Tag Archive: Memory Lane

We all dodge a bullet when Ma survives part one of what is expected to be a three part operation.

Pa gets a load off his back using a cream and cortisone shots to reduce swollen scar tissue.  Unfortunately he cannot afford a tube of cream large enough to reduce his swollen gut.

Thing 1 gets his first grounding when he is punished for not telling the truth about a relatively minor incident at school. He survives one week without Nintendo.

Thing 2 loses his first tooth to the dentist (actually 2 of them) on October 15^th  2003.  Wakes up at 4:00am and finds a rock collection under his pillow.  He calls to mom from his room, “Well blow me down, the tooth fairy gave me candy.”  Is it any wonder Ian lost 2 teeth … and might have lost more if we hadn’t gotten to him before he opened the package.

Our house gets a new state of the art energy efficient air conditioner and we are then told not to use it because our province has run out of electricity.  Meanwhile, the Americans attempt to blame our air conditioner for the Blackout.   

Thing 1 (6 years old) learned to read (in french) but he tells me that his discovery of Yu-gi-oh! and, moreover, the discovery that a television show of the same name was playing on one of the few french channels that we get without cable were his most memorable events in 2002.  This coupled with the presence of a new Nintendo game has effectively made him trilingual – English, French and Japanese (the last language being courtesy of Pokemon, Digimon, Yi-gi-oh and Nintendo).

In a rare sound bite from Thing 2 (5 years old), I was informed that his most memorable moment of 2002 was seeing the longest train ever, just after a house passed us on the highway and just before seeing a bridge lift up to let the boats go through when we were “going to a hotel somewhere.”  For the record, Thing 2 doesn’t go on vacations – he goes to hotels, so if you see us coming to town, you needn’t hide nor worry that we will be imposing on your hospitality (but feel free to jack your house up and have it trucked away because the boys always get a charge out of that).

Ma’s most memorable moment was her relapse almost exactly one year to the day that she last contracted her problem (Seeing the truckload of pills her doctors have prescribed for her, it’s a wonder she remembers anything at all).

Pa‘s most memorable moment of 2002 was when Ma’s bedside “meaner” got the better of us.  One morning before work I noticed that Thing 1 was limping with a splinter in his foot.  Ma informed me to just get downstairs and shave because she was going to look after Thing 1.  I was half way through my whiskers when my ears were accosted by a din from above that was something akin to a maniacal kamikaze sushi chef attacking an annoying Scottish bagpipe.  So what do I do? I do what any concerned alpha male would do in similar circumstances. I put my safety razor down and pulled out my electric razor to drown out the ambiance (because all good hunter-gatherers know better than to come between a mother and her cub).  Well this worked famously for a few minutes until the alarm and go’ dams rose to a crescendo in what could only be described as an armageddin.  Thing 1’s conscientious objections had graduated from passive to “massive” resistance and calls of, “Help! She’s trying to kill me!”  This, punctuated with a bevy of Ma’s frustrated four letter superlatives that would make Ozzy Osbourne blush galvanized me into action (well, that and the fact that I had run out of visible body hair).  I lumbered up the stairs to see what was going on, but things initially were a little out of focus when  I, or rather my freshly shaven chin, met the back of Ma’s hand in the hallway followed by some loosely disguised insinuation that Thing 1 must be his father’s son.   Arriving in the bedroom, I took everything in with a glance.  Laid out at the foot of the bed was an array of intimidating sharp implements that would have scared Jack the Ripper straight, while cringing in the corner under a heap of pillows was my first born, sobbing and pointing at the Skull and Crossbones symbol on the Hydrogen Peroxide bottle that Ma had attacked his foot with. Now everyone knows that the second thing any kid learns (after the word ma) is that they should avoid this symbol like poison because this symbol kills.  This had not occurred to Ma who, in all fairness, was involved in just one more battle in her ongoing war to get the boys out the door in time for school.  As you already know, everyone lived, and is now armed with the knowledge that: 1) “if it don’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger” and 2):

for Ma:  All men are wimps.

for Thing 1:   You don’t cross mommy in the morning.

for Pa:    Canadian Peace-keepers are probably not paid enough and/or could benefit with from some preliminary training here at our house on any given morning.

for Thing 2 (who was wolfing down some Halloween goodies before breakfast):   He can always count on Thing 1 for a diversion.

It was a relatively ordinary year at our house (if abnormal can be considered, in fact, normal).  I won’t bore you with the details – if you want those you can check our home video’s (syndicated nationally and loosely disguised as a fictional television offering entitled, “Malcolm in the Middle.”)

Thing 1 played baseball, took swimming and skating lessons and lost his first tooth in 2001 – but when asked what he remembered most about the year, he responded without hesitation, “Grammy R’s hot cinnamon rolls.”

Thing 2 also learned to skate, took swimming lessons and started school last year. He would not, however, surrender his most memorable moment of 2001 but that shouldn’t surprise anyone since he rarely surrenders anything without a fight, bribes or complex diplomatic negotiation (usually instigated and won by him).  That’s not to say that Thing 2 is an overly contrary 4 year-old, however he does have his moments.  Point in reference: December 29, 2001 he hit’s his 11 year-old cousin and makes him cry.  Later that night, when I take him to the bathroom for his midnight whizz, still half asleep, his eye’s suddenly open into Spaghetti Western slits and, while ordering me to leave him alone, he smacks me in squarely the face.

Ma learned that she should be careful what she wishes for.  I don’t think 7 days in the hospital just prior to Christmas was the Club Med vacation she was looking for.  On second thought, one week of breakfast in bed, room service and cable television – without the boys and I, our laundry, lunch and listless, listeningless behavior might not be such an unpleasant memory after all.

And Pa you ask? What was his most memorable moment? Did I mention that Thing 2 smacked me in the head a couple days ago? I’m not sure that’s a legitimate number one memory so much as it may be my only memory courtesy of the ensuing brain damage.