A week between visits (May 31-June 5)

Seeing that I have Vancouver friends arriving in twelve hours for a week, then a day and a half before more Vancouver family arrive, I'm feeling the need to stay up late in an attempt to blog back-track.  Otherwise, this summer will be a blur!  I had started this particular post back in early June, then had gotten distracted.  I can't quite remember this particular week in detail so I'll let what I originally wrote stand and then cap it off in italicized writing as my way of speaking in hindsight.

Overall, June was an overwhelming month.  S was away an awful lot.  I had counted that as of last week, he'd been gone eight weeks out of eleven since mid-April.  But I think I felt too grumpy to give a real good count of the days and may have rounded up a few just to make myself feel better - otherwise I might be visiting his boss to have a wee word on how I feel about all S's time away . . .  But really, I don't exaggerate much if I do (on this point, anyway). :)

One highlight for him was to marry his CPT friends in Ontario, Rebecca and Fathiyeh  A little controversial, given his job position, he managed to make it work before participating in the NAAITS Symposium (June 6-8) in Toronto.  Was nice to receive these lovely photos of the event:

Susan had flown home one Thursday afternoon, my in-laws left their home the following Thursday (June 6).  S was still away in Toronto until the Monday after (June 10).  I was pretty tired after my company left - too many late nights, though I'd had a wonderful time with my sister and niece.  Friday marked a quick visit with my Aunt Edie and Aron from Edmonton, so that was good motivation to get the house tidied up since I hadn't bothered before Susan arrived.

Goofing around together in the PhotoBooth - our favourite new thing to do to our visitors. :)

It was lovely to see them, though my kids were so over-tired and wound-up, we hardly got a word in edgewise.  Oh well.

We made it through yet a third weekend without Daddy.  I even recall that it was fun.  I was super pleased that I'd been able to sit through the whole church service with all three kids.  No kerfuffles.  First time ever, I think.  Hung out with friends Sunday after church at a nearby playground.

We arrived home late afternoon and in ten minutes had Chantel and Salem drop in for a surprise hotdog/perogy dinner.  Made for a really nice day - easy on my part, as the kids were so happy and went to bed without a murmur.

Monday started off early at 7:30 with the arrival of the construction crew to start the take-down of the back porch and side overhang.  It's still a work in process, but it's getting up to code and looking much better.  It's wonderful to have sunshine come in through the south window in the kitchen - which used to be blocked by a big wall on the fence.  It feels way more neighbourly - that we're not locked behind a massive fortress in the back.  The kids enjoyed eating breakfast and watching a backhoe out our window.  Fun times, if noisy.  Hopefully means we'll have our June court-date postponed or even dropped.  That'd be sweet. :)  Which we did - until later July at this point.

That week, the construction made extra work for me.  Early mornings and moving outside stuff inside (like bikes and such) or to other places in the yard.  The not so fun job was emptying out the full compost to make room for the backhoe.  In the midst of scooping vegetable poop, I came inside for something and was surprised to hear Ai and Iz running around when they were supposed to be in quiet time in their respective rooms.

 And gosh, I can't even remember what they did rather than have quiet times.  I just remember that it was really, really bad.   I think this was when I started to clue in that the cat, when either really scared or really put out, will pee on the spot.  It's happened more that a few times now that I'll later discover cat urine on towels after the younger two have tried to cover up that they've frightened her.   This may have been the week that I started to realize that Lily also will eliminate elsewhere if she isn't pleased with her litter box - if I haven't cleaned it out by the end of the day or if I've switched her litter.  She's let us know that environmental litter options will not be an option unless I like finding piles of excrement hiding around the basement.  Was it the week I discovered that Lily likes to chew through wood pencils or my Apple computer cord?  (That was a costly $80 lesson for me).  This may well have been the week I started to wish I'd gotten a cat years ago so I'd been inspired to write the Bad Kitty book series before Nick Bruel did.  But I think essentially, I was in a week where I could have written Bad Kiddie short stories - I believe there were some chopped off cat whiskers I found in Iz's room.  She was also into sneaking into her siblings' rooms while they were away this week, breaking things or cutting my papers up in the hallway!  I know the accumulative mischievousness of my three, combined with the construction around the house were so overwhelming that when I closed by eyes late Tuesday night, the picture that came immediately, spontaneously to mind was Edvard Munch's, "The Scream." 

It's not like I've been perusing art galleries in the past number of years or spend much time dwelling on art that isn't found in children's literature, so my subconscious must have identified with the angst of the art and brought it to mind.   Maybe I was feeling that this is what I must look like to my kids:  "NOOOOO!"  I know at the time, I humoured a few friends at school by sharing what had happened and I'm sure I'd find humour in the day on hindsight.  All I know was that it had been a very bad day.  It was good that my in-laws came early before Steve's return home to help out in the kid department, for all our sakes,' I'm guessing.