Snowflakes heartbreaks and laughing till you pee yourself!

A continuance of the shorter and more concise entries.....

October is here, and with that comes the end of another summer. It's a sad feeling, because it has been a good one - even with the kids often being a pain in the arse, the good has far outweighed the bad. So it's sad to think that warm sunny afternoons are now 4 to 6 months away again. We will have a good winter though - there is lots to do here, and we are planning a family holiday to Mexico again in February to get away and out of the bone-chilling temperatures for a week or so at least. 

It also brings snowflakes - lots of them. But even in that aspect of life, we are making life easier for ourselves this year, with a new addition to the family - This new addition is a lovely medium-sized snowblower. It should help with the backaches that come from clearing snow by hand. It was on special offer in early September and I did not feel daft buying a snowblower on what was a 30-degree+ summer evening!

One of Ollie's favourite songs is also called Snowflakes and there is just something that makes me joyous but also really, really sad when I hear the song. This is it...

I think there are several factors in play here that just tug at my heart strings..

One is that the kid's singing voice reminds me so much of how Ollie has spoken for the last year or so - a real cute little kids voice - so cute you just want to pick up the kids, swing them round and give them a huge big hug. 

Ollie loves this little song right now, but I know that soon he will grow out of it, and I don't want that to happen. Because my little boy will turn into a big boy, and that big boy might not want hugs and snuggles. He won't hug onto my leg when he stands beside me anymore. He won't want to just giggle and laugh as he runs round and round on the trampoline. Not only that, but he will stop the silly, 'Mummy, daddy It's morning time' shout from his bed every morning when the little sun appears on the clock.  

It's not just Ollie either - Hannah, who also loves the song, will no longer laugh her head off at silly things like 'Sail Goat', in her chickadee magazine. She would almost pee herself laughing when we chat about a house cat being 'The size of a house'. She won't want to stand on my feet as I walk, so she can be a robot, and she won't want to piggyback down the stairs anymore. 

The infamous Sail Goat

In short, this song reminds me of just how special our kids are right now. Every single new morning that comes around, I am already missing them as they were yesterday. They have been my best pals for the past 4 and 6 years and soon, they will go out and find their own best pals. Buffy and I will just become parents to older kids, like every other parent has done in the past. I hope we can still be 'friends'. 

Its sad though. In fact its heart-wrenching - I absolutely love our kids so so so much as they are - even with all the shouting and screaming and other shit that surrounds every day. There are no words to describe how it feels when they run and hug me, or when I sneak in to their room every night to move Ollie back onto his bed properly, tuck Hannah into her blankets and kiss them both goodnight as they sleep. 

I know they have to grow up, its just what happens, but I just wish we could all slow down a little and that things would stay as they are for a while longer.

The last few weeks have been pretty up and down - I had an illness that kept me off work for a day and in bed for 2 or 3 days. Buffy was absolutely great - taking the kids out for the day on a weekend so that I could get some rest. I really needed it too, but it still took me a week to get over it. The Dr said it was probably a bout of flu. Getting older is shit. Every time I get ill it seems to last longer than the time. 

The kids were also great though, being quiet and not asking me to do too much with them. Luckily, it looks like I didnt pass it onto anyone else, although Ollie does have a snotty nose at the moment, he doesnt appear to be ill. 

We did enjoy the last few nice days of summer - getting out to the park a few times, doing science experiments in the garden - including the bottle rocket, and we had a couple of late nights out downtown ate Nuit Blanche - the nighttime festival of lights and weird music and stuff - it has all been good and the kids have (mostly) been great too.

One of the best things about having kids is being able to do stupid thing and act like a kid all over again. Currently, if I drop off Hannah at school half of her class shouts at me that I pooped my pants because of one small silly joke Hannah made a week or two ago - I play along and pretend I have pooped and Hannah and all her classmates laugh and make jokes. I really don't mind being the butt of jokes if it helps the kids make friends and have fun. I even told them of when I wore a diaper because I ate Mexican food on holiday! 

Another thing we do a lot of is have fun and laugh with the kids. Sometimes, obviously the kids are just dicks,, but It happens pretty often that Hannah or Ollie are laughing so much that they literally run to the bathroom before they pee themselves. Hannah's 'Sail Goat' joke is one example of that. Another was when I discovered a website where you can make a subject in a photo 'dance' - just input a photo, make it into a shape with arms and legs and then click go!

I first did this with Hannah and Ollie , with drawings and then photos of Hannah and Ollie themselves before moving on to soft toys, a photo of the toilet and a poop picture. These are a few of the results... You can just imagine the kids almost wetting themselves as they watched the toilet and poop dance!!

This weekend is Thanksgiving here in Canada and a lot of people get quite 'open' with the thanks they like to be thankful for. That's fine, I don't mind, it's quite a Canadian thing to do. There is a more English way to think about things, though.... I call it the 'Thank Fuck'. 

It's kind of thanksgiving in reverse - Instead of being thankful for the good shit, you be mindful that the bad shit didnt happen. 

So....

'Thank Fuck my kids were happily asleep by 9pm tonight'

'Thank fuck I remembered to buy booze at the liquor mart this evening'

'Thank fuck Hannah has not had a big breakdown in over a week'

'Thank fuck I got on that bus in New Zealand 14 and a half years ago'

'Thank fuck the garage door didn't fall off'

and finally

'Thank fuck I am sitting in a warm house, with a smile on my face, while my crazy  kids sleep upstairs dreaming about a huge rocket taking off and landing early tomorrow morning while my wonderful wife and 3rd best friend (Me and the kid are just too childish together) is out with her buddies having a nice social evening. Its all pretty fucking good. 

Thanks everyone!