Christmas Excitement

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house. Leading the way in Christmas excitement is Finn - he decorated with gusto today, exclaiming enthusiastically over ornaments, asking where they came from and who made them. A few of my favourite Finn quotes during tree decorating-

'This one is sooo beautiful'
'I love this one!' (every other ornament)
'This one is from Jesus' (because it was awesome).
'Wow mommy, this is a lot of work. I'm sooo hungry and thirsty.'

Our tree has an assortment of ornaments all with special and quirky value - some from my childhood, some from Mike's, and some that we've acquired together. The angel atop our tree comes from a thrift store in High River Alberta; this find was made years ago during a break in one of Mike's basketball tournaments. When Mike and I were engaged we purchased our first joint item together, a Playmobile Nativity Set. We set this up each Christmas in the years before we had children, and now it's even more fun to set it up with the kids. This is an interactive set, most beloved by Coby, and perhaps a sign of our times, this year we seem to be missing Baby Jesus.

When Mike and I spent our first Christmas in our new house in Calgary, Mike delighted in shopping for Christmas decorations - his favourite destination was Liquidation World, and I dreaded seeing what he would come home with next - a bobble head snowman? Check. Bobble head Santa? Check. Or our now cherished black Santa. Check. Check. Martha Stewart they're not, but now I love to share the stories behind these objects with our children. But in the end, as special as these decorations are, and as important as it is to build traditions and memories with our young ones, they are just objects. Our most important task is conveying to them the real meaning of Christmas - about a little baby in a manger, and the importance that Jesus has in our lives and home.

Sleep, or lack thereof

Since becoming a parent, one of my main obsessions, like most mothers of small children, has been sleep. When I'm not sleeping I'm counting how many sleep hours I had, I'm tallying my children's sleep hours; and using a system approaching advanced calculus, I am plotting out nap times and the amount of nap time permitted before bedtime interference becomes an issue (small children bedtime is sacred). Then, when small children are tucked away in dreamland I play mind games with myself. This seems to be worse when Mike has a late school meeting or basketball practice - 'Haley, go to bed.' 'Haley, if you go to bed now you will have X hours before you need to feed baby, and X hours before the first small child climbs into your bed.'* Of course, then the quiet house, my book, my chocolate stash, and my couch all become that much cozier and I wait another 15 minutes until I repeat the same conversation. Repeat. Every day.

I've also got into the nasty habit of mentally scoffing at those 'without-small-children' when they even mention that they're tired. Now, I know that many people have difficult sleep issues to deal with, including insomnia, shift-work, or teenagers with drivers licenses. I realize that I chose to become a mom, and that I chose to have subsequent children. That said, I didn't quite know what I was getting into in the sleep department. I remember a friend of ours in Calgary (who did have small children) chuckling at something to that effect when he heard that we were expecting Finn; Mike and I didn't get it. It wasn't until a year and a half later - during a 3am 'toddler-got-the-flu-and puked-all-over-his-crib, and now puked-all-over-mom-and-dad's-bed' kind of night that I got the joke. Definitely on me. The good news is that one day my children will have children. And then they'll thank me.

Here it is, my official thank you- Mom thanks for your sleepness nights 32 years ago.

* Note to concerned readers:
I don't actually talk to myself in the first person, this is purely for blogging purposes. Though if you are worried about me, and think it might help, please come and look after my children for a few hours. So I can sleep.

Christmas Card Dilemma

I need some help deciding on the 2011 Campbell Christmas card photo. Please weigh in with your favourite..

Status Updates

My inner dialogue is starting to sound suspiciously like facebook status updates - highlights from today include:

Hmmm.. not looking forward to the result of Coby's stealth butter thievery this afternoon.. What is the consequence of a quarter cup of butter consumed by a two year old?

How can a baby puke his own body weight daily, yet add a new roll hourly? Related to same, my latest scent is eau de vomite.

Really Finn? Was smacking me worth loosing your prized possession (plastic sword) for a day? Apparantly yes.

Soccer Mom

Today I spent a hilarious 45 minutes watching Finn twirl his way across a gymnasium, yes he spent about half the soccer game spinning ballerina-style. 4-year-old soccer is truly entertaining - you've got your goal-scoring ringers, you've got your criers, and then you've got your daydreamers. When he wasn't twirling, he was smiling over at mommy, coming in for water breaks, and climbing on the endline-marking bench. We caught him last game, somewhere midfield, showing his buddy his Spiderman undies. Finn comes from a family tradition of space cadets, my mom tells me that I spent my early soccer career in my own reverie - my father yelling encouragingly from the sidelines, 'Haley get your head in the game!'

It's not that Finn isn't athletic, the little man learned how to ride a 2-wheeler as a three-year-old, and can swim without a life jacket. He spent hours this past summer playing golf in the backyard and he spends time every day practicing head-stands and doing summer-salts. Of course, you'd think having his Dad for a coach might keep things in focus, but the competitive urge, or even the capacity to pay attention in the game, hasn't materialized yet in our little dreamer.

Soccer, it's OK, but Finn would rather climb the chain link fence next to the field. Or even better, play bad guys.

Baking with small children

Warning - what you are about to read may be alarming to some readers. If the title of this post is causing shortness of breath, sweating palms, and feelings of faintness please stop reading now.

First of all, baking with small children (plural) is not something I advocate. Baking with A small child (singular), is something that can be a fun and bonding activity. This said, as a mother of small children (plural) and a lover of baking, the two do occasionally coincide. This is generally not premeditated on my part. This morning was a typical example. My children were either sleeping (baby), or playing quietly. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to sneakily and ever-so-quietly, mix up a pumpkin loaf. Alas, midway through my first egg crack the first small child had pulled up her stool. Somewhere around her loud 'I do!' The second small child pulled up a stool. Past experience and the tips I am about to share with you kept the chaos to a painful minimum until today's bowl licking fiasco.

Haley's Tips for Baking with Small Children:

1) Make sure you're well-rested. Now, if you are the mother of the small children this is likely not the case, which leads us to Tip 1a) Sleep-deprived mothers should not proceed until coffee has been brewed.

2) Ensure that you are able to create multiple jobs for multiple children. The difficulty is that you want to make each task sound enticing, without going overboard thereby causing coveting over said task.

For example:

Task 1: stirring
Task 2: dumping in measured ingredients.

These tasks need to be delivered as quickly as possible - Immediately after Task 1 has been presented to child 1, just as child 2 begins to protest their lack of task, Task 2 needs to be presented (while child 1 is still immersed in their task and is hopefully oblivious to the enthusiasm you are injecting into Task 2).

3) Never let small children measure out the ingredients. If this precedent has been erroneously set it will be difficult to break. If you have already made this mistake and are weighing the pros and cons of letting your child measure vs a temper tantrum - I would take the temper tantrum. Short-term pain over the long-term benefits of not finding sugar grains stuck to your slippers for months. Do let your child dump the already measured ingredients into the bowl. Yes there will be some spillage, but that brings us to the next tip-

4) You need to be mentally ready for mess. An egg on the floor, flour tracks, and stray chocolate chips will not be as difficult emotionally if you expect them.

5) Similar to tip 4, mentally ready yourself for the inevitable melt-downs. Have your nearest time-out areas allocated (I use the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen). Use pessimism to your advantage, it will allow you to be pleasantly surprised when things don't go as side-ways as expected.

6) Expect dough-snitching and spoon licking. Baking with small children is not the time to worry about salmonella, (yes I have recently recovered from salmonella, please note that it was from a restaurant and not from consuming raw cookie dough - I can feel your cyber-cynicism as I type). If the final product is to be consumed by non-family members, for your good conscience they should be warned that this was baked with small children.

5) Have a second 'licking spoon' at the ready. No, this is not to lick your children with. This spoon is to be dipped into the dough/batter and speedily produced as the baking concludes, so that your children can slobber in unison.

6) Finally, when the baking gets out of the oven you will need to hand out the obligatory taste test and then you want to get the rest out of the way FAST, a tray on the counter only leads to full-out cookie binging, tantrums, and thievery. I stash my finished products in the laundry room or garage until fully cool and then package them when the 'helpers' are sleeping.

7) Cartoon time, you earned it, and it's going to take a full episode of Dora to get your kitchen back in order.