It was Victoria Day weekend up here in the great white north (and we spent it with my parents out of town), so I apologize to those of you who came by on Monday looking for a new post. I tend not to put anything new up on holidays for two reasons: 1) because there is a significant drop-off in readers on those days, meaning that some (many) people would miss that post and 2) because I spend those days with my family, like weekend days. Instead of a typical weekend recap, I will give you two anecdotes from my visit to my parents. Without further ado, I bring you my weekend in two acts.
Bed Of Roses by Screaming Trees
Act The First
Wherein I Remove A Headboard
For as long as MTM and I have been together, the spare room at my parent's house that used to be my bedroom has held a queen bed with a hideous faux brass pipe headboard. It was not only ostentatious, but also quite annoying, as every move you made in the bed would cause the headboard to make such a loud noise that when I turned over in my sleep, my wife would awake with a start.
With our second child coming, and the space in the room limited, we opted to try and convince my parents to remove the headboard. They agreed, and so I grabbed my dad's screwdriver and a pair of channel locks and went to work. As I started trying to remove the six screws from the frame, I realized that only two were part of the original assembly. The other four were what we call in my house a "Dad Special".
(A "Dad Special" is when my father decides something needs improving, and goes about implementing his "improvements". For example, he once decided that a toilet seat needed more rests on the underside to support it on the toilet, so he used the plastic feet from Ikea that have a tack's point (the kind you can push into press board with a light hammer). Unfortunately, the tacks were longer than the thickness of the seat, so that there were small, half centimetre long nails sticking out of the seat side of the toilet seat.)
In the case of the headboard, my father had used two additional screws per side to attach it. But, those screws were too long, so he snipped the ends off with pliers after he tightened the nuts, leaving a misshapen tip that could not be threaded through the nut to remove it. So, off to the shed I went to grab the hacksaw. On my way, I passed my parent's neighbour, to whom I said, "If you can believe it, I need this" (the hacksaw) to remove a headboard." He replied, "If your father installed it, I totally believe you. Have fun."
It took me nearly an hour start to finish to remove the headboard.
Act The Second
Wherein We Drug Our Daughter
About 30 minutes into our drive home, the munchkin pipes up, "Mommy, my tummy hurts." Having experienced this before, we suspected it was motion sickness (I am so often a victim to this that it isn't even funny) and offered her a children's Gravol which she took. We stopped at the next rest station and about five minutes after we were back on the road, she was out.like.a.light. About an hour in, she awoke, groggily sang a verse of the Doodlebops song that was playing, and then fell asleep again.
She repeated that two more times (awaken, sing, doze off), and slept for over two hours. When she awoke, she was disoriented and literally looked like I used to on a Friday night in university after hanging out with the guys who smelled like patchouli all the time. We fed her a snack (it was long past lunch by this point) and drove to East Side Mario's.
This is where the story stops making sense. The disorientation? The grogginess? Uh, yeah. She sat down at the table, took the crayon they gave her and drew a picture of MTM, complete with hands, fingers, feet, toes, teeth, and hair (easily her most detailed picture yet). And then, because our jaws weren't slack enough, she printed "MOMOMOMOMOMO" across the top of the page, just so we knew it was MTM she was drawing.
Apparently, there are benefits to doping up one's kids. Who knew?
I also have a new Daditorial up, where I look at how China's one child policy makes the earthquake aftermath that much worse for some parents.
