Tag Archives: the parenthood

Skunks

Every night, a take-home-reading book comes home from school with Eli. He is meant to read aloud to us, in the grand tradition of grade one classes everywhere, possibly? Arlo’s class did it too (although we had to log the books, which I did not enjoy as a concept because paperwork).

Arlo didn’t like reading aloud to us; he muttered and read really fast. It’s a good thing we knew he could read because it certainly was not proven in his grade one year. Eli can also read, and while he *claims* he doesn’t like reading to us, he actually does; after protesting, he is an expressive reader who sometimes uses funny voices and accents. This evening he sang a page of the book to me and then asked if I liked his opera.

Anyway, the books are not that great. They’ve progressed since Dick and Jane but not much. The series we see a lot is about a magic key and a bunch of multicultural British children who have adventures. Now and again there is a mystery or a one-off story about a kid named Pippa who wants a blue balloon but her father only has green balloons.

But tonight’s book was called SKUNKS. It was full of (semi-) interesting facts about skunks; they are black and white, they have three warning stages before they spray you, they are immune to bee stings and often attack bee hives for the honey. Seriously, I learned a great deal. But the best part was the page entitled Skunk Dancing. READ ON AND ENJOY:

Now, do you think that’s true? I know there are a couple nature-knowledgable people who read here from time to time. I have no reason to doubt the take-home-reading-book-about-skunks but I also enjoy imagining the person who wrote the book throwing in a page of total bullshit just because it was his last day on the job, or he wanted to delight a bored family somewhere. Either way. Skunk dancing, you guys.

OK. Duck dancing. Good enough.

“I’m Sure It SOUNDS Intimidating,” he said.

The local CBC was interviewing a brain surgeon who uses robotic lasers to operate on peoples’ brain tumours. According to him, it’s not as intimidating as it sounds, which is easy to say if you’re a person who operates on brain tumours. For me, the line in the sand for intimidating would be crossed in about the first year of medical school.

***

This evening I washed the heads of my children. Both children are growing their hair, to what end I do not know, so far it looks like 70s hockey player but things can change on a dime around here. Rather than torture them by forcing an entire body wash, I suggested I wash their hair using the time-honoured head-over-the-bathtub-handheld-showerhead-trick. It was imperative that their hair be washed; it’s been quite a few days now. You know how hair gets.

They squealed and shivered and complained but the hair got clean and then they combed it. They are big into combing right now. I hope that phase lasts. I came downstairs to put something away and when I went upstairs again, Arlo was combing Eli’s hair for him, a sweet moment as rare as a blue duck on a purple pond, so of course I snuck back down and grabbed a camera to snap a few sly pictures through the railing. Eventually they spotted me and were all annoyed I had filmed them secretly, which is totally fair. (In my defense, it is impossible to get candid shots of them anymore.) But Eli was really upset.

“I bet you filmed me when I looked HIDEOUS,” he wailed. “And then you’re going to show all your friends.”

So there are no photos with this post because doesn’t that seem a pretty clear request to not share images of His Hideousness on the Internet? Indeed. But trust me, it was a far cry from hideous.

New

I have ten minutes before it’s time for Saint Aardvark and I to continue watching LOST the series, for the second time. It is a semi-rare overlap of interests for us, LOST, and a welcome chance for us to watch the same television at the same time. Left to my own devices I’ll watch Friday Night Lights or The Killing or for a while there, Nashville, but he’s not into those shows, and I’m not into Noah or Ye Old Timey Black & White Picture Show* or SpaceJunk.*

*Not real titles.

It’s Sunday, March 1st. Can a month come in like a lion or lamb but not in a weather way, just in a what-kind-of-day-is-this-holy-hell way? Weather-wise it was bright and sunny and cold this morning, turning to colder and cloudy this afternoon, and now it’s drizzling in a very chilly fashion.

Other-wise, it was a fine morning with a lot of lounging around, then some chores (laundry for me; taking down garbage and recycling and EWWWW COMPOST for the children) while SA got the grocery list fulfiled at Superstore. Then we all went to Costco because it has been months since we went to Costco. Months! I haven’t gone so long between Costco trips in I don’t know how long. This, of course, is because I am working at a full time job and even though I walk past a Costco every day on my way to and from work, I rarely stop to purchase items because how does one carry a flat of Nanaimo bars and toilet paper on one’s back on the skytrain at rush hour? When you figure it out, let me know.

I did go to the Costco near my work on my birthday, as it turned out, because I was at work and had no lunch and my co-worker reminded me I could get a hot dog at Costco, so that was my big 4-1 treat. Hot dog and iced tea.

No, it was fine. I had something delicious later, I think. I don’t remember.

Anyway, the last time before THAT was in November. I remember specifically because I decided it would be my last Costco trip until after Christmas. Who likes Costco at Christmas, raise your hand!

After Christmas we got by without Costco, until recently when the coffee stores in our basement started to look a little scarce, so today was the day. We had to go.

At the checkout, with our $250 worth of goods, SA’s debit card failed, and then so did mine because they draw from our joint bank account. The cards expired, as it turns out, on February 28th, and someone at the bank dropped the ball and forgot to mail out the new cards. Whoops!

“You can pay Mastercard,” said the helpful cashier with the diamond Chanel earrings — I couldn’t look away from those earrings.
“Nope. Visa?” I said.
“Nope. Personal cheque?” she countered.
“Nope,” I answered.

After some conferring, we decided I’d go home and get a cheque, then come back, which would be cutting time close; I had my writer’s group — via transit, downtown — to get to for 2:00 pm, and the kids had their weekly sketching class at 1:00 pm. It was noon. Then one of the customer service people came over and said, “You can sign up for a Mastercard right now, if you want,” which is usually the kind of thing I say no to at stores, but in this case, well, we needed all that coffee, so there we were, applying and being approved for Costco Mastercards WHILE WE WAITED.

“Thank you for being patient,” I said to the kids.
“That’s okay,” said Arlo. “I am hoping you’ll buy me an ice cream afterward.”

But I didn’t. Instead, I made him go to art class, despite his heartfelt protestations that he doesn’t have enough time to do anything. I agree.

I hitched a ride to Metrotown and then hopped on a train, which sat at the station for fifteen minutes due to a broken train at another station. The doors of the train stayed open, so people kept getting on, and getting on, and getting on. I told myself I was lucky I’d got on when I did; I got a seat, after all, and if you have to wait for fifteen minutes on an immobile train, at least be sitting.

The novelty of the skytrain has almost worn off for me now that I take it every day. But I never do get a seat, so the seat novelty was still, well, novel.

Eventually we left, probably due to the old guy sitting in front of me who kept horking up loogies and sniffing loudly and then muttering “what’s the problem.” After I got off I tossed my whole body into the vat of boiling water they keep at every skytrain station*, to get the people germs off, and then went to a very happy and productive writing group meeting.

*theoretical

Upon my return home, I found the family already watching Arlo’s choice for movie night, The Guardians of the Galaxy, a film which made no sense whatsoever. I don’t think I’m exaggerating. No sense. I had read reviews that said as much but you know, sometimes the Internet is uneccesarily cruel? Not in this case.

All the more reason to cleanse the cinematographical palate with the greatness that is LOST. And a toast to March second, may it be slightly more reasonable than the first.

Shut the Door, November, it’s COLD Outside

The trees look very male-pattern-balding with their crowns just twigs and still all bushy with leaves around the bottom. Bald men with hairy bottoms! It was a very mild week and then a snowstorm came.

SNOW!!! The children exclaimed Saturday morning and quickly put on their snow pants and boots and hats and mitts and then froze their tushes off because it’s unseasonably cold. Usually we get snow as a precursor to rain, so it’s wet and mucky and goes away (unless it doesn’t, hey climate change). This time it basically froze right when it hit the ground so there is powdery snow that doesn’t form a snowball but instead goes poof like an icy dandelion.

All the sidewalks are ice, which is annoying. I can’t run (very long) on ice so my run today was canceled. I’ve been running less since the half marathon anyway but I still need it for my mental health so I’m desperately trying to keep up three runs a week.

Plus I woke up feeling still tired. And I’m freezing. So I’m grumpy.

The sun is out. The sky is blue and the snow sits on the trees like frosting and we’re all healthy. My grumpiness stems entirely from there being an obstacle between me and what I want.

Despite there being no fresh snow today, the early-rising, highly excitable Eli still wanted to go outside and play in yesterday’s snow at 7 am so I had to say, it is -8C and there is nothing to play with. It’s like playing in a gravel pit. It’s like playing in the middle of a skating rink with no skates on. It’s like playing in a walk-in freezer with hunks of last year’s snowballs that you insisted on freezing in ziploc bags.

(Truth: just as I typed this, Eli came in from playing outside, carrying a small snowball. “This is for the freezer,” he said. “I’m going to label it so we don’t think it’s pie crust.” After trying to write on a snowball with a felt pen [hello metaphor] he found a small plastic bag to put the snowball in and now we have 2014 snow in our freezer hooray)

Well, can you make waffles for breakfast, said Eli.
No, I said.
Why not?
I don’t want to.

Arlo came downstairs.

Eli said, I asked if she’d make waffles but she said no. She’s too… [he almost said lazy and then called back a conversation we had a couple weeks ago where I explained that actually that’s an insult] she doesn’t want to.

Nope, I agreed. Don’t feel like it.

Oh, said Arlo.

I ended up making pancakes, later, after I’d had some coffee. Because kids gotta eat. While I was making the pancakes the internet radio station, called Back to the 80s, played a Front 242 song called Welcome to Paradise. It goes like this: HEY POOR. HEY POOR. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE POOR ANYMORE. JESUS IS HERE. It’s about televangelists. I have never heard a Front 242 song on any radio, let alone an 80s throwback station that usually plays Belinda Carlisle and Falco and the Bangles.

So delighted was I that I left the radio station on for the rest of the day. A few minutes ago, it played Don’t Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin, a song I have managed to tune out for most of my life. It was on the Cocktail soundtrack and I loved Cocktail and its soundtrack but that track was not my favourite. Today I actually paid attention to it.

“Put a smile on that face!” he says. “It will soon pass, whatever it is!” he says.

Wow did I ever want to go to Bobby McFerrin’s house and punch him in the nose. But I don’t really want to go out. Instead I am feeling retroactively very sorry for the people who had personal crises the year that song came out. (I? Was fourteen, and while that was sort of a personal crisis, I’m talking more about the real kind where if you endured it while also having to hear Don’t Worry Be Happy on the radio four thousand times a day it’d make you want to hide your head in a walk in freezer full of snowballs.)

I was going to say it’s awful and annoying like Happy by Pharrell, but then I realized that at least Pharrell is giving us the OPTION to clap along if we want to. We don’t have to. He’s talking about how HE’S happy. He totally has the right to his own happiness just like we have the right to our own sadness.

Here we find two different approaches to cheering up the world at large. Diminishing their feelings by telling them to buck up l’il camper vs. giving them a happy model to follow/clap along with or not.

Maybe I’ll clap along tomorrow. When it’s December.

Whimsical Adulthood

Woke up and wrote for an hour. Working on a story. For maybe the second time in my life, I have started with a title and have written five pages of story five different ways and none of it seems to be the right fit for the title. Titles are tyranny!

Closed the notebook and decided I need to be more whimsical.

Took the kids to school. Discussed briefly with neighbour kid’s dad how neighbour kid going to daycare during his formative years means he is used to walking blindly out into streets without first looking both ways because he was always with a pack. I had not considered this as a cause for neighbour kid’s inability to cross the street nor as a possible detrimental side effect of daycare. Still not sure it’s a real cause & effect situation. Neighbour kid also takes forty minutes to walk three blocks.

Came home. Was entertained by various municipal election articles and websites. If a candidate uses too many exclamation marks and capital letters, they both please and sadden me. I like to watch kooky people unfold in the world, but I also am sad they have no one to tell them to just use one exclamation mark. And to make their platform more elaborate than just “bring SMILES to the PEOPLE.”

“Wade whimsies 4o06” by Snowmanradio at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Innotata using CommonsHelper.(Original text : Own work). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Went to the mall to return some pants. Tried on running shoes and nearly bought a pair but couldn’t commit. After I bought the pair in the spring that ended up hurting my feet but it was too late to take them back, and buying the two pairs I used to train for the race, but which are worn out, I am shoe-shy. I don’t want to buy the wrong shoe. I really want two more pairs of the kind that are worn out but they’re done now. Done. Bought some tights instead, and a new Sport Bra because those are easy. No they are. I’m flat chested.

Right! Whimsical! Was starving so I went to the food court at the mall and walked around until I found something that cost less than $5.25, which was all I had in cash. Ended up eating a breakfast combo at Tim Hortons. The hashbrown was hard as a rock. The sandwich was chilly. The tea was hot.

While I was waiting for my food, a woman walked past me and said, “I like your hairdo.” I thanked her.

To be more whimsical I sat on the opposite side of the food court, by the windows, in one of the red pleather seats. A collection of old men in sensible shoes and old man hats played cards at a round table. Next to them, a collection of old women ate noodles and chattered. I ate my bad food and sipped my tea and started a sixth version of the story whose title I am trying to do justice. (TYRANNY)

“Curious Figure part2 Tom Otterness Beelden aan Zee Den Haag” by Brbbl – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Home to get Saint Aardvark so we could go vote. The municipal election is ten days away but on that day we will be in Seattle having a very small vacation so we voted today. Everyone at the voting place was very friendly and helpful. The woman voting next to me mentioned that neither of the pens worked, then the whatever-you-call-him-guy-who-works-there (invigilator?) asked her if she’d taken the cap off the pen and she said no.

I got a sticker and put it on my notebook, and SA did the same with his sticker on his notebook. We’re so alike.

Up the street we wandered to the grocery store where I’d heard we could get flu shots at the pharmacy. As we don’t have convenient family docotrs, every year we get our flu shots somewhere new. Two years ago I got mine at Safeway and it hurt like a sonofabitch. Last year I went to London Drugs and it was marvelous, I barely felt a thing. I swore I would never go anywhere else for a flu shot and yet, here I was at Save On Foods, with a small, rushed pharmacist who made the smallest pretence at assessing how I was doing before jabbing that needle into my poor muscle so hard I nearly kicked him in the face.

I thought at first that I just had much bigger muscles than last year, but SA claimed his also hurt like whoa so next year, for real, no grocery store pharmacist flu shots. N.O.

After the flu shot, it was time for the notary! The first notary we went to was..not in the office. He is the only notary who works in the office, it is named after him, yet his office was open and his receptionist was there to tell people he wasn’t there, at his office, so that was confusing, but she gave us a list of other notaries in Uptown New Westminster and there were a number of them. In fact one could do a comparison of notaries to hair cuttery establishments in New Westminster and it would probably come up even I think. So we found another notary right across the street and went to see him.

We needed him to notarize the letter that authorizes me to take the children across the border next week because SA won’t be with me because he’ll already BE in Seattle you see and maybe this is overkill but the kids have different last names and I remember once my Peruvian co-worker trying to take her kids on vacation to Peru without her husband and she nearly missed the plane because she didn’t have a letter from her partner saying it was OK to take the three kids to Peru.

I had forgotten we’d explained all this to the kids the other day so I was surprised when I mentioned the notary to Eli on our walk home from school and he said, “Oh to sign the letter proving you’re not a kidnapper, right?” Right.

Then back to school to get the kids, then home, then back out to get Arlo from his friend’s house, then home, then dinner and perusing the Toys R Us Christmas catalogue where I made the children spit out their dinner with laughter as I pointed to the doll called Baby All Gone and said, “Oh that’s the toy where you bring it home and then it disappears!”

Eli made me laugh when he saw the Disney Princess Lego castle and said, “Really? Now, Lego you’ve gone too far.”

Whimsy to close out the day.

Half

Today is Monday. It is also October 20th, which is Eli’s half-birthday. He reminded me of this on our walk to school this morning. He also reminded me yesterday. He suggested that something special we could do together would be: he could play with his friend, the neighbour, while I made him a half birthday cake?

He really is the sweetest. He knows I prefer to bake alone.

For a half birthday cake I made a lemon loaf because I like lemons and I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm for a full cake with icing and bullshit. I’m getting over a bad cold with sinus involvement and my patience is wire thin. Every twenty minutes I have to either breathe steam or drink hot tea. And two days ago the kettle broke, so we had to get a new kettle but that was just foreshadowing.

I have a recipe for lemon loaf — or several, don’t we all? — but I looked online and found Ina Garten’s lemon loaf recipe. The recipe yielded two loaves, so I had to cut the recipe in half and isn’t that just apropriate. Because it’s a half-birthday, you see. Which isn’t even real but hey I guess it is now. I just made it real, with cake.

Before I made the cake I had some lunch and before I had lunch I set some chips on fire in the toaster oven and had to pull the tray out, the Katniss-at-the-Capitol-flaming-tray and throw it out our front door onto the stone part of the patio, where the chips turned to char and the flames crackled until I stopped shaking enough to pour a watering can full of water on them. Hisssssssss.

Toaster ovens, man. Saint Aardvark has gone to get another one now because he fears the giant flames might have hurt the element. He might be right. Our last toaster oven, which I believe died this calendar year, had an element that melted in the middle, through no fault of mine.

When I first moved out on my own, back in 1993, someone gave me a toaster oven for a housewarming present and I swear I had that thing until 2005 at least. Its replacement lasted five years, *its* replacement lasted one and now we have killed two in one year. I mean. I’d just get a toaster but we are addicted to frozen hashbrown patty things, Eli and I, and to heat up the whole oven just to do one, or even three, hashbrown patty(s) seems absurd.

Before I set the chips on fire I walked uptown and back to get some exercise that was non-exertive, and to buy some cotton swabs at the drugstore. I went to the new drugstore, the REXALL, which has escalators and really good lime and salt and pepper flavoured peanuts. I took the escalator up to find the vitamins and then scoured each and every aisle looking for cotton swabs.

Have you ever noticed that every drugstore keeps their cotton swabs somewhere different? London Drugs keeps theirs at the end of the hair products aisle. Shoppers Drug Mart keeps theirs in the baby aisle. I think Superstore keeps theirs in the makeup. At Rexall, I checked all the aisles, even found a hairbrush I didn’t realize I needed, and then resorted to asking the pharmacist, who didn’t know. I ventured down feminine hygiene, and noticed something that was not cotton swabs.

It was called a LadyCare Device and it was on the shelf next to the Diva Cups. I looked at it. It looked like a plastic purple heart, about the size of a pendant. Was it a sex toy? No. Was it a menstrual product? No. It is a magnet that you put in your underwear to control your menopause symptoms. $45.

The cotton swabs were at the end of the baby aisle. I know I went down the baby aisle before but I must not have been paying attention, uninterested as I am in the topic of baby care.

The other day I ate a lot of pasta or something and I got the bloaty stomach that comes from carbs + cheese and Eli patted me on the belly and said, “What a fat belly! Are you making another baby in there?” No. No I am not.

He’s a lovely child; articulate, great sense of humour, good hearted, fantastic facial expressions. Six-and-a-half today.

Here’s a photo from his first half-birthday, in 2008:

NB: this was one of a series and he has the same expression in each.

Last week I copied a recipe for something from the Internet into our recipe notebook. Eli said, “I’m going to write a recipe too.” He thought for a minute and then wrote the following:

So! If you need to make your own, that’s how you do it. (pls note: 61 degrees F.)

Shaking Off the Anaconda

I looked in my drafts folder today and there were 46, forty-six drafts. I read through a few of them and they were dated, yes, but not horrible. Why did I never post them? Why indeed. I think when I finish writing something I feel as though I should let it sit a bit before posting but when I let it sit, I inevitably do not go back and look at it again for months or years.

There was one about pop music and Miley Cyrus, one about peanut allergies, one about how I was so ready to be done stay-at-home parenting. All of it still true and relatively relevant except I mentioned Ke$ha in the post about Miley and now I realize I have not heard from Ke$ha in quite some time. I mean, I never HEAR from her. I don’t get texts from her or anything. We don’t SNAPCHAT. But on the radio.

The children are so into pop music and this is fine and great. I heard Arlo singing along to Shake it Off the other day and he knows all the words and also can hit all the notes because he is eight years old and has the same vocal range as Taylor Swift so it’s pretty cute. I have a soft spot in my heart for Shake it Off. It’s like a self-help book in a pop song. I respond to it. That’s why it’s the only song I’m linking to in this post.

Tonight at dinner we heard a new pop song called Anaconda by Nicki Minaj, a song about, uh, a misguided relationship, maybe? Anyway it contains many samples from Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot. The children — not just mine, but many children, the same ones who were crowing “I’m Sexy and I know it” a few years ago — have been wandering around singing “My anaconda don’t want none / unless you got buns hon” and I needed to know they understood what they were talking about.

I tried to shake it off but they are boys, someday to be men, who ought to know. Besides, Arlo told me today he wants to be a famous rapper when he grows up, so the more info he has, the better. And so, we had the following conversation, after the last chords of Anaconda had faded from our ears.

Me: So that song samples another song, you know that right?
Arlo: Yeah, the one about Oh My God, Lookit Her Butt (incidentally, the original Baby Got Back says “oh my GOD lookit her butt” but the sample in Anaconda is “oh my GOSH lookit her butt” and this odd censory gesture is to laugh, truly)
Me: Right, so some people like to look at other peoples’ butts. They’re attracted to them. Some people like butts, some people like other peoples’ faces, some people like to look at long hair or short hair…
A: Hmm
Me: Sir Mix-A-Lot really likes butts. Right? He starts the song with I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE
A: Right
Me: And then he goes on and on about how butts are great and sometimes they’re bouncy and sometimes they’re squishy or whatever.
A: Yeah
Me: And then he says “my anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns, hon.”
A: Yeah
Me: What do you think that means?
A: His..anaconda doesn’t want anything unless it’s got a big butt?
Me: Righhht…and…
A: ??
Me: Do you think he has a pet snake? That eats people? (ed note: this would be a good horror sort of twist on the song maybe?)
A: No ha ha ha ha
Me: So what’s the anaconda?
A: ??
Me: Can you think of a body part that a man has that’s like a snake?
A: *blinks twice* Oh! His penis!
Me: Right.
A: *laughs hysterically*
Me: Yes.
A: *laughing*
Me: So it’s a metaphor. One thing means another thing
A: Rigggght

And tomorrow at school should be awesome for everyone who knows my son.

We’ll deal with the grammar another day.

August: Better than A Stuffed Banana

In August, we went to Kelowna for a few days. It was pretty fun; we swam in both pools at the motel and in the lake, we ate junk food and stayed up too late (MAINLY THE CHILDREN DID THIS), and we visited a kangaroo farm.

Yes, there is a kangaroo farm half an hour north of Kelowna. It is called Kangaroo Creek Farm and it is exactly as billed. Maybe a little less crazy than the website implies. A habitat for kangaroos and capybara and goats and some exotic birds. And emu. And ostriches.

This is a capybara, basically a giant guinea pig.

Kangaroos are weird, it bears mentioning. They look like the progeny of a normal-animal orgy. Part rabbit, part deer, part giant squirrel, part fuzzy wuzzy fuzz bucket.

I liked this one.

Anyway at the farm you can feed them and pet them and hold baby ones. Admission is by donation. Wear sensible shoes; the trail and path from the upper parking area to the farm is quite steep.

Arlo feeds a kangaroo

After we returned from Kelowna we made our annual trip to the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). Like so many things-with-children, the PNE-with-children gets better every year. This year, Arlo used the heck out of his ride pass and Eli went on a legitimate number of rides as well. We ate some food and no one got sick.

Oh hello I am on a carousel.

Then came time for the midway game.

I have a conflicted relationship with the midway games. You pay $5 for a chance to win something that costs $0.50 at the dollar store. Like a tiny stuffed banana. Or a tiny stuffed smiley face. Or one of those confounded parachuting dudes whose strings always get tangled immediately.

As a counter-point, the kids always love the crappy little stuffed whatevers that they win on the midway game; they even love them for months and years afterwards, treasuring them and calling them “the stuffed banana I won on that game at the PNE, wow, I love this toy!” but it is a struggle every year for me to shell out the money for them to basically throw in the garbage.

Yes, you’re right, I could not do it, but once you’ve paid X to get in and XX on food and XXX for the rides what’s another five bucks. I didn’t say it made sense. I said I was CONFLICTED.

This year, Arlo was riding the Wave Swinger and climbing the climbing wall while Eli and I strolled the midway looking for a game he wanted to play. He stopped and stared at various games while the yelling people yelled at us to TRY IT all the KIDS GET A PRIZE come on I ONLY NEED ONE MORE PLAYER GIVE IT A TRY. He ignored them all. I tried to as well. We went and fetched Arlo because Eli didn’t want to play a game until Arlo was going to play a game.

They both stopped at the “get a ring on a bottle, any bottle, one ring on any bottle wins YOUR CHOICE” booth. This booth had only gigantic stuffed prizes. Obviously this booth did not award anyone any prizes, ever, because you could have TWELVE rings to toss for only $2; an entire bucket of rings for $5. The kids said, “WOW that is a great deal. We want to play this one.”

I was, of course, torn because a) hey that gets my money spent quickly and then we can go home but b) they are going to lose and not even get a consolation stuffed banana because this game is winner-takes-all not loser-gets-something-anyway. Because we are super parents, we decided to let consequences rule the day and spent the $5 on a bucket of rings.

Toss, bounce, toss, bounce, toss. The rings were made of rubber and the bottles were made of rubber repellent. Toss, bounce, toss, bounce, toss, bounce.

Then: toss. No bounce! Ring stayed on the bottle neck. Eli tossed a ring right onto the bottle and it stayed there. Six year old ringed the bottle.

The booth workers had no idea what to do. They had to dig around to find the scissors to cut down the prize.

“I want that bear,” Eli said, pointing above our heads at a giant, fluorescent green stuffed bear. “Do you want to look around at the other choices?” Saint Aardvark asked. Eli did. He came back to the bear.

The bear — later named Fluffy — that we* then had to carry around the PNE for another half hour while Arlo rode more rides to assuage his disappointment at not being the one who ringed the bottle. The bear that we then had to haul up the hill to my parents’ house where we always park our car when we go to the PNE. The bear that barely fit in the trunk of our Honda Civic.

*actually Saint Aardvark carried it, mostly. It sat so peacefully on his shoulders, its head resting on his head. See:

Great conversation starter, a giant green bear. The world is divided into two types of people: the ones who congratulate you on your giant green bear and the ones who scoff because they assume you spent your life savings winning the giant green bear (those people are also jealous and often in their early 20s). Just an observation.

Arlo’s turn to carry the bear.

But the six year old won the bear all by himself. Seriously. We spent five bucks, just like we always do.

August ended and September hasn’t really started yet, in my heart, because there is still no school in BC. Our teachers are still striking and our government is still waiting for them to give up. Every day is still sunny, but the days are noticeably shorter and darker around the edges. We are holding, waiting, no longer on vacation, but nowhere near a new routine.

Sometimes on my way up or downstairs I pass the kids’ room, where Fluffy waits patiently for the children to retire for the evening, and wonder why the room seems to be filled with alien-green light. A pause and a smile and I remember it’s the light of his fur: a reminder of the glowing last days of August.

Eight

Arlo woke up at 4:00 this morning.

“It’s my birthday party and tomorrow is my birthday and I am just so excited!” he said. He didn’t stop talking all day. Allllll day.

Right now he is sleeping soundly, though there is still light in his room because the kids keep moving the blackout curtains aside so they can see outside. Kids! Outside will still be there tomorrow! Shut your damned eyes and slumber. I would.

(age: one day)

I don’t know anything about eight year olds. I didn’t buy the book this year. However, it’s the beginning of a new birth year and those always seem to go well (except for the first one, and the third) so right now I’m going to say: hooray for eight.

Arlo at eight is moderate and often seems very grown up. He sometimes gives in to his younger, more tetchy sibling and his unreasonable requests. (Arlo at eight also lost it and hit that sibling because he broke a promise. The promise in question? To “show [me] his coolest face.”)

(age: one year)

Arlo at eight craves mastery. He tried road hockey, is currently obsessed with basketball, can ride a bike and a scooter, can tie his shoes, finally, and is interested in all the sports. All of them. He wants to play football and soccer and baseball and lacrosse. We, his parents, are confused by this, as we are of the clan sit-around-and-think-too-much (except, ahem, when one of us is running for “fun”) and we don’t care much for sports, but he wants to be excellent at something, and having already mastered reading, writing, math, and being a fabulous guy, sports and surgery are the only things left.

I brag.

I get to.

(age: two years)

Also I don’t think surgery would be a good choice. He might sever his own toe. (when do children stop being clumsy if ever? Maybe I need the book after all.)

(age: four years)(we mysteriously have no photos from 2009)

He opened gifts at his friend-birthday-party today and after each one looked the friend in the eye and said, “I love this! I will use this A LOT.” His genuine appreciation for gifts — no matter how big or small — makes my heart glad.

(age: five years)

He eats and analyses food (“this tastes sweet but creamy but not good somehow”) and sweats like a … relative of me.

(age: six years)

He is even-tempered, and forgiving. He understands things like mixed feelings and conflicting statements. He gets where you’re coming from. When people get hurt, he winces along with them. He laughs at my jokes. He allows me to sing along with the radio, sometimes, because he appreciates passionate singing and good drama.

(age: seven years)

He wanted an eight-layer rainbow cake for his birthday this year. I tired at the seventh layer (actually the fifth, but I couldn’t very well stop at yellow) so we agreed the pink layer could be the frosting. “My friends might wonder why my cake is pink,” he said, “but they’ll understand when they see the rainbow.”

(all becomes clear when you see the rainbow.)

Happy 8th, Arlo. Infinity year. Year of hatching dreams, chasing rainbows, and eating more vegetables.

You bet I’m serious. This is your mother speaking.

On Staying in Your Lane

I have a car commute to work and back; about 25 minutes to get there and 35 minutes to get back in the afternoon, give or take fifteen minutes of local hijinkery on the home side. Like all semi-regular commuters, I know the ins and outs; when to get in the left lane to avoid having to merge at the last minute, when to get into the right to avoid those pesky left-hand-turners who hold up traffic. (Is there anything better than knowing a route so well you can navigate it like you’re playing a video game, shaving two whole minutes off your travel time? THERE IS SOMETIMES NOTHING BETTER THAN THIS.)

I go against rush hour traffic, which, next to the benefits and pay, is the best thing about my job. It puts a solid check in the PLUS column when you are always seeing people lined up, not moving, going the other way, and you’re doing 100 km in a 60 zone*. It’s a pathetic sort of winning, but it’s winning.

*It totally does not need to be a 60 zone.

Last Friday I was driving along, in the left lane because it was left-lane-time, a number of cars around me. Suddenly, a Jetta in the right lane went sweeervvve into my lane, in front of me. Not just a “whoops forgot to signal” move but a “I don’t even see other drivers because I am THE BEST!” move. I nearly hit it. I made a face at that Jetta and said,”You are VERY LUCKY I did not hit you.” I scolded it with my face.

At the next light, the guy driving the Jetta looked in his sideview mirror at me. He was kind of smirking or maybe smiling in an apologetic way. Hard to tell. I decided I would not give him the pleasure of my anger.

So, instead of following too close, glaring at him, and wishing him ill, I gave him lots of space and smiled.

I’ve been practising doing this, smiling at people when I want to kill them.

And not the sharky, I-will-eat-you smile, either. A real smile.

It works. Or, it worked in this situation. Maybe because it was Friday and I am very relaxed about work now that I don’t have to care any more, or because the sun was out and my parents had the kids so I didn’t have to worry. Maybe it worked because I was in a good space, or maybe it worked because I gave myself the space and then put myself in it, refusing to get into that guy’s space and be manipulated by his bad behaviour.

I stayed in my own lane.

Eventually he was gone, and I went back to my sweating and singing along to the radio.

This may seem obvious to some of you, but it is a reminder — much needed, repeatedly — that not everyone thinks the way I do, that I can only control my own reactions and behaviour, that I am only responsible for getting me from point a) to point b), and that I can do that by staying. in. my. mother.effing.lane.

Don’t swerve around and get up in peoples’ grills. Don’t shake your fist at them at the stoplight. Don’t waste time wondering why they are doing that cockamamie thing, because it’s none of your business. It works for the road, the Internet, conversations with strangers and acquaintances. It works for swimming laps! Stay in your lane.

Next to “I may not be a great CMA* but I’m a kickass human being,” “Stay in your lane” may be the best simple motto I’ve come up with in 2014.

Months to go yet, though. Months to go.

*that’s my job title

HOW IS SUMMER WRITING CLUB GOING?

Here, in my lane, I am sticking to my fifteen minutes a day, which I’d been doing after dinner anyway so the kids being all up in my face, all over this place all day doesn’t change my schedule any. I would like to add a bit more time during the day and it seems likely that we will implement Summer Quiet Time (no stickers. Just do it.) in the afternoons. The children can and will read quietly and independently and I think fifteen minutes is not too much to ask.

Those of you who requested stickers, your stickers are in the mail.

bad with titles

pretty good with stories