Category: Family Matters

At the St. Patrick’s Day parade yesterday

I got a present for no reason last night, which is usually a wonderful thing. In this particular case, however, mine was a muted celebration, since the gift in question was a dead mouse (no, it was not pining for the fjords) from Heidi.
This is not the first time Heidi has generously shared her hunting trophies with me; thankfully, she only catches a mouse every 2 years, on average. This time, though, was extra special, because the mouse was stuck to the floor. I had to scrub mouse fur off my bedroom floor.
And it’s not even my birthday.

Andrew was in Toronto all week for IBM Oracle training. Since I was scheduled to teach in Boucherville at the beginning of the week, the kids stayed over at Magdalena’s (their former full-time nanny) until Wednesday. So Tuesday night, thinking I had an opportunity to catch up on my sleep, what with having the house to myself and the bed to myself, too, I went to bed nice and early.
The cat meowed for an hour after I went to bed.
The radio went off in the morning and I rolled over, thinking “I feel like I’ve had no sleep” (or as close to that as one’s brain can think on no sleep). I looked up at the clock – to find the cat sitting on top of the radio, and that it was 4:15 a.m.
The following night, with the kids snug in their own beds, the cat was silent all night. So apparently her attempts at communication on Tuesday were meant to let me know that the kids were missing, and how come I wasn’t doing something about it. She’s a weird, weird animal.
I guess it serves me right, since while Andrew was away, I cheated. That’s right, I confess… I had chicken stew at home Tuesday evening. Since Andrew is vegetarian, based on his aversion to animal cruelty, our home is supposed to be meat-free. So I felt a little guilty eating my can of stew… on the other hand, as I told him when I confessed, I am pretty sure the chicken in question died of old age, so perhaps the stew was chicken-friendly. On the other other hand, given his feelings about animal cruelty, it’s a good thing he wasn’t around at 4:16 Wednesday morning.
Now it’s the weekend, everyone’s home safe and sound, and life is back to normal. Whatever that is.

My little boys are relentlessly growing up.
Yesterday was Robert’s 3rd birthday. The theme this year was construction – Andrew and I bought Robert a huge Tonka set (dumptruck and motorized digger). I can’t wait to get the FOUR (!!!) C batteries required to operate the digger. The set comes complete with its own plastic boulders, ‘cuz, y’know, kids have trouble finding rocks and dirt.
Dina and Steve gave him a great construction set that includes five mustachioed union guys and a Site Office. Colin was playing with it for less than five minutes when he announced “This man is not working today.” Colin’s pretty sophisticated, for a five-year-old.
Terence and Irene gave Robert a huge Lego dumptruck that comes with a box of Duplo (that’s the big Lego). I’ve been scouring the web for pictures of these toys, but to no avail. But there’s an open invitation for those who want to come over and play (with the toys). A dumptruck load of thanks to Terence, Irene, Dina, Steve, Mum and Jeannine for helping with the birthday celebrations.

Today’s the big day – Colin is FIVE years old!