Yet Another Life Lesson From The Maven


The old saying is true: When life gives you lemons, whine a lot, beat the crap out of life, ask if they're fair trade make lemonade.

I had to find the silver lining in all sorts of unpleasant situations today. I was covered in baby snot - someone else's baby's snot, I might add - but I got cold hard cash which mostly wiped away the memory. I then used that money to go out with Geekster for some Bunny shopping and a late dinner. The money is now in my belly in the form of a veggie burger.

I had to fight Gutsy tooth and nail to clean the playroom this morning, but I managed to figure out that guilt works very well on him. All I have to do is traumatize the boy by telling him that his actions leave me feeling disappointed and *poof!* everything magically gets put away. I feel we both benefit from my questionable parenting tactics.

Today's biggest life challenge involved not pawning/abandoning/being passive aggressive with Spawnling for sleeping like ass last night. He fell asleep at 5:30PM, which is about 90 minutes before he would normally get tucked into his pod. I was trying to keep him awake but he passed out sitting up in my computer chair watching a Weezer video (his favourite band, even).

Then, in typical weird two-year-old fashion, he woke up at 10:30PM fully rested, and proceeded to watch preschool television until the wee hours of the morning. I tried to sleep on the couch beside him for most of the night which turned out to be an epic fail. At 5:30AM I was finally able to move us both to my bed when I found him sprawled out on top of me, elbow in my face and nursing with the world's worst latch. Ouch.

I kicked Geekster out of bed at 7:30 with a bit of nonsensical mumbling. It is a PD day, you see. All three gremlins were wide awake and foraging for food, and I was in no state to be pouring things that could make large messes on the floor.

The silver lining in this toddler tale of terror? Relax. I'm getting to it.

At 9AM, as Geekster was walking the dogs, the phone rang. I didn't even try to get it. I put a pillow over my head and figured it would either drown out the ringing or I would suffocate myself; both acceptable options at that point. But Intrepid, being a boy with a sixth sense for things which will bring his mother joy, ran into the room and whipped the phone at my covered face. "It's Coffee Fairy, Mom!"

The only person I would accept a phone call from after a night like that would be the one and only Coffee Fairy. Wonderful, thoughtful, intuitive Coffee Fairy, who flutters her magical wings and bestows upon me the gift of alertness.

As soon as she heard my cracked and slurred voice, she knew I needed caffeine. Then, when she found out I was not only running on empty but also had three gremlins home and was doing childcare in the afternoon to boot, she hung up and rushed my way, stat. Within a few minutes I was gifted with two extra large coffees ("One for now and one for when you're about to pass out again") and enough sacrificial sugar to keep the gremlins from committing mutiny.

See? When life gives you lemons, drink free coffee.

My friends are amazing. I am a lucky Maven. When I'm rich and famous, Coffee Fairy will get a nanny for each of her children and a very hunky pool boy (the fact that she doesn't have a pool isn't really the issue here).

And I may have spent all day looking for my camera cable, but only because I just had to post this video Intrepid took. The silver lining of gremlins taking my camera without permission is that I get to post their videos on my blog without permission. An eye for an eye and all that.

It's all in Parenting 101. Didn't you read that footnote?




Off to bed. The real bed. Sans Spawnling. Goodnight.