I pulled into the arrivals level of the airport, fumbling with my phone, trying to figure out how to find them.  I missed them.  I drove by them.  I had to loop around the airport again.

We stop at a Tim Hortons’ on the way home, because my bladder is about to burst, because the travellers need caffeine and sugar.  The parking lot is empty.  But as I open my door, a car pulls up right beside me.  I close the door as the car drives in to the spot.  “The entire damn parking lot is empty and you pull up RIGHT BESIDE ME?!”  I go to open my door again.  The passenger is opening his door. I close mine abruptly and sulk.  I wait until he is well inside before opening mine again.

I use the toilet.  I approach the counter.  I wait for a large group of people to order, including my friends from the car.  The guy in front of me LITERALLY TAKES 5 MINUTES to decide which donut he wants.   I am picturing reaching over and grabbing his neck and killing him slowly.  But then finally it is my turn to get coffee and try some pumpkin spice donuts, and don’t forget a couple of timbits for Callum.

Callum chatters the whole way in the car.  “Oliver’s jacket!”, he says, grabbing it.  “Cars!” “Blue bus!” “Trucks!” “Towers!”  He is so talkative.  He’s changed in 10 days.

We take the back roads. I am not prepared to deal with the rush hour 401/400 traffic. I’m usually more patient.

We swing by daycare, to get Oliver before going home. When I tell him who is in the car, he tells everyone at daycare, rushes out, and starts shrieking.  And doesn’t really stop.

Home now, peeling off clothes and shoes, and the boys are so happy to see each other, they hug purposefully and hard.  And then they run around shrieking some more, and jump.  So much running and jumping.

And then Oliver remembers that he needs his dad to change the lightbulb in the fixture in his bedroom and suddenly it is floods of tears and hysterics because an eco-friendly bulb is apparently NOT ACCEPTABLE to a 3.75 year old, despite the fact they are in every other light in this house.  IT MUST LOOK LIKE A LIGHTBULB.  From a book. Oh, the mania about this.

This is dealt with, Mark found some random old bulb, and then I start to make dinner, leaving them to play.

And then they start hurting each other, in between sharing toys, in between ripping toys from each others’ hands.

Dinner dissolves into rice being rubbed into the table top.  And meat and broccoli together is a squishy stress ball.

*

The house is quiet now; the storm has passed. I am the only one still awake.

WELL THANK CHRIST FOR THAT.

I was going to write a post this week about my mixed feelings at giving my children the vaccine for H1N1, and not yet being able to decide what course of action to take.

Do we vaccinate, when it’s not been very well tested and it seems like there’s a lot of side effects? And people are saying, oh I had that flu, it’s not that bad.

Do we not vaccinate, and then they get it…and young people are affected much worse, and children have died?

Do we only give it to Callum, who has the history of respitory infections and inhalers? Do we forget Oliver who never really gets sick like that?

Note that I have never had an issue with vaccines before. (Also note that I have no quarrels with people who do have concerns about routine vaccinations – to each his own, just don’t give my kid measles please).

But this week it seemed like the official ‘line’ on the H1N1 vaccines was changing every day.

I’m totally befuddled.

What are you going to do?

Last year, when Mark took Callum to England for his grandmother’s funeral, I had a week to myself with Oliver. And it was GOOD.  It was at the end of my mat leave with Callum, and Oliver had a few days a week at daycare, and we had some adventures.

Right now, Mark has taken Callum to England for a week just because, and I have a week to myself with Oliver.  And alas it is not quite so good.

He’s really missing his dad and brother.  He has homework from kindergarten – which, okay, you can barely call homework – but it requires us to read a book together and for me to ask him how he feels about it.

“Circle the ANGRY face”

“Why?”

“I’m angry Callum isn’t here”

This is good, right? He’s showing signs of being a normal human being who misses people that he loves when they are not around?

Unfortunately this is also translating into some rather trying behaviour.  I’ve said to him a few times that I really don’t want to keep getting angry at him during this time together, but he’s kind of using up any shred of patience I have. Particularly after some long days at work.  Nothing specific, nothing huge, just really really really wearing on me.

We are having some good times, at least – I took him to Canada’s Wonderland (local big theme park) for the first time.

creeeeeeeeeepy but he loved it

We have a few fun things planned this weekend, including his friends’ birthday party. And we never seem to get invited to birthday parties.  When they are older, I’ll regret complaining about that, right?

On top of dealing with him, and not having the luxury of passing him off to Mark for bedtime routines or anything, I find myself with new! responsibilities!

• I have to walk and feed the dog
• I have to put the giant lampshade cone on the dog (too lazy to take my own photo; credit to someone else on flickr whose dog finds themselves similarly restricted)
• I have to apply cream to the dog’s inner thigh (UGH)
• I have to wonder why the cat’s eye looks funny, why he’s sneezing a lot, and why he’s not asking me for food
• I have to wonder if the cat is going to croak while Mark is away
• I have to put together 10 tonnes of recycling and green bin and garbage tomorrow night
• I’ve lost to will to live redecorate like I started off doing last week and I would like to spend the rest of the week with my butt firmly implanted on the couch watching the new season of all good new shows and eating bon bons.

Sooooo, turns out Husbands are Rather Useful Creatures.

It’s not a birthday, but this is an anniversary of sorts I’ve been waiting for. Just in my head. No one else is paying any attention.

It’s today that Callum is as old as Oliver was the day that Callum was born.

Thoughts?

1 – Can I just tell you have god damn thankful I am that there isn’t a little baby arriving by stork today? That might sound ungrateful but I don’t wish a 22 month 9 day gap on anyone. TOO CLOSE. TOO STRESSFUL.

2 – Because this little boy, he’s just a baby still!  So Oliver was just a baby too!  (Look at him! He was so sweet looking then! What happened?!)

3 – Okay, not really.  I interviewed Callum and here’s what I found -

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTY3sYPeNyw]

Ok, so, knowing how to count (or at least make the sounds, and point at things when making those sounds), knowing some colours? Definitely not a baby.  Also recites the sounds of the alphabet.

Still sleeping in a crib though. (No little baby arriving to steal it from him, like his brother experienced!)

Still may occaisionally wear footie pajamas. (Yes I may just be grasping to the last vestiges of his babyhood)

Still has his dummy/soother when sleeping at home.  Still carts around a sippy cup of milk everywhere when we let him.

Still is a TOTAL MUMMY’S BOY.  Will cling to me at every opportunity. You know, just to lay on the mummy guilt really thick when I leave him at daycare every weekday. Despite also demonstrating his independence at every opportunity.

This one is fiery. This one is passionate. Much more so than his older brother.  He’ll love you hard, but he’ll equally get angry and hit you or try to bite or throw his toys in despair.

He cracks me up all the time.  He’s a real ham.  He dances as SOON as he hears music (his brother never did).  He loves the camera.  And being such a mimic, I could totally see a career in the entertainment industry in his future. Or just, you know, drama class or something.

So, bud, it’s not your birthday, but it’s a big day for me. I’ll gush about you again on your 2nd birthday, coming up faster than I can believe.

Tonight, you go on your last free plane ride in your dad’s lap, for 10 days in England. I stay home with your brother, and while I’m looking forward to my time alone with him and doing some stuff around the house, I’m going to miss you, little (big) guy!

I read something that David Sedaris wrote recently (ahhh the power of Google, here it is).  I’m a fan of his, but I have yet to read any of his books, only listening to his stories on This American Life. I must really get around to reading his books.

Anyway, I digress (as usual).

In this essay, Sedaris recalls having a friend take him on a tour of Australia, outside of Melbourne.

Pat was driving, and as we passed the turnoff for a shopping center she invited us to picture a four-burner stove.

“Gas or electric?” Hugh asked, and she said that it didn’t matter.

This was not a real stove but a symbolic one, used to prove a point at a management seminar she’d once attended. “One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work.” The gist, she said, was that in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.

Pat has her own business, a good one that’s allowing her to retire at fifty-five. She owns three houses, and two cars, but, even without the stuff, she seems like a genuinely happy person. And that alone constitutes success.

I asked which two burners she had cut off, and she said that the first to go had been family. After that, she switched off her health. “How about you?”

I thought for a moment, and said that I’d cut off my friends. “It’s nothing to be proud of, but after meeting Hugh I quit making an effort.”

“And what else?” she asked.

“Health, I guess.”

Hugh’s answer was work.

“And?”

“Just work,” he said. (- quoted from the article, linked to above, lest anyone think I am stealing his good words)

I think she’s wrong, actually.  She forgot a burner.  Your home.  Your home can be another burner.

So I’m attempting to keep most of the other burners lit, and they’re flickering, but the home burner is pretty damn dead.  It’s cut off, for sure.

We think we want to move. To move we need to get the house ready to put it on the market. To put it on the market we need time and money. We have saved the money but have no time with various life responsibilities, mainly being those two small children that live with us.

It’s filthy. It’s got dirt that’s been around much longer than we’ve lived here. It’s got our junk. It’s got renovation needs that we are not even going to attempt to attend do. What’s the point? Someone else will eventually move in and put their own mark on the place.

It seems insurmountable at times.  But we’ll get there eventually.  It’s seemingly harder for us to get moving as we only have a self-imposed deadline, rather than an external pressure.

The only part of this house that I feel I could show to anyone right now, pathetically, is a powder room by the side door. The least used bathroom on the main floor.  The room where the previous owners actually did some updating.  Okay, they put some nasty tiles on the floor (that inexplicably make the floor look wet when it isn’t  – whaaaaa?!) but besides that?

I like this room.  I’ve added a nice towel, the wall decals, and I keep it clean.  It’s like a little tiny peek at what pride of ownership could be like for us.  And I want to get there. To have the whole house, whatever house we live in, there.

One day.

Black flats are a staple of my (ever expanding, must really stop that) shoe wardrobe.  They are basically the indispensable shoe – worn through summer with bare feet, and winter with tights or even thin trouser socks beneath long pants.

I’ve been relying on a particular pair of flats for about 5 years now.  And this weekend, I had to say goodbye them.

Please note that I LITERALLY, audibly, said goodbye as I put them in the garbage can.  I may have almost shed a tear.  You were well loved, Office flats.

You were purchased in London (UK), at the Charing Cross Road shop I believe.  You were of softest leather.  You never gave me blisters. Maybe I’m in denial but you never really went out of style.  Oh god, now I’m rhyming.

You did get quite stretched. But for 5 years of wear (maybe longer? – you’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember a time without you), you held up beautifully.  However, your lining was shredding and your soul sole was slowing falling apart.

I will miss you.

But I’ve already replaced you. So no more crying. Probably with a substandard model, but it was the best I could find. After all, I’ve got to get out of the sandals soon and put the toes away for the autumn and winter.

These ones are Reaction by Kenneth Cole. Man made. Pointy. Something different. Wish me luck breaking them in.

We’re being nonchalant about this. I mean, this kid’s been in daycare for three years. What’s a little change of scenery?

Oliver’s first day of junior kindergarten:

(He burst into tears. He was the only one that cried!  My baby! My oldest baby child who is not really a baby but is rather tall, actually, but is actually the youngest that you could possibly even be to start kindergarten because he’s a December 31st baby.  I mean, a kid born merely 24 hours after him wouldn’t even start school until an ENTIRE YEAR after him!  What will this do to him?  Will he succeed?  Will he be at the bottom of the class?  Will he struggle??  My LITTLE BOY is riding a BIG yellow school bus every day. What if he falls asleep on the way home and they forget to drop him at daycare?  Will he lose everything that we send, despite it all being labeled?  Will he eat the entire contents of his lunch box at recess? I packed so much food.  Will he even eat it all?  Will he know anyone there?  Will he understand what to do?)

He’s okay. I’m okay. Breathe.

I’m not a big fan of the military machine. I don’t like loud noises. I don’t like flying in airplanes that much.

But for some reason, this air show really floated my boat.

Lessons from a Labour Day Monday:

• To two little boys, ice cream is much more exciting than even military jets.
• The Snowbirds kind of kicked the Blue Angels’ asses. Not that I am biased.
• I need a BIG LENS.
• The beginning of September still necessitates sunscreen (see also: I am a bright red lobster. BAD.)
• Days in the city always make we wish we lived downtown. We parked off Roncesvalles and walked. It was a long but nice walk to the park by the lake.

A nice way to spend the last day of ‘summer’. Tomorrow, that boy who is not so big starts school. Eek.

Or, rather, soccer whining. Soccer sitting in a field. Soccer can I go to the playground instead.

And now it’s done?

“When can I go to soccer again?”

ARGH.