"It's OK mom, you're doing great... you're doing a really good job at staying calm.. I think if he was crying at me all of the time I'd get super frustrated too... oh, and I think you look really beautiful." All of these words came spilling out of his sweet little 8 year old mouth... Continue Reading →

"Mom! Can we ride the Ferris wheel?? Please??!" The plan was simple. My husband and I were going to divide and conquer inside the middle of the Disney California Adventure park. He would take our 8 year old on the 'Incredicoaster,' complete with its upside down mid-section, and I would take the other 3 boys... Continue Reading →

Family vacations hold a super special place in my heart. Every summer my parents would take us 4 kids on road-trips all over Canada and the United States. On my 7th birthday we spent the day at Disney World, which was a pretty hefty drive from our home in Ontario. But we did it, and... Continue Reading →

"Mom, can you put my other sock on? Can you also tie my other shoe too? That'd be great." I'm a professional helper. My kids do as much as they can and go as far as they can - and then my job is to come alongside and help them complete the rest of their... Continue Reading →

It was three weeks into my husband's new job in downtown Vancouver. He said, "This is crazy... I'm going to sit in traffic morning and night and never see you guys... What if we moved closer?" To which I said, "If we're going to move closer, why not move closest?" A few weeks later my... Continue Reading →

"Guys! Quick! Look at Mom! She cracked open a book and sat down peacefully with her coffee ready to read... That's our signal...  If somebody could start spontaneously bleeding from a tooth that would be awesome. We also need another volunteer to ask her incessant questions, and one other brother to complain about his breakfast,... Continue Reading →

I suspect if we lived in the suburbs we wouldn't get stopped and asked this question nearly every single day of our lives. Maybe we would just be another family with a bunch of kids that lived in that house on the street... but somehow when you live smack dab in the downtown core of... Continue Reading →

"We have to leave in 8 minutes, can you guys put your shoes on and wait out here? I've just found pants and socks for the 4 of you, now it's my turn OK? I'll be quick." You may have just lost 1 of your 8 minutes explaining that, but fear not, you can still... Continue Reading →

"Wake up! It bloomed, and the conservatory opens in 12 minutes!" These are the words that every soundly sleeping husband longs to hear first thing in the morning. There's this flower you see. One of the rarest flowers ever. The corpse flower, named for the putrid stench it emits during the 48 hours that it... Continue Reading →

I used to say, "I'm such a good wife," as I held my husband's shrunken shirt straight from the dryer in my hands... again. I used to say, "I'm such a good mom," laced with sarcasm and followed by an eye roll when my kid would throw a super public fit about having to leave... Continue Reading →