Plastic glow-in-the-dark sword, with sheath;

Bow and suction-cup arrows, with quiver;

Spear, created from snapped piece of dowel with pointy, unsanded end;

Star Wars gun with blaster sound effects;

Jolly Roger mini flag;

Two digital cameras;

One old flip-phone, no power or package, but still gets more talk time than my own;

Phineas and Ferb spy kit;

Phineas and Ferb cut-outs that go with a wind-up skateboard toy;

Kid-sized rolling suitcase, recently acquired from a garage sale, anxiously awaiting a sleepover invitation;

Panda slippers;

Snow globe;

Several Archie comic books;

Chewbacca bobble head;

Two pairs 3D glasses;

Playmobil travel skateboard park, with skateboarder and roller blader (either one may be the favourite at any given time);

One very, very worn out sheep, once yellow, now grey, well-loved.

One bouncy ball, coloured to look like the Earth;

One foam, fist-sized basketball, suitable for batting about with a mini hockey stick or tossing at the wall, Great Escape style;

Two light sabers, one Jedi, one Dark Side;

Alligator pen;

A variety of Lego men, arranged in various vignettes, such as the Lego restaurant area, or the Lego ninja battle area, or the Lego pie-in-the-face clowns and mimes area;

Various unattached Lego heads and other body parts;

One book: Lego Character Encyclopedia;

New iPod, later to be reported missing in a panic, then found by Mom, AGAIN, with no judgement, just some pointed sighs;

Half a Beyblade;

A couple ammunition pods for a Nerf gun;

Single turquoise coloured marble;

One blue stuffed monkey, with rattle, well-loved.

If, like me, you are not at all down with the bugs, you may want to skip this post. Wish I could, SHIVER.

We have a bug problem. For the past few years, we’ve had on ongoing infestation of sugar ants. Each spring I’d spray, maybe spray again, put out a few traps, and it seemed to hold them at bay. Them on the outside, us on the inside.

This year, however, they showed up in a few new places in the house, one of which was the kitchen counter (EW EW EW), so we called in an exterminator, and he did some baiting and poisoning, and he sprayed the outside of the house to create a Do Not Enter boundary, and we felt good about the whole thing.

But now…OH. MY. GOD. We’re in the middle of an insect war and even though we haven’t taken sides, I think we are losing. GAH.

Last week, I found a path of ants walking up and down the side of the house – like, hundreds of ants, parading right up to the roofline and back on the brick outside. Why? Turns out we have a wasp nest somewhere in the rafters of the garage, and the ants were going in, storming the nest, grabbing baby wasps, dragging them out and back down the side of the house, and eating them alive.

BARF. ME.

So I got out like, a thousand of those poisonous disk things that the ants are supposed to find, love, and take back to the nest so the Queen can DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE, and they swarmed them happily. Afterwards I was thinking, hm, maybe I should have let the ants take out all the wasp babies first? But whatever, right?

The disks caused a) the death of hundreds of ants, their bodies lying around in small piles like a monument to the Evil That Men Do, but b) the appearance of thousands, and I mean THOUSANDS, more. The sides of our driveway are like living creatures. Thousands and thousands of ants writhing up and down like a cohesive, sentient being. Brown strips the size of my leg, squirming all over each other, and OH MY GOD, VOMIT.

So we’re living with THAT, and then, yesterday, the ants reappeared in the kitchen, so I put out another poisonous disk.

This morning? We wake up to a few hundred dead ants being eaten by – oh, what’s that now? HUNDREDS OF BABY WASPS.

Somehow, the wasps found their way into the house, found the pile of dead and dying ants, thought to themselves SWEET REVENGE, and got to it.

I may have thrown up a bit in my mouth while typing that.

I took on the ant cleanup, while Sir Monkeypants spent an hour poised over the wasp entrance hole with a screwdriver taking them down one at a time as they attempted to join the party. GAAAAAAHHHHHH.

We have searched and searched for the exact location of the wasp nest and the ant nests, and no dice.

So, somewhere in or around the house we have a) wasps with free access, b) ants with free access, c) bugs that want to eat each other and vice versa, and d) OH MY GOD WE ARE SO MOVING.

Know that phrase, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite?” YEAH. Tooooootally getting great sleep tonight, don’t you think?

This video has like, 15 million views on YouTube, so you’ve probably already seen it. However, I just got it this morning in my inbox from my friend Sarah, and peed myself laughing, so it was a must-share. SWIPER NO SWIPING. Hee!

For the past three years, we’ve had summers that were, in a word – awesome. This year, so far – less than. Is it the weather? The kids? The really bad hair days? Hm.

The Captain and the Little Miss were never bosom buddies, but this summer they seem hell bent on pressing each other’s buttons until one of them dies – or more likely, until I kill them both. We’re on, what is this, day four of the summer break? And already I cannot count the number of times I have yelled, or separated children, or sent everyone to their rooms so they could THINK ABOUT WHAT THEY’VE DONE, and seriously? That is less than awesome.

Plus, we are doing daily swim lessons these first two weeks. I am a big believer in swimming as a Life Skill, so the kids all take lessons even though they are not big fans. We have found that the daily summer lessons do more to advance their skills than any once-weekly type classes, so we do it every year, but oy vey, does it ever eat up your day. This year, I could only get all three of them in sequentially, so it’s one kid in and out, then another kid in and out, then third kid in and out, all the while I’m fighting to defend our chairs from poachers and encouraging the kids to do some math worksheets in the steaming hot crazy noise and struggling not to think about what my feet are currently touching.

It’s two full hours in the pool area each day, and right now my hair looks like this:

NO JOKE.

Our lessons are sort of late morningish, and then we come home and the girls are STARVING. They eat and eat and eat – we have been through a week’s worth of groceries in the past three days. And then the Captain? Who you may remember is on the small side? Declares he just “isn’t hungry right now,” this despite it being hours since he last ate and with exercise in between. Head, meet wall.

So that leaves a very small window of time in the afternoon, mostly devoted to me yelling at the children in between them begging to play video games. We did make it to the Museum of Nature yesterday, where they declared the Oil exhibit to be “stupid” and “boring” (in actually: Earth-shattering and fascinating and life-changing and deeply meaningful and you should go NOW, but without any stupid and boring children in tow).

And we also did make it downtown for Canada Day, where I learned that if you envision yourself and your children spreading out a blanket to enjoy a picnic lunch during the noonday concert you are LAUGHINGLY IGNORANT of the whole Canada Day On The Hill situation, and also, you need to pack more water than that, and also, stilts would not be uncalled for. But I was within 800 metres or so of Chris Hadfield! So it was worth all the arm and back pain from holding up kids who could see nothing and could barely breathe in the heat of the crowd! Right? RIGHT?

So! To sum up: my hair looks like ass, I’m losing my voice from all the yelling, and my kids may be dead by the end of the week. Awesome, no?

At least I have Dance Show to keep me warm. GAH.

The other day, I was chatting with a friend and she was lamenting about how small her son is. At eight years old, he’s just 59 pounds, and his six-year-old sister is catching up. They’ve been worried about it and working to help him gain a little weight.

Now, I don’t like to brag, but when it comes to small sons, I win, every single time. You think your kid is skinny? You think your kid is short? You think your kid is little?

Yeah. The Captain is little. At age 10, he weighs just 51 pounds. (Actually, since Gal Smiley at age almost-9 also weighs 51 pounds, he likes to point out that he weighs 51 POINT EIGHT pounds, which is TOTALLY BIGGER.) He’s the shortest in his class, at four foot two. Given that it’s a combo 4-5 class, there are some real big guys in there with him, making him look even tinier. I’m always worried that one of the other kids in the class is going to huff and puff and blow him away.

He never expresses any concern about it, and he has friends and buddies and fits in okay and it’s all good. But sometimes, I’ll catch a glimpse of him with his school mates and see that, oh my heavens, he is SMALL. The other day, I was picking up the Little Miss from kindergarten and we saw his class heading into the gym for an assembly, and it was like tall, tall, tall, SUPER SHORT DUDE, tall, tall, tall. I was a little alarmed.

So lately I’ve been all about the chips, and ice cream, and pie (he has discovered pie!!! He’s my child after all!!!). His lunches have cookies every day. I worry, oh I worry, about what he’s eating, about how much he’s eating, and how much he’s gaining, or not.

Gal Smiley is small too, the smallest and shortest in her class (it’s genetics), but it’s never as big a deal when it’s a girl, is it? Little girls can be sweet and charming. Little guys can be pushed around. NOT FAIR.

All this is to say, there’s no resting easy when you’re a parent, is there? There’s always something. This one is too big, this one is too small. This one has a weird rash, this other one sniffles all the time for no apparent reason. One has too many friends, questionable friends, not enough friends, no friends.

I have a happy, healthy, smart, and funny kid. He’s also small. There’s just has to be something to worry about, doesn’t there? A mother’s mind is never at rest. GAH.

Daaaaaaance. Shooooooow. How do I love thee? Let’s count the ways, shall we? I finally got around to watching the Top 20 selection/highlight-of-their-style show, and it was awesome, and I loved it, and now I feel the overwhelming need to pick out some favourites. Warning! I am, like, the WORST person ever at predicting how America is going to vote. The fact that I am actually singling out these people probably means they will be the bottom three in week number one. And yet! I can’t help myself.

These are the ones to watch, in my opinion:

The Boys

Tucker. I don’t usually pay much attention to the contemporary dancers – they’re all usually pretty and technically good and interchangeable. But Tucker has caught my eye – maybe it’s the hair. He reminds me strongly of Jakob of season 6, who I ADORED, who should have won over Russell (no offense Russell, but SERIOUSLY). I have high hopes for him.

Jade. He’s short. Also, he’s fabulous. I love his dancing, like ten bear. Plus, he sparkles with personality, plus, he has a lot of personal and dance growing to do. He’s a success story waiting to happen – if he can click with his partner, he’s gold.

Aaron. He’s the tapper who thought he was out, then squeaked through at the last minute when hip-hopper Emilio had to withdraw. I like it that he looks, every single second of the time, like he really can’t believe he’s actually there. It’s all a dream, Anthony! That means you can fly, buddy.

The Girls

Mariah. OMG I LOVE MARIAH. I don’t know why they didn’t talk about this at all, but she actually made it to Vegas last year on the strength of her shockingly good krump audition, but then was cut mid-week. This time, she’s made it to the show and I am blissed out. Love her dancing, love her face, love her personality – she’s my favourite.

Jenna. I love her smile, I love her dancing, I love her hair. I can’t think of a ballroom dancer I have liked as much since Chelsie Hightower. (Oh wait – just remembered both Witney and Lindsay from last season. Well, whatever, I have love enough for them all.) I find Jenna stands out from the crowd and since she’s ballroom, will likely be protected by the judges for at least a few weeks.

Alexis. She’s the tapper girl. Granted, I have a real soft spot for tappers, as I am one myself. But I like her sparkle, and I really like that she doesn’t have the traditional dancer look. She’s got a bit of a learning curve ahead of her, I think – likely to be early out, I predict – but I still have my fingers crossed for her. Rock it, tap girl!

Just a quick post to say my latest column for Capital Parent is now up. See you over there!

Okay, be up front with me now. There’s some sort of rift in the space-time continuum, and time has been cut in half, right? It’s some sort of NASA secret I’m sure, but I’m on to them. There’s just no possible other explanation for how fast June is flying by.

When the kids were really little, it used to take us at least an hour to get out of the house, between making sure everyone had peed and eaten and had packed a small suitcase of snacks and activities. I used to dream about how much more time we’d have on our hands once the kids were old enough to put on their own jackets and shoes and get themselves ready.

And yes it’s true, it now takes us about 10 minutes to get out the door, but the problem now is that we are going out the door about 16 times a day, it seems, between soccer and swimming lessons and end-of-year parties and me rushing, rushing, rushing to get as many errands done as possible before I’m a full-time mom to three kids for eight weeks, GAH.

So all this is to say that the Summer! Of! Awesome! is starting in less than three weeks, and when I really think about that I have a small heart attack as it seems impossibly close, and I’m so woefully unprepared, including getting this post up about a month too late. DOUBLE GAH.

Last year I posted a comprehensive list of everything I had ever once remotely considered booking for the Summer of Awesome, but this year I am going to cheat and say that if you are looking for ideas, you can check out my ongoing activities list, and also Andrea’s all-encompassing Ottawa Bucket List.

Also, if you’re looking to track events over the course of the summer, you can check my Facebook page for weekly updates – I usually update it sometime on Monday with the weekend’s events. I’d also recommend my new favourite Ottawa blog, Ottawa Rickshaws, which is written by those guys who run around the market with rickshaws but is seriously, a cute and funny and super informative blog about what’s cool and hip and happening in downtown Ottawa. Plus, there’s always OttawaStart and its accompanying blog which is chock full of Ottawa info and events listings, and everyone should read it.

So! All that said, here’s our list of what we’ll be exploring for summer 2013.

(Failing the total collapse of the space-time continuum and the earth being swallowed up by the resulting singularity, which I have not ruled out.)

Cost Effective

RCMP Musical Ride
Canada Day on Parliament Hill – normally I avoid the hill like the plague, but the combined forces of Carly Rae Jepson AND Metric AND Chris FREAKING Hadfield have rendered me powerless to resist
Splash Pad Park
Museum of Nature (free to us as we are members) – specifically to see the Canadian Wildlife Photography Winners, which are on display until July 7
Museum of Agriculture and Food (free to us as we are members) – specifically for the Little Miss’ birthday party in July, whoo hoo
Museum of Aviation (free to us as we are members, are we members of every museum?? Yes, yes we are.) – specifically to see the Star Wars exhibit, which we will actually be visiting TWICE, and we’ve already seen it once in Montreal as well, so that should tell you how awesome it is
Storytime at Rideau Hall
Cruise Night (Tuesdays) at Hazeldean Mall
LEGO Exhibit at the Danish Embassy – anyone been to this yet? How was it?
A Company of Fools production of The Merry Wives of Windsor – these are performed in parks all across the city, and are pay-what-you-can; see the website for the full schedule
Chinatown Day Trip – as detailed by Andrea’s blog post, we went last year and the kids LOVED it
Picnic on Bate Island
Diefenbunker
Fortissimo on Parliament Hill – if the kids are perky enough, we’ll stay for Mosaika too

Pricier Outings

Mini Golf Gardens
Skyzone Ottawa
Altitude Gym Clip and Climb
Mont Cascades
Saunders Farm – a can’t miss tradition!
Karter’s Korner – possibly only with Gal Smiley, as she’s the big go-karter around here
Movie Theatre – to see Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 for sure; The Smurfs 2 OVER MY DEAD BODY
Upper Canada Village – special events include Battle of Crysler’s Farm Reenactment on July 13/14, Carriage Riding Weekend August 17/18, and Horse Lovers Weekend on the Labour Day Weekend
Treats at Menchie’s – they always have at least one milk-free sorbet on tap, although it is a bit of a cross-contamination nightmare there; if you’re worried about allergies but would love to take the family for ice cream, consider Thimblecakes’ new cafe in Barrhaven, which serves coconut milk ice cream and sorbets

Farther Afield

Toronto Zoo – we have a panda-obsessed eight-year-old in the house and are hoping to find time to get down to Toronto and see the pandas this summer
PEI – and oh yeah, in addition to all this, we’ll be driving out to PEI for a week. I’m going to need all of September just to recover from the summer!

Heck, I’ll probably need most of next week just to recover from this post. Happy summering, everyone!