Mark and I were reading on the couch, and talking about superheroes and villains. “Of course, this is just a story,” I said, “Sandman is not real.”

“Just like Santa Claus,” Mark replied.

Startled, I looked down at him and he smiled his angelic, gap-toothed smile. I went back to reading about Spiderman and Sandman.

I have a feeling this is not unrelated to the loss of his two bottom teeth. When they fell out, I told him that we could put them under the pillow and the tooth fairy would come.

The fallout from that was tremendous. “TOOTH FAIRY? I don’t want the TOOTH FAIRY to come! I don’t even want a fairy in my ROOM. PLEASE don’t make the TOOTH FAIRY come here!” I looked at my husband a little helplessly. His inspired answer? “Don’t worry, Mark. The tooth fairy is really just Mom and Dad, and we’ll give you money for your tooth.”

Mark was instantly relieved. I, however, was a bit anxious he would shatter everyone else’s tooth fairy dreams, although this has not yet happened. I’m all for being truthful, but is five too young for abject cynicism?

Today was Mark’s first day of kindergarten, signifying the end of summer vacation, the return of actual summer-like weather notwithstanding. I thought I’d be spending the last of vacation doing fun, outdoorsy things, but instead I spent it taking care of the boys who alternated between being lethargically, feverishly ill and incredibly rambunctiously healthy, but neither at the same time. I also spent some time pondering which would be easier, two simultaneously sick children, or a longer bout of illness with only one child sick at a time, before concluding that the former is definitely preferable in my mind.

Futile ponderings aside, I was startled at how quickly and how enjoyably the summer passed. Back in February or March, I fretted a bit about the summer and activity planning, and would I go crazy without the 7.5 hours/ week of personal time I was now accustomed to? Then in the spring I was at a playground with a friend and her younger children, and she was speaking about her oldest daughter, who was in Grade One. “She has friends I don’t know and I don’t know their parents. She’s gone all day and she has her own life, completely separate from me.” It would be hard to overestimate the impact those words had on me. I could practically see the leaves of a page-a-day calendar rapidly tearing themselves off and fluttering away. I drove home with the feeling of one who has made a firm resolution: I was going to enjoy the summer with the children, dammit. We were GOING TO HAVE A GREAT TIME.

I did what I always do in the face of uncertainty, and that is to make lists and schedules. Oh yes, I am nothing if not rigid and rules-oriented. For fun, I took an Oprah quiz – Find the (Diet) Plan That Fits You – and my result was the one entitled “Restrictive”, for people who thrive on organization. I was a bit depressed at my own lameness. Anyway, I made lists of things I wanted to do and tried to schedule at least one fun place to visit per week – the zoo, playground, Science Centre – and we really did have a great time.

So what about the first day of kindergarten? The class was only one hour long, and the parents were called in to listen to the teacher read “The Kissing Hand” after which each child gave their parent a paper heart to put in their hand. I was just so proud of my big kid, who was so proud of himself at the new big kid school; although at that moment, all I could see were the calendar pages that were flying away from me.

And no, I’m not talking about my ladies’ holidays.

No, I brought the curse on myself. Last night, I said to Rob, “Isn’t it great, we haven’t really been sick since March? I mean, no one has really had a cold or anything. ISN’T THAT AMAZING???”

Right after I said that, I immediately regretted it. I am very superstitious. Despite my mathematical leanings, I truly believe in the accuracy of zodiac signs in predicting personality traits. I would never have married my husband if he was something like a Sagittarius, or maybe an Aquarius, because that would not have been compatible with my Taurean personality. I have been known to instantly translate a new acquaintance’s birthday into their zodiac sign and then feel like I know them intimately. If it wasn’t for my distaste for pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, I would have totally rocked the dating world in the ’70’s.

I am also superstitious about saying or thinking negative thoughts about someone else’s children, or bragging about my own, feeling that big old karma will come back to haunt me. Chickens to roost, or something. It’s like the woman I know who bragged to everyone about her daughter being completely potty trained at 18 months, and what is everyone talking about, it’s not difficult, just use underwear and praise and voila, children will be potty trained. Then her son came along and was trained at age four.

So back to the story at hand. We’ve all done it. We’ve all marvelled at the fact that our children have gone a period of time with no illness. That’s what I did last night. 9:30 this morning, Jake complained of a headache and being tired. He has been running a high fever all day, and he hasn’t even been interested in watching TV, which is a sign to me that something is WRONG. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping the fever breaks soon. Meanwhile, I’m kicking myself for bringing on the curse.

I accidentally stumbled on a documentary about the “Octomom”. I lasted all of three minutes watching eight crying infants, a few tantruming toddlers, and some surly school-aged children. Hoo boy! That sure was awesome.

His own shoes. This is one of a number.

The inside of Jake’s laundry basket, with a single pair of socks. There are about eight of these pictures.

The train table, with both Sir Topham Hatt and the guy running the Sodor crane plunged to their deaths.

And, of course, my personal favourite:

That was supposed to be a picture of the dog.

When I was an undergrad, I attended a presentation by David Foot, who, for anyone not particularly interested in economics or demographics (which I realize is probably a large portion of the population) is an economics professor and author of the book “Boom, Bust, and Echo”. He extensively studies changes in demographics and writes about how such shifts might impact social and economic issues.

Anyone still reading this?

Anyway, I picked up the Maclean’s issue with “The Case Against Having Kids” screaming across the front cover because, hey, although it’s a bit too late for me, I was still intrigued by the topic. And there was a quotation from David Foot! I was all like Buddy the Elf when he finds out Santa’s coming to the department store. “David Foot? I KNOW HIM!! I KNOW HIM!!!” Although clearly, I do not. But still. I was at a presentation by him, so it’s pretty much the same thing. My brush with celebrity. Have I mentioned that I met Jim Cuddy? I have? Oh.

Where is this going, you may be asking? How much coffee has Nicole had to drink today? Answer to the latter: a lot. Answer to the former: the Maclean’s article was actually very interesting and provided a lot of food for thought. I plan on writing a few posts about this article because a) the kids are in day camp this week and I actually have a bit of time to myself and b) I’m really bored of writing boring posts relating to my limited activities due to the hideous weather and how I wish I could live somewhere where the summer is greater than three days and the winter is less than nine months.

A LOT of coffee.

So anyway, the quote from David Foot is one well known in economics circles, “The higher the education a woman has, the greater likelihood she won’t have children”. This, of course, refers in large part to developing nations and the introduction of birth control to better women’s lives. In other words, if a girl is able to go to school, she may not concede to having eleven children in eleven years and suffering the subsequent health issues. Women’s issues in economics were a passion of mine in university; in fact my thesis was actually entitled “Gender Differences in the Effects of Alcohol on Labour Market Indicators”, which of course has nothing to do with any social or policy implications but hey, it was catchy.

It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that women who have children statistically make less money than women with children, while children have no effect on male earnings. That’s obvious. After childbirth, women typically work less hours and thus earn less. It is also something that I used to rail against in my grad-school days. I also had a poster of a fish on a bicycle and a copy of the feminist manifesto in my office. Which makes the fact that I am now a stay-at-home mom who bakes a whole lot of banana bread a little ironic.

Here’s the thing: if a woman chooses not to have children for any reason, I think that’s great. Our generation, in this area of the world, is blessed with choice. I celebrate our choices and our freedom to make choices. My choices are not any better or worse than someone else’s, and that is why it always hurts my feelings a little when I am repeatedly asked why I am not returning to work. One acquaintance in particular continually asks me why I would give up my career and essentially waste my education to be a stay-at-home mom. And I do not have a good, or calculated, answer to that other than “I want to.”

It’s not like I didn’t have occasional pangs of envy when women I worked with moved around the world and headed up their own teams of people and achieved high levels of success. I just knew that I wouldn’t be returning, and I was okay with that. I guess I just became a statistic.

It finally stopped raining and the sun came out, which is the perfect, if somewhat clichéd, metaphor for today. It’s a very good day.

For one thing, the weather change meant I spent this morning cutting back my insanely unwieldy Siberian iris, while the boys happily gathered the leaves and played “wood chipper”. Gardening makes me happy. What made me even happier was when the boys put the leaves on a low bough of a spruce tree and pronounced it their “friendship house”. Awww. I was so happy to be outside again, not in the least because I was all out of indoor activity ideas. The last few days have been all Homemade Playdough and Painting and Boats in the Kitchen Sink (and Ensuing Flood on Kitchen Floor) and Colouring Books and Truly Endless Games of Farm Animals Who Mutate into Dinosaurs. I introduced Mark to the idea of cutting pictures from magazines and pasting them on paper, and now, in addition to the thirty five other pieces of original art from this week, I have no fewer than seventeen collages made from the Vesey’s catalog. So yes, I am happy the rain has stopped.

Secondly, my husband and I are going out for dinner tonight. A date! It happens about once every four months or so, therefore I am excited. I should be very excited about romance, etc., but what I’m really excited about is eating something I didn’t cook. Ah well, I shall wear my lucky underwear regardless.

Of course, I have saved the best news for last. This news even trumps eating Mediterranean Linguine. My dearest friend is bringing her new baby home today. This little guy was in such a hurry to get here, he decided to arrive a month early and has been in the NICU for the last twelve days. Today, he is going home, which means prayers have been answered.

The flip side to a great vacation is, obviously, the readjustment to regular schedules. I naively thought I was in the clear because yesterday, the day Rob went back to work after two weeks off, was a really good day. The boys played happily together all day. You read that correctly. All day. Happily. Together.

Today was a different story.

The non-stop rain and cold temperatures were only part of the problem. The other part was that we were all bored. Bored out of our minds. To liven up the day we went to Wal-Mart. By all rights that should probably explain everything. The end. What is it about going to Wal-Mart with young children? I think maybe it destroys your soul? Breaks your spirit? Whatever the case, I had two items I really needed to get, and I made a list of discretionary, sort-of-need, running-low-on items that I subsequently filled the cart with. The two items I needed? They didn’t have. Meanwhile, as I’m coming to grips with the fact that Wal-Mart did not have any dog waste bags or Meltaway Tylenol, the boys were apparently becoming unhinged in the pet department, squeezing every single squeaky toy and laughing like very loud hyenas, annoying the hell out of all the other grim-faced shoppers. After we got home, I felt so defeated that I wondered how much longer until bedtime, but unfortunately it was eight and a half hours away. Therefore I morphed into “Most Boring Mother”, unable to rally to the boring tasks at hand and uttered, more than once “Do you want to watch some television?”

Ah, there’s always tomorrow.