Four Hundred

Today is Family Day. I wish I could say we spent it as a family but Craig's retarded job made him work today. For his regular wage. He had Family Day yesterday. Let's not go there.

I took the opportunity of a rare day off and brought the kids to the Children's Museum for some running and a bubble show. Before I go into details about the afternoon, I have a bone to pick with the Board at the Children's Museum. See, it was always called the Children's Museum. They got millions in funding about 7 or 8 years ago and did a major renovation. Granted, the new space is nice, relatively child friendly, and for whatever reason is now called The Museum. As if there aren't any other Museums. This is The One. As part of our Membership benefits we got free admission to the Royal Ontario Museum a couple of weekends ago (maybe it was last weekend??...) and I showed my membership card to the folks working at the admissions desk.

"One adult and one child?"

"Yes, but I have a membership to an honoured museum for this weekend so I have free admission. Let me just dig out my card."

"What museum is it?" She starts looking through the system for a list.

"Umm, The Waterloo Regional Children's Museum."

"No, sorry I don't see that on the list. Can I see your card?"

I hand the card over. "Ohhhh, it's THE Museum. Yes, you have free admission today."


Frankly, I was a little embarrassed that a puny museum like this one has the gall to call itself The Museum. I'm sure she laughed her head off with her co-worker once I was out of earshot.

Okay, one to today. The bubble show was cool but there were so many rowdy children trying to climb onto the stage and standing up in front of other children who were sitting quietly on the floor that it became hard for the well-behaved children to get anything out of the show. They weren't being picked to be volunteers because there were more pushy kids getting picked. It upsets me because I was always one of the good kids who never got picked, either. I almost want to tell my boys to stand up like the rest of 'em and climb on the stage like the rest of 'em and get picked to stand inside a gigantic bubble like the rest of 'em. Where were these children's parents?! Oh yes, standing in front of me while I rocked a fussy baby and stood on my tippie-toes so I could keep an eye on the Bigs. Overall, it was disappointing but I think the turnout may have been beyond what The Museum had anticipated. There were people sitting on the staircases and overlooking the atrium from 4 floors up. I should just be glad my kids had floor seats.

Dinner's cooking and I have only one more thing: This is my four hundredth post. Blogging since late 2004 has brought me through 400 posts. Yay me!

Family of 5 - To Stay

After much agonizing and soul searching, Craig had his vasectomy appointment on Friday last week. We've known our family is complete but there's something about a vasectomy that is so, I don't know, final. The paperwork says, "This is a permanent form of sterilization," as if there's a non-permanent form. Craig said it was completely worse than he had even feared it would be. I knew it wasn't going to be a cakewalk but three children came out of me! I was all hopped up on drugs for the first one so I must have forgotten what it was like and decided to have a second go of childbirth. Then when number three came along there was no sympathy from anyone anymore. We all knew how this happened and I had no one willing to listen to my complaining.

I spent the weekend basically away with all the kids. The Littles were graciously shipped to my parents' house where they enjoyed the weekend with their youngest cousin; Shaun and I took a day trip to the Royal Ontario Museum on Saturday and then I helped out in my brother and sister-in-law's flower shop on Sunday. Craig had 2 whole days on his own to wallow and recouperate.

I'm a little sad that there's so much finality that comes with a vasectomy. I'm done having kids and am really, really excited for the things we can do with our older children: we'll be done with diapers in just over a year; our big kids can sleep in a tent on their own when we go camping; sleeping in on Saturday morning will be a part of our life again as the boys get older and can be trusted to stay out of trouble on their own downstairs; but that doesn't mean that a small part of me isn't disappointed I'll never be pregnant again or get to make those first happy calls to family members.

This is a new road. A new adventure.

Tubby Time with Slippery, Pee'er and Drinker

It's been ages since I blogged. Rather than rewind, I'm moving forward...

I gave the boys baths tonight. Typically, Shaun showers but lately he's been wanting to hop in with the Littles during their bath. That ended up as a big, wet disaster so tonight he was demoted back to the shower. I could hear a bunch of banging around while I was reading to the Littles and when I finally couldn't stand not-knowing any longer, asked Shaun what he was doing. Well, he had figured out that if he lubed himself up with enough body wash he could slip and slide in the tub like nobody's business. He's lucky he didn't crack his head open! I'm sure he used half the bottle of body wash and now there's a sliminess on the inside of the shower curtain from his excessive self-cleaning. But he sure smells good!

Before Shaun got his shower, the Littles had their bath time. We have these old bubble bath bottles we keep in the toy basket for the boys to use during bath time. Normally they'll fill them up and giggle as the bottles gurgle and sputter when turned over. Tonight Kyle was gulping water out of them. I'm not talking any minor sippage, either. He had his whole mouth over the opening and was chugging like a college freshman at his first frosh party. I'm positive he's going to need a diaper change in the middle of the night after all that drinking. Ian wasn't drinking, thankfully, because he's no longer wearing a diaper to bed (YAY!!), but he was peeing in the tub like he was in kidney failure! The kid would stand up every couple of minutes and pee, and it wasn't no trickle. One time he got Kyle in the face right as Kyle tipped his head back to gulp out of the bottle. Good think Kyle had no idea it was anything but water and Ian was so distracted I don't think he even noticed. It's so funny that he still feels like he has to stand in the tub to pee like he stands at the toilet. I'd prefer that he strictly limit his peeing to the toilet but I've gotta pick my battles. Until Kyle starts to get grossed out by it, I'm not sayin' anything. Just wait until Ian realizes Kyle's peeing in the same tub!