Since toddlerhood, my son has had a compulsive need to always have something in his hand. The first item he obsessively carried around with him was a bottle of eyedrops. He took it everywhere with him and slept with it in his chubby little fist. Before long, the label on the bottle had been rubbed completely clean and still he carried it around with him. On the rare occasion that he misplaced it, my husband and I would be met with the sad cry of, “My eyedrops! My eyedrops!”

After several months of carrying around the beloved eyedrops, my son found a new objet d’adoration – a vintage Little People construction worker.

To be honest, I’m not sure where he even managed to find a toy that so clearly belonged in the 80s, but he did, and held on to it long enough to rub the paint right off its little hard hat.

The Boy moved on to a Mr Incredible McDonalds toy and, later, a little plastic catapult from a medieval playset which he continually manipulated back and forth because he claims it helps him think.

For the last year or so, though, the toy-in-hand is a Spider-Man figurine. His head swivels as do his arms and legs. My son loves him because he can move Spidey’s arms and legs when he needs to think.

You can imagine the scene that went down last week when we saw this:

(Notice the multiple spots where the paint has rubbed off? It’s a running theme around here.)

My son was understandably distressed by the sight, but is so utterly devoted to Spidey that he carried him around headless for the rest of the day.

(We got a few strange looks at Save-On.)

After tearing the house apart trying to find poor Spidey’s head, my daughter finally spotted it underneath a chair in the living room.

Victory!

“Don’t ever wander off like that again! I’ve been out of my head with worry!”

“Hush, now. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

I glued Spidey’s head back on, taped him up and left him overnight to cure. The Boy was not thrilled about having to go to sleep without his precious and was consoled only by my promise that we’d go to Toys R Us the next day to search for a replacement, just in case the head transplant didn’t take.

The next day, I crossed my fingers that Spidey wouldn’t lose his head and do anything crazy and handed him back over to my boy. The head lasted about 30 seconds before I saw it rolling across the kitchen floor. I packed up the kids (managing to convince The Boy that carrying around a decapitated superhero might be looked at as a little odd) and headed to the toy store for a backup Spidey. After much deliberation, we chose what appeared to be a decent substitute and brought it home.

Apparently, the arms and legs didn’t move in just the right way on this new, substandard Spidey and Spectacular Spider-Man was left hanging.

“Hey, wait! Where are you guys going?”

“You can’t leave me! I have my own updated cartoon on TV! SPEC-tac-u-LAR, SPEC-tac-u-LAR!”

“Guys? GUYS?”

After another failed glue attempt, I pulled out the big guns and asked the husband to stop at Canadian Tire on the way home for some Krazy Glue. He delivered and I set about performing my latest head transplant surgery.

So far, so good:

“Thank you. You are a superhero in your own right. I will be indebted to you forever.”

“With great power comes great responsibility. I must keep a strong head on my shoulders so I can save the world, one child at a time.”

Now, as long as my boy doesn’t huck his beloved Spider-Man at anything hard, we should be good to go until his next obsession makes itself known. I can’t wait to see what he’ll come up with next.

Filed under: Offspring, The Spidey Chronicles by WWS (Lynn) - 8 Comments →

Last Saturday I went out for the evening. I put on my new capris and layered a white t-shirt with an aqua t-shirt. I was aiming for comfortable but not slobby. My husband took one look at me in my gear and said, “Why don’t you dress up for me anymore?”

“Uh, honey?” I said. “They’re sweatpants.”

“Oh. Never mind.”

What does it say about the rest of my wardrobe when I can throw on a pair of black sweats and my husband thinks I’m dressed up? I’m feeling less guilty about my little shopping spree already…

Ooh. Sophisticated and stylish.

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Me, Random by WWS (Lynn) - No Comments →

What is it about me that causes me to compulsively stay up past midnight every single night? I annoy the crap out of myself while I’m doing it and yet? I can’t stop! It’s a sickness.

(At least I’m not eating.)

(Right now.)

And so, here I sit at two minutes to midnight, not-so-patiently waiting for a bunch of pictures I took over a month ago to upload to the Kodak website. I don’t even use the Kodak website. I’m more of a Snapfish girl. But I’m uploading them for a friend who does use Kodak, just to make it easier for her to order the ones she wants. I’m nice like that. At least, I think I’m nice like that. I’m too tired to tell. Maybe I’m just so sleep deprived that I can’t think straight enough to be not-so-nice and just send her a link to my Snapfish album. (Or too sleep deprived to make any sense whatsoever, apparently). I wonder what kind of a hateful bitch I’d be if I actually got the requisite 8 hours of sleep each night? Or, OR! Would I become so nice and wonderful with all of that extra sleep that I’d become a veritable saint? The Mother Teresa of my own little world, if you will. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll think about that one tomorrow night when I’m thinking up new stupid excuses not to go to bed…

It’s not as though I’m not tired, either. I am. I guess I’m just a night owl. My brain turns on at about 9:30pm and whirs around like that really awesome KitchenAid I’ve got my eye on:

Scratch that. I’ll just be honest here. With the scattered, fragmented sleep I’ve been getting for the past couple of years, my brain is really only whirring around like one of these:

And, with a mind like an egg beater, how do you really expect me to be with-it enough to get to bed earlier?

Maybe I’ll buy the mixer and set it up beside the bed as a reminder that sleep is important. It’s no good being a crappy old egg beater when you have the potential to be a shiny new stand mixer. I think I’ll get on that one right away.

Now, if only those pictures would hurry up and finish downloading. Hmm. Maybe while I’m waiting I’ll start that new book from the library…

* photos courtesy of Google images.

Filed under: Ponderings, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 7 Comments →

We’re smack in the middle of landscaping season over here. Over the last week or so, we’ve painted a kajillion fence boards, dug 21 four-foot-deep holes, mixed up about eleventy thousand wheelbarrows full of cement and in the process, I’ve managed to render myself almost totally incapable of walking completely upright. I’ve got the pregnant woman waddle (complete with hand-on-lower-back action.) (No, I’m not pregnant. Or 80. I just feel that way.) (By “that way,” I of course mean “pregnant and 80″. With a sore back.)

So, after all that, what else would I do but sand and stain a million more pieces of wood? I just needed that little “extra” something to complete my transition to total gimpdom. Score!

Normal people would pick just one or two things to do in a summer, but we’re anything but normal around here. We’re also anything but smart, apparently. The plan for this summer?

• Build a deck. (Check!)
• Spread out two dumptruckfuls of dirt. (Check!)
• Build a fence (Partial marks for progress)
• Plant tree in front yard (Check!) (And bonus marks for not falling in the ginormous hole and breaking random body parts in the process)
• Plant several shrubs in front yard
• Plant trees and shrubs in back yard
• Lay sod in front and back yards
• Add decorative rock to shrub and tree arrangements
• Build big, stupid, heavy, labour-intensive playset for children (I’m aiming for a cruise after completion of this one)

This afternoon, I pawned my kids off on my mother-in-law and got to work on what will now be known as The Bane of my Existance (or, TBME for short). We had a choice between a cheap-but-nice playset or a more-expensive-but-pressure-treated-and-equally-nice set. Take a wild guess which one we chose. Go on, guess. That’s right. The cheap one. Because, again, what fun would life be if I didn’t get to waste a day crouching in the garage? I may be rendered incapable of moving, but at least I’ll have enough money to buy myself a wheelchair…

First, I laid out all the wood.

(But, wait! There’s more!)

Then I cried a little.

Then I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and decided to stop prolonging the inevitable. I spent the better part of the afternoon sanding each and every board in order to get them ready for varnish.

When I picked up the bottle of clearcoat, the giant skull and crossbones and the evil flame-face snickered back at me. It looked a little ominous, so I decided to read the instructions on the side of the container. I was warned to wear a protective eyegear, chemical-resistant gloves, flame-resistant clothing and a freaking respirator.

“What are you trying to do, kill me?” I shrieked at my husband.

“What are you talking about?” he replied, rolling his eyes.

“This! Read this! I need a hazmat suit to use this crap! I can’t use this!”

“Well, the girl at Totem said that’s what we should use.”

“And you’re just going to believe her? I could die out here using this shit.”

“But it’ll take forever to go get more.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? Did you see the flame-face? He’s mocking me! The bottle says that rags will just spontaneously combust if you leave them scrunched in a ball. We could blow up the house!”

Needless to say, my histronics scored me a trip to Home Depot to pick up a significantly less-deadly form of varathane. The recommended number of coats? Four. FOUR! I imagined a set of scales in my head. On one side, me dressed up like a member of the CDA applying one glorious coat of liquid death to the playset. On the other, crippled me lying in the fetal position in the centre of the garage after applying the fourth and final deathcoat to TBME.  

For whatever reason, the idea of me spending roughly the next 90 years staining boards won out over the toxic-waste-in-a-bottle and I decided to suck it up and get to work.

By the second coat, the ol’ paintin’ shoulder was voicing its displeasure. I’m pretty sure I heard it call me a cheap bastard. By tomorrow morning, I’m sure it won’t be as pleasant. (My paintin’ shoulder has quite a colourful vocabulary. So does my lower back.) 

When I was finished for the evening, I staggered to my feet and hobbled into the house, looking for all the world like a hunched-over neanderthal. I contemplated having a bath to loosen my sore, angry muscles. Then I had a vision of the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” lady and worried that, once I was in there, I wouldn’t be able to hoist my crippled behind back out again.

So I decided not to. But then I saw my husband, decided to put him on rescue notice and had one anyway. (For the record, I was actually able to stand up and climb out completely of my own accord. Yay, me!)

(Oh, and want to hear something funny? We haven’t even assembled it yet. I can’t wait.)

So, the moral of this story? Either work out or shell out ’cause failure to do so causes painful results. The lower-back agony I will be enduring over the next couple of days as a result of my manual labour attempt pretty much overshadows the extra couple of hundred bucks we could have spent on pressure-treated wood. Ouch. Once I’m mobile again, I think a trip (or 100) to the gym might be in order…

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Me, Pity Party by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

This is for Alice, who lamented that it was a crying shame that I blacked out my hair. So, here you go!

Please keep in mind that I was growing out a particularly bad haircut into another particularly bad haircut. I had to have big hair to balance out the size of my monstrous glasses. See?

The 80s were not a pretty time…

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Me by WWS (Lynn) - 5 Comments →

There really was nothing quite like the 80s, was there?

Filed under: Confessions, Keepin' it Real by WWS (Lynn) - 1 Comment →

My husband is notoriously hard to buy for. If he hasn’t handpicked it, it’s usually not good enough for him. Oh sure, he’s mastered the art of graciousness, but he’s also managed to master the art of “forgetting about” and “accidentally misplacing” most of what he receives. Gift receipts are a must, for he is very much into returning his gifts so he can buy what he wanted in the first place.  For the most part, it’s just easier to ask him straight out what he wants or hand him a gift card. No muss, no fuss.

Every once in awhile, though, I try to be original and purchase things that I think he needs.

About eight years ago, I bought him a watch, thinking that if it is such sheer agony and torture for me to go around not being able to check the time every five seconds, then of course it must be the same for him as well. I think he wore it once. It’s been in a drawer ever since.

Last year, I bought him a cell phone. I wanted to make sure he had a safety net, considering the amount of highway driving he does. He kept it with him for the first few weeks, but never switched it on. Then I realized that not only was the phone off but the battery was stone cold dead. So, controlling thoughtful wife that I am, I started charging it for him, making sure it was switched on, and slipping it into his jacket pocket each day. This worked fine for a few months until one day, the phone mysteriously went “missing.” Husband swears up and down that he lost it, but I think he may actually have chucked it out the car window or flushed it down the toilet at work. Hey, if he doesn’t care enough about his safety and well-being to carry the phone with him, what can I do? (Probably buy him another one and start all over again…)

Then a couple of weeks ago, knowing how much yard work needs to be done this summer, I picked him up a ball cap. He balked at first, claiming that he’s just not a hat-wearing kind of dude. As I am wont to do, I bawled him out explained politely that with his giant noggin and blindingly white skin fair complexion he would just be asking for trouble out in the blazing sun and please, wouldn’t he just try to wear it? With many a grumble and complaint, he put the offending cap on one morning. It’s pretty much been glued to his head ever since.

I guess what I can draw from this is that his love of a particular “gift” is inversely proportional to the amount of cash I had to drop to buy it. If the object can’t be found for $8.99 or less at Walmart, it’s just not good enough for him. That’s fine, more to spend on cute matching kids outfits at Gymboree for me!

Filed under: Keepin' it Real, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →

For the last month or so, a friend and I have been walking six nights a week for an hour. While I believe that my legs are becoming more toned, I still look like I’m a few months pregnant. (As an aside, I asked the husband what he’d think if I said I was pregnant and snickered mirthfully as the colour drained from his face. It took me awhile to convince him that, no, I wasn’t actually pregnant, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a real excuse for the rounded belly?) (Apparently, he didn’t appreciate the humour. I thought he might throw up there for a moment.)

So, other than the baby belly, the walking has been going well. Not once have I copped out of a walk so I could stay home and watch So You Think You Can Dance. Yay, me! Tonight, though, I was full and sleepy from a delicious birthday dinner and to say that I didn’t feel like walking would be the understatement of the year. I looked up at the clear blue sky and wished for rain. Apparently, I have a gift because not an hour later, it was thunderstorm central up in here. Sweet reprieve! I get out of walking with a guilt-free pass!

I laid like a lazy lump (alliteration, anyone?) on the bed with a book. Not five minutes later, an enormous crack of thunder shook me onto the floor (yet miraculously did not wake the children). I looked out the window, noticed that the houses had an odd, yellow cast to them and ran to get the camera. Huge, dark clouds loomed overhead on one side and on the other? Clear, blue sky and a warm, yellow sun. The combination was creepy and beautiful at the same time.

The sky rarely ever looks like that unless there’s a tornado brewing. Fortunately, all we got was a flash thunderstorm, lasting all of about 15 minutes. It was over almost as quickly as it had begun and left the sky looking like this:

Yep. I love thunderstorms (and not just because they have the ability to get me out of physical activity) (although that is certainly a plus).

Filed under: Random by WWS (Lynn) - 1 Comment →

Here is how I know that I can’t possibly have woken up in my actual life:

• The Girl came into the bedroom at 7am. This is a full one and a half to two hours later than normal. The real girl must have been stolen away by body snatchers in the night. She was replaced with a child who wakes up after the sun has risen.
• The Boy woke up at 7:20am. Ordinarily, he is also an early-riser, but we have him trained not to come out of his room until 6:30am. The extra hour was an unheardof treat. Again with the body snatchers.
• I went down to the kitchen only to see that the kitchen table was tidy. The Husband had taken the breakfast dishes to the sink. He put the cereal boxes away. He put the milk away. He even stacked the morning paper up into a neat little pile in the centre of the table. This was the first morning in as long as I can remember where I didn’t have to spend five minutes cleaning up the table before I could prepare my own breakfast.  I wonder, how did the body snatchers come into my bedroom and steal my husband without me noticing? I must have been really tired last night…
• The Boy announced that he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet himself. The Girl instantly jumped into action, dragging a chair over to the cupboard to grab a bowl. She selected some cereal from the pantry, poured it neatly in the bowl, picked the most-special orange spoon from the cutlery drawer and even managed to haul the still half-full 4 litre container of milk out of the fridge without dropping it. It was so sweet I almost cried.
• Instead of complaining about how she used too small of a bowl, or he didn’t want that cereal, or any number of things he could have complained about, The Boy simply thanked his sister and gave her a hug. A hug! Huh.
• When I left the kids to roam the house alone while I took a quick shower, there was no screaming. There was no fighting. No tears. No ginormous mess to clean up. Nothing. Just, quiet play. The Girl came into the bathroom once to show me the k’nex “snack” she had prepared and then went back about her business. No stripping naked because she wanted a shower tooooo! As I was peacefully drying my hair, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was in the wrong house.
• About an hour before lunch, we went to Sobeys to pick up a few groceries. Both kids wanted to sit in the rocket ship cart. Alarm bells went off in my head since, over the years, I’ve learned that putting the children in such close proximity for anything longer than about twelve seconds spells trouble. There is much pushing and shoving. Occasionally, one will place the other in a headlock. There is whining, followed by “the look” from intolerant persons with no children of their own and thusly, no earthly idea what it’s like. Surprisingly (or not, considering how the day had been going), they were two beautifully well-behaved, curly-haired, dimpled cherubs who drew glowing praise from many an older lady during the time we were shopping. What?
• We came home and just as lunch was ready, I received a phone call from my best friend, who lives about a kajillion miles from here. The kids ate their lunch quietly, chatting back and forth to each other. When they were finished, they took off to the basement to play while I was on the phone.
• After my phone call, we ate a snack and played Connect Four and Trouble for an hour. Calmly. They took turns. There was no impatience, complaints or any of the usual meltdowns which tend to accompany our attempts at board gaming. Each kid won a few and lost a few. They were ok with it. Now I truly believe in miracles.
• I talked to The Husband on the phone and he volunteered to barbeque dinner tonight. He’s even preparing the potatoes and corn. And? He just brought home a cheescake for my birthday, which is actually tomorrow, because he wasn’t sure he’d have time to bake one between now and then and knows that chocolate cheesecake is my favourite.
• I have to work tonight and because I have quite a lot on my plate, I asked The Husband if he would put the kids to bed. He said “yes“. Just like that. No excuses. He’ll be putting both kids to bed, meaning that I will be putting neither of them to bed. No bedtime duties for one whole night. Score!

If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up. I’m pretty sure that this is what heaven is like…

Filed under: Happy Happy, Me, Offspring by WWS (Lynn) - 4 Comments →

So, guess what? Remember how I wrote that letter to the wonderful, generous people at Canon? Want to know what happened the very next morning? (No, I did not get an email or any free stuff from them. Damn and blast!) What actually happened was that the auto-focus on my camera well and truly crapped out. As I was taking pictures of my son’s last day at kindergarten. (Naturally). So, I did what I had to do and manually focused all of the shots. Now, I love photography as much as the next girl, and I like to experiment when taking pictures, but manually focusing the camera every freaking time I want to take a picture is just not how I roll.

So, what’s a girl to do? After checking my email to see if the fine people at Canon had somehow stumbled upon my humble abode (which, of course, they did not) (hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?) I packed up my crew and went to the mall to buy a new camera. I am now the proud new owner of a Canon Rebel XTi. I just bought the body and kept the lens from my old Rebel to save cash. (Basically what this means is that if the fine people at Canon find this site, I am still in need of a 50mm fixed-focus lens and a 70-300mm zoom!) (And maybe a nice flash…)

I bought the new camera just in time for the quasi long weekend. Happy Canada Day, by the way! Naturally, I took it along on our excursion to the lake and took enough photos to fill my memory card. And, because it is beautifully hot and sunny, I am in lounge mode and therefore would rather blog in pictures than in words, so allow me to show some of the shots I took while we were out and about.

Late last week, the sky was a little overcast. It sprinkled just a touch and then we were gifted with this wonderful rainbow, so wide that I couldn’t catch it all in just one shot.

My parents-in-law have a cabin at a nearby lake so we went out on Saturday and spent the night.

Husband and son decided to rough it and set up the tent out in the yard. It didn’t go as well as planned because the guy who lives next door decided that it would be fun to set off a zillion fireworks down in the meadow at 11pm.

We saw nature.

We ate Mickey pancakes for breakfast.

We went outside the next morning and found that the baby birds who lived in the chuck wagon had been pushed out of the nest (or fell, I don’t want to accuse the mommy bird of avicide) and were lying dead on the sidewalk. The Boy was sad (he has such a sensitive, gentle nature) but then we went tubing and the birds were all but forgotten.

The kids played in the water for awhile before lunch. After we ate, we made s’mores. I’m not normally a s’mores kind of a girl, but when made with Jersey Milk chocolate, they’re not half bad!

The kids messed around in the sprinklers for awhile and we had some yummy strawberry dessert (because, let’s face it, you can’t possibly eat too much crap while camping…)

Then, we cleaned everything up and headed home to work on our yard. I’m happy to report that the fence posts are up and nearly all cemented in! I’m drowning in a sea of dark green paint, though. If I’m lucky, I’ll finish painting the fence boards before winter comes.

Also, I’ve been nauseous for three days. If my hair wasn’t still falling out from having The Girl, I’d think I was pregnant again. Ugh. Where are those Sea Bands when you need them?

Filed under: Me, Offspring, Random by WWS (Lynn) - 2 Comments →