Vicissitudes

I added a few new photos from the summer over at paterek.us.  Not too many.  They are the last ones under Summer Fun 09.

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After 26 years PBS is closing the book on Reading Rainbow.  From the article on PBS.org, it seems that the television should teach phonics and fundamentals of reading.  Reading Rainbow’s focus was more on why children should read.  Personally, I this will be a big loss for PBS and children who enjoyed the show.  I am not a big PBS fan but they usually do understand how to help foster a love of learning.  Television really should not teach our children, this is the job of parents and teachers.  Television should deliver information, entertainment, and give a taste of what is available in books or the world.

Every morning before school the boys, Isabella and I would watch Reading Rainbow while eating breakfast.  We were all sucked into the stories and lessons learned.  Sometimes one of my children would realize we have a book and later demand we read it.  I even remember and still have recorded the episode that played the day Cole left us.  I cannot watch it but it is there.

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I don’t know how to explain it so I won’t.  Since Cole passed, life has been flipped upside down, stretched, smashed and spit back out for me to deal with.  I have my family to take care of, my parents to help, and work constantly nagging at me.  People seem to think that after a month you pick up and move on.  “What could possibly be your problem?”  I hear people complaining about the most ridiculous things, sad because someone moved away or upset about how they cannot get something they want.  I have nothing to say about that or to them.  Let them live their miserable lives worried about the meaningless things they suffer for and about.

I now know the feeling a parent suffers when the hand of God strikes down their child, the anger and pain stirred up by losing the most dear thing to their existence.  I cannot forgive that, not now, not yet, not here.  I give everything and get this in return; a hole in my life that will only be filled by seeing my son again on my dying day or the cold earth dumped over my head like I did for my son.  Life is not fair, nobody said it was.  My other children suffer too at His hand.  Lucky they will move on, I hope they manage to avoid the pains I now endure everyday.  Maybe I should not be writing this here; I guess I don’t really care.

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We all took a trip to Darien Lake yesterday. Everyone had a blast especially in the water park.

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Last weekend I packed up the family and headed out to maple country.  That’s almost anywhere around here but it seems that you have to drive 45+ minutes to get to a Maple Syrup farm (?).  So I didn’t actually pack up and leave, we had to stop for Tim Horton’s first, and gas, and…  Lucky me, I forgot my camera but did happen to have my camera phone!  I got one decent photo of what my son called “Miracle Land”.  Google Maps took us down (Yes down a good steep hill) a dirt road, filled with ice and snow.  Half way down we stopped because the view was amazing (no you cannot see because I didn’t have my camera).  I did get this one shot.  That’s the road, snow clinging to the trees, it was quite amazing.

The kids loved it.  They (and I) learned how maple syrup is extracted, processed and enjoyed.  98% water, that’s a lot of boiling needed.  But it’s worth it.  So what if they use reverse osmosis to extract 50% of the water out before they boil it.  We bought almost $100 in maple products, cotton candy, hard candy, maple cream, and syrup!  The smell there was amazing.  They setup a fire with a huge boiling “pot” (more of a rectangle thing) so you could smell the smoky wood fire and the maple syrup boiling off.  In that they put hot dogs, eggs (hard boiled) and other such things.  I didn’t have cash so I couldn’t get any.  We took a tractor ride up the mountain where they explained the tapping process (no buckets anymore, it’s all piping).  We will make this a yearly thing.

This is the farm we went to www.merlemaple.com.  You can find all the other places here at www.mapleweekend.com

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