The Summer of the Real Man

I can't believe that it is almost the end of April!!!  The snow is almost all gone, the kids have gotten to play outside and there is less than 2 months of school left!

This summer my friend Grace and I are taking a "bucket list" trip!  We are heading to London, the birth place of my grandma!  What started out as a Girl Guide trip grew into a trip with a friend that I am so thankful to Grace for agreeing to go with me! A big thank you to Sylvia and Annie who are taking the little ones for the 13 days we are gone, couldn't have done it without you!  Grace and I have had many adventures together through the years but I think this will be the biggest so far!  The countdown has been on since October when we booked our airfare!  We decided to throw in a side trip to Scotland.  We have booked our The Making of Harry Potter (which has precipitated the power re-reading of the books and first time watching the movies!  Damn ADHD makes it hard to sit still for a 3 hour movie!), Paris day trip, Bath/Stonehenge/Windsor Castle Tour, London Pass with Transit and the major accomplishment "Coronation Street Set Tour".  Only 75 more days to go!

Recently our 20 year old daughter had her wisdom teeth pulled.  It made for a long few days of eating jello and slurpees! While it was a few hard, long days it was an indicator of what was coming for our 6 year old who is terrified of the tooth fairy, dentist and anything that is related and who by chance is having dental surgery in 10 days!  We've come to the conclusion that we can't tell her about it until we are on the way there in hopes that I will be able to get her there!  I think that the copious amounts of slurpee may be the only saving grace to the entire experience!

Our 6 year old is a character as many of you know!  She is well known for her lack of "filter" if it pops into her head, it's out of her mouth before she can stop it!  She has the voice of a 70 year old smoker and everything she says is at 180 decibels!  A couple summers ago we were driving down the road and we came to a red light.  As we were stopped there a guy on a motorcycle pulled up beside us when out of the back of the van she pipes up with a sense of wonder, "Mom that's a REAL man, right?" I just about peed my pants!  I asked her what she meant and she explained that, "only REAL men drive motorcycles".  Well off we went when the light turned green thinking that would be the end of that.  Little did I know that every time she saw a motorcycle or scooter she would say, "Look mom a real man!".  It was all fun and games until one day she saw a woman driving a bright pink scooter and said, "That's not a man!  How come she gets to drive that?".  We explained that not only men could drive motorcycles but she didn't believe us!  All summer long, every where we went she would pop out that phrase until everyone in the family was saying it too!  Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we are on our way home from swimming lessons and out of her mouth pops, "Look mom, summers coming, there's a real man!"  This kid is going to be the death of me!  Never a dull moment when she's around!

The "REAL" Man

Hope you enjoyed this little story!  I'm hoping that things will settle down soon so that I can blog more often!

Wonder Woman does not exist in this house!

Wow!  It seems like forever since I have written a blog!  Time flies at the Funny Farm!  I can manage to say that we survived Spring Break (barely but we did!) and can't wait until the kids go back to school tomorrow :)

We have had a hectic few weeks around here!  I have had some phenomenal moments and some down right crazy ones that I will share!  Here goes!

A couple of years ago I had to make a tough decision based on what was right for my kids (even though it is a huge pain in the butt!).  I pulled my son from our neighborhood school to a school outside of our neighborhood in order for him to be in a more positive situation.  Smaller classes with multi-age classrooms so that his disability didn't stand out as much, more welcoming (both staff and students) and a generally more accepting place to be for so many hours of his day. This meant that for the next 10 years I will be driving kids to and from this school (trying to avoid having too many schools on the go!) which drastically cuts down my employment opportunities. This year he is in Grade 5 and is loving it! In February he competed in the Manitoba Special Olympics Winter Games and did fabulous!  He was so proud of his 2-1st place and 1-2nd place ribbon!  He was even more impressed when Andrew Ladd (Winnipeg Jets) presented the ribbons to him!  He couldn't stop talking about it!  A few weeks ago his teacher pulled me aside after school to share a story with me.  She went on to tell me that our son had brought his ribbons to school to share with his classmates.  He spoke confidently about his events and what he did to earn them.  She then shared with me about one boy who said; "Aren't the Special Olympics for retards (Gosh I hate that word!)?"  The teacher took this opportunity to explain how that word isn't a word that is used etc etc as well as what she knew about Special Olympics.  When another child in his class piped up and said that our son didn't belong there. She was so impressed with the fact that the other kids in the class don't see our son as being any different than the rest of them and that they now have a better understanding of disabilities.  She used this opportunity to educate the children as well as to discuss everyone's uniqueness.  Having known the background for us being at that school she felt it was important for me to hear that the kids don't see our son as being any different than them which is all we ever really wanted for him.  A total warm fuzzy moment that reinforced the decision I made.

Over the past few weeks we have been short staffed at the two agencies that I work casually at which has resulted in me working full-time hours (and then some!).  I have learned several things from the past few weeks; 1) Working full-time and managing a house of 8 is Mission Impossible, 2) Wonder Woman does not exist in this house!, 3) I live with a bunch of slobs who refuse to clean up after themselves, 4) I just get pissy and clean up myself which has resulted in a disgusting house because I have been working instead of cleaning, 5) House Elves really are myths and 6) After working a 20 hour day (not one of my brighter moments) that I am no longer 20!

My 6 year old also discovered one of my many talents that even I wasn't aware of!  In the process of cleaning the house one day (many moons ago!) I had tucked my phone into my bra with the radio streaming. When she came around the corner and asked "Where is that coming from?"  and by method of intruding in my "bubble" announced that it was coming from my chest by saying, "You've got magic boobs!" with her big blue eyes wide!  I had to turn away to avoid laughing in front of her.  Another great attribute to list on my resume!

I had the wonderful experience of seeing that one of the ladies I support has a better sex life than I do after being locked out of work one night!  She was kind enough to invite me into her apartment and when she announced that I was there all her boyfriend could say was, "Ummm I have no pants on!"  They have very lovely carpet in the hallway is all I'm going to say!

After spending the weekend at a Scrapbooking Retreat refueling my spirit, relaxing with friends and learning some incredible (albeit outside of my comfort zone!) techniques, I come home covered in glitter (damn stuff, never goes away!) and ready to face what this week may bring my way!  May the force be with you my friends as we head into our next adventures!