This little piggy

(HOME) This little piggy showed up unannounced recently.

She hitched a ride in the bottom of a school bag, a little girl’s school bag, because, well, someone in the family, a little pint-sized someone, apparently thought nothing of wrapping her little fingers around the little piggy and claiming it as her own.

The little piggy came to my attention as I cleared the school bag of its daily contents—a half-empty lunch box, a few crumpled drawings, a daily agenda that always tells us that its pint-sized little owner is, on most days, a model citizen at school.

That may be because her penchant for pilfering pigs has not yet been discovered. At least not in her catholic school, where surely a sin like poaching piggies would produce a proportionate punishment.

But her thieving ways were addressed at home, where the perpetrator of the little piggy crime was busted mere moments after the little piggy’s presence was known.

It was, for the most part, a one-sided conversation.

When asked how the little piggy came to end up in our home, the pint-sized guilty party began to simply bawl.

Big time.

Big time bawled.

She had no explanation. No defence. No excuse. And no inclination to try to wiggle her way out of this one.

So the punishment was rightly rendered by the judge, jury and executioner.

By dad.

The guilty party would be made to return the little piggy into the hands of its rightful owners, in this case the ladies who run the before-and-after program at school.

On judgement day, after having discussed in great detail the ramifications of grand theft pig, the pint-sized perpetrator made the long, foreboding walk from parking lot to school with much apprehension, and a much slower gait than that to which we are usually accustomed.

When finally she stepped through the door with dear old dad announcing that daughter dearest had something to say, she reverted to the previous day’s explanation for having poached the pig.

She bawled.

Big time bawled.

Bawled enough to make the daycare ladies want to bawl with her.

They pitied the pint-sized perpetrator just enough to numb the sting of having been caught, but not quite enough to dim the lesson of crime and punishment.

Every action prompts reaction.

Particularly early on in life when little piggy pilferers must be broken of their pilfering ways.

Signed,

The Family Man Muser

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Hit the road, Jack

(CANADA) – It has been a longtime coming, but it is finally here. 'It' being a Floridian vacation for the Family Man crew.

The bags are packed. The car gassed up. The GPS programmed. The iPad ready to roll.

Just as we are, ready to roll. To hit the road. To flee the cold Canadian climes fora week under the sun. The real sun. The sun that generates heat. That sun.

Travel is an obvious challenge for a family of five. Flights are frankly unaffordable for us. Five grand it would have cost to fly the crew south for the week on the Canadian carrier, Air Canada.

Five. Thousand. Dollars.

The discount airlines could barely do better than that. Even the ones that startfrom the States.

A four thousand here. A thirty-four hundred there. All out of our realm—for reasons of cost, for certain, but also for reasons of convenience, considering the multiple accessories a family of five requires on vacation.

Like a car for a week.

And car seats.

And a double-seating stroller for a day at Disney.

And golf clubs. Can’t forget the golf clubs.

All that, plus luggage, plus the crew itself: Mrs. Family Man Muser, myself, and our multitude of miniature additions, combine to make me rather do anything but fly.  

So that is what we will do. We are travelling to Florida the old-fashioned way, but with the new-fashioned toys to make it more tolerable.  

With a trusty co-pilot, Ginette P. Sauvé, GPS, leading the way.

With an iPad strategically placed so three pairs of little child eyes can connect tothe goings-on in Glee: The Concert; Annie: The Musical; Gnomeo and Juliet; Cars; Coraline; and a couple of other classics that should at least tame the tiny and tempestuous tushes that can, and will, most assuredly struggle to stay in place in hours four, five and six, ten, eleven and twelve, of what will surely feel to them, maybe even to us, like an interminable trek.

We have taken to these trails before, four years ago, back then with but a couple of baby girls in our back seat. One was barely two, the other not even six months.

It went so well that perhaps the ease of that vacation set the tone for this one.

A 24-hour drive. A day. But over three days.

It will be a grind, for sure, although the reward on the other end promises to make it worthwhile.

Sunshine. Heat. Swimming. Disney. Golf. Laughs. Memories.

This will be our first real family vacation as a family of five. The first time we dare direct ourselves so far south that we can’t even say we will be there tomorrow. Or even the tomorrow after that.

That is how far Florida is from here.  

And how far we will drive. Just to get there.

Because we still have to get back.

But for now we are not thinking that far ahead.

For now we are concentrating only on getting to Maryland, then Georgia, then Florida.

The rest we can worry about next week.

But to do that, we have to get there.

It is time to hit the road. To hit the road, Jack.

Signed,

The Family Man Muser

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