Even superheroes have to sleep…

So, we’ve spent a lot of time in the last few days making superhero costumes for the kids’ stuffed animals. They’re about the cutest things ever:

Before

Iron Pengy

Super Bengy

Zeeb Man

Rear-view mirror

Monkerine

Leo’s guys

And if that isn’t cute enough already, they have a night-time ritual wherein all the superhero trappings come off and get put away so the guys are ready for maximal night-time comfort.

The moments when the 10-year-old is not all tween-y and “I’m too aloof for anything” are few and far between, and make me misty in an I’m-going-to-be-the-stalker-mom-from-Love-You-Forever kind of way.

So THIS is what I used to do with myself…

I accidentally started watching waaaaaay too much TV. Thing is, it’s just so easy! I can stream almost anything I want to watch to my phone, my TV, my computer – anytime, anywhere. Take a generally sedentary girl with no cash and add constant easy access to TV and movies? Good-bye, blogging. Good-bye, evening phone conversations. Good-bye, early bedtime. Hello, popcorn. Hello, ringer off. Hello, “just going to watch one more… Really this time.”

Anyway, it’s been a grand honeymoon, and it ain’t over. But I thought I’d come up for air for a moment and try to remember some things I did B.N. (Before Netflix). Like tell y’all what we’ve been up to (I know you’ve been waiting on the edges of your seats).

Well, we’ve been deeply embroiled in The Pet Wars for a couple months. Max desperately wants a pet. A dog, to be precise. A chocolate lab, to be even more precise. A chocolate lab named Coco (girl) or Choco (boy), if you really want to get right down to it. He has been relentless. Leo being Leo jumps on whatever bandwagon Max is on, and so he’s on pet patrol, too. Although he can’t appear to be EXACTLY mimicking his brother, so he wants a bunny, although he hasn’t really thought out any details beyond that. He’s an ideas man.

This is a brief snapshot of how our conversations go:

MAX: Sigh.

ME: What’s wrong, honey?

MAX: I just saw a brown pair of pants.

ME: ??

MAX: Brown reminds me of wood, wood reminds me of sticks, sticks remind me of fetch, fetch reminds me of dogs. Please, can I have a dog?

ME: No.

or

LEO: Oooh-la-la!

MAX: Don’t say that.

LEO: WHY NOT?!

MAX: Oooh-la-la reminds me of “la, la, la,” which reminds me of singing, which reminds me of pop song lingo, which reminds me of “‘ssup, dawg?” which reminds me of dogs.

or (a little darker desperation seeps through here)

MAX: Well, what if I got someone to get me a dog and then the pet store blew up and all the humane societies burned down, so there was nowhere to return it? Could I keep it?

ME: No.

MAX: Leo, we may as well just stop. It’s like talking to a brick wall. There is no point. The woman has no heart. THERE IS NO POINT! WE’LL NEVER, EVER, EVER HAVE A PET! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! EVERYONE HAS A PET EXCEPT US! THERE’S A DOG NOW! THEY’RE ALL THE RAGE – SEE??? OHHHH, OHHHH, OHHHH!!!

[... descends into wails, joined quickly by his brother as they try to outdo each other in the Best Keening category, and let me tell you, if there was an award for this (and thank god there's not), my kids would win. Hands down. And on the off-chance you think I'm exaggerating, you can go ahead and ask my mother. She drove through the sobbing and gnashing of teeth for a good half hour on a recent road trip. She promised to never again think their desire for a pet was "cute." She may have also promised never to go on a road trip with us again, but she didn't say that part out loud.]

So, I’m still a brick wall, and will remain thus. I’m not a pet person. I had The Worst Pet Ever for 16 (yes, SIXTEEN) years (am I right, Heidi Taber?), and I am done. The requests have become a little less frequent over the last week or so – here’s hoping we continue on this trajectory.

We did it up right for Valentine’s Day today – we are suckers for a special occasion here. We had an entirely pink/purple meal – it looked something like this:

Ravioli with beet-infused cheese sauce

Beets with basil, garlic and chevre

Purple cabbage coleslaw (I couldn't resist the carrots, even though they totally sully the theme - no purple carrots in my crisper today)

Carrot cake with raspberry cream cheese icing (and look at me! I didn't even throw it out because the heart wasn't exactly centred - I'm learning!)

It was a lovely day and a lovely meal and I’m happy to have made it through the first post-apocalypse Valentine’s Day in one piece. I’m pretty OK, actually, and that feels good.

Now, I really must get back to my show.

The joys and perils of a new home

We moved. That was a big deal – holy. But we’re in and unpacked and life feels as though it is finally – FINALLY! – settling into some kind of normalcy. I realized after two weeks of living under the same roof what an accomplishment living and parenting through the last while has been.

Guys. I moved once or twice a week for SEVEN MONTHS.

That’s just plain crazy, and I can’t believe now that we all made it. But we did. And we’re in our lovely new home, and all four of us shared a wonderful, comfortable Christmas here together, and for that I’m oh-so-grateful. The kids had a lucrative and fun Christmas and we all shared a few days of good food and friends. Could we be these people – people who can co-parent and co-exist with class and kindness? I hope so. I think so.

If I’m ever not sure how it’s all going to play out, I take solace in knowing I can talk to Leo, who has a direct line to the future with his crystal ball:

“Just remember,” he said. “You can never deny the future. WE ARE GETTING A HEDGEHOG.”

His unintentional comedy has been going strong post-move – not a day goes by when I don’t jot something down that he says with utter guilelessness.

The night before the last day of school in December, he followed me into the kitchen: “I won’t be going to school tomorrow. I’ll be living my life as a cat that day, but with human food in bowls and I’ll go to the toilet, not the litter box.”

Immediately after this, he busted out a reasonable imitation of The Bangles walking like Egyptians:

“How do you like my walking like a Japanese person?”

“Um, I don’t think Japanese people walk like that.”

“Oh. I mean those people with the pyramids.”

“Egyptians?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Well, I’m not sure how many Egyptian people walk like that.”

“Uh, all of them do! Well, unless they’re carrying pyramids.”

One sees where the compulsion to produce saccharine comics or columns of  the “oh, the things those gosh-darned kids say” variety comes from (I’m looking at you, Family Circus and Reader’s Digest). I’m resisting. Perhaps primarily because I can’t draw and don’t have a fluffy magazine waiting for my kids’ little gems, but I like to think it also has a little something to do with integrity, and a basic understanding that the things one’s own kids say are generally most amusing to oneself.

Oh. So, one thing you have to deal with when you’re the only adult in a house? Rodents. This was ABSOLUTELY not in my job description until now, and there was a reason for that. I’m terrified of the little varmints. No, but really. Stand-on-a-chair-leave-the-house-screaming-wait-I-can’t-because-I’m-paralyzed-with-fear terrified.  I knew quickly that there was something scurrying and scratching about, but tried to ignore it. That didn’t work. The blessing and curse of being obsessively tidy and clean is that I can always tell when one teeny-tiny thing is out of place, so after a few mornings of a couple things being not quite right, and knowing there was no one else here to move things around, I had to admit there was a problem.

I knew that I had to go right to the serious elimination plan – there would be no catching and releasing, not even any killer trapping – I cannot see these creatures or I will melt into a puddle of wussy girl on the floor. I bought poison. I distributed poison generously. The thing ignored the poison and ate the labels off my cans of tomatoes. Tried some traps. It toyed with them and left them strewn about my kitchen, mocking me. I started sleeping with my door closed and towels shoved up against the crack at the bottom of the door in case it ventured up the stairs. Still the torment continued. It taunted me, gnawing at my kids’ gingerbread houses, leaving clues that it had checked out their rooms. I moved them up to my room for a “campout!!” It became obvious that I was not up for this challenge. We called the big guns in to eliminate the problem.

The night before my enforcer was scheduled to come set everything right, I sat on my couch enjoying the quiet after bedtime when I saw motion out of the corner of my eye. I bravely ran up the stairs trying not to squeal because I knew it would re-enforce horrible gender stereotypes in front of my lovely boys. I called my mom. She sent me my stepdad. (Totally smashing those stereotypes. Totally.) He arrived with a car full of tools and utter confidence that “we” would get this sucker. I watched in alarm from my safe place on the landing as he unloaded his supplies: a tomato cage, a burlap bag, a hoe and a broom. The children were now beside themselves with excitement. I was quickly devolving into high-pitched, monosyllabic babbling. He marched in, sealed the perimeter of the dining room so that the creature could not escape once rousted, and we both tried to talk Leo out of getting right in there, too. He was vibrating with enthusiasm over this mission. Peter said, wiping sweat from his brow, “Phew. This is gonna be a two-person job.” Ready to jump in and help however I could, from the landing I said, “So…. who shall I call?”

He did it himself.

He poked that thing out of its hiding place under the piano, Leo squealed with glee – “It’s over there! OVER THERE! GO! PETER! GO!” and I yanked him into the hallway and out of the line of sight as the capture and elimination occurred.

It was gone. For real. I breathed. I ran for the fridge and drank the fastest beer I’ve probably chugged since my one and only keg party. Leo ran right behind me to look at the scene, and then slammed his cup down on the counter, breathing heavily. “I’m ready for a drink. Soy milk, please.”

Once I regained my ability to speak, we were chatting about the whole escapade, and Leo said, eyes shimmering, “This has been the BEST part of my day so far!!”

We packed Peter on his way, re-settled the boys into bed (Max had calmly said he was quite happy to miss the whole thing, and instead devoured a few extra chapters of his book), and I returned to my couch with a great sense of relief.

Thank the lord we’ve had no further encounters or indications of any more intruders, but the nice man who does this for a living was here today saying reassuring things like “guaranteed success” and “let’s fight this battle outside rather than inside,” all the while placing large hunks of various kinds of deadly poisons in key locations and promising home visits every few days. I love this man.

We moved. We made it through seven difficult months, and that’s incredible. My house is lovely and inhabited only by humans. It’s good to be here.

The last supper

This is it: tonight is my last night here. What a strange feeling. Everything is packed up and ready to go, and the next time I come back to my kids… they’ll come to me. To our new home. I have no doubt it will be wonderful, but the change is still difficult and emotional on a whole lot of levels.

We held a feast in honour of the occasion, foods selected by kids, prepared by me – pot roast, mashed potatoes, carrots and gravy:

We enjoyed it immensely in our pyjamas – it was perfect.

We talked about things we were looking forward to in the new house:

LEO: Living closer to my friends.

MAX: More amazing meals like this.

And things we were nervous about:

LEO: That my friends will call Matt’s house when we’re at your house and we won’t be there.

MAX: That it’s a new house.

And then more about all the things we would do to allay their fears – Matt will tell people to call our house if that’s where the kids are; a lot of our furniture, toys and belongings will be coming with us to the new place so it will feel like home, even if it’s new.

It feels monumental, this last night. And then one more monumental night, our first in the new house. And then … maybe … no more monumental events for a bit? I’d be OK with that.

On a lighter note… I guess I’m in need of a new blog name as of December. What’s it gonna be?

Schleppin’ with the best of ‘em

Oh my. I moved every single box out of my house today.

First of all, who knew a station wagon could hold a good 25 boxes at a time?

Secondly, my body is very sore and tired.

Thirdly, how can I still be creating more boxes? They’re getting to be the weird ones, though, the ones labelled: “Kitchen, coupla things from the bathroom, oh, a few coats and, uh,  some throw pillows.” The stuff that feels like such a relief to get packed, but will perplex and annoy me as I try to find my “going out” coat in a hurry at the new house. Oh, well. It’s almost done. Moving day will be primarily furniture and a few boxes – much more manageable.

Of course as moving day gets closer, we wonder how the kids are doing – surrounded by boxes, about to start commuting to a house they’ve never seen… The other day Max came up to me and said, “Kate? I have a question about the move.”

“Yes? Anything!”

“Who’s getting the coffeemaker?”

“Well, the one that’s here is staying here, and I have another one for at our new house.”

“Oh, good. I was worrying about the mornings on the weeks we’re with the parent without the coffeemaker.”

The two of them have also kicked into high gear on the We Want a Pet Campaign. Yesterday, this was delivered to me:

In other news, Leo got a tick in him last week, and all but one tiny bit was successfully removed (no further details necessary there – let me say that even though I seem to have been on duty for every tooth disaster known to our kids (I do define tooth disaster quite loosely, for the record), I was very happy not to have been on-call for The Tick Incident). Anyway, we’ve taken all the appropriate health care measures, I’m really just trying to lay the groundwork for today’s excitement.

I got a call from the school saying Leo had taken a bad fall off the monkey bars and landed in what appeared to be a very painful manner on his back and bitten his tongue. The yard supervisor said she had looked him over, he seemed fine, and she asked him if his back was hurting. “Oh, no. Only where the tick tooth is stuck in my back.”

“So,” she said. “Um, does he have a tick in his back?”

I had to acknowledge that yes, he’d had a run-in with one recently but that there was nothing to worry about and that he was, in fact, not suffering from the little remnant. (He, if asked, will tell you that he can tell it’s eating through his back and going to come out his front and then he’ll put it under his pillow for the tooth fairy. Wonder how many tick teeth the tooth fairy’s run into in her day. Oh, the stories she could tell.)

OK, enough of that (shudder).

It snowed this morning! I opened the curtains and called Leo over who started bouncing and vibrating and laughing… He was out the door in five minutes flat: “Can I brush off the car? Can I make a snow angel? Is it good for snowballs?” Thank god the answer to all his questions was yes, and we barely saw him for as long as it took to eat his breakfast.

We have a giant snow/leaf ball in our freezer and he fell asleep asking if the moon would melt the snow overnight. It’s a magical thing, snow, and I’m revelling in the honeymoon phase of our relationship right now. Bring it on, winter. I’m ready.

Friday Family Fronts Night

We all took a break from the packing and chaos last night to head to the hockey rink. Our first OHL game of the season and Leo’s first ever – it was a resounding success. In the first few minutes of a scrappy, exciting period, a puck flew up towards us and the guy in front of us caught it. He promptly turned around to see if there was anyone else who might want the keepsake and his eyes locked on Leo, who was vibrating with excitement in his seat. He passed it back to him, and made Leo’s night and restored some of my faith in the innate kindness of humanity.

After a lengthy first period, we loaded up on junk food at the canteen and headed back to our seats for round two. The Fronts couldn’t stop scoring, and Leo couldn’t stop rhyming off the other things that might fly up our way and asking if we’d be able to keep those (a hockey stick? A helmet? A piece of ice? A tooth?). The game was exciting, the food was sticky, salty and sweet, and we enjoyed every moment.

After shooting these photos, I turned to Leo, whose second bottom tooth had become dry-heave-inducingly loose over supper, and lo and behold, the damn thing was gone. He spent some  ill-advised time looking around on the floor for it (for the record, dropped popcorn can look an awful lot like teeth), and then was content with the promise of writing the tooth fairy a note explaining his predicament.

At the end of a high-scoring shut-out, we headed home to tuck boys into bed and notes under pillows:

Everyone slept like logs and now we’re enjoying a chill Saturday morning: boys watching cartoons, me cleaning my skate wheels, making a roadtrip playlist, and loading up directions to our motel and bout this evening. This my new car’s inaugural derby road trip, and I can’t wait to load it up with food, coffee, beer and derby girls in a few short hours.

Boxes and baggage and bouts, oh my!

Wow, I just stumbled across The Drawer of Lost Fishnets. I probably bought a new pair for every game and event last year when I couldn’t find them at a moment’s notice, and now I could wear a pair a day for a week and still have some in reserve. Wealth is a relative thing, I guess; I may be cash-poor, but y’all should be envious of my stash of saucy tights.

I keep thinking I might be done the “it gets worse before it gets better” phase of hauling things out, sorting, packing, but it’s clear that we’re going to be in the “it gets worse” phase for some time still. Maybe even until moving day. I am a neat and ordered person, and being surrounded by boxes and piles and stuff everywhere is not at all within my comfort zone. To put it mildly. But all I can do is keep going and know that in the end, order will prevail.

It doesn’t escape me, by the way, that really all I’m allowing myself to deal with right now is my intense dislike of messiness and disorganization… I have a feeling that addressing my fear and hatred of change is waiting in the wings. Baby steps.

In all my packing zeal, I now fear that I may have packed some boxes that are un-liftable… whoops. Hmm. Perhaps I shouldn’t post things like this before hitting all my friends up to ask them to help me move.

In other news, derby draft done – results to be unveiled next week. The beauty of the draft is that no matter where I end up, I get to play this amazing sport with these amazing women again next year, and that equals total and utter success. And this weekend my 2011 Disloyalists get one more kick at the can in Brantford. Can’t wait – a derby roadtrip is just what the doctor ordered.

Boxes ‘R’ Us

How did Tom Power know I needed a little Blue Rodeo (Til I Am Myself Again) this morning? It was just the loud singalong I needed to kick-start my day. Never underestimate the restorative power of music. And coffee. Lots of coffee.

Holy crow, one accumulates a lot of stuff over the years. Let me tell you that going through two people’s lifetime collections of CDs and books, dusty and disorganized, is a chore that makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs. I have now packed myself clear out of boxes, which I guess means a night off. Maybe not a bad thing, but now that I’m on a roll, I don’t really want to stop. I guess there’s always tomorrow night. And the next one. And the next one… And then one more whole week left here in the house for packing. I can do this. It’s actually kind of a blessing to be moving in and out every week – gives me a week of mad cleaning, packing, cleaning, then a week to recover, then back to it… I don’t know that I could sustain this level of turning organization into chaos and back again for four solid weeks. This is a much bigger job than I had anticipated. Thank god for cold beer, bad TV and loud music to make it all a little more bearable.

And as if this all weren’t enough… a look in the mirror this morning revealed some new furrowed brow wrinkles between my eyebrows and pimples on my chin. Seriously? I’m suffering the effects of stress and aging while reverting to an oily-faced teen? I don’t know whether to buy Oil of Olay or Clearasil, but at least one of these conditions had better shove off, and quickly. I have quite enough on my plate without my skin going all bipolar on me.

My Christmas shopping just got a whole lot cheaper…

I don’t think I’ll take any toys along to the new house – obviously all these kids need is a few empty boxes. We have TVs, transmogrifiers, duplicators, time machines and new hats. Max has also addressed a box (with Leo in it) to some fictional address in Sydney, Australia. Amazing to be reminded how simple fun can be.

In which I (finally) resort to some cussin’

You know what? This is really fucking hard.

I try to proceed with life as if I’ve got things under control, and thank god that the kids and social niceties force me to present a generally strong and happy front. I think I mostly do a good job at this. But one thing I have learned lately is that actually, it doesn’t always pay to be stoic. Sometimes things suck and it doesn’t do anyone any favours to pretend otherwise.

I am sitting here with my belongings strewn about me, in the midst of the actual, physical process of un-entwining my life from someone else’s – someone with whom I pictured permanent intertwinement. And honestly? It just fucking sucks.

Yes, this was my choice. Yes, I think it was the right one. But goddammit, it’s still really fucking sad and hard and horrible. I think sometimes I get so caught up in a) the not-insignificant logistical minutiae of our transitional living arrangements and b) reminding myself and others that this was all my doing based on what I wanted and needed that I don’t allow myself to accept and mourn all the things that I, also, have lost. Because I have lost so much, and I do mourn that loss.

I am nostalgic for the many, many wonderful years. I am melancholy about the things we planned to do together at 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, and so on.  I am sad that my feelings changed. I would have given anything for that not to have happened. I resisted admitting that it had happened, but it did. I grew and things changed and time passed. I need and want different things than I did when I was 23. I think many of us do. But just because it may be a true fact that people evolve and relationships change doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to move right along – no matter whose idea it might be. I look forward to the future – I really do – but boy-howdy, it sure isn’t just a skip through the mayflowers to get there.

Anyway. Here I am, and here we are. Life looks a whole lot different, but we’re hangin’ in there. My kids are still loved every moment of every day. They are happy, healthy, hilarious humans and I feel so glad for the family that I and we have created. These are the things that matter most, and I never, ever lose sight of them.

Today, surrounded by boxes and piles of “mine,” “yours,” “not really sure,” I looked out into the hall to see this:

“What’s up?” I said.

“Could you please close the lid and turn the dial to cat?”

I obliged and moments, later, out he crawled, meowing, looking for tuna and a scratch under the chin, then purring contentedly while rubbing up against my leg.

Moments later, Matt showed up to pick up some stuff and joined our pre-bedtime family game of Twister for a few moments. Hilarity ensued.

Our family is changed, but not. Different, yet still stupendous. I am overwhelmed, but I am thankful.