A Week at the Ocean

 So, the trip to the Oratory was really en route to the Beach House in Nova Scotia.  The shores of the Minas Basin (part of the Bay of Fundy) called us again and we spent a week vacationing with my parents and my sister, Sister Ilaria.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon after a night of driving.  Well, Dave drove, the kids slept and I dozed intermittently waking to use the bathroom and ask Dave if he was still OK.  In his all-nighter mood:  "What would you do if I wasn't?  Drive?"  Umm, no.  We arrived in one piece (or, rather, eight pieces all tied together in one van) and Sarah immediately demanded to be pushed on the swing.  Luckily, there were well-rested siblings who could perform such tasks.

 We enjoyed bonfires at the beach where we ate marshmallows and hotdogs.  And not much else.  How time flies:  in last year's picture Sarah was only 11 weeks old and only nursing.  She has graduated to marshmallows.  A dubious rite of passage.

 So many walks down this beach.  The older kids would trail after my dad searching for fossils - which they actually found!  Hannah's first discovery was quickly lost by Joseph, much to her chagrin and consternation.  Joseph also later lost his Crocs in the lowering tide.  They were somehow recovered.  Thankfully, Jacob was also recovered when my father almost lost his eldest grandson to the outgoing, silent and malicious forces of the highest tides in the world.  I will take Jacob over Crocs any day.  Thank you, Guardian Angels.  Thank you, Grandpa.  Thank you, swimming lessons.

 So beautiful and yet so cold and so uncaring.  Keep a safe distance.

 On another note, the wind was great for flying a kite.  Surprisingly, some people down the beach also seemed to be flying themselves.  At first we thought that two people were hang-gliding off the cliff.  We soon realised that they were somehow tethered to the cliff and simply floating above it like two kites flown by a giant hand.  For the life of us, we could never manage to see the tether and really couldn't figure out how they were performing their amazing past-time.  It did look tempting, until my mother reminded me that, with Jacob's track record, such a fun activity would quickly devolve into  a massive coast guard rescue.

 Dave and I became so enamoured of our seaside vacation that we imagined buying a seaside cottage and spending years welcoming children and friends to our home-away-from-home.  Until we realised that we could probably only afford the above.  Plans for retirement.

 Sarah began the week half-walking and half-bumscooting.  By the end of the week, she had firmly landed in the walking camp having perfected her skills on pebbly beaches.  However, at the point at which the above picture was taken, she was still getting around on her bottom and was convinced that the icy Atlantic was akin to the lakes of Ontario.  Thankfully, Isaac has not a malicious bone in his body (in regard to Sarah) and kept a firm eye and hand on his sister.  Daddy also rushed to the rescue.

 Hannah spent some time skipping stones, a feat which I still can not manage.  She has inherited all things athletic from her father and can skip stones multiple times.  Mine just land with a plunk.

 Ben picked me a wild rose for my hair.  These roses are so abundant in Nova Scotia that the locals call them ditch flowers.  A rose by any other name is still as beautiful.

 Somehow my rose made its way into Hannah's hair.

 And a lot of this went on:  Sarah walking by her daddy's side.  Much patience required.

 My mini-me.  Sweet, sweet boy.

 My dad and Jacob investigating the rocks.  Actually, I think that some reprimanding might have been going on as a rock had just been thrown in the ocean and had, unfortunately, missed its watery target.  The head of a brother had intercepted the rock and we had narrowly missed the emergency room, yet again. I will leave that all in the somewhat ambiguous third-person.

 Everyone happy at the same time?  Impossible.  Take heed:  these boys will one day marry your daughters ... or hear your confession.

 The adults are a little bit more in control of their emotional lives.  My sister-Sister said that when she is out and about in the big city she and her fellow sisters get a lot of stares.  So much so that one of the more out-spoken sisters simply asked point-blank to the man with the hastily hidden iPhone, "Do you want to take a picture?"  My sister said that when she goes out with Dave, me and the six children she experiences the same phenomenon except that people don't know whether to look at her or us.  If you could see beyond those windows, you would see the people glaring - no joke.

And, we'll end with Sarah in one of the last pictures of her bumscooting.  She is officially a walker now and I am very, very happy that we thought to take at least one video of her scooting on her bottom back in June.  Time passes, sometimes far too quickly.

A Trip to St. Joseph's Oratory

 Last Friday we traveled to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal as a sort of mini pilgrimage.  Both Sarah and Isaac were in a mood which required me twisting in the passenger seat so that I could simultaneously touch and stroke both of their legs so as to stop the tears.  When the numbness set in I declared that I could no longer perform such contortions.  Amazingly, they listened and found comfort in one another.  Note the look of scorn on Sarah's face.

 We made it to the Oratory in the late afternoon and the kids and I knelt our way up the stairs as an act of penance.  The bone spur on my left knee made itself known.  Perhaps the greater penance was finding several pictures of my bottom on the iPhone.  Thank God for that purse slung strategically across the backside.

 Reserved for pilgrims who kneel to climb.  Or something like that.  By the way, if you have ever heard that the future of the church is not in the West (or definitely not Caucasian), the Oratory bears witness to this.  We were the only 'pale' (my attempt at political correctness) family on the premises.  The Church is alive and well in Africa, South-East Asia and India.  Somehow, though, we still had the most kids.

 Stairs, stairs and more stairs.  We forgot to bring the diaper bag from the van with us as we made our way through the Oratory.  Thus, that saggy diaper of Sarah's got soggier and saggier:  make a note of this.

 She has also learned to walk but is still not entirely sure of herself.  Consequently, there is a lot of the above.  If we tried to carry her up the stairs she would simply dive out of our arms until she was allowed to walk.  It is far easier to aid a toddler in the walking process than to carry a diving 23-pounder.

 We made it to the top where Dave's shadow loomed large.  By this point Joe was beginning to doubt that we would ever see St. Andre Bessette's incorrupt heart; anger was setting in.  Note his body language.

Before the anger reached a boiling point we attempted to look pious in the main cathedral.  (Is it a cathedral?  Did I just make a big mistake?  After all, the bishop doesn't sit there, right?)  Many petitions were prayed for on this pilgrimage, friends and family.

 A side trip to the original chapel where many of the crutches of the healed are left hanging on the walls.  Joe wanted to try them out but obeyed when he noted the ropes encircling the sanctuary.  We eventually made it to the incorrupt heart which was, according to the little boys, disappointing in its lack of grossness.  Hannah was happily relieved.

 Perhaps one of the shortest male saints on the Roman calendar.  My sister tells me a story of a scantily-clad woman coming to see St. Andre in hope of a miracle.  She appeared before him and he said, "Well, no wonder you're sick if you're dressed like that."  She, in a state approaching fury, ran from the chapel where she soon found the friend who had accompanied her.  She began to rant at the impertinence of this supposed saint.  The friend replied, "But where are your crutches?"

 This is the hallway outside of the tomb of St. Andre where candles can be lit for various intentions.  It was tough to convince the boys that only one candle could be lit at a time.  Remember the saggy diaper?  Well, by this point, the saggy diaper was also soiled and had been refastened several times in an attempt to thwart the forces of gravity.  As I knelt before the tomb of St. Andre the diaper also felt a similar reverence and hit the floor.  It was Dave who had charge of Sarah at the time and I exited the tomb only to be called back in by Hannah, "Mom, Daddy needs you."  I reentered and found Dave looking helpless with Sarah in one hand and the diaper in the other.  I wonder if Sarah is the first baby to lose her diaper in the presence of a saint.  At least she'd already done her business.

St. Andre Bessette:  "I don't do babies."

Chicken Little

We have a wonderful understanding with close friends of ours here in town.  They, like us, have a beautiful golden retriever as a family pet.  She is one year younger than our dog Sammy and they really are the best of friends; as deep as dog friendship can go.  The understanding is that when either family needs to leave town without the dog, the other family will care for both dogs.  Strangely, I quite enjoy having two dogs here as Sammy is kept very entertained by his younger girl-pal and Ben especially loves dual-dog ownership.  Well, our friends recently acquired some new 'family pets':  four laying hens.  Thus, we agreed to feed and water the chickens over the weekend.  In exchange, any eggs were ours for the keeping.

Feeding the chickens essentially means dumping a full bucket of compost over the top of the coop where the chickens wait in eager anticipation of food in varying degrees of decomposition.  This evening routine became the highlight of our day over the past weekend.  We would pile the kids and the compost into the van and make the short trek to our friends' house.  Sunday evening we arrived at the property a little after six and Dave grabbed the compost bucket out of the back of the van.  The kids circled the coop and the chickens pocked in excitement.  Now, chickens are very stupid.  Even stupider than the golden retrievers.  And far more fragile.

Unlike me, Dave is not always aware of the contents of the compost bucket.  And, might I remind you, the chickens are very stupid.  So stupid that they wait like Israelites in the desert as food rains down from heaven - all over their backs.  In fact, the chicken who had been sprayed with pistachios shells and trout from the evening before still had remnants of dinner on his back the next day.  Thus, my eyes grew large as I watched the rotting food pour down from the hands of its maker.  Something very large was at the bottom of the compost:  a large and undevoured cabbage.  Oh yes, I remembered, the cabbage that had rotted in the fridge only last week.  I felt vaguely uneasy and a little like a character in the The Flopsy Bunnies.

Meanwhile, the chickens, completely unaware of the missile hurtling from above, waited with chicken smiles pasted across their tiny faces.  "Pock!  Pock!" they cried as the equivalent of a WWI shell bore down on their foxhole.  In the amount of time that it takes for a cabbage to fall eight feet I managed to type the following email in my head:

Dear friends, The dog is fine.  The chickens, however, are victims of their own stupidity.  Chicken no. 3 was found last night in a state of distress having found her tiny skull buried underneath the weight of a large and rotting cabbage.  All efforts were made to revive her.  Dave, although skilled in the finer points of bovine husbandry, falls short of the mark in regard to fowl, or rather, poultry.  It was far too late for reconstructive surgery.  Chin up, there might be one less egg but a fine chicken dinner awaits.  Plus, the bones will make an excellent stock.  Perhaps greater attention should have been paid to the warnings of that great nursery story character:  the sky, after all, really was falling.  Should I make the cheque payable to you or your husband?  Elena

Fortunately, chickens have guardian angels.  Little chicken guardian angels who pock out warnings and shove their wards out of the way of falling objects.  In a stroke of tremendous luck, the cabbage fell only inches to the side of one of the chickens who was already revelling in the latest entree.

One friendship salvaged, one lesson learnt.  The marshmallow roast and the high-risk-for-fire warning can wait for another post.  That, and Mommy playing tag.  And for your viewing pleasure:  an ingenius song about town gossips and their striking resemblance to laying hens.

All shall remain nameless

My mom just left after a week-long stay.  Thus, life goes back to normal; which really means that I go back to the grocery store.  Living in the middle of cottage country means that the grocery store is unusually busy in the summer months, particularly around long weekends.  Today was no exception and the cashiers were all a little frazzled.  Perhaps that accounts for what happened at the check-out.

One of my favourite cashiers was at the next cash over as I pulled in with my cart.  The teenage cashier at my cash looked up, took one look at my cart and called for "First Packer" to the front.  (I can count on one hand the number of times I have arrived at the cash and the clerk has not called for a packer to come to the front.  My grocery cart  inspires pleas for help.)  Anyway, I digress.

My favourite cashier in the aisle over saw me as I began to load the conveyor belt with bread, milk and veggies.  She smiled and then grabbed her cashier-boss and whispered something to her.  I thought this strange but went on with the loading of produce.  In the midst of lines standing five deep, this cashier left her post and ducked into my cash where she left two credit-card type cards with the young clerk who was processing my order.  Once again, I thought, "Strange."

However, my mind quickly went from, "Strange!" to, "I think that I am about to win my groceries!"

I have always harboured a secret fantasy that I would one day arrive at the cash (with a super-big order) where at once lights would begin to flash, bells ring and a "One Millionth Customer" sign would flash above my head.  My worst fear was that I would arrive at this climactic moment with only a loaf of bread and a container of ice cream!  (Quick, quick, run back for steak!!)

This whole scenario played out in my mind as the last item was being placed in my reusable bags.  I thought, "Ah, finally, I am being rewarded for my grocery-store loyalty, my prolific fertility and its resulting mammoth grocery bills."  Just dues, I reasoned.

Back to the story.  The clerk from one aisle over suddenly appeared at my side and said, "Do you use Airmiles?"
"Of course," as I handed over my card.
She swiped my card and then thrust her credit card into the machine.  In case you need to read that again:  Her credit card ... Her credit card ... Her credit card.
I tried to stop her as my brain wondered why a humble cashier was paying for my millionth-customer status.  I tried to wrest the card from her hand (well, not quite), "Stop!  Why are you paying for my groceries?!"
She smiled back, "A long overdue good deed."  A look of self-satisfaction spread across her face.  I wondered:  Dave had taught her son the previous year.  Had he been that good of a teacher?  I began to feel slightly embarrassed as I briefly compared her annual income with ours.  "Ummm, why are you doing this?"
She looked like she would skip away singing, "You can't stop me.  You can't stop me."
The teenage cashier batted her overly-mascaraed eyes and shrugged her shoulders as if this act was merely the icing on the cake of her previous assessment of her co-worker's character.

And then the generous clerk returned to her post, looked at me across the aisle, smiled broadly and said, "Welcome home!"

And my jaw hit the floor as her miscalculation registered in my mind.  Surely a week's absence from the grocery store didn't warrant such a greeting party?  No, this poor addled cashier had mistaken me for the matriarch of a family who has recently returned to town after a year's absence.  I walked around the cash and whispered in her ear, "But I'm not (place name here)."  Her hands stopped mid-bar scan and her face blanched as all the fuzzy feelings elicited by her generousity changed into their equal and opposite.
"Oh," she blubbered, "What do I do now?"
"How about I write you a cheque for the same amount and we call it even?"
"But, but, you'll have to pay a fee for writing a cheque."
"No worries, we have no fees on our back account."  I think.
"Oh my, I feel so silly and not so good."
"Don't worry, it'll be a funny story one day."  I replied.
And you shall remain nameless.

Mid-Summer Post

My parents are here; thus, blogging has become a little spotty.  This sort of thing happens when I have adults with whom to talk.  But, look!  A new kitchen floor.  I won't even show you the old kitchen floor.  In Isaac's words, "Blech, Mommy?"  "Yes, blech, Isaac."  The old floor was yellow stick-on tiles with what looked like an attempt at artistic white paint drips all over it.  It dirtied up faster than I could say, "I washed the floor this morning."  In fact, so dirty did it become that only hours after being washed it looked as if someone had slowly released the contents of a juice box all over it, allowed the evaporation process to begin until it reached an ideal point of stickiness at which time a bucketful of dirt was thrown down and allowed to adhere to the spilled juice.

 No more, folks.  I haven't washed it since it was laid down and that was, ummm, weeks ago.  One more stress removed from my life.  Sigh of relief.  Brownie points for Dave.

 Hannah's godmother paid us a surprise visit a few Sundays ago.  She and her family live in Saskatchewan and we rarely see them anymore.  Hannah was lamenting this fact only days before Lisa phoned to say that she was in town and would be dropping in.  The prayers of a ten year old girl are very efficacious.

 And the hay continues.  Live action shot by Joseph.

 The kids are in the second session of swimming lessons at the beach.  Unfortunately the weather hasn't been very warm and the lessons are a bit purgatorial.

 The dark and gloomy atmosphere is meant to set the scene for the giant attacking finger in the bottom left of the photo.

 Isaac's approach to the beach:  wild abandon in a lifejacket.

 This little girl took her first steps a few days ago.  She stored up her abilities for the arrival of her grandparents and took a few tentative steps across the kitchen floor.  All we had to do was place a piece of chicken in her hand.  For some reason the ready supply of protein was all she needed to move up the developmental ladder.

 Jacob wanted an action shot of his front crawl.  In incredibly shallow water.

And a smile just to prove that the beach is his favourite place.  If there were a way to swim and read, he would be in heaven.

Joseph also loves the water but forgets which swimming trunks work the best.  He chose his black Nike shorts yesterday before I was able to check on his choice of swimwear.  Thus, there was more than one baring of a cute bottom each time he jumped out from under the water.  I had better squirrel away those shorts for a thicker-waisted son.