family

beach bums

Well, this godforsaken heat wave seems like a good time to hide in the basement and look at the photos from my most recent expedition with the kids. Hint: It’s where the kids and I will move when (not if – when) The Boy Wonder leaves me for JLo. I hear she’s available now. And she’s totally his type, right?

Heh.

See, I can say whatever I want because The Boy Wonder doesn’t actually read this blog unless I stand beside his desk saying, “Did you read my new post?” every forty-five seconds. Which is no different from anyone else I know, actually. Sigh. Is it bad manners to break into the homes of my friends and hold their computers hostage until they promise to leave a comment validating my efforts? Thought so.

In any case, here are the kids in PEI, where, when they aren’t stuffing their faces at the dairy bar, they practically live on the beach:

 They dig and build and play and I beachcomb and it’s all very nice. This was my fortieth summer of hanging out on the beach in PEI and I’m still not tired of it. Never will be, I predict.

Here are Foster and Charlotte and something in a red pail:

 What could it be?

Hey, it’s Gordon:

 Gordon the crab, who was Foster’s best friend for the day. And no, I did not name Gordon after my grandfather. I can’t believe you would think I, of all people, would be so disrespectful. Foster named him and I immediately approved, knowing it would garner a tremendous stink-eye from my mother.

Heh. She doesn’t read this blog either.

We made another friend who (in a first, I believe) went unnamed:

 He (she? I’m not up on my starfish boy and girl parts) clung to our hands with the same fervor I reserve for Swiss chocolate bars.

See that little orange dot near the middle of its back? That’s called a madreporite. Its function is to circulate water through the starfish’s body so it can move around and be the best darned starfish it can be. Did you know that?

No you didn’t, liar. Give me a break. Only this guy would have known that and he doesn’t read this blog either. (And on a side note, may I say how awesome it is that there is such a thing as The Echinoblog. I seriously admire those who are so motivated to share their love of and expertise on such a particular topic. It’s such a refreshing change from my own unfocused flakiness.)

And finally, here are the kids masquerading as ocean creatures:

 Are there children who are able to pass by these cutout boards and not beg to have their photograph taken? I have never met a kid who could resist.

Oh, and one final pro tip: If you find yourself in Summerside on a Thursday evening, try the pasta buffet at The Loyalist Country Inn on Harbour Drive. The food is good, the price is reasonable and, best of all, kids’ meals are half price. Tell them Lori sent you.

And they’ll say, “Who?”

No, seriously they will. They don’t know me from a hole in the ground.

Anna is thirteen

Have you been wondering what a teenager looks like these days? Wonder no longer:

My big first baby turned the big one-three on June 24. Next year, I might have to bake a sheet cake to fit all the candles.

At least she gets candles. Fire regulations prohibit candles on my cake now. Safety first, etc.

Here she is, opening one of her few gifts that wasn’t jewellery:

She has a thing about jewellery in the same way I have a thing about books. And wool. And bags. And office supplies. And vegetable seeds.

Here she is with her brudda and sista:

 Three birthdays within a month. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

“You need to have another baby,” Anna said a few days after her birthday.

I know it’s out of character, but I might have said something the tiniest bit impolite, like, “Good God, why?”

“Because three birthdays aren’t enough. We need someone with another birthday so we can have another cake.”

I maybe, possibly, just might have snorted and rolled my eyes. “I think I’d rather skip the baby part and just bake another cake.”

The kids erupted in cheers and exchanged high fives. Snookered me again. This is exactly how I got scammed into owning two dogs, a cat and a fish. These kids are good.

my baby is nine

On June 5, Charlotte turned nine:

 Not nine days, not nine months – nine years. I’m not really sure where those years went.

Oh, wait. Laundry. Yes, that would be it. Laundry and dishes.

She is our girl of many faces, the drama queen, the ham:

Always entertaining.

Foster drew a picture of Jessie from Toy Story on a card for Charlotte:

 Jessie, a spunky cowgirl, is one of Charlotte’s favourites, which pleases me because she is the antithesis of airhead ‘fashion’ dolls. And yes, he drew Jessie free hand.

Anna needle felted a letter C:

That stands for Charlotte.

(You’re welcome.)

And at risk of getting my butt kicked by my photo-averse mother, here is the birthday girl with her Jam:

 Gah, so sweet.

Happy birthday, my baby.

 

 

my boy is eleven

As usual, I’m running about two weeks behind, so without further ado:

Foster the birthday boy as seen on his big day, which was, yeah, okay, last month, but give me a break. I had to get the film developed.

Ha, not really, but I messed you up for a second there, didn’t I? Remember the days of getting film developed? My kids don’t, of course. And that’s when I start to feel really old. “Film, mother?” they ask. (We’re very high class.) “What is this film whereof you speak?”

Here’s Foster revelling in Pirates of the Caribbean Lego:

His longtime career ambition: Lego designer. He’d be great at it.

And the best gift of all, although he might not realize it at the moment – the love and devotion of his sisters:

They’re a tight little unit, these three, and my wish for all of them is that they’re able to carry that closeness into adulthood.

And that they’ll eventually be able to guilt one another into forking over more for a nice nursing home for me.

wedding bells

No, not for me, silly. I already made that mistake glorious decision last century sometime. No, my cousin Shawn (who is the youngest of the Cameron grandchildren, by the way, since my selfish mother wouldn’t allow me to hang on in utero for another four months) was married on May 21 – finally, as everyone felt obliged to tell him. Over and over.  And over. Now we can all start nagging him about when they’ll start a family. It’s good to prepare all this hassling ahead of time.

Here is Shawn and his lovely bride, Nikki:

Gorgeous, huh? Yeah, and Shawn’s okay too. Whatever.

As it so happens, some of my favourite people were also in attendance. People like Shawn’s parents, my aunt Lilianne and Uncle Louis:

 Lilianne has gone through more crap in the last few years than anyone deserves, let alone someone so kind and funny and big-hearted. She’s awesome.

Also awesome is my Uncle Cecil, seen here with my cousin Rachele (yes, yes, she’s awesome too) and my similarly awesome Aunt Viola:

 Vi and Cecil have been married a long, long time now and although Viola is in the grip of Alzheimer’s these days, Cecil looks after her with the care and love of a newlywed.  It’s all so sweet and sad I had to keep helping myself to the wine to maintain my composure. No, not really. My parents were there too and I had to behave set a good example. You know they’d be out of control, otherwise.

Speaking of Rachele (who is Shawn’s sister and my MUCH older cousin – coughbytwoweekscough), here she is with her family and the bride and groom:

 There must be some mistake with this photo because Rachele’s son Joshua, on the far left, is still a toddler (…in my mind…) and his sister, Savannah, beside him, is still a newborn. That’s just the way it is. There is NO WAY this much time has passed and I am this old. Impossible. These holographic images of them from the future are cool, though. Kids are so talented these days. The gentleman in the pink shirt is Rachele’s husband, Robert, and I bet he would like me to add that the pink shirt was not his idea. I believe his exact words were, “It was hanging in the closet, so that means wear it.” Wise man.

Considering Shawn was wearing a pink striped tie, I’d say he’s learning too. I have yet to achieve this level of sartorial compliance with The Boy Wonder, so I raise my (empty again) glass to you, ladies. May we all live happily ever after.

call me Mommy dearest

Today is the one week anniversary of Mother’s Day, that glorious occasion otherwise known as The One Day of the Year that Figuring Out What to Have for Supper is Not My Problem.

After breakfast in bed – a dicey proposition with three children, two dogs and a cat all using the bed as a combination trampoline/wrestling mat – I opened my gifts, which included:

Felted Fish by Foster.

Cute, isn’t it? He is a craftsman.

Not to be outdone, Charlotte made this:

Felted Perry.

Perry is, of course, Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb:

Perry lives a double life, spending half his time fighting crime as Agent P (as seen above) and the other half posing as an ordinary pet platypus:

Charlotte took pains to make sure Felted Perry included both Agent P’s hat and Perry’s wall-eyed blank stare so I could “play with him either way.” A+ for attention to detail.

Anna presented me with vouchers good for two breakfasts in bed and two “no kids” days – “10 hours max” – because she knows I’d totally take advantage and stretch it out to eleven or twelve hours, given the opportunity. I tried to scan her coupons to show here, but couldn’t get a clear image for some reason. What do you want to bet she produced them with some kind of cutting edge anti-reproduction technology to prevent me from running off dozens of them? Foiled again.

I spent the afternoon with my mother, fending off blackflies as we toured two local gardens. (Sorry about the bites, Ma. I’m sure the scars will heal someday.)

Ooh, look – pretty forget-me-nots:

And a nice rhodo:

And this…thing. I call it flowering quince and my Mum calls it Japonica:

Whatever. You say tomato, I say watermelon.

April break

The kids and I zipped over to PEI for a few days last week for the funeral of my Uncle Emmett – RIP – and because I am the meanest of all Mommies, I forced the kids to actually learn something during our trip by dragging them to a couple museums. They were really broken up about it, as you can see:

 Here they are at the Acadian Museum in Miscouche, which was “really good,” as Charlotte proclaimed on our way out. It is good – informative, visually interesting and well laid out. You should go.

We also liked Founders Hall in Charlottetown:

 The statues of the Fathers of Confederation were a particular hit. Founders Hall is the perfect example of how museums can be fun and educational at the same time.

Because I aspire to be an absolute monster, I also dragged them to the beach:

 That’s Foster running toward that bit of ice jutting out, from which he launched more chunks of ice in an attempt to either (a) splash frigid water all over himself or (b) fall into the frigid water completely.  Contrary to my expectations, he did NOT fall in, but ended up so wet he might as well have. As we were leaving, he came to me clutching an armful of ice chunks and said, “I guess I can’t keep these, huh?”

See how smart he is? All this homeschooling is paying off.

This is my co-pilot at Cape Jourimain in New Brunswick:

 To escape the children’s incessant nagging for Tim Hortons donuts, I abandoned the vehicle and was sprinting towards the Confederation Bridge yelling, “Let me back in!” when I realized I had left my MP3 player in the car. Shoot. It was a tough call, but I returned to the car and continued driving home.

And yes, they got their stupid donuts. (But I ate a maple glazed. You know, just to show them who’s boss.)

take a hike

Now that the snow is gone and the earth is beginning to thaw, our wee doggies have no excuse to lay around sleeping all day in preparation for raising hell half the night. No, it’s walkies time again – or, as we call it around here to avoid tipping them off, waltz time. (As in, “Can someone take the dogs for a waltz, please?”) So far they haven’t caught on. There’s a reason dogs aren’t man’s smartest friend.

Here’s Anna preparing to take Glen for a waltz. Note Glen’s look of discomfort as it suddenly dawns on him that this is no ordinary fashion show:

Or maybe he’s unnerved by the seemingly innocent human WEARING A TIGER’S HEAD. Better do what she says.

As Anna prepares the leash, Glen considers what’s in store for him and doesn’t like it one bit. Cue his superb stinkeye:

Ha. Just like his mama.