Kasie Savage: (almost) Mother of the Year

It's not easy being a skirt in a home chalk-full of rancid jocks.  But I've managed to get by.  You see, as the lone double X in a chromosomal pool of 4 XYs (5 if I include the dog), my interests in home decor, Fall fashions, beach-wave hair and pedis get buried somewhere underneath a pile of mismatched tube-socks, baseball gloves, goalie pads and Under Armour everything.  Don't get me wrong, I love being active.  I'm a daily exerciser, I enjoy 9-holes of golf and just finished up another summer season on a ladies ball-hockey team - and I literally still have no idea what the rules are (icing to me means confectioners sugar, butter and milk). I do my best at faking my way through "sporty" - just as Brittany Spears fakes her way through "talented" and "singing".  Pretending to love sports gives me a valid excuse to get out of the house for an hour each week to pursue an activity that my kids might actually care to inquire about.  "...

What would I rather do than wear a bathing suit in public?   I would rather have day-long dental surgery without anesthetic. I would rather have a pap-smear from a swarthy looking male medical student on day 1 of his residency. I would rather clean up stomach-flu from an airport washroom. I think you get the point.  I would rather do anything than expose my white, pasty, thrice-pregnant, veiny, Mom-bod in public, whilst wearing what amounts to a spandex bra and undies.  Ewww.  I just threw-up in my mouth thinking about it.  There's nothing worse for many of us, than bathing suit season.  Thank god I don't live in a tropical country.  In fact, one quick search on Ancestry.com reveals that I descend from a long-line of insufferable female prudes who migrated further and further north over the centuries in search colder climes where head-to-toe apparel was required for at least 10 months of the year.  Don't even get me started on shorts! ...

            As far as my three boys are concerned, there are only 2 days in a calendar year that matter: Christmas and Halloween.   And they’re not alone - according to consumer stats, Halloween ranks second in retail spending.   That’s HUGE!!!   From Halloween recipes, to drinks, to décor, to costumes, wedding-themes (huh?), licensed merchandise, how-to-videos, pyrotechnics, outdoor lighting, inflatables and more, Halloween is no longer a one-night trick-and-treat. Used to be, when I was a kid, Mom took an old worse-for-wear bed-sheet (likely one that you permanently soiled during that nasty stomach flu), cut out jagged eye holes and a mouth, tossed it over your head casually and announced, “you’re a ghost – that’s your costume”.   One pumpkin on the porch was standard décor and kids excitedly tossed their pillows loose from their cartoon-themed pillowcases with the intention of filling them until the seams ...

Recently, I visited my hometown and met up with some friends from "the good ol' days".  You remember the good ol' days don't you?  When the term "responsibility" meant showing up to school on time and paying back the $0.50 you borrowed from a friend to buy an ice cream sandwich from the caf?   In the good ol' days, "time management" meant spending as much time laughing until your cheeks hurt as you did sleeping in.  My friends and I spent hours recalling these times of complete fun and frivolity and I took great pleasure in listening to them recount all of the unnecessarily stupid and hilarious things that I, Kasie, supposedly did for a cheap laugh.  That's when reality hit me in the face like a hot pink can of Aqua Net- I am soooo boring and soooo lame and soooo un-fun now that I have kids and a husband and jobs and carpooling duties and bills and kitty litter and wrinkles and dry hair...

There's a great and well known parenting adage I subscribe to:  "Never do for your kids what they can do for themselves ".  Not only does it help kids to be more responsible, confident and independent, but having them do more, means I get to do less! Now I have so much time on my hands I can even complain more!! My little fellas are now aged 8, almost 6 and 4.  Wyatt, the eldest (aka Bossy), frequently does his own laundry, cleans bathrooms, vacuums, mops, dusts and even has crabs!  (Hermit crabs...the pet variety).  He's even started making breakfast for the family and his own school lunches.  He gets paid for none of this.  Noah and Spencer, the younger brothers (aka Needy and Demanding) also clean bathrooms, vacuum, dust, polish, help with laundry washing/folding, sweep floors, wipe tables, garden, etc...  No money there either.  This is all on top of their daily expectations- to wake indepe...