All kinds of ridiculous

the sam and erin version of love is an open door.

Molly is graduating from Kindergarten. Graduating. From Kindergarten. That seems a little funny as it is it's only the first year of keeping your shit together in a long line of years. With that gap in your twenties when you act like a total assneck. Those were good times.

The reason I am bringing Molly's kindergarten milestone into the blog today is that my friends of the same age whose kids are close to leaving the nest are warning me of the up and coming time when my girls will turn into teens and start being embarrassed of me, and annoyed, and all around humiliated by my just existing. And lucky me, I am not worried about that at all.

I am not worried about that because my daughter - at five - is already there.

Molly is a very smart little girl. I am thinking this comes from her father's side - not directly from her father, cause he is as humiliatingly weird as me. But maybe her grandpa.

So the girls and I are shopping for a Father's Day gift and she is really putting some thought into it. I should let you know I kind of hate being in town. Or around the public. Or in traffic. So there we were driving around Vernon, when I thought it time to speed this shitshow up a bit.

I offered about three viable suggestions when she came up with flowers. Being far from a plant shop, I suggested beer. She won, we got flowers, but not before I saw her put her hand to her forehead and say, "Beer? Are you kidding me? oh my god mom, ridiculous!" Now I personally think that giving a parent the gift of inebriation is a great way to say "thanks for putting up with the 3,654 questions I shoot at you every day," but hey. Moving on.

In the flaming, ginger-burning heat of the day Molly asked me to watch Frozen with her. We retreated to the basement, and when we got to the scene where Hanz and Anna are dancing around the castle all atwitter, she turns to me all dreamy-eyed and says,

"this was totally like how you and dad got together, right?"
              "huh?"
 "the song and dancing, your first date....it was like this?"
         "oh, totally" i say. "except..."
"except what?"
          "well, I shot him in the face with a potato gun"
"WHAT?!"
       "He was wearing proper safety equipment Molly."
This was followed by a long silence, then under her breath so that she thought i would not hear.
               "you are so freaking ridiculous."

To all of you for whom this is the last day of school, now the kids are yours full time. Mwuahahaha!!


May the odds be ever in your favour.

Slacker Schmacker, I have returned!!

So it's been over a year, what a lazy bastard I am! Last night Sam and I had put the kids to bed - wait, I have two now! I will come back to that - there we were staring out on the lake...mmk, feck. It's been a while since I wrote anything, clearly.

Writing with explanations, take two. From the top!
We went CAMPING. We went to Sugar Lake to get away from the magical interweb and the glorious technology machines for a few days, because while technology it is my very good friend, it also makes me want to murder all the stupid people. Don't get me wrong....which at least half of you will because we live in the age of being offended and whiny about it...if you are a happy stupid person, then rock on you idiot! But there is this douchecanoe who is in the driver's seat of Canada, and people who think we can somehow live without air and water and bees and trees because YAY! Money!...you see? Back for only 3 hours and I need to go back to the lake. Anyway, my tangent has taken me off topic.

The Barnacle (our newest redhead) lay curled up in my lap, and the Drama Queen was out like a light in the camper for the night, and so we got talking about this ole blog of mine and how it really shit the bed. Then we got talking about how a lot of people - like most of you - don't really live like we do, and how our life out here has a lot of...how do i put this...if our life was a recipe, there would be a fucking ton of nuts in it.

So I am back. And I think The Barnacle needs a proper introduction. I think we've covered that Sam and I are right mental. After four glorious years with one redheaded child, who has since graduated to "The Drama Queen," we decided to throw caution to the wind - to clarify, that is not how babies are made, but it's similar kinda- and reproduce a second and final time. I was kept up late into the night wondering if we had used all our cute and smart genes on the one child. I was also kept up late into the night because pregnancy is a bullshit nightmare that seems to never end. My pregnancy with The Barnacle was a true test of my patience, and honestly I pretty much failed every day. Because I barfed every.single.day for my whole pregnancy. And I kind of rode it out looking like Nick Nolte in Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

I'm just going to take a second to tell you that this movie is one of those eighties gems you should not revisit. I watched it as a child, and then again recently. Allow me to summarize; A homeless guy gets taken in by a rich asshole, he has sex with kind of everyone, the rich asshole boots him from the house, and then they ask him to come back and you are supposed to feel warm inside at this moment, but you have finally caught up to your shock about what rich people did to their houses in the eighties, and you find yourself left in a bit of horror about the whole happily ever after these lunatics are working on. Props for using the Talking Heads though.

Back to The Barnacle. Sorry about my fucking baby brain, it's a ridiculous phenomenon that has left me so very very dumb and easily distracted. I am a giant hamster.

In late January, after some sciencey stuff, there came into the world a Daylen. She is a beauty only matched by that of her sister, and she eats like a Mynock, which for those of you not fluent in dork, is a Star Wars reference. Let's just say, she is leechy, and a bit dangerous to my power system. We'll call her barnacle for obvious reasons, and because Mynock is not as cute. And because I am terrified of invoking the wrath of the suits at (rhymes with) Bisney.

Her sister is torn. She loves her new baby fiercely, almost like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. On the other hand, The Barnacle takes up a lot of my time, and having a baby around the house has definitely forced her into doing a bit more helping than she was used to. While slamming back her cereal this morning, she propped her head up with her hand and explained that she is just so exhausted from having to "Take care of that baby, I mean I am pretty much doing everything around here." this was just on the heels of this overly dramatic rant the other day when dad tried to wake her for school.

"I'm tired dad, I am really just freaking too tired to do this today. I'm tired! You hear me dad? T-I-R-E-D..tired!"

So we've tried to accommodate her weird little feelings, while not letting her get away with bloody murder. And we try desperately not to laugh at her when she heads off for a day of kindergarten sounding like ole Edna from the meat-packing plant.

I imagine Daylen will be adding to this blog in NO time with her antics. For now she is only three months old. So she is as cute as a button, farts a lot and scares herself, and is also torn between complete love for this giant redhead that sings songs in her face and a reasonably healthy fear of her huggy, smothery ways.

Well, this has been a good baby step back into blabbering on about my life. I leave you with the best lullaby I have heard yet. I imagine there will be more to come soon.

Molly sings her sister to sleep;
"You're perfect just the way you are.
I would not change a thi-i-ing.
But I might make you less boring.
And it'd be cool if you could actually do stuff."

See you later, alligators.

Must be the season of the excrement.

Well, we are heading into poop-stink season, or as the rest of you like to call it, spring. For a person with a heightened sense of smell and three dogs, this is pretty much damp shit season.

Molly and I are flying solo for a few days, and for those of you thinking "you are publishing that you are alone on the internet?" I have three psychotic dogs and am a pretty good shot. Robbing people in the woods is probably a little Darwinish.

After we dropped her dad off at the airport Molly and i went to the kangaroo farm where Molly proceeded to photobomb every single person in the farm's photos. She just can't help herself, she loves animals to the point of being completely blinded by the cuteness. She is a lot like her mom. Honestly what's not to like? If they are not in the mood, a kangaroo with just drop kick you. No subtlety at all,  and I respect that.

It's been a pretty up and down end of winter, we spend most of it with the plague, which was less than cool. It did bring up a lot of funny stuff though. Pun  intended. Molly asked me for a drink of juice one day and then exorcist-puked it right back at me, and that would have been funny enough. But then that was also the week she decided to be captain phonepants and call everyone and talk to them at length, and I got to hear her tell EVERY.SINGLE PERSON who asked how she was doing that she puked, and i quote; "I puked really bad, juice everywhere. I am calling it a juicepuke. It was okay cause it tasted okay. Juicepuke, you ever done it before?" like juice-puking was this hip and happening thing that people really need to catch onto. Seriously? Haven't you juicepuked? All the cool kids are doing it.

This week as we are prepping the yard Molly is renewed with her pursuit of animal ownership. It's not enough that we have 3 dogs and 3 cats and all I do is mop and cry, she needs 2 goats, and 2 sheep, and - now because the fool woman at the kangaroo farm told me they sell them - 2 kangaroos, and 4 horses and 2 alpacas. Seems like a legit shopping list, no?

Sam and I can't yet see eye to eye on the goats just yet. He in his annoyingly logical way does not want something in our yard that will eat anything and whose only purpose is to faint and therefore make me laugh. I, a person who completely lacks in logic but makes up for it in batshit crazy, just keep showing him this as my rebuttal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnVv0RkiG4U

I win right? Molly laughs like an 80 year old man when she watches this video. Anyway, today we were discussing kangaroo ownership and she let me know that they wouldn't be too expensive because they hunt their own food to which I had to ask "Molly, what do kangaroos eat?"  "grass, flowers and birds that can't fly."...makes sense I guess. Must suck to be a bird that can't fly in Australia.

Then we went out to clean the chicken pen, I was putting some new dirt down for the stinky bastards when I looked down to see Molly lovingly holding a chicken by the face. "Oh Chicken Butt," she said, "Want to know how I named you? I looked into your eyes, and I just KNEW. I knew that you would be Chicken Butt forever and ever."

She does actually have some kinship with animals that is truly special. I can't even touch the chickens without them getting all ridiculous and feathery, but she can stare romantically into a chicken's eyes and hold it in her hands and it seems just as captivated as she is.

So after this weird little moment with Chicken Butt, we are having a chat about pets and responsibility and all the chores that would be required to keep this insane Canadian zoo that she is planning. She looks extremely thoughtful hanging on to her demented chicken friend, and then she comes up with her version of a negotiation;

"Mom, I think I got this. If we get all the animals, I will feed them, and ride them, and I will love them and take care of them and walk them and wash them. I will love them and they will love me. I will do EVERYTHING....(big pause) I will do everything except clean up their shit. That will be your job cause you are really really super good at cleaning."

Some Mollyisms

I can totally see why from the outside my 'chose not to be parent' friends are feeling like they got the golden ticket and they will be musically crunching magic mushrooms - er chocolate - with Willy Wonka in a few minutes. It's kind of messy, there is very little of that full on pass the fuck out sleep, and it is bloody expensive. But from the inside there are messy little nuggets of gold. I don't think parenting is for everyone and I think we owe it to the world not to harass the living shit out of our childless friends with obligatory "You're missing out"isms. For me though there is nothing quite as amazing as that I created this little person that has my eyes, my hair and my psychotic temper, and is also entirely her own little sweet, smarmy, world dominating self.

So today I am just going to throw down a few Mollyisms that I have been storing up, because I hear that some of you are missing out.

A few months ago Sam and I were going through the ordeal of selling our house. We were getting stretched pretty thin and i was in a piss poor state, and my little comedian seemed to sense that she was needed on stage. I was sitting in the kitchen getting mentally beyond stretched when I heard light chuckling in the bathroom. The laughing got louder and louder and finally she came running out of the bathroom naked with about 1 foot of toilet paper wedged between her butt cheeks, yelling "I'm a whitetail deer! Get it mom? I'm a whitetail deer!"

My mom got her a Rockin' Elmo for Christmas one year, and she headbanged so hard to "Elmo's gonna rock" that she fell off the patio and hit her head on the bbq. I picked her up and asked her if she was okay and she said she "was clearly rocking out too hard that time mom"

One day when I was feeling too ill to take her to the horses I said "I'm sorry buddy, we can't do that today, Mom feels like crap" and she actually looked me up and down and said "Because of your hair?" Talk about kicking me while I was down.

For three months when she was really small and just learning words she would wake me up EVERY day with the same routine. She would crawl out of bed, grab her stuffie, whack me in the face with it and say the only "word" that mattered to her at the time. "Getupfrenchtoast!"

The Christmas when she was three we went out to dinner and as we were coming home Molly was sound asleep. Sam took her inside and up to bed as I discovered that one of our jerk dogs had peed on the couch! So as Sam is tucking Molly in I am reaming out
the dogs.

The next morning Sam and I rush around trying to make her Christmas morning all magical and when we're ready Sam creeps upstairs and says "Molly, guess who was here last night? SANTA" And she sleepily replied. "Yeah he was, and he peed all over the damn couch!"

That's all for now. LD

Decking the halls and then hitting the Bailey's

Just finished up my Christmas shopping today, woo hoo!!!

These are the little gems I procured while shopping with my tiny evil genius today.

At my hubby's work a well dressed and quite proper woman set my daughter up for her FIRST. AWESOME. JOKE! She has been trying joking lately but most of them have been pretty meh.
To be clear I am not sure how much the woman appreciated it but Sam and the staff at his workplace thought it was as golden, as did I.

The woman looked at Molly in her pigtails and cuteness and said "Wow, don't you have the most beautiful red hair!" to which Molly replied "Yep, I'm a redhead. Better than a redneck!" and then guffawed like a drunk maniac...I am so proud.

Next we popped by Santa's workshop at ye olde mall, where she proceeded to place an order with Santa for "a fish, a duck, a swan and a mermaid" A slightly older man overheard her request and asked if she wanted real animals which earned him a seriously scrunched up nose. "of course not! They would poop all over Santa's bag!" and then as we walked away she gave me a conspiratorial look and said "Mom, that guy doesn't know mermaids aren't real! Do you believe that?"

She was clearly filled with the spirit of the season, and I don't mean that of the psycho shoppers. She hugged EVERYONE we met up with today, invited the woman at the grocery store to come meet our chickens and eat some eggs and told her that the eggs "Just POP! Right out of the Chicken Buts! Can you believe it? It's CRAZY!"

She told me Jeff, our friend who prints my stickers and canvases, was "just wonderful" and on the drive over wondered aloud if she told him she loved him if he would say he loved her back. She told me he is such an amazing guy for "just printing all those stickers and having water and candy in his office." and when we arrived at Jeff's she shyly blurted out "Jeff! I just love you!" and thankfully she WAS rewarded with an "i love you" in return. In the truck on the way home she said, "I am so glad he loved me back, if he didn't I was going to hide in my own pants."

And then the piece de resistance was her "Christmas Song", a real gem. After a day of shopping on the drive home Molly asked me if she could sing me a Christmas song. And now I share it will all of you in all it's yuletide glory.

"Cats eat birds, and dogs eat birds.
They grab up the birds and they crunch, crunch crunch.
Kittens eat birds, yep bi-i-irds,
they all eat birds and they chew them all up.
They chew chew chew chew cheee--ee-ew
What comes next? Well they go outside
and of course they take a po-oo-ooop"

Merry Christmannukaholidaykwanzayule.

If your children are a reflection of you, I am a pantless smart ass

Evidence of my smartassery. I love to decorate my pets.

A few weeks ago Molly proved to me once again it is better for us to have dinner parties at home. We have only lived in the woods now for a few months, but already she is only a loincloth and some fuzzy cartoon singing friends away from being a vine-swinging, yodelling half monkey.

Admittedly dinner was a three meat carnivorous feast fit only for cave people, and so maybe she went meat stupid, I can only assume at this point. But immediately after dinner Molly asked politely to be excused, then proceeded to stand in front of the table, rip off her dinner cape - yes your read that right - then her shirt, then her everything else, and start mooning everyone and doing a little naked dance while yelling "Party Naked! Party Naked! Party Naked!"

Thankfully I wasn't hosting Martha Stewart and her entourage on this fine evening. I think they would have taken one look at the carelessly hung Christmas lights in the yard and hightailed it out before dinner - or I, or Molly's nude dancing - had a chance to offend.

So with that little performance as the beginning, we head into the dreaded Christmas season. Up until the ginger beast was born, Sam and I were unified by -among other things- a mutual distaste for all things Christmas. When Molly came into the world we have been slowly letting Christmas eek into our lives with every more consciously human year. But we try really really hard not to let her get all caught up in the consumer crapness after her her third Christmas, when I bought her a piano and Sam bought her a baby quad and her family members seemingly bought out a mall and she just drove the quad straight at the piano and played music in a catatonic state and refused to come down from her quad/piano hybrid vehicle to even look at the other presents. So after that we have put a bit of a simmer on Christmas psychosis.

As soon as the snow began to fall I slipped into one of those "I will never.." hypocrite things that a mom thinks she will never do. And then does. See what she didn't know until having a child is that using a mythical fat man that B&Es your house and steals your cookies as a pre-Christmas threat is actually brilliance. 

So as Molly and I travel around making merry and sampling way too much other people food she can tend to turn into a raging ginger psychopath and I've found myself telling her that I was going to tell Santa if she didn't stop being naughty. Once again she found a way to prove to me that it is only a matter of time - by which I mean 3-4 weeks - before she is smarter than me. 

It started when I decided to decorate the living shit out of our living room. First attempt, I was getting a little too merry with the rum and eggnog all by myself, got tired of decorating and just went with dancing around to Culture Club with a garland boa until I tripped over some ornaments. Second attempt I just decorated Kevin Costner to look like a garland lion, and he looked freaking amazing. And third time's a charm, I got my shit together, and accomplished some real decorating.

Isn't he Costneriffic?

I crept in after decorating to tell her to come see, and I found her watching a cartoon where a hippo was on fire,annoying the living shit out of my daughter who said plainly, "Idiot! Stop drop and roll!" and let out an exasperated sigh.

Then she came downstairs, held her hands close to her heart like some orphan in a made-for-tv movie, and yelled "Mom! It's SPLENDID! (Splendid? WTF?) Santa is going to LOVEITSOOOOMUCH!!" making all my failed attempts, and giving up my Christmas loathing, totally worth it.

The next morning I found her on her Kermit phone; "Sh, mom. I'm talking to Santa" and when she got off the phone she said in an oh-so-serious tone. "Mom, I have just been talking to Santa, and HE told ME I could be naughty OR nice this year." ...well then.

Apparently she gets an OK from the big guy

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Fantastic Kwanzaa or whatever floats your boat.

xoxo love,
Lucy D., Sam, Molly, KevinCostner, Oliver McPoot, Lubba Tub, Meuwford, MeowMeow and of course, Star Kitty.

6 reasons to seriously consider breeding with redheads

To whomever came up with the phrase "terrible twos"...
Since you are probably dead, I feel as though I owe it to new parents everywhere to bitchslap your descendents. The reason for this is that I coasted through those twos thinking "THIS is as bad as it gets? Wicked, this is a cakewalk!!" Molly at two was a redheaded angel, an absolute cherub of nicety. Three was a delightful preview of four to come. And as if she magically knew it was time for a change, on her fourth birthday Molly began to make the terrible twos seem like an instagrammed version of a sunny day with Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years.

So here are 6 gems that only this week came out of the mouth of a girl who is obviously superfantastically adorable as a natural defence so I don't feel compelled to sell her.

1. Molly observes me struggling through the house with a giant load of wood while she is playing with her megablocks
"Molls could you please open the gate for mom?"
   "I'm super busy engineering right now mom, but you can do it yourself, I just know it!"

2. Molly is playing with the herd of six kittens before bed one night looking very very sweet until she throws down this creepy idea;
"hey kittens, do you want to play knife knife?"

3. Again with the kittens.
"Mom, I want to call this one TickleBum"
Me not exactly hearing her; "Sorry, you want to call a kitten TickleTrunk?"
"No, mom! TICKLEBUM! Tickletrunk, that's just stupid."

4. Picking up my little ginger spice from preschool;
"Hey kid, how was school?"
"So good mom! Nobody even got freaking mad at me today!"

5. Bringing a new friend over
"That's Meowmeow, she is really nice, that's Meuwford, he will try and kill you."
...resulting in a child who is now terrified of cats...great.

6. ...needs no intro
"Hey Molly, come eat dinner."
      "Dinner smells like ass mom." (with her thumb in the air, suggesting that this is something she heard but does not understand it to be very insulting.)