Monthly Archives: July 2013

Thirty-Six — Hammers

How is it only Wednesday, July 3rd? Seriously.

I mean, already! Already Wednesday, July 3rd. Thinking positively!

We spent almost four hours at the park with the wading pool today. The wading pool gets filled at noon and drained at 3. It takes 45 minutes to fill and test for poisonous bum germs, and another 30 for the park attendant to throw all the toys in. Among the usual water toys (buckets, boats) were three inflatable hammers. At first the shock of the freezing cold water rendered my shouty children speechless (well worth the price of admission.) Then they proceeded to fight over the inflatable hammers because wouldn’t you? Yes, there were three hammers and three boys who were playing together (my two and their friend), but there were also two older boys who took one of the hammers and oh! there was much hammer negotiating and hammer smashing and “don’t smash me with that hammer!”ing.

Bless the park attendant, who engaged everyone in some ball-tossing and What Time is It Mr. Shark-ing, but before long, one boy had turned his head, looking for the hammer, and shortly thereafter the hammer wars started up again.

Next time I go to the park with the wading pool, I will slip a safety pin in my pocket. Hammer problem: solved.

Thirty-Five

Reality has set in. The first half-day of summer vacation, it rained. The second we went to run errands. The three-day weekend involved two adults. Today, it was just me and two kids.

I had no plan for today. I thought about making a plan and then I thought, no, I will WING IT because people do, all the time, and nothing bad happens. Wrong! People do, all the time, and they suffer for it. Make no mistake. Learn from mine.

6:00 The kids are up.

6:30 I am up.

7:00 SA leaves for work.

8:00 The kids have finished breakfast and TV time and they go outside to sell rocks, a task which involves paper and pens and making signs and deciding on price points.

8:30 No customers. Sadness fills the land. They decide to make bookmarks instead. I try to help them make nice straight bookmarks but they are all about the speed. Eli scribbles madly on a bookmark. I am unjustly irritated by this. “What is that?” I ask. “It’s SPACE,” he says. Fine.

9:00 No customers. Sadness fills the land. They come inside and paint each others’ faces with face paint and then decide they will paint peoples’ faces instead of sell rocks.

The same problem occurs, namely that there are no customers. It is Tuesday. People are at work, on holiday, or our lovely retiree neighbours J & B, who have bought their share of rocks already and are no way in hell going to get their faces painted.

9:45 I offer to take the kids to the park. They decline, insisting they will wait for face paint customers.

I feel good about this, I guess, because they are self-amusing, so I can tidy the kitchen and read things and do laundry and not talk to anyone but I also feel out of sorts because we go out in the mornings, it’s what we do, and I feel like I can’t commit to anything unless the proper protocols have been observed which is why, in a nutshell, I cannot WING IT. There are protocols. If I start something, I will be interrupt–

10:00 We need a snack! (see?)

They eat a snack and then go back outside to wait for face paint customers.

10:30 I ask them when they might want to go out and get some apples. We are all out of apples. I have given up on the park but I will not relent on the apples. Eli says in 30 minutes. I take a shower.

11:00 Arlo decides he wants to go out after all! and spend some of his birthday money on a toy. He proposes Toys R Us. I counter-propose Superstore, since I can get apples there. We agree.

11:30 – 12:30 Superstore. I walk past the fitting room in the clothing section and hear two children fighting and their mother say “That is IT there are NO MORE CHANCES,” and I almost go over and knock on her door to tell her it will probably all be OK but I have to stop my children from hitting each other with clothes hangers.

Arlo buys a small gun that shoots darts. Eli brings $2 of his money to spend and while I appreciate that my children are careful shoppers seriously oh my god just buy something I am going to die here listening to Peter Cetera and other peoples’ children fighting in the fitting room. Eli buys two bottles of scented bubbles and is very happy with them so that’s a relief. No bubbles buyer’s remorse.

I buy apples.

3:00 We make an afternoon trip to the park across the street. We are so lucky to have a park across the street. If the park was further away I would *really* be annoyed that Arlo just sits there next to me the whole time we are there while Eli runs around playing, and then whines and complains when I say it is time to go. “I was having fun,” he insists. “It didn’t seem like it to me,” I insist back. “Next time just ask me,” he says. Oh you bet I will.

6:00 Dinner: barbecued chicken, couscous salad with broccoli. SA comes home and takes the kids over to the community centre for Arlo’s first karate class. At first I plan to go too and then I think better of it. If I’m going to survive this summer, I need to take whatever scraps of solitude I can.

(Don’t worry, tomorrow I have a plan.)

Thirty-Four — Canada Day

I made Arlo a birthday cake yesterday for his birthday today. It was passably Canadian, relatively tasty, and frosted with delicious buttercream, which is all that really matters. If the last flavour you taste of your birthday cake is sweet, chocolate, and buttery, then it was a successful cake. And luck will follow you! I just made that up! Let’s see if it comes true.

CANADA CAKE

Last night, Arlo tried convincing me I should put his presents downstairs, just so he could look at them. I declined. He still stayed up until nearly nine o’clock and got up at before six o’clock so we knew it was bound to be a fun day full of mood swings and chaos. But first, coffee.

Just call me "Angel of the Morning." Everyone else does.

Just call me “Angel of the Morning.” Everyone else does.

Then, presents. Arlo got some Zinkies from Eli, a ninja costume from his grandparents, a Lego minifigure encyclopedia, headphones, and a box of rocks from me and Saint Aardvark. The box of rocks was a huge hit. Hey, they were fancy rocks. I bought them at a rock shop. Fool’s gold! Crystals! My kid is wild about rocks. (this picture is not of the box of rocks.)

Yay, that book I wanted!

Yay, that book I wanted!

We went to my parents’ house for the day. It was really hot there, but they have a small pool, a big tree, and a hose to fill hundreds of water balloons. There was a lot of screaming. The good kind.

There's a very involved battle going on here.

There’s a very involved battle going on here.

We ended the day wet, tired, hot, and happy. Some of us were a bit dirtier than others.

This shot captures the moment of water balloon impact at Arlo's feet. Cool, huh?

This shot captures the moment of water balloon impact at Arlo’s feet. Cool, huh?

The repeatedly-christened seven year old might smell dodgy but still remembered to say ‘thank you for the rocks, Mommy’ when I kissed him goodnight. And so, goodnight to you all.

Thirty-Three

Today it was hot so we went to the mountains. Thirty short minutes by car and we were in North Vancouver, up at Lynn Valley Canyon, AKA the park with the suspension bridge that is Free. One of these days I should go to the real Suspension Bridge (Capilano) and pay the $20 or whatever it is, and see what all the fuss is about. But, because I have lived here all my life and have crossed a suspension bridge across a yawning chasm over rushing water many, many times, I will not pay until there is a good reason.

Today being the Sunday of a long weekend and summer and really fecking hot, our 10:30 arrival time, while late by our standards, was late even by everyone else’s. We had to park in the over-over-over flow lot, which was fine because it was in the shade. Of course most things are in the shade, the canyon is full of really tall trees.

We filed across the bridge with all the tourists, some of whom were nervous and chattering, some of whom were taking pictures as they walked, which made the whole walking thing slower, some of whom weren’t tourists but very cranky locals who just wanted to walk their dogs on the other side of the bridge, in the forest.

Oh, the forest. I don’t know if I can explain the calm that comes over me when I walk into a west coast forest; it’s the smell of the cedar trees and the mulchy, muddy floor, the way the sunlight bounces like a pinball through the green canopy, the many many shades of green, on the trees, the floor, the moss, the mould, the mushrooms. Everything is green and brown and soothing. Sound is muffled and even hundreds of tourists and dogs and children traipsing through cannot rise above the sound that is the forest.

Beyond it, the faint rushing sound of water, which gets louder and louder until it’s right there, at your feet, just across the path, and the green opens into a clear glass river studded with silver rocks. People and dogs swim there, and from the rocks above, idiot teenagers jump into the water, and every year someone dies doing this but today we did not see anyone die.

The water is ice cold and it gathers momentum around the rocks, becomes a frenzy, carries sticks and froth and leaves down, down, fast, faster. We watched it, dunked our hands, exclaimed at the cold, and then Arlo wanted to walk up all the stairs, so we found the stairs and counted them (162) and took a break at the top for water and a snack.

Back across the bridge, half an hour later, I had to stop myself looking over the edge because sometimes looking over the edge feeds a panic in me. And something about people taking pictures with their phones –and tweeting them, from the middle of the bridge– makes me superstitious. “The last text he ever received…” reads the news article I’m imagining. And there I would be, surrounded by my family, after a very nice day, all of us plunging to our death because someone had to record the moment.

That’s why I record it now, when we’re all safe at home.

It wasn’t so much cooler in the woods, really. By the time we walked all the way back to the car — and by the time we drove the 30 minutes back home, at noon, without air conditioning (uphill! both ways! in the snow!) — we were sweating. But, we were content, not fighting or sulking. Eli fell asleep in the car and Arlo stared out the window. We were refreshed.