Painter's Helper

The hardest week of the year for our two kids is the week before school starts.  With both parents being teachers, they are stuck at school full time for that week.  It is often incredibly boring for them.  We try to plan activities to keep them entertained, but there are always at least one day of misery.

This year Jo had lots of fun the past two days.  In fact he said it was too much fun.

The school has had a face lift over the summer with new paint on the whole exterior.  The maintenance crew is madly painting the get the last section finished before the end of the day tomorrow so they can enjoy their weekend.  Yesterday Jo somehow found his way to where they were working.

Mid-afternoon he came inside with relatively new clothes covered in grey spatters.  All bare skin was also covered in grey spatters.  I was a wise enough mother to bite my tongue before bemoaning the ruined clothes.  Instead I smiled at his ear-to-ear grin and obvious delight in being such a good helper. 

Today he wore the same splattered outfit to help more.  Tonight I had to comb paint clumps out of his hair.  But the smile on his face as he fell asleep was worth far more than a t-shirt and shorts.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Our quiet neighbourhood is getting to be busy.  New teachers are moving in and getting settled.  They are facing the same adjustments that we did when we arrived; hydro not set up when you expected it to be, no Internet, a looonng drive to the grocery store if you forgot something important.  We are trying to make them feel welcome and supported without hovering.

It is odd to come down the driveway from a walk with the dog and see driveways filled with cars.  Odd, but nice to have neighbours around.

We are also starting to gear up for the start of the school year.  Since we start a week before Labour Day, we get into school mid-August to prep.  And, true to the course for the way things work in life, we lost our new principal last week.  She didn't die, she just un-accepted the job.  So the school board is working through their options for a short term solution.  LK and I want to be as helpful as we can, so we are trying to get as much of our prep-work out of the way as soon as possible to be available to help new staff acclimate.

So, it feels like summer is over.

Ants in Your Pants

Have you read the short story "Leiningen Versus the Ants"?  I had a flashback to my reading of that story way back in grade nine this week.

We went blueberry picking twice this past week.  First the kids and I went while LK was having a nap.  We had a lovely time.  I picked 6 cups of blueberries, Fi practiced using her compass, Jo picked a few and ate a lot.  The dog romped through the bush to her heart's content.  We came home tired and excited to take Papa with us again soon.

Saturday we all loaded up into the car and headed back to the quarry where there are more blueberries than I could pick in a week.  There were a few other people there, so the dog stayed on her leash until she adjusted to the new people smells.  The kids romped and made a fort while LK and I picked.

All in all it was great, and we have enough blueberries in the fridge to last weeks.  However, in my eagerness to pick lots I didn't always pay attention to where I was putting my feet.

Picking happily a patch that was particularly lush I didn't notice them at first.  Then suddenly I felt a bite on my arm.  Ants!  I had been standing right on top of an anthill (which would explain the particularly nice blueberry bush there growing on a rotting tree stump).  While I was focussed on getting all the berries, the ants had been exploring the new invasion to their world.

The dance that ensued was thankfully not caught on camera.

I am not a squeamish kind of woman.  But having ants crawling up my pants is not a nice sensation.  It took a few minutes of dancing, shaking, and swiping critters off to settle me down.  And then I promised myself to pay more attention to where I was putting my feet.

That only lasted until another particularly lovely patch.  Guess what?  More ants in my pants.  After that ant removal dance I wasn't even tempted to pick any more blueberries.  I just wanted to walk on solid rocks.

The whole drive home I was struggling with shivers of creepy crawlies on my skin.

I cannot imagine how scary it would be for Leinigen.  And that story takes on a whole new level of horror.