Golden Tones Part One

After walking Miss Q to school, Miss C, Miss S and I jumped into the van and cruised down to Willow’s Beach.

I’ve written before that this has got to be one of my most favourite beaches in town, it has the right ratio of white sand, tiny pebbles, wet sandcastle making sand, and driftwood. But perhaps it’s best feature for mums with little kids is its beach-side parking – i.e. you can park and be on the beach without the use of a sherpa.

For today’s visit we went with nothing but sunscreen, hats and the clothes on our back.  Naturally, there was water and Fruit To Go’s waiting in the car, but shovels and buckets were left behind… more because I didn’t think to bring them until we were physically walking onto the beach.

Miss C and Miss S didn’t miss them.  They set to work, destroying everything I made.  Mermaid tale: gone; snazzy portrait of their dad complete with dead crab bowtie: bulldozed.  I gave up.  And when I did, Miss S took over, changing snazzy dad into a cake with sprinkles.  Apparently I’m more of the labourer to her engineer.

While Miss S decorated, Miss C found bullkelp and dragged it around like she had a pet.  It was amazing to see how brave she was about picking up slimy sea objects.  Sure, at 19 months, she doesn’t know any better, this you can tell by the ring of sand around her mouth, but I hope she never loses interest in the world around her.

Before leaving the beach, Miss S hauled driftwood that was as tall as her to a central spot and made a bed/raft on the wet sand.  Yours truly got the first test, and it was pretty comfy, although if she was really going to send me out to sea, I would hope she’d lash the logs together before pushing me out.

Golden Tones Part Two

On the way home, from Willows Beach I realized we’d be driving past Miss Q’s school at lunchtime.  ”Do you want to see if we can spy Miss Q?” I asked Miss S.

“Yeah,” was her enthusiastic reply.

Spying, stalking, least I was being honest.  Since September, Miss Q’s school activities have been cloaked.  Happenings in the classroom are relayed to me on a “need to know” basis. I find out about her social life only if something super awesome happens, mostly in their pretend world of (ugh) Monster High; or if I’m cleaver enough to ask the right questions at a time when Miss Q’s itching to spill.

Me:  Did you have a good friend day?

Miss Q: Yes, you always ask me.  The answer’s always yes.

Me:  That’s great.  Did anyone throw a chair today?

Miss Q: (sighs) Yes….

And she’s off describing the drama in her classroom.

Side note: chairs don’t always get thrown in their class.  She has an awesome group of friends, but saying that, with the end of school on the horizon, these kindies are getting tired.  It’s been a long year of being good as gold for their teacher (save the chair throwing), learning new routines, meeting new people, being on point for 6+ hours a day.  It’s amazing they’re still functioning.

Back in September when I was boo-hooing about my little bird being away from the nest, it gave me great comfort knowing I could walk down to Miss Q’s school at lunchtime and have a quick check-in.  Never actually did it though.

So this afternoon as I cruised into one of the parking lots, with the minivan, I paused, wondering if my presence would remove some of the independence from Miss Q’s sails.  Naturally my curiosity silenced the wonder.

What did Miss Q’s lunch hour look like?  Surely I wouldn’t stay for the whole thing, but a glimpse of her on the monkey bars would be nice.

Most of the kids were on the blacktop or racing around the field.  Through the shade of the giant oak trees and my sunglasses, I couldn’t see anyone who remotely resembled Miss Q.

As I started backing up, I noticed one of Miss Q’s classmates sitting under a tree no more than 10 feet away.  She was all alone, or so it appeared.  I gave her a wave and, like an autosterogram, other faces began to appear around the trunk.

“Hi Miss Q’s mum,” the girls started calling.

“Hi,” I waved and unrolled Miss S’s window so she’d have a better view.

“Mum?” a voice growled. “What are you doing here?”

Miss Q stood with her hands on her hips.  The gap where her top tooth had fallen out combined to with her crooked pigtails to make her look like an angry pirate.

“Just coming to say, ‘hi’,” I said, trying no to laugh at her obvious displeasure.  What had I broken up?  ”Hi.” I waved. They looked like a group of teenagers hanging out around a tree.  Miss Q’s best friend was standing in between two branches, above everyone, looking like the leader. “Bye.” I waved, wondering if the playground supervisors knew they had holed themselves up away from all the lunchtime action.

“Bye.”  Miss Q and her classmates said.

When I picked her up from school, surprise of all surprise, I got an invitation to repeat my visit.  Though I still don’t know what they were doing around the tree, it is nice to know my kid isn’t embarrassed of her mama, yet.

Red Truck

My grandpa used to take me for walks to feed the ducks by his house.  After we’d finished feeding them we’d always visit the firehall across from the creek.  We’d check out the trucks, examine the shiny firepole and talk to the firemen.  Even though I was no older than Miss S is now, the moment we happened to be there when the bells started ringing is etched in my mind.

Pressed against the inside wall of the station- yes, right beside the moving truck-  with my hands over my ears, I was hypnotized by the flashing lights as they disappeared down the street.  Cat, old lady, rabid dog, it didn’t matter who they were helping, I was hooked.

Today, our house sits on an emergency route.  This is a huge perk if you have young children, or remember your grandpa every time you see a red truck with flashing lights.  It is also a huge annoyance if you are nosey, and want to know what’s going on in your neighbourhood.

True, I have just recently found a little ditty called ScanBC on the internet, where one can listen to emergency radio transmissions, but it just added more noise to our already noisy house, so I don’t bother… talk to me in about forty years and it may be a different story.

Living on an emergency route isn’t unbearable.  The mornings my husband leaves on his bicycle for work and then ten minutes later an ambulance whizzes by definitely makes me cringe, and stalk him at work until he picks up the phone.  Then there was a period when, without fail, a firetruck would rumble down the road seconds after we’d put Miss Q and Miss S to bed. But, for the most part, emergency vehicles racing down our street is maybe a three times a 24-hour occurrence.

My brother, Uncle M, became a firefighter last fall.  As luck would have it, he works at the station around the corner from us.

Four on, four off.  I have to remember when he’s working so the littles don’t fall over themselves over every truck that cruises past.

With ears like hawks, the littles can hear the siren coming and will stop everything for a chance to jump on the couch and wave through the window at Uncle M.  I’ve got to watch what I wear – apparently everyone’s on display in our front window.

Last Tuesday as Miss S and I were having some quality daughter/mum bonding on the couch, watching The Karate Kid, Uncle M’s truck raced past.  Miss S jumped and waved, leaving Mr. Miyagi in a lurch.  ”I like Uncle M the best.  He’s the best firefighter.  But I don’t know where he’s going to,” she said.

“I don’t know either.  He’ll be happy to hear that.”

“Yeah, he will,” she said confidently, then snuggled back down.

I’d like to add, that The Karate Kid was Miss S’s first ever 80′s movie and I switched channels during the outside the ring fight scenes, so maybe my mum points are semi-restored?

Though it may seem like my girls have a friend on the emergency route out our front door, I’m wondering if I might actually have a foe.  After all, what kind of a brother would Uncle M be if he didn’t use his new job to its full advantage?

Now he gets to wind up my children; force me to hear them utter his praise; and cut through my precious zzz’s with the piercing siren at 3 a.m.

Of course, there is the fact that I get to sit in a cozy house, sip tea and watch movies while he works in the rain, so maybe we’re even.

The only difference between the flashing red lights of 33 years ago, and the ones of today is: today they flash a little brighter as they carry our Uncle M to the scene of an accident, fire, or cat stuck in a tree.

This is 36.

I celebrated my 36th birthday three weeks ago.  I’ve never been shy about announcing my age; this year is no exception – there are at least 200 others from the Class of 1995 joining me for a 36th trip around the sun.

There is nothing shocking or monumental about turning 36, no obnoxious napkins, or scuplted bunny cakes (cartoonish bunny’s, like my mum used to make, not Playboy).  In four years I’ll be rocking 40, while 6 years ago I celebrated every second of my 30th birthday thanks to 10-week-old Miss Q.

Unlike 6 years ago, this year my body is officially my own – with confidence this time.  Yes, sigh, with the baby years firmly behind us, I am now in the process of rebuilding myself cell-by-cell.  If I were a robot, we’d be replacing my entire motherboard, and maybe a leg or two.

Returning to the world of paid work and conversing with other parents has solidified that I have lost my capacity for witty retorts, charming conversations and basic social graces.

I don’t want to be a cavemum who can’t string more than three words together: I, mum, sleepy.  I want to be that mum who at least sounds and looks intelligent.  Maybe I should wear my glasses more often.

So, with a yen to find something non-yoga related to rebuild my over-stretched, baggy, comfy, stained mum-drobe, I decided to go shopping for my birthday… alone.

After being overwhelmed by the glossy storefronts, slick sales staff, and sizing that didn’t go by how many months old I was; I was able to find some rather nice pieces that may or may not go with tiny mustard stained hands.

Buoyed with that success, I marched my face into Shopper’s Drug Mart.  Instead of going directly for run-of-the-mill Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara, I stopped in the fancy boutique section.  Oh yes, I was going for it.

$32.00 later… yes, that’s right: 32 dollars, I came out with mascara that promised to make my squinty eyes POP.  Black for the top lashes, brown for the bottom, this was the mascara to end all mascaras, at least according to the woman in the white coat who sold it to me.

“I’ll throw in some samples,” she said, filling the small paper bag with this and that.

It wasn’t until I was proudly showing off the flashy gold mascara container to my husband that I thought to examine the free samples.  Tiny vials of anti-wrinkle, anti-aging, dark circle erasing cream filled my palms.  Apparently THIS is 36.

By the time you reach 36, there are some things you have to come to grips with:

• You no longer check the 18-35 box on surveys
• Grey hairs suddenly sprout – do you pluck, dye or let live?
• Half your age ago you were 18… half your kid’s ages ago, they were 3, 1.5 and a hope but not reality yet.
• Double your age and it’s 72.

At 18, I was just about to graduate high school; I’d been working for a year at the exact same place I work today – with a few downward tweaks; and I dreamt of being a lawyer and Murphy Brown.   Yes, it’s always good to model your career goals after a TV character.

I thought my classmates and I would be forever-friends; but turns out once the final notes of These Are The Days, by 10,000 Maniacs died off, so did the warmth of spending 5 years together.  Now, there are times we barely acknowledge each other’s existence, which is neither here nor there because my true friends from that graduating class have stood the test of time.

As for working for half my life for the same municipality?  It has it’s perks: put me through university; found me a husband; bought me a house; and if this writing gig never elevates to J.K. Rowland heights, I’ll have a nice pension waiting for me in 20 years.

72 will find me retired and traveling the world, ether by camel or teleportation, with my husband (who will be 77).  By then, the littles will be:  42, 39, & 37.  They might have families of their own; they might be finding ways to better our planet, but they will always be my littles.

For me, birthdays are a week, if not a month long celebration.  There are birthday pedicures, birthday blizzards, birthday bingo…  Even Miss Q is in on the act, announcing that I now also get Mother’s Day Gras – score one for the good-guys.  Yes, the rest of my family just rolls their eyes.

In spite of my family’s waning enthusiasm for my special month(s) I look forward to the future with all of them along with my fab friends.

Though it’s been 18 years since I was pushing the door of life open at 18; now, at 36, with my childbearing years behind me, I stand at the threshold again, no plans, just a command to let the adventure continue.

Zombie Love

Going through Miss Q’s backpack at the end of her school day is always my favourite after school task.  What library book did she pick?  What didn’t she eat from her lunch?  What kind of art will litter our walls for the month?  It’s like Christmas and my birthday wrapped in a giant green bow five days a week.  

My favourite section of her bag is her red folder.  It contains notes from her teacher, the home reading book, and on Fridays, a journal.  In the journal, each week, Miss Q draws a picture of something that’s important to her, then tries to write a sentence about it.  

I love opening this journal.  Love it.  There have been colourful pictures of Miss Q playing on the monkey bars with her best friend, Miss M.  There have been pictures of fairies, rainbows, and caterpillars – all drawn with meticulous detail from their sparkles down to their legs.  Each week Miss Q’s letters become clearer, the sentences become more complex.  It’s amazing how fast this happens.  

I didn’t get to Miss Q’s backpack until Sunday this weekend.  Realizing we needed to get my her homework done, I opened her journal and started reading her sentence.  ”ts is me with brs and a zb.”  

“This is me with bears and a what, Miss Q?”

“A zombie,” she said proudly, dancing over. 

“A zombie?” How did she know about zombies?

“Yeah, she’s a nice zombie though.  She brought her own lunch.”

“What does a zombie bring for lunch?” 

“Brains, of course.”

Walked into that one.  ”Is that so she doesn’t eat yours?”

“Yes.  And those bears are dancing because they came to life.”

Yep, there it all was: a colourful version of Miss Q, green girl zombie, and three small bears.  ”Where did you learn about zombies?” I asked.

“Monster High.  Miss M (her best school friend) told me about them.” 

Fare thee well parental guidance; hello peer influences.  Ack. Why are we sending her to school again?  

I wrote a couple sentences about how much I enjoyed all the colours she was using in the picture and that I hoped the zombie shared her lunch with Miss Q.  Folder went back into her school bag and we moved to the next project.  

Tonight as I was tucking Miss Q into bed, she said she was going to Scaris.  I thought she was trying to be funny, but no, she started listing all the characters from Monster High.  ”Do they have books?” I asked, feeling like I was Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

“I don’t know, but they have movies.”  

“Have you seen one?” 

“No, but Miss M has one.”

“Okay, Miss S, we have a mission tomorrow, we’ve got to look for a Monster High book.”  

“Or the movie,” Miss Q added.  

“I don’t like Monster High.  Scaris is too scary,” Miss S whimpered. 

Great.  Now, not only do we have a possible new obsession, but it might not be suitable for Miss S.  Had Miss Q been scaring Miss S with Monster High stories behind my back?  Darn sisters. 

The truth is, I’ve seen Monster High dolls before.  Very briefly as Miss Q and I wandered the aisles of the toy store – shortly before her melt-down that landed me on my back and her being marched to the car.  See: Friday Fun here.  

They, the dolls, were expensive – $29.00 and were in black packages, as opposed to the hot pink boxes lining the Barbie aisles.  I didn’t really pay them much attention, didn’t look to see that one was a werewolf, one glowed, and one was a zombie, as a wide-eyed Miss Q told me tonight.

When I watched Miss Q describe this warped high school, there were moments when I thought she wanted to dive into the world, join Miss M; and there were moments when I think Miss Q was sort of scared herself.  She probably does have a conflicting internal dialogue; and thankfully, for right now, she’s just curious about plastic dolls. 

At their core, these Monster Highers seem to be just like Barbie with horns but my research is still young.  Though I haven’t formulated a true opinion one way or another, it is reminding me about my own childhood friends: one had a plethora of guinea pigs; one had hundreds of Barbies – okay, fifteen, tops; and one had a room full of Cabbage Patch Kids.  I loved playing at their houses.  They were soooo lucky.  Sadly, my parents didn’t give into my needs, wants and have to haves, so I had to be content to play with my brothers.  That, at least I had a gaggle of.

Time will tell if Monster High gets permanently woven into the fabric of Miss Q’s life; if they haunt Miss S’s dreams; or if these crafty parents can reclaim complete parental control over their six-year-old’s life.  Till then, this mama is hitting the internet and bookstore: her feeble attempt at keeping up with the kindergarten crowd.

Middle of Nowhere

We went to Osoyoos for Easter this year.  Our first road-trip in our new (to us) minivan.

Our old one died last September with a ceremonial thud at the end of our driveway. Cost us a pretty penny to have her towed back onto it too.  Yes, that’s right: towed back onto our driveway, but that’s what happens when the trans-axel breaks, she won’t budge, and the municipality doesn’t want a fancy traffic cone in the middle of the street.

There is never a good time to buy a car.  Especially when you have three kids, a dog and a mortgage.  But, the thought of not having a car to drive into the wild green yonder was  worse, so off my husband went to forage for a vehicle.

He rustled up a nifty one too, as soccer mum vans go.  A 2004 Toyota Sienna, steel blue: double sliding doors, lots of trunk space, tinted windows… We’d moved on up from the 1996 Dodge Caravan, and, more importantly, put distance between us and its crappy transmission.

The only thing this new (to us) van didn’t come with was the almighty DVD player.  That, I’ve heard, is essential to roadtripping with children.  Most families might miss it.  Most families might not leave the lot until one was installed.  Most families would flick it on with the engine.  We aren’t most families.

Proudly, at least for the moment, we travel sans DVD players, iPods, and radios.  Yes, aside from the spaceship-esq interior of our Sienna, our family vacations like we’re in the Dark Ages.

One day we might be singing a different tune; wire the van with a disco ball, Karaoke machine and sound blocking headphones; but until then, our kids are content, truly they are, to sit and watch the scenery.

Part of their contentment lies in the fact they don’t know any better.  Another part is they are really excited to get to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  A third part lies with the fact they are really, really good travellers – something I hope to capitalize on once Miss C gets a little older.

The road to Osoyoos is windy.  Fraught with switchbacks, steep ups and steeper downs, it’s a four-hour drive.  Add a 1.5 hour ferry ride, three kids, and a dog, and that four-hour drive turns into 8 plus.  (Roadtrip secret: take lots of breaks.  Candy in Princeton doesn’t hurt either.)

Our car handled the twists and turns beautifully – one of the nicer aspects of this minivan vs the now defunct old blue.

On the way out it was sunny, blue sky, open highway, Miss S belted out her version of Baby Beluga, over and over and over again, much to Miss C’s delight… life was good.  On the way back, Miss S and Miss C dosed but Miss Q was quiet, unsettled.

We thought it was due to her leaving her grandparents, the earliness of the hour, hunger.  But just past Princeton, before the gates of Manning Park, we heard the famous words, “You need to stop.”

As I turned to see what the problem was, I was hit in the face by her vomit.  A glancing blow: a mix of orange peels, egg and water.  Thank you Grandma for the yummy breakfast.

Have I mentioned how much room we have in our new (to us) van?  Miss Q was sitting in the way-back, over the driver’s side back wheel, I was the co-pilot.  Sign her up for a watermellon seed spitting contest this summer.  Thankfully (?) the rest of her stomach emptied on her lap, missing the four large stuffed Easter bunnies buckled in a pile between her and Miss S.

Safely parked on the shoulder of the Crow’s Nest highway, my husband and I sprung into action.  He took the car; I took Miss Q.

All thoughts of sympathy puking vanished as I helped a shivering Miss Q out of her clothes and bathed her in Neutrogena facewash and water from our waterbottles.

“Your daddy and I used to do this to our parents,” I told her.

“You did?”

Well, I never warranted a wilderness bath, I thought.  But I did remember being green around the gills thanks to the sway of my dad’s driving maroon and silver van.  Yes, I feel colour had something to do with my sickness.

The thought of being the same as her parents made Miss Q feel better, though she wasn’t happy with the pictures I snapped of our predicament.  Nor did she find joy in the news she’d made a memory we’d re-live at her wedding.

Once she was clean and warm (there was still snow in the mountains) the next six hours of travel passed uneventfully: we by-passed Chuck-E-Cheese much to my dismay, were the second to last car on the 5:00 ferry, and made it home with enough daylight left for my husband to finish cleaning our now christened car.

Even with a cloud of motion sickness tailing us, I look forward to future trips with our girls.  There’s nothing like cruising through the wild, searching for bears (them), searching for Big Foot (me), and being together, undistracted, as a family.

Somewhere on the Crow’s Nest, now known forever more as ‘That place we bathed Miss Q.’                                           (Looking east, we were travelling west.)

Shark Girl No More

My husband showed me a small Ziploc bowl (with lid) when I came in the door tonight, “We took lots of pictures.”

Naturally I refused to touch the container for fear they’d snared a spider or some other multi-eyed creature.

When my fingers finally, bravely, hesitantly, plucked it from his hands, and I spied the tiny white object inside.  My heart sank.

I’d missed it.  The moment Miss Q had been waiting months for had just passed me by.  Why? Because I was at work.

Such is the curse of the working mum.

Miss Q’s four front teeth have been in various stages of wiggly, since before Christmas.  Of all of them, her bottom front baby teeth were the closest to popping out.  But they came with a catch: both of had adult teeth growing in behind.

We called it her shark tooth long before we realized that was actually the scientific name.

She let me wiggle her bottom left tooth until I overstepped my welcome and wiggled with a little too much zest.

“Keep working on it, it will eventually come out.”  I casually told her, all the while itching to get my hands on it again.  It was so close to the edge.  ”Want an apple?”

My husband tisked.  ”Let it come out naturally.”

From what he told me tonight, it did.  Miss Q appeared after she’d been tucked into bed, tooth proudly on display.

Thankfully, my husband’s been married to me for a while.  He told Miss Q she needed to show me her tooth before giving it to the Tooth Fairy.  At least I’m not completely shut out – though I have to work again tomorrow night so I’ll miss the flurry of placing the tooth under the pillow.  (Yes, I’m still playing my tiny violin.)

But I’ll take all that I can get and will wait excitedly for morning when we can share this, her latest milestone.  Since I know she won’t let me bronze the tooth, I hope the Tooth Fairy trades it for something good.

Sorry about the blood, but this is real life There it is, her tiny front bottom tooth. We first saw its existence on an ultrasound when Miss Q was in my belly. Sniff.