GOLDEN MOMENTS

ah, yes, so now that the olympics are over, the olympics that were practically in my back yard, i'm finally getting around to blogging about them. cypress mountain was where Canada won it's first Gold of the olympics. we can see cypress from our living room window.

our living room view of Cypress,
it can be identified by it's one very teeny, tiny strip of trucked in snow!

so yes, here i am blogging about the olympics... after they have come and gone. i seem to always be running at least a couple of weeks behind these days. story of my life. there is little to no time right now for the quiet solitude i need in order to write. pretty much everyday is a blur of doctor appointments (b/n parker & i we average 4 a week!); pill dispensing and pill popping;

a glance at our weekly doses
parker's currently at 30 pills a day, i continue knocking back 112 a day

on top of the plethora of pills, there are IV supplies and med orders that need to be kept on top of, i'm (attempting) homeschooling, there is the grind of the hands on physical care of parker, the trying to 'just be there' emotionally for all 3 of my kids while i'm living on my own emotional seesaw (which is quite frankly like being on a 24/7 PMS train! wooo, scary!) and trying to do it all while navigating through the hourly waxing and waning of symptoms of two people, all of this pretty much makes doing anything with any consistency a challenge. most days i feel like i am just running in ragged little circles accomplishing very little.

so i suppose it is no wonder that i'm having trouble keeping up...
and that the olympics came and went
and we nearly missed them!

the spirit of the olympics hung so thick in the air that you really didn't have to be anywhere near any of the actual venues to feel it and get caught up in it. it was electrifying. the infectious spirit of the games reached all the way in to the little lyme green bubble we currently reside in. pretty much everyday we watched the olympics on TV. and every time we headed out to a doctor's appt, the roads were a sea of red and white; it seemed that nearly every car was adorned with a Canadian flag. THAT alone was really a sight to behold.

even taylor, who was initially miffed when the bus he takes to school became increasingly overcrowded with tourists, finally succumbed to the jubilant chaos around him. his high school was pretty much sandwiched between two olympic venues, the Richmond Ozone and the Olympic Oval. yes, the spirit of the games was contagious...even for a long suffering teenager at 7:30 in the morning on an overcrowded bus.

taylor and his girlfriend, mara
heading downtown to celebrate Team Canada's Gold medal win!
WOOHOO!

i was so excited that taylor was able to experience this once in a lifetime event right at the heart of it
and
i wanted so badly for avery and parker not to miss out on this golden opportunity
at the very least, i felt like we had to go see the cauldron in all it's flaming glory
yet i knew that doing that would be an olympic feat of it's own.
and as i watched those 17 days speed by at an alarming rate, i figured maybe i just needed to let it go. i comforted myself with the thought that most likely neither parker or avery would really be that interested in seeing it in person.

it's not that big of a deal if we don't see it, i tried to nonchalantly convince myself.

and then it happened.
a golden moment.

i took avery to ikea for a hot dog.
and we ended up meeting the ENTIRE swedish women's hockey team.
even got to go on their tour bus, they all shook avery's hand, autographed her little princess notebook, gave her two olympic pins and answered her questions.

avery was beside herself with excitement by the time we exited the bus.
so very excited she told me she just had to scream
and
so, in the middle of the ikea parking lot, avery let loose with several giddy, feverish shrieks of delight
avery's absolute awe and excitement at meeting 'olympic athletes' smashed my whole "it's no big deal if we miss out" theory

avery, still basking in the glow and excitement, several hours after the fact

that was last tuesday
with only 5 days left til the closing ceremony i felt my window of opportunity slipping away
wednesday, thursday, friday came and went
and
no matter how hard i tried, i just could not summon the energy nor will the strength to pack up the kids and take the 20 minute skytrain ride downtown.

and then it happened
a golden moment

i woke up saturday morning and felt good.

and
i determinedly declared that we were going downtown to see the olympic cauldron - whether it killed us or not!

the day started out rough for parker. he felt terrible. and he didn't want to go at all. but i wouldn't take no for an answer! he hates being in his chair. hates how people stare. so we talked about it and decided it would be more than okay for him to 'stand' up for himself by giving the 'gawkers' the

"william shatner: i'm watching you watching me" look

the weather was miserable on saturday
one of the few days during the olympics when it rained and poured
but i was undeterred
after all, i had to expose my two little ones to a historic, epic sight
if meeting olympic athletes could elicit shrieks of delight
imagine
what kind of response the magical delight of the impressive sight of the flaming olympic cauldron would elicit! i could barely contain my excitement! i just knew they were going to be WOWed and astounded!!

wrong!
are you kidding me
avery was far too preoccupied with the hotdog vendor we passed on the way to the flame

"look guys, there it is! isn't it awesome!" i exclaimed
"it's nice mom, can we get a hotdog now?"



so it's true, the relevance, the significance, the cool factor of the flame, our big hands on olympic experience was completely overshadowed by a hotdog.

and wouldn't you know
we spent more time with the hotdog vendor than we did gazing at the cauldron

needing a dry place to munch on our jumbo dogs, we sot shelter from the rain under the overhang of one of our city's towering buildings,
there we sat, right in the heart of the concrete jungle of the downtown core,
and
lo and behold, i found a chicken perching next to me
i asked the chicken what she was doing so far away from a coop
she said she had come to the city to promote vegetarianism
"oh" was all i could sputter around my mouth full of jumbo beef dog


just our luck, that of all the thousands and thousands of people crammed into the downtown core, we'd end up eating our carnivorous lunch beside a vegetarian chicken.

after self consciously enjoying our delicious and meaty lunch
we ditched the chick as fast as possible and
headed up the street a couple of blocks to robson square

avery and i were excited to find out that the olympic mascots were due to arrive about 30 minutes after we got there
okay, admittedly i was the one who really wanted to wait to see them
i have a special affinty for miga
it started in september
when it all of a sudden occurred to me that miga and my taylor look an awful lot alike, right down to the little swoop on the top of their heads


unfortunately, it ended up being that the wait was too long, the air was too cold, we were too wet, the square was too crowded and avery, parker and graham had had their fill of olympic sightseeing
and so we headed home
altho' i was disappointed to miss out on meeting the real miga, i was content and happy with our epic olympic journey

and then it happened
the golden moment of all golden moments

on our way home,
parker suddenly declared he felt pretty good.
then he stunned us into silence
by asking if we would take him ice skating
my boy, sitting in a wheelchair, who hasn't walked since the last time i blogged about it, wanted to go ice skating
what do you do?
you make a beeline for the nearest rink is what you do!
and
we all went ice skating
what a truly canadian thing to do, eh?


parker's golden moment lasted 40 glorious minutes. he raced dad. he twirled his sister. he was duly impressed that even mom was skating too. he got to just be a kid again. it sure was a golden moment for all of us.

sure it ended
he had to be carried off the ice
and
back to his chair
and
he hasn't been able to walk since

but we'll cherish our golden moments when they come
and
keep the flame of hope alive that there will be more.