My Creatively Random Life

I have a 13 year old now and he is moody and full of attitude.  But once upon a time he looked like this.  A happy, cheerful, little boy with chubby cheeks.

Celebrate the Small Things is hosted by  Lexa Cain  along with wonderful co- hosts  Writing Off The Edge  and  The Cyborg Mom . Life has been so busy lately that blogging has taken a huge back burner in my life.  I have learned a lot about moving though, mostly that I hate it and anyone who does it with children and does have a nervous breakdown has all my respect. This week I am celebrating that Ace is having a fantastic summer away with his Uncle.  If you follow us on  Instagram  then you've been able to follow along with some of their adventures. The other thing that I'm celebrating is that our one-on-one time with Cat while her brother is away is not getting lost in the shuffle of the move.  We've gotten to enjoy all sorts of fun stuff so far, the water park, the beach, movie night. What are you celebrating this week?

Such a sweet little bundle of joy, I can't believe she's going to be six in just a few days.

This was the most insane Christmas present that was ever purchased for a child in my house.  Back in the days before I regained sanity and restrained the Christmas monster in our house.  This was part of what prompted it because to this day I can count on one hand the number of times he used the stupid thing.

There's nothing I love more than seeing my kids get along and in the weeks leading up to Christmas they are always on their best behavior as much as they can be because Santa is watching.  They don't quite look this innocent but it is close.

It's hard for me to believe when I look a him now that this picture was taken only a few years ago.  He's gotten so much taller.  Blah!  I want them to be small forever.

With all the trouble they have caused me lately it's good to look back and remember when they were sweet and talked back a lot less.

The Wednesday after he got back from Calgary I skipped out of work for the afternoon and kept Ace back from camp and we headed out to  Canada's Wonderland  for the afternoon.  They are taking down the  SkyRider  this year and I wanted to make sure he got a chance to ride on it before they did. I think it was fitting that my last ride on SkyRider, which has been one of my favourite roller coasters in twenty odd years of going to Wonderland was Ace's first.  He approached it very bravely given that he is not a roller coaster kid.  I got the best video of his reaction after though. After his roller coaster experience Ace wanted to do something that was a little more his speed so he dragged me on  WindSeeker .  Then proceeded to laugh his butt off while I tried not to cry for my mommy as I may have an issue or two with heights.  Revenge received. Then we went on  Time Warp  for a little less scary roller coaster time...

This is Ace's last Thursday away, Sunday night he comes home, thank goodness.  I love knowing that he is having fun and enjoying all these life enriching experiences but I miss him terribly.  Plus it's time to start getting ready to go back to school and I want to squeeze as much into the last few days of summer vacation with them as I can. Today's picture is a fun summer one from Canada's Wonderland, I have a ton of those in my collection, we seem to live there in the summer.

Week two of Ace being away is under our belt and we are surviving.  In some ways having only one kid is so much easier but in a lot of ways Ace makes things easier on both Cat and I because he helps so much. Cat's bored while Mom's making dinner?  No problem, he can read with her or show her something neat in his new National Geographic.  Without crutch I have to come up with ways to entertain her while I cook, so she has been having cooking lessons, we have had some seriously over spiced fish but other than that it is going well. Today's picture of Ace is from when he first got his glasses, what an adorable little monkey he was then. 

Mr. Ace has been gone exactly one week today.  Cat and I both miss him terribly, though she would probably chew her own arm off before openly admitting it.  It's lonely for her without him though, there's no one to help her if mommy is busy. This picture was taken several years ago at  Canada's Wonderland  when they were both pretty small.

With Ace leaving to go to Calgary this morning I have been spending the last few days being super sad, sappy mom and going through old pictures.  I have found some super adorable ones and it is amazing to see how much they have both grown up. Naturally since he is going to be gone for a few weeks I am going to be all misty-eyed and nostalgic and posting old pictures of him. This one is from a picnic at Centre Island  two years ago.

This morning on my way to work I read this post from a YMC blogger and it got the wheels turning in my little brain.  First of all, why are people so mean to each other?  And second, the vast number of times I have want to set the  feral little animals  kids who call me mom at the end of the driveway with free to good home signs round their necks. The truth is though, in the moment, when there are a bottle full of snails loose in your apartment and sliming their way over everything while your son sleeps. (no lid, he thought they would stay in on the honor system)  Yes, I wanted to put him and the snails out to sleep in the yard.  After much, much yelling.  But it's a little bit funny no?  I have to admit it, then it wasn't, but now my reaction when I picked up his school bag and discovered it was writhing with snails....freaking hilarious.  The fact that he honestly thought they would stay in the bottle, adorable.  The l...

So, one of my favorite ways to hurry Ace up when he is walking like a snail is to chase after (it really is more like amble) muttering "Braaains!" in my best zombie voice.  This elicits peals of giggles from his sister as he runs away from me screaming "Snap out of it!"  After I finally relented this morning we had a conversation that went like this: Me: "I want new children, you guys are no fun." Ace: (panting like he has been running from real zombies)  "You could always eat your own brain." Me: "Cannibalism?  That's no fun either." Ace: "Zombies do it all the time.  I've seen it." Me: "Eh...."  Zombie baby chewing on his own foot.   Ace: "I invented a game at school called Zombie tag." Me: "Do you chase each other for brains?" Ace: "NO!  Zombies shuffle Mom!" (I was almost proud of the exasperated tone in his voice because he is right, they don...