I think I have a Bide-A-Wee heart*, some internal organ that only thinks in cliches. It occurred to me this afternoon, for example, that It Is Sad When People I Love Get Old, and I was instantly proud of my own profundity. Oh clever, clever me. There's nothing really to do with that sort of knowledge, though, just sit there being sad and profound and secretly getting older and older and older all the time myself. Oh, and fatter.
*It might not be my heart. It might be my liver. Livers are pretty disgusting.
I had the disconcerting experience this afternoon of being introduced to someone I've known more or less for my whole life: her memory is going, you see, so I was all new to her. Still, that was nice - I've been a butt for most of my life and am really much better to meet fresh right now. I'll probably get to meet her again sometime soon and show her my cute children - all three of them! Yes, very startling. - who I DO love to show off. They're cute. Worrisome and annoying but very cute. My forgetful acquaintance was particularly taken with the ultra-tiny and cute Baby, who dourly ate cheese at the post-church tea time and refused to be cajoled into being chatty. (her appointment went well, by the way. Thanks for the good wishes.)
There are more deer than I have ever seen before in my whole life. We'd turn the corner and there would be ten deer watching us warily from the side of the road, always chewing something. There are so many deer because all of the wolves have died off, perhaps from the same disease that's killing off all the bees. Einstein apparently said that humanity would have four years left if all of the bees died - first the crops would fail, then the animals would all die, and then there would go us. Well, that's depressing.
I'm so tired. We spent three nights away from home - two at sturdy, ageless, ribald and bemused Great-Grandpa's, and one night at my grandma's house - and The Baby was awake for most of the three nights, wanting to have variations on the same conversation every night ("Gosh! Isn't sleeping away from home disconcerting?"). Last night, I abandoned her with her father and fled to another room to sleep in the same bed as The Boy (The Girl is entirely made out of elbows, which guarantees that she always gets private sleeping accommodations). He woke up very, very early and gave me a running commentary on how many deer he could see grazing on the front field at Great-Grandma's (six, at final count). His, he announced, was in the lead.
Barns and trees were down all over the place this weekend, knocked over by some overambitious summer storm last year and never fixed. Lots of little rural houses were empty, forgotten or left behind, their roofs falling in and their windows gone. Walking in my grandma's yard, walking by the stumps of big childhood trees and where the playhouse used to be, I wouldn't have been suprised to see my own ghost, running and callous with the childhood ignorance of the things that will change, surrounded by flowers all heavy with drowsy bees.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Before I go
Here are some pictures I've stashed in my Photos file, which is separate from the Millions of Photos of My Kids file.
The cover of Cat Stevens' Teaser and The Firecat album. My parents have this record and when I was a kid, I had elaborate plans for writing a musical based on it.
Um, I don't remember the actresses name - she died very recently - but this is a shot from one of my favorite, favorite movies, Wings of Desire. I don't want to write a musical about it, but maybe you will.
Young Elizabeth Taylor in the Orson Welles' Jane Eyre. I always pictured Young Elizabeth Taylor as looking the way Young Anne Shirley wanted to look, don't you?
I've mentioned this before, but it was a long time ago, so I'll mention it again: The Girl, at Just Two, sat in on a viewing of this particular version of Jane Eyre with me and for weeks - WEEKS! - afterwards would suddenly pause, shake her head sadly and intone "poooooor Jane." Yes. Poor Jane.
The cover of Cat Stevens' Teaser and The Firecat album. My parents have this record and when I was a kid, I had elaborate plans for writing a musical based on it.
Um, I don't remember the actresses name - she died very recently - but this is a shot from one of my favorite, favorite movies, Wings of Desire. I don't want to write a musical about it, but maybe you will.
It's Angela Lansbury! I believe this one was on my computer because I was emailing my husband pictures of Angela Lansbury one day. Just to bug him.
Sir Anthony Better-Than-Dickens Trollope. He and my dad could have exchanged beard care tips.
A baby! Dressed up like a chicken! We wanted to dress up The Baby like this but got lazy and so she was a store-costumed ladybug.
Young Elizabeth Taylor in the Orson Welles' Jane Eyre. I always pictured Young Elizabeth Taylor as looking the way Young Anne Shirley wanted to look, don't you?I've mentioned this before, but it was a long time ago, so I'll mention it again: The Girl, at Just Two, sat in on a viewing of this particular version of Jane Eyre with me and for weeks - WEEKS! - afterwards would suddenly pause, shake her head sadly and intone "poooooor Jane." Yes. Poor Jane.
Correction! She is Saint Margaret of Scotland, mother of eight.
Glenn Miller! He died in WWII.
HAHAHAAHAHA. I so want this for my house, maybe in a large, yard-sized form and then I'll leave it up ALL YEAR ROUND.
A rabbit! We have rabbits living in our yard right now and they're so tame that it's SPOOKY. This is not one of them, but he's pretty funny.
And just for Mad: here is the somewhat colour-sorted bookshelves:
And I'm off! Next week, maybe I'll do a post of pictures people have mailed me - all fat ladies in bikinis and cats doing stuff.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The Unbearable Lightness of Being on Facebook
At the repeated promptings of my cousin Sheryl (hi, Sheryl!), I joined Facebook. Many of my other cousins were on as promised, as well as a handful of other relatives and exactly TWO people who don't know me because they're related to me. One is my husband's boss, for example. And other person: I love you. You are my sole proof that I have friends.
I did a quick search for people from high school, university, what have you - and indeed, found lots of people who I knew and disliked back then. And they all look like they're having more fun than me, which obviously shows my ability to read teeny tiny little photos. So now I have my two unrelated Facebook people and several cousins and aunts and uncles and I feel exactly as though my brother is taking me to the prom.
Most of my friends right now don't go online for fun. What, you say? How is this possible? I do not know. But none of them are on Facebook. And some of my friends DO go online for fun, but they're possibly shy or just don't care that I'm all alone on Facebook. It's very sad. I could delete my account, but it's more fun just to open it up every once in a while and sing "One Is The Loneliest Number".
I found out last night that my middle brother has never read my blog. Gasp. I sort of write presuming that everyone I know will at some point read this, which means that my excellent stockpile of mother-in-law tales, for example, will go unread by the internet. You're missing out.
But apparently I can talk about my brother with impunity. He and his wife are moving into their Brand New House this weekend, to which I say: SUCKERS. Welcome to downspouts and mowing the lawn, population you.
You may have noticed that I'm not visiting other blogs as much as normal and that is because my %(@&!!! computer (look! I just swore like in Mad Magazine!) is still being a jerk.
Hey, tomorrow I'm going on a trip! The Baby is going to go visit a specialist, and then we're going to visit my grandma and my husband's grandpa. So I'll see everyone on Sunday when I get back.
I did a quick search for people from high school, university, what have you - and indeed, found lots of people who I knew and disliked back then. And they all look like they're having more fun than me, which obviously shows my ability to read teeny tiny little photos. So now I have my two unrelated Facebook people and several cousins and aunts and uncles and I feel exactly as though my brother is taking me to the prom.
Most of my friends right now don't go online for fun. What, you say? How is this possible? I do not know. But none of them are on Facebook. And some of my friends DO go online for fun, but they're possibly shy or just don't care that I'm all alone on Facebook. It's very sad. I could delete my account, but it's more fun just to open it up every once in a while and sing "One Is The Loneliest Number".
I found out last night that my middle brother has never read my blog. Gasp. I sort of write presuming that everyone I know will at some point read this, which means that my excellent stockpile of mother-in-law tales, for example, will go unread by the internet. You're missing out.
But apparently I can talk about my brother with impunity. He and his wife are moving into their Brand New House this weekend, to which I say: SUCKERS. Welcome to downspouts and mowing the lawn, population you.
You may have noticed that I'm not visiting other blogs as much as normal and that is because my %(@&!!! computer (look! I just swore like in Mad Magazine!) is still being a jerk.
Hey, tomorrow I'm going on a trip! The Baby is going to go visit a specialist, and then we're going to visit my grandma and my husband's grandpa. So I'll see everyone on Sunday when I get back.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Baking With Beck
SO this weekend we went yardsaling for the first time in 2007. I know! We're exciting. We went to a none-too-promising sale - held in a garage - and look what I found!
Whoo hoo! A bundled pile of crappy recipe booklets! I was going to pass them by, when I decided to flip through them quickly, which resulted in me dashing over to the yard sale-ee and quickly buying the stack, to her surprise. "I told mom no one would buy those ratty old things," she said, disapprovingly.
This one is from the 1950s. Lots of excellent retro photographs of baked things. Good times. Further in the pile:
I'm not quite sure WHEN this one is from - pre-1955, I'm suspecting.
Jane Ashley, the authoress, looks like she has a secret sorrow. Why so sad, Jane Ashely? Is it the hair? Or where you thwarted in love?
Another 1950s baking booklet. I love the big fat red candle in the mince tart. Excellent.
Pre-1910. It's WONDERFUL! There are several weeks worth of menu plans in the back, from the era of trencherman eating - each meal full of pie and cold tongue and strange potato dishes that I've never head of.
The woman on the front has the serene look of a person with no internal organs - look at the size of her waist!
WWII era, of course. "Housoldier" is my new title. Oh sure, my husband will be disconverted when I salute him upon his arrival home from work, but his discomfort will surely be offset by my smart dress-and-apron combo and my fetching hair. And threatening wooden spoon. Housoldier it is!
Monday, April 23, 2007
My dad is so very, very old.
The Girl insisted that her Papa have the correct number of candles on his cake last night, and very obligingly counted out and placed all 59, which resulted in the above FIERY CAKE EMERGENCY.See the bottle of wine in the background? My dad made that. And what did he make it from?
FROM BEETS.
Oh, the horror. He pleasantly poured me a glass of the bright red wine and I sniffed it, hesitantly. And it smelled LIKE BEETS. I thrust it away from me quickly, lest I accidentally ingest an alcoholic beverage that was made from beets. I like beets just fine, by the way. They're a pleasant vegetable with the interesting quirk of turning your urine BRIGHT RED, but for some reason, I draw the line at making them into wine. Wine that smells like beets.
Beet wine wasn't the only culinary offering of my dad's to be rejected yesterday - The Girl apparently fled into another room when offered a smoked smelt. With its head and eyes still intact. I have no words for what I think about smoked smelts. With heads and eyes still attached. I may be fragile and North American but I cannot eat eyes. Unless they're in hot dogs, and then BRING THEM ON.
My dad's birthday is actually today, along with a bunch of other people - my cousin Cameron, my friend Lisa, William Shakespeare - although none of those other people had the same beard-related birthday calamity that my dad nearly did. Observe:
Yes, one must watch one's long Beard of The Patriarchs carefully whilst blowing out all of one's many, many candles.From The Baby's birthday onwards, it is now the Running of the Birthdays for me - my daughters, my parents, one of my brothers and scores of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles have all deemed fit to jam themselves into a three week period in late April/early May. There's the very sensible Northern Ontarian desire not to have a baby in the middle of a snowstorm, of course, and the other very sensible desire not to be heavily pregnant in the middle of sweltering July, but you'd think everyone could pick some other time to be born. Apparently not, though. So happy birthday, pretty much everyone I know! And happy birthday, dad. Try not to light your beard on fire.
Edited to add one more photo of the smoking cake:
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Happy Birthday, Baby
Two years ago today, I woke up to a strong contraction and a smell of bleach, two things which I filed into my mental "that's odd" file and went about my day. After The Girl had been safely sent to school, I thought that perhaps a trip to the hospital was in order - we live an hour from the hospital I can deliver in, and so it's best to go early and before an actual emergency. We knew that you were a month away from being born and that this was just being cautious, but I was looking forward to a day out of town. We dropped The Boy off at a friend's house, picked up lunch and magazines and drove to the Big City, cheerfully looking forward to being sent home again and perhaps a trip to Chapters.
Six hours later, you were born.
You're still exactly like that - in this big rush, on your own schedule, and knowing exactly what you want to do, nevermind what we have planned. And you're such a BIG girl all of sudden, full of words and schemes and grudges. Physically, you're still a little mite - "doll-sized", someone said the other day, but there's nothing doll-like or diminutive about your personality, which is oversized, aggresive and LOUD.
I had thought, rather stupidly, that all of my girls would be the same way: you would be the same subtle catlike girl as your sister, hard to read, clever, easily hurt, missing some essential layer of emotional skin. Not you, buddy. You have only two all-purpose moods - very happy or very mad (unlike your sister, with her dozens and dozens of moods), and are so stoic and so tough that it took MONTHS for the doctors to realize that you were very literally starving to death.
Your health is still a big question mark. We are asked frequently if you can be healthy, being as small as you are, and honestly, we don't know. I try not to dwell on that. You ARE growing right now, and have gained weight, but you're still not on either the height or weight charts, occupying some precarious no-man's land below the first percentile. In every other way that I have to judge you, you appear to be thriving - so smart, so brash, so fearless, so active that how can you be other than well?
I had hoped that you would get the smiling, patient Mama, all fretting and too-much-worrying worn off by the other two, like a smooth river stone. Instead, you get the Mama who has panic attacks and who needs to rest in the afternoons, things I certainly didn't see coming. So life is never quite ideal, but it is still so pretty, especially on bright spring days with a big field for a girl to run in and a family that loves you.
Someone asked you today how old you are. "Me TWO!" you announced happily, and held out your whole hand, all five of your fingers. 730 days old, my brave big girl, a whole skyful of stars for your birthday and there's chocolate cake for you tonight.
Six hours later, you were born.
You're still exactly like that - in this big rush, on your own schedule, and knowing exactly what you want to do, nevermind what we have planned. And you're such a BIG girl all of sudden, full of words and schemes and grudges. Physically, you're still a little mite - "doll-sized", someone said the other day, but there's nothing doll-like or diminutive about your personality, which is oversized, aggresive and LOUD.
I had thought, rather stupidly, that all of my girls would be the same way: you would be the same subtle catlike girl as your sister, hard to read, clever, easily hurt, missing some essential layer of emotional skin. Not you, buddy. You have only two all-purpose moods - very happy or very mad (unlike your sister, with her dozens and dozens of moods), and are so stoic and so tough that it took MONTHS for the doctors to realize that you were very literally starving to death.
Your health is still a big question mark. We are asked frequently if you can be healthy, being as small as you are, and honestly, we don't know. I try not to dwell on that. You ARE growing right now, and have gained weight, but you're still not on either the height or weight charts, occupying some precarious no-man's land below the first percentile. In every other way that I have to judge you, you appear to be thriving - so smart, so brash, so fearless, so active that how can you be other than well?
I had hoped that you would get the smiling, patient Mama, all fretting and too-much-worrying worn off by the other two, like a smooth river stone. Instead, you get the Mama who has panic attacks and who needs to rest in the afternoons, things I certainly didn't see coming. So life is never quite ideal, but it is still so pretty, especially on bright spring days with a big field for a girl to run in and a family that loves you.
Someone asked you today how old you are. "Me TWO!" you announced happily, and held out your whole hand, all five of your fingers. 730 days old, my brave big girl, a whole skyful of stars for your birthday and there's chocolate cake for you tonight.
Friday, April 20, 2007
The Boy and I were walking to school today - dropping off some extra things for The Girl's lunch - and found the entire school body running around outside in the yard. My mom came over and told me that the school had been evactuated. The fire alarm was going off and they didn't know why.
The Girl dashed over, grabbed her lunch and seemed cheerful and happy so I left her running around the yard. The fire trucks were wailing to the school as we left, and I thought of all of the bad things that can happen to vulnerable children in school, the dangers of this big stupid world. Of course I wanted to take her home with me. Of course I did. But my mother was there and you'd better believe that nothing would happen to her grandchild with her on watch, and taking her home would have made her frightened, much more frightened than watching her school burn down.
The school didn't burn down. Some junior wisenheimer had pulled the alarm and everyone was back in class by lunchtime, no doubt loud and rowdy with their morning's adventure. They were all safe, with the exception of one kid who will now have to worry about being in big trouble, if he or she is not already hardened beyond the fear of trouble.
I would love to tuck her in beside me forever, keep her safe. But I know that letting my fear - my all too reasonable fear - keep her from stretching her wings and flying away will hurt her. She needs to believe that she can handle any situation she finds herself in, one of the pretty illusions we give our children, like Santa and, like Santa, the belief in her own strength will keep her happy until it doesn't any more.
The Girl dashed over, grabbed her lunch and seemed cheerful and happy so I left her running around the yard. The fire trucks were wailing to the school as we left, and I thought of all of the bad things that can happen to vulnerable children in school, the dangers of this big stupid world. Of course I wanted to take her home with me. Of course I did. But my mother was there and you'd better believe that nothing would happen to her grandchild with her on watch, and taking her home would have made her frightened, much more frightened than watching her school burn down.
The school didn't burn down. Some junior wisenheimer had pulled the alarm and everyone was back in class by lunchtime, no doubt loud and rowdy with their morning's adventure. They were all safe, with the exception of one kid who will now have to worry about being in big trouble, if he or she is not already hardened beyond the fear of trouble.
I would love to tuck her in beside me forever, keep her safe. But I know that letting my fear - my all too reasonable fear - keep her from stretching her wings and flying away will hurt her. She needs to believe that she can handle any situation she finds herself in, one of the pretty illusions we give our children, like Santa and, like Santa, the belief in her own strength will keep her happy until it doesn't any more.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
I win the internets!
44 comments, not counting my two. Excuse me a moment while I'm a bit startled. And now I will comment back to every single one of you....
To my anonymous and hurt commentor - I wasn't meaning to lump all of middle-aged womanhood together. I was only referring to a certain few women who have made extremely critical comments about my choice to stay home with my kids. The problem with joking online, of course, is that not everyone will be aware that I AM joking.
Mad - You think the Spot books are bad? You should see the Spot video that we have, which my children ADORE. It was given to me by a friend with older kids, so much older, in fact, that there's an ad for Fraggle Rock at the beginning. I HATE FRAGGLE ROCK. Bunch of puppet hippies.
Karla - What precisely IS a bonbon? I spent yesterday eating Easter candy - does that qualify?
Ann - I'm with you entirely. I love being with my kids and this is certainly my happy choice, but some days they drive me right out of my tree. Which I climbed into to get away from them.
Mel - Being a nurse is one of the jobs that I would consider extremely hard, too. One of my friends is in a nursing placement right now, and she told me this horribly sad story the other night about working in the ob ultrasound clinic and it was full of 14 and 15 year olds with advanced stage HPV/early stage cervical cancer. There are no words.
Robin - Ah, our husbands sound like similar men. Planners. Big, scary planners.
Julie - Well, of course it's a good gig. It's not for everyone and not all days are fun but overall, it's a lot of fun.
Haley - I should have added to my post yesterday that almost nothing in life is harder than being sick and pregnant and looking after some extremely busy toddler. Alaskan crab fishermen would probably find that tiring.
Crazymumma - Really? I like preschool aged kids. They're fun. Although I do have some days where I feel like, you know, flames and somebody poking me with a pitchfork and POISON BONBONS.
Jenifer - My mom, selfishly enough, refuses to retire so I can take sick days. As if, mom.
Alyssa - It's rewarding if you make it rewarding, but it can also be like "unemployed woman who watches a lot of tv" if you're not careful.
missmellifluous - The W word must have just slipped out. I try to avoid it, if possible.
Tammy - I'm always vaguely flattered when people say that, too, and I think you're right about it being emotionally draining because these are our kids and the way we feel about them and ourselves and everything gets all mixed up together.
Pieces - Ah, yes. The negligee. And don't forget my feathered mules and one of those feathery see-through robes. It's my uniform.
Becky - As a rule, Oprah bugs me, and her saying that really feels more like pandering to her audience than her honest sentiments. SO I utterly agree with you!
Michelle - The Baby acts very two! There will be lovely photographs of the playhouse, should it ever happen.
Chelle - There's no way you'd be the wimpiest crab fisherman in Alaska while I'm still living! That's MY title!
Cin - Ah, the "Open Your Own Daycare" people. Caring for my children is profoundly different than caring for someone else's - I AM good with kids as a rule, but that doesn't mean that I either want to run a daycare or would be good at it.
Bon777 - Your poor girl. You could make a very interesting post of all of her many mishaps. Like the time she got run over by the riding lawnmower.
Tammy (and Parker! Hi Parker!) - I can't get by with just two loads of laundry a day, no, but thanks to some concentrated work this morning, I am almost caught up! Yay! Now nobody get dirty.
Kyla - "Spidermonkeyosity"! You're my kind of word-creating gal. And obviously looking after a child with health challenges is a different kettle of Alaskan fisherman-caught fish altogether, in terms of how hard/scary/demanding things are.
Gingajoy - I do appreciate respect, definitely. But I don't need people to think that I'm doing an awful, unpleasant thing by being home with my kids, when in reality it's quite pleasant and quite enjoyable. You know what I mean?
Guinevere - Well, the "no breaks" thing can be kind of a pain, yes. My dad still laughs about the time he came in and caught me simultaneously nursing a baby, talking on the phone and cooking supper.
More comments addressed later!
To my anonymous and hurt commentor - I wasn't meaning to lump all of middle-aged womanhood together. I was only referring to a certain few women who have made extremely critical comments about my choice to stay home with my kids. The problem with joking online, of course, is that not everyone will be aware that I AM joking.
Mad - You think the Spot books are bad? You should see the Spot video that we have, which my children ADORE. It was given to me by a friend with older kids, so much older, in fact, that there's an ad for Fraggle Rock at the beginning. I HATE FRAGGLE ROCK. Bunch of puppet hippies.
Karla - What precisely IS a bonbon? I spent yesterday eating Easter candy - does that qualify?
Ann - I'm with you entirely. I love being with my kids and this is certainly my happy choice, but some days they drive me right out of my tree. Which I climbed into to get away from them.
Mel - Being a nurse is one of the jobs that I would consider extremely hard, too. One of my friends is in a nursing placement right now, and she told me this horribly sad story the other night about working in the ob ultrasound clinic and it was full of 14 and 15 year olds with advanced stage HPV/early stage cervical cancer. There are no words.
Robin - Ah, our husbands sound like similar men. Planners. Big, scary planners.
Julie - Well, of course it's a good gig. It's not for everyone and not all days are fun but overall, it's a lot of fun.
Haley - I should have added to my post yesterday that almost nothing in life is harder than being sick and pregnant and looking after some extremely busy toddler. Alaskan crab fishermen would probably find that tiring.
Crazymumma - Really? I like preschool aged kids. They're fun. Although I do have some days where I feel like, you know, flames and somebody poking me with a pitchfork and POISON BONBONS.
Jenifer - My mom, selfishly enough, refuses to retire so I can take sick days. As if, mom.
Alyssa - It's rewarding if you make it rewarding, but it can also be like "unemployed woman who watches a lot of tv" if you're not careful.
missmellifluous - The W word must have just slipped out. I try to avoid it, if possible.
Tammy - I'm always vaguely flattered when people say that, too, and I think you're right about it being emotionally draining because these are our kids and the way we feel about them and ourselves and everything gets all mixed up together.
Pieces - Ah, yes. The negligee. And don't forget my feathered mules and one of those feathery see-through robes. It's my uniform.
Becky - As a rule, Oprah bugs me, and her saying that really feels more like pandering to her audience than her honest sentiments. SO I utterly agree with you!
Michelle - The Baby acts very two! There will be lovely photographs of the playhouse, should it ever happen.
Chelle - There's no way you'd be the wimpiest crab fisherman in Alaska while I'm still living! That's MY title!
Cin - Ah, the "Open Your Own Daycare" people. Caring for my children is profoundly different than caring for someone else's - I AM good with kids as a rule, but that doesn't mean that I either want to run a daycare or would be good at it.
Bon777 - Your poor girl. You could make a very interesting post of all of her many mishaps. Like the time she got run over by the riding lawnmower.
Tammy (and Parker! Hi Parker!) - I can't get by with just two loads of laundry a day, no, but thanks to some concentrated work this morning, I am almost caught up! Yay! Now nobody get dirty.
Kyla - "Spidermonkeyosity"! You're my kind of word-creating gal. And obviously looking after a child with health challenges is a different kettle of Alaskan fisherman-caught fish altogether, in terms of how hard/scary/demanding things are.
Gingajoy - I do appreciate respect, definitely. But I don't need people to think that I'm doing an awful, unpleasant thing by being home with my kids, when in reality it's quite pleasant and quite enjoyable. You know what I mean?
Guinevere - Well, the "no breaks" thing can be kind of a pain, yes. My dad still laughs about the time he came in and caught me simultaneously nursing a baby, talking on the phone and cooking supper.
More comments addressed later!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
It's Wednesday! Again!
The Baby woke up in one of her patented Horrible Moods and will not let me put her down. I've loaded, dried and folded laundry with her perched petulantly on my hip; made two school lunches with her complaining, clinging to my legs; and read her several little board books about Spot, The Boring Dog. He helps out, you see. I asked Baby if she helped her mama around the house.
"Nooooooo," she said. "No way."
We ended up sitting at the computer and splitting a box of gluten-free cheese crackers. Now she's sleeping, the little grump.
I've mentioned more than once the rude, rude people (almost always middle-aged women. Is it the menopause, ladies?) who get all snippy about me being home with my kids, but I don't think I've ever mentioned the other disturbing response I frequently get, where the person I'm talking to finds out that I'm a stay-at-home-mom and gets this reverent look on their faces, before entoning "That's the hardest job in the world."
Let us review my morning, shall we?
1. Still in pajamas
2. Ate cheese crackers with baby while looking at pictures online.
3. Packed two school lunches.
4. Did two loads of laundry.
5. Talked on phone with friend about flats vs. heels.
6. Unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it back up again.
7. Swept the floor in the living room.
Hardest. Job. In. The. World. Like being an Alaskan crab fisherman or an airplane control person or a brain surgeon. So I don't quite get that, either. The first couple of months of looking at this strange baby who had suddenly come to live in my apartment for some reason were pretty difficult, but ever since then it's been certainly not the hardest job in the world. Some days I might concede to it being the most IRRITATING, mind you. As much as I dislike being insulted, I also dislike the vaguely insulting insinuations that I must be some sort of saint to stay home in what must be unbearable conditions. Let me repeat: cheese crackers. Spot. Pajamas. Baby cuddling.
The Baby will now hold up her entire hand of outstretched fingers and announced "I TWO!", which is a falsehood until Saturday when she really WILL be two. That went by both very, very quickly and agonizingly slowly. Her dad will be building her playhouse this week, which I'm very curious about - he's been bringing home lumber all week so obviously he has plans. BIG SCARY PLANS. I'll post photos.
"Nooooooo," she said. "No way."
We ended up sitting at the computer and splitting a box of gluten-free cheese crackers. Now she's sleeping, the little grump.
I've mentioned more than once the rude, rude people (almost always middle-aged women. Is it the menopause, ladies?) who get all snippy about me being home with my kids, but I don't think I've ever mentioned the other disturbing response I frequently get, where the person I'm talking to finds out that I'm a stay-at-home-mom and gets this reverent look on their faces, before entoning "That's the hardest job in the world."
Let us review my morning, shall we?
1. Still in pajamas
2. Ate cheese crackers with baby while looking at pictures online.
3. Packed two school lunches.
4. Did two loads of laundry.
5. Talked on phone with friend about flats vs. heels.
6. Unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it back up again.
7. Swept the floor in the living room.
Hardest. Job. In. The. World. Like being an Alaskan crab fisherman or an airplane control person or a brain surgeon. So I don't quite get that, either. The first couple of months of looking at this strange baby who had suddenly come to live in my apartment for some reason were pretty difficult, but ever since then it's been certainly not the hardest job in the world. Some days I might concede to it being the most IRRITATING, mind you. As much as I dislike being insulted, I also dislike the vaguely insulting insinuations that I must be some sort of saint to stay home in what must be unbearable conditions. Let me repeat: cheese crackers. Spot. Pajamas. Baby cuddling.
The Baby will now hold up her entire hand of outstretched fingers and announced "I TWO!", which is a falsehood until Saturday when she really WILL be two. That went by both very, very quickly and agonizingly slowly. Her dad will be building her playhouse this week, which I'm very curious about - he's been bringing home lumber all week so obviously he has plans. BIG SCARY PLANS. I'll post photos.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Well
As I was sitting here getting ready to post, a comment came in from Kate. I went over to see her site, and then was startled to find out that she was my real life friend & smartypants Kate! That was a pleasant shock.
Life is full of shocks, only some of which are as pleasant as a comment from a faraway friend. The world is not safe or good, and yes, it does feel like things are deteriorating quickly, like Ancient Rome with the barbarians on the horizon. And I feel unsafe, feel like my children are unsafe, despite their booster seats and smoke detectors and vitamins, feel despair and utter exhaustion at the constant wickedness of the world. I am starting to feel like mainstream society is irreformable, that the only sensible recourse is to quietly pull myself and my family away from it. But then, of course, there would only be a greater illusion of safety, of distance from evil - and central to my religious faith is the idea that each of us are capable of terrible evil, so what distance can there ever be, really?
So we keep showing up. We stay. We despair and yet crocuses are coming up through the snow in my yard, this little flash of purple and ivory and the promise of life.
(Edited to add: "Irreformable"? Apparently I feel deeply and with poor spelling. Go say hi to my very talented friend!)
Life is full of shocks, only some of which are as pleasant as a comment from a faraway friend. The world is not safe or good, and yes, it does feel like things are deteriorating quickly, like Ancient Rome with the barbarians on the horizon. And I feel unsafe, feel like my children are unsafe, despite their booster seats and smoke detectors and vitamins, feel despair and utter exhaustion at the constant wickedness of the world. I am starting to feel like mainstream society is irreformable, that the only sensible recourse is to quietly pull myself and my family away from it. But then, of course, there would only be a greater illusion of safety, of distance from evil - and central to my religious faith is the idea that each of us are capable of terrible evil, so what distance can there ever be, really?
So we keep showing up. We stay. We despair and yet crocuses are coming up through the snow in my yard, this little flash of purple and ivory and the promise of life.
(Edited to add: "Irreformable"? Apparently I feel deeply and with poor spelling. Go say hi to my very talented friend!)
Monday, April 16, 2007
Sweet Things
I'm never certain what the proper response to tragic faraway events should be - some people I know are sad for days, while others are able to shrug off almost anything as not being their problem, as being something unfixable and theoretical, pretend events happening to pretend people in a pretend country. I tend to sit frozen, unable to look away from the all-news channel.
Something about tragedy makes me bake: it must be deeply encoded in my pioneer woman genetics, women for thousands of years who upon hearing something awful started making a casserole. (casseroles thousands of years ago? yes.) And I am aware that a coffee cake is a flimsy defense against the outside world, but it's the best I can do, this sweet taste to take the bad away.
Something about tragedy makes me bake: it must be deeply encoded in my pioneer woman genetics, women for thousands of years who upon hearing something awful started making a casserole. (casseroles thousands of years ago? yes.) And I am aware that a coffee cake is a flimsy defense against the outside world, but it's the best I can do, this sweet taste to take the bad away.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Do I Obsess? Oh Yes.
Kristi tagged me: what are my top five obsession? I can't think of a more dangerous question, one that might lead to some dank, disgusting confessions that would send one shrieking to the eyebleach. So with the help of my husband, who has apparently been paying a disturbing amount of attention to what I say, here is my list:
1. My weight. I went right from being a slim young bride to a beefy matronly mother and it has THROWN me. Not enough to exercise or stop stuffing my mouth with junk, but enough to make it a constant droning miserable topic.
2. Organizing my bookshelves by colour. It makes visual sense, although it does result in some strange shelfmates, of course.
3. Rollercoaster Tycoon. I have 1, 2 AND 3. Come to my theme park! You only have a slight chance of dying in a flaming merry-go-round accident and there are bathrooms now. It's a great park! No? I've also spent way too much time in the evenings this past week trying to figure out "Dwarf Complete" (and I'm too lazy to track down the link, but it's online and it's Japanese) with my husband.
4. Checking my email and/or my blog comments. Hello, link to the outside world.
5. Collecting baby name books. I have MANY.
I'm not tagging anyone - just tell me what you're obsessed about in my comments.
1. My weight. I went right from being a slim young bride to a beefy matronly mother and it has THROWN me. Not enough to exercise or stop stuffing my mouth with junk, but enough to make it a constant droning miserable topic.
2. Organizing my bookshelves by colour. It makes visual sense, although it does result in some strange shelfmates, of course.
3. Rollercoaster Tycoon. I have 1, 2 AND 3. Come to my theme park! You only have a slight chance of dying in a flaming merry-go-round accident and there are bathrooms now. It's a great park! No? I've also spent way too much time in the evenings this past week trying to figure out "Dwarf Complete" (and I'm too lazy to track down the link, but it's online and it's Japanese) with my husband.
4. Checking my email and/or my blog comments. Hello, link to the outside world.
5. Collecting baby name books. I have MANY.
I'm not tagging anyone - just tell me what you're obsessed about in my comments.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Millions Of Cats
Big news in Babyland: The Baby said her first full sentence today: "No, (The Boy)! Stop throwing my tights!"
In other news, my kids were very irritating this morning.
Anyhow. The way toddlers move from their grunting caveman semi-language to being fully verbal is so neat - The Baby can ask specifically for what she wants now (right at this moment? Chips.), can tell me what part of her hurts (because the Boy "accidentally" hit her with her tights), can bid everyone goodnight by name. There was a sudden recent leap in her language, this move from using halting single words to two, three words at a time, and now this new leap, these complex sentences. Later this morning, for instance, she was chasing one of the cats around and hollered:
"Come back kitty! I hit you!"
Strangely, the kitty took off at high speeds and The Baby's plans for smacking the cat came to naught.
She's not my most verbal child at this age - that record will always be held by The Boy, who was talking in nonstop paragraphs by the time he was 18 months old, so obviously full of words that he COULD NOT hold them in. He's still the most talkative person on the planet, and my ears often ache when it's his bedtime, too full of words and stories and sad tales of sisterly wrongdoings. When he was two, he had to go get his hearing checked (because he is so LOUDLOUDLOUD) and we were asked how many words he spoke. My husband and I looked at each other and both shrugged. We didn't know.
Did he speak at least 20 words? the doctor asked us, and we both cracked up, before reassuring him that we didn't know because The Boy was just so freakishly verbal. And still. Dinner is "astoundingly delicious." Bedtime is a "cruel trial." His report card stated that he has "exceptional abilities" but I think that it's more that he's just full of "words"*, that the world is a constant running narrative for him and someday I suspect that he will start writing down all of these words, that I will pick up a heavy, heavy book with his name on the front and read about the cruel and astounding world, and wish back this boy who is talking my ear off all the time right now.
*HAHAHA! Unnecessary punctuation is funny.
In other news, my kids were very irritating this morning.
Anyhow. The way toddlers move from their grunting caveman semi-language to being fully verbal is so neat - The Baby can ask specifically for what she wants now (right at this moment? Chips.), can tell me what part of her hurts (because the Boy "accidentally" hit her with her tights), can bid everyone goodnight by name. There was a sudden recent leap in her language, this move from using halting single words to two, three words at a time, and now this new leap, these complex sentences. Later this morning, for instance, she was chasing one of the cats around and hollered:
"Come back kitty! I hit you!"
Strangely, the kitty took off at high speeds and The Baby's plans for smacking the cat came to naught.
She's not my most verbal child at this age - that record will always be held by The Boy, who was talking in nonstop paragraphs by the time he was 18 months old, so obviously full of words that he COULD NOT hold them in. He's still the most talkative person on the planet, and my ears often ache when it's his bedtime, too full of words and stories and sad tales of sisterly wrongdoings. When he was two, he had to go get his hearing checked (because he is so LOUDLOUDLOUD) and we were asked how many words he spoke. My husband and I looked at each other and both shrugged. We didn't know.
Did he speak at least 20 words? the doctor asked us, and we both cracked up, before reassuring him that we didn't know because The Boy was just so freakishly verbal. And still. Dinner is "astoundingly delicious." Bedtime is a "cruel trial." His report card stated that he has "exceptional abilities" but I think that it's more that he's just full of "words"*, that the world is a constant running narrative for him and someday I suspect that he will start writing down all of these words, that I will pick up a heavy, heavy book with his name on the front and read about the cruel and astounding world, and wish back this boy who is talking my ear off all the time right now.
*HAHAHA! Unnecessary punctuation is funny.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
My New Title.
My son just walked into the office and handed me a Kindersurprise egg.
"Here you go, Monster Emperor," he said and MADE MY DAY. Or at least the morning part of it. It's funny how these little things happen and just make you laugh all the way through, shoot little webs of happiness through everything.
A post has been percolating for a few days, inspired by a childcare post that Mimi did earlier this week. In the most recent Canadian election campaign, the three main parties squabbled over childcare and how it should be funded, which led to some awful stuff, as Mimi wrote:
It was depressing. I've written before about how disrespectful people are - actually, primarily how disrespectful middle-aged women are - to stay-at-home moms or more importantly, to ME: by God, they worked full-time and left their kids at the neighbours and still found time to do macrame and primal scream classes and who do I think I am to lounge around at home? I never respond well to that sort of thing, and by "well" I mean, "in a way that might suggest to them that some intelligent women find raising their children to be a fulfilling, meaningful vocation". Instead, I set the cause (if there is one) back several hundred years by responding sarcastically, which helps no one, really.
I have no problem with working moms - so many women I know work a full day, get their kids and take them to the park and then home for stories, supper, bathtime, bedtime AND then clean the house and do the laundry and then presumably sleep the sleep of the deserving poor. It sounds very tiring and I wish that all childcare was wonderful and affordable and good and that all men were as supportive and helpful as my husband, Mr. Wonderful. And I don't think all stay-at-home mothers are paragons of maternal virtue, self-sacrificially raising their children and grinding their own wheat and so forth. I think most mothers love their kids and try their best. But I also think that there's so much dishonesty in every aspect of the discussion - would my children turn to A Life of Crime if I got a job? Likely not. Would putting them into daycare turn them into wee scholars, all set for an early entrance to university? Not that, either.
I know more than a few crappy mothers - not abusive, not cruel, but just disinterested. More than one family I know works full-time and then have their children spend several nights a week sleeping over at grandparents so that they can have their weekends free to enjoy themselves, meaning that they end up spending less than 18 hours a week with their children, viewing their child as a library book that they can sign out when interested. It becomes my business when my children have to go to school with these kids who have been raised by no one, these children that no one has been passionate enough about to civilize. But these aren't the mothers who are getting publically insulted, not the mothers who turn on CBC and hear the in-house musician singing about how the children of at-home parents are "rotting in front of their tvs."
At a town event this weekend, it was very obvious that there are two parenting worlds and that the division between them is NOT who the children are spending their days with: most of the children were sitting more or less politely with their parents, while a group of kids ran around the crowded venue, knocking over younger children and tripping people, smashing into elderly people in their chairs. Their parents either did nothing, oblivious that their children were being a public menace or literally not caring OR they attempted to correct their children's behaviour and failed, parents without even the basic abilities to set boundaries. THIS is the division between parents - the parents who no longer parent, the parents without boundaries or the abilities to successfully set boundaries and the parents who sit there horrified as the ever-larger group of feral children endanger their own, the monster emperors of this new empty childhood.
"Here you go, Monster Emperor," he said and MADE MY DAY. Or at least the morning part of it. It's funny how these little things happen and just make you laugh all the way through, shoot little webs of happiness through everything.
A post has been percolating for a few days, inspired by a childcare post that Mimi did earlier this week. In the most recent Canadian election campaign, the three main parties squabbled over childcare and how it should be funded, which led to some awful stuff, as Mimi wrote:
The letters published on this issue in my local paper seemed to indicate
that moms (and it was by and large women self-identifying as mothers who wrote in) were indeed very angry with each other, very much split into two camps: one
would hiss, "a child's place is in the home and why should the income tax
structure penalize me for this natural desire to raise my own children?", while
the other would sniff "my god almighty, you poor uneducated unambitious
slob--just because you want to watch Young and the Restless all day doesn't mean us professionals can give up our lives."
It was depressing. I've written before about how disrespectful people are - actually, primarily how disrespectful middle-aged women are - to stay-at-home moms or more importantly, to ME: by God, they worked full-time and left their kids at the neighbours and still found time to do macrame and primal scream classes and who do I think I am to lounge around at home? I never respond well to that sort of thing, and by "well" I mean, "in a way that might suggest to them that some intelligent women find raising their children to be a fulfilling, meaningful vocation". Instead, I set the cause (if there is one) back several hundred years by responding sarcastically, which helps no one, really.
I have no problem with working moms - so many women I know work a full day, get their kids and take them to the park and then home for stories, supper, bathtime, bedtime AND then clean the house and do the laundry and then presumably sleep the sleep of the deserving poor. It sounds very tiring and I wish that all childcare was wonderful and affordable and good and that all men were as supportive and helpful as my husband, Mr. Wonderful. And I don't think all stay-at-home mothers are paragons of maternal virtue, self-sacrificially raising their children and grinding their own wheat and so forth. I think most mothers love their kids and try their best. But I also think that there's so much dishonesty in every aspect of the discussion - would my children turn to A Life of Crime if I got a job? Likely not. Would putting them into daycare turn them into wee scholars, all set for an early entrance to university? Not that, either.
I know more than a few crappy mothers - not abusive, not cruel, but just disinterested. More than one family I know works full-time and then have their children spend several nights a week sleeping over at grandparents so that they can have their weekends free to enjoy themselves, meaning that they end up spending less than 18 hours a week with their children, viewing their child as a library book that they can sign out when interested. It becomes my business when my children have to go to school with these kids who have been raised by no one, these children that no one has been passionate enough about to civilize. But these aren't the mothers who are getting publically insulted, not the mothers who turn on CBC and hear the in-house musician singing about how the children of at-home parents are "rotting in front of their tvs."
At a town event this weekend, it was very obvious that there are two parenting worlds and that the division between them is NOT who the children are spending their days with: most of the children were sitting more or less politely with their parents, while a group of kids ran around the crowded venue, knocking over younger children and tripping people, smashing into elderly people in their chairs. Their parents either did nothing, oblivious that their children were being a public menace or literally not caring OR they attempted to correct their children's behaviour and failed, parents without even the basic abilities to set boundaries. THIS is the division between parents - the parents who no longer parent, the parents without boundaries or the abilities to successfully set boundaries and the parents who sit there horrified as the ever-larger group of feral children endanger their own, the monster emperors of this new empty childhood.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Hey!
My friend Bon has a blog and I think everyone should go check it out and leave comments. She's great and lives in Small Town, too!
In other news, The Girl is still much too sick to return to school. The only thing that will revive her is large amounts of television and Easter chocolate. Ooookay. Good thing for her she has a gullible mother.
In other news, The Girl is still much too sick to return to school. The only thing that will revive her is large amounts of television and Easter chocolate. Ooookay. Good thing for her she has a gullible mother.
The Daily Grind
The Girl has had a draggy cold for the past week. Nothing serious, but she woke up pale and mildly fevered and had no appetite and really, really just wanted to nap on the couch, so I thought that she could take the morning off and lounge around. I hustled The Boy into his clothes and supervised his toothbrushing and so forth and then settled in for a slow morning - baking muffins, running around after The Baby and so forth, with lazy plans to shower and get dressed midmorning. A nice morning, correct?
The phone rang. It was my mom at the school, telling me that The Girl and I had a meeting with the speech assessment people in 20 minutes. Um, oh. I thought that was next week.
QUICK! I must get dressed. I ordered The Girl and The Baby to get their coats and boots on, and ran around looking for clothing for myself. Oh no! All of my pants are in the wash! Settle for a pair of black velvet lounge pajama things - they're ALMOST pants. Oh no! All of my shirts are in the wash! Settle for a slightly too-small grey turtleneck. Oh no! I can't find the hairbrush! Never mind, who's going to look at my hair ANYHOW. Throw on my boots and run out the door with the girls, and runrunrun all the way to school and make it JUST IN TIME. Whooooo!
And then afterwards back home again, realizing that I'd left the house in what are essentially pajamas and with messy hair. I am a magnificent creature.
The phone rang. It was my mom at the school, telling me that The Girl and I had a meeting with the speech assessment people in 20 minutes. Um, oh. I thought that was next week.
QUICK! I must get dressed. I ordered The Girl and The Baby to get their coats and boots on, and ran around looking for clothing for myself. Oh no! All of my pants are in the wash! Settle for a pair of black velvet lounge pajama things - they're ALMOST pants. Oh no! All of my shirts are in the wash! Settle for a slightly too-small grey turtleneck. Oh no! I can't find the hairbrush! Never mind, who's going to look at my hair ANYHOW. Throw on my boots and run out the door with the girls, and runrunrun all the way to school and make it JUST IN TIME. Whooooo!
And then afterwards back home again, realizing that I'd left the house in what are essentially pajamas and with messy hair. I am a magnificent creature.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sleep, baby, sleep.
The Baby and I were just sitting here - she was drinking her ever-present sippy cup of Pediasure and I was checking out YOUR blog - when The Baby dropped one of her lapful of stuffed animals and demanded that I pick it up. Sighing, I leaned over to the side, overbalanced and the two of us ended up sitting on the floor, The Baby still nicely on my lap. Unfortunately, I gave my arm a crack on the way down. So that was a lovely start to the day, and if you're keeping track: Yes. I am accident-prone. But here is a list of Household Accidents I Have Yet To Happen:
1. Slip on the bathroom floor and knock brains out on pedestal sink.
2. Accidentally shut self in fridge.
3. Mistake liquid fabric softener for morning SlimFast (mm, mm.), end up getting stomach pumped.
4. Become entranced by lovely smell emanating from scented candles, scorch off own eyebrows.
You can print them out and cross them off when they happen, I guess.
The main reason that I'm clumsy is that I am very, very tired. The Baby is normally a trooper about sleeping - she bids everyone a cheery "night, night!" at 7:30 and is tucked in by daddy, not to be heard from again until 6ish. All lovely and good, normally, but this week she has a mild cold which is keeping her from sleeping well, and so she wakes up snorting and coughing several times a night and then rises earlier than usual which means that I'm staggering around like an extra in a zombie movie, bumping into stuff and putting whatever fatty snacks I can find into my mouth. It's bearable because it's (I hope) temporary, the cold will pass and she'll go back to her Sleeps Like A Baby Hippo normalcy, but I am so tired, like I'm made out of hammered metal and I also have this song stuck in my head and it might just be the most DEPRESSING SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Gloomy! Oh, and I had grim nightmares last night - of escaping from a mall fire with my kids and some extra baby and walking down the street with blood running down my head and emergency vehicles howling by, which is pretty dramatic. But today will just be a trip to the grocery store and mopping the living room floor, which I hope goes without notable event.
And I'm back! The only notable event was that I noticed that my hair resembles Bertha Mason's, which is NOT a good thing, unless you like crazy hair. Other than that, I managed to avoid toppling store shelves onto myself, being trampled by a Mennonite's out-of-control horse or being abducted by white slavers, so all is well.
1. Slip on the bathroom floor and knock brains out on pedestal sink.
2. Accidentally shut self in fridge.
3. Mistake liquid fabric softener for morning SlimFast (mm, mm.), end up getting stomach pumped.
4. Become entranced by lovely smell emanating from scented candles, scorch off own eyebrows.
You can print them out and cross them off when they happen, I guess.
The main reason that I'm clumsy is that I am very, very tired. The Baby is normally a trooper about sleeping - she bids everyone a cheery "night, night!" at 7:30 and is tucked in by daddy, not to be heard from again until 6ish. All lovely and good, normally, but this week she has a mild cold which is keeping her from sleeping well, and so she wakes up snorting and coughing several times a night and then rises earlier than usual which means that I'm staggering around like an extra in a zombie movie, bumping into stuff and putting whatever fatty snacks I can find into my mouth. It's bearable because it's (I hope) temporary, the cold will pass and she'll go back to her Sleeps Like A Baby Hippo normalcy, but I am so tired, like I'm made out of hammered metal and I also have this song stuck in my head and it might just be the most DEPRESSING SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Gloomy! Oh, and I had grim nightmares last night - of escaping from a mall fire with my kids and some extra baby and walking down the street with blood running down my head and emergency vehicles howling by, which is pretty dramatic. But today will just be a trip to the grocery store and mopping the living room floor, which I hope goes without notable event.
And I'm back! The only notable event was that I noticed that my hair resembles Bertha Mason's, which is NOT a good thing, unless you like crazy hair. Other than that, I managed to avoid toppling store shelves onto myself, being trampled by a Mennonite's out-of-control horse or being abducted by white slavers, so all is well.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Riddle Me This. That's right, I quoted Batman.
Batman AND Forest Gump in two days! I'm striving, apparently, to quote from every crappy movie made during the 1990s. (Was Batman during the 90s? I can't remember.)
A question for you, blogland: we are going to - hopefully this week - move all three kids over into what is currently our room. It's a BIG, rectangular, dimly lit room (roughly 23 feet long and 15 feet wide. BIG.) with one large window at the far end, and we're going to put up a shelf divider in the middle so the room will be loosely divided into Girls and Boys*. So the question is - what colour would be good for a shared bedroom? Right now, it's a light cornflower blue colour which is very pretty but makes the room as dark as a creepy cave. I'm thinking something in the yellow family right now, but which? Or perhaps a green. Or maybe the colour in this photo.
*and no, they're not going to share forever - when they're a bit older, The Boy will get his own room and we'll move to one of the downstairs bedrooms. But right now, we think it's best that we're all on the same floor. Also, I've read A Pattern Language about 400 times and I really think that kids do best in shared sleeping rooms. Because I am, apparently, some sort of hippy attachment-parenting weirdo person with only two upstairs bedrooms.
As far as my travel plans go: well, it turns out that we'd already made plans to visit my grandma and my husband's grandpa that weekend. My husband had taken a day off work and everything. Both of us realized this with a jolt yesterday - we'd thought it was the weekend before, but nope, same one. I'm a little bit wistful. Sigh. But not so wistful that I also can't look forward to visiting my grandma, who rocks.
A question for you, blogland: we are going to - hopefully this week - move all three kids over into what is currently our room. It's a BIG, rectangular, dimly lit room (roughly 23 feet long and 15 feet wide. BIG.) with one large window at the far end, and we're going to put up a shelf divider in the middle so the room will be loosely divided into Girls and Boys*. So the question is - what colour would be good for a shared bedroom? Right now, it's a light cornflower blue colour which is very pretty but makes the room as dark as a creepy cave. I'm thinking something in the yellow family right now, but which? Or perhaps a green. Or maybe the colour in this photo.
*and no, they're not going to share forever - when they're a bit older, The Boy will get his own room and we'll move to one of the downstairs bedrooms. But right now, we think it's best that we're all on the same floor. Also, I've read A Pattern Language about 400 times and I really think that kids do best in shared sleeping rooms. Because I am, apparently, some sort of hippy attachment-parenting weirdo person with only two upstairs bedrooms.
As far as my travel plans go: well, it turns out that we'd already made plans to visit my grandma and my husband's grandpa that weekend. My husband had taken a day off work and everything. Both of us realized this with a jolt yesterday - we'd thought it was the weekend before, but nope, same one. I'm a little bit wistful. Sigh. But not so wistful that I also can't look forward to visiting my grandma, who rocks.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Easter Sunday
I don't know if you noticed - and I'm not assuming that it kept you up nights even if you did - but I've been in a bit of a funk lately. "A bit," to understate, as is my wont, when I'm not wildly overstating and, um, making things up. But today I feel back to myself again, all happy and content and even if I do live on the moon, it's a NICE moon. I certainly timed that emotional healing well, what with it being Easter and all. The church was all lilies and balloons today and it felt correct.
My kids decided on the ride home from Other Grandma's tonight that there should be Easter songs, and so they amused themselves by composing several. Here are the lyrics to my favorite:
It's* Easter, it's Easter
It's Easter today
You're going to get a lot of chocolate bunnies
From your grandmas
And some jelly beans
Even though they are yucky
Because (and you really have to wail this part out until Daddy nearly veers off the road) IT IS EASTER.
Oh yeah.
Of course, they also did a lot of shrieky, headache inducing arguing over certain helium-filled balloons in the car, so it wasn't precisely like riding home with the adorable Von Trapp children. But it seems churlish to ignore how beautiful life is even when it is also scary and discouraging and worrying and sad and all of the other things that life inarguably is pretty much all the time, churlish not to say that life can sometimes also be - to use the cheapest analogy imaginable - that life is also a lot like a basket of Easter candy, thrilling and pretty and filled with chocolately goodness that will make you feel like barfing later in the evening, which is sort of going off course, metaphor-wise, but anyhow. To wrap this up: it was a good evening. I feel better, aside from that whole too-much chocolate thing, and I hope that everyone had a good day, a wild rush of joy sort of day.
*It's true! They use contractions now! At one time they didn't - they used to talk like a pair of robots - "I do not want that candy! I will not go to bed!". It was sort of disconcerting, so I really welcome the age of contractions, even if it also is the age of contrariness.
My kids decided on the ride home from Other Grandma's tonight that there should be Easter songs, and so they amused themselves by composing several. Here are the lyrics to my favorite:
It's* Easter, it's Easter
It's Easter today
You're going to get a lot of chocolate bunnies
From your grandmas
And some jelly beans
Even though they are yucky
Because (and you really have to wail this part out until Daddy nearly veers off the road) IT IS EASTER.
Oh yeah.
Of course, they also did a lot of shrieky, headache inducing arguing over certain helium-filled balloons in the car, so it wasn't precisely like riding home with the adorable Von Trapp children. But it seems churlish to ignore how beautiful life is even when it is also scary and discouraging and worrying and sad and all of the other things that life inarguably is pretty much all the time, churlish not to say that life can sometimes also be - to use the cheapest analogy imaginable - that life is also a lot like a basket of Easter candy, thrilling and pretty and filled with chocolately goodness that will make you feel like barfing later in the evening, which is sort of going off course, metaphor-wise, but anyhow. To wrap this up: it was a good evening. I feel better, aside from that whole too-much chocolate thing, and I hope that everyone had a good day, a wild rush of joy sort of day.
*It's true! They use contractions now! At one time they didn't - they used to talk like a pair of robots - "I do not want that candy! I will not go to bed!". It was sort of disconcerting, so I really welcome the age of contractions, even if it also is the age of contrariness.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Saturday, Waiting.
Today we have dyed Easter eggs, made two batches of Hot Cross Buns - one gluten-free, one normal (or rather, am making - the normal batch is rising while I write, waiting to be punched down and shaped for the final rising.). The kids have a cold, which adds a whiny, nasal note to the whole affair, so they're relaxing in their pajamas before being taken to the first of two Grandparent-Hosted Dinners.
Holidays always are vaguely annoying, the way I picture something being - my kids clean-faced in ironed clothes (white dresses with sashes for the girls, one of those Little Lord Fauntleroy Suits for The Boy.) politely chatting with relatives as I sweep in carrying some devastatingly fantastic dessert that makes Nigella Lawson phone me for my recipe and fashion tips - and the reality, which is my kids running around with chocolate in their ears and hair, wearing last year's Easter outfit (which was a hand-me-down-them) and runny noses, shrieking at each other and touching Grandma's fancy lamps and African Violets. Not to mention the constant krep that comes with being in a houseful of relatives, and it always adds up to me in a foul, foul mood, vowing privately to celebrate all and any holidays by myself in the attic from now on - just me and a bottle of rum and a cupcake with one little candle in it.
Being a family is always such a concious decision, this choice not to turn your back on the chaos, this choice not to retreat. To be steadfast in love, to hope, always. To keep showing up.
Holidays always are vaguely annoying, the way I picture something being - my kids clean-faced in ironed clothes (white dresses with sashes for the girls, one of those Little Lord Fauntleroy Suits for The Boy.) politely chatting with relatives as I sweep in carrying some devastatingly fantastic dessert that makes Nigella Lawson phone me for my recipe and fashion tips - and the reality, which is my kids running around with chocolate in their ears and hair, wearing last year's Easter outfit (which was a hand-me-down-them) and runny noses, shrieking at each other and touching Grandma's fancy lamps and African Violets. Not to mention the constant krep that comes with being in a houseful of relatives, and it always adds up to me in a foul, foul mood, vowing privately to celebrate all and any holidays by myself in the attic from now on - just me and a bottle of rum and a cupcake with one little candle in it.
Being a family is always such a concious decision, this choice not to turn your back on the chaos, this choice not to retreat. To be steadfast in love, to hope, always. To keep showing up.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Hey, where did my baby go?
This afternoon, The Baby was hanging out being petulant and almost-two and I took this photo and suddenly there she is, older - this girl who will be here very, very soon.
Also: BOY, does she like Popsicles! And pretending to burp, and saying "HUP two FEE four!". Good times, good times. She still falls asleep on my lap right after lunch, crawling up with a blanket and her sippy cup, all her compact self curled against me, her littleness and her sweetness. Her hair smells like cherry shampoo (or "PoohPOO", as she told me the other night. Chelwy PoohPOO.), the two of us just hanging out, half asleep.
We went out for dinner tonight, a Maundy Thursday event hosted by our Minister (and last night I stuffed Easter eggs for a community egg hunt at a friend's house. Yes, I am such a social butterfly.). All three of our kids were running amok - The Boy had a slight fever, not high enough that he was noticeably sick before dinner but high enough to make him slightly off all evening, poor chatty boy. The Girl was sullen and self-conscious, acting ENTIRELY like I did for pretty much my entire childhood, and The Baby was just a shrieking menace, so by the end of the evening - which ended pretty early, what with one of the kids being sick and all of the kids being bad - I had some fairly severe maternal embarrassment going on because my kids couldn't even behave through one whole meal and feeling this nasty combination of guilt at my awful mothering and self-pity. Then we drove by the house I lived in until I was 7 and my daughter pointed out that there were little rocking chairs on the front steps, and my son said that they were their for goblins and cats, and I was so charmed by them once again that by the time we got into the house it didn't matter that they were bad and loud and snotty and feverish because they're my own oddball lovely children, these people that I've made. And also it was their bedtime.
Cats and goblins stay pretty much the same, barfing on the rug and scratching up the furniture and peeing on any wet towels optimistically left lying around. With children, though, you turn around and suddenly you see 20 years from now in their eyes, the morning when they can suddenly fit their big sister's favorite red sweatshirt (with the sleeves way rolled up, but still), and it's hard to know that they won't always be crawling onto my lap at naptime, that this will pass so fast. I'm glad to see them bigger and smart and older but sorry, too, this weird nostalgia for my life right this very moment, this time I will look back on when I am very, very old and forgetful as the happiest time of my life, and miss the smell of cherry shampoo on a baby's hair.
Also: BOY, does she like Popsicles! And pretending to burp, and saying "HUP two FEE four!". Good times, good times. She still falls asleep on my lap right after lunch, crawling up with a blanket and her sippy cup, all her compact self curled against me, her littleness and her sweetness. Her hair smells like cherry shampoo (or "PoohPOO", as she told me the other night. Chelwy PoohPOO.), the two of us just hanging out, half asleep.
We went out for dinner tonight, a Maundy Thursday event hosted by our Minister (and last night I stuffed Easter eggs for a community egg hunt at a friend's house. Yes, I am such a social butterfly.). All three of our kids were running amok - The Boy had a slight fever, not high enough that he was noticeably sick before dinner but high enough to make him slightly off all evening, poor chatty boy. The Girl was sullen and self-conscious, acting ENTIRELY like I did for pretty much my entire childhood, and The Baby was just a shrieking menace, so by the end of the evening - which ended pretty early, what with one of the kids being sick and all of the kids being bad - I had some fairly severe maternal embarrassment going on because my kids couldn't even behave through one whole meal and feeling this nasty combination of guilt at my awful mothering and self-pity. Then we drove by the house I lived in until I was 7 and my daughter pointed out that there were little rocking chairs on the front steps, and my son said that they were their for goblins and cats, and I was so charmed by them once again that by the time we got into the house it didn't matter that they were bad and loud and snotty and feverish because they're my own oddball lovely children, these people that I've made. And also it was their bedtime.
Cats and goblins stay pretty much the same, barfing on the rug and scratching up the furniture and peeing on any wet towels optimistically left lying around. With children, though, you turn around and suddenly you see 20 years from now in their eyes, the morning when they can suddenly fit their big sister's favorite red sweatshirt (with the sleeves way rolled up, but still), and it's hard to know that they won't always be crawling onto my lap at naptime, that this will pass so fast. I'm glad to see them bigger and smart and older but sorry, too, this weird nostalgia for my life right this very moment, this time I will look back on when I am very, very old and forgetful as the happiest time of my life, and miss the smell of cherry shampoo on a baby's hair.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Now With Less Whining!
Another grey, rainy day, totally suitable for a Lenten week. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday - the night of the Last Supper - and I'm going to make pretzels* with some other congregants instead of watching the first new episode of The Office - The One Where Jim Gets Beaten Up - in months. Yes, my religious devotion is astonishing, even to me.
(*And why pretzels? Pretzels are considered a truly Lenten food and have been since 620 a.d., apparently - their shape echoes praying hands and they're made of Lenten fasting-friendly ingredients. Making homemade soft pretzels is LOTS of fun, by the way, and a nice introduction to working with yeast-risen dough.)
I feel sturdier today. I thought that most of yesterday's problems were caused by the fluttering constant anxiety I've felt for the past few months, but The Girl is sick today, headachey and unhappy Just Like I Was Yesterday, which is cheering in its own way. I would love to be sturdy, to be one of those no-nonsense, cheerful, competent women and I would trade all of my words just for that, but that's apparently not an option, so I just write and write and try to get to the point where everything is okay, this unknown but hopefully not far off day in the future.
One of the things that causes me a lot of fretting is where we live, this Small Town. It's poor and hick and far, far from everything - but we still live here, voluntarily. I fantasize a lot about moving someplace bigger and more interesting, but I don't think that I'd thrive there, however much I'd like the bigger libraries and pretty waterfronts. I like my life small, comprehensible. My grandfather-in-law lives in a village, which is a small strip of houses and a general store/post office/licencing office/coffee shop/LCBO and when the shop came up for sale 2 years ago, my husband and I had a few fun days where we considered buying it. It came with a huge rambling attached house, a big white-picket-fence backyard with tire swings and rose bushes and occasionally I still dream that we bought it. But there was only dial-up, so in the end we did not go. Still. It would have been cute, wouldn't it?
And thank you, Jennifer, Katherine and Chelle - that made my day.
(*And why pretzels? Pretzels are considered a truly Lenten food and have been since 620 a.d., apparently - their shape echoes praying hands and they're made of Lenten fasting-friendly ingredients. Making homemade soft pretzels is LOTS of fun, by the way, and a nice introduction to working with yeast-risen dough.)
I feel sturdier today. I thought that most of yesterday's problems were caused by the fluttering constant anxiety I've felt for the past few months, but The Girl is sick today, headachey and unhappy Just Like I Was Yesterday, which is cheering in its own way. I would love to be sturdy, to be one of those no-nonsense, cheerful, competent women and I would trade all of my words just for that, but that's apparently not an option, so I just write and write and try to get to the point where everything is okay, this unknown but hopefully not far off day in the future.
One of the things that causes me a lot of fretting is where we live, this Small Town. It's poor and hick and far, far from everything - but we still live here, voluntarily. I fantasize a lot about moving someplace bigger and more interesting, but I don't think that I'd thrive there, however much I'd like the bigger libraries and pretty waterfronts. I like my life small, comprehensible. My grandfather-in-law lives in a village, which is a small strip of houses and a general store/post office/licencing office/coffee shop/LCBO and when the shop came up for sale 2 years ago, my husband and I had a few fun days where we considered buying it. It came with a huge rambling attached house, a big white-picket-fence backyard with tire swings and rose bushes and occasionally I still dream that we bought it. But there was only dial-up, so in the end we did not go. Still. It would have been cute, wouldn't it?
And thank you, Jennifer, Katherine and Chelle - that made my day.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Me And My Delicate Feelings
I was watching Little Bear this morning and Little Bear's favorite tree fell down in a big wind storm, still safely sheltering the bird family within. Little Bear came running out, distraught that his tree had fallen and a lone acorn came rolling out of the wreckage to him AND I BURST INTO HYSTERICAL SOBS, which is like a big red flag saying Hello, I Have Some PMS Related Issues Today. And also, I feel delicate and exhausted and I think that my mom should have taken the day off work to make me soup so I could spend the day crying over children's shows on the couch.
So my dad came over this morning, this being a day that ends in Y and all, and we went out for a walk, which was just stupid on my part when I could have stuck him with the kids and gone back to bed but anyhow. I met a new acquaintance of my dad's and she raised her eyebrows that my children were not in daycare. Um, what? I said that they weren't in daycare and she then asked what I do with them when I'm working. Fighting the urge to say "I LOCK THEM IN THE BASEMENT, LADY," I gently explained that I was an at-home parent and that while the pay royally sucks, I do get many rewards, like unlimited children's television and never getting to pee alone. She looked somewhat nonplussed, like she'd suddenly realized that I was a huge farting brontosaurus and while she'd HEARD there were still a few around, she never knew that she'd be forced to meet one. Or she might have just been like, "Oh, okay" and I read everything else into the conversation because I am perhaps a little bit touchy right now. Perhaps. This may be likely.
A friend - another one! I apparently have a lot of friends for someone who is obviously really moody - dropped by for a morning visit and brought with her homemade rice krispie snacks, jasmine rice for The Baby, applesauce cups and boxes of raisins and a bag of pirate cookies, which I am current eating.
Why are we only Canadian? We are freakin' delicious!
Anyhow, I managed to not take offense at anything my dear friend said or did, because a) She's one of the nicest people in the world and b) I was too busy stuffing my mouth full of cookies to hear anything she said.
Tomorrow is The Boy's teacher's last day of teaching, and so she sent home a class picture of all of the kids waving, and right in the front row is my very own Boy with his smile and his eyes and you can just tell that he's the nicest boy in class, that everything about him is kindly-intentioned brown-eyed goodness. The photo is on the fridge, of course, and every time I pass it I feel a pang, like the world will hold so many storms and I can never hold him close enough.
So my dad came over this morning, this being a day that ends in Y and all, and we went out for a walk, which was just stupid on my part when I could have stuck him with the kids and gone back to bed but anyhow. I met a new acquaintance of my dad's and she raised her eyebrows that my children were not in daycare. Um, what? I said that they weren't in daycare and she then asked what I do with them when I'm working. Fighting the urge to say "I LOCK THEM IN THE BASEMENT, LADY," I gently explained that I was an at-home parent and that while the pay royally sucks, I do get many rewards, like unlimited children's television and never getting to pee alone. She looked somewhat nonplussed, like she'd suddenly realized that I was a huge farting brontosaurus and while she'd HEARD there were still a few around, she never knew that she'd be forced to meet one. Or she might have just been like, "Oh, okay" and I read everything else into the conversation because I am perhaps a little bit touchy right now. Perhaps. This may be likely.
A friend - another one! I apparently have a lot of friends for someone who is obviously really moody - dropped by for a morning visit and brought with her homemade rice krispie snacks, jasmine rice for The Baby, applesauce cups and boxes of raisins and a bag of pirate cookies, which I am current eating.
Why are we only Canadian? We are freakin' delicious!Anyhow, I managed to not take offense at anything my dear friend said or did, because a) She's one of the nicest people in the world and b) I was too busy stuffing my mouth full of cookies to hear anything she said.
Tomorrow is The Boy's teacher's last day of teaching, and so she sent home a class picture of all of the kids waving, and right in the front row is my very own Boy with his smile and his eyes and you can just tell that he's the nicest boy in class, that everything about him is kindly-intentioned brown-eyed goodness. The photo is on the fridge, of course, and every time I pass it I feel a pang, like the world will hold so many storms and I can never hold him close enough.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Complaining Makes It So Much Better
So last night I watched "Agatha Christie's Marple: At Bertram's Hotel", an apparently brand-new adaptation of the MISS Marple novel and by the end I was shrieking in fury at the television, my normal response for the Geraldine McEwan versions. If one is going to make a film that merely bears the same name as a famous book, why not just call it something utterly different? For example:
- "A Vintage Mystery Wherein No One Acts Like People In 1947."
- "This Actress Merely Looks Like Miss Marple But Obviously She Is Not."
- "The Sets Are Gorgeous And Yet Beck Is Yelling At Her TV Again."
This woman is NOT Miss Marple. Had they actually read the book at all or did they merely glance at a synopsis of it and think "You know what would make this great? Really modernizing the crap out of it. Let's have the heroine LIVE WITH the hero at the end with Miss Marple's approval! That's so very in character!" And to top things off splendidly, the last lines Miss Marple utters in the film are as follows:
"Times are changing, and I think for the better."
.... at which point I collapsed onto the floor, dead to the world.
I don't think that Agatha Christie novels are untouchable gospel, but COME ON. They're well crafted, well plotted and have solid characters, so why would the people who made these beautiful pieces of dreck decide to diddle so much with the source material? Agatha Christie is the most conservative mainstream novelist that I can think of from the 20th century, someone whose novels almost all centered around the idea that much of what was good in Britain had been lost in the horror of two world wars, lost in the huge erosion of faith of the Victorian era and that this new unstable society was precarious and frightening for many people. Surely a good movie could have been made that kept the soul of the books intact.
Oops, I just hit publish before I finished ranting. Anyhow. I feel more chipper today, although the sky is low and grey and foreboding, the sort of sky that promises rain or snow or possibly storms of some sort of bug or reptile. Yuck. But all is well inside my house and I'm off to drink hot chocolate, coddle my sore ankle and think dire, dark thoughts about people who would screw around with one of my favorite authors.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
I come from haunts of coot and hern
So it's Palm Sunday today. The kids got to dress up as residents of Jerusalem, circa 30 A.D., if the residents of Jerusalem had made their robes largely out of some kicky blue and white gingham that the church's resident robe sewer bought on sale long, long ago.
"I'm a shepherd!" said the Boy, completely happy with his lot. The Girl and her friend sulked in their blue-and-white robes after telling me that they certainly were NOT shepherds, they were just kids from Jerusalem. And also twin sisters. And The Baby ran around and yelled until her dad took her to the Sunday School room.
I think I'm stuck in Little Town. I'm not completely happy here, but when is anyone ever completely happy? I have friends, we can afford to live here, the kids are happy, our families are nearby but on the other hand, I've begun to think of other places as perhaps a myth, something not quite real. Paris, for example, is just a stage set. We originally had planned on moving back here for a year, regrouping and making new plans and instead we bought Our Big Dumb Wreck of A House because we are stupid, stupid romantics. And that was five years ago. In another four years, I'll have been here for a decade and I may as well just start dropping the ends of my words and start driving an ATV to the grocery store. Ho hum. If I was the sort of blogger who liked sharing truly personal information, I might hint that I'm extremely premenstrual and that I go through this emotional handwringing every month, but....
I'm sad. I'll probably be back to my idiotically happy self again in a few days, but right now I'm sad and the thing about sadness is that it feels permanent and sensible, that this is the correct response to our awful, beautiful world. It doesn't make a great and unifying life philosophy - "JOIN MY SAD CLUB!" and also, I tend to bail on people who are mopey no-funners.
I made bread this morning. It was supposed to be a cheerful Palm Sunday rooster but at some point it turned into a big depressing Palm Sunday walrus and I looked at it and thought "of course." I just ate the very last bit of Palm Sunday walrus because you know what helps when you're sad? Carbs. And with that, I'm off to eat some of the brownies that The Girl made because I have to keep up my strength/weight.
"I'm a shepherd!" said the Boy, completely happy with his lot. The Girl and her friend sulked in their blue-and-white robes after telling me that they certainly were NOT shepherds, they were just kids from Jerusalem. And also twin sisters. And The Baby ran around and yelled until her dad took her to the Sunday School room.
I think I'm stuck in Little Town. I'm not completely happy here, but when is anyone ever completely happy? I have friends, we can afford to live here, the kids are happy, our families are nearby but on the other hand, I've begun to think of other places as perhaps a myth, something not quite real. Paris, for example, is just a stage set. We originally had planned on moving back here for a year, regrouping and making new plans and instead we bought Our Big Dumb Wreck of A House because we are stupid, stupid romantics. And that was five years ago. In another four years, I'll have been here for a decade and I may as well just start dropping the ends of my words and start driving an ATV to the grocery store. Ho hum. If I was the sort of blogger who liked sharing truly personal information, I might hint that I'm extremely premenstrual and that I go through this emotional handwringing every month, but....
I'm sad. I'll probably be back to my idiotically happy self again in a few days, but right now I'm sad and the thing about sadness is that it feels permanent and sensible, that this is the correct response to our awful, beautiful world. It doesn't make a great and unifying life philosophy - "JOIN MY SAD CLUB!" and also, I tend to bail on people who are mopey no-funners.
I made bread this morning. It was supposed to be a cheerful Palm Sunday rooster but at some point it turned into a big depressing Palm Sunday walrus and I looked at it and thought "of course." I just ate the very last bit of Palm Sunday walrus because you know what helps when you're sad? Carbs. And with that, I'm off to eat some of the brownies that The Girl made because I have to keep up my strength/weight.
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