Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

May there always be mama

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This morning the pre-kindergarten hosted a Mother’s Day Tea. In related news, I am a complete emotional mess. The kids were so cute, serving up fruit salad and cotton-ball-decorated cards, and sang the following tear-inducing song: “May there always be sunshine, may there always be blue skies, may there always be mama, may there always be me.” I cried a little just typing that, so you can imagine the verklempt, grimace-y, trying-not-to-hysterically-sob face I made through the remainder of the tea. Pretty!

It seems trendy this year to discuss why Mother’s Day sucks: it’s a busy day trying to please mothers, mothers-in-law, and selves; husbands say things like “You’re not MY mother”; moms just want to feel appreciated, dammit, so where is my breakfast in bed? One writer discussed how she should get TWO gifts, one from husband and one from child, and they had better be worthwhile, buddy, because she carried the baby for nine months and lost her fabulous figure in the process – her t&a has never returned to their former glory, so bring on the jewellery and spa trips. And while I understand, to some extent – mothers frequently do feel or actually are underappreciated, it would be nice to have a day where everyone else picks up the drudge-related slack, it is very difficult to juggle family obligations, gifts certainly are lovely – I also feel these sorts of complaints are just categorically wrong.

This morning during school drop-off, a little boy in Mark’s class tripped and fell – not hard, he wasn’t hurt – and began sobbing loudly and dramatically. This little boy lost his mother several months ago, before he was even five years old. I picked him up and hugged and kissed him and he was instantly, miraculously FINE. This little boy is going to spend the weekend, Mother’s Day weekend, without his mother. Last year she celebrated Mother’s Day not knowing it was her last one.

If you have to make your own breakfast, rather than being served it in bed, it is really not that bad.

May the Fourth Be With You

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Happy Star Wars/ Luke Skywalker Day! Less festively for the fourth day of May, we have been having a blizzard. There was a winter storm warning AND a wind warning last night, which is somewhat disheartening. Have you read The Long Winter, with all the descriptions of the Ingalls family twisting hay to burn for fuel and slowly starving to death because none of the trains could go through and having blizzards last for three days with no one leaving the poorly heated house because they could get lost in the snow and die? So in this day and age it’s not really so dire that it’s snowing in May. There are many, many worse things in the world than a daytime high of 1 degree Celsius and 100 km/hour winds, even on the fourth of May. It is QUITE depressing though.

I loved the Little House books when I was a kid; I desperately wished for long braids, a futile wish since my mother cruelly had my hair cut in one of those horrible early 80’s mushroom cuts. I wanted a sunbonnet and a slate pencil; I longed for my very own tin cup and attic bedroom. The reality is that life was terribly hard and often tragic back then, with disease and death and malnutrition, with much hardship and often thankless, backbreaking work and terrible poverty.

Frequently I will hear someone speak of wanting to live a simpler life, and the solution is generally to just buy less stuff, unpopular though that might be. Idealizing the simple life of yesteryear is somewhat flawed: not many of us would choose to live a life without modern medicine and educational opportunities, a life in which we would wake up to frozen washwater in the winter and the untimely death of a cow meant a significant loss of nutrition for your family. It’s important to remind oneself that we are fortunate to live in the modern age, something I am reminding myself of today because MY WORD the children are driving me crazy with their pent up, very noisy, forced-indoors energy. If May-appropriate weather does not soon return, I am in serious danger of losing my sanity. As it is, people, I am this close to locking myself in the bathroom, cranking up the heat and drinking margaritas while singing Jimmy Buffett tunes. Which sounds kind of fun, actually, although I will settle for some wine after the kids are in bed, which is very soon. Thank goodness for the modern age and the availability of wine.

The Sun Came Out!

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This was the view from my back door yesterday morning:

Spring!

It’s mostly melted now, but it was snowing and grey for most of the day until about 6:00 pm, when the sun festively came out. Jake’s mystery illness presented itself as a nasty headcold, and I just could not face bundling him up, running through the snow and howling winds, dropping Mark at school, and doing it all over again two and a half hours later, so I decided to keep Mark home yesterday. “If I let you stay home, we need to do some schoolwork”, I said sternly, to which Mark replied, “Oh boy! Okay! What’s my first assignment? This is going to be great!” So evidently my nerdy and bookwormish tendencies have been passed on to the next generation. In fact, the entire day was spent pretending our house was a school. Mark kept asking which “centres” he could play at. “Is the writing centre open? Is the dinosaur centre open? I’m going to set this book aside for the reading centre. Okay? Okay Mom? Okay?”

The other night I was premenstrually sobbing to my husband about the passage of time and how the boys are not going to want to spend time with me as they grow and how I’m just going to be the horrible bitchy mother-in-law everyone complains about and in a couple of years Jake is NOT going to want to grocery shop with me and woe is me, I’m sad. My husband replied cheerily that, not to worry, Mark will likely always want to do math puzzles and crosswords with me, which seems apt, after yesterday’s events. (“Is the science centre open?”).

Ah, it’s all good. Of all the characters in The Breakfast Club, I have always secretly identified with the character played by Anthony Michael Hall – “In the physics club, we talk about physics, properties of physics” – although I had a huge crush on the Judd Nelson character. Ooh, the bad boy. It’s funny how all of the most attractive movie characters are also the ones who would be the worst to be in a relationship with. Take the Ralph Fiennes character from The English Patient, for example. Ralph Fiennes, so yummy, so intense, and yet, imagine being married to the guy. It would be terrible! The guy hardly ever smiles, and forget about lighthearted conversation. “What do you want for dinner, honey?” “I HAVE BEEN WALKING. FOR THREE DAYS.” I know this is controversial, but it would be much more amiable to be married to the jovial Colin Firth character than the sexy Ralph Fiennes character. At least he remembered their anniversary.

Huh. I meant only to write today about the snow, and my bookworm of an older child, and Jake’s miraculous recovery today and how I have a very! exciting! weekend! ahead of me, but somehow I got on the topic of attractive movie characters who would be hell to be married to. So, that sounds like a great game for a Friday! What movie character do you find terribly attractive and yet, you know would not be good relationship material? Ooh, just thought of another one: John Cusack in Say Anything. I know. I know. Controversial. But really, wouldn’t that lack of ambition get to you after a while? Okay, weigh in, this should be fun!

Bitch, we’re coming for you.

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Mark has largely recovered from his recent mysterious illness, but, in an incredible twist of misfortune, my husband is now ill. Let us all take a moment of silence on receiving that information. Not only that, but Jake – who was fine when I dropped him at school this morning – was runny nosed and headachy and exceedingly irritable when I picked him up a mere 150 minutes later. I can almost see the mystery illness pointing its slimy, germy fingers at me. “Bitch, we’re coming for you.” I am tired although I’m trying to convince myself that I’m tired simply because of all the sick people in my house keeping me awake at night.

Speaking of visualizing the mystery illness, I had a very disturbing conversation with friends who told me that a) seatbelts on airplanes have very high levels of fecal matter on their buckles, and b) headrests on airplane seats squeam them out because of the possibility of lice transfers. The next time I fly I am going to have to explain away the plastic bubble that I will have encased myself in. That, and the disinfectant that I will be using to clean all touchable surfaces.

Also? That commercial for automatic liquid soap dispensers that shows all the viruses and germs on the pump of a regular liquid soap dispenser should be outlawed. That is information I did not need, nor did I need to see it so clearly.

In other, non-freakishly-germ-phobic news, I volunteered in Mark’s class today, which I love. “Mark’s mom is here!” one of his classmates exclaimed upon seeing me. I almost corrected him with my actual name, which is MarkandJake’s mom. But I do love going to the kindergarten; the kids are so cute and enthusiastic, and I know the day will come when Mark will not happily tolerate my blowing him kisses and waving to him while he rotates through various class centres. I was helping to make bird houses out of milk containers, and in a fascinating turn of safety violation events, I sliced first one finger, then another, on the scissors while cutting out perching holes. Kids, be careful with the scissors, she says whilst holding her dripping finger and darting for the medical supplies.

So my sore fingers and my overwhelming tiredness are not being helped by the current weather conditions: a festive spring snowstorm. It is, as I write this, snowing sideways. Well, we need the moisture, as my cheery elderly neighbour says. The upside to this is that perhaps, just perhaps, soccer will be cancelled tomorrow night. Which will be fortunate if I succumb to mystery illness. Which I’m not going to. But just in case.

I’m in a bad mood!

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Mark, after a weekend of seasonal allergy-related coughing, woke up this morning pale and listless, brushed his teeth, and promptly threw up. Poor guy. By mid-morning he seemed to recover, and as I write this he is playing a loud game with his brother, one of their favourites in which they are brainstorming different and exotic ways to destroy their arch-enemy, Mickey Mouse.

Fortunately we are not planning a trip to Disneyland anytime soon.

It was a tough weekend for Mark. We had Visitors, and one Visitor made it perfectly clear that, how shall I say this delicately, this Visitor has a strong preference for one of my children, and that preferred child was emphatically not Mark. It’s hard to see your child dissolve into a puddle of hurt feelings, especially when the hurt feelings are caused by a person who should, I think, not have such strong preferences.

So I was stewing about this, and I’ve come to the following conclusions:

a) Much as I would like to, I cannot control other’s behaviour, I can only control my own;

b) I also cannot control how other people feel and force them to behave more equitably;

c) If I was actually to bring this up to said person, the situation would not change perceptibly but then there would be awkwardness and emotional outbursts added to the equation;

d) I had better just blog about it rather than bring it up, which has limited upside as far as I can see.

Very, very unsatisfactory conclusion.

In other news, I received a flyer for a nearby estate sale. One of the treasures, as advertised in the flyer, is an antique cookie jar in the shape of Mammy from Gone With The Wind. Hoo boy! If that is one of the highlights, I just can’t wait to get to that estate sale! That would go so great with all my other completely inappropriate and racially-offensive cookie jar related items.

Sigh. That failed to cheer me. Anyone want to share their stories about children being treated inequitably by a “Visitor”? Or a good story about a cookie jar? Either way I need cheering up.

The More Than 100 Mile Diet

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The boys have been reminding me, in a very earnest way, to reduce, reuse, and recycle, in keeping with their various school-related Earth Day activities. I think we do a fairly decent job of that in our house: we recycle everything we can, we use steel water bottles and reusable shopping bags, we try to keep our house from overflowing with plastic consumables, although this is fairly relative. The boys do have plastic toys, we did – due to Jake’s incessant talking about it – receive a landfill-destined Slap Chop for Christmas. The Slap Chop: thousands of years from now landfills will be studded with those monstrosities, possibly the best-marketed piece of junk ever invented. Vince, you liar. The Sham-Wow was a useful addition to our household, but the Slap Chop? Jake talked ceaselessly about it to his indulgent grandma and was thrilled when she gave it to us, and then was subsequently saddened when it became apparent that no, kids cannot use the Slap Chop and no, the Slap Chop doesn’t actually work. Don’t even get me started on the Graty.

Terrible plastic gimmicks and toys notwithstanding, we do try to minimize our environmental impact. However, there are many things I don’t do which I could do – I could walk the boys to school instead of drive, for example, I could xeriscape more and take shorter showers, I could use one of those Diva Cups if the thought didn’t make me totally squeamish.

It’s popular now to be a locavore, thank you “100 Mile Diet”. A friend and I were discussing the fact that people who you think should be compassionate and open minded are generally the opposite of that when it comes to food. Generally anyone who refers to their diet using the word “purist” is a zealot about it; however, I would probably be the world’s smuggest locavore if I lived in a different climate. I do purchase locally grown product when it is available, although I do not think that environmentally there is much difference between vegetables trucked from another province and ones that are grown in a hothouse in Alberta in the winter. For most of the year, if I was to eat only food produced within a 100 mile radius, I would be eating a lot of beef, pork, potatoes, wheat, and corn. My fruit choices would be Saskatoon berries and crabapples. Not to mention the fact that there are no nearby vineyards or locally grown coffee beans. So I think I will stick with my non-eco-friendly-more-than-100-mile-diet, with a side order of vague guilt.

What do you do that causes environmentally-related guilt?