Monthly Archives: May 2012

I Don’t Know When, We’ll Get Together Then

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The noise in my house is insane right now.  The kitchen flooring is being very loudly ripped up and replaced, tiles are being demolished in the bathroom and entry way, and there is the loud sound of a Shop Vac and the omnipresent outside voices of the contractors.  I peeked upstairs to see the process and was very surprised to note that none of the contractors have any sort of ear protection, which seems a little reckless.  I am fighting the urge to be motherly to these guys, to force some ear protectors on their unwilling selves.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who has three daughters, the youngest of whom is three years old.  She was tired, my friend, and she spoke of needing a break from her kids, which I understood completely.  I understood, but from afar, because I realized that I really don’t.  I never feel as though I need a break anymore since my days are generally one long break – the kids come home for lunch, true, but they are at school for almost six hours a day – and now even on Saturday mornings they are gone golfing with their dad.  I realize that it’s only a month until summer vacation, and then it will be all testosterone all the time but still.  I don’t hang out with the kids the way I used to.  Even when they are home they are usually immersed in their own games and rarely require anything of me other than to listen to their discussions and feed them snacks.

Sometimes it’s a bit lonely, is all I’m saying.

In anticipation of the flooring installation today and the appliance delivery on Thursday, I cleaned one hundred and thirty six pieces of the boys’ artwork off the fridge.  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX.  In some places the pictures were seven or eight deep, held on by super-strength magnets.  I looked at them all with much nostalgia and gloom; the family portrait Jake had made when he was three, complete with a giant curly circle which was meant to portray Barkley, the thirty or so pictures Mark had made of Muk-Muk and his imaginary friends, the recent pictures Jake had made of Mario Kart, and a whole series of pictures by Mark of various Canadian wild animals.  I realized suddenly that the kids don’t make me pictures much anymore.  At one point they were drawing twenty pictures a day, and now it’s rare that they sit down with the markers just to draw.  Yes, occasionally Jake will sit down and draw a Star Wars-themed picture, and Mark often sits down to make lists about who is winning what imaginary game with which imaginary weapon, but we don’t go through piles of recycled paper like we used to.

When I realized that, on taking the pictures down, there might not be new ones to put up, it was all I could do not to sit in a corner with the pictures cradled in my arms, rocking them like the babies I no longer have.

Pardon me while I sob a little bit.

It’s not like I want to go back in time; I do remember the exhaustion and isolation of having two little ones, I do remember feeling resentful when the weekend came and I was still on duty, playing endless games of farm animals or trains.  I spent how many months and years inventing things to do all day, thinking of activities and games to pass the time, the endless hours, and now there is never enough time in the day.  I remember wishing just for a few minutes to myself, just some time without the kids climbing on me asking me questions or tugging on me or needing me.  And now I have hours and hours.

Mr. Wilder, the Gangsta of Malone

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A fully functional kitchen plus a couple of rainy, miserable days equals KITCHEN PARTY!  I spent yesterday making granola – hippie me – baking cookies, chopping fruit and veggies, and making hummous that would make you cry tears of joy.  Well, it made ME cry tears of joy.  I was skeptical – who puts yogurt into hummous? – but it was the greatest hummous I ever consumed, no hyperbole.  I need to put it on the cooking blog – which right now has back-to-back cupcake recipes on it, so you should really be checking it out anyway just for the porny cupcake photos.  My husband has a new portrait lens in his camera and I didn’t know how to change that, so I had fun taking some arty pictures of peanut butter/chocolate cupcakes. 

Sigh.  It was only yesterday that I was kitchen party-ing.  I miss my kitchen so much.  Today the electrician came to put in new lighting and there are currently giant holes in the ceiling and much woodchips and insulation scattered all over the floor.  Lalalala.  How much longer until I can crack open that wine bottle?  Ever since giving up booze on weekdays, I appreciate Friday nights so much.  SO VERY MUCH. 

A few months back the boys were reading Little House on the Prairie in their class, and they asked me to read them the other titles in the series.  SCORE!  Pretty excited to not be reading another Geronimo Stilton or Magic Tree House, I dug out my old box set of Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and we read Little House in the Big Woods.  Why, oh, why did the Ingalls leave the Big Woods?  It all sounded so lovely and cozy, what with the excitement of blowing up a pig’s bladder like a balloon and eating a roasted pig’s tail, and going to a sugaring-off dance, and having both a corncob doll AND a rag doll.  Every other book is a tale of narrow death escapes and crippling poverty and malnutrition. 

But now we’re reading Farmer Boy and it is both heartwarming and horrifying.  On the one hand, I greatly prefer wealthy, businessman-like, pillar-of-the-community Mr. Wilder to flighty, keeps-putting-his-family-in-constant-danger Pa.  For one thing, there is always lots of food.  The food descriptions in that book reach food-porn levels.  If Almanzo was alive today, maybe he’d be a food blogger.  There would be lots of pictures of pie, we know that much.  So that’s kind of nice, compared with the Ingalls’ meals of bread and molasses, with salt pork fat if they are lucky. Plus, Mr. Wilder is kind of a badass.  Remember that it is Mr. Wilder’s blacksnake whip that is lent to the teacher so that the teacher can beat the living hell out of the disruptive boys who intend to murder the him and dissolve the school?  Just like they did the previous year?  Kind of makes the kids nowadays who speak in class without putting their hands up look like pussies, no?

Old-timey life seems pretty grim, even for a well-to-do family like the Wilders, doesn’t it?  The joy and excitement of the tin-peddlar’s annual visit.  The constant drudgery and field work.  The cutting of ice blocks and packing of said ice blocks into the ice house at forty below temperatures.  Walking around in shoes that don’t fit because the cobbler was late in arriving.  I mean, it kind of sucks.  It makes me feel bad for even complaining that my kitchen is currently covered with drywall dust and insulation.  Soon, the kitchen will be cleaned up, and I will be eating the world’s greatest hummous and making my way through a nice bottle of shiraz, so what is there to complain about, really?

First Step (Ask Her Out and Treat Her Like A Lady)

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The first step in the kitchen renovation is done!  Does anyone else immediately get Step By Step by Eddie Rabbit stuck in their head after saying the words “first step”?  Or is it just me?  I also cannot say – or listen to – the words “Here’s the situation” without mentally rapping the entire second half of Parents Just Don’t Understand by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.  If I was hooked up to a brain monitor right now, it would show my mind exploding with both those songs, simultaneously, just from writing those words down.  It’s a good thing I never did my Ph.D., or I would possibly no longer have room in my head for every song lyric ever written. 

In any case, the countertops, sink, and backsplash are now installed in the kitchen; lighting, appliances, and flooring are yet to come.  I think the first step was the worst, in terms of completely inconveniencing everyone.  The first cut is the deepest?  Baby, I know.  Anyway, what the not-so-festive long weekend showed me was that I really spend a massive amount of my day in the kitchen.  When the kitchen was out of order, I descended into some kind of strange sloth and confusion as to what to do now?  But now that we are back in business, baby, I have resumed my normal activity level and am now spending much of my day in the kitchen, but not barefoot and – thankfully – not pregnant.

Which brings me to this point: when one wakes up at 4:40 am, this is what one can accomplish prior to 10:00 am:

Drive to yoga studio and back, practice for 95 minutes.
Feed dog, kids, and self, in that order.
Unload dishwasher, clean kitchen, make beds, pack school snacks.
Shower, dress, makeup, and hair.
Clean bathroom.
Ensure children are adequately dressed, washed, and have brushed their teeth.
Start laundry.
Give self a manicure and check email while the polish dries.
Take kids to school and hang out with them until the bell rings.
Book appointment for husband with a strange online registration program.
Walk dog.

This makes me feel very virtuous, until I realize that when one wakes up at 4:40 am, this is what one can accomplish after 8:00 pm:

Supervise children’s showers and teeth-brushing in a semi-catatonic state.
Tuck children into bed.
Collapse on couch and try to muster up the energy to watch an episode of Mad Men on Netflix.
Go to bed.

What I’m saying here is that I’m really more of a morning person.

Anyway, I’m so pleased with my kitchen renovation and the speed at which I had a functioning kitchen, that we have decided to remodel the bathroom!  And re-tile the front entry!  And re-finish the fireplace!  And lose my mind, apparently. 

For those of you who live in an older home, perhaps you have experienced this problem with renovating: once one thing is changed, it kind of makes the rest of the house look, how shall I say this, in need of an update.  It’s the black hole of renovating, it’s sucking me in.  The contractor actually suggested that my house would be so much more open if I just wanted to knock down this wall…but I shall not think of that right now.  I will only think about the fact that by NEXT THURSDAY my new kitchen is scheduled to be completed!  Right on time for a visit from my in-laws!

Cue ominous music.

Trapped in the Abyss of Kitchen Renovations

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Have you ever gone through a kitchen remodel?  It is stressful, and by stressful, I mean on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being my usual stress-free life and 10 being that of a single mother working in an underground coal mine to provide a subsistence living for her eight children, half of whom are terminally ill and the other half of whom are doomed to follow in her coal mining footsteps with a life of black luncg and alcoholism, my stress level is all the way up to 1.005.

I will say this about my contractors though – these men GIT ER DUN.  They don’t fuck around, these guys.  When I went to select the granite for the countertop, I wasn’t given some little six inch square samples to choose from.  That’s for pussies.  I was taken to what is called, alarmingly, a “slab warehouse”, a terrifying cavernous place filled with giant slabs of granite, some of which were being hoisted on a pulley contraption, travelling overhead to the loading dock.  For someone who has a teeny fear of death by crushing at Costco, this was a bit unnerving.  But at the slab warehouse, the slab chosen is the slab that becomes the countertop. 

So I was aware of the heavy and awkward nature of the countertop, which is why I ducked into my bedroom as the men – two brothers named Ron and Don, as I live and breathe, and some other young, unnamed man – brought it into the house.  I didn’t want to be in the way or startle or distract them at all, so as to avoid some kind of granite crushing accident.  I soon realized my mistake as they seemed to not know I was there at all.  The air turned blue with the cursing and general ill will of the bossy head contractor.  The way he spoke – and I use the word “spoke” rather loosely – to the other guys was kind of the opposite of positive reinforcement, if you know what I mean.

After a certain point I was scared to come out of my room.  One of the men had, evidently, stopped for a smoke, and therefore slowed down the entire process.  Now, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be irritated by a coworker who was smoking when there was work to be done, but I also don’t think I would hold it over him for the rest of his life. 

Or would I?

In any event, there I was, trapped in my bedroom with nary a book nor phone nor notepad to pass the time.  I stared out the window for a while, bored.  Finally all fell silent – was someone dead?  Would there be someone buried in my backyard along with Beeps?  I didn’t know, but I made a break for it.  They were all still there but the strangest thing happened: the minute I came into view they snapped to attention with extreme “lady in the room” manners.  Given that only minutes ago I heard the words “Well, that’s Tony’s fucking problem, isn’t it?  Now hand me a fucking hacksaw.  NOW” with reference to my sink, I felt a little strange about this turnaround.

After some very pleasant small talk and compliments on my choice of granite slab, I went downstairs to my cozy, entertainment rich basement, and the expletives and yelling resumed immediately.  Did they not know I could still hear them?  I don’t know, but it was a small price to pay for their craftmanship, which was excellent.

As a social experiment, when they arrived a few days later to tile the backsplash, I curled up on the big living room chair with my notepad and a book, in full view.  Installing the tile was either way easier, or my presence was magical, as they complimented each other on their fine workmanship.  Don even went outside to have several cigarettes, and not one word was uttered.

Slow Boat to Nowhere

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The kitchen renovation was slated to begin at 11:00 this morning.  Yesterday, I frantically cleaned out all the bottom cupboards and removed things from the countertops, pausing only to wonder when I bought Gorilla Munch, as its best before date was over a year ago.  All items are now in big Rubbermaid containers and/or on my table and/or under my coffee table.  I was ready to go!  And…now it’s 11:30.  I received information that they will start this afternoon, which is fine, that makes the lunch rush much less awkward, but I feel a little lost.

In order to assuage my lost little girl feelings, I decided it was time for a field trip to the garden centre.  Stocking up on plants prior to the long weekend seemed like a good idea, although I certainly will not actually plant them yet as it is supposed to snow.  Good times, YYC.  Good times.  I had full intentions of only buying a few plants for my containers, but ended up with a cart that looked like this:

I was powerless to stop myself.  Right now they are all on the deck, just waiting to be covered up before the snow flies. 

I just credit myself for not purchasing one of the many beautiful bird houses on display.  I almost put a very lovely one in my cart, but then I remembered: my dog likes to kill birds!  Wheee!  Perhaps a bird house would be ill-advised.

Speaking of my murderous dog, I almost had an experience that would strain neighbour relations in a significant way.  These neighbours, a few doors down, have very pampered indoor cats, one of whom likes to escape a lot.  I was working downstairs and came up to fill my coffee cup for the fourth time when I noticed the cat – whose name is, and I am not making this up, Beeps – in the backyard.  Barkley was also in the backyard.  I bolted for the door, just in time as Barkley took the opportunity to pounce.  He was mere centimetres away from the not-so-bright cat, when I called and collared him.  As I shuffled him into the house, I noticed my neighbour, standing on the other side of the fence, looking completely unfazed.  “That was a bit close,” I said to her.  “Oh, no.” she smiled at me vacantly.  “They were just playing.  They’re friends!” 

Now, I am the first to admit I don’t know much about cats.  However.  I am aware of the saying “fighting like cats and dogs” and also I am aware that the cat is much, much smaller than my dog and is declawed.  If I have to bring a cat corpse over to my neighbour’s house one day, I am not going to be happy on a number of levels.  My friend suggested that should there be a cat corpse in my backyard, perhaps it should be BURIED in my backyard, in order to keep neighbourly relations.  Not a bad plan, although it makes me feel a little bit like I would be starring in a less-interesting version of Rear Window.

Perhaps I should have purchased one of these at the garden centre:

Animatronic owls! 

I just got off the phone with the plumber.  I am going to be without a working sink until FRIDAY.  Friday of the long weekend.  Anxiety is looming.  It feels like SO MUCH could go wrong.

I will take my mind off this.  Cute kid anecdote: my kids were playing Star Wars before school this morning, and the characters they were portraying were Anakin (Mark) and Luke (Jake).  Now, Anakin DID chop off Luke’s hand, but it was by accident and it was to save him because he was trapped.  Luke forgave him.  Then they went to Planet Hoth to go snowboarding!  Good times in Utopian Star Wars.

I felt I had to share this cute anecdote as I have been talking so much about my dog lately that I was starting to feel that I was portraying myself as a crazy dog lady.  Which…I might be.  Dammit.  I should have bought that owl.

A Whirlwind of Boring Activity

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I have been in a whirlwind of activity the past few days.  A whirlwind, I tell you!  Since Friday I have had more errands and social outings than I probably do in two weeks.  I would describe them in detail but I fear that may be boring, and I fear it may also be less impressive than it feels right now.  So I will simply say that we are, evidently, renovating our kitchen.

Let’s pause for a moment here while I deep breathe.

Things snowballed when we realized that soon our dishwasher will need to be replaced.  Well, if we replace the dishwasher, why not all new appliances?  And countertops?  And sink?  And backsplash?  And flooring…and suddenly a new project is on the horizon.  I’m not sure how my dog – or I, myself – will deal with the upheaval but I have been assured that this is a quick and easy project.  Oh, hahaha!  I am going to be insane and/or liver damaged by the end of it, I just know it.  Chaos is not a happy thing for me, although I will be very happy to have a new kitchen. 

I’m especially excited to get a new range, since I loathe mine and yet it is in near-constant use.  My husband and I went to the appliance store, where we were helped by the strangest, most vacant salesman ever.  Perhaps he was new at his job; I don’t know.  All I know is that whenever I said anything at all about the features I desired, he would stare at me silently for about fifteen seconds prior to responding.  It was very unnerving.  Then he would respond in this manner “Do you cook?  Or do you LOVE to cook?”  Whatever, buddy, just show me the hood fans.  He proceeded to describe how much he loved his own convection oven because it gave him crispy chicken wings, just like the deep fried ones in restaurants.  This one-sided discussion about cooking various meat products went on for at least five minutes.  In the meantime, I completely zoned out and wondered if a dual oven is worthwhile or not, and I still haven’t decided.  Do you have one?  Do you like it?  Help a girl out, dear reader.

Then, of course, it was Mother’s Day, and I hope yours was lovely.  I received cards from the boys, that they made themeselves with no intervention on the part of my husband, which struck me as very sweet and thoughtful.  It was actually a warm and beautiful weekend – no snow! – and so I spent quite a bit of time in the garden, and some time at the park where the boys rode their bikes and I realized that the bike Jake is riding is ridiculously too small for him.  He looks a bit like a clown riding a miniature bike.  A skinny, unmade-up clown. 

Are you “mom enough” to hang out with these two characters?  Oh, mass media.  Fueling the “mommy wars” since…well, I don’t know when.  Can’t we all just get along?

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Hey, speaking of mommy stuff (no, not wars, because that is MADE UP CRAP), check this out: I was listed as one of “24 Mom Blogs You Should Read” over at Yummy Mummy Club.  There are some seriously fabulous blogs on that list – Dinner with Julie, Crib Chronicles, Little Miss Mocha, to name but a few – so I am thrilled to be on that list!  Thanks!  xoxo

Barkley, the high maintenance dog

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“Oh, you’re the worst kind.  You’re high maintenance, but you think you’re low maintenance.” – Harry Burns, and/or my husband.

Every day, I set out two sets of clothing for the following day: my yoga clothes, and my regular clothes.  I need to set out my yoga clothes in order to dress quietly and sneak out at the crack of OMG o’clock, and I need to set out my regular clothes because I need to set out my regular clothes or it will be endtimes.  I set out my clothes based on the next day’s weather and activities, and I do not deviate from that outfit. 

The other day it turned out to be unexpectedly rainy and foggy, and so I needed to wear my hair up, so that I wouldn’t look like a bedraggled mess by the end of the day.  That meant – since I’m on week eleven of Operation Growing Out My Hair – I needed certain hair accessories to hold back the multiple layers.  However, the hair accessories did not match my outfit, and so I had to alter my plans and wear a different shirt.  This may not sound like much to you – and now that I’m writing it down it doesn’t sound like much to me, either – but it threw my day off, just a little bit. 

You know how people say that after a while, dogs take on their owner’s personalities?  Actually, I don’t know if that’s a thing or not, but my dog has taken on MY personality.  For one thing, he freaks out if we don’t put him in his crate by 9:00 pm.  If he could speak, he would be saying It’s bedtime for the love of god!  Put me to bed, already!  Do you want me to be tired all day tomorrow?  I’m just saying, I understand. 

When we were recently redoing the basement, I was prepared for confusion on my dog’s part.  This is the dog who lay outside the bathroom door crying because he had accidentally wagged a shampoo bottle off of the side of the tub.  Something’s different.  The shampoo bottle is on the floor.  Everything is wrong!  When the boys play too noisily for his liking, he would go down to the basement and curl up on the green-and-white fabric sofa down there.  I knew we would be giving away that sofa, and so I went out and bought a cozy new dog bed, along with a new squeaky toy and some of his favourite chew treats.  When the sofa was gone, I put his new dog bed in the usual spot by the fireplace upstairs, and took the old one downstairs, along with the squeaky toy and the treat.  He followed me anxiously, eyeing the treat.  Here, Barkley, I said, here is a cozy new place for you!  I made him sit in the old dog bed, gave him a treat, and then witnessed my dog and the mental anguish I made him suffer. 

He took the treat and ran upstairs.  He dropped the treat in his new bed and stared at me.  Then he started whining.  Loudly.  He refused to eat the treat, which alarmed me because a) he eats everything vaguely edible, including his own fecal matter if it is left unattended, b) he consumes everything in his dog bowl within 90 seconds of receiving his dog bowl, and c) he has never before NOT eaten a treat. 

Me: It’s okay, Barkley. Have your treat!  Now you have two cozy places to sit! 

Barkley: WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEE.

He contined to cry and whine, loudly, for the next hour.  Once in a while he would settle down enough to LICK the treat, but then it would make him cry all over again. 

Barkley: Why are you so cruel?  Why do you hate me?  What have I done to deserve this?

Then he would sit in the new bed in such an awkward way that the bed itself would tip over sideways and land on top of him and believe me, this did not help matters.  Finally he gave up, took the treat, and hid in his crate, surreptitiously eating it.  He eventually forgave me the mental pain I had put him through; he is a dog after all.

I understood.  Change is hard.  Different things are difficult.  WE ALL NEED TIME TO GET USED TO NEW IDEAS.  So I get it.  And yet sometimes I feel like there is a reality TV show, just waiting to be made, with my name on it.