Posts Tagged ‘funny’

If this is Friday it must be Hamilton

Friday, November 7th, 2008

It’s been a hectic week travelling from Calgary to Vancouver, back to Toronto, Hamilton and Mississauga going on shows to talk about bedtime tips for kids. It has of course resulted in me not being around to tuck my own kids into bed for quite a few nights.

The kids seemed pretty well rested when I got back so I can assume my husband was following all of our regular routines (for my tips, visit www.tech4kids.com and click on my book – you can also see some great nighttime products I highly recommend).

I left town and only left him my contact information – no pages of lists, post-its stuck to every appliance, meals made in advance…forget it. He’s a grown up and can figure these things out for himself.

A friend asked how the poor fellow survived and I said “He did, and I don’t want to know all the boring details. I don’t normally share them with HIM, I don’t want them shared BACK either.”

I did hear from the kids about arriving at a hockey game at the wrong time, the laundry ending up in the wrong baskets, the oven timer that mysteriously stopped working when I left the house…and for a bonus one child even vomited. As far as I’m concerned, it was a total success.

FYI – for readers wondering about the Staples Teacher Appreciation Contest Winners – they will be announced in January, and I’ll post them on my website at www.kathybuckworth.com Sign up for the “Funny Mummy Files” newsletter on my site and you’ll be the first to know.

Pretend We’re Normal

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

This is advice that I often give to my children, my husband, and whisper like a mantra to myself when entering social situations where I am about to inflict my family on innocent bystanders. Such will be the case tonight, when we venture into the treacherous land of the Public School Open House.

I’m somewhat of a veteran at these affairs (given my oldest children are in high school), and I have insider knowledge from my sister-the-teacher, so I thought I’d share some tips for newbies.

1) This is an Open House, not a teacher/parent interview. Likely there are 25+ kids who are all clamouring to introduce the teacher to their Mom or Dad. Say hi and step aside. You’ll get the signal if they need to talk to you some more. They want to go home.

2) You’re there for the kids – admire the classroom, see their desk – you can gossip about whether you think the head of the school council had Botox or not later (chances are, she did – she fought to be head of the school council so we know she does weird things).

3) If you bring flowers or any sort of other butt-kissing present to the teacher, they will know that you think you need to apologize for your behaviour in advance. Yes, of course your child is more special.

Above all, avoid using the phrase “well I don’t know where he learned that!” in front of the teacher – she knows where he learned it.

Act normal.

No Time To Pre-Soak

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

One of the things I love most about my life is the variety of things that I get to do. One of the things that is hardest about my life is making the transition between the variety of things.

Mondays are always a very exciting day for me as it’s Laundry Day. Four messy kids and a slight A Personality means I do it once a week – to get it done – and to check it off my list.

Two loads done, four lunches made and sent with (hopefully) the corresponding kid, moving to a Total Body Conditioning Class I’m still feeling two days later, back home to work on edits for my next book, take some calls, get some groceries, then finally get that shower in. I realized I was attending a ceremony where the finalists for the Mississauga Arts Awards were being announced later that evening, so I put the outfit on for that, zipped to the bus stop, handed over my car to my daughter for her part-time job, shoved dinner down the kids and noted the just-in-time arrival of my husband, dropped two of them at a neighbour, raced out to the ceremony, posed with my certificate, raced home, picked up the kids, checked the homework, filled out the innumerable school forms, finished folding the laundry…and marked October 20th in my calendar – the day the Arts Awards will be given out.

I’m up for the Established Literary Award (I refuse to believe that “Established” means old, versus “Emerging”, which means young.)

I should have something clean to wear anyway…as it lands on a Laundry Day.

There IS an age limit…

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Or at least there should be. For their own good. No, not talking about women over 40 wearing belly tops, men over 10 wearing “short short” athletic shorts or even anyone over the age of 6 months wearing socks and sandals. I’m talking about the woman in France who just gave birth to triplets. At age 59.

A few years ago I wrote an article about a woman, who, at the tender age of 57 gave birth to ONLY twins. She was, apparently, an amateur. Still I believe some of the observations I had still hold true for this new crazy lady.

Click here if you wanna read it.

One week down, about 40 to go…

Friday, September 5th, 2008

So the first week of school is almost officially over. My youngest started Grade 1 French Immersion and is convinced he will be fluent by next Tuesday. I admire his confidence. I do think, however, that I shook it when yesterday he tried to share some of his language skills with me, with his declaration at our local McDonalds of “Je m’appelle toilet.” Hmmm. Was the name calling starting already? I insisted, no sweetie, it’s “Je m’appelle Nicholas.”

(This is the same kid, who minutes upon landing at the airport in France a couple of years ago, passed gas and announced “My butt says bonjour!” I’m already looking forward to potty talk in two languages).

Yet he started to get quite irate and red in the face with his “my name is toilet” statement, insisting he knew what he was talking about until he finally blurted out “I can’t think when I have to pee! I need to GO to the toilet!”

Multi-tasking has never been a man’s strength.