My daughter coined a new phrase this week: Bloop. As in "I just blooped".  What is that? I asked.

It is barf coming out of my bum.

Oh.

And that’s the kind of week it’s been here in chaos. Jenna got hit with a relatively mild case of the gastro bug that is going around. Started with a fever and stomach ache and then the rallying cry: “I am going to barf” just as the projectile liquid hit the floor. There were many, many cleansing baths and then some more baths before she was even dried off. But as any parent who has spent a week with every family member logging hours on the bathroom floor can tell you; having only one person with the stomach flu is getting off easy. (And I really hope I am not tempting the fates by writing that down.)

Stop reading here if you get squeamish because this post is going down the literal toilet from here.

A decade. I can’t believe it. My son turned 10 on the weekend and so did my life as a parent.

It’s a little strange when the first object of your parental obsession grows so large that you can no longer pick him up and his feet seem like some strange floppy attachment to his legs.

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell floats the idea of the 10,000 hour rule. That you can be an expert in something after putting in 10,000 hours. Well that makes me an expert on Aaron. Except that you can’t be an expert on a moving target. I was an expert yesterday, but tomorrow I won’t be again.

Day 12 in the world of puppydom and my dog trainer has already showed me up as a parent. She’s pretty good with the puppy, too but it is her interaction with my kids that I find the most interesting.

Her sheer positivity mixed with the way she sets up clear boundaries had my kids following her around like a pied piper. It also reinforces some parenting lessons in one short hour and reminds me that indeed, kids are like puppies. Maybe animal training and people training isn’t that different.

Amy Sutherland studied animal behaviour and applied animal training techniques to her husband with amazing results and then he turned around and started using them on her. Her book, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers is based on a widely-circulated article in the NY Times.

Here are some things that I have learned from the puppy trainer, and it works goes for kids, puppies, husbands, wives, possibly any sentient being in your midst ...

“My daughter is into bag lady chic,” bemoans my friend Chuck about her 10-year old. “I cannot fully explain the horror of today’s outfit: an open silver men’s shirt on top of a tiny Pucci-inspired blouse she found in the hidden give-away bag, track pants and mismatched socks.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad!” I say, Chuck’s daughter is the size of a teenager and infamous for her kooky outfits.

“Did I mention that that the silver shirt was from the men’s section of Value Village? Her dad took her there and allowed her to wander through the store and pick whatever she wanted, so she came home with men’s disco clothes. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the bright orange wool scarf that some amateur knitted it in the 70s. And to top it off, she often goes out with socks on her hands instead of mittens.”

"OK…” says me, stifling a laugh.

“And she went to my cousin’s party in that get-up!”

I fear that I have become a bit of a cliché. My third child starts junior kindergarten and suddenly I am walking to school leash in hand, fluffy miniature furball behind me. There are a number of mothers who got puppies when their last child started school as some kind of salve against empty nest syndrome (as if that precious two hours a day is really an empty nest) and now I have joined their ranks.

We are on Day Two of living in the puppy-hood and I was planning on writing a post on how much work it to have a puppy and how it’s just like having a newborn but without the pain and the ability to eat whatever you want, but really he has been pretty easy. Of course, as soon as this post sees the light of day, I am sure I will have a mini-Cujo on my hands.

I can hear hear the screams from the basement. “Don’t touch my stuff!” “You are a crybaby!” “I want my mommy!”

I reluctantly put down my coffee,paper and investigate. And there sits my daughter, grabbing every toy in sight and piling them up around her. Her friend is standing there, hands over her face crying. My daughter gives her the evil eye and calls her a crybaby once more.

This isn’t going as I had envisioned it. Sometimes playdates go so well that I don’t have to be involved, in fact my involvement bursts the bubble of child-centred fantasy that makes playdates so magical. But not today, right now my involvement is necessary but also ineffective as no matter what I do, I am making one child unhappy. And while I stand there I remember what my friend told me about having a girl after two boys. “Don't let her become a brat.”

This advice often makes me anxious when in the middle of a situation where my daughter is obviously in the wrong. Is she becoming a brat? A mean girl? Is she going to be the girl throwing slushies at kids lower than her in the social pecking order? How do I create a positive playdate so she grows up to be a good person?

Here are my choices when a playdate goes wrong:

Choice A: Ignore it

Choice B: End it

Choice C: Be ineffective

Choice D: Be a dictator

Choice E: Turn on TV

Sleep is the currency of parenthood. I don’t know who said that first but it is true. From the first night when that baby is awake 24 hours in a row; sleep turns into a much-discussed, missed symbol of life before parenthood.

After three kids I wish I could tell you the magic formula that creates a sleeping baby. But I can’t because despite the books, the old wive’s tale and what your neighbours are telling you. There is no one formula. There are good suggestions but no one perfect answer.

Our first child was a terrible sleeper, our second was pretty good and we celebrated our success and entered our third period of parenthood with the smug knowledge that we had it all figured it out. We were wrong, our third is not a great sleeper either. But we didn’t care as much. By then we had gotten over that crazy primal need for a good night’s sleep.

If you want answers pick up a book, call the sleep doula. Because I don’t know how to make that transition easier. But here are the things that I do know:

When the earthquake first happened I didn't know if I should shield my kids from the news or address it outright, and for the first day I didn’t do either. Eventually, it it became obvious that I could not protect my anxiety-prone 9-year old nor my innocent seven-year old from the news. I tried to be casually serious, or seriously casual, I didn’t want to scare them but I also wanted to be clear about the extent of the tragedy. It wasn't until my four-year old ran in with an envelope from school with shreds of red and blue string in it and grabbed some change explaining it was for the kids whose houses fell down, that I realized that it would be virtually impossible to protect any child from the news of the earthquake.  

It is hard to know how to talk to your kids about tragedy. They are not immune to the constant talk of Haiti, the graphic photos on the cover of the newspapers and the push at schools to donate. So how do we balance the need to make the world seem like a safe and secure place with the reality of a global tragedy?

My mother always says that a kid’s birthday party is the worst day of the year, and it’s kind of true. It’s not just the expectations of your child, it’s the sheer logistics of invites, venues, entertainment, loot bags and cake. And then all those presents afterwards. And the expense!

My friends and I laugh because we always spend way more on our kids’ birthday parties then we do on ourselves. And as I am sitting adding up the bills from my daughter's fourth birthday party it is a bit staggering (no I’m not telling you how much but more than a pair of jeans and less then a weekend away). We rented a play place with a friend and then split the party down the middle but it still adds up. But even our most extravagant parties (i.e. those for our first born before we knew better) were anywhere near as ridiculous as this First Birthday party in the upcoming CBC Documentary “Hyper Parents and Coddled Kids”.

These parents think nothing of spending…