Month: October 2005

Much to my disappointment, the weather in October wasn’t conducive to our annual trip to the pumpkin patch this year, so we don’t have the kind of truly adorable pictures we’ve snapped in prior years (if I do say so myself!)

However, since this is blog’s first Hallowe’en, I have no trouble hauling out the old photos to give you the proper chance to ooh and ahh over my scrumptuous pumpkins of years past.

First, Tristan the Great Pumpkin of 2002:

Then, the pumpkin became a monkey in 2003, and I became the pumpkin (at 6 months pregnant):

Last year, there was a new pumkin in town, and the monkey morphed into a caterpillar:

But I really do love a good pumpkin patch photo (also 2004):

Happy Halloween!!

Categories: Pix

I’m curious. What do you think about this whole avian flu thing? Are you stockpiling peanut butter, paper masks and drinking water? Are you getting a flu shot? Are you rolling your eyes at people who even mention the words “flu pandemic” in conversation? I know about a hundred people drop by here on the average day, so if you haven’t joined in the conversation before – speak up! I’d really like to hear from a wide range of people on this one (God bless the Internet.)

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty quick to dismiss the pandemic fear-mongering as much ado about nothing from the wingnut and fringe crowd. You might remember that Canada was hit particularly hard by the SARS virus in 2003, and I dialed in to the daily federal government communications conference call on that, so I had a pretty good view from the inside. In the end, it was the hype and hyperbole that scared me more than the virus. Up until recently, I was lumping the public’s reaction to an inevitable pandemic in with their response to SARS and the Y2K thing – and dismissing it as mass hysteria based on hype, misunderstood facts and rampant speculation.

Then I read a blog entry from someone for whom I have immense respect, and she was taking this whole thing very seriously. Within three days, another mummy friend – whom I would consider the antithesis of the chicken-little type – told me about all the research she’d been doing, and how genuinely frightened she is. It was enough to make me stop in my tracks and take a good look around.

This week, Canadian health ministers and representatives from international public health organizations met here in Ottawa to discuss plans and options in the case of a flu pandemic. That’s probably a large part of why at least the local media has been saturated with all things avian this week – and part of the reason I’m interested in your view from out there. I read an article a month or so ago in Macleans magazine that reinforced my previous opinion that the fear of the flu is out of proportion to the actual risk we face. Read it if you have time, it’s a reassuring counterpoint to some of the more scary information out there.

And that’s exactly the problem. Instinctively, I want to read information that confirms what I want to believe – that this whole flu pandemic thing is hype, and that the risk to me, to my kids, to my family and those in my life, is minimal. After all, only 60 people have died so far. (Perspective check: each year, 250,000 to 500,000 people die from the flu globally, 500 to 1500 of them in Canada, and most of those people are already sick or elderly. Stats courtesy of Health Canada.) The bird flu has not yet transmitted person to person. Yes, the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 decimated the population around the globe – but think of the advancements in medicine and science since 1918. There was no public health care, no vaccines in 1918. That’s the year my grandmother was born – we’ve come a long way, baby.

Waffle alert!! And yet – I’ll be lining up next Saturday to get my flu shot for the first time ever. They’re holding a clinic near my house, and it’s just too convenient not to do it. I’m going to get the boys vaccinated for the first time as well. I’m a believer in vaccines, and since they’re free I can’t come up with any good reason not to have everyone get their shot.

That’s my concession to fear, I guess, although it’s more because I think it’s a smart and practical thing to do, rather than because I believe we are facing the possibility of society grinding to a halt when the pandemic hits. (Touches wood.) I’m not stockpiling peanut butter just yet. But I’m not sticking my head in the sand either.

Just this morning, I had to resist the urge to get my knickers in a twist when I read that if there were a flu pandemic and a vaccine were developed, the Canadian Public Health Agency has said that kids aged 2 – 18 would be the last ones vaccinated. They’d have a hell of a fight on their hands if they denied me when I took my kids in to get vaccinated in my place. Take a deep breath, I told myself, that’s a lot of “ifs”.

What do you think? Please comment, because I’d really like to hear a range of perspectives on this. Are you taking steps to protect yourself, your family? Are you worried? Are you stockpiling fresh water and tins of soup? Or do you think the whole thing is just the latest media frenzy and that we’ll all be shrugging sheepishly when this, too, peters out to nothing?

I like the Word of the Day doo-hickey in my sidebar. Most days I know what the word means in a general context, if not the specific definition, but I’m always pleased to see an entirely new word that I don’t recognize at all. (Yes, I am that geeky.)

Today’s word is virago, a word I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, so I clicked on it. Here’s the definition:

Word of the Day for Wednesday October 26, 2005
virago \vuh-RAH-go; vuh-RAY-go\, noun:

1. A woman of extraordinary stature, strength, and courage.

2. A woman regarded as loud, scolding, ill-tempered, quarrelsome, or overbearing.

The intrepid heroines range from Unn the Deep Minded, the Viking virago who colonized Iceland, to Sue Hendrikson, a school dropout who became one of the great experts on amber, fossils and shipwrecks. –Ann Prichard, “Coffee-table:
Africa, cathedrals, animals, ‘Sue,'” USA Today, November 28, 2001

This virago, this madwoman, finally got to me, and I was subjected to the most rude, the most shocking violence I can remember. –José Limón, An Unfinished Memoir

Virago comes from Latin virago, “a man-like woman, a female warrior, a heroine” from vir, “a man.”

Now, I’m not much of a feminista but I have to tell you, I’m a little troubled by this definition. What, is number one how women define the term and number two is how men use the word? There’s a lot of ground between being a woman of courage and extraordinary stature, and being a raving shrew. Which one do you think I’d prefer to see carved on my tombstone?

And then, to add insult to injury, we get to the etymology of the word and apparently a strong, courageous woman is — manlike? Oh please!

You know what? You can call me a virago any day.

Thanks to Colin at Ottawa Family Fun for this bit of silliness:

Not quite the $40M I am going to win from the 6/49 lottery tonight, but at least it would buy me a new car so I can ignore the transit strike! Any buyers out there?

(It kind of freaked me out at first, because the information page talks about Tristan Louis’ research on the value of links. Guess what Tristan’s middle name is? Louis, of course.)

I have a love-hate relationship with the bus. No, that’s not quite true – mostly, I just hate the bus. I know Ottawa has a really good bus system compared to some other cities, and the bus I catch half a block from my front door leaves me within a 10 minute walk to work. Even though two hours of commuting each day eats a big chunk of my already precious time, it does let me indulge in the morning paper on the way to work, and both a soduko and crossword puzzle, or a few chapters of whatever else I can lay my hands on, during the ride home.

Of course, I can also feel smugly superior to all those commuters sitting by themselves in their cars, wasting fossil fuels zipping past me as I shiver in the rain at the bus stop in the pre-dawn darkness, waiting for a bus that may or may not show up but secure in the fact that I am doing my part to reduce air pollution and improve the global environment. Wetly.

This morning, I am having my picture taken for a new bus pass they’ve introduced. The EcoPass lets you buy an annual transit pass through payroll deductions, saving 15% off the monthly pass price. I like the idea of saving a few clams ($144 a year on an $80 monthly pass), but I really love the idea that I’ll no longer be hunting for loose change to use as bus fare because it’s the first of the month and I forgot to queue up and buy my pass again.

The irony is that they’re talking about a transit strike some time in the near future. I’m sure the suburban commuter runs are not among the priority routes that will be staffed by managers in the case of a strike, so I’ve got to do some contingency planning this morning. While I kind of like the idea of working from home on the three days each week that the boys are at daycare and Beloved is teaching (a full eight hours in a completely empty house – I whimper at the mere thought of it), I don’t forsee a terribly productive day if we’re all stuck in the house together.

Maybe I can take a page from Ann’s notebook and head to the local Starbucks Tim Horton’s to get some work done. Now that’s a plan I can work with!

Do you rely on public transit? How is the transit system where you live? Anybody got room for a stranded commuter from Barrhaven?

True confessions time. Having children was not a completely altruistic thing for me. I had, in fact, not one but two hidden agendas.

First, I wanted someone to play catch with me. Beloved is an upstanding citizen, outstanding father and extremely patient husband, but he is not in any way, shape or form a sports fan. Oh how I miss the simple ritual of a good game of catch.

Second, I wanted someone to play board games with me. Beloved does get a better score on board games than on catch – last year, for example, he bought me classic Othello for Christmas, and feeds my habit with patient regularity. But I want more! One of the longstanding images I held in my heart when imagining my family at some future date is of all of us sitting around a table, eating junk food, laughing and playing board games like something out of a Milton Bradley commercial.

All that to say, I was thrilled when I recently brought Candyland home for Tristan, and he became instantly obsessed with it. I’d managed to miss this family classic during my formative years, and it’s a good thing, because we’ve played enough of it over the last three months to last anyone a lifetime.

I thought it was the game that has caused Tristan’s recent obsession with winning, but after reading Phantom Scribbler’s post this weekend about her son’s competitive streak, I’m thinking maybe it’s just an age/stage thing. I’m not an overly competitive person myself. I really do love to play much more than to win (those of you who have witnessed my stunning lack of athletic prowess in person will attest that this is a good thing.)

But Tristan really hates to lose. He will tolerate losing at Candyland only if we can play another game immediately. (My son, the optimist. I’m so proud!) I’ve treaded carefully, trying not to put too much emphasis on winning or losing, but it’s an uphill battle.

I think learning how to lose is as important as learning how to win. I have to admit, there have been a few times when it was tempting to literally stack the deck, smoothing his path to Candyland victory when I know there’s a tantrum ahead if he doesn’t win. But so far, I’ve resisted. I’m not even sure if I buy into the whole Timbits sports thing, where they don’t keep score for preschool soccer or hockey games.

Up until this point, as his parents we were pretty much in control of everything, but as he gets older I realize that I’m not the puppetmaster, somehow directing everything he says and does. I can set him up to do his best, but he’s got to do the doing – for better or for worse. I can model good behaviour, and I can rationalize with him to a point. But in the end, if he decides that winning is more important than sharing the opportunity to win then that’s his choice to make. It’s further complicated by my desire to ensure Simon gets a chance to win sometimes too.

Sometimes I do wish there was a parenting score card, though. I’d’ve scored bonus points for easy potty training, but minus two for too much TV. Bonus points for good manners, minus five because Tristan hasn’t eaten a vegetable in six weeks.

What do you think? Is it an age/stage thing, this obsession with winning? Am I being one of those granola moms when I try to play down the whole winning thing? Or is this just my neurosis du jour?

Edited to add: After wondering all morning if this was the most boring post ever and thus explaining the lack of comments, I have since realized that Haloscan is down. You can type your comments, but get a white screen when trying to post them. Phew, at least it isn’t personal!

Edited again to add a HOORAY for a clever blogger (found via Phantom Scribbler) who came up with a workaround. On Haloscan’s setting page, go to Beta and turn off the spam redirect feature. Comments will post, but the counter will not be accurate. Close enough!

Categories: Tristan Mothering

Lunchtime came and went during the meeting that would not end, and I’m starving and cranky and feeling entitled to a treat so I ask the cabbie to drop me off at the mall instead of the office. I’ve recently started working out three days a week again, so I’m also trying to instill a sense of self-discipline in my eating habits.

The perfect meal is free, has zero calories, is instantly available and tastes like heaven in a styrofoam box. As I make my way toward the food court, I am weighing (pun intended) the options to find something that balances fiscal prudence with calorie-counting and my insatiable sense of entitlement. The most evil (read: satisfying in the short term) alternative is the New York Fries poutine. Melty cheese-curdy goodness swimming in delicious gravy. With ketchup, bien sûr.

The least evil alternative is the new microwavable Soup at Hand I have stashed in my desk drawer. Perfect score on the financial aspect, not bad from a dietary choices perspective. But yawn. Plus, I know I’ll be rooting for a snack in an hour. I think about stopping for a bag of chips as a side dish, which while still within reason on the financial side, begins to seriously affect the validity as a low-fat option.

Then it occurs to me: popcorn! Soup first with a popcorn chaser – less than $3 and less than 300 calories. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. So I make my way over to the Kernel’s counter. Then another agony of indecision as I try to decide between the Buffalo Wings and the Low Fat Air Caramel. Oh evil choices, why do you plague me.

As the clerk regards me imatiently, I try to decide between spending the afternoon stuck with teeth that feel as though they are wearing sweaters because of the fuzzy coating of sugary caramel on them, or spending the afternoon tasting (and tasting, and tasting) the fading flavour of Buffalo Wings. It’s good the first time around, but by the third hour it gets a little stale.

“Excuse me,” I ask, my eyes scanning the selections I’ve read a hundred times before, “but what is Kettle Corn?”

“It’s a mix of sweet and salty,” the bored clerk answers.

It’s sweet. It’s salty. It’s sweet AND salty.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how another junk food addiction is born.

What’s your “I so deserve it” food treat? (What? You mean not everyone self-medicates with food? Okay, if not food, what’s your favourite little indulgence?)