We drove down to Nottawasaga today for a hockey tournament. Our first game is not until Friday night at 9:50, so we can do things during the day, or work. The drive down was uneventful but the contrast between our two kids is quite evident. One takes after Mel and the other after myself. Olivier likes to sleep on the drive as he then gets to wake up and he is at the destination. Mel likes to “rest her eyes” and snores while we drive. Xavier has never liked sleeping so he stays awake the whole time. Sometimes he has his earbuds in and sometimes he does not. He left them out this time and he we discussed some of the ridiculousness from their childhood. We use to play all sorts of ridiculous games in the car on road trips. He recalled one where you would think of something, “forget it” and then the other people in the car would answer questions so you can try and figure out what the thing is that you “forgot”. The game was modified because for some reason the kids did not want to guess something real. Another game was where you had to guess an animal with hints. I would always choose an animal that was black and white and they would get so mad at me for always choosing that. The kids eventually started to make up animals with fake names, where the descriptors and things would change. The names of the animal would end up being ridiculous like Rainbow coloured flying monkey spider with a three pronged tail. We would laugh and say how were we supposed to guess that. Xavier appreciated how ridiculous some of the games were. I had also made up a song about Olivier that i had forgot about and then I remembered it and sang it in the car. It was a ridiculous song, but Xavier remembered it. I am glad that he has these fond memories of the road trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a child what I remember from our road trips was playing the Nintendo Gameboy and sharing it with my sister. I am not sure how we got one or when we got it, but we were quite young. Considering that we did not have much money growing up, our parents sacrificed a lot to make sure that we had things like this. I am not sure how they determined whether we would get something or not, but we had this and I do not remember all of the games we had, but i do remember that we had Tetris and Metroid. My sister and I would take turns playing it on the long drive and i remember trying to play the gameboy at night with passing light from anything. My sister did not play it at night because she thought it was too hard and ridiculous to play with no light. We were not allowed to turn on the lights in the car. To this day my parents tell the kids that they are not allowed to or they will get arrested. That is such an amusing lie, that the police would pull the car over and take the kids. Xavier was making fun of us in the car and he was asking about when I was in the hospital after Spain. He said it was like when my parents decided to move and not tell us. Xavier said that we abandoned him and we did not tell him anything and he did not know where we were. Mel did not come home until 9pm or so and he only found out that I was in the hospital because of both sets of grandparents. He was making fun of us for abandoning him and he said he would do the same thing and abandon us. We told him that is running away and not the same. On the drive down I made jambon buerre for all of us on demi-baguettes. For the non-french it is my favorite sandwich consisting of you guessed it, ham and butter. It is delicious. The kids are not super fond of fast food, so they prefer when I make something and we do not stop. I also grabbed some things from Smiths for us to eat as well, with the fruit going the fastest. My parents rarely got fast food for us on our trips. I remember drinking ovaltine in the thermos cup. When coming home from Toronto the car would be so full that we would have grocery bags packed into the back so we could barely move. They would also pick up various Asian food and we would eat them in the car. I remember eating a lot of Banh mi’s in the car and pork bao. Both of which I like. I buy these on occasion when we leave Toronto for the road as well. It is a comfort food for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am surprised with the changes that have occurred recently in regards to my energy levels. I managed to drive the whole way to Barrie which included a stop at Georgian Mall. Mel spent millions buying things at Victoria’s Secret. The boys and I did not go in, so I am sure that she spent millions is not billions. I am not srue what she bought, but the boys and I tried to match her spending at Booster Juice and then we got some pretzels to share. We then grabbed some cookies from Craig’s before heading back to the car. What impressed me though was that I was able to travel a full circuit of the mall without my wheelchair. I was a bit concerned that I would struggle without it, but at the end I was not too tired and I felt good. While we were in the mall we happened to run into one of Xavier’s teammates from the Sagamok tournament. They live down in Barrie and are eventually going to move up to Sudbury. It was nice to see them and at first I was not sure where I recognized them from and then they told me. We had a quick chat and then we were on our way. Foodwise I am not sure if I am eating more or less but surprisingly I have been able to maintain my weight at 137lbs. I was expecting that I was going to drop weight due to the drainage of the ascites, but it seems that my weight gain is real and not the fluid build-up which is nice to know. We have a lot of hockey this weekend and the arena is within walking distance so hopefully I will not need to use it and everything will be smooth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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We drove down to Nottawasaga today for a hockey tournament. Our first game is not until Friday night at 9:50, so we can do things during the day, or work. The drive down was uneventful but the contrast between our two kids is quite evident. One takes after Mel and the other after myself. Olivier…<\/p>\n