldn’t find my crochet bag. Slight panic. M managed to pull it out of somewhere. Hallelujah!

I pulled my little project out of its bag and was shocked.

SHOCKED!

It was teeny.

It might as well have been a place mat.

How was he ever that little?! Looking at it and then remembering him from this morning, imperiously shouting ‘Mumma!’ at me, while pointing at his bottle I had in my hands and then toddling off to watch Murray from Sesame Street talk about the ‘Word on the Street’.

Last night I spent the evening unraveling that loving creation, feeling a little weepy while I was doing it. It took about 45 minutes, but there was just no saving it. It was too small and no amount of frilly fringe would make it big enough to cover the man-child. And frilly fringe would just be a bad call. Really bad call…

So here we go again… Starting tomorrow, I mean. And yes, it will be chronicled. Expect updates.

It will be made this winter, damn it!!

Sunday

Another Sunday night poop story….. I know that you are very excited. I can feel it.

Poop is a ‘regular’ event over here. A fantastical event at least once a week that usually leads to extra cleaning on my part……

Today started with M offering to change a dirty diaper. What you say?? What kind of crazy thing is this?? What kind of parallel world are we living in? Men offering to change diapers without being provoked? Lord only knows what this is about, but I happily accept any and all offers…

So offer accepted, off they went to the changing table to sort things out.

We have to give V something to occupy himself while he is getting changed. Otherwise, he will flip himself over onto his tummy and smear poo everywhere. This we know from lots of experience… LOTS of experience.

Daddy handed V a book to look at while he unstrapped that nasty diaper.

Oh, that poor poor book….

That book was grabbed with such enthusiasm, waved all around and then suddenly (and without any warning) was abruptly shoved down the front of his diaper (suddenly and abruptly, in case you didn’t get that) A diaper that was quite well filled.

A surprised loud laugh is what brought me into the room. M turned to me, laughing, and handed me a book.

The book.

The book that was covered in poop.

‘Oh, thank you! My favorite thing!”

A book that I chose to not clean and, instead, deposit in the garbage.

The West Coast in me screaming out that I could have salvaged it instead of throwing it out. But, lets face it, it was not salvageable. There is no way that I would have been able to clean that book up and look at it other than the book that V poop-smeared.

I am sure that the smell would have clung. Or I would have imagined the smell clinging to it. And my fingers as I was holding it. And to V’s hands and face, as that’s where books usually go. I do not want to be the poop family. Really.

And so, it was hand-carried (finger-tips only) to the garbage and dutifully deposited into our trash.

Sorry book. I can no-longer accept you in our household once you have been smeared. Your memory as one of V’s first books will live on in our minds…..

You will forever be remembered as “The book covered in poop”. We will never forget you…. and neither will V’s future girlfriends…

Post-birthday

Dudes…. I got nothing for you tonight…

Post birthday feast @ Flying Fish at DisneyWorld.

Currently on the floor of my livingroom watching tivo’d Big Brother….

See ya’lls tomorrow! xoxo

Badassicalness

A new feature I am thinking about adding to my blog as either a weekly or bi-monthly event. By event, I really mean ‘post’.

I am looking to feature interesting people and/or interesting blogs/websites. If this works the way I hope it will, I eventually want to add a give-away element to it too.

But for now, it will just be a feature….

Tonight’s Sunday Night Featurette will be….

~Celine B.~

Queen of cakes and sarcasm.

And a family member, so you know this is going to be flattering….. (she’s so purdy)

Brief history:

Celine hails from the West Coast of Canada. Or Wet Coast. Or however you like to call it. She migrated South, as all people tend to do, a few years ago and settled on the West Coast of Florida for a few years. She joined Publix and immediately began her meteoric rise. Quickly moving her way from associate (clerk) to Assistant Bakery Manager, mostly by sheer skill. And charm. She quickly moved inland to the Orlando area, where she is currently residing and plotting her take-over of all things bakery…

That Canadian work ethic is no match at all for… well…. anything. For real.

Especially considering the pure lack of ethic that appears to be so common these days…..

Skills:

That girl can bake a mean cake/pie/muffin/cupcake

That woman can tease a mean rock-a-billy poof (pending pictures).

That sister from another mister can decorate like you wouldn’t believe. And even if you do believe, if you saw it you still wouldn’t believe it could be that amazing.

She is amazingly creative, something which she has always had a flare for…. She shows it so clearly in her creations, especially the way her fingers delicately tease that fondant into the most interesting shapes.

Illustrated here:

For her cake-skillz in the Orlando area… please email me @ atlanticmama@gmail.com

2nd

I just made a bet with myself…and the internet…..

I bet that I can blog everyday. And if  I win, I get a massage from M (he is shouting in the background “Hey! I didn’t agree to that!!!!”….. doesn’t matter, my bet, not his) every night as well! It is shaping up to be an interesting month. My birthday month too.

In a week or so, I hit 33.

33. Man.

This year I am celebrating with tattoos. It is a Cousin-Love date. And by that, I mean that C and I are hitting up Ocala as I have been dying for an introduction to her favorite artist. Who just happens to be from BC as well, which is as random as you can get. A Canadian? In Ocala? Probably there are more of them there, but this is the first I’ve heard of it. As far as I know he is the only one there. Poor lonely Canadian. It’s so hard to befriend the natives….

I think he will make the 3rd Canadian that I know in Florida. I know there are more of you around, sometimes us Canadians are a little shy… we can’t be found at the outlet malls like the British and other Europeans. We are more likely to be found down in the Everglades or at some State Park swimming with Manatees than hitting up the cheap shoe sales…. (although, we totally will check out those sales after we check out the Manatees). Manatees totally come first, especially before a good sale at Premium Outlet Malls…

So how about it, eh? Do you think I can? Every day for a whole month….

Prepare for both riveting, epic posts and mundane boring poop. Oh, and actual poop. Both domestic and canine…

I am an Astronaut

I am an astronaut

My Mum send me a few things in the mail the other day. Boxes filled with wonderful things, old records, boxes from high school, old school photos (awful, and they will never be seen by the public. Ever.) and lots of stories….

I loved to write when I was a child. I really really loved it. I also loved going to the library. I was a book addict. And also a nerd. AND I loved my Mum. Double nerd.

I love my Mum for saving all of these wonderful things that I wrote when I was little, and I love that she sent them to me.

And so, with my most darling mother in mind, here is the first story that I wrote…

A Visit to Mars!

Feb 29 1983 Jaime

I’m and astronaut and so is my sister and my Mom, we are going to Mars.

In the rocket there is lots of buttons to push. My Mom pushed a button that said up to Mars. My sister saw one that said away to Pluto! My Mom said that they would go there after.

When we got to Mars we saw a strange sight the Mars men were eating Mars bars and dancing to Mars music!! They asked us if we wanted to join them. We said sure and we did!

The next morning we met their pets. They had the most funniest pets we had seen but we didn’t laugh.

Some has long ears.

Some had long noses.

Some had eyes on springs!

The next day my Mom said that we would be going Pluto!

My sister was happy. As  soon as we got in the rocket with are seatbelts on, my sister pushed her thum on away to Pluto and away they went!

Pluto has people who live in tree houses. They are very very nice.

They do the same thing as Mars does! But the only thing  that is difrient from Mars is that they eat Pluto bars!!

Thank you Mum for saving such a wonderful story. Love you.

For NASA click here

All about Astronauts, click here

How to become one, click here

Neighbours

M and I moved from MetroWest to Hunter’s Creek about a year and a half ago. When we moved into MetroWest we thought it was paradise…. ‘gated’ community , pool, gym etc etc it was all good.

After the crime rate skyrocketed…. we moved.

A few months later we saw one of our neighbour’s on the news. We used to call him ‘Jimmy Dime-bag’ because, well, you know. Well, I guess you don’t…. he totally used to smoke it up under the stairwell and the smell would waft up to the 3rd floor where our apartment was and linger by the front door (as it had nowhere else to go).

He was the most redneck of all rednecks…. gold teeth, white and he wore an orange prison jumpsuit most of the times we saw him. I think he was on the news because he was arrested and proclaimed that the arresting officer was racist because he was white (Jimmy, I mean.) Interesting.

Anyways, moving over here we had different neighbours…

Our first neighbour when we moved into this new apartment complex was a nice young mother and her little boy. They were the best neighbours ever. They moved out when I was about 5 months pregnant.

The neighbours that followed were a little less fun, a quieter, older couple who we didn’t see much of. Unfortunately they tended to park illegally, which was OK in the beginning…. but after the 30th time it got annoying (they blocked our front entrance with their car, M complained to management and they moved shortly afterwards).

A young family moved in about 2 months ago, with 2 young kids. These kids (maybe 8 and 10) antagonize our dog a lot. Although it doesn’t take that much to set him off. Simply walking passed our front window will do it. Or talking loudly. Or coughing audibly. Or any sudden movement at all will make him bark non-stop until you leave the immediate premise. It makes it really hard to open the windows or even put the blinds up.

So last weekend, as I was unlocking my front door (with V on my hip and a duffel bag over my shoulder…. I was totally overburdened) Chewie lunged out of our front door and straight across the way to the neighbours who were also just getting home. He chased their son around their patio, until the little boy started screaming and crying at the top of his lungs. As it turns out, he is terrified of dogs.

Now our dog is only about 5 pounds, but regardless. Poor little man. His mum carried him into the house shrieking and wailing while I shouted at Chewie, who coward at my feet and was pathetic and submissive until he reached the interior of our house (whereupon he totally spazzed out and barked his face off…. such a turncoat).

I apologized profusely, and my neighbour admitted that her son was terrified of all dogs. I tried to explain that Chewie hates everyone (unless you are meeting him on his turf, ie our apartment, and then its all ok). She wasn’t upset at all, but I felt awful… and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of those neighbours since.
(Melvin 2, Neighbours 0)

Probably means they are going to move soon too. Probably we should buy a house, which would make it easy to unleash the beast.

Art fest

V slept in today until an almost unheard of time of 7:30. Delicious.
I can handle 7:30, no probs man…. that made this the best Sunday ever.

M was up early, and sort of well rested and we ended up at the Winter Park Art Festival.

I love Winter Park. It’s this posh part of Central Florida, north of Orlando that has cobble stone streets, boutiques, endless coffee shops and this air of luxury about it. It just feels rich. It’s practically tangible. It even has it’s own train station (you can go from NYC to Winter Park, FL if you want….it’ll cost ya though…)

I hadn’t been before and so was kind of expecting a Sidney Sidewalk Sale plus evening market times Downtown Victoria Sunday market kind of feel.

Not really. Not really at all.

Super tanned wealthy-looking people everywhere. You know those people that look like they just stepped of a yacht? The women so carefully dressed in a casual ‘I-just-threw-this-together-at-the-last-moment-seriously’ kind of way. The men eying (is that really spelled right? looks so wrong) anything in a skirt/shorts/pants or that moves. Lots of navy blue, crisp white and careful gold accessories.

And the art! Geez! I mean, it was art!

It wasn’t anything like this gorgeous piece of work (spotted a few weeks ago in Mt Dora)…..

And it was all shockingly expensive. I had said to M as we were walking in “Let’s buy something tacky!” and he had cautioned me that it could be kind of pricey but I was confident that we would find something awful. Perhaps painted in oils. And maybe even of a manatee. Awesome.

How disappointed I was to not see anything like that at all, but to see some rather mediocre photos going for “2 for $175!”, like it was a bargain or something! No oil paintings of manatees anywhere. How disappointing is that!

Since M is currently standing over me with a full plate of food staring at me with no expression on his face (and I am in the bedroom typing with the lights off) this is a clear indication that I should go and have dinner with him before he loses it even further….
I thought I would leave you with what I was imagining we would find and hang in our livingroom…. Although I would really like to find this. So awesome.