Category Archives: Testosterone-y

Don’t it make my brown eyes bluuuuueeee.

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So I’ve been blue, due to a number of factors, the most pressing being disappointment over not being offered a writing contract that I had my heart set on.  I’ve been in mourning about it, wallowing and eating all manner of bad things, and reading my most favourite comfort book, Diary of a Provincial Lady.  That book never fails to cheer me up.  It’s like chocolate cake and macaroni and cheese for the mind.  It is possibly the wittiest book ever written, and contains such gems as:

Move about after dinner, and meet acquaintance whose name I have forgotten, but connect with literature.  I ask if he has published anything lately.  He says that his work is not, and never can be, for publication.  Thought passes through my mind to the effect that this attitude might with advantage be adopted by many others.

Right?  Mark said “I’m sorry you’re sad you can’t write for those people.  But you can still write at home!  On your computer!”  True. 

Do you have a comfort book?  I once dated a guy who had a comfort movie.  Whenever he was feeling ill or down, he would watch Rudy.  The thought of it makes me snicker, and not in the kindest way.  Remember the scene – if you ever had the misfortune to watch said film – when all the players brought their jerseys to the coach.  “It’s for Rudy, Coach.” 

It just occurred to me: maybe I’m like Rudy.  I do have a lot of heart.  That’s depressing.

It also occurs to me that perhaps I just need an excuse, at this time of year, to have an emotional breakdown.  Remember last year?  When I had a complete breakdown at the fact that my printer wasn’t working and ended up sobbing, on the phone for hours with the Dell representative who kept speaking in soothing tones and asking if maybe I should get myself a drink of water and not to worry, he was going to to take care of everything?  I’m a mental case.

Not helping matters is the fact that we are all a tiny bit sick.  Nothing full blown, nothing major, but the boys both woke up Friday morning with slight runny noses.  Two things: a) that was fast, normally the first cold of the year occurs within the second week of school, not the second day, and b) five years old is NOT too young for a man-cold.  Jake became completely indignant that he was going to go to school, despite a tiny sniffle and slightly watery eyes.  “I can’t BELIEVE this,” he said, “This is the SECOND TIME I’ve gone to school like this!”  I related this amusing anecdote to my husband but ended up having to explain the concept of the man-cold to him, which was somewhat awkward.  I tried to make the explanation as general as possible.

And how was the first day of school?  It was excellent.  Both boys are, as anticipated, in the same class at school.  The benefits of this arrangement far outweigh the negatives, not the least of which is that I don’t have to be room parent for two separate classrooms and, with any luck, I will only receive ONE copy of all the notices that come home from school.  Also the boys are ecstatic to be together, and their teacher is fabulous, one in a million.

On the way home from dropping the boys at school, I saw a woman with a very small boy, standing on the sidewalk watching a wood chipper at work.  That brought me back, intensely.  I don’t know how many hours I spent watching various large machinery at work, boys in tow.  I don’t know how many times I would take them outside to watch the garbage truck pick up the trash, or watch sidewalk repairs, or to the nearby construction site where a large office building was being built.  “Diggies!  Diggies!  Happy!  Happy!” one-year-old Jake would say from the stroller, clapping his hands.  A gas station in our neighbourhood was demolished, and believe me, I spent days watching the machinery tear down the buildings and dig out the contaminated soil.  It got so that the crew would wave when they saw the three of us walking up the street.  My jeans would be caked with mud from carrying Jake, his muddy rubber boots bumping against my thighs.  I would be tired, so tired, but would stand there with my fascinated boys, daydreaming about other things.  And now we’re in a whole new chapter.

  

“What grade are you guys in?”

Where will we be when the summer’s gone?

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Have I mentioned that it has been – wait for it – unseasonably hot around here?  Honestly, it’s beautiful, and every day I have a sneaking feeling that I have been transported to a different city without my knowledge.  Today it was – wait for it – thirty degrees Celcius which is both highly abnormal and very welcome.  Sadly, the days of capri pants and tank tops are going to come to a screeching halt tomorrow given the forecast of rain and cool temperatures, but that’s okay.  I’m now ready for the kids to go back to school, which is happening Thursay.

The kids are also very ready to go back to school.  Mark has been making up his own math worksheets, and is asking me to put little checkmarks beside each correct answer.  Jake has been creating incredibly complex and difficult to follow stories, and doing home reading of his own accord.  It’s a sign. 

And the talking, my god, the talking.  It’s like someone set the children to “Loud” and “Rambling”.  Part of it is that my husband was not working last week and is now back to work and MY WORD THE CHILDREN MUST FIND AN OUTLET FOR THEIR INCESSANT CONVERSATION.  And by conversation, I mean spouting random facts about Cars 2, bodies of water, and Canadian wild animals, along with non-stop questions about those topics and also complicated explanations for “games” in which I am to pretend I am someone who has a pet river otter, or a pet wolf, and then the “wolf” and “river otter” compete for my attention.  At this point I think my brain has liquified.  But still I participate in these “games”, thinking that wine sounds nice but I can’t have any until Friday and it is only Monday, dammit.

Yesterday I was walking my dog and I ran into a woman who lives in the neighbourhood who I met once, briefly, a few years ago.  She told me that her daughter had graduated high school and her son was a year away from graduation and that she is also now, sadly, widowed, and so she was feeling extremely empty-nested.  Wow.  I was startled by all that information and also felt that maybe I was not appreciating all the time with my children over the past couple of days and that I should get home, pronto, and cherish the moments. 

But I can’t cherish the moments right now because there is SO MUCH NOISE.  Plus right now the kids are arguing about what is more destructive: bombs or fire.  They are getting very emotional and worked up about this apocalyptic argument.  “But fire would burn everything up!”  “But bombs would blow everything up!”  “Fire!”  “Bombs!”  I don’t even know the context of the disagreement, and to be honest, I prefer not to find out.

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.

Moose versus Caribou: The Untold Story

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Yesterday was what I will call a trying day.  My choice of activity for the gloomy day was not great: I decided to take the boys to the mall to buy four – FOUR – birthday gifts, and while there we stopped by the pet store to look at the various rodents for sale.  Much discussion ensued regarding hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs and the sort of pets that the boys would buy when they were grown up and could make their own decisions regarding pets, without the opinion of their mother who is firmly of the belief that ONE DOG IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.  Mark was extremely tired and when Mark is extremely tired, his behaviour exhibits a certain clinginess not usually seen.  I’m not exactly complaining – it’s not like the house was full of tantrums or tears or fights – but having someone within a two foot radius of me all day long is tiring.  Also tiring is answering the constant stream of questions, such as “If you were a waterfall, what waterfall would you be?  Would you be Takakkaw Falls or Bow Falls?” or “What hooved animal is your favourite?” or “What body of water do you like best?  Do you like lakes?  Or oceans?”  I strive to be an involved parent but really.  By the end of the day I felt like screaming “SHUT UP!  JUST STOP TALKING!  I DON’T KNOW IF I PREFER GRIZZLY BEARS TO BLACK BEARS!  I THINK HAMSTERS ARE EQUALLY AS CUTE AS GUINEA PIGS!”  But, despite my own exhaustion, I did not.  I did not because I know that this is the way Mark reacts when he is exhausted, and I also did not drink any alcohol, and because of those two things I think that maybe I deserve some sort of prize. 

Why were we both so tired, you may ask?  It’s because Mark had yet another of his middle-of-the-night two hour coughing fits.  It’s gotten to the point where it’s hard for me to remember what life was like before the cough.  But I’m optimistic that at some point in the near future, there may be an after the cough, since I have excellent news: I have found a doctor to replace my retiring doctor, we had an appointment today, and he has prescribed an inhaler for Mark!  This is momentous indeed.  It’s like I won the lottery.  I feel incredibly fortunate in a right-place-right-time sort of way, and also a tenacious keep-calling-until-someone-answers sort of way. 

So today, in contrast to yesterday, has been a glorious day.  We decided to take the train downtown to see my husband at his office building, which brings me to this: public transit is a funny thing.  The children think that the train is the greatest mode of transportation ever invented.  I, on the other hand, spent the train ride a) wondering just how many viruses were living on the rails and seats, and b) being amused at the conversation between the two young men who were discussing the comic book convention that they had recently attended, and their own ideas for future comic books. 

Well, it’s Friday.  I’m happily partaking in some Cabernet while my husband watches a television show on golf techniques and my children play what is possibly the loudest game ever, involving Hot Wheels cars and lots of cheerful screaming.  Just another Friday night.

Boys and Guns

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My husband went back to work yesterday after a two week vacation and so it’s been just the three of us, getting back into our regular summer routine.  There are, I realized, only three and a half weeks left until school starts and I’m feeling a tad bit melancholy about it.  I decided today we would take advantage of the warmth and sunshine – seize the day – and head to a playground/wading pool.

In my younger, child-free days, I had fairly haughty opinions on kids and guns and violence, and so I smiled ruefully to myself as I found myself hauling three giant bags filled with a picnic, blanket, towels, and water guns.  (Another mom smiled at me and my bags and said cheerfully “I’m the family pack mule too!”).  I spread the blanket down in a sunny area, and marvelled how I am now at the stage where my kids immediately leave me to do their own thing, checking in only when they are hungry.

They also checked in, briefly and occasionally, to inform me how their battle was going.  After arriving at the wading pool with their bazooka-like water guns, they instantly joined up with a pack of similar-aged boys also with bazooka-like water guns whose goal was to destroy a group of older boys with bazooka-like water guns.  In earlier times, this would have worried me considerably, seeing the boys slowly wade through the pool, guns on their shoulders, looking for all the world like American soldiers in a Vietnam war movie.  I heard occasional shrieks of “ATTACK” and “RETREAT, RETREAT!” as they ran around shooting the ten year old boys.  I saw them crouching in the bushes and regrouping as they planned their attack.  It was a little unnerving. 

Our standing rule with water guns is no shooting little kids or those who are unarmed, and no shooting moms.  Especially not me.  I added a second rule, hearing another mom reiterate it, no head shots.  I was, as I always am, amazed at how much time boys – because they were all boys – can spend shooting each other.  When I met up with a friend and her two boys for the very first time last summer at another wading pool, the boys instantly formed friendships based on shooting each other and also pretending to arrest each other.  At that time, I noticed a few mothers with very young children raise their eyebrows at my friend and I, chatting away as our children pummelled each other with streams of water.  I recall feeling that exact same way, when my kids were young.

The thing about these seemingly violent games is that they aren’t really violent at all.  They are fun in a way I don’t understand, but I observe it.  As we were leaving, the boys, all of them, happily waved to each other, hoping they would see each other again, their nameless new friends, all united in battle.

Baby I’m-a Want You

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“I figured out what I’m going to buy you,” my husband said as I walked in the door, holding a piece of paper in his hand.  A present for me?  Squee!  It’s my tenth anniversary in seven months and there is a three stone ring coming my way; my husband is a far-ahead planner so I thought maybe, maybe….
I was a little crestfallen to discover the paper was a Lowe’s flyer, and the item indicated was a high-efficiency toilet.  Oooh, baby.  I’m-a want you.  Nonetheless, all four of us went to Lowe’s and, after what was possibly the world’s longest discussion about different toilets and installation methods between my husband and the incredibly helpful plumbing department guy, we were the proud owners of a new toilet.  It rode around in the back of my van for a while, then took up residence in the garage for a couple of weeks, and yesterday, my husband installed it.
Suffice it to say that if you want to bring extreme joy and excitement to a household with children, introduce them to the concept of “choose your own flush”.  I am now the unhappy recipient of an extraordinary volume of details regarding my children and their toilet habits.  
But you didn’t come here to read about toilets!  Perhaps you would like to know what I did on my summer vacation?  Mainly I read novels on the beach, occasionally becoming enthusiastic about building sandcastles and then going back to reading.  I drank a lot of beer with my father-in-law and also quite a bit of wine.  I read novels while my children swam in the pool, I swam with them, and went back to reading.  I ate a lot.  That pretty much sums things up.    



My favourite moment of the trip was this one.  Reading novels by the pool is fine and everything, but so much more fun to jump in.  The boys were swimming to me!  Both of them!  I am amazed at how quickly they learn swimming skills while just having fun with Mom and Dad.  Sigh.  Is it too much to ask for a pool in my backyard?  And hot weather to go with it?  Sigh. 



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.