I have a nemesis.  I hate it more than anything else.  Unfortunately my kids love it.  Whenever they get a treat, it’s what they want, and what’s worse, it costs less than a dollar.   What could be that awful?   It’s gum! 

 I have forbidden it in my home.  I have threatened to disown my own children if they ever chew it again.  I have threatened divorce if my husband buys it for them.  And yet, it manages to find it’s way into their mouths, and into our carpets, stuck on my leather furniture and onto my hardwood floors sticking to my feet.

They get it in birthday treat bags and in those annoying vending machines.  They find it in a drawer where they’ve hidden their last pieces of Halloween candy.  Wherever it is, they find it.  It’s like it has a GPS attached.

 And yes, I have bought it for them, during a weak moment, when they’ve promised that they will do something or if I use it for leverage of some kind.  Basically I am my own worst enemy. 

Since I have removed my fair share of gum, I have a routine that tends to work.

Step one- curse.

Step two- remove as much of the gum as you can by hand.

Step three- freeze the remaining gum with an ice cube.  For delicate fabrics put the ice in a baggy and then apply.  Or in the case of a beautiful winter- white cashmere sweater,  put the entire item in the freezer.  This has happened  to me (I cursed twice).

Step four- once frozen carefully remove remaining gum with a sharp knife.

Step five- threaten the children.

 Now if you’ll excuse me, my ice is melting.  S&@%

Kids catch on pretty quickly.  Sometimes my 6 year old acts like he is 16.  But I’ve got to hand it to him; he seems to have it all figured out. 

He and his brother recently had their teeth cleaned at Gatchell Dentistry on North Street in Bridgewater.   At the end of their visit they got a new toothbrush and they got to pick a toy from the toy bucket.  Evan picked barrettes.  I started to worry. 

 “I’m going to give them to my girlfriend,” Evan announced to the hygienist and me. 

We looked at each other as if we’d both fallen in love with him.

 “He’ll be a ladies man,” she said with a laugh.

His brother Colin on the other hand, looked through the bucket and pointed out that they needed better toys. 

“These are all girl stuff,” he said to the lady in haste.

“You can pick out something for Julie Ann,” I reminded him about his friend.

He looked at me as if to say, “You think I’m giving away this toy after I had to sit here and get my teeth cleaned?  Not on your life.”

 On the way home Evan held the barrettes tightly and when we got home he put them in an envelope and proudly wrote the name Meghan on it.

 Colin was shooting me with his new yellow Mini Mouse pencil that he took from the bucket.  It was the only thing there that wasn’t pink.

“Pewh, pewh, pewh,” he shot.  “You should tell the lady to go to the dollar store to fill her bucket.  Boys don’t wike Mini Mouse.  Pewh pewh pewh. “

Congratulations to my friends Angie and Barry, on the birth of their new baby girl, Sophia Grace.  I was thinking about them today while I was standing in line at Tim Hortons anxiously awaiting my cup of joe.  I was eavesdropping on two ladies in front of me.  One was holding a newborn while the other was expecting.  

 ”She’s such a great baby,” the new mom said to her friend.  ”She slept through the night at 5 weeks.”  I almost choked on my gum and shouted ‘yeah, well don’t get used to it.’

 It’s not that I’m not happy for her, I just really don’t believe her, and even if it is true, I can assure you that sleeping through the night at 5 weeks old is an anomaly.  It’s possible that my kids slept through the night once when they were newborns, or maybe I just slept through them crying.  I was just so tired, I don’t remember.  

 The thing is, why would she set her friend up for failure?   Why make her think that if her baby isn’t sleeping through the night at 5 weeks old then she is doing something wrong?

 So, in honour of my good friend Angie, who may be struggling with lack of sleep, I have a confession to make.  My sons, 4 and 6, still don’t sleep through the night.  One or both will toddle over to our bed sometime between 2 and 4 am.  Should we have insisted that they go back to their bed?  Absolutely.  Why didn’t we?  We were so tired!  Now if David and I sleep the entire night by ourselves, it’s like we’re on our honeymoon.

 To new parents, I have a few suggestions so that you can have children who are better sleepers than mine.  

 1- Resist the temptation to rock your child to sleep.  I know you want to, I know they’re cute.  But I assure you, it’s suicide!

 2- Don’t have them sleep on your chest.  This is hard.  Some of my best memories are of my babies sleeping on my shoulder, and my best pictures are of the boys sleeping on their dad’s chest, both asleep.   But again, nothing good can come from this.

 3- Do not lie down with your child.  Not even once.  I am still lying down with my 6 year old.

 4- If they come into your bed, take them back to theirs, immediately!  Trust me, your marriage may one day depend on it! 

 5- While they may sleep in their stroller when you take them for walks, don’t, out of desperation, bring your stroller in your home and stroll them to sleep.   I spent many nights strolling my son around our living room until he fell asleep.  No, I’m not kidding.

 6- Some say to go for a drive to get your children to sleep.  I don’t need to tell you how expensive that can be.

7- Follow a bedtime routine even if it means doing 3 silly things in a particular order.  I still remember the song I always sang to my kids right before bed.  The words went like this: ‘go to sleep… little boy… go to sleep for your mother… go to sleep… little boy… I am begging you to sleep.’

8- I remember how much housework I could get done while they slept all day long.  This, however, will backfire when you want to sleep in the evenings.  Go ahead, wake them up.  Play with them in the day.  Yes, they need their sleep to grow, but they don’t need to sleep all day long.

 Now having given all these great tips, I have to say, sometimes I love waking up with my kids.  I love watching them sleep.  But I caution you, there is a price to pay. 

Oh my husband, how I love him. Do you feel a ‘but’ coming? No, honestly, he is wonderful. I am very lucky, and we have a perfect marriage. And if you believe that, you’re even more gullible than I am, and I’m pretty gullible (about 10 years ago, when I was waitressing at the Mug and Anchor Pub, a drunk tourist convinced me that he was Gregory Peck. He was clearly not Gregory Peck, but I got his autograph).Yeah, I don’t believe there is such thing as a perfect marriage. I always say, if someone looks like they have the perfect marriage, it’s just because they’re faking it better than the rest of us. All marriages have their issues, and we, like everyone else, have ours.David and I are very different. David loves cars and his passion is restoring classics. If you’re wondering which classics, I could barely tell you. A classic to me is a Honda Prelude. His idea of a classic is a Cuda, or an SS Nova, so the expensive kind. I have no interest in cars. All I know about my Maxima is that it’s a 2000 something, it gets me from here to there, has bum warmers and doesn’t have enough cup holders.You might say a good wife would take an interest in her husband’s passion. I might respond by saying that he could muster the strength to sit through a musical with me, but that dream ended a long time ago.I love the arts. I came to realize very shortly after we started dating that if I wanted to see live theatre, or a jazz band, I better get used to going alone or have kids and force them to come with me.I chose the latter.The kids and I love Neptune, Starlight and Mermaid Theatre, and seek out local concerts. This Saturday night, my 6 and 4-year-old boys will be escorting me to the symphony in Lunenburg after we dine at Rissers restaurant. Pretty good dates, eh? David always accuses me of trying to raise my ideal boyfriend. Is that wrong? (Although I have given up my dream of having their pee go directly in the toilet.)I have to admit, they love cars just as much as David does. Evan says he’s saving for a Mustang while Colin wants a Charger just like his Dad. I envision my son Colin the day of his wedding making his new bride jump in the passenger-side window.“Yeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaw!!”

This blog I write with great trepidation and I risk being judged, but it needs to be written.  It might stop an injury, or worse, a fatality.  We were very blessed that one didn’t happen to us.  Blessed or lucky, I’m not quite sure.

New Year’s Eve day, our neighbors Connor, Brendon and Mitchell came over to play with our boys in the afternoon.  The 5 boys were having so much fun that they stayed for dinner and then for banana splits.  David planned to set off a few fireworks after diner as we were going to a house party at 8pm.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked David.

“All boys love fireworks,” he said.

“I just don’t feel comfortable with this,” I said.

“Of course you don’t.” David thinks I’m too cautious.

(Remember this, it’s important to the story.)

David lit the fireworks and they went off without a hitch.  I was on the verandah watching and yelling at the boys to get back.  The second set goes off all wrong.  It fell out of the snow and pointed right at the boys, who David was already shouting at to run.  I was watching this from the verandah.  I thought my life ended.  I heard the cries from a boy.  I wasn’t sure which one.  You feel emotions when you think one of your children is hurt, but you feel a whole different set of emotions when you think someone else child is hurt, on your watch.  I ran to the backyard where they were.  Brendon, the middle boy, was hit in the leg.  He wasn’t hurt badly, but was very scared.  His older brother Mitchell was very worried.  Colin, my youngest son, was crying.  

We all went in the house and put ice on the welt on Brendon’s leg.  Meanwhile I hear the boys outside the bathroom door.

“That was awesome!” Connor said.

“It chased Brendon around the garage,” Evan exclaimed.

“But it bounced off my boot, then it went after Brendon,” Connor said.

“I saw it all happen, and I jumped out of the way in the nick of time,” Mitchell boasted, describing a scene from Saving Private Ryan.

I knew I had to call their parents.  

“Ask for Daddy,” Mitchell shouted out.

Their mom answered the phone and I told her what happened.  They were very understanding, or at least they seemed it.  David went down to talk to them, to see if we should move, considering that they live only a few doors down.

Ten minutes after it all began, Brendon was rocking it out on Guitar Hero.  The other boys looked at him in awe.  

“Brendon, you were hit with a firework,” Evan said.

“Yeah I know,” Brendon said with a smile.

The thing is, we were very lucky.  I could have had to call their parents and tell them that their son was hit in the face, or lost a leg, or was killed.  It was only that night, lying in bed, staring in silence at the ceiling that it really sunk in.  There are risks that we are going to have to take raising boys.  Evan went coasting the other day with this same family and did a face plant on the ice scraping his face.  That to me, is a necessary risk.  Kids have to go coasting.  But fireworks?  The risks outweighed the benefits.  

So what is the message in this Disney Afterschool Special?  Never light fireworks?  No, that is not what I’m saying (although we won’t be).  Just make sure that the risks that you take are necessary.  

That night in bed, David broke the deafening silence by leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.

“I bet I know how we won’t be ringing in the new year,” he joked.

I smiled.  I knew David felt terrible.  I knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything serious had happened to one of those boys.  He knew that if the same thing happened to one of our boys at someone else’s house, he would have been less forgiving.  It was a real wake-up call.

While we are still on edge, hanging out at the Hennigar house will still be tons of fun. Everyone, however, will be asked to wear a helmet, take a Wii competency test and sign a liability waiver.  Other than that, nothing’s changed!