Monday, July 19, 2010

The Great Camp Out.

Aaah....camping in the great outdoors. Relaxing the by campfire, lounging on the beach, enjoying the peace and quiet of nature....(insert jarring record scratch nice here..)

Took the kids camping on the weekend. We - just the two kids and I - joined my brother and his family for a nice weekend away from the city. We went once last year and it's a good getaway for us during the summer,especially since Eric is so busy with his band (which is playing every single weekend, and then some). Since my brother and his family are borderline professional campers, all we really need to bring is our own sleeping gear, some food and drink and away we go...

Which brings me to my first mistake. I couldn't decide if we should leave after work on Friday or wait until Saturday morning. But it was supposed to be a nice weekend and, in the end, I figured that if I left Friday night we would have at least one full day to enjoy the campground.

I managed to get out of work early (a minor miracle in itself) and took the train home. A few weeks ago, the car had been in the garage to fix a crazy squealing noise, and it had come out of the shop had almost immediately began to make a rattling, knocking noise. So Friday, when Eric was finally in town for a full day, he had returned it to the garage where they said, apparently, the entire exhaust system was holding on by the merest of threads (or whatever holds cars together these days, which probably/hopefully isn't thread, but what would I know?) Since both Eric and I were out of town and the car was undriveable we had to wait until after 5 pm to pick it up and we still had to pack and pick up some groceries.

Anyway, we didn't leave our driveway until after 7pm (mistake 2)and the campground, according to Google Maps was 2 hours and 17 minutes away. Off we go...all is well. About halfway there, I missed a turn off - mistake 3- but didn't want to turn around which meant my step-by-step directions were useless. I resorted to using my usually excellent inner GPS to navigate our way there on my own. Normally, this wouldn't phase me in the slightest, but it was getting dark and I wasn't so concerned about getting lost as I was wasting time and precious daylight hours. I did have an actual GPS system which I flicked on a couple of times, but since the campground didn't have a street number or address it was pretty much useless. I typed in the "region" but then quickly realized that it was going to lead me horrendously astray if I listened to it. (And besides, every time the voice would say "turn left" and I didn't, Kieran would get distressed..he does not trust his mother over the robotic voice of the machine).

Anyway, my own inner navigating probably cost only me 10 minutes, and we finally arrived at around 9:30. the sun is just setting so I'm pretty pleased that I made it before it got really dark. My sister-in-law had called to check our ETA just as we got to the gate. I was talking to the gate guard when she called and I asked her what site they were at, and she said 21. I got our parking permit, verified where site 21 was and off we went. Got to site 21...and it wasn't them (mistake 4). It was getting really dark and the campgrounds roads are narrow and cars are mostly unwelcome - especially as people where heading to "comfort station" in droves with toddlers and toothbrushes in hand. I called and called my brother's cell. No answer. Drove around for about 20 minutes before I headed back to the gate...which was closed for night. No cars. Locked up tight, which I didn't realize until after I had unloaded both kids from the car and actually walked up to the shuttered door. Argh. More distress from Kieran who is convinced that we are lost and is now scared. Finally, my sister in law calls and turns out its site 421. (Never would have found them in a million years...thank God for cell phones).

Finally, we get there.

Now, at this point I should point out that as kids we camped a fair bit...but this was mainly in the north and pre-global warming. At the night the campfire was warm and we put on sweatshirts and sweatpants, covered ourselves in bug spray and toasted marshmallows until we crawled - still fully dressed - into our sleeping bags.

Not this time.

Get unloaded and eat some hot dogs on the campfire. It's very humid, so the campfire is mainly for show. Definitely no "cozying up" to it. Shortly, both kids say they want to go to bed, so off to the tent we go (my brother and his wife had already put up the tent for us. God Bless Them.) Unfortunately, the tent is very hot. I had brought the kids flannel jammies (mistake number 5) and there is no way they can wear them, so they just lay on top of the sleeping bags in their shorts and T-shirts. Argh...I had forgot pillows (mistake number 6). It takes awhile for them to settle down. Kieran would have been fine except he deals very poorly with the heat (he is too hot even when the AC is blasting) so it took him some writhing and whining before he finally rested his sweat-drenched head on my arm and crashed. Kaya....not so lucky. She roamed around the tent - the novelty was too much for her to handle - for what I'm sure was an hour wide awake and chatty, before my brother finally suggested that I put her in the car and drive around.

So, here it is, midnight and I'm driving around the campground - again. (At least this time 95 percent of the people were asleep). I finally I get back to the campsite, have a much needed beer and go to bed. Luckily neither child wakes up through the night. (A particular worry beforehand was Kaya's not frequent - but brutal - nighttime screaming fits which happen periodically and can only ever be solved by either time or, sometimes, Dora The Explorer.)

The next morning they were up predictably early, so we had breakfast and headed right to the beach. Beautiful beach/campground by the way, on Lake Erie, sandy and shallow, fantastic for kids. The waves were quite large, which Kieran and his cousins loved, but Kieran is smaller than the other two and easily knocked over by the waves, so he couldn't venture into the water alone. Kaya, on the other hand, was petrified by the waves and refused to stay on the beach and play unless I was right beside her. (Neither her aunt or uncle would suffice in this case).

After lunch, both kids were tired and since it was very hot at the campsite I decided that I would put them back in the car where they could have quick sleep and I could head out in search of pillows (honestly, it's hard enough sleeping on a rock hard "sleeping mat" in an sweltering, airless tent with two small restless children but to do so without a pillow was too much to bear). I actually drove farther than anticipated, but "pillow stores" are not normally close to Provincial Parks and besides, the kids were sleeping so soundly that I didn't mind.

Got back to the campsite...more beach (the waves were gigantic by now), dinner, playground etc. Fast-forward to the night. Bedtime started a bit earlier, but again, the tent was hot and after about 20 minutes of trying to get both kids settled I decided to cut my losses and packed them both in the van again and travelled my now well-known route around the park. I'm sure the other campers are wondering what the hell that black minivan was doing driving around all-the-freakin-time. I admit, it did feel like cheating. Perhaps to be true to the rustic, outdoor experience, I should have just waited it out and they would have both crashed eventually but, for my own sanity, I needed a break. I don't think I had un-interrupted period of more than 5 minutes to do a single thing for myself since we arrived and at that point all I wanted was to have a quiet drink in front of the fire with the kids needing me. Anyway, again, the van knocked them out and I moved them into the tent. Ah beer here I come...

30 minutes later. mid-sip....Kaya starts to cry out and I freeze in fear. My daughter wakes up at night in one of two ways. She either wakes up and calls out, plays around and falls back asleep. Or she wakes up and screams bloody murder. I knew right away that it was the latter. She's not actually awake so there no appealing to her two-year-old "rational" self. She doesn't want mommy or daddy, a cuddle, a song, a book, a drink, a snack, a toy. Nothing. So, since the decibel of the cry was definitely campground-shaking, back into the god-damn van we went. Again. Black van on the go.

But that was that. She was back out almost immediately and then we went through the night without any problems. Well, at least for them. The temperature finally dropped and I actually got got enough to need my sleeping bag. I was petrified that one or both of them would wake up from the cold. Neither of them was under any blanket and there was no chance I was going to accidentally wake them up by trying to stuff them inside their bags in the pitch dark, but they didn't move. I'm sure the entire campground was grateful.

Anyway, at least the days were quite lovely. The next day we spent more time at the beach. The wind had died down so it was easier for the kids to play in the water without having to hold onto them, and Kaya finally got the hang of digging holes and trying to bury herself in them, so fun was had by all in the end. Well, by most of us. I'm still looking for that un-interrupted relaxation by the fire...

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Adventures in Parenting

Kieran is enrolled in a kids' soccer league. The key word is "enrolled" because he is, apparently, no longer attending. So he tells us.

Let me back up here. For the past two years, he has been alternating swimming lessons with a session of "Sportball" which is basically a non-competitive sports sports class for kids. One class is football, the next baseball, then tennis, soccer, golf etc. And he has loved it. He would wake up on Saturday and say, joyously, "Am I going to Sportball today? YAY!!!"

Once the last session ended in the spring,the next session was "outdoor soccer" so I signed him up. The first class was held on the lawn of the church where the indoor sessions are held The church has a gym and a couple of classrooms attached, which are part of a Montessori school. On the morning of the second class, we showed up and the class had been moved back into the gym. Turns out the owners of the house beside the church complained that the 4-year-olds playing soccer at 10 am on Saturday mornings were too noisy and were threatening some sort of legal action. Let me repeat, for 4-year-olds happily playing soccer on a church lawn. And here I was unaware that Satan and his family were living so close by.

Anyway, I digress.

The last class of the spring session, Kieran had to stop playing because he had wrenched his knee on the trampoline and he couldn't really run. We thought nothing of it, and signed him up for the summer session.

First class of summer session and Eric tells him to get ready and all hell breaks loose. Complete meltdown of outrageous proportions. Eric forced him to go. It was the hottest day of the year. Kieran went out on the field for a few minutes then sat down and refused to play.

After much tsk tsking, we managed to extract a promise from him that he would be fine next week. But the night before the class when I told him that soccer was the next day, the meltdown started anew.

They had given him a jersey and a soccer ball, which I said we would give to Kaya. He says OK. Wait. What? Hmmmm wasn't expecting that. I tried talking to him, trying to figure out where things had gone so wrong. He is unable to give me even the remotest explanation of what went wrong. The most I could get out of him was that it was "too hot", which was undeniably true, but it is a hollow argument since he was refusing to go even before he knew how unbearable it was going to be once he got there.

Eric told him that since he promised to go last week and now was refusing, that he needed to go his room and think about it. Then, we got a brilliant idea. We would threaten to take away his newest, most prized possession - a brand new Nintendo DS that he had just been given from Eric's brother. Surely, an hour of soccer cannot be worse than losing your brand new Nintendo that has a really cool car game that you love, right? RIGHT?

"OK Daddy, you can take away the DS." Jesus. The kid, really, really doesn't want to go.

So, with the Nintendo gone, we are now at a loss. Obviously neither bribes nor threats are going to work. What is left? Apparently I am ill equipped at true parenting because after about an hour of the "night before soccer" drama, I decided to throw in the towel. I called the organization and asked for a refund. The bored summer student told me they don't offer refunds once the session has started. OK, can I move him? I'm thinking I can move him back to an indoor fall session and start from scratch. No, the bored student tells me we can only move to a class offered in the same season. Which is soccer, soccer and soccer.

So, I told Kieran that he was going to have to go and that was all there was to it. He flat out says no. For the past few days he reminds me every chance he gets that he is not going. He wakes up in the morning and says "Mom, I'm not going to Sportball". He gets in the car after daycare and says "Mom, I'm not going to Sportball." I told him that he needed to finish his dinner and he says "OK, but I'm not going to Sportball." Bedtime: "Goodnight Mommy. I'm not going to Sportball." I told him to stop talking about it.

Who is going to win this epic battle? Do we force him to do something he clearly now hates just to show him who's in charge? Or do I respect his unwavering refusal to go. After all, he has already given up his jersey, ball and Nintendo (all of which he would get back if he tried again).

It's exhausting, this parenting thing.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Life's a Circus. Or a Sauna. Sometimes both.

Settled back in my regular job nicely. Of course, two of my coworkers are on vacation so I have been quite a bit busier than I would have liked. I don't have any vacation planned for July, which sucks short term because it always feels like I'm working the summer away, but I will be happy in August when I finally do have some time off.

Besides, with the crazy heat wave going on it's sort of nice to spend all day guilt-free in a nicely air-conditioned office. If I was at home, I would feel like I should be outside, which let's be honest, is very unpleasant when the air is so thick you could chew it. Coming from the far-ish north, I didn't grow up with humidity - like, at all - so I think that no matter how long I live elsewhere, I will never learn to enjoy it.

Speaking of heat waves, we took the kids to the circus last weekend. The tickets were $20 each, Kieran was half price and Kaya was free. Figured it was a cheap-ish way to do something fun with the kids. I mean, really, who doesn't love the circus. Animals, monkey firefighters, clowns, etc, right? RIGHT?

God, I am so naive.

We got there and the kids were thrilled. There were clowns wandering around, walking pretend dogs and ruffling kids hair, it all seemed good. When we got inside there was small tent where they sold their overpriced snacks and souvenirs and then we adjourned to the big tent. We walked inside the "Big Top"...and were met with a wall of heat like I have never felt indoors except in a sauna. In fact, it was a sauna. We snagged seats in the front row and sat there for a few minutes. Sure we could see but these hot lights (I swear they were heat lamps) were beating right down on us. Someone asked one of the carnies if the lights ever got turned off, but he didn't know. We figured we should move because we still had a half hour until the show started and we had only been there three minutes and all four of us where already sweating beyond belief.

So, we moved to seats away from the lights, where it was still sweltering but at least the lights weren't also blazing on us. Eric went to buy drinks and spend $15 on two bottles of juice and a big cup of lemonade. Then it was $5 for .10 cents worth of popcorn. Then Kieran wanted one of these spinning light up wands and we figured what the heck they seemed kind of neat: $15. Oy. No more spending.

The show started and these unfunny clowns come out for a few seconds, followed by a woman on a big horse who rode around the ring for 5 minutes. Uh-oh. Way to open with a show stopper. Then 5 more horses came out and ran in circles around the ring for another 5-10 minutes. I look at Eric. More uh-oh. We are pouring sweat and the "ringmaster" kept announcing they have "ice cold beverages" for sale. Our ice cold waters were already room temperature.

Next, three Asian girls with some yo-yo type things, another Asian girl who hung from some ribbons from the ceiling for a bit, more Asians balancing teacups on their heads, more Asians spinning parasols with the feet, a "funny photographer" who picked "real people" from the audience to be in his act where they were made to do funny poses in ape costumes, finally an Asian guy spinning Chinese vases on his head. Intermission.

The kids were bored stiff, the acts were not interesting enough for kids and not nearly sophisticated enough for adults. There were periodics wafts of hot air coming up from behind the seats every so often which made Eric think that they were just heating the place up to get people to buy the "ice cold drinks, snow cones, etc", Kaya was starting to roam around the seats causing trouble, Kieran was so hot he was in a stupor. I looked the program we had to buy ($1) which outlined the "acts" and almost none of it matched what we had seen. The next act said there were elephants coming up, but suddenly I doubted that was going to happen. Our babysitter had gone earlier in the week and had mentioned that there were no elephants, so I figured the program was a giant lie. The only part of the program that seemed true was the disclaimer that said "due to the nature of live performances, we reserve the right to alter these acts at any time."

Could we last another hour or so? The intermission "balloon guy" came out and Kieran wanted one (we said no), and I could just see that we were not going to last until the end without some serious money spending just to keep us cool and hydrated and quiet, so we cut our losses and split.

Even in the blazing afternoon heat it was far cooler outside. We went home and filled up the kiddie pool, put the slide in it and the kids had a absolute ball for the rest of day. For free. Take that Shriners.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Back to Reality

Now that the Letter Numbers Meetings are over and I am free (free, FREE!), from the shackles of a government contract, I can only say what a relief it is to have it over and done with.

In one way, I am sad the second meeting...hereafter known on this blog as the G20...will now forever be associated with violence, riots and the violation of human rights. From my point of view, so many people worked really hard to bring that event together only to have its legacy obliterated by a small group of violent idiots who's only goal was create chaos. But I'm not going to blog about that. That part of it, I only saw on the news like everyone else.

However, if you would like, I can wax poetic for hours on leaders exiting airplanes, Obama and his three helicopter fake out (were I a terrorist and had to guess which helicopter he was on, I would have taken out the wrong one) and frakkin' Sarkozy and his giant ego that help up just about every event. I stood mere metres away from all 8 leaders as they stood outside on an astroturf covered golf green for the "family photo" all the while remembering to move vewy, vewy, slowly lest any sniper get over-excited. Or I can talk about how the Russian media stood over the snack table feeding their faces directly over the plates so nobody else could even sneak by and take a cookie.

I fully realize that my story is going to be profoundly different from many serious blogs about G20 arrests and the unlawful detainment of innocent people, but I have something that I want to talk about. Something of infinitely less importance. But, I simply must tell you about the buffet at the media centre at Deerhurst Lodge. I can only assume that the lodge thought that they needed to feed the international news crews a 5-star buffet of three meals, plus snacks, plus afternoon poolside barbecue, plus open bar, as though said media were there to review its restaurant and amenities rather than follow around a rag-tag bunch of heads of state on goofy photo ops and boring press conferences.

I'm talking full breakfasts with personalized omelet bars and a chef at the end of buffet carving slabs of juicy peameal (er, Canadian) bacon and maple syrup made on the premises (as the hostess told me) and it went on from there. Poutine (real cheese curds, homemade gravy) on the poolside terrace, pheasant for dinner, a selection of desserts worthy of the finest pastry chefs.

God, I'm so shallow.

Anyway, back to my buffet-less real life. The fences are coming down and we are just waiting for the concrete girders to be removed. I surely will not miss a life sans 24/7 security (my first night home, I woke up to the sound of Kaya crying and in my semi-awake state was trying to remember where I put my accreditation badge so that the security guard would let me into her room).

I was gone so much over the last two weeks that I feel actually out of touch with the world. I haven't watched any real news, visited any other blogs and only realized a day or two ago that I was several episodes behind on The Bachelorette. (Which I find I don't care about because I actively dislike the woman is The Bachelorette). For the first time since May 29 (when my kids were in our babysitters wedding) I have a free weekend. (Well, free except that we are going to the circus on Saturday). I need to catch up on my sleep, get ahead on my laundry and hopefully do a whole lot of nothing.