A Pre-Emptive Apology to My Future Daughters-In-Law

To my dear and future daughters-in-law,

I'm so sorry. Really, I am. Very, very sorry. I tried, I really tried.

Your future husbands will suffer greatly from a horrible and debilitating thing known as MRBS. This is also known as Male Refrigerator Blindness Syndrome. You know, when they stand at the door of the refrigerator for hours looking for......oh I don't know......let's say.....milk.


"Honey/Mom, where's the milk? I can't fiiiiiiiind it."


This phrase will be uttered several times over and in escalating tones until you walk over to the fridge and pull it out of the door. You know, where the milk has been placed since the beginning of time eternal (which for us, is 3 years as that's how long we've been in this house and how the fridge is set up for milk.)


I have tried my best to keep your future husbands from suffering this dread disease. If there was an inoculation against it, I would have had them immunized 3 times over, just for good measure. Alas, there is not and all the EXTENSIVE training I've poured into them has clearly flown out the window; my intense study of the syndrome seems to indicate that sufferers generally begin to show symptoms shortly after puberty and these symptoms are only alleviated upon death.


I have found a temporary measure that works occasionally and that is to walk by the fridge door as they're hollering, and slam the door on their heads. It seems to rattle something in there just long enough that the test/study subjects experience a momentary relief from the vast side effects of this horrible syndrome. Unfortunately, such relief is only temporary, and all too soon they're once again within the clutches of the syndrome.


So I apologize, in advance. I did everything I could to keep them from the steely grip of MRBS but it was stronger than I. I have failed you. I'm so so sorry.


With love and much sadness,


Your future mother-in-law


P.S. I should probably tell you about the MCFCAS (Male/Men Can't Find Crap All Syndrome) they suffer from the rest of the time....and apologize for that too. *sigh*

In The Blink Of An Eye

I remember when I was growing up, how all the old grammas and aunties and the plethora of people my parents knew, would tell us how "quickly you're growing up" after they hadn't seen us for a while. I clearly remember rolling my eyes (and massaging my oft pinched cheek) as they walked away. What did they know? This growing up business was taking for.ever.

It's a flex Friday here, which means the kids don't have school today. It also means we let the kids determine for themselves, what time they were going to bed last night (for the record, they chose midnight). I was tired and crawled in to my bed a bit early, to watch ER from the comfort of my cozy bed and lovely warm duvet.

My oldest son came up and knocked, wanting to talk to me for a second. He didn't identify himself, just knocked and entered when I said for whomever it was, to come in. The only light in the room came from the glow of the TV and when he walked in, I honestly thought it was my husband and couldn't figure out why on earth he was knocking. Then I realized it was my son. It took my breath away. He's an adult now, a man. He's 18. And he suddenly has lost that young boy look and he is a man. And ever so suddenly, the phrase "you're growing up so quickly" has become mine to utter.

He has grown up on me, in the blink of an eye. In the midst of diapers and potty training and first days of school and losing those first teeth and chickenpox and "first love" with the next door neighbour girl (seriously, how cliche could he get?! LOL) and the trials and tribulations of junior high and high school football, suddenly........he's grown. In a few short months, I could have one less child living in my household.

It didn't seem that things were moving along that fast when I was up to my elbows in spit up and dirty diapers. It doesn't seem like 18 years should go that quickly. But it has and it has disappeared in the blink of my eye. And while I'm happy for him, and excited for him as he portrays his excitement in entering the big wide world on his own terms, interested to see where this life takes him, my mother's heart gathers these memories and tucks them away in a special corner and for a moment, sadness overwhelms on those occasions when I pull them out, one by one and examine them.

You've grown up so quickly.

Just An Alberta Girl

This piece of heaven that I've found

Rocky Mountains and black fertile ground

Everything I need beneath that big blue sky

Doesn't matter where I go

This place will always be my home

Yeah I've been Alberta Bound for all my life

And I'll be Alberta Bound until I die

Paul Brandt wrote and sings those lyrics - and it describes perfectly, how I feel about living here. I'm an import. Born in the US and came to Canada when I was about three and a half. Cross border love story really; American father comes to attend a school in Canada, meets my Canadian mother at the school, sparks fly, they fall in love and get married. After living in the US for a few years, they come back to Canada and we've been here ever since.

I met my husband in a wee little northern Alberta town, about 21 years ago (gulp - 21 years?!) and we were married in 1990. A year later, our oldest son joined the family and 17 months after that, yet another son joined our little family. Finally, in the early part of the summer of 1994, our family was completed with the arrival of our youngest, a daughter.

Yep. If you're doing the math, that makes me the mother of 3 teenagers. All at the same time. In the same house. Still alive. No one's bald (yet). It may however, explain the obsession I have with a certain coffee chain's coffee.

I'm not exactly new to blogging. I wrote on an intensely private personal blog last year, when one of my children was experiencing some health issues and I needed an outlet, somewhere to let out the thoughts swirling around in my head. It was cathartic, to say the least and it helped me get through that time without completely losing my mind.

I am also a contributing blogger at MomsPage so you'll probably see a fair amount of duplicate posts between here and there, if you follow either blog. Yes, I'm lazy. I can't be arsed to write two separate blog posts. I will however, be adding a few posts here that I won't necessarily copy to MomsPage.

So yeah - that's me. And this will be all about my grand (mis)adventures and my COMPLETELY profound thoughts. Yeah, I'm deep. Like a mud puddle, man.