Undisturbed sleep, I want to cover you in whipped cream and marry you.

A week ago I was more than tired. I was forgetting people's names. I was leaving keys in the front door. I was accusing my house of conspiring against me by hiding things I couldn't find. I began convincing myself it really was okay to wear white socks with black shoes because there were no black ones washed.

I had tried sleep training before and failed. On purpose, kind of, because my baby was my baby and I couldn't let go of his sweet needy cuddles. I continued giving in to his demands, two, three or four times a night, even though I knew my night visits were more about comfort than necessity.

Then my doctor asked me, matter of factly, what about you Sarah?

And I was like, huh?

She pointed to the cracks under the surface, sort of like the varicose veins you hope no one will notice.

Lately it's as though my brain cells have one by one been jumping ship with each sleepless night. And the thing is - I need those molecules of brainy goodness. Because I have two kids, a husband, friends, a life, interests, and soon, a career again. A career that requires brains for problem solving.

So, four nights ago, we put Oliver down in his bed, kissed him goodnight, and told him we'd see him in the morning. That night there were a few crying spells. Each time, we'd go in to check on him and make sure he was safe and warm. And then we left him.

And that first night, we slept. For SEVEN WHOLE HOURS.

Each night since then has been a little better, with less stirrings, and then last night - the fourth night, Oliver slept from 7 at night til 7 in the morning. Without a single peep.

Whoooooooooooooooooooo!
And again.

Whoooooooooooooooooooo!

Now I just need to make sure I don't get pregnant again any time soon.

The morning I agreed to do a TV interview

Yesterday morning at around 11:30 I arrived home from a playgroup, baby under one arm, diaper bag under the other, coaxing my toddler up the steps ahead of me. A normal morning.

Ignoring the mess I'd neglected to tidy earlier that morning, I put Oliver down for his nap and began simultaneously preparing lunch, calling my parents in England and checking email. Sometimes I am like wonder woman. Only without the super fit body. And the lycra leotard. And the super powers.

I noticed an email from a CBC reporter. He wanted to interview me about the H1N1 vaccine debacle. Minutes later I was on the phone giving him directions to my house, all cool and nonchalant, like, oh sure, I can do an interview for TV.

Um. What?

And then I realized I'd agreed to do an interview for television. In forty minutes. In my house - my house that looked like a nuclear disaster zone. No really. There were dishes in the sink, cereal bowls abandoned from breakfast beside spills of milk and rice krispies, toys and books on the floor, paperwork on every surface.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Why did I agree to this? Oh yes - sleep deprivation - I can blame that. Hahaha I'm insane.

So then I spent forty minutes tidying the house - obviously by tidying I mean shoving things into cupboards and drawers. I cursed a lot as I tidied. My toddler helped me by taking the things I had just put away back out and hurling them on the floor. And then he helped by emptying his juice box all over the sofa.

The reporter and camera man arrived and I was all ahaha, yes, I'm completely calm, everything's fine and my house is tidy and I'm not at all freaking out about being on TV.

And then, as I was getting my microphone attached, as if on cue, Matthew started yelling "HEEELLLP! HEEEELLP!" from his bedroom. (I had tried to put him down for a nap. What? No I didn't just lock him in his room - what kind of parent do you think I am?)

The interview was okay but I definitely won't be pursuing a career in television. You can watch it here.

Don't laugh! Okay laugh a bit.

Dear online thingies, I hate you I love you

Dear Twitter, please stop asking me to make lists. I don't understand why I need them. I don't have the energy to find out why I need them. I only just about made it onto Twitter in the first place. Please just let me Tweet in my own basic way in peace.

Dear Facebook, please stop telling me to poke people. I'll poke who I want, when I want. And by the way, when did you become so irritating?

Dear Google, please stop with the Waving. If I want to wave at someone, I'll wait for the mail man and wave at him from my window in my pajamas, even if it does scare the living crap out of him. In the mean time I'm happy not waving. And what the hell is Waving anyway?

Dear makers of the Cadbury TV ad with the eyebrow twitching kids - what the hell were you thinking? I thought the days of cocaine inspired commercials were left behind in the nineties? I think my feelings on the absurdity of this ad may generate a whole other post. But really, it's a royal pain in the ass to have to switch channels every time my eyeballs are assaulted by this atrocity.

Dear Lost, hurry up and be on already.

Dear Firefox, why does everything seem so difficult with you? I ask you to do one simple web manoeuvre and you're all "Oh I don't feel like it today. I'm a bit under the weather. I think I'll just take a break and have a cup of cocoa". That's it. I've had it. I'm defecting to Safari.

Dear Apple, I still love you. Don't worry, I will never defect to the dark side.

Sleep Training Round II

"Everything seems fine." Said the doctor, smiling at Oliver who was perched on the examination table tearing up the paper sheet and shoving the pieces into his mouth delightedly.

"Great." I said, beaming.

"And, he's sleeping through the night?" She said, nodding expectantly, as though this was a given.

"Um. No. Not even close." I said somewhat amused by the very thought.

"Oh. Oh! And he's nine months? Oh." She scribbled something on her pad. "So he gets up, what, once per night?"

"More like three or four times." I winced, recounting last night's bleary-eyed crib visits.

"Oh. You must be tired." She said eyeing me.

What is it that gave me away doc? The dark circles under my eyes or the fact that my sweater is on back to front?

"Yes. I'm very tired."

In fact, while you're here, would you mind holding my baby while I just lay down on this examination table so I can catch a few winks?

"Time to do sleep training." She said firmly, writing something else on her pad. I wondered if she was writing out instructions for me.

"Because you're tired, I can see. And you can't carry on like this, especially with two young kids to look after."

That was when I leaped up and roared "I'M TIRED WOMAN, NOT INCOMPETENT! I'VE DONE SLEEP TRAINING AND IT DIDN'T WORK DAMMIT! OKAY, HONESTLY, IT MIGHT HAVE WORKED BUT I WIMPED OUT... BUT ANYWAY, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO? ROAR."

Okay I didn't roar any of that. Obviously. I'm British after all.

I nodded in agreement.

Because my doctor was right. Her words, though obvious, simple, were true. I have resisted sleep training, but now I need to sleep. Tonight. So that I can rejoin the land of conscious, alert people.

So, wish me luck as I embark on sleep training round II. For reals.

And then I promise to stop banging on about how tired I am and write about something else.

Letter to the Alberta Health Minister: H1N1 Vaccine Fail

Dear Ron Liepert, Health Minister for Alberta,

I am sitting here compiling a list of everything I am going to need for the next few weeks.

- Groceries and toiletries for 4 people.
- Six hundred diapers and wipes.
- Ten gallons of milk.
- Toys, games, crafts and dvds to keep us entertained.
- Vitamins to stay healthy.
- Hand sanitizer. Lots.

I will need these things because yesterday you announced there was no more H1N1 vaccine - that it had run out, before I was able to get to a clinic with my two young children. And therefore I will be avoiding taking my two little children to public places and will instead be staying home.

Hopefully more vaccine will be available soon, given that six months ago the results of a poll stated that between 48-55% of Albertans intended on getting the vaccine. To date only 10% of Albertans have been vaccinated.

And you did promise that everyone could have the vaccine. Remember?

You opened four clinics in Calgary last Monday. Four clinics. To serve more than 1 million people.

And it soon became clear there was no strategy in place to give priority to high risk individuals, despite Alberta's pandemic plan, which clearly states high risk people should be vaccinated first.

I did not take my children last week, because queuing with two children under the age of three for anywhere between two and seven hours would not have been possible. Instead I arranged for my husband to take a few hours off work next week, in the hopes that the queues would be shorter by then.

But then last night, I learned from a friend on Twitter that you had decided to close all Alberta clinics.

Some people are a bit upset by this.

Understandable if you think about it: Albertans have been stirred into a swine flu fearing frenzy for the better part of the year. Then, when the clinics finally opened, they were too few and poorly managed. And high risk people were not given priority. And then, with little warning, they were closed.

So yes, people are pissed.

Your response was "All I can point to is the fact we have 10 per cent of our population vaccinated, including all of those high risk categories, and we're not even into November yet."

I would be willing to place a wager that not all high risk categories have been vaccinated.

In the mean time, please send all the above supplies to me. Because there is no more vaccine for now. So I am going to be here, in my house with my two restless children, avoiding public places. Avoiding the flu that you spent so long telling me I needed to protect my family from.

And next time, perhaps after you have spent so many months whipping up public fear, you could have a little more foresight in your planning.

Yours sincerely,

Lady Mama

Cartoon from churchtimes.co.uk

The Monster and the Skunk

One Halloween night, a skunk and a monster got dressed to go Trick or Treating for the first time.

At first the monster was not impressed with the lurid green outfit his mother had chosen for him. He roared at her in protest as she tried to wrestle the costume onto his body. In the end an agreement was reached, whereby the monster would receive candy before dinner in exchange for putting on the costume.

The skunk and the monster set off down the road, ringing the neighbour's bells and yelling "Twick or Tweet!".

The monster was not yet versed in Halloween candy collecting etiquette, and so at each house, he shoved his paw into the bowls of goodies asking "Nother one?" and "More?" while his parents hastily told him "Just one candy sweetie!"

The monster thanked the candy givers and then added "You're welcome." for extra politeness.

By the time the monster and the skunk arrived back home, their loot was overflowing with chocolatey goodness.

And so no dinner was had.

And later, while the wild animals slept peacefully in their beds, their evil parents ate all their candy and cackled to themselves. (Just kidding, we left them some.)



Happy Halloween.

This is what happens when you move to the suburbs and have kids.

Something strange has happened to me.

Five years ago I definitely would not have laid eyes on a white ceramic bowl with black polka dots and a black cat centerpiece and thought I must have that bowl or all hell will break loose in this store.

Instead I would have snickered and wondered what kind of bizarre world a person must live in where that kind of thing would be desirable.

But here it is, on my table, along with orange napkins and mini pumpkin arrangements.


So what the hell happened?

Lately, and especially now that my toddler is aware of holidays and events, I've been filled with an urge to embrace seasonal paraphernalia.

Weird.

When I was pregnant I saw this cookie jar in a kitchen store and thought that will be a perfect cookie jar that my kids will grow up to remember as the cookie jar that was always filled with delicious baked treats. It's Yellow and red, for god sake. And, again with the polka dots.


Five years ago my idea of decorating for Halloween would have involved an orange martini. Now it's kid-friendly painted wooden ornaments perched in random corners of the house.


And wooden vegetables in baskets. I repeat: wooden vegetables.


Cupcakes. That I made. It's a miracle with frosting and jelly beans.


And witch silhouettes. That I downloaded from the Martha Stewart web site and cut out by hand.


And, worst of all, don't laugh - an inflatable spider.


It's all for the kids, I swear!

I don't know how, or when it happened. But somewhere in between thinking about babies and becoming an seasoned mother of two, I became a suburban person with Christmas hand towels and dishcloths.

Too tired to tweet

Sleep deprivation is going to kill me. Or, if it doesn't kill me, it's going to deprive me of the ability to make sense of ordinary things. Soon I won't be able to form a sentence that sense makes. And would no one then able be to blog my read. And that suck would.

I had an inkling I was over tired when I caught myself singing "I'm so tired, but that's okay 'cause so are you." to myself in the mirror this morning.

And then I found my lost keys in the dish washer. And though it was nice to have sparkly clean keys, I decided this was not the behaviour of an alert, awake person.

And then I started calling the dog by the kid's names, the kids by my husband's name, my husband by the dog's name. It was all a bit confusing.

And when a charity called to arrange the details of a clothing pick up, I had to check my front door to make sure I was giving her the right house number.

And while on the phone, I watched as my toddler squeezed the juice from half a grapefruit onto the sofa and lick it off exclaiming "delicious!" and did nothing about it. Because I hadn't yet had my coffee.



I admit, it's partially my own fault. I gave up on sleep training because I wanted to hang on to the sweet baby cuddles. Because soon the sweet baby will be a stubborn toddler. And there may be no more babies or baby cuddles. And so, my brilliant plan of ditching the sleep training completely botched any hope of sleeping through the night.

Even coffee - my morning vice, my luva in a cuppa - isn't as effective any more. After two or three cups my head is still foggy and I still cannot think lucidly.

But at least I won't need a mask for Halloween this year. The bags and wrinkles will suffice.

Is that a stiletto or are you just happy to see me?

First there was the vibrating sex-toy-in-disguise mascara.

And when I laid my (plain old mascara stick painted) eyes on the vibrating wand I was delighted by its silliness. And then, to take the silliness to new heights I created my own vibrating mascara wand with added features. Which was definitely way more cool than the plain vibrating one. Mine had Twitter and a Starbucks card so, no competition really.

But now there's a new one.

Lash stiletto mascara.

Hurray for new silliness to make fun of!

So - lash stilettos.

As in... Your lashes will look like stilettos.

As in... You will look as though you faceplanted a stiletto and couldn't remove it.

As in... Your lashes will be so thick you won't be able to see through them.

As in... People will begin to call you shoe face.

Because clearly, plain old lashes with mascara are no longer good enough. Even falsies loaded up with black goo don't cut it any more. You see, these days, unless there's a chance your lashes could be mistaken for stilettos? Forget it. You're so yesterday.


What do you think the mascara people will come up with next? I'm thinking multi-coloured glow sticks for lashes. Or, eyelashes that double as chop sticks. Or, hedgehogs.

The office that love forgot

When we renovated our basement last year, we added several extra rooms downstairs - a playroom, a laundry room, a utility room, a guest room, a bathroom and an office.

An office designated to be my office.

Because next year - in two months (um what?), in January (eh?), I'm going to (gawd) start working (crap) from home (wheeze), in this office.

The problem? Over the past nine months, this "future" office - that had no foreseeable prospect of actually becoming an office - became a poor, unloved dumping zone for junk with no other home.

- Gift bags that I hoard like an old lady with cats.
- Random craft materials I buy in the hopes of becoming crafty but which never even see a stick of glue.
- Paperwork that really belongs in the filing cabinet that's currently located in a wardrobe in my son's bedroom and that no one can get into.
- Holiday decorations, wrapping and ribbons.
- Christmas presents that are yet to find a secret hiding place.
- General crap with no name or identity.

This office. You see? This one?

So, yeah.

This is my desk. Where all the, em, brilliant creative stuff is going to happen.


See the problem?


You'd think, with two kids under the age of three, and all the constant laundry, cleaning, tidying and organizing I'm faced with on an ordinary day, I'd be undeterred by a bit of clutter. Nope. The office - I can't face it. It's been too long. And there's too much crap. So I'm considering the alternatives:
a) demolish office and dig out pit for swimming pool.
b) lock door of office and pretend it's like a room in Wuthering Heights. And tell kids it's haunted for dramatic effect.
c) continue to use room as dumping ground and run business from laptop on sofa.

Of course I'm kidding. Hahaha. Haha. Ha. Kind of.

My real plan (that I just made up five minutes ago) involves transforming this pig shack into a beautiful, serene work space where I can go and sit and be inspired.

In a few months I shall unveil an amazing transformation. That will look something like this.


Or this. (Replace golden retriever with Australian Shepherd)


Or this lemony mellow place of happiness.


(Images from www.theestateofthings.com)

Or, swimming pool...? It's tempting.