Category Archives: Hello Calgary

Charity Birthday Parties, or the post where I have strong opinions about birthdays

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I frequently look at my house and feel like I’m drowning in stuff.  I’m not even talking about Mark’s extensive “rock collection” (“Maybe we should get him a rock polisher for Christmas!” my husband suggested cheerfully, to my horror – how many MORE rocks would we then have in the house?).  I’m not talking about the fact that my fridge is threatening to implode from the sheer volume of artwork that is either festooning it via magnets or piled in a scary high stack on top of it.  Those are things I can handle (although not the idea of a rock polisher, heaven forfend). 

We’re in an awkward stage, toy wise.  The problem I’m facing right now is that my children still build complicated tracks with their wooden Thomas toys, they use both the junior Duplo Lego AND the teeny tiny big kid Lego, they play with dinosaurs AND stuffed animals, they stage car races with dozens and dozens of little Hot Wheels, they play with board games and superhero action figures.  In other words, there is nothing in the house that I can in good conscience donate or otherwise get rid of.  We are literally drowning in the volume of toys that we have and I have not been able to donate anything that was unused since I boxed up all the Little People sets and Mega Blocks. 

So when we were planning Jake’s birthday party, there was no question: no gifts.  We did this last year as well; on the invitations I specified that in lieu of gifts, each guest was asked to bring a food bank donation.  One of the things I most dislike about other children’s parties are buying gifts for them – I never know what to get, I never know if they have something or not, and I generally feel overwhelmed and confused while trolling the aisles of the toy store.  Food donations – easy.  And let me tell you, people stepped up!

Having a charity birthday party is a very good way to introduce children to the concept of giving and what I consider to be the responsibility of people who are more fortunate than others.  My children are, I think, extremely fortunate and lucky children; they receive many gifts from aunts and uncles, grandparents, and us.  There were fifteen children at Jake’s party; he would not need, and should not have, fifteen little gifts. 

In order to have a successful charity party, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.  First, make sure your child is in agreement – have a discussion about charities and giving and be sure to reiterate that they ARE going to get gifts from family members, just not from their little friends.  We can only expect so much.  Second, make sure the party is going to be a lot of fun – the focus of a birthday party, or any party, should really be the good time we are all having, rather than gifts.  We held the party at the Calgary Gymnastics Centre, and it was fabulous.  The kids all had a blast, there was no downtime, and there was only thirty minutes of “party room” time which is where I find parties to really drag. 

Third, make sure you have good food.  Since our party was from 3-5 pm, I did not want to have a huge snack for the kids right before the dinner hour, so I just served cupcakes.  We had a guest with Celiac disease, and so I branched out and made both regular and gluten free cupcakes, and they were equally – but differently – delicious.
Can you tell which are gluten free?  (Hint: the short ones).

The last thing to remember about having a successful charity party is do not forget the loot bags.  I know.  I know.  Loot bags are a scourge on society, but really, you CAN have loot bags and not lose your essence of yourself if you choose carefully.  I gave each child a little egg of Silly Putty – my kids once received those from a dinner guest of mine and they played with it for months after, so hooray for longevity and non-breakable-ness – an eraser shaped like a crayon, and a ton of candy.  Fortunately Halloween candy has been in the stores for over a month now, so I bought several large bags of rockets, bubble gum, and candy necklaces.  I gauged the party’s success from the sheer joy that volume of candy brought to the guests.  Our little gluten-free guest was particularly overjoyed as she opened her bag.  “ROCKETS?  Nicole, I’m ALLOWED to have Rockets!” she shrieked.

Success!  At the end of the day, we had a giant box of food donations AND a group of happy, exhausted, and sugar-high children.  What could be better?

T minus 7

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My husband has been away on a golf trip and yesterday I did something I haven’t done since my single-girl days: I had popcorn for dinner.  I announced it to the kids that we were going to have pancakes and popcorn for dinner, and that announcement was met with silent, nervous smiles.  “Do you mean, we’re going to have breakfast for dinner and THEN have popcorn later?” Jake ventured.  No.  I assured him that popcorn was on the menu, and there was some mild cheering, followed by “Okay, but you said we’re having pancakes too, right?  I mean, popcorn for dinner doesn’t really sound that HEALTHY.”

I’d feel much more smug about their health conscious attitudes if these weren’t the same children who would, if allowed, eat chicken fingers and fries daily for the rest of their lives.

It’s just one week until school starts and I feel somewhat compelled to cram as much fun as possible into the remaining days, and so yesterday we had a lovely day with friends at the local amusement park.  It was hot and sunny, the kids had a blast, and the day was only slightly marred by the disappointing “prize” won by Mark at the fishing game.  Instead of a hoped-for tiny, crappy stuffed animal, he won a pair of crappy, star-shaped glasses.  Much sadness followed, as well as a vow to never play the fishing game again.  Would that I could believe that.
It was unusually hot, and so the boys played in the sprinkler for hours after we got home.  I sat on the deck with a cold beer and watched them, thinking that this is truly the life.  There are times when being a stay-at-home mom can feel like some kind of sentence, but summer days like that are pure gold.

Speaking of gold, prior to my husband’s golf trip we took the boys for a day trip to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake; quite possibly the most beautiful area in the world, and one that we haven’t visited with kids before.  It was a great day, although it was much, much colder than the city.  Fortunately I had packed jackets.  I also packed my thirteen year old, heavy duty leather hiking boots.  My husband looked askance at them.  “We’re not really doing hard-core hiking”, he said “Why don’t you just pack some practical shoes?”  Um, because I have no practical shoes?  Perhaps it’s time to go shopping.

"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? 

I can’t hear a word they’re saying, only the echos of my mind

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I am currently wondering if it is possible to be talked to death.  Or talked into submission.  In any case, I think my children are trying to break some sort of record, a talking record.  The biggest issue, as I see it, is that each’s child’s speech is a set in a Venn diagram, but their sets are not overlapping in the least, and so the conversation is going like this:

Mark: Isn’t it so cool we saw river otters at the zoo today?

Jake (wielding a small light sabre): Do you think that my powers can defeat this sword?

Mark: It would be so cool if river otters lived in the Bow River.

Jake: AIEEEEEEE!  I’m going to DESTROY the sword!

Mark: It’s neat that the Bow River eventually flows into the Hudson Bay.  I mean, after it turns into all those other rivers.

Jake: MOM GUESS WHAT MOM GUESS WHAT MOM MOM MOM MOM I’M BATTLING THIS SWORD WITH FIRE!  FIIIIIIRRRRRRREEEEE!

Mark: Hey Mom?

Me: Yes?

Mark: Hey Mom?

Me: Yes, Mark?

Mark: Um.  Um.  I forgot what I was going to tell you.

Jake: BATTLE GEAR BOOOOOOOOSSSSSSTTTT!

We spent most of the day at the zoo and, in spite of the sunshine and exercise, the boys seem invigorated rather than tired.  The house looks like a toy-filled bomb went off, or, alternately, a giant pinata filled with Legos and Ben 10 aliens was smashed with a baseball bat in my living room.  The noise level is currently approaching “deafening”. 

Update: the sets in the Venn diagram are now overlapping!  Mark has joined into Jake’s bizarre game of destruction and now they are both screaming loudly and running laps around the house.

Right now, giving up alcohol on weeknights seems like a terrible lapse in judgement.

It doesn’t help that my husband has been working a lot lately, in fact we were supposed to be on vacation right now but obviously, we are not.  When the boys were babies my husband was at a different job and he would leave the house at seven in the morning and return after seven at night.  That was essentially the hours that the boys were awake, and so my whole day would be spent alone with little people.  Now, of course, things are different and getting a phone call from my husband saying that he is going to be late does not reduce me to tears.  But still.  It’s loud. 

Random Complaints from a Deposed Princess

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I always knew this day would come, and here it is.  My family doctor is retiring, and for those of you who do not live in Canada, let me tell you that finding a family doctor – ANY family doctor, let alone a good family doctor – is a big problem.  My doctor has been practicing many years and so has many contacts in the medical community, he is calm and competent, not to mention that he has been my doctor for as long as I can remember.  Also, his office is five minutes from my house.  I had it so good for so long, and now I’m joining the masses of people without a physician, the people who have to go to walk-in clinics and emergency rooms.  I feel like a much pampered princess, suddenly deposed and made to live among the commoners, scrabbling for her own potatoes and whatnot.  Or like Sara in A Little Princess, one day wearing custom made frocks and enjoying a personal carriage and French-speaking maid, the next day banished to living in the attic, wearing only a too-small black dress and running errands through the rainy streets of London, being reprimanded by the cook and consuming only scraps of bread.     
Things could be worse.  The dog could have gotten skunked over the weekend, which was an actual worry of mine.  I took the kids up to my parents’ cottage and as I was relaxing on the deck with a drink, I noticed the world’s biggest squirrel walk across the driveway, only when I noticed its tail, I realized that the giant squirrel was in actuality a skunk!  Shortly after that the neighbour came by to mention that she had seen me walking the dog near the gardens on the gravel road, and that she thought she had better tell me that there was a nest of baby skunks in the aforementioned gardens.  Yikes!  Fortunately we made it home without having to give the dog a tomato juice bath, but run-ins with wildlife seemed to be on Barkley’s radar screen this weekend.  The world’s stupidest family of robins chose our yard to teach their baby birds to fly, which seems adorably precious and magical until one is faced with the fact of my gigantic fluffy dog who attacked and would have eaten our small feathered friend were it not for my frantic screaming and my husband’s collaring of the dog.  That would not have been the first bird that Barkley would have eaten.
Yesterday was a rare day in that it was hot – thirty degrees! – and sunny, with no wind.  It was the kind of day that divides the city’s population into two main groups: those who enjoy and celebrate the unusual summer temperatures, and those who complain incessantly about the unbearable heat, the heat that lasts less than two days at a time, IF THAT.  I belong to the first group and, despite my general adherence to the principle of ahimsa, I want to punch those in the second group in the face.  I took advantage of the heat to take the kids to the outdoor pool with a friend, and it was essentially the perfect afternoon, other than a couple of visuals that left me wanting to scrub out my eyes.  I’m no fashion maven.  I wear jeans and black sweaters ninety percent of the time.  I’m also all for self-expression and feeling good about yourself in your own skin.  However, the following are a plague on society: animal print speedos on anyone but especially on leathery old men, transparent-when-wet white bathing suits, especially in the middle of the afternoon in a pool filled with young children, and nipple rings.  Why?  Why?  WHY?
Maybe it’s just a mistake in judgement.  I came across the following Bob Ross “Joy of Painting” quote:
“You really cannot make a mistake here. And as you know, we don’t
make mistakes, we have happy accidents. We just have happy accidents.”
Perhaps those wearing them think that speedos, white bathing suits, and nipple rings are happy accidents, but NO.  I’m still going with plague on society here.


Yee-haw

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The rain that has been coming down since Monday has stopped, and, in the manner of mothers everywhere, I have just sighed with relief and shooed my children outside.  The noise level has been unbelievable around here.  We played Go Fish and the sounds emanating from my children were ear-shattering.  Mark dislikes “winning” games, and so we played Go Fish as a game in which we were rescuing animals; anyone getting a pair rescued the animals displayed on the cards.  It was like a cooperative, super-politically-correct version of Go Fish.  My friend asked me if saying Go Fish was verbatim from an animal-cruelty perspective, and in fact Mark DID make everyone say “Go Rescue” instead.

Jake continued to say Go Fish throughout the game.

It is not a coincidence that I am drinking a beer right now.  Not just because of the, to quote the Grinch, “Noise! Noise! Noise!”, but also because it’s Stampede week!  For those of you who are not familiar, Stampede is not just a rodeo/midway/excuse to come up with ever-more disgusting food products.  Doughnut burgers are a new thing this year, and I wish, I WISH I was joking about this.  A maple dipped doughnut is the bun.  Meat in the middle.  It makes me fear for society.

Speaking of fearing for society, I wonder if carnies still try to cop a feel while adjusting safety restraints.  Or is sexual harassment via midway entertainment so twenty years ago?  It’s hard to say. 

But Stampede is more than just that.  Stampede is ten days of drunken debauchery for a large percentage of Calgarians and those who may be visiting Calgary during this time.  Divorce lawyers are busy as bees in the weeks following Stampede, and pregnancy rates go up.  My own first born was conceived during a Stampede week, and so was almost every other baby in my prenatal class.  (My second born was conceived during the Christmas season, and September is also a busy time in the delivery room.  Was Mommy kissing Santa Claus?  Why yes, she was.)

More than that, Stampede is a time where bad fashion rears its ugly head.  This was especially apparent to me back in the days when I worked in an office.  Men with whom I had a professional relationship and who would normally be clad in khakis and golf shirts would come to work clad in tight Wrangler jeans and shirts with wolves on them.  Or sunsets.  Or eagles.  And the women!  My friend Rita wrote a brilliant piece on Stampede fashion and I cannot even attempt to replicate her accurate descriptions, and so I will just direct you to read the piece.  Hootchie Mama indeed, Rita, you hit the nail on the head.

Sloth and the Splash Pad – Summer of Awesome

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We have been on summer vacation for one week and we have turned into a slothful people.  This is why I don’t register the kids in any organized activities; we are too busy being completely lazy every morning to get anywhere.  I’m in my sweaty yoga clothes, drinking coffee and accomplishing nothing, until finally showering at 10:00, which sounds pretty benign until I realize I’ve been up for over five hours.  It’s all we can do to get organized enough to leave the house by early afternoon.  Mark has created a game he calls “Left Hook” which involves a chutes and ladders board, the corresponding superhero game pieces, sharks, and death.  This game goes on for hours.  HOURS.  Each morning he sets up the board and the boys are occupied for a very long time.  Jake joins in as well but alternates between Left Hook and his own complicated game that involves aliens, clay, and death.
The weather here has been so sunny and warm that I secretly wonder if I moved without knowing it.  I don’t THINK I did.  When it’s warm like this I have the frantic urge to seize the day and spend every second doing warm-weather activities, like swimming.  Not that I am swimming.  But I’m enjoying watching the kids swim.  I am also defiantly displaying my scarred, scarred legs. 
Outdoor pools are something of a novelty to me, since it is rarely so warm here that one would crave “cooling off” in a pool.  Mostly when it is warm I have the urge to become as hot and sweaty as possible in the hopes that I will store up the heat for when the weather turns.  There are a few outdoor pools here, and we have been enjoying them, by the time I pull myself together and get the kids in their suits and sunscreen.
Yesterday we went to an old favourite, a little wading pool that has been recently turned into a splash pad.  If you’re in the area, you should check it out with the following caveat: the recent refurbishment means that grass sod has been newly laid and so, in the spirit of following the signage to keep off the grass, there is very little space to lay out picnic blankets, although I’m sure that will sort itself out as the summer goes on.
The kids had a great time, despite being disappointed that their friends couldn’t join us due illness.  I managed to snap some super cute pictures; however, I was disappointed to discover that unfortunately I a) didn’t notice the moms in bathing suits standing behind the kids, resulting in mom bums in the background of most of the shots, and b) I don’t know how to photoshop things. 
I used little black stars to mask the moms behind Jake.  I AM CREATIVE.

Mark got soaked and then coughed for an hour. 
Oh, post-pneumonia-infection cough!  When will you leave?

Calgary may not be the prettiest city around, but look at that blue sky!  And look at me, wearing a bathing suit and NOT EVEN CARING ABOUT MY VERY SCARRED LEGS.
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As some of you have noticed, I have a new logo!  I love it so much.  My beautiful friend Tracy, over at makemesocial.com made it for me.  She’s creative and fabulous and she sees me every morning at 5:00 am and she LOVES ME ANYWAY.  Those are my feet, by the way!  Thanks Tracy – you’re the best, baby.  xoxo