So my baby girl, who is now five, called me into the washroom yesterday with a worried look on her little face.

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I thought maybe she had a sore bum, or had clogged the toilet or something.  “What’s wrong?”I asked her.

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“Well,” she replied “I dropped my toy in the toilet while I was sitting there….” 

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She looked nervously toward the toilet.  I was afraid to look, but had no choice, after all, I am the mom… I exhaled with relief…Only yellow water, with a bracelet sitting at the bottom of the bowl.  I’ve definitely seen worse.

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“Sabrina, who is going to get that out of there?” I asked her…

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“You!”  she said immediately, with a little nervous smile.

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So I did the job.  It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.  At least she didn’t try to hide the evidence by flushing it down and clogging the toilet.  We’ve been down that road before, and that wind up bunny was not pretty when the plumber pulled it out of the pipes.

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I’ll just add ‘fishing toys out of dirty toilet water’ to the list of duties that I never dreamed would come with parenting. Funny enough, it’s not even that high up on my ‘disgusting’ list.  The highest would have to be glycerin suppositories for a severely constipated, resisting child.  Enough said.

I dragged the gang around doing errands today and as a reward, we stopped at Wendy’s for frosty’s on the way home. We ordered 6 small frostys..

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The staff got the order mixed up and one girl began filling the order, as did a guy at the other frosty machine.  By the time that they realized what they had done, they had filled 10 small frostys.  The manager told them to give them all to us.

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My kids actually squealed with delight, and Paulina pumped her arms in the air and said “YESSSSSSSSSS!”

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So I carried the tray with 10 frosty’s to our table and handed them out.  The kids were beside themselves with excitement, trying to lay claim to the extra ones. I suggested that we give one away to another customer, but that idea was quickly and almost violently opposed.

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Sabrina and Gregory were the first to be unable to finish theirs.  I was next.  This made the rest of the gang extremely excited at the thought of not having to share the remaining treats. 

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We left with our arms full of frosty cups.  They are all now in the freezer where they are unlikely to be eaten as they are best eaten when fresh.

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It was a real life fantasy moment for my kids to have that much ice cream to eat, and before dinner too, but a very typical case of ‘your eyes being bigger than your stomach.’  Who says dreams never come true?

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It’s all Swiss Chalet’s fault.

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We went to dinner last week and when we left, the kids got to pick something from the treasure box.  My two littlest boys picked small magnifying glasses.

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Their grandfather confided to them that it is possible to start a fire with a magnifying glass.  Our neighbour, who is also a grandfather, kindly proved this theory correct by helping them to start a good sized fire on the sidewalk using dead grass and their magnifying glasses.

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My eight year old already has a thing for fire, loves nothing more than searching for twigs and setting up for our bonfires at the cottage.  He is always the one to sit by the fire longest, poking at it with his fire stick once we are done roasting marshmallows.  So it is only natural that he is the one that now is carrying around a Dollarama bag full of his ‘fire making’ materials.

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We were eating dinner last night outside on the patio, when the sun decided to poke through the clouds for a few seconds and Jack exclaimed in between mouthfuls of Swedish meatballs, “Huh!  I needta burn!’  By the time he finished scarfing down his meal, the sun was pretty much gone and he was standing at the very far side of the yard in the hopes of catching one last powerful, fire starting ray.

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He hasn’t been able to imitate the fire our neighbour made…yet…but he can set off the caps that I bought him with his magnifying glass and the sun’s rays…Perhaps a small fire extinguisher should be added to his fire bag.  Or at the very least, a bag of sand?

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Jack refuses to try to burn ants, even though the guilty grandfathers’ in question have told him that it is possible….Oh yes, the tradition of the elders passing on their wisdom to the young is a marvellous thing, isn’t it?  Thank goodness for long term memory, and the essential ‘survival skills’ learned 50 years ago in boy scouts.

A lazy way to make the kids happy and not spend much money is to take them to the dollar store and tell them they can have anything they want.  You also gain stellar mom status.

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My little ones are thrilled with Dollarama, and thrilled with me when I agree to take them there.  It doesn’t matter that whatever toy they choose will likely only last a couple of hours before it breaks, they are still excited, and getting a candy also helps to ease the pain of the inevitably broken toy.

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So I took the three little ones to Dollarama and told them to get a candy and something else.  We spent a great deal of time at the sunglasses (along with a couple of old men), as Jack was quite interested in getting a pair (especially since his raccoon eyes sunburn last week).  The kids finally settled on their treats and off we went. 

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My kids were so happy as we left the store, that people were smiling at them.  They are easy to please, and it’s so easy to feel like a great mother!

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We got into the car and then I had to listen to the never ending fart sounds from the whoopee cushion that Gregory had chosen, as well as the sugar intoxicated hysterical laughter that, of course, came with it.  We had a few more stops to make before we went home, so I had to play dumb, and endure the giggling, and the ‘secret’ positioning of the whoopee cushion on the drivers seat, every time I got out off the car.  Oohhhh, the fun from a whoopee cushion is never ending…

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Then we got home and Jack got out his magnifying glass and caps, and began trying to build a fire on the patio.  Luckily, it was a cloudy day.  And lucky me, we don’t need the sun to have fun with a whoopee cushion!

We took the kids to my parents cottage for the weekend and had a great time.  The bugs were not nearly as bad as the last time and the weather was pretty perfect too.

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Jeremy went to his friends cottage so we drove an hour to go pick him up on Saturday and ended up spending the day there.  This family has a wonderful spot with a big boat, water trampoline, target practice area with plastic bb guns and a candy store that the kids can ride their bikes to.  Basically it has all the things that we don’t have, so when the family asked if Jeremy could stay the whole weekend, we allowed him to.  The kids spent the day riding in the boat, and tubing.  It was such fun.

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It was strange leaving without our eldest son, but we knew we were leaving him in good hands.  And talk about having extra room in the van! A whole seat was available to pile stuff on, and Jack enjoyed sitting alone back there. 

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We enjoyed our stay at our cottage, but it was strange without our boy.  Although he is a very good kid, it was, admittedly, a lot easier with only four kids.  There seemed to be less conflicts among them, as he and Paulina tend to always have differing opinions.

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We did our usual walks, swims, fires, drives and fun. The little ones all got sunburned under their eyes because they have such a bad mother.  I am still horrified by the raccoon like rings under their eyes, as that is exactly the spot where I have had skin cancer removed myself.  Anyway, I’m trying to forget about that.

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The drive home was thrilling with tons of traffic, at times completely stopped dead on the highway until we turned onto sideroads.  It took us much longer to get home than usual, but thank God for dvd players!  Hubby blamed me for making us stay longer to go canoeing that morning, but really it was him that wanted to go and made us leave the cottage later.

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We entertained ourselves on the road by doing tongue twisters- try saying ‘toy boat’ or ‘fresh fudge’ ten times fast.  It’s not as easy as you might think, and extremely frustrating. 

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The highlight of the trip for me was pulling into Wendy’s for something to eat and observing a young family with three kids strapped into car seats in the back seat of their car.  They were all very young and the newborn in the middle was a mottled red with his screaming,  and the parents looked frantic while trying to warm a bottle and get him to stop.

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I remember those days well.    Those were the days that my hubby swore we would never have more children, let alone ever leave the house again.

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But we did.   And now that everyone is older, and can pretty much buckle themselves into the car, life is much easier.  Especially when we only have four kids instead of five.  Four is the easy life, let me tell you!