VanderMeander

Take a good look at this picture. Looks pretty normal. Three kids (who’ve decided to sit on about 1/3 of the couch) watching a little television. Yep. Nice and normal. Except that little girl in the pink shirt there, at that very moment, has a broken collar bone!

Yes. There has been some unforeseen excitement in our house this week.

Sunday night Olivia fell off of her bed. The bang from it was so loud I thought it was Madeline or (heaven forbid) Luke falling from the top bunk. But it was Olivia who had fallen the 20-ish inches to the floor from the bottom bunk. She cried quite a bit more than we expected and we brought her into our bed for the first part of the night.

Monday morning she was complaining that it was hard to sit herself up and to move her arms certain ways. However, when we went to the doctor and he poked and prodded her and manipulated her arms, she made no indication that there was any pain. The doctor was pretty much convinced that she was fine. But when I told him that she complained when I picked her up and had difficulty sitting up he said to come back on Wednesday if she was still complaining.

Wednesday arrived. Still the same complaints. But I thought it might just be a muscle thing. I almost decided not to bring her because I got her to move her arms all over the place and she didn’t complain. Then I told her to push her shoulders forward and she cried out in pain. Of course getting to the doctor that day was not easy since Marc was helping friends move the entire day and our van had all of their fragile things in it. Luckily we had a friend who could help us out last minute: taking the older kids and lending me her car. When we got back an hour later we had a sling and the x-ray results: a broken collar bone.

Can I just say what an amazing little girl Olivia is? What kind of pain tolerance does she have? If she hadn’t been so brave when she burnt her arm two months ago (and yes, the arm in the sling is that same burnt arm!), I also would’ve thought nothing was wrong.

So yesterday felt a bit crazy and stressful between Marc being gone all day and having no vehicle or place for the kids and having to figure out how we were going to get everywhere. I was exhausted by the time supper was made.

But I knew it was going to be another busy day the next day. The doctor wanted a second opinion about how to stabilize her arm and told me to go to a particular clinic in Winnipeg. I phoned about an appointment and was told they were booking into October (!!), but that I could come to the minor injury clinic to see a doctor: clinic opens at 8am, door opens at 7:30am. And we live 45 minutes from the clinic. So it was going to be a VERY early day. Here’s Olivia ready to go, being silly way too early in the morning!

There was no way I was going to get up at 6am for an appointment and we arrived at the clinic at 8:20am. I found out later in the day that there were 25 people lined up at 7:30am! Shall I make a VERY long story short? We arrived at the clinic at 8:20am and saw the doctor at 2:15pm. We sat in that blasted waiting room for 6 hours! For a 5 minute appointment! I guess it was worth it to go, even though all he did was help us fit the sling better and gave us a clearer time-line.

Needless to say, after sitting in that waiting room for that long my brain was total mush by the time we left. I didn’t even feel fit to drive. But we had a few places we needed to stop. We did stop and have our lunch first though. As we sat there sharing our poutine at Costco, I noticed how far away from the table the benches were. And don’t you know, within about a minute of making that observation Olivia fell right off the bench under the table, where she claims she landed on her head.

I’m kind of hoping her arms broke her fall, but then if her left arm broke her fall that can’t be good for collar bone! She cried and cried. More than I’d expect for a fall, but I think it was because she was tired. And, because I was tired, and thinking that she may have just kinked her clavicle up further, I sat there holding her with just a few tears going down my own cheeks.

What a day! I mean, I had been admitted to the hospital and birthed Olivia in HALF of today’s wait time! I could’ve given birth to Luke five times over in that time! Six hours is just crazy. But Olivia was so patient and played so well. And I watched The Price is Right and read a Barbara Colorosa parenting book, so it was okay. And, like I said I would on Twitter, I did buy a giant cake at Costco to make her and I feel better. I wasn’t going to, but when she picked out the same one I was looking at, I decided I should. “Congratulations” it says. Seems fitting after surviving 6 hours in a waiting room! And I’m just so glad that Olivia is taking this little break all in stride. What a girl she is!

And, yes, I had the good sense to cancel tonight’s plans with a friend to get over today and get ready for tomorrow: another doctor’s appointment (this time for Madeline) and another trip into the city! There should be no waiting tomorrow though, thankfully!

Filed under: Family, Kids by Dixie Vandersluys
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Yesterday morning I woke up from a dream in which Marc and I were at one of the B&Bs from our trip. We were eating, like we did on our trip, our full English breakfast (consisting of egg, sausage, bacon, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms, toast, and cooked tomato — that’s toMAHto, not toMAYto, of course). As I took a bite (in the dream), I looked up at the ceiling. One part of it suddenly started to cave in and red liquid began spreading on the ceiling from the point where it was buckling. When I alerted the B&B owner to what was happening her daughter said, “That’s just my dad.” Meaning: daddy was dead and rotting in one of the upstairs bedrooms and now soaking through the floor. They helped us move our plates to a table in the kitchen so we wouldn’t have to sit under that for the rest of our meal, and we were, for some reason, comfortable with that.

Luckily, there were no sights, nor smells, nor things like that above our heads on our actual holiday! We did, however, have all sorts of culinary experiences along the way, and thankfully the majority of them were good.

Now we knew we weren’t going to Italy or France and that England isn’t usually known for its culinary expertise. I mean, it’s known for dishes like “bangers and mash” and “kidney pie” (which I just realized probably means kidney beans, right? Not actual kidneys from animals…) after all. But I love potatoes. I had mashed potatoes for breakfast on our wedding day. I have what I call my “poutine thighs” from when I self-medicated my depression and life problems with A&W poutine the year after Olivia was born. So, in my books, going to England where there’s shepherds pie and fish and chips (read: potatoes at every meal) was more than fine.

So here is a brief rundown with pictures of some of the potatoes (and other carbohydrates) we ate along the way:

Mike and Shirley (Marc’s dear old family friends whom we spent a few days with) prepared three delicious meals for us: homemade fish and chips, the traditional roast beef Sunday dinner (pictured above and eaten in their conservatory), and a traditional English breakfast the morning we left. So good. I could eat that meal in the picture right now — possibly every plate on the table.

Marc also commented in his first post about London that people eat a lot of picnics in England. And we got to have two with Mike and Shirley, and one with Chris and Toni, whom we visited and stayed with next. Good homemade meals with Chris and Toni, too (just didn’t take any pictures of them, unfortunately). Incidentally, if you want a chronological view of the trip I think Marc will be doing it that way over at his blog.

Yes, the traditional English breakfast. One of the main reasons I wanted to stay at bed and breakfasts for the remainder of our trip. Fill up on the “free” food, so you don’t have to pay for it in a restaurant, and hopefully you’ll eat enough to keep you going well past lunch. Which we did. Every day we’d eat the big breakfast, grab a snack for lunch, and then have a nice meal out.

And I found us some great B&Bs. Not the fanciest, but not the cheapest, and all with great tripadvisor ratings. Here’s the one we stayed in at Bath:

And since this is one of only two pictures we got of the English breakfast, I figured you’d rather see me in a bathrobe than Marc:

I definitely picked well in Bath. And we did well again in Lyme Regis:

Especially since this was our view:

One of the things Marc said he was looking most forward to on this trip was the luxury (because we were sans kids) of being able to eat anywhere, anytime we liked. And that was pretty luxurious. We had some great meals:

Fantastic Italian food on our anniversary (once we found an Italian restaurant!), with a banana split for dessert (not your normal restaurant dessert, but boy was it good! They know their ice cream over there!).

Cream tea in the afternoon overlooking the English channel in the garden of the Alexandra Hotel when we arrived in Lyme. That’s clotted cream there next to the scones. And, yes, that was the highlight of the trip for Marc.

And of course you can’t go to England without having fish and chips.

I want you to look again at that picture. Yes, I look like a dork. But did you notice that that piece of fish is actually longer than the width of my torso and arms combined! That was a massive plate of food. I barely ate half of it. And the worst thing? The only thing that had any flavour was the mushy peas. And do you see that half-a-teaspoon of tartar sauce they gave me for the giant piece of fish?! Anyway… it wasn’t terrible, just way too much food. I should have ordered off the kids’ menu…

However, the worst eating experience we had was the night we spent in London. To us any pub in England looks old and rustic and cozy. We can’t tell the difference between the “rundown, horrible” old ones and the “good” old ones. We chose the former, unfortunately. And because I was trying to make the most of my island experience I chose something with seafood and, of course, potatoes: “Fisherman’s Pie: an assortment of seafood in a white sauce topped with mashed potatoes”. Sounds good enough. Except it was mystery fish essentially in water with mashed potatoes on top. It was so gross. Plus there was literally no service: the waitress took our order and brought us our food. No other stops. And we had to go up and ask for the cheque and even then Marc had to wait for that while she visited with one of the cooks!

All in all, though, the eating experiences were great. Sure the majority of the restaurant food was a little bland and the drinks were over-priced, but, heck, we were eating anytime we liked! In the end that didn’t really bother us and we had some very good times.

Filed under: Dreams, Travels by Dixie Vandersluys
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The first full day we had in England we took one of those double decker bus tours of London, where you can get on and off the bus at any point that interests you. The first place we got off the bus was St. Paul’s cathedral. I wanted to see it, but it wasn’t until Marc said, “Hey, it’s the ’steps of St. Paul’s!’” that I got really excited.

I’ve been singing “Feed the Birds” in its entirety to Luke and Olivia almost every night since we moved to Manitoba. So it was great to see where the “little old bird woman” sat and even see the birds! I guess I should’ve sat on the left side of the steps to be exactly where she sat, but I’ve been singing that song for a year, not watching the movie, so how was I to know!

And all that singing has paid off. Here are Luke and Olivia singing “Feed the Birds” a few months ago! (Olivia does know every single word, she just got a little distracted by Ashcan the inflatable dolphin.)

Filed under: Entertainment, Kids, Travels by Dixie Vandersluys
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We really did make it to England and back. Sometimes I still can’t believe it. The trip went off without a hitch (after the thunderstorm in Denver that made us miss our connecting flight to London, of course). Actually, the trip went better than I ever could’ve imagined! It was, by all accounts, perfect. Not too busy, not too slow. The perfect balance of everything. The person who planned this trip is a really good planner.

So here are a few pictures to prove that we were in England. We took these pictures on August 12th, the day we had officially been married ten years. We spent an hour and a half walking around looking for an Italian restaurant that no longer existed because our b&b had failed to update their “Restaurants of Bath” list. We ended up at another Italian place after a local guy saw us arguing about restaurants and looking at our map. Happy anniversary, indeed.

Of course, if we hadn’t gotten lost, we wouldn’t have found this old wall and taken these great anniversary pictures with our camera propped up on another old wall. There are a lot of old walls in England. In fact, the one thing that surprised me the most about England was how old everything was. Not how old everything was. But how old everything was! I just didn’t expect it all to be old. Though I did mention to Marc that they may want to consider just clear-cutting it all, starting over, and thinking about roads and driving in their city planning. Just a thought.

Anyway. Back to the wall. I just wanted to put up a picture that would prove we really made it to England. So I give you an old graffitied wall in Bath, UK where we kissed on our tenth anniversary.

Filed under: Marriage, Travels by Dixie Vandersluys
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Tomorrow at this time we’ll be nearing the east coast of the United States, making our way towards the Atlantic Ocean and at 1pm London time (which I think is about 5 or 6am Saskatchewan time), we’ll be landing at Heathrow. Off we go, indeed.

I wonder if it’s going to hit me that I’m leaving my children in another continent when we say good-bye. I’ve been thinking about it so much and panicking in my own special way about it for weeks, so I kind of hope I can kiss and hug them good-bye without being a wreck. I hope. For everyone’s sake.

My brother who has helped us so much to get everything organized for the trip told me tonight that I shouldn’t plan for the plane to crash, but plan to land at my destination. And that’s probably a good way to think about it. But, still, today we signed our updated wills and I wrote out some basic funeral arrangements. (Oh how I wish I could’ve remembered all of the witty epitaphs I’ve thought up over the years!)

But, on the advice of my other brother, I will go there and enjoy what happens and not worry about everything — enjoy the days we have and what we’ve done with those days and not constantly think “we should’ve done this instead”.

And now I best be off to bed. We will try to update a little along the way, but likely not much. I’m quite looking forward to having a secret adventure with Marc. We’ve not had time alone in a very long time. And I guess after 10 years, 3 kids, 5 moves, 3 job changes, and 4 years of post-secondary education making up that 10 year marriage, we deserve it.

August 12th is the big anniversary day and we’ll be spending it at The Bath House, which looks quite perfect. So, happy anniversary to us! And pray for us as we go and for my parents who have the kids for 12 days on their own!

Filed under: Family, Marriage, Travels by Dixie Vandersluys
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I’ve been thinking about my grandparents again lately. It seemed like the two summers preceding the one we are in now were almost identical: our family away on summer vacation, getting home and finding out the news that a grandparent is dying, funeral a week later.

We got home from our summer holiday on July 25, 2008. I remember the night before talking to my granny from a payphone by the swimming pool at Diefenbaker Lake. That was the last time I spoke to her before the stroke she had on July 26th, the evening after we got home from our holiday. She passed away holding my handing and moving her head in my direction as she let out her final breath on the evening of August 7th.

July 28, 2009 was two days before we were scheduled to get home from our three week-long holiday. It also would’ve been my grandparent’s 68th wedding anniversary, but it was grandpa’s first July 28th without his Marjie. It was also the day grandpa would get the news that he had very large cancerous tumour on his lung. The morning after we got home, I went to my parents’ house (where he’d been living since granny passed away), put my head in his lap as he ate breakfast at the table, told him how much I loved him and didn’t want to lose him, and he put his arms around me as we both cried over the realization that he wouldn’t be with us much longer. He died on August 5th surrounded by his children and me with my hand feeling the last beats of his heart.

I had been scared my whole life of losing my grandparents. My dad’s parents had died, each of cancer, when I was 5 and 10 years old. Young enough to remember, but still too young. I remember in university telling my grandparents how I didn’t want them to die and how much I’d miss them, and they reassured me that they weren’t going to die (any time soon, anyway). But still, there’s always that feeling of fear that you’re going to lose the ones you love and the wondering about how it’s going to happen.

But I will never forget the feeling I had the night that my mom called me from the emergency room telling me that granny had just had a massive stroke. In place of the fear that always sits there under the surface, there rose up a kind of resolution. “This is what is happening. I am going to face this.” (The only other thing I can equate it to is that scared feeling that lives with you for the last weeks of your pregnancy as you dread the impending birth only you can go through, but when the time comes the fear leaves you.) The seem feeling happened the day that grandpa died ,and before I was even out of bed in the morning my dad called to say that grandpa had been taken to the hospital by ambulance. “This is it. This is how it ends. But I’m not afraid.”

So much of life is spent fearing those moments — the moments of death and separation, and even birth. The moments that are filled with pain and uncertainty. But when I think about the birth of my children and the moments when my grandparents’ died, I realize that that is where the living happens. All of this every day stuff that we do, making meals and driving around and going to work, are like the shadows that only occasionally get eclipsed by real moments of living. The moments where sacredness and beauty are felt because they are passing into and out of being, where we truly get a sense of their impermanence and the preciousness that comes from impermanence.

These are not the moments to be feared. At least not in the “scared” sense. These are the moments to stand in awe of and to feel the honour that goes along with being part of the rhythms of life as we come to be and pass away in all of our wretched beauty.

Filed under: Life, Life & Faith, Memories, Philosophy by Dixie Vandersluys
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It feels like things are changing in me, like I’m looking at things in a new way. About a month ago I was laying in bed with my eyes closed thinking. I have a way I see things when I think. When I lay there at night I actually see images in my head that correspond with what I’m thinking. That particular night I told Marc, “What if you can change the way you see things?” I know that is rather obvious. But I was thinking of that particularly in the context of those images. I think a thing and that’s what it looks like and that is that. It feels like it’s out of my control because it’s just “what I see”. But those images have been changing.

We’ve been at the beach a lot in the past few weeks — lots of trips in Summerland and even more per week since we’ve been back home. It’s been so hot here that I have actually gone into the warm brown water at St. Malo. This means that I have to walk around in my bathing suit. Normally I am horrified by this and try to cover up myself as much as possible for that 20 foot walk from the beach chair to the water. But lately I don’t care.

I’ve had a few experiences at the beach that have changed the way I look at things. In Summerland there was a girl who was about 12 years old (barely hitting puberty) and her parents were talking but she kept trying to interupt them to get her a towel because, as she said repeatedly, she “couldn’t get out of the water without a towel”. This was a young girl with a normal body and nothing to be embarrassed about, but she was embarrassed to be seen. Already. Before the lumps and bumps of life had even developed.

Today there was a severely underweight woman at the beach. You could see the bones in her arms, her spine stuck out all the way down her back, and each of the veins on her legs were visible. Thin is not always beautiful. Thin is not always beautiful.

And for some reason I’ve had this urge to walk up to some of the women on the beach the last few days and tell them that they are beautiful. I haven’t, because I don’t know how they would respond to that. But I just really want these women to know that they are beautiful in their bathing suits. No matter what their size or shape, they are beautiful.

I prayed for that really thin lady today. She walked right by me as I waited for Madeline in the bathroom, and I prayed that she would know that she is beautiful and that she doesn’t need to kill herself to do that. She just needs to see things in a new way.

Our minds have a tendency to do what they always do; think in the same healthy or unhealthy patterns, and speak into our lives things that we simply accept because “that’s how it is; that’s how I see it”. But sometimes those patterns can change. The changes don’t usually happen because of my own volition. One day I suddenly see things differently. One night the images in my head look a little different. But it is possible.

And, if I could, I would try to help every person see themselves in a positive way.

Filed under: Life & Faith by Dixie Vandersluys
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I’m trying to keep myself together here. I go from feeling like the course work is under control to thinking that I have no time and that I really have no clue what I’m doing — coming up with an assessment and treatment plan for two specific crisis/trauma situations? Really?! Me? I don’t really want to “fake it”, but this is my first time doing anything like this, so I’m a little worried.

Plus, it all has to be done in the next ten days — four papers in ten days. I know I did way more work than that in March, but when it’s summer holidays, it’s a little hard to get into work-mode. Marc’s being a great help, but the kids are still kids, and the kids still talk to me first when we’re both around. And today when Marc and Madeline were out and about on campus, I gave the other kids four time outs. That little Olivia is sure getting a little attitude! Laying there on the floor when she doesn’t want to do something and then huffing away when she gets into trouble.

And the funny thing is that we all blew up at each other right around the time supper was being made. (Gotta love the tin walls of these trailers that just reverberate the yelling around the neighbourhood!) I mean really, really mad. All of us. At each other. I couldn’t even tell you what it was all about. But then 20 minutes later we all sang the doxology for our supper prayer and then we had the most pleasant meal we’ve had in months. Just talking and laughing and everyone actually enjoying their meal. Luke asked, “Mommy, who made supper?” “Daddy.” Luke: “Thank you for making supper, daddy.”

So there you go… Ups and downs as we go about the days here getting ready for what the next weeks will bring and hoping it all works out.

Filed under: Family, School by Dixie Vandersluys
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Marc made a comment the other day about whether there’s “something in our house” because as soon as we get home (from vacation, etc) we immediately go back to the cranky, messy, disorganized people we don’t want to be. I said that it’s not the house. I think it’s that when you’re on vacation you think about your daily home life, and all of those thoughts are set somewhere in the future. “When I get back I’ll…” It’s like going to bed every night, when all you can do now is sleep, and you think tomorrow I’ll exercise or clean the house from top to bottom or not yell at my kids so much. Tomorrow. You can’t actually do anything about it laying in bed. There is no opportunity in front of you, no choice to make, only the wonderful hope that, as Marilla Cuthbert said to Anne, “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.”

There is something nice about getting away and getting some perspective on how you live out the hours of your days. This vacation especially allowed me to do that. I stayed in seven different homes of friends and relatives in my 24 days away. And when you see how others live, when you stay in there home, and get a glimpse of their days (even if it’s not they’re “everyday every day” because you’re visiting), it allows you to look at your life in a different way. And it’s not even about comparing people, it’s just about seeing differences. There are so many different ways to live, foods to eat, timelines to operate on, and that’s even noticeable within the different sets of my extended family, let alone when you look outside your own community, culture, nation.

It makes me think again that I need to cultivate the life that I need to live. I need to run my household and make my decisions and leave my messes how I feel it is appropriate and how I see it working best for my family. (”I” meaning “Marc and I”.) Because don’t you find that when one set of people comes over you will, say, put more effort into a fancy meal, or maybe you’ll clean up a bit more, or put on different clothes because that is what those people appreciate? And to some extent that’s fine. But I know that I find myself worrying too much about what other people think and pre-emptively being mad at them for judging me when I don’t measure up in the particular area that I think they care most about or will notice the most. It’s infuriating.

Because it all depends on who you’re with.

Sometimes I’m the mom who spends more money on nice clothes and sometimes I’m the scrubby one. Sometimes I’ve got the messy house and sometimes my place is immaculate compared to others. Sometimes I’m the over-protective parent and sometimes I’m negligent. Sometimes I’m fat, sometimes I’m thin.

But in the end, when you take everything else away and everyone else’s and my own one-sided opinions and judgments away, I’m just me. Messing up and trying to do better. Trying to balance it all and love along the way. And I’m tired of worrying about what other people think about the choices that I make or the way I’ve raised my kids. Thinking about that does nothing but make me bitter and angry and I really want to stop. And just be me.

The funny thing is, I’ve really gotten much better in this whole area, but I’ve still got a long way to go. Stop worrying. Stop judging. And be myself.

Filed under: Life, Motherhood by Dixie Vandersluys
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I am wiped out today. Part of that is from that little impromptu run I did last night. I stretched and stretched after I got home, but within a half an hour that part of my back that hurt so much when I tried the treadmill at the gym in September was hurting terribly. I had a horrible sleep last night. Part of it was from the back pain, part of it because my hands and forearms were numb, and part of it was because my body just felt like it was “humming” from the extra exertion. Does anybody know what I mean when I say “humming”? It just felt like my body was tired but in hyper-drive and I had really restless dreams about things that were exhausting and confusing and couldn’t be fixed.

Anyway. I thought it was just the exercise and the fact that we can’t fall asleep before 1am because our internal clocks are still on BC time, but then I realized that yesterday I cleaned the entrance, the living room, did four loads of laundry, went to a friends place for a couple hours to help her clean because her house is being sold tomorrow, cleaned Luke and Olivia’s room, made supper for our family and for my friend who’s moving, made unbaked cookies after supper, then I cleaned Madeline’s room, went for the run, and came back and did a bit more cleaning, before collapsing in the bathtub and watching childbirth videos on YouTube.

You see, I’m trying to get this place organized and back to normal after being gone for 25 days, and after coming home with a van that was bursting full of stuff — mostly hand-me-down clothes and shoes, which is great, but we are crowded in here to begin with. And I wanted to get this all done in the first few days so I can concentrate on getting my course work done in the next 3 weeks, because it all has to be done before we go to England.

But today I’m exhausted. Marc says I shouldn’t even try to do my course work until I’ve had a little nap on the couch here. And since he’s taken the kids to a park in a nearby town, I better do that while I can. The next load of laundry can wait until I wake up.

Filed under: Family, Life by Dixie Vandersluys
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