Not from school, not from housework, not even from all the grade seven math homework that’s been coming home. It’s my son. He hasn’t slept a full night in over three weeks and I’m having post-traumatic stress disorder flare-ups and flashbacks from his babyhood, when his daily sleep could only be measured on an atomic clock.

He inadvertently watched a horror movie trailer on TV. It was at a friend’s house, and entirely by accident. And it was on the cartoon channel. Whatever the cause, what it means now is that I am likely to never sleep more than 3 hours a night ever again.

The first night that he couldn’t sleep, he tried to explain to me what it was that was keeping him awake. He referred to the monsters as “vampires.” Based on his descriptions of their appearance and behaviour, I corrected him, saying that they actually sounded much more like chimeras, or zombies, or some species of shape-shifters even.

I thought I was on to something because the crying stopped and was replaced by wide-eyed wonder, so I continued.

Besides, even if they were vampires, he understood that when they came in at night they were just there to bite him right? I mean, it’s not like he was going to die, or anything.

SO CAN WE ALL JUST GET TO SLEEP NOW?

He didn’t seem comforted by my reassurances.

So here we are, post-viewing week two, and we have implemented a new bedtime routine which essentially goes like this:

1. Enjoy a heavy, rich dinner
2. Warm bath with calming aromatherapy essential oils
3. Soft music
4. Dim lights
5. Lavender incense piped throughout the house
6. Foot rub
7. I fall asleep on the living room floor and he plays with his Lego until midnight.

Then I’ll wake up when poked in the throat to take apart two bricks stuck together with dried chocolate milk. I’ll tuck him into bed with promises, bribes, and deals of any means necessary to get him to “Please, for the love of sweet Jesus just stay in your own bed for the night!”

The promise of a new Lego set wasn’t even doing the trick. So I’ve upped the ante.

Tomorrow he gets to drive to the car to school.

I had my daughter wrap all the gifts this year, because I am effectively thumb-less on my right hand. Trying to do everything with my left hand has made me very frustrated and angry at my ineptitude as a lefty. No wonder you people were burned at the stake years ago. Doing stuff with your left hand is hard and makes you cry and yell and I think I saw my daughter stockpiling matches.

I’ve seen the doctor again about my thumb and went into the visit knowing exactly what was wrong with me. I assured the nurse I wouldn’t be in the office long, as I had diagnosed myself and really just needed the doctor’s confirmation so I could win the bet I had with PM and collect my singing sparkle pony.

She led me into the examination room. “The doctor won’t be long.”

“No worries!” I replied. “I know what’s wrong anyway. I just wanted to let him know what it was; you know, for my file.”

She tried to answer, but went into a coughing fit. Poor thing. Working in a medical office can be hard on the immune system. She should take more vitamin C and garlic.

“So you’ve diagnosed the problem?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Great,” she said. “Doctors LOVE that.” She had another fit and had to leave the room.

When the doctor came in I informed him that thanks to my high-speed wireless connection and approximately $1.25 of usage time, I had determined something his $100,000 degree may have overlooked. He nodded and asked me to perform a movement with my hand, which should I fail to be able to do so would confirm my theory.

Of course I could do it perfectly.

Then he humoured me and said my diagnosis was a good guess, but that I was likely going to need surgery and physiotherapy for my now completely useless thumb and referred me to a plastic surgeon, who I am positive will be recommending immediate amputation.

I guess I should have expected my doctor’s response, what with his lackluster reaction to my visit last summer when I had determined I had Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. Back then he said I had to be an African American male to suffer from that, and at my last physical I proved to be neither. I replied that I think it’s important to remember that concepts such as race, gender and sex are nothing more than theories, really and he should probably run the tests anyway. Then he had a coughing fit.

I really need to send that office an email about taking care of themselves.

C said I should go to the doctor because I need therapy. (He says this often.) I made an appointment to prove him wrong. I generally prefer to follow my usual course with any type of body pain or physical ailment, which is to complain about it until no one is willing to listen anymore and then drink until the pain goes away.

What kind of physical therapy does one get for a thumb, anyway? I had visions of my thumb lifting a tiny bar bell. I even drew an old-fashioned muscle man moustache on my thumbnail before my appointment just in case.

I was woefully disappointed.

I showed the doctor where it hurt, and even played him a few bars of “O Holy Night.” He seemed impressed. Or frightened. (I can be a bit ignorant when it comes to reading social cues.) Then he said “Huh…” and started looking in a really big book with gold-edged pages. (I think it was the Bible, or maybe a magic spells book.)

While he was looking, I compiled a mental list of the things you don’t want to hear your doctor say:

1. “Huh.”
2. “That’s impressive, and I don’t mean in a good way.”
3. “I’m pretty sure it’s not the plague. Or meningitis. But you know you’re going to die one day regardless, right?”

(Note: These things have all been said to me in medical offices.)

I asked him if I should rub it or have it massaged. “No,” he replied. “If something is swollen and hard, you should resist from touching it.”

Then we just stared awkwardly at one another until my head exploded.

He said he’d like to start with an X-ray, and gave me the option of having it done at the local hospital or a clinic downtown.  I chose the clinic because every time I go to the hospital, the room is full of inmates from the local maximum security prison, shackled and in handcuffs. I get uncomfortable when my daughter asks “Soooo…. what’re ya in for?” My son is a bit more shy. He makes me ask them how much they paid for their tear-drop tattoos and “could you please ask him for the artist’s contact info?”

The x-rays came back inconclusive. I have fingers, that much is confirmed, but other than that the preliminary diagnosis is “tiny hands syndrome exacerbated by BlackBerry use,” culminating in the dreaded condition known as “Twitter Thumb” or “Blog Finger.”

Either way, it’s much better than my first thought: Catastrophic Stage 3 Thumb Cancer, requiring immediate amputation.

The tools of childhood

For the third time in less than a month, the third root canal procedure is being performed on my family. In general we come from hardy stock; my paternal grandparents did not have running water in their house until 1984, and my father has been known to report to work with a broken leg and once waited until after shift change to report his own heart attack. While my family has strong backs and straight legs, shiny hair and good singing voices, it would appear that our teeth are made of sponge toffee.

It would not be exaggerating to say that my clan is primarily responsible for the pool my dentist puts in this summer.

It’s not  so much the dental procedure I dread getting my son to undergo; although convincing the world’s most stubborn seven-year old to submit to a root canal after watching his sister get one will be challenging enough. The real problem is getting him to take the antibiotic three times a day for the next 10 days. I’m no math whiz, but that’s like 27 times this kids needs to take a dose. He seems to share my father’s “tough it out” approach, but because there is an abscess, that tactic isn’t going to work here. My son won’t take any liquid medicines, can’t swallow a pill, and doesn’t like the new “melt-a-ways.” I’ve tried everything I can think of, including firing the pills into him with the Nerf machine gun:

“Won’t this be fun?” I plea. “You stand over there and if I get it in your mouth, then you have to swallow it. Okay?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I said no.”

“C’mon. Just let me try.”

He walks away, and shakes his head. “Being smarter than you is quite tiring.”

I’ve had some limited luck getting him to chew the tablet if he gets a treat immediately afterwards, to take the awful taste away. Like a sip of chocolate milk, an entire blueberry pie, or a roast chicken with rosemary and garlic mashed potatoes. The actual antibiotic cost only $6.00, but once you factor in my grocery bill for the next 10 days, I could cover the debt of a small developing nation with a corrupt leader and a crappy export base.

It seems pointless to fix our teeth when all we’ll be able to afford to eat is gruel. And not that fancy simulated brown sugar flavour gruel, either.

I’m glad my kids like the same music that I do. I mean, they kind of have to, since I’ve never bought any music for them that was specifically geared towards children. I can’t take it. I will cop to owning an “Alvin and the Chipmunks” Christmas CD, but that was a gift and, as it turns out, impervious to fire.

But sometimes, their knowledge of “grown-up” music can get irritating. Children seem to be more prone to “ear worms.” You know what ear worms are – they’re those songs or even a chorus or line from a song that just plays on loop in your head until you’ve stabbed yourself with an HB #2 pencil just to feel something again.

Some worms are worse than others. Personally, I can handle anything by John Prine on replay, although after a half-day of “Angel from Montgomery,” I’m headed for the liquor cabinet because life is probably meaningless and OUR PARENT’S NEVER LOVED US.   AC/DC bass lines can cause brain damage after a few THOUSAND run-through, and Queen music is notorious for causing ear-worms. “We Will Rock You,” anyone? 

I believe that Freddie Mercury* could do no wrong, and that Queen  is top 5 best rock bands ever, so I am usually willing to take one for the team.

Just not today.

For almost the last 24 hours, we’ve been singing the theme from “Flash.” I woke up in the middle because I heard “thumpthumpthumpthump” and I thought someone was knocking on the door. Nope. It was the bass and drum pounding in my semi-conscious  brain.

And since yesterday my kids have been reciting, “Flash! Flash, I love you,but we only have 14 hours to save the earth!”

I CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE! JUST BLOW THE DAMN THING UP, ALREADY!

* Writing this made me a little sad. Freddie Mercury was one talented man and I can’t believe he’s been gone for 20 years.

I typically avoid cameras, because my face does not translate well in 2D. I have that disorder where I look okay in person, but for some reason when captured in a photograph, my appearance is altered to show 10 extra pounds and a logging route road map of wrinkles.

And that’s just my face.

I asked on twitter once what that disorder was called. Apparently it’s commonly referred to as “being female.”

You know how some orthodox Amish believe the camera steals your soul? It’s kind of true. Except for me, it’s not so much the “soul” as “the will to live.”

This explains my hesitation about clicking the “You’ve been tagged!” link.

This picture was taken at a friend’s birthday party. I think it was 1988, so I was 15 years old. You remember 15, right? Everything was an adventure! Life was a party! The world was awash with opportunities and there was an abundance of fun there for the taking!  The tree of life was ripe with fruit and you can eat as much as you want without getting diarrhea!

You are 15 years old! You are invincible!

JENI, YOU ARE STANDING ON THE PRECIPICE OF SOMETHING BIGGER THAN YOU KNOW, SO JUMP IN WITH BOTH FEET!

The picture says it all, really:

Eh. Maybe tomorrow.

At Christmas 1980, I was seven years old. I wanted a Lite-Brite, a Spirograph with coloured pens, and a Barbie Dream Castle.

Christmas morning I got pajamas, books, Tomy fashion plates, and purple soap-on-a-rope that smelled like my grandmother’s bathroom. The gifts came in green and gold wrapping that very closely resembled the living room wallpaper. I’m sure I received other presents as well, but between the ether like smell of that soap and the psychedelic wallpaper, my memories up until the spring of 1981 are pretty fuzzy.

So I didn’t get the dream castle. My friend Joanne did.* Joanne had a pink bedroom with a matching Sears furniture set, two parents, and a jewellery box with jewellery in it. I had a jewellery box too, but the musical ballerina was long gone and it held only candy wrappers and a dime store ring my grandfather bought my at the Parry Sound Mall near our cottage. It was the most beautiful ring I have ever owned.

I’ve also always been a bit of a bleeding heart left winger, and a homeless Barbie was out of the question, so I did what I had to do: I got to work building her a house out of empty beer cases. (Actually, I built a Barbie sub-division and strip mall. There were enough beer cases.) I used pink quilted toilet paper for the curtains and bed spreads and tinfoil wrapped around a cigarette package made an excellent large screen television for Barbie’s Wizard of Oz movie parties. Barbie had a waterbed made from a half filled Ziploc sandwich bag stuffed into a Tupperware ice cream keeper. The plastic safety cap from a disposable razor made a great bedside alarm clock, although Barbie usually slept through it, what with being exhausted from all those late night movie parties and having a super cozy waterbed.  We used a juice container and string to pull her up the side of the boxes, just like the elevator on the “real” Barbie house did. I had the best customized Barbie beer case castle you’ve ever seen, and I made it.

You can bet Barbie loved it too. What independant women wouldn’t want to live alone in a 7-storey building that smelled like a frat house? Who amongst us would not appreciate corrogated cardboard walls upon which to pin fashion plate tennis queen wallpaper? Hasn’t everyone at one point or another wished for a “Old South” carton to transport them to their 5th floor popcan toilet?

That’s why Santa will bring the Lego, the Air Hogs helicopter, the Cars 2 movie, the camouflage clothing, and yes – God help us – probably even the catapult.

The iPod touch and 1 trillion dollars can wait until another year.
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* names have been changed to protect the lucky, selfish, ungrateful people who make fun of others for having only dime store rings and candy wrappers in their jewellery boxes.

We argue in his bedroom. The space is an eclectic mixture of baby and boy: a possum skeleton on a shelf, Beatrix Potter paintings he’s not ready to have removed, candy wrappers and ”Captain Underpants.”  

I give him the once over. “You need to wear a clean shirt.”

“But this one IS clean.”

“It’s a fiery dinosaur skeleton driving a Monster truck. And there’s a Cheerio stuck to it.”

He flicks it off. “Now it’s clean!”

“I don’t like it for today.”

He looks at me with set eyes and I do a quick mental calculation of effort over likely outcome multiplied by desired effect.

It’s dinosaurs on fire for the win.

The drive over is quiet, save for the sound of the his car window being lowered and raised. And lowered. And raised. And lowered…

The room is full of seven-year old boys, scrubbed clean and conspicuously Cheerio free. It’s size 6X khaki slacks, plaid shirts and argyle vests in every row. Parents speak to each other in small voices while little boys fiddle and try to remember the words what they’ve been practicing since September.

“Do you know what you’re going to say?” I ask.

“No. I can’t think of anything. Can you help me?”

I shake my head; I can’t help him with this. This is a first.

“You can say anything you want.” I remind him.  I tell him to say whatever he feels inside. And that no one will ever know what he said, and isn’t that so freeing? Then he tells me to stop talking. I ask too many questions.

I want to know everything about him that I don’t already know.  

Two boys wearing checkered shirts look at us and smile at my son. I can see that they are brothers – foggy mirror images of a dark haired mother sitting next to them. I catch one of the boys by the eye and his smile disappears. I have caught him in an intimacy I could never understand.

“Do you know those boys?”

“No.”

“But they were smiling at you…”

The usher is here. We shake out of our coats and move to the front.

As we are leaving one of the boys in the checkered shirts calls my son’s name.

“Who is that?” I ask.

“Christopher.”

“But I thought you didn’t know those boys?”

“I don’t. “

“But he just called you by your name. “

“I know that boy. You asked me if I knew those boys, and I don’t who that other one is.”

He walks ahead of me.

His strides are shorter than mine, but he is faster than me and the distance between us greatens.

Happy Thanksgiving, American friends! The Canadian Thanksgiving was in October, but I know you celebrate this week, so I’ re-running a Thanksgiving post of mine from a few years ago.

But first, here are a few American things that I am thankful for:

1. The Republican candidate debates. (They’re making the lull before “3o Rock” almost bearable.)
2. Your sugary cereal. The cold cereal aisle at Wegman’s or Publix are what I imagine the tunnel to heaven looks like.
3. Your tenacity and passion. I may not agree with everything you do, but boy, if you get onto something you believe in, you’ll pitch a tent and die there. 
4. Alan Alda.
5. You’re loyal. This sometimes bites you in the ass, but I admire the sentiment.
6. Cheeburger Cheeburger.
7. John Steinbeck.
8. Your accents. I love everything aboot them.

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Just another excuse to eat maple syrup

This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday. It is similar to the American Thanksgiving, but with fewer French Fried onion and marshmallow topped casseroles, hockey instead of football, and when we slice our hand open carving the maple basted turkey, the ambulance ride, emergency room visit, and subsequent 12 stitches are covered.

I know that some people don’t “believe” in Thanksgiving. I understand and respect the reasons and the protests. But “not believe?” What’s not to “believe” in ? It not like we’re talking about Unicorns, purgatory, or free will.

Because I will be spending the next few days consuming my body weight in turkey and pumpkin pie, I may be MIA until Tuesday or so due to tryptophan induced stupor. I’ve been busy doing Thanksgiving prep this week in all of my spare time – priming my stomach to consume copious amounts of maple syrup drenched acorn squash and maple syrup and bacon Brussel sprouts by eating lots of Bran Buds and bread products. I also tied one end of my “turkey eating” yoga pants to the fence, shut the other end in the van door and then drove slowly down the driveway to fully stretch out the waist band to make them more suited to a weekend of gluttony.

The kids and I are celebrating Thanksgiving on Sunday with typical holiday fare: turkey, disappointment, mashed potatoes, guilt, sage stuffing and resentment.

On Monday we all go to the PM’s place for another meal. That one worries me. My children are not the best at sitting still at dinner tables, and prefer the “drive by” style of eating. My son has eaten entire meals by stopping for bites between cartwheels and couch diving flip flops. His outfit also concerns me a tinge. He has pre-planned it and it is hanging on his doorknob waiting:  a pair of skull and cross-bone swim trunks (too small,) a khaki nylon vest (shirtless underneath because “it looks cooler”) Bakugan knee socks, and his Budweiser beer can hat.

To that dinner I am taking pumpkin pie, whipped cream, and ample portions of self-loathing.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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We need to keep these creatures alive, so Bono won't start a Telethon.

My partner is a fantastic guy. We go well together because I agree to overlook his faults (he owns “The Titanic” soundtrack and admits to maybe wearing a poncho in high school) and he agrees to be my designated driver 90% of the time. He also never complains when we walk home on those 10% outings. My other faults are not really worth mentioning as they are minimal and nothing has yet been proven in a court of law.  

I believe that part of the reason we get along so well is because we argue. We argue almost every day about things trivial (how thick the proper slice of bread should be) and crucial (he voted  Conservative in 2008 Federal  election and one time let my call go straight to voice mail ON PURPOSE.)  My theory is that his poncho wearing years caused some sort of felted wool brain-type reaction.

I should be clear that we do not fight constantly, lest any family members reading think I am headed for another break up with someone they’ve come to enjoy more than me. It’s not that bad. It’s all good-natured and in the spirit of informed debate, so you can keep his name on the Christmas cards. We never stay mad, or even get mad, really. (Except that one time regarding that poncho thing. I’m still a little raw about that.)

But last night was different in that we reached a new level in argumentation. I’m still grouchy about it and will probably need supervision today. 

A simple, generic discussion about where to go for dinner turned into an all out battle. We went from “I want steak!” and “But I’m craving chicken!” to yelling about which neighbour we’re going to ask to feed our Alpacas when we go to Spain.

We aren’t going to Spain.

We don’t live together.

Neither of us have neighbours.

AND WHAT THE HELL IS AN ALPACA?

Aren’t they mythical creatures? Sort of like unicorns or a good U2 album?