Category Archives: Playtime

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo…

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Are you ready for this?  The shower doors are finished!  Our renovations are completed!  Wheeeeee.  Pictures to follow, but for now I’m just excited and relieved and the teensiest bit annoyed that the head contractor wanted to come and pick up the final cheque immediately, without us being able to test things out.  Hey buddy, I’ve been waiting anxiously for the past three weeks to get these things installed, maybe you can wait a day or two until we’ve actually used the shower?  I don’t know.
The shower doors were supposed to be installed last Thursday, but at the last minute I was informed that there was a fire and kiln explosion at the manufacturer, and the upshoot of that alarming information was that our doors were not ready.  I moped for a second and then decided to seize the day and head to the zoo with the kids. 
I bought my first zoo pass when Mark was a baby, on the advice of my friend who had a one-year-old daughter and hence was my muse for all things mama.  At first, I would meet up with friends and enjoy wandering around the exhibits, all of us pushing our strollers while our babies napped or cried or chewed on their stroller toys.  Later we would get together more sporadically with our double strollers, all of us looking like zombie hunchbacks.  Eventually going to the zoo became really fun as the kids walked, and chose favourite animals, and played in the picnic areas. 
The zoo has a penguin display now, and although we waited in line during spring break for ninety minutes, this time we chose to just peek at the outdoor display and leave the waiting to others.
The boys wanted to walk through the dinosaur park, and I took the same picture I’ve been taking for the past couple of years.  There’s nothing like looking at old pictures to realize that the kids have grown – OMG! – and that time is flying and next thing you know they will be calling me once a week on Sundays.

In other news, the kids seem to have been stretched. 

Jake’s favourite animal at the zoo has always been Foggy the hippo.  Foggy is one of the oldest hippos alive – he will be 47 this year! – and his birthday is only two days after Jake’s.  Jake feels a deep kinship with him. 

Check this picture out from two years ago:

Jake’s longtime favourite colour is orange, in case you didn’t notice.
Mark prefers the Canadian Wilds part of the zoo.

But he also loves the dinosaur park, as he did two years ago:

I forgave the shower door people their kiln fire and explosion, since we had such a great day after all.  I especially forgive them now that we have shower doors that fit properly! 
“Hey Mom, we’ve been playing in this tree ever since we were little!”  Yes, you have, my sweeties.

Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy.

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We’ve been experiencing SUMMER here in YYC.  The days have been sunny, and warm – hot even.  Of course, this is relative.  The highest temperature of the week is 30 degrees Celsius, which is 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which – when compared with my friends down in Virginia, where the tarmac at an airport melted in the 105 F heat, plus 90% humidity – seems more pleasantly warm than scorching.  However, according to local newscasters, this is a heat wave!  And we’re all going to melt! 

This is my very favourite kind of weather; in the rare occasions that it does get this warm, I get a crazy case of carpe diem: Must.Spend.Every.Possible.Minute.Outside.Before.Snow.Comes.  Fortunately, being a lady of leisure, I can do this.  For example, on Sunday we spent the whole afternoon lounging beside our backyard pool:

Unfortunately some armed thugs stormed the yard:

The dog retreated to the safety of the deck:

And I got a (relative) suntan!

Yesterday the boys and I spent the whole afternoon with a friend and her two sons at the local outdoor pool and it was so hot that I actually voluntarily got in the water.  That never happens.  Fortunately this guy biked over to the pool, and things got even HOTTER:

Sadly, this is untrue – the pool was filled with moms and kids.  The happy shrieking was enough to keep the wildlife away:

WHERE ARE THE ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS?  Won’t anyone think of the poor baby lions?

But I realize that, although I love the heat, there are people who do not.  For them, I give you tips on keeping cool, even if you do not have a backyard pool and/or local outdoor pool at your disposal, like I do.  Here’s an idea: pour yourself a cocktail with lots of ice and run a nice, cool bubble bath:

Or maybe take your sailboat out onto the water:

Aiee.  Tan lines. 

Don’t worry about cooking dinner.  Fruit salad will do just fine.  Don’t forget the pineapple.

ALL of these men were featured in issues of Playgirl from the 1970s.  As my friend Beck said, how were any of us born if that’s what the desirable dudes looked like back then?  It truly is mysterious.

Slow Boat to Nowhere

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The kitchen renovation was slated to begin at 11:00 this morning.  Yesterday, I frantically cleaned out all the bottom cupboards and removed things from the countertops, pausing only to wonder when I bought Gorilla Munch, as its best before date was over a year ago.  All items are now in big Rubbermaid containers and/or on my table and/or under my coffee table.  I was ready to go!  And…now it’s 11:30.  I received information that they will start this afternoon, which is fine, that makes the lunch rush much less awkward, but I feel a little lost.

In order to assuage my lost little girl feelings, I decided it was time for a field trip to the garden centre.  Stocking up on plants prior to the long weekend seemed like a good idea, although I certainly will not actually plant them yet as it is supposed to snow.  Good times, YYC.  Good times.  I had full intentions of only buying a few plants for my containers, but ended up with a cart that looked like this:

I was powerless to stop myself.  Right now they are all on the deck, just waiting to be covered up before the snow flies. 

I just credit myself for not purchasing one of the many beautiful bird houses on display.  I almost put a very lovely one in my cart, but then I remembered: my dog likes to kill birds!  Wheee!  Perhaps a bird house would be ill-advised.

Speaking of my murderous dog, I almost had an experience that would strain neighbour relations in a significant way.  These neighbours, a few doors down, have very pampered indoor cats, one of whom likes to escape a lot.  I was working downstairs and came up to fill my coffee cup for the fourth time when I noticed the cat – whose name is, and I am not making this up, Beeps – in the backyard.  Barkley was also in the backyard.  I bolted for the door, just in time as Barkley took the opportunity to pounce.  He was mere centimetres away from the not-so-bright cat, when I called and collared him.  As I shuffled him into the house, I noticed my neighbour, standing on the other side of the fence, looking completely unfazed.  “That was a bit close,” I said to her.  “Oh, no.” she smiled at me vacantly.  “They were just playing.  They’re friends!” 

Now, I am the first to admit I don’t know much about cats.  However.  I am aware of the saying “fighting like cats and dogs” and also I am aware that the cat is much, much smaller than my dog and is declawed.  If I have to bring a cat corpse over to my neighbour’s house one day, I am not going to be happy on a number of levels.  My friend suggested that should there be a cat corpse in my backyard, perhaps it should be BURIED in my backyard, in order to keep neighbourly relations.  Not a bad plan, although it makes me feel a little bit like I would be starring in a less-interesting version of Rear Window.

Perhaps I should have purchased one of these at the garden centre:

Animatronic owls! 

I just got off the phone with the plumber.  I am going to be without a working sink until FRIDAY.  Friday of the long weekend.  Anxiety is looming.  It feels like SO MUCH could go wrong.

I will take my mind off this.  Cute kid anecdote: my kids were playing Star Wars before school this morning, and the characters they were portraying were Anakin (Mark) and Luke (Jake).  Now, Anakin DID chop off Luke’s hand, but it was by accident and it was to save him because he was trapped.  Luke forgave him.  Then they went to Planet Hoth to go snowboarding!  Good times in Utopian Star Wars.

I felt I had to share this cute anecdote as I have been talking so much about my dog lately that I was starting to feel that I was portraying myself as a crazy dog lady.  Which…I might be.  Dammit.  I should have bought that owl.

A Whirlwind of Boring Activity

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I have been in a whirlwind of activity the past few days.  A whirlwind, I tell you!  Since Friday I have had more errands and social outings than I probably do in two weeks.  I would describe them in detail but I fear that may be boring, and I fear it may also be less impressive than it feels right now.  So I will simply say that we are, evidently, renovating our kitchen.

Let’s pause for a moment here while I deep breathe.

Things snowballed when we realized that soon our dishwasher will need to be replaced.  Well, if we replace the dishwasher, why not all new appliances?  And countertops?  And sink?  And backsplash?  And flooring…and suddenly a new project is on the horizon.  I’m not sure how my dog – or I, myself – will deal with the upheaval but I have been assured that this is a quick and easy project.  Oh, hahaha!  I am going to be insane and/or liver damaged by the end of it, I just know it.  Chaos is not a happy thing for me, although I will be very happy to have a new kitchen. 

I’m especially excited to get a new range, since I loathe mine and yet it is in near-constant use.  My husband and I went to the appliance store, where we were helped by the strangest, most vacant salesman ever.  Perhaps he was new at his job; I don’t know.  All I know is that whenever I said anything at all about the features I desired, he would stare at me silently for about fifteen seconds prior to responding.  It was very unnerving.  Then he would respond in this manner “Do you cook?  Or do you LOVE to cook?”  Whatever, buddy, just show me the hood fans.  He proceeded to describe how much he loved his own convection oven because it gave him crispy chicken wings, just like the deep fried ones in restaurants.  This one-sided discussion about cooking various meat products went on for at least five minutes.  In the meantime, I completely zoned out and wondered if a dual oven is worthwhile or not, and I still haven’t decided.  Do you have one?  Do you like it?  Help a girl out, dear reader.

Then, of course, it was Mother’s Day, and I hope yours was lovely.  I received cards from the boys, that they made themeselves with no intervention on the part of my husband, which struck me as very sweet and thoughtful.  It was actually a warm and beautiful weekend – no snow! – and so I spent quite a bit of time in the garden, and some time at the park where the boys rode their bikes and I realized that the bike Jake is riding is ridiculously too small for him.  He looks a bit like a clown riding a miniature bike.  A skinny, unmade-up clown. 

Are you “mom enough” to hang out with these two characters?  Oh, mass media.  Fueling the “mommy wars” since…well, I don’t know when.  Can’t we all just get along?

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Hey, speaking of mommy stuff (no, not wars, because that is MADE UP CRAP), check this out: I was listed as one of “24 Mom Blogs You Should Read” over at Yummy Mummy Club.  There are some seriously fabulous blogs on that list – Dinner with Julie, Crib Chronicles, Little Miss Mocha, to name but a few – so I am thrilled to be on that list!  Thanks!  xoxo

Birthday and Earth Day and Painting the Basement

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Today is voting day in Alberta and, as luck would have it, my polling station was located at my kids’ school, making it easy to slip in after drop off and vote.  You know you are at the polling station early when you beat the sea of seniors flooding in. 

How was your weekend?  Mine was absolutely fabulous, and I just have to mention the weather – warm, hot even, and sunny.  It was perfect birthday weather!  I am now older than Mrs. Robinson and yet I feel just as saucy.

I look just like this, minus the smoking and the (I think) fur coat.  Honestly, I kind of love her hair.  I would cut mine like this but I am committed to growing it out, because I regret it every single time I cut my hair.  Hoo boy, here’s a hot picture:

I would totally not trust Dustin Hoffman to fasten my bra.  He looks way too befuddled.  Come on, Mrs. Robinson, you’re better than that. 

I do wear a similar amount of makeup though.
So it was my birthday and it was a very happy one, complete with a date night on Friday, new Pandora beads from the boys – including a dog one, from the dog – on Saturday, ice cream cake, and a visit with my grandma, who is in town!  I also treated myself to homemade cosmopolitans which, while delicious, left my Sunday morning yoga practice a bit to be desired.  Well, as Bridget Jones says, if you can’t splash out on your birthday, then when can you?
Our Earth Day celebration took the form of a seeding and raking party with the neighbourhood parents over at the school’s naturalization area (read: area that has been planted with native grasses and plants; an “outdoor learning area”, if you will).  Did I mention it was hot and sunny?  It was a fabulous day; the kids were riding their bikes, playing in the playground, and blowing bubbles while we raked and seeded and chatted.  The day was only slightly marred by my apparent development of allergies to all the grass and dust.  I took some Benadryl for my sore, itchy throat and then slept like the dead.  LIKE THE DEAD.  I woke up, startled, when my alarm went off and it took me a while to shake that groggy feeling.  Who knew that Benadryl was so deadly? 
Speaking of saving the earth and whatnot, we had our basement painted last week.  Well, that really had nothing to do with saving the earth with the exception that we used special non-smelly paint.  But our basement!  It’s now blue!  I’m so happy with it, and will get around to posting pictures soon.  Years back in the dead of winter I wanted to paint our whole house blue – so cheerful!  Who could be sad in a blue house?  But I met with some resistance, and now we have compromised on a blue basement and wow, it’s lovely. 
We had hired a guy to do the painting, and it turned out that he was the type of guy who preferred to work without even the company of the radio, which meant that I completely forgot he was there.  Normally when we have had people working on our house, things have been very noisy and disruptive – i.e., the hardwood – but painting in the basement?  Silence.  Which meant that I would come in from my errands, and walk around the house singing.  Because, you know, I seem to think my life is like a musical theatre, the way I burst into song at any given time of the day.  Remember my impromptu Christmas duet with the old man at the liquor store?  It’s like that.  The problem was that the songs going through my head were twofold: Linger by the Cranberries, and Over My Head by Fleetwood Mac.  So throughout the day I found myself bursting out with “You’ve got me wrapped around your FINGER, do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it LINGER?” or “You can take me to paradise, then again you can be cold as ice, I’m over my head – OVER MY HEAD – but it sure feels NICE.”  Then I would remember, I’m not alone.  I would stop abruptly, and all I would hear is the near-silence of the paint roller.  It was kind of ominous. 
It turned out that the painter’s girlfriend is a mail carrier, and coicindentally she was substitutng for our mail carrier last week!  She brought him a Jugo Juice and the two of them sat on our step for lunch.  Cute!  Young love!  I’m sure he had better things to talk about than the crazy singing lady-client.  Right?

COME ON DOWN! You’re the next contestant…

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It’s the last day of January, which feels very strange given that, with the exception of about ten days wherein I had that feeling of doom that I would never be warm again, it has been mild.  The snow is almost melted in my backyard, which is odd.  Perhaps the apocalypse is upon us?  I can think of no other explanation. 

Other things I cannot think of an explanation for: why I thought it was a good idea to apply nailpolish five minutes before I needed to leave the house, thus ruining the nailpolish application the second I put my coat on; why I have had Pinball Wizard stuck in my head for days only to magically have it disappear and be replaced by Rasputin; why there is an audience for such shows featuring people who live in swamps, or who are crowded in their houses because they cannot stop purchasing on-sale toilet paper, or who dress their young daughters up for beauty pageants; why people take their dog-hating dogs to off-leash parks, and then become defensive when my dog-loving dog goes to greet their dogs – why not just leash your dog and walk it around the block?; and why I am insanely craving popcorn at ten in the morning and I also feel like bursting into uncontrollable tears and/or curling up in bed and wallowing in sadness?

There may be an explanation for the last one.  Rah rah Rasputin.  Lover of the Russian queen.  They put some poison into his wine.

Related: can a tsarina really be referred to as a queen?  I know that it was the Russian royal family, but is a tsarina and a queen the same thing?

Completely unrelated: when I was a kid I loved watching The Price is Right.  If I could time travel, I would totally go back to the early 80s and I would be a contestant on that show.  Ideally, I would be wearing a tube top.  I would get to play Plinko – and I would get all the chips because I would know which cost more, a case of Rice-a-Roni or an electric kettle.  I would spin the wheel – and, even if I didn’t win the $10,000, I would still be the first to choose my showcase showdown which would include: an RV, a dinette set, and a trip to lovely Myrtle Beach.  I would get inappropriately hugged by Bob Barker, and I would scream and wave my arms around a lot in excitement.  Perhaps I would even fall on the floor – I don’t know.  I haven’t gotten that far in my time-travel fantasy.

When I was a kid I used to think it would be so cool to live in the 1800’s; maybe I would work on my embroidery sampler all day, or perhaps write things on my slate with my slate pencil, and I would be excused from excessive physical activity since running or sports would put a serious strain on my corsets.  Now I just think that it seems kind of icky, living with no running water and no toilets – I don’t even like camping, at campgrounds WITH running water and toilets – and also my embroidery ability, like my ability to sew on buttons, is extremely hampered by my inability to put a piece of thread in a needle and not have it completely tangled in seconds.  Also I am unable to sew anything without crying.  So if I were to time travel, it would definitely be to be a contestant on The Price is Right.  Wouldn’t you just love a new dinette set?  Or – OR – a NEW! CAR!

While I’m at it, maybe I would time travel to be one of Barker’s Beauties!  I could walk along the stage in my super high heels with unlikely and impractical “camping wear” (i.e., Daisy Duke shorts and a plaid shirt tied at the waist) with a giant smile, showcasing the grand prize of a recreational vehicle.  Only for a day, though – I would like to blot out the whole Bob Barker creepy grossness. 

If you could time travel, where would you go?

Santa’s coming! Santa! I know him!

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True confessions: I have never taken my children to a mall to “meet Santa”.  I’m going to really put myself out there for a moment and say that it has always seemed a little skeevy to me, to set my babies on this dressed-up stranger’s lap, this stranger masquerading as Santa, only to have them shriek in terror for the photographer elf.  This website, devoted to creepy Santa photos and terrified children, kind of kills me. 

Plus, it’s not even the REAL Santa!  Every time I see a photo of children with Santa, I think only of Buddy the Elf and his excitement to see Santa, followed by: You stink.  You smell like beef and cheese.  You don’t smell like Santa.  You sit on a throne of lies!  I also think of my husband, who figured out at age three or four the myth that is Santa by visiting more than one shopping mall in a day and seeing more than one Santa.  The gig is up, fat guy.

It’s a strange ritual, isn’t it?  The thought of going to the mall right now makes me hyperventilate, but the thought of going to the mall and standing in line for an hour with small children just so they can freak out on Santa’s lap?  Ca-razy.

I realize I’m in the minority here.  I’m also probably in the minority for thinking it’s kind of funny that my kids keep singing, to the tune of Jingle Bells, “911, 911, Santa Claus is dead!  Rudolph got a dollar to shoot him in the head!”  Ah, where would we be without Rudolph-as-depicted-as-a-hitman songs?

Despite our anti-Santa sentiment around here – my kids are non-believers, would you guess? – the excitement about Christmas is escalating.  I went to the grocery store yesterday to purchase a few items for Christmas Eve and for some special festive brunches, and realized that the bus from the local seniors’ residence now always comes Mondays at nine.  In other words, at the exact same time I do my shopping.  This means, clearly, I need to find another morning in which to procure my weekly groceries, because I simply can’t take it anymore.  I cannot take the grumbling about the amount of cash registers that are open, I cannot take the accidental bumping of my legs by grocery cart absentmindedly leaned upon by an elderly lady, I cannot take the crabbing to cashiers about the scandalously high price of butter.  I was thinking this, impatiently, as I saw the crowd of mainly elderly women obtaining their carts and looking critically at the “Festive Solutions” display.

But then I saw an old man fumbling around in the cookie section, with his cart full of eggs and bread and ice cream, I saw him carefully choose a bag of “Dad’s” oatmeal cookies and set it in his cart.  I caught his eye and smiled.  I thought that he looked sad, and lonely.  I wondered if this was the first Christmas he was doing the grocery shopping.  I wondered if he was all alone this Christmas, if his wife was gone and he was just doing the best he could.  It reminded me – not for the first time – how very difficult this time of year can be, how joyless and bleak it can seem, and I felt unworthy of all the luck and happiness in my life. 

I went home and unloaded all my groceries, then headed to the school to pick up my boys for lunch.  They ran across the snowy playground to meet me, singing about dead Santa and murderous Rudolph and Robin laying an egg.  My luck and my happiness.