Category: Fun
Tuesday, Sep 2, 2014 | Family, Fun, Parenting, Play, Summer |
I should be posting about back-to-school. But we only just arrived home last night from our brief family holiday, and my mind hasn’t caught up with end-of-summer quite yet. So this will be my holiday post. Yes, we had a holiday. We had a holiday! From everything! (Except each other.)
Somehow the summer had slipped by without all of us spending some downtime together. Sure, we got lots of projects done, including, while the big kids were away, painting the back porch, and varnishing the wood floors downstairs, which were starting to splinter.
There was the trip to the beach with the kids (but not Kevin), and the trip to Toronto with Fooey (just us), and Kevin and I dashed over to Stratford not once but twice to see plays. There were soccer tournaments and swim lessons, my sister got married, we hosted cousins, invited friends for a few meals, and the kids attended various day camps and overnight camps that fed their various interests. You know, we did a lot of stuff, and we’re fortunate that we could and can. None of this would I change.
But we also worked, Kevin and me. We worked pretty much straight through summer, both of us being self-employed and therefore loathe step away from any opportunity. Suddenly August was nearly gone, and we were nearly out of time.
And then, my dad and stepmother offered their cottage for a family getaway. Just us. (Plus dogs.) At 5AM on Thursday morning, Kevin discovered that our new vehicle (new last fall) doesn’t have a roof rack. “Um, we have a problem,” were his exact words. How to fit six people, two dogs, all our stuff, plus food for five days inside one relatively small SUV? It was 5AM and the kids were soooo excited (which is why we it was 5AM; no one could wait to go). So we just did it. Ditched the non-essentials, squashed bags under children’s feet, bought perishables close to our destination.
We really did nothing when we got to the cottage. Nothing but swim, play, eat, drink, sleep, read. I didn’t even swim, in truth, because the lake was really cold, and, besides, forget excuses, all I wanted to do was nothing. By day four of doing nothing, I felt like I’d forgotten how to do anything, which was a bit unnerving. But not so unnerving that I turned down the offer of a grapefruit beer in the afternoon. I needed the nothing. I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t our house, with its innumerable potential projects calling. I needed a few days of not pushing myself onward, nor being pulled onward. I needed to sink in. Stop. Watch my kids play.
The best part was watching the kids play. They had so much fun together.
Sometimes I think even if I’m able to give them nothing else, they have riches, because they have each other. That’s what I hope, anyway. Or maybe it’s the other way round. Maybe even if they give me nothing else, if they love each other and look out for each other, I have riches.
And I do.
Monday, Aug 11, 2014 | Adventure, Birthdays, Family, Fun, Kids, Weekend |
Cousins.
Be warned: this is a photo-heavy post, and a little behind the times in terms of news items. Apparently summer has decided to kick into fast-forward and honestly, I can’t keep up. I don’t even want to. This morning, driving with a friend to our spin & kettle bell class, we saw that it was dark. It was also early, and for most of the year, darkness is to be expected at this hour, but we’ve been spoiled by summer’s long light, and it didn’t seem like it should already be contracting. August is a melancholy month. Always is. I fight against the melancholy because after all, it’s still summer. But even the youngest of our crew is noticing: “Is it fall?” CJ asked yesterday, as we sat out in the back yard watching Kevin dismantle our rotting picnic table. “No! It’s still summer!” I said. “Why did you think it might be fall already?” “The leaves are falling,” he said. And so they were, some of them, enough to dot the grass, into which a path has been worn by the soccer ball being played back and forth, back and forth, obsessively this summer.
Grandma love.
We haven’t gotten to all of the tasks we’d meant to. Our to-do list seems as long as ever. But we’ve also had afternoons like yesterday, mild, breezy, sunny, when I sat reading out loud to the kids from a book of old English folk tales. And weekends like the one before, when cousins came to stay. And two visits to the Stratford Festival in just over a week: first, with Kevin to see King Lear (and celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary), and then on Saturday with the girls to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As we walked uptown to the carshare, we realized how unusual this grouping was: me and my girls, just the three of us. We really had fun. We got dressed up. We had a picnic by the river and named the swan and seagull who tried (unsuccessfully) to befriend us (Swanda and Seagram). We chose a feathery mask in the gift shop that we all could share. And we got a treat at DQ afterward, tapping into a gift card Fooey had gotten for her birthday. “This day feels like an adventure,” one of them observed as we drove home past fields of corn and turning wheat.
Party cake, number one.
And Fooey has had her birthday, celebrated now many times over. I’m weak, speaking parentally. We allowed her, as her birthday gift, to purchase her own iPod Touch. Our three eldest now have this electronic device, and I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it, either. Here she is on birthday eve.
Selfie, with brother.
And here she is on her actual birthday.
Party cake, number two.
She planned her friend party months ago, with an ever-shifting menu and lists of crafts and games and activities. We ended up serving Kraft Dinner and potato chips for the main course, which I supplemented with bowls of raw veggies and fruit, met with a chorus of, “Mom! It’s not a veggie party!” Moms know how to have fun! (In my defence, the veggies and fruit were devoured.) The whole party was easy, and I was glad to see that Fooey’s friends didn’t mind her stern organizational tone, as she herded them out to go “bowling” with a basketball and a bunch of plastic honey containers, or instructed them to “design your own book cover,” as the opening craft. Be still my beating heart. I was smitten all over again with this kid of mine, now nine.
And I think that catches us up on the news front, minus a soccer tournament on the weekend, to which I brought my camera but then forgot to pull it out of my purse to take photos. Guess I was engrossed in the match. Sorry, Albus. (He doesn’t want his photo posted on the blog these days anyway; or at the very least, wants to curate the photos of himself that do appear. We’re all growing up. More evidence of the time, and its passing.)
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Aug 7, 2014 | Family, Fun, Good News |
All dressed up, before.
I promised photos from my little sister’s wedding, and here they are.
Family, before.
Aunt with nieces, photobombed by bridesmaid.
My beautiful sister.
Sound-guy-in-training.
All dressed up, bride and attendants.
Setting up for the photographer.
Wedding party.
After signing the register.
Flower girl.
Just married.
And then I put my camera away. It was a deliberate decision. Sometimes the camera gets in the way of being in the moment, and I wanted to be wholly in this moment, which included a whole lot of late-night dancing in my high-heeled clogs (late-night by my standards only) after Kevin took the well-dressed but exhausted children home to bed. (Note re high-heeled clogs & dancing: not for the faint of heart. I’m still regaining feeling in my toes.)
At some point in the evening, my little sister looked around the room and said, “This is just how I’d imagined it!” What could be better?
Congratulations, Edna & Fezz!
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Jul 29, 2014 | Adventure, Birthdays, Fun, Kids, Mothering, Play, Travel |
Taking the train to Toronto, yesterday morning. “We’re going in fast-forward!”
“I am going to the aquarium with only mom.” – Fooey, age eight, almost nine, recording the event for posterity on her train ticket.
Observation: it’s really hard to get good photos at an aquarium. This stops no one from trying repeatedly, including me. There must be thousands of terrible shark photos now in existence that were directly spawned by those who squeezed, squawled, and wandered with giant strollers around the aquarium in Toronto yesterday afternoon. Here are mine.
Good selfies are even harder than good shark photos. “This one looks eerie.” “What’s that mean?” “Like this.” “Oh.”
It was a very special day, with only us.
Monday, Jul 14, 2014 | Backyard, Blogging, Fun, Kids, Play, Summer, Swimming, Work |
Top ten travel locations so far this summer
1. the point at Seeley’s Bay, Ontario
2. soccer field(s), Fooey’s team
3. soccer field(s), Albus’s team
4. soccer field(s), AppleApple’s team
5. Silver Lake camp
6. Kingston, for tournament, with siblings, cousins, aunt and Grandma
7. Swimplex, Nepean, with cousins, aunt and Grandma
8. Ottawa
9. en route, from somewhere to somewhere
10. our house; swim lessons; friends’ houses; backyard
Top five reasons I’m blogging less this summer.
1. I’m out and about with the kids all the time. And I’m swimming at lunchtime.
2. I’m prioritizing writing work in those spare moments not populated by children and their summer activities (and mine).
3. Blog-time is going largely toward building a new web site to house this slightly long-in-the-tooth blog.
4. Summer. Have I mentioned summer?
5. See above. And below.
last day of school, June 26, 2014Wednesday, Jun 18, 2014 | Backyard, Fun, Play, Siblings |
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I should be posting about back-to-school. But we only just arrived home last night from our brief family holiday, and my mind hasn’t caught up with end-of-summer quite yet. So this will be my holiday post. Yes, we had a holiday. We had a holiday! From everything! (Except each other.)
Somehow the summer had slipped by without all of us spending some downtime together. Sure, we got lots of projects done, including, while the big kids were away, painting the back porch, and varnishing the wood floors downstairs, which were starting to splinter.
There was the trip to the beach with the kids (but not Kevin), and the trip to Toronto with Fooey (just us), and Kevin and I dashed over to Stratford not once but twice to see plays. There were soccer tournaments and swim lessons, my sister got married, we hosted cousins, invited friends for a few meals, and the kids attended various day camps and overnight camps that fed their various interests. You know, we did a lot of stuff, and we’re fortunate that we could and can. None of this would I change.
But we also worked, Kevin and me. We worked pretty much straight through summer, both of us being self-employed and therefore loathe step away from any opportunity. Suddenly August was nearly gone, and we were nearly out of time.
And then, my dad and stepmother offered their cottage for a family getaway. Just us. (Plus dogs.) At 5AM on Thursday morning, Kevin discovered that our new vehicle (new last fall) doesn’t have a roof rack. “Um, we have a problem,” were his exact words. How to fit six people, two dogs, all our stuff, plus food for five days inside one relatively small SUV? It was 5AM and the kids were soooo excited (which is why we it was 5AM; no one could wait to go). So we just did it. Ditched the non-essentials, squashed bags under children’s feet, bought perishables close to our destination.
We really did nothing when we got to the cottage. Nothing but swim, play, eat, drink, sleep, read. I didn’t even swim, in truth, because the lake was really cold, and, besides, forget excuses, all I wanted to do was nothing. By day four of doing nothing, I felt like I’d forgotten how to do anything, which was a bit unnerving. But not so unnerving that I turned down the offer of a grapefruit beer in the afternoon. I needed the nothing. I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t our house, with its innumerable potential projects calling. I needed a few days of not pushing myself onward, nor being pulled onward. I needed to sink in. Stop. Watch my kids play.
The best part was watching the kids play. They had so much fun together.
Sometimes I think even if I’m able to give them nothing else, they have riches, because they have each other. That’s what I hope, anyway. Or maybe it’s the other way round. Maybe even if they give me nothing else, if they love each other and look out for each other, I have riches.
And I do.
