Winding Down

We’re still at “Rural Canadian Cottage”, at least for a few more days. I think. The girls and I have been away from home for almost 3 weeks and I’m starting to feel my head switch back into “home” mode. Next week will be a busy week, after a 2 day drive home that I’m NOT looking forward to. However, I do want to get home, so it’s one of those necessary things. Hubster is missing us something fierce and wants us home. I know that when we once we’re home, we’ll be in the downward spiral towards fall and school. It’s already half way through July. How is that possible? Time seems to be passing so, so quickly.

This has been an interesting trip. In the first leg, as I mentioned before, we were visiting with family and celebrating Hubster’s Mom’s 60th birthday in our hometown, where Hubster and I grew up, went to school together, met and were married. We had a great time catching up with family and the few close friends that are still around. It was weird to be back. It felt familiar and strange at the same time. Things have not changed much in the 10 years since we’ve moved away, but it definitely doesn’t feel like “home” any more.

Then the girls and I headed up to my family’s cottage, a place I’ve been coming to during the summers since before I was born. (Yes, this is possible because my Mum came up when she was pregnant with me. So there). My Dad grew up here as well. There’s history and memories and despite the fact that things have changed pretty dramatically (we have more sleeping space, indoor plumbing (whohoo!)) and the whole place while still structurally the same, has morphed into a “new” place. It’s fun and comfortable and I’m glad to have it to share with my girls. They love being here. Swimming in the lake, going for ice cream in town, playing badminton, going for boat rides and fishing, and having chipmunks eat right out of your hand. It feels wholesome and good.

Local "Zippy" chipmunk. Will beg for peanuts. Or climb on your shoe. Or take it out of your hand.

I was able to escape for my first night away from the girls since they were born. Seriously. Mouse is 5 and I’ve never been away from them; either of them overnight. I stayed in the city with a friend I’ve known for almost 25 years and we had a fabulous totally grown-up 24 hours that included dinner out, pedicures and shopping in fancy boutiques. Very cool. And though I did miss the girls a bit, I wasn’t totally blown away. And they seemed to do really well also. I guess it wasn’t so much that I was worried for THEM, it was that I was worried for my FOLKS who would be watching them. I know that they’ve done all of this before, and knew they could (*edited because I had originally written "couldn't". Mum laughed and said - wow! freudian slip? oops! ahahah) handle it, but I figure they’re retired, they’ve raised their kids, they shouldn’t have to deal with little kid shenanigans any more. But I appreciated it a lot – so THANKS Mum and Dad!

And I turned 35. So, I guess I’m on the downhill slope to 40. I suppose at some point I should start feeling my age. My head has caught up to about 25ish, I think. I’m always surprised to think of how “OLD” I am. And as far as I can tell, my arms haven’t gotten any shorter. (thought, I’m sure my hair is greyer). I ended up with 3 cakes (since coming north, not all in the same day) to celebrate my special day, a chance to sleep in, some fun presents and a “party” put on by Mouse and my Mum and my Dad did a fireworks show off the dock for me. I rang in 35 with a literal BANG! All in all, a good transition to almost middle age. Ha.

Spice Cake (my fav) made by Mouse and Mum

Cool fireworks effect.

I’ve been really fortunate to get a lot of time to visit this trip. Visit with extended family, friends, my Grandfather (who didn’t remember me, but that’s ok), catch up Aunts and Uncles I don’t get to see often, see my little brother and meet his wonderful finance. This is all good for me. I feel like it fills me up and connects me to the life I don’t get to mesh with very often living so far away.

I always catch up on my favourite “food” while I’m up North, by which I mean crap food. Cadbury chocolate, Coffee Crisp, Smarties, Dare Real Fruit Gummies, Voortman Flakie Pastries. Mmmm. And I SWEAR that Kraft dinner (which I can barely stand the smell of at home) tastes better here as well. And my Dad BBQs a mean steak. I’m going home with some “work” do to. A lot of walking. Oy.

The weather has been way less than stellar this whole trip. Cold, rainy, windy with just a few sunny, warm days thrown in just to keep you optimistic that tomorrow will be better. I wonder what happened to summer! And while the girls have done very, very, VERY well with all of the moving around, visiting, travel, transition stuff, its’ life on the road for us. Its’ late bedtimes, off schedules, weird eating (if any at all). I think I’ve handled things pretty well and I’ve had a lot, A LOT of help from many people, its’ hard being Mom when I’m away. It’s my life in a different place but without all the things I’m used to. I love to travel and enjoy being in different places, but at heart I’m a homebody and like my space.

So after almost 3 weeks, we’re wearing down and chomping at the bit to get home. But it makes me feel like I’m not appreciating and taking advantage of the time we have here. It’s gone by so fast, but at the same time makes me feel like we’ve been away for AGES. It’s a travel time-warp. However, I know the last few days will fly by and we’ll be crash landing back into real life before we know it.

Stinkin' Hunks

My kids are city kids, and yes, I guess I was a city kid too, but did regularly travel to rural areas. My kids have not had much of a chance to experience “country life”.

The girls and I have moved on from the visit to “Northern Home Town” to the visit to “Rural Childhood Canadian Cottage”. There are lots of windy, dusty roads through French farm county. Today, we were driving back from town (after killer ice cream, sorry hon, they had Black Cherry and I couldn’t resist! ) and passed by a farm that smelled like skunk. Fresh skunk. Mouse yelled EWWW and plugged her nose while Baboo asked who pooped. I explained to her about skunks and said that’s what they smell like when they spray. She stared blankly at me until I likened this to the episode of Curious George where George kept scaring the skunk and getting sprayed. She nodded her head as she said “oh yeah, the black and white kitty”. Um, yeah.

Anyway, so we drive past it, but the smell lingers for quite a while as its’ wont to do, because, well, it’s a skunk. (No, we didn’t run it over). Baboo keeps talking about the skunk then says to my Dad, who is driving “HURRY POPPY! Drive faster! Here comes the smelly ‘hunks!”

So, in jest he starts to speed up and I say “WAIT! They may be smelly, but they might be HUNKS! We should slow down and check them out.” (I’m sooo funny in the tacky, trashy kind of way).

Redeemed

And today, the vacation was made complete. Despite being chilly this morning, the sun was shining, the wind wasn’t as strong and it looked as though we were going to get a decent temperature. We hit the beach for pretty much the whole day and were definitely rewarded with a cloudless, nicely warm, sunny day. We came home sandy, a bit wind blown, crispy from the salt sea spray, greasy from the sunscreen and happy. Our souls were filled with sunshine. It was a great day.

The beach we went to was great. Nice sand, clean bathrooms and a shell pickers paradise with layers and layers of shells of every size and sort. I watched as Baboo swam in the sand dunes and ate handfuls of sand. (Yeah, I tried to stop her, but well, I can’t watch her every second). My heart smiled as I watched Mouse, in her utopia on the beach, running back and forth to the sea, picking shells, delighting in every shark tooth she found, reeling in a little fish, making castles and just letting her spirit run free. I really don’t think she’s AS happy anywhere else. She LOVES the beach.

Dad and Hubster fished. They didn’t catch much, but the point was just “to fish”. We dug up sand fleas and used them as bait (ewww, in a fascinating kind of way). A heron was our constant companion all day, waiting for his next little fishy snack. I think he checked out Baboo a bit, but well, we headed him off before he took off with her.

We ended the day with ice cream, because well… it’s the last day of vacation and we should have ice cream.

We’re pretty much packed and ready to go home. Now that we’ve had a REAL beach day, our trip to Sunnyville feels complete. Tomorrow, we’re headed back home. Back to real life. Sigh. Vacations go by so fast.

Powerless

Today, we have realized that we are powerless. Literally and figuratively.

We are powerless to control the weather. We know this and yet, we continually risk everything, plan a vacation around SUN and FUN and HEAT and get slapped in the face with our krappy karma. It is COLD in Sunny-ville. Frost cold. Fleece sweaters and jackets cold. Damn cold. I can stand cold when my head tells me it’s supposed to be COLD, like at home, with 3 ft of snow. I have a hard time processing that here where the palm trees and shining sun make me THINK it’s not SUPPOSED to be cold. Good old fashioned brain screw there.

However, despite the COLD, today Hubster and Dad hit the golf course with Uncle. They also played pool (indoors) which involved a lot of explanation to the girls that no, Daddy and Poppy were not going to the POOL to go swimming, they were going to bang balls around on tables with sticks. They still don’t get it.

That left Mum and I to figure out what to do with 2 small children on a cold and windy day in a retirement community who do not feel any need to have things to entertain small children. Baboo was whiney and so we decided to brave the cold and wind and take them to the park. After 30 minutes, a few trips down the slide and having the cold wind totally blow us away, while Baboo continued to whine the whole time, we decided to ditch the park and go to Walmart to pick up a few things.

While wandering in Walmart we decided that we wanted something hot and since we are “powerless” to fight the urge for Stouffer’s mac and cheese (I know its’ crap, but it’s still good), that’s what we bought for lunch. We were all looking forward to sinking into a spoonful of that creamy, hot cheesiness. We also promised the girls that this afternoon we’d make CAKE to take for dinner with Great Aunt and Uncle.

When we got home, hurriedly shuffling windswept little girls into the house, we tried to turn on the oven to preheat it for said promised cake baking. After a few choice words, Mum realized that “Hey! The oven’s not on!” and after I explained several times that the emergency flashlight on the wall WILL still light up even when the power is out because it has its’ OWN battery, we all agreed that the power, literally was out.

We were without power. And there was no heat. And it was cold. And there was no cake baking. And there was no mac and cheese.

We waited a while to see if the power would kick on. We thought about firing up the bbq for grilled cheese or something hot for lunch. We kept holding out, for like an hour, hoping that the power would be on any minute for us to make our coveted mac and cheese. Then we got too hungry and had cold sandwiches.

And there was much whining and pouting and complaining – 99% of it done by Mum and I. Then we convinced the guys to go and get HOT coffee and donuts, cos Lord knows, we need some DONUTS. Oy.

And I was powerless to stop Mouse from running around in a bathing suit and skort (and that’s it) all afternoon, despite having no heat and frigid temperatures.

And we were powerless to avoid the sun room with the sun pouring in on 3 sides, making it the warmest room in the house, despite having 3 walls of vinyl only.

And I was powerless to say no (not that I wanted to) to Mouse when she asked for a juice and a snack and Mommy time while Baboo napped today (eventually). We sat in the rocking chair in the sun room under a toasty burgundy fleece blanket, read every book we brought, and when we ran out of those we looked through my Mum’s quilting magazines saying on every single page “oooo! That’s so pretty” to every pretty quilt or scrap of fabric we saw.

And I was powerless to hold back any laughs at the girls yelling ‘FASTER’ as we rode on the back of my Aunt’s golf cart when she drove us around on a tour of her community. We were topped out at 23 mph, but it felt like we were flying.

And I was powerless to contain the swell of love and pride I felt when after behaving so wonderfully at Aunt and Uncle’s home for dinner, they helped to bring a smile to Aunt/Uncle’s elderly friend’s face when they both ran to her first (without any prompting) and hugged her, thanking her sincerely for letting them play with her “special friends” (a small stuffed cat, bear and dog).

Thankfully, the power was back on when we got home from dinner. It had been out for at least 5 hours. Tonight, we have heat and light and hot coffee and left over donuts.

And despite the trip not being exactly what I hoped for (sunshine and HEAT), I’m powerless to deny that we’ve really had a good time so far and are glad to have come.