Allisun's Diary Entries

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May 3, 2005

p>My kids are wired. High as kites. FOR SALE.

I’m fresh off a mini-vacation. I should be calm, refreshed, glowing but I’m about to collapse at your feet and not entirely from exhaustion. It’s because I have forty million thousand things I HAVE to do RIGHT NOW. Will I ever feel underwhelmed?

We went to Stowe, Vermont and the village is adorable, absolutely quaint. The mountains are beautiful but I grew up in the Rocky Mountain part of the world, near Jasper, so I have a hard time calling them mountains. More like lush, rolling green, hills, so beautiful...against the grey sky. It rained cats and dogs and the kids fought like them too.

Brandan, my strong, handsome, strapping boy is running wild with attitude. I can’t believe he’s almost seven, he’s nearly a teenager! Just when I thought we were balancing out his independent streak with an affliction for obedience, he blows it.

Problem #1: He’s a puttser and it makes me crazy. Probably because I dabble in puttsing myself so when I get in gear we’re already late and he exasperates the problem.

Problem #2: When he makes that sour face and he’s not consistent enough to put an explanation to it. It happens most often when we’re at soccer or hockey but almost exclusively when Remo or I are there. Something happens and he doesn’t get his way and he looks like he’ll storm off or he gets mad about something and sulks. I can’t really label him a poor sport because he handles defeat well and most of the time he’s having a blast and a team player. Remo is one of the coaches and I’m half thinking this negates the problem. Maybe he’s showing off? Maybe he wants attention? Maybe he resents sharing him? What I do know is that he doesn’t want to stay in a sulk but getting out of it and saving face is his first priority.

Problem #3: When push comes to shove he’ll shove. It goes without saying boys play rough. When they’re playing they push and tumble and pull. There’s no doubt in my mind Brandan will hold his own and he gets back what he dishes out but lately he’s been using those methods to resolve his problems. What I’ll give him? He’s not a tattle-taler, he doesn’t hold a grudge, he’s more easy-going than not and he’s not aggressive by nature but then again...he has his moments. The grade two girls were singing the “Brandan and Emily sitting in a tree”chant and he told them he was not. Not sitting in a tree, not marrying her and absolutely NOT having babies. He insisted they stop but they’re eight year old girls and they loved how he was reacting. When enough was enough, he pushed the captain. A girl. When he and Matthew had a fight, he whacked him with his lunch box. In absolute fairness these guys are wise to pushing buttons. They can frustrate each other no end, and Brandan knows he should walk away but at that particular moment in time, he wants his stance known. He lost his bike, lost TV but what sticks a knife in his heart is when we say he can't go to work with Remo.

Now Kaillan has this whole situation figured out. She’s probably the most stubborn of the three, the most sensitive, the most demanding, but she’s also the most loving. When Brandan is up to his eyeballs in trouble she dispels her most charm. With eyes fluttering she’ll tell me something adorable. She’ll sit quietly eating all her dinner and she’ll leap to my aid, but when she digs her heels in over an issue, there is not a reasonable bone in her body. She flips her lid and flings limbs - while screaming like a maniac. She makes you so crazy you could spit.

Which is actually what Emmie does. If Emmie doesn’t get her way she makes the spit sound, the lady in her won’t actually follow through. I have to load up some pictures, she’s very little girl all of a sudden Our only issue with Emersan is the car seat. One day I was driving along a busy highway and all of a sudden Emmie popped up in the front with an enthusiastic “Hi Mom!”. My heart nearly stopped. Since she mastered her silent Houdini move, we have yelled (which makes her burst into tears but doesn’t stop her) tried tying the straps together, tried changing car seats and we tightened the straps so much her lips turned blue. I can’t tell you how many times we pulled over on the I-89 and it’s SO frustrating. I can only hope the novelty will wear off.

My aunt initiated a great plan for the kids with posters and jobs and stars and a reward system. It’s been less than a week but I will say we’re doing really well with it, even given Brandan’s latest stage. The new system, for all it’s rules, came at a time when I really, really need it. I’ve got so many obligations on my plate; a demanding new job, kids in three different places, a husband who’s over his head, a house to take care of and activities and a social life that takes time and energy even if the rewards are more than the work of it, I need to have a plan. I would lose all control of the kids otherwise. Where I feel I’m falling behind is with house-stuff. Laundry, ironing, getting rid of piles, organizing. I go to Curves or jogging three times a week (Martha’s Vineyard is around the corner!) and for as little time as it actually takes, I’m spending all my time before I go or after I get back, with the kids, when I could use that exercise time to get ahead. Or at least dent my lists. I’ve always been lucky about my shape. I’m lean and I have a pretty good metabolism but I’m getting jiggles, where do they come from? The more you put it off the longer and harder you have to work at it. Mind you, laundry is no different. It’s all so complicated.

Did you know that dust can talk?

When Kaillan posed this on me out of the blue and with such sincere wonder, I silently nodded my head while I repeated the question. It was that word dust, I thought I wasn’t hearing it right. She told she never knew either till she saw it herself on Compee Couch. Dust really talks. Now a more responsible parent would
tell her it’s not Compee, it’s comfy and you don’t benember something, you remember it. But I can’t help it, I find some of her vocabulary so cute I’m not fixing it. Not even when she’s a pediatric hematologist because even then, she’ll be dealing with kids and they’ll understand her.

So back to Vermont. Remo’s brother and his wife and their kids stayed with us for one night and that was the best. Their twins are really close to Brandan and Emmanuelle (the five year old) is Kaillan’s best friend in the whole wide world. We did the Ben and Gerry Ice Cream tour and that night I bought Ben and Gerry’s ice cream for the night’s treat. That afternoon at the grocery store I picked up a little tub of Godiva chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream and I fell in love. As soon as I wrap this up I’m going online to see where in Montreal I can find it. If you are a true chocolate lover it would make you very, very happy.

Saturday we went bowling with our friends (two other families) and they laughed at us when Remo and I showed up with our own shoes and balls. Did we have the last laugh when we out boweled them. Emmie is probably the one who will make a career of it, she LOVED it. Afterwards we went back to Shelley’s for a match of the card game @$$hole. Have you played it? As Kaillan would say - it’s SO fun. I started off @$$hole and ended off one too, but I climbed up and down during the game. Wednesday night we went to see Cirque du Soleil and it was awesome. I think I sucked my breath in forty million times. Tomorrow we’re going with friends to my favourite restaurant and then after we’re going to see Brad and Angelina’s new movie. Brad, though he’s by no means my favourite, tickles my fancy. Plus I’ve been reading about his triangular mess for four months, might as well get myself in the middle of it.

Holy mackeral, the time!

May your weekend be fabulous,

Allisun

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Allisun's Diary Entries

May 3, 2005

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