Dude, did you skin The Grinch?

Do you often find yourself wondering if you still have it? No, me neither. That would be shallow.

For those of you who have children, you’ll understand the following dilemma: when one of your friends organizes a night out with the girls, your initial excitement of getting out of the house is immediately eclipsed by the sheer panic of making it happen. Is my husband around to watch the kids? Will I have anything entertaining to talk about other than my adoooooooorable children? Is it physically possible to keep my eyelids open past 10:00 p.m.? And most importantly, how long will it take me to get ready? Nowadays, it’s a task that seems as monumental as climbing Mount Everest, or more appropriately, fastening a post-baby belly the size of a Sherpa into the folds of my jeans. This nauseating visual is immediately followed by the equally nauseating question: do I still have it? Can a completely dishevelled and out-of-touch mother of three, with permanent deposits of baby vomit on her shoulder, get back out on the scene? Or more appropriately, hit the town and not cause a scene?

To prepare for a public viewing, I start by working on my face. Some mornings I look in the mirror and could swear some of my facial features have migrated during the night; my eyes have mysteriously splayed down towards my ears, making it appear as though I’m on the cusp of morphing into a hammerhead shark. Simply put, a touch of lipstick doesn’t cut it anymore.

It's embarrassing to admit this, but recently I got reeled in by one of those coma-inducing infomercials; one with a magical voice that promised to reverse the effects of hard living (translation: university diet of vodka, Export A "Green Death" and Kraft dinner) and aging. In all likelihood, the product is made from snake venom and the collective sperm of all endangered species, but when you're desperate, you really don't give a shit. These details become trivial. In a giddy trance, I dialled the toll-free number and waited in anticipation to place my order. I was having visions of my former dewy skin reflecting back at me in the mirror and was so lost in my daydream, that I almost didn't hear what the lady was telling me. I asked her to repeat the cost. Then I giggled nervously and asked her to repeat it again. I had erroneously assumed the price I saw on the infomercial was the total cost, not four regular instalments of said amount. I politely declined and said, “For that price sweetheart, I’d be expecting you to mail me a new face.”

I recall a particular incident from a few years ago; I was ready to call my friends and back out from a night out on the town, with some lame excuse involving a highly contagious, rash-inducing, unfortunately timed illness that mysteriously surfaced in my first born just as I was about to walk out the door. One of the benefits of having children is that they provide a built-in excuse for dodging any sort of social commitment. I just didn't feel up to it...mostly because I had actually forgot how to look presentable. Seriously, you know you look rough when you laboriously spend an hour getting ready, putting some serious effort into it, start to feel pretty good about yourself, only to answer a knock at your front door to find your neighbour standing there, who takes one look at you and says: “Oh. So sorry to wake you. Can I borrow an egg?” Ooooouch.

I won't lie to you. It hurt. But fear not, my friends, I soldiered on. I journeyed into my closet to find a suitable outfit to mark the occasion. I should mention here that in regards to overall fashion, I let myself go just a touch while enjoying my maternity leaves. Nothing major. It usually starts with wearing the same pair of green sweatpants every day, followed shortly by the addition of a green t-shirt and a green sweater. May I add that the greens rarely match; in fact, offensive clash would be a more appropriate description. In my head, because I'm wearing all green, I sort of feel put together. Don't ask. I have no answer.

I would have gone on washing and wearing the exact same comfortable outfit for the entire year had my sister not intervened one afternoon with the following declaration:

“Dude, did you skin the Grinch? You look horrendous.”

Now if this had been the first reference to the Grinch that week in question, I could have handled the insult like a mature adult. As it happened, earlier that week, Jack and I were playing when he (purposefully) whacked me over the head with a metal car. I gave him my dirtiest scowl and demanded an apology. I was pissed off. He looked me straight in the face and said:

“Mommy, you look like the pwince from that movie.”

My heart instantly warmed.

“Honey, don’t you mean the princess? Mommy’s a girl so I can’t be the pwince.” (Being hit up with flattery, I instantly forgot my request for an apology. At times, my vanity knows no bounds.)

“No, Mommy! Not that movie. Not the pwince, I said the GWINCH.”

Aren’t 3-year olds adorable? Particularly when their mouth is sealed shut with duct-tape.

In the end, pulling yourself together and getting out of the house is always worth it. Bonding with girlfriends is like a soothing ointment for the soul. So even if you don't feel like it, I urge you, get out of the house once and awhile. Heck, throw on a balaclava and poncho if you must. It's one of the benefits of living in the Praires...we can wear a get-up like that and not look like a stalker. Warning though, amidst the stories and giggles, you’ll inevitably find yourself thinking that the music is far too loud, the floor of the bar could really use a good scrubbing, the young girls, who clearly raided your toddler’s closet for their t-shirts, should think about covering their kidneys so they don’t catch a cold, and as you crouch precariously over the toilet seat you wouldn’t dare sit on even if ordered at gunpoint, you’ll be tempted to tidy the bathroom stall whilst you urinate because your capacity to multi-task cannot be tamed. And at some point during the night, you’ll wistfully think of your children, wishing you’d been there to tuck them into bed, read them their favourite story and kiss them goodnight. And at that very moment you’ll realize that yes, you still have it – you have it all, plus more.

Mommy, I snipped my nuts...

This admission ranks right up there with things you never want to hear coming from the mouth of your four-year old son. Heck, you wouldn't want to hear it coming from the mouth of anyone, never mind the age. Ah, one of the many joys of raising sons when you really have no idea what you're doing. Last year, after suffering through months of a particularly dismal winter (and a husband who continually turns down the heat because he's cheap AND his people are used to running around in kilts so my guess is that they're of hardier stock), I decided to buy the kids warmer PJs. You know the ones: they're fuzzy, they're cozy, they've got feet. The ones you wish came in your size. The ones where you don't want to be messing with a classic combo of zipper and private parts.

This particular night in question, my husband was away on a business trip. Goes without saying that the first thing I did was crank up the heat. Being that I was heavily pregnant, within minutes the soaring heat threw me into a lather. But I soldiered on, because I wanted the house to be warm enough for the kids. I was bathing my daughter, intermittently laying against the cold tile on the bathroom floor in an attempt to regulate my body temperature, while my four-year son sat in the living room watching Treehouse. (You know the station...the one that makes parents want to saw on their wrists with a butter knife but we don't turn it off for fear of being physically assaulted by a toddler. I pick my battles).

Things were ticking along smoothly until I heard an earth-shattering shriek from the living room...the type that makes the hairs in your unshaven pits stand on end. I quickly wrapped Isla in a towel and went racing (waddling really, like only a heavily pregnant woman can do) from the bathroom, and rounded the corner just as my son screamed out, "Oooooooooooweeeeeeeeee, Mommy! Hurry! I snipped my nuts." As I met him in the hallway, I dropped to my knees. The sight of him clutching his tackle amidst the wreckage of a long-zipper had me praying to Baby Jesus and all things holy. I had to focus, friends...I had to pull myself together quickly. All I could picture was that scene from There's Something About Mary and I tell you, I was already mentally preparing for the 911 call because I'm not good with these sorts of things. Truth be told, until that point, I'd never really stopped to consider, "Hey, would I be good in a situation where my child has erroneously clamped his genitals in a 2-foot zipper?" But now I can answer that question for certain. No. I would not consider this to be an area of strength.
Mercifully, by the time I got in there to survey the damage, I could see that he had already dislodged "his nuts". I was crying. Tears of relief were streaming down my face...albeit heavily laced with tears of laughter, which I desperately tried to hide from him. Snipped my nuts? Where does he get this from?

Of course I had to ask him, mostly because I was downright curious:

Me: How on earth did you manage to snip your nuts?
Jack: I was hot and my nuts needed some air so I pulled the zipper down and it snipped my nuts.

I was without words. How to kindly tell a 4-year old that an alternate method of obtaining fresh air would be to step outside? Needless to say, I turned down the heat. Let’s just say that now when the footed PJs get pulled out, there's a rule that we always throw gitch on first. Precautions, people. Crap like that should be in bold font as a warning on the footed-PJ label. In my opinion, that information would be much more useful than how to wash it. (Like really, all kids clothing is going in one cycle anyway, regardless of colour and fabric, no matter what the label recommends...that's just how this Mama rolls. I'll suck up the odd casualty.)
As luck would have it, around the same time of the snipping-of-the-nuts incident, I had to have a discussion with Jack about scratching his nuts. He was doing it a lot. My final attempt at seeing progress in this area went something like this:

Me: Jack, you really need to stop playing with your nuts.
Jack: Daddy does.
Me: You are correct. Daddy does. But you shouldn't do it around other people.
Jack: Just read the book, OK Mommy? (We were engrossed in Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney.)
Me: OK, I'll keep reading but you have to promise you'll quit scratching your nuts.
Jack: What if my nuts are itchy?
Me: Then scratch. Just not around other people. It's gross.

Mother-of-the-Year speech over, I continued to read Guess How Much I Love You. That is, until we got to the page in the book where the cute-as-a-button Little Nutbrown Hare is rubbing his eyes, getting sleepy, staring up into the great big sky...it’s my favourite part of the story.  For copyright reasons I can’t show you an image of the actual book, but here’s my best crack at replicating the photos.

I'm about to turn the page when the following flies out of his mouth:

Jack: Hey, look! Little Nutbrown Hare is scratching his nuts.
Me: What are you talking about?
Jack: He's rubbing his eyes, then he's scratching his nuts. See? His paws are down there and he's scratching. Look, he's smiling.

By this point, Jack was laughing hysterically and I all but released urine in an attempt not to laugh; I wanted my message about not scratching nuts to be serious. But that lasted all of...oh...let's go with 2 seconds, before I collapsed in a helpless heap of body-shaking laughter. Seriously though, is something the matter with his brain? When I finally pulled myself together long enough to speak, I conceded:

Me: You're right, Jack. It looks like he may be having a scratch. For the record though, I don't think he is...I think he's just resting his paws down there. But what great imagination! Wow! Well done. Just remember, if he is in fact scratching his nuts, it's OK because he's in the woods and no one's around.
Jack: So I can scratch my nuts in the woods?
Me: Be my guest.
Jack: What does that mean?
Me: Go for it. In the woods.
Jack: Thanks, Mommy.
Me: You're welcome, my little nut-scratcher.

Let's start the New Year off with a bang....

Albeit at the expense of my son cracking his head off a light fixture. I should have downloaded these home videos months ago, they're that much fun.

Some people are just accidentally funny...I don't think they mean to be, they just are.

This video requires a little introduction:

1. We loaded the family into the van for a 7-hour trip to the West Edmonton Mall to celebrate Jack's 5th birthday. All this with the use of little more than prescription drugs. Jack wanted to stay in the Truck theme suite at the Fantasyland Hotel. I was all like, "Right on, little dude. It's your birthday! We'll go there for sure." Enter Scottish husband, who almost had a cardiac event after looking at the prices. (Something I should have done first, prior to making promises.) So we comprised; two nights in a cheap hotel followed by check-in to the absurdly over-priced theme suite for the big birthday night. Incidentally, I was much more comfortable having James roll around on the floor in the "cheap" hotel...not sure if 'ole Fantasyland has had a carpet update in the last, oh, let's go with 40 years to avoid the risk of over-shooting. But as for the cool factor? It's got that covered off like an ace.
2. You may want to skip to about 2:15 on this video...quite frankly, my running narrative up to the incident is rather embarrassing. I think I'm going to keep a roll of duct tape next to my video camera with a sticky note as a reminder: "Please adhere thick strip over lips prior to recording."
3. If you choose to watch the entire video, you may find yourself asking, "Is there a pair of great horned owls in the room?" The answer is no. It's just my husband and I exchanging ill-sounding ooooo, ooooos and aaaaaahs. Please, don't be alarmed. We were not mating at time of recording.  In addition to sounding like a bird in heat, there's a vein of meth-addled junkie in there, with all my: "Oooooooooooh, Woooooooooow. How cooooool is that? Look, look, looooooook. Oh my gooooooodness. The green light just went on....wooooooooow. Bunker Beds. Cooooooooooool."  (We've been watching The Wire. Trust me. I sound like I have a serious drug problem. If anything, I'm just a touch more animated.)
4. Having cleared the light fixture on his initial walk over, Jack makes the fatal error of a horribly timed turn and jump (a touch more painful than an ill-fated turn into someones burp and blow), and is caught completely unaware of the giant light fixture hanging just above his head. The way he looks up after and scans the sky to see what could have possibly hit him with such force...have mercy. I was laughing so hard, I was wheezing. I could barely squeak out the obligatory, "Are you OK?" (you MUST find a way to say this if you're the mother...if you're not the mother, you can continue laughing for days, that's OK); there was no way I dared look at my husband, who I could hear choking it back behind me. Hell, one look at his face would have done me in. As it was, it took every ounce of strength to keep from soiling myself.
5. When Jack turns to give me shit, and says, "Don't yaff", rather than stopping, I toss him the (very weak) low-ball, "I'm not laughing at that anymore." Not only am I cruel, I'm a liar as well. He then proceeds to jump off the bed in the most ungainly manner, at which point I was officially cooked, quite literally thinking of death to stop the laughter (tell me I'm not the only one who does this). 
6. Little dude, you sustain me. Don't ever change. (And one day I'll have to tell you that in all honesty, I yaffed about this incident for the entire 7-hour drive home.)
7. And, please...no need to judge me. I'm fully aware I'm an asshole. (Which incidentally, is a bona fide medical condition. New readers, see here What not to do 2 weeks after giving birth...