music memory Thursday, Jul 23 2009 

I’ve mentioned often that Olivia can memorize lyrics quickly. She knows the lyrics of many many of the songs I like. But the funniest example of what she memorizes comes from David Bowie’s “Station-to-Station”. She will start singing along virtually verbatim when the following verses come up:

“Once there were mountains on mountains
And once there were sunbirds to soar with
And once I could never be down
Got to keep searching and searching
Oh, what will I be believing and who will connect me with love?
Wonderful, wonderful, wonder when
Have you sought fortune, evasive and shy?
Drink to the men who protect you and i
Drink, drink, drain your glass, raise your glass high

Its not the side-effects of the cocaine
Im thinking that it must be love
Its too late – to be grateful
Its too late – to be late again
Its too late – to be hateful
The european cannon is here

I must be only one in a million
I wont let the day pass without her
Its too late – to be grateful
Its too late – to be late again
Its too late – to be hateful
The european cannon is here”

What I love the most is we often (and unconciously by now) play a game where I start a line of any random song and she finishes it. My favourite is when I say:

“It’s not the side effects of the….” and then she finishes the line. What a gas!

I am about to post on OG’s site a list of songs I want to get onto a CD. All the songs I can remember that she liked to hear over the past few years while driving in the car.

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Thursday, Jul 23 2009 

The race is on! Will the new car be here before the old one dies? It’ll be close.

It’s a humbling experience to drive the CR-V around these days. The noise is unbearable on the inside, and embarrassingly loud on the outside. I feel like I need to apologize when I drive by pedestrians as they turn to look.

Anyway, it’s become clear that we do need to have one car in the family that is SUV/van sized. The upcoming trip to Collingwood with 2 kids and luggage will not fit in the Accord. We needed to borrow the in-laws car so that we could utilize the roof-rack it has. Looking forward to the trip with the gang. There will be 7 kids in the house meaning no peace and quiet.

Speaking of kids, I was watching a show this morning about a family bringing home a newborn. The cry the baby made had me shuddering from head to toe. It jolted me back to the night we were at the hospital waiting for the birth of Christien: it was about 3am and I was pacing the halls. I could hear another newborn down the hall making the distinct newborn cry. And I had a moment of panicked realization about what was to happen shortly…and how the more relaxing life we were just moving into with Olivia getting older was going to come crashing down. That was what I like to call a “Father’s Moment”. How one reacts to that feeling defines himself. Since I’m still here 9 months later should give insight into how I reacted.

Another ‘OMG’ (that’s for the tweenie-teenies reading this) moment was a couple days ago when I was cleaning the garage and finally moving stuff back into the basement now that we are 99% completed (more to come on that…eventually…when I have time): I was bringing the newborn/infant/baby car seat down to the basement for storage. I shocked me back to about 1 week before Christien was born when I was pulling it out and prepping it for the day. It reminded me of Olivia and the effort it was during the time she was small enough to fit. It evoked the following feelings: sadness (that we’ll only be using it one more time) and fear (that we will be using it one more time)

Anyway, Christien is well on his way and those cries are becoming a distant memory….one that will never be forgotten.

Let’s hope the weather next week is better than it has been this summer and especially as of late. Since Michael Jackson died, the weather’s been awful.

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