From the Annamaniacs Files: Merrily We Roll Along - 2001

This post was first published in 2001. Children's ages have changed since then. They tend to do that.
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We went on vacation this summer.

And I see your eyebrows raise. “So?” You might ask.

Let me explain. We went on vacation this summer, and we have seven kids.

Okay, now that you’ve picked up your eyeballs and put them back in your head, I can tell you more.

Two vehicles, seven kids (plus a couple of extras on the trip there) and two drivers.

I learned some things from this experience.

Make sure the sliding van door is completely closed before you allow someone to lean against it while you go 100 kilometers down a highway.

The trip from Kelowna to Golden is twice as long as the trip from Golden to Kelowna. I don’t know why this is. It’s the same road.

If I start to feel sleepy and headachey while speeding down the highway, stopping for a nutritious lunch for long term energy, is not going to fix the problem. I need a coke, a chocolate bar and aspirin. With that combination I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

From now on I will not trust my sixteen-year-old daughter with the map. She found a bug on it. So instead of picking the bug off like any normal human being would do, in an effort to get the bug off, she rolled down her window, took the map, hung it out the window, shook it, and watched it fly into the windshield of the car behind us. My first thought? We’re going to be fined several thousand dollars for littering. And if someone finds an Alberta/BC map on the highway, it is not mine. I know nothing

Even I, who loves heights (been parasailing) and has never suffered from sea or air sickness, can get slightly nauseous in a six seater recreational plane. By the way, it was so cool when the pilot played chicken with the mountains. I can’t wait to go up again.

Teenagers think that a great way to spend a day with the aunt who has a beach house, is to rent movies and watch them all day.

No matter how I try, I cannot hide from people who want to take pictures.

While renting a condo, young children are required to repeatedly jump on the floor above other residents’ heads. Once you are in a cabin with no one beneath you, jumping is no longer required.

When going to the Enchanted Forest, beware of cute little houses that two-year-olds can get into but anyone much bigger can’t. She decided that she liked living in the three bears’ house. She liked eating baby bear’s porridge. She sat in baby bear’s chair. She wanted to sleep in baby bear’s bed. She was not coming out. No matter how much we huffed and puffed.

Kelowna is scarier to drive in than Calgary.

Even though slower speeds are posted on mountain roads, you still must drive prairie speeds. You just have to learn how to take the turns on two tires.

Under no circumstances can the bag holding my 8 year old daughter’s coloring supplies and books, be buried under 300 suitcases. I will not be able to survive unless she has her coloring supplies while riding in the car. It doesn’t matter how much my husband complains about unpacking the van and repacking it. He is not the one driving the vehicle she is in.

If you send three teenagers up a mountain so that they can ride mountain bikes on the way down, one of them will require rescue services.

At one point we rented a two bedroom cabin. It was charming. It was darling. I spent time furnishing it in my head. For myself. No one else. Not one child. Not even a husband. Just me, me, me. I dreamed about where my computer, stereo and TV would go. I imagined my collections throughout my little home, undamaged, unbroken, safe from harm. I pictured myself snuggled peacefully in front of the fireplace, reading a book, or happily engaged in my sewing room, or at my computer working on my 100th best seller.

And then someone would scream.

I kept telling myself “this is the last vacation with all of us. From now on they start moving out. That 17 year old is out the door next summer. The 16 year old is not far behind her. I only have 16 more years of family vacations.”

I will survive.

From the Annamaniacs Files: Driving Me Crazy

I had a request from my daughter - yes the same one in this story - to post this particular column from my heydays as a humor writer in newspapers.  Apparently she thinks that this story of herself somehow impresses people. I am not going to argue.

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                Having seven kids means that you eventually learn to handle stress fairly well.  You learn not to pull out your hair when kids draw on the walls. You don’t freak out at the first sign of blood. And watching two-year-olds walk along the backs of couches or four-year-olds climbing trees, doesn’t strike fear into your heart.

            So I’m cool, I’m calm, I’m collected, and I’m in control.

            Or at least I was until my sixteen-year-old got her learners permit.

            To be fair, we’ve been after these teenage girls to get drivers licenses.  Here in Alberta they can get their learners at fourteen. They can get their license at sixteen. I have a seventeen-year-old that still hasn’t made the first step. The sixteen-year-old finally has. I want my daughters independent. I want them to be able to drive themselves places instead of having to ask mom and dad or rely on unreliable friends. Most of all, I don’t want to have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to drive them to their scripture study class.

            So I was happy she finally got her learners. And yes, I would teach her how to drive. I could handle this.

            I can’t handle this.

            “First rule,” I say to my daughter, “do not hold on to the steering wheel like a two year old does. It causes the van to sway all over the road.”

            “I’m not going to do that Mom,” I know how to stay straight.”

            “That would be fine if this was a straight road. But it curves.”

            “So how am I doing?”

            “Don’t look at me when you say that.”

            “Mom, why are you pretending that you have a brake?”

            “Why are you looking at my feet?”

            “Mom, I’ve driven this road plenty of times.”

            “You mean once.”

            “No, three.”

            “Three times is not exactly plenty.”

            “Now wasn’t that a good turn?”

            “Yes dear, it was the best turn in the entire history of the world, except for that car that you hit.

            “Mom, there was no car there.”

            “Well if there had been you would have hit it.”

            “Well if there had been a car there, I wouldn’t have turned so wide.”

            “That’s right, you would drive so much better with more traffic on the road.”

             My husband came home from a driving lesson and declared “I’m never letting her drive again! You teach her.”

            “What happened?” I asked smiling.

            “She shone the high beams right into an oncoming car.”

            “I couldn’t see.” My daughter said.

            “Neither could the other driver.” My husband said.  “He nearly drove into the lake.”

            So it was up to me. Not only that, but it meant that whenever I picked my daughter up from work I had to take the clunky old van instead of the nice new car, so that she could drive home. There was no way she was going to be allowed behind the wheel of the car.

            “Would you relax.” She said one day on the way home from her work.

            “I am relaxed. I’m having a nice relaxing drive sitting in the passenger’s seat. The next time we do this, could you remind me to bring your brother’s bike helmet and the cell phone?”

            “Well, at least you haven’t freaked out yet.”

            “Not even when you shone your high beams into an oncoming car and almost drove into the ditch trying to shut them off.”

            “Yeah, you were pretty cool about that.”

            “I was speechless.”

            “You know, if you want me to learn how to drive, you’re going to have to let me.”

            “That would be logical. My brain understands that. It’s my body that hasn’t grasped the concept.”

            So I am warning everyone out there as I uncurl my body from its fetal position. My daughter is driving. Please be patient. Mistakes will be made. And keep your fingers to yourselves.

 

*****

Now that I posted it, could my daughter post in the comments section and tell what happened in drivers ed class and at school after this column appeared in the newspaper.