Author Archives: branch

Seventy-Eight — Analysis

This morning, Harriet wrote a poem about her desire to be an old man on the beach. I can’t express how lovely an idea this is, how appealing it is to me. Is it because I am a woman, so I don’t want to become an old *woman*, but becoming an old man would somehow legitimize my ageing process? OR! Is it because I want to sit on the beach and drink coffee. Yes, probably.

I haven’t been to the beach in over a month. It’s been incredibly steamy hot for three days and I’ve been inside with Eli while he battles the nastiest mouth blisters ever. Ohhhhh he is sad. So so so sad. I wish I could be sad for him.

The thing about kids is there’s always something about them that just bugs you. And at first you think: well, that’s natural, it would bug anybody. And then several third parties say, wow, really? That bugs you? So you analyze. And then you realize that it’s JUST YOU. Why is it just you? Because it’s YOUR KID. You have a similar-personality conflict.

Eli is a pessimist. I am a pessimist. If we spend all day together and he can’t talk or eat because of the mouth blisters so he is hungry and in pain and I am just bored and restless and wondering when/if/maybe? he will ever go to school this week/month?/year, we realize how pessimistic the other is. And there is not room for two giant pessimists in the house.

SA and I have worked this out. He is ONLY allowed to be pessimistic if I am SURE AND CERTAIN that I am feeling positive. He is pessimistic maybe 20% of the time and I am 70% of the time (there is 10% floating pessimistic time that anyone can use) so he defers to me, as it should be in a quality partnership. Eli has no such understanding. As my tiny clone, he wants the 70%. It is hilarious when he’s out in the world and talks to people but it is not hilarious when he is on the couch and whimpering for three hours.

Wait! I am not horrible. I do feel bad for him. I have given him four hundred drinkable yogurts, a food I don’t actually believe in, in the past three days. All he has eaten is drinkable yogurt, regular yogurt, and ice cream. His tongue is the colour of clouds. I have hugged and kissed and patted and sympathized. Seriously.

But he believes he will always feel like this. He doesn’t believe he will feel better. Even this morning, when he smiled at me (I hadn’t seen a smile since Sunday) and I said, “oh you must be feeling better” he said, “no.”

What do you need, I ask.
Murfle murfle, he says.
Water?
MURFLE.
Milk?
*nodding*
Fine, here you go.
Murfle.

Arlo gets on with it. He is in pain, he takes medicine, he moves on. He might complain a little bit, and you are happy to hear his complaints because JAYSUS that’s a big blister on your tongue. Eli, he’s an old man, bitter about that cheque that he was supposed to get that never arrived and dammit they owe him. Yes, we’re back to the old man. Eli complains and complains and complains some more. He refuses to open his mouth for three days because it *might* hurt. Sure, it might. Or it might not. And if you open your mouth and it doesn’t hurt, you will get to EAT something.

Complain complain complain.

Wait. What am I doing?

Murfle.

Well. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Seventy-Seven — A Short List

In an attempt to kick-start some positive thinking, I challenged myself to come up with Ten Great Things about Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Hope to see my list on Buzzfeed soon!

1. It’s not really a disease. It’s a non-life-threatening illness.
2. There’s no bodily fluid to clean up.
3. It takes a few days to resolve, but when it’s gone it’s gone; no lingering cough, asthma, or sinusitis.
4. Kids really appreciate their food after not being able to eat for five days.
5. Adults don’t usually get it, or not nearly as bad as the kids do.
6. If your kid gets it during a week when he was supposed to go to two birthday parties, you save money because he can’t go to the birthday parties.
7. You also save money on groceries.
8. You feel absolutely no guilt about letting your child sit and watch tv or play video games because a) he hasn’t eaten anything but pain medicine in five days and is weak b) he had to miss school and two birthday parties and c) tongue blisters trump everything.
9. If your child misses school in the first two weeks of September, he might avoid any number of other illnesses making their way around the school, like the kind with the bodily fluid clean-up.

**The time between thinking up numbers 9 and 10 was spent doing yoga, showering, having a snack and cleaning the kitchen. Approximately one hour.**

10. In our particular case, the sublime ridiculousness of calling your child in sick for his first two hours of formal schooling, ever, and thinking about what a great story it will be, The Boy Who Started Kindergarten in October Because His Big Brother Kept Bringing Home Gross Viruses. (working title)

11. Bonus: Lots of sympathy from other parents, especially the one whose child infected yours. But you can’t feel too smug since her child is one of FOUR in the family and all four had it at the same time and wouldn’t that be like all the circles of hell swirled up into one giant, horrible Hell Smoothie?

12. Bonus two: At least I only have two children.

Three cheers for immunity! Hip hip (hooray!) Hip hip (hooray!) Hip hip (hooray!)

Seventy-Six

Today we put our cat to sleep. “Do you know what that means?” I asked Arlo. He was lying in his bed, reading a book. I hadn’t realized Eli had already told his brother that while he was at school, we put the cat to sleep. I have no idea how that conversation went down.

“No,” Arlo said.
“It means you give the animal an injection of medicine and then the animal dies.”
“Oh.”
“So we don’t have Seamus anymore.”
“Oh.”
“Is that a bit sad?”
“Yeah.”

His eyes were red. He hugged me hard.

When I was seven, my beloved and much cherished puppy went to the vet and never came back. So I kind of know how he feels, except he and Seamus were never really that close. Or maybe they were. Or maybe seven year olds just care more about things that die than five year olds do.

We adopted Seamus in 2003, when he was a few years old, so his age has always been an estimate. Recently when people asked me how old he was I shrugged and said fifteen? He had deteriorated in the past year; not doing well in the heat, not eating for days at a time, and recently being unable to pee. When I picked him up to put him in the carrier to take him to the vet, he didn’t run, or flinch, or meow.

Partly I’m justifying what I did. Partly it’s just the story.

While Eli and I sat in the vet’s office today, skinny, sick Seamus on my lap, I looked around at the posters on the wall. One was about canine tooth disease. One was about sick cats and how to tell if they’re sick. The one behind my head explained that cats and dogs need wellness check ups, just like humans. It listed animal ages in years with the human equivalent beside them.

Fifteen cat years is seventy-six human years, I thought. Seventy-six is pretty good.

It doesn’t make it easy to say yes, give this cat eternal sleep. But it helps.

(I wrote this for Seamus once, a few years ago. It still stands.)

Seventy-Five — Summer Runnin’

When I go out for runs, I take a music player but I have not, traditionally, been able to listen to music while I run. For one, I speed up when the music is fast and I am just not a good enough runner to have that happen. My pacing goes all wonky and I collapse by the side of the road, waving my arms weakly and moaning. How embarrassing.

For two, with music on I can’t hear what’s coming up behind me and I’m self-conscious about saying ‘hi’ to people and dogs if I can’t hear my own voice. HI! HI! HELLO! I AM RUNNING AND LISTENING TO THE BEASTIE BOYS! NO I AM NOT DYING, I JUST GET REALLY RED FACED WHEN I EXERCISE!

Usually I listen to music to warm up while I walk and then just listen to the sound of my own breathing while I actually run. Or I listen to podcasts or the CBC because those don’t make me speed up or slow down.

Yesterday I made up this awesome little song and sang it to myself for some of my thirty minute workout in the very hot afternoon sun, was that wise, no it was not, however I felt better after.

(Tune of: Summer Lovin’ from Grease)

Summer running / saw me some dogs
summer running / stepped on some wasps
summer running / makes me perspire
summer running / I might expire!
summer runs / are better than none
bu-ut oh how I prefer the rain
(wella wella wella huh!)

That’s it, because the “tell me more” part doesn’t work and I can’t sing a duet with myself. While running. In the heat.

Today’s much cooler temperatures and pissing rain signal not only the beginning of the school year but the beginning of the best time to run (until the colds and flu set in): FALL. Oh Fall, or Autumn if you prefer. Misty and moisty, dark and gloomy, the best time for those running endorphins to kick in because then? You really need them. In August, who needs them? In July, who needs them? Not me. In November? * I need them.

* not that I am eager for November. I am not.

Seventy-Four

Summer is ovvvvvver guys, over. OVER. This is it. School kind of* starts on Tuesday.

Morning.

* Tuesday is a 45 minute day and Eli doesn’t start at all until September 9th

To celebrate, today we did many fun things: we spent the whole day with two of Arlo and Eli’s closest friends, went swimming (indoors, because it was cold and rainy), had Happy Meals at the World’s Loudest McDonald’s, Eli ate his first tooth, and then we played in the playground.

Swimming was great! The kids practised jumping off the diving board and I got stuck in the pool.

My wrist has been sore if I try to put my weight on my hand. I forgot this and tried to climb out of the pool by pushing myself out on my hands? You know how you do? Hands on the pool deck and .. push yourself out? Except then my wrist gave out and to compensate I twisted my hip or something and gave myself a weird thigh cramp. So there I was, helplessly hanging on to the edge of the pool, unable to climb out, going “ow, ow, ow” while my kid is applying a life jacket and preparing to dive in. This toddler girl was on the ladder and I needed the ladder and she stared at me while I said “ow ow ow” and of course this paralyzed her so she wouldn’t move and I couldn’t get out until she moved but she was scared to move.

This is the good wrist, but it looks much like the bad one.

Spoiler: I got out of the pool.

The World’s Loudest McDonald’s was one of those ones where there’s an indoor playground but it’s in a room and people eat in the room with the playground and there were children screaming, like, the kind of screaming where you turn around with your eyes all wild, looking for the person who made THAT NOISE so you can pull out their tongue and barbecue it while they watch. When we entered the room, a man who was leaving muttered, “NOW you’re in for it,” at me, so that was accurate foreshadowing.

Arlo + hexbug on his eye.

While we were eating, Eli mentioned that he’d bit his tooth and it really hurt. I thought nothing of it, this is after all a child who once described the symptoms of hand, foot and mouth virus as “my throat intestines hurt.” Shortly before he wanted to go join the screaming screamathon in the scream pit, I noticed a giant bloody hole in his mouth and yes, he had in fact lost and eaten his first tooth.

“My mouth feels weird.”

The weird thing is that even though he’s five and a half (roughly) and the same age Arlo was when he lost his first tooth, Eli is totally NOT OLD ENOUGH to lose a tooth. Nuh uh.

There was not enough playing and way too much screaming so we left the WLMcD’s and went to the school playground by our house, where the children started to show signs of exhaustion but continued to run around some and then at 4 pm we came home.

I am so tired. But in the best way. Good summer, y’all.

End of summer portrait, boys having traded clothes.

Seventy-Three — Two Very Bad Songs of Summer (And One Good)

This summer has had a third theme: pop music.

The children have become addicted to the local hit station, Sonic Hits. All today’s hits, all the time. You know this station, even if not biblically. It plays the same fourteen songs all day every day and there is a morning show with features like “I read it on the Internet!” and “celebrity babies are so cute!”

I like pop music. I have liked it since I was a kid and listened to LG73 (Morning show: The LG Morning Zoo!). I won’t get into a dissertation on Today’s Pop Hits and How Shitty They Are because do you remember the Payolas? Falco? but there are some recent Pop Hits that when they come on the radio in the car I stab at the preset buttons so fast my finger goes right through the dashboard and I burn myself on the engine and it’s WORTH IT because I just can’t hear [that piece of poo] one more time.

They’re not the songs you think, though! I mean, yes I am not a fan of Blurred Lines though I acknowledge how catchy the tune, and yes, the Miley Cyrus song was very puzzling because I had no idea who it was singing it and was sure I had to be wrong when I heard the DJ say Miley Cyrus and then I looked up the video for the song, like an idiot, and now I’m blind (touch typing for the winnnnnz!).

But! My least favourite pop song of the summer is actually The Other Side by Jason Derulo.

The Other Side is a really embarrassing song about a guy and a girl who are friends and he wants something more and so does she. The song takes place on their SEX DATE WHEN THE SEX IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Right there. We’re right there with Jason and his date, as he gives her the step by step:

1. We’ll just get drunk. Disturb the peace (for the longest, I thought that line was “disrupt the bass”)
2. You’ll run your hands all over me
3. And then you’ll bite your lip, whisper and say, “we’re going all the way.”
4. Tonight! Kiss me like it’s do or die! Sparks fly like the fourth of July! I see that sexy look in your eye! Take me to the OTHER SIDE!

Fine. It’s a fine sentiment, I guess. But he’s got this crazy falsetto and he’s just so damned excited about this date and the sex he’s going to be having REAL SOON NOW and listening to him trill up the scale and down again makes me just want to take him aside (not to “the other side,” but aside) and say, “Jason. Be cool. You’re going to scare her.” Like, how long has it BEEN, Jason? I’m thinking years.

Also, the following line: “I know you’re nervous / so just sit back and let me drive”? Ick, and reminds me of my least favourite song of the spring, which I thought was also by Jason Derulo but is in fact by Hedley. “Kiss You Inside Out.”

I became aware of this song when my kids were walking around on the playground saying “shut your mouth and close your eyes” and I thought, what a rude thing to say! and then I heard the song where the line came from. This one is less embarrassing and more about questionable seduction techniques. Observe:

I don’t know if you´re ready to go
Where I’m willing to take you girl
I will feel every inch of your skin
And you know I can rock your world
Imma be the calm in the storm you´re looking for
I’ll be the shipwreck that takes you down
I don´t mind if you lie in my bed
We can stay here forever now.

Ouuu oohhh
Turn off the lights
Take off your clothes
Turn on the stereo
Ouuu oohhh
Give up the fight
I´m in control
Why don´t you let it go.

Maybe I don’t WANT TO let it go, Mr. Hedley, Sirs. Maybe you referring to yourself as a shipwreck is all the information I need to make my decision re: doing you, which is NO, which means NO by the way.

On the bright side, listening to bad pop music in the car means lots of great conversations with the kids about sex, partying, and consent. Talk early, talk frankly, talk often, right? And as a bonus, because so much of today’s pop music is total shite, when you hear a good song it’s REALLY GOOD.

Seventy-Two — Please Don’t Make This Blog Into a Film

This summer has had a couple of themes. Swimming was one theme. You might have noticed it? Let us not talk about swimming again until next year. Amen.

Another theme has been Diary of a Wimpy Kid. These books, which are written in diary style and comic font and have lots of pictures, have completely consumed my kids for months. Arlo was bringing them home from the school library last year, but not really reading them, but this summer he started really reading them. Like, fast. Like, we were at the public library every few days picking up another one in the series. Then he started over again with the first one.

Of course if one child has [anything] the other child has to have one too, which is why we’ve had two library copies of every Wimpy Kid book in the series kicking around the house all summer long. Ask me about my fines!

We still read to the kids, of course, even though they can read to themselves just fine, so bedtime or chilling out time means I get to hear Diary read out loud, or read it myself. It’s not my favourite book, but it makes Saint Aardvark laugh for real sometimes so he gets to read it, if at all possible.*

And then the kids re-discovered that there are three Wimpy Kid movies on Netflix so one of those movies has been in constant play during screen time for a week now and I’m getting to that saturation point I remember so fondly from their toddler days, when I would find myself analyzing the motivation of the blue Wiggle or the psychological makeup of Caillou.

To that end, the things I have observed this summer about the Wimpy Kid and the reason I will not be sad when we move on to a new obsession:

1. Greg Heffley (the Wimpy Kid whose diary we are reading) is a self-centred jerk and it’s amazing he has even one friend.
2. Everyone is EITHER mean OR gets made fun of.
3. Older brother (Roderick) is mean AND rude AND stupid (but I do love him in the films, he is adorable)
4. Adults are ALWAYS idiots.
5. Girls are EITHER horrible or unattainable goddesses.

Now, yes, I know, it’s not written for me any more than Pokemon and Beyblades were written for me. Broad brushes painting tired stereotypes are not the worst thing to find splashing around on your face, right? The series begins with Greg starting middle school — grade six — so I get that it’s reflecting a reality, that of the self-absorbed, insecure, cut-throat pre-teens and teens that populate such places. But is it really that bad? Or are we making it worse by creating this fictional reality for kids to find their reflections in?

You see what I mean about the analysis. Clearly it is time for summer vacation to end and for the real world of school to start up again. After repeated viewings of Diary I have to remind myself that my kids are only going into grade two and kindergarten, not middle school, and that they are not, overall, big jerks. And… breathe.

* He is, however, increasingly irritated by Eli making him start reading at the same place every night. Eli seems to love the first forty pages of the first book and SA just can’t seem to get past it. Poor guy. I’d offer to help, but I’m not going to.**

** THAT right there is Wimpy Kid behavior. Oh god. I’m going down with the ship.

Seventy-One — Shoes

Look at this shoe. Is it not the most adorable, bright, fun-looking shoe you have ever seen?

Bloo shoo.

No, it’s not mine. It’s Arlo’s. THIS is my shoe:

“Does this shoe come in ‘cute’?”

Maybe I like the blue ones so much because they are the size of my big toe? Anyway!

Traditionally I buy cheap runners for my kids. I don’t want to spend adult shoe prices for kids’ shoes, so I don’t. But they are getting bigger and more active and harder on their shoes. Now that I’m pondering spending cheap shoes x 3 per year maybe the good quality shoes are a better idea? Hm.

So today I bought the awesome running shoes for Arlo.

“I love them, but,” he said, “I don’t know how to tie laces.”

“That’s OK,” I said, “we have those curly no-tie lace thingees. And anyway, maybe it’s time you learned to tie laces?”

He looked skeptical.

When we got home I found the curly no-tie lace thingees and at great expense to my knuckles and fingertips, threaded one through the eyelets of the shoe. It looks awful; the laces are black and the shoes are neon. Just dumb. This is dumb, I thought. Everyone learns to tie a shoe some time. The entire world is not made of VELCRO. Why, back in my day you had to tie a shoe before you could start kindergarten! Dude is going into grade two!

Being a modern parent, I googled “teach kid tie shoe” and that’s how I came to “The Magic Fingers Technique.” Apparently it’s a way to learn to tie your shoes in FIVE MINUTES! Well! I thought. Here we go. Saaaaved by the Internet. I watched the video, a little six year old girl tying a shoe. I watched it all slowed down. I tried it. I totally failed to tie the shoelace.

What? The heck?

I watched the video again, paused it, went slow. Great news! I have a missing part of my brain. It’s the part that lets me interpret “put your thumb and first finger in front of lace.”

I tried it five times and it didn’t work. So I tried tying a shoelace very slowly, the regular loop, thread, pull way, just to make sure I can still do it, and I can. Whew. The plan now is to a) try it my way first and then b) show him the video and see if he perhaps has the part of my brain I am missing. It would explain a lot.

Do you have thoughts or tips on shoe tying? Are your kids eighteen years old and still have no idea how to tie? Or did you teach them at age 3? Let me know!

Seventy — On Teaching

As the second week of the second set of swimming lessons draws to a close, I’ve been paying attention to the way my kids learn with different teachers.

Arlo’s last session was taught by a young man. He was a great teacher; enthusiastic with high-fives, in control of his class, able to see one person’s progress even as he was facing a different direction helping another kid float. When Arlo got the same teacher for his next session, we were all happy. The next day we were sad because that teacher was very sick and couldn’t return to teaching. Arlo’s class got a female teacher. She is very nice and competent (and perky!) as well but a little out of her league with a class of five, four of whom are boys, one of whom likes to cannonball and another of whom swims sideways.

Seriously, this kid leaves the wall with the group every time and ends up at 90 degrees from where he started. Woe betide anyone who swims in a straight line near him because they are getting run. the hell. over.

Arlo’s progress has been pretty good, but not fantastic in this second session. That’s OK. He’s still swimming and it’s a great twenty-five minutes.

Also can I just say: it has rained ONCE in four weeks of outdoor swimming lessons, which is like some kind of west coast miracle.

Eli’s last session was taught by the perky young woman who is now Arlo’s teacher. He did not submerge and therefore he did not pass. This session, Eli’s teacher is a different young woman. (She has fluorescent orange fingernails. You can see them from twenty feet away.) Eli spent all last week not submerging and playing with a rubber duck. This week, a new teacher joined the old teacher (so now there is an amazing 1:1 ratio of student to teacher) and the new teacher is a guy. Eli loves this guy. I kind of do, too. Today, three days after being taught by this guy, Eli submerged. Repeatedly.

So “good” teachers are the right teachers for a kid at any given moment in that kid’s development and that’s both impossible to predict, I think, and should serve to take the pressure off teachers to be amazing, life-altering, etc. Swim or school or music teachers. Any kind. You teach to the best of your ability and kids learn to the best of their abilities and if you’re lucky you make a love connection and if not it’s just a meh sort of time and if you’re really incompatible, well, don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.

I’m holding tight to this feeling as we approach another elementary school year. I hear a lot from other worried parents about this teacher that teacher which teacher. I think I know which teacher would be right for Eli. But in three weeks he’ll be a different kid again and I might be totally wrong. Time to let Big School swoop him up, tuck him in its fragrant armpit and help him decide what and who he wants to become.

Relinquishing control to other teachers,* some of the time. That’s what it’s all about.

*unless they’re really awful.

Sixty-Nine — Next

Further to yesterday’s post about my state of decrepitude, I have sketched out a plan of action.

1. Eat all the pineapple. Body wisdom.

2. No more alcohol. Last night I did not have my customary evening glass of wine because I still felt nauseated and worn out. This morning I woke up feeling not only not-nauseated but very much like a merry ray of sunshine. Could the merry ray of sunshine be related to the lack of wine? Well, they do rhyme. Only one way to find out.

If I’m going to stop drinking alcohol I will need to do it entirely. I recently implemented weekday limits of one glass of wine because if I have two glasses it will sometimes lead to three and three is too many for a weeknight. But even with the one glass maximum last week I was feeling crummy in the morning. I don’t want to feel crummy.

My relationship with alcohol is not an addiction, but it is a habit. And breaking a habit is hard. *fidgets* It’s helpful to replace with another habit, like pineapple consumption! Or going for walks. Or yoga, or cheese popcorn, or writing your feelings down in your internet diary. Hi!

3. Maybe limited coffee too? This morning, after waking up feeling great, I had some coffee and the nausea came back. Seems a clear message, though a deeply sad one because I love coffee and when I don’t drink it I get headaches. But on the other hand, nausea. The headaches will pass and the nausea does not appear to be passing.

No booze, no coffee. You guys, in the words of that Wonderpet duck, THIS IS SEWIOUS!

***

We have a solid bedtime routine at our house. We have messed up in many, many ways but not bedtime.

At 7 pm we go upstairs. (yes there are exceptions) Sometimes bath, sometimes shower, then toothbrushing, pyjamas, a story each, and goodnight. Door is shut between 7:30 and 7:45. On weeknights I’m in the habit of handing this duty over to SA, since he gets home from work between 6 and 6:30 and doesn’t get nearly as much quality time with the children as I. (Lightbulb: maybe that’s why the bedtime routine is so great, because I’m not responsible for it? Moving on.) I will occasionally help out if bedtime is going sideways with wrestling, shouting, butt-smacking, etc. but generally I stay out of the way downstairs reading or breathing deeply or washing dishes or whatever.

Even though I don’t help out with bedtime, I feel like I should stay home until bedtime is done, like I could help at any minute! If needed! I am available! But last night we needed milk. Bah, I thought. I’m not needed. I’m going now because then I’ll be back sooner. The kids were hyped up, bopping around the bathroom, washing their feet with their toothbrushes, that sort of thing. “Buh bye!” I said cheerfully and went to Safeway.

When I got back, SA said, “After you left, they settled right down. It’s like they only act up when you’re around!” Well.

Tonight I had planned to walk up to the library after they were in bed and then because SA wanted to go out later I decided to go before. Once again, I put my shoes on and left the house before they were in bed and when I returned forty-five minutes later, SA just looked at me and said, “You need to do this every night. Because seriously they are SO MUCH BETTER when you’re out.”

Done.

I guess I don’t blame them. If I was my kids and had just spent twelve hours with me, I would want me to get out of the house too. Or something like that. Maybe they want me to get out of their space as badly as I want them to go to bed. Think of that.

Two old habits for one new is a good start.

bad with titles

pretty good with stories