MOVED THE BLOG

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where to today?

Summer!  Whatever happened to just getting out of school on June 28th and then playing outside with your friends for 8 weeks and then heading back to school?  Why as parents do we feel compelled to fill every moment of our kids lives with some sort of activity and we feel guilty if they have time that isn't filled.  I don't get it.  Declan is at hockey camp this week and he absolutely loves it, but while there tieing skates I'm listening to other parents give a run down of the rest of their kids summers and the only thing I can think is that these kids don't have a moment to just be kids.  Next week Declan is doing a half day tennis thing with his buddy, Ronan.  The afternoons they will spend together at our place, probably launching a variety of projectiles: balls, frisbees, badminton birdies on to the roof that Dean will have to retrieve every night so they can do it again the following day.  They will ride their bikes and go to the park, and likely get dirty, OH the horror!  I think Declan is going to do some golfing the third week of August, and then that is the end of his planned activities.  Should I feel guilty?  I don't think so, but other parents think I'm crazy to let him have so much empty time. "What will you do with him?" they ask, like he's some kind of unwanted visitor to our home that I need to entertain.  Well actually we'll talk over breakfast, and maybe play a game in the morning to keep working on that reading, then maybe we'll have a look at the list he made at the end of school of things he wanted to do this summer.  This was a list I asked him to make at the beginning of July so that I could plan trips to Canada's Wonderland and Ontario Place, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and set up a family trip to Muskoka to go Wakeboarding....things we've done in the past, that is what I was expecting to see.  That is not what he put on his list!  He wants to go on a picnic, a real picnic using the picnic basket that he has seen in the closet under the stairs, he wants to go walk the trails at Wildwood, because he thinks Marta will really like the trees, he wants to play golf in St Marys with Dean, he wants to go on more bike rides with his family, he wants to have a camping sleepover in the backyard.  At first I was surprised, there was no mention of a big summer trip (we usually do at least one every summer), no mention of a big commercialized amusement park, no mention of any big expensive equiment or lessons or admissions...I was a little taken aback. I must admit though we haven't crossed off half his list and we are already halfway through the summer.  Now I do feel guily.  Not because I haven't filled every moment of his summer, but because I haven't taken the opportunity he left on my bedside table a month ago....

Our lives are too busy.  I've been on maternity leave since last October and medical leave for two months before that, and I feel like every moment has been filled by a "to do" list....Last night I looked at my list:  paint the living room and rec room, install hardwood floors on the main level of the house, tile the bath, kitchen and foyer, book family vacations at Mackinaw and Kawarthas, find wakeboard lessons at the Kawarthas, clean out the kitchen cabinets, get the kids passports,....  not very exciting, not very relaxing, and really, not very important; I threw my list out!

So while Declan is at his last day of hockey camp, and after we get home from Marta's first art class, I will be under the stairs searching for the tent and the picnic basket, and the net to catch butterflies or minnows or tadpoles, and for the stuff that makes the fire turn cool colours, and this weekend while sitting around the camfire in the backyard roasting marshmallows and making spider weiners and smores, we will have another look at the list of Declan's and see what August will bring....  

and away we go....

Hmmm...the first entry in the blog.  It's kind of a daunting task.  Should it be all background, should it be serious, should it be funny, should it set a president for all the entries to follow.  

Or should I just start writing and see what follows.... 

Declan is at hockey camp, a common occurance this summer, although this is the big, all day, everyday camp that he has been looking forward to and so far loving every minute of.  He comes home with stories that the big kids (the coaches that used to play minor hockey here in Stratford and now have been drafted to big NHL teams) have told them.  These guys are his new heros and what they say is the gospel!  They are good bunch of kids, don't get me wrong, and probabley the best kind of role models we could ask for.  Brent Lemon does a fabulous job of assembling a great mix of staff for his camps and it pays off because Declan will correct his stick grip without question if they give him a pointer, but he'll argue for an hour in -30 degree weather, on the backyard rink, with Dean if he tries the same!  It's so great to see him in awe of these kids on their way to their dream hockey career, and hear all of Declan's dreams too and how he is going to get there.  Let's just say this week he is very inspired...we'll have to see if his resolve continues into this season....

Miss Marta went for her 9 month check up this morning, and as we suspected she is a little on the small size.  Perfect in every way, just a little petite.  Considering that the other two were over 20lbs by this point, her mere 16 lb 11 oz, seems wee to us.  She is passing milestone after milestone and will even take steps if you bribe her with a banana.  She has been a gift in so many ways and continues to give us so much everyday.  

Hayleigh is back in Peterborough, continuting her "summer of independence".  I'm still not so sure that I like it, in fact I am pretty sure I don't.  But that I think has more to do with me not wanting to let her go just yet.  She has truly flown the nest and things are certainly not as they were a few years ago.  This will be her third year of university, although she will only be in her second year of the program because she opted to change majors after last year.  Better she decide now what path she wants to take, than start all over in another 3 years!  I still offer guidance when I think she is straying into a path that she may not realize the impact of, and hope that she takes my advice to heart.  Todays technology makes growing up different than when we were young...they like the technology and use it easily, much more easily than we do, but I don't think they realize the impact it can have and the impressions it can make...yes i'm talking about Facebook and mySpace.  I love them both, within reason, but kids embrace them and often exploit themselves without realizing, that is what scares me.

Dean and I are busy with the Triplex, (the investment property as Dean refers to it/money sucking vortex of renovation hell is the title I prefer).  The renovations on Beth's old apartment are almost complete.  I say Beth's old apartment, because I think that is what it will always be to us.  We inherited Beth as a tenant when we bought the place, or maybe it was the other way around, she inherited us.  Either way she lived there for almost 30 years.  We miss her, and through all the renovating, we have thought so many times, if only Beth could see it now.  Although we think it is so much better now, she loved the place the way it was, it was HER home, we just happened to own it.  We'll be lucky to find a tenant that loves that place half as much as she did and makes it their home.

Okay so I read back, a little back ground, a little update, a little bit of our life...

oh, must run the mail man just brought our newest gDiaper order...gosh how I love those things! and we need to check them out!