An extra Christmas

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Sherry

In some ways I wish that I could see everyone I need to see on Christmas day. Growing up, my sister and I went up north to my grandmother’s house.

Isn’t it an amazing house? Hard to believe it’s a grocery store parking lot now, but I’ll refrain from ranting since it doesn’t change anything.

My dad’s mom would come over on the 24th, have dinner, then attend church. After that, she’d come back and spend the night. That house was more than big enough for everyone and we would all go to sleep, waiting for morning.

My sister and I shared a room (and that went well, yep, not really) and we’d often wake up by 6 am. Then we would be amazed by how slowly time could crawl by. We weren’t allowed to get up until my grandmother got up, turned up the heat, lit the woodstove in the kitchen, and then turned on the Christmas music on the radio.

We’d all go downstairs and my whole family – me, my sister, my parents, my grandmothers – would open presents, hang around the house, and have Christmas dinner together. It simply never occurred to me that we were atypical and that most people didn’t have Christmas that way, that most people juggled family and spread Christmas out.

I’ll admit that it took me awhile (years) to get used to how different this all is now than the way it was for me growing up, but in a way I like our new way now. It means that Christmas lasts longer because we see my family on the 26th, and it’s good for the kids because they don’t get quite as overwhelmed by too many gifts all at once (and have fewer meltdowns).

This year was unfortunate because we weren’t able to go on our usual day, which had me bummed, but there was nothing we could do. The weather was terrible with freezing rain and ice pellets making it too dangerous to risk driving (hell, I didn’t even walk the dog past the end of our walk because it was a skating rink out there). We did get to go on the 27th though, which made me happy.

My parents spoiled us in a wonderful way. The kids got lots of great toys (fairy houses, horse & carriage, art stuff, a farm, a remote control car, and (my favorite) a finger puppet theater which is seriously awesome. I got a beautiful sweater, a much-needed set of pajamas, a salad spinner (don’t laugh, I’ve wanted one for ages, and if you’ve ever patted lettuce “dry” with paper towel you’ll understand why), and some other great stuff.

We also had our gifts from my sister and brother-in-law that they had mailed to my parents’ place and Amanda knows me so well. She got me a super-fancy high-tech corkscrew because she knows I enjoy red wine (I’d better see if I can use it!) and she got me Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography, which is the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto. I can’t wait to finish up my queue of books so I can get started on it; it’s been awhile since I read a book about the Middle East and anyone who knows me well knows that’s one of my favorite types of books to read. The fact that I admired Bhutto so much and found her fascinating makes it even better.

After opening gifts, we just relaxed and chatted while Hayley played with her new car and the kids followed the cat everywhere she went; I went to scoop up all the discarded wrapping paper at one point and ended up getting smacked good and hard by a little grey paw because it was apparently her hiding spot from the kids.

My mom had made spaghetti and it was amazing to watch how much of it Breanna shoveled into her mouth. It’s her favorite meal in the world and I fully admit that my mom’s spaghetti sauce is WAY better than mine (and mine is pretty darn good so that’s saying a lot). We had cupcakes for dessert and I got my dad set up on Facebook for the first time. After that it was time to go, but we had a really nice day while we were there.

And when we got home, Pearl was very happy to learn she had gotten some presents from my parents too – she loves her rawhide bones and soft plush bone!

I must say, it was a very good Christmas holiday indeed!

Like aunt, like niece

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Sherry

It’s not uncommon to – even involuntarily – compare your kids to their parents. Is she more like Mom or more like Dad? When it comes to Breanna though, she has a habit that always reminds me of my sister which is funny since they don’t see each other very often due to Geography so it’s not something that she picked up from her aunt.

When Amanda was younger and going to school I vividly remember that my mother had a particular way of packing her lunch on certain days. My sister loved a ham and cheese sandwich. However, she didn’t care for it as an actual sandwich. My mom would pack a couple of slices of buttered bread, a few slices of deli ham, and a slice of cheese. All the pieces you need to make a ham and cheese sandwich, but they had to be packed separately.

Once it was lunch time, Amanda would then eat the individual pieces of her non-sandwich and she loved it. God forbid you actually built the sandwich for her though, because then she lost interest. It was a funny quirk and from what I remember it was only that particular sandwich that had to remain disassembled. Also, as far as I know she now eats all her sandwiches as actual, you know, sandwiches.

Fast forward many years (not too many, we’re not THAT old. Much. Yet.) and here we have Breanna. Breanna loves when we order Chinese food although in truth she mostly only wants the egg rolls. She’ll eat a few bites of other random things but the egg rolls are the main attraction and she’s been known to devour many of them in one sitting and then eat the leftovers for breakfast. I know.

Last night she wanted us to order Chinese but to be more budget-friendly we bought a box of frozen egg rolls and I just made those with some rice and vegetables. That was just as good as far as Breanna was concerned – more egg rolls for her!

Regardless of whether it’s take-out or frozen egg rolls, Breanna has a particular way of eating them. She won’t pick them up and eat them like your average person will. She bites the end off and then she essentially peels it. As she goes on through her meal she will eat the battered “peel” of the egg roll and then she eats the inside.

Essentially she’s eating the entire egg roll in one sitting, just not in one piece. It’s weird to me but she likes it that way and she doesn’t waste any of the food so I can’t complain. However, as I watched her eat one at lunch today it struck me that she’s just like my sister in that way, at least at a young age.

Kids are peculiar beings. I wonder if she’ll eat them that way forever or if she’ll eventually eat the whole thing at once.

(Then again I used to nibble the cheese off of my cheesies before eating the middle so what can I say? Maybe my family just breeds strange eaters?)

Did you have any weird eating habits as a kid?

Laid-back Saturday

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Sherry

This is exactly the kind of weekend that I like – we had plans but weren’t overly busy so it was a laid-back enjoyable day today. Tomorrow promises to be much of the same.

This morning I woke up at 8 am and realized that everyone else was still sound asleep out in the living room. It was the first time that Breanna had made it through the whole night for a living room camp-out. She usually wakes up around 3 am wanting to know where I am. However this time I actually had a chance to marvel that it was morning and I had not been poked awake by a small child needing to pee and then I even fell back to sleep for awhile. That was awesome.

After lunch we drove out to see my parents for the afternoon and Breanna opened up the present that they got her. My family knows how much Breanna loves dinosaurs and got her this little guy. I sometimes really despise battery-operated toys because they’re usually obnoxiously loud and take away from the chance to use your imagination but there are some that I do like. I definitely like this one. He chews on your finger (or a toy spoon, bottle, etc) and “eats”, then makes little cooing baby dinosaur sounds. No overkill and it’s really cute; she loves it.

Hayley and Breanna spent most of the visit trying to convince my parents’ cat to come out to play but unlike the first two cats my mom and dad owned, this one isn’t used to kids at all so she’s just not very interested in seeing two overly enthusiastic children who try to chase her around with toys. Alas.

It wasn’t cold out today but it was chilly by the time the sun started going down so we had a simple comfort food supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. When I was a kid my mom sometimes made tuna or salmon sandwiches and a mix of tomato and celery soup on nights when my dad wasn’t going to be home for supper and I always loved soup and sandwiches as a comfort meal.

Tonight it’s all quiet. Both kids were tired because they didn’t go to sleep until well after ten last night. Meanwhile, George is out at a friend’s house so it’s just me (and the dog, but she’s not much for conversation). I’m taking advantage by watching a movie that I know doesn’t interest George in the least, a foreign film called Osama. It’s about a family in Afghanistan during the rise of the Taliban. The father dies and leaves behind a wife and 12-year-old daughter. Since the Taliban prohibits women from working the young girl cuts her hair short and disguises herself as a boy so that she can work to support herself and her mother.

As you may have noted in my reading material post, that’s the kind of movie that is right up my alley.

So on that note, I’m off to read subtitles and relax. Enjoy your Saturday!

(The pictures of Breanna on her birthday are over here. Unfortunately the quality is kind of ech because it was pouring rain outside, leaving practically no natural light to use. My external flash needs new batteries so I had to use the dreaded on-camera flash. Alas. But the subject matter makes them cute anyway!)

We are gathered here today…

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Sherry

We turned our time here in Halifax into a three-week vacation because we needed it, but the original reason we were coming out this way at all was because my sister was getting married. I don’t want to talk about it too much because it’s her story to tell more than mine, so she’ll eventually get the details up over on her blog when she gets a chance. But suffice it to say that the entire thing was beautiful – the bride, the ceremony, the reception, the love, the happiness, all of it.

I can’t wait to see all the other photos!

Family visit

Posted on May 24, 2009 by Sherry

In what would have been a comedy of errors if it hadn’t been so frustrating for all of us, my parents and I had been trying to get together for ages with no luck. You would think that we lived on opposite ends of the country. Let’s put it this way – they still had Easter stuff to give to the kids (and to George and myself, woohoo!), so it had been going on that long.

My mom called me yesterday while I was making supper and asked if it would be okay for them to come by for a few hours today. I glanced over my shoulder in minor panic. We had been out for part of the day and when I got home I was utterly lazy and hadn’t done a single thing in the way of housework beyond washing some dishes so that I could serve supper on them. Then I shrugged, realized my parents weren’t going to do a military inspection of my home, and said of course they could.

I was up at a reasonable hour today anyway, so I did some quick cleaning to cover the basics – tidying, vacuuming, mopping, dishes, bathroom – and then they arrived shortly after I was done so that was good timing. We sat and hung out on the balcony for a bit until George came home with some lunch stuff. We just had hot dogs with some potato salad and macaroni salad, but no one seemed to mind a simple lunch.

The kids were really excited to open their Easter stuff (and I am currently typing this while pausing to grab a few candy-coated dark chocolate eggs, so yay for delayed Easter goodies indeed). My parents left pretty early since they knew it was a school night for Hayley so I cleaned up the kitchen and played with the kids until supper time, then got them into a bath and ready for bed. They were obviously worn out since they both fell asleep really quickly. Pearl was a very happy Beagle and had a blast playing with my mom and dad, so she has also spent most of the afternoon and evening lazing around – tired puppy.

It was great to have them over. With our building not having an elevator and our apartment being on the top floor it’s a giant effort for my dad to visit but I’m glad they did! Maybe one day we’ll live somewhere on a ground floor so it will be easier.

Breanna had a very serious conversation, telling my dad all about her Curious George monkey.

Both Hayley and Breanna were disappointed that my parents had to leave so they rushed out to the balcony to wait for them to get downstairs just so they could scream “Bye Mimi! Bye Papa!” as they made their way to the car.

Today was a good way to close off the weekend. The U.S. may be celebrating Memorial Day weekend, but we Canadians had our long weekend last week so for me tomorrow means back to the grind!

The things I miss

Posted on May 18, 2009 by Sherry

I’m a night owl and I come by it honestly, courtesy of my mother.

Tonight I watched the two hour finale of “Desperate Housewives”. I know my parents watch too and I wanted to talk about it, so despite the fact that it was 11 pm, I called my mother, knowing she’d still be up. It turned out that she was up, but she had just gotten out of the bath and into pajamas – she hadn’t see the show because my dad was watching the finale for Survivor, so they recorded the show to watch later this week. I obviously didn’t want to spoil the ending so I shut up other than telling my mother to PLEASE call me after she got to watch it since I wanted to ask her what she thought of something.

Still, we managed to talk on the phone for over 20 minutes. We talked about the weekend, the weather, the fact that her friend from work got me the autograph of the first Canadian astronaut in space, books, and other shows.

In the end we only got off the phone because my mom has to get up early for work on Monday, holiday aside (Victoria day) since she works for an American company. Otherwise, we would have kept going, because it’s only necessity that forces my mom to bed before midnight, not genetics.

When my grandmother was still alive and her house was still standing, my mother and I used to have epic late nights during the summer. With my sister being five years younger than me, she’d be in bed at a reasonable hour, but I remember that all summer when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, my mom and I would stay up late.

We would sit in the kitchen until at least 11 pm, and then we’d head upstairs (my dad would be in the city all week for work, coming up north on the weekends). I’d sprawl across the bed with a book or magazine and my mother would sit in a little wicker chair, reading too. We’d both read a bit but we’d also interrupt each other to chat. My mom and I could sit and talk to each other – easily – until 1 or so in the morning. More than once it was almost 2 am when we finally said good night and I’d finally head off to my own bed for some sleep.

I’ve always been able to talk to my mother. Sure, as a teenager there were a multitude of things I never shared with her, as will be the case when my own girls are teenagers, but overall, I never had a problem talking to my mom. I love to talk to her on the phone now, but sometimes I wish we could just go back to the house that no longer exists and just talk until the hours become ridiculous, until we’re both yawning and all but nodding off, and just relive those days.

(My mom hates that picture, taken at Christmas time, but that’s only because she has no idea how much it means to me.)

56 hours of my life in photos

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Sherry

On Friday morning, Hayley’s last official day of March break, my alarm went off with a vengeance at 6:30 am. By 10 am I was sitting with George, Hayley, and Breanna on a train heading to Toronto.

The girls were remarkably good considering it’s five and a half hours sitting in seats. Breanna started to fuss about an hour out of Toronto but it was because she was tired; she finally fell asleep and got a half hour in which made a big difference for her. Overall they really enjoyed the train and we kept them busy with lots of coloring books, notepads, books, impromptu games (I taught Hayley to play Boxes, she did great!), and snacks.

We had gone to Toronto for George’s sister Elsa’s wedding, so we went to her condo first, where we were staying for the weekend, had a bite to eat since we were STARVING, and then we went to a hotel to visit with some family from out of town. It was tiring but fun to see everyone. We were all wiped out, but still hungry, so we stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken to pick up some food, ate a piece each, then we all crashed by 10 pm.

I don’t sleep well away from home the first couple of days so I was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, and then we were all jolted awake by a blaring siren coming from the ceiling. George called his sister to ask what the hell it was and she said if there was any problem we’d hear a voice telling us what to do from the speakers in the ceiling, and that’s exactly what happened – like the voice of God or something. It was weird. A security guard from the lobby announced there was a fire in one of the parking levels and to stay tuned for further instruction. We immediately got everyone dressed and waited by the door; fire trucks came and then within five minutes they announced it was a false alarm. Alas, it was 7:15 am and we were all groggy but far too awake to go back to sleep then.

Luckily, the building has a big pool and spa room so after breakfast I took the girls downstairs and we alternated between swimming in the smaller pool and relaxing in the spa for an hour. It was really nice and I would have stayed longer if we hadn’t had things to do. We had to hurry to get ready because Hayley and Breanna were flower girls in the wedding, so we had to get them over to the wedding site to get them dressed and to have photos done.

Continue reading →

'Round these here parts

Posted on February 22, 2009 by Sherry

Things have been somewhat chaotic here lately, living up to the name of my blog quite nicely. On Tuesday, as I mentioned, Hayley came home early from school because she was sick. I feel bad admitting that I thought she was faking or at least exaggerating it. Hayley goes to bed at 8 pm on school nights but often stays awake reading until at least 9:30, sometimes 10 pm and then she has to get up at 6:30 the next morning. I really thought that she was just overtired, because I know that sometimes I feel like utter crap when I haven’t had enough sleep. Then her body got completely run down with a raging fever that night and I realized that she actually was sick.

She’s been sick ever since. She never went back to school for the remainder of the week. She’s had low fevers and high fevers, and fevers in between. Once in awhile it will break but it keeps coming back to fight off whatever she has. It’s really difficult for me to become alarmed over a fever (though I did raise my eyebrows at the thermometer a few times) because they serve a purpose, to kill off the germs that are making you sick. They really don’t phase me.

What HAS surprised me is her sleeping. My amazing, non-sleeping, poster child for the anti-sleep movement has been falling asleep quickly at night, sleeping in a bit in the mornings, and more importantly, falling asleep during the day. Today she woke up at about 8:30, putzed around, and fell asleep in the recliner at 11:30 for half an hour. Then she woke up, had a piece of toast with peanut butter and jelly, and ended up falling asleep again at 1:30 for another half hour.

We’re not sending her to school tomorrow either, we’re going to take her to the doctor to see if she just has the flu or if she has something that needs antibiotics. As much as she can drive me crazy when she’s running around and being loud, it’s very sad to see her lying around on the couch, all tiny and worn out.

*******

Today it’s been ten whole years that George and I have been together. It’s a bit shocking, really, to think that it’s been that long. In some ways, working at the studio (where we met) feels like it was a whole other lifetime ago, but at the same time I don’t know how the time has flown by so quickly.

We had planned on going out to dinner tonight, either to Au Vieux Duluth or to Pacini’s (mmm, bread bar), but with Hayley still being sick we don’t want to leave her. Her grandfather was still willing to come watch the kids for a couple of hours but she’s fluctuating between being really quiet and being really upset, plus we don’t want him to get sick too. We’ll just order something in instead, and when the kids go to bed we’ll either watch a movie or kick each other’s ass in Wii Sports again, something we’ve been doing the past few nights.

I figure we have to practice because Breanna, at all of three years and change, won her boxing match the other day with no trouble whatsoever.

She takes it so seriously!

And really, you know, it would be much quieter if we went out for dinner or if, like last year, we could send the kids over to his parents’ place while we ordered in. It would be nice to finish a whole meal without getting up and have an uninterrupted conversation, but we can always try to go out some other night when everyone is healthy again. For now, we’re celebrating with one sniffly, feverish, coughing six-year-old and one loud, energetic three-year-old.

Ah, the things that change over ten years!

Friday Flashback # 20 – She's In Love With the Boy

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Sherry

I mentioned this in an older entry, but to recap, when I was 16 years old my parents and sister had gone to Vermont for a week-long vacation as we did every summer. The difference was that I had stayed because I “had a job” except really I just didn’t want to be away from my boyfriend for a whole week. I mean, gasp! A week! Seven days! I would have died!

So I stayed. They left. The very first day that they were gone? He dumped me over the phone. So that was, you know, a lot of fun.

When I called my parents, 2.5 hours away, and cried, my dad hopped in his car and drove all the way back home, spent the night and then drove me to Vermont so I wouldn’t be alone. I was utterly miserable, convinced no one would ever date me again and that at 16 years of age I was destined to be a spinster who would die surrounded by my 15 cats. I didn’t know if I could manage a smile, so it was something of a shock that a song made me laugh.

Whenever we got within about a half hour of our vacation spot (a recreational trailer park in Alburg right on Lake Champlain), we’d be able to pick up a local country music station. My parents loved country music. At the time I was a closet country fan (now I shout it from the rooftops). Two songs in, they played a new song from a mostly-unknown at that time singer – Trisha Yearwood. The song was “She’s In Love With the Boy”.

You’d think a broken-hearted girl would rather hear songs about people who have “been done wrong” and mope with a bottle of whiskey with their hound dogs or something, anything other than a song about how much a boy and girl love each other.

However, when the chorus hit the line “her Daddy says that he ain’t worth a lick, when it came to brains he got the short end of the stick” I just started giggling and couldn’t stop.

I was sad most of that vacation but at least I wasn’t alone at home. And that station played that song at least twice per day so I heard it a lot and it never once failed to make me laugh.

See? Not all country music is about sad things!

We are family

Posted on December 29, 2008 by Sherry

Christmas 2009 is going to have a lot to live up to after this year. This was the best Christmas holiday I’ve had in years. We got great gifts for the kids, received some awesome gifts as well, saw our immediate family on both sides, I got to see my sister – twice! – for the first time in two years, and then on Sunday we went to my aunt and uncle’s house, where I saw some family that I hadn’t seen in over ten years.

We’re still not sure how it all happened that we got so out of touch. My aunt and uncle live about 20 minutes away from us. One of her daughters and her kids live about another ten minutes from them. The other daughter and her family live in Toronto but come out this way several times per year. And yet somehow it had been over a decade since I saw any of them – the last time I saw them, I wasn’t yet involved with George. Hayley and Breanna never even knew they have four cousins until they met them on Sunday. Meanwhile, growing up I saw them all so regularly at my home and theirs, and for most of my childhood I went and spent a week with them at their summer place in Vermont. They had a camper trailer in a nice summer trailer park right on Lake Champlain and that week down there was always the highlight of my summers. I never could have imagined so much time slipping past us without visits (though at least there have been emails and Facebook!).

The best part, though, wasn’t just seeing them again. The best part was that I walked into that house, the house I knew so well, and it was like ten years had never happened. Sometimes when you’re out of touch there’s a lot of awkwardness when you meet up again. Long silences, trying to fill in the blanks, peeking at your watch to see if you can leave yet, that sort of thing.

None of that happened. I walked through the door and one of my cousins greeted me and it was literally as though we had been hanging out as recently as last week. The talking started and it never stopped for a moment for the entire three hours that we were there. The joking between all of us, the banter, it was just the same as it had been 20 years ago when we would sit outside in Vermont and laugh until we cried.

There’s something very special about family members who can do that. We all had a very strong bond throughout my life and it was so good to see that it was still there. I couldn’t believe it when I saw that it was time to get ready to leave, it was hard to believe that three whole hours had gone by when it felt like we had just arrived.

Seeing the six girls playing together like I used to with my two cousins, hanging out with those same cousins who are now mothers just like me, teasing my aunt and uncle like I always used to, it felt just like home. And I guess you could say it was. I am so glad that I got to bring George and my girls into that circle so they could know these people who are so important to me, no matter how much time passes.

George has heard a lot of stories about my days in Vermont, but I don’t think I’ve ever really shared any of them online. My aunt showed me some pictures that she had found and my cousin scanned them for me – the sight of myself at roughly age 13 or 14 was hilarious and I will upload them and think of a few stories that I can tell about the old summer days.

In the meantime, I’m still glowing, more than 24 hours later, still unbelievably happy beyond words that we all got together yesterday. I don’t even know if they knew how much it all meant to me. All I know is that the culmination of December 24th through to December 28th was such that my holidays were essentially about family – and isn’t that what the holidays are really supposed to be about after all?

Chaos Theory

Category Archives: My crazy family