I admit it, I threw myself on my sword.

When I went to pick OlderSon up from daycare I started with an apology. In fact, I think I apologized three times.  (For those catching up, I had forgotten to send him to school wthout skates - on a skating day. Read more here.)

He looked at me, a little puzzled.

"Didn't you have skating today?" I asked.

'Oh no, mummy. It was far too cold. So we just played in the gym!"

Of course they did. It was -27 with the windchill. Thank you, Mother Nature - your harsh Canadian winters bailed me out in a pinch.

This mom thanks you.

Twenty minutes before a manager's meeting it struck me: Today is Tuesday. The 8th.

It's skating day at OlderSon's school. And he is there, probably watching all the other kids skate.

Because I forgot his at home.

I thought I had done so well! Husband was sick so I was on my own getting the kids out the door. I got everyone up early, we enjoyed a quasi-leisurely breakfast, got dressed.

We even had time to plan an afternoon snack for when I pick them up from daycare after work. I thought of it.

I started a couple of new projects at work, and then at lunch went out to get YoungerSon's diapers. And some Valentine's Day cards, so OlderSon could practice printing his classmates' names.

But the skates. Oh, why did I not remember about the skates until I was sitting at my desk after 2pm - more than an hour after he would have come inside?

Oh, I suck. I can imagine him standing there, watching his buddies skate around, while he was in boots.

I hope he didn't cry. I hope he wasn't sad.

I feel nauseous. I feel like I've let him down. I feel like a bad mother.

I suck.

A colleague once told me that if he gets his kids to school on time, well dressed (okay, dressed) and with lunch in their backpack, he declares it 'a morning miracle.'

Anyone who has children knows this to be true.

We've been struggling with the morning get-to-work on time routine for a while now, and I've tried a few things to improve the morning routine.

I'm a morning person - I spring out of bed by 5 a.m. for a workout, have a shower and make the lunches.

OlderSon is like me, jumps out of bd to give me a hug, gets dressed, and starts talking excitedly about his day.

Husband is not a morning person, which is not ideal, but he helps the best he can. I give him full marks for that.

Our two year old is CERTAINLY not, and his mornings mostly begin with rubbing his eyes and whining, crying and tantrums.

These tantrums add significant stress to the morning. Usually everyone in the house (except for the dog, who patiently waits for toast scraps) is grumpy by the time they get to school/daycare/work.

On Tuesday, I complained about our crappy mornings on my Facebook page. I tweeted it too.

'Do it the night before,' suggested one friend. 'We used to pack school bags ad leave them near the door, set the breakfast table, prepare lunches and put them in the fridge."

Another friend ageed. 'You need to run it like a military op. No screwing around, and we don't let the clowns run the circus'.

And, he added, you need to get up earlier.

So today I did it - today, I got everyone up 30 minutes earlier. And the difference was phenomenal.

Both boys were able to wake slowly, rub their eyes and cuddle. They had their breakfast at a slow, relaxed pace. They even had 10 minutes to play!

They dressed without complaint.

No tantrums. In fact, I recall hearing laughter in the middle of a tickle fight.

And even with the snow storm today, even though Husband and I carpooled... I arrived at work on time.

As I walked into the newsroom, I swear I heard angels sing. For today, we had achieve the morning miracle.

Yes, clearly we have lost it. We have fired our cleaning lady.

I realize that already some of you are rolling your eyes, thinking how horribly middle-class it is to complain about your house cleaning.  There are people starving out there in the world, I know that - and I'm incredibly lucky to be able to complain about my cleaning service.

But here it is: if you're going to work and have kids, you need to make sacrifices. I make sacrifices in order to outsource the cleaning of my house.

I don't want to waste precious weekends and evenings with my children on my hands and knees, scrubbing toilets. (But let's be honest, potty training is messy, and sometimes that whole bathroom needs a hose-down).

But now, dear reader - we're in a pickle. We have just fired the cleaning service that was keeping our home in tip-top shape.

It seemed like a natural move, after Husband caught one of them on the computer (which was dumb itself, but when he realized they were trying to connect with dial up when we have high speed access....), we knew it was over. There were a few quibbles with the cleaning job, but really? On the computer? That's not what we're paying them for.

But now that the key has been handed back, reality has set in.

Oh. My. God. What have we done? I don't have a back up cleaner, I don't have a line on a back up cleaner. (I've asked one neighbour, but hers is already fully booked).

Husband loves to vaccuum, which is great, but it doesn't get the bathrooms cleaned or shelves dusted. Which falls to yours truly.

So my precious time will now be spent finding, interviewing and hopefully hiring a replacement.

One who has no computer skills.

I thought our sleepness nights were behind us.

OlderSon is now five years old, and YoungerSon is two. Getting up every two hours is a distant memory (thankfully), as are semi-conscious diaper changes.

But it would seem that children and interrupted sleep go hand in hand. We now have a new sleep issue to deal with, and I didn't see it coming: sleepwalking and night terrors.

It has only happened three or four times in the past couple of months, but each time it does, we're left with a feeling of helplessness for our biggest little man.

Usually it's about 60-90 minutes after he goes to sleep when we hear OlderSon racing around his room, talking in a way we can't understand, sometimes he's looking for something, other times he's packing a bag, but every time he's frantic.

His eyes are wide, and his pupils fully dilated. He will look right at me and say something I can't understand. One time he shouted "The Four! The Four!"

Every time, I give him a hug every time to wake him - his heart is racing, and he is shaken. He is clearly upset.

Once he is taken back to bed, OlderSon will fall asleep immediately, with his eyes moving in REM.

At which point we are left, breathing deeply, wondering what we can do to help. Or did we do something to cause this? Too much Spiderman?

So, like all parents with the best of intentions, I googled "five year old" and "sleepwalking".  There's a great explanation on Wikipedia about sleepwalking, you can read about it here.

From some hasty web research it appears sleepwalking and night terrors are common in children. The only advice out there is to guide him back to bed, make sure the doors out of the house don't open (one site mentioned a boy who walked halfway to school when he woke up!), and that he's kept away from stairs. A great thought that, my lovely little guy waking up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Egad.

So, we now sleep with the door open, ready to jump up when the sleepwalking starts, so that we might soothe him back to sleep.

Just as we did when he was a baby.

Really, I do.

I have always believed in public schools, the teachers who work there, and the public education system. I am proudly a product of public schools.

But lately, I've been feeling like a jilted lover when it comes to the public school system. I'm losing faith in how my tax dollars are spent with respect to the public school system. I fear for the experience my children will have attending public schools. OlderSon attends Stephen Leacock Public School in Kanata - an excellent school. He loves it, we have been super impressed by his teachers. But it's stuffed to the gills with kids. There are twice the students intended for this school, built at the end of our street in the 60s.

Yes, this school, with a capacity of 480 students currently has more than 800 attending senior kindergarten to grade 8. There are 12 portables on site. Twelve.

How does this even happen?

Something has to be done, it's clear. So last  night, I headed to an 'interim accommodation measures' meeting, hosted by the Ottawa Carleton District School Board.

Stephen Leacock isn't the only elementary public school with overcrowding issues in Kanata  - there are two other schools that need immediate attention: Katimavik and Roch Carrier.

Last night, OCDSB presented possible fixes to deal with the overcrowding at these schools: move junior kindergarten at Stephen Leacock to another school, move grades four and five students from Katimavik to Castlefrank Elementary School, move grade 7&8 to two high schools early... and on it goes.

One parent asked about busing: her children would be attending two different schools with two different start times. They would have to take buses from two different locations. Her children are four and five years old.

Another parent asked why his daughter, who lives across the street from Katimavik, would have to be bused to another school because of overcrowding.

I wondered: Had it struck anyone that these interim solutions to overcrowding seemed to be trucking our children around like cattle to different schools?

Apparently, it had. Parents were pretty upset, as each person at the mic expressed frustration. Why hadn't this been thought of before? Kanata's growth, its houses, its kids... these didn't pop up in the night.

"I feel like an idiot for moving to Kanata," the last mother told board staff. "I paid $330,000 for a house so that my kids would get to go to school here, and now I don't know why I did."

Silence. She's right, I thought.

And parents have every right to be upset, for we're the ones left with this huge overcrowding mess to deal with. No, I'm sorry, in fact - it's my boys who have to deal with this.

I can't help thinking that this problem is due to a lack of oversight on behalf of the province, and a lack of foresight on behalf of the city and the board of education.

Unfortunately, Kanata's problems aren't unique. There are overcrowding issues in schools across the city and in boards across the province. Imagine if our Minister of Education actually attended one of these meetings, and heard what parents had to say.

Heck, imagine if Norm Sterling, the elected MPP for the Kanata region, was listening to the frustration in his constituents voices.

Imagine if the province mandated that every time a development was built, schools were part of the package, giving the city some teeth when it came to dealing with developers.

Growing up, we moved from a house in town out to the country. Our new, two-acre property seemed huge to me. "I can get a horse!" I told a friend I rode ponies with.

No, our riding instructor told us, in York Region, (at the time) you needed at least five acres to have a horse, and one acre of pasture per horse. It killed my dreams as a 12-year-old, but it made so much sense. Horses needed to graze, they can't grow up in a 90-foot backyard.

As a parent, I'm struck by how we seem to put better rules in place for livestock than we do for our children.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here... What if the province had an act - I'll even take a by-law from the city - that stated for every 10 houses, there had to be accommodation made for a classroom. So, if you're building a devleopment of 200 houses, you're also building a 20-classroom school. Because just as horses need good space to graze, children need a healthy environment to learn.

And as one parent pointed out last night "portables are not school."

After we put our boys to bed, Husband and I retreat to our TV room, to relax.

Well, as much as you can relax, with your five-year-old running around in his bedroom above where you sit. Our unofficial agreement with OlderSon is this: you can take as long as you want to fall asleep, even read books in bed, but you can't leave your room once it's bedtime. (We keep the only a small light on in the corner, as he has expressed the same fear of the dark that I have... I however, have learned to fall asleep with the lights off.)

Usually when we do a final check on the boys before heading to our own beds, we will find OlderSon sleeping on about 20 matchbox cars, all parked perfectly beneath him. There may also be a book or two under him. Clearly, he takes some time to wind down.

Last night, as I climbed the stairs, I was surprised to find a beach bag on the landing, filled with stuffed toys and books.

Failed runaway attempt?

This morning I asked him about the bag.

"Oh, that's for our holiday," he said plainly. Last weekend, we announced that the family is headed to Florida in February and we will go to Disney World. At the time, the boys were more impressed about going on a plane, and I was only a little disappointed - life is not all MIckey Mouse, despite those slick TV ads.

Clearly, however, the concept of a break is starting to sink in.

"But sweetie, we don't leave for a month," I explained.

"That's okay, we can just leave it there until we go. Now, we're ready." He beamed.

So I left it there, and we got ready for daycare/school/work.

We can move that beach bag tonight, and put it somewhere safe.

An update on YoungerSon's potty training progress:

It's, well, messy.

He's doing okay at daycare, when he has learned to hold it until they put a diaper on him to go outside or have a nap. ("Halfway there!" one caregiver cheerfully said the other day), but he's not peeing on the toilet just yet.

This is better than when we're at home, where I guess it must be the lack of peer pressure that allows him to, well, let loose whenever and wherever.

Saturday saw four changes of clothes. Sunday was a little better - we only had to change three times.

All I can say is this, Maytag, you make a quality product. Man, there's a lot of laundry.

But after writing about Amy Chua's Tiger Mother method, and  reading some of the comments from readers on that post (you can read it here), I've been trying to imagine her method:

First, I would have to berate YoungerSon for still wearing diapers, and tell him he is better than everyone else in the Toddler room. No more sleeps with his favourite bear 'puppy' until he is potty trained, effective immediately.  Then, I would put him on the potty. Practice makes perfect. We would sit there all day, until he got it right. There would be crying - no, surely wailing - as he watched his five-year-old brother playing with toys around the house (shouldn't he be practicing violin?) Sorry YoungerSon, no getting up until you've got this licked, I'd say.

Would I call him garbage if he didn't wash his hands properly? I suppose under Chua's guidelines I must.

But no, I am just a Western mother, inferior in Chua's eyes, encouraging my youngest, and helping him learn. Loving him, as it were.

I resent that some folks think this means I"m a pushover. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not. I come from a long line of strict Scottish mothers, and I like to think we've all turned out okay.

For this Western mother (man, the stereotype!) while I'm potty training, I don't jump up immediately to change wet underpants, in an effort to drive home the point that peeing on the toilet is a much better option that just letting go while you sit on the couch. (Now that was a mess). Rather, after YoungerSon complains about the 'mess', I'll remind him of this option.

Guess what? He'll get it,eventually. Just like his big brother did.

And his success will be just as much as an achievement than if I had lost my voice from shouting at him.

At a story meeting today, we talked about Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal piece on being a Tiger Mom, and how she raised her daughters to be happy, confident children.

Who fail at nothing - because they're not allowed to.

Here's a snapshot of the excerpt, published in the WSJ (Read the full excerpt here.)

"A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin."

Later, she goes on to to say that Western mothers worry too much about their children's self-esteem, and that Chinese mothers assume that their children are emotionally strong, not fragile. She expected excellence from her children, because she believed in them.

There are a few things that make me sad about this piece.

First, I'm sad for her daughters! Chua recounts one episode at the piano where she didn't all her daughter, unable to play a piece of music, to get up for hours - not even to go to the bathroom -  until she got the piece right. The incident ends happily, friends congratulate her on her daughter's fine piano playing at a recital. Howe lovely. But what are the long-term costs? I'd love to know what a psychiatrist would say to this kind of parenting.

Secondly, doesn't this just reinforce cultural stereotypes? Not all Asian children are raised this way, but pieces like this don't reflect that.

"Is this what your childhood was like?" I asked an Asian colleague (even typing this wreaks of stereotype. I have never before defined her this way. I just think of her as a brilliant woman, and it's not because she was born in Hong Kong.). "Clearly not," she said, and laughed about her failures in Math and Science.

Lastly, how can the Tiger Mom strategy actually work? In a class full of kids, and in life, not everyone can get the A. Statistically, and logistically, the Tiger Mom parenting method is flawed. Tiger parenting then becomes a competition between parents as to who can badger and harrass their kids the most successfully. 

Let me go all momma bear, and wrap my arms around my cubs. I expect a great deal from them, don't get me wrong. They are young, but I know they are clever, and I won't tolerate laziness. I believe they can understand right and wrong, and it is my job to give them the tools to make smart decisions.

Having said that, they only have one chance to be a child, and if they want to go to a sleepover or be in a school play, so be it. 

I guess in Chua's mind, that is tantimount to letting them fail.

I just want my cubs to be happy and productive.

And I don't see how hours of practice, shouting at your children and calling them garbage can do that.

Somethings are just not as special the second time around. Potty training is definitely one of them.

To clarify: potty training OlderSon was never really 'special', but I do remember thinking 'my little baby is reaching another milestone.' There was something grand about each pee, it was cause for huge celebration. I remember hoots of excitement, a flurry of stickers and for a poop - magic! - why we would give OlderSon a new matchbox car as a prize.

This time around, I'm not excited about this advancement at all. I know what's coming, and it stinks. LIke the putrid stench of stale urine soaked into the bathroom tiles. (Hello Javex)

Let's be honest. Toile training is just a world of poop and the only flurry will be the extra washing I'll be doing.

I know I need to get all jazzed up about this. I know that the only way to have YoungerSon keen to sit on the potty is to read stories, give prizes (I remember one friend gave her kids a smartie for each successful visit).

But really... I just want to fast forward to a time where it's all done and taken care of, and all that's left is the reminder for YoungerSon to wash his hands.

This is day two of potty training for YoungerSon and his 'underpants.' Never have I seen a boy as excited about underpants! Well, they are Spiderman underpants...

I have sucessfully outsourced potty training during the week to the lovely women who care for him at daycare (some of whom had to train OlderSon also). And here's a rundown of day one:

No diaper all day, one accident.

YoungerSon sat on the potty all day, but never pee'd.

It would appear that YoungerSon is either a) severely dehydrated or b) knows to hold his pee until a diaper was put on him for nap and outdoor time (potty training in a snowsuit is no fun at all).

The smart money is on B - I've seen this boy drink, and heard him when he's thirsty.

"Maybe he wants to pee standing up," suggested one of his caregivers.

Perhaps, I thought. When OlderSon was potty training, I remember asking this same woman with exasperation how she got him to sit on the toilet.

"Sit?" She said. "He doesn't like to sit. He stands up to pee." After that, everything was golden.

Remembering this, we decided to take this angle last night. Husband, OlderSon and YoungerSon and I paraded into the bathroom when it was 'pee time.'

Thinking he would follow his big brother, I asked OlderSon to pee first. Done.

YoungerSon walked up to the toilet, and bent over, his hands on each side of the bowl. His penis was nowhere near the toilet. I flashed foward twenty years to visions of him after a big keg party.

"No," OlderSon explained with his wisdom of five years. "That's not how you pee. That's how you be sick."

Husband and I chuckled. YoungerSon stood tall on the stool. He assumed the peepee position.

He looked down at his penis. He looked in the toilet. Then he looked down at his penis, as though it were broken. Nothing.

We were all quiet, waiting for a triumphant stream of urine that never arrived.

Nothing. Nada.

"All done," YoungerSon said, pulling up his pants.

And with that, he marched out of the bathroom.

It's only day one, right?

For decades women have been talking about equality. How long ago it seems bras were burned, Steinem posed as a Playboy bunny, and Betty Friedan unveiled the startling truth: being a homemaker isn't always completely fulfilling.

I studied feminism in high school and university. As I entered the workforce the women in my graduating class lamented the lack of women in key Editorial roles. We talked about the glass ceiling and the demands of the news industry and any kind of a family/home life. (More than a few) years on, nothing has changed.

But at some point, you have to stop talking, and you need to get roll up your sleeves and get it done.

Case in point: Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. Yes, that Facebook.

Sheryl's 41, an economist with a Harvard MBA who has worked at the World Bank and Google. She placed 16th in Forbes' list of the 50 most powerful women in business in its most recent rankings.

And she has a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.

Yesterday, I came across this great talk by Sheryl Sandberg titled 'Why we have too few women leaders." You can watch it here.

If you don't have the 15 minutes to watch it (it's well worth the time), here are the three main points she makes to her mostly-female audience:

1. Sit at the table - Don't be afraid to sit down at a table of men and make deals. Put your hand up when you have ideas, and don't wait to be called on. This echoes a Harvard study I read about the lack of women directors on the boards of major U.S. companies. The main reason, it concluded, is that women don't sell themselves enough. Rather than make the appropriate connections and state flat out - 'this is why you need me on your board', they wait to be called on. Things just don't happen that way.

This got me thinking yesterday - why do we do that? I recalled a friend who is a primary school teacher, lamenting the boys in her class. The boys, will jump up and down with excitement when they know the answer to a question. They will call out. Girls, on the other hand, will sit quietly with their hands up, waiting to be called on. I think as girls we were taught to wait. Be polite. Be nice. But really, what's wrong with meeting with someone and saying - this is what I want to do, this is why you need me. We need to think of ourselves as players in the game - not sitting on the bench, dressed nicely in the team uniform, waiting to get called onto the field.

2. Make sure your partner is a partner - Every working woman knows this is so key, especially when kids are involved. The work/home life balance is a delicate one, and everyone has to pull their weight. A friend and I agreed, that the scales are not equal in most homes. Let's be honest, mom does most of the work. To that I say - take the pressure off: declare duties for your partner, hire a cleaning lady. Let's admit it - we CAN NOT do it all. Another of Sheryl's points is that we need to recognize that taking care of things at home is a full time job. We can't do both.

At the same time, we need to recognize that fathers can do more. During both maternity leaves Husband took off a chunk of time to be with our boys. He went to play groups with our tots, only to be regarded with suspicion. Why? It's completely ridiculous that we want fathers to do more, and then isolate them when they do.

3. Don't take yourself out of the game early - Sheryl has hit the nail on the head. While most maternity leaves in the U.S. are three months (compared to the year that most Canadian parents are entitled to), she recognizes that maternity leaves take you out of the game. Any woman who has come back after maternity leave to find her role has remained the same while those around her are taking on more responsibilies would agree completely. Aside from the financial (and physical) burden of having another child, that's one reason why I won't taking another maternity leave. I like my career. I missed work while I was 'off' with my boys. I checked my blackberry more than I care to admit. I don't want to hit the pause button again.

Her point is that women, like me, think about family commitments far too soon. Go for the top job, go for the promotion. Don't put yourself on a shelf because four years from now you want to have kids. Men don't plan for this in their careers, why should women budget time?

But the theme of Sandberg's talk was what motivated me most. It's about us, and what we do.

 We need to stop talking about the state of things, the glass ceilings that remain, and look at the pathetic numbers. It's up to us, the working women, to DO something about it.

We just need to get to work, and sit at the table. Only we can determine our destiny.

Thanks Sheryl, for giving us the kick in the pantsuit.

"Thank you for putting the news on mummy," OlderSon chimed as we drove to daycare this morning.

My heart skipped a beat. He liked the news? Was he drawn to journalism like his mother? (This thought was both exciting and worrying - probably a better plan to go into auto mechanics my boy, I thought).

But still! An interest in news! Fabulous!

"Oh, you like the news?" I asked cheerily.

"News!" YoungerSon chimed in with his 'I'm-two-and-learning-words-by-repeating-them-loudly' voice.

"Yeah," OlderSon said, "And that lady got out of jail before the man died..." he started, referring to the woman accused of a New Year's day homicide (read more about it here).

Um, yeah... not really what my five year old should be learning about before a big day at senior kindergarten. I imagined the conversation with his wide-eyed buddies in the playground:

"She was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty in September to assault with a weapon and theft..."

The news story continued on the radio, with details of a victim found on the sidewalk. There was only silence from the backseat.

"Okay, let's put on some music," I said.

Hello, top 40, I thought, as I switched stations.

I'm sure there are plenty of great office parties that have ended this way, I thought as I rinsed vomit off bed sheets in the laundry room at 2 a.m..

Last night was the office Christmas (can I call it that?) party, and journalists tend to... drinks were consumed. Dancing ensued. Laughter and good cheer all around. It was a nice break from dealing with a new content management system, new platforms (the app) and of course the shrinking newsroom.

So yes, I danced. And drank. Perhaps a tad more than my usual.... nothing.

Last night I was twenty-something again. And it was great.

Until 2 a.m., when I woke to YoungerSon's panicked cries.

I went into his room, and he was sitting in his toddler bed, covered in vomit.

(You thought it was my  vomit, didn't you? Shame on you.)

He looked up at me with his big blue eyes.

"Scared," he said.

And vomiting does that to little kids. It scares them. And why wouldn't it? Such a violent act, all those food bits shooting out of his body like stinky projectiles. I remember OlderSon looking at me during a vomit session (he was a chronicle puker, due to an overactive gag-reflex - he thankfully has grown out of) with wide eyes, pleading with me to make it stop.

I wasn't that worried about the flu or some horrible gastro virus. He was probably sick from the before bed ice cream cone Husband gave him after dropping me off at the party. ("An amateur move," husband admitted later this morning. I'm sure it was a good idea at the time.)

I cleaned him up, changed the bed and talked to him a bit, and went downstairs to rinse out the sheets, his big boy pillow and pyjamas. As I threw them into the washer at 2.30 a.m. I thought "Mr. McGuinty, how's this for off-peak washing?"

I'm handling this remarkably well, I thought, as I washed my hands and headed back to bed.

And then I tripped on the floor. Nothing there, no toys in my way. Just.... clumsy feet.

I realize now that I was probably still a little tipsy.

Which was probably for the best.

So, by now you probably know that the Citizen has a fantastic new iPad app. Really, it's great, and has terrific stories and galleries.

I know this, because I've been updating it, diligently, at my dining table each morning (and afternoon on weekdays) for a while now. Okay, this is day nine, but who's counting? Yes, well, I suppose I am. You can't help but count when you're getting up at 4.15 a.m. to have the app ready to go for a 7 a.m. reader.

(Side note: we have a very talented iPad edtior, but he's still being trained and isn't yet in place ... so, until he's ready to go - and quite literally push the publish button in the morning - yours truly, senior editor, online, has been making sure it gets done).

At home, this has thrown a wee wrench into our morning routine.

These days, I creep around the house, struggling not to wake up the kids. I stumble into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, but I don't dare start working without letting the dog out and giving him breakfast. If I forget this crucial phase of the process, he will lie at my feet, rolling and whining while I try to frantically update a section. Typically, it's Sports, when I'm struggling to figure out if I've got the latest NFL story. When I remember to feed him, he eats, and goes back to his dog bed (unless I'm not paying attention, when he'll quietly climb back on the couch.) I can hear him snoring in the next room when I move onto the Life section.

It takes about 2.5 hours to update the app. Unless, of course, I forget to save as I go and our publishing system goes down. The morning this happened, I cried out "no, no, no!" And woke my five year old up.

This is not a good thing - if OlderSon gets up before I'm finished, I stop updating the app, give him a cuddle, tuck him into the couch under a warm blanket and put Spiderman on the TV. (I know, BAD MOM.) About 15 minutes later, OlderSon will tell me he's hungry, and I will stop updating the app again to make him toast.

You, dear reader, probably thought our app was ready 10 minutes later due to technical reasons that day. Really, it was because I couldn't find that new jar of peanut butter in the back of the cupboard. I haven't missed a deadline, but I've come close.  Of course, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

After it's updated, I'll quickly move through the app, then rush upstairs to shower, wake the rest of the house, and get everyone dressed and out the door. Typically, I've only been an hour later for work than pre-app. I figure this is a huge accomplishment.

Of course, as I race around the house getting boots, hats, snow pants on... and giving Husband a kiss after he tucks them into the car, the dog will stand and look at me, confused.

He wants his breakfast. Again.

BLOGGER'S NOTE - As of Dec. 20, our new iPad editor Norm Provencher has taken over responsibilities for the iPad app. The dog does not seem to mind waiting for his breakfast.

Okay, so Day 2 in the big boy bed didn't go so smoothly.

I was trying to think of a good pic to run with this blog, and all I could come up with was a photo of the bags under my eyes. I'll spare you that.

YoungerSon got up about 10 minutes after we put him to bed. He quietly slid down the stairs, then, when he saw us sitting and watching television he came to sit on the couch between us. He was pretty proud of himself. Sorry Little Man, this just isn't going to happen.

His smile faded when I told him it was 'sleepytime' and marched him back up the stairs. He cried a bit, but fell asleep eventually and all was good.

We thought.

Around 3.30 in the morning, I was awakened by him crying and he was saying something. Husband woke too.

"Did he just say?" I asked him.

"Hockey card," Husband said, "I think he's looking for his hockey card."

What the? Some kids sleep with cozy stuffed toys, but my child - he likes his hockey card.

Husband went into YoungerSon's room and found the card and all was well. It sounded like he fell asleep, so I rolled over.

And then the toddler started to cry. I decided to let him go.

Then ... the door, frantically slamming against the frame as he was working to open it. He was screaming, terrified. "Dark, dark..."  (Of course it's dark little man, I thought, it's 4 a.m.)

I went in, and put on his little lamp. When I turned around, he was climbing back into his bed, and put his head on his little pillow. If I wasn't so exhausted, it would have been an adorable moment.

Crisis over, he fell back asleep. Not me, I was wide awake. Blink. Blink. Blink.

I went down stairs to do some work. You can be pretty productive at 4 in the morning.

Of course, now that afternoon has hit, I dragging a bit.

I think I'll go to bed right after the two year old.