Sweet Dreams

The night before our very early morning ferry crossing, Mackenzie was having trouble getting to sleep. Daddy and I were in the washroom getting ready for bed ourselves and we could hear the girls bouncing around, especially Kenzie. In typical Daddy form, he whipped open the bathroom door and in his mean voice, hollered, "Get to sleep!" Well this scared and upset Mackenzie making it difficult still for her to get to sleep. Now instead of being full of giggles and bounces she was full of sobs and her unfortunate, common comment, "I don't like Daddy." Big sister Taylor went about doing her best to calm Mackenzie and sang to her with her sweet, quiet voice to calm her down, "Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep my..." In the end, Taylor, in my sister's usual fashion when she was the same age, fell asleep herself way before Mackenzie did. So when I reappeared into the room, Mackenzie climbed in with Daddy and myself, kissed me on the cheek, saying, "sweet dreams, you're sweet, don't let the bedbugs bite."

Yeah, Mommy

The day we had been waiting for had arrived. For two weeks I had been planning with my sister and mother for the eleven of us to go camping at Keji for five days. The longest spand of time I've spent in a tent with my own family. We were pumped. We had to wait for Taylor to finish school though at 10:30am Friday morning for her to pick up her report card. I figured mum and dad with no kids would arrive first and be able to pick out sites for the three families. Without working the night before and not having to wait for a child in school, I thought Andrea's family would also be ahead of us. Warren was working until 4pm but he intended to come down and join us Saturday as his eldest daughter was arriving by plane at 8:30pm Friday. I was dismayed that I had to get gas after picking Taylor up (late) and then return home to drop off her treat container (she had taken cupcakes for the class). Fortunately the girls were older and we didn't have to stop for a pee break. I did; however, miss the first exit and had to take a longer side route through Bridgewater before getting back on track. We were stopped at the first kiosk to get our people passes and then moved onto the campsite kiosk. I now had to use the washroom and had pulled over to the side by the kiosk for a pit stop before checking for messages on the bulletin board. I gave Taylor my cell phone and had her call Grammie who told us they were pulling in behind us. Soon afterwards, Andrea's crew arrived. They had driven in around the campsites and then came back to coincidentally join up with the rest of us. This was perfect timing in spite of delays and the weather was looking a lot better than had been fore casted. We found three sites in a row, paid our site fees, and were on our way. I was the first in the lead and had been given the site in the middle. Ever since pulling out of Mum and Dad's driveway in October I have been conscious about backing into parking spots when I can to make it safer pulling out of parking spots. Our car was packed to the roof and I couldn't see out the back window. I could only use my side mirrors and then the bikes' handle bars and wheels were blocking the view of trees in the angled driveway. I considered asking Taylor to hop out and direct me in but thought she might get in the way more than anything. I thought of waiting for the others to help me out but figured I was independent and could do this on my own. So slowly, barely tapping the gas to drive almost blindly, in reverse, uphill, and running on excitement, I backed in. There were trees on my right side and I wanted to leave room to walk by on the left. Watching the trees on my right I backed up a little bit, a little bit, a little bit more.... Then bump! Crack! Shatter! Warren's bike wheel had caught a tree (I wrecked his bike, bent frame etc.) and pushed the other bikes into the car. My bike's handle bars had pierced the bottom edge of the car's window and the safety glass had shattered. Needless to say, I was not impressed. This was the second of Warren's cars (he had the larger station wagon, suitable for camping) in less than six months. I haven't had a driving record like this in the 20 years I've held a driving licence. I phoned Warren right away and he wasn't happy either but seemed more bothered by the fact that it needed repaired in a week for us to drive to Newfoundland. Well...Warren found it was cheaper to buy an off-coloured door (we have a two-toned gray station wagon now) and install it himself than to replace the glass only. My brother-in-law helped me to clean up the glass shards and we had it all to the side in a tarp provided by mum by the time the clean up crew arrived. The clean up crew had been called in by a staff member driving by when I broke the window. The matter continued to haunt me and I was distraught by the fact that I had not the skills nor the financial means to fix my error myself but we carried on and went to the beach, hiking, canoeing, and more. Once, while returning from a walking spot we had to drive to, I backed into our site and Mackenzie, sitting behind me began to clap and cheer, "Yeah, Mommy. You didn't hit the tree!" I wasn't sure if I should laugh or be offended. I chose to laugh. Life's too short. To top things off, she did this a second time as well. Oh brother.