Friday, June 18, 2010

PART 1: The Joys Of Parenting... PART 2: The Joys Of Partying...

PART ONE
The Joys Of Parenting


Today is my first day sitting around at home.
I have abandoned laundry, dishes, mops and scrub brushes in favour of parks, camels and face painting.
This is the first year that The Kiddos can play in the yard without concern for possible choking on inanimate (or animate) objects. Last year I spent the summer stopping The Princess from nibbling on decorative rocks and at one point witnessed an entire snail be chomped down, shell and all. Nasty. Simply nasty.

The independence is wonderful and while it reminds me of the fact that time is moving forward, it's beautiful.





Earlier this week we packed up lunch and juice boxes and headed to the Toronto Zoo.
It is fifteen minutes from our home and it is awesome!

We held our breath as The Munchkins held on for dear life to a charming spitting camel, who I swear was showing off for his camel lover still stuck in the pen.

We went to the massive splash pad where the fun was in avoiding the water rather than enjoying the water.





The only interest was in seeing all gorillas and monkeys.
Lions, tigers and bears?
Yeah... Boysie thought they were lame. With a capital L.
So instead we hung out in the sweltering rain forest areas while we watched these darling animals scratch their buts and swing on ropes.

Fine... I could deal with the sticky children piling in around us while we remained like statues, but I was not so fine with the gross goober drool all over the glass barriers and the railings that The Princess kept sticking her mouth on.
I figure she's gained immunity from all illness for the next ten years from that ten minutes!











And after I pushed the stroller with all 100lbs for a few hours, we got home and the pushies passed out, while the pusher made dinner!
Can you spot the child. I really am not the biggest fan of animal print but this picture makes a liar out of me....


Clearly that wasn't enough fun for the week so we went to The Prince's first school Fun Fair.
It was trippy.
I went to this school as a child.
I went to these Fun Fairs as a child.
They seemed much bigger, and much cooler back then. And I am grateful my parents endured them for our sakes.

But I will NEVER again endure a Parent Volunteer Breakfast.
A.) I am not the most dedicated volunteer and hardly did much work over the year.
B.) I was contemplating gouging my eye out just to have an excuse to escape that library.

Not only was there a series of songs from the grade one class (super cute if it's your kid singing), but we were then forced to listen to the grade eight quartet of girls singing Lean On Me, actions included.

Seriously.

No wait. It's not over. And if I had to suffer, then SO DO YOU.

The Principal had to ad lib for a few minutes while waiting for the "poet" to arrive so she tried to rhyme. Painful. The poet was a sixth grader who reminded me of me. Chubby, awkward laugh and geekiness included. She wrote something called "The Nerd Rap". It even mentioned how wedgies were so much cooler than a dude with his pants around his ankles.

Oh, I'm not finished yet.

The Volunteer of the Year was announced and I'm pretty sure she thought it was an Oscar.
She welled up with tears, her hands shaking and kept fanning her face. She then declared that she would need a new outfit for the Regional Award Night in the fall. Gag.

I consciously had to make sure I didn't contort my face in horror for the ENTIRE HOUR.

So I asked my sweet, loving Mother why she didn't warn me? She basically said that every mother should go through it once.

She lied. I am warning you. Take heeeeeeed.





Seth with his amazing teacher Mrs. Johnston. She loves him in spite of him and is even going to take him again next year.




I love being a Mom. (Minus the Mom-ish school torture.)



PART TWO
The Joys Of Partying




A song comes to mind.
"This is how we doooo it, it's Friday night and I feel alright, the party's here on the westside...."
Okay I completely have NO IDEA who it's by and it never played last night and it wasn't Friday it was Thursday, but the groove comes to mind.

I (wisely) wore stunning flats rather than my usual stilettos and by 12am I was pleased with my forethought.

We did what we always do when Drew comes to town. We hit up the Bier Market and drink beer and cosmos and eat glutenous amounts of pub food and stay out till well past an acceptable hour.
Awesome.
It gets better every time. There is laughter and spilled drinks and greasy fingers and it should always be that way.





It was a PERFECT Toronto night.
I am madly in love with this city.








The best of all worlds.


1 comment:

  1. Now I'm homesick!! Your pictures are awesome. You guys look amazing. Have a great summer. Love Susan.

    ReplyDelete