It’s been a big week for the truth around here.

I just read XUP’s post on how truthful we are as parents with our kids, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I really try to be as honest as I can with my kids, without freaking them out. I want them to trust me to give them real answers, and I hope that when they get older and get into some tough situations, they’ll be able to turn to me for honest advice.

There’s this one episode of Friends in which Pheobe is playing a serious of concerts for kids (I think she has a librarian boyfriend), and her songs are about how the food we eat comes from cute little cows, and about how grandma didn’t move away, she’s dead as a doornail. All the parents are shocked, but then one little kid comes running in to the coffee shop at the end looking for “the lady that tells the truth,” and the children gather around for more of Pheobe’s songs. While I realize it is quite pathetic to aim to live your life like a Friends episode, that storyline always comes to mind when I’m faced with a tough discussion with the kids – I want to be “the lady who tells the truth.”

The Captain has two very loose front teeth, and about a week ago he asked me quietly at bedtime if the tooth fairy was real. Already I have had some inner questions about the whole tooth fairy/santa thing, so although it was kind of a sad “my baby!” type moment, I told him the truth, that it really was just Mommy and Daddy and it was a fun thing we do, like a game.

(Then I assured him he would still get his tooth fairy money, so he was happy to go off to bed.)

A couple of days later – I KNEW this would be coming – we had a similar talk about Santa. I told him a lot of stuff about how Santa is like the spirit of giving and love of all mankind and blah blah. I asked him not to tell Gal Smiley, since she still liked the game and it made Christmas magical for her. I though he might be upset, but he took it well enough.

(Especially after I assured him that he’d still be getting presents. PRIORITIES.)

Yesterday he asked me if he was adopted. That was a pretty easy one to answer on the side of truth.

So my track record is pretty good, but I find I am still balking at the sex talk. SHUDDER.

We’ve been listening to Great Big Sea in the car these days, and they have a song called, “The Jolly Butcher.” In it, a butcher visits a tavern and spies him a lovely lady. He offers her a sovereign to sleep with him for the night, and she accepts. In the morning, he suggests that she owes him some change from the sovereign (jackass). A year later, he’s back in the tavern and along comes the same lady with a three month old baby. She plops the baby in the butcher’s lap, declaring, “I gives you back yer change!”

Hilarious. Except when you have a curious seven-year-old who would really like to know what this song is about. Ummmm…get back to me in seven or eight years, kid. Or nine. Or twenty.

SHUDDER.

I have another Summer of Awesome post up at Kids in the Capital, on our visit to the Papanack Zoo. Check it out!

Also, I forgot to include this adorable anecdote in yesterday’s Dance! Show! post. I was watching it last week with the kids around, and Lauren and Jose came on doing a contemporary routine. Then this happened:

The Captain: Is this a dance about love?

Gal Smiley: Yes. You can tell because the girl has a little dress on and the boy has no shirt.

HA HA HA. Dance Show DEFINED by the mouths of babes. HA!

It seems like everyone with a garden likes to blog about their garden and I’m sure it gets tedious. And yet, I am spending so much time on this little patch of earth – mostly just marvelling at it – that I have to share. Hope y’all don’t mind.

Our teeny tiny garden has just exploded with life in the past few weeks. Witness:

Most of this stuff was grown from seed. Isn’t that crazy? Those of you who garden all the time are like, yes, yes, Lynn, WE KNOW. But I just can’t get over it. Food! From the ground! We grew it!

Doesn’t it just blow your mind?

That huge, huge, dark green plant in the back corner is just one (1) tomato plant. It’s so huge now I think it maybe got some radiation exposure somehow. My mom told me last week that I was supposed to be cutting it back as it grew, but how was I supposed to know that? Now its stems are as thick as the Little Miss’ wrists and I’m afraid I’ll damage it if I cut anything off. So I just replanted some of the smaller plants it was enveloping and now it’s free to run wild, along with the zucchini plant next to it who is its ginormous partner in crime.

So far we have harvested some lettuce, radishes, and peas in the pod. The best thing about having a garden is the way the kids will try anything that comes from the garden because they had a hand in growing it. In fact, I can’t actually get any peas to make it from the garden to our table, because as soon as any pods are remotely close to being big enough to eat, little fingers are in there helping themselves. And I can’t really complain about that.

Next year, more peas.

Here’s a shot of some of the radishes we grew:

I highly recommend radishes to all novice gardeners. They were so easy and they go from seed to table in just three weeks. Within a few days you’ll have a little plant; within a week a recognizable garden; in two weeks you’ll see the red root pushing up at the surface of the ground. It’s very rewarding and the kids loved seeing the plants come up into food so quickly.

The second best thing about having a garden is that when I go to make dinner and find we are short on side veggies, I just go out to the garden and grab some. It’s like having the Farm Boy in my backyard! And that is COOL.

So all this is to say that we’ll definitely garden again. It’s already been so amazing, and surprisingly easy. Other than watering it a lot during the seed phase and a couple of times on really hot days, we haven’t done anything else.

Except enjoy. YUM.

Little Miss Sunshine turned three years old on Sunday (my baby!), and as a gift she received the fine film Barbie As Rapunzel on DVD. I’d like to put the blame on one of her grandmothers, but the truth is I bought it with my own two hands. It’s because I’m totally in love with Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, which just might be the greatest movie ever made, and when I say that, I am only 5% facetious, and 95% massive fan-girl. Seriously. I can only give thanks that I have two little girls, and that gives me an excuse to watch it as often as I do. Otherwise, Sir Monkeypants would think I am even weirder than he does now.

But I digress! Rapunzel is an okay movie, although it’s no Magic of Pegasus. Barbie is spunky enough and clever enough and all that, and of course has a cute little dragon friend (not nearly as cute as Shiver The Baby Polar Bear in Pegasus) and a prince, Stephan, to marry at the end (not nearly as cool and adventurous as blacksmith Aiden in Pegasus, who is so totally awesome that even The Captain will watch that movie, and pretend to be Aiden afterwards, although he will CUT YOU if you mention this to his buddies at school).

One odd thing is that Stephan never does do the climbing-of-hair thing. Instead, Barbie As Rapunzel is free to come and go from her tower as much as she likes via the power of a magic paintbrush. I just run with it. Although I know that will totally shock Sir Monkeypants, who took me to see The Little Mermaid in the theatre during its original release and had to listen to me go on and on and on for DAYS afterwards about how she was SUPPOSED TO DIE at the end, like, WTF Disney? WHERE WAS MY DEATH SCENE?

And again, I digress.

My real point here is that Barbie As Rapunzel is supposedly 16 in this movie, and over the course of the film, Prince Stephan has his 18th birthday. And although there isn’t an actual wedding scene at the end, it’s strongly implied that they will heal the division between their feuding kingdoms (RUN WITH IT) by getting married. And they are teenagers! Babies!

Even in the Barbie masterpiece, Pegasus, Barbie is only just turned 16. Sixteen! And she’s out fighting evil and going to balls ALONE and getting married!

As if.

Gal Smiley’s piano teacher is 16, she’s just finishing up Grade 10. I really can’t imagine her healing a kingdom via marriage to a dreamy prince. Is that what she thinks about in her spare time? No wonder Prince William was so popular when I was in high school.

Is it too much to ask that Barbie at least be at the age of majority in these films? Would a twenty year old Rapunzel really be that horrifying? I mean, we already have Bristol Palin to look up to. I think that’s all the teenage bride role models we need around here.

So all this is to say, my enjoyment of Barbie As Rapunzel and possibly even (GASP) Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus has really been impacted by my inability to see past the inappropriateness of teenage marriage.

Which is clearly the reaction of an old fuddy duddy who has NEVER been in LOVE and just doesn’t UNDERSTAND and is RUINING YOUR LIFE.

(Door slam.)

You’ll understand someday, Barbie As Rapunzel, you’ll understand someday.

Well, I feel sheepish, And like a bully. I’m a bully-sheep. A sheepy-bull. Is that an oxymoron?

Anyway, I heard from Jennifer at the NAC, who is seriously the nicest person EVAH. She went to bat for me and got me these answers.

1. Yes, the NAC policy with subscriptions is that you are “buying” – or really, just signing up for – a spot on the waiting list for a subscription. After the renewal date has passed, they take all the purchases from all sources — phone, web, box office, mail — and sort through them. First priority goes to renewing members; second priority goes to previous members who are changing to new subscriptions; last priority goes to new members. Sorting this out by hand takes a while, and that’s why they just figured it all out last week.

2. This policy is clearly stated when purchasing/reserving/whatevering ticket subscriptions by phone or at the box office. It’s not as clear on the website. They’ll be looking into making this better.

3. Usually, they don’t charge your credit card until they know you have an actual package of tickets. They charged credit cards early this year so that purchasers would not have to pay the HST. That’s why I got charged, then got told later on they were out of tickets. Next year, this shouldn’t happen. (Question: if they don’t usually charge your card, do they bother to call you to let you know you won’t be getting tickets? Or is the absence of a charge all the notice you get that you didn’t make the cut? Just curious.)

4. Jennifer and the NAC are really, really, really sorry about all this. As am I, I feel like an idiot. I mean, I had a right to be angry, I think. But to compare them to Rogers? That was totally uncalled for.

5. There’s a waiting list to get tickets for subscriptions, and you can ask to be on it. So Jennifer put us on it right away. And guess what? We got tickets! A set became available. I know, it sounds fishy. But Jennifer assures me she did nothing to get us tickets other than put us on the waiting list, and seriously, she is the Nicest Person EVAH, so I have to believe her. And thus, the sheepish. And bullyish. New blog name: BullySheep.

So there you have it, happy ending. We got tickets after all. The NAC will hopefully improve their online interface to make it clearer what you are buying/not buying. And we have all learned that Jennifer rocks, and that if you’d like an NAC subscription, shop early, shop aggressively, and get your ass on the waiting list.

See you at the Kinderconcerts!

Another update on the Summer of Awesome is up at Kids in the Capital. This one’s on our trip to Cosmic Adventures.

Man, I am so pissed off at the National Arts Centre right now. Did you know they have a policy whereby they can revoke tickets you’ve paid for?

Here’s what happened.

In April, we got a flyer in the mail from the NAC advertising that subscriptions for next season were now on sale. Sir Monkeypants and I talked it over and decided to buy a subscription for their kids’ series of concerts. The series runs five times a year on Sundays, and there are four showings on each of the Sundays – 3 English and 1 French.

I logged on to their website on April 24th and found out that the first two English subscriptions were sold out, but there was still room in the third one. So we bought a subscription to all five concerts, and I thought that was that.

But no!

Yesterday, someone from the NAC called to let me know that they would not be honouring our subscription purchase. It seems that last season’s subscription holders have priority on tickets. They have until May 2 to renew. Enough people renewed their subscriptions that our purchase was bumped out. We’re out of luck, no tickets for us.

I don’t get this at all.

First of all, if they wanted to give subscription holders priority, why didn’t they, oh I don’t know, GIVE THEM PRIORITY? That is, only open up ticket sales to them at first, then open them to the general public once the renewal date was passed? Why let anyone order tickets online, when really, not all purchasers are treated equal?

And secondly, why didn’t they make it clear on their website that what I was purchasing was not, in fact, tickets, but rather a spot on the waiting list, and that my transaction would only maybe possibly result in actual tickets? And if, in fact, all I was doing was getting in a queue for any non-renewals that MIGHT become available — WHY DID THEY CHARGE MY CREDIT CARD?

Shady, NAC, very shady. How nice to know you’ll be refunding the purchase I made WEEKS AGO. I’m sure my credit card company will be most generous about refunding the interest, too.

Thirdly, don’t you think the timing of this cancellation of our tickets is weird? It’s been over two months since we bought the tickets and the date for renewals passed. How long did it take them to figure out that they had oversold the event? Shouldn’t they have known on May 3 that there was a problem? Shouldn’t they have contacted us immediately to let us know that there had been a computer error or human error?

(And speaking of which, an APOLOGY WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE.)

I hate to seem all cynical but I feel like what maybe happened is that either a) someone more important than me and my little family called up and asked for tickets, and so they looked at the last person to buy tickets and bumped them, or b) someone who forgot to renew called up and screamed and screamed, and squeaky wheel and all that, and so they bumped us. But either way, it feels kind of personal.

I’m so angry at them right now. And you know what really sucks? The NAC calls me around 10 times a year asking me for donations or trying to convince me to buy a subscription. They are by far the number one source of sales calls in this household. And yet, this is how they treat us when we actually DO buy something from them. I’m pretty much ready to rank the NAC up there with ROGERS CABLE in terms of customer service, that’s how irate I am.

And trust me, NAC, that is NOT GOOD for you.

I really, really feel sorry for the next NAC person who calls to ask me for a donation, or to buy something. REALLY SORRY.

I had such a good time at Blog Out Loud last night. You guys so rock! I can’t say enough great things about all the people who came. I’m really sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to every single person, but those I did meet were so cool and awesome and funny and smart, exactly as you’d expect.

The readers were all so, so great, and the photo books were amazing (so sorry to the photographers that our massive numbers last night pushed the photo books out of the way a bit…many thanks to Brie for the idea to pass them around instead). Everything went so well and I’m so happy!

Also, um, sorry to Katharine’s daughter for the language. Next year, Nat goes on after 9 p.m.

This year’s BOLO was a little strange for me because my older two kids actually understood what was going on – kind of. In the past year they’ve been allowed to play on a few websites (Webkinz and TVO Kids and the like) so they understand the internet. A few times this winter they saw me looking at my blog’s home page, and there’s a small picture of me there, and they got so excited to see me on the computer, like I was some sort of rock star (which I totally AM, of course).

Anyway, they are now aware that Mommy Has A Blog, and that I even write about them sometimes, and they’re still young enough to think that that’s cool, so they were actually excited about Mommy’s Big Blog Party. Which was nice, but oddly surreal.

Speaking of surreal, the craziest moment of the evening for me came when I met Jennifer, who is the NAC social media outreach person. She was so super nice and came over to specifically say hello to me, but as soon as she introduced herself I’m afraid I blurted out, in a most unprofessional manner, how angry I happened to be at the NAC right that moment. And it’s so weird, because usually I adore the NAC, only just yesterday they called to let me know that they were revoking some tickets I had already reserved and paid for.

And I know, you want to know more about that, right? Naturally I blogged all about it. And my post was very angry, especially for me because I almost never get angry, and just loaded with ALL CAPS, and yes, vitrol.

I wrote it just before I left for BOLO, but in case people were at the event and then came right home to read my blog I didn’t want the first thing they saw to be a super angry post about the NAC. So instead of actually posting it, I scheduled it for Friday (although I screwed that up so it might actually be in your reader this morning anyway).

So my point here is, poor Jennifer. I kind of unloaded on her. And I’m so sorry! Love the NAC! Really!

(Their ticket policy does suck though.)

If you can’t see the NAC post at the moment, it’ll be up tomorrow. Hopefully after Jennifer reads this one first.

Anyway, see you at BOLO 2011. Speaking of which, I am worried about the volume of potential readers for next year. I know I’m going to have to cap it. I’m looking for feedback on how you think it would be most fair to choose the readers. I think our options are a) first come, first serve; b) lottery system; or c) best posts selected by a jury of your peers. What do you think?

Oh my goodness, I just realized I have Dance! Show! on the PVR. See ya!