Self-Defence vs. Empathy.. Wait, Can't We Have Both?

I've seen a few people posting this image lately on the Book of the Face:

Caption reads: We will never get rid of bullying. We should teach kids how to stand up for themselves instead of wearing pink ribbons and passing anti-bullying laws to create a society of victims.

"We will never get rid of bullying."

Well, that seems defeatist. Like, I get that there are always going to be people who are generally assholes and who are going to give others a hard time because some people just love to power-trip, but on the whole, I think most people are generally okay people, and if we all try a bit harder to be okay people and not be assholes, we can probably not obliterate bullying, but at least mitigate some of the damage.

"We should teach kids how to stand up for themselves..."

Yup, okay. Totally with you there. It's super-duper important to be able to stand up for oneself, whether it's setting personal boundaries and enforcing them or holding one's own in an actual physical confrontation.

"...instead of wearing pink ribbons..."

Interesting. Not sure where breast cancer awareness comes into play here.

"...and passing anti-bullying laws..."

Technically, I can kind of stand behind this sentiment, because we shouldn't actually need anti-bullying laws, because there are already laws against assault, laws against harassment, laws against stalking, laws against uttering threats etc etc.

"... to create a society of victims."

Hm.

... and, you lost me.


I mean, why does this have to be an either/or situation? What is wrong with teaching kids to defend themselves, to enforce personal boundaries and stick up for themselves, while still teaching them to be empathetic and how to be kind to others. 

I won't begin to deny the effectiveness that a good, hearty punch in the face can have in getting some asshole kid to leave you alone. Gord knows, just being able to put on an act of being able to fuck someone up got me out of a few jams, even if I was secretly pissing myself in fear of having my bluff called.

But why can't we teach kids to defend themselves, while at the same time taking steps to make sure they won't have to by teaching kids to just be fucking nicer to each other?

I think the problem with a lot of current anti-bullying rhetoric is that it's lazy. "Bullying" is such a weird, vague term that it becomes this abstract concept, a boogeyman. Educators and other child care professionals, as well as parents, rush to label any act of aggression as bullying. Anything done by any kid that makes someone else feel bad is bullying.

Bullying is much more insidious. Bullying is repeated, systematic, physical and/or psychological violence.

It has roots in sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, etc.

It is assault. It is stalking. It is the threat of being personally violated.  It is the threat of having your reputation torn to pieces.

It is being told, over and over, that you are worthless, ugly, that nobody likes you and that you should probably just die already.

A kid that pushes another kid and tells them to fuck off because he had a shitty day is not a bully.  They may be reasonably called an asshole, because let's face it, kids can be assholes, but kid-assholery tends to stem from an egocentric tendency to forget that other people are a thing and that other people having feelings and their own shit to deal with is a thing too. 

The difference falls between the active desire to victimize others, and negligence in making an effort to not victimize others.

Current anti-bullying rhetoric does have a horrible tendency to label all aggressive behaviour as "bullying".  There is also a tendency to label the kid and not the behaviour, and a kid that gets labelled a bully tends to hold onto that label. 

I sometimes wish it were more socially acceptable to swear around kids because I feel like being able to say "Jimmy, when you pull Susie's hair, you're being a real asshole," might be an effective deterrent without the same long-term effects of being labelled a bully.

The answer is also not unending positivity and making sure everyone is friends.  Kids, just like adults, are not going to like everybody they meet, and part of standing up for yourself is the ability to set boundaries. It's easier to "just walk away" from an asshole kid if your teacher isn't forcing you to play nice together.  Kids need to be able to enforce their own boundaries.  They also need to be allowed to experience negative emotions, while learning appropriate ways to express those emotions (i.e. don't be an asshole about it).

A quick anectdote:  The street I lived on had a lot of kids within my age range. My best friend lived next door to me, and another girl our age lived a few doors down.  This other girl, was a real, honest-to-gord asshole, as far as eight-year-olds go, and she in particular liked to give us both a hard time.  In fact, she was one of the two girls responsible for the worst year of my childhood.

My friend's mother had told her that she had to be friends with other kids and (through my friends interpretation) that she wasn't allowed to 'hate' other kids.  This kid knew about this rule and would hold it over our heads whenever we would tell her to go away because she was being an asshole and we didn't want to play with her.  She'd threaten to tell my friends mom that we weren't letting her play with us.

(It never occurred to me until over 25 years later that MY mom had no such rule and that I was perfectly within my rights to tell her to fuck right off).

This is a very small example of simplistic ideals made it easier for this little shit to victimize both my friend and I, because we were not able to effectively enforce our own boundaries.

I just wish we could teach kids not to be assholes.

Don't want to play with Johnny? Cool. You don't have to, but don't be an asshole about it. 

Johnny doesn't want to play with you? That sucks, and you're probably sad, and its okay to be sad, but just because you're sad that doesn't mean that Johnny's a bully, it means that you have to find someone else to play with. 

Johnny says that he's going to make sure no one else plays with you ever?  Well, now we have a problem, because Johnny's being an asshole.

I've kind of gone on a tangent here, but I guess what I'm meaning to say is that there is plenty of room to teach kids the following:

- You are allowed to defend yourself.
- You are allowed to assert yourself and enforce boundaries.
- You need to be kind and empathetic towards others.
- You are allowed to have bad days and bad thoughts and bad moods.
- Other people are allowed to have bad days and bad thoughts and bad moods.
- You are allowed to not like some people. You do not have to be friends with everyone, even if they are the nicest, kindest people in the world.
- Other people are allowed to not like you. It does not make you a bad person.  Even if you're an amazing person, nobody is obligated to like you.
- You still have to be fucking nice to people, even if the level of "nice" you can muster consists only of not punching them in the face or not telling them to die in a fire.
- Whenever possible, don't be an asshole.

Why Should Some Kid Get a Medal for "Just Showing Up?"

Why?

"Why," you ask, "should a kid get an award for just showing up?"

Because sometimes just showing up takes a lot of guts.  Sometimes gearing yourself up for the possibility of defeat takes everything in you.

Speaking as someone who was a shy, fat, uncoordinated child who heard my share of moaning and groaning from my classmates when my name was called during Phys. Ed, just showing up can be fraught.

Speaking also as someone who deals with anxiety, as many people do, putting yourself into new situations is some scary shit, for children and adults alike.

In Grade 8, I made the decision to try out for the school's volleyball team. I tell you, it took every ounce of courage for me to go into that gym.

I went and I tried my hardest. Not even halfway through the tryouts I could feel tears of frustration welling up in my eyes, with every ball that I instinctively ducked instead of passed.  My face went red with the effort of trying not to cry.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't make the team.  I don't think I was even remotely close because I was really, really, bad at volleyball.  I also kind of hated it.  But I wanted to be involved in something.

I felt like a spectacular failure, and it was many years before I tried out or participated in anything remotely competitive again.

I kind of wish, at that time, that someone had given me something to acknowledge that even though I sucked, I tried, which was more than some had done.  That my effort was worth something.  That just showing up, when I was so afraid of falling and failing, that THAT was worth something in and of itself.


Listen.

I get that kids need to learn how to win and lose graciously.

Taking scores out of games so there are no 'winners' or 'losers' doesn't help kids. Kids need to learn that sometimes they are going to win, and sometimes they are going to lose and regardless, they need to not be an ass about it.

However, hyper-competitiveness doesn't help kids, either.  Over-emphasizing the value of winning over all other things teaches that if you can't be the best, don't even try.

There is value in effort.  There is value in trying, and fucking up.  There is value in just kind of being okay at something.  There is value in trying.

And I think that's worth recognizing.

SOURCE

It's like we're regressing instead of progressing.

Oi people.

So, first off, it's been a while, hasn't it?  Yup. I've got no excuses, only a dearth of things I feel qualified to talk about, and blogging about the day-to-day is well.. Meh.

But every so often, a story catches my eye that is so mind-blowing in it's ridiculousness that I really have to wonder about humanity.

My source of ire stems from a story of an 8-year-old girl who was at a public pool with her parents, and in her excitement of "holy shit, SWIMMING!', threw her top off and jumped in.  Because 8-year-olds, they LOVE that shit.

The pool attendants told the parents to get a top on that kid, pronto, and the parents were all "Why?? To cover our child's likely non-existent breasts?" They were pretty pissed, and in my humble opinion, rightly so.  Because frankly, if the little boys are not required to wear a top, then it's kinda discriminatory for the girls to have to wear one, is it not?

You know how people always tell you not to read the comments on news stories? It's good advice. Because people are all kinds of awful.  You know how I know this?  I read the comments.  And the comments basically boil down to a few key pro-pool and pro-parent arguments:

Pro-Pool arguments:

- Rules are Rules!
- But, pedophiles!
- Also, more rules! and more pedophiles!
- Leftists, amiright??
- Girls are developing earlier and earlier these days, and also, pedophiles.

Pro-Parent arguments:

- It's been legal to be topless in public in Ontario for literally years.
- *most* boys and girls at that age are built pretty much the same
- The pedo argument is pretty much victim-blaming at its finest
- Boobs are boobs and not a Big Freaking Deal™.
- Also, she probably didn't even HAVE boobs, because eight-year-old.

The way I see it is this;  It's pretty damn disturbing that our culture has such a fucked-up relationship with breasts that we even flip the fuck out over the suggestion of a girl who DOES NOT EVEN HAVE BREASTS BUT OMG MIGHT SOME DAY enjoying the sun without a shirt or top, as the boys do.

Rules are rules, yes. But some rules are stupid and born of outdated ideals and morals that are not relevant in this day and age.  These rules need to be changed.

There have always been pedophiles lurking about. Pedophiles and sex offenders are not a new thing and they're not going to magically go away because your kid is wearing a shirt. A shirt is not a force-field, and a pedophile is not likely to strike at a public pool because the key word is public and most child sexual abuse tends to happen behind closed doors, not at public swimming pools.

And yes, suggesting that not wearing a shirt to a public pool will lead to a child being targeted by a pedophile is victim-blaming. Sorry, but really, not at all sorry.

The thing that gets me is not only this is a particularly US/Canada-centric attitude but relatively new! Not the weird breast-squeamishness, but putting this fear of breasts on children.  I remember being a kid, a scant 30ish years ago, and I remember seeing both little boys and girls on the beach without shirts on (myself included) and nobody batted an eyelash. In fact, some found it more bizarre that people would put their little girls in bikinis and other two piece bathing suits, due to the sexualization factor - making the suggestion of breasts where there were none.

So it seems that not only is our society incapable of looking at breasts in a non-sexualized manner (see almost EVERY debate about public breast-feeding), but people will actually freak the fuck out about potential breasts.

Are we actually getting more repressed? Sometimes it seems that way.

PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN! - SOURCE

P.S. There's a really fantastic image that I saw on Tumblr a while ago that I wanted to use here, but as per usual, I fail on the image search front, and SafeSearch (or alternately, the sheer wrongness of the internet at large) foils my efforts again.

Girls and Defiance.

Meandering through the Book of Face, I came across a lovely photoset that was featured in an article a friend had 'liked'.


Mom's powerful photos of her daughters show 'Strong is the New Pretty'

Admittedly, there's some issues with the title, because of course some people are just going to read the header and not the article and assume that the point of the article is to bash all things traditionally girly.

Well, it's not.

The woman who took the photographs, Kate T. Parker, even says so much in the article. As a mom, she wanted to show her girls that they are ALSO beautiful, even if they are not-so-much into the girly-girly.

So, let's get that debate out of the way.

Girls (and women) are not obligated to be all frou-frou 24-7. Nor are women who do find joy in getting dolled up, or knitting, or kittens, or pink ribbons and acres of tulle and make-up somehow less-than women who like to play sports, or fix cars.

Additionally, strength and femininity are not mutually exclusive.  So let's shut that shit down right now.

What caught my eye was one comment in the article, in regards to these images:

They don't look strong. They look defiant. Defiant is not attractive in a child of either gender.

I felt I needed to call bullshit.  I posted the following in response:

Defiance is not a bad trait. There is something to be said for it. Defiance is the ability to stand up for yourself, and others. Girls are too often taught to be compliant.. To bend to the will of others. To be quiet, to be ladylike, to not make waves.

Defiance can be a beautiful thing. It is strength.

Defiance brings change. It allows people to stand up and declare "This is not the way things have to be!"

Defiance means being able to state your needs and not caving to pressure.

I have girls.  I want them to be able to say no.. to lovers who move too fast, to friends who encourage bad decisions, to bosses who treat them like shit.  Hell, even to me.  I'm not a perfect parent.  Sometimes, just sometimes, I need my kids to call me out when I'm wrong.

To be defiant.

(If you're reading this, that doesn't mean you're going win every argument, and yes you still have to do the dishes.  Just sayin')

Defiance is the ability to say 'No, I won't.' 

It's the ability to say 'CAN TOO!' and 'JUST WATCH ME.'

Defiance is beautiful.

Source: Kate T. Parker Photography

Michael Jordan, I ain't.

Today, the basketball house league that my youngest daughter plays in had their end-of-season parents vs. kids game, and because I am a sport (and a bit of a masochist, it seems) I took the opportunity to face on a group of 10-12 year olds with more athletic ability in their pinkie fingers than I have in my, well, everything.

I played for three periods, then had to quit, because having your mother quit halfway through a bonding experience HAS to be less traumatic than watching your mother drop dead of a coronary in the middle of a gymnasium.  I also developed one hell of a cramp in my right leg, as my calf decided it was going on strike for the rest of the day.

But overall it was a fun experience and I learned a few things:

- I am not as bad at basketball as I imagined myself to be. Oh, I'm not even close to being good, but I did manage one basket (was I stoked? Mister, you better believe I was STOKED) and not once did I find myself curled up in the fetal position or running with my arms covering my head.

I used to have what is referred to elementary school phys. Ed. circles as an intense "FEAR OF THE BALL".  I credit three years of kick-boxing for helping me get over that.  Once you've taken a round-house kick to the face, a mere basketball is a nuzzle from a kitten.

- my kid is fast.  Like, I knew theoretically that she was fast, but after being tasked with actually having to keep up with her, she is FAST.  Holy crap.

- I am old, fat and out of shape.  The old part, I am totally cool with. The fat part, well, I'm still unlearning a lot of toxic shit, but am gradually becoming at peace with my shape and size.  The out of shape part is not effing cool.  Not cool at all.

So I'm going to get on a new workout plan. I've been swimming lanes three times a week, but I think I'm going to hit some Boxing Day sales and find myself an MP3 player and dedicate myself to walking again, as well as joining kickboxing again, once a week at first.  Hopefully if my schedule can handle it I can move up to twice.

My goal is to get back to a similar fitness level as I was before the whole Cancer thing.  Wish me luck.

*******************************************

In other news, the original title to this post was going to be "Michael Jordan, I ain't (Hal Jordan, maybe)" as I was thinking Hal Jordan played the old guy on Evening Shade, but turns out that's Hal Holbrook, I think, and Hal Jordan is the secret alias of the Green Lantern.  So, I figured that comparing myself to a superhero rather than a professional athlete wasn't so much self-deprecating (which is what I was going for) as just kind of arrogant, and that I needed another option.

I considered changing it to Tracy Jordan, but worried that may have been appropriation, and in light of recent events, pretty fucking insensitive.

So I toddled off to the Goògle to search "Famous people with the last name Jordan" and you know what? There are way too many porn stars with that name, which is something I never needed or wanted to know, but now I do and you do too.

You're welcome.

Age, Relatively Speaking

Age, like time, moves in a dimension of which we are only subtly aware. A shiver down your spine.

My grandmothers, at 62, were so much older than my mother is at 62.  62, to a child, seems a ridiculously high number of years to live.

They've lived 20 years and more since then.

My mother at 34, was so much older at 34 than I am now.  34 was impossibly grown up.  At 34, my parents, for all appearances to my childhood self, really had their shit together. At 34, I am still not sure I qualify as an adult.

My daughter, at 13, is younger than I was at 13.

Or so it would seem. It may be a generation of coddled youth, or it may be my parental desire to keep her a baby forever.

I only have vague recollections of my great-grandmothers (the two who lived to see my birth), as they died while I was still basically a baby.  My grandmothers have already lived to see at least one great grand-child to adulthood may still live long enough to see the others grow up, too.

To my children, their great-grandmothers will never be a faint, fuzzy outline in a memory formed by a toddler's mind.

(My grandfather's never lived to see their great-grandchildren.  Neither did their mothers.)

Time's passage reminds me of my age. That's about the only thing that does.

My kids think I am old.  I almost have them fooled into thinking I'm a grown up.

It amuses me how gradually the alternative rock stations become oldies stations.

They just kept playing the same songs, twenty years later.

Source

Parenting is hard work.

Parenting is hard work.

It does not get easier, it just gets different.  As the years pass, the physical becomes the emotional.

Raising infants is profoundly physical.  The carrying, the lifting, the walking, wearing grooves in the floor countless nights pacing back and forth, bouncing and rocking.  Always moving.  Pushing strollers, carrying car seats and playpens and diaper bags.

Dropping into bed at night with aching muscles.  Sleeping, but only half-sleeping.  Laying rigid so as not to not roll onto the baby during the night.  Waking up sore from the effort.

Raising toddlers holds many of the same physical challenges, but here the mental agility becomes more of a necessity.  Chasing little bodies with seemingly boundless energy, until that energy runs out.  Then carrying dead weight as they crash and sleep hard as only children can.  Upstairs, out of cars, desperate not to wake them too soon.

Parenting toddlers means being able to read every facial expression and grimace in anticipation of bathroom runs. It means mental calculus - How much sleep during the day will keep a toddler up half the night? How much liquid before bed will mean laundry in the morning?

Raising toddlers means anticipating every move. Being constantly ready to leap across a room to remove errant objects from hands and mouths, or to scoop up sturdy little bodies when they come too close to stairs or roads or fireplaces.

Raising toddlers means having the mental agility to foresee hazards before they present themselves and the physical agility to remove the hazards unforeseen.

Raising school-age children gives the body a break. Finally.  School-age children sleep through the night.

The mind gets a break.  Kind of.  Maybe.

...

That's a lie.  Raising school-age children means remembering schedules, helping with homework.  Be here at this time.  Calculating costs.

School means time to honing your analytical skills.  Analyzing the nuance behind the word 'fine', or the word 'nothing' in response to 'How was your day?' or 'What are you doing up there?'

Analyzing teachers, friends, other parents.  Questioning your own influence on your child, be it from a quantitative ("How much influence do I even have, when TV and film and popular music exists?") or  qualitative ("Is this the example I want to set?") standpoint.

Adolescence ups critical thinking and analytical skills even further.  It's a gold-medal worthy performance of mental gymnastics, walking the thin line between offering a guiding hand and dragging headlong into your own idea of what they should be shaping up to be.  The realization that their hopes, their dreams, their values may differ wildly from your own.

Being okay with being imperfect.  That's a big one.

Shoring up your foundations for those days when you are the worst human being alive, when you know nothing.  The days when you are the only thing standing between this human being whom you have loved with the very depths of your soul, whom you may have even made from your very flesh - the days when you are the only thing standing between this being and their happiness, and for this you are cursed, you are spat upon.

Gathering strength for the days when you question every decision, every indulgence, every harsh word, every "Yes," every "No" you've made as a parent.

Parenting is the exhaustion of constantly feeling like your heart will burst at any moment with immense love, and break with the knowledge that for all your desire to protect them and save them, that one day you'll let them go and have to hope that you've taught them what they need to survive.

This is Triskadecaphobia.

To My Daughter On Her Thirteenth Birthday,

Bear with your mother for a moment.  As you probably already know, being my child and all, I have a difficult time walking a fine line between sentimentality and snark.  Allow me this moment to get a little misty, to wax philosophical and to pass on some advice as you enter your teen years.

1) You are loved.  I figured I'd get that one out of the way first.  It probably goes without saying, but I don't like to go without saying it.  You are loved.  When you are feeling lost and alone, there is always someone there you can talk to.   I'd like it to be me, but I know there will be things that you may not want to share with your mom.  But I do know that for all the things that you feel like you can't come to me with (which I hope is a very small list) there are any number of people who would be willing to listen.

2) You are beautiful.  But you are also smart, funny, and kind. While beauty may definitely helps you in many areas of this looks-obsessed society we live in, it will be your humour, your kindness and your willingness to learn that will, in the long run, be the things that dictate the direction your life will take and how you are remembered.

3) You are worthy of respect.  Those who would deem you unworthy are not entitled to your time or energy.  That being said, treat others with respect as well.  Every new person you meet has their own stories, strengths, weaknesses, and potential to be a friend or ally.

4) Recognize your own strengths and weaknesses.  Work hard to develop your strengths. Be patient with yourself in areas of weakness.

5) "An it harm none, do what thou will."  Basically, be who you are as long as you are not hurting people in the process.

6) You do not owe your time to people who treat you badly.  YOU DO NOT OWE YOUR TIME TO PEOPLE WHO TREAT YOU BADLY.  It is okay to cut off communication with people who do not respect you or your boundaries.

7) Do not apologize for your passions.  Even if someone tells you that your interests and hobbies are weird or boring, do not apologize.  Even when you've graduated and gone off and left your family and friends, you'll still have Bandersnatch Cummerbund.

8) Be nice to your sister.

9) Try not to view other women as competition.  Don't judge other women's style, bodies, or sexual choices.  We face enough judgement for these things from society at large, without being shitty to each other.  There is no right or wrong way to be a woman.

10) For the love of Gord, turn your light off when you leave your bedroom.  I'm not made of money.

11) Take risks.  Not stupid risks, like getting into a car with some drunk asshole driver or doing drugs or stuff like that, but don't be afraid to try new things or to put yourself out there.  Like someone? Let them know.  If an opportunity presents itself to try something new and exciting, don't let the possibility that things might not work out *exactly* as planned dissuade you.

12)  Don't let people tell you that you are not good enough to accomplish the things you want. However, remember that when someone points out potential flaws in your plans, it is not to discourage you, but to make sure you can see and plan for challenges and obstacles in your path.

13)  Don't be in a hurry to grow up.  Enjoy your childhood and adolescence.  Being a grown-up can suck.  For instance, grown-ups have to watch their kids grow up and deal with all the crappy stuff that can sometimes come with being an adult.  We're also not allowed in the McDonalds Playland.

14) Speaking of which, I will never not worry about you.  So you can just forget about that right now, missy.  I will, however, do my best to trust that you will make good choices in life.

15) You are loved.  Happy birthday, my sweet girl.

Step lightly, love.

Tech, nostalgia and the coming generation.

Once a week the household gets together with my friend Tess and her family for a 'dinner-and-a-movie' night.  We often revisit old family classics or newer family-friendly fare. On occasion the kids all decide to screw off to my eldest daughter's room to do kid stuff, so at those times we get to enjoy more grown-up fare.

A video came across my Facebook feed called "Kids React to Walkmans" where a group of children are given an early 90's style portable cassette player and asked to figure out what this contraption is and what it does.  As a whole, they're pretty much flummoxed and by the end of the video they have proclaimed modern MP3 technology to be far superior.

Well, duh.  Anyone who has ever had to repair an unspooled cassette with a pen could tell you THAT.

Image Source

My kids are fairly savvy with some of the more time-withstanding technologies of the past.  Our cabinet hi-fi sits in the front hall and occasionally gets some play when I get the urge to pull out my limited collection of LPs.  The thing has GREAT sound.  Thank you, Lori.

Watching these kids in the video struggle with what seemed like the relatively simple concept of popping a cassette into a walkman so music comes out the earphones made me think of some of the other near- or completely- obsolete tech that my generation takes for granted.

A few weeks ago for family movie night, we watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty which, by the way, is now one of my favourite movies ever.  Surprisingly kid-friendly, too.  As we watched, the thought came to me that it was entirely possible that none of the children present even had any concept of film-based photography.  To the best of my knowledge my kids have only ever used digital cameras or at best disposable cameras.  They've not been exposed (ha!) to the fumbling involved in loading film in to a 35mm camera.

Okay, maybe other people found that sort of thing easy, but I have ruined many a roll in my time.

My kids would not be able to point out or name any of the equipment that used to sit in my dad's home-made darkroom when I was a teenager.  Negatives, slides, spools, washes, fixatives.  All completely foreign.

I wondered how much of this particular film went over their head, not being familiar with the process of photo development.

It's not only technology.  We also take the cultural references for granted.

A week later, we gathered and watched Saving Mr. Banks.  About two thirds of the way through I came to the realization that my kids had never actually seen Mary Poppins (Tess's kids had).  We've got an extensive collection of movies, some dating back to the early 20's, but somehow this one had gotten by us.

There's always this misconception that children and especially teens don't have appreciation for things that pre-date, well, them.  However, it's an appreciation that can be built up, with exposure.

One day in car I popped in a Mountain Goats CD and my eldest rolled her eyes and went "Ugh.. old people music.."  (Seriously?  The Sunset Tree came out in 2005!  Old people music.  Psh.)  My response was to put on The Complete Robert Johnson Collection.

You want to call something "old people music?"  There's your old people music.  Sorry, Grandma.

I dunno.  I guess I grew up with an appreciation of my parent's generation of music and film, because I was regularly exposed to it.  When other kids were listening to New Kids on the Block, I was into The Guess Who, Harry Belafonte and Stompin' Tom.

But there are some things that I guess we can't quite recreate, like the excitement of getting a custom-made mixed tape, or seeing animated penguins dance on screen with Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews for the first time.

Myself, I haven't seen Mary Poppins in years.

I think I may have the soundtrack on vinyl, though.

Post-Script:  Holy crap! Typewriters! I didn't even mention typewriters.  What kind of crazy old-timey shit is that, amirite?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Wherein I lose a shed, my neighbors regain seven feet of property and my kids hopefully gain a work ethic.

Upon gaining possession of what I like to call The Fun House, I stepped out onto the deck to gaze out over my postage-stamp sized queendom.  The northwest end of the teeny tiny yard contained what could generously be called a shed, although for all appearances, it had a greater resemblance to some bombed out pile of wood rot.

I had to reef on the plywood doors to open them.  Cautiously I had stepped inside and upon gazing at the ceiling (or lack thereof) and then at the floor (or lack thereof) I immediately marched back inside and informed the children that they were not, under any circumstance, to step foot inside the 'shed' or they would die.

No, this was not a threat.  It was a simple fact.  The thing was clearly a death-trap.

Oh, there was also the matter that this structure, if you will, encroached a good seven feet onto one neighbour's property, and two feet onto another.  Far be it from me to guess at whether or not the shed, which the Well-Travelled One and I have guess to be roughly 60-odd years in age, pre-dated arbitrarily drawn property lines or the shed was unceremoniously dropped onto what was 'roughly' the corner of the yard.

Anyway, this encroachment kept us from doing anything about it for a number of months as we pondered what the etiquette is in demolishing a frighteningly unsafe structure that straddles two properties.

Last spring, I had chance to meet the neighbour who has the misfortune of sharing this monstrosity and with some hesitation she asked what we planned to do with it.  When I mentioned that I hoped to tear the blasted thing down, I have never seen someone's eyes light up so brightly..

Apparently the former owners of my little abode were unreasonably attached to the shed in question and had, on numerous occasions, refused to have the thing torn down, even after the neighbour offered to have her son and potential son-in-law come tear it down for FREE.

Not long after, The Well-Travelled One embarked on a mission over the summer months to single handedly dismantle this portal to hell, at risk of personal injury and respiratory infection from gord-only-knows what airborne toxins were kept in with all the animal bedding and so on and so forth.

This weekend we borrowed my parents pick-up truck and approached the back-yard neighbor about accessing the shed from their yard.  Never have i seen someone so excited about the prospect of someone driving a Dodge Ram across their lawn.  We proceeded to make upwards of five trips to the local dump, filling the box (not the cab.. See, I got it right this time!) to the brim with all manner of rotted wood, torn vinyl siding, I don't-even-want-to-know what kind of pathogens and enough nails that I could have built a replica model of the Eiffel Tower, to scale.

Okay, so I might have exaggerated slightly there.

We even got the kids in on the project with the promise of a decent hourly rate for helping out.  The little one was unfortunately limited in what she could do, given her size and tendency towards unwieldiness. However, she was able to put her destructive streak to good use by helping break down window frames and chunks of wall with a claw hammer, and otherwise helping to fetch tools and such.  

Surprising was how well the oldest took to the work.  I've been struggling lately with how to deal with my 12-year-old's sense of entitlement and adversity to hard work when it comes to earning money.  I've been tearing my hair out in frustration as she complains about not having money, wanting expensive things and yet not being willing to work towards them, unless absolutely convenient, and then completing task seemingly with the least amount of effort possible.

Thing is, when she puts her mind to it, she can work hard and work well.  When we went back-country camping, she was the most vocal about her inhibitions where the 8km hike was concerned, but she made it through with little complaint.  Yesterday was a prime example.  She was hesitant at first with helping me load and unload, gingerly picking up small pieces of wood and carefully placing them on the truck.  Rather than slowing down as they day wore on, by our third and fourth dump trip, she was tossing and and heaving beams onto the woodpile like a champ and leaping in and out of the truck box with the agility of a gymnast.

Both the girls worked exceptionally hard, as did my love, and by the end of the day, the former death trap had been reduced to a manageable pile of rubble, a scant 2-3 more loads and the cursed thing should be gone.

FYI (If you're a nosy asshole)

This post. I mean, this friggin post.  

Had the *ahem* pleasure of reading Mrs. Hall's lengthy missive to the teenaged girls who have Facebook friended her precious wee boys regarding the seemingly scandalous selfies young girls seem to like to take of themselves.  Mrs. Hall is quite concerned that her boys may be exposed to these wanton adolescent hussies, posing in their pajamas in sultry poses.  Some of these girls are even (gasp!) not wearing bras!

Mrs. Hall is trying to raise young men with a strong moral compass, who don't "linger over pictures of scantily clad ladies."  Which is apparently quite impossible to do when there are pictures of teenaged girls posing for selfies on the Internet.  Any female friend of the Hall boys who thinks of posting a vaguely sexy picture of herself online should consider themselves as good as blocked because Mrs. Hall only wants her boys thinking of girls respectfully and Gord knows, being a sexual being and being a human being worthy of respect are two mutually exclusive things.  Well, if you're a girl.. Isn't that right Mrs. Hall?

Mrs. Hall, I noticed that your boys are posted all over your blog in beachwear, which some would argue is much more revealing than pajamas or even a towel.  I guess girls (or non-hetero boys) can easily un-see that, though can they? And still think of your kids as people worthy of respect?  But you said yourself, once a boy sees a girl naked (or in towel, or in pajamas or without a bra) he can't unsee that.  You seem to have a high level of confidence in your boys' ability to behave like gentleman and not like rutting animals.  Or maybe not.  Because if you did, the spectre of some silly, pouty pictures wouldn't loom such a threat.

There are a dozen good reasons to be careful of what you post online.  Surveillance, online weirdos and pedophiles, and the fact that stuff you post does NOT GO AWAY are all things we should be concerned about and I agree that we should be encouraging kids (and adults, of any gender) to be extra self-critical of what they post.  These safety and privacy issues don't seem to be on your radar, however.  You seem more concerned about not letting these girls sully your preciouses virginal little minds.

I find the attitude that in order for men to respect and cherish women they must not think of them sexually is a harmful one.  The implication you've made here is that a girl or woman cannot be sexual while still being worthy of respect.  That is what we call, in feminist circles, slut shaming.  And it is harmful.  Girls are continually sexualized and objectified by our culture, while simultaneously being shamed if they dare to be sexual on their own terms.  A girl's history or perceived history can be used against her in sexual assault cases.  

Mrs. Hall, if you want your sons to be men of integrity who eventually meet and possibly marry women of character, teach them that a woman's worth is about more than her sexuality.  Teach them that being sexual and being a person worthy of respect.  Teach them their respect for someone should not be predicated on their sexual history or whether or not they're wearing a bra in their profile picture.  If you can't teach them that, I think my soon-to-be teenaged girls would be better off blocked.

Saturday quickie: shopping day with the kiddies

A few quick thoughts after spending the day shopping with my girls (a rare treat indeed).

- nothing emphasizes how badly our local mall sucks than going to an out of town mall. Really, our mall sucks.

- I hope that my girls remain as enthusiastic about bathing suit shopping as they are right now. I hope it never becomes an experience they dread, fraught with self-loathing and shame, like it does for so many women.

- What's a surefire way to dissuade me from spending money in an awesomely huge candy store the likes of which I've never seen? Tell me 10% of proceeds go towards sending missionaries to India. Colonialism makes the sweetest candy taste bitter.

- Pro-tip for customer service people. It's cool to tell someone their discount card is no longer valid, has expired or whatever. What's not cool is disbelieving it ever was valid and implying that the customer is either stupid or a liar. "I don't believe that ever happened," makes just such an implication. It's too bad, because I liked those pants and would have liked to buy them, except I don't spend money in places that insult me to my face, okay Addition-Elle?

Gah. It begins.

My eldest spawn will be 12 in a month. She operates under the delusion that the digits are reversed and she's actually 21. For her age, she is a pretty confident with her self-image and has a pretty experimental sense of style.

This sounds awesome, but as the parent who has to step in and remind her that she is still only 11, it can be fraught.

The teen years are approaching and I fear its arrival the way others have feared Y2K or the end of the Mayan calendar. And like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, various signs rear their head, signalling impending doom.

I took her and her stepsister (only a few months younger) shopping today. With their own money. When it's my money I usually have more control over clothing choices, usually by harness the power of being really, really cheap.

My kid has a predilection towards clothes that are not always age-appropriate. See aforementioned "12-going-on-21" thing. The challenge I find is explaining why something is inappropriate without resorting to shaming or telling her she's going to look like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.

In the period of less than an hour I found myself having to talk my not-yet-twelve year old out of:

- Neon pink short-shorts. This was easy enough to argue, since closer inspection revealed we were in the size 4-6x section. She's a 12. Easy Peasy

- 3-inch spike heels. Vetoed on the basis that heels are really, really bad for you. I have no doubt they fuck up the spine and legs of any grown woman. I don't even want to think of what those kind of heels would do to someone who is still growing.

- A yellow string bikini. Oof. I sputtered and stammered at that one and suggested trying some other styles. The other styles were all more expensive (probably due to the greater amount of fabric) and thus out of her limited price range. Finally, I appealed to her sense of broke-assedness and reminded her that I had already planned to take her and her sister bathing suit shopping next weekend. What kid wants to spend their own money on something mom was going to buy them anyway? She reluctantly put the suit back. Near miss on that one.

This is what I'm dealing with already and we haven't even hit high school yet. Gord help us all.

I'm not dead, but unlike Mr. Scott Weiland, I may or may not be for sale.

So, I'm not suicidal. In case anyone was wondering. I deactivated my Facebook account last week and the first thing The Well Travelled One warned me was to expect cops to show up, since apparently deleting your Facebook is considered a sign that someone is suicidal. Apparently it's a sign of being a terrorist or weirdo or something too. I have seen news stories to this effect, but am too tired and or lazy to link them.

You know who else didn't have a Facebook account? Hitler.

This actually concerned me a bit since I also took a hiatus from my kick-boxing classes for health related reasons.. It might have looked I really was withdrawing..

"I guess this would be a bad time to start selling my shit on Kajiji, right? Heh."

Anyway, I'm doing fine. Rediscovering methods of communication such as... The phone!! Holy crap. I kind of forgot that I have a pretty spectacular long distance plan.

In other news...

Painting. Renewed my efforts on a piece I started almost two years ago. It's a reproduction of a photo that the Well-Travelled one had taken on one of his adventures. I had left it alone for sometime out of frustration at my inability to paint a straight line.

Masking tape is a grand, grand invention. Except that I lost my masking tape so I had to use invisible tape. You know what sucks about invisible tape?

IT'S FUCKING INVISIBLE.

So that makes for a fabulous time trying to tell where you actually taped and didn't tape.

I'm harbouring a house full of pre- adolescent and adolescent girls. There has been much giggling and much sounds that indicate that the ceiling is probably three seconds from caving in.

It's not so bad though. I can't speak for tomorrow though, as I have been waking up with nasty, possibly sinus related headaches the last few days. Hopefully I will be able to handle the onslaught of girl noise come morning.

And in one fateful monologue, Jon Stewart kills childhood.

My kids are pretty cool in that they have a fairly sophisticated sense of humour for their respective ages.  Yes, some *may* call me a bad mother for allowing their preschool viewing habits be interspersed with episodes of Kids in the Hall and Arrested Development and I can and will accept some responsibility when and if it turns out that I have warped their fragile little minds with bawdy humour.  I've definitely had moments of shock and self-doubt when I find them guffawing at jokes that I thought would fly right over their heads.  But the love of comedy is one of the things that I enjoy sharing with them and they always surprise me in the most delightful way with their ability to appreciate different stylings.

One incident stands out, wherein they had been grounded from TV for some minor infraction.  This is a hard one for me to stick to since there are certain household chores that are so mind-numbingly tedious that I require something to occupy my mind.  Oh, hai, laundry-folding.  So my cunning plan was to put on something that would be so obviously over their head that it would bore them to tears while still keeping me amused.  Recalling how it had been an acquired taste for me, I put on "And Now For Something Completely Different" and hoped that the sort of drab 70's BBC quality image and obscure absurdist humour would cause them to roll their eyes and retreat to their room.

No such luck.  They were riveted.  Total backfire.

The last week or so, my nine-year-old has taken to cuddling up with The Well Travelled One and I to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and surprisingly has really taken to it.  She's a smart cookie, that one, but the humour on the Daily Show tends to be very adult.. not raunchy or risque, but very current events based political humour.  Boring, grown-up stuff.  But she laughs right along, as I eye her wondering if she actually gets the jokes or just likes Stewart's funny faces.   Either way, I get to sit there and think "Man, my kid is just the friggin' coolest."

And then Jon Stewart outs the Tooth Fairy. 

Outta freakin' nowhere.   One minute he's talking about Lance Armstrong and the next he's undoing all my hard work and telling my nine-year-old there is no tooth fairy.

BOOM.  Just like that.  (That's a link to the clip.  It's right at the 4:05 mark.  Keep your kids out of the room.)

I froze and tried to gauge her reaction.  Kid DID NOT EVEN FLINCH.  It's possible she may not have noticed but my money is on the more likely scenario that she TOTALLY caught it and has since been calculating how to use this information to her benefit.

"Don't react. Just Don't. React.  Don't blow this, kid.  Free money for dead teeth.  We need to ride this as long as possible.  At least until those 12 year molars come in."

In regards to today's teacher's strike.

I've been meaning to say a few things on this, aside from the few comments on teacher-bashing Facebook posts that I've been seeing.

The work-to-rule thing sucks for the kids.  I know that, and I totally get it.  No after-school clubs, no extracurriculars, no field trips - it sucks for them.  I'm not about to deny that.

The one-day strike happening today.  It sucks for parents.  One of the functions of public schools is cheap daycare, along with the education of our children.  I sit in a position of privilege here, I realize that.  Between an ex-husband that is generally available and willing to take his kids; a boyfriend also willing to hang with my kids and a job that, worse come to worse, will let me stay home for a day to watch them myself, I'm not going to be horribly affected by this action.  That's a privilege and I recognize it.  Many parents are not in such a lucky position.  I get that too.  I'm glad for their sake that this is only a one day action.

Teachers work damn hard.  I've watch my sister go through the rigors of constant training and upgrading skills (the courses which are paid out of pocket).  Lesson planning and grading that goes well into the nights and weekends.  I barely see her between the months of September and June, she's so busy.

I entrust my kids to their teachers care for 5-6 hours a day.  Damn right I want them paid and compensated well.  It's not greed, it's what they have coming to them.  I've read time and time again that they are doing wrong by the children by holding out and taking job action.  No one has pointed a finger  at the school boards and government who also continue to hold out on negotiations.  No one seems to be up in arms about school board trustees with six figure salaries.  It's the teachers because "That's my tax money!"

If my kids teachers are well compensated, that means they're going to be happier and more satisfied with their job.  Which means my kids get a better education.  I'm okay with my taxes going towards that.

Source

Frankly, everybody deserves to be well compensated for their jobs.  Not just teachers.  Labour organizations and unions have helped people with that in various sectors.  Other sectors, such as the retail and service sector are starting to organize.  Read up on your labor history.  If you have eight-hour days, or paid sick leave or vacation time or benefits, that's the result of the work of labour organizations.  

Gender Essentialism in Your Stocking This Christmas

This showed up on my Pinterest feed yesterday:

Source

It's a list of stocking stuffer ideas for Christmas, by age.  I groaned inwardly when I saw that it was divided into a list for boys and one for girls.  Then I got a little optimistic when I saw that the first half-dozen or so items on the list were identical.  Play dough, art supplies, bubbles, stickers.. I can totally get behind this list.

And then as I continued to scroll down, my heart dropped with an almost audible sitcom trombone chorus - You know the one... wah wah waah waaaaah. About six or seven lines down, we get to the inevitable.  Cars and action figures for boys, dolls and jewellery for girls.

*sigh*

Can we step out of our boxes for a minute and consider the fact that some little girls just might enjoy playing with cars?  Or maybe there are little boys that enjoy playing with dolls?

I know many people will jump up with "But My Daughter LIKES dolls! My Son Likes Trucks! They wouldn't WANT to play with trucks/dolls!"  That's awesome.  Really, it is.

Your kid is not EVERY kid.

How many kids out there aren't getting what they would really like for Christmas because lists like these reinforce gender stereotypes that dictate what toys are appropriate for what gender? I'm not even going to get into the assumption of a gender binary here, because people tend to lose their shit when faced with the suggestion that a kid may be anything more than all-boy or all-girl.

What I wonder is why the creator of this image couldn't have amalgamated these items into one list and done away with the unnecessary gendering of sunglasses, jewellery, Nerf Guns and Barrels of Monkeys?

Speaking as a former little girls I, for one, LOVED Barrel of Monkeys.  It was a goddamned barrel of FUN.

UPDATE: So last night I posted a comment on the blog where this image originally came from asking, very diplomatically, why split the list into boys/girls, since parents clearly would already know whether their kids were into dolls or trucks, regardless of gender.  I wish I had taken a screen cap, because I went back to see if there was a response and my comment has been deleted.  I followed up, although I doubt my response will garner a response.

There's also a disclaimer at the top of the blog now asking not to leave harsh comments regarding the splitting of the lists into boys/girls.  That may or may not have been there before I commented.  I hadn't really paid attention, so if it was already there, my bad.

Parenting Win plus Other Things.

Oh Hallowe'en.  Just because I've been slow on the uptake as far as preparations go, doesn't mean I don't love you as much as I always have.

I usually take this holiday pretty seriously.  My kids take the brunt of it.  The oldest one mostly just humours me but the youngest has taken my enthusiasm for blood and creepiness and run with it.  I dropped her off at a Halloween party at her friend's place today.  At the door we were greeted by a Little Red Riding Hood, and a cute little skeleton and an adorable cowgirl.

And then there's my kid, looking, very much of her own accord, like something coughed up from the very bowels of hell.  Gray, pasty skin, scraggly black hair and blood dripping from her eyes.

I'm so proud.

**********************************************

Back in 2004, I took a road trip to Fort Frances, Ontario which is roughly a 20-hour drive away from where I live.  On the way, I stopped for the night and slept in the back of my car in the back of a Ford dealership outside of Wawa, Ontario.  In the cramped backseat of my 1992 Ford Tempo, I had dreams of my children turning into werewolves.

As of yesterday, a good chunk of that dealership has been washed away with a stretch of the Trans-Canada highway.  It no longer exists.

Yeah.. I was parked right around there.  - Source

I'm thinking that's a metaphor for something, but I don't know what.

My own childhood bullying tale - or - I'm not fucked up because of how my parents raised me, but how other parents raised theirs.

Today I felt like crying.

No, no.  I'm okay.  Nothing to worry about.  Just feeling bittersweet.  Accent on the bitter, I guess?  

It started with a Facebook group.  *shakes fist in Mark Zuckerberg's general direction*  A group called I GREW UP IN AURORA.

I did, you know.  Grow up in Aurora, I mean.  Aurora, Ontario.  Some of those closest to me may be familiar with the sneer of derision that usually comes with mention of the place.

I'm not actually a member of this group (update: I totally lied.  I am).  My mom is, because she did too. Grow up there.  That may be too simplistic.  I think my mom merely lived there.  It'd be safe to say her actual growing up was done in the neighbouring town of Newmarket, which according to the stories of adolescence I have been regaled with over the years, was a far more rad place than it's neighbour to the south.

A friend of mine who lived in the area for roughly the same period of time (although we didn't meet until years and years later) once remarked that in Aurora, you'd drive down streets where people had paid tens of thousands of dollars on landscaping, only to find nothing but junk inside.

At the time it seemed an apt metaphor.

Gosh, I sound pretty bitter, don't I?  Why all the hate, you may ask?

Interesting question, that.  I'll get to that.

So yeah, because the Mighty Zuck seems to think everyone needs to see everything that everyone does, I caught a link through this group to a photoblog which had, amongst its many posts, photos of the school I attended from grade 1 to 3, which was shut down a few short years back.

It's a tremendous and beautiful building, having first served as a high school (where my grandfather attended) and later used as a primary school for grades 1 through 6.

Seeing the photos was a bit of a head-trip.  I, myself, have not stepped foot inside in over 20 years.  When they closed Wells Street, there was an open house to commemorate it's 100 year history.  The few photos in this woman's blog brought forth a rush of emotion - first, the visceral reaction I generally get when presented with classical architecture.  I'll be the first to admit, I have a bit of an obsession with older buildings.

Second was a flood of memories of the relatively brief but formative time I attended Wells Street Public School.

I was a painfully shy, and oddly intelligent child.  A little awkward, a little chubby.  More interested in the planets and ocean creatures than Barbies and My Little Ponies.  Eager to please, eager for others to like me.  A prime target for bullies.

Third grade was when the two 'popular' girls in my class decided that that year was the year I would have no friends, no fun, no joy whatsoever.  They began to taunt me, promising friendship then ripping it away, with mocking laughter and cruel, cutting, remarks.  They made it well known to all that I was social poison.  Not only would they not be my friend, but anyone who did befriend me would also be outcast.

Two of my best friends would whisper when no one was looking that yes, they were still my friend, even if they put up the act of shunning me as well.

I could hardly blame them.  I had already saw the devastation these two popular girls had wreaked in my own world.  I couldn't let that happen to my friends as well.   My third friend managed to escape the social stigma of being my friend simply by benefit of being a boy.  The threat of expulsion to loser-land was lost on the boys in my class... they were just happy to join in on the fun.

In the evenings, I would cry inexplicably.  I was always crying.  My parents would ask how my day was, what was wrong.  In a quiet voice I'd insist that my day was fine.  Nothing happened.  I was okay.  In tears, but okay.  My sister knew what was going on.. She wrote me letters from the exchange house in Germany where she was staying that winter, telling me she loved me and making empty but appreciated threats to beat the 'little bitches'.  My parents continued to wonder why I was upset all the time but refused to open up to them.

I guess that has just never been my way.

I have no recollection, perhaps I've blocked it out, but I've been told that it got to the point where I was skipping school.  This was how my parents found out about these girls and how they had been tormenting me for most of the school year.  The one girl lived down the street from us, with her grandparents and her mother who was single and worked full-time, relatively unheard of in 1980's Aurora.  Her mother was devastated and truly remorseful that her daughter was capable of treating another kid this way, and blamed herself.  The other child's mother, who had attended high school with my own mother, simply sneered.  She had taught her daughter to be tough.. it wasn't her problem if I was "such a fucking wimp."

I see these pictures of the school and I remember not just its immense empty halls, but I remember walking them, sad, and scared and angry.  The staircase in the second photo from the bottom is the same staircase where I would sit after being sent in the hall.   Heeding the advice of "ignore it and it will go away", I would close my ears to the whispered taunts until finally I would lash out in anger and frustration, only to be scolded and sent to the hall for causing a disturbance.  I'd sit out there and cry and wait until I was sure my face was no longer red and my breathing had returned to normal.

Even then, I had a tendency towards 'The Ugly Cry'.  Oh, look.  There it goes again.

I was lucky enough to change schools the next year after being screened for the region's gifted program.  My problems didn't end there, by any means, but they subsided for a good while.  However, by the time we moved from Aurora to the Midland area, I was good and ready to get the fuck out of there.  I never really felt like I belonged there.  I don't think my family did either.

You know, a lot of this seems trivial in retrospect.  So what?  Everybody had bullshit to deal with as a kid.  But it kind of fucked with me for a long time.  For years I had a difficult time making friend without falling prey to the suspicion that I was being taken for a fool, that I was being set up as part of some grand, Carrie-esque prank and I'd be the girl covered in pig-blood, only instead of wreaking my vengeance all I would be able to do is cry and hate myself a little.  I missed out on what could have been some wonderful friendships because I couldn't bring myself to trust.  That said, I'm thankful for the few long-standing friendships was able to forge over the years.

I'm not going to lie, I've let these memories color my memories of Aurora with a very dark brush.  I think sometimes that I would still like to go back.  To fight my way down Yonge Street where everything is so built up now that you can no longer tell there was ever any bordering area between Newmarket and Aurora.  I'd like to park at my uncle's house (which was the house where we lived) and walk the neighbourhood as I did when I was a kid - my parents were the free-range kid type.

There are still places I have fond memories of..

Birthdays and Blog Awards

My oldest turns 11 tomorrow.  She also leaves for an over-nighter with her school tomorrow, so it's a little odd that on her actual, honest-to-Gord birthday I'm only going to see her for an hour or so, most of which will likely be spent kicking both her and her sister's butts into gear, as the little one also has a school trip tomorrow.  Not a day one wants to be late for the bell.

A few months ago T approached me about a show on YTV called The Next Star which, to the best of my knowledge is in the Idolesque vein of reality shows, except for the 15-and-under crowd.  That's pretty much all I know about it, except that I think the gay kid from Degrassi hosts it.  Toronto auditions happened to be the same weekend that we'd be doing her birthday stuff.  She begged me to take her to audition so I told her that in lieu of a birthday party this year, she could pick a friend and I would take them and Reegs down to the city for the day so she could try out, and then we'd go out for dinner.  That would be her birthday celebration.

I ran into a roadblock when I couldn't get photo ID for T, which was required.  Unless you get a passport, there's not a lot of photo ID options for an 11-year-old around here.  Ontario Health Cards only have a picture above a certain age, because kids change so damn fast that by the next doctor's appointment they probably look nothing like the picture on the card.

So we just pretend they all look like pretty flowers instead.  (Instead of their picture, you get a picture of a white trillium instead.  I Google-image-searched the hell out of variations of 'Kids OHIP card' and 'Children's Ontario Health Card' but all I could find were adult versions so if you're outside of Ontario, you're just going to have to take my word for it, as I'm not about to post my OWN kid's OHIP card on here.  Don't be silly.)

Also, no elementary schools around here have actual Student Cards.  That's just for high school kids.

So I told her this but assured her that we were going to go and that I would try to argue my way out of the photo ID thing.  I considered lying and telling the registration people that I had ordered a passport but that it had yet to arrive in the mail.

It was all kind of moot because I didn't foresee that we would actually miss the registration deadline, seeing as I had searched their site for a registration deadline and didn't see one so I had figured they were on all day.  We had left later than anticipated (the goal was to leave the house by 8, we got out around 9:30) and by the time we got to Yorkdale mall and caught the subway down to Front Street, it was almost noon, and the people at the Convention Center told us that registration closed at 9:30 that morning.  T was a little upset so we found a quiet area so she could have a moment, and so I could figure out for a contingency plan, which came in the form of a bus tour around the city.

Truth be told, the family rate for the bus tour was kind of pricey and at first I had said no, but got to thinking about it and went back and haggled with the guy, explaining that A) the Family rate included two adults and I was only one and that I had travelled with these kids only to have my daughter gravely disappointed ON HER BIRTHDAY NO LESS (not ENTIRELY untrue.. it was her birthday celebration day) and got about 20-25% off the price of the Family pass.  The bus tour included a boat tour of the Toronto Harbour, so once we got to the Harbourfront, we wandered around looking for drinks as my kids were ill-dressed for a day in the sun that was supposed to be spent waiting around the air-conditioned Metro Convention Center.  I got ripped off by a pop machine that stiffed me roughly four bucks from a $10 bill.  Once we had killed enough time we got on the boat for our tour, which turned out to be a relaxing half-hour journey around the Toronto Islands.

The Toronto Skyline from my side of the boat.

After returning to shore, the two older girls wanted to go on a paddle boat ride.  Reegs and I went and checked out a free museum nearby, The Power Plant, while they waiting in line but sadly the museum didn't offer much.  Call me a Philistine if you will, but sometimes I think 'Contemporary Art' is a fancy-shmancy term for "Weird, and kind of sparse."  It took about 15 minutes to go through the whole thing.  We took longer in the bathroom. At least I didn't pay to get in, so that's something.

After the paddle boats we headed back to the subway as it was getting too late to hop back on the bus (kind of rendering the bus thing not worth the money... although the kid we saw that kept declaring with tiny fist pumped "I. LOVE. THE BIG RED BUS!" over and over again to his parent's chagrin kind of made it worth it).  This was all three girls first time riding the subway and was an interesting and slightly nerve-wracking experience.  I guess having walls zoom by a mere inch from your window combined with the sound of steel on steel can be scary for any first timer.

We had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which seemed like a good idea for a kids birthday.. kind of somewhere in between fast-food kid-mecca and grown-up sit-down dinner.  We ordered one ginormous dessert and between the four of us we still couldn't get through the gobs of brownies and ice cream and whipped cream.

Driving home from the city in the summer on a Sunday is definitely a great thing about living in Cottage Country.. you're almost always guaranteed to be facing the heaviest traffic on your way home, breezing along the Northbound lanes of the 400 while the city folks sit in bumper to bumper traffic on the Southbound.

All in all it was a great day and the thing that was especially nice was that all three girls were very well behaved and appreciative.  T and I have been butting heads quite a bit lately as she has entered into a typically self-centered pre-adolescent stage.. it's like pre-teens kind of regress to that toddler-stage where they don't actually realize that other people are people and may have needs and wants that don't revolve around and instantly gratify their own.  But even with the disappointment upon our arrival to the City, there was no whining, no fighting with her sister, no complaining and no pushing for more, more, more.  It was refreshing and I made sure to let her know that.. I enjoy doing things for them, but I like it even more when I know they appreciate it.

So tomorrow my baby girl turns 11.  Time doesn't ever go backwards, does it?  Not even for a minute.

************************************

So in other news, I've now been awarded three times for the Liebster Award so I'm thinking I better get off my ass and thank the folks who've passed it on to me:

So thanks bunches to:

Crystal at Ideally Speaking, a socially active mom and closet comic geek which is how we initially got talking at work way back in the day.

Vanessa at Five Things About Nothing Important whose blog I really need to check out more 

Heidi Millerick at Eight Days A Week, who I've also been lax in checking out.

I may get around to passing this on, but I think for now, I'll just say that if it's in my blog roll over there ---> then it's probably worth taking a peek at.  I know others worth reading but I just don't link as they keep a lower profile.

Yeah, it's a total cop-out, I know.