Monthly Archives: October 2011

It was a graveyard smash!

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It snowed today!  The little dusting is, I believe, positively correlated with the comment I made yesterday regarding the unbelievable fact that we had made it through September AND October with no snow.  But, dear readers, we had NOT made it through October, and so now we have snow.  It’s not much though and it is mostly melted, but I feel silly for having mentioned it. 

I also feel a bit silly for having thought – although not spoken aloud – that we have eluded illness quite successfully so far this school year.  Mark now has a very, very minor version of the sniffles which has the unfortunate yet usual side effect of THE COUGH.  This means that he is waking up to cough in the night, which gives me post-traumatic flashbacks to his bout with pneumonia and the subsequent months of nighttime coughing.  I gave him a shot of his steriod inhaler this morning and he responded by saying “Wow, my chest feels all crazy!” which led me down a spiral of worry.  But he seems fine.

He really was just fine until the morning after the Halloween Family Dance, which is, quite honestly, the highlight of his calendar year, right after Christmas.  And it was a fabulous time for all of us, although I’m happy that it’s all done.  I cleared my calendar last Thursday specifically to make these:

Ninety sugar cookies!  They are almost completely devoid of nutritional value, yet are a consistent crowd pleaser.  I was taking three dozen of them for the bake sale/ concession at the dance and was pleased to see that they sold out fairly quickly. 

Nothing sells like a choice of spooky shapes and lots of sprinkles.

The dance itself was so much fun, augmented by a flash mob performance from a local studio – teenage girls dressed as zombies, dancing to Thriller.  My kids were dressed in their finest spooky wear:

A vampire and Spider Monkey from Ben 10!  My husband and I are in the background, and we are also dressed up, although my neighbour did not realize it.  I walked over to the school early to help set up, and as I left the house with my makeup gun set to “whore” I fervently hoped I would not run into anyone I knew.  No sooner than I had thought that, my neighbour got out of his truck and started talking to me in a casual, awkward, elephant-in-the-room way.  I mentioned I was on my way to set up for the school Halloween Dance, and he said “Oh!  Halloween!  I thought you were just going out with some girlfriends!”  That was a little disheartening.

For the record, I do not look like this when I go out with my girlfriends.

Near the end of the dance, the DJ was inspired to play a number of “oldies” for the parents’ listening pleasure.  I was a little wary – after all, this was only days after the soul train – but the very last song was Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, which is pretty awesome, if you ask me.  I was belting out Hold on to that FEEEELLLLININNNNGGG for the next couple of days.

There was even – hold on to your hats! – much Grade Six Girl Drama, complete with mediation (“She’s upset because you said you didn’t want to dance?  But then she saw you dancing with Sophie?”) and crying in the bathroom.  A few years ago my niece was at a school dance and my sister-in-law asked her how many girls were crying in the bathroom and my niece was completely flabbergasted.  How did you know girls were crying in the bathroom?  Because girls have always and will always be crying in the bathroom at dances until the end of time.

There is something very comforting in that.  When my children are chaperoning their own children’s dances, and Party Rockers in the House Tonight is the golden oldie played for the parents, girls will still be huddled in a group in the bathroom, surrounding and comforting one of their sobbing compatriots.

Jake-Z and Marky Mark

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Over the past six weeks there has been a hip-hop residency program at our school, meaning that the kids have been learning hip-hop in gym class.  I was interested to see how this would go since my children have a great love of music and – especially in Mark’s case – dancing.  This great love of music does not translate into talent, however, and so I was greatly amused when they would practice their steps at home.  And by “steps” I mean they mostly crossed their arms and bobbed up and down slightly, with intense scowls on their faces, with the exception of their two signature moves: gorilla and soldier.  Gorilla! they would shout, arms and legs bent, back curved.  Soldier! they would say, standing at attention and saluting.  With that kind of preview you can well imagine that I was eager to see the windup performance yesterday afternoon.

It was, hands down, the single greatest school assembly I have ever witnessed.  I’m not sure what I enjoyed the most: the Grade Ones and Twos who made up with enthusiasm what they lacked in coordination and body control, the Grade Threes and Fours who were enthusiastic AND coordinated, or the Grade Fives and Sixes who had the most coordination and complicated routines, but who had a singular lack of hip-hop joy on their faces due to the self-consciousness of performing a dance routine in front of the school and their parents, ick.  I also much enjoyed my fellow parents who turned into “Woo Girls” at the sight of their children performing their funky moves.  Myself included.  Woooooooo! 

The young male leader of this hip-hop residency announced that there would be something special happening after the performances.  What that was, he said, was something that we parents would surely remember: a soul train dance line!  Now, it’s true that he was much, much younger than all of us, but a soul train dance line?  None of us were actually clubbing in the 70s, so I’m not sure how old he thought we were.  Nonetheless, who can really resist?  It was great.  My own children did their patented dance moves: Jake did a couple of jumping spins and then mostly walked with great funky aplomb, Mark did a couple of John Travolta-esque moves and also, inappropriately, a couple of butt-smacks (his own butt).  Some kids walked grimly and in a deeply embarrassed way, some skipped with their arms waving, and some really got their groove on.  Me, I joined in when the parents were invited, despite wearing the world’s ugliest – yet most comfortable – knock-off Uggs. 

All of which is to say that we’re ready and excitedly anticipating Friday’s Halloween Family Dance.  The boys have even gone so far as to say they hope I’ll join them on the dance floor.  Of course I will.  It will be only a few more years until they are the deeply embarrassed, grim children walking quickly down the soul train dance line.

Cultivating the Relationship

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How was your weekend?  I spent Friday night here:

which is to say I had a pretty fabulous weekend.  My parents stayed at our house and took care of the children, and I will say this: I always fret a little about leaving them, even for one night, and they always wish that I stayed away longer.  Hum.  It’s nice to have time with just my husband and not be completely distracted by the kids, as I often am.  A friend’s mother was talking to me about when her girls left home and she found herself sitting across the table from her husband, just the two of them; how strange it was and how important it is to cultivate that relationship.  Not that I’m panicking about the empty nest just yet, but still.  Another friend, who is a pharmacist working with cancer patients, told me that incidences of the human papillomavirus spike in teenagers AND in women in their fifties – empty nesters who leave their husbands and engage in promiscuous activity.  Where am I going with this?  IT’S IMPORTANT TO CULTIVATE THE RELATIONSHIP, PEOPLE.  And so I had a great time in Banff.  We walked to downtown Banff for dinner and met up with an elk on the way:

Cute!  It’s not so common to see elk in the townsite anymore, and so I got my picture taken with it.

Look, he’s showing his bum.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and hung out in the lounge, getting drunk, listening to a fabulous blues guitarist, and meeting people at the bar.  That’s always fun.  We met a couple from Boston who were also Patriots fans, so there was much “Gooooo Pats!” talk and more drinking.  I stayed up until – wait for it – MIDNIGHT.  I had the teensiest bit of a headache the next day.

I had made a full recovery by Sunday and was persuaded by the children to put up all the Halloween decorations and carve pumpkins.  Carving pumpkins is one of those family fun activities that actually end up being NOT SO MUCH family fun.  I mean, the end result is fun.  The ideas about what the pumpkins should look like, that’s fun too.  But the actual carving?  My husband gets the glory of using a very sharp tool that’s designed to cut drywall.  I get stuck cleaning the goop out of the pumpkins and trying to save the seeds for roasting, which only I eat anyway.  The kids refuse to assist in the cleaning process, and only wish they could assist in the cutting process, and so pumpkin carving is really not much of a family fun project.  They turned out well though:

Doesn’t that one look like Gru from Despicable Me? 

Happy, Happy Birthday Baby

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It’s my husband’s birthday today!  Ssssh.  He doesn’t like a big fuss made about his birthday, something I totally do not understand since I enjoy wearing a birthday tiara and a sandwich board with “BIRTHDAY GIRL” written on it.  However, he and I are going to Banff for the night tonight – squee – with no kids – double squee!  We haven’t even gone out for dinner, just the two of us, for months and months, and so I’m pretty excited.  Bring on the wine!  Bring on the appetizers!  Bring on the cosmopolitans!  I used to work with a guy who had a date night with his wife every single Saturday night.  That actually sounds kind of exhausting to me, but a night out without kids should probably occur more often than once every six months.

Speaking of Saturday night, remember The Simpsons?  (Yes, I know it’s still on TV, but I haven’t watched it in probably ten years, so this is a dated reference.)

Homer: Saturday night?  But that’s our special night!
Marge: What’s so special about Saturday night?
Homer: What’s so spe…oh, I don’t know.  A little so-called Dr. Quinn?  MEDICINE WOMAN?

For the record, I LOVED Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

But since we are going out tonight, I baked this yesterday:

Nom nom nom.
The boys made cards for their dad using their brand-new Smencils.  Are your kids into Smencils?  They are very strongly scented pencils made out of 100% recycled newspaper.  The boys worked very hard on these cards yesterday after school, and I inspected them when they were done.  Jake’s had drawings of Ben 10 aliens on it, along with coloured circles for him to smell.  Mark’s had elaborate animal drawings, the animals floating in a sea of bubble gum.  In very small print on the front were the words “Have a happy fart.”
Oh, farting.  It is just so funny.  I really was unprepared, prior to having little boys, for the number of hours I would have to spend a) listening to discussions about farting, b) being in rooms that have been farted in, and c) making up rules that no one, save myself, follows with regards to farting, such as no farting at the dinner table.  I am the only one who complies.  The other day while we were eating dinner, Jake put his chin in his palm and looked at me sweetly.  He smiled softly, and I half expected little hearts to be in the place where his irises are.  “What’s up, sweetie?” I said.  “I just farted.” he replied.  Jake is also famous, in our house, for suddenly yelling “Mom!  Mom!  Moooooooommmm!  I farted, and it did NOT smell good.”  This happens frequently.
His brother is no better.  Mark likes to stand beside me, fart noxiously, and then move away, giggling at my protests.  He also informed me that he farted, very loudly, in his yoga class.  I suppose that happens to the best of us.  After this confession, Jake said, with great pride in his brother’s achievements, “I know!  I heard you! You were so loud!”
Life with boys.  It stinks, literally but not figuratively.

I’m going as a witch.

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My dog almost caught ANOTHER squirrel today in the exact same spot as the other day.  Either my dog has become an overnight hunting sensation or the squirrels that frequent our backyard are extremely dim-witted.

I have been busily preparing for our school’s Halloween Family Dance.  I’m happy to assist in this endeavor for two reasons: a) the coordinator is a very good friend of mine, and b) the Halloween Family Dance is, next to Christmas, the single greatest day of Mark’s calendar year.  He talks about it all year long.  Also, it IS very fun.  Costumes, dance music, and the whole thing is over at 9:00 pm.  That’s MY kind of a good time. 

It’s so fun to dress up.  Halloween is everyone’s favourite excuse to bring out the slutty wear and heavy makeup, which is, I think, a very fun activity.  But can we all agree that Halloween costumes have become TOO slutty?  I was searching for a Top Gun costume for my husband – SAUCY – which is unfortunately unavailable in his size and also unfortunately $72, which seems excessive to me.  Fortunately he promises to wear oil up his chest and wear tight jeans and aviators, as in the volleyball scene.  He also promises to walk in slow motion and flex a lot.  But not for the Halloween Family Dance.  For the Halloween Dance, he’s dressing up as a vampire.  But not a skanky vampire.  Just a normal one. 

Once I was on the costume website, though, I became interested in the costumes for women.  Almost all of those costumes seemed a little more appropriate for a private party, if you know what I mean.  I mean, I don’t think I could show up at the Halloween Family Dance wearing this:

although it would go nicely if I did actually purchase my husband a $72 Maverick outfit.  The market for slutty costumes is really mind boggling, to be honest.  Have you ever wanted to portray a skanky Wednesday Addams?  Here’s your chance!
The details are fuzzy here, but wasn’t Wednesday just a child?  This seems a bit perverse.  But what about this one:
What a feeling!  I think I’m going to wear this to the Halloween Family Dance, grab a chair, and start pouring water on myself.  That’s an appropriate thing to do, right?  There is a disturbing number of costumes based on Strawberry Shortcake characters:
This one is called Blueberry Muffin.  I will leave it at that.  But what about a character from that not-as-loved-as-the-Flintstones-but-still-kind-of-nostalgic TV show, the Jetsons?  Not Jane, not Judy, but ROSIE:
Rosie is the maid.  The ROBOT maid.  This is actually kind of amusing.  What if you’re more into Disney themes?  Yes, there are any number of slutty Alice in Wonderland costumes, slutty Queen of Hearts costumes, slutty Tinkerbell costumes, but this one is the winner, I think:

NEMO!!!

Dully enough, I’m going as a witch, and so I will not be purchasing any of those costumes.  On a final note, I have to share this with you:

Is there a market for this?  For a NOSE AND BEARD COMBO?  I feel violated on so many levels, just looking at this.  I mean, really?  I can almost see a nipple on this sexy Osama.  This sexy Osama with a NOSE AND BEARD COMBO.  I have a feeling that anyone purchasing this outfit would be instantly eligible for the no-fly list, as well as the OMG YOU ARE COMPLETELY TACKY AND HORRIFYING list.  If there is such a list.  There should be one.

The unknown can be a scary place for a squirrel

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On Saturday I woke up feeling tired and achy; everyone else in the house had more or less gone through this malady, and it finally caught me.  Let me tell you something: it pays to get sick on a Saturday.  I had a sick day like I have only dreamed of for years and years.  While my husband ran the ship, so to speak, I napped, grazed copiously all throughout the day, and lay on the couch watching two hours’ worth of Corner Gas reruns.  I rallied only long enough to make – and eat – a batch of guacamole, which I swear had a medicinal effect on me because I was feeling well enough to resume normal activities the very next day.

One of those activities was baking pumpkin loaf (which turned out beautifully – watch for the recipe to be posted over at the cooking blog, which I seem to be plugging a lot today).  As I stirred the wets into the dries, I idly looked out the window to see my dog chasing a squirrel.  The squirrel was on the wall of our detached garage; the dog was barking at it and running back and forth.  “Good luck, Barkley,” I sighed, “You’ll never catch a squirrel.”

If this was a movie about bloodthirsty hounds, ominous music would have started playing.  As Barkley chased the probably idiotic squirrel back and forth along the garage wall, my husband stood beside me watching.  “I think he’s got it cornered,” he said, “I think I should probably call him in.”  I did not realize that my mastermind of a Labradoodle actually was exhausting the squirrel as a hunting technique, until seconds after my husband uttered that remark, he yelled “He’s got it in his mouth!”

And there was my fluffy, Gund-like dog with a squirrel in his mouth, shaking it back and forth.

My husband ran to the door to call him.  I, always good in an emergency, started shrieking “BARKLEY!  TREAT!  TREAT!” as I shook the treat container frantically, hoping that he would let the squirrel go BEFORE coming into the house for a treat, which he did.  Nervously, I went outside to make sure that there were no squirrel corpses in the backyard.  Fortunately, no squirrels were harmed in this drama.  However, the squirrel had evidently decided that the best place for it to be was back on the garage wall.  Natural selection seems to be at play here.  Eventually it scampered back up a tree, evidently leaving its scent behind as Barkley spent the rest of the day circling around the yard, standing at attention at the bottom of the trees.

Beneath this fluffy, adorable exterior lies a bloodthirsty hound.  I’m actually kind of impressed.  I’m looking at him in a whole new light.  Perhaps this is not unrelated to my attraction to Dr. Hunt on Grey’s? 

Wide Open Spaces….Room To Make The Big Mistakes

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Yesterday I spent the afternoon volunteering in the boys’ class.  They had an in-class field trip where they have a visitor come in armed with materials and stories and enrichment activities – in this case, the activities were related to their “Building” unit.  Each child was to build a three dimensional zoo animal and enclosure – along the lines of a diorama.  Dioramas!  Fun!  They were looking for parent volunteers and so off I went. 

As a side note: I volunteer extensively for the school but I try to avoid field trips.  I tend to get anxious that I’m going to accidentally lose a child, or one of those calamities that are listed on the waivers will come to pass.  But an in-class field trip – that sounded more along the lines of where my abilities lie.  Also my kids wanted me to come, and since they make up over 10% of the class, I thought I had better step up.

Here are the finished products:

This is Mark’s rhinoceros enclosure. 

This is Jake’s lion enclosure.  There is a complicated explanation for all the string,
feathers, and nesting stuff.  It has to do with food and bedding.
After school, I was chatting in the playground with the other moms and we were all relating amusing anecdotes about volunteering with in-class projects.  I mentioned one little girl who kept using the glue stick on the materials to be glued, rather than on the cardboard to which the materials were to be glued.  The results were that a googly eye was shoved deep into the glue stick, by accident; that same glue stick became covered with cotton from a cotton ball, little pieces of nesting materials were stuck on the glue stick and also mysteriously stuck on my sweater.  One mom smiled and said “That’s what I love about letting kids explore things on their own.  That’s how they learn!  From making mistakes!”  I nodded, smiling, but inwardly I was not totally on side.  After all, I did encourage the little girl to use the glue stick properly, rather than smearing the gluey cotton all over the place. 
In theory, I do agree.  I do agree with letting children learn from their mistakes, and I do agree with allowing them to experience natural consequences of their actions.  However, I do not agree with this all the time.  I do not agree with this when three other children have to use the glue stick that is now covered with cotton ball remnants, rendering it unusable.  I do not agree when there are googly eyes jammed far into the glue stick, causing the glue stick itself to explode over its plastic tubing and result in the cap getting glued onto it, resulting in no one being able to remove the cap.  This is school property, people.  My job as volunteer is to make sure that the building materials are not ruined by the building project.  And yes, it is just a glue stick.  But in these days of education cuts, we need all the glue sticks we can get.
Obviously, I opted to put my children in the regular, rather than the Montessori, stream at school.
But I did think about it for a while.  Do I allow my children room to make mistakes?  Am I too rigid?  Should I be allowing them to suffer more consequences?  I like to think I allow them freedom to do so, but do I really? 
I tend to be a person who has rules for my children; rules that they are expected to follow in terms of behaviour, household chores, and manners.  But maybe I don’t allow them to make enough mistakes.  Maybe I’m hindering them in some way.  Maybe one day my kids will be seeing a therapist and complaining about my rigidity. 
But maybe not.  They seem to be okay.  Plus, check out the game they played this morning before school!
Can you tell what this is?

They are animal towers!

It might look obscene, but they were very complex and required balancing and spatial skills.  Creativity!  Maybe the kids are all right, despite my rules and regulations.  They figured out how to balance them all on their own, toppling a few towers in their endeavours.  So I guess they are allowed to make mistakes.  Maybe they won’t need therapy after all.