Category Archives: Testosterone-y

Spoiled children and first seven jobs

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In my last post, I promised a photo of me looking disapproving at the amusement park, and today was supposed to be that day. Except that the sky is grey, again, and threatening to thunderstorm, AGAIN, and so I am just looking disapproving in my kitchen:

disapproval

The thought of packing up snacks, bug spray, and the children, and then driving twenty-five minutes, only to get rained on or electrocuted is disheartening to say the least, and so it looks like another somewhat indoorsy day.

I read a piece in the New Yorker called Spoiled Rotten, in which an anthropologist studied families in Los Angeles and in an Amazonian tribe, to see the difference in the role children played in the family structure. Predictably, the children in LA were complete spoiled brats who refused to tie their own shoes or fetch their own silverware from the drawer, whereas the Amazonian children were significantly contributing to the household, and society in general. In the natural order of things, of course, the LA children turn into thirtysomethings whose moms are still doing their laundry while they make YouTube videos in the basement, and the Amazonian children turn into functioning adults who go out in the world to seek their fortune, just like fairy tale heroes of yore.

It really made me think, being that it was a think-piece and all. Of course, for narrative purposes, the author would have chosen to write about the absolutely worst LA children and the most self-sufficient Amazonian tribe in order to get the starkest contrasts. However. It had me wondering if my kids could be doing more, if I expect too little of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I expect a lot. I expect excellent behaviour wherever we go. I expect them to get good grades and work very hard year-long, including summer worksheets and writing projects. I expect them to look people in the eye when they are speaking, to shake hands when meeting someone for the first time – and to put some meat into those handshakes, no dead fish hands please – I expect them to introduce themselves and say “Nice to meet you.” I expect them to make their beds, put away laundry, help with yard work and household chores, set the table, clear the table, load the dishwasher, and feed the dog. They often help chop vegetables and they help my husband put up and take down exterior decorations for Christmas and Halloween, Jake knows how to change a tire and jack up the car and Mark helps with the pre-winter maintenance of the air conditioner and shovels the sidewalk.

So they aren’t like the LA kids in the essay, and – PLEASE GOD – they won’t be living in my basement in 20 years. But there are a lot of things that I knew how to do at their age that they don’t. For example, I used to babysit a lot, and I would cook lunch for my little charges all the time, mostly Kraft Dinner or Zoodles, but I knew how to do it. Only yesterday did I show the boys how to turn on the stove. They have never cleaned a bathroom and their ability to sweep the floor leaves much to be desired. Also, much to be picked up by Roomba.

Speaking of Roomba, he continues to be the naughty little pet that we all love. We love his industry, and we laugh when he bumps into a side table and ends up with a piece of paper jauntily riding atop his little body. Roomba is wearing a hat! we say joyfully. A few times Roomba somehow got tangled up in the toilet paper, leading to a giant shredded mess all over the basement. Oh, Roomba! we shake our heads at his well-meaning but disastrous attempt. Just a few days ago, the boys ran upstairs in a state of excitement. Roomba, they said, had tried to eat the laces on my husband’s trainers, and had dragged the shoe all over the basement.

I feel like this could be the start of a very exciting reality show, or maybe even a sitcom. It would be at least as entertaining as any of the ones currently on air. The Adventures of Roomba! Roomba would surely be a contributing member of society, not like those spoiled children in LA.

Speaking of (semi) spoiled children, I must now send them to the Co-Op by themselves to buy a loaf of bread since we have, inexplicably, ran out. Never mind that we all were buying cigarettes for our parents at the corner store at age seven, and the six-year-old Amazonian children are catching and cleaning all the shellfish for the tribe to have for dinner, I am PROUD that my children can go to the Co-Op by themselves, armed only with a fiver, my Co-Op number, and a reusable bag. And then – AND THEN – they can take that damn loaf of bread and make sandwiches from it for their lunches because I am raising my children to be competent adults, and also they don’t eat Zoodles or Kraft Dinner.

Oh! But I had forgotten what I had been actually planning to write this post about, and no, it wasn’t actually the New Yorker piece. What can I say, I digress easily. There has been a meme going around about Your First Seven Jobs and I thought it would be fun if you could play along too. What were yours? Here are mine:

  1. Babysitter (this should be obvious from the entire post)
  2. Page at the public library, where I shelved books and impressed the interviewers with my knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System and my volunteer work as a candy striper at a nursing home.
  3. Pizza Hut employee, where I did all jobs from bussing tables to answering phones to making pizza to being a cashier. It was a fun job in that I had a lot of friends there, but it was also a terrible job because people LOVE to scream at the teenage employees when their pizza does not arrive in a timely fashion.
  4. Salesgirl at a ladies’ clothing store, where I discovered I did not want to sell anything, ever again.
  5. Waitress at Moxies’ – another fun job where I also discovered that working in customer service is very hard. This job made me empathetic every single time I had a meal out that went awry for any reason.
  6. Beer sample girl. If you want a job where you get hit on by disgusting, much older alcoholics, and everyone treats you like a brainless idiot, this is the job for you! I finally quit in a fit of rage when the company got a contract with Busch, and I would have been required to wear a Busch bathing suit to hand out samples. In a freezing cold liquor store. NO THANK YOU, YOU MAY KEEP YOUR SEVEN DOLLARS AN HOUR.
  7. Summer student at a petroleum company. This was my first taste of corporate life, and I got to use my linear programming skills, so it was great. It ended up leading to my first “real” job that didn’t involve food, customer service, or bathing suits.

Please play along! What were your first seven jobs? All of these jobs took place within the span of a decade, which seems amazing for some reason.

My Face Says I’m Disappointed, But My Heart Says I’m Happy

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Well, hello there! So much has happened in the last two weeks; my husband took time off work and we Vacationed Like Nobody’s Business. First of all, the boys finished off their week of karate camp with a mini-tournament, and all I can say is that I really get Aly Raisman’s parents. I really do. I cannot imagine the nervous breakdown I would have in the highly unlikely event that my children were Olympic medal contenders, because I find myself sweating, with heart palpitations, just watching the karate kids sparring in a fun-tournament-that-has-no-real-consequences. Johnny, you’re a cream puff. It’s not just for my kids, either; I find myself all tied up in knots watching ANY of the students.

Happily, the mini-tournament went well, and the boys did not have to compete against each other too much, which was a huge relief. They are in the same belt and age group and so this has happened in the past; it is just as much fun as you might imagine.

Just as a quick side note: the only summer Olympic event I actually am interested in watching, albeit briefly, and never very closely, is women’s gymnastics, and unfortunately this is the only summer Olympic event my husband is NOT interested in watching. This means there is a lot of Ooh, look at that! kind of commentary, followed by total disinterested silence from the other spouse. Occasionally there will be a polite Ah! in response, but those Ah!’s are few and far between.

After karate camp, my husband took the boys Camping For Real, which meant that I stayed home and made avocado fries and kale chips and watched back-to-back episodes of NYPD Blue before falling asleep at 8:45. I also tried to soothe Barkley, who had apparently fallen into a deep depression after hearing the truck being packed up and being left behind. Poor puppy. Who can blame him? NYPD Blue isn’t everyone’s taste. He sat outside in the backyard, staring at the garage for hours, until I tempted him in with treats, only to go back outside again. It was like a less-sad version of that movie where the dog waits for his deceased owner at the train station until death finally releases him from this heart-breaking hopefulness.

God, now I’m depressed.

Vacation! Back to vacation. We spent a few days at my parents’ place, and the weather cooperated enough for us to not only go boating, but for the boys to go tubing and swimming as well. My dad snapped this photo of me, and it cracks me up.

BOAT

I look like I am Deeply Disapproving of all this Fun In The Water, but really, this is just what my face looks like in repose. I was fully approving of the aquatic good times, I swear.

We then spent eight days at my in-laws’ place, where we had not one but two lovely dinners with friends, I enjoyed a Girly Afternoon With The Girls complete with mani-pedis and lunch, the boys went swimming several times, my husband and I took not-sad-anymore Barkley for long walks along the creek, and we went bowling twice.

BOWLING

Notice anything about this photo, other than my saucy bowling shoes? My shirt – which I chose while shopping with my mother, who thinks I wear Too Much Black – is not only colourful, it is long sleeved. It seems the below-average temperatures like to follow me wherever I go this summer. The chilliness didn’t really kill my summer buzz, but I would like more opportunities to wear my cute summer clothes before fall sets in.

To be honest, it kind of feels like fall has already set in; soon we’ll be doing things like wearing socks and sweaters and non-flimsy scarves. August is a bit of a funny month for me; for example, I spent this morning at the orthodontist, and next week the boys have appointments with both doctor and dentist. I need to make optometrist appointments, and I have to buy a LOT of clothes. I had the boys try on every clothing item they have, only to discover that Mark has zero pants that fit. Jake now has three pair of Mark’s old pants – the only ones that weren’t worn completely out – and nothing else. There’s only three weeks left of summer vacation!

Well, I need to cram some fun times into these final three weeks, as well as all the important health-and-clothing related business. Maybe I’ll take the kids to the amusement park, so I can look Deeply Disapproving there.

Everything is rosy.

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Has it really only been 10 days since the end of school? It seems like much longer, but in a good way. There’s been a lot of activity around here, and I know it’s on-trend to claim that we are just going to let the kids fend for themselves and kick them outside for the whole day like we did when we were kids, but that’s not really my M.O. these days. I mean, they do spend time just wandering the neighbourhood with friends, bringing the whole crowd back here for snacks, but I’m doing a lot of activity planning as well.

This is what has happened in the Boyhouse over the past week: pool afternoon with two other boys, which ended abruptly with the appearance of lightning and subsequent whistle-blowing and Everyone out of the pool-ing by lifeguards, a morning at the amusement park, two nights at my parents’ lakehouse, which included two boat-rides and tubing for the boys, bike rides, a parade and Canada Day celebrations, and an evening watching Finding Dory in those awesome new reclining theatre seats. I also feel the need to mention that, while at my parents’ for two days, I rode 47.5 kilometers on my bike and it’s still a bit sore to sit down.

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My husband had a few days off and we finished staining the deck (I say “we” but it was less “me” than it was “him”). He also replaced all the steps and railings, to the amazement of the boys’ friends. The steps were non-existent when they were over on Tuesday, and completed when they were over the following day.

What are you doing this summer? My plan is a mix between semi-lazy days and semi-vigorous activity, it seems. I’m allowing my kids screen time for a few hours each day while I get some work and writing done, and then it’s time to go outside. We have passes for the local amusement park and the zoo, and I’ve managed to score free passes to the science centre as well. I’m also hoping to get the kids out hiking in the mountains once a week or every two weeks, weather depending. The unseasonably hot weather has melted into usual-Calgary-summer-weather, which means highs of about twenty degrees with late-day thunder showers.

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However, that unseasonably hot weather, combined with our mild winter and early spring, means that my garden looks amazing. My roses, in particular, are taking over.

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The smell is incredible, and I feel like it is a beautiful omen for the summer. How did you spend the long weekend? Tell me everything. xo

Tea for Two (and more)

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Last week was the Volunteer Tea at the school. I go every year but I don’t really look forward to it, if you know what I mean. I don’t dread it or anything, but it has always felt like more of a duty than a great pleasure or celebration. With the exception of the year Jake was in kindergarten, my children have never been involved in the performances, and so it’s mostly just a morning of drinking bad coffee and watching other people’s children. Which is fine! I always like seeing my friends’ kids perform and I always, always enjoy the completely adorable kindergarten performance, but, well, you know.

This year was different. For one thing, I am VERY COGNIZANT of the fact that I have only one more year left at the school, which makes me enjoy things a lot more. For another, Mark was the emcee for the tea, which was the first time ever he had emceed. I was PRETTY EXCITED when he told me of his moment in the spotlight, although that excitement was slightly dimmed by the fact that he had already known for two weeks and hadn’t thought to tell me.

This is the conversation we had a few weeks ago.

Mark: Are you going to the Volunteer Tea?

Me: Of course, I go every year.

Mark: Oh good, because I’m the emcee.

Me: OMGOMGOMG THAT’S AWESOME I’M SO PROUD OF YOU AND I’M SO EXCITED! Did you just find this out today?

Mark: No, Ms. H. asked me a couple weeks ago.

Me: Why didn’t you tell me?

Mark: I AM telling you.

Mark and his emcee partner did a great job, and the highlight for me was winning a door prize and having Mark call out my name – he was so excited. The door prize, by the way, was a begonia. I had already put in all my bedding plants so I really had to squeeze it in, but it looks beautiful.

And, of course, the kindergarten performance was a delight. The three morning kindergarten classes filed in and it took way longer for them to get set up for their song-and-dance routine than the actual routine, which is quite entertaining in itself. Okay, you stand there, now we are making a circle, remember, face your partner. I just love how some kids get really into it, and others sort of stand there and mouth the occasional word.

Speaking of which, one of the Grade One/ Two classes performed a song about different Canadian coins, which is one of those tenacious earworms. I was humming along for days: the beaver, oh! The beaver! A little part of history…But I digress. I was mentally picking out my friends’ kids in the class and smiling at the enthusiasm of the hand gestures, when I noticed a boy in the back row standing stock still. I kept my eye on him as he looked side to side, and then began slowly edging back, behind the boy beside him, who was taller. It was super stealthy; he edged inch by inch until he was completely behind the other boy. I assume he thought he was hidden from view. The gig was kind of up when the other boy realized something was happening, turned around, and jumped a little to see someone right behind him. Since they were on the top row of risers I was a little nervous it would all end with someone falling off but luckily, no such incident occurred.

In addition to hosting the Volunteer Tea, later on the same day the school hosts a Senior’s Tea for the elderly in our community, of which there are many. All the morning’s performances were to be repeated in the afternoon for the seniors’ entertainment, and Mark and his partner were, of course, emceeing as well. As in most senior’s groups, there is a dearth of men; however, Mark mentioned that there was one elderly fellow who chatted with him for a bit. The festivities were about to start, and Mark asked him to take a seat. “Okay!” the old man said. “We’re a little short at home. Which one should I take?” Ah, old man humour. Who can resist it?

I knew for a fact that my sweet next door neighbour was at the tea, and so I asked Mark if he had seen her.

Me: Did you talk to Mrs. G?

Mark: I don’t know. Maybe.

Me: What do you mean, maybe?

Mark: Well, I said hi to everyone who came in the door.

Me: Well, did you SEE Mrs. G?

Mark: I’ve got to be honest with you, Mom. All those old ladies? They look alike to me. I can’t tell them apart.

Me: Oh.

Mark: Well, they all have short grey hair and glasses and they all had kind of the same clothes, so I just really didn’t know. And there were so many of them!

Well. At any rate, by all accounts the tea was a success. We followed it with one of those very busy, productive weekends that had me crossing things off the to-do list like crazy. I even helped my husband clean the eavestroughs. Every year, it’s the same. My husband briefly considers hiring someone to clean the eavestroughs. Then he says that he’s not going to pay “some asshole” $90 for something he can do himself. (Note: it’s always “some asshole.”) Then, midway through cleaning out the disgusting debris, while I hold the ladder and try not to get disgusting debris dripped on my person, he says Why didn’t I just HIRE someone to do this? By the time the job is finished, however, he says he is GLAD he never hired anyone, and it’s not so bad, while I scrub off whatever has dripped on me and track pine needles everywhere. Ah, it’s nice to know what to expect in life, sometimes, isn’t it? Just like an old man joke, it’s nice sometimes to know the punchline.

When I am 41, I shall wear purple.

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Here’s a PSA for you: the Alberta government no longer sends out renewal notices for car registration or driver’s license updates. Now, this is a bit of a moot point for me since I haven’t received a renewal notice for YEARS. Each time I go to the registry office, they tell me it was returned because of “address unknown,” and yet, my address is correct in the system and always has been. This is a mystery that has never been solved. Address correct. Postal code correct. Renewal notice received? No. At one point I had the hypothesis that perhaps it was delivered to the wrong address, and the recipient decided not to drop it at my house but instead marked it “Return To Sender.” However, this has happened too many years in a row, for that and only that document, and so I think that hypothesis is incorrect. But what is the answer? No one seems to know.

In any case, it doesn’t matter now. A friend emailed our circle to remind us that renewal notices are no longer mailed out, which was a timely reminder for me. Both my license and registration were about to expire, and so today I popped over to the registry office – where the lady helpfully mentioned that my renewal notice was returned as “undeliverable” – and took care of business. Mercy, I forgot how awful it is to get a driver’s license photo. Passport photos are worse, to be sure, but my new driver’s license photo makes me look like a cross between the crypt keeper and Lizzy Borden.

I’ve been a bit tired this week, which is hell on my undereye circles. In retrospect it would have been better to get a photograph done after a great night’s sleep, but what can you do. Fortunately it’s in black and white, so my grey roots will not be as obvious.

Speaking of grey roots and undereye circles, my birthday is coming up! Last weekend we went to my parents’ house to celebrate, and my mom took me shopping as a birthday gift. Among other things, she purchased me a flowy, long, beautiful, PURPLE wrap. It’s very pretty, and did I mention it’s purple? I know. I KNOW. I wore it yesterday on a field trip, and I had a few girls tell me that “my purple cape was very pretty.” Aw! My boys, as well, had nothing but compliments for it, and they are not the kind of kids who notice what I’m wearing at any given time. I’m trying to wear colour slightly more often, even if I do feel like a bit of a peacock when I wear something other than black or grey. I did wear a black top underneath the wrap, in an attempt at normalcy.

And yes! That’s two field trips in five days, which includes the weekend. The field trip was the same as the one last week – the Police Interpretive Centre – so at least it was interesting and engaging. It was almost exactly the same in content, but this class forewent the “Bullying” module in favour of the “Drugs” one. I worried that it might be a bit old for the class, but it turns out it wasn’t at all. It was “scare them off of drugs” without being nightmare-inducing.

The field trips are done for the year now, which means I did it! Some of you may recall that this was my goal for the school year; since giving up my responsibilities as School Council/ Parent Association chair, I had decided I would volunteer more in the classroom and on field trips. Every opportunity that arose I took it, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve realized that Grades Five and Six are actually fun to go on field trips with: they mostly stay on task, they stay together, and they are fairly responsible. No one tries to run away or get separated from the group, everyone makes an attempt to complete the assignment at hand. And I even get my ego stroked with compliments on my outfit! It doesn’t get much better than that. Mental note: for next year’s field trips, wear purple wrap.

Thumper’s mother was right.

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Last night was Orientation Night for my yoga teacher training and oh, you guys. You guys, I am so excited. I haven’t felt this way for YEARS. I remember picking up my university calendar to choose classes for each semester, and then I would go through the syllabus of each class and it never failed – NEVER FAILED – to thrill me. Everything about university was exciting for me; all the course outlines, all the new information, everything. Now I feel that same, beginning-of-the-school-year excitement, and I just can’t wait to get started. I’m taking it slow because, well, life, but for the next three months I’ll be studying anatomy, yoga spirituality, Ayurveda, and Sanskrit. YOU GUYS I AM SO EXCITED. It turns out I am the same keener nerd that I always was because even the thought of doing the pre-reading is thrilling to me.

I have to settle down a bit though, because I can feel my competitive, Type A nature coming out a teensy bit, in a I am going to CRUSH this kind of way, which is not a very yogic way of thinking. Hey, we are all works in progress, right? There’s nothing wrong with taking the course seriously since I really do want to teach afterwards. Not everyone who takes yoga teacher training actually wants to teach, which is cool. But teaching is in my ultimate plan, so I shall embrace my serious student nature.

Yesterday was an especially hectic day since I was on a field trip for the whole day with Mark’s class. We went to the Police Interpretive Centre and let me tell you, it was the best field trip I’ve ever been on by far. The leaders were engaging, the information was relevant and timely, and all of the displays were very interactive and interesting. I get to do it all over again next week with Jake’s class, and I am looking forward to it. Looking forward. To a field trip. That’s how good it was!

PIC_bathroom

They also had this sign in the washroom, and all I can say is “Strongly Agree.”

The morning featured a forensics lab, where the children were shown how detectives solve crimes using fingerprints, footprints, lasers, blood splatters, maggots versus flies, and composite sketches. It sounds a bit morbid but it was extremely well done and sensitive. The children also got to learn about the K9 unit, and I found out that they choose puppies based on how much a puppy loves a ball. If the puppy won’t give up a ball, or won’t stop looking for a ball, that is the puppy that they want in training. Each dog on the K9 unit had its own profile, and I loved looking at the random facts: favourite snack, favourite place to be scratched, favourite TV show (how do they know?), how often the dog is bathed.

The afternoon was all about online safety, bullying, and healthy relationships. Grade 5/6 is the perfect age for these discussions, in my opinion. There was a lot of discussion around this and also about making good decisions. The bullying unit had me thinking about an incident that happened a few years back to a colleague of mine. She had a similar Twitter handle to another woman, and they both had a similar blogging niche. This other woman – who had many thousands of followers – took umbrage that my colleague had the gall to have a similar name to her, and started writing terrible things about her. Her thousands of followers/ sheep started tweeting equally awful things and some were really scary. A few people were particularly threatening, in a “I hope I see that bitch at x convention so I can cut her” kind of way. It was quite terrifying and also unbelievable, that a grown woman would act this way about someone else on the internet.

Unbelievable, and yet believable. The anonymity of the internet is a weird thing. Just yesterday, a friend posted on Facebook about her child bringing home a great report card. Yay for good report cards, right? Well, no. Because there was a strange string of commentary about how report cards have no meaning and the world is going to be ruined by these children and their useless report cards. Wait, what? At what point do we think it’s okay to take someone’s celebration and shit all over it? We talk so much about bullying and behaviour of our children, but some people apparently transcend these social conventions. There is ONE response to someone’s good news, and that is congratulations. I am happy for you. If you cannot say that, then do not say anything at all.

My Orlando break from reality

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Here’s a fun way to lose weight and tone up those legs: walk 72 kilometers in 5 days. That’s what I did this past week, on my trip to Disney World and Universal Studios.

Selma

This was me a few times on the trip, but with less awesome hair.

I’m going to just come out and say it: we have taken the kids on lots of trips, and this was by far the best one for everyone. We had so much fun, and to be honest, I didn’t really expect to. I mean, I thought I would just sort of enjoy the trip by osmosis, since my husband and kids were so over-the-moon excited, but I honestly loved the whole experience so much.

I have a lot to say about it, and plane travel in general, and tips like “Never take the Magic Express Bus at 12:30 pm because that is when all the small children are going back to their hotel for a nap. If you do, prepare for much crying.” But for now, I will leave you with the highlights.

Christmas Everywhere

Since we were there after the US Thanksgiving, everything was decorated for Christmas. This included the Blues Brothers’ vehicle. At Universal, my husband and I watched them perform Christmas-themed versions of their songs – “I’m a SNOWMAN” – while the kids rode on the Transformers ride for the twelfth time.

BluesBrothers

Elwood

Bluesbrotherssing

I wish we’d gotten a photo of them decorating a small Christmas tree with packages of Marlboroughs and Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.

AnimalTree

There are Christmas trees everywhere!

 

Grinch

“And they’re hanging their stockings!” he snarled with a sneer.

Macy

Universal has a “Macy’s Parade” every night at 5 pm, and it’s very fun to watch. Those are random people in the photo.

The famous Sleeping Beauty castle was all lit up with Christmas lights, and it was pretty special. The one downside? I actually got a bit tired of Christmas music. I know! But when you hear “It’s the MOST wonderful TIME of the YEARRRRRRRRRR” over and over, you weary of it. A bit.

Nostalgia for Cars

For many years, my house was vehicle-crazy. The boys had pretty much every Cars movie character in miniature form, we had books about Cars characters, and a large percentage of every day was devoted to “playing Cars.” We stayed in the Art of Animation resort, which was separated into four different themes: Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, Lion King, and Cars. This is where we stayed:

Wheel Well

There were life-sized climbable Cars characters all along the pathway (Route 66) to the different buildings.

Doc Hudson

Guido

If we had gone when the kids were small, we would have never made it out of the resort. They would have just wanted to play around Doc Hudson and the rest of the gang all day long.

The Art of Animation was a great hotel, with lots of vegetarian choices at the cafeteria, so I was happy. We had a suite, which meant TWO bathrooms. This really made the trip go from great to amazing. They also have some fun looking pools – the kids only swam one night, since we were so busy at the parks – and there is even a pool bar, which made me even more happy.

Roller Coasters

I don’t love all rides – anything that spins makes me feel ill – but I love roller coasters. Disney has some really fun ones, like Everest and the Rock and Roller Coaster, but Universal had the ultimate crazy ride: the Rip Ride Rockit. I didn’t get a photo but the description is here. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever been on, truly. My heart was pounding when I boarded it, and I asked the guy beside me if he’d ever been on it. He replied that he didn’t speak English, but he screamed “HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT” through the whole ride. Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit indeed.

Universal

My hair in a neat bun pre-Rip Ride Rockit.

Krustyland

Universal has a whole section devoted to The Simpsons, and it has piqued my children’s interest in watching the show. I haven’t watched it for probably fifteen years, but I’m hoping to find some reruns of the classics, like Duff Gardens – if only to explain this to the kids:

Surly

Me and Surly.

Duff

The Duff Man. Note my hair, straining to be released from its bun. That was after Rip Ride Rockit.

Harry Potter

I have not seen the movies, nor read the books, but we have Harry Potter fans in the house. The train alone that goes between parks is worthwhile, even if you don’t know Harry Potter from a hole in the ground.

HP

Snow in Orlando!

Bank

The dragon actually roars.

The Muppets

My love for the Muppets is well known. At Disney’s Hollywood Studios, there is a Muppet 3D attraction, and it’s fabulous.

Muppet Theatre

A little excited, I guess.

MuppetVision

Squee!

Star Wars

I have saved the best for last. Unless you are disconnected from any kind of media – in which case, you are probably not reading this – the new Star Wars movie is coming out in EIGHT DAYS. The countdown has been on at my house for a while, and we were all pretty excited to hear that Disney was opening its new Star Wars Launch Bay on December 1. We were there December 4! It was pretty much impossible not to get caught up in it. We all enjoyed Star Tours SEVERAL times, went to see a “Path of the Jedi” short film, and we looked at the many artifacts at the Launch Bay. We even stood in line to meet a celebrity. Now, my kids couldn’t care less about meeting Mickey, or a princess, or any other character at Disney. But we did want to meet this guy:

Chewie

He loves me!

Now it’s back to reality – tomorrow I’m chaperoning a field trip! Although it was a short vacation, it felt like longer, like a real break from reality. Which, I guess, it really is.