Friday, February 29, 2008

The Old School Dilema

This week was school registration week here. And it of course got me all in a twitter.

Currently, Al is enrolled in the French Immersion Kindergarten. Before moving to Vernon, Al had been attending Vancouver's public Montessori school and we loved it. But the public Montessori doesn’t start here until grade 1, so we had some deciding to do re. schooling. And ultimately we decided to take our first tentative steps into "regular" public school and try out French Immersion. I am so far unimpressed.

I'll be the first to admit I've got some real issues when it comes to schooling and educating my kids. Let's blame it on my own childhood trauma. My sad little story of childhood whoa is pretty unremarkable, common even. I went through several grades with an undiagnosed learning disability. And by the time I was officially tested and diagnosed with a learning disability I'd heard that I was either slow or lazy from too many adults and I'd given up. I became a huge advocate that school sucked. The day I graduated from high school was one of the happiest of my life, not for the accomplishment, but because it meant I'd never ever have to go back. I hated school.

Now I'm the grownup, and it's my kids reaching school age, and I of course spend hours upon hours weighing the pros and cons of every educational option. Probably not the healthiest of approaches but I am what I am.

So, no we're not happy with our French Immersion Kindergarten choice. It's great that Al's getting some exposure to the French language, but all in all, he's not getting a whole heck of a lot out of it. Al of course loves the movies that he gets to watch sometimes in the 2 and a half hour class, like Dora in French (!) and an animated version of the beloved book Corduroy (a bedtime favourite here for years, but I guess his teacher would rather show the movie), but he complains that class is boring, that the teacher talks too much, that the other kids are always disturbing his projects, that he feels frustrated when the teacher ends reading time too soon. And the French seems to be more annoying to him than anything else. Like it gets in the way of getting the information he really wants.

The end result of all this is that we're taking Al out of French Immersion come grade 1 and were putting him back into public Montessori school. It'll be a much better fit for him, and hopefully I'll be able to relax for a few years before I start to obsess over his future high school choices.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

There's No Place Like Home

I often forget that people actually read this blog. That there are people out there who want a sort of conclusion to events. So to satisfy those of you who have been asking what's happening with our house hunt, it's been postponed.

We did put an offer on a very sweet little house a week or so ago but it fell through because the seller didn't want us to have the qualifier that our townhouse had to be sold before we officially bought their house (we own a yet-to-be-completed townhouse in Vancouver and are now selling the yet-to-be-an-actual townhouse, ain't real estate grand?!?). So after talking to the major players in our confusing and dizzying real estate interests we decided to just call the whole thing off until the town house is actually sold and money is in the bank. It'll all be a whole lot less stressful and scary that way.

It sucks to wait though. I'm no good at waiting. I become paranoid and imagine future scenarios where all the good houses are sold and by the time we're ready to buy all that'll be left on the market will be mobile homes and a darkened fixer-upper wreaking of cat pee and stale tea formally owned by some cranky old shut in who died watching TV. Yes, I'm obsessing.

So now I wait. Wait for someone to buy my piece of paper that says they get to buy a Vancouver townhouse whenever it is that they finish building the darned thing (again, ain't real estate a hoot?!?). Wait for the right house to come along. Wait, wait, wait... and try not to obsessively go through the real estate listings looking for proof that our perfectly wonderful family home has been scooped up by some other lucky couple and we are now relegated to living in milk cartons.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Even The Sick Dogs Took Pity

I wish I could say that I spent the last week busily living my life, engaged in fun activities, visiting new friends, walking about in the sunshine, exploring the trails of my new little oasis. But I can't. Instead I spent the last week wishing my mom would magically appear at the door, chicken soup in hand, send me straight off to bed, and then swoop off with my kids on some day long adventure.

Last Monday, the little head cold I had turned into a wicked, awful, debilitating sinus infection.

I spent my week in throbbing pain, feverish and dizzy (sometimes a bit delusional), trying to keep my kids fed and out of trouble while I whimpered in the corner praying for a merciful death. Darling husband tried to help out best he could, he drove the kids back and forth to Kindergarten/Pre-school in the morning, he tried to get home from work as early as possible, he made dinner and did the shopping. But as many of you moms out there know, there is no rest for momma! No, they would raise you from the dead in some strange black voodoo ritual and force your reanimated zombie body to fetch them juice and arbitrate arguments over the last red lego block.

My only salvation lay in that my younger 2 children were also sick so they were napping more than usual. And one afternoon the stars aligned and 2 out of 3 children were asleep in bed with me for a couple of hours while my oldest got the whole house to himself. I only had to deal with the occasional sleep disturbing calls of, “Mom. Mooooom. Mom!... Never mind”.

I only have a bit of pain in my sinuses now. In a few more days I’ll be all better and back to my normal healthy self (insert crack re. my mental health here). Boy, I’m so looking forward to getting back into the swing of regular life again.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Because It's Sunday

And because my husband loooooves bloopers.
And because it makes my children laugh out loud.

Not-So-Country Mouse

We put an offer on a house today.

Don't want to give out too much info yet 'cause I don't want to jinx it but it ain't the house in the country. I couldn't go through with moving out of town. I just ain't a country mouse.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Country Mouse and Not-So-Much Country Mouse

When we left our lives in Vancouver to find our new home in the Okanagan I knew there were going to be adjustments needed. I had grown accustomed to walking out my door and being a block or 2 walking distance from Starbucks, sushi, grocery stores, bakeries, street life, etc. (god, I sound like one of those chi-chi city folks). I was prepared to be making some changes in how I lived my daily life, and frankly, in how I saw myself. I was going to at long last let that vision of the swank city-girl die; my swank city-girl image had been languishing on shoddy life-support for quite some time. Moving to Vernon was the compassionate way of unplugging the ventilator let's just say.

So the question becomes, just who the heck am I anyway? I have a general idea, I'm a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, would-be-writer, knitter, cinephile, waaaaay overly anxious, waaaaay over analyzing, just trying-to-do-the-right-thing, Lady In Waiting. And now I'm working on translating that into this new, and frankly very much appreciated, phase of my life.

All this self-analysis is trying to go somewhere here... I am standing at the precipice of another major life style decision here. The question that begs to be answered is just how country am I willing to go?

There's a really lovely house that we looked at yesterday, we're in the process of house hunting. It's one of those standard 70s rectangle boxes, very family oriented and utilitarian, just what we need. The price is great (way below what we thought we'd pay for a house). It's in a great little neighbourhood full of kids. There's plenty of opportunity for the kids to ride bikes, and adventure, and play, and explore. BUT it's smack dab in the middle of cow country. And I mean Smack Dab In The Middle. This little 4 block by 4 block suburbanesque oasis is surrounded on all 4 sides by ranches. It's also a 15 minute drive from town, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot but in the last 7 weeks I've gotten used to the closeness of everything. I love that the library is 4 minutes away!

I am now wondering if I am up for the challenge of rural living. Can I relax and just enjoy the peace and tranquility of the country? Or is this just all too much for an ex-city girl? The angst-ridden and often annoyingly loud part of my brain is screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! But the more logical and sensible part of me thinks it may be worth a try. Hmmmm, I wonder which part of my brain will win...

Friday, February 15, 2008

A Week With Me

Whoa, that week went by fast! Amazing how little one can get done in 7 days.

Let's see, in the past week I had a birthday (turned 33 by the way), ate at one of Vernon's 2 sushi places (twingeing with Vancouver homesickness), began our search for a house, fell madly in love with a house, put in a offer, decided the owners of the house I was in love with were unreasonable and greedy so backed out (perhaps I was being a bit rash but they were pissing me off, I mean who says they'll take the appliances if we don't offer full price?), made Earl Grey teas with generous doses of brandy for my poor sick husband, and had too many sleepless nights because the boys were waking up and playing musical beds and Miss S felt that it was perfectly reasonable to use my breast as a teething toy all night long. Oh, and the money from the sale of our condo got deposited into our back account (woooo hooooo!).

So we continue the search for our Vernon home. It would probably be a good if I could just relax and enjoy the process but I can't shake the obsessive notion that this is THE house I will be raising my children in. This is THE house I am committing to for the next 20 years. Not only do I want a home that my children can happily roam the streets in, free to fully express their natural wild thing tendencies, but also a home where my future teenagers won't complain that there's nothing to do so they might as well take up binge drinking by the creek. I know, totally unreasonable, they'll be binge drinking no matter where we live.

But still I can’t shake the idea that I can find that house, that home, that my kids can grow up in, come home to when they leave for school/work/travel, and my grandkids can happily spend the weekend in (gotta love how I become transfixed by events that may or may not happen 30 years from now). By the end of our house hunting I’ll probably have driven myself completely out of my skull with my unreasonable expectations, but at least I’ll have gotten a house out of it.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The Man's Got Something To Say



Rant on Jeffery!
*now you got me missing our mid-week family dinners*

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Dialogue Between a Five and a Three Year Old

Harry: (pretending to snatch his brother's nose from his face) I got your nose!
Al: No you don't.
Harry: (waving his little clenched fist) Yes I do. I got your nose!
Al: No you don't!... Give it back!
Harry: I'm going to eat it!
Al: NOOOO! You can't eat it it's my nose!
Harry: (gleefully shoving the imaginary nose in his mouth) Yummy! I ate your nose. I ate your nose.
Al: (launching himself at his little brother) Ahhhhh!!! Give it back! Give it back!
Voice of Reason: Stop it! Stop it! You boys are fighting over an imaginary nose!
Al: But he ate it! He ate it! Tell him to give me my nose back!
Harry: (pretending to snatch his brother's nose from his face) I got your nose!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The More We Get Together The Happier We'll Be

A woman in London is collaborating with people from all over the world to create a unique music experience. Another example of the internet making the world a nicer place to be.

12 songs hundreds of remix possibilities, Calendar Songs.

Monday, February 4, 2008

When The Party Girl Matures

It’s been exactly one month since we moved here from Vancouver.

We left the small 2 bedroom downtown condo that my husband and I bought when I was pregnant with our oldest. We left Stanley Park. We left the hustle and buzz of streets that never sleep. We left prolific, cheap, tasty sushi. We left the 2 block walk to the spectacular views of English Bay. We left the uncompromising, unabashedly beautiful diversity of the West End. We left the rain. We left our standing super-fun family outing of taking the little taxi boats across the mouth of False Creek to spend the afternoon shopping and eating and bird feeding/chasing at Granville Island. We left our amazing friends. We left the home my children were born in. We left our community. We left the only place in the world until now that I ever really called home.

I miss Vancouver.

But I am very happy and at peace with our choice to move to Vernon. I love it here. The peace and quiet. The happy and friendly people. The slower pace. The lakes. The mountains. The wineries and orchards. The freedom that comes from not having to worry about what the neighbours are thinking as my kids leap off the coffee table and thud onto the floor for the 16th time thus rattling loose what I am sure are huge chunks of ceiling from above my very patient and tolerant former neighbours' heads.

I'm as surprised as anyone to hear myself say this but, life is good here.

Friday, February 1, 2008