parenting

Children of the Snuggies


Despite our elitist stance on television viewing, all of our children are addicted. The two oldest alternate between real time viewing and downloading their favorite serial fare by the season, and the youngest indulges in a cherished rite of passage known in our home as Cartoon Saturday.

A few months ago, Kat discovered a channel devoted to all the old cartoons Rob and I grew up watching. A mixture of American and Canadian fare, we allow it to continue for selfish reasons. Now that we have trained Kat to get her own breakfast, Cartoon Saturdays have become our sleep-in day.

But it’s not just the shows that hold our daughters rapt, they are commercial watchers too, and I probably know more about the junk being hawked to the consuming masses now than when I was watching television myself.

It all started with the Sham-wow, a muscular – almost superhero – chamois that may be the product of secret government experiments. Kat began by regaling me with its virtues and when I failed to be suitably impressed, started in on her dad.

“Do you know what a Sham-wow is?” she asked him one evening on their way to the bookmobile.

“Some kind of cloth you use to clean your car with?”

“Oh, but it is so much more.” Read Full Article

Updates and T-shirts are Friday’s Offerings


Sadly, my short story lost the Dazzle contest. I didn’t bother to go and check for the winner yesterday because I knew I was out of the running after TenMile entered and the gushing began so I lost interest. However he did not win either. A late entry took the prize.

I am used to losing contests, but I still find it a bit annoying. I am still polishing up my own story and hope to send it off to Apex although it needs to be a shade darker. The last story I read in Apex was about a refugee scrounger on a displaced persons ship in the overcrowded future where the hopeless sell themselves to the ultra wealthy who get their kicks stuffing them with chestnut dressing, cooking them alive and then eating them. When I said “dark” I meant “ever so”.

Grade one is going well.

Reno is proceeding. Rob’s new plan is to break down tasks into small components and do a bit of as many as he can between supper and dark (which is coming far too early now).

MidKid claims to be moving out this coming weekend. We’ll keep you posted.

And as for T-shirt Friday…..

Nurse Myra claims no ownership, so I think I will adopt it into my rotation stable along with the Monday Meme and the Thursday Song Lyric.

Remembering what Silverstar had to say on the subject, t-shirts must have histories. Not just stains either. Although stains can have histories.

Today’s t-shirt comes to us via the beginning of the LDR days that made up the bulk of my pre-marriage relationship with Rob. He developed a habit of bringing a t-shirt along with him to leave behind for me. He would wear it until it smelled just like him and after he left, I would wear it until it just stunk too much for me not to wash.

MidKid gave Rob the shirt. She worked in a liquor store and was always acquiring tee’s from different label promotions. Canadian is Molson’s flagship and most popular brand. It’s probably one of the better beers up here, but any Canadian will tell you that the worst Canadian beer is kilometers better than the best American one. Americans, in the opinion of most non-Americans, drink swill for beer.

Anyway, one day Rob inquired after the shirt and I told him I wore it to bed. Then I whipped open my little Macbook, took this photo and sent it to him. Since this is kind of like a love letter, I had Rob crop out the disheveled come hitherness.

So there is my t-shirt and its story. Feel free to join in. Link or track back if you do.

this is low res and tiny but it's the best I got

Do Brad and Angie Ever Wish They Didn’t Have Kids?


The headline story on MSNBC this morning heralded the arrival of the Brangelina twins. I won’t go into whether or not such a thing is actually worthy of interest and can be called news, but it brought to mind an article I read recently that questioned whether being a parent was as fulfilling as we are led to believe.

That’s the mantra, right?

Having children completes us as women and enhances coupledom, but statistics don’t bear that out. Marriage/relationship happiness drops quite a bit with the arrival of the first wee one and doesn’t hit satisfaction levels again until the last child leaves home which is age 32 in Canada according to the latest research.

If BabyDaughter lives with us until she is 32, I will be 70 and Rob 72 before we are experiencing that post active parenting nirvana-like bliss. Angelina will be 65 in case you were wondering but she has the means to buy her freedom sooner.

Although Rob did suggest a freedom buy-out yesterday that might be worth exploring.  ElderD is sick of her cat lady roommate and is looking to rent a new place and of course MidKid needs a place, so why don’t we buy a little house in the city and rent it to them?

Yeah, one gets to that point which brings me back to the original question of contentment. Why are we over sold this idea that procreating and parenting bring us happiness when clearly it does not?

Well, maybe it does when you are a multi-millionaire acting couple with the means to purchase all the back up you need (and with six kids under the age of seven – that’s a small army of domestics – although DNOS’s MIL did it without an entourage).

Ordinary folk though? Living far from family. Working two jobs. That’s pretty much the norm now and I guess it shouldn’t be any wonder that as we stray farther and farther from the extended family model couples are less and less enchanted with the myth and feel constrained and stressed by their children.

Thoughts?