A simple way to combine science with a treat – make rock candy with your kids!

This weekend we made a valiant attempt to celebrate Father’s Day with as much success as we did back on Mother’s Day. In some ways we succeeded and in some ways we were foiled.

On Saturday we had to get up and get ready at a decent time anyway because Hayley was having her official soccer photos taken, both the team photo and her individual photo. It was a bit chaotic because it was in a huge park and it didn’t seem to be well organized – the guy who is our coach and friend said that no one really seemed to be telling the coaches anything. There were also four kids missing but after 45 minutes they went ahead and did the photo without them. Too bad, really. Five minutes late is not unreasonable but if you can’t be there 45 minutes later, I don’t know what to tell you.

Since we were already out, George dropped me off with Hayley so she could change out of her uniform while he went with Breanna to get a new pair of shorts, then he picked us up and we headed out to start our busy day. First we hit up the same used book store as last time. I love that place. I would be very happy to be dropped off and left there for an hour or so. They didn’t have the book I was hoping for, but I ended up with Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes so that was okay (so far it’s not bad), George picked up two for himself, Hayley got a box of tiny books, and Breanna chose a non-fiction dinosaur book.

We were starving so we headed to La Belle Province which is not quality food by any means, but it’s a Quebec staple. The kids love going out to eat and it’s fast food so no one cares if they’re a little too loud. After that, we went back down to the waterfront where George fell asleep on a bench (hee!) and I took the kids down to throw rocks in the water. Well, they threw rocks. I took a buttload of pictures. Like that’s unusual.

There was a blues music festival not too far away and George really wanted to check it out so we hopped back in the car and headed over. That’s when things started getting a little hairy. I had not been drinking enough water to balance the high heat and humidity so when we got to the festival I was a little on the dehydrated side. I got a bottle of water but before I could even open it, things started spinning just a little. I mentioned that I thought I might pass out so George said we would leave instead. I knew he was disappointed and I really wanted him to hear the music, so I said I’d see how I did. I chose to sit on the grass instead of the bleachers (no shade at all, what a brilliant idea to have a music festival on a hot day in the one section of the park that was tree-less) and started forcing myself to drink the water. Within a few minutes I felt better but then the music started and it sucked. The band itself was great but the sound guy wasn’t doing a very good job and it just came out sounding very distorted.

George is a musician and a producer and an audio engineer. His ears just about bleed if he tries to listen to music that isn’t set up properly. After three songs he opted to leave. It wasn’t going to get any better with the next band because the sound guy was the same, so everyone would have pretty much sucked. It was too bad.

One good thing happened though. Hayley had gotten a bag of popcorn, one of her favorite things on earth, and she put the first handful into her mouth and started to chew. Suddenly she clapped a hand over her mouth and hunched over, and with it being so hot I immediately thought she was about to puke. It ended up that the first piece of popcorn had knocked out the loose top front tooth that had been hanging crookedly by a thread for an entire week. Despite her full mouth, she managed to locate the tooth with her tongue and she spat it out into her hand. She was so happy and proud. And now I don’t have to look at a dangling tooth anymore, thank God because it was SO HARD to resist the urge to yank it out.

We had a quiet Saturday evening at home, with George finishing up the book he was reading so he could start one of the new ones and me fiddling with my photos and uploading them to Flickr.

Then came Sunday. Ah, Sunday. The best laid plans of mice and men – and families. George’s parents always attend church and then the follow-up tea/lunch thing they have on special occasions so we figured we’d go get George’s gifts, (he chose them himself, not much of a surprise but he knew what he wanted), go visit my parents to see my dad for a few hours, then go see his parents when they came home.

Unfortunately, George was not well at all. We did manage to go to the store to get his stuff and a quick stop at the dollar store for some necessities, but that was about it. I called my parents and let them know. It was too bad, I knew my dad was looking forward to seeing us and my mom had made a nice lunch for us, but there was no way I was going to get George to drive half an hour to get there, even though he would have tried. We’ll see them on Friday instead for a couple of hours.

He slept for awhile and after supper he felt a bit better so he took a Father’s Day card over to his dad but it was getting late so I stayed home and put the kids into a bath instead of going too.

So in the end, it was a pretty decent weekend but between near-fainting spells, craptacular music, and illness, it wasn’t quite what we had planned.

Still, he said it was a good Father’s Day just because of these two little monkeys.

Yeah, they do grow on you after awhile.

I am totally making this for supper one day this week.

Little ears are always listening. Always, always. And I try to keep that in mind but the truth is I curse like a sailor and while I’ve tried to be more g-rated (saying “freakin'” or even “frickin'” or “f-ing”… and my new favorite from Alvin and the Chipmunks, “Holy nuts!”) it still slips out.

The thing is Hayley is old enough to know that while we might say something as adults it’s inappropriate for her to repeat them, especially in the presence of other adults, ESPECIALLY adults like her grandparents. That’s okay. But Breanna is only two and a half years old and she doesn’t grasp this fine logic so we worry about her picking things up and saying them in front of other people. Right now she says “kiss my butt!” a lot which is actually kind of hilarious but I worry sometimes that others will not be so charmed.

For Christmas we gave Breanna a train table and it came with all kinds of stuff including some trees that you can place around the tracks. Naturally they’re never actually ON the table, they’re usually strewn about the apartment. I was walking through the living room and stepped on one so I said, “OW, fucking tree!” Then I picked it up and pitched it in one of the toy baskets.

Fast forward a few hours. Breanna is digging through the basket, muttering. Finally she raises her hands in despair and hollers, “Where my fuckin’ tree?! Where my fuckin’ TREE?!”

Uh. Oops.

Luckily I am occasionally quick on my feet so I rummaged through the other assorted toys, found the tree, and said, “here Breanna! Here’s your FUNKY tree!”

She held it up and smiled. “Oh yes! My funky tree! I love my funky tree!”

Whew.

Today when I picked Hayley up at school she was very excited to tell me that she had been able to go to the gym to watch the grade six graduation ceremony. She was very chatty about it and seemed to have enjoyed the experience.

Then she told me that she got to eat some food afterwards; apparently they had a little buffet of stuff for everyone. I asked her what she had eaten.

“A radish, a piece of pizza, and some cake.”

Well, hey good for that radish, that balances it all out right there!

I am such an incredibly unapologetic enormous David Cook fan.

Seriously.

Last year Hayley said she had fun at soccer but she didn’t really play much. She occasionally kicked the ball but mostly she just ran around the field and frequently did gymnastics spontaneously by throwing herself into somersaults and the like. However, she was only four at the time, one of the youngest on the team.

This year she’s one of the bigger kids and it shows. She’s still reluctant to get into the middle of everything because she doesn’t entirely believe that shin pads will keep her from getting hurt what with all the kicking feet, but she’s more aggressive and really does try to go after the ball.

When she played at the soccer expo season opener I missed the whole thing because Breanna was antsy and by the time we got back the game was over. Then we went for the game last week only to be met with a thunderstorm. This week was the first time I actually got to see her play this season and the difference is amazing – I guess it helps that she often plays soccer outside at recess with some of the kids at school. In fact, for this game, one of her good friends was playing on the other team so that was fun!

I was really excited to see her charging after the ball and actually getting it around on the field unlike last year.

It was exciting, I’m looking forward to the rest of the season!

*******

Hayley is so close to finishing school. Her last day is next Friday, the 20th. I can’t believe that it’s almost over. I remember how hard the beginning of the year was, and how it broke my heart to leave her crying in the school yard every morning as one of the Kindergarten teachers gently led her away. I know she has no idea how many of those mornings would find me crying as I left because I always put on a big, bright smile and waved as she went into the school. September was probably the longest month of my life but then everything just sort of clicked, she fell in love with school, and now the rest of the year has flown by and I am in shock that in just over a week I will have a child who is going into first grade. How did that happen?

Things have really changed. She runs into school with her friends, she is often disappointed when she comes home on Friday afternoons because she won’t see her classmates for two whole days, and she’s concerned about keeping in touch over the summer.

Today I woke up and felt pretty horrible. Horrible enough that I just wanted to go back to bed. In a reversal of roles, I was pleading Hayley to just stay home today, please please stay home, and she was flat out refusing, insisting that she had to go to school.

In the end I sucked it up and took her, and later I told her how proud I was because many other kids would have jumped on the chance to stay home and play hookey.

*******

The school doesn’t have any kind of formal graduation for Kindergarten. They may do something fun and special on the last day of class but there’s no ceremony like some schools have. I’m going to pick up some black posterboard at the dollar store this weekend and one night when she’s sleeping I’ll make her a grad cap. I’ll hide it until Friday and when I pick her up I’ll give it to her to wear and we’ll take her to McDonald’s for supper, something she frequently requests. It will be our own little private grad party.

*******
There is nothing on. I can’t decide whether to just go to bed (gasp, at 10 pm?!) or try to read something. I’m in between books now. I recently finished A Thousand Splendid Suns and despite the fact that I sobbed hysterically through most of it, it’s now moved its way up my list to perch at the top as my favorite book EVER. The problem with that is it’s hard to pick something new up to follow it. I ended up choosing what I thought was total young adult fluff and read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but it ended up being so good that I’m dying to get the sequel now. It also wasn’t as light as I thought and I ended up crying over that too. Maybe I should go find one of my books by David Sedaris so I can laugh, this book crying is getting a bit much.

I think I’ll make a cup of tea and try to read. We’ll see how long I last before I face plant on my pillow.

I want to spend rainy summer days making this cardboard dollhouse. It is *amazing*.

A couple of weeks ago I got an invitation from the school inviting me to a Volunteer Appreciation tea in the school gym. George had to work but his dad was able to come take care of Breanna so I headed on over. The whole thing started at 1:15 so I assumed I was going to end up in the gym with a bunch of parents, some of those big stainless steel thermoses of tea and coffee, and some baked goods. I expected to chit chat, hang out, then pick Hayley up when school let out.

No. Not even close. When that school appreciates its volunteers, it REALLY appreciates them.

I walked in with a couple of moms that I had just met in the hall upstairs, and found that we were to sit in some folding chairs at the front of the gym. As we discussed our kids, we realized that all the students were being led in to sit down on the gym floor – it was a full assembly. I spotted Hayley and we waved at each other, then the principal started talking, telling us how important it is to the school to have people like us helping out and telling the kids how important it is to acknowledge it.

Then he handed out certificates to each of us, calling us up by name to give us our personal certificate of thanks and a flowering plant. It was like being at an awards show, after each name was called, all the kids burst into applause. I may have blushed as I walked past Hayley’s kindergarten class and all the kids reached out their hands for me to give them high fives – it was like being a rock star for 30 seconds.

What was especially cute was that the woman who served the pizza once a month on Pizza Day got the loudest, most enthusiastic screaming applause.

When the assembly was over, we all headed upstairs and Hayley’s latest dream came true. Lately she’s been saying she wishes so much that she was in the after-school daycare program and lamenting the fact that she isn’t part of it. Since school was over for the day, all kids of parents at the event were sent outside into the yard with the daycare kids – she was ecstatic.

The tea was held in Hayley’s classroom and they went all out. They had beautiful little china cups and saucers for tea and coffee, homemade scones, everything. I really got in touch with my British roots.

I ended up staying about 45 minutes before finally gathering a reluctant Hayley who really wanted to stay longer.

What was particularly funny was that in the morning I debated staying home, unsure whether I would know anyone else there and whether I’d feel out of place, but I had a great time. I talked to so many other mothers and enjoyed myself. I also found out who is in charge of the Parent Organization and asked her about how to become more involved next year. I always promised myself I would be a big part of the schools the girls attend and I’m already looking forward to next year after talking to the president of the group. She told me that most of the current members will be on their last year next year since their kids will be entering grade six, so they really need new people to join.

Considering I was expecting something very simple and worrying that I would feel awkward it ended up being a really awesome way to spend two hours of my afternoon.

I can’t believe that there are only 12 days of school left!

Do you know what I hate?

This morning I was watching my favorite news show, Canada A.M. and they got to the section of the show where they read people’s letters. Yesterday’s question involved global warming. It turns out that someone had said that the temperatures lately are roughly five degrees lower than normal and therefore that means that there is clearly no such thing as global warming because it’s colder out, not hotter.

And what I hate most of all is that I so desperately want to argue this “it’s colder so there’s no global warming” point with these people but I can’t because it’s impossible to argue anything after my HEAD HAS EXPLODED.