Category Archives: Cute Kid Quotes

Tiny Handprints On Furniture And Walls

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How was your weekend? I know that Mother’s Day can be fraught with all sorts of emotions and mixed feelings for some people, and if you are one of those, I hope you had some peace over the weekend.

I had some nostalgic, emotional moments when I realized, late Saturday night, that I had not been disallowed from unpacking any backpacks this week. Steph had commented on my Throwing It Back post last week that she remembered when her son no longer brought home Mother’s Day crafts from school, and that comment resurfaced in my brain after I realized that no one had panicked when I opened up backpacks this whole past week. Now, rationally, I know that all things eventually come to an end, and just like it would be very weird to get one of those “Tiny Handprints” poems from a nine-year-old, so too would it be strange to get a Mom-related acrostic poem written on a doily from a teenager. I knew such crafts would no longer come one day, I just didn’t realize that this Mother’s Day would be that day.

Landslide.

It was apparent that my hunch was correct on Sunday morning. Every year for Mother’s Day, my mom and I get pedicures and I go to the garden centre and buy whatever I like and call it my “Mother’s Day gift.” In actuality, I do not want a physical gift on Mother’s Day, just this nice little pedicure-and-plant-buying ritual. But I’ve always had some kind of craft to look at and admire on Mother’s Day, so it did feel a bit strange. I realized that I would never again receive a Mother’s Day craft. Never again is a very powerful concept.

I went to yoga and while I ujjayi breathed, I thought of all the moms in Fort Mac, and how the boys helped me plant the garden the day before, and how everything is wonderful and I really don’t even have room on my dressers for more crafts anyway, since I’ve been displaying most of them since I was given them and things are a little crowded with construction paper. I left the Shala smiling and with renewed perspective.

People, I came home and the boys and my husband had cleaned the entire house. They even scrubbed the baseboards, mopped the downstairs bathroom, and vacuumed the stairs.

Fuck the doily crafts, this was the best Mother’s Day gift ever.

I was completely surprised and frankly, elated. It came to me that motherhood is just one long string of eras, and I am out of the crafting era and into the “acts of service” era and this era is awesome. Not that I didn’t love the preschool teas…

tea

They were adorable. I enjoyed the “spa day” that Jake’s kindergarten teacher had devised, and I wore my bright-pink nail polish with pride, or something…

nailskindy nailskindy2

What I’m saying is I love this new era, I really do. The boys helped my husband make dinner and they all cleaned up and it was kind of a Mother’s Day fantasy come true, to be honest. I used to long for moments by myself, to have a cup of coffee without someone needing help in the bathroom and to make dinner without someone crying in the kitchen, I used to just long for moments where no one was touching me or needing something or talking to me.

And now I have it. I have whole pots of coffee in peace, unless someone desperately needs to know what Reverend Lovejoy’s wife’s name is, or someone wants to expound on their theory that Star Wars could be real, we really don’t know, the universe is so big. No one ever cries when I am trying to get dinner on the table and when the kids get home from school they just hang out and don’t need a thing from me. I’m going to Toronto for YMC-related things tomorrow and it’s really not a big deal. Things will keep on ticking without me; they might be more slightly more complicated, but our little world will keep on turning while I’m gone. I’ll be missed, but not in a oh my god, the universe just imploded kind of way.

I didn’t mean to get all maudlin, but suddenly I understand those irritating old people who would say things like “Enjoy them, it goes so fast” in the grocery store when one kid would be crying in the cart and the other would be pulling things off the shelf. I mean, I’m not going to turn into one of those people because comments like that are in the Top Ten Least Helpful Things To Say To A Mother, but I understand them. And if I went back in time I’d still long for a cup of coffee in peace, I’m sure.

Still.

So to all you mamas of little ones out there, you are doing a great job. Keep on keeping on. And to all you mamas of older kids out there, well, I get it now. It actually does go fast and we can’t stop time, so we better enjoy the ride while we are on it. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my very clean house, and pack for my trip tomorrow, and plan to talk about Star Wars and The Simpsons nonstop at the dinner table tonight. xo

Leaping With Joy

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Happy Leap Year Extra Day, everyone! Leap Year Extra Day seems to be the least appreciated of the holidays, probably because it’s just an extra day in February. I celebrated by shovelling a tiny bit of snow for the first time in a while.

Have you noticed that I have not been complaining about the weather this winter? We’ve hardly had a winter, really; there have been only a handful of cold days since October, and of those, not one has been below minus 25. That, my friends, is a win. And yes, like any good Calgary girl worth her Stampede wear, I am cognizant of the fact that winter cannot truly be declared over prior to the May long weekend, but still. Getting through January and February with greatly-above-average temperatures is absolutely glorious, and even if that means we are going to get a ton of snow in the next few months, well, so be it. It has been so warm that the leaf buds on the lilacs are starting to swell, and the day lilies are popping tiny green shoots out of the ground. Fortunately, the residents in my garden have been chosen largely due to their extreme hardiness, so even if we do get two feet of snow, they will be fine.

Another thing of note that I have not been complaining about: the book fair. Last week was the book fair – it was my sixteenth! – and I was not at all stressed out about it. For one thing, I have been transitioning my duties to the co-coordinator in anticipation of my Book Fair Lady Resignation in March of 2017, and she has really hit the ground running. (HI HAYDEE). She did nearly all the prep work for it, so I felt like I was on easy street. In fact, now that I see the light at the end of the Book Fair Tunnel, I am starting to feel a bit emotional about it. I really just had a live in the moment feeling and enjoyed the kids and their incredible excitement about the fair. One kindergartener was vibrating with excitement at the thought of buying a Lego Ninjago book; that excitement coupled with the fact that I’ve really seen some of these kids grow up vis a vis their book choices gave me a mixed feeling of contentment with my Book Fair Lady lot in life and also pre-nostalgia. I did not even feel impatient when I received six questions about the cost of the posters ($5) in a ninety-second span, nor did I tire of explaining that the cupcake wasn’t an actual cupcake but a pencil sharpener. I just thought, it won’t be long until I will no longer be the Book Fair Lady, and then I might miss saying The posters are five dollars, yes, the Minecraft one is also five dollars, and so is the Batman one, they are all five dollars, yes, Shopkins too.

It’s wonderful that the kids are that excited, but even better was the fact that this year we’ve raised over $8500 for the library, ELL, and home reading programs. So I feel great satisfaction due to the money raised and general student happiness. This feeling even extended to doing the book reorders on Friday, since demand for certain items much exceeded supply. People, I had to order an all-time record of sixty-seven books. Nineteen of those were “Stampy’s Lovely Book,” which I had never heard about before. The cover was Minecraft-esque, so I wondered why I had never heard of Stampy, given my children’s penchant for crafting tables and the like. Jake informed me that Stampy is a YouTuber, but not one that he deems worthy of notice. “He’s super LAME, Mom,” he said when I asked about it. “He talks about Minecraft, but in a totally lame way.” Jake seems to be in the minority, however, given the clamouring for Stampy at the book fair. Tomorrow the orders come in, and I am wondering how to effectively manage my schedule. I’ve never had to distribute sixty-seven books before.

Time, it flies. On Wednesday I passed off my Book Fair duties to a couple of devoted volunteers (HI JEN HI BERNY) and I took Mark to the orthodontist. We now have a metal mouth in our midst! To be honest, I was expecting things to go, how shall I say this, not well. I was very pleasantly surprised; I think his expectations were so low that the whole experience was much better than anticipated. “I thought it would be like someone hot gluing metal in my mouth!” he said, which, what? I thought it was well explained to him but perhaps not.

In any case, he was sore for the first two days, and now seems to be just fine. He’s thrilled with the orthodontic swag bag given to him that included such thrilling things as an electric toothbrush and mouthwash. So all is happiness and roses in the Boy House.

Bumper Stickers and Big News!

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It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and because there is no semi-holiday that goes by uncelebrated by sugar cookies, I spent some time this morning cutting out round cookies. Heart-shaped cookies have been deemed too embarrassing for words, but round cookies? With bright pink buttercream and heart-shaped sprinkles? Perfectly acceptable. I was getting ready to frost them when I realized I was almost out of powdered sugar, so I popped over to the grocery store and was almost sidetracked by this:

fundip

Fun Dip! They still make Fun Dip! I haven’t seen Fun Dip for decades! And this Fun Dip – it magically changes colours! I’m sure the child bringing in Fun Dip would be super-popular amongst peers, but perhaps less so amongst parents and teachers. I stuck with the cookies and they turned out nicely, even if a round cookie cutter seems to be an elusive item, necessitating the use of a small plastic cup instead.

heartcookies

Speaking of things unseen for decades, yesterday Mark and I were walking home from the library, where he had cleaned out the entire section on children’s Greek mythology reference books, and I had picked up a delightful little read entitled “Fishbowl.” Slight digression: if you have the chance to read “Fishbowl,” do, because it is just wonderful. A truly fun read.

Anyway, we were walking home and parked along one of the side streets was a van, covered in bumper stickers. We stopped to look because one of us noticed the sticker saying “My Other Car Is A Dino-Bot” and I immediately regretted our decision. Along with “Oral Sex: The Best Last-Minute Gift” was a bumper sticker that I hadn’t seen since the early Eighties, at best: “Grass, Gas, or Ass: Nobody Rides For Free.” The sad thing is that this bumper sticker was not an old one from the Seventies; it was obviously newly purchased and affixed to the back of the van. In other words, you can still, somewhere, purchase a Gas, Grass, or Ass: Nobody Rides For Free bumper sticker. And here I thought hitchhiking was a thing of the past. I’ve never hitchhiked, and I most likely never will, but if I did, I probably would NOT want to take a ride from the person driving that van, especially with all the not-so-subtle messages plastered all over the back, Dino-Bot notwithstanding. Anyone who watched Silence of the Lambs in their formative years would feel the same way, I’m sure. One moment you are taking a ride from a person who encourages prostitution in exchange for a lift to the next town, the next moment you are in a giant hole in the ground being forced to lube up so some sicko can make a skin suit out of you.

I mean, maybe the owner is perfectly normal and just likes distasteful bumper stickers, but why take the chance?

In any case, Mark and I stood in awkward silence for a moment before heading for home and resuming our discussion about the twelve labours of Hercules.

Completely unrelated to any of the above, I have big news! After nearly nine years of yoga practice, I have decided to take yoga teacher training. I’m pretty excited about it! With the kids getting older, the timing just seemed right, so in April I will be starting my 200 hour program. My goal is to work with people with pain and limited flexibility/ mobility, and perhaps seniors. It’s been a while since I’ve been in school, so I fear I might be a bit like one of those mature students who asks all the questions and discusses the role of Life Experience and its Real World Implications. I’m like Grandpa Simpson! But maybe a bit more stylish.

I see your Elf on a Shelf, and I raise you a group of snowmen on the bathroom counter

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After a fairly warm fall/ early winter, the world is suddenly covered with a thick blanket of snow and very, very cold. It looks very pretty and of course the children are delighted with the festivity of fluffy snow a week before Christmas, but on Wednesday I had an early-morning spot on the news and I woke up to 10 cm of snow and traffic in a snarly mess. This happened the last time I was on the news, which filled me with slight foreboding. Fortunately, I got there safely and the spot went off without a hitch. However, I have been incorporating all the appetizers I made for the show into dinners since then, so as not to waste them. It’s filling my entire family with puzzlement. You know that you’re a rigid person when your husband is completely SHOCKED to discover tortilla wraps for dinner on a Wednesday, and tacos on a Thursday. “What next?” he asked last night as he warily filled a taco shell, “Are we not having pitas for dinner tomorrow?” He almost fell over when I told him no, we weren’t.

Today is the last day of school, and all pretence of academia is long gone. Speaking of which, I forgot to mention the added-insult-to-injury of Jake’s week-long field trip: each child was required to pay an extra $50 for the honour. $50 so that the kids could be bored out of their minds and learn nothing, with the only highlight being the indoor garden. OUTRAGE.

Anyway, it’s pajama day at school, and after many years of shunning pajama day, my children trudged through the snow with their flannel bottoms tucked into their boots. I’m not the biggest fan of it myself – but at least the kids will be comfortable as they watch movies and eat party treats. Mark is watching the Polar Express with his Grade 1/2 buddy class, which he says is lame, but okay for the buddies I GUESS.

It’s a tradition of mine to send festively-shaped sugar cookies to class for every special occasion: birthdays, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas. I’ve been doing it so long that now the boys’ longtime classmates ask if I’m going to send cookies. Frankly, it makes me feel a bit like a rock star when I see them in the halls and they tell me that my cookies are superior to every other cookie they’ve ever had. I mean, you cannot hear that kind of compliment without it going to your head a little bit.

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Between appetizers, cookies, and making peppermint bark and truffles for teacher gifts, it’s been a busy week in the kitchen. Main teachers also get gift cards, but I like to send chocolates to the office staff and the teachers who supervise the crossing guards. My kids are both crossing guards and the supervisory role is a stressful one, given the asshole way people drive through the crosswalks.

So the boys went loaded down with cookies, teacher gifts, and snowpants, since they are going to be sledding with friends after early dismissal this afternoon. And just to make my life even more awesome, they are at the age that I don’t have to stand in the snow and wait for them. I’m dropping off the sleds and then going back to my cozy house; they will sled and then WALK HOME, IT IS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. I mention this to give hope to all you mamas out there who are working up a sweat wrangling your children into winter gear, freezing to death watching them narrowly miss the brick walls of the school, and then managing both the tears when faceplants in the snow occur and sudden meltdowns because snow is in the mittens. One day soon your children will walk home when they are done, carrying their own sleds, with no supervision. IT IS GLORIOUS.

Another glorious thing: we got a Roomba. Someone was mentioning the other day how hard it is to really “wow” teens and tweens at Christmas. I mean, at a certain age they are just not going to be as excited getting a video game/ books/ shirts/ new gloves (all things my own children are receiving this year) as they were when a Thomas the Tank Engine table magically appeared in the basement. That’s part of the growing-up process UNLESS you decide to do something incredible like BUY A ROOMBA. We ran it in our carpeted basement this morning and two things occurred to me: a) our vacuum is clearly too old to be effective anymore because the filter needed cleaning twice, grosssssss, and b) watching a Roomba maneuver around furniture and exercise equipment was more fun than anyone could have imagined. We were all cheering the Roomba, giving it positive reinforcement (GREAT JOB, ROOMBA!), and projecting human feelings onto it (YOU’RE SO SMART, ROOMBA, WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!). No need for a late-in-life baby, we are all embracing the Roomba like the Christmas miracle that he is. Who knew we had an empty space in our hearts, filled only by a robotic vacuum cleaner?

Also filling empty spaces in our hearts is our tiny snowman collection. When I had a tiny light-less tree in my first apartment, I bought a set of tiny snowmen to decorate it. They were cheap, from Wal-mart, but very cute. Almost twenty years later, all their hooks have fallen off, but I put a handful of them on the bathroom counter to make showering and other bathroom activities super-festive.

Santa

One morning I finished my breakfast to see that my husband had rearranged all the snowmen, so that instead of the dull little groups of two or three I had them in the bathroom was transformed into a snowman hide-and-seek game.

hide and seek hiding snowman

And, like Donkey Kong, it was on. We have all been switching the snowmen to different vignettes and then seeing if anyone else can guess what they are doing. I admit, my ideas run towards the dull – a yoga class, a conga line, everyone in a circle singing Christmas carols – but the testosterone in the house has led to slightly non-Christmassy themes.

Younglings

Such as, Anakin brutally slaying the younglings so that his power, Herod-like, would be unchallenged.

The other day Jake said “I call the snowmen today!” and busily rearranged them. It was a bit later when I went in to see the initially startling result:

lightsaber

Before you express concerns that I have a Rosemary’s Baby kind of situation around here, it is a LIGHT SABER. Just a light saber. We are going to see The Force Awakens tomorrow, and excitement is through the roof and coming through extensively in our snowman-vignette game. Light saber. Not work of the devil.

Friday Fun

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It’s a PD day. It’s 9:09. I have had approximately nine cups of coffee. In related news, this post will be in point form.

COPA Cabana

As many (most?) of you know, I work at Yummy Mummy Club, or YMC, both as a writer and a twitter-er. Imagine my excitement when, at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards, YMC won GOLD for Best Use of Social Media! Look:

COPA

So that was pretty happy news. YMC also won gold and silver for two online campaigns: Dove Beautiful You, and Elmer’s Freestyle, along with gold for Independent Publisher of the Year. I think I will crack a bottle of amarone tonight, to celebrate!

Holiday Music

Sirius radio has a fabulous holiday channel, called Holly, and I haven’t stopped listening to it since I discovered it. It has everything from Harry Connick, Jr. to Barry Manilow; in other words, it is my dream holiday channel. In the past twenty-four hours, I have heard no fewer than five different renditions of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” which is my favourite Christmas song EVER. Except, maybe, the terribly politically-incorrect Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Spectre

Until very recently, I had never seen a James Bond movie in my life. When one is completely outnumbered, one watches the movies that everyone else wants to watch, and so we’ve been watching the most recent James Bond movies for our Friday Family Movie Nights. I normally fall asleep at some point in the movie, because explosions and whatnot bore me. What doesn’t bore me, however, is a shirtless Daniel Craig.

After we’d watched three Daniel Craig movies, we were ready for the newest: Spectre. My husband was very excited and he booked seats for the opening weekend. We all went and were kind of underwhelmed. For one thing, it was at least thirty minutes too long. For another, he was completely clothed for the whole movie. THE WHOLE MOVIE. Why am I here? I kept thinking to myself. This isn’t interesting at all.

It reminded me of when the boys made me go see Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not only was it a terrible, terrible movie, but it was tragically low on the shirtless men factor. All that talent, and the only guy who takes his shirt off is Bruce Banner? WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS?

Action movie makers, take note: if you want the “mom vote,” maybe throw us a little bone, here? Does Chris Evans need to chop wood with a t-shirt on? No, he does not. He is Captain Freaking America, and he can chop wood with no shirt on, thank you very much.

Greek Mythology

Mark has been obsessed with Greek mythology for the past while, and I used to be PRETTY knowledgeable in that area myself. However, the student has far surpassed the teacher, and now every single day he asks me questions that are unanswerable. For example, who is my favourite demigod? Do I know which animal/ plant symbolizes which Greek god? If I could have any power bestowed upon me by any god, which would it be and why? It makes for interesting dinner table conversation, sort of. Jake mentioned that he would like to never die, to which Mark responded, “Immortality is not always a great thing, Jake.” Then he went into this depressing spiel about it, and how sometimes it’s just better to die, which reminded me of this terrible biography my husband watched about Kurt Cobain. Good lord, what a mess. I felt like this conversation warranted a drink if it were to continue, but thankfully the subject veered into the following debate: Was Persephone happy to be in the Underworld? Discuss.

I am the Walrus

Jake has been walking around saying “I am the Eggman” and laughing. “Eggman! Who would want to be an eggman?” Mark asked if it was true that The Beatles had a song called I am the Walrus, and that, my friends, I could answer. This spurred a long discussion about a) why anyone would want to be a walrus, b) what exactly is an eggman, c) why were The Beatles so popular when they are obviously so lame?

I told the boys that their music was the first of its kind, and very innovative. I explained how, way back in the 1950s, Elvis Presley was considered scandalous because he danced too sexily. The boys looked at me in silent disbelief and dropped the subject.

“What?” I asked. “Elvis was considered VERY sexy, back then.”

“Mom, please stop saying Elvis and sexy in the same sentence.”

Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse

The term “growing boys” has taken on new meaning, as they have both grown almost an INCH since September. I looked at Mark in his nearly brand-new karate gi yesterday and thought he looked like he was ready for The Flood.

milhouse2

Happy Friday, everyone! Have a great weekend. xo

Maybe Pumpkin Spice Potato Chips really are a thing.

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You know those moments in parenting where you just don’t know how you got here, and you just can’t believe this is happening? I had one of those yesterday when Jake came home from school, completely excited about this cool new game he wants to get called Dungeons and Dragons.

I just don’t know where to go from here.

In other news, did you know it’s almost Halloween? Holy moly, did October speed by. Remember when I said that I was just swimming and swimming until October 18, and after that things would settle down? Hardy har, it seems to me that I forgot about, you know, LIFE. Not that I would say I’m any busier than anyone else – we’re all busy – but let me take this opportunity to say two words: BOOK FAIR. Yes, Book Fair Number Fifteen is rapidly approaching, and although – thank god – I have a co-coordinator who is going to take over one entire day for me, it’s still a bit of a thorn in my side. Yesterday I felt like I had things under control: I had made up a schedule for all twenty-six classes to visit the fair twice over a two-day span – the fair itself is taking place in the staff room, thanks to our overcrowded school situation – and the volunteer spots had started to fill out. Then I had an email from the principal informing me of a little glitch in the schedule that I had been unaware of, and although she immediately offered helpful solutions, I just sat and stared out the window for a few minutes. I could actually feel myself deflate.

But this is my fourth-to-last fair, so I’ve been cheering myself on like an aerobicize instructor from the Eighties: and four more, and three more, and two more…

So here comes November, with the book fair and Christmas shopping to avoid the fiery hell that is the mall in December, and the ordering of Christmas cards, and the baking of many festive treats so that they may be photographed and published asap. Speaking of which, I’m going to digress for a few minutes to tell you to read my Meatless Mummy column over at Yummy Mummy Club, for all your meatless (and decadent holiday baking) needs. I’m also going to point out that I have a joint project with Hannah and Allison, called Throwing It Back, for all your nostalgic-for-the-eighties-and-nineties needs. So if I’m not writing here, I’m over at one or both of those places, writing about chickpeas and rolling your jeans. This ends my public service announcement.

The best thing about November, in my opinion, is that it marks the end of the Reign of Pumpkin Spice. I know, I know. Everyone loves pumpkin spice. Everyone except me, apparently. I know I’m in the minority on this one, and truly, I don’t care that much – let your freak pumpkin spice flag fly, people – but the end of the Reign of Pumpkin Spice marks the beginning of the Reign of Peppermint, which is my favourite thing ever. Bless you, peppermint flavouring.

Is it me, or has the pumpkin spice trend officially gone over the top? Driving back from Sylvan Lake, the orange-hued Kubota dealership outside of Red Deer had a sign saying “We ARE Pumpkin Spice,” which made me laugh, a little. I would have taken a photo had I not been hurtling down the highway. In the grocery store was this display:

PumpkinSpiceOreo

Hey, I’m not judging. I’ve tried mint Oreos and they were pretty amazing, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t even like Oreos. I’m just wondering if we’ve reached peak pumpkin spice popularity, or if next year Lay’s will come out with Pumpkin Spice Potato Chips, or maybe Pumpkin Spice Doritos. Maybe McDonald’s will come out with a Seasonal Pumpkin Spice McRib. Maybe these things have already happened, I don’t know. As an economist, I kind of want to graph out the trends and the market share of Pumpkin Spice What Have You in September and October, and the growth in popularity over the past few years. Perhaps I should; perhaps I should apply for a grant to study the ubiquity of pumpkin spice and its effect on cancer, or something. There could be a whole correlation-versus-causation debate, like the one currently heating up over bacon and other smoked meats.

MAYBE THIS IS A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING IDEA.

Speaking of cookies, yesterday I went to make Halloween-shaped sugar cookies for the kids’ classroom parties. While I was in my flurry of travel, a few weeks ago, I decided to make some of my mom’s never-fail sugar cookie dough to throw in the freezer for this exact reason. I was trying to be on the ball, and I would have been, if I hadn’t been so caught up in packing/ unpacking/ trying to fit work in/ etc. I remember clearly throwing together a banana bread for the kids’ snack, and then whipping up a batch of sugar cookie dough. At the time, I thought the dough felt odd, but I thought no more about it, until yesterday, when I rolled out all the shapes and thought the dough seemed rather soft.

I took my first batch of ghosts out of the oven, and they had all spread together to make one giant obese ghost. The pumpkins were just the same. My never-fail dough had failed. In hindsight, I think perhaps I was so busy multitasking that I only added two out of the three required cups of flour. I managed to whip up another batch, which worked perfectly, and the kids were only too happy to eat the batch of flat misshapen cookies. All is well in my world again.

cookie

Back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool.

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I know it’s the big “first day of school” for a lot of you, but we are already into our second week. The boys were pretty happy to start school last week; we are all enjoying that “back to routine” feeling. The children have been relentlessly quoting Billy Madison: back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool. Over and over.

I, for one, have been incredibly productive and busy since they’ve been back at school, which is a good feeling. I mean, I miss them – and today I miss them more since they are staying for lunch for the first school patrol meeting of the year – but it’s kind of nice to get things done, too, and to hear later all about the exciting news of the day. “We’re going to be learning about Ancient Greece and the origins of democracy!” said Mark happily, along with “We’ll be looking for moss in our forestry unit!” Jake excitedly talked about the Math Question of the Week, which had to do with being trapped and tied up in a room with a ticking time bomb, and a rat chewing the knots on the rope, and would you be freed in time, or blow up? Jake loves math anyway but the semi-violent and gross Question of the Week took it over the top for him. Math AND explosions? How can one go wrong? Needless to say, the first week was pretty great.

Barkley’s not as happy with the change in season, though:

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Look at that sad, fuzzy face.

Barkleysad

Poor Barkley.

Other than Barkley’s depression, things have been fine so far; I’m thrilled with the boys’ teachers and classroom sizes, and they are too. I’m less thrilled that Mark has already had a cold and so spent the long weekend coughing and lethargic, although the weekend was cold and rainy – and even a bit snowy – so it could always be worse. He could have been coughing and lethargic on a nice weekend. As it was, we spent most of the weekend at my parents’ place for an early Jake-birthday celebration.

JakeBirthday JakeCake Jakegirlfriends

This week I’m apparently going to be chaperoning a walking field trip to a nearby natural park, dubbed “Whispering Woods.” The boys’ teachers are really on the ball and are very technologically-oriented, and so I received a message detailing all scheduled field trips for the upcoming year. The upside of this is that the boys will both be exposed to some excellent learning opportunities, such as a week long trip to something called the “Open Minds” arts centre. The downside is that each of them will require parent volunteers for a week for the trip to the aforementioned “Open Minds” arts centre. I have a feeling my mind is going to be opened. Opened, like a gift, or a flower, or something.

In any case, I received the request for volunteers for this week’s field trip, and in a moment of weakness I capitulated. After all, as I told my husband perkily, now that I’m not chairing the School Council or Parent Association, I have extra time for these in-class requests. “Or,” he said ominously, “You could just say that you’ve done enough volunteering to last a lifetime and have someone else do it.” True.

In any event, I’m happy to say that the forecast is not for snow, nor rain, during the scheduled field trip, although I am wondering what I was thinking. Three hours in the Whispering Woods with 53 fifth-and-sixth graders? Looking at various plants and – if Mark is to be believed – moss? This doesn’t sound like the best idea I’ve ever had.