I love standing back and watching kids interact.  He and a little girl, a few years older were the last in the showers.  They were beside each other, chatting away.  She announces, “OK!  Time to go, so we can go to gym.  Let’s play together there, OK?!”  He trotted right on out, instead of asking for me to push the button on the shower “one more time.”

We did groceries, got the kids balloons at the dollar store and now Scott is off for a jog, pushing the kids in their totally wicked awesome Mountain Equipment Coop double stroller contraption of brilliance.  (Great price, and the best kid containing device we have). Hopefully they are presently napping in tandem.

Had a most excellent weekend with Caitlin and the Meeps.  SO.  Friggin.  Awesome.  I didn’t take any pictures, because while I am great at taking pictures randomly, when the kids are doing things they do 16x a day, I am bad at taking pictures when you know… it may well be months before you see that person again.

Hoping Scott is going to finish drawing my backpiece tonight.  Listening to the puppy gnaw the wood pile.  Leaving you with pictures from some of our skating adventures.

The kids for Christmas got a lovely little set of crocheted bags, stuffed full of bright felted shapes.  It’s one of their favourite toys.  They put the creatures in and out of the sacks, play with the creatures, pretend to “sew” the creatures.  A very simple, well made and well loved gift.

The mailman this morning brought the kids an early Easter present of felted eggs and a hilarious ball.  I could hardly fend the kids off the toys to take a picture of them!  They’re so excited, bouncing these little things all about the living room.  Another terrific purchase from Soos & Boots!! They also do custom orders, which is what these little duders were.

Also in the fibre arts news, here’s a picture of Mags in a newly aquired sweater that was pulled off of a moth eaten stuffed rabbit.  Yup, my daughter is so petite she fits into clothes intended for rabbits.  (Though she is nearly two, her 6-12 month pants still fit her perfectly about the waist… it’s just that they only come to her knees!) Her kitty hat was lovingly crocheted by a friend also.  The second picture is the face she makes when you ask her to say “CHEESE”!

I’ve got to get to work tidying the house of in honor of my company this weekend.  Company!  Here to see ME!  I am stoked.  If I can get the house together in good time, I’m going to hopefully finish some curtains for the kids room, and start laying out fabric and wool for some pillows for the kids.  Time to brew another coffee and get my clean on!

We have lots of upcoming spring cleaning, traveling.  Then we’ll be dusting the snow off the farm and opening the earth up for 2010’s bounty.  There will soon be baby chicks to raise, goats to midwife, creatures to care for and to slaughter.  There will be weeds to pull, dirt to work, and a monster truck to drive.  An excess of hard work and luxurious leisure time… which I will not be sacrificing to Facebook.

I am sure I will reactivate once this years produce is up in jars and the creatures are sleeping peacefully in our freezer.

All of the parenting tricks I had been using (distraction, coercion, bait & switch, bribery, threats in various forms) were wearing me down.  Don’t get me wrong, I still use some tricks (“one finger touching” is AWESOME, and when necessary “I’m going to count to FIVE and then I’d like you to do XYZ or I think I will have to come help you do XYZ”).  But I am using less.  Which is great.  Because my relationship with my kids was getting a bit strained.  I was feeling like a manipulative meanie.

The biggest shift: getting over obedience as a virtue. My kids don’t need to OBEY me.  I am not god.  I’m mom.  Sure I hope they listen, but I hope they listen and act out of respect for me.  I don’t want to raise cogs in the wheel, I want children who march to their own beat and can make decisions for themselves.  I need to show them how to make those decisions, and taking a better look at discipline (which means to teach, NOT to dominate) has been thought provoking.

I am learning that parenting can sure push buttons.  I know for me, it hits some niggling issues from my own childhood that can turn me from feeling like Peaceful Hippy Mama of Love and Patience to a Raging Blinded Bull Bitch.  It is obviously entirely unfair, unnecessary and downright WRONG of me to react to my children out of anger, when it comes from such a place.  Because it’s MY anger issue; it has NOTHING to do with them.  I see the separation now, when I get angry.  My anger is MINE, their behavior is something else.  Which I need to act like an adult about and address.  In a time when I am expecting my children to show some self control, it is especially prudent for ME to show some self control.

And which issues to address, is the next big thing.  I’ve been taking “pick your battles” to the next level.  I have been focusing with all of my might on leading by example, and with positivity.  Sometimes I fail, terribly.  But like something else I know…. it works when you work it.

The positivity thing is key.  They are not entitled to take my happiness from me.  Just like my anger, my happiness… IT’S MINE.  Just because they are working out some sibling spat doesn’t mean my (deliciously orgasmic single source Ethiopian) coffee should be ruined.  Unless there are knives, fire or an actual attempt at murder, I am not going to get upset.

I have just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Committed.  It’s about marriage, not parenting.  I’m getting side tracked.  But one thing she mentioned was how the women of the “past” (when polled) reported that of their man, they expected things like honesty or decency.  Modern women, when polled, expect their husbands to “inspire them”.  Seriously.  No wonder the divorce rate is what it is.  The expectations are through the ROOF.  (Anything less than sheer bliss baby, and I’m OUTTA HERE!)  I am not mentioning this to say that I have, or I am recommending we all lower our expectations about marital happiness or parent/child relations… but a little perspective does not hurt.

One little example: instead of expecting my toddler to just jump in and pick up his toys (yeahfuckingright), I now get down there and help, right away, before the battle even begins.  Even if I do MOST of the helping, kid is three.  As I have read before, with a toddler, 90/10 compromise should be considered success.

The result of this shift?  I’m happier.  They’re happier.  They hurt each other less.  There is less “bombaloo”.  I am still exhausted, but not because I feel like I am battling.  Because you really can’t win a battle of the wills with a toddler who is (doing nothing wrong by) seeing where boundaries are.

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” — Oscar Wilde

We managed to watch The Hangover a couple of nights ago.  We loved it.  Zach Galifinakas is hilarious.  During the scene where one of the groomsmen meets the stripper/escort he accidently married, and she promptly starts openly breastfeeding, I turned to Scott and was like “that’s me, isn’t it.  Boob out, like all the time.”  And my loving mate responded “yes, only you have colourful tattoos all over your breasts to really draw the attention in.”  Thanks, honey.  We were laughing that I should make myself a scoop necked shirt that reads “INDISCREETLY BREASTFEEDING SINCE 2006!”  As I do.  It’s a natural thing, and if you don’t like it, don’t look.

I’d really like to tell you all about the great stride we’ve hit in the discipline department (also known as, our lives have all been markedly better lately) but I have to prep for a talk on EC I’m giving tomorrow, do some printing for a neighbour, flyer every house on our concession for an upcoming gathering and get groceries.

Life is good.  Busy, wonderful.

Here are some snaps from our excursion with our neighbour into our bush.

Here are some snaps my dad took out of a little plane recently, of a section of our property, the bustling Kincardine airport, the lighthouse in town.

After his lesson, I had planned on going to the library.  Usually we go once a week, the kids get three books, I get one book.  But we’ve been shamefully avoiding for the last few… months as I have lost a library book.  Well, guess who forgot to simply go across the street from the tattoo shop to the library and face the music?  Yah.  At least I remembered dog food.  Since they were totally out and didn’t get breakfast.

Oh yes, I am at the pinnacle of parenting perfection.

Picked up Suki and Dibly from the breeder Monday.  They had a 6+ week romantic holiday with her itty bitty buck Buford.  Despite enduring three hours of goats pooing and peeing in a small enclosed space, the roads were dry, the kids slept most of the way home, and I got to sit beside my husband for 6 hours.  Rock the monkey.

We’ve been doing lots of painting lately.  Using our juicer.  Had terrific pancakes for supper last night, with a honey chevre and some yummy summer berries courtesy of our deep freeze.  Delightful.

And now for the picture portion of our programme!

Now I am off to start dinner, fold laundry, empty the dishwasher, tidy the kitchen, feed goats and get started cleaning the bathrooms.  And keep the children from killing eachother with primo parenting entertainment.  (Stamping, painting… making red velvet cupcakes!)

Been doing neat crafts with the kids these days.  I forgot to take pictures of my version of April’s heart garland.  Mine are hanging from pins stuck into one of our beams, I think I will string them and put them in the kids room.  In a modified version of Maya’s heart craft, last night I stitched letters onto some felt and today the kids stuffed them full of wool and lavendar and Bob helped sew them closed.

After two weeks of quarantine, Bob went swimming today and tomorrow we’ll be off to play group with our newly bolstered immune systems.  The kids are playing with their Haba bricks, making crazy creations.

But I just can’t win with Bob right now.  I said to him just now: “super cool tower!” and he says “it’s not!  It’s terrible!”  Etc, etc.  It’s not just that he wants to be contrary, it’s that he’s determined everything should be…terrible.  Everything is in superlatives, the worst, never again, never EVER EVERRRR again in the whole history of the world will he build another block tower.

It’s also hard maintaining peaceful parenting when one child is hurting the other.  (Though she clearly idolizes him, no matter what he does to her).  And the LYING already… my goodness.    The sibling cruelty… I am so tired of it already.

All of my 2010 seeds have arrived.  I’m very excited.  I’ve also finished our farm tax, which brought about some interesting questions like “can we write off firearms”.  I discovered that this year the “containers and twine” category proved to be useful, and where to put custom killing.

We went on a great sleigh ride with our Amish neighbour into our bush the other day.  They’ve taken out two years of firewood for us and we will have some extra to sell.  If anyone local is interested, please email me.

Must go and entertain the kidlets and check on the leg of lamb (from our neighbour Israel) that’s cooking away.

Touch wood, Bob appears to be eating this morning and Mags hasn’t thrown up since 1am, so we may be on the up and up.  Wish us luck!  Speaking of luck, I couldn’t feel luckier than I do right now to live so close to both sets of grandparents, holy geez.  They are the only people who handle getting hacked up on by your children with such love and grace.

Not being able to leave sick kids alone in the house, nor take them out to the goat shed with me for chores, has been an interesting scenario.  It prompted me to scrawl down a basic list of things I didn’t know before moving to “the country”, and I thought I would share.

1. Heavy lifting.  I severely underestimated the amount of heavy lifting and physical labor involved.  Heaving sacks of grain, moving bales, carrying giant water jugs, shoveling manure, tilling the garden, planting the garden, weeding the garden, moving chicken tractors, wrestling goats for hoof trimming and meds… none of these things are light or quick and some of them involve horns!  And it has to be done, period.  Pregnant, tired, injured, nobody else is gonna do it but you.

2. Shit, it stinks.  And out here, there’s a lot of it.  Living next to an industrial chicken barn in Armow was an experience I will never forget.  The periodic wafts of chicken death and shit were, in a word, repulsive.  As a result I can now play “name that manure” as good as the next less-than-10-fingered folk.    I mean, that’s a sterling quality to have if I had to pick one.  Sure.  Baby chicks are cute.  For the first day.  Before they start to get feathers and their brooders fluffy wood shavings have been replaced with a substance that can only be called “Poo-Crete” (thanks for that one, Jules).  We do deep pack bedding with our goats, and that gets pretty delicious.  We are up to our eyeballs in poop, yet we want more: we haul in truck loads of the stuff composted for our garden.  If you can’t handle having shit on your shoes, your clothes, under your nails and just about everywhere else… the country is not for you.

3. Bye, bye beauty.  My beloved french nails lasted for about two months.  Two months of breaks, cracks and cursing.  I keep my nails short and bare now, because there’s no other way.  The dry cracks in my hands have thin lines of dirt in them that cannot be scrubbed out.  Accessories have no place here, they are only a liability.  And no footwear you can’t spray off with the hose or leave outside to dry.

4. You cannot hide death, or hide from death.  Nature is as cruel as it is beautiful.  Circling coyotes, invasive weeds… there is as much brutality as there is splendor.  I have learned firsthand that when you start playing God (be it by gardening or keeping livestock) you have to ready to bring the axe down.  That pretty flowering weed WILL kill the tomato transplants you started from seed.  That runty baby chick WILL be pecked to death by it’s siblings if you let it live.  Vegetable or animal, your investment may NEED protecting from other living creatures, which, while they may be cute, may not be easily deterred.  There are varmint rifles for a reason.  The upside is of course that you are totally connected to what you eat.  My kids know exactly where their food comes from and are as familiar with the insides of a chicken as the outside.  And you can do fun things like make your city friends kill their own supper.  Creatures who have lived and died with love and respect not only taste better but are better for us, too.

5.  Staying put.  You keep animals, you need to be there to feed and water them, twice a day, no matter what.  Rain, shine, hail. They need feeding and watering when you are sick, when your kids are sick, when you really want a day out of town.  Those spontaneous vacations to the city?  Kiss ‘em goodbye.  You’ve got arrangements to make, before you can go anywhere for longer than 12 hours.  You better have great family, interested friends or kick butt neighbours.

6. Neighbours.   They are so far away, they can’t ever hear you (unless you light off fireworks) and you can’t hear them.  In our case, there are no inhabited farms within VIEW of our house.  We can walk down our concession and around the sideroad (essentially just walking around the “corner”, which takes at least an hour) and not see another person.  It’s truly a delightful thing not to have to live on top of another family, in a row of people you may or may not like, or even know.  It is a tremendous luxury, the quiet and comfort is staggeringly wonderful.  You wave when you pass eachother in your vehicles, you know that even though you hardly ever see them, they’ll be there for you whenever you may need them.

6. You’ll never want to leave.  The peace and quiet, the superior sense of satisfaction that comes from being connected to your food source directly, feeling like you have an active role in sustaining your families life in a healthy, conscious way… man it cannot be beat.

Shipley has hit honoured me with a blogging baton award.  Ms. Ship has a great blog herself where she often tells hilarious family tales and shares pictures of her gorgeous baby (who I am desperate to meet before she goes off to college).   Honest Scrap is blogger pat on the back by a peer or quite possibly it is the “friendship cake” of the blogosphere.  And I have given out my share of friendship cakes, let me tell you.

Now I get to share with you ten things you may not know about me, and nominate some other bloggers who I lurk, who will in turn do the same.

1. I hate math.  I like making the numbers “work out” on our tax returns, but I can’t stand fractions, or any calculation of any kind at all.   I mean, I have a full body aversion to math.  When sewing, I use my fingers as rulers.  Thankfully, my mother loves numbers and will be The Math Teacher when the time comes for our to-be-homeschooled kids.

2. One of my personal goals for 2010 is to feel like a sexy babe, at least once a week.  Most of the time I just feel like an exhausted, food encrusted, smelly and genderless heap.  My cause would be helped if I could just stop the dog from eating my underpants (seriously, he must high jump into the laundry basket and has been known to pull them THROUGH the wicker).  Perhaps I should just go without underpants all together.  Will contemplate this.

3. I love haggis.

4. Simon Smith and His Dancing Bear gets my rump shaking every time.

5. By the end of 2010 I am determined to be able to chop kindling without immediate risk of axe-in-shin.  This will require practice, because every time I do it right now, I nearly put the hatchet in my leg.  And it’s a pretty long drive to the hospital.

6. I am never prepared for our baby chicks.  It’s always a scramble.  (Ha… ha…. ha.)  They are ordered months in advance, but they never have a good place to go and always wind up in the garage, or worse (the house).  NOT THIS YEAR, fuzzballs.  You’re not setting even one little dragon-esque foot into my abode, NO WAY, NO HOW.

7.  The book on my bedside table is presently Hemingway.

8. Working very hard on compliance without bribery or threats.  Very.  VERY.  Hard.

9. The kids favourite finger puppets are Nietzsche, Plato, Picasso, Frida Khalo and Virgina Woolf.  This has lead to many pause-before-answering questions like “what’s a mistress, Mommy?” and “she drowned herself in the river on purpose?”  Thank you, Aunty Julia.

10. We eat between 3-4 kilos of apples every week.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am now passing on the baton to:

Lisa at Thimbleberry Kitschen.  Her blog is full of beautiful little crafts, yummy food and heck, she’s a Kincardinite.  Doesn’t get much sweeter.

Gillian at TypeAlice.  PowerMama.  Quick as a whip, that one.  And she has such a pleasant parenting tone, making her a parent I look up to.

Caitlin at CaitlinJane.  Arty and hilarious.  So close, and yet so far away.  I want her to live next door, badly.

Sara at Farmama.  Her grace is glorious, her projects adorable.  Absolutely an inspiration.