Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Postcards

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Remembrance Day, to me, conjures up images of the World Wars.  I think about mothers, like me, with sons who were drafted and never came home and with sons who were drafted and did come home, scarred.  I think about the elderly veterans who have seen and experienced unimaginable things, and I think about their mothers crying with joy when their sons came home. 
I admit I don’t always think about Afghanistan.  It’s strange, because my husband’s close friend, someone who I admire, has served over there, and yet that is not what immediately comes to mind on Remembrance Day. 
At school all the kids made postcards for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, “Postcards for Peace”.  They were to be given to a soldier, a master corporal, at their Remembrance Day assembly today.  Each class had a student present the soldier with their postcards, and Jake was selected from the kindergarten class to do this.
The master corporal first spoke to the children about Remembrance Day, about serving in Afghanistan, using terms and anecdotes that were appropriate for a young audience.  He spoke about the heat, and the houses made from mud, and the children who would come and ask the troops for candy and pens and paper, the children with no schools and no toys, the children who would point out the landmines to the soldiers.  He spoke about the children who were killed when a bomb went off near the military base, and how they did not allow local children to approach them any more due to the inherent dangers.  He explained that his own parents were worried when he went on his tour of duty; he said that he was their special boy, and that they were worried that he would be hurt.
The children from each class lined up to give the master corporal their postcards.  Jake was last.  He walked towards him, the length of the gymnasium, and then turned to go back to his seat, postcards still in hand.  Prompting from a teacher had him heading back towards the soldier, only to take another wrong turn.  Finally, the soldier in his dress uniform crouched down, smiling and beckoning to Jake, who was proudly dressed up in his new shirt with a poppy pinned to it.  Jake solemnly handed the soldier his class’ contributions.
And I thought, there is my special boy.

Knowing Me, Knowing You, the Barfing Edition

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On Thursday I was talking to a friend, and we noted all the kids missing and sick at the school.  “There sure is a lot going around,” I said to her, “I just hope if we get it, we get it right away and get over it before the book fair.”  That very night, Mark woke up vomiting and continued vomiting every half hour for the duration of the night and well into mid-morning.
It’s good to see the universe is listening to me.
Mark is on the mend now, and no one else has come down with it so far, a phenomenon that seems mysterious, lucky, and ominous all at once.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.  I also think I’ve gotten soft.  The morning after the all-night barf fest, I pulled myself out of bed with very little sleep and was hardly able to function.  When the kids were small, that would have been an average night’s sleep.  Evidently when they were small I was in a zombie state all the time; after one bad night I felt completely inebriated.  I walked into the wall not once but twice.  How did I function back then?  I guess it is something you get used to.  
The weekend has therefore felt very disjointed, what with Mark in recovery mode and me obsessively monitoring everyone else for possible illness, and also the evil, accursed time change, which I complain about every year and yet it exists still. 
So I have decided, this month, to participate in the Fairy Blogmother’s Knowing Me, Knowing You since my creativity has been sapped from all the BARFING.  And worrying about barfing.  And being indignant about time change and how it still exists even though I want it not to.  How rude!
1) What’s on your Christmas Wish List?
My Christmas list is exactly the same every year: books, pajamas, and yoga wear.  I also am planning on asking for gloves this year.   
2) Do you have a handheld video game in your house?
No.  We’re Luddites.  Although I’m not sure how much longer that will last given the boys are all aware of video games and whatnot.
3) Are you participating in the 25 Days of Christmas challenge?
This is the first I’ve heard of this.  So maybe?  I’m not sure I can think of 25 Christmas themed family activities, offhand.  But it does sound fun.
4) What is your favourite kind of cookie?
Gingersnaps!  Chocolate chip!  Oatmeal chocolate chip!  Gingerbread!  I love cookies.
5) Coffee or tea?
Coffee.  Coffee.  Coffee.  I drink a lot of coffee.  I was over at a friend’s house with Jake for a playdate and she asked if I wanted some tea.  I requested something herbal, since I had already consumed eight cups of coffee that day.  She turned around, and gasped “PARDON ME?”  I felt like I had just told her I prostituted myself out for a hit of heroin right before the playdate, and if she didn’t mind, I would just drink my wine out of the bottle in the paper bag that I brought along.  So evidently I should cut back on the coffee, just to fit into society and all that.  Like that little boy who dressed up as Daphne for Halloween!  But the boys are getting hungry and my housewifely duties are calling, and so that is a topic for another day.

Whew! It’s November!

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Did you survive Halloween?  Honestly, I wasn’t 100% sure we were going to make it through the day yesterday.  The kids were completely wired with Trick or Treating on the horizon.  At one point they were running laps around the house – which is not an uncommon occurrence, really – and I thought they were literally going to bounce off the walls.  Fortunately it was warm enough for them to be sent outside to play.  At one point I saw them setting up the small, empty plastic swimming pool at the bottom of the deck steps and taking turns jumping into it.  Just when I thought someone was going to break something, they switched activities and decided to take shovelfuls of dirt from one garden and run it across the yard to another garden.  Ah, childhood.  To have that kind of energy for such busywork.
Finally it was time for Trick or Treating:
We carved all four of those pumpkins yesterday afternoon.  Nothing like leaving the carving of FOUR PUMPKINS to the very last minute.
As usual there were very few Trick or Treaters on our street, and that combined with the fact that our surrounding neighbours dote on the boys and get many large treats specifically for them resulted in the boys obtaining obscene amounts of candy.  My general policy on Halloween treats is to let the kids have as much as they want for the first few days, and then the novelty wears off and they lose interest in it.  My other policy is to help myself to the giant buckets of candy popcorn that one neighbour always gets for them.  Nom nom. 
Friday night the kids’ school held a Halloween Family Dance, organized by one of my very good friends – the one of the famed cake-making skills – and it was, in her words, EPIC.  It was very fun although I did feel somewhat surreal when the DJ played I LikeTo Move It.  I felt like I was transported back to 1994 and that I should have been drinking cheap vodka slimes out of a jug and wearing a way sluttier outfit whilst dancing with some guy dressed up as Elwood Blues or similar.  As it was I went as a witch:

Scary! 
What was your favourite costume as a child?  I remember dressing up, strangely enough, as Miss Canada when I was about seven or eight.  I just loved that, even more than my gypsy costume at age six.  Do kids still dress up as gypsies?  It doesn’t seem so politically correct.  Remember when everyone used to dress up as hobos?  That strikes me as strange now, children dressing up as homeless people down on their luck.  I also remember – albeit hazily – dressing as a rag doll in my very early twenties.  Ah, there’s nothing like the sight of a grown woman in a rag doll outfit, tearing up the dance floor and doing tequila shots, now is there?  CLASSY. 
So tell me, how was your Halloween?  Did you dress up?  Did you Trick or Treat?  Or are you a Halloween Grinch, one who turns out all the lights and closes the drapes?  I love Halloween, but I can tell you, I’m happy it only comes once a year and that we have another year before the next one.  Maybe that’s just my candy popcorn hangover speaking.

Marital Strain

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You just know with a title like that it’s going to be a juicy post.  On Modern Family – do you watch Modern Family?  It’s very funny. –  the other night, Claire was looking through the Tupperware and wondering how or why the containers and lids get separated.  Phil replied, built-up resentment, financial issues, met a younger lid.  Heh.
In our house, the chief source of marital strain comes from a little electronic item known as a clock radio.  My husband brought this clock radio to our marriage.  It is probably about twenty five years old; they don’t make things like they used to, do they?  Anyway, this clock resides on his side of our king sized bed.  Every morning at 4:58 my alarm goes off, and I stumble around the bed to turn it off and set it to my husband’s alarm.  Frequently my husband voices his displeasure at the fact that he did not get back to sleep after my alarm went off.   
After years of this, yesterday my husband finally announced that he cannot take it anymore.  We need to get separate alarm clocks.  For marital harmony I agreed.  Also I was getting tired of stumbling around the expanse of our bed at 4:58.  We had the following conversation:
Me: I’m going to Costco today.
Husband: Do you want to pick up a clock radio?
Me: Oh my god.  OH MY GOD.  You want me to go to the electronics department?  In Costco?
Husband: (sighs deeply) Fine.
Me: (thinking, I’ll show him) Fine.
If there is something I find more overwhelming than shopping at Costco, it is walking through an electronics department.  But nonetheless, that is where I found myself, yesterday morning, pushing a gigantically heavy Costco cart full of groceries.  As I wandered through aisle after aisle, looking in vain for a clock radio, I started to lose hope.  I started to feel as though I was lost in some kind of electronics vortex.  The minutes ticked by and I started to feel despairingly like I was wasting so much time.  I still had to get home, unpack the gigantic volume of groceries from the car, and walk the dog prior to picking Jake up at the school at 11:35.  I started to feel extreme resentment towards my husband, Costco, and clock radios in general.  I wondered if maybe they don’t make clock radios anymore.  I was reminded of the scene in Borat, where the most coveted luxury item in the village is Borat’s clock radio, and when he leaves for America the village criminal whispers “Say goodbye to your clock radio”.  I started to think that it would have been easier, although not, maybe, from an ethical standpoint, to break into my neighbour’s house and steal her clock radio.  She’s a senior.  Surely she would have one. 
Finally I saw a small man in the signature red Costco vest and managed to ask him, somewhat anxiously, if he had a clock radio.  He led me to the only model they carried, an eighty-dollar one that had a docking station for an iPod.  I don’t have an iPod.  Crestfallen, I left with only my groceries, calling my husband to tell him of this travesty.  And by calling him, I mean I informed him that I had been in the Costco electronic department under extreme duress, and I had undergone severe mental strain and trauma for nothing.  NOTHING.
Last night when my husband came home from work, he was carrying a clock radio, purchased on the way home.  We are now a two clock radio household.  Marital harmony resumes.

And…we’re back.

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Wow, was I just on vacation?  I have that weird, not-unfamiliar feeling that I was in a completely alternate universe many months ago, although we’ve been home for only a few days.  It’s funny how one day a person can spend hours in a complete state of relaxation, eating sublime food, walking on a beach, and reading the O list and recommendations on how to “live your best life”, and then the next day finds that same person in a state of agitation, baking and frosting eight dozen sugar cookies in varying spooky shapes, with a shirt covered in flour and a harried expression.  And getting extremely irritable should anyone attempt to sample one of the cookies that is not in the designated sampling container.
The weather has taken a definite turn for the wintry: snow on the ground yesterday, flakes in the air today, grey sky and cold, cold wind.  My current fervent hope is that it will warm up for Halloween.  Not that I am the parent on Trick or Treat duty – in fact my children have requested that I stay home to hand out candy to our (presumably, if history is any indication) few Trick or Treaters.  But milder weather would be much appreciated prior to Sunday. 
A few days ago I was relaxing in a beautiful place next to the Pacific Ocean, and right now my kids are sneaking up on me wearing vampire teeth screaming “BOO!  I’m a vampire!  Did I scare you?”, and putting together puzzles between such fearsome episodes, the television is on, and I just saw the following headline: Charlie Sheen found naked, incoherent with escort in NYC hotel room.  Surreal.  Also surreal is the fact that I don’t see that headline every single day.  I mean, is that really news?
To add to it, yesterday I heard the song Love is a Battlefield at 5:15 am and it stayed with me all day.  All day I was bursting out with “We are young!  Heartache to heartache we stand!”  ALL DAY.  That tune also followed me into the night, when I woke up in a cold sweat at three in the morning after a nightmare which involved – of all things – running out of draw tickets for the upcoming Scholastic Book Fair.  Which just goes to show, not for the first time, that I am kind of lame.
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On a serious note: someone I know is currently going through a terrible time with her very young daughter, who has a frightening, rare, and very difficult to treat illness.  This family is going through hell; I cannot even begin to imagine.  Please, if you are the praying type, send out some prayers and thoughts for them.  And if you’re reading this, know that people care about you.

Not Typical

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With regards to my last post, my insane amount of early morning domestic accomplishments is definitely not typical.  Clearly I was experiencing some sort of crazy nervous energy burst and my only outlet was baking a cake at 7:30 in the morning; not something that occurs regularly. 
Also not typical was the beautiful trip to Tofino, BC that I just got back from.  Tofino is pretty much the polar opposite of where I live, so it was truly an escape.  Other than the occasional overnight trip, I’ve never travelled without the boys, and so I was unprepared for the excess of time in the day.  It was surreal.  No one asked me for anything, no one needed anything from me.  Usually when we travel I do laundry, wash dishes, make snacks and meals, read stories and supervise bathtime.  So it felt very strange – pleasantly strange – to have to do…nothing. 
I slept a lot, walked on the beach,
hung out on the chilly, chilly beach (humidity and my hair are not friends),

warmed up and read a lot (yes, that is O Magazine, DON’T JUDGE ME),

and got all dressed up and went for fancy dinners.

Those fancy, delicious dinners are making tonight’s menu seem pretty sad.
Waking up this morning to the boys climbing into our bed, talking about how much fun they had with their grandparents made the whole trip that much sweeter.