Is this the Road to Pyeongchang?

We've had a tough go of it since Christmas. We're on Snow Day number seven and it doesn't look good for school tomorrow. The Arctic Vortex has had us in its icy grip for three weeks and with windchill temperatures in the -30C range. Buses haven't just been cancelled, the school has actually been closed for four day which hardly ever happens. My Other Half's drive to and from work has been a constant white-knuckler and I'm starting to understand why No.1 Son is in no rush to get his licence since turning 16 at the beginning of the month. The number of cars we've seen in ditches and spinning around in circles is enough to put anyone off from driving.

The front of our manufacturing plant, they've had to dig out the two doors to get in every morning.

But there has been some good times too despite all the wintery weather as we are, first and foremost, a ski family after all and the snow on the hills has been amazing.

No. 1 Son had a top ten finish in his first race over Christmas and then was discouraged by his results in the next two but that made his third place finish last weekend all the sweeter. He has worked so hard, both on the hill and off and no one deserved it more. He has another race tomorrow and is then off to Lake Placid on Sunday for some more training and then back for a CanAM series so fingers crossed.

Ben (on the right)

No. 2 Son has had and has been a bit of a challenge, to say the least, after coming second in his first race he had a set back, fracturing his T1 vertebrae over Christmas so he was off for three weeks but came back strong and finished in the top ten in his second race. At home it's been even more challenging as he approaches his 14th birthday. He is the master debater in our house and I can only hope he finds a career that rewards his verbal dexterity and single-mindedness. In the meantime he has been fortunate enough to spend lots of time with his grandfather who has infinite patience and gives him the attention he so craves.

Cam (on the right)

No. 3 Son trucks along at his own break-neck pace, still hating school and loving every moment outside whether on the hill, across the street at our neighbours backyard skating rink or mini terrain park. If and when we ever sell this house (and I'm not holding my breath with our evermore frustratingly-full-of-excuses real estate agents) he will miss his gang of like-minded boys in the neighbourhood. After conquering his fear that his torn ACL would hold him back he also had a disappointing first race which was a good wake up call for the boy who is used to winning everything. And he did come second in the latest race and is looking forward to his next one on Friday.

Griff (third from the left)

I hope the Arctic Vortex heads back up north soon, the dog and I are tired of being stuck inside and he really doesn't appreciate the snow up to his chest when he has to go outside and lift his leg. Now I'm off to the high school to do course selection with No. 3 and not quite sure how it is possible to have two almost high school age sons. No. 1 is the same age as I was when I met his father but no girls in his life (that I know of) so far which I guess is not a bad thing as his sights are set much higher than placing in a few races on the Niagara Escarpment. Maybe this is the road to Pyeongchang.

More Dispatches from a Parallel Universe

As most of you know, from December to March my family and I inhabit this alternate reality called Alpine Ski Racing World. Now in Austria or Switzerland this wouldn't be so strange but we live smack dab on a big rock called the Canadian Shield. Nowhere near any real mountains but our life revolves around our ski club where all three boys spend a ridiculous amount of time going up and down a 700 foot vertical. But with them out of the house three or four day a week, getting exercise and competing with their friends it's not all a bad thing. A very expensive thing but not all bad, especially when they win.

Number Three Son practicing holding his skis up with his best bud, O-Dog for when they are sponsored by Atomic

Number Two Son with his gold medal winning team

(I try not to think where those medals have been)

Number Two with his buddies and a big honking trophy

The littlest cousin making his way up the Magic Carpet

Hot on the heels of his cousins on the race course

Waiting for Winter

Wishful thinking (those are ski tracks going down a snow covered mountain)

No, there isn't any snow on the ground up here yet (thank god) and since right now I am waiting for a service call because the furnace conked out after we turned it on for the first time and tomorrow we have to go up north to close the cottage, I really hope there's none in the forecast anytime soon. We got my nephew on skates for the first time and hockey season has started for Number One Son. He is still playing goal and made the rep team where he is the only 13 year old. That is actually a good thing as it means that his teammates are big guys who can protect him from the other big guys. I don't know how he stands there as the puck comes hurtling towards him but he never flinches. We are also preparing him for his first trip with his ski team to Colorado. This is a huge deal and they are leaving in less than two weeks. He will be gone for 10 days and it is the first time he has travelled on his own. So far he seems to be okay with it, very excited and we have talked a lot what to expect, living with roommates and not flipping out if everything doesn't go exactly as planned.

Number Two son and I will be going to Jay Peak in Vermont in December for a week with his team which I hope will be a chance for us to have some one-on-one time since he is having a tough time with the kids in his class again. I really do look forward to ski season starting because they are all so happy skiing and racing every weekend (not to mention more than a few week days) and even if it means only having two days in the entire winter to sleep in (that would be Christmas and New Years Day) it's worth it.

PJ's first time on skates

So the weekend was full of wintery sports as we went down to the city to watch the CBC show Battle of the Blades. Funnily enough my three testosterone filled sons love watching this show which pairs ex-professional hockey players with ex-Olympic pairs figure skaters. Up until this season it has been male hockey players learning to skate with picks and tiny little figure skaters but now there is one female hockey player, Tessa Bonhomme who still plays professionally. It's a little bit cheesy as figure skating often is but it is the one show we all watch together every week.

Waiting for the show to begin

So when my Other Half realized that the producers of the show had bought a boat from us last year and he emailed to see if we could get tickets. We both assumed it was no big deal but it turns out it was. Normally you do have to pay to watch the show but we were not only given the tickets but put in VIP seats right on the ice. Stuck actually on the "island" around which the skaters entered and left the rink. It was very exciting but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos during the show. We all had a lot of fun and was our first family night out in a while and although it made for a late night and a slow start this morning I realize we have to make more of an effort to do things like that especially getting my now very much small town boys back into the big city more often. How was your weekend?

My New Mantra

"Breathe deeply and love fiercely."

I read this in a comment at Flux Capacitor's most recent post. And it is my new parenting and, maybe even, life mantra.  


Breathe deeply - that's what I need to remind myself to do everyday. Along with this being the first week back to school (so far so good - touch wood) my Other Half left early Wednesday morning and I worked til 6pm Wednesday and Thursday. The boys did just fine, thank you. In fact, they did much better without us around to nag about snacks and homework. But the bickering continues, morning, noon and night. I have to remove myself from the room when they really get going. They can fight over anything whether it's relevant or not, whether they know anything about the subject or not. If one brother says the sky is blue, the other says it's turquoise and the third says it's cloudy.

Love fiercely - this one is even more important. No matter how hard it is and I know what we are dealing with now is nothing compared to what might be coming down the pipe as we enter the unchartered territory of adolescence. One of the first things I remember hearing from a parenting expert was about always giving "unconditional love" but sometimes that's hard to do when all you really want to say is, "I love you, except when you drive me completely and utterly around the bend." But I like "love fiercely" because it sums up how I feel when they are pushing me to the limit and still I know I have to love them. No matter what.

So, breathe deeply.
And love fiercely

It applies to so many parts of out lives. Doesn't it?

Cheese Tour 2011

So when my employers asked me if I wanted to accompany them on a little Cheese Tour of Prince Edward County, Ontario and then on to Montreal, Quebec I felt I might jeopardize my job my saying no so I reluctantly said goodbye to my family and hopped in the car with Casey & Wendy to do what had to be done.

First stop - Fifth Town in Picton, Ontario. A state-of-the-art cheese making facility in the heart of Prince Edward County. Ontario's newest wine region and foodie destination. Fifth Town is LEED certified and operates with solar and wind power, collects milk fresh from local dairies and runs education programmes and tours year round.

Checking if the curds are ready

The bosses enjoying maple syrup-soaked and maple-sugar dipped Quark on a stick

Transferring the cheese to the moulds. Today's batch was Cape Vessey,

a washed rind goat's cheese and one of my favourites.

Squeezing it into the moulds by hand

Just some of the goat, sheep and cow's milk cheeses made at Fifth Town

Great name for an antique shop

Meeting Gilles at the Atwater Fromagerie in Montreal's famous Atwater Market

Just a portion of the cheese counter

In the beer cooler surrounded by local brews

After Atwater we headed out of the city to the Eastern Townships and L'Abbaye St Benoit du Lac. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any photos of the Abbey or their cheese making operation which has been run by the Benedictine Monks since the 1940's. Their Bleu Benedictin cheese is one of my favourite blues.

We returned to Montreal to visit Dependances, an importer and distributor of European cheese. Here we are in the massive refrigerated rooms where the cheeses are unpacked from containers and then repackaged to be shipped across the country.

Casey helping to unload the container

A huge pallet of the "Better Than Sex Cheese" aka Chateau de Bourgogne

The trip was a huge success if you don't count Casey getting food poisoning from some bad escargot and we met some wonderful people. After meeting Stephanie, the Master Cheese maker at Fifth Town, Lucy from Dependances, Alain "the godfather" of Quebec cheese and the monk who ran the Abbey fromagerie, I decided that cheese people are happy people because they get to spend their time making and selling something that brings people together the world over - good food made from fresh ingredients and love.

And so it begins ...

My Other Half left me this morning. For two weeks. He's off on the boat show circuit and will be away for the next two weeks and, more importantly, three weekends. Gulp. He'll be missing 4 or 5 ski races, the next round of hockey playoffs, the club championships and a trip to Toronto to see Billy Elliot. The boys are already worried about who will sharpen their skis. Me? I'm more worried about taking the three of them on the subway for the first time in four years and whether I/they will survive until the second week when I hightail it to Boston for three days to help S. out at the show.

So I will take it one day at a time. Today I'm dropping the boys off at the ski hill for training and then I am heading to the barn to see if my horse remembers who I am. I haven't ridden since before Christmas and I am persona non grata amongst my riding buddies. But the temperature is well above zero this morning despite the crazy wind blowing the next cold front in from the Arctic and I am going to enjoy every minute of it.

Stay tuned for more updates from Single Motherland.

Dispatches from a Parallel Universe

Racing Buddies

Sometimes it feels like we really do live in another world and not just because we have four foot snow drifts surrounding the house and people get around on snowmobiles in town. (I know that doesn't help to dispel any stereotypical images you south of the border may have of the Great White North but where I live it really is true for four months of the year) I feel this way because we inhabit this strange little planet of parents of ski racers. Most of you might be familiar with skiing the way normal people enjoy it where you take a holiday and go to a fabulous resort like Vail or Whistler or even somewhere closer like Killington or Sugar Loaf but we in southern Ontario only have what is geologically known as the Niagara Escarpment to conquer on boards. It is a ridge that runs from Niagara Falls to the top of the Bruce Peninsula between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay and due to the two bodies of water and cold air masses from the Arctic we get a lot of snow dumped on us with great regularity. The height of this ridge you ask? Well, at its peak it is about 900 feet. Yes, that's feet, not metres even though we in Canada converted to the metric system sometime in the 70's but because it sounds even punier in metres we still refer to our mountain in feet. Along the escarpment there is one public ski resort grandly called Blue Mountain and then there are five other places to ski but only if you are a member or guest. These ski hills are private clubs much like a golf or country club. It's great if you were lucky enough to be born into a family that were already members thanks to the foresight of your parents or grandparents and which makes you, as we like to call it, a member of the L.S.P. or Lucky Sperm Club. Otherwise if you want to bypass the long lift lines and various yahoos and yetis careening down the slopes at the public hills you have to pony up quite a swack of cash. My family, as you might have gathered is a member of the L.S.C. on both sides as my Other Half and I met as teenagers at our club. Our children are able to ski four out of seven days a week and as my cousin says, "the first run is really expensive and the rest are all free." We get our money'sworth out of our membership especially now that we live up here and can head over to the hills whenever the school is closed and the roads are open.

But back to the parallel universe. What do we do on these short little hills day after day, week after week, all winter long? Well, once you graduate from the snowplow to french fries and can get on and off the chairlifts by yourself (about age 4 for my boys) you start to race. At age 7 they become Nancy Greeners (named after a famous Canadian skier from the 60's) and they train all weekend and compete four or five times a season. As for the parents, if you aren't a weekend warrior and stuff your middle-aged body into a downhill suit to hurl yourself down a race course trying to recapture your youth then you drive from ski club to ski club with your little racers and stand at the bottom of the hill cheering them on for the 35 seconds or so that it takes to make it through the course. You might even strap on a pair of skis yourself and carry their coats because at these speeds the racers don't want any excess drag on their aerodynamically-designed bodies. They would rather freeze their little patooties off than wear a coat while racing. At age 11 they are allowed to put on downhill suits and subject themselves to the beginnings of low self esteem if they don't have the body of ... well ... of an 11 year old boy. Woe to the kids, boys and girls who have a few pounds of baby fat still clinging to their frames while their friends are all spindly arms and legs.

My Other Half - The Sherpa

The thing about ski racing, unlike hockey or soccer, is that it is all about you. Number One Son is a goalie on his hockey team and he is never as upset about losing a game six - nothing as he is about not placing in the top 10 in a ski race. He can slough off a losing streak because he knows it's not all his fault but when it is just him at the top of the hill and he doesn't beat his time in the second run (they get two chances on the course) he is inconsolable. So I tell myself that this is all character building and that doing both team and individual sports is going to help them later in life and I truly think it will but it doesn't make it any easier when you are trying to comfort a 10 year old who has just fallen halfway down the course and has bruised his ego more than anything else. Or managing the expectations of an 8 year old who is faster than most of the 9 and 19 years olds (his brother included) and is beginning to become one of those cocky kids who you swore yours would never be.

So in this parallel universe that we inhabit from December to March that no one in the world, other than a few hundred other crazy parents understand, where we spend thousands of dollars on equipment that the kids out grown every year and hours on homework trying to keep the kids caught up because of all the school they miss for training and hours consoling disappointed children who don't make it to the Provincial Championships because they had a bad fall in a critical race, it is sometimes hard to remember that outside this bubble other people ski for enjoyment, a few days a year. They go to resorts and enjoy the apres ski as much as the skiing itself and then don' spend their evenings sharpening and waxing six pairs of skis.

I love the fact that my sons are outside getting lots of fresh air and exercise but sometimes I wonder what we are doing this all for. I certainly don't think that ski racer is a viable career path. Most people can't name a single alpine racer except maybe during the Winter Olympics and any sponsorship deals they might get only pay for their equipment. Shaun White is the exception but he is a snowboarder not a ski racer. So why are we doing this again? Well, it is what my husband did as a kid (I, on the other hand, carried coats for the racers in the hopes of getting noticed so I guess that worked since he did marry me) and they will form life long friendships since the kids they hang out with every weekend will, for the most part, grow up and raise their children at the club. There really is a certain comfort and continuity in recognizing the last names of your children's friends. My boys are third and fourth generation members at our club and I know that if they get into trouble someone will recognize their names and tell me about it. This gives me that omnipotent parental power which freaks every kid out when we know what they have bee

n up to practically before they do it.

Number Two Son waiting for his turn

So despite the crazed mothers who let their kids miss far too much school so that they can get the edge over their competitors and the gear head fathers who buy their 8 year old the latest and greatest equipment and are found waxing skis at the top of the hill even though it won't make a hundredth of a second difference in a 50 pound kid's time, I will continue to support my boys as long as they want to do this, as long as they are having fun and making friends and learning those life lessons. I will be at the bottom of the hill to wipe away the tears and high five them after a great run and I will toast them with a very large glass of wine whether they make the podium or finish dead last 'cause in any universe, parallel or otherwise, that's what good parents do.