Driver's Ed

Isaiah started driver’s ed classes at AMA last week. The classes consist of 18 hours of in-class instruction and 10 one-on-one hours in the car with a qualified instructor. Considering that it cost us $754 (member price for the basic package), it should also include dinner and a marriage proposal.  However, being a reasonable woman, I will settle for him not killing himself or anyone else when he is finally let loose on our city’s roads.

We tried to teach him ourselves, but ran in to a few major stumbling blocks. Most importantly, we are a busy family, and the rare number of times per week that one of us AND Isaiah are not busy at the same time leaves us with approximately one opportunity every 984 family hours in which to practice driving.

Secondly, Jason does not have the patience to teach. He is all over taking Isaiah out to practice AFTER I teach him the basics, but he has no patience for the endless repetition of circling the closest parking lot. That leaves me as the sole instructor, bringing possible driving time down to once every 54895 family hours.

Lastly, driving practice stresses Isaiah out. On our one outing onto an actual road, Isaiah did beautifully until faced with oncoming traffic, at which point he took his foot off the gas, stomped on the brake, took his hands off the wheel, and refused to move until the other car had passed us. (Luckily, it is a very lightly traveled street, and there weren’t any cars behind us. But the old gal at the bus stop had a nice laugh.) He needs time to recuperate between lessons. Now we are down to one good opportunity every 56395290732 family hours. It’s just not feasible to wait till he’s 86 to teach him to drive, so we decided to pay someone else to do it.

Isaiah is excited about the opportunity to learn to drive, and the ensuing freedom brought on by not having to leave your girlfriend’s house at 10:42 in order to get home by 12 using the transit system. Jason and I are excited about never having to go out to pick up pizza (or Liz) again.

I wonder if every kid who takes driver’s ed goes on to get their license. Do you think the actual lessons ever scare anyone so badly that they just never bothered to take the test? I bet they have. And I bet I know who….

(Disclaimer: Remember. I worked nights. I don’t drive this badly anymore.)

One winter, when Isaiah and Liz were little, I was on the way to the mall, when fate (in the form of stupidity) intervened. For years, I had driven a stick shift. I learned to drive on a stick shift, I taught JASON to drive a stick shift, and there is no earthly reason for me to have forgotten HOW to drive a stick shift.

And yet…..

As I turned the corner from Richardson Way onto Richard Road, while chatting away to the kids in their carseats, I, for no earthly reason I can possibly think of, pulled up on the lever to engage the emergency brake. In the summer months, this would have been followed by my forehead crashing into the steering wheel, a little bit of embarrassment, and a 3 week long headache until the concussion healed. This being winter, however, the results were entirely different.

When I pulled up on the emergency brake (immediately forgetting I had done so, by the way, until I tried to engage it later on, only to find it was already done….), I locked the wheels of the car, which then proceeded to slide on the icy road. I tried tapping the brakes, turning into the skid ,and every other defensive driving move I could think of (none of those moves, however, were designed to correct stupidity and sleep deprivation, so they were essentially futile). I looked up to see where I would end up, and, to my horror, saw a red sedan with the all-too-familiar plastic tent on the roof, indicating a student driver.

I leaned on the horn, trying to alert the driver ahead that I was out of control and on the way into the space they were currently occupying, but I knew it wasn’t going to do any good. No way was a student driver going to realize and react fast enough to get out of the way.

I slid forwards for roughly twenty minutes, unable to alter my course, and finally impacted with the car ahead. I heard that nasty crunching noise I have come to associate with higher insurance premiums, turned off the engine, and turned around to check on the kids, both of whom were cheering in the backseat. They seemed fine.

I got out of the car and started to assess the damage. Luckily, I had been driving our new (to us) Chevy Sprint, and the Driver’s Ed car was a sportier model with a higher back end, so rather than damage the other vehicle, it appeared I had simply slid underneath it, without even scratching their bumper. Sweet. I wouldn’t even have to make a claim.

As I approached the other car to make sure they were ok, since they were taking a little longer to get out than I would have expected (seriously- I had been going less than 30 when I hit them- there was no way they could actually be HURT, could they?),  I walked up to the driver’s window, which was slightly unrolled. I could hear the driving instructor coaching her student.

“OK- this is a perfect lesson. We have just been in a car accident. First we need to make sure we are pulled over to a safe spot (the impact had driven them to the side of the road, so that box was ticked.) Then we will exit the vehicle, assess the car for damage, exchange insurance information and contact information, and call the police if necessary.”

 “Nope.” said the student.

“It’s actually a good thing to learn.” said the instructor.

“Nope.” said the student, her tone changing not one teeny bit.

“Are you hurt?” asked the instructor.

“Nope.” said the student.

“Are you alright?” asked the instructor.

“Nope.” said the student.

I looked at her. There was no freaking way. She had obviously only turned 14 an hour and a half prior to the beginning of the lesson, and she was terrified. She had a shocked, frozen look on her face, and her hands were white-knuckling the wheel like it was the only thing between her and certain death. She wasn’t going anywhere

The instructor got out of the car, and walked around to the back with me. We checked the damage, and, thanks to the high-back-end factor, although I had torn off my own bumper and shattered both headlights, they were good to go. The instructor was sympathetic (I hadn’t told her why the accident had happened, lest her sympathy evaporate), and helped me pick up all my car parts and put them in the hatchback of my car.

As she went to get back into her car with the student, she opened the passenger side door, and we both noticed with surprise that the seat was already occupied. The poor kid was already buckled in, and had both hands braced against the dashboard, as though at any minute I would hop back into my car and continue to batter them with it. I leaned my head into the car and told her how sorry I was, and she nodded back weakly. I noticed she was a little pale. And a little green. Poor kid.

I apologized again, and got back in the car with the kids, who were imitating the sounds of a car accident (Crash! Crunch! No! It was screech!), and headed to my mother in law’s house, as she was the closest place from which I could call my husband.

I called Jason to let him know what had happened, and, as he always did, he asked if the kids were ok. Then he asked about the student driver. Then he asked about the car. Silly man! He was obviously distraught by the news of the accident and not thinking clearly. I’m sure he MEANT to ask about me first….

I would be willing to bet that girl never wanted to drive again. I’m sure she finished her lessons (since they cost so bloody much that if I was her mother, I would have forced her to continue even if she had lost the sight in both eyes), but I bet she thought twice about taking the road test. I would like to think she has fully recovered by now, and is happily driving gaggles of children to kindergarten on a daily basis. It HAS been 10 or 12 tears, so I’m positive she’s gotten over it by now.

I’m sure of it.

Right?

The Year That Dell Wrecked Christmas

On the surface, Dell seems like a great company. You can pick out what's important to you, computer-wise, and they will put it together, pack it in those fun shipping peanuts, and send it right to your house. Any time I can NOT go into a store before Christmas, I am all for it.

I'm sure lots of people have great things to say about Dell. I will not be joining them. The following is a story about how Dell wrecked Christmas.

Christmas 2007 looked like it was going to be a great one. Squid was a year old, and just beginning to enjoy eating wrapping paper, I had been back at work for about a year, and we finally had some (small) elastic in our budget again. We were completely settled into our new place, and looking forward to having Christmas dinner in our nicely re-floored dining room. This boded well for the holidays.

The big kids had put up with a lot the past year or two. I had surprised them by telling them we wanted another baby, been pregnant with Squid, which I KNOW was no treat for them, and, although things had looked up for a while right after he was born, they had started to go downhill again the last few months after he learned that their stuff was better than his stuff and had decided that they should learn to share.

We wanted to do something really great for the big kids. While ordering a piece for our computer in late September, Jason noticed that Dell had a bunch of their video games and consoles on sale. Like REALLY on sale. Like it was almost stupid not to buy them. This was the perfect solution! Until then, we had told the kids that we would NEVER buy them a handheld game (I still think they're horrible things, and tend to get annoyed when I see them playing one), but considering all they'd been through, this was just about the best way we could think of to thank them.

We ordered a PSP for Isaiah, as they had just come out and were THE coolest things since sliced bread, and a Nintendo DS for Liz, since they had way more games geared towards girls. Then we ordered 5 or 6 games for each of them, sat back, and waited for the screams of appreciation to roll in.

When we ordered the games originally, they had told us that our PSP was actually on back order, since people were snapping them up as soon as they became available, and that they could either ship our entire order on the promised delivery date, or hold the whole shebang until the end of October, when the PSP could be shipped out as well. Not wanting to split the order into a bunch of smaller, easier to screw up bundles, I told the Dell kid simply to ship them all at once when they had everything.

The end of October came and went, and with it, no gifts from Dell. I checked online to find that the gifts hadn't even been assembled and shipped from the warehouse. I called Dell and found out that the PSP's had been backordered again by three weeks, but that we were DEFINITELY on the list to receive one as soon as they came in. The rest of the order was assembled and waiting in a box, and as soon as they received the PSP from Sony, they would ship it at supersonic speed (or some equally placating lie). I realized that even if it took until the end of November for our gifts to arrive, we would still have everything approximately a week prior to the date that we normally went shopping, so we were still ahead of the game. (Jason and I have developed a tradition of doing ALL our Christmas shopping last minute. Although we know what we're getting everyone and the list is laid out in a spreadsheet including gift recipient, type, size, store location and approximate price (with applicable coupons or discount flyers in an attached envelope should I need them), there is nothing like the Christmasey feeling you get when running around the city in the snow, battling through crowds at the mall, and enjoying a hard-won spiked eggnog (or four) at dinner afterwards. It's the one time of year that Jason ENJOYS shopping, and he will happily spend an entire day playing mall rat.)

November 21st arrived, and I checked online to see if Dell had come through. Thank God. I looked at my order summary and our boxes had been assembled, packed, and were on the truck. Since the warehouse was in Ontario, I knew it would take a few days for the gifts to arrive, but I felt so much better about the whole thing now that I knew they were on the way.

Feeling organized, Jason and I decided to do the rest of our shopping 'early', and had everything purchased by the beginning of December, when I again went online to check my order. Interesting. The boxes appeared to have been assembled, packed, and were on the truck. Somehow, this all seemed very familiar to me. I called the 1-800 number and asked to speak to the gentleman who had previously been helping me with my delayed order, and, to my surprise, it appeared he was no longer employed there. Of course. So I got connected with a new person who checked his system (apparently the same tracking system they have for their online customers), and assured me that my order had been assembled, packed, and was on the truck. he seemed a little confused when I asked him why it had been on that truck for a week and assured me it would be at my door in the morning. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, but informed him that the next day, when the package was assembled, packed, and on the truck and STILL not at my door, I would be calling back to speak to him again. The poor soul assured me it wasn't a problem, gave me his direct line (in hindsight, that decision ranks right up there with 'poke the sleeping  bear with a sharp stick'), and wished me a Merry Christmas.

Thus began what I am sure were the longest weeks of that poor man's life. Every morning, I would call him to let him know that I had STILL not received the package. About 3 days into this, I started calling every evening to ask if it would be shipped tomorrow. Despite his repeated assurances, by December 5th, I had given up completely.

"That's it." I told him. "I want my money back. Right now."

"I don't blame you," he told me. He was just as irritated as I was at this point. He had been on the phone with the warehouse staff, on the phone with the order desk people, and essentially doing everything he could to get me my kids' gifts. And we were still waiting on that damned PSP, so everything he tried was ineffective. I understand he was doing it only out of a deep-seated desire to never hear from me again, but at least he was trying. And a refund seemed like it might just accomplish all those things for him.

"Let me get the order desk people on the line and we'll get the refund set up." I breathed a sigh of relief. Although it would probably end up costing me more money, at least the kids would still get their gifts. As soon as I got the refund in my hot little hands, I would haul ass to Wal Mart or EB Games and do what I should have done in the first place. Let this be a lesson to everyone out there. I had now wasted nearly 3 months on this Dell fiasco, and I was eager to get out of it.

"You're not going to believe this," said an uneasy voice as it came back on the line. "The accounting department can issue you a refund cheque, but it will take 2-4 weeks to get to your house."

What little self control and dignity I had managed to retain went flying out the window.

"Are. You. Kidding. Me????" I whispered, too shocked even to raise my voice. "I have spent almost $700 on gifts and been waiting almost three months while you guys screw up, and now I have to wait till after Christmas for the refund cheque???"

"Uh. Basically. Yeah."

"But I have spent my entire Christmas budget for the kids on those games. Unless I get the refund, I can't GET them anything else!"

I was stunned. Yeah, I had their stocking stuffers, and their other gifts, but this had cost so MUCH money that I literally had no budget left. I was reduced to having to wait for Dell to possibly get organized and ship the gifts before Christmas.

"Fine." I told him. "I give up. Just get the gifts here. Can you at least ship the REST of the stuff, so we're only waiting on the PSP?"

"That I can do." he said "I am so sorry about this."

I went to bed that night angry, but still functioning. After all, they were going to send everything else, and even if we got the PSP last minute, it wasn't a big deal. At least the gifts would come.

After a week or so of waiting, the rest of the gifts hadn't arrived. It was now WELL into the second week in December, and my anger was now being drowned in panic at the thought of my kids having nothing (relatively speaking) under the tree when they got up Christmas morning.

I called the guy at Dell, who seemed much less happy to hear from me than he had on previous days. I explained that the gifts still weren't there, and he made a quick call down to the warehouse. When he came back on the line, he sounded as though his best friend had died. Apparently, although the request had gone through, the order did not ship as I had asked because on the ORIGINAL order slip, there was a note that the customer did not want the package shipped until all the pieces were complete. (Really? Out of this whole mess, THIS was the thing they did right?) The conversation ended with the guy from Dell apologizing profusely and promising, no matter what, that my partial order would arrive the next day. He was personally having it shipped rush by Fed Ex.

The next day, when they showed up at my door, I breathed a giant sigh of relief. At least they had shipped SOMETHING. I opened the box, eager to see what I had received, and could have cried. Dell had shipped the covers for the DS and PSP, the extra styluses, two carrying cases for games, and the computer part we had originally ordered and had since forgotten about.

I held out hope that by some miracle the games would get here by Christmas, but on December 23rd, when I called the guy at Dell, and he put me on hold and never came back on the line, I knew it was a lost cause.

We sat the kids down that night and explained to them that we had screwed up. They were going to get gifts they had always wanted, but that somehow, the company we had ordered from had blown it, and their gifts wouldn't be here by Christmas. They would be here soon after, we promised, and they would still get their other gifts from the rest of the family, and there would still be stocking stuffers and stuff, but the majority of their gifts would be missing.

I underestimated my kids. As I sat at the table, sobbing so hard Jason had to take over the conversation, Isaiah looked at me and said,

"It's actually ok, mom. I really don't care so much about the gifts. I like having dinner with your family and dad's family, and sitting around on Christmas morning talking and laughing and going out to look at the lights. It really actually IS about spending time with the family, so please don't be sad- it's ok!"

"That's right!" piped up Liz, "and it's not like the gifts aren't EVER going to get here. So we'll be even more excited when they arrive. Although.. " she said, ever the pragmatist, "maybe next year you should buy us even bigger stuff, just to made up for it."

What an awesome reaction. 

Inspired, I invited a few friends of ours to meet us at the Festival of Lights in Airdre on Christmas Eve. Originally, we had decided it was too cold to take them, but if lights were what my kids wanted for Christmas, by God, I would give them lights. It was -76521 degrees out, with a wind chill of -32456789, the roads were a sheet of ice, and your breath froze so quick in the air it actually hung in front of your face and choked you a little bit. And I didn't care one bit.

When we arrived at the Festival of Lights, our friends handed the kids a pile of presents.

"These are for you guys." said Lyndsay, "We know your Christmas presents aren't here yet, and we heard from your mom how well you reacted, so we thought you should have a few more things to open." The kids were thrilled. They piled the gifts into the backseat of the car and we were on our way to see the lights. About halfway through the display, while we were riding Santa's train around the venue, Isaiah turned to Lyndsay and thanked her again for the presents.

"No problem!" said Lynds. "I can't believe how good you guys are being about this! If I was getting a PSP for Christmas and had to wait for it, I'd be a WHOLE lot more upset than you guys are!"

"I'M GETTING A PSP???????????" shrieked Isaiah, in a register normally only heard by dogs. "COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I had to laugh. Like hysterically. Lyndsay sat in the train seat next to Isaiah, in tears, whispering "Omigod. I'm so sorry. I thought they knew. I had no idea..." as Isaiah bounced around next to her, dancing in absolute glee. All I could do was howl in laughter. This had to be the single most screwed up Christmas in the whole wide world. The very LEAST bad thing to happen had been Lyndsay telling him what his gift was going to be. We finally got her calmed down, after she apologized eight or ten times, and it became a funny story in its own right. I'm pretty sure she STILL feels bad.

Christmas Day dawned with no gifts in sight, and the kids opened their stocking stuffers and gifts and watched Squid open his. They visited with Grandma and Brian and Grandpa, and Nanny and Auntie Coreen and Uncle Kelly and the cousins. They laughed, and ate eggs and sausage and ham and potato bake and turkey and chicken fried rice and all the things that mean Christmas in our family. And they were ok. They didn't need giant gifts (although they were greatly appreciated), they just wanted to be around friends and family and enjoy the togetherness.

I actually heard the sounds of all the Whos in Whoville singing their Christmas songs, dancing emptyhanded around the village square, with the Roast Beast nowhere to be seen. We had been so busy thinking about the material things we had completely lost sight of what mattered, and had to have it explained to us by a 10 and 12 year old. Somewhere along the line, my kids had gotten a giant dose of the meaning of Christmas. They understood what mattered and they taught us what was important. We had ruined their Christmas and they, somehow, had saved ours. What a humbling and wonderful lesson for our kids to teach us.

But when Dell finally sent the gifts, a week too late, and accidentally sent us an extra Nintendo DS, I kept it. I'm a slow learner.

Dirty Night Out

We have 4 kids, all of whom play soccer (well, not Eva yet, but there's only 18 more months to go, and we have already been teaching her to kick a ball). We have attended 13 years of soccer games and watched our children chase butterflies and pick flowers in goal rather than stop the opposing team (most of whom were laying down on the field or squirting juice boxes at each other) from scoring. Thirteen years of 1/2-hour long arguments preceding every morning practice or skills session, and thirteen immeasurably pleasurable years of soccer bingos. (Please note sarcasm.)

Luckily, because of our status as 'lifers', Jason and I have moved up the ladder enough where we can pretty much pick and choose what positions we would prefer to work at a bingo. We hate selling tickets. It's boring, and you have to handle money, which is covered in germs spread by icky people who don't wash their hands after using the facilities. Most of the people you have to sell tickets to are highly superstitious, and want their tickets from the middle of the stack, 3 tickets from the right, and want their change in low denomination coins forged in years ending in the digit '7' (this last bit is a lie, but you get the picture).

The only thing that makes working a bingo fun is the people watching. There are some seriously weird specimens at these events. Jason and I do all our volunteering at an Indian Casino which still permits smoking in the building. There is nothing funnier than watching Grandma wheel in her 32 gallon oxygen tank, bedecked with a customized dauber (dabber?) caddy, and plop herself down in a 'Non-Smoking' seat. Since the 'Non-Smoking' tables are identifiable only by their gold decals, emblazoned with a black cigarette with a red line slashed through it; and not because they are located in a hermetically sealed, glass-walled enclosure, it's debatable whether any of these tables are really 'Non-Smoking'. Perhaps they should re-designate the areas 'Smoking' and 'Less-Smoking'. The world needs more honesty.

Jason and I recently worked as verifiers at a bingo (for the less informed, these are the people who run over when someone yells 'BINGO!!!' and makes sure they have the correct card for the correct game, and haven't marked off I22 instead of O74). Halfway through the evening, at the intermission between the early and late night games, the year 1985 (in the guise of four twenty-somethings) walked through the door. I kid you not. One of the guys had on giant gold chains, one of which had a clock dangling from it (Really? You can still get those?), and huge white plastic sunglasses. His date was wearing tight acid washed jeans, an artfully ripped t-shirt with a wide elastic belt, and had her bangs teased sky-high. The couple they were with were equally adorable, him in dock shoes, short denim cutoffs, and a silk Spiderman dress shirt, and her in white jeans, Keds (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), and a lime green striped sweater. It was like the Breakfast Club had gotten lost and needed somewhere safe to wait for Marty and Doc Brown to arrive in the DeLorean so they could go home. I wanted to take a picture, but Jason wouldn't let me.

At the first bingo we ever volunteered at, I once accidentally (and trust me- you only EVER do it once) wished a player good luck. Apparently this is like the Bingo version of the kiss of death, and people get really angry about it. I can understand them reacting violently to my saying something like "Hey- congrats! How much money did you have to spend to win that $17? Did you have to mortgage your tooth???", but all I said was "Good luck." And I meant it- I honestly (in my naivete), wanted the lady to win. And I was rewarded for my kindness by having the ticket thrown in my face. For the rest of the night she glared daggers in my direction and refused to buy any of my Bonanza tickets. I never made that mistake again. Some of these people are seriously disturbed.

The only problem Jason and I ever really have is that since we don't ever PLAY bingo, anytime anyone asks us a question about how the game works, we stare at them with a blank look on our faces, and have to go get a grownup. The game is COMPLICATED. It's not like when you were in kindergarten and were given one card and a handful of tiddlywinks and the teacher called out the numbers slowly so that no one missed anything. This bingo involves 31 different kinds of cards, digital machines, special games, satellite games, and troll dolls. Each game involves different patterns, and the type of card you buy dictates how much you can win on each game. Holy crap. It's impossible.

Jason and I have joked for years that one day, we will go play a game of bingo, just so that we know what's going on, but we were never really serious about it. I've seen some of these people. I don't want to end up that way.

The other night, we went out for his birthday. We had planned to have dinner and go see the movie 'Straw Dogs' (a thriller, of course), but about halfway through dinner he looked up and remarked that we never get time alone together. To guarantee that I would make the 'Awwwwwwww!' sound, he followed up by telling me he missed me and would rather spend the evening talking to me than staring at a screen. (At this point, he could have suggested naked bowling and I'd have been in.) We wracked our brains trying to figure out what you could do in Calgary that a) didn't take us far from home (we try not to suck up our time alone together with travel time), b) didn't cost an arm and a leg (error #1A), and c) didn't happen in a dark room which required silence, which would therefore make us fall asleep. Jason jokingly mentioned how we always say we're going to play bingo some night, and as we talked about it, the idea took on bigger and bigger appeal until we finally downed our drinks, paid the tab, and practically sprinted out the door. This was an awesome idea! It was something we would never normally do- like buying a lap dance, or checking into a shady motel for an hour. This was NASTY! We would be slumming, experiencing life on the trashy side. This would be WICKED! (As long as we didn't see anyone who recognized us.)  As we got into the van, we made a solemn promise to each other that we would never reveal our dirty little secret to anyone. (Said solemn promise lasting until approximately 1:15 this afternoon, when Jason blabbed to our best friends during brunch....)

We stopped at the ATM on the way in (by the way- the ATM in Grey Eagle Casino charges $2.95 per transaction- is that NORMAL???), and encountered our first obstacle- how much did bingo cost? Did they not talk about nickle cards or something? Did I need $20 or $1000? We settled on $200, not because we thought we would actually NEED it, but because we didn't want to have $40 and have to come back for more and pay another $2.95. (That was error #1B.)

We walked into the hall, and up to the cashier. Having arrived there at 6:30, and being completely unaware of when bingo started, weren't even sure they wouldn't let us play (Note to self: As long as you're willing to pay them, they will let you play anything. It's a casino, dumbass.) We looked at the cashier and realized that we really, actually, did not know the first thing about what we needed. It was like a first time drug user jumping into the deep end feet first- they know the desired result, but do not have the language skills to communicate it. ("I'd like a bucket of your finest happy dust, please, sir!"). I finally decided on complete honesty. I looked her in the eyes and (read carefully here, so you don't miss error #2) told her we had no idea what we were doing and wanted to learn how to play.

Cha-ching.

"Well, do you want to play digi or paper?" she asked. This at least was a question we could answer- there are paper bingo tickets or you can play all your tickets on a digital machine which finds the number that has just been called and marks it for you, in order to prevent screw ups. This was easy. We were almost guaranteed to screw up. Plus we don't own a dauber (dabber?). Digital, please.

"Combo 1, 2, or 3?" she asked, "Tonight's all you can play night."

Okayyyy.........

"No. Really." I said, "We don't understand you."

She looked at us like we were an entirely new species. "You volunteer here? And you've NEVER learned how to play?????"

It was embarrassing. I even recognized the lady. I had sat next to her in the prize cage for years. I was desperately hoping that they had so many volunteers that she didn't recognize me. She will now. We were that stupid.

She proceeded to explain that the combo you chose (as well as the color of the cards you won on) dictated how much you would get paid if you got a bingo. I stared at her in desperation. This was becoming too difficult. Jason saw my panic and, in typical male fashion, made the most expensive choice.

"Did you want to play special games?" she asked, "You can either put the tickets on your digi now or buy them separately later. Digi is easier."

Done. I was incapable of doing anything harder than what I was currently doing. If it got worse than the pain of ordering the tickets, I was going to fall apart.

"Pots?" she asked.

What??? I was back to the drug dealer analogy again. What was she talking about??? Finally seeing that I had had enough, Jason told her just to put 2 of each special game and the 'pots' (we actually still don't understand what those are) on the machines. He also decided against the Satellite bingo because, somehow, playing bingo against the rest of the province when we weren't even sure how to turn on the machines seemed like more than we could cope with.

The woman (who had now been occupied with us for the last 15 minutes) explained how to use the digital machines. Every time the caller calls a number, you hit the 'Quick Dab' button and if you get a bingo, the machine flashes with multicolored lights and the dab button changes to the word 'Bingo'. Then you grab your orange bingo card, wave it in the air, and yell "Bingo!" Ok- I had seen THAT part at least- I could do that last bit. She handed us a pamphlet explaining how to use the digital machines, should we forget any of her instructions, and gave us the total.

Seventy-eight dollars.

Know how much dinner cost??? About seventy-eight dollars. So now the required bingo enjoyment factor had escalated to 'needs to approximate the enjoyment experienced while drinking Rickard's Red, vodka and cranberry juice, and consuming fajitas, fish and chips, and some SERIOUSLY kickass calamari'. I braced myself for disappointment.

We sat down and started playing with the digis. You could customize the color of your digital dauber (dabber?), and the shape that it made when it marked the card, but we weren't ready for that yet. We got the machines unlocked and ready to play, and Jason got up to go the washroom and get us a pop.

At that moment, to my horror, the bingo caller started speaking. Turns out bingo starts at 7 p.m. Sharp. They're not screwing around. These people are serious, and expect their bingo halls to run with all the precision of a Swiss watch. The caller called the first number, and I pressed the 'Quick Dab' button on Jason's machine, which immediately dabbed the required number, and faded to black, waiting for the caller's next move. That was easy! I turned to my machine, and hit the same button. Nothing happened. I hit it again, and again, nothing, The caller called the next number, and I hit the button on Jason's machine, again producing the expected result. I turned to mine, hit the button a few more times, and was met with more failure. There was no blinking, no fade-to-black, no response at all. Jason came back in time to hit the button on his machine for himself when the caller called the next number. I, in my panic, couldn't communicate my distress to him, and was thusly left to my own devices.

Another number was called, and another one, and I knew. I knew that this would be a $9,384,737 prize, and although I WOULD have won, I was too stupid to use the machine. My kids could have spent lifetimes switching majors in university, all expenses paid, but their mother couldn't use a touch screen. I was single-handedly guaranteeing their McCareers, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. (I tend to over-dramatize....)

The damn machine finally warmed up, or connected to the network, or whatever it needed to do in order to work, and to my INTENSE relief, not only dabbed (daubed?) the last number called, but the previous four as well. Crisis averted.

After a while, we settled into a routine. Sip the drink, hit the quick-dab button after the number was called, check for flashing lights, and there was enough time for a conversation to be carried on in spurts in between numbers (garnering more than a few nasty looks from other players until we realized they didn't consider this a social occasion and started whispering to each other).

And then it happened. I glanced down at my machine and realized I was one, yes, ONE number away from a bingo. On a GOLD card!!! (My reasoning here was that gold is a precious metal, and therefore worth more than the 'ruby' or 'royal' cards.) My excitement was still building when the caller called the next number and my machine lit up like late night on the Vegas strip. I had a bingo! I had a bingo! I had a--- I snatched up the orange card, waving it in the air like a banner, and screeched-

"bingo!!!!!"

(Excitement had stolen the oxygen from my lungs, making me capable of producing only the smallest scream.)

Luckily, the caller saw my frantically waving arm, and stopped the game. Two other players had bingo'ed with me, but I had a GOLD CARD! I was obviously going to take the lion's share of the pot. Maybe I would win back the money we had spent on dinner and the bingo cards! The verifier came over, checked that it was a real bingo (and yes, it was, thanks to these miraculous, foolproof machines), and I anxiously awaited my prize receipt, to be cashed out at the end of the evening.

Ten bucks.

What the hell???? it was obviously some sort of measly pot, designed to lure the gullible (not us!) into spending more money on the more costly cards. We didn't have to worry about that! We weren't that naive! (And, having already purchased the most expensive of everything that could be purchased, we were relatively safe from their sneaky con.)

It seems that my error was in my 'precious metal' theory. Turns out, according to the printed program in front of us (which we never really deciphered), gold prizes were as listed, ruby cards paid 1.5 times the listed price, and royal blue cards paid 3 times the listed prize. So if we were going to win, we should have done it on a card other than gold. Nevertheless, we persevered.

I have to give Jason credit. it was HIS birthday, and this was HIS silly idea. And for almost every game, the poor man came within a single number of winning. And would then proceed to sit there on the edge of his seat while thirty-one more numbers (none of them his) were called, until someone else finally had a bingo. I don't know how he did it. I would have developed an ulcer. Near the end of the evening he became resigned and sad, but he never once despaired. He plugged along, never giving up hope, not realizing that I had probably used up our quota of luck for the day. (At his baseball windup party in early August, Jason had destroyed my chance at scoring Flames tickets by accidentally winning a size medium (he's 250 pounds) New York Giants (we don't watch football) tshirt in a door prize draw. I had no real sympathy for his plight.)

We stayed for the late night bingo, in part because we were enjoying the time to ourselves (we have four kids, remember- it takes us 3 hours just to remember how to talk to each other), and partly because (and I fully admit it) we were having FUN! Besides, factoring in our dinner, early bird bingo tickets, and now our late night bingo tickets, pop, popcorn, and onion rings, less my $10 win, we needed to win another $270 to break even. Because I'll be damned if I'm going to spend almost $300 on dinner and BINGO. (Yes- I see the flaw in my logic. I had become dauber-(dabber?)-happy at this point. I was no longer rational.)

I started off the late night games with astoundingly abysmal luck. I wasn't even getting within 12 or 13 numbers of a win. What had happened? Maybe I HAD used up our luck for the day? Should we just leave??? And then I realized. When I had won my original $10, I had been using an electronic purple circle to dab my cards. Over the course of the break between early and late night bingo, (letting another lady go ahead of us in the cashier line in order to once again be served (robbed) by the same woman who had helped (pillaged) us through our first foray into bingo), we had figured out how to customize our daubers (dabbers?), and I had switched to a blue leaf motif. Omigod! That was it! I had changed tactics! It wasn't the cards or the caller! It was me!

I quickly changed back to the purple circle, and during the very next game, won another $60 (earning a long-suffering sigh from darling husband). That was it. I was convinced. I was one troll doll and a custom made dauber (dabber?) case from becoming a real bingo player. It was time to get out, preferably before they served the Kool-Aid.

I enjoyed our evening. I really did. As did Jason. Will we go back every Friday from now on? No. Will we go back again sometime in the next year? Possibly. Will I stop making fun of the crazy players and being sanctimonious and judgemental? Probably not.

But it opened our eyes a little. Somehow, a large sub-set of the population, who previously seemed too unintelligent to do simple math (if I spend $200 on bingo every Friday night and win $70 once in a blue moon, it is a losing proposition, and the money is therefore better spent purchasing updated clothing and buying Grandma some teeth) is lucid enough to understand the world of 6-4-Baseball-Pay-Me-10-Times-Half-A-House-Any-Way-Progressive-Seven madness, and can keep 437 paper tickets organized on a tiny table, while stroking their lucky rabbit's foot and dabbing (daubing?) only the correct numbers with differing colors of ink, specific to their own personal superstitions, other hand ripping open instant win cards and, with only a cursory glance, depositing the losers into the garbage can, all without dropping a single ash from their teetering Salem Menthol Slim onto their polyester pants. I now know I'm not one of them.

Bingo players of the world, I salute you.

Going Batty

We all know I am bothered by camping bathrooms. When I was about 5 or 6, attending a family reunion at an Alberta campground, my cousin Dougie told me about the bad man who waits in the bottom of outhouses for little girls to go pee. Right when they're in the middle of peeing, when they're at their most helpless, he grabs them, pulls them in and makes them live forever in the darkness and poo. (I'm pretty sure Dougie was a great kid otherwise, but I dislike him to this day.)

It ruined me. Starting the very next bathroom trip, I was terrified. (It baffled my mother, as she was never able to figure out why.) This is a problem that persists to this day. I'm good if I'm there in the daylight, but I still get panicky when I have to lower my guard to pull up my pants. Nighttime? Not a freaking chance. If I have to pee, it's a group project. (And please don't think I won't stoop so low as to make Liz accompany me. We even have a song we sing about how brave we are while we're in there. Drowns out the spooky background noises.)

Recently, a lot of campgrounds have been replacing the one-holers in their outhouses with actual flush toilets, which solves a lot of problems for me- it eliminates the odor, darkness and scary bad man issues all in one fell swoop. A few years ago, we stayed at the Cypress HIlls Interprovincial Park, on the Saskatchewan side (they still do interpretive programs in Saskatchewan, and they have an AMAZING dark preserve that defies description). Cypress Hills, in their wisdom, had switched to flush toilets in their outhouses, and I was pleasantly surprised.

One night, after having consumed our usual 32 litres of cheap camping booze, Jamie, Lana and I made our way to the bathrooms. Jason had long since gone to bed, (he had gotten mildly tipsy setting up the tent the first day we got there, and it had upset his body clock for the entire rest of the trip. Every day thereafter, he was up at 4, drunk by noon and in bed by 7. Although incredibly annoying, it solved the problem of which one of us was going to lay down in the tent with Squid till he fell asleep), but it wasn't a big deal- there were 2 outhouses side by side, so 1 person would be able to wait outside the door to the one I was in. I wasn't really ALONE.

When we reached the outhouses, we realized that in our giddiness, we had only brought two sources of light with us- we didn't have a 3rd, and it was pitch black in the outhouses. As Lana and I looked at her, desperately NOT wanting to be the slasher bait without the lantern, Jamie piped up-

"I'll do it. I don't need a light- everything down there's been in the same place for the last 35 years, and I'm pretty sure I know where it all is."  Chuckling to herself, she went to the left hand outhouse. Lana and I cackled our way over to the other side of the shack, and I opened the door to go in first. I had had a LOT of wine.

I balanced my lantern on the edge of the sink (cold water only), and, already unbuttoning my jeans, turned towards the toilet. And there, struggling to get free, was a bat. A big one, the size of my hand. A giant black bat, squeaking in desperation, drowning in the toilet.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't scream. The spit dried up in my mouth. It took me a few seconds just to force my paralyzed muscles to unlock. I snatched up my lantern and slammed back through the outhouse door, hysterical.

"Oh, my God. There's a bat. Drowning in the toilet." As I gasped out my story, I started to sob with relief. What if I hadn't seen it? What if I had SAT DOWN? The disgusting nasty creature, already infected with other people's skanky butt germ disease would probably have been thrilled at being presented with such a wide (ha ha) avenue of escape and bitten into my ass and held on for everything it was worth. I COULD HAVE DIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lana was not amused. "Uh huh," she said, "and Micheal Myers is on the other side with a knife. Stop being crazy and hurry up and pee- I have to go."

"Go look." I told her.

Lana held up her flashlight, and cautiously opened the door. She poked her upper body into the outhouse, took a look, and slammed back out of the thing, nearly hitting me with the door and concussing me in the process.

"Oh. My. God." she said, gagging, "You're actually RIGHT."

Jamie came around the corner from her outhouse and looked at the two of us like we needed a spanking.

"What is WRONG with you idiots? People are SLEEPING!"

"She saw a bat in the toilet," said Lana.

"What are you??? New???" asked Jamie, "She's ALWAYS seeing stuff in the toilets."

To no one's surprise, she didn't believe a word of it till she looked into the facilities. But when she had proved to herself that I was without a doubt telling the truth, and not my paranoid version of it, she did what every good friend does and joined us in falling apart just a little.

We managed to make our way back to the campsite, laughing hysterically, with the occasional sob thrown in for good measure. Erik and Shawn were still up, and they wanted to know what all the screaming had been about. (You'll note that although they heard screaming, they didn't bother getting up to investigate. This is how often I scream out camping. It's doesn't even register anymore.) As we explained the situation, we discussed what needed to be done. We thought about just leaving it, but realized that the kids might get up before us in the morning, and may not be as lucky, and not see the bat before they sat down. Also- it was cruel. It HAD scared the bejeesus out of me, but I would never wish that kind of death on anyone. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wasn't going back in there. Ever. I would travel with toilet paper and pee on trees till the end of this trip. Jamie and Lana weren't dealing with it, either, so, by default, it became the boys' problem.

Armed with a stick, Erik and Shawn entered the outhouse, and were each just a little bit surprised by the fact that I WASN'T crazy. They knew there was a bat, as their wives had confirmed it, but they had counted on it being some sort of miniature specimen, roughly the size of your pinkie finger. A cuddly, non-threatening one. With pink polka dots, maybe. Instead, what they found was a big hairy black bat, roughly the size of my hand, still trying not to drown in the toilet. Its struggles, however, had become markedly weaker.

They leaned over the toilet bowl with the stick, touching the bat's claws, trying to get it to grab hold so they could transport it outside. The bat, though, had become so weak that ther few times they WERE able to get it to grab hold, it would simply fall back into the water as they lifted it up. Once they realized this wasn't going to work, they tried to use the stick to slide the bat up the side of the toilet, and sort of tip him over the edge to freedom, but wet bats are apparently very slippery, and they had to keep chasing the thing around the inside of the bowl, trying to slip the stick underneath it. In a short period of time, the situation had deteriorated so far that they were now essentially scrubbing the toilet bowl with a dying bat. Not only was it not helping, it was embarrassing for the bat.

Erik finally went back to the trailer and put on his 'dumping the porta-potti' gloves and came back. He reached in, pulled out the bat, (who at this point was gasping for breath and far too traumatized to bite anyone), and laid him outside the outhouse door, in the hopes that eventually it would come to its senses and make its way home.

The next morning, the story was told to all the children (and Jason) around the communal breakfast table, and everyone congratulated me on finally having something real to be afraid of. They also commended Erik and Shawn for being Mother Nature's Heroes (Hairy, Winged Creature Division).

I, personally, am thrilled to have a story to repeat when I tell people how crazy I'm NOT, and the others are less thrilled as they have come to realize that now, no matter WHAT I say, they have to give me the benefit of the doubt. Because, on the odd occasion, I turn out to be correct.

And Jamie doesn't pee in the dark anymore.

Immediate Consequences and Technology

When I was a teenager, I screwed up all the time. That's what teenagers do. They're argumentative, impolite, and they don't listen to a word you say. That's their job. Your job is to catch them at it and make them suffer. It's a nice back and forth that keeps everyone happy.

The nice thing about being a teenager in the 80's and 90's, like I was, is that as long as you covered all your bases, you could get away with just about everything. A quick couple of notes passed in school to make sure that Friend X knew that if your mom called tonight, to say you were in the shower; or to ask Friend Y to unplug their kitchen phone so that all your dad heard when he tried to call to check up on you was a constant unanswered ring. It was simple, it was quick, and it was easy to keep track of.

The technology to catch your kids doing something they weren't allowed to do simply didn't exist. You couldn't put a GPS trace on your teenage son's phone and figure out where he was, and you couldn't phone your daughter's cell at 2 a.m. to make sure she was safe and sober. You couldn't monitor their conversations with their friends to check up on what they were doing and with whom. You actually had to be in the room to catch them red-handed at ANYTHING. Now, thanks to entities like Research in Motion, Microsoft, and Steve Jobs, you can bust your kids long distance. I love that I was born in an age where these options are available to me.

The downside here is that often, the actual technology causes the problem. When I was a teenager & wanted to complain to my friends about my mother, as long as I didn't do it within hearing distance of a responsible snitch (adult), I could get away with it. Not so today. The following is a series of text messages between myself and my son....

Isaiah: Can I go to the mall and then to a movie after school?
Me: No. You have been out every night this week. I want you home at 4.
Isaiah: Please. I will stay home every night this weekend.
Me: No. You need to do homework and you need to do chores. I want you home at 4.
Isaiah: Please???
Me: Just cause you keep asking does not mean I will change my mind.
Isaiah: Please? I will do the laundry this weekend.
Me: Now you're making me angry. Be home at 4.
Isaiah: What if I do my chores AND Liz's chores?
Me: If I have to tell you one more time to be home at 4, I will snap and you will be grounded till June.

(10 minute gap in conversation)

Me: Are you clear on the fact that you need to be home at 4? This is non-negotiable.
Isaiah: (In what he must have thought was a text to his girlfriend) OMG- my mother is pissing me off. She keeps repeating shit that she's already told me. And now I can't go out.
Me: I think that was meant for Polly.
Isaiah: Crap. Now I feel like an ass.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Come home now.

Nothing says 'immediate consequences' like Blackberry Messenger.

Driving Him Crazy

Although I haven't had an accident in over 5 years, historically, my driving record is pretty dismal. Entire families of insurance agents were sending their kids to Ivy League Universities and taking ski vacations in Europe on my premiums alone.

My problem was that for years I worked nights. I got up at 6 a.m. with the kids in the morning, took care of them all day, shuttled them back and forth to school and various other activities, then ran out the door at 5 to work a full 8 hours at work. I am able to juggle a lot of things. I can multitask like you wouldn't believe. I can survive on next to no sleep. But I couldn't do all those things AND drive. Interestingly, since I stopped working nights and started working days, I have only had one accident, and that occurred when Squid was about 8 weeks old. I have a sneaking suspicion that sleep deprivation was probably a factor in that one as well. Just a guess.

It occurs to me that rather than write a 400 page essay about my driving difficulties, I could tell about each accident (or the funny ones, anyway) in a different blog, and scatter them throughout my postings, like little gems of stupidity for people to find and treasure.

Even when I had stopped working at McDonald's, and started working at Starbucks, Ronald and his greasy friends still found ways to screw with me. One night after a late shift at Starbucks (in my world, they were all late), I found myself leaving work with enough time to hit the McDonald's drive through (oh, how prophetic those words seem in hindsight....). I had been craving a McChicken for days.

I hopped into the car- our brand new (to us) Saturn, which we had possessed for exactly 4 months, and off I went. I pulled into the drive through and ordered my McChicken. I thought about getting something for Jason, then figured he'd be asleep when I got home, and besides, when you're a mother and wife, sometimes you just want to be selfish. When was the last time I had done something just for ME?

I grabbed my change from the kid at the window, and pulled forward. As I made my way up, I heard a nasty little crunching sound, and looked up to see that I had scraped my side view mirror off the car with the yellow cement pole put in place in drive throughs to prevent customers from hitting the building. The bloody mirror was dangling from its mount, hanging from a strip of plastic molding the width of my pinkie.

Slightly stunned by this turn of events, I leaned out the window and checked the pole, which, being cement, was unaware it had even been attacked. I pulled up to the next window, where the girl was leaning out, mouth open, bag in hand, watching as this out-of-control customer trashed her drive through. Since my first reaction to anything is to minimize my OWN embarrassment, I smiled sweetly at her, thanked her politely, grabbed my McChicken out of her fingers, and pulled away, side view mirror waving in the breeze. To this day, I deeply appreciate that she waited for the window to close before exploding into hysterical laughter.

All the way home, I thought about it. We had never before owned a car so new and in such good shape. We had actually purchased the thing FROM A DEALERSHIP. Never in our lives had we expected this to happen. And now I had to go home to tell Jason I had hurt it. This was not news to which he was going to react well. I had totaled our last vehicle, caused immeasurable damage to another, and the very first thing he said to me when we got the Saturn was for God's sakes, to be careful.

Maybe I could fix it. It was molded plastic, so it seemed to me that it might be like the arm of a Barbie- you should just be able to pop it back in, shouldn't you? I pulled up in front of the condo, left the headlights off, and inspected the damage by the light of the streetlamp. No dice. Maybe at one point, the thing had been 2 separate pieces that snapped together, but if you blew Barbie's arm off with a rocket launcher, you weren't going to be able to stuff the shredded remains back into the socket either. Same concept here.

I stealthily pulled out my cellphone and dialed my best friend Jamie's number. Shawn is a licensed heavy-duty mechanic, and if any repair looked heavy-duty, this was it (Yes, I realize that this is not what is meant by 'heavy-duty'. Work with me, here.)

"Hello?" she said, wondering what idiot was calling her house at midnight on a weekday.

"Hey," I responded in a whisper, lest Jason hear my voice, "is Shawn there?"

"Uh, yeah...." (considering that they were probably in bed sleeping at this point in the evening, it may have been a dumb question)

"Ask him how to put the side view mirror back on a car. Is this something I can do myself?"

I heard a whispered conversation, a grunt, a chuckle, and then she came back on the line. "No, Heather. You can't do it yourself. You're going to have to tell him."

"Thanks for nothing!" I whisper-shrieked, "It's good to know you guys value my LIFE!!!!"

I hung up the phone and rooted around in the glove box till I found a roll of electrical tape. It would have to do. At least it was black- maybe it wouldn't show.

15 minutes later, I stepped back and admired my handiwork. Although the electrical tape DID blend awfully well with the black of the plastic housing, the only way to keep the mirror on was to wrap miles of tape around the the actual frame of the window. The mirror would stay on, but the window couldn't close all the way. This might have flown in the summer, but not in
-30 degree weather. I was hooped.

I parked the car and dragged myself into the house. Jason was awake on the couch, and as he looked up and saw my face, he knew it could only mean one thing. His smile fell, his shoulders slumped, and the sparkle went out of his eyes.

"Want my McChicken?" I asked.

It was the least I could do.

Banning The Brat. A Rant.

I kinda promised myself that I wasn't going to get into social commentary using this blog, because I hate that every Tom, Dick, and Harry has an opinion about EVERYTHING. I know I can get preachy, and trust me, I do not need another soapbox.

Unfortunately, this is killing me. I just watched my PVR'd episode of Dr. Phil's 'Brat Ban', about airlines banning children, or wait staff asking parents with screaming kids to leave restaurants, and I feel like I have to say something. Seriously- it's bubbling up behind my lips (or my fingers, I guess) and if it doesn't come out, my brain will explode.

It's so simple.

IF YOU DISCIPLINE YOUR OWN FREAKING CHILDREN, RATHER THAN TEACHING THEM THAT THE WORLD IS THEIR PERSONAL PLAYGROUND, OTHER PEOPLE WILL NOT HAVE TO DO IT FOR YOU.

Aaaaaaaah. I feel better now.

Seriously. There was a woman on the show who complained that she was asked to leave a public library because her child was 'cooing' too loudly. Had the noise actually been a loud 'coo', it STILL would have been disruptive, but they played some audio of the sound this kid makes when he's happy, and it is NOT a coo. It is a scream. You know the screamy noise a one year old makes when they're just learning they have a voice? That godawful, earsplitting, MOTHER of a screech? No wonder the library asked her to leave. (Interestingly, it seems this woman then threw a raging temper tantrum about it and was arrested and banned forever from that particular library. Perhaps the whole family could do with some behavior modification.)

I don't know about you guys, but I remember when we were growing up, every time mom took us to the library, she told us on our way in the door to be quiet. And we were. When did 'Sssh' cease to be the standard for a library? Did the rules change and I didn't get the memo? This is why I take my kids (and the dayhome kids) to the library at VERY specific times. We go when everyone is well rested and no one is having a hard day. We sit together to read, and if the kids make too much noise after I have asked them once to speak quietly, we leave. No threats, no tantrums, no embarrassment. Simple as that. I was in the library the day before yesterday with a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and 2- 1 year olds. We were there for 30 minutes (which is about as long as they can handle), and everyone behaved beautifully. When I started to notice that everyone was getting a little tired of the outing, I, AS THE RESPONSIBLE ADULT IN THE GROUP, made the decision that it was time to go. I did not let the kids dictate whether we were staying or going, or humor them and wait so long that they became angry, overtired, and disruptive. Why? Because it's rude. Because whatever the kids are doing is MY responsibility, not the problem of everyone else in the building. And because I want to raise adults who accept the consequences for their own behavior, not overgrown children who will eventually blame society for their crimes.

Some restaurants are now banning children under the age of 6, or have a zero tolerance policy for screaming children.

ABOUT FREAKING TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not a difficult concept. If you are unable to teach your child table manners or how to behave acceptably while in a restaurant, you need to take them somewhere more suited to their skill level. Again- not hard. If your kid can't sit still, shoves food in double handfuls into their mouths, or still screams at the dinner table (and at various times, I have had children who do all those things, sometimes all at once), DOWNGRADE. Take them to the McDonald's Playland. Take them to Chuck E. Cheese. But do not take them to La Caille On The Bow or Pasquale's or Japanese Village and assume that the diners surrounding you appreciate the dulcet tones of your budding soprano. They do not. If I am going to pay $35 for my appetizer, you can bet your ass that your screeching child has ruined my evening, and the evenings of everyone else around you.

It's hard to teach kids to behave. I have taken my kids out of more restaurants than I can remember actually being in. I have eaten ribs alone in Tony Roma's while Jason walked around the parking lot with a 2 year old in the throes of a meltdown. He has watched a movie by himself because Isaiah was screaming and I left the theater. I have repeated the words "Please take your elbows off the table" until I am blue in the face. Every time my children speak, I expect to hear 'please' or 'thank you' follow it. (And trust me- teaching gratitude to a teenager will NOT make you age gracefully.) I have spent every minute of my parenting life trying to teach my children how to behave appropriately in as many situations as may arise in their lifetimes. I KNOW it's possible to teach a 2 year old to wipe their face and ask "May I please be excused?" when they leave the dinner table. I have taught it to my kids, and I have taught it to my dayhome kids. Kids are smart. They understand what is expected of them, and are more than happy to do it. If you do not expect kindness, courtesy, and good manners, they will give you exactly that.

Here's the payoff.

The number one compliment I get about my children??? How polite they are.

I can take my teenagers to a fancy restaurant, and they can handle themselves like champs. There may be some discussion about dessert forks vs. salad forks, but I can trust that they will put their napkins in their laps and not knock over the stemware reaching across the table for the salt. (No- I do not expect this from the little ones. I know my limits. And theirs.)

That movie Jason watched alone? The manager was so impressed when he saw me sitting alone in the lobby with my sobbing infant (we figured he'd nap through the movie, but alas, we were mistaken), that he refunded both our tickets, gave us 2 free passes for the next time we went, and a $20 gift certificate for the concession. (That alone should tell you how rarely people with crying babies actually leave a movie theater.)

When our group of friends went to Disneyland in 2004, we had with us a 10 year old, three 8 year olds, and two 5 year olds. On an Alaskan Airlines flight on the way back, the attendant came over to us and asked if we were Canadian. We were a little confused, but told him yes, we were. And he smiled and said "I could tell. Your kids are all so polite and well behaved. I just wanted to thank you for making it such an enjoyable flight."

Holy crap. Really? Cause we all thought our kids were out of control. Honestly- we had just spent seven days in the happiest place on earth and they were coming down from a WICKED sugar high. We figured they had used up every last ounce of good behavior in them. The six of us adults beamed all the way home. We smiled for weeks. And it took MONTHS for my mom to stop having to hear the story every time I called her.

And last November, when Jamie and Shawn and Jason and I and the kids went to Banff for the weekend, we had dinner at the Grizzly House (you know that awesome fondue restaurant?). The concept here is boiling oil. It's fondue. Everything is hot. There are signs posted EVERYWHERE asking that you keep your children seated so they don't get their faces burned off.

We timed the dinner well. I made sure 6 month old Eva was just beginning a nap when we got there, and we made sure the other kids weren't overly hungry on arrival, because fondue, by nature, is a long-ass meal.

The expressions on the faces of our two waiters when we walked in with our baby, (who, by the way, will not get to go this year, as she will be a toddler and therefore unable to cope with a two-hour-long, burning hot meal- see how it works????), our 5 year old, and our gaggle of pre-teens and teenagers was priceless. We had just ruined their day (and quite possibly their entire weekend, depending upon how badly it went). We sat down with the kids and let them order away. Some of them felt more comfortable with beef, chicken, buffalo or venison, and the more adventurous ones tried shark, alligator, rattlesnake, ostrich and frog's legs. No one complained about the cheese fondue that was heavily flavored with Kirsch- they simply tried it, and if they didn't like it, went on to something else. They were polite to the waiters, stayed in their seats, and avoided using the phrase "Ewww! GROSS!!!!” At the end of the evening, both waiters came up and thanked us for defying their expectations and complimented the kids on their beautiful manners. (We doubled their already generous tip.)

Who doesn't want to hear that about their children??? Wouldn't you rather have service people (and, having been one for years, be assured they are a crusty bunch with very little goodwill) exclaim over how beautifully your children have comported themselves, rather than have everyone in a 50 foot radius glaring in your direction and using you as an example in their next rant about 'kids today'?

Let's recap. It’s not the kids who are the problem. It's us.

As parents, we are tasked with teaching our children to become respectable, productive members of society. Adults who throw food, loudly monopolize conversations, belch, slurp, interrupt others and can't sit still are generally assumed to be either drunk or from Wetaskawin. Neither of these things is something you want people to think about your offspring.

Would you want your child to be left off the guest list for parties, or have no one to sit across from at lunch? Do you want people to give your kid that vacant smile (we've all used it!) when they interrupt a conversation to talk about themselves for the umpteenth time? To suddenly realize that they have no social life because they are rude and unpleasant to be around? This is what happens to people who lack basic manners and social skills. Why doom your child to that sort of existence? Don't you want your kids to get everything they can out of life?

SOMEONE has to teach our children how to become adults. For those lazy parents who can't be bothered to say no, it seems as though the choice is finally being taken out of their hands.

Thank God.

Go To Bed

Every night, we do the 'go to bed' dance.

It starts at about 6:30 with Eva, who is the only one who should be difficult to put to bed, and, consequently, is the easiest one to get there. We get her into pj's, cuddle on the couch with a cup of milk, and pop in her soother. Then we lay her down in bed, turn on her lullaby seahorse, and she's done. It took her till she was 1 to sleep through the night, so I figure we had this coming.

It's the older kids who seem to have a problem with the process. They have had roughly 13,505 bedtimes between the 3 of them, and still, none of them seem to get it.

Squid has (as we have already discussed) a bladder that never runs dry. So if you tell him to go pee before you read him a story (almost always 'The Gruffalo'- best kid's book EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!), he will still need to go AFTER the story. And again before you flip the light off. And he still gets up 15 minutes later and pounds on the door of whatever bathroom someone else is in, and pees another 8 to 10 liters. Then he drinks a glass of water. It's a vicious, vicious cycle.

The big kids seem to have selective hearing problems. And issues telling time. And organizational problems. And I kinda think they hate me, too.

Recently, I told them I wanted them in bed by 9:30. Whatever they needed to get done before bed needed to happen now. I used small words, looked them in the eyes, and enunciated clearly. I then had them repeat my instructions verbatim. This was at 8 p.m.

It's not that I want them to go to sleep right away. I understand that they might not be tired yet. I just need them out of my space. I don't think a few hours of undisturbed quiet in my living room is too much to ask after spending all day ruining their lives. I want to sit down and watch Shark Week, uninterrupted by sarcastic commentary from the peanut gallery (who both think "America's Got Talent' is quality TV). I want to eat the ice cream I've been hiding in the back of the freezer for 6 months without having to share a spoon. I want not to have to write a cheque for yet another replacement set of gym strip (2011 total? $125.). I have at times sent them to bed, sat down and logged into Facebook and had them comment on my status as I watched. Stealth is not one of their talents.

They both told me they had finished everything they needed to do, and proceeded to lay on opposite couches in the living room, watching 'The Office'. When I repeated myself every 7 minutes or so, they assured me that they were completely ready for bed. I really started to believe them. Maybe this would be the night they listened. Maybe this would be the night I got some time to myself. Maybe tonight was the night.

Bull. They were screwing with me.

At exactly 9:25, as I stared openmouthed in disbelief, both kids sat bolt upright on their respective couches, threw down their remote controls and cell phones, and fled like I had just released a hive of Africanized bees. I heard their steps thundering up and down the stairs, and then silence. Nothing.

I got up to look for them, and found Liz in the shower. When I asked what in the name of God she was doing, she opened the shower curtain, and stared at me through a haze of steam, shocked that I dared interrupt her nightly ritual.

"I'm showering." she pointed out.

"Yes," I said, "but you need to be in bed in 4 minutes."

"That's fine. I'll just straighten my hair instead of blowdrying it."

"What????" I almost flushed the toilet just to watch her scream. "You aren't going to straighten your hair! You need to be in bed in 3 minutes. Now go to your ROOM!"

"Fine!" She slammed the curtain closed (inasmuch as you can slam vinyl), muttering about her unreasonable mother and how I had no idea how irritating her hair was. Really? I have hair so curly I can hold the kids' hands with it. Seriously. It's like a billion rotary phone cords, sticking out of my skull. I just know how to use a scrunchy.

With her dealt with, I went looking for Isaiah. I found him seated at the kitchen table, surrounded by textbooks, piles of paper in hand, half-gnawed pencil in his mouth, looking for all the world like he'd been there since noon.

"Seven pages?" he muttered, staring at a sociology textbook like it was about to bite him on the nose. "This will take me HOURS."

How do you argue with homework? You can't tell them NOT to do it, and telling them that they should have started it earlier is next to useless. If you fling a textbook at their heads, it might make them stupid, which makes homework take longer. You can't tell them that they'll have to do it in the morning, because then YOU have to get up early to make sure they're awake to do it. There is no consequence that makes sense. I settled for throwing his pencil across the room and storming out of the kitchen.

At 10:15, I gave up and went to bed. The point was lost. Even if I did get some alone time, I'd be too tired the next day to make it worth the wait. I crawled into bed, snuggled into the blankets, and drifted off to sleep, only to be awoken 34 seconds later by a phone call from my daughter's cell, from her bedroom, asking for $7.50 for pizza day tomorrow.

I should have had cats.

Contrails

Jason is a great dad. That said, he drives me crazy. He believes that children should never feel like their parents don't know all the answers, but he is too lazy to Google things. He makes things up and forgets to explain afterwards. He finds it amusing that kids take your every word seriously.

This is a bad, bad combination.

He once told one of the toddlers, after I had blown up over finding yet another booger smeared on the wall, that if they ate them, mommy would stop yelling. Although I haven't seen a booger since, it was the most disgusting problem solving method I've ever come across.

Liz slept in our room for a week after we had our floors done. She walked in and admired the brand new pseudo-wood, to which Jason's response was to be careful. Laminate flooring breeds lampires, a special breed of demon that crawls out of the floors at night and sucks your blood. She was 10 at the time, but apparently the mental picture was too much for her to handle. I made her sleep on his side of the room.

When Isaiah was 4, there were a few weeks in the summer where I though he'd gone simple. Every time a plane flew by, he would roar with laughter, nearly hysterical in his glee. I didn't get it.

Other airborne objects didn't turn him in a gibbering fool. Helicopters didn't make him titter. Seagulls didn't give him the giggles. I had never seen him snicker in delight at the appearance of a helium balloon. Not a single guffaw over kites at the park. Odd.

I finally became frustrated enough to ask Jason about the airplanes.

"Oh, that." he smiled, "I forgot about that. He asked me why planes left contrails in the sky. I didn't know, so I told him that planes are pressurized. Airplane food makes people fart, and all that extra air being released into the cabin could make the plane explode. So at the back of the plane is a tiny vent, and every time someone farts, they open the vent and let the fart out. That way, the plane doesn't blow up, and nobody dies from the smell. Now every time he sees a contrail, he loses it. It's kind of cute."

That man needs to be supervised.

Hot Food

I have to apologize for the length of time it's taken me to post another blog. This week is the first week of school and between ferrying Squid to school (and bringing Eva and the entire dayhome along for the ride) and writing hundreds of dollars of cheques for the older 2, I seem to have run out of time and energy. However- I have opened a bottle of wine, and am sitting here with a glass of Strawberry Boone's over ice (quite possibly the best thing in the whole world), and have found the strength to type the latest installment....


I have no taste buds.

It's not some strange mutation or an accident at birth. I'm just stupid. There is something about the look of food fresh from the oven that I just cannot pass up. Intellectually, I know it will hurt. I'm not such a dolt that I really BELIEVE that this time it won't burn the skin off my lips. I just don't care. I'm a very visual person. The sight of freshly cooked food does something for me. It shuts down the connection between brain and hand. And the resulting scorch mark on my tongue is more than worth it to me. On more than one occasion, I have picked so much food off the baking tray or out of the casserole dish that by mealtime, I am full. (And if it contains melted cheese, there is a possibility no one else will get to eat, either.)

Some time when you're bored and have nothing to do, take a look at a dish fresh from the oven. Bread crusts glisten with that little bit of butter, and you can actually see the steam rising from it as it cools. Meats have that little bit of juice pooling around the spices on the surface, just BEGGING you to cut into it. Casseroles have a gorgeous looking crust that you know will only get hard by the time you serve it. This is the only time that your food will actually LOOK like the pictures in cookbooks and magazine advertisements. How do you NOT taste it??? It's GOT to be good! Nothing that pretty can hurt you!!! (Note- it is also this type of thinking that got me into trouble with boys as a teenager....)

My family and friends make fun of me for it constantly. You have to admit, it's pretty funny. Even the youngest of the kids can hear a screech from the kitchen, and will tell anyone within hearing distance not to worry- it's only Auntie Heather putting burning food in her face.

Recently, one of my best friends made fun of me for doing it. We had just pulled a dish of potatoes out of the oven, and I couldn't help snagging a little piece, just to see if it tasted as good as it looked (I never get to find out, by the way. It's physically impossible to TASTE something as it burns a hole through your soft palate.) I popped the piece of nuclear-hot potato into my mouth, and, predictably, gasped and did that open-mouthed pant that is the hallmark of idiots everywhere.

"You know," she said, "you don't actually have to do that with EVERY dish. They're all going to be hot. It's not a new concept. It's going to happen every time."

I know this. However, since there is no logical argument on the PRO side of what I was doing, I laughed and let it go. Really- it IS pretty dumb.

And then, with absolutely perfect timing, as she closed the utensil drawer with the hand wearing the oven mitt, she used the other one to reach over to slide the potatoes aside to make room for the pork chops.

Now THAT was a scream. My shocked gasp had nothing on her shriek of pain and embarrassment. And as I turned on the cold water tap for her to douse her smoking hand, I did what every good friend does, and laughed my ass off. I may not be able to TASTE my dinner by the time we ate it, but at least I had enough digits left to hold my fork.

Score one for my taste buds.

Body Mass And Shame

I WANT to be fit. I want to be one of those moms walking down the street with my gaggle of offspring and have people gasp and say "They must be adopted! Look at her hips!" I want to sigh to my friends about how I just CAN'T find clothes that fit me unless I shop in the girls' section. I want people to confuse me with my daughter. I want to be able to walk past a brownie without sucking it into the gravity well that is me....

That's the thing about having kids- I lost all the weight from being pregnant with Isaiah within 6 weeks of his birth. (Not being able to afford food probably helped.) I lost all the weight after Liz (except about 10 pounds I had gained in BETWEEN kids) within about 6 months. With Squid and Eva both, I had gestational diabetes, and although I LOST weight during pregnancies due to the diabetic diets I was on with both of them, I was so excited to eat carbs again after they were born that I picked up another 30-odd pounds over the course of their baby years.

This means I am no longer the skinny size 2 I was in high school. Basically, I've eaten a whole other small person. I have reached a poundage that I USED to think was only attainable by professional wrestlers and marine mammals. (Lest you take me seriously and have a mental image of someone who wears bedsheets and needs a wall knocked down to get out to the emergency room, please understand that although I make fun, I don't need to worry about the weight limit on a busy elevator. I'm just saying I don't feel super comfortable in leather anymore.)

Anyway, every few years, I feel motivated and decide to do something about it. It drives Jason crazy when I do this. Although there are some things he doesn't mind, like the fact that I try to avoid packaged foods, use plain yogurt instead of full fat sour cream, and how we don't fry grilled cheese sandwiches (they always get done in the toaster oven so you don't need butter), he hates the gym membership merry go round.

You know how it works. You realize you need to do something about your shape, so you pop into a gym (World Health Club, Heaven's, and Curves are a few of my failures), commit to the monthly fee, and start off the next week full of energy and optimism. You KNOW you're only a few workout sessions away from the body you've always wanted to have.

You do a few workouts, and relish the feeling of slight stiffness in your muscles when you wake up the following morning. You remember how ENERGIZED you feel after a workout. You start window shopping (not REAL shopping- it's too soon) for 2 piece bathing suits again. You talk slightly condescendingly to people who DON'T have gym memberships about how much better they'd feel about themselves if they got some exercise. You start to feel a kinship with people like Jane Fonda and Lance Armstrong.

And then reality sets in. It takes so much TIME! You can't go to the gym early in the mornings, cause what if there's traffic, and you can't get back home before your husband leaves for work? You can't go during the day, because who wants to pay for babysitting on top of your membership fees? You can't go at night, because what kind of mother chooses a workout over spending quality time with her children? You want to wait till after the kids are in bed, but then you don't have time for a shower before bed or you'll wake up exhausted. Your visits to the gym start to happen fewer and farther between. You start making up reasons not to drive past the mall that it's in. You avoid using any words beginning with 'g' around your husband, lest he ask about your next visit. Mid-August, you hide your gym bag under the Christmas decorations. You realize that these are not the actions of a woman who really wants to go back. And you quietly finish making the next year or 2 of payments, and vow never to buy another gym membership.

Till next time.

In one incarnation as a fitness failure, I bought a membership at World Health Club. I really committed for a few months. I went to the gym every other day, with an almost religious fervour. I bought workout clothes and USED them. I meant it this time! And, predictably, I got tired of it. The problem was, we lived less than 2 blocks from World Health Club. I started to get paranoid. What were they thinking? What were they saying? Were they having staff meetings where they all discussed the fat kid, and agonized over how to bring her back into the fold? Were they watching the doors, anxiously awaiting my return? They must be so disappointed in me. I was.

I stopped walking to the dry cleaner's, in case one of the trainers saw me through the reflective front windows of the gym. I started parking directly in front of the liquor store when I bought wine, so that I could scope out the parking lot, and when it was clear, dash from one door to the other without being seen. I quit buying gas at the Petro Can next door.I started letting the kids run into 7-11 themselves to get a slurpee while I stayed in the car. Everywhere I looked, I saw phantom World Health Club Trainers. I was on the verge of becoming a shut in.

And then one day, as the kids and I were grocery shopping at Safeway (not even the Safeway across the street, dammit, the OTHER Safeway), I finally ran into an ACTUAL World Health Club trainer.

"Heather! " she screeched (in an emaciated tone of voice), "How ARE you? Where have you BEEN? I haven't seen you in AGES!!!!"

And every lesson I have ever taught the kids about honesty, integrity, and taking responsibility for your actions went flying right out the window. Right in front of the very people to whom I am supposed to be modeling dignity and trustworthiness, I gave a performance worthy of a politician with a gambling problem.

"Oh!" I trilled, "It's so good to see you again! We actually just got back from taking the kids on an extended trip to Europe."

"You should have told us!" she exclaimed, "We could have put a hold on your membership until you returned!"

"Oh, it was such a surprise," I said, "We were only going to be gone a month, but the kids were being exposed to so much culture, and were having such a great learning experience that we decided to stay for 6 months."

"Wow," she said, "what an awesome opportunity! I would have loved to have a trip like that as a kid! You guys," (turning to my kids, who were teary-eyed and shaking with restrained screams of laughter) "have amazing parents. You'll remember that for the rest of your life!" (Yes. Unfortunately, yes. They will.)

As we finished our conversation and turned and walked away, I looked at the kids and their unbridled glee at my acute discomfort. I realized what I had to do. I hated it, but I had no choice. I had to save SOME little scrap of dignity.

We moved.

Things I Won't Even Tell My Husband

Are you kidding??????? He READS this!

Sorry.Couldn't help it.