The Before I Had Kids Dictionary is a guide to words that are no longer in my vocabulary now that I have children.
Former use:
To savour, or take the time to properly enjoy, a particularly tasty meal, perfectly brewed cup of coffee, quiet experience, movie, book or television show.
Replacement:
As in, “Dude, you’d better hork down the last of that sandwich, the kids need a bath before bed.”
Our lovely little city, Saskatoon, has a river running through it.
This year the water is remarkably high and therefore exceptionally dangerous.
Because it flows quickly and has unpredictable currents, hundreds of people have drowned in it over the years – on average, about one person per year (and it’s a *very* small city).
Gee . . . I wonder why?
Feeding children efficiently, healthily and affordably can be a big challenge.
(For more information, please refer to my posts on packing healthy lunches, feeding kids treats or eating sausage with a screwdriver.)
So a couple of years ago, we finally did it.
Finally took the plunge.
Finally threw caution to the wind . . . and ate breakfast at IKEA.
1 Croissant
1 Sausage
Scrambled Eggs
Hash Browns
$1
Yes, $1
When I was in line, I asked how much for a side order of bacon. She said ninety-nine cents. I asked if there was a limit per person, or whether I could actually just stand there while they filled my entire IKEA-size shopping cart with bacon.
Like, dude, here’s my credit card – just keep spooning bacon until that thing maxes out.
We had 2 coffees, 1 milk, 1 breakfast, 1 deluxe breakfast (which comes with an extra sausage + pancakes), and 1 side of bacon.
Our bill was $7.
SEVEN. DOLLARS.
But . . . before you jump up to let out the seam in your bacon-eating pants it might be worth a gander at my IKEA Breakfast Review:
1. Scrambled Eggs
Perhaps I got off on the wrong foot with the scrambled eggs by seeing them doled out, via ice cream scoop, by a very, very angry ex-convict (allegedly). It’s like this dude’s entire family had been murdered by scrambled eggs and he was getting his revenge by schlopping them onto plates as violently as possible.
Regardless, these foamy yellow curds (and I don’t mean yellow like eggs, I mean yellow like tartrazine with electric current running through it) no more resembled scrambled eggs than they did a reasonably-priced table lamp.
Spongy. Flavourless. Basically they were human despair in egg form.
2. Croissant
Mmmm . . . just like Grandma used to make – with extra calcium propionate! As artificial as you can imagine – like, the croissant melts in your mouth . . . but in a way that’s a lot like Mordor calling for your soul.
3. Hash Browns
Actually not too shabby. Just your average little globs of trans-fatty goodness.
4. Sausage
To call this spongy, wrinkled little abomination a “sausage” would just be wrong on such a high level. There was so much artificial colour added to this little wiener that it may as well have been a lesser cast member of The Jersey Shore.
I’d say that this is what you get when you mix up a whole bunch of chemicals, salt, pork fat and sawdust . . . but that would just be insulting to the sawdust.
5. Overall
Seven dollars?? 99 cent bacon??
“Hello, IKEA, I’d like to make a Sunday breakfast reservation, table of four.”
“Okay, which week?”
“Every week dude . . . every week.”
I see a lot in this photo.
I see weeds and work left undone.
I see a house that is full of broken things but teeming with love and happiness.
I see a family that has come through its most difficult year, shed tears, faced devastation, lost people we love, and bear the scars to prove it.
I see a family that continues to face tremendous pressure but with resolve, led by a woman of remarkable courage.
I see pure, unadulterated joy.
I see myself.
I see myself and wonder what wonderful thing I did in a past life to make me worthy of such a musical existence.
I see foolish kitchen dancing and messes on the rug and curling up by a fire to watch a movie.
My wife sees a lot in this picture too.
But mostly she sees that @%$ing brass mailbox she’s wanted to be replaced since Christmas.
Last weekend, our five year old daughter made a couple of crafts.
This is her very favourite thing to do, and something she does pretty much daily. She’s amazingly good at it too – and I’m her Dad, I know for sure.
So on Saturday she decided to make “some grownup things” and started with what just might be the two most prominent fixtures in her parents’ lives – coffee mugs and computers.
So she made a coffee mug and filled it with bits of black paper for the coffee.
And then she made a computer.
This is the screen and keyboard:
Notice that she is currently looking at the weather forecast on the screen.
And this is the back of the computer:
You know, just for anybody out there who still questions the power of branding . . .
“I don’t know” is not in the vocabulary of a five year old child.
It simply does not compute.
So instead of ever saying that they don’t know the answer to something, or shrugging their shoulders, or asking and trying to find out the answer, their tendency is more to . . . well, to lie.
Okay, it’s actually not totally surprising that she’d be named Mipmip – everybody knows that Mr. and Mrs. Suzzlefuts are assholes.
“Um . . . what are you doing?”
“I’m counting my Canadian Tire money”
“Did you actually just go out to the car to get your Canadian Tire money and bring it in just to count it?”
“It makes me feel rich.”
“Oh my lord, you are SUCH a geek.”
“Hey, you’ll be singing a different tune when this sweet wad of cash gets you a beautiful anniversary gift.”
Rarely have I felt like more of an idiotic failure as a parent than when performing the presumably simple task of . . .
picking ballet pictures.
See, for ballet pictures, the kids are all dressed the same. They wear the same socks. Their hair is the same. And they have identical makeup on – enough makeup on these little five year olds to qualify them for several Vegas auditions, I might add.
And every one of them has their print plastered on the wall at the dance studio and it was my task to pick out her photo and order some $30 enlargements. You know, just to put the icing on the cake because ballet hasn’t already cost me FOUR BILLION DOLLARS this year.
Now, having never seen my daughter in makeup in the first place, and having the entire troupe done up the same, when I arrived to pick out her photo, this is approximately what the wall looked like to me:
I’ve come to pick out a photo of my own daughter and . . . I don’t know which one she is.
Now, just to be clear, I am a very involved parent.
I spend a great deal of time with my kids. I take them places, I hang out with them every chance I get, I change diapers and I read to them every night.
I KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE
But I probably stared at that damned wall for 5 full minutes, straining and struggling to pick out a photo of my own daughter.
So I finally picked it, paid for it, and a couple of months later the enlargements arrived.
So did I get it right?
Did I pick the right little ballerina?
How the hell should I know? They all look the same to me.
