Since most parents are not particularly fond of whining, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” is a common mantra in many households. It is most often heard immediately following annoying requests such as “but I wanted to sit in THAT chair” or “no, not the blue plate, the RED one!”

The adult version of “you get what you get” is when you have a baby. Not a lot of social engineering is involved so you can’t exactly order a baby of a particular gender or personality type. You can’t even count on baby being healthy so parents everywhere have to take what we get.

When my son was diagnosed with autism, I was pretty darn sad. I quickly realized that it was time to look myself in the mirror and scream the mantra. Being upset was not going to help me and it certainly was not going to contribute to my son’s development.

My SIL had to say the mantra to herself a few years ago upon discovering she was pregnant for the third time. She had two little boys already but being pregnant again was not the issue. Indeed, she had decided to quickly squeak in one more baby, preferably a girl, before changing her mind on going for a third child altogether. You can likely predict the ending – instead of that little girl, she got identical twin boys landing her in the glamorous position of being a mama to four boys under four.

Despite our reproductive plans going a bit pear-shaped, both my SIL and I have survived our adventures with laughs and a lot of love. Strangely, we’ve experienced some disapproval from those on the outside. While pregnant with the twins, my SIL had to listen to comments such as “oh, how awful!” when announcing she was having two more boys. People have expressed that I must be crazy to have more kids considering my risk of having another child with autism. I get that raising a kid with autism or having babies two at a time may not be on everyone’s “bucket list” of things to do before dying, but I can think of worse things.

So we grown-ups get what we get, and as you have probably figured out for yourself – getting upset is pretty much pointless. I can’t imagine a world without my boy and I can assure you that my SIL wouldn’t trade in “Thing One” and “Thing Two” for the most adorable girlie pink princess up for offer.

Like any kiddos, mine are big fans of critters and creatures. They are particularly fond of chipmunks, and at the cottage they spend a lot of time feeding and basically domesticating these little creatures.

Turns out they have made fast friends with the little critters at home as well. That was all fine until I noticed the filthy little rodents started tunneling everywhere and patio stones were sinking all over the garden. Daddy-o basically went nuts and started threatening rat traps and shot guns – he experienced “Chipmunk Rage” and it was not pretty. It became his obsession – every conversation became about chipmunks and I even caught him one night on Google using words like “chipmunks” and “death” in the same search.

He went to war with the chipmunks, and it became a battle he was losing. Badly. We were overrun with the little garden wreckers.

The kids were delighted when we picked up some chipmunk traps and began planning a chipmunk relocation. The rock quarry two kilometers up the road seemed the perfect destination for our furry friends.

I was explaining our little plan to another mama one morning at summer camp drop-off. She explained that some animals don’t relocate well but couldn’t comment on how chipmunks fair. When passing along this information to daddy-o, it became clear that he was not concerned about the stress levels or survival statistics of the relocated chipmunks. Fair enough – I think the chipmunk rage daddy-o experienced took a good few years off him.

We set our traps and began to catch them one after the other. When I went to do the first re-location, I noticed dear chippy had a bright orange spot on his back. Apparently daddy-o and the kiddos thought it appropriate to implement a poor man’s tracking system. If chipmunks with orange paint were in our backyard a few days later, it meant that we need to relocate further afield. It seemed I was the only one concerned about how the little critters were going to camouflage with the bright orange spots on them.

Needless to say, 11 trips to the rock quarry later, no orange chipmunks have returned to our property. While driving past the rock quarry last week, I noticed a little orange splat of something on the side of the road. Now my only concern is that the animal services folks might catch wind of our chipmunk relocation. If they rock up to the house asking questions, I think I’ll spray daddy-o with some orange paint and tell them to relocate him.

My cousin just had her first baby, an adorable girl named Claire Maeve.

It was discovered at an early ultra-sound that the baby was going to have a cleft lip. Although minor on the scale of things that can go wrong, it is still news that parents need to digest. The mama and papa (to-be) were amazing - they digested the news quickly, did their research, met with professionals and spent the rest of the pregnancy excitedly anticipating the arrival of the baby. This baby is definitely getting some family favourite status – she is the first grandchild on both sides, has loads of adoring aunts and uncles, and a handful of kids like mine all wanting a piece of her.

The day after Claire’s arrival, my three little ladies begged to go to the hospital for a visit. The new parents are good sports and confirmed they were up for some little visitors.

I had already prepped the girls about the cleft lip but thought I should do a quick refresher with them before heading over to the hospital to meet wee Claire. The highlights of the refresher course included information about what cleft lip is. I explained that her lip would look different to our baby’s lip and talked about the operation she would be having in the months to come. I knew they would worry that Claire’s lip would hurt, so assured them that Claire was in no pain at all.

Sounds like a fairly reasonable amount of information, wouldn’t you say? Well, apparently not. When we walked into the hospital room, the three girls ran over to the baby when one of them promptly gasped, grabbed my leg and said “why does her lip look like that?”

Are you kidding me? I went through that whole educational piece TWICE with the kid. I turned a slight shade of pink and gave a little smile to the new parents then went through the whole cleft lip explanation once again. The new parents were not even remotely fazed by the faux pas which is an early indicator that this parenthood stuff is going to come easily to them.

The third explanation did the trick then she immediately started fighting with her sisters over whose turn it was next to hold the baby. I guess the lesson here is that no matter how much you think you have prepped your kiddos, you just never know what they are going to blurt out. If embarrassing us is their job now, I look forward to the teenage years when the roles are reversed and embarrassing them becomes my job. I suspect I will find that new role quite fulfilling.

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I was in Chicago last weekend, attending the BlogHer conference for the first time. In the world of mama blogging, this is the biggie. I was in the company of 1,500 amazing women bloggers — attending great seminars and fabulous parties. It was great fun to see online relationships transform into real life friendships. Really, it was like one big reunion of people who have never actually met before.

In the build up to BlogHer, all the talk was about fashion. This fashion chatter started early on and only got worse. In the final week before BlogHer, the topics flying around Facebook and Twitter focused on what we were wearing, or whether there was time for a French manicure or to lose that last pre-conference10 lbs. It felt like I was getting ready for a really long first date, but one with 1,500 women What was I getting myself into?

I got to thinking about all this fashion fuss. As it turns out, all the fashion hype was in good fun and no one seemed to take themselves too seriously. I did, however, consider a few theories as to why physical appearance was getting so much attention from a bunch of people who spend most of their time getting excited about words and the latest iphone applications.

1) Bloggers spend a lot of their time hiding behind computer screens. The conference provided an opportunity to come out of hiding and show our faces in the light of day. Breaking free from behind-the-screen justifiably warrants some highlights and a mani/pedi.

2) Many bloggers there were mamas. Any opportunity to shed the mama uniform should not be missed. All of our overworked yoga pants deserved a three-day holiday. What a great excuse to go shopping.

3) Our gorgeous profile pictures. No one puts a crappy picture of herself on her profile. That profile picture can be a tough standard to live up to, inspiring all of us to go for that last minute eyebrow wax and other grooming procedures before our in-real-life debuts.

I had the added complication of having to glam up my 12-week-old son. His baby uniform consists entirely of sleepers at this point, so I was hard pressed to turn him into a fashion statement. My solution was to put him in sleepers that had only gone through one or two of his five siblings and if they didn’t have stains on them, I considered it a decent enough effort.

A highlight for me was meeting some other “Mamas of Many”. Mom of quadruplet boys, Jen Murray, was there. I was chatting with Christine Young and Tara Kuczykowski. and discovered that between the three of us we have 17 children.

I returned on Sunday, excited and head spinning from the non-stop conference action. Although overwhelmed and exhausted I’m already counting the days to BlogHer in NYC next year — which leaves me about 12 months to figure out what I’m going to wear.

**Looking glam at one of the parties with my Mabel’s business partner, Mumby.

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