The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
Last night, Katy and I (sever times) : do you have anything to do for this morning?
Ben: no.
This morning, Ben : I have math and German stuff to finish for today.
Me : but you said last night that you didn’t have anything.
Ben : No!!!! I said so, but you ignored me, like you always do.
…..
Ben : I don’t understand how to do this
Me : trying to explain.
Ben : NO!!!! THAT’S NOT HOW WE DO IT!
……
FML.
I have good intentions to try and help Ben with his homework when he asks demands. But every time I open my mouth to explain something, he blatantly interrupts me after 2 words to talk yell over me that I’m wrong, or not doing it the right way, or it’s too difficult and he’s going to fail and nobody helps and it’s all going to be my fault.
I am so honestly fed up. I want to help, but I will not put up with the abuse. So, I love my son, but fuck this shit and the horse it rode on.
The scouts were doing a charity event to raise money & buy gifts for disadvantaged kids.
So I’ve reached the point where I’m the one cooking stacks of pancakes for Ben and his friends in the morning post-sleepover. No hangovers, yet, though.
The sad thing though is that we’re down to our last tin of proper maple syrup ?. We did however realize that Aldi sells Canadian Grade A (dark), which should be acceptable until we can get some more of the good stuff.
The child has learned how to make a negroni and a red snapper (i.e. a bloody mary using gin instead of vodka).
The Journée Oser tous les Métiers (JOM) has always been a very special day in the canton of Vaud, all the children of the 7P to the 9S are invited to discover the professional world of their parents. The goal of this day is to break down the barriers that exist between typically male and female trades; and to encourage children to imagine their future professional life outside traditional patterns.
Bean has finally achieved his goal to set food inside the NRC, where the security rules are more stringent than they were at the lakeside offices. As part of the JOM workshops, he’s done cell culture, electrophoresis on extracted milk powder proteins, made slime and had fun making density layers, extracted DNA from bananas and done chromatography. Compared to this, sitting at my computer and looking at the latest and greatest powerpoint slide I was making seems dull (in my eyes, at least! I sometimes miss bench work, even though I sucked at it).
One things Katy and I agree on – we didn’t do this in high school :)
Yesterday was the 11th year we haven’t killed the Bean yet, accidentally or otherwise. Bear in mind that Katy’s only been out of the hospital one week to the day, she’s done a superb, masterful, exceptional job of getting all the logistics organized. We invited a bunch of Ben’s friends to an indoor trampoline park where they could jump around for an hour, then have cake and drinks. It was like herding cats at times, but she got there in the end and every one seemed to have a good time.
The actual number of people that showed up was still unclear up to the last possible moment. We’d booked for 10 officially, but Ju,mppark said that it would be ok to get one or two more people in. Ben sent 12 invitations, but some people couldn’t because of prior commitments, so he sent out more invitations. We had 12 kids in total. Then two kids had gym/athletics accidents on the day before and the actual day of the party… so yeah, fun. We swapped cars with Roko to borrow his 7-seater (which was amusing because Katy’d never driven an automatic before) and we had two other moms helping out with the transportation. The cake got lots of praise, with several people asking where we’d bough it (nowhere, it’s homemade, bitches, booyah!).
We were completely frazzled when we got home after dropping off a couple of kids, but the child was happy and had had a good time, so I guess all the effort was worth it – even if he doesn’t realize just how much work was involved in all of it.
It involved way too much drama behind the scenes (that fscking Marshmellow mask!!!!) but the building’s annual Halloween party went off without a hitch, thanks to the combined efforts of Katy, Jen and MJ (and Ben will be very vocal in saying that he helped – even though his help was more autocratic micromanagement).
It was the biggest one yet, with a bunch of people coming from other buildings, friends of friends and random people I didn’t know. The kids seemed to get a good haul. The adults were congregating under the gazebo, happily socialising over a drink or keeping warm around the fire in the chimenea.
We ran out of mulled wine (but there were several bottles that were there to take up the slack). There was a ton of food – the guys at work tomorrow will be happy with the leftovers. After the fact, I’m happy we did it. People really seem to appreciate it. I just wish it didn’t involve as much drama as it seems to involve as part of the planning.
Ben had a passeport-vacances activity with the Amicale du Terre-Neuve de Genève et du Bassin Lémanique. They train the dogs in water rescue ctivities every two weeks, year-round. At first, doofus was all “I don’t want to go” and then “I don’t want to get wet”, and then it was impossible to get him out of the lake.
And has pastel de natas, jamon, churros, pataclette, port and indigestion.