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.

The Gong Show

Juliette is now 6 months and clearly life is more hectic with two kids and a business, than it was with Dex. This is my second blog in 6 months. The truth is, it's easier bringing home the second baby than it was bringing home the first because your freedom has already been stolen by number one so what the hell. What does, however, change is the amount of work. Like anything, the work load doubles. Two kids waking up and needing to be fed, two kids needing to be dressed - not to mention the breastfeeding of the baby and of Will. When Juliette was about a week old I had made her a bath in one of those plastic baby bath thingy's. I put it on the bathroom counter and brought her into her room to get her undressed. Dex was in the bathroom pooping. We only have one bathroom. Dex is calling for me but I'm ignoring him as this is something I tend to do a lot of now that I've brought another baby into the mix. Anyhow, I come into the bathroom and put the baby in her bath because she is screaming I'm assuming because she's cold, so I want to put her in the bath as quickly as possible. As I'm putting her in the tub, Dex has started to cry. He has his pants around his ankles and is pretty much incoherent. Through the noise of the double child cry, I see that he has missed the toilet and dropped a deuce in the middle of the bathroom floor. Oh Lord. I've got one hand on the baby in the tub, and the other reaching for something to pick up the turd. Dex is now reaching unbelievable decibels and so is the baby. As I'm picking up the floor turd (with my bare hands) and trying not to let two high pitched cries bother me, I'm going back to a time in my mind when I was quite glamorous. I'm remembering making out with a gorgeous young Spaniard on the banks of the Thames or the time I went to the opera in Vienna. These are real things that I actually did. But now I'm picking up floor turds. Don't get me wrong, Motherhood is rewarding, and sometimes that reward comes in the form of a big floor steamer.

What the hell is going on

So the baby showed up which you probably could have guessed considering last time I wrote a blog I was overdue. She was born on April 20th which is 420 and also Hitlers birthday so pretty opposite ends of the spectrum. I can see it already. Some pimply faced loser teenage boy will say to my beautiful daughter, "Hey Juliette, your birthday is on the same day as the international day of weed! Wanna smoke a joint?" Honestly. That's what I'M supposed to be doing on her birthday. Stupid fake teenage boys. Anyhow she's the cutest thing of all time and was much easier on the old birth canal. I guess her brother really paved the way with his massive head. It's like the Lincoln Tunnel down there. Sexy. She was only 7lbs, 2 oz so I wasn't given a VagAnus (I can't take credit for this amazing word) this time around. Needless to say if I thought one child was a gong show, two is almost comical. Oh and this time around, I'm self employed so there's no Mat Leave per say. Two weeks after Juliette was born I was shooting this big executive type and as we're halfway through the take I can feel it happening. Yup that weird tingly sensation when you're about to leak boob milk all over. So it happened but no one seemed to notice, or at least pretended not to. Anyhow, things have settled down slightly so I figured now would be a good time to fire up the ol' blog again. The second time around is a whole lot less fanfare as you know or can imagine. No showers, no birth classes - which are both good things. What a colossal waste of money those birth classes are. Can anyone who has had a baby honestly say they can recall anything that the hippy teacher was talking about when you were pushing a human out of your Vagina, Sasnatchewan? Anyhow, I guess because we had a girl this time around we got lots of cute girly things for her. But the BEST present we got was a piece of clothing I have no words for.

My best description is Crotchless Baby Pants.So I guess I do have words for it. These came from Dexter's daycare provider, which one would think was pretty creepy, but I don't think she even had a clue that these crotchless wonders were in there. I've had conversations with a lot of people regarding the purpose of the crotch hole in these pants. Is it to change a diaper? Impossible. Is it to show off a stylish pair of baby underwear? Maybe but what's the point in that? Are they simply crotchless baby pants? Yup. Pretty much. Again, I don't think Shakira (Dex's daycare lady) had a clue that these were a part of this massive, ornate box of baby clothes she gave us. It was one of those boxes that has a clear plastic top and all of these yellow baby clothes push pinned into styrofoam. Like it would be in the window of an old family owned clothing store on the Danforth that sells Baptism dresses. You know what I'm talking about? Anyhow, there was a bunch of Chinese writing on the box so somewhere in China, there is a place that is manufacturing crotchless baby pants. Someone tell the CBC. I smell a Passionate Eye. The baby is now 5 months so I've got an arsenal of material from a woman telling me that Red heads used to be burned at the stake (Juliette is a red head) to forgetting I even had a new baby. I'll tell you that one really quick. Again, having the second is way smoother than the first as your freedom and sleep was already ripped from you once you had the first one. So Will and I and Dex and week old Juliette went and looked at this house for sale, out of curiousity, because it was on a ravine. I put the baby, in her car seat on the living room floor and toured the house while also making sure Dex didn't destroy it. We're in the basement chatting about the house when this very concerned looking real estate agent pokes her head around the corner and says, "Um, someone jus left a baby upstairs, is it yours?" I immediately looked at her like she was the idiot and started saying "Nnnn...YES! Shit , she's ours!" Will and I start laughing because we honestly forgot about her, for just a minute, because she was literally a week old and it oddly takes some time to a) remember the baby's name and b) remember that you've had a baby. I think it's because you're so busy with the other one and work and everything that it's just not totally the focus like number one was. I figure that's why the youngest child is always the most well adjusted. I'm the youngest of four.Anyhow, this woman was there to show some couple the house and looked at us like we might have been the ones whose idea it was to use chemical warfare in Syria. So up we went and she was cute as can be, sleeping away. No harm, no foul. Shit. Baby just woke up and she's gonna want to go to the breastaurant. Gotta go. Until next time.

I need a chamber maid

My baby was due yesterday but I've been convinced she's coming for the past 3 weeks so basically to say I'm on edge is an understatement. One, I'm ready to not be pregnant and pee upwards of 7-8 times a night. Seriously. This baby's head has been down for about a month now which basically means that my bladder is a pancake and I don't know how I don't suffer from dehydration I've been peeing so much. I was debating whether or not I would write about what I'm about to say but I feel like if I share this information with you, perhaps it might help someone. You know how people do that? They'll tell their story and then say, "If it helps just one person..." Usually it's something really awful about like rape or some kind of disorder that will inspire people to get help. My story to help the world is about urination. Anyhow, once my peeing got to such ridiculous amounts in the night I decided to do what my French ancestors did before me. You see The Primeaus come from a long line of aristocracy hailing from the most Northern parts of Ontario. There was no in door plumbing. There was no outdoor plumbing. There was holes and chamber pots. Getting up 7 times a night and traipsing to the bathroom was starting to get to me so I decided to get back to my primal roots. I started using a chamber pot. Yup. I think watching Downton Abbey at the time may have helped me feel as though it was the right thing to do. If Lady Mary and Lady Grantham use a chamber pot than why can't I? They're ladies! Anyhow, it was a god send and think what you will, but if you're up 7 times a night to pee you start to get desperate and quite honestly I'm not ashamed. Well, I'm a little bit ashamed but that's a feeling I've grown accustomed to over the years. My favorite part of all of this is that most of my friends who I've told this to either laugh their heads off or are sort of grossed out. The one person who thought it was a perfectly fine idea, in fact a great idea, is my mother in law. She grew up in the country in New Zealand. I guess I didn't really need to say the country. It's like saying "she grew up in the city in Manhattan." So anyhow ladies, if a tiny humans head is pushing on your bladder for upwards of a month, don't be ashamed to do what nature intended. Well, nature in the 1800's. I hope this helped even just one person.

In the shit

It has been a REALLY long time since I wrote a blog about my time in the MotherHood.I pretty much fell off the blog train after Dex turned 2. It was a combination of a few things really: modelling for the website Five Foot 3 and Proud, as well as auditioning to be the next Pope. I really have no excuse but the craziness of life, and to be honest, writing about life with a 2 year old, for a year, would have been a series of me going on and on about how something that isn't even 3 feet tall can honestly make you lose your mind with both love and frustration. Maybe more frustration than love most days. We recently went on a trip to Barbados and it was one of those trips where you're sure you're going to somehow figure out a way to move your life down there and just become island folks. It occurred to me, while I was there, why everyone is so laid back and seems so nice to one another. They NEVER have to put a toddler in a fucking snowsuit. EVER. And the marijuana. The snowsuit issue has become the bain of my existence. I understand why Dex dosen't want to wear one, I don't want to wear one either but I do. Even when it's not that cold out. It's difficult to pee when you're in a one piece creme coloured snowsuit all day but I do it, because it's practical. Sometimes it's difficult showing up at business meetings while everyone waits for you to take off your one piece, belted snowsuit, but you know what, I'm not gonna freeze for them, or anyone else. Anyhow, the best move is when he plays limp when you're trying to get him into this damn thing. It's probably my own fault. It's a move I use during sex. Anyhow, I think it's during those times, when you're desperate to get out of your house, and your defiant toddler won't do anything you ask of him, when I'm closest to losing my mind. I had a neighbour, who has two young boys, ask me if I ever spank Dex. I, personally, don't spank him but it's not that I think someone is evil if they spank their kid. I got spanked and it was probably for the best. Problem with me is I suffer from a tremendous amount of Catholic guilt. Although I've nearly shaken all of the Catholic off of me, I still have a film of guilt that I just can't seem to get rid of. That, and a fear of zombies. I mean, for 13 years of Catholic education I was told that Jesus rose from the dead. Ummmm, I don't want to be the one stating the obvious here but in my books, that makes him one of the first recorded zombies. Anyhow, I don't utilize the spank method but by all means if that's your thing, I don't judge. I may have judged before I had a toddler but honestly, they can try your patience so hard that it takes everything in you not to seriously lose it. You know what also makes you want to lose it? Potty training. I had a lot of people tell me, "You'll know when they're ready". Well as a bit of a control freak I figured, "he'll be ready when I say he's ready." The best was when I took a week off to just dedicate to potty training. We were getting the car detailed downtown and I took Dex to St.Lawerence Market to kill some time. I had him in underwear because I was going with the cold turkey method, which, as a former smoker, I should have known never works. Sure enough he drops a MASSIVE deuce in between the Kosliks mustard and the cheese stand. Thankfully those two battling smells masked the toddler crap scent. Unfortunately this wasn't a solid turd. It was GROSS and I had to go to the washroom, take everything off of him because there was crap everywhere. Up his shirt, on his pants, somehow on his socks. So now I have a naked 2.5 year old in the public bathroom, which now smells like shite, who is running around singing or doing whatever. I really don't remember because I was in the midst of wrapping a pair of tiny blue underwear, (that looked like a 300 pound man had unleashed 4 weeks of eating stew in them) up in the free St Lawerence Market newspaper. This woman opens the door and sees me, covered in shit, my son, naked and covered in shit and for some reason I think I remember a bird being in the washroom. I can't be too sure. She had a slight look of horror on her face until I somehow managed to utter, "Potty training isn't going too well" at which she laughed. I'm assuming she had either been through it with a kid, or herself wasn't potty trained. I managed to get him cleaned up as best as I could but anyone who has had to clean, not so solid shit, off of a little boy knows that sometimes only a bath will get those little balls clean. Would you have ever thought, when you were bouncing around the world at 24, seeing amazing things and discovering the possibilities of your life, that cleaning poop off of tiny balls would be a real problem in your future? So then I just gave up and sure enough, about 2 weeks before his 3rd birthday, just like I had been told, Dex came up to me and said he had to poop. He told me when he was ready. I guess some advice is worth listening too. Speaking of poop, I'm about to give birth in 4 weeks. Yup, number two on the way. And a baby.