It is COLD out today!

Cold and snowing!
I wrote a weepy, happy Christmas post at 5 Minutes for Parenting today, and it's about my favorite Christmas song this year. So I recommend that you go read that.
(and on voting: did you know that you can vote EVERY DAY? Mmm-hmm! And thank you VERY much for your votes and VERY VERY much to the people who nominated me - delightful!)

Vote For Meeeee!

I am BLUSHING MODESTLY.
Over at the Canadian Blog Awards, I am nominated for:
Best Family Blog
Best Humour Blog
and Best Blog Post Series, for my Halloween posts.

If you'd like to vote for me, that would be great. Voting is open to everyone. (I don't know how many times you can vote. After December 12th, I believe there is going to be a narrowed-down second voting session as well.)

Hand-Me-Down

Hey! It snowed out! Lush, tree-coating snow. Suddenly it is no longer dour November but RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. My kids wake up early, chug back mugs of hot cocoa and jump into their snowpants - they're working on a snowfort, which is about an inch tall so far and a mighty military fortress at that.

So that's nice.

A while back, I read a really dopey article on parenting which I'm not going to link to because a) that would be mean and b) whoops! I forgot to bookmark it. But I've read the ideas in it before and found them equally amusing/offensive, so here we go.

1. Children should never wear their sibling's hand-me-downs, as it might disturb their sense of specialness.

My Baby ONLY wears her sister's hand-me-downs, pretty much. My oldest kid was not only the firstborn grandchild on either side, but she was also one of the only little kids in the whole extended family and so for YEARS she received enough clothing to stock a rather pleasant children's boutique. It would be both ridiculous AND wasteful to NOT have The Baby wear these barely-worn, perfectly pleasant clothes just because her older sister ALSO wore them six years ago.

This might bother her more later on. Who cares? If the worst thing that ever happens to my kid is having to wear her sister's jeans, then she is one lucky little goober. And frankly, I am not going to financially imperil my family to protect my youngest child's sense of entitlement.

2) Oldest children should never be required to watch over their younger siblings, as this might breed resentment.

Hahahaha.

This all stems from that goony Baby Boomer idea that family relationships are more about RELATIONSHIPS than OBLIGATIONS, and that, in fact, we should shuck off family ties if the obligations become too pressing or unpleasant or unfullfilling or a whole bunch of other code words for "selfish" and "self-centered." (And I'm not talking about family members who are abusive or dangerous here - just the ordinary aggravating, imperfect types of families.)

To hell with that - we go and dutifully visit my husband's grandma not because she's tons of fun but because she is his 90 year old grandmother and is OWED this. My older 2 kids get told to keep an eye on their little sister while they're playing outside because family looks out for each other, because we are responsible for each other. I babysat my youngest brother for MONTHS every summer not because I wanted to but because my parents were busy with summer farmwork and this was MY responsibility.

Lists like this presume a lot of things - they presume that families have very few children, that families are affluent, and that I agree with the underlying philosophy - that I want my children to feel unburdened by their family, that I want them to never have to doubt their sense of entitlement, and that my children's feelings are the most important things in my household.

One of the most important things having a sibling does, a wise older friend once told me, was to teach your child over and OVER again that they are not the center of the universe. It is a cruel lesson but a necessary one, and one that helpful articles like the one I'm referring to would undo as much as possible.

I'm not advocating treating your older children like unpaid drudges, or sending your younger out into the world shabby and poor-looking - but a worldview that assumes that having one's children help out with their younger siblings is necessarily something they will resent, or that having your older sibling's winter coat is a tremendous hardship is a worldview build on a shocking poverty of character, a worldview built around a flimsy structure of unearned entitlement.

There are the things that my children have a right to expect from me: my love, being reasonably clothed, sheltered and fed, and being raised and educated to the best of my abilities. And if, at the end of raising my children, they seriously resent me for such trivial things as wearing hand-me-downs and occasionally babysitting younger siblings, I HAVE LIKELY FAILED AT RAISING THEM. Their characters will be petty, resentful and bad. And that, to me, is a tragedy.

My first super-duper Christmasy post!

And it's up at 5 Minutes for Parenting! It's all about my oldest and how she approached Christmas (and life, shh.) in a completely different way than me - and how I've realized that it's a magical thing.

It was St. Catherine's Day yesterday! We had a taffy pull. Here's the recipe, if you want to burn your hands and make some molasses-tasting candy, too.

Here It Is!

The worst ad I HAVE EVER SEEN!


Good golly. That father will haunt my dreams. When he dips his finger in the cranberry sauce... brrr. And my husband keeps making horrid suggestions about WHY he's been absent from the daughter's life for so long. You may thank me for not sharing them with you.

You are all very funny. I laughed and laughed yesterday that more people were horrified by the idea of being married to Relic - a HUMAN, albeit an unappealing one - than to the Littlest Hobo, who, although a very handsome German Shepherd, was still a German Shepherd. But I never said that I WANTED to be married to any of those guys (except for the dreamy Mike Holmes, although one of my friend's acidly pointed out in the comments that perhaps HIS renovations are never finished. Her husband is a contractor. Take from this what you will.). I was just using The Power Of Imagination, which - like Swiss Chalet commercials - isn't always a happy thing.

So. I'm curious. Who do YOU think looks like a good husband on tv - and remember, I'm asking for HUSBAND-material here, and not who everyone thinks if HOT. These two things can be the same thing but often are not. So have at it - who is marriageable and WHY? (extra points for Canadian too, of course.)

Men That May Have Been

Slouchy wrote a thoughtful post about what may have been, the different paths our lives could have taken if other relationships had come to fruition. It was lovely. Of course, me being me, I read that and instead of having a bittersweet reflection on lost love, I wondered what it would have been like had I married various men. Men from Canadian television. Walk with me down memory lane, as I remember watching tv.


Husband Number 1: Relic from The Beachcombers

At first it was kind of fun living on a houseboat, but after only a few months I sobered up and quickly tired of his constant rantings about wanting to "get" his rival, Nick Adonidas.

"This man is a clumsy freak in a toque!" I think to myself. "And also, Nick is kind of hot."

Husband Number 2: Brent from Corner Gas

"I never thought that you'd work in the gas station after we got married," says my husband Brent, not even looking up from his comic book at the breakfast table. "But do you have to sit right outside drinking beer with my dad? I can HEAR you guys making fun of me."

"Jackass!" I say, and crack up.

He sighs, sadly, and turns the page in his comic book. On the kitchen wall, a clock ticks.

Husband Number 3: Hobo from The Littlest Hobo

In this one, I am also a German Shepherd.

"Bark!" I said. "Bark! Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark!"

It is then that I notice that Hobo has momentarily left to save Megan Follows from being imprisoned by an evil faux psychic. He comes back and I am totally giving him the silent treatment.

"Bark?" he says.

Husband Number 4: Mr. Dressup

"Sweetheart," calls my husband, Mr. Dressup. "Have you seen my bunny costume? Casey and I are putting on a play in the yard!"

"I just washed it, honey!" I call back. I bring it to him and he kisses me affectionately. "Come on, Mr. Dressup!" calls a little androgynous voice from the backyard. "The play is all ready!"

He's so good with that puppet, I think sadly, and stare out the window, musing over my cheerful singing husband and the death of erotic love.

"I know," I think. "I'm going to take up smoking."


Husband Number 5: Mike Holmes from Holmes on Homes

"Would you look at these sub par support beams?," my husband, Mike Holmes, says. "It's a miracle the roof hasn't caved in."

"Oh Mike!" I say, staring at him adoringly. "You're so strong and also you finish renovations. I love you."

"That's right, honey," he says. "Now pass me my tool box."

Look! A New Post!

It's about science. Or my version of science, which bears no resemblence to actual science. It's also about the markedly crummy year I've been having and which is mercifully JUST about over.
See you there!