When our family travels, we tend to just blend into the background.  If we ever get noticed, it is generally because of our super cute lils (as was often the case in India), or how unbelievably pale we, as a family, are.  Almost every trip down south has us explaining that this IS a tan for any member of our family, and in my case, it most certainly counts as a tan when all of my freckles connect together. For the most part, though, we tend to be just another series of faces in the crowd. 

It is almost never Willy who attracts any sort of attention.  There was that one time in Jamaica, when I am sure that the airport authorities suspected that he was a drug dealer, given the looks that he was getting in the airport.  In the end, I was the one that attracted the attention on that trip, as my luggage was searched three times before we were allowed to leave.  I guess they just assumed that the long-haired hippie was using me as his drug mule!

He was quite surprised on our trip last week, when one of the employees at the hotel let him know that another guest was certain that he was a movie star!  He laughed and denied it, then thought nothing of it.  He didn’t even mention it to me; he was so sure that it was a joke.  Then, on our last day at the resort, he was walking on the beach and someone came up to him and said “Hello, Mr. Movie Star.” Willy and I had a good laugh over this, and are quite stumped as to who people thought he was, looking like this:

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The past few weeks of this winter have been characterized by some freakish weather and storms in our region and those adjacent.  Ice, snow, wind, we’ve had it all.  While very little has affected our family directly, the weather has both played havoc with travel for many people that I know, and made me really appreciate the fact that we are heading to the beach this week. 

At some point over the last two weeks, those two points connected in my brain and started to stress me out.  Our flight is the first flight out of the airport, is routed through Toronto, and has a connection time of just over an hour.  I began to play the worst case scenario game in my head, and came up with us losing every time.  I knew that even the slightest delay on Friday morning, even for something simple like de-icing, could cause us to miss out connection to the south, and that the next flight on Air Canada arrived two days later after some funky, circumnavigate the globe type routing.  I didn’t like the odds.

Much obsessive watching of the weather, complete with constant verbal updates must have had an impact on Willy, as he randomly offered to call the airline tonight and see what it would take to have us fly to Toronto on Thursday night. I sent him off to make the call, and finished putting the lils to bed. When I checked in with him, he’d been unsuccessful for over ninety minutes, as there was another storm working its “magic”, and Air Canada’s lines were constantly busy.  We decided to call try one more time, this time to Air Canada Vacations, and happily he got through.

Once Willy was connected to an agent, he explained our fears, and the fact that we were travelling with young children, and asked if the first flight could be moved.  “I’ll see what I can do”, she said, as she put Willy on hold. We fully expected to be charged for this, as was clearly stated on our agreement.  While on hold, we talked about how much we were willing to pay, an amount I was mentally referring to as the value of my sanity in my head.*

When she came back, she named a price that couldn’t be beat – the change was to cost us nothing, even though there is no terrible weather forecast for the remainder of this week.  We happily accepted and raced to make hotel reservations in Toronto, and plans for dinner with family.  I am now super excited for a vacation that is starting one day earlier, and will last one day longer… except the part about having one less day to pack.  Guess I should get started with that!

* FYI – it turns out that Willy was willing to pay more for my sanity, which is nice to know.*

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On the Friday before Christmas, my day looked something like this…

Twelve snowballs thrown at me,

Eleven near misses on the roads because people were driving CRAZY,

Ten gifts purchased,

Nine inches of snow fallen (so far!)

Eight presents wrapped,

Seven dozen cupcakes baked,

Six pairs of mittens dried,

Five time-outs given,

Four crazy children running,

Three dozen cookies decorated,

Two times the laneway shoveled,

And one semi naked child on a play-date!

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I spent much of the Fall looking forward to my birthday, despite the fact that forty was the number on the cake. I kept telling myself that my birthday is only one day, it doesn’t mean that anything changes; and that forty could be really great if I let it. In so many ways, my life is pretty awesome… why would one day, one number change that.

I’ve only ever once gotten freaked out about a birthday; my twenty-seventh.  I have no idea why this birthday was significant.  It could have been that I was in a job where I was going nowhere, or that I was in a relationship with this guy, and I didn’t know if he was ever going to ask me to marry him (it took six more years, BTW), but woke on the day and was sad and unsure.  It took weeks to shake that feeling, and I vowed never to let the number get to me again.

Why then, did I spend the weeks leading up to this birthday freaking out just a little bit? It as the little things, like Woo telling me that all that white in my hair was not the snow that was falling, it was my hair; my hair dresser telling me that my hair wasn’t going to cooperate with me anymore unless I coloured it to “relax all the grey”, or the friend of a friend who was seemingly shocked that I was only turning forty.  The real cause of my insomnia (and I did lose several night’s sleep over this), was this picture.

My eyes are where I see it, where I show my age.  This pictured bothered me, even though it is the same face that I see when I look in the mirror. Even though it doesn’t look remarkably different , the picture stuck with me.  Even yesterday, I came across it when I was look for a different picture from that day, my reaction was the same. Old.

Then I woke up.  I was greeted by a sweet lil boy, who just wanted to whisper happy birthday into my ear, and invite me to come cuddle on the couch.  We were joined by his sister and they sang to me.  We had to go to the dentist, so enjoyed a late start to the day.  I spent the bulk of the day in Goose’s class room, then hung out with the family for a  great meal with cake, followed by a family trip to the Beavers Christmas celebration.  Now Willy and I sit, enjoying a glass of wine and each other’s company.  It’s a perfect end to a great day.

I know that the changes I saw in that picture didn’t happen overnight, and that they don’t mean that I am really old. On the other hand, if this is me getting old, I kinda like it.

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