I've been a shut-in the last little while

a) I didn't have a car because my hubby's car had a broken wheel or something and making money is apparently more important than going on outtings with the kids and doing my own grocery shopping.
b) I was waiting for the good snow to come back so I could go tobogganing or build a snowman.  Or whatever.

The snow hasn't returned and has instead transformed into various piles of slush, and sheets of ice, and pits of mud.  Still the sun, and my furry houseguest (my parents' jackapoo Morty), motivated me to go outside this afternoon. 

It was too warm for snowpants, but the kids wore all their other winter paraphernalia.  Although Jadzia opted to wear William's old alligator galoshes instead of her pink winter boots.  When we arrived at the park near our house, we discovered that the playground structure was now standing in an iced-over muddy sink hole.  This did not stop my children from climbing and sliding.  Jadzia can now navigate that curved ladder without much hesitation. William was delighted at his new super power of breaking ice, and splashing in the frigid water. Of course I had to join in, just to show him that I was better at it, because I'm bigger.  

After pushing my offspring on the swings (William is too big for the baby swings *tear*) for a tediously long time, I suggested we explore the forest near the park.  Favourite quote of the day from William: "That's not a forest, it's just a bunch of trees."  Okay, so it's not algonquin park, not even enough cover for teenagers to smoke pot without getting caught, but I didn't expect my son to become so jaded so soon.  When we were in the trees, though, he decided that it was a forest after all.  He found a long stick and sword-fought the bushes in a distinctly boyish way, while Jadzia examined the different consistancies of mud.  We found squirrel tracks.  I lured them out of the mini-forest with the promise of a snack.

I did have a car today, but I didn't end up going anywhere until after my hubby came home and we went out for dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday (Happy Birthday Mark!).  On the way, the wheel made a funny noise.  It sounded like a drunken Nascar car and was so loud that we actually pulled over, but ultimately ignored until after dinner.  Now it's my car's turn for the shop.  Oh reliable transportation, if only I'd appreciated you when you were here.

The Nap-Time Drive

William does not like to sleep.  Nighttime involves a long Super-Nanny-style routine of screaming, guiding him into his room, more screaming, more guiding him to his room, negotiations for water, milk, stories, hugs, more screaming, and finally silence (theoretically sleeping but could also be laryngitis from all the screaming).  Luckily, Daddy usually handles the nighttime routine.

The same routine, attempted at nap time, achieves all the same results except the silence.  Once, after an hour, he agreed to "go to sleep", dozed for precisely 3 minutes, and then declared nap time over.

Time to give up naps?  In fact, William only has a nap about every other day, when I determine that he really needs it.  Some indications that William needs a nap:

• He has 2 or more meltdowns in the span of five minutes.
• He hits me, or Jadzia.  Or he hits me because I caught him hitting Jadzia.
• With no prompting whatsoever, he says "Mommy I'm not very tired right now."
• I observe him taking thirty-second cat-naps on his tricycle, train table, or on the floor.
• He asks me to read him ten stories in a row.
• He becomes slightly more demanding than usual.
• He giggles like an insane-asylum inmate.
• He throws his toys.
• He demands television, and a glass of milk.
• His listening drops from around 40% to -50% (the negative meaning he actively does the opposite of what I'm asking).

The only way I know of to get William to sleep is to put him in the car and drive until he dozes off.  I used to time every outting to end around nap time so he would fall asleep.  He soon got wise to the fact that I was taking the extra-long scenic route home from playdates.  I would make up bogus reasons for the detour.  In winter, we were looking for snowmen.  In spring, we were looking for new parks we could visit later.  The moment I see that he's konked, I drive home and transfer him, and his sister, into their beds.

Now I don't even bother lying, or timing my outtings for that matter.  If we're sitting at home, and it looks like he needs a nap, I'll say "I'm going to put you in the car and we'll drive until you fall asleep."  Why not?  If he had any power against the magic sleeping spell of the back seat, then it wouldn't work whether I lied or not.  Of course he fights me, but he still sleeps.

Today, I was driving around the neighbourhood, feeling like a failure because I didn't have a better nap time routine for my son, and because I don't command enough respect to prevent him from hitting me as I put him in his carseat.  Instead of driving around the block, I drove straight up Brant Street (past where it's still called Brant Street) into farm country.  As William began to nod, I saw a blue heron fly by.  As Jadzia started to look drowsy I turned around.

There in front of me was the entire city of Burlington, looking clean and new in the sunlight, and Lake Ontario beyond reflecting the brilliant Mediterranean blue of the clear sky. 

My Journey to Subaru

This morning at nine, my husband remembered that we had an appointment (at nine) to take our Forester in to get a new door sensor.  For about a week now our 11-year-old car has been lighting up that little picture of a car with its doors ajar, even when each door had been slammed shut twice (just to make sure).  We recently got a new alternator and battery for our dear old clunker, but the door sensor can only be found in a mythical place called a "Subaru dealership".

Adam said that the dealership was easy to get to, but he continually underestimates my ability to get lost.  I have a talent.  I've only lived in Burlington since I was five, so you can't expect me to know my way around.  And anyway the Subaru dealership is in Oakville.

So I got off the highway at Burloak instead of Bronte.  In my mind these two roads are the same thing, but in reality they are on opposite sides of a river.  All the streets connecting to Burloak, can also be found connecting to Bronte.  But Bronte's Wycroft Rd, doesn't connect to Burloak's Wycroft Rd.  And South Service Road, on Burloak's side,  widdles itself down to a depressing dead end.  To further confuse me Bronte Creek Provincial Park is on Burloak.  I drove around for quite some time trying to figure out where I had gone wrong.  There was Wycroft, there was the South Service Road, where was the dealership?  Perhaps it had been torn down and moved to another place, thought I.

I had both my children with me in the car, so while I'm not opposed to asking for directions, I hate when it means unbuckling the offspring.  Only when Jadzia started crying and William suggested "How about we just go home" did I pull into the mall and ask.

The woman working at Reitmans looked at me as if I had three heads when I asked where the Subaru dealership was.  "Isn't there one around here?" I said stupidly.
"Do you mean the one in Oakville? There's one on Wycroft Rd."
"Isn't this Wycroft Rd?"
"Yes but it doesn't connect.  They're going to build a bridge later on."
"Not in the next few minutes I'm guessing."
Reitman's woman gave me directions that exactly matched the directions I already had, but made me clue in that Burloak and Bronte are not the same thing.  Huzah!!

I only had to do one more three-point-turn after that and I got to the mythical land of Subarus (at ten fifteen).  I brought toys and snacks for William and Jadzia while we waited, but I was crazy to think I would need them.  I mean, a room full of cars, how cool is that?  The form that I had to sign before they made the repair had "WAITER" stamped on it in red ink.  They should have an extra stamp for "WAITER WITH KIDS".  Jadzia ran around the showroom chatting with her reflections, while William had a blast climbing inside the cars, playing with the steering wheels and turning on the hazzard lights.  The horn was "accidentally" honked no less than three times (might have been four), all the while a salesman was busy trying to show cars to customers.  Anytime I was expecting the "Psst, Ma'am, can you keep your kids out of the cars" but, to their credit, the Subaru staff didn't say anything. 

I was told I had an hour and a half wait, but the car was done in forty-five minutes.  I imagined the salesguy going back to the garage and telling the mechanics: "Can you hurry up with this woman's car?  She's driving me crazy!"   Or perhaps, like Scotty, they multiply their repair estimates to make them seem like miracle workers.  In any case my door signal only goes on now when I leave the trunk open (giant stroller).

My car hates French

Last week my car wouldn't start.  We were all ready for "Fabulous French" our class at the Early Years Centre where we subject our children to stories, songs, and puzzles en français in hopes that something will stick long enough to give them a head start in grade one.  Well my eleven-year-old Subaru which has been reliable always (except that time when I ran out of gas, and that time when I left the dome light on) didn't start.  My Mom came and drove us to our program and we only missed half the class.

After charging the car battery, my trusty dusty Forester worked like a charm for an entire week, until today when we were all buckled in ready to go to (you guessed it) Fabulous French.  Nothing was left on that I can see, and the car was running fine yesterday.  The only possible explanation is that my car n'aime pas le français.

William Quote of The Day

As I was standing on the road buckling William into his carseat:

"Mommy watch out for cars. Watch out for cars Mommy. A car will come and it will hit you and you'll be dead. And you'll turn into an octopus."

I'll leave that open to interpretation.

Playing with blocks

To an outsider it might seem like my children and I don't do much during the day, but we're actually quite productive. Today I actually got photos to prove it.

This car was my first attempt at creating a vehicle using blocks that were clearly meant for making columns and arches. William found it immediately recognizable, and thus demanded I make the following:

Here we have a truck or, as William would say, "Mack", as in Mack the Mack Truck from the movie Cars. Yes, my son is just that obsessed with that movie. Although sometimes he does say "Mack Tuck", or "Tuck" , or occasionally "Mommy Tuck." (He also has a "Daddy Car" and a "Baby Car"). I realized as I was taking this photo that the truck would look better with one extra block on the cab for the driver to sit in. Unfortunately my demolition guy yelled "I knock!" and destroyed the truck before I had a chance to fix it.

"De Choo choo tain. I will knock!"

I noticed as we were stacking blocks randomly, that it looked like we were trying to spell something. So I made this attempt at building my name. The one I made for William actually looked better I thought, but I wasn't able to complete it. I made W I L L I A and was looking for the right pieces to create the M, when William excitedly squealed "I will knock!" and that was the end of that.

Unfortunately this kind of productivity doesn't result in the house getting clean or the laundry being put away. Still, I think this stuff is more important (and more fun) than housework.

It's Alive! To jest Żywe!

Every day, Adam calls from work to tell me he's on his way home. Yesterday the call came from the Canadian Tire across the street. Our '99 Subaru Forester was overheating (no kidding, so was I!) and he had taken it in to be checked out. An hour and a half later the boys (and girls) at Canuck T told us that our jalopy needed a new (insert name of engine part here). Apparently, this widget is buried so deeply in the engine that, while the part isn't too costly, the labour is super duper expensive. Might as well get a new engine, so says the Canucks.

Cost of an engine and labour at Canadian Tire: approximately $7000
Total cost of the car when we bought it: approximately $7000

So you can see why we don't find this scenario cost effective. Luckily there's the Filipowicz garage (my in-laws' house). We've already saved a tonne of money using Adam's Dad as slave labour. Now he might be able to use his Subaru Frankenstein tricks to resurrect our monster for a more reasonable price.

Despite our Polish mafia connections, we will still need a new car one day. Or at least another old one.