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I still kind of hate The Diary of a Wimpy Kid though.

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Anyone else exhausted this week? I would blame it on the time change but I was gently chided by a few people – including my husband, for whom time change is meaningless and unimportant, apparently, despite the fact that it turns his wife into a rage-against-the-machine crusader – for complaining too much about said time change. All right then, I will blame it on the fact that I wake up at 4:30 am, which is really 3:30 am by last week’s standards. I will also blame it on the fact that the children are now giggly and full of mirth and hilarity at 9:00 pm and are having trouble falling asleep and then are strangely and uncharacteristically snappy with one another all day, and have been since the time change. I am sure these are unrelated phenomena. I admit, my rage against this outworn and useless concept is completely impotent and futile, and yet rage and complain I continue to do. Some people complain about government policies, some people complain about attitudes towards breast feeding and home births, still others complain about Lululemon, the education system, parking fees, animal rights, rescue dogs, and icy walkways. I COMPLAIN ABOUT TIME CHANGE.

I’m so tired. The battery died in the clock downstairs, where my office is, and I keep forgetting to change it. The clock is stuck at 10:37, and as a creature of habit I continue to look at it every five minutes throughout the day. Each time I am startled anew that it says 10:37, and then remind myself that it is incorrect. But then yesterday morning it actually WAS 10:37 when I looked at the clock, and I was completely disoriented for a while.

Every year for Mother’s Day my mom and I go together to get pedicures at our favourite spa, and every year I forget that I need to book early or the whole month of May is completely reserved and we end up getting our Mother’s Day pedicures in June. Not this year! I remembered to book early – although Mother’s Day weekend is completely full, I did reserve us a time in May. While I had the receptionist on the phone, I thought to confirm my wax appointment for next week. It was all settled. “Thank you!” I said cheerfully, “See you next Tuesday!” I hung up the phone, realized what I had said, and wondered what the receptionist’s reaction was, if any.

I just looked at the clock again. I really need to change the battery.

Time change did coincide with some lovely weather: suddenly the frigid air has disappeared and the snow is all melting into giant, lakelike puddles and rivers. I take Barkley for a walk and when we return the top half of him is huge and fluffy, and the bottom half is bedraggled and soggy. The water runs like a miniature river down the pathway at the offleash, and in the mornings it’s frozen and treacherous. I’m leaving the house wearing my lightweight winter coat and lined rain boots, and it feels like a miracle.

It feels like the days when the kids were little and the weather would finally break and I could take them outside. We would walk around the block, the boys wearing rubber boots and warm layers, and they would puddle jump. After a winter of being inside, it felt like a miracle to be out and walking around; those long endless days that ended.

both Jake Mark

 

That was what we would do for fun, on an early spring afternoon. And now I have these big little kids who greet me after school and then rush away into the slushy school field to play some obscure game featuring battlefields and snakes, who get just as soaked as when they were small but the difference is now I don’t have to carry them home, their wet boots leaving mud on my jeans. Now I have these guys who argue about the correct word for a seven-sided shape, who talk incessantly about Minecraft at the dinner table, who ask me serious questions about being popular and what is my favourite gemstone, who want to be black belts and grow up and make lots of money to buy a flashier car than the one their dad drives, but who still want me to read to them from The Diary of a Wimpy kid at bedtime. They still want me to give them brief, man-like hugs before they head to their line-ups in the morning, and they fist-bump me to say goodbye. It breaks my heart just the tiniest bit, but it also makes my heart grow when I see what they’re growing up to be. And when I’m tired, so tired like this, they tell me to take it easy, maybe go to bed early, and not worry about them, they’re fine. They really are.

boys

Rising up, back on the street.

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This morning I finally could breathe through my nose, and so I went to yoga for the first time since Sunday. When I was driving home, Eye of the Tiger was playing on the radio. It felt appropriate. I feel like I should play it on a continuous loop over the next few days as I prepare for Book Fair and all that entails. Rising up to the challenge of our rival and all that.

Not only am I running the Book Fair next week, but my children’s classes are hosting an assembly, in which they are going to play recorders. I cannot imagine just how badly this is going to go. The kazoo performance was one thing, but both boys have mentioned that they – and their classmates – are not very good at the recorder, which seems like an understatement of the largest order. I’m starting to be concerned for the music teacher’s mental health. The very few times that the boys have actually practiced the recorder at home have ended with the dog whimpering in his crate and me reaching for the wine bottle. Of course, the other day I was singing a spirited rendition of The Greatest Love of All and the dog ran and hid in his crate, which I am going to assume was just a coincidence. I went the distance, and I’m not going to stop.

The recorder, though. I know of only one person who has actually enjoyed her child playing the recorder, and I’m fairly certain that child has much, much more musical talent than the vast majority of children. In general it is truly a wretched instrument, which is not to say that I do not understand why the recorder is so widely used by elementary music teachers everywhere. It’s light, inexpensive, and appropriate for small hands and YET. One year I was running the Book Fair in the room beside the music room, and I heard recorder music for the entire day, to the detriment of my sanity. I hope that doesn’t happen next week. I’m just a girl with a will to survive.

The other day I came across an article that declared high waisted jeans are the biggest trend for this spring and I died a little on the inside. There has to be a happy medium between showing the world that you really do need a bikini wax and waistbands that end just below your ribcage. Why, world, why? We ladies of a certain age remember donning our high waisted jeans with our bodysuits underneath to head out to the bar to go what is now called “clubbing”, shaking our amply-denim-covered booties to I Saw The Sign and I Like To Move It Move It. We don’t need to relive those days, at least not with such unflattering clothes. Don’t lose your grip on your dreams from the past, but there’s no need to fight just to keep them alive.

Speaking of unflattering fashions, the other day I was in the mall and I saw this:

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I wonder if it’s a hot seller. It might be nice for wearing while jogging and singing Eye of the Tiger, which is something I should keep in mind in the unlikely event that I take up jogging. Although maybe it’s meant for evening loungewear? I don’t really know. Stalking prey in the night.

Everyday is Family Day in the Boyhouse

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Depending where you are, today is a Tuesday that feels like a Monday. Yesterday was Family Day in Alberta – thanks Ralph! – and I spent it nursing a cold. This is karma, because not two weeks ago I said – OUT LOUD – that we have been super lucky this winter, no one has had a cold since early October. Ten years into this parenting gig, you would think I would know better. The very next day Jake came home from school with the sniffles. Thankfully this seems to be a quick moving virus; one day of feeling like mediocre hell, then on the mend the next day. Today I’m feeling much better, although that may be the medication talking.

Other than becoming BFF’s with my neti pot, we had a very lovely and relaxed long weekend. It was a five-day weekend due to Teacher’s Conventions, and the boys spent a high percentage of that weekend in their pajamas. It’s nice to just be lazy once in a while, no? We did ditch the jammies for regular clothes on Saturday to see The Lego Movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should, even if you don’t have children. It’s so clever and original, and very, very funny.

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The kids playing Lego last summer.

 

Did you hear about the woman who wrote how she hates when her kids do chores, because they don’t do them correctly, or they do them slowly, or they have to be TAUGHT them? I feel like I should be outraged about this, but I’m actually a bit empathetic. My kids do lots of chores; they keep their rooms neat, they tidy up their thousands of Pokemon cards when they scatter them all over the downstairs rec room in some semblance of a “game”, they clear the table and help set the table and feed the dog. They help with yard work and snow shovelling when necessary, and they earn an allowance for these things. They get docked allowance for not doing chores OR for bad behaviour, although to be honest, we’ve never had to follow through on this. The threat of docking their allowance is enough for them to pull up their socks, the mercenary little darlings. It’s so important that kids learn chores, and cooking, and how to do laundry because let’s face it: we don’t really want our children living at home when they are thirty, or bringing their laundry to us, or being generally useless when they fly the nest, do we? I know I don’t, and so I give impromptu cooking lessons and show them how to turn on the washer and wipe down sinks.

And yet, I really understand where the author is coming from. My kids make their beds first thing every morning, and every morning I have to will myself not to remake them. Every morning I look at the lumpy beds that have stuffed animals in them or blankets askew, and I have to tell myself not to fix it. Is there anything more de-motivating than knowing that your work is always going to get redone by someone who does it better? NO, there is not. And so I think to myself, they are the ones that will have to sleep in the lumpy bed with the twisted blankets, they’ll figure it out. Om shanti. The fact that this bothers me is indicative of my own craziness.

Speaking of craziness, sometimes I wonder why I’m even allowed to leave the house. I wanted to go visit my new little niece, and I popped into the car equipped with only the vehicle GPS. MISTAKE NUMBER ONE. I should know that my sense of direction is so terrible I should have a map and written directions both to and from destinations, in addition to GPS. But no. I relied on technology and this is what happened: I ended up on a dirt road outside the city. In my (minor) defense the new infrastructure in that part of the city is not available on GPS so the chirpy little voice kept telling me to turn right when there was no road, and turn left off of an overpass. The GPS is trying to kill me! I ended up phoning my husband, sobbing hysterically. My husband is one of those people who could be dropped from a helicopter in the middle of nowhere and could navigate himself home using only the direction of the sun and his own inner directional instincts. I have no such instincts. My instinct, when lost, is to panic completely, pull over, and cry, and that is exactly what I did. I never did get to see my niece; ninety minutes of driving later I cautiously headed on a northbound road and, with my husband talking on my hands-free phone, made it home. My very sweet sister-in-law suggested that perhaps, next time we could just meet at the mall near my house.

The Stages of Costco

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It’s true, I’ve never run a marathon, but shopping at Costco in the winter sure makes me feel like I had. This is probably an indication that I should never, ever run a marathon, but really, that wasn’t on my list anyway.

Because even the thought of Costco during the month of December makes me curl up in the fetal position and rock back and forth, I generally make a large shopping trip in November and then avoid it until all the Costco related items in the house are essentially gone. Today, I found myself pushing a part with a few hundred pounds’ worth of groceries through the soft slushy snow in the parking lot, then doing the requisite dozen trips to get it all into the house and up and down the stairs to put said items in the basement pantry and main-floor kitchen. I felt like I had an actual intense cardiovascular workout, and to be honest, I probably haven’t done one of those since I took up “spinning” and step aerobics, back in the nineties. Whew! The good news is, I’m all warm. The bad news is, I need some Robaxecet. Lifting giant flats of sparkling water and boxes of coconut milk is core-strength building, I kept telling myself.

There is a group of people that I find amazing – everyday heroes, if you will – and that group consists of people who can go to Costco and purchase one item. How this is possible I do not know. An elderly gentleman was behind me in line, holding a single package of hydrating hand cream. I implored him to go ahead of me, me with my 300 pound cart, and he courteously argued with me for a moment. “I’m sure you have much more to do today, and I don’t.” he said. After a few moments’ conversation, he DID go ahead of me and we chatted happily about the need for super hydrating hand cream at this time of year.

A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned the “stages of Costco shopping”, and I found it brilliant, to be honest.

Stage One: NO COSTCO

At this stage, you do not think that you will actually purchase enough groceries to warrant the membership fees.

Stage Two: Reluctant Member

After some deliberation, and possibly spousal pressure, you relent and get the membership. You go through fear, loathing, and denial every time you go, but still you cannot turn down the giant wheel of cheese for $10.

Stage Three: Over Purchasing

This stage can last a while. Wow, that’s such a good deal! you may think as you purchase giant vats of everything from Greek yogurt to shampoo, which leads to….

Stage Four: Regret

At some point, we all purchase something we instantly regret, we know we’ll never use up, and that our grandchildren will have to deal with when they are cleaning out our homes for the estate sale. In my case, this is an enormous two-pack of plastic wrap and a gigantic box of 100-calorie packages of Snapea Crisps.

Stage Five: Acceptance and Reality

Happily, this is the stage I’m at now, where I can actually bypass an item – no matter how great a deal it is – by thinking that I might end up on one of those hoarding reality shows, with thirty tubes of toothpaste stashed beside 100 bars of soap. This doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t currently have two giant jars of coconut oil and three enormous bags of chocolate chips in the pantry. What, I bake a lot! I’ll use it! Really! I don’t want to run out!

Speaking of running out of things, the other day I noticed that I had almost run out of hand sanitizer, which filled me with great panic. At this time of year, and especially with the insane media play about the flu – which has led to mass panic and vaccine shortages – it feels like one can never have enough hand sanitizer. Here’s a tip – Costco only sells hand sanitizer OVER THE COUNTER and also, it’s alcohol free. Why does it need to be over the counter? I don’t know. Maybe it’s like in my local old-people Co-Op, where they have to keep the tooth whitening strips at the customer service desk because of thievery. Are people making off with the giant bottles of sanitizer? This seems unlikely, but maybe during the cold and flu season there is a hoarding problem that would lead to – like the flu shot – shortages and panic. Well, I can understand that.

 

Boyhouse Year in Review 2013

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I know, it isn’t QUITE the end of the year and something totally thrilling and blog worthy COULD happen in the next 36 hours, but I am posting my Boyhouse Year in Review today. There are some exciting changes afoot in the Boyhouse, mainly that this blog is going to be moving! Yes, soon you will be able to find me at www.girlinaboyhouse.com, and those of you who find my blog via the search term “girl in a boy house” are going to be pleased with my new address. For those of you who have found my blog via the search term “braless in white shirt” and “milf fur coat”, well, I guess it won’t help. To be honest, if that’s how you found this blog, I’m unsure I would be able to help anyway.

But let’s look back at 2013 in the Boyhouse, shall we?

January

I recovered from a debilitating – albeit cleansing – bout of norovirus, aided by freezies and watching The Price is Right. I watched a lot of Breaking Bad and I talked about the MILF diet.

Me, recovering from norovirus, and cheering for the (SUPERBOWL CHAMPS) Ravens

February

I watched Top Gun and talked about movie theatres, I met the worst person in the world, and I was here today, gone to Maui.

March

I heard Sunglasses at Night twice in a ninety minute span on the same radio station, my life flashed before my eyes when I was almost crushed by a display of tampons at Costco, Mark turned nine, and Jake fell in love with the new hippo at the zoo.

April

The children got clock radios, I got a job as a food writer at Yummy Mummy Club, I turned 38, and my husband abandoned me in Home Depot.

May

I saw the greatest license plate ever, I realized that garden centres are the sexy pickup clubs of the elderly, and I broke my own rule and chaperoned a field trip.

June

I went to not one but two high school reunions and talked about hair from the 80s, I put on my married lady pants, and I wondered how Lee Garner Junior made Roger Stirling “hold his balls”. This was also the month of the devastating floods in Calgary.

July

I talked about things my husband dislikes about me, a brave undertaking if ever there was one, I talked about fashion, and my own questionable choices back in the day, and my husband gave me a Cosmopolitan magazine.

August

We went on vacation, I visited my grandma for what would be the last time, and Barkley found a dead fish.

September

The kids went back to school and I made a lot of lists, I cried in the grocery store and wondered what it would be like to have Mrs. Hall as a mother-in-law, Jake turned eight, and we had a moustastrophe.  

October

I went to a blogging conference and learned an important lesson about myself: if Vanilla Ice is playing, I will always do the running man, I got all full-moon-crazy, and it was Halloween and I had a hair crisis.

November

There was a moth in the house and I had a nervous breakdown, I ran the book fair and the kids displayed amazing kazoo talents, and I had my usual annual debate about the Sexiest Man Alive.

December

My beloved grandma passed away, I got bossy about Christmas, and I accidentally left the dog in the garage when I went to take him for a walk.

So that’s 2013 – a happy new year to you and yours!

Baby Got Back Pain

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At my weekly Co-Op trip on Wednesday, I was the sole person – other than the employees – under the age of seventy. It was all hatted-and-matching-scarved ladies and some older gentlemen and one couple who put me in mind of Lewis and Bethany, arguing with the butcher about the cut of roast pork these days. Fortunately I missed the advent of the senior’s bus, and was instead faced with several lovely old people: I had an in-depth conversation with an elderly man about the sweetness of Mandarin oranges at this time of year, and how this is an exceptional year for them. I chatted with an old lady about how Nothing Compares To Garden-Grown Tomatoes, But These Cherry Tomatoes Are Rather Tasty. I even flirted with an octogenarian who winked at me as I looked at a package of candy canes, asking if I had a sweet tooth because I looked like a sweet lady. Well, some of us are just not sweet enough, I responded, holding up the box of candy. This is what my life has come to, people. Flirting with eighty year old men who are on their way back to the Home.

Maybe I was feeling at one with the elderly because I was moving like one. I hurt my back this week, shovelling the endless drifting snow. Although I strongly believe that shovelling snow is a man’s job, let’s celebrate the patriarchy, here, honey, have a shovel, I find it hard to justify leaving the snow to my husband when he leaves work at 7:00 pm and then sits in traffic for an hour, while I am technically home all day. But I was busy baking cookies only gets you so far, people.

In any case, the other day I was attempting to chisel packed down snow and ice off the sidewalk when I hit a ridge in said sidewalk. I could practically feel my spine reverberate. I have been meaning to consult a chiropractor for a while (read: a few years), since I have felt like my hips are out of alignment, and the crazy back pain I was experiencing expedited this process.

Have you ever been to a chiropractor? I have not. I used to think the whole profession was based on a whole bunch of back cracking hoo-ha, but my husband has been going to one for years and it really has made a difference for him. Let the records show that I have been changed! So I made an appointment with a nearby office, and sat in the little room on a strange little bench, waiting and reading back issues of Chatelaine.

Now, I don’t know what the medical professionals in your life are like, but mine are a fairly stout and frumpy lot, scrub-wearing and jovial. They are decidedly unattractive and have that comfortable vibe that says that they are above such things. So I was a little surprised to see my chiropractor, who visually could only be described as a hipster. All that was missing was a scarf and an ironic moustache. But a good life lesson for us all is to not judge a book by its cover; as it turns out the hipster chiro immediately located my issue, which – apparently – may have developed during pregnancy. Pregnancy! That was a while ago.

Speaking of hipsters, every time the chiro mentioned my sacroiliac, I internally hummed Let Your Backbone Slide, which shows how hip I am.

Grandma Fern

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My whole life, Grandma Fern and I lived a thousand kilometres apart, but I’d spend large chunks of summer vacations visiting with her. The summer that I was six, she woke me up at three in the morning and we watched the Royal Wedding together; we were equally enchanted by the dresses and the fairy tale. It was a given, then, that thirty years later we would both get up at three in the morning, in our separate houses, and with our separate friends, to watch the other Royal Wedding. I called Grandma later that morning and we talked about the dresses and the fairy tale. We talked about how improbably handsome Prince Harry had become, if Pippa’s dress was appropriate, and how slim Carole Middleton looked. Grandma was of the opinion that Camilla Parker-Bowles should not have even been invited to the wedding, to which I replied that she should, since after all she is Prince William’s stepmother. She is NOT, Grandma retorted, She is nothing but a home wrecker. I should have known better. Topics to never discuss with Grandma include boredom, evolution, and Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Grandma told me once that she wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world, but she sure could make a good roast. She was an amazing cook and she had the ability to cook for twenty hungry people like it was nothing at all. She had a huge garden, which she loved. When I visited her she made a vegetable stir fry for the two of us, or fresh-from-the-garden tomato sandwiches. She was always doing something; baking, cooking, or watching the Blue Jays on TV. 

She loved the Blue Jays and she never missed a game. I was careful not to phone her when a game was on TV because I knew that her desire to talk to me would be much tempered by her desire to not miss a play. She had opinions about the batting order and who should be pitching when. When the Blue Jays lost she would turn off the TV in disgust, but the game would always be on again, the next day.

I also knew, if I phoned her when she had friends over, to tell her I would call back another time. When friends were over, they would be playing cards and I knew Grandma would want to get back to the game right away. She loved cards and would keep score on a notepad, writing “Us” versus “Them”.

Grandma was so funny. She, my mom, and I were walking through a department store lingerie section. My mom flipped her hand on a lacy, skimpy negligee. Oh yes, Grandma said, That looks very serviceable. Once I was helping her fasten her necklace before a family wedding. Oooh, Grandma, you smell nice, I said. Well, it’s hard, you know, with perfume. Grandma replied. You have to put it where you want to be kissed.

Oh, Grandma. When I picture her in my mind, she’s in her kitchen, cooking up a storm, wearing capri pants and a long blouse, in purple or blue or turquoise, and little Isotoner slippers on her feet. Her hair is done and she has lipstick on, and a cup of coffee is sitting on the counter.

She was the strongest person I had ever known. She was widowed at age 32, with six young children. She married my grandpa, who had four children of his own, the youngest being my dad. Grandma told me that before they were married, Grandma had my dad at her house and he – and all the other six children – came down with whooping cough. The youngest two, my twin aunts, were hit the hardest. Grandma said that Grandpa came over to give Grandma a rest; she slept that night while he watched the kids. The next day the party lines lit up, with the hottest gossip in the small town. Clifford’s car was there ALL NIGHT. And them not married yet!

She never slept much; she had so much energy. I could wake up at any time of the night, and Grandma would be sitting at the kitchen table, with a crossword puzzle. She did a crossword puzzle every day and what I wouldn’t give to do one with her right now.

She loved her church and she was strongly religious. When I was a kid, I would go to Vacation Bible School at her church, and I would enjoy the special treatment and minor celebrity of being “Fern’s granddaughter”. She was aghast when she found out my future husband was Catholic, although she warmed slightly when I told her he wasn’t exactly practicing. Once when I visited her, my darling cousins Brittany and Melissa came over too. Grandma said to Brittany, Nicole came all the way to Calgary to see me, you need to come over more often! To which my cousin Melissa replied I see Grandma every week at church! Brittany and I laughed, because there was no way we could top that one.

Grandma Fern didn’t have a particularly easy life, but she wasn’t one for self-pity or complaining; a characteristic I want to strive for. She had no use for feeling sorry for oneself; she made the best of every situation. I was one of many, many grandchildren, but she always made me feel special. She was the best grandma a girl could have, and I miss her so much already. Hey, what’s a seven word for love? Starts with G. Sixth letter is M.