A clean, tidy concrete box with two rooms and a small, only but barely functional bathroom. One room is where we sleep. Eldest miscreant on the sofa. Middle miscreant in a hammock. And the smallest miscreant with us- nothing new here, as this is where she sleeps all the time. The other room inhabits a concrete slab attached to the wall containing the sink- cold water only- and some space for food prep, a microwave and a coffee maker. This room is also the dining room and living area, though there would never be room for a comfy chair, let alone a sofa. It’s bare bones, no question. It’s like camping except with some furniture… a toilet that flushes and some electricity. OK… so the lights dim when we use the microwave… However, as with camping, we have NO T.V. While the kids have no clue, this place, no matter what we do to it; how big, how fancy and first world it may become; regardless how much more time we spend here- more and more each year; it will likely NEVER HAVE T.V.

When we bought the place, we had enough money for the shack… and we had just enough to begin the construction to make it a real house OR make a tidy, little oasis out of the sand, palms and sticky burrs that was the backyard. We chose the yard because the fact of the matter is, these miscreants don’t care where they sleep, but in this heat and with NO T.V., the little buggers needed a pool. So, behind our little two room concrete box of a shack we harbour a sweet little sanctuary that you cannot see from our sandy street. Oh… sanctuary also contains a brand new second loo. Lifesaver….

We are currently struggling trying to stay connected.  Wouldn’t you know it but our Gringo’s shut down since last year… but we did.  Not. Panic.  At least not too badly.  Thanks to a chance meeting with an American ex-pat on the beach, we found a hotel close by that not only offers Internet at $5/day but it’s friggin’ HIGH SPEED WIRELESS!!! OMG!!!  So, we’ll spell one another to support our respective Internet dependencies….

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So, here we are.  Mexico.  Raining.  But I.  Do.  Not.  Care.  I love it here.  It’s become a second home- literally and figuratively, and I can only smile as I look out upon the misty, green Caribbean.  Despite being relegated to dial-up… and it’ll only get worse after we leave to our shack on the weekend.  Once we leave these fancy digs off to our own little corner of the Yucatan, we’ll be left to search out Internet, news, contact with other human beings at Gringo’s, a little restaurant-bar on the beach, the only wireless connection in town.  Unless we wanted to pay our nearby local Canadian/realtor/scheister $750 big ones to set us up with highspeed for the three weeks we’ll be there… someday it might be worth it, cuz we’ll be here for months.   Months, I say! But this time, no dice.  Gringo’s, here we come…. prep the deep-fryer, the family’s coming to work!

But for now, I will enjoy my dial-up with a view.  From my CALIFORNIA KING!!  Ahhhhhhh…. yes.

Oh.  Husband had to suck it up at the airport.  His initial dreams of trekking family and related baggage from airport to local public transportation to avoid being reamed the exorbitant cost for taxi from airport… dashed!!  No shit, Sherlock!  One, the only public transportation takes you downtown, in the opposite direction of hotels, ours specifically-  if one were interested in doing so, say they were travelling alone, with no kids and minimal bags, you would then make connection from downtown to bus heading to hotel zone… a total of about one and a half hours out of your way- two, there is a monopoly on transportation services from airport.  We are, after all, a completely captive market.  We all just want to get where we’re going with as little hassle and time as possible.  Again, no shit, Sherlock!  Husband, duly contrite, bent over and took it like a man.

We made it to the hotel, three tired kids, three over-packed bags and ourselves. Safe, sound and stressfree… in a mere 15 minutes!  $58 bucks well spent….

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Join Tracey over at Mother May I for more Best Shots this Monday!

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OMG… and a tiny, little community newsletter to yank from pinched sphincter by the time we leave….

And five weeks of school work to plan… and prepare… and pack.  Condensed into the smallest possible amount of space ever as we are only packing two bags to check.  For five people.  For five weeks.  Because we are taking the regular old bus from airport to resort rather than taxi or shuttle.  Because we- and by we, I mean husband-  want to walk God knows how far with said bags so as to catch regular old Mexican public transportation to save the $50 bucks it would otherwise cost us….

Let it be known:  I’ll be taking this savings in silver jewellery later in the week, thanks!

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However, as these last few days will attest, getting to a place where we are comfortable with this whole new set of expectations will not be easy.  The free-for-all that has been summertime has set us up for some serious transition pains.  For example:

Day 1.  Middle child, Zip, upon being asked to read a list of words containing short vowel sounds, and after refusing flat out with bottom lip protruding, decides to close his eyes.  Sitting up at the school table.  For many minutes.  Despite cajoling, urging, encouraging, and then finally getting all up in his grill and bloody well commanding he get his act together, he remained seated, upright, eyes closed.  Removed, limp, from stool, he was tossed like a sack of potatoes placed on the nearby sofa.  Where he remained. Eyes closed.  For many, many more minutes.  I actually thought he fell asleep.  OK.  I could but stare in fascination.  Was this some out of body experience I was witnessing induced by profound aversion to words with short vowel sounds?!?  After standing confused, bewildered and taken aback, completely unprepared for acting out in quite such a fashion, I assigned other miscreants some independent work and sat down with him.  I gathered up his lifeless form and snuggled him up for a good long hug.  Well… I’ll be damned.  The child perked up as though to a first, fresh morning snowfall.  He jumped back onto his stool and got down to business. Little bugger.

Day 2:  Eldest miscreant, while not nearly as dramatic as his younger brother, pulled the scrunchy, red face, teary eyes with every activity.  Everything is “just so ha-aaard….”  Uh-huh.  ”Awwwwww-wwwww.  Do I have to do this?!?!”  Uh-huh.  Slam workbook.  Slam binder.  Flip pages so as to be sure they tear from their holes. “Unnnnghhhh-ghhhhh… whyyyy-yyyyyy?!?!”  Uh-huh.  Remind me again… why the hell am I doing this?!?

Day 3:  Today is why I am doing this.  While not eager little beavers, at least productive and far more receptive.  We did some interesting stuff mixed in with the onerous… and everybody stayed pretty much with the program.  It was a great day… until….

 Zip.  Darling Zip.  Decided, in his efforts to buy a Wii, that he would not give back the money he conned out of his younger sister the day before.  As I removed a couple of loonies and a toonie from his sweaty little palms, he let out the wildest of possible yowls.  Otherworldly, without a doubt.  From the depths of his tiny, wiry little body, coins gripped painfully in his tiny hands, he screeched for the heavens, every muscle tense sinew as his face contorted with agony… before he started his path of destruction.  Anything in his reach was thrown with reckless, disturbingly aggressive abandon as sister and elder brother ran for the hills…. sent outdoors in a complete fit, adding insult to his apparent injury, he dropped one of his precious, beloved coins in between the boards of the deck.  Ack!  

Six year old tantrums are a trip.  I’ve been a lucky parent in that I’ve never had to leave Wal-Mart with a banshee of a toddler.  Tantrums have never really been our thing.  Make no mistake, we’ve had other things… exhibitionism, for example.  But never really tantrums.  But now, at six… and they are wild.  And frustrating.  Because he knows better.  

Thankfully, upon frantic Googling this evening, I am relieved to find it is not abnormal.  Incredibly unpleasant… but not abnormal.

Day 4?  I do believe I’ve seen the worst… so bring it on! I’m ready….

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That Sarah Palin is a pistol.  I am typically afraid of pistols.  And hockey moms.   I live amongst them… and believe me, here in the Canadian Rocky Mountain sticks, we are thick in the musky odor of the cluster*%$# that is youth hockey registration.  And ain’t nobody bothering with the lipstick!

Gross generalization to follow….

Hockey moms are ballsy, loud and take no shit… or prisoners.  Maybe it’s all the money they’re spending over the course of a season, between new equipment, rink fees and travel expenses.  Maybe it’s the time they spend freezing their asses off in sub-zero arenas or on the road: every weekend, with only a brief break over Christmas, from October through March.  Or maybe it’s the aggression of the sport in general. While fast and graceful, surprisingly brutal as early Atoms at the ripe old age of age 8.  Who the hell knows, but hockey moms are certainly a breed apart.  Understand, these are not just distant musings of an anti-violent, ultra-liberal, elitist academic.  No.

I am, in fact, a hockey mom.  No, not a mom with kids who play hockey.  By that definition I would be considered perhaps an alpine ski mom… a swim-team mom… a dance mom… and most definitely a soccer mom.  No, in the realm of hockey, I am in fact, a mom who plays hockey.  And I play with and against hockey moms.  And despite being tall and appearing fairly formidable in my gear, a hockey mom on break-away… well, it’s a sight to behold. Or, if on the ice in opposition, to avoid. I value my ass-ets, thank you very much. So I know something of what I speak.   

That said, I can see this Sarah Palin’s appeal.  Mother of five; driving her kids to and fro, meeting the formidable demands of youth hockey; clawing her way up the gritty ladder of local and state politics.  An accomplished woman, wife and mother. On the surface she is every progressive woman’s dream candidate for federal politics.  Who better to advocate for issues relating to women, children and families in general?   Ahem.

Not.  Scratch away at the immensely attractive surface and you find a very different picture.  Her record belies her appearance.  There is no arguing her strength or accomplishment.  But the details of her mandate are disturbing… certainly to those of us more comfortable with moderation in all things, particularly politics. Most specifically, her partisan stances on gun control and abortion not to mention her extreme right-wing Christian conservatism.  Despite her own personal and professional accomplishments, her own progress, Mrs. Palin’s views would serve to do nothing but hinder it for others.

If the McCain-Palin ticket is victorious in November it speaks volumes to where the majority of Americans sit politically, socially and progressively.  It also clearly defines what Americans consider change.  

I’m not sure what that means to the rest of us….

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I am in the process of making the leap to Mac-dom.  As though transitioning back home from one 3-week trip only to prepare for another month long trip two weeks from now weren’t enough, I thought I’d throw in the addictive task of getting to know an entirely new operating system.

Bro’ Richie, younger, successful, eligible bachelor brother of husband and die hard Mac-o-phile, in the spirit of conversion, gave me his old Mac PowerBook.  I made the dreadful error of expressing my vague interest in perhaps exploring the possibility of thinking of what it might be, at some time in the undefined future, when I might have more time to consider looking into the idea of contemplating more fully the potential of someday switching over to the Mac.  But before I even had the chance to complete the statement, “Vista sucks”, Uncle Richie was handing me over his old computer.  So that I might “get my feet wet”.

Well, wet they are.  Make no mistake about it.  Soaked up to the knees.  After three full days of accomplishing absolutely nothing outside of getting to know life on a Mac… includes unpacking- still an explosion in our main living area; cooking- “chips and queso dip in the fridge… and don’t forget to grab a carrot”; and bathing - “oh, mummy, what smells?!?”… I am officially of the converted. 

Sorry, Mr. Gates… but you lost me at Vista.

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And what better place to implement new diet plan than at the beach.  Rehoboth Beach, Delaware… home to Grotto’s Pizza.  And more Grotto’s Pizza.  Thrasher’s Fries.  Nicola’s nicobolis.  Wings To Go.  Chicken Ed’s.  And, well, more Grotto’s.  Oh, and The Fractured Prune… home-made, hand-dipped, fresh-to-order donuts!  Did I mention Rehoboth beach is home to Grotto’s Pizza?

Oh, yes.  I embraced this new diet with my heart and soul… all 12,000 calories a day of it.  Fast tracking to cut biceps, ripped abs and nothing but sinew for thighs.

And what do I have to show for two weeks of consumption a la Michael Phelps?  In short… Fattened.  Ass.

Upon further research, I see I overlooked the small fact that I must also simultaneously implement the 5-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week exercise regimen.  Shit…

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-George Bernard Shaw

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While we’ve been tired, sometimes cranky and sleeping in various different beds, these past several days have been tremendous fun, as well as a little inspiring in the areas of parenting and homeschooling.

After leaving Northern Virginia we headed south to western North Carolina, where we spent an overnight with my cousin and her family.  I haven’t seen my cousin in over 15 years.  Of all of us we were the closest cousins, during childhood, meeting most summers at my grandmother’s house in Northern Ontario.  I was in her wedding.  That was the last time I saw her.  As an aside, that last time I saw her, as recorded for all of eternity in her wedding photos, I had a hideous cold sore eating up the lower right quadrant of my face.  Our reunion on Thursday… a hideous cold sore eating up the lower right quadrant of my face.  Weird.

In the span of time since last seeing her I’ve gotten married and had three kids.  In the same span of time, she has had nine.  Yes, you read correctly… NINE.  She has nine of the best behaved, interesting, beautiful kids anywhere.  In fact, I almost took one home with me.  The baby.  He would have made for a perfectly delicious, chubby, smiling, giggling, wondrous addition to our home (currently screaming out for another baby, I might add), but I was wrestled to the ground as he was pried from my arms I resisted….  something about his already having a wonderful, loving home… what-ever.

Anyways, despite my nervousness, seeing her after so much time apart and our lives so changed, sharing time with cousin and her family was a pleasure.  She is a wonderful mother.  Thanks to her sense of structure and painstaking organization, there is no chaos or mayhem.  And the woman homeschools.  Sure, there’s the possibility everyone was on their bestest of behaviour with company- freshly beaten lectured just before we arrived- but really, things just ran too smoothly for that to be true.  It was evident that these were just well-behaved, thoughtful, intelligent, happy kids… regardless when anybody shows up.

I took notes.

After leaving North Carolina, it was back to Virginia: Hampton Roads.  Hubby’s business partner and his family.  More familiar in the noise and chaos.  Perhaps less organized than our hosts the previous night… but like I said, familiar!  It’s always fun and we hit El Mariachi.  My favourite Mexican place.  Anywhere.  And we took the gang to Busch Gardens at Williamsburg.  OMG!  I had a blast.  Not being of age, or more specifically interest, for rollercoasters and other harrowing amusement park rides, they were pretty bored until they got to the bumper cars.  Watching mummy depart each ride, swaying and swerving, slightly green-faced, grinning like an idiot only has so much appeal to the young ‘uns.  But, hey… I. Had. A.  Blast!!  Apollo’s Chariot.  Alpengeist.  Lochness Monster.  Loved.  It.  I didn’t get to the Griffon.  I wasn’t quite ready to ball up for that one.  Maybe next time.  And perhaps a kid might actually go with me….

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