Bibliomama

I feel a little better. Although my stop at the Farm Boy deli counter didn't help -- every time I see macaroni and cheese loaf I just want to collapse on the glass and say "WHY?" beseechingly. And what in the name of encased meats is PLAIN head cheese? Less eyebrow? Cheek only? Then there was the aggravation of trying to convince my son that he could make a sandwich by himself. When we were visiting friends in Edmonton over Easter, I suddenly froze and realized, to my total humiliation, that I was CUTTING MY TEN-YEAR-OLD'S MEAT. Not that this is in any way unusual - I didn't feed him pretzels when he was eighteen months because I was afraid he'd choke on them, and then I suddenly realized when he was six that it was probably long past the time he could have pretzels. I start doing stuff and I just keep doing the same stuff, which doesn't work that well when you have rapidly changing children, except that those children naturally find it expedient N...

I'm stuck. Hardcore stuck. I don't know if it's BOLO letdown, or summer laziness (it is sort of too hot to sustain life today) or something in the water. Wait, it's Wednesday, I can post pictures! No, no, no, that would be bad. I have a feeling that if I don't write something today I might be done forever (yes, clearly I'm feeling reasonable and stable and not at ALL prone to ridiculous, dramatic, ultimatum-like statements). I'll post pictures tomorrow. Eve is in tennis camp this week. Okay, one picture because she looks freaking cute: I was ready for her to be in camp. We've had two weeks of extreme Mother-Daughter togetherness, with Angus playing baseball or practicing baseball or hiding in the basement resting up for more baseball, and it's been great, but I have an assignment due tomorrow and the coinciding of tennis camp with a couple of morning ball practices meant I could get to the gym a couple of times this week and basically, it was...

Eve: "I'm going to go brush my teeth" (starts to walk into downstairs powder room)... "...oh right, there's no toothpaste down here". Angus: "WHAT BUG?"

AGH! It's 12:02. I swore to myself I'd get my BOLO post up THE DAY AFTER. But I keep procrastinating. Because Zarah and the kids are leaving tomorrow and we're all sad, and we had to sit outside and drink grapefruit Woody's and read one last chapter of Harry Potter and the kids had to pile onto each other one last time and squirm around and scream that they were being squished and someone was farting on them, and we had to go Go-Karting and revel in how goofy we looked in our helmets. And we practically had to stage an Opening Ceremony for the coconut yogurt that Eve LOVES but I haven't been able to find at Farm Boy for MONTHS, and fortunately I bought two containers because she and Alex finished one before supper. It was so sweet how Alex, who was in the kitchen when I unpacked the grocery bags, saw the container and immediately asked if he could take it upstairs to show Eve. Followed shortly by loud, excited shrieks from upstairs (yeah, we don't get ou...

That doesn't make any sense, just go with it. My friend Zarah is in town for the week with her two kids and I'm blogging lazily with sun-addled senses and usually after a drink or two. We've decided to eschew cultural events this year, not because the kids don't like them - they're chomping at the bit to hit some museums - just because this week we DON'T FEEL LIKE IT. So we convinced the kids that this year we'll just eat ice cream every day. And walk around the market. And eat fistfuls of baby carrots. And play in the sandbox. And get pedicures (we gave Alex Eve's ipod touch to make the wait less arduous). And watch Angus hit home runs over the fence (in his first game of the season, thank you very much). And drive go karts. The kids have retaliated against our museum moratorium by making a truly dreadful horror/comedy film, consisting of Alex shooting both girls with a nerf gun and Eve saying "oh my gosh" a lot - Quentin Tarantino it...

Since we moved to Ottawa, my husband and I, and then the kids when we had them, have usually spent Canada Day out at his grandparents' place in Smiths' Falls (about an hour from us), with whatever segments of his side of the family showed up. They had a house on an acre, across the street from a farm - lots of room for the kids to run around, or tents to be set up for spillover sleepers, or baseball or horseshoes. When it got dark, two or three of the men would brave the mosquitoes to set off a wheelbarrow full of fireworks at the bottom of the long, sloping front lawn while the rest of us huddled by the house, periodically running inside to escape the mosquitoes (or comfort a child who didn't understand why fireworks have to be so jesus god LOUD). In recent years, when it got a little too much for Nana and Grandpa to have everyone at the house, my mother-in-law rented a cottage nearby and we would bring them out for the afternoon and/or the fireworks. Last fall, we mov...