Guesting And Spinning

Guest post number two, and you don't know how thankful I am for it. The BC Centre for Disease Control has now locked down the Dumbass family home and put one of these on our front door. In fact, they've locked down everything within a one kilometre radius of our house. Remember that scene in ET when they wrapped Elliot's house in shrink wrap? That's about it.



If you have children, I don't have to tell you the end result of not spitting out everything they cough up from the phlegm-a-thon in their little lungs. If you have children but haven't experienced this... pretend like you didn't read that. Go to your happy place.

So today I am very thankful for Krystal at Mommy's Escape 6.0 taking the reins. Krystal, with six children to deal with probably thinks I'm being a pansy ass. She's probably right, but that's why she's ten times the mother I'll ever be.



Hello Dumbass readers!!!! (Totally not an insult, I assure you of that) Today the Captain has been kind enough to allow me to guest blog while he is away doing God knows what with God knows who – honestly it might be safer if we don’t know. If we do, we could consider to be accomplices and I am too young to go to prison. Do you know what they do with cute little women in there? I do not even want to imagine!!! Oh the horror!!! But it might give me a vacation away from my insane family… hmmmmm… So on this auspicious occasion I have decided to answer one of the many mysteries that the Captain constantly asks me about…How Do I Do It?


Well, I do it just like everyone else, laying down, on the kitchen counter, in the shower, in the car, pretty much anywhere and everywhere. You gotta do what you gotta do and with the resources you have… OMG!!! You all need to get your minds out of the gutter, I swear!!! I am not talking about THAT – I am talking about parenting my six children. Yes, to those who do not know me, I am 25 with 6 kids all under the age of 8! You may bow down to me now, I will wait. Okay, that’s enough.


The Captain always asks me this question whenever I post something about my kids and I am obliged to share with him and the rest of the blogging world just how I do it….


As any typical parent, I wake up at the crack of dawn or sometimes before and wake up the little rugrats, I mean angels and get them ready for their day. This usually involves in me fighting with my 5 year old to get out of bed and get dressed while I threaten him with a time out, cold shower, trip to a ravenous lion’s den – none of this works. I usually have to call my husband for reinforcements here – how does he do it? I don’t know. Then I have about an hour long conversation with my daughter about the way that her uniform skirt should face, she is set on having it face the wrong way. I give up and let her do it her own way – when she realizes she needs to get undressed to pee she will fix it. Simultaneously I let the basher brothers out of their room and change their diapers and their clothes all the while practicing my wrestling moves on a three year old that can only scream “I want please milk” and a 4 year old that is laughing at nothing and flapping his arms wildly and tapping on my head while I put on his shorts. I make them breakfast and head on over to my 1 year old who is happily bouncing in his bed and flapping his arms as he bangs his head on the overhang of the Thomas Bed. I wrestle with him to change his diaper and get him dressed and set him loose to roam the house.


I throw out the diapers, wash dishes and make lunches, sign notes from school, brush knots out of hair and wipe runny noses. Then my newborn wakes up and demands that she be fed immediately before she breaks the glass in my house with her ear piercing shrieks. By this time I look at the clock and realize I have 2 minutes to get ready for work. (Where is my husband during all this? Well, he’s collecting the garbage and diapers and throwing them out seeing as we have to drive to a dumpster in our community to throw it away) So I run into my closet and put on a pair of jeans and hope they are clean and find a shirt in the closet and hope it fits me. Rush to the bathroom and brush my teeth and place my hair in a ponytail and rush out the bathroom while screaming “BOOKBAGS!!”


The kids are then ushered into the cars – my husband takes his set to school and therapy while I drop off the older 2 at their school and pray on the way there that my 5 year old behaves and I don’t have to worry about him running away. Usually around this time I realize I have stuff in my hair or on my face but it is too late to wash it off. We pull into the school, I kiss my children good bye and wish them a great day then I drive off to work.


Work is a blur and I won’t get into that. Let’s just say I count the minutes until it is time to go home.


As I arrive home I am greeted at the door by screaming children and “Mommy, I want…”, “Mommy, Princess did this….” “Mommy, Little Man did that…” and of course my husband saying “They are all yours.” I hurriedly rush to change clothes, start dinner and attend the monsters, I mean angels. This includes feeding them their baby food to avoid more stains on my carpet, changing diapers, resolving sword fights over who gets to play on the computer, homework battles which usually include a lecture as to why it is important to go to school. If it is a Monday or Wednesday night – trying to keep the house quiet and all the kids in their rooms while Angel Eyes and Sneaky Monkey have Occupational Therapy which of course is a screaming battle all its own that I gladly hand over to the therapist. If it is any other day, I work on them with their words and sensory issues which seems like fun and games but getting them to participate requires the genius of Walt Disney! After dinner and baths it is like the Indy 500 chasing these children around the house to get them into bed. (This Casey is how I manage to stay slim and avoid HASAY). Finally once they are in bed, I sit down and try and enjoy dinner with my husband, by this time it is 9pm and I have to feed Tiny Dancer and put her to bed. My husband and I debate whether or not to do the dishes, I then try and get a quick shower in and sit down on my bed to sneak in some homework before the night is through all to go to bed for a few ours and have the cycle begin again.


So there you have it – this is HOW I DO IT – just like any normal parent who would do on any given day, nothing special, no super powers, just lots and lots of work but very well worth it! Except for the rapid aging process though…see below


Before Kids (this is from my license)

(Imagine a picture of a beautiful woman whose picture she included in a Google document was far too complicated for... someone... to extract from the said document as a picture and not a file clipping which totally wouldn't work.)


After Kids (this is at work)

(Imagine the picture of a still beautiful woman who trusted the person she was doing a favour for would be smart enough to figure out how to get her photo out of a document. Ho ho! Joke's on her 'cause that guy is way too overtired for that kinda thinking.)

"So there you have it – this is how I do it – just like any normal parent who would do on any given day, nothing special, no super powers..."

No super powers? For those of you who don't know Krystal, what she hints at with references to therapy but doesn't actually mention is that five of her six children have some type of autism. No, Krystal, you don't have super powers, that's what makes you even more amazing. So when I have to wake up in a few hours because the kids medicine has started to wear off and their coughing wakes them up, I'm not going to bitch that much. That much.

I noticed that Jennifer has a new Spin Cycle up today, resolutions for 2009. For 2009, I want to be more like Krystal.

Finally, with all the chaos of snow storms and pandemics I haven't finished my secret Santa spin. But spinning... oh, I can spin. I could be Press Secretary for the White House. To avoid being the sole Scrooge for Santa Spin, I'm invoking Eastern Orthodox Catholicism. I'm not late for my spin because Orthodox Christmas is still twelve days away! Mwah ha ha haaaaaaaa!