It doesn’t matter what it is ,there is always something that the kids do to get into mischief , and it only takes a moment.

One time it was going crazy with red nail polish. It’s amazing how much  that small bottle holds, including staining a cream-coloured carpet, my MacBook , my cream sofa,  and covering two small toddlers from head to toe. It looked like blood at first sight.

Bottles of shampoo, lotion, hair gel can be emptied in a flash! I’ve had to wash a small child’s hair about twenty times after a whole jar of Vaseline was rubbed into his scalp. Just like those poor seabirds caught in an oil spill.

Funny thing is,  they never know how it happened, and always end up blaming a sibling .

Today my iPhone received a three-year-old sharpie going over when I went to answer the door.

I have remedies under the sink for any sin they might commit with household objects. Did you know mayonnaise takes tar off skin and that isopropyl alcohol dissolves glue and takes off sharpie marker ? I do.

It only takes a moment for to take your eyes off them and then they are up to something.

Remember , quiet kids are up to something!!

My kids will find every excuse in the book not to go to sleep.

We have a very set bedtime routine of brushing teeth ,saying good night a hundred times, triple kisses and lights out.

Inevitably one child always has something to stop him or her getting to sleep.

”   I can’t find my ‘mousie’, or my blanket, or I’m too cold ,or I need a drink ,or I need a pee , or there’s a monster under my bed , or he’s annoying me ,or he’s snoring…. “The list goes on and changes nightly.

Last night the youngest, my girl ,came out of bed, yelling at the baby gate telling me “owie”over and over again and pointing to her feet.  Bear in mind I had been down multiple times already , and I was tired.

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with her but it appeared that her pajamas and the enclosed feet were somehow upsetting her.  I stumbled through to the kitchen with my groggy eyes  and grabbed the bandage scissors.

Two swift cuts ,  and problem solved !! I cut those feet right off that onsie!

I took this photo in the morning and at first couldn’t even remember doing it!

Goodnight it’s been a long day….again!

 

The youngest little is potty training. She delights in flushing the toilet as she waves bye bye to the peepee. Never to a number 2 as that hasn’t happened yet. Yet she hides in the bathroom to soil herself ????

The  latest waving of the flush happened to be a pair of her underpants.

We are on a septic tank with very old (65 years to be exact ) plumbing. Think just after outhouses were fashionable, and necessary.

Those little bitty panties clogged up our whole system. Poopy water was gurgling up into the shower base ! Yuk.

Thankfully hubby was home this weekend and used a handy dandy snake down the removed toilet. It took four hours and two resettings of the toilet, but he did it!

My hero, my panty grabbing hottie.

❤️

If  I am ever offered a cocktail , 9 times out of 10 , I will opt for a glass of bubbly.

Living in Southern California,  we technically don’t produce champagne.  Only the French region can do this. No problem, I’ll drink Cava, prosecco and sparkling wines.

I made this little “press for champagne” plaque  as a whimsy addition to our bar. No it doesn’t ring  , it’s just fun.

A small wooden frame, and a metal embellishment ,with a  rhinestone, spray-painted gold and hung.

Et voila ! Champagne s’il vous plait!!

 

When we stop to think where we came from ,we generally don’t think farther back  than our grandparents ( unless you are already interested in ancestry of course). By the time we are even remotely interested in our ancestry, our great grandparents are long gone.  At least that was the case with me.

I love history , especially the Tudor period.  I believe this fascination stems from my grandfather and my father’s interest in history also.  I have read many novels covering this period and watch any shows to gaze at the splendour of the costumes and the way they lived,  despite none of our modern conveniences. ‘Outlander’ being one of my current favorites (not Tudor time period)

Like some ,I consider their toiletry requirements.  I’m not sure why I turn into a 10-year-old boy ,but I have to wonder how they managed !

That aside,  I realise in the last few years that if you want to get to know where you came from ,you have to ask now.  Your parents are a mine of information.  If you still have grandparents, try to get information from them also. A lot of pertinent and valuable information goes with them.

Getting an old photograph album passed down to you when someone dies is a treat to look through, but if there is no accompanying information (for example : names and dates on the back of these photographs), it’s just old photos.

Word of mouth  is so much better , as the joy from your relatives expressions and memories are priceless.  You can ask for peoples names and with that will come a funny story about that person  that has perhaps never been written down before.  Even some old family secrets might pop up changing the course of history! Whaaat? She had HIS brothers’ baby?  Think bad soap opera ! It could get juicy!!

From the age of the Internet and into the future , these ancestry searches will be easier, however, prior to the Internet , it’s a case of searching censuses ,old photographs in attics , and the hall of records or churches.  Someone like myself, who moved away from my country is less likely to have access to these records.

I was given a large manila envelope that contained birth, marriage ,and death certificates from a few of my relatives from my father.  When I open them and started reading them ,touching papers back from the 1800s I started to cry .  I’m not sure what I was crying for ,but I believe it was a sense of loss, happiness and finding missing pieces .  I didn’t find anything juicy, scandalous or mind blowing, but it affected me.

There is a show on tv called ” Who do you think you are” that I enjoy immensely and always wish that someone would do the work for me and discover I am a Viking kings daughter from days of old but alas, no one will. That’s up to me to find it all out.

Some people don’t want to know what was in the past , but I do ,and so this year , watch out relatives, I’m coming to a city near you, with my notebook in hand to interview you. Great excuse to travel and reconnect also!

Ancestry.com you are about to have a new subscriber  😃

I want to know who I am.

 

 

 

In Scotland it is traditional to clean your house from top to bottom before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve .  The hope being, that if your house is clean at the start of a new year, it will remain so through the year .

My house is never clean on New Year’s Eve , so therefore it will remain untidy throughout the year.  I blame the children.

A few of my girlfriends have housekeepers , or cleaners , who stop by once a week and clean their home.    I have often thought that I would like someone to help me clean also , but this gives me all sorts of anxiety.

I would have to clean my house before they even came.  I wouldn’t want them to think I was dirty !  My kids toys are everywhere, and  as hard as I try there are dishes in the sink , wet towels on floors , and fur balls in the corners.

I am also somewhat of a control freak and perhaps they wouldn’t do it to my standards or follow my directions.

Goodness only knows I can’t get my kids to help. My eldest takes out the trash and loads the dishwasher but generally forgets to put the detergent in and turn it on…so no help there. Waking up to a dirty load of dishes most mornings with the trash spilling out of the cans. Yes , he forgets them too.

The younger children have very limited chores , only to make their beds, hang up their towels ,and put their dishes in the sink.  I tried to make it easy ,and each has a hook for a towel, but somehow I step over towels daily.  Inevitably the dishes are left on the breakfast table, never make it to the dishwasher and I end up picking them up and washing them in the sink.  The beds are crumpled mess despite only having a comforter to pull over and smooth out.

No child in my house knows what a vacuum cleaner does , only that if they climb onto  it , it’s a fun ride!

You might ask ‘why they don’t do what they are asked to do ?’ I’d love to be able to tell you but no amount of sweet talking, arguing, cajoling, threatening or punishment seems to get my request for help through their tiny heads. It must be a maturity thing and yet I just told you about my man-child.

I know it’s not my fault , right??

My husband will tell you that I have an issue with things being done right and that I’d rather do it myself and do it my way and quickly , than wait for the offending culprit to catch up.

I might have to learn to take a breath and request one final time of my children to complete their tasks , or make a checklist/point system to encourage them to perform. They are my mini employees after all ,and I reward them handsomely with wonderful treats and yearly vacations.

I am designating myself head of human resources and their in -house training will be starting immediately!

Welcome to Morgan Inc.

 

Each year we have an outside movie party before Christmas , this  year it was Elf starring Will Farrell.

I love a theme and I try very hard to make the kids smile even though it’s generally really cold! Beanies and blankets are the requirement to attend , and the ability to eat your weight in sugar from the candy buffet.

I wanted to have a selfie with an elfie board made but having left it too late , and the cost of someone making it on short notice prohibitive, I set about it myself.

Grabbing the DVD box and a sharpie marker I made an outline. My husband used a jigsaw to cut out the face hole for me , dropped everything bless him. When he says ‘when do you want it?’ He knows ‘right now’ is usually the standard answer. I don’t wait, I cannot wait, I shouldn’t have to wait….yikes , I’m that person.

 

Anyhoo.. The Elf, was drawn and face cut out. I found my acrylic paints and painted it like I was in 1st grade again colouring in a picture for my family. It was very relaxing and pleasing to my senses.

A lot of people chose to have a photo as the Elf and I was very pleased with the results.

Who knows which movie we might choose for next year , but I do believe I’ll start my planing a little earlier than the week before !

One of the appealing features in this little old farm house that we bought is the wood burning stove. It looks old, it is old.

Unfamiliar with this type of stove and chimney we called in an expert chimney sweep.  It just happened to be before Christmas and he bore an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus!  When the kids came home from school I told them that the gentleman had stopped by to “check out the chimney  to see if he would fit  “.  They made their own assumption !  It was very sweet (  and naughty on my part ).

He was a great sport letting me take his photo!

My next step was to clean the rust  off this old stove.  I googled the how to’s  and found that using Crisco and steel wool  was the best option. Well really ,those were the ingredients I had readily available.

 

 

The only problem I had with this, and it had been discussed online, was that the first few times your fireplace is lit , it smells  you are cooking on a frying pan!

 

My way , I found to combat this , was to place a cast iron kettle on top of the stove with Trader Joes mulling spices in the water. Not only did this make the room smell amazing, but also brought some much needed moisture into the room. See photo at the top.

I am still experimenting with which kind of wood to use because I find that  freshly cut wood is too wet to burn ,and some woods are harder than others.  The pine burns quicker than walnut.

Being a firefighter’s wife sure helps  when you want to be a firestarter !!

When I was a child, about 10 years old , we lived in a small town at the base of some foothills.  On the Saturday morning I would pack a small rucksack with a sandwich and a drink, I would put the lead on my trusty little dachshund,  and head up into the hills.

Not once did I ever give a thought to the fact that I was about 2-3 miles away from home,  all alone except for my yappy wee dog. We would cross small creeks and walk through wooded  areas, or close to waterfalls ,  eventually heading home going through slippery leafed declines.

We live on 2 acres  and I panic when I cant find my children ,  admittedly they are a little younger than I was when I went on my adventures. I don’t have confidence that they will make good choices and not leave the fenced yard.

Are children less adventurous now, or are we as parents holding them back for fear of what we hear ( and know for fact) ,in the media ?

I don’t remember hearing much about children being harmed when I was a child, perhaps only twice I saw something in the newspapers.  I suppose it was happening, but not everything made it into the news.

Today, we take photographs of what we are about to eat, where we are, where we are going,  who we are with , and  photos of our children and pets.  We have GPS satellite navigation and everyone has a cell phone .

My sister and I used to get on a plane from Edinburgh to Singapore ,unaccompanied, aged 14 and 10. We had no communication with our parents until one of them laid eyes on us at either end.  We were never scared , and we relied on each other  for company and comfort (  when we weren’t arguing ) .  The worst thing that could happen to us, in our opinion, was for the traveler next to us to speak to us, especially if it was a male.

We grew up very quickly then and I’m not sure that this generation is doing the same. Heads down in electronics , and always with the hand held game or phone in hand or within reach.

But, that being said, I do know where my children are .

Gone are  the days, it seems ,  when we played outside until it was dark and we knew then it was time to go home .  All your mother had to do, was yell your name at the top of her voice  and you start running !  She didn’t know where you were , but she knew she could find you with one screaming tone from our front door  . Neighbors were allowed to tell  you off , and heaven forbid they called your mum (  on a rotary phone ) !

Looking back those days were great, innocent and fearless .

I wish such things for my children but believe they may be gone. I am very much a ‘look forward ‘ kind of person , and I hope they never look back and regret never looking up from those electronic gadgets.

Being a kid was fun ….at times. I am happier being 45 though as I have money , wine and my own kids to torment!  😃

 

 

I have 3 children under seven years old. At any moment one inevitably yells “I gotta pee!”  It doesn’t matter where we are. We could be in the supermarket line at which point I have to abandon my cart and run the length of the store with three small children to avert an accident , yelling at the employees as to where the bathroom is. Heaven forbid that the bathroom door has a coded lock !

We enjoy frequent road trips.  I now have a three-year-old who is almost potty trained, and doesn’t quite understand that mommy doesn’t carry a toilet in her bag. Of course she says “Peepee” 100 times a day  , and when I ask her does she need she says “no”.  It’s peepee roulette.

We do our best to make them all go to the toilet before we get in the car,  but still 30 minutes into the journey we have to leave the freeway and look for a gas station bathroom.  If you are lucky ,the key will not be chained to an old tire or a concrete block,  and there may not be a pool of urine on the floor.  Even luckier is that you don’t go in the bathroom after a trucker has been in there for  20 minutes. No amount of air freshener can save you then !

I was browsing on Amazon.com today and looking for travel items related to iPods.  Some suggestions came up at the bottom and one of them was the picture at the top of this blog.

Travel urinals for children !  Who knew? You can’t make this shit up.

According to the description , the child urinates into the bag and it activates a gel and solidifies.

We are embarking on a long journey ( 21  hours on an airplane )  in the Spring , and trying to fit three children and myself into one of those small bathrooms on the plane just so ONE of them can pee is my idea of Hell !

This crazy idea just might work ! I have ordered a pack of six and my seven-year-old should be grateful because he was going to be in a diaper until I found these!

Some of you may be horrified at the thought of my child peeing into a bag on the plane under his blanket , but I’m going to try it anyways. Not for the little girl , but for the boys.

Actually thinking about it gives me shivers of air hostesses chucking us off , or someone tweeting that I “am allowing my child to pee on the seats ” when I’m sure worse offenses happen on planes. I remember when people could smoke on planes as long as they did it at the back! Because that really helped the smell and second-hand smoke not fill the plane.

Maybe I’ll just keep them for the car , at least I can control that environment.

So, the next time you are on a plane and you see someone fumbling under their blanket, it could be that they too saw the same product as me and thought to give it a go ! I hope………