Quel Beau Voyage!

Lundi :

Quel beau début de voyage (by Bear)

Commençons par ma coupe de cheveux, avant j’avais toujours les cheveux très long. Je disais a mes parents que j’allais les couper mais quand la semaine et venu, j’ai dit non je veux garder mes cheveux long. Finalement  samedi, à Venise Italie je me suis fait couper les cheveux courts par un italien et maintenant j’adore ça.

Quand nous sommes rentrés  dans notre merveilleux bateau carabin of the seas, c’était super beau. Il avait  piscines, de stables de Ping pong, un mini put etc. c’était magnifique.

Dimanche, nous sommes allés à Bari. On a planifié un tour guidé mais moi et ma mère on vraiment pas aimer donc nous avons décidé d’aller sur des rochiers et une plage pour explorer.

Lundi, nous sommes allés à Corfu, une ile en Grèce. On est allé à une plage qui était très belle. Il faisait très chaud mais par contre l’eau était très froide.

Demain nous allons a Mykenos . Je suis sûr que ça va être très beau.

Pendant mon voyage, il faut que je prenne des photos avec un collant de Exclucity(un magasin) car il a un gros concours. Le concours est qu’il faut m’être le collant à la place la plus originale et tu auras la chance de gagner 200 $ pour le magasin.

Moi, je ne voulais pas  faire ce blog mais ma mère ma forcer !!!!!

Lemon Fresh Laundry

Sunday:

There is always a favorite part of any day, and mine today was the fresh laundry hanging from all the Italian balconies in the alleys we walked through to get to the city of Bari. And funny it is that we normally would not have taken those local streets, but ended up there because we had no clue where we were going.  Lucky for us we got to see the local life..and especially lucky on a Sunday when everyone was at home with their children.

And I loved watching the children in front of their tiny homes with their bicycles. Their Dads having beers under the sun, and the Moms and Grandmas hanging out the lemon laundry. It was so simple. So pure and make me think this is how life should be.

Why do we need such huge houses and such fancy cars and big lawns with big play structures in the back? Why do we contain our families in our square yards when we could be cooking pasta with the neighbor and sharing a beer? Why do our children need such constant entertainment when these Italian kids played with a ball or bicycle if they were lucky all day long and remained not only content but joyful?

So we walked and walked and ended up at a true Italian lunchery in the middle of nowhere in an ally and prayed for the best as we ordered off the fully Italian menu. Apparently in Bari there is a certain type of meal and everyone orders it. So we did and it was pretty good although we had no idea what most of it really was.

Forgot to say best part of day was all of us waking up together in the morning late because the boat rocked us like babies and saying hello as we opened our eyes together in the same room side by side. Hubby went to get hot chocolate and coffee and we sat drinking it in bed and balcony. Holding hands with Bear in the middle all day long was a close second .=.

Tour in the afternoon in Poligano Italy on the beautiful white cliffs. Hubby loved the tour guide (if you know what I mean!) Bear and I could have done without her nonstop chatter but were pleased with the places she took us. Gosh I love Italy…it is so breathtaking.  Villages, alleys, the sea, caves, beautiful cliffs. We even got our feet wet in the rocky clear seas while Bear played on the cliffs.

Lemone gelato of course again. Bear and I are completely addicted and refuse to try new flavors! Little nap on the bus while she chatted on and on and on. Souvenirs for the kids from a cool store we found that was closed initially but that Bear insisted we go back to.

Back to the boat for a drink on balcony at sunset, a Jacuzzi in the wind and a game of ping pons. On our way to dinner now. Bear wandering around ship alone playing golf .Considering if we should wrap some sheets on our body for toga night for the benefit of Bear….hmmmmm…not sure I can go through with this. Wish I was more like my pub-crawling, hat-wearing buddy!!!

Bear and my Protector played a beautiful game of ping pong and guess who won??????? Hint: not Bear!

Tomorrow onto Corfu and the beautiful beaches of Greece with an early start at 8:00am.

Tonight as I sleep I will dream of simplicity and of if I may consider getting rid of all the useless stuff I have and simply hang out my clean laundry in the second phase of my life. Or wear a lemony fresh sheet to dinner (with a hat).

Arrivederci!

Three at Sea

Saturday

I don’t think any of us have ever slept so well and for so long. Bed has never felt as good. We got up at 9am and took advantage of a free boat ride through the Venice canals to a beautiful glass blowing exhibit.

Bear was very impressed by the glass horse that was made in front of our eyes in minutes that was more than a thousand degrees. I personally was happy with the good luck glass bead we received at the end.

A long stroll through the streets of Venice again today, this time through the parts where the locals live versus the more tourist areas of yesterday. We walked and walked and occasionally stopped in shops where we bought nothing. None of us are very big shoppers on trips but we like looking.

A delicious lunch on the water of pasta delmare, pasta porcelina and caprese salad again. Sought out the perfect gelato for dessert, a combo of lemone and cookies and cream this time.

Back to the hotel where we took a “taxi” to the cruise port to catch our ship. My boys made fun of me because I forgot that our taxi was a boat of course and so thought I was waiting for a car! Our strength is not travelling light so I am afraid to admit that the taxi almost sank with our multiple suitcases in it. How fun is travel anyways if you can’t change clothes three times per day?

Cruise ship-first time ever! Boarded pretty smoothly except for a luggage mishap-which I am SURE that Bear or Hubby will comment on in their future blogs so I won’t even go there. Some ping pong-shuffle board and getting organized in the room for the rest of the afternoon. We went to the magic show and then for a nice dinner where I had yummy Indian food (hooray for the 3 Indian cooks on this boat-wish you were here Chase??)

Sea sickness-not yet. Weird dizzy feeling and a bit off? Slightly. It’s a strange feeling to be shaking all the time..as I write this the whole bed is shaking! (get your minds out of the gutter a CHILD is here)  So whole cruise sickness thing is TBD for the moment but it’s a weird feeling-sure we will get used to it. Bear and I feel it more than Hubby.

So the best part of this trip remains being with Bear. Even the beautiful sights of Venice and the ocean view from our bedroom don’t even come close to spending this quality time with our middle son. He is truly a pleasure; it’s like being with a really good friend. He converses, and laughs, and reads and relaxes. I crack him up most seconds of the day-by simply being me…it’s very strange. He is independent and roams the cruise ship and plays ping-pong alone for hours. He even attracted an Italian family to shuffle board and had a long conversation with them even though they did not speak a word of English or French.

Bear speaks of his brother and sister at home all the time and keeps saying” If Chase and Beauty were here we would do this. Or if Chase and Beauty were here, this would be so much fun!”He loves them endlessly. He says they are his best friends. We have realized on this trip how attached he is to his siblings and how grateful we are that they have each other.

But for now he is with his Mommy and Daddy and also enjoying us too. He is pretty impressed with his new short hair too-I think the windows and mirrors are going to break soon if he looks in them more often.

So off to Bari tomorrow for most of the day with a nice cliff walk excursion planned and a tour of the old city.

Now that we are unpacked and organized. I am feeling a lot more normal. My clothes are important to me and I like having them out of their suitcases.

A Taste of Venice

(sorry for typos on travel blogs-no time to edit or post properly but want to capture all the memories!!!)

With the jet lag and little sleep as of yet, I am not sure if this is day or night right now…but I know we all had a great day (or night!).

Very short blog as we are all super tired but we had a great, uneventful trip here and a wonderful and relaxing day and evening together in Venice.

Two flights and an hour and a half water taxi made for a very loooong day. Surprisingly my Guy  had way more energy than Ior Bear did. Bear and I snuck in a 1.5 hr. nap as we got here at the hotel before a long stroll and lunch and drinks out in the old city.I am not sure what Hubby did, but sure it involved a nice cold beer.

Lots of taste testing gelatos, Caprese sandwiches, soda lemone, St MarkSquare, St Mark Basilica, two new suitcases since both of ours broke on the plane, a big visit to the Italian babar who spoke no English, calamari, pasta with basil, beef Carpaccio, and miles of walking through the beautiful streets of Venice…we are tired and going to bed!

It is amazing being here with Bear the three of us. I remember this feeling in Paris with Chase and can’t wait to go somewhere with Beauty in 2 yrs. It’s a wonderful opportunity to bond with our boy, and to do what he likes to do and see what he likes to see.

And thankfully for us he is very much just like us. He has no problem on vacation having no plan (different than real life eh?), strolling around and taste testing everything we see. Not a big shopper (neither are we) we enjoy the sights and sit on terraces at the end of the day for drinks and chips. He is a delight and can’t wait for the cruise tomorrow.

And I love this age..I love that this is the age we get to travel with them each alone. Not yet a teenager and no longer a little kid-I wish I could freeze these moments in time. Holding hands on the boardwalk, cuddling on the plane, each picture Bear grabbing us and pulling us closer. It’s a wonderful age to go away together and makes perfect sense for us. We have learnt more about him and his life today than in the last year-perfect before the world of high school begins to get in his head a bit.

Tomorrow likely a boatride of the canals, follow by a glass blowing tour, lunch on a terrace and then on board to our ship we go!

Tonight twin beds, standard European showers with drippy water, and a very small but charming room. I love the taste and flavor of Europe-I love it all. We have honestly considered if we should not pack up our family for a year and move here to Italy. Won’t happen..but nice to dream.

Goodnight!  My two boys are already asleep and I am going to now join them. It's so quiet just the three of us (minues the snoring). Great way to travel and see the world.

PS-stay tuned for pictures posted on all of these blogs mid-week. For now we will write when we can and post pictures later in the week.

Breathing Easily

I realized last night that really there are two things in life that I really enjoy:

Leisure &Work

Pretty much everything else I don’t like-which is a whole lot of stuff.

Most of the things in my life that I do daily or weekly end up falling into these two categories somehow either because they automatically do or I have ritualized them enough that my brain has been convinced that they do.

Exercise for example is leisure because I like it and makes my mind relax.

Tucking the kids in and cuddling them at night is leisure because it pleases me.

Shopping with the kids is leisure because it is fun and makes me happy.

Attending a funeral is even considered leisure because it is about bonding and  deep relationships, as strange as that may seem.

Work is simply work but most days of the week I love it.

Writing is leisure and work.

Strategizing, planning and lists are totally leisure because it relaxes me to know that the future will have more leisure time because of them.

Travel; reading, sleeping, Jacuzzis, family dinners, spending time with friends or family, boating ,cottage etc…are clearly leisure.

So I realized last night why I hate anything related to domestic chores or packing. Because they aren’t work for me (which gives me a huge sense of satisfaction) and they are not leisure (because I hate doing them).

That’s where delegation comes in pretty handy!

It’s also why I will never be a stay at home Mom. I met a woman the other day who stays home with her one son of two years old and she makes her husband so the groceries on the weekends after a full week of work outside the home and go shopping for the son’s birthday party!!! That does not seem too fair does it???

I was in shock. My husband would kill make if I had done that one my maternity leaves.  It was clear to us both that his job during those periods was outside of the home and mine was inside the home. Shopping, errands, packing, cooking, organizing, decorating, taking care of the kids needs re shopping, errands, etc…were my responsibility so that once he got home or on weekends we could relax somewhat as a family together and both spend quality time with our kids. Yes I did the stroller aerobics thing and the Chapter things for a coffee with another Mom -but that was the exception and a treat once or twice a week for a couple of hours just like a lunch break at work would represent

It’s called HOMEMAKER for a reason.

The rest I felt I owed it to my family to run the domestic show or that I was unfair to my husband and children. So I did but it was really hard, because besides being with my children and having fun with them and going to bookstores and foordcourts and exercise classes, there was not about domesticity that I remotely liked or that I was really good at either.

So last night even though we are going on a big trip to Europe today, and even though I am working most the day today at my place of work until 3pm when I leave, and even though the suitcases were calling my name to be zipped up and double checked-I chose leisure and I find myself doing it more and more.

Jacuzzi under the stars with hubby, a yummy double stuffed vanilla cookie to wish me a bon voyage, getting up extra early today to walk my daughter to school and get some girl time in there before I go, and extra cuddle from Chase in bed before school and some superb few extra blond highlights last night to shake it all up before Venice.

My head is always crowded by work and most the time I love it. But I have also decided to crowd my head with leisure in all of its shapes and forms and grab each moment I can get.

So I find myself breathing easier in the last 2 weeks, slowing down and smelling the roses a bit more, enjoying life just be wee bit more and giving myself a serious break on some levels.

I have honestly wondered if my housekeeper or Mom (see delegation!!!) have not laced my food with Ativan lately as I feel I am in a bit of a blur and man it feels good.

So I hope to keep some of this pace as I head into holidays but more importantly when I return. I am counting those years that I have left with my three babies and intend to make each moment count.

Not at home of course. While we work our asses off outside of the home and love it.  To pay others to work their asses off inside of the home and do it well. All for the goal that we all have a whole lot of time in between this crazy life to soak all the wonderful moments in properly and together, the way it should be.

To acknowledge what I am and what I am not and go with that unique flow.

Power Session

Some people do power yoga-we strategize about our life and kids.

Offsite even!

In the last few months my Guy and I have realized a serious need to ALIGN together as we enter these complicated teen years. It seems like everyday we are facing another question or request from our 12 or 14 yr. old that we have no clue what he answer should be.

“Mom-there is this guy selling a watch for half price on Facebook. I don’t know him but want to meet him at a subway station and buy it. I promise it is not stolen”

“Dad-can I start a hat selling business and use my free time to be a broker on the internet?”

“Mom tonight I need to stay up until 2am as I offered to edit the huge project my team is doing in English and we created an hour long video. Goodnight Guys!”

“Ya I don’t really feel like packing for Italy and the incredible wonderful extremely generous trip you are going out of your complete way to take me on. Are you ok if I just play outside? Packing is boring-you can do it.”

So all that to say we went offsite to figure all this out to have a plan. To decide and align on what is important to us at this new stage of our lives.

What is working well as a couple? What is not? How about our schedules-do they work? Need to be re-adjusted given our new morning routines? And our kids-how are they doing? Are we happy on how they are turning out? Are we achieving our goals with them and handing down values that we had intended?

What is our strategy for the next 5 yrs. with the family?

How do we put it into action? What  even are the actions?

So since our Jacuzzi needed some serious fixing and we needed to make a trip up to Trent anyways on Sunday-we left the kids for the day to fend for themselves and talked and talked for about 7 hrs. Straight.

We wrote it all down (well I did) and we have put many things into practice already over the last 2 days.

We did this for years when the kids were younger at least twice a year (minus the offsite). It was almost a religious thing for us and the cornerstone of success of raising kids as far as we were concerned. However after they all reached about 8 yrs. we stopped it seemed. The school and middle yrs. seemed much easier for us went a lot more smoothly I guess. Not as many surprises and decisions to make as with babies, toddlers ands teens. I guess we got a break for 6-7 yrs if you can call it that! Didn’t really feel like a break!

So I will keep you posted as we go along but so far this week has been interesting indeed.

I don’t have to spend time at table with kids in morning anymore as I find it irritating since I am not a morning person and am irritating them all anyways. Hubby cooks breakfast and drives carpool because it relaxes him. I get an extra hour in of work in the morning with no disruption. No! No! and No again to internet brokerage business of teenagers. Assessment is risk of kidnapping for meeting strangers at subways. Vodka Martinis will need to be limited for healthy normal and awake adults in evenings. Earlier bedtimes and may need to go to beddie bye at different times since I have loads of energy at midnight and husband wants to sleep. Bitchiness has to stop! Irritability bring it down a notch too?  Accountability a teensy weensy bit higher pretty please? Numbers 8 and 22 will take on a whole new meaning. Late night Jacuzzis a deux a necessity.   And my God Bear….just pack and be grateful! Are you kidding me???

Real Life

It’s amazing to me the things we remember about important events-the things that touch us the most that stay with us forever.

Today at the funeral I am not sure I will ever forget the somberness of the church and the echo rattle of the music playing-his favorite song.

The simplicity of the service and the sheer beauty of it-that spelled out exactly who he was and what he stood for. The sense of who he was.

The way his eldest son stood at the front of the visitation line and welcomed all the hundreds of guests with a gentle smile and hug. Taking on the role his Dad would have played, even through his own  tremendous grief.

The way all the children and teens there were dressed. Most in their private school uniforms, others more casually with their favorite hoodies or shoes.

My son, by my side. For the first time that I no longer saw him as a child. He was a man sitting there, listening, crossing his chest in prayer, tears in his eyes and the limousine with the body pulled away. The smell of him, the sound of him, the silence in the car.

The wife, publically giving her children permission to laugh and be happy.  Setting them free..Even as I write this part tears are streaming down my face. It was likely one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced. I had more respect for that Mother than I have had for anybody in that moment. I learnt more from her in that minute than I have from the thousand parenting books I have read over my lifetime.

The way that even if I did not know Roman Catholic etiquette, or where to sit in the church, or what to do, or how to act …that  I knew anyways and so did Chase. We did not need to know we just knew. The length of time to stand outside watching the body going away-for so long because our feet would not move, the silence at the church, the laughter at the reception in celebration of his life. Where we sat and how we held on to each other. What was spoken and when.

The way my son cried the moment he saw his buddy break down as he said a final farewell to his Father as the casket was taken into the long car. The tears in Chase’s eyes. For someone else. The worry, the support, the empathy.

The respect, dignity and support shown for the family by my son. His decision to single them out one by one as he left to look at them in person and expressed his deepest respect. The fact this all came from him, from his heart and had nothing to do with me.

The son’s reaction when I told him that everything in the eulogy said about his Dad reminded me so much of the way I would describe him. He is his Father’s son. They way he hugged me, the way he held on. My courage in telling him that and not assuming it was an imposition or that he was preoccupied. Going with my instincts.

The “vrai education” that I gave my son today far more important than his missed Math or Science exam. The lessons.

The sheer and utter sadness of it all. The beautiful and lovely celebration of his life. The brilliance. The beauty. The horror. The loss. The community coming together. The paradox of what death makes us feel as the living.

But mostly….above all….was the support that was there today for that family. The foundation they have built with their dear friends, so many of them. The net that they have woven that will catch them through this horrifying time. The love that surrounds them. The friends who know them as family. The closeness and the bonds .

The feeling of recocogniton in me that I became paradoxically a little envious even during this tragic time..of this village that they had so lovingly built. So much not out of luck as the eulogy spoke out, but out of hard work and dedication. To family and friends. Of being there in thick and thin, in celebration and in loss. Building milestones..and memories. Being there always for each other every single step of the way

Building lives together that go beyond their own households.

Not always putting family first.

I have that village in many ways, but also don’t in some ways too.

I realized today who I am at the core and in some ways have ignored what I need in my life.

I am all about villages.

I want to focus on building this village. For my kids. For my Family.

For me

I need it

It’s the next step

It’s what has always been there

But also what has always been missing

To look at today and just let it all seep in. To remember it all rather than forgetting. To keep it with me as we keep on living. To learn the lessons that were meant for us to receive.

To allow a man’s life, and his death, to touch our own.