The Silly Season

This has been a bit of a tough stretch for our family. The sun is everywhere.  All the time. (Well, most of the time.)  It is setting at 10:00pm, which means the sky is still light until about 11pm. Sunrise is currently 3am, which means the sky begins to lighten at 2am. This makes a grand total of 3 hours per day of total darkness. And it's just going to keep getting worse until the end of June. (I got these times a few days ago, last night when I was awake at 2am the sky was not dark).

from Google

About a month ago I put the blackout blinds back up. There are a lot of great ideas out there in terms of how to make rooms completely dark.  Things like, "have curtains that start at the ceiling" or "use wood valances at the top of the windows". In Thunder Bay, we have roller shades that slide between metal tracks on the sides of our skylights, effectively blocking 99.9% of the light. These shades are fantastic.

The type of shade we have back in TBay
source

However, we do not own the house we are living in, and custom shades are quite expensive (not to mention there is no one in town who does them, so I'd have to custom measure every window and then install everything myself). I've thought about using sticky-back velro to stick curtains to the walls, but I'm worried it would pull off the paint when we remove it (again, not our house). To make do, we are back to using the temporary paper blackout accordion blinds we used last year (plus blackout liners behind curtains). This works far better than nothing, but there is some light peeking around the edges of the windows. JJ feels this is an acceptable compromise, and that the kids should learn to sleep with a little bit of light anyway (they shouldn't have to rely on the total darkness of a tomb in order to fall asleep).  For desperate times, we have masks that you wear over your eyes, but no one is really comfortable wearing them. (Sleeping with an elastic band around your head is also something that takes getting used to. I'd rather just get used to the light.)

Coraline's room with lights on.

Coraline's room at 3am.

Captain Jack's room.

And at 3am. For a boy who sleeps with a nightlight,
this isn't actually THAT bad.

I'm sure we will all adapt, but in the meantime we are experiencing the joy that comes with knowing that although we can (and will) adapt to our bedrooms becoming lighter in the middle of the night, it hasn't happened yet. We just need to be patient.  You know what's hard to be when you haven't slept in seven nights? Patient.

Everyone feels exhausted, so tempers are starting to flare.  For the past week, our darling CJS has been waking up at all hours of the night, then waking the rest of the house up (he is like a bull in a china shop). To try to help him out, JJ put a clock radio in his room so he will have some idea of what time it really is when he wakes up. The thought is he can go back to sleep instead of wondering if it is morning yet.  Captain Jack is so overtired he actually cried when I offered to get him something healthy from the fridge instead of yet another slice of pizza at lunch time (normally he never complains about having to have apple slices--he loves them!).

We were discussing all this with one of our neighbors a few days ago. A notice had shown up on Facebook about children playing at the bus stops and not getting onto the bus right away when it shows up at the stop. The bus drivers were threatening to stop driving the kids to school. My neighbor laughed and said "Oh please. This happens every year. It's the silly season!" Apparently, its not just us who are feeling cranky and "off", but everyone, students and bus drivers included. (Captain Jack's teacher has already cut down significantly on homework.  She says there's no point to assigning it, this time of year it simply doesn't get done. The kids are too tired and cranky.)

JJ has heard more and more about the "Silly Season" from around town and at the hospital.  I think calling it "Silly Season" is far more polite than some other terms I can think of to call it, most of which I can't type here in my "G" rated blog.

Another sure sign spring is here (besides the crazy sun) is that the chip truck is back!  It's not actually a chip truck. It's more....traditional food truck.  The Nanook Express sells various food items throughout the warmer months of the year.  Each day they post their location on Facebook. Locations vary, and include "in front of the beer and wine store", or "in the Nakasuk School parking lot" or "by the new post office warehouse". (Photos from Facebook.)

"Mamaqtuq" is Inuktitut for "delicious".

There is also an actual chip truck, but that doesn't appear to be up and running yet.

***

It is now 10:45pm on Saturday night.  JJ and I have just finished watching a movie and are about to turn in.  Outside though, I can still hear young children playing in the neighborhood. It makes it tough for me and JJ, because our kids still go to bed at their regular time.  (Slightly later on weekends.)  On school nights it seems most kids go to bed a little bit earlier, but culturally it isn't the same as what we are used to.  Many of these kids have never heard, "Of course you can't go outside to play this late.  It's a school night." Enjoying the daylight, even when it extends into the late evening, seems more important than school. Coraline and Captain Jack are confused by this. Coraline is jealous, wondering why children far younger than she is "get to run around outside until midnight" while she is stuck in bed. Captain Jack thinks the whole idea of kids being outside that late is preposterous, and hilarious.

A taxi driver was telling us once about the kids he picks up regularly on his nightly run.  Sometimes he just drives around with random children in the back of his cab. It gets them off the streets for a little while, and helps them to warm up. There seem to be more children outside, he said, on nights when the bars are busy. 

Earlier this evening the four of us were watching a TV show.  Suddenly we heard a child calling out to Captain Jack. We all looked at each other. Family members were accounted for...so who else was in our house? One of Captain Jack's friends had just walked in the front door, past our mudroom, opened the second door, and was calling to us. He wanted a glass of water. We invited him in to join us for cookies (the kids' bedtime snack). Earlier this evening two girls rang the doorbell asking to come in to use our bathroom. ("Sure. You know where it is.") I think JJ made sure he locked the door after the last "guest" left. I don't mind our house turning into a sort of "youth centre", but we don't want free-range children just walking in at all hours.

Kids playing in the evening outside. That's Coraline making her way
back up the hill toward me (and home). 

The little fort Coraline and Captain Jack have built from scrap wood.
You can see that the hill isn't as snow-covered as it used to be, but the lake is still frozen.

10:45pm, May 26. The sun has set, but the sky isn't dark yet.

Today the wind is gusting up to 50km per hour, and it's snowing (we are expecting to get 10cm by tonight). Even JJ is starting to become fed-up with the weather. On a brighter note: he and I will be traveling somewhere later in the week.  And it ISN'T to Ottawa!  Where could we be going? First person to guess correctly gets a tiny Inukshuk carving. (Mom, you aren't allowed to guess because you already know.)