Two major Mary milestones happened around the new year. She moved from cradle to crib (but is still in our room), for one.

And we broke out the Jolly Jumper! Her staying power is still a little weak, but we’re working on it.

And then I dressed her like an elf, a Christmas elf in January.

I bought a cheaper sewing machine because I didn’t want to spend fifty bucks on a sleep sack when we have so many blankets that could be easily sewn together. And then I sewed one! All it needs is velcro. Actually, nearly a month later, it’s fine without the velcro. So $100 for the machine minus $50 for the sleep sack plus $20 in flannel, elastic and velcro that I may never do anything with and … I made my own sleep sack for only $20 more than the retail value. Yay me!

I got a fancy new Blackberry with a decent camera, so now my pictures won’t suck so hard. (Because I’ve decided I will never actually hook up a camera to upload pictures the old-fashioned way on any sort of regular basis and I’m just rolling with that.) (They will still suck somewhat because I’m still the one taking them.)

There were boardgames with Grandma and Grandpa (and we all know where that led).

Irene started calling all elastic bands Silly Bandz and wearing them around like so many rubbery bangles.

We watched playoff football as a family and I was so proud the kids were mature enough to finally let me watch a game in peace. Er, we watched football as a family for ten minutes and then Colum and Irene started playing football, slamming into the couch and tackling each other on the carpet in front of my game. (Giants for the Superbowl, yo!)

We attended the funeral of Ed’s mom’s cousin, a good woman taken long before her time. Unfortunately it was the only occasion even remotely formal enough for Mary to wear this beautiful dress, a gift from one of her many great aunts.

Colum played hockey first thing on Sunday mornings and practiced outside on Monday evenings, even in a snow storm.

Irene decided to raid the too-small clothes boxes again and squeezed into a size 18-month white dress. She paired it with an OshKosh hoodie, striped leggings and winter boots. And she pulled it off, for crying out loud. She pulled it off.

So let me just say this. Midwives provided me with knowledge and understanding throughout my pregnancies. They gave me information and sought out my explicit consent about every test and procedure. They helped me be in control. Midwives taught me about the stages of labour and about birth and breastfeeding. They were in my apartment at the start of my very first labour telling me to get some rest. They were there when the anesthetist asked if there was a history of spina bifida in my family because surely it wasn’t the fault of his epidural that I only had pain relief on one side of my body; it must have been my fault. Midwives were there when my baby boy was finally born after days of labour and hours of pushing. And they rushed to my home to take his blood and bring it to the lab when he developed jaundice three days later. Midwives knew to duck when my water burst and hit the hospital wall while I was pushing out my second baby. Midwives made it just in time to catch my third baby at the end of my bed and I didn’t even have to leave my home for a week.

Midwives are very big part of how we became a family. They do good work. They do important work.

Right now women in Ontario have to choose between a hospital or a home birth. During the last provincial election campaign, however, Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals promised a third option: birth centres.

Birth centres are independent sites located within communities where midwives provide comprehensive care during labour as well as prenatal and postnatal. They promote the normalization of birth while providing high-quality, evidence-based care. Birth centres would save our health care system a lot of money and open up hospital space and resources for the people who really need it.

Many women don’t want a medicalized hospital birth, but aren’t comfortable with a home birth either. It took me two midwife-assisted hospital births to even really consider that maybe we could do this at home. Birth centres are the perfect solution.

Ontario Midwives want to make sure the Liberals follow through with their campaign promise to fund birth centres in the next budget to be presented in March. You can show your support by sending an e-postcard to the premier right now. I just did and it’s super easy.

And now, a video.

* I guess I did write this post and this one and this one.

Full disclosure: The Ontario Midwives did send me a lovely mug and water bottle as a thank you for writing this post. This in no way affects the content of this post. This is not a sponsored post.

It’s worse than that, in fact. They like to take entire toy bins and games with a zillion pieces and just dump them out all over the floor. Leave them alone for a few minutes and you will return to find a room that looks less like some children have been playing and more like a madman has been rifling through all the drawers and shelves, throwing and breaking things willy nilly.

We had taken all of the board games they’ve been given as gifts and put them away in a cabinet in the office. They’re really too young for board games, anyway, without full adult participation. During a visit with Ed’s parents last night, however, Colum followed me down to help choose a board game for him to play with his grandparents. He claimed to already know where the games were kept and I reminded him that he wasn’t to get them out on his own. They played Sorry and Guess Who, said goodnight to grandma and grandpa and went to bed.

End scene.

I’m upstairs nursing Mary, getting her changed and dressed, getting dressed myself and am engrossed in assorted other morning business. The kids are downstairs playing or watching TV, I assume. I come down to find ALL OF THE BOARD GAMES including two versions of Monopoly opened and their contents strewn across the living room. I dare anybody to go from zero to utter destruction faster than my two oldest kids. The only game they’d left downstairs was 90′s Trival Pursuit, of course.  I don’t think there’s a single soul under the age of 30 who is even tempted by that one. (But if you are over 30 …  Dudes, 90′s Trivial Pursuit! My place! After bedtime!)

The upshot is that I spent all morning cleaning and organizing various game pieces and play monies. I tried to yell at them to clean everything up, but it was clear they were in WAY over their heads. If I wanted actual games that could ever be played with again (and, believe me, I totally considered the big garbage bag instead), then I’d have to do this myself. The Monopoly with which Colum is utterly fascinated, but is way too old for him, is put away where nobody but me will ever find it, the linen closet. The rest of the games are put back into the office cabinet and will be taken away for a LONG time should they be pulled out without permission again.

Still, though. My kids don’t pick up after themselves even aside from X-TREME BOARD GAME DISASTERS ™. I’ve tried everything. And, by everything, I mean that I’ve tried using every kind of empty threat that I can think of. I know there are other (better!) ways of getting your kids to tidy up on a regular basis, but they all seem to involve copious amounts of time and energy, of which I am in short supply.

So, dear readers, what is the exact, magic empty threat that will finally work? Okay, fine, I’ll even consider more arduous approaches that involve actual parenting and discipline and all that jazz. I’m getting desperate.