Category Archives: Travel with kids

Twelve times twelve is one hundred and forty four.

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Happy birthday Canada!  To celebrate, I’m taking the kids to an amusement park with some friends, and I baked an angel food cake, to be eaten with whipped cream and strawberries.  If there is anything more delicious in the world I would like to know what it is.


It’s day three of summer vacation and so far our schedule has been action packed.  This is probably contributing to the easier-than-normal transition from school into summer.  Monday night was filled with children’s tears at the thought of saying goodbye to their teachers and classrooms on Tuesday, and so I was preparing myself for the onslaught of neediness and generally annoying behavior that accompanies the end-of-year festivities and the sudden lack of scheduled activities, but that didn’t really happen.

My husband was away on business and so on the first day of vacation I drove the kids up to my parents’ cottage at Sylvan Lake.  Here I am going to state the obvious: travel with children is just so much easier as they get older.  “Mom, are you SURE you know how to get there?” Mark asked nervously, clearly recalling the many times I have pulled over to the side of the road, crying.  I am not good with directions, people.  Just a small glitch in my plans or a detour in the road can set me over the edge.  “Turn east,” my dad used to say when giving me directions, and I would scream with frustration: “Is that left or right?”  My husband bought me a Garmin with the hopes that I would no longer be lost immediately whenever I would go someplace not totally familiar, but I have anxiety about even using the Garmin, since it often sends me on the most circuitous route possible.  You can imagine, perhaps, the level of frustration around here.  My husband cannot understand how someone who has lived in a city their entire life still doesn’t know how to access a major roadway.  I think I may have a mental block or something.

“I know how to get there.  But I have to concentrate.  So please don’t ask me again.” I said to the boys.  Then they spent the two hours of driving alternating between watching Cars (preparing for the inevitable viewing of Cars 2) and naming off the small towns that we were passing and what kind of “Attractions and Services” they had.  “That town has a Wendy’s AND a Tim Hortons!” they would say excitedly.  “Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart!  If we need something we could go to Wal-Mart!”  “Oh, that town only has UFA.  What’s UFA?” 

We arrived with no issues and I did not even have to pull over to sob once.  I’m growing!  The boys were practically spinning off the planet with excitement once we arrived, and I am just going to say this: two toy fishing rods with reels plus a lake equals endless amusement.  I am always a little taken aback at how much time children can spend doing an activity like pretend fishing.  It’s a good lesson for me as well; to just watch them and relax into the moment, and not have to go over my to-do list.  It is summer after all – my to-do list isn’t exactly pressing.

I wished I had my camera with me when the boys and I took the dog for a walk after dinner.  I watched them run up ahead of me on the path, Shasta daisies and deep purple Columbines to their right, a thick field of canola to their left.  The dog bounded through the canola, his curly tail bouncing, the boys were laughing, and the sky with the early evening clouds was so big all around us.  It was a perfect moment. 

Beavers are very interesting animals.

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On our recent Victoria Day weekend road trip, we stopped for a break at the information centre in Golden, BC.  While my husband took the boys in to use the bathroom, I took the dog for a quick walk and potty break.
Query: why do I use the term “potty break” for a dog?  Answer regrettably unknown.
It should be noted that my husband is something of a soft touch.  It should also be noted that my children are currently obsessed with Canadian wild animals.  Mark, on seeing a photo of a big horned sheep, exclaimed “That’s my favourite horned mammal!”  So it should not be surprising that when I allowed the three of them to go unsupervised into an information centre which sells a wide variety of stuffed Canadian wild animals, the boys ended up with new toys in their possession.
Jake chose a moose:
That’s the new moose, named Moosie, in the front row centre.
Guess what Mark chose?

No, not the bald eagle.  No, not the wolf.  Not the
Vancouver Olympic mascots nor the tigers.

Here’s a close-up.

It’s a beaver!

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Beavers ARE fascinating animals, what with the dam building and beaver lodges and being the national animal of our fine country, but every time Mark informs me that he “loves beavers so much!” and that “beavers are so cool, aren’t they, Mom?” or that he is going to snuggle with his beaver, I die a little on the inside.  And by die, I mean die laughing.  Yesterday was his class’ library day, and he enthusiastically checked out a very informative non-fiction book all about beavers. 
I admire his teacher for keeping a straight face as he spews out his interesting beaver facts, or draws endless pictures of beavers, or expresses his passion for beavers.
It’s all about animals around here.  Mark, with his Grade One knowledge of endangered species, has been passing along his wealth of information to his brother, and let me just say this: it has not been especially well-received.  When Mark lovingly shared the Africa chapter from his new kid’s National Geographic Wild Animals Atlas with Jake, things went awry fairly quickly.  Minutes later, Jake was sobbing hysterically.  Upon further investigation, I discovered that Jake’s distress was stemming from the sad knowledge that hippos are endangered animals, hippos being his number-one favourite animal, to the extent that he believes that Foggy, the Calgary Zoo hippo, has a special bond with him and only him. 
“Foggy wiggled his ears at me!  He honked at me!”
We also celebrate Foggy’s birthday, which is only two days after Jake’s own.  Foggy is turning 46 this year, making him almost exactly 40 years older than Jake.  Foggy is much loved and on hearing that hippos are endangered, Jake immediately concluded that Foggy himself is knock knock knocking on heaven’s door, which he may be considering that he is one of the oldest hippos in North America.  As he sobbed about Foggy’s eventual demise and the fleeting nature of life in general, Mark added more fuel to the fire.  “Stop crying, Jake!  Tons of animals are endangered!  You know how you love elephants so much?  They’re totally endangered!  People kill them for their tusks!  They die!”  Jake: “ELEPHANTS TOOOOO?  NOOOOOOO!”
I find this kind of thing very trying.  While I am all for environmental awareness, I am not in favour of such transfers of information right before bedtime, which is when this display of brotherly love occurred.  Fortunately I was able to assure Jake that hippos in zoos live much longer than those in the wild – which is true – and that Foggy would probably live for many more years – which may or may not be true.  In any case, I sense a zoo trip in our very near future.

I-I-I-I’m Still Alive!

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So here it is, May 23, and we are still here.  I guess the rapture didn’t occur after all, or, if it did, I was seriously excluded.  I wore my special Judgment Day panties for nothing?  NOTHING?

I spent the weekend celebrating the birth of Queen Victoria by way of a road trip to visit my in-laws, and as of today I am on a cleanse because, let me tell you, no one needs to consume that much booze and ice cream over a sixty-five hour period.  HOO BOY.  Today we made the trip home in a record seven hours, as opposed to the usual eight-to-ten-depending-on-road-construction.  Here’s our little family secret for “making good time”: if you get on the road by 6:30 am, there will be very little in the way of traffic.  We like to get an early start, and theoretically, the children will be so tired from our waking them up an hour early that they will fall asleep in the car.  HA HA HA.  This almost never happens, but today, by some miracle, it did.  Mark and Jake both slept for ten and twenty minutes, respectively. 

They are good travellers though, despite their penchant for asking if we are almost there, even when it was explained five minutes ago that there are six more hours left of travel time. 

It was a lovely trip, and I am struck, as always, by how much nicer other places are than the city in which I reside.  There are many benefits to my home city – employment and standard of living topping the list – but climate and vegetation are not among them.  I came home to see that my beautiful, well-established clematis is not even up yet – Is it dead?  How? – which was a touch depressing given the sight of lilacs, fully in bloom and growing wild around the perimeter of my in-laws’ property.  

Ah, but the long weekend is over and now it’s back to the old grind.  Which, for me, means pretty much nothing.  The life of a lady of leisure!  I suppose it means groceries and running back and forth from the school, and also attacking a weird mountain of laundry, weird due to the fact that I actually DID laundry, twice, within my sixty-five hour vacation period, so I’m not totally sure where all this laundry is coming from.

Also for this week: I wasn’t going to bring this up due to the fact that it makes me sound like I’m going to slip on my heels and pearls and start vacuuming, but I have NEW SMALL APPLIANCES to play with.  Last week I got a food processor – my dreams have come true! – and today my new stand mixer, coffee maker, toaster, and microwave arrived!  I am so excited about them that my younger self probably wants to slap me in the face, enraged with my domesticity and housewifery.

The Apocalypse? Or PMS?

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Yesterday I was so blue and everything seemed bleak and grim: my legs ache and hurt constantly, there are unspeakable tragedies all over the world, I need to do the soccer scheduling, I have to write an article for the community newsletter, the sky is grey, it’s been snowing for five days, it’s cold and damp and I have to wait outside for 30 minutes between the times that my children finish school at lunchtime, after which I can’t get warm or if I do I have to leave to stand outside again to pick up Mark after school, I stepped in dog poop while cleaning up dog poop, I have surgery next week and so much to do before then and it’s March break starting Monday, the dog stinks, what if I turn into a weirdo mother-in-law and my children become estranged to me in their adulthood, human atrocities do not seem to warrant international intervention unless such atrocities occur in an oil-producing nations, there is going to be an election and I don’t want one, I have to go to Costco, my driver’s license is about to expire and the province did not send me a renewal notice, which is the second time something like this has happened, which makes me believe that it was delivered to someone else and they didn’t bother to drop it at my house, despite the fact that I always, always drop off my neighbour’s misdelivered mail no matter how unimportant it looks.
Everything seemed overwhelming and glum.  I took extra Vitamin D tablets, made my favourite dinner – much to the disappointment of all other family members who do not share my affinity for Greek salad and pita bread – drank some wine and ate a piece of chocolate birthday cake, and then the sun came out for five minutes and I felt a little better. 

All those sad things are still sad today – except for the driver’s license part, which I renewed this morning thanks to the very kind man I spoke with on the government hotline who tipped me off that rates are going up effective April 1st – but I realized something: you know when you feel hopeless and depressed and loathing and like nothing you do even MATTERS, and ew, you have dog poop on your boot, and everything is so overwhelmingly sad but then you look at a calendar and do some back counting and then a lightbulb goes on and you realize – you REALIZE – that there is a reason, a very hormonal reason that you feel that way, and then you know you’re going to feel better soon?  Yes, that.

So I feel slightly more in control of things this morning.  Yes, I have no control over terrible things in the world but I can donate to relief efforts.  Yes, it’s cold and horrible but maybe it will stop snowing soon and March break means I do not have to do the pickups and dropoffs in the freezing cold.  Yes, my legs are constantly aching and swollen but maybe they won’t be in three weeks’ time.  Yes, I have to go to Costco but at least I can get one of those giant logs of goat cheese for five dollars.

I don’t like being sad.  That’s probably the most inane sentence ever uttered but it’s true.  My husband and I were talking the other night about how we used to like adventure travel and how I actually used to have a backpack to put my clothes in and how there were hundreds of places I wanted to experience.  Now, however, I said, looking out the window at the blowing snow “I don’t want to go anywhere cold.  Or anywhere that makes me sad.  I want to go where there’s nice fruit and it would be nice if we could go somewhere I can keep up with my yoga practice.”  My husband looked at me for a minute while I listed off all of my travel requirements then offered, “So you only ever want to go to Hawaii?”

Hawaii would be lovely, it’s true – who wouldn’t want to have a pretty drink with an umbrella in it and get to make “Getting Lei’d” jokes? – but even lovelier was Jake, climbing onto my lap, saying that he wished my operation was tomorrow so I could feel better right away, and if I needed anything he would get it, unless he couldn’t reach it in which case I may have to help him.  And I do feel better.  It’s Friday after all, I have a great yoga workshop to attend this weekend, I have an episode of Parks and Recreation to watch tonight, and Cadbury Mini-Eggs were on special at the grocery store. 

How about you?  Any plans for the weekend? xo

Disneyland should sell booze.

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The kids were thrilled that we were going to Disneyland; so was my husband, who had never been before.  I was somewhat less excited given my mild crowd phobia and not-so-mild germ phobia, especially when I realized we were going to be there on President’s Day.  Eeek!  I was prepared for crushing anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed, but I have to hand it to the good people at Disneyland, I only felt that way a couple of times.  One of those times was an early morning when the gates to Adventureland, home of the Indiana Jones ride, were opened and I looked up and saw a sea of people running towards the entrance, where I was standing with the kids waiting for my latte.  Did you know you can get a fairly decent latte at Disneyland?  I did not. 
Anyway, I was slightly concerned but I remembered the words of a friend when I confessed to her my fears: “Oh, you’ll love it!  Disneyland is so SHINY.”  And it’s true, it is shiny and clean and happy, and also a great spot for some quality people watching entertainment.  The Happiest Place on Earth is decidedly unhappy at times; parents walking briskly, wrought with tension as their toddlers screamed and backbended within the confines of their strollers, little girls dressed in various Disney princess gowns collapsing limply to the ground, sobbingly pulled along by agitated parents.  By my third day in Disneyland, I felt as though I had joined the ranks of those parents, feeling harassed and exhausted as my children asked to go on Buzz Lightyear, again, and they needed a drink of water, again, all the while It’s A Small World was going through my head over and over in a psychedelic manner.
I discovered I preferred the night visitors over the day ones.  I was much happier standing in line next to teenage couples making out, rather than haggard looking mothers scolding their offspring.  One woman said “Shut your mouth.  Just SHUT YOUR MOUTH” approximately once a minute for the duration of our long lineup to ride on pretend rocket ships.  “We are not coming back here for a long time.  Maybe never!”  “Noooooooo!”  “Just shut your mouth.”  Lather, rinse, repeat.
But I was fairly prepared for that.  What I was not prepared for was the hordes of adult women wearing Minnie Mouse ears.  Neither was I prepared for the sheer variety of said ears.  Styles varied from the traditional to the glow-in-the-dark, from ears attached to barrettes to actual bridal veils attached to the ears.  There was also a plethora of women in tiaras, some with both tiaras and Minnie Mouse ears.  No judgments here, whatever floats your boat, and if you can’t wear a tiara at Disneyland, then where can you wear one?  Although that is not quite true, because it is park policy to turn away anyone over aged nine wearing princess attire.  That is an actual policy.  Consider that your public service announcement for the day, just in case you are planning a trip and hoping to finally break out those glass slippers or mermaid’s tail or what have you.
With all the ears and chipmunk hats and Goofy hats, Disneyland felt like an alternate universe, and it sort of is one.  I have to admit I found adult men wearing Mickey Mouse ears to be vaguely disturbing.  I started to rank those men against men wearing Captain Jack Sparrow bandannas with attached dreadlocks, and men wearing Indiana Jones hats, but which costume I found most disturbing, I just cannot say. 



So excited, the first day at Disney, waiting for It’s a Small World.





Second day at Disney, still excited, on the Mark Twain steamboat.



Third day at Disney.  Make it stop.  Someone make the music stop.



I’m Back and I’m Stylish!

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I was vacationing in California for ten days, escaping the frigid cold back home.  However, since cold follows me like a puppy, temperatures were far below normal in Palm Desert and Anaheim, where I was.  Almost everyone I et commented on the absurdly cold weather, but since it was still comparable to an average ten days of summer in Calgary, I certainly wasn’t complaining.  In Disneyland, there was a wide variety of clothing styles: obviously native Californians wearing down jackets and toques, and people who had travelled to California, dammit, so they were going to dress as planned, in shorts and sleeveless shirts.  As for me, I wore my normal three or four layers and it was quite pleasant.

We were visiting my parents in Palm Desert, which is a haven for retired and semi-retired snowbirds and their visiting grandchildren.  The population is so aged that it affects the local economy: there seems to be a high concentration of medical centres and places to plan your own funeral, conveniently enough.  “Smart Cremation – It Just Makes $ense!” a billboard called to me, adding, “Ask About Our FREE Veteran’s Kit!” 

For some reason that seemed highly disconcerting to me.

The Palm Springs area is also home to some fantastic outlet shopping and so my husband and I ditched the kids for half a day andd took advantage of President’s Day sales.  I ended up with wildly cut-price Uggs and Sevens, thus cementing my cougar-licious status.

And so I’m feeling very stylish, which makes me even more happy to receive a Stylish Blogger’s award from Laila and Heather over at Significantly Simple.  Thanks girls!  The rules of receiving the award are a) to link back to the person who gave it to you, b) tell 7 things about yourself, and c) pass it along.  So here are seven things about me: I like wine, I practice ashtanga yoga, I like to garden, I love NYPD Blue and think that David Caruso was strangely hot in the first season, I have an addiction to black sweaters, I hate the trend towards 3D movies, and I really like music from the 70s.  As for passing it along, I give this award to my three bloggy besties: Bibliomama, Wrath of Mom, and Happy Geek – these girls are like my sisters, and they make me laugh all the time, even when they complain about my black sweater addiction.  I pass it along to my Canadian Mom girls: Kat’s Confessions, City Mom, Whispered Inspirations, Make Mommy Go Something Something, Pampered Patty.  I pass it along to my bloggy friends who have not blogged in a while (but they should!  they should.) Frog and Toad Are Still Friends and Literary Cacophony.  I pass it along to No Whey Mama, who took a break from blogging – I guess having four children takes precedence over blogging – but she’s back in the game and I’m so, so happy.  Finally, I pass it along to the awesome Mothering Mayhem, Lisa at This, That, and the Other Thing, and also to Marilyn at A Lot of Loves, since she’s so fun and gave me lots of hints about enjoying Disneyland, which she loves. 

Speaking of which, I am bursting with posts about that and the rest of my vacation, but I’m truly exhausted from travelling all day.  In fact, I’m not even sure how I managed to write this post!  But I missed you all and I’m dying to catch up. xoxo

All the cool kids are doing it!

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And so will I – a Year in Review.  Yes, I know it is the sixth of January and most year in reviews have already been posted, but I was far too busy writing about people who eat toilet paper and watching When Harry Met Sally.

So what happened in 2010 over at the Boy House?

January

I made a resolution to learn how to bake bread, and did so immediately, learning two important things: a) baking bread is not as hard as I thought it would be, and b) the key to New Year Resolution Success is to aim low.

I also ranted about the weird things people say to pregnant women and posted a picture of me with an extra seventy pounds to love.

Yowza.  I still had seven weeks to go at that point.  SEVEN WEEKS.
February
We got really, really excited about the Olympics.  We also went on our first ever winter vacation and became a parody of Canadians as the kids got off the plane wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Team Canada logos, and instantly started running around shrieking in amazement, “Mom, look!  There are FLOWERS!  And they’re REAL!  And the grass is GREEN!  And there’s no SNOW!”
March
Mark turned six!  I had my usual crises with regards to birthday party planning and Daylight Savings Time.  I cleaned out the office and found a whole box of mix tapes, some labeled “Party Mix” and one that was made for my husband from one of his old girlfriends that included songs from Richard Marx.  Hee.

April

I turned 35!  I celebrated by chaperoning on a field trip to the firehall, and cemented my cougar-like status by volunteering to try on the firefighter outfit, discovering just how heavy said outfit is, and actually saying to the young and attractive firefighter “Wow, you guys must be in great shape.”  Coo-coo-coo-choo, Mrs. Robinson.  It also snowed a lot and I wrote about attractive movie characters who would be terrible to be married to, i.e., Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient.


My friend lent me a tiara for my birthday, fulfilling my lifelong dream of birthday crown-wearing.

May
Jake’s pre-Kindergarten class had a Mother’s Day tea in which they sang a song that went “May there always be sunshine, may there always be blue skies, may there always be mama, may there always be me”, and I still tear up thinking about it.  I also cried a lot thinking about this Tim Horton’s commercial and I got way too excited about the woman with the MBA with a concentration in economics winning Miss USA.  Clearly May is an emotional roller-coaster of a month for me.
It was still snowing in May.
June
It was really cold.  On Father’s Day weekend – and Super Soccer Saturday weekend – I attended a yoga weekend workshop.  Happy Father’s Day!  Now take care of the kids all weekend.  The kids finished school and my husband came up with a plan in case my kids ever decide to be protesters at a G-20 Summit. 
My two favourite pictures of Mark ever taken.  He’s getting his groove on at the end-of-school-Stampede-breakfast.  Note that it is June and Jake is wearing his fleece jacket.
July
It was raining and cold and I decided to make yarn octopuses, which turned out as well as any craft I make does.  Terribly.  We went to the Okanagan for some sunshine.  The cold and rain made me become Miss Carpe Diem, and so any day with slightly above average temperatures had me running the kids to the pool.
The yarn octopuses, Moppy and Bum, doing a duet of Heart and Soul.
August
It was still cold and rainy.  I wrote a lot about fashion, especially the jeans with zippered ankles that came out that made me feel like I was wearing turquoise slacks and a coordinating blouse, hobbling around with my walker and my Scotch mints, with a tissue in my sleeve.  Also – and my friend just reminded me of this yesterday – I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said “Vagitarian”.  I still laugh evilly thinking about it.  Vagitarian.  Says the guy who lives in his mom’s basement.
September
Mark started Grade One and Jake started Kindergarten.  We got hardwood installed by two attractive young whipper-snappers which led to many “hardwood” jokes.  Also I came home to find that they had taken out my drawers to move my dresser with ease, and my panty drawer was proudly on display for all to see.  So I had to show my panties to get hardwood.  Hee.  Also, Jake turned five!
Too cool for school!  Note the boxes of hardwood at right.
October
In typical October fashion we seemed to have a lot of viruses, dead squirrels, and excitement about Halloween.  Also I went on a two-night vacation with my husband and no kids!  And we all survived!  Actually the boys had the time of their lives and still talk about how awesome it was that Grandma picked them up at school.
Boo, I’m a scary witch!  For real.
November
It snowed a lot, I got ready for Christmas, I ran the Scholastic Book Fair, Mark barfed.  That pretty much sums up November.
A foam finger!  It says “We’re #1 – bp”.
December
I blogged almost exclusively about Christmas, Christmas songs, Christmas baking, and my new awesome sexy bitch boots.

Whew!  If you’re still reading this, thank you!!!  So 2010 was a great year, and here’s to a wondeful 2011 for all of us.