Life, then and now

This weekend we had a great family outing. We have not done much of that for the past seven months of winter. First because the weather is too cold, all you can do is go to the mall or indoor. Second because hubby worked almost every weekend. Now the weather got nicer, (well it’s not that nice today) we decided to go to the zoo on Saturday.
Saskatoon zoo is very tiny. There are only few animals. But it is close to our home, a five-minute drive.

We had a great time. We walked around looking at animals. The tigers fascinated us as always. We played at the park and watched a goose sitting on her eggs, talked about the birds, watched the buffalos eat, eat and eat some more, then we watched the monkeys jumping from branch to branch then we ate ice-cream. The weather was great to be outdoors.

On Sunday the kids played downstairs with the neighbour’s kids. This does not happen often here. Then we drove to the dam; it was a 1-hour drive so hubby and I got to chitchat. . It was another perfect family day. We looked at the dam, and talked to the kids about it, we played at the park near the lake, and watched the geese swim, and yes we ate ice cream before driving back home.

This was the best weekend for us in a long time. See why I hate winter!

This got me thinking about how our weekend would have been pre kids. We would not have gone to the zoo; we would not have driven to the dam. We would have probably gone out on Friday night, stayed out too late and slept most day on Saturday missing out on a beautiful day. Then on Saturday night we would have gone out with our friends for dinner, to a club, or just hung around at someone’s house playing cards and goofing around until the wee hours of the morning, again sleeping in on Sunday and missing out on another nice day.

Not that the no kids thing was bad; it was just different. We used to have lots of fun being carefree and spontaneous. I loved every minute of it. But then we had to grow up and move to the next stage of life.

It would be great to balance the two. Doing all the fun things with kids, then having some kids free outings and doing adult things every once in a while is great. Unfortunately living in Saskatoon without any family or friends has not allowed venturing out alone without the kids.

I cannot wait until we are back home (Ontario) and we can leave the kids at my mom’s for a night or two every month or so and spend time alone doing adult things.

And sometimes, I wish I could leave my three boys with mama, and go somewhere alone for few days. I would have to leave them with mama otherwise; I will come home to a very messy house and I will need a vacation after I am done tidying up their mess. Mama will keep them under control while I am gone on my dream solo vacation. I think I would go to Veradero, Cuba. One can dream eh??

Do not rain on my parade

Don’t u hate those people?? You know the ones that have to say something about everything. They cannot stand to see anyone happy. If you tell them I just bought a house, they tell you not to be too happy because it will cost too much a lot more than rent blah blah blah…and those who tell you do not be too happy you are thin now, when you get married you will end up like the rest, fat and ugly! (Thank you khalo). And those who see your baby sleeping through the night and being a great baby, and telling you easy babies become hard to deal with children.

Yesterday my husband and I were talking and for some reason we remembered my encounter with the worst of those people. We were married for one year at that time, very happy, crazy about each other and not afraid to show it (we still are btw). We went to visit my husband’s friend and they had guest over, an Egyptian man and his Canadian wife. The men were talking about work and the three of us women got sick of hearing it and decided to go out the balcony. BIG MISTAKE! For two hours the two of them talked about how horrible marriage is, what an unromantic jackass my husband is going to become in few more years. I told them my husband is different than theirs, but they kept on going on and an on about how horrible my life will be in few year and how much I will hate being married. You just wait and see they said. Well alhamdoullah nice years later we are still happily married and would not trade my husband for the world.

Ok so some of the stuff they said kind of did come true after we had our first son. But it is not because my husband is a jerk. Kids do take a lot of energy out of you, especially during those first few years when you have to do everything for them. But still, it is not as bad as they made it out to be. And there are those days that I want to kick my husband because he is being very unreasonable and brick headed, but we have never gone to bed mad at each other. And I do love it when my husband travels for work, because I get to catch up on my reading and watch all the chick flicks I want and not for the reasons they were suggesting.

But seriously why would anyone see someone happy and start telling them how this happiness will not last? Why make a person see a dark future instead of a light one. Just because one marriage ends up bad does not mean that all marriages will end up bad. I guess misery loves company, and when you are miserable you want everyone else to be as well!