Evil children

So, today sucked. Really sucked. I am really struggling with my kids these days and today was a killer day. We seem to have this HUGE problem. My kids gang up on my niece. She's two - only 8 months younger than Baby Boy. Whenever she comes over, my kids morph into these two mean and spiteful children. They won't share. They run around and try to lock my niece out of their room, not including her in what they're doing. It drives both me and my sister mental. It makes me almost sick to my stomach. Why are they like this? What have I done to teach them how to be so awful?

I know part of it is my own insecurities. I had a rough go in junior high and still hold the fear of not being accepted. It is my highest priority to try and teach both of my children to be kind and inclusive. They're pretty good with other kids. Baby Girl has had some issues with letting people in her room before, but that seems to have passed. EXCEPT when it comes to my niece.

So today was awful. We were having a great morning. Nice, quiet, nowhere to go. Baby Girl and Baby Boy were playing great together...for what seemed like hours. Then my niece arrived. I tried to engage them all. A new tactic, instead of letting them play without direct adult contact. I thought it would help to get our day off to a good start. We settled down at the coffee table to do our letters to Santa. And from out of nowhere, Baby Girl spiralled into a hysterical tantrum that lasted for at least 45 minutes. I couldn't figure out the problem. All she did was scream and cry and refuse to let me leave her. When I finally had her settled down, Baby Boy got set off with something...a sharing issue and then he spent 30 minutes in his room screaming at me. Every time I went in to try and console him and see if he was ready to be nice, he threw another fit and tried to hit me.

After lunch, we put my niece downstairs for her afternoon nap and suddenly the two happy children returned. I DON'T GET IT. The words I hate my children ran through my brain. Where has this behaviour come from? What am I doing wrong? I'm starting to think I should find someone else to take care of my kids when my husband and I go to Mexico in January, because I don't want to inflict this torture on my sister for 7 days....especially considering she's about to have a baby any day.

God, please give me strength and patience and some kind of wisdom.

Monday status check

OK - I'm not getting any better at writing. Here's where things are at on this bright sunny Monday.

1. My mom arrived with minimal issues. OK, she missed her first flight out of Mexico, but managed to check another flight in time for her connection out of Phoenix. You can only imagine how happy I would have been if she had NOT walked off the plane at 11.08pm last Monday night after I had driven 3 treacherous hours through rain and sleet to pick her up. She talked all 4 hours back to our house....again driving through rain and fog, almost hitting one deer...arriving at 3:30am.

2. So far we've only had one or two major meltdowns. Thursday's was the worst, which involved me breaking down in front of pretty much my entire mother's group and needing a 45 minute power walk to clear my head. Too many hot buttons in one moment of time.

3. My sister is still pregnant. Today is her due date so now we all start to get antsy about when the baby will come. My mom has been at my house for a week, so it's probably time for her to switch houses so she can help babysit my sister's toddler.

4. Weight loss is on track. I lost another 1.5 pounds this week, despite my trip to Wendy's when picking my mom up, pizza the next night and then a dinner out with friends that included baked brie and garlic in a filo pastry. Thank goodness for step class.

So the week ahead is full....kids' activities, one kids Christmas party, the CPR train comes through town one night and a big party on Saturday night. Oh, and I hope I'll get to become an aunt this week. Writing more often is definitely on my New Year's Resolution list.

M.I.A

November 13th - that's what my dashboard says is the last time I posted. How can so much time have passed? I know, I went away to the big city and coming back from a trip, any kind of trip, always throws things out of whack. The duffel bag sits on my bedroom floor for days, waiting to be unpacked and laundry done. My email (although much smaller in number as of late) needs to be caught up on. The business of life kicks back in and I'm pushed running from activity to activity, trying to keep my children entertained and my sanity level calm.

So here we are in December. I know what else has occupied my time. My new Mexico goal. I returned from the big city with a big aspiration - lose weight and start to get fit. With our trip to an adult-only inclusive resort in Mexico in January, I felt compelled to finally get off my ass and start to remove some of this baby-fat inner tube that lives around my waist. And so far, so good. I've even recruited my husband to join me in my / our efforts. I've joined Weight Watchers online and so have been obsessed for the last 14 days with counting points and going to the gym. The gym part is the fun stuff. I'm totally addicted. I feel like I want to go every day, even though my poor child rearing body screams at me halfway through a class, reminding me that I am NOT in shape and that I do NOT have any core strength. But afterwards, I feel good.

I'm also starting to feel the wave of anxiety rushing towards me over the arrival of my mother tomorrow. My sister is due to pop any day now with her second baby and so our mother is arriving to help with her toddler. Her arrival means the deep rooted anger and sadness that I feel over our flailing relationship is brought bubbling to the surface. I've spent many nights already working through the tears over where things are at and trying to determine how to handle things this time around. I know it will be the same - I'll pretend everything is ok and she will disappoint me again. Such is life.

I'm also frustrated with my kids these days. No longer are they these little cherubs who make cute baby mistakes that you can chalk up to stage of development. I'm constantly struggling with my daughter's selfishness and will to "not share". My son spends his days angry and therefore spends lots of time in his room working through that anger until he can stop hitting or pinching. They're wearing me down and I'm starting to take their behaviour personally. All the reading I do at night tells me it's not my fault, but deep down I feel like somewhere along the way I've failed.

So you can see that my time has been occupied. My mind is a constant war zone of anxiety...and Christmas is just around the corner. At least the trips to the gym are helping to relieve some of the stress and there's always Mexico to look forward to.

Time away

Today is packing day. Tomorrow I pack up the kids and head west to the Big City for a few days of materialistic pleasures and some visiting with friends. Living in a small town has curbed a lot of my material appetite. Our shopping is limited to Wal-Mart and some high priced shops along the main street. I'm not lured by IKEA, Old Navy, or Children's World for regular trips to the mall. I'm also not lured by the extra fast food options of the big city - Cinnabon, Jugo Juice, Wendy's, just to name a few. A&W and KFC get old and undesirable pretty fast. A trip to the big city allows for a short burst of indulgence. I try to go prepared with a list of things I "need" so that I don't get distracted by the bright lights and variety of options that lie before me when I get to a real mall.

The shopping on this trip will likely be minimal. With both kids in tow and no husband for back-up, there won't be any solo shopping trips. My hopes of doing some Christmas shopping will be limited as a trip to Toys R Us to buy things from Santa just won't happen with a four and two year old along for the ride. I'll have to get back online and shop locally for Christmas, which isn't such a bad thing. By the time we get back on Sunday I'll be all fast-fooded out and ready to get back into the swing of home cooked meals again.

The main drive of our trip is to visit friends. I was back through the city in the spring time but was mostly passing through as I made trips to my mother's house to help her pack and move. So I didn't get a chance to visit with many people and I'm feeling out of touch. There's some new babies to meet and snuggle and lots of friends for the kids to play with to pass the time. I don't think I have any visits planned where there isn't at least one child in the house.

What has caught me today as I've confirmed playdates and organized our schedule is this low murmur of trepidation in seeing some of my friends. We've lived away from the city for 3 years now and it's enough time to feel pretty disconnected from most of them. There's a few friends that I still talk to on a regular basis but most of them are connected through random e-mails or the Facebook phenomenon. Many of us are running in different life stages. Although our kids are similar ages, none of us are in the same boat any more, whether it's working v. not working, married vs divorced, new baby vs all finished. Part of me fears the disconnect. Most of these people are my good friends, friends from university, ones who know my past. Those friends are special in that there's so much you don't have to explain. Yet at the same time, I'm suddenly aware of feeling like I've changed and worry that there will be moments of awkward silence and lack of connection.

As always I guess it goes back to expectations. I need to focus on the reason for going back - to catch up and show off my kids, enjoy some big city treats and then scurry back to the coziness of small town living - and not get upset about the lack of deep conversations and sincerity that I miss from relationships that have evolved.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 not so great things about winter

OK, the title is deceiving. I couldn't actually think of 13 things about winter I don't like....so the last four are things I DO like about winter. But with daylight savings time started and the dark taking over at 4pm, I'm already feeling the winter blues descending from the low lying cloud cover.

Here's 9 things I don't like about winter, and 4 things I do like. Let me know if I missed any of yours (favorite or not).

1. Dark nights - it's 4pm and already getting dark, how depressing. If only my kids would go to bed at 4pm some days.

2. Grey skies and rainy days - the month of November can be miserable here in small town Canada. No more blue skies of the prairies.

3. Cold house. I think I've mentioned the heat war in our house. I'm always cold and my husband is always warm, so the house usually feels cold to me.

4 . Cold feet. It's nearly impossible to feel warm when your feet are cold - and hard to warm up when your husband won't let you warm your feet up against him.

5. Head colds - early November and I'm already hit. I really suffered last year with a stuffed head and am hoping this year won't be a repeat performance. Runny noses on your kids goes along with this one.

6. Bundling your kids - snowsuits, mittens, jackets, layers - going out takes forever just to get out the door.

7. Lack of fruit - back to apples, bananas and oranges unless you're prepared to pay a small fortune.

8. Less things to keep kids busy. The park just isn't any fun when it's raining and the winds are blowing off the lake. Plus with the early nights, I can't send them running out into the backyard after supper.

9. Hibernating friends. You see people less because they're bundled up in their houses and not out and about.

OK, here's the good things.

1. Tons of snow - I grew up in a skiing family, so at the beginning of winter, it's always a pleasure to see the flakes fall. Especially where I live, where the snow isn't accompanied with bitter cold temperatures.

2. Skiing - hasn't happened much in the last few years, but when it has it sure has felt great when I have made it out to the hill and since it's only 1/2 hour away, I have no more excuses this year with the kids both in daycare on Fridays.

3. Sweaters...if I had lots of money, I'd buy new ones every year. I always enjoy digging through my sweaters and finding ones I forgot I had.

4. Movies. The race for Oscar brings out the good movies and the summer blockbusters come out on DVD, so coupled with the fall season of TV, the evenings had some entertainment.

A gem from the mouth of Baby Boy

When I picked up Baby Boy from the gym's daycare this morning, his caregiver relayed this story.

Apparently she and Baby Boy were reading a stroy about a bunny that's having a bad day and decides to go to Bunnyland so things will go better. The caregiver asked Baby Boy,

"Baby Boy, do you have bad days sometimes?".

To which Fraser replied

"No, but Baby Girl does."

Considering the hysteria that started our day this morning, courtesy of Baby Girl, I wasn't surprised at this comment, but wow, did the story make me laugh!

Navigating marital balance

A strange thing happened last night. My husband and I had an argument. His tone changed, my tears flowed. I went to bed tired and emotional. For some I'm sure this occurs often, but for us it doesn't. We get along pretty well and have a good give and take relationship when it comes to managing life and our outdoor pursuits. But last night, we just couldn't seem to find the same page. He has a full slate of things that he could and would like to do this weekend....watching hockey games with friends, going fishing, playing soccer. As a stay at home parent, I wait eagerly for the weekend to arrive to have some daytime backup in how we spend our day. Weekends where I have to manage the kids all day are not a weekend for me. I want us to do family things, even if it's just a trip to the park or a visit with friends. I know it comes back to expectations and maybe mine are just too high. I know the weekends are a down time for my husband too. He works hard all week and needs some space of his own.

And so here lies the conundrum. How to manage balance in our marriage? Keeping my head down and taking the weekends as they come seem wrong. But how to best argue my case? I don't want to be the nagging wife that says no to my husband's requests for extra-curricular activities, but at the same time I'm looking for balance and maybe just some renewed attention to us as a couple. Having little kids sure is hard for so many different reasons.