The Piss Mom Off Chromosome

Yup, my 12 year old has it. This chromosome that suddenly sprouts pre-teen, is switched on and pretty much runs rampant and makes itself known in a big way.

The Piss Mom Off Chromosome, otherwise known as the "I'll keep my room a mess just to defy the old nag", as well as "if you tell me what do to I'm not going to do it".

Warning, this chromosome comes along with extra special add-ons like "go have a shower, your body is changing (ya stank)", and "can you please remove your shoes - preferably to a location miles from me", all followed by a resounding "NO!"

This chromosome dramatically changes a luvy, snugly little boy into a sarcastic, foul mouthed, defiantly other worldly, raised in a barn, comatose, genetically altered, Nintendo DSI attached man-child who, surely to GOD I never gave birth to.

It's almost like the terrible twos didn't leave, they just hibernated for a few years, then came back with a vengeance to crap all over my world.

And what's with this plowing through my fridge and food cupboards like a Tornado ripping through a town? Nothing but crumbs and dust on the floor in his wake.

I feel like murdering love my boy but good lord, REALLY?!?!? I've gone through the manual the doctor handed me at the hospital 12 years ago to try to troubleshoot this. I think the instructions are skewed. I wonder if I can find my receipt and make a return.

Okay fine, I'm kidding.

*The man-child is still living - I haven't murdered him...yet

**I've got an 8 year old heading in the same direction. Yay me. Humph!

***I was never like this, never...really ask my mom...

This is not my Vancouver

This isn't my Vancouver:

My Vancouver has a reputation of being a world class city.

In my Vancouver, you can ask anyone on street directions and they will gladly help.

My Vancouver is a gracious city that welcomes the world.

This is not my Vancouver:

My Vancouver has the most picturesque scenery in the world.

The Vancouver I live in is capable of hosting a world class event called the Olympics with integrity, humility, friendliness, and generosity.

My Vancouver bands together as a society to clean up the mess that a few idiots make. Thank you, generous citizens.

This is the Vancouver I live in:

Gold Medal hockey game win and a happy, safe crowd.

*These images are not my own, they were taken from the Internet

**I was nowhere near the rioting crowds on June 15, 2011

***Let it be known that the morons who rioted do NOT represent Vancouver

The Lunch Box

You know the music that accompanied the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho when Janet Leigh was being attacked? That's the same music I heard in my head when I went to open up my 8 year old's lunch box the other day.

I knew this was going to be messy to the extreme. And boy was I right.

True to form, per Burps, Farts, and other Yucks, my 8 year old is pretty mucky. His "holder of smoshed food" is even muckier.

This is what I found when I opened the lunch box:

This picture doesn't do it justice.

The red goo all over the place is apple/strawberry sauce (which ended up all over the inside of his backpack).

Some of the cheerios are adhered to the sauce goo.

The ziplock bag that the cheerios are in is covered in the apple sauce (one thing I hate to handle is wet plastic - gives me shivers)

Oh yeah, and the apple sauce is also smoshed into the seams of the lunch box material.

This is my daily chore - cleaning out the lunch boxes and the 8 year old's is truly disgusting!

Thank GOD I didn't give him a banana...

Bring back "Sports Day"

School is coming to a close, kids are winding things down in their classes. And with this end of the school year comes Sports Day, right?

WRONG!

In case you're out of the loop, it's "Fun Day", because God help a child who should actually lose in a competition.

The Sports Days that I remember as a child are a thing of the past...

Endless obstacle courses where you competed against another kid for first place.


Cheering and screaming from your friends to help you get past the finish line first.


Winning ribbons according to where you placed in each event.


The school property absolutely loaded with tons of awesome events that were maned by volunteer highschool students.


NEVER getting a first or second place ribbon in any event because I sucked at them.

And coming home to tell mom and dad about the totally fun time I had and didn't win any ribbons and I can't wait until next year.

What the hell went wrong? The theory now (and I'm pretty sure it's the same with your kids school) is that they don't want the kids to feel left out of any "winning". In other words, they want the event to be fair for all the kids.

Uhm, hello?!?!? Life is full of competition. Take my 8 year old's recent baseball game. They LOST it and now aren't playing for first or second place in the league. And guess what, the kids were totally upset and crying. Isn't that part of the learning process of competition? Suck it up buttercup. Yeah your upset but you'll get over it. It'll happen again and again too in your life. Now let's do your best to win the next best place - third!

Like I mentioned before, I never won any competition, EVER, and do you think it's affected me in my life? I SUCKED IT UP!

Needless to say, my 12 year old didn't want to go to school for this "event", and I can't blame him. It's boring, the "events" are pathetic, and they are also divided by primary and intermediate. Soccer is only available to the primary kids. WELL WHAT IF THE INTERMEDIATE KIDS WANT TO PLAY SOCCER ALSO?? They can't!

This is nonsense, I tell ya, nonsense!

Oh yeah, let's bring back the TUG OF "WAR" too. "Tug of Peace", what the frack is that?!?!

*no kids won a ribbon at this Fun Day cuz of the "no competish" rule

**12 year old had a totally fun day with his Gramma instead

***8 year old came home looking like this: (he had a little bit of fun)

My first blogging award, yay!

Oh my goodness, I was just given my first blogging award by http://amyrodymckay.blogspot.com/, a fellow Canadian Mom blogger who I've started following. Thank you!!

I've enjoyed reading about her adventures as a Mom. Check out her blog, it's fun!

So below is what I've taken from http://amyrodymckay.blogspot.com/ 's post on what to do next as I've just handed this award to you. Here's what you need to do:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award by linking back to them in your post
2. Tell us 7 things about yourself
3. Award a few recently discovered bloggers
4. Contact those bloggers and let them in on the exciting news!

So here's 7 things about me (not too boring I hope):

1. I work in the Marketing Dept. of a software company
2. I work 4 days a week and I'm going to milk that for as long as I can. I started doing this when my second was born and he's 8 now. So my Monday's off are precious to me and I don't want to lose them. I like to think I work hard on the 4 days I'm there to more than make up for the one day off.
3. We are a camping family. We head on down to the States every May long weekend and Labour day. In the summer, we spend time in Osoyoos, BC. Awesome place!!
4. I'm quite introverted. It takes me a while to get comfortable with people in groups. I tend to hang around the outside looking in - assessing the situation.
5. I love baking. Every Christmas I bake a ton of goodies for my department. This has become somewhat of a tradition and every year everyone looks forward to it. That makes me feel good.
6. I am a lefty. So are my two kids. Nothing is made for a lefty. Coffee mugs have the pictures on the wrong side. Cooking utensils are bass'ackwards. And when I write, I always get ink on my hand.
7. I like to walk. I walk lots. My walk home from work is about 9 KM (what's that, about 4 miles??). It's my de-stress time and I can listen to my tunes and enjoy the scenery.

So here's who I'm going to pass this award along to - a few bloggers I've recently started following because I think they're great:

http://www.bringmommythevodka.com/
http://crasscuisine.blogspot.com/
http://kptoz.blogspot.com/
http://madeinmummy.blogspot.com/
http://sassymcknockers.wordpress.com/
http://amyrodymckay.blogspot.com/

Go check them out, okay?

Burps, Farts and other Yucks

Buuuurrrrrrrpppp, s'cuze me!

Ffffrrrrrrrrrrrrppp, s'cuze me again!

So did you hear the one about the man who went to the bathroom to do number 2?...

Okay so here's the thing, if I can't beat 'em, I may as well join 'em right? After all, living in a house full of boys (hubby included) that's all I hear all day. None of them wants to talk about the latest shoe style. I have to admit, sometimes I wish for a girl.

There are days I feel quite outnumbered in my household. Boys, I think anyway, are dirty, messy, scruffly little beings. Their socks always stink, they have dirt and schmootz on their faces and fingers. I'm sure you could argue girls are the same, but boys are grosser.

And let's not forget about the bathroom practices!

Here's another thing. The average diameter of a stream of pee is about 2, 3 millimetres? The average diameter of the toilet bowl is, what, one foot or so? So how is it possible that the pee ends up on and around the toilet?

How can you possibly miss the john I ask?

Everytime my 8 year old pees there's a stream pee that goes off over the side of the pot to collect in a puddle on the floor. Am I the only one experiencing this joy?

Well anyway, boys are supposed to be "Mommy's boys", and all that. Lucky me. I get the shmotz and goo everytime I get a hug.

*three burps erupted from the 8 year old while writing this post

**both boys still have dinner all over their faces

***I LOVE MY BOYS!

Frogger

...only with squirrels.

New game coming out of North Vancouver called "Stupid Squirrel" promises much action. Much like the game Frogger, where frogs leap from lillypad to lillypad, hoping to avoid the water, "Stupid Squirrel" features squirrels dodging cars and trying to avoid getting squished, run over, turned into road pizza, etc.

I got a preview of this game the other day while walking the boys to school...

Level Two features two stupid squirrels:

One on one side of the street, one on the other side of the street, each trying to cross the street to the other side without getting squished.

Squirrel one makes it past the green Honda to sit safely in the middle of the street, then changes his mind and dodges back to his home base. Alive.

Squirrel two sees an opening to race in front of a white van causing the white van to slam on its breaks and as a consequence, blue Mazda behind to slam on its breaks. Squirrel is safe in the middle of the road, and cars did not hit each other. 10 points for squirrel two.

Cars continue on and squirrel decides to play safe and make his way back to his home base. Alive.

Both squirrels decide to take their chances with fate and together they race to the middle of the street avoiding a bus, and a red Vee'dub. They meet in the middle, exchange congratulations on living then dodge-right-back-to-where-they-came-from-with-lightening-speed.

At this point the time runs out and the game ends. Both squirrels go their separate ways from where they came knowing that they've lived through a battlefield.

*no squirrels were harmed during this game demo

**no cars crashed while avoiding squirrels during this demo

**the rain held off and I didn't have to use my umbrella however my hair still got frizzy

My desire to not lose

...and at the risk of getting backlash for sounding like a poor sport Mother...

During my 8 year old's last baseball game (which was the first in their playoffs - yes they have playoffs in little league) I realized that my desire to have the team win was so intense, that I had to take a step back and have a momentary self check.

I started wondering why did I feel so intense about winning?

I think it has something to do with the fact that I was pretty pathetic physically and academically growing up, I never "won" at anything. Self rant can be read here.

I want so much to finally feel a win through my kids (who did not inherit my muddled academic brain and clumsy physical ability, thank you Good Lord above for small miracles). I know that's selfish of me.

I never played any sport growing up - soccer, baseball, etc - I was too scared of the ball hitting me. In dodge ball at school, I'd be targeted by the bigger stronger boys and damn those balls hurt when contact is made with your bare skin. And in gym when we'd line up for team picking for any sport, I'd ALWAYS be picked last.

I didn't have sport trophies lining my bedroom shelves. I was given a yellow ribbon for "Good Effort" at each school Sports Day. Try wearing that during Sports Day while everyone else has their Red first place and Blue second place ribbons littering their t-shirts.

Academically, I'd work my ass off to earn a "C" grade in many subjects. I distinctly remember my grade 6 math teacher Mr. Martin giving me a passing grade for good effort. I seem to remember getting a 51% 'good effort' mark in Grade 10 History.

So yeah I want my boys baseball teams to win. The frustration I feel is quite intense when there is a loss. I guess I want my boys to experience that 'winning feeling' that I've never felt when it comes to sports and academics.

And as for my academically inclined 12 year old (I have to Google half the stuff he's working on because I have no clue how to do it), I want him to feel good about his smarts and get good grades.
You know you're not smart when your grade sixer asks you a simple math question and you stand there with a stunned look on your face trying to understand what he just asked you (was that question in English?? Go ask your Dad).

*this post was written during a vent of frustration
**no dodge balls were hucked at children during the creation of this post
***for the record, I'm very proud of my kids

How to open a bottle of VERY carbonated water

...and not have it explode all over your computer.

While we were camping like Griswolds in the States, I picked up some flavoured carbonated water to bring home. I don't usually purchase items like this, but Zero calories, Apple Martini flavour, etc, should be yummy.

The bottles are so carbonated you can't even squish the plastic at all. It's like trying to squish a rock.

I brought a bottle to work and I knew from my experience of opening one at home how to do it right...

Slowly, very slowly, turn the cap ever so slightly to allow a small amount of carbonated bubbles to disperse:

ffffffffffffffffshshshshshsshhshshshffffffffffff and close-it-up-quickly-again.

Look around to see who heard the loud fart sound.

Slowly, very slowly, turn the cap every slightly again to allow more carbonated bubbles to disperse:

ffffffffffffffffshshshshshsshhshshshffffffffffff - CRAP SOME SQUIRTED OUT ONTO MY WORK PAPERS - and close-it-up-quickly-again

Laugh with your desk neighbours about the fart sounds coming from your area and explain, "It's not me (well I guess it is), it's the flavoured water," while mopping up spilled drink.

Repeat the opening and closing process about another 20 times (seriously because if you don't, the whole bottle will explode in your face) while giggling about more fart sound coming from your desk:

ffffffffffffffffshshshshshsshhshshshffffffffffff...

...until fffffffshhhhhshshst the hilarity finally ends and you can raise your bottle skyward and announce proudly, "I have done the impossible, I have opened the carbonated beverage without it exploding all over my lap. I am a Superwoman!"

Set the opened bottle aside for about 1/2 hour until the bubbles evaporate and you can drink it without burping.

*this story is entirely true and two of my co-workers can vouch for it

**no computers were damaged during the opening of the bottle.