What's in a name?

We've been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as part of our bedtime ritual. Every evening, we read two chapters, and become submerged in the fantasy world of chocolate lakes, sugar grass, little creatures known as Oompa-Loompahs and salivate at the descriptions of the wonderful candy confections. Last night's chapter was about the gum chewing Violet Beauregard.
"Who would name their kid Violet?" Devlin commented, "Why would they want to give the name Violet when it means lots of guns and stuff like that?"
I struggled to keep a straight face while I explained the subtle difference between "Violet" and "violence".

Another lawyer in the family?

One of our greatest frustrations with parenting our monkeys is that we parents never get the last word. Whatever happened to "children should be seen and not heard"? Not in our house. Meek and obedient do not describe our kids. Spirited, engaging, stubborn - now you get the picture.
Here's a classic example:
After her nap, Aisling received her snack of rice crackers and milk. Upon consuming the items, she wandered upstairs to ask for more crackers.
Daddy answered, "No more crackers. You can have an apple or orange."
"How about some chocolate?" our little lawyer-to-be counter offered.

The Apple of my Eye

Potty training is almost completed with Aisling. She knows when she needs to pee, and announces it, loudly while running to the bathroom. The only difficulty is the poop. It's not that she doesn't know that she has to poop in the toilet, she'd rather poop in her underwear - partly because it hurts and partly, well who knows. But she assumes the position - she'll go on all fours and back herself into a corner - and then we know it's imminent. Once we spy those signals, we hurriedly scoop her up and run to the bathroom.
The other night, Aisling was displaying those classic signs. Off we went to the bathroom. Sometimes she wants privacy. That evening, she wanted Mommy to keep her company. Lucky me!
I sat on the step stool, and faced her. We stared at each other intently while waiting, and waiting.
Suddenly, Aisling cried out, excitedly. (No, it wasn't the big moment.)
"Mommy! I see Aisling in your eye! Aisling in your eye!" she shouted with glee while poking her fingers into my eyes. 
She calmed down again, but peering into my pupils, and once again seeing her reflection, she became excited all over and promptly forgot about the need to poop.
Clearly, one of the apples of my eyes - Aisling.

Race Relations according to Ceilidh

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the States. He had a dream that one day little black boys and little black girls would stand side by side and hold hands with their white counterparts. His dream is still coming to fruition in some parts of the world. In other areas, they've probably never heard of Martin Luther King. But in my little part of the world, I would venture a guess that his dream is becoming a reality.
When I went to grade school, in another city and a lifetime ago (or so it seems), you could count the number of the visibly minority families at my school on one hand. I was subjected to racial taunts and ignorant, if somewhat innocent, questions on the school yard. Like why is my nose flat?  I am still subjected to the random, ignorant questions about my heritage, which is pretty sad considering it's 2011 and I live and work in the GTA, one of the most culturally diverse communities.
Despite my experiences, I am hopeful that my children will not be on the receiving end of such ignorance and intolerance. Our residential neighbourhood is an example of the late Rev. King's dream. One glance at my children's class pictures reveals an array of skin tones amongst the students. Perusing the class list, you'd be hard put to find a boring, "white" surname like Smith, Jones, or Brown. While one may stumble on pronouncing the various names, the exotic list itself is a reminder of the cultural mosaic in which we find reside, work, and strive to achieve dreams of prosperity, health, and peace.
In Ceilidh's class, there are children of every ethnic background, and several of the mixed race variety too. While it may impose challenges to the predominantly white teachers who may need to find examples for class lessons, it's also a great teaching tool in itself. For example, my sister, a high school science teacher, once tried to suggest tomato soup as an example of a homogeneous substance and chicken noodle soup as a heterogeneous mixture. Her class was full of students who hailed from the middle east who looked at her uncomprehending, as they had never heard of, much less tasted tomato soup.
The other night, Ceilidh was pointing out her friends in the class picture to her Grandmother. Halmuhnee was amazed at the ethnic diversity in her class, and pointed to one obviously Asian girl.
"Is she Chinese?" my mother asked.
"Who her? No, she's not."
"Is she Korean?"
"No, she's just regular," was Ceilidh's nonchalant, innocent reply.

If only the entire world viewed its inhabitants through Ceilidh's eyes.

Aisling's turn

Early Saturday morning, we we tried to rouse Devlin for his hockey practice, Aisling moaned that her tummy was bothering her. "My tummy hurt", she groaned as she rolled around in bed. Usually I take this stomach complaints with a grain of salt, since she uses that line to get her "medicines", the multi-vitamins she takes on a daily basis. I rubbed her back and tried to convince her to fall back asleep. All of a sudden, there was vomit everywhere. She definitely wasn't feeling well.
While I changed the sheets and made the trip to the laundry room, while dealing with other two kids, Daddy stuck Aisling in the shower for a thorough scouring.
I settled Aisling onto the couch, and got Devlin dressed for hockey. Ceilidh thought it was cool to be awake in the middle of the night to eat breakfast (note it was 6:30 am, not the middle of the night) and raided the cereal cupboard. Aisling seemed to be in a better mood. Wondering if it was just the popcorn from the previous evening's skating outing, I foolishly agreed to her demands for milk. Somehow I forgot about last week's episode with Ceilidh, Or maybe I was thinking there was no way Aisling could have been incubating the tummy bug for a week. I poured out 3 ounces and handed her the bottle. I did wrap her in an extra large bath towel, just in case, and gave Ceilidh strict instructions to get me if Aisling threw up again.
I ran up to the bathroom for a quick shower.  I came back down to discover Aisling covered in puke and Ceilidh blissfully watching television.
"Ceilidh - why didn't you come get Mommy?!" I lamented as I mopped up the vomit, which was mostly contained on the bath towel.
"I wanted to finish watching this show," was her innocent, if selfish, response.

I brought Aisling upstairs for another change of clothes.
"Aisling, didn't you tell Ceilidh you threw up?"
"Yeah, but she didn't say anything," was her reply.

Lesson learned - never leave an older sibling in charge of a pukey kid when there's a good television show on.

Update: After a dose of Advil for the fever, two servings of pedialyte and a very long afternoon nap, Aisling was back to normal.

Reflected in my child's eyes?

Children love to mimic their parents. That's how they learn to deal with social situations and whatever else life throws at them. There's nothing like watching a child play "house" with their dolls to know how they view you. One parent realized that retreating to the laundry room to argue with her spouse was not hiding anything when she saw her daughter send Barbie and Ken to the laundry to have "a discussion". 
Now, I've been quite truthful that having children leads ones to drink. The drink may have got us in the position of having children, but it's also the drink that keeps from going insane once the children arrive.
Neither my spouse nor I are heavy drinkers. We enjoy the occasional glass of wine with dinner every now and then. A cold beer is refreshing and welcome on a hot summer day. Do we drink with every evening meal? No. In fact, I thought we averaged a bottle of wine a week.
Perhaps more, according to Aisling.
Last night, Aisling and I enjoyed some play time in the tub. As I washed her hair, she babbled while she played with the various bath toys. In particular, she filled a cup with sudsy water, and then balanced it on the edge of the tub. "Be careful, don't spill your wine," she admonished when I requested she lean back.
"Pardon?" not sure that I heard correctly.
"Don't spill your wine," she repeated quite clearly.
"What's in the cup?"
"Your wine. You want to drink your wine?" she asked as she offered me the cup.
While I pretended to sip, my mind was racing. Did we really drink that much in front of the kids? Do we have a drinking problem?
When my husband came up to the bathroom to retrieve the now clean Aisling, she also offered him a cup of "wine".
In response, he asked her who drank wine?
Her answer was telling.
"You, mommy. Devlin drink milk. Ceilidh drink milk." At least she knows it's a grown-up drink.

New year, same old resolution

This year, I resolve to continue with the exercising, run another half marathon, eat more healthy (ie snack less), spend wisely, and yell less at the kids. But how to accomplish that last item?
We know we yell at our kids. We know that yelling is not effective, when it's constant. We know that yelling simply raises the decibel level in our house so that all of its occupants soon think yelling is a normal way to converse. We know that yelling should only be reserved for those MUST ACT NOW situations, like preventing the kid from running into live traffic or stopping the child from touching hot burner. Yet, we yell, a lot.
Why? Because we lose our tempers. We lose our patience. It's the hardest job we have, and truthfully, we don't often put the time and effort it really requires. We're all working at our monetarily paid jobs and often, our energy, patience and willpower gets left at the office. With the constant commuting, being on the "go", the various extra-curricular activities, the daily rut of laundry, grocery shopping, meals, the last thing we want is conflict on the home front from the kids. So we mistakenly believe that yelling at the kids will kick-start them into obedience mode. Intellectually we know this isn't so. We all try to not yell. We try to speak in softer tones, to ask politely of our children. But after the third or fourth ignored request, we lose it and yell. And still, no desired action from the offspring.
So, in an effort to bring down the volume in our household, and find methods that will help us stick to this resolution, I've done some research at the bookstore. There are lots of books out there for disciplining kids, some on treasuring the kids that are gifts from heaven (apparently God has a sense of humour), and a few on keeping the yelling to a minimum. In trying to keep the resolution of spending less, I ordered the no-screaming books on-line. Free shipping too.
After last night's loud episode with piano practising (Devlin) and eating dinner (Ceilidh), perhaps I should have paid for the rush order delivery.

The Downside to Co-Sleeping

I read a parenting article that said whether you choose the family bed or not, whether you choose to Ferberize or cuddle the baby to sleep - it doesn't matter what the experts say so long as you, the parent, is happy with the choice and it works for you in our particular situation. I agree. So we co-sleep most nights. It works for us. Well, truthfully, we co-sleep to get everyone to sleep and then move to another room. But sometimes, we parents are so exhausted we fall asleep with the monkeys and stay asleep.
But there is a downside to the family bed. When one kid gets sick, EVERYONE is affected.
After a busy day of dance lessons, hockey practice, shovelling the driveway, temper tantrums, and ice skating, our little family was exhausted. Once the lights were turned off after bedtime stories, everyone fell asleep almost immediately. Only to be woken up two short hours later to Ceilidh gagging and vomiting, in bed. Devlin managed to escape unscathed, but Aisling was in the pathway of the barf. Mommy and Daddy also got covered in our failed attempt to remove Ceilidh from the bed before she emptied the contents of the tummy everywhere.
As I stripped the puke-covered sheets and wondered how I was going to get our ginormous comforter cleaned, Daddy had to bathe two little crying girls. Eventually, the fresher smelling kids were tucked into separate beds - sick girl in one room, and the other two in another. Then we toiled to get our bedroom clean (the floor was gross) and start a load of laundry. We tired parents joked about the sheer volume of vomit considering this kid hadn't eaten much dinner. We congratulated ourselves over the decision not to buy the kids popcorn at skating and holding firm on our resolve not to let snacks take the place of dinner. Then we settled down to sleep in separate rooms. Daddy got Ceilidh, while I had the other two.
An hour later, Ceilidh was throwing up again.  Another bath, another change of sheets, another trip to the laundry room. Thank god our washing machine is in no danger of conking out. One episode of vomiting could be chalked up to "maybe she ate something funny". Two episodes suggest a virus. As I trekked down to the laundry room with another pile of stinky bedsheets, I vaguely recalled some of the parents at dance complaining about the various illnesses their kids had suffered recently. I remember thinking smugly at the time that my kids were healthy and had weathered the holiday season without any incidents. No smug grin now.
In an effort to be proactive, we spread out several large bath towels over the bed sheets, and also administered a suppository dose of Gravol to a resistant child.  Lights went out again. I returned to Aisling and Devlin, but didn't sleep much because every time Aisling stirred I was awake, wondering if she was going to be sick too. (She wasn't sick but she did wake up to inform me she had to pee and a trip to the bathroom was warranted.)
An hour later, Ceilidh was sick again. Another change of pyjamas, one bed sheet and the towels. I trekked down to the laundry room again. This pattern continued throughout the night. I lost track of the number of times she was sick.
Clearly, the other two weren't affected since they were up at 7:30 this morning! Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and inquiring about breakfast.
It's been 3.5 hours since her last vomiting episode, and Ceilidh appears to be on the mend. I've given the kids strict warnings to not share their drinks and to wash their hands. Keeping my fingers crossed that Devlin and Aisling will escape the clutches of whatever bug held Ceilidh captive last night. Now I'm looking up the location of the nearest laundromat with heavy duty washers to handle the soiled comforter.
Oh, the joys of parenting.