The Not-so-imaginary ventriloquist horsy

What did I get myself into? The other day the little man and I were playing in the upstairs hallway. I was growing tired of flying our hallway airplane and watching pretend movies on the wall while constantly being disturbed by the pretend stewardess and her incessant questions about what we would like to eat/drink so I picked up a horse hand puppet and of course, got myself in deeper.

Remember Bubba from Forest Gump? "Fried shrimp, shrimp gumbo, shrimp INSERT DISH". How about Billy Bob Thornton playing that creepy slow dude in that movie, Slingblade, that's it! Well combine the two voices and you get my horsy voice. For some reason it's the only voice that will come out of my half-closed mouth when the horsy moves his mouth. Because I was obviously testing out my ventriloquist skills with said hand puppet. And with the exception of being unable to figure out how to say any words with "M" or "B" without moving my lips and giving myself away, I was pretty impressed.

The boy bought it. Three days later and he's still chasing me around the house, "Mama put it on RIGHT NOW". I think it's great my son has an imaginary friend. I don't think it's so great that it's permanently attached to my right hand. Or that it has to read books to him, watch movies with him, play Dinosaurs with him or watch him poo. In fact, the only break I get is when he's bugging my husband to play with his iPhone (they really have awesome learning games for kids in the Appstore).

The little man doesn't tear up or cry very often. But when I refuse to play horsy, he erupts. And I have to refuse. Mama has dinner to make, laundry to fold, a life that consists of me speaking in my Mama voice. My mouth is seriously sore.

So what's a cowgirl to do? This shows no signs of slowing. "WOAH Horsy!"

The Farmer's Almanac of Hockey

Well can't say we didn't try.

I think I might have written a post about how punctual Swedes are, to a fault. More on that later.

Well we showed up at the rink. And when I say rink, I mean the rinks of the olden days. The ones with no heaters for the bleachers, no real bleachers except for wooden benches and no canteen, except for the free stand that was set up offering traditional Swedish gingerbread cookies, juice for the kiddies and the warm Christmas drink called Glögg, that you spoon nuts and raisins into. Which was all very nice and free but I had visions of sitting underneath some fake heat with a cup of warm coffee in hand.

We're in Sweden, land of modern everything, land of IKEA. I had expected a North American type rink and I dressed for one. So instantly my feet were going into the early stages of frostbite.

But it wasn't about me.

Hubby started to dress the kid in overpriced hockey gear (btw, they actually had skates and sticks there for the kiddies). He was fussy. "No helmet Dada". So after hubby's excrutiating but expert application of said hockey gear, they were ready to hit the ice. Well save for hubby who was waiting for his colleague to arrive with a pair of skates for him.

We had miraculously shown up on time at the designated hour of 8:30am on a Sunday morning. And it was truly a Christmas miracle because my husband, God Love Him, is perpetually late. Late for everything. And me being an "on time" kinda gal, it drives me bananas. But this rare occurance of on-timeness had me hopeful that the morning would see my son doing pirouettes while Daddy looked on proudly.

Yes, WE were on time. WE were dressed and ready to go. But the colleague was late. And man was I irked. Here's a good natured 3-year old all geared up but being told he had to wait. Not good.

As the minutes ticked by, a gentleman stopped by our little corner of the wooden bench to say hello. Obviously wondering why we had such a small little potential Gretzky with us when the ages were between 5 and 9. Hubby quickly explained who our friend was and this gentleman (who used to be a professional NHL player, think I can remember his name?) proceeded to complain about the serial tardiness of hubby's colleague. Because it is a mortal sin in Sweden.

I was livid.

Finally 30 minutes later, after constant attempts to keep the expensive hockey gear ON our son, who was growing increasingly upset and agitated, the guy shows up.

Hubby straps his borrowed skates on and drags protesting 3-year old onto the ice. It was the longest 30 seconds of my life. Here I am snapping photos of a son who refuses to stand and a husband who is about to wrench his back trying to hold son up. And then the tears start. And no sooner had they hit the ice, then they were off again and we were removing brand new hockey gear.

I bit my tongue and supressed the urge to look at hubby and say, "I told you so."

What's the moral of the story? We try again next weekend...

Hockey starts tomorrow

Yup, he's 3 and tomorrow he will be ingratiated (sp?) into the world of hockey and me into the world of Hockey Moms. Hubby hooked up with a fellow co-worker who runs the Uppsala Young Hockey Club and even though the age for entry is 5 the men convinced themselves that our son could possibly participate. How, I'm not sure. I mean, seriously, he's 3!

So last night we got skates and a helmet and tonight hubby is taking us out for elbow and knee pads. He's 3!

I tried to warn hubby not to expect much. Did I mention he's only 3?! But he's excited for this bonding time on the ice and since hockey blood courses through his veins, why shouldn't the little man hit the ice as early as possible?

And then the little man picks up a stick and ball at the store last night and starts chasing the ball around with said stick. To hubby, this was a proud moment and sure sign we have a young Gretzy in the making. Uhmmmm...So here we go...

Maybe he'll be #3?