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Easter long weekend is ahead, bitter sweet. I’m already feeling guilty for calling it  “bitter”. What kind of mother describes time with her own children as bitter? I did also say “sweet”. I won’t explain the sweet part: kids, cute, love, bla bla bla. I know, you know, we all know.

The bitter part? 4 days of complete mayhem.  No bathroom break, no nothing! You gotta  go? You go. But you leave the door open, you stay on duty (literally and figuratively) and you pray that they’ll leave you alone.

Today, as I was…Hmm.

I don’t think I’m ready to go there… if I start with our bathroom stories who knows what will come next…

So lately Jack and I have been having the same argument over and over again. Every time A1 cries he starts “This is your fault, she’s a softy and it’s because you brain wash her with your  Disney movies, she has to learn to be strong, and defend herself”.

Umm! Hello! Mulan went to war, (that’s a strong reply) Pocahontas dove from a cliff (ok, good but not so great), Jasmine left the palace walls (big deal, all she did was try out normal life for one day), Cinderella… hmm.. Did nothing and waited for her prince charming to solve all her problems. Come to think of it same goes for Aurora and Snow white. Ok fine! He might be right.

You read right Jack! You are RIGHT.

He wants her to watch Shera the Princess of Power.

I’ve never ever seen an episode. We could give it a try, after all she’s a princess too.

We can add that to this weekend’s activity list. We could watch Shera after we take down the Christmas decorations.

It’s a snow day and all three are home. It’s just past noon and I’m so sweaty you would think I ran a marathon. I’m able to write because it’s nap time. Coordinating nap time so that they’re all napping at the same time is critical to survival. So it all depends on A3. I tire them all out and the second A3 falls asleep…Sound the alarms! Gather the troups! It’s nap time!

I can hear A2 talking in her crib. She’s all equiped, milk bottle, pacifier, teddy and blanky. It’s up to her what she does for the next hour as long as she’s in her crib. It doesn’t matter if she cries…you have to show them who’s boss. Unless they’ve taken a massive s*%$t or that they’re legs are so far out of the rails that their thighs are stuck. These are the two deal brakers. She already did the first one, so we should be good. 

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not for letting babies cry. Old wives tales say to let the baby cry so that they don’t turn out to be spoiled… Between the ages of 0 and 3 months it is very important to answer to baby’s cries. Not only that, but to hold them and show them affection as much as you can. You are building their confidence at this point.

Ah! I can hear A3. Gotta go.

I’m not on the pump tonight, yet I still only have one hand free.

A3 (3 months old) has developed this bad habit of only falling asleep while holding my hand. Ahh cute some might think, yes it’s cute until their little chicken finger nails sink into your skin. I don’t know how their nails get long so fast. Mind you, it’s hard to keep track of 60 finger and toe nails.  Try clipping the nails of a wiggling toddler.  You have to put them on your lap, squeeze them between your  elbows so they stop jiggling,  hold their head down with your neck to avoid violent headbutts in the face,  start singing songs to distract them, then it’s “look over there! A rabbit” they don’t care “look it’s Santa”, still don’t care so you’ve got to take the big guns out “Look! It’s the wolf!”  all the while you can’t even point because you have the clipper in one hand, you’re holding their hand with the other and you’re waiting for the slightest moment of stillness to clip a piece off. The wolf always works, but you can’t help but feel bad for scarring them. If you think about it it’s pretty bad, “the wolf” is here … in your house.  The wolf that blows down houses and devours little girls and their grandmas.

One evening when we were driving home, A1 was looking out the window and asked “Are there wolves in our country? “ I started to explain how they live in the forest away from urban life… Jack stopped me by putting his arm in front me, just like when you suddenly break and put your arm in front of the passenger, and  said “Yes, but Daddy will protect you from them” and he turned to me with a one eyebrow up look.

One night A1 had a nightmare, when I asked her what she saw, she explained that in her dream the flowers of the forest were suddenly turning black and wilting because the wolf was coming. Scary stuff…   A2 has bad dreams too, just this week she yelled out “No, No, No, No!” in her sleep. Maybe she was dreaming of the breast pump! (Dear readers, our first official inside joke!  If you don’t get it read the previous post) When it happens we can’t help but run into their rooms to comfort them.

A lot of sleep talking happens in this house. I’ve done my share too. Just a few months ago in my last weeks of pregnancy I yelled out “À l’aide !” in my sleep. I was dreaming that I was having the baby in a Tim Horton’s. That same week, in the middle of the night we heard A1 scream, not just any scream, the most horrific scream. I jumped out of bed and ran to her room with hundreds of hideous thoughts running through my head. I got there she was crying, I took her in my arms. She had had a bad dream but couldn’t remember it. Her scream had scared me so much that I was still shaking from it and my heart was racing. About 5 seconds later Jack comes running in. “What’s happening?! I don’t know what happened, I was in the closet!” A1’s scream was so loud that it had startled him out of bed, semi-conscious. He opened the first door he saw to run towards his daughter’s rescue. Instead he ended up in the closet.

So when the big bad wolf comes huffin’ and puffin’, we’ll know where to find our wolf slayer… the closet.

Me:  Jack! Do we have duck tape or something ?

Jack:  Ya why?

Me:  I’m tired of holding the breast pump. Do something!

And here I am writing this post with two free hands!

The noise the pump makes is so loud I can’t even think straight and I thought I could use the time on the pump to write my blog. There’s nothing you can really do while on the pump. You can’t watch TV or be on the phone because you won’t hear anything.  You have to sit near a plug far enough from the kids’ rooms so the noise doesn’t bother them but close enough so you can hear them if they cry. I rarely have free time and this is how I spend it. No, this can’t qualify as free time. Actual free time is a rarity. It sometimes happens that I have a few minutes to myself if the kids’ naps overlap each other. Then I’m torn between eating, sleeping or taking a shower. I usually opt for sleeping. Most times the shower is not even an option because you can’t hear them when you’re in there so I usually shower in the middle of the night, after or before one of the their feedings. That’s my favorite thinking spot. I was telling this recently to a fellow blogger when she asked her readers where they’re favorite thinking spot was. I told her mine was the shower because the foggy glass door is perfect to write my ideas down in point form, to make charts and especially to do manual calculations. If it happens during the day that I need to take time to think about something I just leave it for the shower. Sometimes shower time never comes but that’s another topic for another day.

Wow the noise is really unbearable… during the day when I’m on the pump A1 comes to me with all her questions that I can’t hear because of the noise it makes…A2 is afraid of the vacuum cleaner and the breast pump again because of the noise. Last week A2 would stay across the room if I had the pump, this week she’s worked up the courage to wobble on over in her little dress and hit the pump while yelling “No! No! No! No!” In her eyes the pump is probably something that’s attacking me and she’s trying to save me from it. This week A2 wore a different dress every day to daycare. It’s because I’m so far behind in the laundry that all she has are the fancy dresses hanging in the closet.

The problem is not doing the laundry, it’s sorting it between what A1 wears, what’s too small for A1 but too big for A2, what A2 wears, what’s too small for A2 but too big for A3, what A3 wears then finally what’s too small for A3 that I debate whether I should give away or keep just in case I have another daughter one day. Yeah, it’s pretty complicated. There are boxes everywhere marked with ages and seasons on them, all diaper boxes of course… Diaper boxes are used to store everything in this house and they’re also used as laundry baskets because the real baskets are obviously full.

My own wardrobe is almost as complicated. There are the clothes I wear now, the clothes I used to fit in before I got pregnant the last time and hoping to get back into soon, the clothes from before I ever got pregnant that I keep to torture myself and finally, I have the maternity wear that I debate whether I should give away or keep just in case I have another baby one day.

Now that’s a scary thought…or is it?