Cluck, cluck...

As I mentioned here I went to Rome last week. It was the first time I left my children, let’s just say it was a learning experience. Really, you learn a lot about yourself when you do something new. I learned a few things about what kind of mother I am. In Italian I’ve often been called a “mamma chioccia” a mother hen. It’s not as common in English (or rather, I never really heard it used), but in Italian it describes a mother who is always around her children, always paying attention to them, on top of them. It’s generally used in a pejorative manner. In a country infamous for it’s mama’s boys and the overbearing mother figure it says a lot about me, or what people think of me.

On my end though, I’ve never thought of myself as an overbearing mother, I let them experience a variety of things, I’ve given them some freedom – though they’re one and a half and three and a half years old how much freedom do they even need? I send them to daycare in the mornings because organizing play dates here is ridiculously difficult and I feel they need to be with other children their age at least some of the time so it’s not like they’re under my protective wing 24/7; although, even if they were, I see nothing wrong with it considering their age. I’ve travelled with them, I’ve upended their routine when necessary, I’ve let them fall and fight and get their scrapes and bruises. Of course I’ve cringed and held my breath and forcibly kept myself from intervening at times, but I assume that’s only natural.

So I never thought of myself as a mother hen, because I never agreed with the negative undertone, I love them, I do my best with them, why should this be bad?

When I left last week I was comfortable that they would be taken care of. The Nanny knows and loves them, and is perfectly aware of and comfortable with their routine, the husband was there to oversee any problems so I left knowing that they were going to be fine.

And yet… I realize what I’m about to say may sound ridiculous to some, but I’m hoping someone, somewhere will understand. You know that feeling like you forgot something important, something vital and your heart starts pounding as you think “oh, shit, where did I put it?” that’s what I felt like the entire time I was gone. It physically hurt to be away from them. I kept looking for them, even though I knew they weren’t there.

I spent two days listening to people tell me to lighten up, that the kids were fine, that I should enjoy my “freedom”, and I did, in a way. Obviously, it was much easier getting everything done, zipping around Rome, in and out of taxis no car seats or strollers to speak of, no diaper bags, juice boxes, crackers or sippy cups of water, no unscheduled, urgent bathroom breaks, no tantrums, no 1,461 whys a minute… all of this felt wonderful of course. Being able to sit in a bar and talk to my sister for an hour, no interruptions, have a drink with no guilt, smoke a rare cigarette, all blissful. I almost felt like an adult free to mingle amongst other adults! I went out to dinner, no worries, not checking the phone every five minutes expecting something to come up to make me go home, I slept all night with no calls for water, binkys, milk or kisses…

No kisses…

I hate and love their neediness. I often think back wistfully to the freedom I’ve lost, but the attachment I feel for them, my own neediness towards them is too strong. The constant, unyielding ache of the distance from them just doesn’t make it worth it.

I guess I still need to sever that umbilical cord but it’s too soon for me. I’m the one with separation anxiety when we’re apart, they miss me, sure, but they’re children they’re supposed to, they’re allowed to, for some reason people think it strange when I express how much I miss them. 

So I guess I am a mother hen… but I refuse to accept the negative undertone.

My children are healthy and happy and I’m happier with them than without them so I guess that if I end up raising a mama’s boy and girl then I’ll just pay for their therapy later. And I won’t apologize for it.

Love and Marriage

On our wedding day - Saturday, June 21st, 2003

Yesterday was our eighth wedding anniversary so I figured this was a good time to write a bit about the husband, because I realized I’ve written many things about the illness but very few things about him.

We met in 1999. We were out in a big group of people and the first thing we did was have a massive argument; we were both in other relationships at the time, though we probably should have known then they didn’t stand a chance. We started dating in September after many months grudging détente from our first monumental and very public fight. Two months later we decided to get married, it ended up taking us three and a half years, through no fault of ours. Though we promptly moved in together so as not to waste any time.

In 1999 soon after we started dating

The husband is a charismatic guy, he’s funny and serious at the same time. He knows a lot about a lot, I don’t know how he does it. He often comes up with completely random facts that totally pick up flagging dinner conversations, he’s the king of small talk, though apparently he hates it. He’s very good at manual labor, yet has mainly had white-collar jobs. I’m completely confident we will never go hungry, in the event of an apocalyptic scenario he’ll always find something to do.

 He’s good with the children, though we have different parenting styles. He takes time to be with them, and in the unlikely event that I can’t take care of them he does a stellar job.

But all these things don’t really tell you what he’s like, do they?

Let’s see if I can do a better job with some anecdotes:

One day he was driving home with my brother and they find a horse in the middle of the road. My brother freaked out, the husband got out of the car, approached the horse, calmed him down and took him back to the stables nearby. My brother came home in awe, and said he was like the horse-whisperer.

2004 - first wedding anniversary

On my twenty-sixth birthday, the husband put twenty six post-it notes with Happy Birthday and a number written on them all over the house, in the order that I would find them in. Happy Birthday 1 was in front of the toilet, HB 2 on my toothbrush, HB3 on my coffee cup… and so on. I spent the entire day running into post-it notes as I went about my regular activities. It was the best birthday ever, bar none. I was amazed that he knew my daily routine so well, including what I did when he wasn’t around and I spent a delightful day on a treasure hunt for post its.

2005 - second wedding anniversary

He went all the way to Houston to ask for my hand in marriage. And he had to ask my Dad, my Mom and my Brother. Separately. He was really, really serious about marrying me.

2006 - third anniversary

On another birthday he went through a whole song and dance about not being able to be there cause he had to be away for work, and as I was bitterly complaining about it to a friend at a bar I see a huge bouquet of red roses walking towards me on the husband’s legs.

2007 - fourth anniversary

On our wedding day, he dropped everything and came to my house to talk me down from an attack of wedding hysteria.

2008 - fifth anniversary

 When our first baby, the boy, was born he was so nervous that he pulled his back out and spent the first two days lying in the hospital bed next to me getting the same pain killers as I was getting after the c-section, certainly not helpful, but it shows he’s empathic.

2009 - sixth anniversary

When our second baby, the girl, was born he supported me throughout the entire labor and birth, physically and emotionally despite the fact the leukemia was probably already quite advanced. We didn’t know, of course, but he did it.

2010 - seventh anniversary

And yesterday morning I woke up to this:

Breakfast surprise

There are many more things I could tell you, these are the first ones that popped into my mind unbidden today. Obviously, we’ve had hard times and bad times along with the good times, but these times show you what kind of guy he is most of the time, and how lucky I am to have him.

2011 - eighth anniversary - CHEERS!

Virtual Coffee {15} and Anniversaries

Hello friends and welcome to coffee.

If we were really having coffee today I would explain why I haven’t posted anything on this blog for a week. A week. Crazy right? Last week was very busy.

On Wednesday I went to Rome for basically 36 hours. My mother is getting married in September (gasp! More on that soon). And I had to go down to Rome for a fitting of my dress for her wedding. Initially, we were supposed to make a family trip of it, but it never seemed like a good time, the husband’s not 100% yet, so we decided to forgo the whole me travelling alone with kids production and I just popped down overnight.

It was exhausting, both physically and emotionally. Physically because we live out in the middle of nowhere, so the closest airport is an hour and a half away (I realize that for many of you that is no time at all, but we used to live in Milan, where the farthest airport was a half hour away at most), so I had to get up at what amounted to the middle of the night to make my nine am flight. Of course the kiddos were upset, nervous, angry at my departure so they decided to take turns waking up and calling for me every half an hour until I left the house. Guess how much sleep I had that night… 

Incidentally, this is one of those thorns in my side regarding age, I mean, in my twenties I regularly forwent sleep for more fun and interesting things with nary a consequence, now, barely 10 years later (and I’m stating years here quite loosely) it takes me a week to get over one sleepless night.

Emotionally, because it was the first time I was leaving the kids behind and it was way harder than I thought. Let’s just emphasize “way harder” and leave it at that.

On Friday I basically attached both kids to my sides and we spent the morning in symbiotic bliss. In the afternoon I had to leave again to go to the beach and check out the renovation progress. Let me tell you, if the workers keep this pace up I’m going to have to officially apologize for all the mean things I’ve ever said and thought about Italian workers, because they are FAST. Which basically means we are now the ones hustling to get our end of the work done, choosing tiles and floors, deciding where we want the electrical outlets and stuff, and ordering furniture.

Saturday we had our annual medical convention at the Terme (where I work, more on that coming soon too), so I basically spent the day on my feet with a smile plastered on my disgruntled face, dodging problems like bullets. Thankfully the weekend picked right back up with the arrival of our good friends from Milan.

Yesterday, we had more visitors from Milan this time the husband’s uncle and cousin.

Basically, I just wrote a really long post of excuses for why I’ve been ignoring my blog. Mind blowing content, as usual!

Let me try and pick this post back up with the last bit of news, then. Today is our wedding anniversary! We made it to eight years by the skin of our teeth (a ridiculous expression if ever there was one). I’m dedicating an entire post to the husband tomorrow, but today let me just say this:

Marriage is harder than I ever thought possible. We’ve had wonderful, amazing times together as well as horrible moments I’d rather forget. We’ve done amazing things and regrettable things. We’ve whispered and screamed and shouted in glee. We’ve wanted to kill each other and sacrifice ourselves to save the other.  We’ve held on tight to each other and pushed away. We’ve loved and hated each other. We’ve been angry, felt guilty, ashamed and resentful, but we’ve also been happy, felt love, contentment and joy. But the most important thing, to me, is that we’re here, eight years on, together, fighting to keep this marriage alive and on track. For our children, for ourselves. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, is it?

Now go visit our hostess Amy!

p.s. I changed my comment format, I’m using disqus now. Feedback on how it works, if it loads quickly enough, if it’s easy to post comments, user-friendly etc. is very welcome. Basically, let me know what you think!!

Virtual Coffee {14} Randomness and pictures

Hello friends, and welcome to coffee. 

If we were really having coffee today I would tell you that I’m looking out at the first truly blue sky we’ve had for the past two weeks. It’s supposed rain again this afternoon but I’m grateful for this little bit of sunshine. And now that we got the weather out of the way…

I would tell you that there have been a lot of firsts this week.

I made my first crepes ever, nutella and banana and then ham and cheese the husband loved them, the kids weren’t all that interested. I have weird children, they would rather eat cheese (the girl) or pasta (the boy) than nutella, I’d wonder if they were mine if I hadn’t birthed them.

And here’s a picture of a crepe, another first (or practically since I post pictures so rarely!):

Crepe

I also made chocolate peanut butter chip cookies. They were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. They’re actually all gone already, so don’t ask me how the diet’s going, cause it’s not. The picture doesn’t do them justice:

yum.

Since I’m always fighting with the kids about keeping the markers on the paper when they’re drawing and I had several large cartons from my new outdoor ikea chairs:

me, enjoying the new chairs, I love them, though the wood doesn't match the rest of our outdoor furniture

I decided to let them loose on the cartons so they could draw, for once, without being confined to a small area, this was so exciting the markers ended up getting a bit away from them. This is the result:

so happy

what? you NEVER said I couldn't draw on my face

Their Nonna talked us into letting her buy them a new toy house, she went a bit overboard too and this is the result of that:

So the kids have a new summer residence, I have new chairs (finally, this has been a thorn in my side for the past three years), and the diet’s gone to sh*t, but one can’t have everything, right?

So the conclusion to this post on randomness is well… life is good. There, I said it again, and the consequences be damned!

Have a lovely day, and visit our hostess Amy for coffee too!

Is conformity really so bad?

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Canadian family raising a genderless baby, I read an article on their story by chance last week (I can't find it anymore, so can't link!). Since then I’ve been reading interviews and such and it’s given me a lot of food for thought. I’m not going to get into the merits of what they’re doing and I’m not linking to any of the articles I’ve read, because there’s a lot of negativity out there regarding this family’s decision.

Before sharing my viewpoint, I’d like to say that I’m not judging them, I think that as long as they’re doing what they’re doing because they feel it’s in the best interest of their own children and not because they wanted the media attention, then that should be good enough for all of us. But any sort of highly controversial act, as this one, is going to lead to a lot of discussion and thought, which is why I decided to write about it.

Apparently, the parents decided to do this because their oldest child, a boy, doesn’t “fit traditional gender roles”, he likes his hair long and likes dresses and the color pink. Evidently, this boy has faced some hardships due to his preferences and I think the logic is that keeping the baby genderless as long as possible sets an example to their two older children about how gender distinctions aren’t important, or in any case, aren’t as important as looking at the individual without a gender bias.

The following italicized bit is the comment I left on the article, it was my initial gut reaction, which incidentally is still my opinion after having researched the subject further:

This is interesting, and a little bit scary, I think. It's one thing to not "fit traditional gender roles" and another thing to remove the concept of gender altogether, because we are, in fact, characterized by our gender. The older child may have to face a series of difficulties due to the fact that he doesn't fit traditional gender roles, and his parents will have to help him navigate through them. But preventively creating an issue, where one simply doesn't exist - this baby is only four months - is risky. This child, exactly like the older sibling, will have to go out into society at large sooner or later and will be faced with the issue of his gender. But whereas the older child when faced with the very simple and straightforward  "are you a boy or a girl" question can be taught to answer "I'm a boy and I like pink, it's no business of yours" this baby won't have an acceptable answer at all. And by acceptable I mean an answer that his peers and strangers will be able to understand without lengthy, drawn out explanations. I think the risk here is putting this child in an impossible situation. We don't want to stick our children into categories unduly, but not giving a child a category at all is doing exactly that, isn't it? […]

The only thing I really take issue with is something the mother said in a letter she wrote in response to some pretty harsh criticism that they received, this is what she wrote:  “the idea that the whole world must know our baby’s sex strikes me as unhealthy, unsafe and voyeuristic.”

I take issue with this because in my opinion it is neither unhealthy, unsafe nor voyeuristic that “the world” as she says, knows the sex of her baby, no more than it is unhealthy, unsafe or voyeuristic that the world knows her baby is blond with blue eyes. First of all the whole world doesn’t know the sex of your baby unless you put it out there, which they did in a sense, because though we may not know the sex of the baby suddenly it's become a big issue. 
Generally, for non public figures, which the majority of us are (which this family was before all the hoopla), the people that know our baby’s sex can be counted in the hundreds, possibly the thousand’s at most, if you’ve got loads of friends and acquaintances hell, if you’ve got a really popular blog, maybe hundreds of thousands, but with a worldwide population of a little under seven billion it’s still a comparatively small number. And even then, how many of the people that know your baby’s sex actually care, or remember? I have acquaintances I see only rarely that I know have kids but can’t for the life of me remember how many and what gender.

So her kids don’t have gender appropriate behaviors. So what? They must have done a good job as parents, giving their children the freedom and the security to be whichever way they want to be. Their boy wants to have long, flowing hair and likes dresses and colorful fabrics and they supported him and gave him the self assurance to be any way he wants, so as far as that goes Bravo, I say. But, I believe that with this third child they took it too far, because they turned it into a media thing. Now they don’t just want to teach their children the best way they know how, they want to be an example of something to everyone else. They want to “change the world” as they say to a more accepting, tolerant place, a sentiment I wholly concur with, but... changes happen gradually. We are in a far better place today than fifty years ago, and I believe that fifty years from now we’ll be in an even better place – there’s always room for improvement.

I’m just not so sure that becoming gender-less is an improvement. Some people fit gender roles to a T, some not so much, others not at all, and I do believe that all the options must be accepted and respected. All of the options, including the desire to conform to long-standing societal roles. I’m a conformist, when my kids were born I tended to dress my boy in blue and other “boy colors” and my girl in pink, I thought the clothes were cute and the babies were cute in them. It never occurred to me to dress them any other way. As they grow I’ll support and accept any of their choices, as long as they’re happy and healthy, and I’ll help them navigate society if they decide to make choices that are hard to explain or live with. But in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with conformity as there’s nothing wrong with non-conformity.

I find it very tiring that everything has to be “original”, original is the new cool. And I find it especially tiring that if someone decides to live their life in a manner that goes against the grain they feel the need to make it public, to teach a lesson where none is needed, to face the world with a look at me, this is how it’s done attitude.

Because, “this is how it’s done” is how we get conformity and uniformity to begin with, it’s the opposite of original if everyone does what you do, isn’t it?

So, again I ask, if everyone tries to be tolerant, sympathetic and understanding, if we face the world with an open heart and a smile on our face and take things at face value, differences and all, then is there really something wrong with conformity?

Awards, confessions and blog love

Oh me, oh my, I posted three days in a row, what could possibly be going on with me, it’s not like I can use my blog to get out of work, can I ?!?! (If you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about read here.)

The truth is that the lovely Bridget from Twinisms, the courageous mom of, get this (and you may actually want to be sitting down before you continue reading), two sets of twins – ok I’ll just give you a minute to let that sink in – was so kind as to pass on a blogging award to me (well actually two bloggy awards, anyhoo). Now, not only is this incredibly flattering (to me) and sweet (of her) but it’s also fun because in accordance to the rules of acceptance of these awards I must tell you seven things you don’t know about me, and then pass them on to other bloggers I love, kind of like a chain letter but without all the annoying threats of apocalyptic bad luck to those who don’t play.

   

So here goes nothing, seven things you may not know about me:

1. I am a technology junkie. I don’t go anywhere without my iphone, ipad and kindle (as well as my MacBook Air, as often as not). I’m not kidding, I stack them up just so and carry them around the house with me, from room to room, like a weird and articulated security blanket.

2. I won’t go to sleep without having a snack first. Ever. Most of the time (when I’m motivated) it’ll be a zone diet approved snack, so no guilt, but some of the time it’s just plain junk – twizzlers, goldfish crackers, nutrageous – right before going to sleep, for maximum calorie assimilation. This probably explains why I’m losing weight at a snail’s pace.

3. Never so much as right after my wedding did I use the phrase “I should’ve listened to my Mother”. It infuriates me, but the few things that went wrong were the ones in which I completely disregarded her advice. Sigh. Let this be a lesson to any young bride- to-be out there reading this, when in doubt call my mother.

4. I was very insecure in high school and through most of college, this led to some pretty erratic behavior and a lot of embarrassment when I think back to that time. I sometimes wish I could get a do-over, but with my present day self-assuredness and a healthy dose of humility.

5. I don’t like dogs. There I said it, you can leave now. I don’t hate them or anything, and I don’t have anything against them or their owners, I just don’t want one in my life. Ever. Never ever. And I’m pretty frightened by the fact that my daughter loves them.

6. I don’t shave my legs as often as I should. In fact, I never wear skirts for this precise reason. If you see me in pants (that’ll be trousers for the Brits reading this, not underwear, you’ll never see me in my underwear!) you can bet I’ve got all sorts of hairy legs going on underneath there. I know, it’s gross; I just can’t be bothered.

7. Even though I’m well on my way towards middle age when I think of myself, what I can do, what adventures, opportunities and discoveries are still before me I clearly envision myself as a twenty year old. Does this make me delusional or wise, I wonder?

There you go, now you know me way better than you may have ever desired to… lucky you! And now it’s time to share a little blog love, so go check out my blog friends:

I’m so Fancy – because we should all get to live like the rich, though we may only do it vicariously.

The Nero Chronicles – because the occasional dose of beautiful things and beautiful words can turn around the dreariest of days.

Nuts about food – because who doesn’t need some inspiration in the kitchen sometimes, right?

In Bloom . because it’s sweet and fun and wholesome.

And baby cakes three – because her food is yummy and her pictures gorgeous what more could one ask for?

Lemon Gloria – because she’s funny, and real, oh and funny. Trust me.

Mother’s always right – because her baby is really cute, plus apparently she won’t clap for mommy but will clap for everyone else so this woman needs us. Also, she occasionally tells naked stories involving hot firemen. Need I say more?

There are so many more blogs I love, but I had to cap it off at seven, so there ya have it. Oh, and don’t get used to this whole posting everyday thing, cause that’s so not going to continue!

Virtual Coffee {13}

Hello friends and welcome for coffee!

We have had some DREARY weather here the last week or so. It’s been raining and raining and then when it stopped raining, it rained some more with no end in sight. It even feels like it starts raining harder whenever I have to leave the house, as some sort of roundabout karmic message coming to me from the great beyond via the weather. A message I don't get, incidentally, so really just a load of wasted effort on the weather’s part if you ask me.

Anyway, I’m still here reeling from the dire predicament I’ve unexpectedly found myself in, you may read about it here (but the short version is the husband’s decided I need to go back to work. Sigh). Men. I swear, it’s like you’re finally getting your things in order, your kids start sleeping through the night (50% of the time), they’re both in daycare in the mornings, and you finally have five minutes to go to the gym or get a pedicure or file away three years worth of crap that’s been piling around, basically you’re finally starting to feel human again and bam a man shows up and slugs you from left field.

Can’t live with them… actually, that’s it, can’t live with them.

No, just kidding, but seriously, he’s so going to regret this decision, you mark my words! Give me a couple of months and he’ll beg me to return to the status quo, work from home, hang with the kids, make sure his life runs smoothly.

Now on to happier subjects: You may remember I mentioned that we were going to start renovating an apartment at the beach, well we started last week! So we’re very excited. It’s great for the husband’s mood as he has a fun project to work on and it’s exactly the kind of thing that I think will really help his recovery, which incidentally is going quite well so far. 

And I’m having fun daydreaming with the Ikea catalogue. In fact, tomorrow I’m off to Ikea to plan the kitchen, so that should be fun (and should also be counted as work, since I have to drive an hour and a half there and back and the apartment is technically the husband’s, don’t you think?).

I’ll start posting before pictures to document the work in progress just as soon as I get over my fear (or laziness) regarding all things photography, it’ll be fun to document this for posterity and also so you can all see how S      L      O     W     ,yet precise, Italian workers are.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the view from the apartment; I look at it often and daydream about next summer.

Yes, next summer. Because although we’re barely at the beginning of June and they’ve already torn down all the walls that needed tearing down and put up all the walls that needed putting up and they pulled up all the floors and ordered all the doors and windows, the apartment won’t be ready until the end of September. September. So though we will start enjoying our seaside weekends this autumn we won’t be able to dip our toes in that gorgeous blue water for another year. And it’s not like we’re renovating Buckinham Palace, it’s a 120sq. meter apartment. I’m baffled by their timeline. But worry not, the mystery will unfold over the next few months and I’ll share with you all the intricate workings of the Italian construction business.

For now, toodles! (and go say hi to Amy!)

What just happened here?

This is a story about how I got screwed the other day, and not in a good way.

So, the husband comes home a few days ago and says: “Isn’t it about time you went back to work?”, and I was like: “Huh?”, and he said: “Because I really think that two and a half years maternity leave is long enough, don’t you? I really need you to go back to work”, and I was all like : “whff fe hlll arya tathing abut?” (mouth was full), and him: “ok, so I need you to start coming in two days a week starting next week and we’ll go from there” and he left and I was left staring after him with a what-the-fuck expression on my face.

You see this is what happens when your husband’s your ex boss. After the boy was born and I went straight back to work but then a year later decided I was no masochist and we didn’t actually need my ridiculous income, I went to my boss-husband and told him I was quitting, I really wanted to be home with the Boy and plus I was pregnant again anyway so I was just going to do the mother thing for a while, and by “for awhile” what I actually meant was “indefinitely”, and he agreed, as long as I kept doing some things from home. Evidently, the husband agreed, the boss did not.

So now, completely out of the blue I’m going to have to go into work two days a week. I realize many of you would kill to be able to work only two days a week, but let me just say that the alternative was not working at all (or very little), so you see how this kind of sucks for me, right? Also, my job, it’s not the kind you can successfully do for only two days a week long term, soon enough it turns into three, then four, then six days a week. I’m just not motivated right now to put all my energy into working. I want to be with the kiddos, and I want to go exercise and grocery shopping in the morning and I want to occasionally have coffee with my friends. Whereas here I am, trying to figure out which two days I can give up without messing with my schedule too much, now that I finally have a schedule down. And all the while the prevailing feeling is one of having been screwed, by my own husband, out of left field.

So basically, I’m just going to have to get pregnant again or something.


Decided to link up here, with this because it just so happens that I had a WTF moment this week, and I think it's a fun idea... especially considering how many WTF I have on a regular basis.

Grammatical Pet Peeves (2)

I wrote the first installment of grammatical pet peeves a few months ago and then I let the wind out of my sails a little bit cause I feared I was turning into one of those smarmy know-it-alls that has to teach the world what’s best, which I’m so not. I don’t care what the world does as long as it doesn’t affect my own personal liberty. Not to say that I’m a total societal nihilist, I mean I do care about a broad range of subjects but I’m not the type of person that’s going to tell you how to behave, or raise your kids or what to believe in. Except, it appears, in regard to grammar. I have tried to hold my tongue, but I have a secret word file where I note all of my grammatical pet peeves, I apparently have no control over my actions. Since I don’t think it’s healthy to have “secret word files” regarding the usage of grammar and spelling I’ve decided to just come out and post my pet peeves occasionally. Think of it as a form of therapy.

I’ve found this one in more blogs than I can count and it gives me goose bumps every time I read it. Literal goose bumps. Yes, I know I’m weird. Initially I was amazed at the fact that I only found this in blogs or on social media sites like facebook or twitter and never in books and magazines, until I remembered that books and magazines have editors whose job it is to avoid just these pitfalls. (I wish I had that job!)

Anyway, my pet peeve today is “without further adieu”.

What you actually mean is “without further ado”.

Ado means a flurry, hubbub, fuss or bustle (google it!). It’s most famously used by Shakespeare: Much ado about nothing.

Adieu is French for goodbye.

The phrase “without further ado” basically means that you want to get to the point without additional talk or activity. As you can clearly see “adieu” (goodbye) has nothing to do with this.

I’ll leave it at that, I’m trying to be civilized and levelheaded so no outraged rants for me today. Let me just say though, that when we’re writing, the easiest thing we can do, if we have even the teeniest doubt about what we’re saying, is to google it. Seriously, just use google and you will know in an instant if you’re using the right word, expression or turn of phrase. It literally takes one second.

"Grammatical Pet Peeves" is brought to you by your friendly neighborhood neurotic blogger, please join us next week for the next installment (because there are many more to come).

Ten things I want to teach my children RIGHT NOW

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m a little cranky lately due to being sick as a poor, mangy dog all weekend. Incidentally, I don’t get that expression, why “sick as a dog”, are they somehow inherently sicker than other animals? Anyway, since it’s the first of the month once again I’m going to give the meme another shot. If you feel like participating it’s open all week, just click on the linky at the bottom, add your post and if you feel like it add my button at the end of your post - just grab the code on the left side-bar (scroll down!). 

Ok. So, back to me being cranky, evidently it’s reflected in my choice of Ten Things to Teach my Children this week because I’m not so much looking to the future this time as listing things that I wish they’d learn RIGHT NOW.

Most of these are points I make daily, hoping that somehow they will learn them through the sheer force of repetition. It’s not working so far, but I’m hopeful – or deluded, one of the two. These are all meant for both my children, of course.

1. If Mama says she’s sick, don’t whine, get in her face, or make unreasonable demands because that’ll just make her crankier and you’ll get more timeouts.

2. It’s so much more productive to ask for stuff in a happy voice rather than a whiny voice, whiny voices grate on my ears and trigger the timeout reflex immediately.

3. I am not a referee. Am I wearing a whistle?

4. You don’t need to use up half the liquid soap every time you wash your hands, you’re not scrubbing in for surgery. (Although I do appreciate your newfound love for hand washing).

5. Nighttime is for sleeping, if you wake up during the night you turn around and go back to sleep. You don’t need me to help with that. You don’t need milk. You don’t need a diaper change. And if you want water it’s on your bedside table. You don’t need to call me at night. I can’t stress this enough.

6. Water guns outside are good, water guns inside the house are BAD.

7. Negotiating with me is fine until I give you THE LOOK, once I give you THE LOOK negotiations are over and action is in order.

8. The easiest and fastest way to get what you want is with a smile, a hug and a kiss. How hard is that?

9. We no longer watch tv while eating as I’m sick of feeding you because you’re in a Dora-induced trance-like state, you eat your food then you can go watch tv. Get over it.

10. When I scream at you for dumping a bowl-full of water out of the tub onto the bathroom floor and you do it again a minute later, I’m going to take the bowl away. It’s been like this for two years, why do you always look so surprised?

11. And a bonus bath related one that is a point of contention every night: Stop drinking the bath water, it’s dirty, it’s soapy and it’s very likely at least one of you peed in there.

Gosh, it felt good to get those off my chest! Now all I need to do is figure out how to actually teach them these things… NOW!

If you want to read more things I want to teach my kids you can do so here and here.

Thanks for linking up!