CARS 2. I'm glad I didn't take my 3 year-old.

     This weekend I took my five-year-old and his buddy to see CARS 2.  Part way through the film I thought, "Is my kid going to have nightmares tonight?" 

     You may have already heard that the film is a bit mature for younger audiences.  A bit? I think some of it went over my head.  It has an espionage sub-plot which is much too advanced for your average McQueen fan.  And here's the other problem.  There is a lot of shooting going on, and (spoiler alert) at one point the "bad guys" are trying to kill McQueen with a bomb planted on his good buddy Mater.  I am not joking, people.

     The film is somewhat redeemed by its underlying message about the importance of alternative fuels and protecting the environment.  But this is not what my kid took from the show. 

     How do I know what Noah took from it?  Well, we decided to do a little journal about the movie, as a way for me to keep him doing some level of academic work through the summer.  On his first page he drew a car with a gun attached to it, and asked me how to write, "The cars could kill other cars."   I wondered to myself how I could make this sentence a little less violent. "How about, "The cars could SHOOT other cars,"" I suggested.  Isn't that SO much better?  Okay, so my husband has pointed out that it is not.  I might as well have suggested the other verbs that went through my head, like "maim" and "wound".   So now the first page of Noah's summer journal has something about shooting stuff on it.  Great.  Thank you , CARS 2.

     I have a few questions. To what extent should kids be exposed to this kind of stuff?  Our generation grew up playing with guns.  Does play any part in how we turned out?  I think that the kids are going to get exposed to this in some way, so does letting them watch a movie that includes this make me a bad parent?  Is gun-play almost like Barbies? ( Maybe not the greatest image but something that we can't escape?  Part of a child's cultural canon?) What do you think?  Is my kid going to be a better citizen if I don't let him use squirt guns?  Where should we draw the line?

     I'm not sure where I stand on all of this.  I'm just hoping they don't actually kill McQueen in CARS 3. I suppose they won't.  He is probably like the Jack Bauer of the Cars world.  I wonder what kind of near-death experience they can conjur up for him next time.  Something to look forward to, I suppose.

Fun in the Sun

I had some blog-worthy moments today so I thought I’d share.  I am realizing that having routines like school and nursery school ripped away for the summer is a bit traumatic for me.  I’m spoiled really, because Dave is a teacher, and usually home for the summer.  The past two summers he has been doing a course in July and it has really screwed me over.

The sad part is that today was only Day 2 of Dave’s course, and I already got to the following scenario.  After the children running rampant around me all day, I was feeling a little “fed up”.  (That’s kind of any 80s type of phrase, isn’t it?  Kind of like “half-assed”, which is one that I have yet to use on my kids.  But I digress.)  So today, instead of crying or something, I resorted to going into the front hall washroom and letting out a giant “AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH”.  I wouldn’t call it a scream.  It was MAYBE a yell.  An expression of frustration, anyway.  I don’t know exactly why I went into the bathroom to do it.  They could still hear me, and I’m sure that the people walking by out front could too.  Anyway, I want you to guess what my kids did.   Did you guess?  Did you guess LAUGH????  They laughed hysterically, Iike they were thinking,  “Ha ha!  We have finally pushed her over the edge.  She is so funny, and has absolutely no control over us….ha ha!”   They were not at all traumatized.  Not that I wanted them to be traumatized but I didn’t think that when they witnessed their mother get pushed to this limit that they would erupt into gales of laughter, and it would only make their day even better. 

So what did I do next?  I carried on and took all three of them to the Zoo Splash pad.  You are wondering what is wrong with me, I know.  It’s just that I really need to occupy the hours between 2:00 and 5:00.  I will resort to anything.   Have you ever done the Zoo Splash pad with a 3:1 ratio?  Have you ever thought about it?  Maybe don’t do it.  It was actually not tooooo bad, but at one point, as I was preoccupied with Maia crawling around in the water trying to eat used bandaids, I looked over and saw Emma standing with her mouth wide open in front of a spraying frog, trying to guzzle down as much of the splash pad water as she could.  As this was happening, Noah yelled, “Is this water CLEAN???”  Um, I don’t think it is too clean.  But what can you do.  She was occupied between the hours of 2:00 and 5:00 and that is all I was looking for.

My day with the kids just ended with Maia nuzzled into me on the rocking chair, with her cheek pressed against mine.  That is just the best feeling in the world.  It really makes up for the chaos.  Good thing Dave has had a vasectomy because those kind of moments make me think I want another one.  See, now you are really wondering what is wrong with me.  Or maybe this has happened to  you.   This is probably how some people end up with 18 kids.  Imagine going to the Zoo Spash pad with an 18:1 ratio.  Now THAT would be difficult.

So Close

Today the manager at the grocery store threatened my daughter that she would call the police on her because she was so misbehaved.  Oh sugar.  There goes my Parent of the Year award nomination.  And my decorum.

Faking It

Today I walked behind the local Metro store and some big trucks were unloading, with their engines still going.  This noisy, sooty, smoggy environment made me think of travelling in urban Europe, and for a moment I pretended that I was indeed on a European backpacking trip.  Since my travel opportunities are somewhat limited with 3 very small children, I thought maybe there might be some other opportunities in everyday life to imagine that I am in fact on vacation (and not just walking around the same loop in Whitby, over and over.)  Here are some strategies I have compiled:

Fake it with Suntan Lotion.  Well, the thing is that there is probably no such thing as “suntan lotion” anymore, since we are trying to avoid the effects of the sun.  But you know what I mean.  Remember that coconut-y smell of suntan oil in the eighties?  There must be some sunscreen today that mimics that fragrance.  All you would need to do is slather it on and close your eyes to pretend you are in Daytona or something.  Or maybe pretend you are in the eighties.

Hang out near people who are smoking Marlboros.  This, also, is not a healthy piece of advice.  But don’t you associate this smell with some European destinations?   Perhaps a “Marlboro scented” can of air freshener or something would be slightly less harmful, and create that same effect of being on a train in France.

Wear a Fanny Pack.  While this piece of advice sounds rather fashion-backwards, imagine how adventurous you would feel taking your bank card out of a fanny pack at Walmart?  Okay, that doesn’t sound so adventurous.  But if you carried your passport around in it, maybe you could trick yourself just a little bit.  I suppose you could just wear one of those secret fanny packs and save yourself some embarrassment.

Watch television from Upstate New York stations.  My family went to Florida several times growing up.  I associate TV with an American accented announcer with the idea of a holiday.  Is this sad?  Well, nevertheless, if I watch the Buffalo news I can catch the sound of a reporter saying “TANAWAHNDA” and “99 DAHLLARS” and feel as though I am travelling in the States.

This is all I can think of at the moment.  But imagine my bliss as I put all of these wonderful techniques into action this afternoon.  Jealous much?

Gymnastics Good Times

Have you ever signed your son up for gymnastics?  If so, did he gaze around the room while the instructor was talking, and then take off towards the balance beams when the rest of the class was supposed to be jumping from butterfly to butterfly on the floor?  ME TOO. 

I am in danger of making some gender-biased assertions here.  I’m just going to do it.  I think it is maybe easier to take your girl kid to gymnastics.  That is why I was really hoping that Noah’s teacher would see me there with Emma a few weeks ago.  I was like, “See?  See?  This is my kid too!  I have one that can do it!!!”   

I guess it’s not that Noah can’t do it.  It’s just that he seems interested in pursuing different things while we are there.  He is easily distracted by all of the contraptions and I’m sure that the scientist in him is trying to figure out how things work when he is staring at them instead of paying attention to the teacher. 

A few weeks ago he admitted to me that he and his buddy were engaged in some very intellectual discussions while they were having their lesson in the “small gym”, which is off-limits to parents.  It’s a good thing, probably, because I didn’t have to witness this conversation:

Best Buddy: “Who FARTED?”

Noah:  “We’re in the TOOT Museum”.

Ew.  Gross.  I totally would not want to go to the Toot Museum, let alone do gymnastics in it.  I can imagine that if Emma was there she would be doing a flexed-arm hang that would be the winner of the Canada Fitness Test, and she certainly would not be talking about Toot Museums.

I suppose the gymnastics performance could be just related to the skill levels and focusing abilities of my two different children, and has nothing to do with gender.  The fact that gymnastics behavior is not gender-related is proven by “Who Farted”’s younger brother, who follows all instructions perfectly and performs very well.    It is also demonstrated by the fact that all the girls who take gymnastics in the Toot Museum with Noah don’t really seem to have great skills.

What do you think?  Has your boy ever embarrassed you at gymnastics?  Better yet, has your girl ever done that?

3 is the new 2

This weekend a friend asked me if I felt more tired having 3 children.  I said I just felt more “distraught”.  “Could you cut the drama queen act?” she said.  Actually, no she didn’t.  But maybe she could have.

I am finding things a tad more overwhelming with 3 children as compared to 2.  I think this could have to do with the stage we are in, though, because right now Maia is not fond of being put down and my other 2 children are fond of dismantling everything around them and my dog is fond of shedding and getting fungal infections.

Anyway, my friend’s question got me thinking about the whole idea of having 3 kids, and how it scares the vas deferens right out of some people.  I came from 3 kids, so it was not as scary to me, but I think my husband found the concept quite intimidating, when we found out we were pregnant with number 3.   And rightly so, I might add. 

When we first had Maia, I thought "3 kids is no problem!"  That lasted for about 5 weeks or so.  I think it lasted until she stopped going to sleep 15 times a day.  I am incredibly happy to be blessed with 3 lovely kids, but IT IS SO MUCH WORK!!!!!  How DOES the octomom do it, I ask you?

There seem to be more people having 3 kids than I would have thought, though.  I think I know why.  It has to do with those stickers that people have on the back of their cars.  You know the ones with the little white silhouettes that basically advertise how many people (and pets) you have in your family?  They inspire competition.  Every time I see one where there are 4 children, I think “Oh yeah?  I can do that!  And I can get 2 more dogs too, lady.”   So, that is my theory as to why families are getting bigger.  

I don’t really have much of a point today.  This is a bit of a meandering blog entry.  But I’m tired and I felt like posting SOMETHING.  Next time I will be more poignant.  I have to go to bed before somebody wakes up.  My bets are on Emma.

A thought

If I ever got hired for a job called “Sock Matching Associate” I would probably get fired on the first day.  Maybe there would be so few people willing to fill this position that they would keep me around out of desperation.  Then I would have to quit.  Sorry, Sock Matching Boss.