Category Archives: Festivities

I have a bad case of the Fridays!

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Which is to say I’m kind of tired. It has been a long and disjointed week, ending with the kids out of school today due to parent/teacher interviews. My husband was out of town for a couple of days, which always makes for a long, disjointed week. When he told me he was going out of town, my mental reactions were threefold: a) Nooooo…it’s Jake’s birthday, you can’t be away for Jake’s birthday, b) Nooooo…I’m going to miss yoga, and c) Ooh, I can watch When Harry Met Sally and repeat all the dialogue without someone complaining about this being “annoying”. Solo bedtime is not at all difficult these days, with the grave exception of lecturing Mark on rinsing out the giant handful of shampoo he uses for his half-inch long hair, but I still found myself tired out by the end of it.

Also tiring was my attempt at domestic goddess-hood. I just completed baking and frosting two dozen cupcakes for tomorrow’s party. Besides those, in the past five days I have made the following: banana muffins, zucchini loaf, sugar cookies, bread dough, and a birthday cake. My whole life is revolving around baked goods, plus my regular meal preparation. In addition, I have made three separate trips for groceries, including an anxiety attack-inducing trip to Costco. It’s all about food around here, apparently.

Then, there was today’s extremely misguided shopping trip at Wal-Mart. As I mentioned, tomorrow is Jake’s birthday party, and since September is a time of new friendships and classmates, I decided to invite his entire kindergarten class – which sounds more magnanimous than it is, given his small class size. However, not everyone RSVP’d, which is irritating. Still, I felt like that should not bother me – although I did list my email address in the scenario that someone, god forbid, didn’t want to actually speak to me on the phone. I just assumed the non-RSVPers were not attending, but according to Jake, some of them ARE. People! Passing messages through kindergarteners is not a reliable or acceptable method of RSVP. PICK UP THE PHONE. I don’t know their parents or phone numbers, so I can’t check. However, I realized that if those children are attending, then I needed to get a few more environmentally friendly paper bags to make goody bags out of. Hence the last-minute trip to Wal-Mart. At two o’clock in the afternoon on a day where there is no school.

The parking lot was insane. The crowds were insane. When I discovered that they were all out of little paper bags, I felt that the best possible scenario was for me to just lie down on the floor in the aisle and stare at the ceiling for a while. If it were not for the fact that the floor is likely swarming with germs and that I would probably cause some sort of violent shopping-cart rage and get seriously injured, I would have done just that. Instead, I herded my extremely irritable self and my extremely irritable children through the soul-destroying aisles and past the crabby and smelly shoppers to the checkout. In the lineup, I tried hard to breathe deeply and not be bothered by the guy behind me who kept, despite the fact that there was no place to move, inching his cart forward until it was actually touching me. Don’t be upset, I said to myself zen-ly, you’ll be out of here soon, and does it really matter if some mullet-wearing guy who reeks of garlic and cigarettes is invading your personal space? In the grand scheme of things, does it matter? Then I came home and stared blankly at the wall for a while.

Fortunately my neighbour is celebrating her birthday tonight and has invited me over for a margarita (or several). I could really use one, it would seem.

Hey, check out the guy who’s FIVE.

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Those were his first words to me this morning. I should teach him the old “What has two thumbs and is FIVE today? This guy!”


We baked cookies to take to his class yesterday. They turned out not too bad, considering I was frosting them and Jake was in charge of sprinkles.

I wrote about my labour stories last year, here here and here, so if you’re interested in labour stories, click on the links. Or, I can sum it up for you: I was crazy and cried a lot (unlike every single other blog post I have ever written), I had the world’s least engaged labour and delivery nurse, and my husband complained of being tired. During my labour. Uh huh.

Wow, you’re huge! That’s what I heard for approximately 5 months of my pregnancy.


Look at his squishy little face! Awww! He essentially didn’t wake up for our entire 24 hour hospital stay, even while being bathed, spurring our nurse to tell me how lucky I was to have such a mellow baby, which ended up being the falsest sentence ever uttered.


Mark gave him a Ben 10 Ultimate Alien, after which Jake stated that this was the best birthday ever!


I baked – and decorated – this cake and I think it turned out pretty well, considering my lack of talent and all. I didn’t even cry while decorating this, which is a first.


What has two thumbs and a brand new five year old? This girl!

Hardwood, birthday prep, smoking

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Pictures! Hardwood! Don’t worry, they are G-rated.


My husband also painted that lovely burnt orange colour this weekend.


The remainder of the house has yet to be painted – and I’m anxious to get the kitchen painted, as its current yellow clashes weirdly with the orange – and baseboards have yet to be repainted and attached, but the home renovation is coming along nicely, with my sanity mainly intact. Of course, I’ve turned into Lady Macbeth, except with dust, but that was to be expected.

Other than dusting – and laundering my dusty panty drawer – I have been busy preparing for Jake’s birthday, which is two days from now. I feel like I should be nostalgically mooning around, remembering things like “Five years ago today I was waddling around like an obese penguin. Five years ago today I was bursting into tears about nothing. Five years ago today I consumed half a loaf of bread, toasted with Cheez Whiz.” For some reason I’m not doing that. I am, however, obsessing over goody bags to give his little friends. I have a problem with goody bags. For one thing, I don’t like all the typical goody bag crap that eventually ends up in the landfill, but I don’t want to NOT give goody bags. What I end up doing is filling them with one small toy – a bouncy ball – a sheet of stickers, and a whole bunch of mini chocolate bars. This gives me pause. I think it’s better to give something consumable, rather than something landfill-ish, but will the high sugar content render me unpopular with the parents? Warning: if you’re reading this and your child is coming to Jake’s party, you are going to have lots of chocolate to deal with.

In other news, I ran to the grocery today to pick up cake mix – don’t judge, I have a LOT of things to bake this week – and birthday candles, and at the checkout I asked the cashier if they sold lighters. “Lighters?” she asked “Like to light cigarettes?” No, I explained, to light birthday candles. She appeared not to hear me and then launched into this incredibly long and bitter monologue about not being able to sell cigarettes or smoking related paraphernalia in the grocery, because there is an anti-smoking conspiracy around and smokers – like her– were essentially pariahs in this society. I listened to this with a polite, nervous smile – fortunately there was no lineup behind me – and wondered where I COULD buy a lighter, or even a book of matches, but I didn’t want to ask because the cashier was getting really agitated by her own conversation. Finally I left with my one small bag and she called out after me, ominously, “We smokers pay a LOT of taxes.” On my way out a carry out guy tapped me on the shoulder to inform me that lighters were available at the gas station.

It’s quiet. A little TOO quiet.

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Today was the big day. Not back to school – that was last week. Today was the day we were slated to get the hardwood installed. It was no mean feat getting ready for the installation, given that we were out of town for the long weekend. All moveable items were moved, all clothing, toys, and breakable items stashed in the basement. Then this morning we got the phone call that they were delayed and wouldn’t start until tomorrow.

Sigh.

I was under the expectation that I would drop the boys off – Jake’s first full morning of kindergarten after last week’s frantic pace of staggered entry – and then I would come home to chaos and noise and instead it is so very quiet. Even the dog is still at the kennel. I’m lonely. And I’m also unable to find anything, and I keep bumping into things.

This is the view of my office right now. Halp.


We were in Saskatchewan this weekend, visiting with my grandparents. My grandfather turned 96 on Saturday, which is quite a feat, I think. Last year there was a huge family reunion for his 95th birthday, which was initially supposed to be somewhat of a surprise party, much to my strong disapproval. Who thinks that a surprise party is a good idea for a 95 year old man? NOT ME. Anyway, at the reunion last year I had the sad feeling that it would be the last time I would see my grandfather – he was not doing particularly well and, in any case, he was 95. One does not buy green bananas when one is 95. But here he is! He looked great and was in good spirits and I was very happy we had made the trip. Plus my grandma made a scrumptious lemon poppyseed chiffon cake, of which I ate slice after slice.

One thing about travelling with kids is that it can be exhausting. We stayed in a hotel and so the kids were WIRED and no one was sleeping particularly well, with the obvious result that we were all a bit crabby when we started the two hour drive to the airport yesterday morning. A mere ten minutes into the drive, Jake morphed into a surly little goblin, “This is taking FOREVER. When are we going to be HOME? I’M NOT TIRED. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME. THIS CAR IS MAKING ME HOMESICK.” We listened to this diatribe many, many times. I stared out the window at the unvarying landscape of flooded fields and pumpjacks, all the while thinking “I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles.”

So how was your long weekend? I’m feeling kind of blah today, tell me something good?

I want a jungle room!

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I woke up this morning thinking that I was supposed to remember something about today when it occurred to me: it’s the 33rd anniversary of Elvis’ death. Festive! I love fat Elvis, and not just for his music. It takes a certain something something to be able to rock out a sparkly jumpsuit.


And capes! Wearing a cape when one is not, arguably, a superhero, really sends a message to the general public. A cape, I think, really escalates an outfit, especially one of the jumpsuit variety.


In general I love singing soulful and impassioned renditions of such musical masterpieces of Suspicious Minds and Kentucky Rain, and I felt that my performance would probably be greatly enhanced by playing the actual music, so I ran out to the car to find my most-loved Elvis CD. To find it, I had to dig through CDs by the following artists: Neil Diamond, Blue Rodeo, Kanye West, James Taylor, Eminem, Jay-Z, Gordon Lightfoot, Barenaked Ladies, and Hall and Oates. Rounding out the weird factor was a mixed CD called Pure Disco and the Starsky and Hutch soundtrack. I looked at those CDs for a minute and thought of arranging and photographing them for some kind of modern art piece, entitled, maybe, Study of Really Strange Mind Songs.

As an aside, I was at a pool today speaking with a lovely mother who mentioned that she had held a karaoke party and I was instantly filled with envy. Karaoke! I am AWESOME at karaoke! I want to go to a karaoke party. Of course, my 9:00 bedtime is generally unsociable and tends to preclude such events.

Anyway, I was indulging in the housewifely task of floor washing and singing, and as I passionately accompanied Elvis (“Maybe IIIII didn’t treat yooouuu…quite as good as I should have DUM DUM DUM! Maybe IIIIII didn’t LOVE YOU…quite as often as I should have…”) Mark quietly stole over to the CD player and stealthily ejected it. When I asked him about it, he said “I just kind of think that it was OVER, Mom.” Huh. That says a lot, really.

Happy (almost) Birthday Canada!

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Since in our house, birthdays must always be marked by cake, I am in the process of making an angel food cake with strawberry cream filling, the colours a nod to our lovely, lovely flag. My mother-in-law made this particular cake for me eleven years ago, and it instantly became my favourite dessert. All other desserts can just go home, for all I care. We don’t need you here.

We’re getting into our summer groove. The first few days were a bit strained, as they can be when your kids have spent a month with non-stop exciting end-of-school events and suddenly it’s the end of school and the days are just waiting to be filled. We seem to have gotten over the hump, as it were, and have been having the kind of days one just loves to write about. Trips to the playground! Picnics! Bike riding! A sunny afternoon at the wading pool! It feels all wholesome, and happy, and like I could do this for the rest of my life. Of course, now that I’ve written it, I can almost see the other shoe dropping, so to speak.

Never mind. The weather has been sunny, warm, and dry, my very favourite weather. It’s my happy weather. I love this weather so much I want to take it for a ride in my Chevy Camaro, park on a hill overlooking the city, slip in an eight-track of Bob Seger’s Night Moves, and get it pregnant. Then, because I sincerely do love and respect this weather, I will marry it and help raise our little weather babies, and we will grow old together, sipping our glasses of iced tea and rocking in gliders on our veranda, watching our little weather grandbabies play on the grass.

Wow. That last sentence is what happens when you enjoy a Smirnoff cooler whilst blogging.

Oh! But there is other exciting news in our house, in addition to my peculiar weather fantasies. Mark lost one of his front teeth, and the result is quite hilarious. I kind of love when kids get those awkward dental situations, a mix of giant teeth and giant gaps and teensy baby teeth. His tooth was crazily loose, and I told him about kids in my day getting their teeth pulled via the string-on-the-doorknob method. He and Jake were horrified, and asked if that had happened to me. No, I replied, I would have cried way too much. Drama queen would have been a polite way to describe the kind of kid I was. I promised Mark I wouldn’t ever try to pull his tooth, a promise I somewhat regretted when I watched him suffer through dinner. Later he actually bumped his mouth accidentally, and cried and cried as he watched the blood drip from his mouth. Just do it, we encouraged him, pull it out! And he reached in and actually pulled out his own tooth! My big big kid. I smile every time I see his giant, gappy grin.

School’s Out For Summer!

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Ooh, I hate that song, along with most Alice Cooper songs – although I do think that Alice Cooper, himself, seems like a very cool guy, as far as celebrities go. While I’m on the topic, I also hate the musical stylings of Tom Petty and that atrocious Kim Mitchell, I Am A Wild Party being, in my opinion, the worst song ever written.

The boys marked the last day of school in different ways – Mark had a Sports Day, and Jake had a pre-kindergarten graduation which of course was very cute and filled with “Everyone is special!” messages. Hilariously, the kids sang a song entitled “We are Special Kids” to the tune of “We Will Rock You.” Side note: my husband feels about Queen the way I feel about Tom Petty, but I think he would have enjoyed the cute factor.

They also wore caps and gowns which I think is quite cute, if a bit ridiculous. A few months ago, the school had a professional photographer come into to take graduation portraits of the children in caps and gowns, which, frankly, crossed the line between cute and just plain stupid. I voiced this opinion and was chastised by my mother for not ordering any of the prints. I don’t know; I think graduation portraits should be saved for an actual graduation, which I do not think applies to simply going to kindergarten. I did keep the proofs though. Jake is awfully cute.

Mark seemed to really enjoy his Sports Day, but dissolved into sadness at dismissal. “I’m never going to be THIS happy again” he stated, which gave me a Citizen Kane-esque chill. What if it’s true? I mean, there are books and movies with that kind of plot line, the end of innocence and so on. Fortunately after we got home I applied the well established depression remedy of videos and chocolate cupcakes which was effective. In no time they were very loudly playing in the backyard, much to the delight of my neighbour, I’m sure, as she dozed in the sun in her lounge chair.

One of the biggest parenting mistakes, I think, is to not allow your children to be sad. I think that it’s a huge mistake, when your child is sad, to try to cheer them up endlessly with Pollyanna, look-on-the-bright-side, silver lining-type chatter. Sometimes it’s good to just wallow in sorrow, watching TV and eating treats. It’s like when you’re in the midst of teenage angst and you and your boyfriend break up, the last thing you want to hear are cheerful “There are lots of fish in the sea!” type comments, because all you want to do is be sad and listen to sad music (“I can’t live, if living is without you, I can’t give, I can’t give anymore…”) and eat ice cream straight from the container. It’s natural to want your child to be happy, but being sad is part of life and I think sometimes we all just need a cupcake remedy.