That day at the cove and the spider that almost killed me...

We are lucky enough to have a cabin on a lake up north. My great-grand-father won the land in a poker game and went up there one summer in 1942ish with my grandfather, a Swed named Fin {or maybe he was a Finnish guy name Swed } and some other people. They cut a trail and built the cabin. I'm sure there is much more to it then that but that is story for another time.

So we have a cabin and a bunch of lake shore property. The lake is quiet and usually crystal clear and has a beautiful sand bottom on our end.  We own most of the one end, our nearest visual neighbour is a boat ride away. Most of the swimming goes on in the water right out front of the cabin, however just a little ways down to the left is a wondrous little cove. Its nice and secluded, gets lots of sun and has a beach pretty much all year long.

The only draw back on our quiet little lake is that you spend most of the summer waiting for the beach to show up. Our lake is a feeder lake so in the spring the water is super high and as the summer comes to a close the beach is vast. Its bitter sweet.

Our little cove has a small beach right from the start of the summer and it is a great place to swim or hang out and get a tan or read a book or whatever it is one does in a quiet secluded beach cove. Over the years we have built a little fort, a while back someones dock washed up on the cove beach and has been there ever since, there is an old wooden chair and a fallen tree that is great to jump off of if your little. And in the fall we dig a fire pit in the sand.

The kids and I have had many amazing memories in the cove and it is one of our favourite places to just hang out. There is seldom a trip to the cabin without hitting the cove. A few years back we cut a trail through the bush so you can get to the cove over land or water.

This past weekend the kids, my mother and I all went up to the cabin to check on it after the winter. It was just a day trip and the weather was shit so we didn't do much. We did pick some wild forest leeks and went on a hike. The black flies were horrible I actually literally was swarmed. It was horrible. I ate two bugs and one flew right into my eye. The trilliums made up for it. We are lucky enough to have white pink and deep burgundy trilliums on our property.

I brought my camera with me. Last year my granddad bought me a cute little camera/video camera and I began filming everything. I was going to Vlog, I still might, it's a lot of work and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned how I like things that are easy. Anyway I wanted to shoot some video of the kids this weekend and I wasn't able to because I had a full memory card of all the crazy videos I shot last summer.

The day was dragging on a bit and like I said the bugs were stupid insane and I sat on the sofa to view my memory card videos to see if there was anything I could delete to make a bit of room, and I got to watching the videos. I came across a trio of videos I shot of myself, Brittany, Hunter and the cat at the cove last summer.

The videos were amazing and I truly wonder why no one has given me my own tv show. These videos were the reason I had gotten the camera in the first place. I believe that the crazy ass shit that we say and do as a family needs to be recorded and viewed for the worlds entertainment.

I attached the last of the 3 videos below for your enjoyment. And I shall lead you up to the point this video begins.....

Myself, Brittany, Hunter and the cat are all at the cove. We have boated down in a canoe and kayak, We had a number of items with us, such as life jackets, towels, a beach blanket, a boogie board, paddles for the boats, and a number of other random things you might bring to the beach with you.

Its a beautiful day, the sun is shining, by the look of things we had just finished swimming and were sitting in the sun chit chatting about what words were and were not swear words. There seemed to be some mild disagreement as to whether Biatch and douche were considered "swears". The first video ends with the sound of laughter and smiles on our faces.

I start video 2 and it is Brittany standing in a very agitated state and Hunter off in the distance pulling both the canoe and kayak behind him in the water as he swims back to the cabin.

Somewhere between video one and two shit goes down. Hunter and Brittany have an epic disagreement, sand gets thrown and kayak paddles are tossed into the forest, name calling ensues  (we did just discuss what is acceptable and what wasn't so they both stayed within the expectations).  Hunter takes the boats and leaves us on the beach with all the stuff and no boats and no shoes...did I mention I wasn't wearing shoes, we boated over and I didn't think I'd need shoes to go swimming at the cove.

You can hear him off in the distance telling us {I wasn't involved in any of the disagreement, I was like Beyonce on the elevator that day but I had to pay the dam price, did I mention I wasn't wearing any shoes!} that he hoped we drown on the way back. I quickly let him know that I'd be walking back through the path and I highly doubted that it would be possible for me to drown because as the adult in this particular situation I felt like I needed to get my two cents in as immaturely as possible.

Video 2 ends with Brittany pointing out the fact that Bandit {the cat} was digging a hole in the sand and taking a shit as Hunter swims off with our only means of transportation. So far I'm beyond impressed that I  a] found these videos and b] captured this shit on video.

Now at this point I clearly and vividly remember this particular day at the beach with the kids. Its clear as a bell in my head and I get tingles inside at the thought that video 3 is by far the most fantastic part of not only the entire day that day but the entire summer last year.

You are probably thinking I am crazy! So far this sounds like the worst day at the beach and that my kids are little shits. Well they are little shits, everyones kids are little shits. One time they made me cry at Disney Land. It happens, but, they are a whole lot of fun to be around and I wouldn't want kids that were perfect and good all the time. It's the crazy mixed up moments that make life so much more enjoyable.

So I turn on video 3 and I already know what's coming. Brittany comes and sits next to me and starts watching the video and within a few seconds Hunter is also cuddled in and watching.

"Oh my god mom! Is this that day we had to walk back from the cove?" Brittany asks and Hunter starts laughing "I would so make you guys walk back again. " he snickers

The Video is only a few minuets long but the three of us sit in silence watching with huge smiles on our faces and the excitement and anticipation of knowing what's to come.

Brittany and I gathered up all our beach items that day and headed back through the woods to the cabin, that is of course until I had a close encounter with a spider and Brittany deserted me faster then the day the swans almost ate me.

***Ok so for the life of me I can NOT get this video to load onto here. I have literally spent the better part of my day trying to get the darn thing to rotate. I shot the video sideways. I did finally manage to load the video on to my ipad and then into Imovie where I was able to cut it down a little a turn it right side up so it was viewable. I then was able to post it to my goggle+ but for the life of me it wont load here soooooo here is a link to the video on my goggle+ who knows if this will work?? At the end I posted a link to all three videos if you are so inclined to watch our day at the cove.***

{wait for it at 3:45 I feel like I may of crossed paths with a spider.}
https://plus.google.com/110182162259908931595/posts/UNaenn57uMv

We must of laughed for a good few mins after the video ended and we sat around the black fly free cabin and reminisced of that day and many other amazing days we've had the pleasure of sharing with one another.

Life isn't always about the perfect moments, the very best memories are made during the times when everything is perfectly imperfect like that day at the cove and the spider that almost killed me!




Part 1
https://plus.google.com/110182162259908931595/posts/jLC9HFgs1bn

Part 2
https://plus.google.com/110182162259908931595/posts/bkftDU9CdVX

Part 3 (same as link above)
https://plus.google.com/110182162259908931595/posts/UNaenn57uMv

My Mother's Day Misconceptions VS REALITY

I'd like to take a moment to give a huge shout out to all the mothers all over the world. I salute you on your service to raising our future generations. They say Motherhood is one of the most thankless roles a person can take on. Every day should be Mother's day when you find yourself lucky enough to be a Mother in whatever Motherly role you occupy in life.

{Back Story: Mothers day has only been around since like 1914. Some lady had to petition for the day to even be a day. Yet mothers have been around since the beginning of time when life forms required birthing from vaginas. }

I'm currently laughing so hard at the thought that everyday should be mothers day... tears are running down my face.

I am sure I have some MAJOR misconceptions on this particular holiday.  My idea of "Mothers Day" is so extremely different to what mothers day really is.

Being a mother, in my opinion, is a 24 hour a day 365 days a year job from the moment you conceive (or adopt or find or however you came to be a mother, I know not all mothers get to Motherhood on the exact same road) until you die. Unless you are lucky enough to be divorced then hopefully you get every other weekend off and a few Tuesdays throughout the year!

I personally think that all Mothers should be divorced Mothers cause those "kid free" weekends are truly bliss. Though, I must say a couple of mine have been interrupted,and I've had to turn down the Destiny's Child and be a Mother even on my days off.

One time, after Hunter had headed off to his Dads for the night, I may or may not of enjoyed a bottle of wine in the bath. I was feeling tipsy, it's my one night in like forever to myself and I got a deep cleansing pore face mask on, Beyonce is singing I'm a survivor in the back ground as I paint my toes and sing along. Then I hear the ever familiar sound of my phone Chim Chimming away, its Hunter, of course.

My first thought is "you are kidding me right now, it's only been two fucking hours!"
I give it one last ring, contemplating just pretending like I didn't hear the phone. But, my Mom instinct kicks in and I have no choice but to answer because what if he is hurt, what if something is horribly wrong, someone better be fucking dead to be interrupting mine and Beyonce's girls night, so I answer.

"Hey is everything ok??!!"I ask with great concern.

"yeahhhhhhhhhhhh" Hunter replies emphases on the h at the end of yeah, "mom I need you to do me a solid."

Hunter only asks for me to do him a solid when he needs me to do something that he knows I don't want to do but will end up doing cause I'm a sucker. So instantly my drunken ass is not impressed. My good mood has come to a close, I've turned off the music, Beyonce has left the building, and my deep pore cleansing mud mask is all over my phone screen.

"What?" I reply with such loathing that you could of felt my inconvenience around the world that day.

"I forgot my ps4 controller do you think you could meet me with it?"

Well, that pretty much ended my fun night right there. Drunk, happy Amanda turned back into Mom even though it was her day off and she had scheduled a trip out of her mind and wasn't planing on being called in to work.

Point of my story there are really no days off if you are a mother.

I digressed so far I forgot where I was going.........Being a mother is a full time, every day job. And it really doesn't matter how old your kids get whether they are 5 or 55 they are always gonna be your kids and you will always be a Mother. And I don't know about the rest of the world but, I'd be lost with out my Mother. She is someone I can always count on and depend on to be there by my side though whatever it is life tosses my way. She loves me unconditionally and I am almost 40 and sometimes I still need my Mom to put her Mom hat on and Mother. So the job never really is over.

I am not entirely sure where my misconstrued ideas of Mothers day come from. I can only imagine it stems from my creative imagination, I've been told many times in my life I'm a day dreamer and I've been accused on more then one occasion of living in a pretty little place called "AMANDA LAND" I don't deny that from time to time my ideas are slightly more romanticized then the regular persons.

This is how I imagine Mothers day SHOULD be;

Children bring the mother breakfast in bed. Children are sweet and wonderful and clean and innocent (did I mention overly sweet). They jump on the fluffy white bed and giggle, smile then leave so the mother can eat her gourmet breakfast in peace and quiet and enjoy her day. (The one day I am assuming she gets to spend not being a mother.) Mother {after enjoying said breakfast, and dressing } emerges from bedroom renewed and refreshed and dressed in a flowing white sun dress and wide brimmed sun hat, to find a sparkly clean house and not another soul in site expect for the cat.
"Oh look!" there is a present sitting on the table next to some flowers with a card that says MOM in cute innocent hand writing. Inside the beautifully warped gift box is a week away to a deserted island beach spa where no one knows your name is Mom and you look over at the doorway cause something has caught your eye and its your suit cases packed and ready. Off in the distance you hear a noise, was that a horn I just heard beeping???? BEEP BEEP!! A car waiting in the driveway to take you to the airport and whisk you away to your Holiday destination.

But, this is the actual reality of Mothers day at my house. I've had 23 and I do believe I cried my eyes out at least 19 of them and we aren't talking tears of joy!

Is that those fucking assholes bickering in my kitchen at 7:30 in the morning on a Sunday?!?!?!?! Tell me this isn't happening|!!! I mumble rhetorical questions to no one as I get out of bed and grab my house coat. One of many I own, then I wonder "why on earth do I have all these fucking house coats?" I make a mental note to self to get rid of them! No one needs that many fucking house coats! I Emerge from bedroom looking where I step for dinky cars and pieces of lego. I'm frustrated and tired, messy hair and morning breath. WTF seriously!? What are you guys doing? Oh my god! Is that egg on the ceiling? No you don't do it that way. Why is the fucking cat in the fridge??? You're kidding me right? It's 7 fucking thirty in the morning. No! I'm not making breakfast it's Mothers Day. This was the stupidest idea ever! Seriously get out of my kitchen. Fine I'll make it! Just go sit down. No I don't need help!!!! I make breakfast while cleaning kitchen. I eat a piece of burnt toast no one wanted. I clean up after breakfast. {Present Time} I open present and let out an Oscar award winning expression of utter joy. "Wow another housecoat! Its so pretty! Yes, you are right I don't have a pretty pink flowered one like this. Man I'm a really lucky mom." Big kisses and hugs for my overly creative gift giving children. I go into my room and hang my brand new housecoat next to the 8 other house coats I own and I am thankful, as I cry myself silly, that at least I didn't get a mop again this year.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Has anyone seen my walkman?

I can remember being a little girl watching my Mom put her make up on and thinking she was such a beautiful woman,  she still is a beautiful woman. I can clearly and vividly recall the way she applied her shimmery 80's eye shadow with her tiny little eye shadow brush with such precession and thinking I cant wait till I'm older.

My entire childhood from that moment forward was me waiting eagerly to get older. It couldn't come fast enough for me. I did everything in my power to accelerate the process by wearing make-up at a pretty early age...years earlier then my own daughter wore it. Hanging out with older people in school and eventually ending my childhood completely and having a kid at 17.

But, I never felt older. I never looked older, and I never considered myself older. I still don't a lot of the time until today.

In about ten weeks I will be turning 40. Its not devastating. I have after all been waiting to be old since I was five. I try real hard to embrace my age and own it. When people ask I proudly say I'm almost forty, When someone asks me to do something physically straining or difficult I proudly say I'm almost forty. I think its because I don't look or feel or think I'm forty that I don't mind forty so much. And besides Forty is the new twenty right?

I am a huge fan of Instagram Memes and when I find my mind is racing and I need a mini mental break from reality or I'm going to the bathroom I will spend however many mindless minuets getting great enjoyment from Instagram. I also like to tag my 3 friends in anything I find funny. I tag my Mom in stuff I tag my kids and my brother.

I'm good at tagging. So good and I do it so often that frequently Instagram pops a message up on my screen telling me I tagged too many times and I have to start adding comments to my overly used @whomever.

That was of course until the other day when Instagram all of a sudden without any warning to me changed things. I don't know specifically what they changed but what I do know is that if I don't click a little x on the box to the right then my tagged @whomever and sometimes it is multiple @whomevers gets sent as a direct message.

Maybe I was a cat in a past life because honestly I am not a huge fan of change. I seldom do updates cause they change shit on me. It was like how, the other day I went into Wal-mart and I needed a loonie to get a cart. Why? And Why wasn't there and announcement of some sort letting people know carts are now gonna be a dollar$$$ so that people can prepare.

Why didn't Instagram send me an email saying there are going to be some changes. It took me almost three weeks to figure out how to use the new emotion things on Facebook, even now I forget how sometimes. I used to think I was OK with technology. I grasped my smart phones capabilities and I understood how to use my aps and I felt like I was with the times. I guess that was before I could see middle age.

So thanks Instagram for making me have 7 in boxed group messages to people that don't belong in a group together. And also for making me look like a senior citizen using their debit card for the very first time! And thanks Wal-Mart cart stealer's for ruining it for the rest of us. And thanks Facebook for giving me multiple options when liking things. Don't even get me started about SnapChat!!

So I'll probably never win Mother of the Year...

I am the proud mother of two amazing children, I say proud cause have you ever met a mother who wasn't? Even the lady from making a murderer, Steven Avery's mother, was proud of her son. Its just something built into us. Mothers are always proud of their creations. And I am proud of mine.

I'm more proud of myself for surviving motherhood but I guess not everything is about me (or so people keep telling me).  I have two perfect kids. A girl and a boy. The perfect family, one boy, one girl. I had Brittany just shortly after my 17th birthday, way back when I knew everything and was fairly confident being a parent was way more easier then just being a teenager. I had Hunter years later. I can remember being about 25 maybe 26 and thinking if we don't have another baby soon I'm not gonna want to.

I was quickly discovering that the older children became the less actual work it was to be a parent. It got easier and easier every year. And I'm not gonna lie I liked the less and less responsibility being a mother required and I like things that come easy. I am after all from the generation that brought about the end of playing outside and somehow made instant gratification one of our fundamental basic needs. I was sleeping in on the weekends. I hadn't wiped another persons shitty ass in years and I was starting to feel more like an individual and less like a child attendant.

Life was getting easy and I decided to have Hunter. I'd always wanted a boy. Everyone always said boys were different then girls and Brittany was a daddies girl and I am so needy I wanted a mommas boy. The age difference turned out to be perfect. By the time I needed a babysitter for Hunter Brittany was old enough.  With every passing year I was feeling like an old pro and most days I felt like I was striving closer towards that ever unattainable and elusive award of Mother of the year.

I have never once claimed to be the very best mother ever in the history of all the mothers ever since the beginning of time. I'm going to go way out on a limb and say there have been better mothers then me over the millions and millions of years of motherhood.

However, I like to think as far as mothering goes I'm good at it and have this shit down pat. (I never physically harmed them, mentally on the other hand is still under debate.) Some days though that's not always the case, some days I don't have my shit together.

Some days, like the day when Brittany was 3 and I got up and dressed for work and walked a great deal of  distance down the street to the bus stop before realizing I had forgotten my child at home, I am forgetful.

Some days I'm too self absorbed in my own troubles to have patience for theirs. Some days I'm just human. Some days I do not have all the answers to all the questions, so from time to time I just make up shit to tell them so they stop talking.

Other days I'm a great Mom, I bake cookies and sing songs and make all their troubles disappear.

Along time ago when I first became a mother, and I say a long time ago because its been almost 23 years now, I was more concerned with not breaking my child then actually fucking them up mentally.

Brittany was absolutely notorious for not going to bed. Getting the kid to sleep at night often took hours. I'd read her a story usually "No peas for Nelly" her favourite book, then it would be she needed a drink, then she'd be hungry, then her teddy bear didn't get a hug, she heard a noise under the bed ,then she'd need to pee again and her doll needed a drink and could I sing her a song?? I had tried everything possible to get that kid to just go to fucking sleep.

She'd always been a bit difficult, so it never really surprised me when she played the difficult card.  She was colicky as a baby and allergic to her formula and just a handful and clingy.

Maybe because I was 16 and aside from sometimes watching my little brother and skimming through What to Expect when Your Expecting my life experiences were extremely limited in the how to be a  parent department. There were a few times I'm pretty sure I thought about smothering her with the pillow just so she would go to fucken sleep.

This crazy, insane evening bedtime routine of Brittany not going to bed went on for what seemed like years but was maybe a few weeks, a month at most, before I lost my fucken mind. It doesn't happen often but sometimes I snap. I couldn't take it any more why couldn't my kid just go to fucken sleep.

I was willing to do anything at this point, I was certain I had tried everything and I sat, a broken woman, teetering on the edge. Brittany was up so early every day and refused to nap and I knew she was tired every night but she fought though with her cute smiles and her adorable " I need a drink mommies." It was almost like she knew she was driving me insane and that somehow seemed to become her entire purpose.

At some point it had stopped being bedtime and was now a battle of wills between me and a 3 year old. One night after hours of fighting with this child I came up with the greatest idea in the history of ideas. An Idea that would change bedtime forever
I don't know where the idea came from, chances are good it came from a broken woman (me) grasping at something deep, anything to win this war or sheer brokenness and desperation. It was a long shot but I was determined to beat this child at her own game. Bed time actually meant Bed Time!

So I told her Monsters only eat little girls that keep their eyes open at night. I'd even sometimes make some random growling noises and without her seeing scratch the walls so it sounded like monster claws ( 3 year olds are easily manipulated). Okay maybe making monster noises was taking things too far but I don't play to lose. And if she was gonna insist her doll was crying cause I wouldn't give it yet another hug then pretend monster noises seemed more then reasonable.

I think, because she still sometimes gets super duper scared at night and she slept in bed with me till she was nine and that she has a debilitating fear of closets that maybe this wasn't such a great idea. I did however win that war and believe it or not have a wonderful relationship with Brittany despite the fact I played into a 3 year old child's irrational fear of monsters, the dark and everything scary to get my own way.

I may never win Mother of the Year but I am the very best mother I can be despite the fact that a lot of times I don't have the slightest clue what I'm doing or how years later what I do will impact their lives. I can only hope that they keep a sense of humour and that if I've taught them anything at all it is that its okay to laugh and its normal and natural to sometimes feel over-whelmed and that even if I'm the reason they are scared of monsters I love them with every breath I have.