Out of 37 eligible entries on the Royale Reno-cation post…

Congrats to comment # 19 – naomicatgirl!  She’s planning on adding a third floor to her house so I guess $50 at Home Hardware will get that started. Sort of. But $50 to Cara Restaurants will be a nice treat!

I’m pretty far out at sea. I’m struggling to keep my head up.

I’m overwhelmed with how much needs to get done, how much isn’t getting done. I’m quite stressed out.

Can’t keep all the balls up the air right now. Small mistakes are being made and they’re getting to me.  I’ve lost (found it! Thank god! Thank god!) Oliver’s immunization record and it feels like the end of the world. I’ve lost his homework and I feel like a terrible mother. Callum suddenly won’t get to sleep very easily and not only is it cutting into any time I have to get stuff done around the house, it’s also a new stressful mystery: WHY WON’T YOU JUST GO TO SLEEP like you did last week, last year, forever.

Sometimes I feel like it’s too much, that I should stop treading water, that it would be easier to just fall under…

On THAT happy note, here, have some [seemingly] happy children wave at you:

These boys would have swum forever in the Hilton Orlando pool if I had let them.  It’s hard work looking after two little non-swimmers in a big pool by myself.  Particularly when, really, I’d just like to be on solid ground.

Cool pool, though.

And then it was Disney Saturday, the longest day of my entire life barring labour & delivery.  Started off with breakfast with Goofy and Pluto. We should have just stopped there.  They were happy enough.

But no….we did it. The Magic Kingdom.  (AKA spend all the money you can think of in one day – seriously SO MUCH money and we are cheap people, no souvenirs and no meals there)

Look! I exist in a holiday photo! Am on the merry-go-round with the kids, wearing my new Liberty of London for Target sun hat. Because I had two or three moments of true joy on our vacation, and Target was one of them (even though I took the kids at lunch time = CRANKY).

Truly? The kids really did have a good time. It was just A LOT for one day. Even though I knew it would be going in.

They loved meeting these two. Really, truly, loved it.

Took them on the seemingly innocuous Tomorrowland Transit Authority train ride. Except it goes through Space Mountain for a few minutes. Where you can’t even see your hand in front of you. Thought they were going to freak out. No, just me freaking out at being able to see NOTHING AT ALL. After, though, they practiced their screaming for when they can go on roller coasters for real.

And then, at the end of the day, we stayed up for fireworks and the Spectro Magic parade, which I admit was really cool. I may have been a bit excited to see Mary Poppins in the flesh. Ok, not Julie Andrews, but a good imitation.

I’m exhausted just typing it up, thinking about all of it again.

Someone throw me a life jacket…

______

PS: Tomorrow night is the end of the Royale Reno-cation blog comment contest where Canadians can win $100 in gift cards. Enter now!

No man needs a vacation so much as the person who has just had one.  ~Elbert Hubbard

I should be telling you all about our trip to Florida. But I’m rather tired. I should actually be in bed. I think bed trumps blogging.

So I’ve decided to start employing the children as freelance bloggers. Tonight they start with vlogging. They can tell you all about their trip! You don’t need me to do it! (They got paid in souvenirs. And priceless memories. It’d be best if you didn’t work for me.)

I’ll share photos and actual written grown-up words soon. Once I have the energy to connect the camera to the computer. And finish unpacking. And all that.

PS – new review of anti-bacterial soap, if you’re into that sort of thing, on the review blog. And you still have time, about another week, to enter to win $100 in gift cards on this post. Why hasn’t my own mother or best friend commented on it, huh? If you win, you have to take me out for dinner!! (Kidding. Kidding.)

Let’s see, jumbled thoughts in my head tonight…

• Next week is our Florida trip: where I had the brilliant idea of tagging along on Mark’s business trip, and bringing the kids. Which means I’m going to be looking after them by myself all day. Which for some people would be joyous and wonderful. For me, I’m already anxious. Trying to alleviate that by remembering how tired out they are going to be from things like swimming/paddling out in the sunshine, and making plans to hit the outlet stores by myself after they go to sleep. Once Mark gets back to the hotel, obviously! Wouldn’t, you know, abandon them. Even if I can hear Target calling my name from here…

• Any of you been to Orlando? Got any tips for us? I’m not over-planning our trip – the only big things planned are one day at Walt Disney World (the Saturday, with Mark), and maybe going out to see the Space Shuttle land early on the Sunday.  I’ve also discovered that the world’s largest McDonald’s’ Play Place is 4 minutes from our hotel.  I can get a coffee while they run around for ages? Perfect.  We have a rental car and I’m not afraid to use it.

• Something I said on twitter the other night ended up being discussed in a post written by Kristen from Motherhood Uncensored, a well-read and respected blogger.  The comments section got pretty, um, interesting.  My perspective as the one quoted? She’s totally free to quote me, but it was weird and kind of unnerving to see the post come up in my feed reader and not know anything about it, to not know her or what she would say.  I think we’ve had this discussion before on twitter amongst people I know, and there’s been debate – when you quote and analyze, should you let the person know that you are doing it?  And when the quote was about my own mothering guilt, which I have discussed many times before on here, which in many ways is related to low self-esteem and other fun issues I have, it’s jarring to see my foibles discussed somewhere else – even if the post was supportive. But, I’m here in a public space, and I put it out there, right?

• There are so few comments on the Royale Renocation post! If you are a Canadian human being over the age of 18, you can leave a comment on that post and win $100 in gift cards! It’s a totally awesome prize! I’d like to win my own prize!  And you can enter Royale’s contest too, by clicking the picture in the post.

Wish me peace, sunshine, and for the Canadian dollar to maintain its parity.  Please.

So we just got back from a long Easter weekend in Ottawa, visiting my grandparents. My parents and brother came along too, and we have other family up there, like my aunt and uncle, and a cousin and her husband.

It’s incredible how long and arduous that road trip feels with the kids. I used to whip up there for the weekend all the time. Now we seem to only be going once a year.  Maybe one day Mark will fly us up in his little private part-owned airplane. I will hate it too, but at least it will be shorter hatred and terror.  I adore Ottawa, though. And it’s my home, really.

Friday was pretty good.  We went to the nearby Aviation Museum with my parents. It was also a hot and sunny day. And my grandmother made her Bajan-style fried fish.

Saturday was positively steamy. Like 30 degrees Celsius. Insanity.  We took advantage of the current free Saturday mornings at the Museum of Nature, and visited some dinosaurs, which always makes the boys happy. (And free museums make me happy. Not just because I’m cheap. Because free means you don’t feel so much pressure to see everything in one go. I miss Europe and it’s free musuems. Poor me.)

OMG! I'm in a photo! This never happens!!

Then, after lunch, we met up with old friends of mine, who have just had their 5th baby. Just the thought of that gives me a panic attack. FIVE KIDS. But these people? They make it work, they do it well.  They are a big, happy, awesome family.  We met up at Dick Bell Park, near the Nepean Sailing Club, and let the kids run around a big playground while we caught up for a bit in the breeze off the water.

Saturday night, the four of us AND another seven members of my family went out for dinner. And my kids didn’t even run around the restaurant. Score.

Sunday started off with a sugar high.  A co-worker had put together a neat little Easter egg hunt for the kids, involving clues that were pictures of places in a house; they really, really enjoyed following the maps (they are Dora addicts, after all).  Not only was there lots of chocolate, but a ridiculous amount of candy and gifts too. These kids are very spoiled. I am partially implicated.

Because that wasn’t enough sugar, I decided to make cupcakes with the boys.  Rather, I had this lovely idea before we got to Ottawa, in the days beforehand, that I would take this idea I saw on some blog post about ‘eggs in a nest’ cupcakes, and get the ingredients while we were up there, and have a lovely and splendid time cooking with my kids. Ha. Ha ha. Cooking with my kids is stressful. To say the least. Anyway, we made them.

And even more family came over for a giant family barbeque that involved my grandmother’s spare ribs (one of the best, best foods on earth) and everyone ate the cupcakes at the end. And Oliver was quite proud of them.

Monday? Well, today was kind of a write-off. Waiting to go home. Desperate to go home, in fact, and get the damn road trip over with. But Mark had some work to do and had to stay by the computer. And everyone else left so my god, I had to look after my kids by myself. So we turned on the tv and vegetated. And you know what happens then – they pretty much went insane and took me with them…

But we’re here now.  And there’s chocolate in the pantry.  And we have only 5 days of work until some Floridian sunshine.  So it’s not a bad Monday after all.