Today

Friday, August 17. 2007.

A day for a memory books. I don’t know why. Some days are just like that.

We’re up early, 6:16 am and the boys are alert. I’m groggy, stumble as I flip the switch to the kettle. In a matter of minutes I’ll have tea.

We pick up where we left off yesterday, with books from the library. Silas pores intently over his book on earth movers. “Digga, mama!” he says triumphantly, pointing with that all-knowing index finger. Rio is paging through a Space Brats book. It’s years beyond his reading ability, but a sign of times to come. I’m reading “a poignant novel of love in the tradition of Danielle Steel.” The author seems to write about two books a year, and she sells a lot of them. Can’t hurt to figure out her secret.

The day takes off. Race car. Meteor. The TGV. With boys, that’s how it is. We head to the swimming pool for an early morning dip. Silas slows down to glazed eyed contentment in the hot tub while Rio floats across it like an astronaut. Then it’s cavorting and noodling about in the water until hunger forces us from the pool. In the change room they munch on peanut butter and jam sandwiches while I blow dry my hair, and then theirs.

Home to a Magic School Bus video. More PB and J, and then we head out again. This time we make for the Goose on my bike with chariot. Silas sits in a bike seat in front of me and his helmet bumps against my chest as I cycle. We chat together up there and Rio complains that he has no one to keep him company. Just before we get to Quadra we spy two diggers. Oh joy, oh bliss.

The blackberries are ripe and we get off the bike to graze, munch, and laugh. Silas squishes berries between his toes and Rio hounds me until my container is full. Then he sits down to devour it.

On the way home we stop at the rope swing, a length of rope attached to a willow tree branch which overhangs a little stream that meanders beneath a picturesque bridge in the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary. We’ve spent many happy hours there getting muddy and screaming, “Who’s that trip-trapping over my bridge?” Rio grabs the rope and lets his lithe body crisscross the stream. He is light as air and full of sunshine.

The ride home is mellow. I’m tired. Doing everything with an extra 70 pounds attached is a good work out. My endorphins respond daily. One of the two diggers is still hard at work, filling a dumptruck with top soil. We pause to watch. Now our day is complete.

In the door and I prepare more snacks. The little meals are never ending at our house. Rio eats all the chicken breast and Silas and I share a salad and salty peanuts in the shell. I offer him nuts, but he prefers to crack the peanuts open with his teeth and fish them out himself.

Rio is the deep thinker. On our holiday to Canmore he asked questions like, “Did someone make us?” and “Are we just puppets?” Two-year-old Silas, on the other hand, is still soaking up the world around him. His favourite things are digga’s, polee-tah’s, and menna (concrete mixers).

Twenty minutes into Mr. Dress Up their dad comes to pick them up for a weekend of camping on Hornby Island. He shares his fries with them and then we have to say good bye. I belt Silas into his car seat and he grabs the back of my head, pushes it toward his face, closes his eyes, and kisses me passionately on the lips. Three times. Rio pecks me politely and swipes the back of his hand across his mouth when I pull my head back.

They’re good boys and I love them. And now I have a weekend to myself. Yee ha!!

I add ylang ylang to the hot water in my bathtub and sink into a full blown vision of the novel I’ve been writing in my head for the last seven years – que sorpresa. I’ve already written three versions and vowed I won’t start the next one until I know how the story ends. (I paid good money to have them try to teach me that at Ryerson.) No more fumbling about in the subconscious of my creative mind. I’m actually tired of getting lost. I have a hankering to know where I’m going.

I’m ready to shine a light on this thing. And sell a million copies – a la Syrell Rogovin Leahy. Maybe I should change my name too: how about Limon Ylang Grant? Or Penelope Pure Vida?

We’ll see. I’ll have to discuss that with my agent.

In any case, it looks like it’s time to start writing.

Yee-fuckin’-ha!!