• Calgary Comic Con

    20/05/2015 - By 

    A ‘staycation’ was in order for us, so we were all looking forward to Comic Con. It crept up on me! All of a sudden it was here. I was fairly unprepared. The kids wanted elaborate costumes but we didn’t have time in the end so I patched some stuff together from their wardrobe and Value Village finds, and it worked and it was super cute. Izzy was Pikachu and Hunter was Batman. Hello yellow clothing, cute red cheeks and a Pikachu toque, with a foam tail I cut out last minute. Izzy brought her sloth purse (made by a…

  • Mother’s Day!

    11/05/2015 - By 

    Mother’s Day, as my husband let me know this morning, was invented by a lady to celebrate her mother, as she never had kids of her own, but she ended up resenting the holiday. How strange! She is, however, a genius. All mothers should be celebrated randomly with love all of the time, throughout the year, but it is nice when kids get a chance to make special cards and celebrate in very specific ways. Mother’s Day is also near my wedding anniversary! My husband and I got married on May 8, 2010 and so we hit the five year…

  • My Daughter of the Active Imagination!

    31/03/2015 - By 

    My Isabella has a new recurring nightmare. It has been a full week now. Thankfully our wonderful friend S. gave us LED lights that don’t get too hot and can be on all night. Life saver! We call them her “fairy lights”. I agreed she can keep them on at night until she feels the dream has passed. I also told her that, since we talked about it today, it probably won’t come back. Dreams, I said, melt in the sunlight. When you tell the story of your dream in daylight the words fly out of your mouth in to…

  • To New Moms

    08/01/2015 - By 

    If I could write to all new moms I would say so many things. One of those things is that the biggest lie out there is it gets easier. You will just have to rise to new challenges. Some of these challenges will seem less, um, challenging than the last but it will never be easy. If it is easy then you have a kid who acts as if he is always on Prozac. Wait, that’s a new challenge right there. You will never feel like you have had enough sleep, you will never feel that you have enough time,…

  • Play-dough!!

    19/11/2014 - By 

    So everyone must have a fave childhood craft or toy that they went back to time and time again. Ours was play-dough. My husband’s was Lego, but all I remember is play-dough. We used hand me down kitchen utensils and re-purposed craft things and built a play-dough world. Food, animals, houses…you name it. It kept us endlessly entertained.   Until today my kid’s craft and utensil supplies for play-dough sucked and they still had fun. All the kids are at school, so after cleaning up lunch, I ran to the store and stocked up on supplies. I got a little…

  • My Grade One Reading Corner

    18/10/2014 - By 

    Do you remember learning to read? I don’t really! I remember being three and a half and reading little words to my sister from picture books. My mom confirms this, so I am not crazy. To say it out loud sounds too young, but there I was, reading small words. I am sure that is quite common. I distinctly remember my grade one reading corner. Grade one seemed so daunting to me. A whole day around ‘strangers’. The reading nook was so comfortable and such a safe place for me to hang out. I felt at home there. When you…

  • Why Rewarding Expected Behaviour In Your Kids Is Wrong

    25/04/2014 - By 

    I was on Pinterest today. There were so many pins and boards dedicated to motivating kids to do chores. A lot of the pins involved crafts to set up punch cards or checklists for chores, and at the end the child would receive a reward. I was thinking a sticker, or a family bike ride, a movie night,  or something similar. I was wrong and when I started to read the comments I realized this quickly. Many of the parents posted “Oh this works so amazing. At the end of the list I give him $20 and he has to…

  • Running Back and Forth Between Tiny Disasters

    17/03/2013 - By 

    It’s St. Patrick’s Day and I have had quite the day. The husband sneaked out of bed first and went downstairs to make breakfast. I got up and got the kids out of their rooms. Husband made eggs, sausages, and hash browns, then served it with french bread and jam. He wanted a good base in his stomach before he went out St Paddy’s Day drinking with his best friend. (Now, no hard feelings there. He gets to see his friend around twice a year lately cuz they live on opposite ends of the city and are so busy with…

  • Her Room, Her Rules

    22/02/2013 - By 

    My daughter’s room is full of dolls and snugglyfriends. She has a wooden crib that used to be mine as a child. She is currently using it to swaddle and tuck in her sloth snugglyfriends. The rest of her floor is a pile of dolls and blankets. When I tell her to clean up that mess she is astonished and angry. Mess! That’s not a mess. It is her doll’s bed. They are big girls and can’t sleep in mommy’s bed, they must have their own. Which just happens to be her entire floor.   Her room, her rules.