Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Updates and a meme!

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I feel like I, perhaps, left my dear readers hanging; I will make amends by updating you on the goings-on in the Boyhouse.

1) Mark has been using an inhaler for a week, and he has NOT COUGHED FOR A WEEK.  Happy coincidence?  Related: I have been sleeping uninterrupted through the night.  Not once have I woken up and listened to coughing for two hours!

2) I found a new esthetician.  I chose this particular place because of the incredibly convenient hours, but they also advertised “pain-free” waxing, of which I was deeply skeptical.  Now, you may or may not believe me, but the waxing was actually PAIN-FREE!  For every ending there is a beginning, I suppose. 

3) Related to aging and fleeting time:
 a) INXS’ “Devil Inside” was played on the local “oldies” station, and
 b) While in the pharmaceutical section of Wal-Mart, I noticed three ladies who appeared to be in their sixties giggling and talking to one another with regards to their favourite product.  The product in question?  Personal lubricant. 

I will leave it at that.

Marilyn over at A Lot of Loves tagged me in a meme, about seven posts that I’ve written.  I love memes!  I especially love them on Friday nights when I have a big glass of wine beside me.  I had to dig through a whole lot of archives, and discovered posts I had forgotten that I had even read!  But here goes!

Most Beautiful Post
This was tricky because I don’t tend to think I write particularly beautiful posts, but I do like this one about happiness with children (plus it has super cute pictures of my kids as babies!), and I also like this one about my very grumpy grandpa.

Most Popular Post
My post that has the most pageviews is this one, and I’m going to guess that its popularity is based on the fact that I reference “mom jeans”.  My second most popular post referenced Scaredy Squirrel, which just goes to show that in order to gain popularity you need name-drop a little. 

Most Controversial Post
I’m not huge on controversy around here, but my post on breastfeeding spurred some discussion.  Breastfeeding = controversy, AM I RIGHT?  If you want to ignite some flames, just bring up breastfeeding!  But I urge you, my dear readers, to always be kind, especially to hormonal and sleep-deprived new mothers who may, years later, still ache about certain memories.

Most Helpful Post
Oooh, this is a tough one.  I don’t feel my posts are particularly helpful OR informative, unless you want to commisserate about weird things.  However, here is my public service announcement about what NOT to say to pregnant women.  I urge you to read the comments. 

Post Whose Success Surprised You
Well, obviously the one about Scaredy Squirrel, because I discussed DEAD SQUIRRELS in my neighbourhood.  Not exactly that interesting.  Kind of revolting, really.  I was also surprised at the success of my varicose-vein stripping update, but I guess it was popular because I used the word “stripping” in the title.  I imagine the people who were googling “stripping” were probably somewhat disappointed when they ended up at my blog.

Post That You Didn’t Feel Got The Attention It Deserved
Hey, I’m just happy to be here.  I’m happy that people read my blog at all.  However, early on in my blogging days, I wrote this about Woodstock, Ann Landers, and Alice Munro, and I really liked it.

Post That You Are Most Proud Of
Honestly, I have no idea.  My favourite posts are always the ones leading up to Christmas, but I found this little gem in the archives.  It’s not exactly fine literature, but it pretty much sums up life in the Boyhouse.

Melancholy thoughts about back to school and the transformative power of a new pair of panties.

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Two years ago, when Mark was starting kindergarten, I wrote this.  One year ago, when Jake was starting kindergarten, I wrote this.  I find the differences in the pieces to be very amusing – in the first one I’m all “Buy some new panties!  Drink some wine!” while the second one is “My baby birds are leaving the nest!  Wah!”  Maybe I need to buy some new panties and drink some wine because I’m feeling a tad melancholy about the imminent end of summer.  Sixteen days until school!  Sixteen days until, with the exception of the lunch hour, the boys are gone all day long. 

It’s not like I’m not looking forward to a little space and the idea of buying groceries without two children in tow, asking to buy cupcakes and asking to push the cart and then accidentally running into things with the cart and then picking up the scattered items off the filthy grocery store floor and then sticking their heads in the garbage cans to ascertain how stinky the garbage cans are and then having a prolonged conversation with the somewhat slow-witted carryout guy about whether a centaur can be properly referred to as a man-horse.  I’m also not wishing to stop time or that I had my babies back or that I had another baby – HEAVEN FORBID.  But I’m just going to miss the boys.  That’s all.  I’m going to miss them and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I had a hair appointment today and I was struck, as I always am, by how dull my life must appear to the average young woman.  The sweet, eighteen year old shampoo girl always chats with me and asks me many questions about my life, and I can’t help but feel that my answers must fill her with chills about aging.  Don’t get me wrong – I love small talk, I am the QUEEN of small talk, but I found myself thinking with nostalgia about the previous shampoo girl who was terribly shy and barely spoke to me.  What did you do this weekend, she asked, what’s up for the rest of the day, what are you doing for the rest of the summer?  She seemed somewhat nonplussed by my boring answers and went back to applying conditioner.

It’s not that I find my life dull to live, but I do think it must seem quite dull to the sweet and perky shampoo girl, who usually regales me with information as to the best clubs to go to for dancing and the best time to go – not before 10 pm.  Dancing?  Today is the 34th anniversary of Elvis’ death and I have had Kentucky Rain stuck in my head all day long.  Dancing and clubbing do not seem particularly relevant.  Related: I found out today that Anne Bancroft played Mrs. Robinson at the age of 36!  THIRTY SIX!  I am thirty six!  Also related: the shampoo girl asked what my natural hair colour was and when I answered grey she smiled and said “I mean, what was it BEFORE grey?”  Um, I’m not sure?  It’s been grey for a really long time.  Sigh.  The baby birds are leaving the nest and I’m the same age as Mrs. Robinson.  I am definitely going to need some new panties and wine.

Moose versus Caribou: The Untold Story

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Yesterday was what I will call a trying day.  My choice of activity for the gloomy day was not great: I decided to take the boys to the mall to buy four – FOUR – birthday gifts, and while there we stopped by the pet store to look at the various rodents for sale.  Much discussion ensued regarding hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs and the sort of pets that the boys would buy when they were grown up and could make their own decisions regarding pets, without the opinion of their mother who is firmly of the belief that ONE DOG IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.  Mark was extremely tired and when Mark is extremely tired, his behaviour exhibits a certain clinginess not usually seen.  I’m not exactly complaining – it’s not like the house was full of tantrums or tears or fights – but having someone within a two foot radius of me all day long is tiring.  Also tiring is answering the constant stream of questions, such as “If you were a waterfall, what waterfall would you be?  Would you be Takakkaw Falls or Bow Falls?” or “What hooved animal is your favourite?” or “What body of water do you like best?  Do you like lakes?  Or oceans?”  I strive to be an involved parent but really.  By the end of the day I felt like screaming “SHUT UP!  JUST STOP TALKING!  I DON’T KNOW IF I PREFER GRIZZLY BEARS TO BLACK BEARS!  I THINK HAMSTERS ARE EQUALLY AS CUTE AS GUINEA PIGS!”  But, despite my own exhaustion, I did not.  I did not because I know that this is the way Mark reacts when he is exhausted, and I also did not drink any alcohol, and because of those two things I think that maybe I deserve some sort of prize. 

Why were we both so tired, you may ask?  It’s because Mark had yet another of his middle-of-the-night two hour coughing fits.  It’s gotten to the point where it’s hard for me to remember what life was like before the cough.  But I’m optimistic that at some point in the near future, there may be an after the cough, since I have excellent news: I have found a doctor to replace my retiring doctor, we had an appointment today, and he has prescribed an inhaler for Mark!  This is momentous indeed.  It’s like I won the lottery.  I feel incredibly fortunate in a right-place-right-time sort of way, and also a tenacious keep-calling-until-someone-answers sort of way. 

So today, in contrast to yesterday, has been a glorious day.  We decided to take the train downtown to see my husband at his office building, which brings me to this: public transit is a funny thing.  The children think that the train is the greatest mode of transportation ever invented.  I, on the other hand, spent the train ride a) wondering just how many viruses were living on the rails and seats, and b) being amused at the conversation between the two young men who were discussing the comic book convention that they had recently attended, and their own ideas for future comic books. 

Well, it’s Friday.  I’m happily partaking in some Cabernet while my husband watches a television show on golf techniques and my children play what is possibly the loudest game ever, involving Hot Wheels cars and lots of cheerful screaming.  Just another Friday night.

Boys and Guns

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My husband went back to work yesterday after a two week vacation and so it’s been just the three of us, getting back into our regular summer routine.  There are, I realized, only three and a half weeks left until school starts and I’m feeling a tad bit melancholy about it.  I decided today we would take advantage of the warmth and sunshine – seize the day – and head to a playground/wading pool.

In my younger, child-free days, I had fairly haughty opinions on kids and guns and violence, and so I smiled ruefully to myself as I found myself hauling three giant bags filled with a picnic, blanket, towels, and water guns.  (Another mom smiled at me and my bags and said cheerfully “I’m the family pack mule too!”).  I spread the blanket down in a sunny area, and marvelled how I am now at the stage where my kids immediately leave me to do their own thing, checking in only when they are hungry.

They also checked in, briefly and occasionally, to inform me how their battle was going.  After arriving at the wading pool with their bazooka-like water guns, they instantly joined up with a pack of similar-aged boys also with bazooka-like water guns whose goal was to destroy a group of older boys with bazooka-like water guns.  In earlier times, this would have worried me considerably, seeing the boys slowly wade through the pool, guns on their shoulders, looking for all the world like American soldiers in a Vietnam war movie.  I heard occasional shrieks of “ATTACK” and “RETREAT, RETREAT!” as they ran around shooting the ten year old boys.  I saw them crouching in the bushes and regrouping as they planned their attack.  It was a little unnerving. 

Our standing rule with water guns is no shooting little kids or those who are unarmed, and no shooting moms.  Especially not me.  I added a second rule, hearing another mom reiterate it, no head shots.  I was, as I always am, amazed at how much time boys – because they were all boys – can spend shooting each other.  When I met up with a friend and her two boys for the very first time last summer at another wading pool, the boys instantly formed friendships based on shooting each other and also pretending to arrest each other.  At that time, I noticed a few mothers with very young children raise their eyebrows at my friend and I, chatting away as our children pummelled each other with streams of water.  I recall feeling that exact same way, when my kids were young.

The thing about these seemingly violent games is that they aren’t really violent at all.  They are fun in a way I don’t understand, but I observe it.  As we were leaving, the boys, all of them, happily waved to each other, hoping they would see each other again, their nameless new friends, all united in battle.

Baby I’m-a Want You

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“I figured out what I’m going to buy you,” my husband said as I walked in the door, holding a piece of paper in his hand.  A present for me?  Squee!  It’s my tenth anniversary in seven months and there is a three stone ring coming my way; my husband is a far-ahead planner so I thought maybe, maybe….
I was a little crestfallen to discover the paper was a Lowe’s flyer, and the item indicated was a high-efficiency toilet.  Oooh, baby.  I’m-a want you.  Nonetheless, all four of us went to Lowe’s and, after what was possibly the world’s longest discussion about different toilets and installation methods between my husband and the incredibly helpful plumbing department guy, we were the proud owners of a new toilet.  It rode around in the back of my van for a while, then took up residence in the garage for a couple of weeks, and yesterday, my husband installed it.
Suffice it to say that if you want to bring extreme joy and excitement to a household with children, introduce them to the concept of “choose your own flush”.  I am now the unhappy recipient of an extraordinary volume of details regarding my children and their toilet habits.  
But you didn’t come here to read about toilets!  Perhaps you would like to know what I did on my summer vacation?  Mainly I read novels on the beach, occasionally becoming enthusiastic about building sandcastles and then going back to reading.  I drank a lot of beer with my father-in-law and also quite a bit of wine.  I read novels while my children swam in the pool, I swam with them, and went back to reading.  I ate a lot.  That pretty much sums things up.    



My favourite moment of the trip was this one.  Reading novels by the pool is fine and everything, but so much more fun to jump in.  The boys were swimming to me!  Both of them!  I am amazed at how quickly they learn swimming skills while just having fun with Mom and Dad.  Sigh.  Is it too much to ask for a pool in my backyard?  And hot weather to go with it?  Sigh. 



Oh, HAI.

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Where, you may be wondering, have I been?  Or perhaps you were not wondering that at all.  In any case, I’m just back from a sunny vacation during which the following momentous events occurred: Jake went from a reluctant, life-jacket wearing child to one who jumped into the pool and swam across it without the assistance of floatation devices, I ate four tomatoes a day fresh from my mother-in-law’s garden, the boys and I spent many hours honing our engineering skills with respect to sand sculptures, and I got, awkwardly enough, approached by my sister-in-law’s swinging single male neighbour.  Sugar daddy!  Oh wait.  I think I already have one of those.

So it was a great vacation, and I even have a suntan.  I am also completely sapped from the drive home.  It is surprisingly energy consuming to sit in the passenger seat and hand out snacks for eight hours.  It is also energy consuming to listen with sympathy and interest to the various conversations coming at me from three different directions.  From Mark came incessant questions about the exact number of minutes until we would arrive at our destination, along with a near-constant commentary on the nature and names of the various bodies of water we were passing.  Jake alternated between playing and snacking quietly in his seat, and becoming filled with Hulk-like rage over sitting in his seat for hours.  My husband, in the tradition of the last thirteen years of our road trips together, and perhaps for even longer than that, released an irate barrage of curses on three types of drivers: the elderly, those driving motorhomes and/or trailers, and people from the prairies who drive twenty kilometers an hour below the speed limit on curvy roads, but insanely fast on straightaways and passing lanes so that passing was impossible.  God help us all if a driver happened to belong to all three catogories.  It is happy that he doesn’t have voodoo dolls; if he did, drivers all along the TransCanada would suddenly have their eyes popping out of their heads or suffer instant heart failure. 

So what did I miss while I was away?  Tell me everything. xo

"That Time of the Month" Emotional Breakdown, and Cougars

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I saw Denzel Washington on a Letterman rerun, and he was talking about the difference between a house and a home, and how when your children move out it ceases to become a home and just becomes a house and at that point I teared up thinking of my empty nest that is coming in thirteen years or so.  Then I decided to watch a NYPD Blue rerun but accidentally chose an episode that featured a little boy who was abducted, sexually abused, and killed.  GAH!  Fortunately I remembered how the episode ended while I was only about fifteen minutes into it.  Eject!  Eject!  Unfortunately I remembered how the episode ended so I thought sadly about the white bird symbolically flying away at the end.  Then I had a dream in which I was infuriated with my husband, and so I woke up feeling infuriated with him, but unfortunately a) I couldn’t remember the substance of the dream so I couldn’t adequately express myself and b) it was just a stupid dream.
My esthetician is, as of this week, closing up her shop as she is changing careers.  I’m very happy for her but quite sad for myself.  It’s difficult to find a good esthetician; I have a hard time feeling comfortable lying there in my underwear for just anyone.  Probably just like everyone else on the planet, except maybe the Victoria Secret model I read about whose favourite hanging-around-the-house outfit is “panties”.  JUST PANTIES.  Imagine being the UPS guy for that house.  Is it me or does that seem totally odd?  Maybe it’s just me.  I could never be a nudist, primarily because I’m always cold and also ew.  Imagine sitting naked on a leather couch that someone else also sat on naked?  Ew.
Anyway, back to the travesty of my career-changing esthetician.  It’s difficult for me not to take this personally – she announced her decision to change careers around the same time as my varicose vein stripping.  I can’t help but wonder if my furry, post-surgery Yeti-like body drove her to it.  Intellectually, I’m fairly sure NOT, but emotionally….
I took the boys to the zoo in my endeavor to make the expensive zoo passes pay off, and I came across the following very fun “Guess What Animal I Am Based On My Paw Prints” answer:
Doesn’t it kind of make you wish you had a t-shirt with that printed on it?