My mothers went to the Winnipeg folk Festival and all I got was this hippie relic of a T-shirt

Ye gods, people, you have no idea how much shorter an eight-hour drive is with no children in the back seat. The whole way to the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Rachel and I kept marveling at how easy this was: no backseat DJing from the three-year-old dictator, no “Are we there yet?”s, no placating a restless Isaac with chunks of Arrowroot cookie and half-grapes, passed into the backseat at regular intervals. No doling out points for every “motorcycle-go!” passed on the highway. No ending the last leg of every driving interval with a screaming baby whose limits had been pushed past breaking point. No skulking around the sleeping children in a hotel room at 7:30 p.m., only to be wakened by the very same children at 4:34 a.m. So not like last year.

Just me and my girl, on the road with grown-up music and coffee and the cell phone I finally acquiesced to. And oh my God, it was sweet.

Those of you with small children who have not yet gone away for a few days with your partner: do it. If you can swing it at all, do it. Leave them with a trusted somebody and hightail it out of town. It barely matters where. I mean, the Folk Festival was fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but the real highlight of the weekend was not being responsible for anyone else’s needs. From Friday morning — a getaway marred only by Rowan’s sudden tears and pleas for us to stay (he was fine, fine, five minutes later, as we confirmed by said cell phone) — until Monday evening, I did not have to worry about anyone else eating, sleeping, sharing, peeing, hurting, running off, waking up, being bored, throwing sand, or otherwise Behaving or Needing or just plain Existing under my jurisdiction. We travelled with three other sets of parents of relatively small children, none of whom had ever left their kids behind either, and we all walked around with slightly goofy, dazed expressions on our faces. We half-declared a moratorium on conversations that began with, “If the kids were here...,” but eventually gave up. It was just too much fun to gloat.

Even the camping — such as it was, what with nice flat fields of open grass and cooking facilities and bathrooms nearby — was magical. I slept, uninterrupted, under a duvet on our air mattress, until whatever time I chose to wake up in the morning. Our second morning there, Rachel brought a steaming mug of tea to me as a 10:30 wake-up call. And I remembered what it was like to be pampered, how easy it was to be romantic, when not pulled in two directions at once, not mentally mapping out the morning, the hour, how to entice children from Point A to Point B.

And the people! The beautiful people everywhere, eating the beautiful food that we simply bought when we were hungry, washed down by the microbrews in the beer tent when we had a hankering. The baked goods! (Rachel would like me to mention for the record that we ate fried dough in four different forms.) The swimming, the conversations, reading large chunks of my novel, the setting up of camp chairs and hanging out for hours on end in ways that we haven’t hung out in far, far too long.

And, uh, the music. “What did you see?” my sister-in-law asked when we got back. “I don’t actually know,” I admitted. Because, sacrilegious as it sounds to the hard-core festivalgoers, I didn’t really care all that much, at least after k.d. lang cancelled and we missed Elvis Costello and Martha Wainwright on the Wednesday night. Neko Case was pretty rockin’, as was a UK band called Bellowhead. I liked Iron and Wine, and I kind of thought Steven Page was a bit pathetic, what with singing all the old Barenaked Ladies songs he wrote, thank you very much.

But really? As long as it wasn’t Raffi, I wasn’t complaining.

A Passover/Easter fable

Once upon a time, there were two small boys. And their mothers took them from their small town, where the water was not fluoridated, on a small airplane, to (as the larger of the small boys put it) The Land of Toronto, where for two nights in a row they attended enormous family dinners, during which they ran around like madmen with their cousins and ate untold amounts of sugar and watched cable television shows like American Idol and had vast quantities of fun and fell into bed at 10 p.m. without even brushing their teeth they (and their mothers) were so tired and full of glee.

They also drove all around the Land of Toronto, having adventures that involved dinosaurs and subway trains and mud puddles and several of their mothers’ Old Stomping Grounds. And it was good.

Then they went to The Small Town of Guelph, where they ate untold quantities of chocolate Easter eggs and had large family dinners and ran around like madmen with their cousins and stayed up very late watching (appropriately) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The children, though generally delightful, coped with the travel and the influx of sugar and the lack of sleep and the media by occasionally throwing tantrums in the presence of older relatives and eating lots of cheese strings. Their mothers coped by drinking lots of wine. Mostly, they tried to be good parents, which involved, in part, requiring the small boys to brush their teeth after two nights of not.

They took out the small boys’ toothpaste and toothbrushes, whereupon the small boys’ auntie wondered aloud why the mothers were letting the small boys use fluoridated toothpaste.

The mothers explained that the water in their small town was not fluoridated, and that their family doctor had suggested that they use said toothpaste to compensate.

The auntie again wondered out loud why the mothers were letting the small boys use fluoridated toothpaste.

The mothers again explained that the water in their small town was not fluoridated, and that their family doctor had suggested that they use said toothpaste to compensate.

The auntie again began to wonder out loud why the mothers were letting the small boys use fluoridated toothpaste, but stopped herself midsentence when she realized that she was critiquing other people’s parenting and apologized for doing so.

Just then, the larger of the two small boys walked into the room and, for no apparent reason, bonked the smaller of the two small boys on the head. The smaller boy began to cry. The larger boy left the room.

There followed an uncomfortable silence.

Then the auntie said, “Well, maybe if you didn’t let them use fluoridated toothpaste, they wouldn’t be so violent.”

25 random things about my trip to Florida

There’s this meme going around Facebook that asks you to write 25 random things about yourself. I swore I wouldn’t do it because I overshare enough here already. But I thought I’d borrow the format to account for last week’s adventures down south.

1. Toddlers’ eyes and sunscreen do not mix. On two separate occasions, Isaac spent a couple of miserable hours weeping in his stroller and wailing, “Eye! Eye!” We decided to go with longsleeved shirts and pants rather than exposed skin.

2. Northwest Airlines routinely overbooks its Thunder Bay–Minneapolis route. Arrive early, or risk being bumped — as we were — to the next day. At least we got vouchers.

3. Despite their name, sandwiches do not taste better with sand in them.

4. Global Positioning Systems rock, and I will never drive in an unknown city without one again.

5. Our rental car was “upgraded” to a white Chrysler 300 — which ensured that we fit in well with the geriatric populations of Boca Raton. On the plus side, given that I normally drive my parents’ hand-me-down Buick, I felt right at home.

6. Isaac can sit, perfectly content, for hours at a time on the top step of a swimming pool, playing with a cup.

7. Ice cream cures almost anything that ails you.

8. Rowan asked, as we watched planes take off for two hours in the Thunder Bay airport, “Where’s the hill?” “What hill?” we asked. “The one the planes go up up up up...” he explained.

9. A disposable diaper can hold a vast amount of chlorinated water.

10. I have never been on a beach holiday where I cared less about getting a suntan.

11. Boca Raton is a strange, strange place, filled with gated communities and strip malls.

12. Shopping for bathing suits tests many of my feminist principles.

13. My dad and his wife were extraordinarily gracious and generous hosts.

14. Let Rowan press the buttons on the elevator, EVERY TIME.

15. Although I worried that we might get bashed, I also couldn’t resist asking the car rental guy if Rachel really had to pay for the privilege of being a second driver on the car. My exact phrasing: “Even if we live in the same household?” Once he confirmed that we were indeed “on the same insurance policy,” he put her on for free. So, folks, at Avis, the codes for “same-sex couple” are “same household” and “same insurance policy.” Stick that in your Pride parade.

16. I like the idea of shopping at Target better than actually shopping at Target.

17. No theme park beats making sand castles on the beach.

18. When on holiday with small children at your parents’ place, it is vital (or at least recommended) to commiserate and commune with your friends who are also on holiday with their small children at their parents’ place. Go to the zoo. Get the grandparents to babysit. Have dinner out. Drink lots of wine. Go to bed at midnight and get up at 5:30 with your toddler.

19. Although I have a mild phobia around butterflies, I enjoyed walking through the butterfly garden at Gumbo Limbo nature preserve.

20. Isaac climbed all six flights of stairs to the top of the observatory deck at Gumbo Limbo, and then insisted on bumping down the same six flights of stairs on his bum, followed by a horde of impatient 11-year-olds.

21. You never know what will end up on your camera when you hand it to a four-year-old.

22. Isaac is now big enough to go on a carousel horse on the merry-go-round, just like his brother.

23. The best thing about parenting principles is letting so many of them go while on holiday.

24. Isaac literally fell asleep as our return flight to Minneapolis taxied to the gate, after three and a half hours of ridiculous in-flight energy.

25. On our flight home to Thunder Bay, Northwest offered us $400 each in vouchers and hotel accommodations for the night if we would volunteer to fly out the next day. We seriously considered it, but decided we were too exhausted. Both kids slept the entire flight home.

Hey! An entire blog entry, and no need to worry about narrative cohesion. Cool.

(B)oy, was it early

So, this guy gets on this train, and he’s settling in with his magazine, when the old man across the aisle starts complaining: “Oy, am I thirsty. Oy, am I thirsty!”

Every 20 or 30 seconds, just as the guy manages to read a couple of sentences, it’s the same thing: “Oy, am I thirsty!”

This goes on for about 20 minutes, with the old man yelling and the guy getting progressively more annoyed, until finally he gets up, walks through three cars to the dining car, gets a huge glass of ice water, carries it back to his car, and hands it to the old man. Who thanks him profusely and drinks the water.

And all is quiet.

And then, just as the guy is really getting into his magazine article, the old man sighs. “Oy, was I thirsty!”

Sometimes, Rowan is kind of like that

I’m thinking in particular of this thing that happened, oh, last May, when we woke him up at 4 a.m. because he and Rachel were catching a 6 a.m. flight to Vancouver, via Winnipeg. We thought she’d just carry him to the waiting taxi and that he would sleep through the first part of the trip.

We were wrong. He threw a huge fit, crying and flailing and going on and on about how he didn’t want to get in a taxi, that he just wanted to go to sleep, in his own bed, and why why why did we wake him up? He didn’t want to go to Vancouver, he didn’t want anything, and no.

Rachel managed to shove him in the cab and eventually get him on the airplane, but he wasn’t really over it until somewhere over the Prairies. And even now, he’s not really over it. Eight months later, we’ll be going about some routine part of the day when will say, “Remember that time you woke me up?”

How could we forget?

I mention this only because next week we are going to Florida — no snowsuits for an entire week! I swear, even if there is a freak blizzard in Florida I will not put snowsuits on those boys — and our return flight leaves at 6:30 a.m.

So, if, sometime next Saturday, very early in the morning, you hear screaming from somewhere in the southern United States, don’t worry. We’ll have it under control.

If they’re happy, drive fast. If they’re unhappy, drive faster.

It is safe to say that Isaac made no lasting friends at the Dryden Best Western. Not that he cares, but one day he’ll realize that waking up screaming at 4:24 a.m. and refusing under any circumstances to go back to sleep will not land you first place in a popularity contest with the people in the rooms on either side of you. To say nothing of the people in the room with you.

But because we are such adaptable, make-lemonade-with-lemons sorts, Rachel and I decided that we might as well take advantage of the early morning to get on the road. And so we packed up the car and the children, hit the Tim Horton’s on the side of the highway, and drove the rest of the way to Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba, Rowan and Isaac conked out in the back seat.

We made good time.

My father just laughed when I told him we had booked a last-minute cottage rental and were driving to the Beach. He is a veteran of many such drives — each summer, my parents hauled the family in our Ford sedan from Toronto to the cottage we shared with my mom’s sister and her family. (Apparently I nearly drowned in a hotel pool in Thunder Bay.) The moms and the kids stayed out all summer, while the dads showed up on weekends or, in the case of my father, for a couple of weeks at the end of the summer. The kids went to Winnipeg Beach Day Camp, the moms kept house and played tennis and picked us up at the end of each day and took us for ice cream and to the beach. At least, that’s what I remember.

Now my aunt and uncle still own the cottage, which they’ve renovated entirely to accommodate the new generation. My cousin Jill spends a month there every summer with her three kids, her husband driving the minivan from Toronto to the beach, and then showing up at the end of the summer for a couple of weeks. My mother’s brother and his family summer in another place, also recently renovated to accommodate their next generation.

And our cottage? Not so much with the renovations. Which was totally fine with me. “It’s been in our family for 90 years,” said the woman renting to us. I loved it because it smells like the Beach, a sort of chlorinated mildew, with a touch of fish fly. I’m guessing they last touched things up circa 1950. I did a little photo essay of the decor, and thought long and hard about the ethics of permanently borrowing the vintage Pyrex cookware and the fabulous three-tiered dainties tray. Even if I bought them replacement bowls at Sears? Come on.














Our second day there, Isaac took his first steps in the kitchen of my aunt’s cottage. He stood, surrounded by cooing, clapping adults, and burst into tears at the sudden attention. Rowan spent hours and hours playing with his second cousins, holed up in the bedroom I used to share with my cousin Jason, who was also visiting that weekend from Toronto. He’s still mad about the time I bit him on the ass when we played puppies. Isaac fell in love with his Great-Auntie Sheila, my mom’s sister, reaching for her and nestling into her arms, lighting up when she walked into the room, sitting on her lap while she fed him bits of cookie. Rowan went to day camp, albeit reluctantly. The camp is smaller now, a sign of the times, now that the moms work, too. The mosquitoes were terrible. We ate lots of ice cream and played on the beach with the cousins.

Our last night there, we went out with a bang at Boardwalk Days, where Rowan went on every ride he could while Isaac, who met no height requirements, screamed in frustration from the stroller until Rachel took him home and put him to bed. I idiotically took Rowan on the pirate ship ride. He loved it, but I almost hurled, and then sat with my head between my knees, trying to recover, while he, oblivious, rode the toy train. Staggering home, I was just starting to wonder if I would make it when old family friends, Sharon and Eddie, drove by and scooped us up and took us back to our “holiday house,” which Rowan keeps calling our “Halloween house.”



I spent every summer at Winnipeg Beach until I was 12, when, wanting to spend time with my own friends, I chose sleep-away camp for eight weeks. Then, bored, disillusioned, I swore I wouldn’t come back.

And then I did, and it was perfect.