Funny Snippets

Yo, can you believe that with a demanding job, 3 kids, and many interests and hobbies, that I don't have much time to blog no more??? CAN YOU???  ANSWER ME!!!

Here are some funny bon mots, one-liners, quips, and happenings from our world, lately.

We figured out a decent plan at the last few Micelli Mondays of summer 2016, which entailed going to a different pool (one with a water slide!), doing ridiculous poses on said slide (to the deadpan bemusement of the teenage lifeguards), swimming, then packing up and ensconcing ourselves at one of the picnic tables by the fenced-in playground, and me engaging in protracted negotiations to convince the good people at Domino's Pizza to deliver our pizza order to the closest park intersection, instead of an actual street address.  At our very last Micelli of the summer, we were finishing up our pizza, watching the kids play barefoot in the playground, when we heard the P.A. system of the pool click on, followed by:

"UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....ttention, the pool will be closing in five minutes. Repeat: the pool will be closing in five minutes."

We DIED laughing.  The kid held the "uhhhhhhh" for SO LONG.  The commitment to the gag was pretty advanced.  It's the closest I've ever come to a legit Meatballs moment and it was a glorious way to send off summer.

Related, Dr. Rei reminded me the other day that we were referring to hot dogs as "problematic bae" at the cottage.  WHY ARE WE SO G-D FUNNY?!?

The Big Yam, after I got shouty and told him to pack up his pencil case off the dining room table, "Why are you always telling me what to do? Why can't you help a man who's six."

For a while there, when the twins didn't like what they were hearing from us/any authority figure/each other, they would say, "Don't speak those words!" (picked up from our caregiver).  "I want to watch something" "You can't" "Noooo! Don't speak those words!!!"

Quincess, sitting at the dinner table, being classic daydream believer, "Chickens come from eggs. They come from little eggs. It's vewwwy speshoul."  The way his lisping little voice has this faint Brooklyn edge - the way he rounds and extends the O sounds...kills us.

We were driving and passed by one of those houses that pop up in Toronto and are shaped like a barn.  Me: "I like those barn houses..."
Lindsay: "I want that barn house, too!"
Me: "Do you have money?"
Lindsay: "Uhhhh..." *spreads hands palms out* "No."
Quincess: "I found money!"
Me: "You did?"
Quincess: "Yeah, it was under the couch, it was golden."

For the Big Yam's birthday, he wanted to play Laser Quest with his family (!!!).  So we all posse'd up and went.  I just love my family, so damn much.  It was so funny.  You could hear S-Dawg shouting "DELETED!" each time he hit one of us. Before you go into the game zone proper, there's a holding chamber where they give you the rundown and ask you to recite the pledge.  Uncle Rico apparently knelt (a la Kaepernick) during the pledge...just ridiculous, ridiculous stuff like that.  This is where I come from.

The bird.

The plate.

The people.

The Big Yam on his birthday (!!!)

This past weekend was my mum's annual hospital fundraising gala.  The Dotytron and I don't usually go, but because this was the 20th anniversary, and our CLE fambam was coming up, we did.  What I didn't know, was that there was a Star Wars theme in the VIP room, and so, my night consisted of this:

 Almost the whole fam, plus the CLE contingent

Finally, out of nowhere, Quincess Leia has started busting out representative pictures of people and the Dotytron and I are gobsmacked.  It legit brings us to tears.  We became aware of it on Thanksgiving.  Q was working on a Magnadoodle, which Lindsay ripped out of his hands, resulting in tears, and Q slapping L upside the head.  When we revisited the Magnadoodle later, we saw a picture of a face similar to the one below, and the Dotytron went into high key CSI mode: "WHO DID THIS. WAS IT Q??? NO WAY. JUST TELL ME IF YOU DID IT." Interrogating my niece and nephews...lol!  Finally, CHova was like, "No, it was Q. He slapped Lindsay and then went over and drew it, I saw him."

 I know it doesn't look like much, but you have to understand that the Big Yam is only doing this level of representation, now.

Fin.

Social Reproduction...

Or, the struggle is (semi) real.

Or, on raising feral boys.

Oh, hey. How's by you? Remember me?  **I** don't.  I feel no shame in saying that the last two week's have ROCKED me.  And you know what?  It's 10pm on a Friday night.  I stayed late at work to sort my emails, get up to speed on files that I had been neglecting, made a task list for next week, and otherwise, set myself up for success.  Came home, ate a healthy dinner, banged off a batch of Thomas Keller Oreos.  Put the kids down to bed with minimal fuss.  Did a long stretch while listening to a podcast (this one, if you're interested, which I kind of adore), had an even longer epsom salt bath while catching up on my Book Club reading, and I'm listening to the Anderson .Paak album in preparation for tomorrow night's show while catching up on my online shopping and getting ready to blow the dust off my keyboard and do some serious, processing, practice writing in the form of a blog post...WHEN A GIANT FUZZY BUGGY (I think they're called house centipedes?) just scurried down my shoulder and arm and disappeared into the couch crevices.

LIKE, REALLY.

I get it, universe, I'm f**king done.

First days. A wave of shiny, scrubbed, beaming kid faces junking up my FB feed and I'm yelling at all my kids in an increasingly frenzied tenor: "HURRY UP WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE" and I made a commitment to taking the Big Yam to school for his first day of grade 1, even though my manager was kind of being not chill about it when I gave her the head's up on Friday before the long weekend.

Grade 1 is a big deal.  They go from being in the idyllic world (Songs of Innocence) of the kindergarten playground/pen...separate recesses, separate lunches...to the gen pop (Songs of Experience).  The yard is BIG.  EVERYONE is there.  The first day was chaotic.  A teeming mass of confusion and scared looks.  And I couldn't even watch him go in.  I had to leave him there as soon as I found his teacher and hop on my bike and haul a** to work, because...I don't even know why.  Because I needed to be reminded that leaning in is hard?  Because I sadistically wanted to carry with me all the day the memory of his little clueless face in that gongshow sea of heightened emotions?  No wait, it's because I had to work on an RFP for procurement.  Right.  Of course.

I mean, he was fine.  I didn't get my first day photo.  The world didn't end.  Mom guilt is real.  And look, the Dotytron is ONIT.  You know that package of about 29 different forms that comes home on the first day?  Lice checks and snack programs and media releases and codes of conducts and classroom procedures and school procedures and signing up for a million different ways of being contacted (text message, email, app, phone, passenger pigeon, parchment scroll, cuneiform tablet)...he did it all, bless him.  He packs the lunches, most of the breakfasts, supervises piano lessons, starts dinner, and does most of the homework supervision.  I couldn't do it without him, as evidenced by the fact that last night, when he was at school late because of curriculum night, the entire house dissolved into a mess of uneaten dinners and unorthodox tv-on-a-school-night, and the twins rolling around naked on the back deck in two (!) giant upended bottles of bubble solution, and a whole lot of stern shoutiness (from me, obviously).

Anyway, we collectively got rocked the last two weeks.  Downside to being a professional cottager, I guess?

When we came back from the house in Prince Edward County, we rolled into town, unpacked, started laundry, began the slow process of putting our lives back together, and met my mum at Petit Potato for dinner.  Petit Potato pros: extensive menu of Asian desserts, most of which you don't get outside of Taiwanese snack bar type places; we get 10% off there thanks to my Congee Queen loyalty card; the space is nice.  Petit Potato cons: the non-dessert items are kind of meh - I'd rather go to Phoenix or a dedicated ramen shop for ramen.

People go to Petit Potato because of their "giant toast" which is in fact, the giant-est, rendition of giant toast that I've ever seen.  They pride themselves on this giant, 18" stack of soft, white bread, that has been toasted, the innards scooped out, cut, buttered and toasted to buttery-crunchy-crouton-y perfection and then the whole thing is stacked and slathered with whipped cream and ice cream in various flavour permutations.  They're famous for the mango but I find mango puree cloyingly sweet so we got the Oreo flavour to appease my kids.  Anyway, the Dotytron ordered ramen which was good, but not exemplary and I had the Japanese "omurice" which is Japanese-style English food and consisted of an omelette, wrapped around fried rice, with some kind of protein (in my case, pork tonkotsu) and a slathering of decent (read: from the Glico box) Japanese curry.

My kids needed massive appeasing because after a whopping 15 days away from regular life and "Lord of the Flies days" and general abdication from any semblance of a routine outside of being a beach bum, they got smacked in the face with the "giant toast" of reality sandwiches (I'm quite proud of what I did there).  I remember when we were sharing with Momma D and Ehdmo, at one point, as the twins chased each other in endless circles around the main floor of the country house, screaming at the top of their lungs, Momma D turned to me and said, exasperated, "IT. IS. QUIET. TIME. THEY SHOULD BE QUIET RIGHT NOW." And I was like, "IF I COULD MAKE THEM BE QUIET, BELIEVE ME, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS PURE AND GOOD IN THE WORLD, I WOULD."  (except not quite like that).

Later, when the Roomie and the rest of the gang had joined us, there was a moment when she came down and was super-freaked out at how hard the twins were hitting each other and wrasslin': "It just seems like they're being very rough with each other.  Is it normal for them to slap each other?"  Now, I know the Roomie.  She's a sweet, classic hippie.  I get that.  I really do.  But I ALSO get that I felt incredibly judged by this perception of my children as violent.

I carried that with me for quite a few days.  And it all came to a head at Petit Potato.  The kids were fractious and non compliant.  The food took too long and we ordered the wrong things.  The meal was unpleasant on all counts and all the hissing and threats and hauling stiff bodies out to sit in the car didn't make a lick of difference.

I was done.

And then...and then I sat with it for a few days, and really looked at my kids.  I looked at how sweet the Big Yam is with little ones and how caring and helpful he is.  I looked at the fact that the twins NEVER, EVER (*knock wood*) hit anyone other than each other, and how the majority of their time they're rolling around on the floor wrestling and grunting like a pair of labrador retriever puppies, and I settled on this: the twins are rambunctious kids.  That's who they are.  They have a lot of kinetic energy.  I don't know where it comes from, I don't always know how best to serve it, but I know that this is them, and they will tussle, and they're not unkind and they dish it out to the people they think can take it (each other).  They only very, very rarely hit us, or any adults, really.  They don't hit other kids.  They are two exuberant, slightly wild boys, and I don't know where they came from, but they are ours and we're doing the best we can with them.

Things I want to always remember:

Twin B clumping down the stairs with the iPad, unsanctioned, under his arm, repeating the mantra, "Please say yes, please say yes," which he does sometimes before asking the question he wants the yes, to.

Dr. Rei going into the dining room at the cottage and I overhear her say, "Twin B!  Where did you get that?  Should you be playing with that?" and Twin B replies, "Don't tell my mom. Don't tell my mom. Don't tell my mom."

Twin A doing the entire opening sequence for Sponge Bob Squarepants, complete with growling pirate voice.  Hearing him try to say, "absorbent and yellow and porous is he..." is a gift.

Walking the Big Yam to school and the ridiculous conversations that ensue.  Most of which requires me to say "Uh-huh" "wow" "really?" at appropriate intervals during an interminable Minecraft-related monologue.

Week 3 folks!  We made it!  Stay strong!  I will try to post more regularly.  I have many, many things to share.

Fin.

A Banner Month Part 1

I think I'm going to spend all of July catching up on what was one of the more insane Junes in Lagerfeld life history.  That month was OFF. THE. CHAINS.

First of all, these nuggets turned the big 0-3.  Which is like, HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

We had the grandmothers over for a twins birthday dinner of their favorite meal (spaghetti and meatballs and a homemade ice cream cake I made).  Guys, buying ice cream cake is such a rip off!  Homemade ice cream cake is the stuff that dreams are made of.  Chocolate cookie crust, a layer of chocolate ice cream, a layer of Momofuku Milk Bar's chocolate crumb, a layer of vanilla bean ice cream, topped with fudge sauce?  I froze it and then added more warmed fudge sauce after with some dollops of whipped cream.  It was SO GOOD.

We also went to an old skool jungle rave that weekend?  Just the two of us but we ran into our buddy Burton there and we had a good night of dancing to old skool hardcore music and early early jungle and it was THE BEST, although we were predictably wrecked on the Sunday.  We still pulled ourselves together and did things with the kids, we just did it feeling like a bag of a-holes.  As always, doing things that make you feel like people, even if there is the inevitable bag of a-holes backlash, is the only thing that makes us functioning parents and people.  If we DIDN'T do it?  I'd be even worse of a parent, guaranteed.

Giant useless disco ball at the rave.

 Peppa Pig birthday cake evolution.

On their actual birthday, I had a pretty brilliant idea - I invited all the neighbours and the kids on the street out onto the street for pizza, snacks, juice and cake, and then just leveraged the play that happens after work anyway.  It was AMAZING!  The entire party cost about $140, and that was $100 worth of party sized pizzas.  In lieu of gifts I asked the kids to make the twins cards and the kids stepped up and it was so, so, so cute.  I also made a Peppa Pig cake and it looked like Peppa and I mean, that's all one can really ask for at the end of the day, right?

I did the birthday "interview" questions and I wish I had recorded it.  It was so funny.

Here are Twin B's answers:

What is your favorite color?      White

What is your favorite toy?  The Rocket

What is your favorite thing to eat? Peanut butter toast and yogurt

What is your favorite movie? Wreck It Ralph

What is your favorite outfit to wear?  Thomas!  (Thomas Pajamas)

What are your favorite animals? Gorilla

What does Mama do for work? Treasures!

What does Baba do for work? Go to school

What is your favorite book?  Peppa Pig!

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Playing with my light sabre

Who is your best friend? Joel (neighbour)

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Tooth Fairy

What's your favorite game to play?  Poop

What's your favorite thing to do with Mama? Poop on the toilet

What's your favorite thing to do with Baba?  Eat breakfast on the couch

What's your favorite special treat?  cake

If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?  The dinosaur one

What makes you happy?  I like to cut up papers

What makes you sad?  Quincy hits me with the horse in the head

What makes you scared?  Pirates of the Caribbean

LOL at wanting to be a Tooth Fairy when he grows up.

Here are Twin A's answers:

What is your favorite color?    Blue

What is your favorite toy?  My crown (his birthday crown)

What is your favorite thing to eat? cake

What is your favorite movie? The King and Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

What is your favorite outfit to wear?  Diapers

What are your favorite animals? Horse and a cow

What does Mama do for work? Go to a minion tower

What does Baba do for work? Buy money

What is your favorite book?  Wreck It Ralph Christmas Story

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Playing with my light sabre and my rocket

Who is your best friend? You! (Mama)

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Ummmm...Dinosaur

What's your favorite game to play?  Having my birthday presents!

What's your favorite thing to do with Mama? Poopy

What's your favorite thing to do with Baba?  Pooping on Baba

What's your favorite special treat?  Having cake

If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?  To Mister Stink

What makes you happy?  When the caterpillar turns into a butterfly

What makes you sad?  When Lenny hits me

What makes you scared?  I’m scared of spiders

LOL at "diapers" being  a person's favorite outfit to wear.  Also, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly making him happy???  So cute.  I know that both of their answers are influenced by external (read: older sibling) factors, but getting some insight into the swirling mass of confusion that is a preschooler's brain is pretty fascinating/hilarious.

The valley of tears, aka Kindergarten graduation. The Big Yam's teacher organized a ceremony, with little caps and diplomas.  Each kid had their own framed photo with them in a cap and gown.  Then there was a small party.  I went in late to work and almost cried my guts out.  I can't believe that this guy is going into grade one next year.  Like, recess with the big kids, no longer in the kindie pen.  IN WITH THE GEN POP.  How does that even work?!????  I hope he's gonna be okay.

We also went to see my outlaw sis perform as part of LuminaTO. The site for LuminaTO this year was a decommissioned generating station, the Hearn Power Plant.  It's on the east side, so we rode our bikes out there and brought the kids.  The Hearn was VERY raw.  My neighbour told me they put $60 million into it? Not really sure where the money went.  There was some space cleared inside for live performances, and art, but in between were piles of concrete and rubble.  It was pretty cool and I hope they can continue to use the spot in the future.

Big Yam's wedding pre-game routine involved playing hard at the beach and then solo-slamming back a bag of pepperoni.

And finally, those first two weeks in June culminated in my brother's wedding, at Deer Park Lodge, on the banks of Lake Huron, which is gorgeous beyond measure.  It looks like the Caribbean and maybe that's due to pollution and agricultural run-off, but I gotta say, I don't even care?  I mean, I do care, but also, not really.  Haha.

We arrived on Friday, mid-day and immediately hit the beach.  There was a pot-luck barbecue that night, and we hung with our friends from CLE.  The next day was more beaching, and then the ceremony, and then the reception and dancing, and we busted out the next day.

I still can't quite believe that my brother is married now?  I'm trying to put down in words what it means to have siblings, and it is late, and I am writing to fulfill my mum's desires for more blog content, and I'm finding my writing muscles have atrophied somewhat.  I love my family.  My relationship with each of the members of my family hasn't always been easy, or smooth, or effortless. Despite growing up essentially within the same set of parameters, we are all very different individuals, but what I love about my family is how, when external pressure is applied, we close ranks, salt the earth, and raze the ground upon which our aggressors stand.

There is a 16 year age gap between my eldest sibling and my youngest.  We are different people, with different values, and beliefs, and modes of operation, and yet.  And yet, there is nothing quite like having people to bear witness to your family with you.  Your parents can't do it.  They're their own thing.  Your siblings are the ones you get to complain, and reminisce, and enjoy your parents with.  That bank of shared memories, in-jokes, after-the-parents-have-gone-to-bed shenanigans...that's something that only your siblings can know and understand.

I was so proud of my siblings at that wedding.  I was proud of my brother for being an adult (not that marriage makes you an adult, but I think being able to put together a wedding certainly does).  I was proud of my youngest brother for being a good best man, being an adult, and giving a really touching speech.  I was proud of my sister, for singing a speech from the musical Hamilton and the two of us coming up with something on the fly to say (we were asked to say something about 30 minutes before we took the podium) and for being both a sister and mother-hen to us all.  I was proud of my outlaw brother, my new outlaw sister, and my youngest brother's girlfriend, for taking one look at our crazy clan and being okay with us, in all our unpolished, behind-closed-doors, s**t talking, occasional arguing, screaming, disheveled glory.  I was proud of my mum and Big D, for raising us 4 accomplished, bright kids, and not really having any plan or fixed pedagogy when doing so, other than inculcating in us the concept that family and honest are the most important things in the world.

I loved hearing my brother's high school friends speak.  I loved hanging with them at the wedding.  I loved being able to spend time with my family in this gorgeous setting and spend a long weekend relaxing.  When my sister sang the toast from Hamilton, one of my brother's friends from the audience called back the response.  It was so cute.

Fin.