Okay, I admit it. I used to suffer from extreme potty mouth. I liked all those four letter words, but especially the f-bomb. It’s just so versatile (as my hubby says).

After my first daughter was born, my husband decided it was time to put the kibosh on all the swearing. He didn’t want his precious daughter showing up at preschool swearing a blue streak. Thus, the “swear kitty” was born. This ingenious device was meant to hold all the money I had to pay each time I used a bad word (with half-price swearing during Canucks’ games). Well, after I filled the thing many times over in the first day or two, I decided to punt it and take matters into my own hands.

I stopped swearing. Well, at least under most normal circumstances and within earshot of my daughter.

But now I fear it has turned me into a swearing-prude. I really don’t like to hear curse words much anymore. Especially shouted out windows in fits of road rage, and used casually in everyday conversation in front of my kids, by oblivious teenagers. (Aren’t teenagers just 6 foot tall 2-year-olds?)

So that got me thinkin’ about other ways in which prudishness has sneaked up on me. I don’t particularly think people should live together before they get married (I lived with my husband for 5 years before we got married). I shocked myself when I realized that one. We did what? Good gracious.

Is it age, or just that my memory is failing? Who knows. But by the time my own kids are teenagers, I’m sure they’ll think I’ve completely forgotten that I was once very young and very foolish.

I’d much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they’re the first to be rescued off sinking ships.

- Gilda Radner

For me, the advantage to being a woman has more to do with choices. Women can work, or not. We can have babies, or not. We can stay home with the kids, or not. We can work full time, or part time, or not. We can look outside of our jobs for our identities, or not. We can lean on our men, or not. We can be independent, or not. We are allowed to share our feelings, or not. We are allowed to express ourselves, or not.

I’m not saying it’s easy to be a woman, or a person for that matter. And I know my ability to make choices is the product of my upbringing, my education, my social status, my family, my husband, my environment, my health, and so on. But I feel so lucky to be a woman.

And even luckier to be a mom. Happy Mother’s Day everyone.

Ah, the good old days … when we could go out as a family and order two adult meals and two kids’ meals. No longer. A kid’s meal just won’t do for my older daughter anymore.

Now, her meals are more expensive than mine.

It reminds me of when, as a kid, we’d go out for dinner for my dad’s birthday. We’d always go to the “fanciest” place in town. And that’s where I would always order the most expensive meal in town - the steak and lobster. My parents would always try to talk me out of it, but I would stick to my guns because that’s what I really wanted to eat.

I guess what goes around comes around.

Kudos to all the single parents out there. I don’t know how you do it.

I know I couldn’t do it. When my husband is away, I just can’t seem to relax (though I always seem to be sleepy).

Everything is a bit harder, a bit more frustrating, and a bit less fun. I am blessed with lots of supportive family, but I still feel the crushing weight of the responsibility that is my children.

My girlfriend swears that in every couple there is a “nice” one and a “mean” one. I’ll let you guess which one I am. (No comments from the peanut gallery please.)

So when daddy! daddy! daddy! comes back tomorrow night, there will be much rejoicing. We’ll all be a little happier, and we’ll breathe a little easier. We’ll be back to being a family again.

My older daughter was away for the whole weekend - for the first time. I really missed her.

When she got back, her sister gave her a big hug and told her how much she missed her. Then, without skipping a beat, they went right back to fighting. Music to my ears.

But I’m trying.

My daughter is a girly-girl and somewhere along the line she chose me to be her mom. Me! Doesn’t she know I’m “hair challenged?” Doesn’t she know I suck at mascara application, costume sewing, nail doing, and body glitter know-how?

I can’t choose a tiara. I can’t do a bun. I don’t shop at MAC, and those old ladies that run every dance shop in town scare the bejeezus out of me.

So what can I do? I can cheer my girl on. I can cry when I watch her lyrical number, and I can comfort her when not everything goes her way on stage.

Just think of me as a dance mom in training.

One of the key kid stressors around here right now is “that’s sooooo embarrassing!”

I don’t know if it’s the age, a phase, or what, but embarrassment is to be avoided at all costs.

So, I usually like to tell the kids embarrassing stories about myself for them to rejoice in. For some reason, parental foibles are glee-making material.

One of their fave stories is “the pop incident.”

This occurred one day while I was leaving the grocery store with a precariously over-packed cart of groceries. As I manoeuvered my cart over a speed bump (or slow bump as my kids call them), the case of pop fell off of the bottom of the cart and I promptly ran over it. This caused several pop cans to puncture and they started shooting carbonated fluid several feet into the air. It was like a geyser of Diet Pepsi.

I could have been “sooooo embarrassed!” but why waste the hilarity?

Sometimes kids just don’t get it.

The other day my daughter was telling me about someone in her class at school whom she really dislikes.

I put my “psychologist” hat on and told her that sometimes when you have intense feelings towards another person it’s because they represent an element of yourself that you don’t really like.

So, while I was so wisely explaining this thought process to her, she interrupted with “you mean like a zit? I really don’t like zits. Yeah, that’s what he is. He’s like a really big zit right in the middle of my forehead.”

The kids have the ability to make me insane, but no where is this truer, than in the car.

I think this is for so many reasons - the kids can’t get away from each other; I can’t get away from them; I’m trying to concentrate on my driving; they’re so darn loud!; they fight about everything; schlock pop music makes me mental; and so on.

But all is not lost. They also have the ability to instantly make me double over with laughter.

The other day, my younger daughter was trying to reach something in the back of the car by throwing herself over the back seat and this is what I heard:

“Yecch! I got your backpack in my mouth.”

Her sister: “Poor backpack!”

This past weekend my family and I were “tourists in our own town.”

It has become our annual ritual - we stay at a downtown hotel and do all the tourist-y stuff we wouldn’t do otherwise.

This year we took a horse-drawn carriage tour, went to the art gallery, shopped, swam, and ate a ton of food.

I confided in my husband that what I’d really like to do one day is to map out a tour of eating at all our best local restaurants. There are so many places I’ve heard about but have yet to try.

It would end up costing as much as a “real” trip but would be so much more tasty and convenient!