TurtleHead

We’re back from our cottage weekend and we survived the call of the wild. I feel so Canadian! We went through a whole box of bandaids, between zebra mussel cuts and deerfly bites and a surprisingly severe corn-on-the-cob incident (don’t ask). Still, I saw turtles! And beavers! And loons! And fireflies! It was enchanting. I could get used to cottage life. Once a year, that is.

It’s been so busy this past week that we still have done nothing to fix our internet situation. I just check it every 10 minutes during the day, and when it magically comes up, I leap into action, uploading a post, sending a bunch of pre-written emails, and trying to load as many blogs as I can in multiple tabs before we lose it again. It’s the pop-in! I’m doing the internet pop-in! Love the pop-in! Anyway, hopefully we’ll make some progress on this issue this week.

And now, at Julie’s request, more on the Big Soccer Drama. This past Wednesday was the last game of the season — Captain Jelly Belly and Gal Smiley played on the same team in the local neighbourhood league. It was a great team but there is this one kid, “Joe,” who has some behaviour problems. He seems to have some communication issues and never really did understand what he was supposed to be doing on the field, which was frustrating for him and for the coaches.

This last week he and the Captain were sitting on the sidelines waiting their turn to go on, when Joe started a “game” that was to knock off the Captain’s hat. I don’t think he was trying to be mean, he was just trying to interact with the Captain and he’s a little awkward. At first the Captain thought it was funny, but the hat-knocking-off soon progressed to hitting, and then kicking. Joe was giggling the whole time, I’m sure he thought he was playing, but I could tell that the Captain was getting confused as to what he should do. The coaches were busy on the field, so after a bit I started calling out non-specific things to them like, “Hey you two, no hitting,” and “Sit quietly when you are on the sidelines, please.”

Eventually Joe walked away a few steps, then turned and ran back and jumped on the Captain, and THAT WAS IT, I was over there in a flash. I pulled Joe aside and snapped in his face, “That’s it! You CANNOT hit him. SIT DOWN.” The assistant coach came right over and broke things up and stood with them for the rest of the time.

I felt like a right ass about it, though. It was just Mother Lion instinct stuff, but I should have behaved better. For one, other parents HATE IT when you speak to their kids like that. I could hear an audible collective gasp from the other parents on the sidelines in reaction — I know they were all thinking what a big no-no it was to snap at someone else’s kid. It just brings out the Mother Lion in the other kids’ mom, and then you have a full-blown incident on your hands (thankfully in my case, Joe’s mother was busy with her two other kids and did not see what had happened).

Secondly, I should have taken the opportunity to remind the Captain how to handle it himself (our rules for hitting are to a) tell the kid you don’t like it, b) move physically away, and then c) ask the coach or teacher for help). I can’t fight his battles for him, and I probably embarrassed him by treating him like a baby.

Yipes.

Anyway, I hung my head in shame and stayed quiet for the rest of the game, and hopefully all the other parents have erased it from their memories. I still blush with embarrassment when I think about it, though. That was some seriously bad Sports Parent Etiquette.

Must do better next year.

Our internet is dying a slow, dramatic, Victorian-style death, complete with fainting spells and death rattle coughing. This seems to happen to us at least once a year. Every time, we curse Bell and swear we are going to switch providers and spend hours on the phone with very nice people in India who are completely unable to help us. Then, after about six frustrating weeks, everything is magically fixed and we live happily for another year. I don’t get it, but it really, really stresses me out.

So posting will be very light for the next few weeks, both because our internet access is down about 80% of the time, and because we’re off on a few trips. This weekend we’re going to brave Princess Charming’s cottage — I am NOT a cottager, but I’ve been promised indoor plumbing and electricity, so I’m risking it. Starting the weekend after that, we’re probably going to go on our summer visit-the-grandparents extravaganza, so we’ll be gone for 7-10 days with no internet access.

DRUG ME NOW.

It’s a shame, because I have such awesome posts puttering around in my head, like the one about the bug that was as BIG AS MY THUMB that Sir Monkeypants took care of last night (my hero!), and the one about how I’ve been test running the walk to and from school in anticipation of not riding the bus next year (NOT popular with the kiddies), and the one about how some kid at soccer could not stop hitting Captain Jelly Belly and I did not handle it in the most calm and ladylike matter (an UNDERSTATEMENT).

But those stories will have to wait for another day, after I talk to India for 15-20 hours and pull out most of my hair.

If you’ve been considering a Blog Out Loud reading, please feel free to email it to me, although I may not get back to you for ages and ages. I still love you though! I still want you! It’s not you, it’s me! Don’t panic.

I’ll be doing enough panicking for all of us.

Captain: On Father’s Day, when I’m a Daddy, I won’t need any presents.
Me: That’s so nice.
Captain: All I’ll need is making my wife pay ALL the money.

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments about my Nana. It’s been a sad couple of days but we are all doing okay.

It’s strange at times like these to live so far from my mom. I’ve talked to her on the phone, as well as to my three sisters, but I think I need the catharsis of being actually with them. There isn’t going to be an official service so I’m heading down in a couple of weeks with FameThrowa to help pack up my Nana’s house, which I’m sure will be a barrel of laughs! All weekend long!

At the very least, I think it will bring some release.

I’m struggling right now with what to tell the kids. They know my Nana, almost as well as they know my mom, but her loss probably won’t have any impact on their day-to-day lives. I’m hesitant to sit them down and make a Big Announcement, like something Major And Life Changing has Happened, because it seems too heavy-handed and will freak them out more than is called for. But Mommy is somewhat sad, and there is a person in their life who isn’t going to be there any more, and shouldn’t I maybe mention that? In passing?

I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

Yesterday morning my mother called me and said, “Hi.”

Then there was a full minute of silence, and I knew my grandmother had died.

It wasn’t a surprise. She was 86 years old and her health and state-of-mind had been going steadily downhill since my grandfather died three years ago. This past week she had been admitted for yet another stint in the hospital, because she’d fallen and broken a hip. She was too weak for surgery to set the bone, so they were just “making her comfortable.” So we knew it was coming, and it was time.

Still. You’d think that have made me more prepared. I feel like my heart is broken.

My Nana was a powerhouse. My Papa accomplished a lot of impressive things in his lifetime, but always with my Nana working behind the scenes, making social and business contacts, getting the best deal on everything, coming up with ideas, designing logos, lending her support. She made it all happen. Growing up, my Nana and Papa lived just minutes away, and they were like a second set of parents to us. We saw them every week, we took trips with them, we went to church with them, had sleepovers at their house. It makes me sad to think that my kids don’t know my own mother the same way.

And it also makes me sad that although my kids did get a chance to meet Nana and Papa, they won’t really know them. They won’t know the stories, they won’t be able to hear legends of relatives long gone and lost to time.

My favourite Nana anecdote is from back when she was in her early 20s, a new mother to a toddler (my mother) and a baby (my aunt). My Papa had never had much formal schooling, but his employer had recognized that he was a smart guy and a quick learner, and agreed to send him to a university in the states for a 2-year engineering degree. My Nana was at home with two kids, on her own with a new car and no driver’s license.

So, she got in that car and, having never been behind the wheel before, drove herself downtown to the licensing office. There, she took the test — with my mom in the backseat and the baby on the floor of the front seat in a bassinet — and passed. Chuzpah and a can-do attitude — that was my Nana.

I remember when I was about 10 years old — that would make her in her early 50s — she broke her leg. She was trying to ride my uncle’s new bike, and fell off. She was in a cast up to her hip and completely unable to move around for six weeks. She’d sit in an armchair, alternating being muttering about how stupid she’d been, and ordering everyone else around. Now that I’m grown and have inherited her need for busyness, I can completely understand how frustrating it must have been to be forced to just sit. Back then, though, I thought she was the luckiest person in the world, since the cast was so very cool. I even got to sign it. AWESOME.

Oh, and there was this one time when she and my Papa were on vacation somewhere with my Nana’s friend Irene. It was a beachy place and they were all in swimming, when a giant wave showed up and shoved everyone under. My grandfather and Irene were not strong swimmers, so my Nana grabbed her husband in one arm and her friend in the other, and dragged everyone back to shore. Kicking ass and saving lives — that was my Nana.

Of course, she could be strong-headed. She had a feud with my grandfather’s sister for 10 years — no one can remember what they fought over, but they didn’t speak or visit all that time. Then one day, my Nana just decided she was done with that, and called up my great-Aunt and acted like nothing had ever happened. All’s well that end’s well, I suppose.

My Nana made the best crispy potatoes — she’d mash them then roll them into balls coated with some sort of crunchy stuff. What were they called again? Ah yes, Potato Croquettes. And she was also legendary for her Christmas pudding — delicious dark fruitcake coated in your choice of white sauce or caramel. When no one was looking, she’d give me an extra little bowl of just white sauce, because it was my favourite. I hope my mother has the recipe. I vow to take up the torch.

In a week or so I’m going down to help my mom clean out my Nana’s house, everything to be sold or given away. I already have the one thing I’d like to keep, though. It’s a recipe for Baked Apples that my Nana wrote out for me when I was in university.

Across the bottom she’s written, “Thanks for being our granddaughter.”

Thanks Nana, for being my Nana.

I know, I have a whole other blog to talk about this, and yet, seems I must post at least every other day about Blog Out Loud. I’m trying! Really I am!

Anyway, just a notice to say that a few people couldn’t get the Blog Out Loud buttons to work for them, and I think I have resolved the issue. Visit this link and grab new HTML for the button of your choice, and let me know if it still isn’t working.

My kids have caught the crazies. Quarantine us, stat!

Little Miss Sunshine has this new habit of dunking every bit of her food in her juice. Toast, crackers, raisins, apple slices, spaghetti with sauce…it all has a little juice added before eating. For flavour, I’m sure.

At least she hasn’t stooped to drinking the leftover juice-swill. YET.

Meanwhile, Captain Jelly Belly and Gal Smiley have developed a sudden, urgent need to be first at everything. I’ll tell them to use the bathroom because we are going out, and they both sprint to the toilet and drop their pants. Then, when they discover that two bums will not fit on the bowl, one ends up screaming and crying because they were not first, and the other ends up screaming and yelling their case as to why they were justified in taking the first pee slot. Then we’re inevitably made late while they both receive a lecture on yelling, screaming, pushing, shoving, and politely allowing our siblings to go first.

At least I haven’t killed either of them. YET.

Then today, the Captain and the Gal came home from school and were colouring while I made lunch. Sir Monkeypants, who is home sick, asks Gal Smiley what she has in her mouth. Turns out, after many threats to tell us the truth, it was gum.

GUM FROM THE BOTTOM OF A SEAT ON THE BUS.

Sir Monkeypants and I just about died from the HORROR.

And don’t think the Captain is an innocent. Oh no, He had some too, he just swallowed it before coming inside.

GUM. FOUND ON THE BUS.

Tell me this sickness has a cure, before I pull all my hair out.

After dinner this evening:

Gal Smiley: I have a little owie on my foot.
Sir Monkeypants: Maybe we will have to amputate.
Captain Jelly Belly: What’s amp-you-tate?
Sir Monkeypants: It’s when you go to the hospital and they cut off your arm or your leg.

At bedtime chat time:

Captain Jelly Belly: Why doesn’t Big Wheel [his stuffed monkey] have a penis?
Me: Um…I don’t know.
Captain: I know! Maybe they had to amp-you-tate!

OUCH.