I miss my kids

I miss my kids, I miss my kids, I miss my kids.

I was looking forward to seeing my 11-year-old tomorrow morning. Yearning is more like it. Dave and I went out for dinner tonight and there were families there with kids and my heart was light with excitement thinking, tomorrow morning, I just have to wait until tomorrow morning, and I'll be able to see my Sam, my wonderful, wonderful Sam.

Then, just a short while ago, he phoned. He didn't want to come over. He was sick, he said. Didn't feel like making the trip. I tried to convince him to come. I tried really, really hard but he had made up his mind.

I feel like I have been run over by a truck.

Lucky those who see their children every day. Pray you never feel the pain in my heart.

Angus's Really Big Shew

Proud? You betcha!

This You Tube video was shot by my youngest son, Sam, at the Haliburton Highlands Secondary School Tribute Concert, held just before Christmas. The performers are my oldest son, Angus (playing bass) and his friend Bethalin, who sings a mighty version of one of Adele's hit songs. Honestly, their performance was the best of the night and I'm not just saying that because I'm Gus's mother! Have a listen, see if you don't agree!

Oh, that hooting and hollering at the end? That's me!

Deck the halls with boughs of vomit

I was humming Christmas carols this morning while making coffee.

This happens to me every year. I'm slow getting into the Christmas spirit but, by the time it's over, I'm in full-on, meet-me-under-the-mistletoe, buy-something, wrap-something, eat-something seasonal-greetings splendour. So I feel like the little brother in A Christmas Story, the kid who is so overdressed that he can't walk, can't run, can't fart, and is continuously whining, "Come on guys, wait up guys, oh guys..." That's me, whining, as the Christmas train blows past.

Yesterday was one of those days you wish never happened. We were headed north to visit friends we hadn't seen in some time. Sam seemed fine before we left. He was having a little trouble going to the bathroom (he gets constipated sometimes) but nothing untoward. He started looking uncomfortable just as we passed the last turn-off to civilization and public bathrooms. When it was clear we were in the land of nothing-but-swamps-and-bush, he suddenly announced, "I gotta have a crap and I feel like I'm gonna throw up!"

Nothing speeds a driver to a curb as fast as a kid saying the throw-up word. Tires squealed and my face just missed hitting the dash as Dave swerved off the highway. I jumped out to help Sam get out of the car safely and then watched as he scrabbled down a steep, snow-covered embankment. At first it looked like he was going to throw up, all gaggy and retchy and such. Then, without further adieu, he yanked down his jeans and squatted in the ditch.

I was impressed and repulsed all at the same time. My kid was going to defecate at the side of a busy four-laned highway. I have Crohn's disease and I wouldn't be caught doing that in a zillion years. I can't see very well at the moment (my cataracts) so I thought, maybe he's only peeing.

"Are you peeing?" I asked. Hopefully.

"I'm crapping," said my son.

Oh geez.

"I'll go get you some Kleenex," I said. I grabbed a box out of the car.

Dave asked, "Is he puking?"

"No," I said, "apparently he is crapping."

"Oh geez," Dave said.

I thought I could just lob the Kleenex box straight to Sam, but I missed by, like, 20 feet and thus had to slide down the embankment towards the crapping child to wrangle the box out of the only tree in the ditch and hand it over. I did so, discreetly, not wanting to embarrass Sam, who was already crapping in front of every person driving north on one of Ontario's busiest north-south highways and probably didn't care one iota about crapping in front of his mother. Although I would never crap in front of my mother. I don't think. Maybe if I was desperate. OK, so Sam was desperate.

Moving on, we came to Burk's Falls where there is a Tim Horton's.

"Sam," I said, "would you like to go to Timmy's and use their bathroom?"

"Yes," said Sam.

Thank goodness, I thought. An actual bathroom will be so much less embarrassing than a ditch. While Sam was in the bathroom, Angus and I went to the counter and ordered coffee and hot chocolate. I was just about to pay the nice young cashier when Sam came up to us, white-faced and sick-looking.

"Mom," he said, "I just vomited in the bathroom."

The cashier's smile disappeared but she continued to get my change.'

Inside I was thinking, "isn't it cute how he uses the word vomit?" What I said was, "You threw up in the toilet, right?"

Sam shook his head. "There was somebody on the toilet so I vomited on the floor."

All colour drained from the cashier's face and, I swear, went to mine. I looked to her and squeaked, "I'm sorry."

"That's OK," she said, but I wasn't convinced.

I told Sam to go back in the men's room and wash up. Apparently he still had to use the toilet as well, "but the man who was in there got poo all over the seat," so he decided against it.

Those poor Timmy's staff. Cleaning up my son's vomit and some old guy's poo. There ain't enough money in the world to pay me to do that.

Top photo: my new coat and mittens I found under the tree. Thanks Santa!
Second photo: Misty in her Christmas dress.
Third: Dave with our festive mailbox.
Fourth: my handsome non-puking men - Sam, Dave and Angus.
Fifth: me and Dave wishing you and yours a happy ho-ho-ho.

Momma Bear, the eff word and other crappy subjects

Maybe eating Fibre 1 for breakfast isn't the best idea when you've had the poops for two weeks.
I'm having a Crohn's flare-up, or something. I can't get through the day without a fistful of Imodium. I know. You don't want to hear this. Trust me, I don't want to live it. Life is just shitty that way sometimes.

Speaking of stink, it's raining like stink outside. It's been raining for two weeks solid. The only good thing about this much rain is it makes you appreciate blue sky when you see it.

Just got off the phone with the vice-principal of my son's high school. I had a mouthful of Fibre 1 when I answered so I was all muffley and "bl-hell-umph-o," like that. He sounded confused at first. But it was 7:45 a.m. and I'm still in my nightie, the pink one with "Best Mom" on it that I bought for myself because my children are boys and they wouldn't set foot in a women's lingerie department. So there was a big hullaballoo yesterday morning. I was in the same Best Mom nightie (no, I never wash it, never), drinking my coffee, recovering from my latest trip to the bathroom, when I spotted this boy talking trash to my son on Facebook. This Grade Nine person must be an english major because he used the eff word extremely creatively as he invited me son to the high school parking lot at high noon to show how effing tough he is.

I'm sure he just wanted to have tea with my son. Maybe discuss the use of the eff word in modern literature, something like that. Because he insisted, in a later FB blurb, that he had no plans to beat the crap out of my son.

Apparently my son, who I love but who isn't perfect, much like his mother and the entire rest of the human population, said some very mean things to a young girl. My son said she had said mean things to him first. So we had a big discussion about not saying mean things to anyone, anyone at ALL, but especially not to a girl because, well, if you ever hope to have a lasting relationship with a woman, talking trash to them is not going to win them over. So this other kid was coming to the girl's defence, like a knight in shining armour, ready to take a round out of my son to defend her honour. Which, you know, is admirable in a way. The girl probably really appreciated it. Hey, if my husband wanted to take a round out of someone for talking bad to me, I'd appreciate it. (In a big way. Like, he'd be smiling for a week afterwards.) But I really couldn't have some kid beating up my son in the parking lot, could I? I mean, I'm his mother. It's my job to defend my children. Not just my job, my calling. I love them and, while I respect the knight in shining armour's decision to defend the girl, I can't have him laying a thumping on my offspring.

So I copied the entire conversation onto a text document and e-mailed it to the principal and then the vice-principal had both boys in for a separate visit and straightened them out. At least, I hope it's straightened out. The last thing I want is more anger, more retribution. The thing about kids today, the thing about Facebook and texting, is it's all there for the record. It's not like the old days when you could threaten someone verbally and then deny it ever happened because there was no evidence. When you threaten someone on Facebook, it's there for the world to see. You can delete it, sure, but if someone (like me) has already copied it and pasted it somewhere else, you're euchred.

And the way kids talk on Facebook? Unbelievable! The things that come out of their mouths is reprehensible. Why do they talk like that? It's disgusting! Is this something they're going to grow out of or is this next generation going to live life verbalizing like sailors? When they're grandparents, are they going to talk to their grand-babies that way? "C'mere you effing cute effer, sit your effing arse up here on your effing grandma's effing knee, you effing effer-snapper."

Anyway, that was my day yesterday. The vice-principal called this morning just to catch up and fill me in on the details, which was nice. And it was nice that he caught me in between trips to the bathroom. Tomorrow I go to the hospital for my Crohn's treatment, which is a very good thing. Cause life is too short to be this shitty.

Camp Journal Day #1

I wish I had something good to report.
That's not true, I do. A fair bit of the day was fantastic. It's this end bit that has me pounding at the keyboard, mad as a hatter, my son sent to bed for the night and my husband going to our friends' to apologize that we won't be dropping by their place for a campfire.
Sigh.
For a while there, it was magic. We bicycled down to the beach and, oh, what a beach. To me, Inverhuron Provincial Park has the best beach in Ontario. As good or better than the surf I frolicked in at Puerto Plata, way too many years ago to count. I do know that I was embarrassed about showing off my fat self in a bathing suit but back then I was positively Twiggy compared to now and now I don't care what people say about how I look. My friend Tammy and I were coming out of the water and she held a flutterboard in front of her because, "I hate coming out of the water and have people staring at me so I do this." I wanted to make some crack about how no one was looking at her because they were all staring at me saying to their wives, "Look, hon, there's a whale coming up the beach." I think everyone should hang out with someone who is larger than them; that way it doesn't matter what you look like.
I'm digressing, aren't I? That happens when I rant. What I'm trying to say is we were having a great time. We were all in swimming; gawd, the water was like pea soup. Sam said it was like swimming in lemon lime Kool-Aid because of the amazing colour; and the sand, that rippled sand that felt so soft on the toes. It was late afternoon before we finally got to the park and got settled in; then we hopped on our bikes, towels slung around our necks, and headed down for that glorious swim. The setting sun was still hot; other people who had been at the beach all day were leaving – the fathers' backs loaded down with coolers and beach umbrellas, chairs and floatey toys, their faces stolid, sunburned and grim. We had the water almost to ourselves and we played for a few glorious hours.
Then we came back and I made supper: brown rice, sauteed baby carrots and a strange-sounding but absolutely fabulous concoction combining a can of diet cola, a cup of ketchup and chopped raw chicken breasts. While I made dinner I let Sam play games on my laptop because, as he told me yesterday, the only thing that excites him in life is video games and computers. Apparently a day at the beach isn't even close to the levels necessary for excitement.
I put dinner on his plate and I knew right off that my picky kid was turning his nose up. When Dave and I made him eat, he got cranky and tearful and said, "If you guys hate me so much, why do you even make me visit?" See, for those who don't know, Sam and his big brother live full-time with his father because I was fucked over big time. Husband cheated, I hit husband with Dr. Seuss book in flaming fight, I call cops to get husband kicked out, cops take me to jail instead because I hit husband, I spend night in jail, judge gives me an order to stay away from my own house, I go live with my parents, kids come to visit me, husband wants full custody and is willing to fight for them, I have no money to fight it plus lawyer says I will never win because Dr. Seuss incident gives me a criminal record, so I don't bother. Ex husband and I arrange an amicable separation agreement because there is no other bloody way. I sit by and watch ex husband spoil children senseless with material things to assauge his guilt. He never makes them eat their dinner and usually feeds them french fries and chicken fingers. He never gives them chores. He spends money he doesn't have to win their love. I try to teach them better, but they don't appreciate rules or weird food. My oldest is 14 now and is at a point where he almost never comes to visit us because he world is the computer and his bedroom and his friends. Sam still wants to come, for the most part, and we almost always have a great time. Only he hates being told to eat his dinner so suppertime often becomes a battleground.
Like tonight.
When he says we must hate him, we try to talk sense to him. Dave sits him down earnestly and pours his heart out about how much he loves him and asks for a hug. Sam barely puts his arms around him and doesn't say anything in return. Dave's heart breaks. Sam heads for his bunk. I call him over to me, determined to talk and cuddle and work things out. But things don't work out and I get angry. Instead of cuddling, I send him to bed.
Now we're all depressed. Day one of our vacation isn't turning out like we planned.
Some days I could just stick my head in a toilet and flush it.
My children are growing up without me and I can't stand it.