I feel like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland; except that I have never read that book - something about the Queen of Hearts and talking rabbits that always manages to turn me off. Anyway, I am late, late, horribly late. (Is that what he says?) It was Ben's birthday on May 9th and I am only just now posting about it. By the way, the NET team (pictured above), also came for a stay. The blond lad in the fashionable glasses can do a mean Angry Bird impression. He required an ice cream cone, though. The presence of 9 young people under the age of 23 made me realise that I have aged: I have little to no understanding of skinny jeans on males. On to other things.
Ben turned 7: can you tell? He requested Pizza Pizza, ice cream cake and his friend Cecelia from school. Cecelia proved a wonderful addition and demonstrated an incredible ability to micro-manage my son. Amazing, the power of a good woman.
Her mother's stint managing our town's dollar store while its owners visited family on the Indian sub-continent provided a wealth of boyish birthday gifts: dinosaur colouring book, a grenade packed with water balloons and a bug-catching kit. He also received a toy rifle in the morning from my mother complete with sound effects. It has proved very useful in management of the dog. It is, however, rather disconcerting when pointed at the baby.
Camo shorts, care of mommy and daddy. No Valley birthday is complete without camouflage.
This little lady has decided that stealing her brother's soose is an inexhaustible source of delight.
On the Saturday following Ben's birthday Dave had a NET board meeting in Ottawa. I decided at 5:30 in the morning that we would accompany him. Adjectives to describe my decision elude me at the moment. By the time we arrived at the Archbishop's residence two children had already thrown up their breakfast. Car sickness, not the stomach flu. I stupidly forgot to clean the throw-up receptacles when I used the bathroom inside the residence. However, rather ingeniously, I was able to both empty the containers and clean them (somewhat) using the run-off from the garbage bins in the back parking lot. I felt like a veritable pioneer. Move over, Laura Ingalls.
And then I decided that we should go to a museum; preferably the Museum of Science where we could see a dinosaur. Despite being parked only blocks from the museum of choice I, being geographically challenged (and unable to drive and read the directions on an iPhone despite Hannah's assurances that we were "really near"), settled upon the Museum of War. My decision was based entirely upon the providential appearance of said museum on my horizon just as my blood sugar began to approach the level of a diabetic coma. We quickly found parking, set up the stroller, discovered an elevator and made our way to the cafeteria where several veterans complimented me on my family size as well as their behaviour. At this point Jacob was on all fours wiping up spilled water off the cafeteria floor while Hannah muttered, "He looks like a slave."
Among other delights, Isaac managed to talk on every single phone that he could find in the museum. He was, unfortunately, exactly one inch too short to hang up any of them. This went over very well with the childless clientele that had chosen this particular Saturday to walk the museum.
Ben, on the other hand, was completely entranced by all aspects of war.
Particularly the footage from WWII of bombing raids.
He could have stayed all day.
Joe lost interest by the time we reached the tanks and discovered lots of very climbable objects that were circled by rope indicating that they should not be climbed. We were very ready to leave by the time we passed Hitler's car (holy water, anyone?) and stumbled our way out the doors and into the van where I eventually found lunch and somewhere to nap. It was a completely ill-advised and expensive weekend adventure. Years from now it will be a good memory.
8 comments:
Hey maybe this will pique Ben's interest in WWII and he will eventually become one of Canada's leading experts. And in a press conference he will say "I owe it all to my mother who took us to the War Museum way back when" :)
I got unduely excited by the line "I am late late terribly late"... what can I say, I was at an NFP extension course this weekend... you can imagine where my mind is at!
Oh my, my hair-brained trips to the city always end up like this too -- us more broke than before, and cleaning up vomit. When will I learn?
Theresa, in hindsight I can definitely see how I set myself up for that one! Late and it happens again. But, no, there are still six babes here!
Look at how big your kids are!! There must have been some sort of strange time-warp. I hope you realize that once a certain sister of mine settles in your town, you'll be seeing a lot more of my family. Don't worry, I'll bring (wheat-free) cake enough for all.
Look at how big your kids are!! There must have been some sort of strange time-warp. I hope you realize that once a certain sister of mine settles in your town, you'll be seeing a lot more of my family. Don't worry, I'll bring (wheat-free) cake enough for all.
Don't know why my original comment posted twice. I guess it was just that good.
I also meant to say that I met the blond lad at the NET Alumni dinner in the fall, and his enthusiasm put my entire NET teams to shame. (And he had nearly as much enthusiasm for Value Village as he did for evangelization.)
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