Monthly Archives: February 2010

Statement Retraction: Groundhog Day

Posted on by

It pains me to do this, but I feel I must retract my statement with regards to Groundhog Day. Don’t get me wrong: I am aware that there will be more snow and frosty temperatures, but the past few days have been absolutely beautiful – puddles and brown grass appearing where previously there were piles of dirty snow, the sun shining, and the sky a postcard Alberta blue. Yesterday the boys and I took the dog for a walk, all three of us wearing only down vests and shirtsleeves, and our new rubber boots. It really felt spring-ish, and yes, I know, I know, it’s deceptive, but still: I’m sorry, Balzac Billy. I’m sorry for laughing at you and disbelieving you and making fun of the fact that you are just some guy dressed up as a groundhog. Could you please not see your shadow every year? Thank you.

So it’s been a glorious weekend, despite the fact of absent husband. As an aside, I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and ran into a friend’s husband and mentioned that Rob was in Vancouver. “I’m living the single girl life!” I said cheerily, and he raised his eyebrows. What? So I’m in Wal-Mart at 10:00 a.m. with a cart full of Mini-Wheats, children’s Tylenol, and Kleenex, with two kids jonesing for McDonald’s yogurt parfaits. Isn’t that what all the single girls are doing these days? But I’m especially happy because – and I’m superstitious just writing this, so I’m knocking wood – no one has been vomiting.

There has been a stomach flu going around, I discovered the day after our sick day. I was waiting for the kindergarten to be let out, chatting with another mom, who was telling me a prolonged story about the vomiting going on in her house, and she casually mentioned that her youngest son – a classmate and friend of Mark’s, who was in class that day – was throwing up only the day before. The day before! I probably looked like a caricature of a crazy person – or maybe I am a crazy person – as my eyes widened with this knowledge that the VIRUS WAS AMONG US. Once the class let out I accosted Mark and slathered him with hand sanitizer. I would have ripped off his clothes and burned them if I could have figured out a way to do it without it being weird.

I really, really want to be one of those people who are all casual about illnesses, all kids-get-sick-and-barf-no-big-deal, but I am not. I am still somewhat scarred from the first time Mark ever got sick: it was the rotavirus. He was 19 months old, and Jake was four weeks old and colicky. And Mark, along with my husband, contracted the rotavirus. Once we got through that, only three months later Mark – and my husband – contracted a virus akin to Norwalk. Jake was still colicky. Mark threw up for a week, and didn’t eat for ten days. For those of you who also have skinny kids, you know what it is to see your toddler’s ribs and toothpick legs after an illness. I was practically deranged from a lack of sleep and worry. The upside of all this is that I was so stressed out that I didn’t eat and ended up losing the remainder of my pregnancy weight, which is to say there is always a silver lining.

I have gotten a lot better about my germ paranoia, with the boys being older and sturdier, and with me being a more confident and rested parent. But I’m still overjoyed that we had such a lovely weekend, and that we seem to have missed this particular virus. Hoo boy. I better go knock wood again.

Olympic Sick Day

Posted on by

It was only a matter of time. I actually thought to myself that it was a miracle – a miracle! – that we hadn’t been sick so far this calendar year. It was especially miraculous because the kindergarten class has been a petrie dish of violently coughing five year olds. Coughing into the sleeve isn’t really an effective measure against the spreading of viruses if said sleeve is one inch from someone else’s face.

So Mark developed a cough this week, and then a fever, along with the whining and clinging that such illness generally brings, and so I kept him home from school yesterday. I came across an article entitled “Sick Day Strategies”, aimed at entertaining sick little people. It advocated for, among other things, cuddles, stories and quiet games. Does it feel like parenting articles are just a little too obvious at times?

But of course cuddles, stories, and quiet games did constitute a large part of our day, along with freezies, a homemade batch of playdough, and copious amounts of TV. Hilarity ensued when Jake, rummaging through a backpack that had been unused for two years, found a pull-up diaper. He immediately pulled it on over his jeans and ran around the house saying “Goo goo ga ga, I’m a baby!” This entertained Mark for some time. Still, by mid-afternoon mind-numbing boredom kicked in for all three of us, so when Mark asked if he could use the camera – a request that is repeated several times a day and often results in some pretty strange photos – I agreed. He and Jake went downstairs for a while, and the following pictures are the result.

As an aside, I should mention, again, that my husband is a huge fan of the Olympics – in fact he left for Vancouver this morning – and he watches Olympic coverage near-constantly while at home. That theme song is haunting me. Instead of feeling left out that he has gone for a couple of days, I’m actually somewhat elated that I’m not going to hear that music. Tonight I’m planning on eating a pan of kale chips, drinking wine, and watching Season Three NYPD Blue, the combination of which has me so excited that I’m starting to wonder about my own mental stability. I blame the breakdown on the theme music.

Without further ado, here are Select Olympic Events, as modeled by Jake, photography and artistic direction by Mark.

Lighting of the Olympic flame:

Hockey:


A Gold Medal Ceremony:


Biathlon:

Not medaling:


And finally, luge:

Yeah, me too.

Posted on by

Jake, in the car today: “It’s a good thing Tiger Woods is not MY dad.”

Me: silence, trying to digest this comment while simultaneously wondering if watching the news around the children is damaging their psyches in some deep and troubling way.

Jake: “Mom? Mom? I’m happy Tiger Woods is not MY dad.”

Me, realizing silent thoughts are not an appropriate response, and also recalling that it would be wrong and appalling to insert a ribald joke while talking to a four-year-old: “What do you mean, honey?”

Jake: “Mom? I don’t think Tiger Woods plays much with his kids. I don’t really think that’s very nice.”

Me: “I think you’re probably right.”

Random Weekend Thoughts

Posted on by

I’m the opposite of sharp and witty today. I think I’m going to blame the fact that in five days I’ve been to four different places to buy groceries (the grocery shopping has been epic this week) and the fact that my brain is filled with so much useless knowledge such as where, exactly, the Playmobil farm animals are kept in relation to the dinosaur drawer, exactly how many containers of pasta sauce and of ripe bananas are left in the freezer, and the entire lyrics to Parents Just Don’t Understand. Oh, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, your 1987 ditty haunts me.

So, a few random and disjointed thoughts:

1) Now that the torch relay is long over, the kids have a new Olympic-related game: pretending to be short track speed skaters, which manifests itself in noisily running around the house at top speeds and surreptitiously toppling each other over to get in the lead. I’m kind of looking forward to the closing ceremonies.

2) I’ve been one giant sunbeam of optimism since coming home from vacation, and I feel a bit like I’m irritating everyone I run into with my positive outlook on life. Nothing is bothering me, because I’ve just been on! vacation!

3) NEXT WEEKEND IS THE END OF FEBRUARY. This means that Mark’s birthday is fast approaching and I need to start thinking about his birthday party. Children’s birthday parties are the bane of my existence. Last year I planned a superhero-themed party complete with bat crafts, Mr. Freeze dancing, and a basement obstacle course, and I feel that was the pinnacle of my party-planning career. It’s all downhill from here, people.

T = Valentine’s + Four

Posted on by

Since we were on! vacation! last week, the boys missed their class Valentine parties, and so came home yesterday bearing their “mailboxes” stuffed with cards and candies and miniature Play-Doh’s, causing me a little anxiety for only sending plain old Spiderman Valentines. Remember when there were no rules regarding the handing out of Valentines, and the class party would result in a ruthless popularity contest, what with the obsessive counting of cards received and from whom, and the select group of children who would be dejectedly looking at empty mailboxes, save for those given by children forced by their mothers to address cards for the entire class? That kind of sucked.

Also, there wasn’t quite the Valentine selection back then as there is now, with the wide variety of Disney/ Marvel Comic/ Nick Jr. cards, as well as all the add-ons of stickers, tattoos, and individually wrapped chocolate hearts. Although I will admit that the ultimate Valentine’s gift for me would be one of those retro cards stating “Let’s BEE Friends” complete with a picture of a bumblebee.

From the above statement, it is probably obvious that I’m not a person who really celebrates Valentine’s, in the romantic way anyway, since I love making heart-shaped sugar cookies and eating chocolate kisses. Also, this is the first year that one of my children (JAKE) actually made me a Valentine of his own volition, making it a very special day indeed. But normally I am not a Valentine’s person. In earlier years I would have probably railed against it as some kind of commercial made-up holiday, or some such other completely unique and original idea. Mostly I could just care less about it, maybe because I’m not interested in diamonds or a bouquet of roses, and if I received a giant heart-shaped box of chocolates I would probably down it in one sitting, so it’s best to just leave Valentine’s to the Valentine’s people.

But I did do something special this year. This year I was on! vacation! and I decided that day to go shopping to stores that are not available at home.

As an aside, for all you Canadian readers, remember when it was a huge deal to go shopping in the States, and you could get all sorts of strange and wonderful items not available in Canada? I remember the first time I had a Twinkie. It was gross and weird and highly over-rated, but still I enjoyed it because I couldn’t get them in Canada.

Back to the shopping. I decided, on Valentine’s Day of all days, to go to Victoria’s Secret. People, if you are looking for entertainment, go to Victoria’s Secret on Valentine’s Day. It was packed with men who had evidently forgotten the importance of the date or who just, disastrously, left things to the last minute. They ranged in lingerie-temperament from those who rifled furiously through the various racks to those who just stood staring, clearly overwhelmed with the whole undertaking. Some of the more self-aware approached the counter to announce that they had no idea what to look for, so maybe a gift certificate would be in order?

For any men who may be reading this, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that lingerie is possibly the most deadly, land-mine like gift you can give a woman. Size is the first issue: what man really knows what size his wife or girlfriend is? It’s a tricky one; if you go too small, then the item will be horribly uncomfortable and it will be an awkward exchange. If you go too large, then your wife or girlfriend will be tremendously offended that you thought THAT was her size. Also, and this may be a generalization, but I believe that most men have different lingerie tastes than women do. Otherwise, how to explain the proliferation of tacky red-and-black numbers with feathers and fake fur and matching mule slippers? I can only guess that it is for the desperately-seeking-a-Valentine-gift market.

What do you think? Are you a Valentine’s person? An anti-Valentine’s person? Or are you like me, someone who enjoys Valentine-related treats, but not much else about the holiday?

Here’s me, a few hours after my V-Day shopping spree, with 2/3 of my Valentines.

The flight

Posted on by

As I mentioned earlier, I am just back from a warm vacation, notable because it was the first big vacation with the kids. Generally we are the road-trippers to see in-laws, or short-flighters to see my grandparents. I have to admit that the reason we haven’t had any big vacations with the kids prior to now was due to my extreme reluctance to take small children on flights with a greater than one hour duration, as well as my extreme exhaustion at the idea of caring for and entertaining small children in unfamiliar surroundings. However, they are older now and I thought that this would be the year to start, and it turns out, I was right. Don’t you love when that happens?

Traveling with a four and five year old is not bad at all, and I’m not just saying that because, on the airplane, my husband sat in the middle seat between them while I lounged in lonely bliss across the aisle. It pays to be the uncool parent that no one wants to sit beside. The flight was significantly easier on the way home, given that the Palm Springs airport has a separate express security line for passengers traveling with children. A more brilliant idea would, in my opinion, be difficult to come across.

This is not to say that the flight down was difficult. We actually arrived at the airport twenty minutes before the rush, so we sailed through customs and security. The super friendly security guy chatted with me as he went through my carryon which contained the eclectic mom-like combination of peanut butter sandwiches, camera, makeup, and a potty seat. He even mentioned that the flight we would be on would have the Teletoon channel, which caused a great deal of excitement and conjectures with regards to what programs would be on at this time of day, only to end in disappointment at the discovery that the brand new plane we boarded had yet to be equipped with televisions. Oh, the humanity! We were seated at the front of the plane and each and every passenger commented on this travesty as they filed past us.

The flight itself went great, despite having to rely on archaic forms of entertainment such as books and markers, and also in spite of it being delayed 50 minutes while waiting for connecting passengers to go through security. Heavy fog had delayed a connecting flight from Edmonton, and the latecomers had to endure the withering stares and extraneous mutterings of “Oilers suck!” from the other passengers as they sheepishly boarded.

But then we landed! In another country! And the boys were thrilled every second to be somewhere different, and every difference was noted, no matter how small (Scooby Doo gummies have different packaging than in Canada) or large (palm trees). Here is their reaction upon seeing flowers at the airport upon arrival:

I’m Baaaacccckkkk!

Posted on by

I’m back from six days in Palm Desert, CA, and it was such a great trip: warmth and sunshine, and copious eating, drinking, and being merry. I have many fun stories but mostly I just want to say that this was our first big trip with the kids and it was a happy success. The best thing about travelling with kids is watching their world vision expand. After getting off the plane, the boys were absolutely fascinated that there were flowers! Growing! And they were wearing t-shirts! And there was grass! And palm trees! And I have many things to say and I want to visit all of your blogs but the siren song of laundry and unpacking is calling me….so a longer post is coming after I have waded through those duties.