Just clean the carpet,man

It isn't unusual for someone to tell you how to parent your child. At first this is annoying and you find ways to push your anger down while (oddly) thanking some stranger for their stupid opinion. "Oh yes, thank you, I should have a scarf on her", "Thank you, I should give her something to eat" or "Thank you, I will drink this entire bottle of wine in between waking up to breastfeed and deal with my vomiting 3 year old." No one suggested that. Anyhow, it hadn't happened to me in a while, until I got our carpets cleaned the other day. This may sound like some really sneaky way to suggest we had an orgy, but we actually got our carpets cleaned. I hope this doesn't sound too snobby but lets just say Mario didn't get into the carpet cleaning business because he didn't "feel" like going to med school or finishing his MBA. Super nice guy and good at his job but lets just say, if he had another brain, it would be lonely. So Mario comes over and both children were sick and home, so to say this day of carpet cleaning and sick children was going to be annoying, is an understatement. I had also bought a couch at IKEA a few days earlier and there were huge boxes in the living room that the kids were playing with. Mario comes in, starts telling me about his ex-wife having too many hamsters (for real) and notices the boxes. "Oh man!" he says, "Let's make a car". I thought he was joking but he wasn't. He asks me to get him scissors and some tape. Of course Dex is right into it. I thought it was cute (at first) but then 30 minutes into it I'm thinking, ok Mario, what say you clean the fucking carpets. We had to go to the doctor and I left the house, with the kids, while he continued to make the car. It's not like he was getting paid by the hour so I just sort of laughed it off but the familiar feeling of stomach pit rage was starting to bubble deep within. We get home and he's now cleaning the carpets and the box car has been constructed, which was sweet. My rage has subsided....for the moment. I put Juliette down for her nap and she's whining a bit but she'll nod off. Mario comes running down the stairs. "Your baby is crying, you should go and get her". Uhhhh ok Mario, I'm thinking, what say you clean the fucking carpets. But what I say is, "Thanks Mario, she'll be ok". "I dunno" he responds, "When my daughter is sick", (he has a nine year old) "I have to stay with her till she falls asleep". Right Mario, I'm thinking, but your daughter is probably high on carpet cleaning fumes like you, but instead I say, "Thanks Mario." So he goes about his business and I proceed to put Dex down for a nap. As I go up the stairs Mario calls after me, "Try rubbing his back! That's how I get my daughter to sleep." The rage is starting to bubble again. Right Mario, I think, I'm sure you're just the worlds best Dad around what with your hopped up 9 year old who lives in a house over run with hamsters. But instead I say, "Thanks Mario." Dex settles down and I go down to my office to do some work. Dex has gotten out of bed and now Mario is screaming, "Melissa!Melissa! Your son's out of bed! TRY RUBBING HIS BACK!" The rage is now in my throat. I run upstairs and get Dex. "Try rubbing his back" Mario yells over the carpet cleaning machine, I respond, "ARE YOU NEARLY DONE?! What say you just clean the carpets." Woops. What I was thinking now has become what I've said. I love slash hate when that happens. Anyhow, I don't think he even heard a word I said as he just kept googly eyed smiling at me. Needless to say, Mario "cleaned my carpets" if you know what I mean and you should expect to see the video on an Internet near you any day now. Obviously a joke. The best part of all of this, to me, was when he took his baseball hat off and he had a complete chrome dome. This alone, is not funny, but the whole time I thought he had long hair. He had total Kim Mitchell hair from the 80's - completely bald on top but long all the way around! Amazing. He's also really good at his job and affordable so if you're in the market to get your carpets cleaned, with free parenting advice included, let me know.

In the system

You know what's crazy? The fact that my Dad, whose name is Jean-Claude, can't properly pronounce Jian...as in Ghomeshi. They basically have the same name: Jean and Jian. So similar. It's like if you're born and bred Canadian and over 70 you simply refuse to try to pronounce any name that isn't anglo or French. You know what else is crazy? That Ghomeshi is a total asshole perv fuck. Anyhow, moving along. Dex is in Junior Kindergarten which blows my mind. It's like just minutes ago I lost control of my bowels trying to get him out. So now I'm a person who drops off, and picks her kid up from school. I tried to befriend the teen moms, since we're so close in age, but they weren't into my talk of the 90's. Unlike daycare, you have to provide a lunch and snacks. The first 2 weeks I kept forgetting to either a) make a lunch or b) made it and then forgot to put it in his backpack. It's probably best for the teachers to understand early that I'm slightly incompetent. I work for myself so it gives me the flexibility to pick Dex and Juliette up at 3:30, which is nice. I'm not sure what it's like in other places, but in Toronto, everyone who is picking up a little kid from school congregates outside of the school and the teacher then releases the kids one by one, to their parent or nanny. As a result, I've gotten to know the people who are either stay at home Mom's and Dad's, or have a weird life of self-employment, like me. In the beginning I thought, "You know what Larissa, you should probably just tone it down for the first little while and not bring out the full throttle Larissa Primeau." So my kid gets playdates and all that shit. Didn't last long. I volunteered for the first Pizza Day. It just so happened that a good friend offered her ticket to go and see The Black Keys the night before pizza day. I subwayed it down to the ACC and met up with her husband, also a good friend. We went in and once in the ACC he bought us those massive ACC beers that cost as much as invitro fetilization. Far be it from me to waste any money so I finished the Big Gulp of beer and enjoyed the show. The next day I went off to Pizza day. There were a few people volunteering and we were all standing around awkwardly waiting to be told what to do. It was pretty quiet so I thought I would break the ice with a joke. I say, "Am I the only one hungover in here or what? " One lady laughed but it was a bit tumbleweed-y. Over time I've met lots of nice people who seem to enjoy my brand of humour so I think everything will be ok. For now. In other news, Juliette is in daycare and she's cute as hell. We were out at IKEA today (what a shit show) and there was this complete freak guy walking around and singing. I'm pretty sure he was drunk. Juliette was running around the aisles and he suddenly stops in front of her. He was super tall too and had wild hair. Imagine a really tall Christopher Lloyd. She looks up at him and says "Allo" and he, for real, starts to tap dance in front of her. All 6ft 7 inches of this guy. He wasn't bad either. It was terrifying and hilarious, all at once. Perhaps exhilarating is the right word. Also, I just had to look up how to spell exhilarating. She laughed her head off and he went on his way. Maybe he works there. It seemed like something someone Swedish would do.

I'm baaaaaack

Hello! So I've enjoyed writing this blog over the years and I pretty much stopped after I had my second child for two reasons 1) I was working full time and had a new baby at home and a toddler and moved houses and 2) I've been really busy staring my own line of ball gags. It's called "Let's Have a Ball.....Gag!" Anyhow, Juliette is now a year and a half, (or 18 months for the annoying), and Dex is 4 and in Junior kindergarten which means I am now 28. God does time fly. So I'm just working (or trying to) three days a week and have Juliette home with me Monday's and Fridays. We went to our first baby sing song group thingy today. Unlike her vaginal canal predecessor Dex, we did NOTHING the first year of her life. When I was on a proper Mat leave with Dex and just had one baby, we did swimming lessons, sing song group, art, kindergym - all kinds of time killers. Juliette basically ate saltenes and stared at me working. She even came on a location scout with me a couple of times and since she's the cutest thing since Nick Cannon's soul patch, no one seemed to mind. Well if they did, they never said anything to me but that's because I made them try out my latest prototype from "Let's Have a Ball.....Gag!" But to be honest,I think it's made her a really well adjusted child, thus far. She's pretty good at entertaining herself. Anyhow, we go to this music class today and it's everything you would pretty much expect except for this one beast of lady, who I had actually seen before at an indoor playground, and I will never forget. I'll tell you why. She looks a bit like she's had a rough life, as in her face looks like it's had a few ball gags in it. Her little boy is super cute and running wild. He's nearly two. Now I will precede this next comment with this. I don't really give a shit how long you breastfeed. It's none of my business and it's good for the child. However, what I saw at this indoor playground was the most violence I have seen against an innocent breast ever in my life. This, fairly large 2 year old went up to his mother, ripped her top down and started pulling her by the titty. Like a dog. It was so weird to see a woman being dragged by her boob. Like when you see a cat on a leash. I mean honestly. Get a dog. So she grabs him and puts him on her boob and he starts chowing down. I, of course, look for too long and she says, "He's really hungry." No shit. So sure enough, she's in this music class and I recognize her instantly. So the kid runs up to her, pulls her shirt down and starts honking on it with the kind of vigour that can only be compared to Rob Fords expertise on the crack pipe. The funniness happens when her kid gets off and starts running around and she just doesn't bother putting her titty back in her shirt. So she is literally running around the sing song circle, while we're singing The Wheels on The Bus, with lefty hanging out of the top of her shirt,trying to capture a rambunctious 2 year old. She was wearing a V-Neck and no bra, to give you an idea of the mechanics of it. I happen to glance at the one Grandpa who has brought his Grandson and he's staring to oddly sing really loudly and stare up at the ceilling, as though that will make the fact that he's staring at a run-away boob, go away. Well now I can't take it and just start laughing. I look down at Juliette to pretend like it's the baby that I'm laughing at but I can't stop. It's getting worse, like I'm tearing up. Anyhow, the song ends and so does the class and I'm dying to talk to someone about the hilarious incident of the runaway boob, but it's the first class so I've got no friends yet and there's a good chance that I'm the only one immature enough to think a boob flopping around a sing-song circle is that funny. Now I've been a part of a few drum circles in my day, especially the West Coast days, and I still didn't see this amount of titty. So that's tit. Until next time.