Strong As a Girl

There has been a lot of talk about strength in our house as of late.  First, "finish strong" was the phrase we kept saying when referring to the end of summer.  We've got to finish strong: keep up the fun, don't give in to the heat or whining of bored kids.  I have to say I failed on that one. I did not finish strong. I kind of gave up and tailed off after the epic road trip and pretended that summer was no longer happening.  Then there was "start strong". We've got to start the school year off organized and with good attitudes and a place for everything and everything in its place.  I did much better on this one including setting up a drop off place for backpacks and school junk in the laundry room. (And by me, I mean Bill.)   And we are always talking about being physically strong and healthy.  Have you seen my husband?  

Close, but Bill has better hair.

This first week of school the prevalent theme was "be strong".  SG was up at 5:45 every morning and at school by 6:30 in order to be at tryouts for volleyball.  She was exhausted each day and each day I told her "You've got this.  Be strong."  And she was strong.  She suited up, she tried and she got her school work done and fell dead asleep each night, worn out from being strong.  I was hoping, and praying, that her being strong would pay off and that she would make the team and see that being strong has its rewards.  Unfortunately, I forgot that being strong isn't always instantly rewarded and unfortunately, she is learning that as well.

I am so sad for her to not make the team and be rewarded right away. I am so disappointed that her show of strength was not crowned with achievement. I hate life teaching her that you can be strong and still not get what you want. She was very sad and I absolutely ache in those moments of parenting when you are comforting them and telling them you are so proud and while your words are nice, they are not enough.  They don't staunch the tears, they don't fill the wound, and they don't make it better.  Parenting is its own test of strength sometimes.

I hate that being strong and trying aren't enough anymore to win a spot on a team.  I hate that they are awarded points for every single exercise they do instead of being looked at individually and in their entirety. I hate that our kids have to be superstar athletes who carry a 4.0+++++ in order to be at the top of anything, or awarded anything, or noticed. I had forgotten how horrible middle school is until we went up there for Athletic sign-up and I was "MOMMMMMMMM!!!"ed at for saying hi to someone who used to be a friend but now isn't a friend.  I broke some sort of social etiquette by saying hello to one of the popular kids.  Sorry, I knew him when he was eight and had a crazy smile and rang our doorbell asking for kids to come out and play.  I had forgotten the social land mines our kids weave in and out of each day.  It makes me think that while I was telling SG each day to be strong, I should have really been telling her how amazed I am at how strong she already is.  I guess I need to tell her that it is also alright to not always be strong.  That it is okay to be vulnerable because being vulnerable can set you up for your next feat of strength or help you recover from the last one.

However, as I was trying to think of how to tell her all this, this amazing girl, while suffering her own disappointment, found enough strength in her to tell a friend who also did not make the team, to not be sad.  She put her own sad aside and told her friend that she did great and tried hard and should be proud of herself because she was proud of her.  It makes me realize that I don't want to be as strong as an ox, or a mule or ten men. I want to be strong as a girl.  My girl.

And the Heat Goes On

Do you live south of Ohio?   Has your will to enjoy summer been replaced with hourly thoughts of how much summer sucks?  Does your forecast look like this?

Notice the 10% chance of rain each day? Lies.

Have you opened the door to go outside and then immediately closed it and sat on the couch defeated?  If you answered yes to one or all of these questions, there is a good chance you are suffering from SAD.  This is not the SAD that people get up north when it is gray and snowing and below zero all winter.  This SAD, or Summer Affective Disorder, affects those of us below the Mason-Dixon line.  SAD can affects everyone, old and young alike, with serious consequences so please, read the following warning signs and see if you, or someone you know, might be suffering from SAD.

Adults: have your plans for a well-rounded summer been compromised by the actual length of summer?  Are math workbooks and flashcards gathering dust and you no longer care if your children know their math facts because there are things like calculators they can use instead?  If so, you may be suffering from SAD.  Does the smell of sunscreen make you nauseous?  Or the thought of applying sunscreen to small bodies yet again fill you with unspeakable rage?  Step away from the SPF, take a deep breath and know you are not alone.  When you speak, are you the only one who can hear your voice?  It is because your children are also suffering from SAD and cannot hear anything you say unless it is "Ice Cream!" or "Yes, you can play video games until your eyes fall out."  Do you no longer care if their eyes fall out from watching TV or playing video games?  If yes, you are definitely suffering from SAD.

Kids: has swimming lost its appeal?  Do cannonballs into tepid water no longer bring the joy they once did?  Does the thought of one more outing with your mom and siblings make you want to cry?  If yes, you too are suffering from SAD.  Is your mother mad at you because you stopped listening to anything she had to say back in July?  Can you no longer even pretend to listen?  Do you walk into a room for something she asked you to get, forget what it was and sit down and get involved with something else?  If yes, don't forget to look hurt and maybe even cry a little when she yells at you later.  You are suffering from SAD and she is yelling?  What kind of parent is she?  Work the tears and gain more video time.

SAD sufferers take heart because you are not alone and there is hope for recovery.  Follow these simple steps and see if the symptoms of SAD alleviate:

1.  don't watch the weather until October.  It is going to be 100 every day.  Rain?  No.  Don't count on it and don't believe the 10% chance they put on there.  It is to keep people from killing the weather man.
2.  stop planning "fun" events.  Nothing is fun when the walk to the car gives you heat stroke.  You did fun, you did it well, stop while you are ahead.
3.  Yes, your children are watching too much TV and playing too many video games but you have all the winter months to shoo them outside and make them be kids.  Refuse to feel guilty.
4.  Kids -every now and then break out a board game.  This will make your mom feel like she has done something right and she will reward you with more screen time.
5.  Count the days, or hours, until school starts.  It is close enough now, this will bring you peace.  This goes for kids as well because it will get them away from a crazy mom and siblings.
6.  It is too hot to cook, so don't.  Grill?  Good Lord, no!  Sandwiches, lots and lots of sandwiches.  (If you cut them on the diagonal it looks like you tried.)


SAD is here and it is real, but sufferers, you are not alone!  Take heart in the woman who screams at her children at the grocery store; at least you scream at yours at home.  Look into the eyes of the fatigued parents surrounding you and know you look the same.  Know that you will be found innocent if you happen to kill someone who says "hot enough for ya?" while smiling.  Little by little by little the heat will abate, children will go to school and the oppression of SAD will lift.  You will want to go outside, you will want to engage in the world around you and you may even want to be fun mom again.  May.  Until then, hole up in your air conditioned house and curse. Curse the weatherman, curse the sun and curse the month of August itself.  This will bring you a small amount of peace and give you the will to go forward.  SAD sufferers we shall overcome!!!

Bastard.

Oh? Canada?

Yes. Canada.  Have you been?  You must.  You absolutely must go and see this country for yourself.  I think I have always been disparaging about Canada because I grew up 20 minutes away from it.  Crossing into Canada was no big deal the entire time I lived in NY state.  As a kid it meant we HAD to wear our seatbelts and not be rude to the border guard and as a young adult crossing in because the drinking age there was 19(!) it meant have a designated driver and don't be rude to the border guard.  Keep all your funny drunk quips to yourself until they wave you through.  Then you can mock Canada and Canadians with your ehs, and hockey and wonder why their dollar bill is really a dollar coin.

Funny thing is that I married a Canadian.  A Canadian I met in Dallas whose family lives two hours away from my NY family.  It was fate for many reasons but this was convenient for visiting purposes as well.  Bill has been in the states as long as I have been in Texas so sometimes it is easy to forget he is Canadian.  He will say "about" like "abooooout" and make me giggle sometimes or grow a little misty when Canada takes gold in something, but I never thought too much about him being Canadian.

My previous Canadian trips had only taken me as far as Guelph and really, that area between the border and Guelph, is not so much different than Western New York.  I also think I have been to Toronto once or twice, but on field trips and in a contained no exploring kind of way.  On our epic road trip this year, we traveled further north in Canada then I have ever been and I will say that I am disparaging of Canada no more.  I am in awe.  Oh Canada indeed.

Rolling, green, bucolic.

Canada is lush.  It is verdant. It is bucolic.  It is green and vast and rolling.  You drive by farm after farm after farm and wonder how anyone in the world can be starving.  Bill pointed out the huge farms are probably growing soybeans for industrial meat raising, but they were still gorgeous.  Our road to his sister's house by Golden Lake took us through Algonquin Park.  Yes, the only way to her house was through a national park.  60km of trees and lakes and hills and scenery that made you humble.  It made your heart and eyes ache to look at how beautiful nature can really be.  It was birch trees peeling along the side of the road and pine trees growing higher than any tree in Texas knows about.  We kept an eye out for moose for SG and while we didn't see a moose, we did see a mama bear and three cubs.  I was not scared, I was only amazed.  And the air?  It smells clean.  Clean like a rain shower when it hasn't even rained or like pine needles on a soft dirt ground.  We got so used to clean that let's just say crossing into Detroit was a wake up for sure! SG asked what that smell was and Bill commented "That is America."

Our accommodations: family of five, no waiting.

We stayed with Bill's sister for three days and three nights and in those three days and nights I have seen my husband more at peace and happy than I think I have ever seen him.  He was home.  He was canoeing and kayaking and teaching his kids how to do the same.  SG took to the kayak like a natural.  My anxious girl was whipping through the waters of Bonnechere like a pro.  We hiked up a mountain that was actually a mountain and where we had to boost ourselves over rocks and stop to see if we were on the path or not.  Bill decided the path wasn't actually enough for him and led us bushwhacking up to the tip, tip, top of Blueberry Mountain.  We had spooked a deer so my heart was in my throat knowing that a bear and a wolf had to be next. (yes, I am sure they travel in threes like that) We tried out new things and all were a success!  I had my first poutine (fries with gravy and cheese curds) and wonder how I got to be 40 without trying it before.  My son, the boy with 20/60 vision in one eye and no depth perception to speak of, is a champion knife thrower. That child stood and threw knives at a wooden target for hours until he got it.  The teen insisted on showering and wearing full make-up everyday but even she got into a canoe and led us in song around the campfire.  The stars at night were beyond plentiful and I saw my first shooting star, and then my second and my third.  We listened to the bullfrogs croak, a little incessantly I have to say, and animals splash into the dark water and the eerie call of the loons.  I think we may have even heard a wolf howl.

Look, so clear the trees reflect in it!

 Our time in Canada may have been short, but I learned so many things while we were there.  I learned what it is like to see my husband in a place where he is not the square peg trying to fit in a round hole. I learned that when there is nature in abundance, kids are so happy they forget about connecting to the Wifi.  I learned that my husband's family is made up of amazing, loud, funny, outspoken and multi-dimensional people I want to see more than every six years.  I learned that Canada is not just Northern America; it is it's own amazing country and I feel bad for not giving it any credit over the years.  Yes, the metric system is confusing and Celsius is weird, but as far as preserving what they have and living in harmony with their surroundings, they have us beat and beat badly.  

It was hard to leave and especially hard on Bill.  I feel like he left a piece of his soul there in the canoe on the Bonnechere.  Sure,we can canoe Town Lake with the 7000 other people some weekend but it won't be the same.  There is a peace and a quiet and a soul refreshing contentment that you can only find in Canada.  It will be too long until our next visit and we want to try it in the winter.  I am afraid if we went in the fall and the Bonnechere was lit with red, orange and gold trees I would never leave.  I would give it all up to live in a little cabin on Muriel and Butch's land and watch the trees in their glory and listen to the bullfrogs at night.  I'd watch Bill do a million things I never even knew he could do and watch him smile as he did them.  I'd watch my girl skim along the river in her kayak with her hair flowing and her face taken up with her smile and listen to the thunk of knives hitting their target as the boy throws them over and over and think oh,Canada indeed.   

We Took the One Less Traveled By

You know what is beautiful?  The shores of the Bonnechere River in Canada.

Beautiful, right?

You know what is not beautiful?  Five McMahons after traveling over 2000 miles to get home from the Bonnechere to Austin.  That was a road trip to end all road trips in that all of us now refuse to drive anywhere again.

We left Canada at 11am Saturday morning and hit home at 1am on Monday morning.  38 hours from one door to the next and only 5 of those hours not in the car.  Yes, the road broke even Bill this time and we stopped for an unprecedented sleep break in Terre Haute, IN.  We stopped for sleep, but none of us brought in a change of clothes, or deodorant or even a toothbrush. Why?  Because everything was jammed up and piled in the back and no one knew exactly where anything was and trying to figure it out would cost us time.  We were as ugly and smelly as we get and I think they probably had to deep clean the rental car after we brought it back.  Seriously, my teeth felt like someone had knit individual socks for them and every time I moved my arms I wished I did not have a tank top on.

Usually the road only claims SG and I.  We can only take so many hours of enclosed spaces and not being in control and we have a quiet cry or a full on freak out.  As I mentioned, it claimed Bill in IN.  I started pleading to stop for the night the minute we crossed into IN.  SG was hallucinating by Detroit.  Maizy stopped talking and went stony in Missouri and then it was OK that broke our boy.  Our stalwart, happy boy sat in the way back with tears streaming down his face as he realized that crossing into TX did not mean we were home yet.  

We did not plan this part of the trip very well because no one wanted to think about it.  We knew it was going to be long, crazy long, and it was overwhelming to plan for.  We waited way too long to get food and ended up in Toldeo, OH at 10pm looking for dinner and finding everything closed due to toxic water.  I think we found a Taco Bell open at about midnight and my stomach still hurts from that.  Our last gas station stop was in Plano, TX.  Three hours from home, not a brain cell left among us and the gas station lady wants to engage us in conversation.  Loud, non-stop conversation about how to make Chex Mix at home. I wanted to stab her with my Kind bar.  All we want is to cash out and get out of there and she wants to make friends. I still hate her.

Being on the road that long gives you a road hangover when you get back.  You are tired, you are lethargic, your stomach hurts from all the junk food you ate and you move about it an haze.  Poor Bill and Maizy had to go back to work on Monday.  I think Bill got about four hours of sleep.  I would have laid on the floor and sobbed if I had to go to work.  As it was, I spent the day doing about 10 hours of laundry and falling asleep any time I sat down.

There was some fun built into that ridiculously long ride.  We laughed and laughed at things that were said.  We mocked that gas station lady well into Waco.  We talked, we sang, we were together as a family in a way we are not when we are home. We were trapped in hell, but we were trapped together.  We saw seven states and one province.  We saw rivers and lakes filled to the top and trees taller than I remember trees growing.  We saw places in Canada that were so beautiful you couldn't even talk while driving through them.  We saw farms in Ontario that were so green and lush and enormous they make you think no one in the world should be starving.  We saw huge cities and tiny towns.  We saw two countries from the windows of our dirty, smelly car whiz by.


It is amazing to think of all the miles we have driven over the past two weeks. (SG, the boy and I have 1500 additional miles from the week before.)  Road trips bring out the very best and very worst of us.  One of my favorite moments was when I made SG laugh, and I mean laugh where her head was thrown back and she was gasping for air and when she got some she said "I love you Mom.  And I like you too".  High praise from a preteen I will carry in my heart.   Overall, this ridiculously long road trip was worth it.  It was worth trapping the 16 year old with a dead phone in with us and hearing all the things she finally says.  It was worth breaking the boy's spirit a little if it means he learns how to overcome his disappointment.    And it was definitely worth the 3.5 days on the banks of the Bonnechere.  So while I say I will never road trip again, I know I will. However, next time I will make sure to put extra deodorant and toothbrushes in the glove compartment.