Adrift in a Sea of Boobs

It's happening.

My boy is turning into a man. It's not like I didn't see it coming or anything. I woke up one morning and the child was suddenly three inches taller than me. Other clues have been dropped along the way as well. His sudden preoccupation with Axe body spray. The half naked chick straddling a motorcycle poster that suddenly appeared on his bedroom walls.

The signs of puberty have long been flashing in their garish neon hues that my middle child has purchased a ticket on the hormone train, riding those tracks straight to manhood.

I, however, as the foolish momma I am, have chosen to turn a blind eye to the loss of my Lego-building, dinky car driving, sandbox loving boy child by telling myself, "This is just another phase in his boyhood."

Boyhood my ass. Frac is a blink away from trading his boy chip in for a full-fledged man card.

If I had any doubts about that, yesterday erased them all.

It started like any other Sunday before it. The day was filled with sunshine and laughter. Our plans were to spend the day at the local community hall's carnival fundraiser. There was a bouncy house, an inflatable slide, hayrides, and face painting. Families from all over the area flocked to our community hall for some good old-fashioned fun.

It was an opportunity for me to parade my children around and preen on how lovely they are and picnic with my family alongside old friends.

One girl foiled it all.

A girl with boobs.

I finally understand my son's newly developed preoccupation with Katy Perry. I suspect it has nothing to do with the quality of her music.

Frac took one look at her and spent the rest of the day following her around like a lost puppy and refusing to acknowledge my existence.

At first I thought I was taking his behaviour too personally. I overlooked the fact this she-child was charming my son with her wholesome good looks. I told myself Frac has known this girl since before he was potty trained. He's just happy to see an old friend.

But when he and I stood side by side in the potato sack race as this girl stood at the finish line waiting to see who the winner would be, my son looked at me and said, "I'm winning this race." He said it emphatically and seriously and I laughed and adjusted my potato sack and said, "We will just see, young man. We will just see." I may be old, but if my kid thought I was going to forgo winning a shiny plastic dollar store medal alongside a lollipop and the bragging rights of being the Community's Best Potato Sack Jumper, he had another thing coming.

With a "On your mark, Get set, Go!" we were off as family and friends sat on the sidelines cheering us on.

I was winning. Age may not have been on my side, but years of potato sack racing experience were. I didn't have to battle the clumsiness of a growing body. I was sure footed in my sack, hopping as though my life depended on it.

I was in first place, set to win the race, driven by skill and spurred on by ego. There was no way I was going to let some teenager or toddler win this race. My son was hot on my heels and I was set to school the boy on how to win picnic-related activities.

And then it happened.

He reached forward and grabbed my sack and pulled me backwards. I tumbled down like a sack of oranges spilling in the produce section.

"FRAC!" I yelped as I scrambled to right myself and hop towards the finish line.

He hopped around me and yelled over his shoulder, "Sorry Mom! All's fair in the potato sack race!" As he bounced his way to victory his little friend cheered him on.

I huffed my way to the finish line, a sorry third place by now, and watched my son preen in front of the girl with the boobs.

My kid literally pushed his own mother down to impress a girl.

If he could have jumped on me too, I'm sure he would have.

The rest of the day was spent watching my son flirt shamelessly with the vixen who bewitched him with her womanly curves. He was oblivious to all else. My hair could have been on fire and he wouldn't have spared me a second glance. He was too busy mooning over her.

It would seem my son has finally received his TEENAGER stamp in his passport of life. My once intelligent, articulate son has now been replaced by some boob-obsessed puberty-addled man-child who is slave to the pheromones tossed off by any young female with chesticles in his vicinity.

My husband, however, has never been more proud.

"I always knew he'd be a boob man. The apple never does fall far from the tree," Boo smiled. I swear his chest puffed up with pride. Right before some chick with big boobs wearing a bikini on television distracted him.

What a boob.

Tanis's Tips For Surviving the Great White North. Volume 1

There are few creatures out here in the land of the sticks where I call home that strike fear into my heart like no other.

The scariest of course, is the creature commonly referred to as the 'teenager.' This particular animal is most fearsome first thing in the morning when it stumbles out of it's den with bed head and morning breath so vile it can literally strip paint.

Prone to either excessive personal grooming or a complete absence of any personal hygiene (they never just fall in the middle; you're either assaulted by body odour and greasy hair or choked out by the cloying scent of cheap body spray and an overabundance of blue eyeliner) the teenager will empty your pantry in less time than it takes to blink. Teenagers enjoy marking their territory with flatulence and eye rolling. A trail of empty milk jugs and candy wrappers usually follows in their wake.

One must never leave sweets unattended in the presence of a teenage creature. It encourages delinquency.

If a particularly feral teenager crosses your path one must be sure to never let it assume dominance over you. The best course of action is to puff up your chest, look them dead in the eye and threaten to withhold all electronic privileges until the teen creature becomes passive. If that doesn't work, threatening to cut off all toilet paper supplies generally does the trick.

Occasionally a teenager will attempt to lure you into a false sense of security with handcrafted cutting boards and other assorted gifts made in shop class. Never succumb to the bribery.

While the teenager is a particularly surly creature faced on a daily basis, up here in the sticks of the northern nowhereville, there is one lesser-known creature that can strike fear into the hearts of churlish teens everywhere.

Commonly referred to as the skunk, this cat-like animal currently lives under the bedroom window of a particularly cranky teenager.

The skunk, sensing the malodor of the teen creature feels quite at home, picking through the improperly secured trash bags the teen has lazily dragged outside. When the skunk isn't scattering trash across the front lawn of an innocent homeowner, it likes to hide underneath the front deck, waiting for an opportune time to strike.

The teen, sensing the proximity of the scary skunk creature, will yelp in fear, hide in it's bedroom and threaten to never come out of it's den unless the skunk has been relocated.

The skunk, noticing the teen has scattered pet food at random on the deck instead of carefully pouring the kibble into a proper receptacle will be lured to the front door where it will lift it's tail and release it's pungent odor, spraying everything in it's path, including the teen's new expensive sneakers which were thoughtlessly left out on the deck, as well as the family dog.

If one discovers a skunk on the premises one must beg, cajole, nag and whine until one's husband has it removed. The consequences are too smelly otherwise.

At this point, the teenager will become highly irritable as the fragrant skunk odor seeps into every area of the house and is completely inescapable. When the teen notices their shoes are ruined and the dog is contaminated, doors may be slammed and loud music may be played in an effort to drown out any pleas of help a parent may ask for.

One must hold firm in demanding the teen's assistance in dealing with the skunk debacle and if the music is not turned down one can always let the smelly family pet into the house, open the teen's bedroom door, encourage the dog to roll around in the teen's bedding and then wait for the teen to flee their now invaded and heavily scented space.

There are remarkable similarities between two of Nature's smelliest creatures, the skunk and the teenager. Both animals can make your tears water and your nose drip with its pungent fragrance. Both creatures live in dark little dens, surrounded by its own filth. Both will willingly consume whatever trash you put in front of it, although one more literally than the other. Neither animal can be tamed.

If one crosses paths with either fearsome strange animal the wisest course of action is to avoid direct eye contact and avoid startling the animal. Move slowly and cautiously away until one is out of the danger zone.

In the event of an attacking teenager, tossing iTunes cards at them generally will satisfy their carnal urges and keep you physically safe. In the event of a skunk attack, avoid the tomato juice and head straight to the lemon juice, vinegar, baking soda and dish soap. Also handy is a husband who only moments earlier walked in the door after being absent for almost two straight months as he can hold the family pet down while you scrub it and keep the teenager on a short leash as it loses it's mind from having skunk-sprayed sneakers.

It can be a dangerous place living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wildlife, but with these handy tips your world can be made a little safer and a little less smelly.

In the next edition of Surviving the Great White North: The hidden dangers of lurking porcupine, moose and beaver. They aren't as innocent as cartoonists would have you believe.

Heartsickness

I had an entire week of silliness planned for my blog (because often what I post is just plain silly) after taking last week off to spend quality time with my husband after not laying eyes on him for 54 days.

Humour is what gets me through the darkest patches of my life, when my throat constricts from the pain of remembering I've lost a child or when life seems too overwhelming from raising a medically fragile disabled child, or from simply wanting to lose my mind from parenting three children by myself.

A dumb joke, even one written by me, helps lift the heaviness of life from my shoulders.

But I can't find the funny today. It evaporated into the sky filled with smoke as my province is ablaze with forest fires.

As of this morning there were 116 forest fires in Alberta, with 34 of them raging out of control. An entire town was destroyed when an out of control blaze split in two, circled the town and burned everything in it's path, destroying most of it's infrastructure.

Grabbed from Twitter, Photo Credit Chantal Tkatch

Not too far away, thousands of oil workers were evacuated from their temporary camps due to another blaze threatening to swallow everything in its path.

My husband said the sky outside his window looks like a tribute to Halloween, all orange and black.

Natural disasters threaten human life almost every day. Japan, America, Canada and every other country on the planet at some time or another sees tornados, flooding, drought, tsunamis, fire, ice storms and everything else Mother Nature can think to throw at us. Those of us who are lucky are insulated from it, safe in our homes as we watch with horror the images flashing across our television screens, thankful it's not us being evacuated or endangered due to disasters.

But this disaster, these fires, they are touching my life. Directly and indirectly. While my home, where my children and I reside is far from the path of the flames and safely out of danger, my friends' homes aren't so lucky. My readers' homes aren't so lucky. Relatives of mine have lost everything.

Photo credit: Michael Leonard / MyNews.CTV.ca

An entire town incinerated within hours, with no warning because the wind carried the flames at 100 kilometers an hour.

It could have been my house.

It could be yours.

So I'm taking this moment to think of the people who are affected by natural disasters everywhere, not just here in Alberta, but elsewhere too and I'm remembering how lucky I am when so many others are not.

Tomorrow I'll be silly. Today I'm too heartsick to find the funny.

*For Information on loved ones in Slave lake call the Red Cross at 1-800-565-4483. For those who want to donate to the relief efforts head here.*