A Shout Out

A very close friend of mine goes in for surgery tomorrow morning. She's been diagnosed with melanoma on her thigh and we have been joking about the number of stitches she will receive as a result of the surgery to remove the unwell skin. I have placed my bets on 21 stitches, but she tells me I am full of shit and declares it will be closer to 121.

We joke that if he were a really good surgeon, he would reshape and sculpt while he was in there, and present her with a really great pair of buttocks. Not that she needs any help: as a skater, she is the envy of many of us.

We got together for dinner tonight, and kept it light: drank too much wine, talked about the frivolities of shopping trips to New York in the Spring, and how she was so very now with her blue snakeskin top and matching purse. We joked that the current legging/long top fashion would suit her convalescence well.

We danced around the seriousness of the night and enveloped her in love and good wishes, trashy magazines and Maynards wine gums.

And when tomorrow morning comes, Kylie, I will be thinking of you and sending you Big Love.

One of those days

I feel like I have been on a roller coaster today and we're not going to Playland until Friday.

Big-A was exercising his indomitable almost-three-year-old will, and Little-A seemed glued to me and feeding every hour and a half. The house was a mess, I was trying to tidy it in the midst of toddler/infant chaos, pay equal and quality attention to each child, and fight this head cold that's been buzzing around my brain since the weekend.

Thinking too, about the week ahead, and the upcoming family wedding. Thinking of my little baby starting school, (well, okay Miriam it's only preschool) and how this truly is the beginning of the end of his babyhood.

Reading through that ghastly tombe "What to expect..." and delighted to realize Little-A is meeting or exceeding all of his three-month marks and he is only a week into his third month.

And then we put Little-A into his high chair for the first time, and this was the (rather comical) result:


And then we put Big-A into his suit for the wedding, and I realized just how very far he is from babyhood after all:



Pictures like these make it all worth it.

Boiling Lakes of Lava and World Domination

Camping this weekend with the family, I discovered a few things.

I discovered that it is possible to camp with a three-month-old, without tons of baby gear.

I discovered that the camping hygiene standards (rinse with cold water and dry with hand sanitizer) were vastly lower than my comfort levels.

I discovered all that kids really needed to have a good time was a tree stump, a couple of sticks and their imagination.

Alouette Lake is situated in the middle of Golden Ears Park. Once you pass the two-dimensional Billy Goat at the Trail head, cell phones cease to work, and you enter a virtual tech-blackout-zone. It is sheer bliss. As you meander around the campsites, you see whole families talking to each other, and Moms and Dads actively engaging in their childrens' play, with little to no distraction.

And the playground is where I discovered the boiling lakes of lava and world domination.

There were a group of children playing. Not in front of their computers, gameboys or hand-held devices, but actually playing. One was in an Iron Man costume, one in Spiderman, and two others were using sticks as swords. They were climbing all over the jungle-gym unravelling elaborate plots to take over the planet, (insert boiling lakes of lava here), and taking over the world.(insert world domination here) It felt good to watch, and remarking to one parent, know that they were still capable of pulling plot lines out of their grey matter rather than their hard drives.

I think I am going to make this an annual thing.

Happy Birthday Mitzie

My first time at a Doggie Birthday party. Not sure about the concept, but I am sure there is a vast, untapped luxury market out there somewhere for this kind of thing.... Thoughts?

Sometimes I wonder

Holidays are ending shortly, and so we took the family out for dinner and a visit to Confederation Park last night as a sort of celebration. Dinner was fantastic, however at the park, we discovered that one of Big-A's favourite features (a large wooden truck with two steering wheels and a gear shift) had been torched and surrounded by "caution" tape. You could practically see the wood still smoldering, it was so fresh.

It begged the question "why" immediately.

Why would someone torch a kiddie toy in a playground? (And believe me, it was no mean feat, as it was a thick, plywood structure with large metal bolts)

Aaron muttered "idle minds...." I just shook my head with the other mothers gathered around the swingset.

Big-A declared the Firemen who put it out "awesome", and declared he would ask them for a replacement truck.

I hope they replace it soon. The charcoaled stumps are pretty depressing.

Heartbreakers

He's going to break hearts when he's older, oh boy.
(with Photo credit to Anna)

And so's this one:

The Curse of the Invisible Stroller

There's a phenomenon that plays out between people with kids and those without, and I fell victim to it again today: the invisibility factor of a giant stroller complete with infant car seat, Toddler, diaper bag and often-haggard Mom.

Most recently: I was at the local rec centre, via the library, in order to weigh Big-A and see how close he is to the 40lb weight restriction for car seats vs. booster seats, and thought I would be all clever and use the digital scale in the exercise room at Confederation Park. Never mind feeling totally out of place amongst the lycra-clad skinny bodies and decidedly un-child-friendly atmosphere, I soldiered through and made it with Toddler, Newborn and Stroller to the scales.

I soon became aware of an intense middle-aged spandex-clad skinny body breathing down my neck and not-so-subtly tapping her foot as if to say: "Can you please get on with it - I have another five miles to run".(You can appreciate trying to get a wriggling two-and-three-quarters to stand still long enough to get a digital read)

We got weighed, and were trying to navigate Stroller, Toddler, and Newborn, when Spandex pushed past me, hopped over the front wheel of the stroller and leapt up on the scale. Really? Did she have to get weighed that fast?

This is not a one-off.

I see it all the time - people pushing me or the kids and virtually hurdling the front of the stroller as if they had to get to our mutual destination first so as to be spared the pain and volume of dealing with the pace of a family.

Or those that walk towards you, never looking down, virtually running into the stroller and/or child, and only at the very last second finally deigning to notice you?

Now, I own a BOB. These are not small strollers. There is nothing petite or subtle about them. Their tires have a 35PSI rating and better shock absorbency than most old cars. How anyone could possibly miss them is beyond me.

And yet, the Stroller Blindness continues.

John Hughes committed my Teen Angst to celluloid

Pink bridesmaid's dress. Hot Guy With the Cool Car. Birthday cake. And a kiss that froze frame and started the credits to Sixteen Candles. I played and rewound that part on the VHS over and over, imagining a day when I could drive, be sixteen, and (impossibly) get the Hot Guy With the Cool Car.

Or how about The Breakfast Club and the bad-boy Bender in the broom closet with Claire ("That's a fat girl name") cocking his head and letting his long rebel-hair angle across one eye, telling her he would be "outstanding in that capacity" as a tool to get back at her parents? Okay, I may have had a secret crush on Judd Nelson (before he plumped out in his comeback role of Suddenly Susan)

How many of you rooted for Ducky and were secretly in love with the angst-ridden Andrew McCarthy as Blane McDonnagh? (again, before he descended into the cinematic hell of Weekend at Bernie's)

How many of your guy friends harboured lusty thoughts for Lisa in Wierd Science, and thought Ferris Bueller was the coolest teenager ever?

Hughes' filmography embodied and embraced everyone under 21. You could relate to the characters, and empathize with their particular hell that was high school.

One of my faves:

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case...a princess...and a criminal...
Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

Thank you for defining a generation.

Summer fun in a Photo

Three Little Monkeys,
Jumping on the Bed...

Family Memories in a Blue Cup

I spent the August long-weekend at the cottage, as is my habit, and amongst the games, dinners, drinks and other frivolities, I was stopped in my tracks by a blue cup.

Now, it wasn't fancy, not even glass: it was a stackable, plastic, cobalt blue drinking cup that dated back to the seventies, and it transported me instantly to my childhood.

Suddenly, I was back in the kitchen at the cottage, my grandmother was perched on her stool, baking bread in the wood stove, my Dad and I were sitting down to breakfast, and Moira the yellow lab was cruising through to the kitchen by way of the wormwood gate. The coke bottles perched on the end of my nose were thick, plastic and decidedly un-stylish, and I lived in my deep purple velour tracksuit with pink applique butterflies over the breast. (hey, I've never claimed to be a style maven) Sun was streaming through the grape vines trellised over the picnic table in the courtyard, the French doors were open and there was a stiff Westerly blowing in the Channel: enough to rock the rusty old porch swing and ruffle the thick white braid fringe around its' canopy.

And all this from a small plastic cup.

(kind of like this:)