The View from the Couch...

Today, I am supposed to be in Halifax (our nearest city) spending quality time (shopping) with my two teenage boys. There is not a whole lot of mutually agreeable activities to do with boys of their age, as I am not very good at "Shaq-ing" basketballs, don't care for BMX biking, doing sweet jumps, and couldn't navigate a video game controller even if world peace depended on it. So, shopping for spring/summer clothes is something I can do with aplomb, and if I feed them a take-out meal I will be a reasonably cool mum, indeed.

Then, the dreaded stomach flu reared its putridly ugly head and took up residence in this little girl:

Hopefully, she is on the tail end of it all, as her best friend is having a birthday sleepover tonight. So, I have one very anxious little girl who pitifully moans, "But what if I can't go to the party?" as she clings to her "bucket" in full need. Desperately thirsty, she crunches on a "medicine freezie", aka Pedialyte frozen treat, and offers up one question or observation after another. Apparently, the stomach flu hasn't affected her well-trained vocal chords:

she: "Mummy, don't say maybe, or 'I don't know', but are we ever going to go to Florida?"

me: "Oh, maybe someday. Yes, definitely we might someday." (I am so good at stalling...)

she: "What about someplace tropical? I want to go someplace tropical"

me: (thinking to myself, um, nooo...have you heard the news about Mexico?? The highjacked plane in Jamaica?), " Ask Daddy, sweetie. Ask Daddy..."

Everyone who knows him, knows he just loves to spend large amounts of money on travel!!

To sum it all up, no bonding over shopping, and no travel to tropical places. I am disappointing everyone today!