Category: Uncategorized

It’s St Valentine’s Day, so I should be blogging about love, right?

I was going to write a cute little thing about “Love is…” and list a bunch of reasons why I love my boys. But it was coming out sacchariny and contrived, and I wasn’t happy with it.

So then I was going to write about how lucky I am, and all the love I have in my life, what with Beloved, my boys, my folks, my family, my friends. I’m truly blessed. But you know that already.

So I thought I’d go the other way, and talk about why I hate Valentine’s Day almost as much as I hate New Years, and I think a lot of it goes back to grade school and being unpopular and how much worse it was being unpopular on Valentine’s Day than it was being unpopular on any random Tuesday. But that sounded pathetic and like I was fishing for compliments (which I usually have no problem doing) and so I scrapped that, too.

For someone who considers herself a hopeless romantic, I’m having a surprisingly hard time writing about love today.

It’s what bothers me the most about Valentine’s Day, I think. You feel put on the spot, like you have to produce something unique and special to honour the people you love. But I don’t want to be told to do that, or even moreso, have them feel obligated to do that, just because it’s February 14. We won’t be going out for dinner tonight at an overcrowded restaurant, and Beloved probably won’t be sending me flowers. The boys are too young to be making construction-paper hearts at school. And although I’ve picked up trinkets for each of them, I like to do that for no reason too, so this probably won’t seem out of the ordinary.

I don’t want them to remember to tell me they love me because of some artificial construct of the greeting card industry, and I don’t want this to be the only day we celebrate the love that binds us together.

I don’t need chocolate to tell me I’m loved today. I’m a lucky girl – I know it every single day.

Last week, I was telling you that I had to take my second-language exam. In the obscure way of rating second-language ability for government employees, there is a five-point rating scale:

x = statistically insignificant
A = basic comprehension
B = intermediate ability
C = fluent
E = exempt from future testing

They measure your ability in three categories – reading, writing and speaking. You have to be tested every five years, unless you get that glorious exemption score. It’s been six years since I’ve been tested, and any future promotions hinge on me getting at least at least a B level across the board. In 2000, I scored a C in reading and a B in writing and speaking.

I got my results from my reading and writing tests. I scored a C in both!! Woo hoo! In fact, I only missed getting my exemption in reading by one point.

So now I go for my oral exam on March 2, and I need to get my B level -and the oral exam is always the hardest part. But I’ll take my CC and run with it! (huge, happy exhalation of breath)

We’re lucky to have a lot of great museums in Ottawa. On a Sunday morning, when the windchill is a nippy – 20C, visiting one of the local museums is a great way to burn off some preschooler energy. And taking pictures and posting them is a great way to post to blog without actually doing any work!

This is our morning at the Canadian Museum of Nature, which happens to be admission-by-donation while they’re undergoing some renovations. The boys, as you can see, loved it – from the cockroaches to the bullfrogs to the dinosaurs, from the colouring to the digging to the really big puzzles, they had a great time. And you know what they liked the best? Four flights of stairs. Go figure.

I almost forgot!! I have a post up on MommyBloggers today! They asked a bunch of bloggers to write a short piece on love, and they’re posting one each hour from 8 am to 8 pm each day between today and Valentine’s Day. They posted my piece at 2 pm today.

There are some wonderful posts – you should check them out!!

This is a story about how small the Internet really is.

I, as you know, am a Canadian living in Ottawa. I have made friends with a blogger named James, who writes a blog called Coyote Mercury. I think he found my blog one day while searching for a book, and stumbled upon my 10-pages in book reviews. Or maybe it was via Library Thing. Regardless, he’s a writer and I’m a reader, and we’ve been back and forth to each others’ blogs, even though he lives somewhere in the neighbourhood of Austin, Texas.

This week, a writer named Connie Schultz who works for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and whom I therefore assume lives and works in Cleveland, wrote an editorial called “Land of the Free-For-All.” In it, she talks about how she loves and hates blogs, and talks a little bit about bloggers and the MSM and a few other topical bits. Then she talks about just randomly clicking through the blogosphere. She says,

Most of the blog world is a glimpse into what used to be a whole universe of unexpressed thoughts by people hoping that someone, anyone, will care. There’s a lot of real life out there in that virtual world, just a click away.

Click. A young mother in Canada swears she’s not all that complicated.”All you have to do is read the blog to know what you need to know about me. I’m Tristan and Simon’s mommy, Beloved’s wife, Granny and Papa Lou’s daughter, peon employee of big government, and lucky enough to have so many friends that I couldn’t possibly list them all.”

Sound familiar? She doesn’t give me any kind of attribution beyond that. But her editorial gets picked up by the Austin-American Statesman, and James, my Austin blogger friend, happens to be reading the editorial and recognizes the description, so he tells me about it.

How cool is that?

It’s been a helluva week. I am so far behind in work, in housework, in domestic paperwork, that I can’t even string together a coherent post. I’ve been so busy that I wanted to thank you all for your recent comments – the questions are great, and I’ll get to them soon, but also thanks for the well-wishes on kindergarten and other adventures, and for the nostalgia kick on 1970s TV. It’s been fun reading your comments – even more so than usual!!

Simon went for his two-year-old check-up this week. The ped asked how he was doing with his words, and when Beloved told him he was forming sentences with clauses, he was suitably impressed. Simon at two is a perfect square: 35 lbs, 35 inches tall. This sounded vaguely familiar, so I looked in my own blog archives and sure enough, Tristan was a perfect square at three years old! Simon’s currently 90th percentile for weight, and 80th for height. We brew our boys big.

Tristan gave up the guard rail on his bed last night, which is another major milestone for us. We had suggested removing it quite a few times, but Tristan always asked to keep it. He’s been in that bed for longer than he was in his crib, come to think of it, and it’s strange to be able to just sit on the edge of the bed without cramming my butt into the gap between the rail and the footboard. Simon is still in his crib, and showing no signs (touch wood) of contemplating escape, so we’ll leave him there as long as he is content.

He also still takes his nightly bottle (Simon, that is – not Tristan), and I really should get around to weaning him from that. But it’s me who loves the five minutes of cuddling at the end of the day, and Simon is much like his mother in that he is a creature of routine. The other day, I put the empty bottle on the wall unit instead of the side table and he scolded me for it. Apparently it’s important for the balance of power in the universe that the bottle goes on the table and NOT the wall unit. Now I know.

I’ll leave you with this conversational snippet from last week. We’re sitting at the table, the remains of a Greek take-out feast spread out on the table. Tristan looks up and asks, “Mommy, why does dinner come from boxes?”

This is my domestic legacy.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that we finally decided to stumbled into going ahead with our frosty in the very same week I registered Tristan for kindergarten? Surely there’s no correlation there…

For some reason, I was surprised by the big sheaf of paperwork I had to complete for Tristan’s enrolment. There were immunization papers, tax roll papers, transportation papers, and the school board application form. The one form that raised my eyebrows was from the school itself. It had all the usual information – date of birth, parent names, emergency contact, etc. But then it had a section with questions about the child’s abilities: can he dress himself, work buttons and zippers by himself, go to the bathroom by himself. So I completed those, understanding that they want to have an idea of his capabilities but also thinking that even though in February he might still need some help with buttons and zippers, I’m guessing in September he’ll be a lot more capable.

Then there was a small section with a bunch of adjectives, and you were supposed to check off the ones that apply to your child. Things like sensitive, curious, willful, artistic, independent.

Is he sensitive? No, of course not. I mean, yes… but in a good way. Could you please tell me the right answer here?

Is he stubborn? Absolutely. Well, sometimes. I mean, no more than usual. Um, can I please have another paper, I made a mess of this one.

And then there’s three blank lines underneath the question, “Is there anything else we should know?” Only three lines? How about I just append my blog? Okay, the short version. He’s sweet, he’s very bright and extremely verbal, and although he doesn’t like to share with his brother on most days, he’s very kindhearted and generous. He’s very empathetic, except sometimes he’s a little self-centred. I mean, he’s three. And he knows his letters and can count to 100, and he knows the obscure colours like fuscia and charcoal. He can put his own boots on, but he often chooses not to. (What do you mean I’m out of space, I didn’t get to the part about the trains, or the bathroom, or… or…)

I really should have just left that whole section blank. It’s not up to me anymore, it’s up to Tristan to make his own way. My labels, however carefully worded to prop up his self-esteem and make him seem like an ideal little learner, can’t possibly describe the complex bundle of wonder and contradictions that is Tristan.

I don’t want to prejudice their perception of him with my words, my thoughts, my observations. I want them to know Tristan on Tristan’s terms. He’ll shine, and they’ll love him. I have no doubt.

I can’t draw a deep breath when I think of the precipice on which we are standing. School is the conduit that will lead him toward his future, to guide him and encourage him and shape him. In just a few months, he will take his first steps on a long road that will lead to adulthood. And away from me.

I’m not ready.

Last week, I turned the keyboard over to you guys and asked for some help in dreaming up content. I told you to go ahead and ask me any question, or give me a topic, and I’d blog about it in an upcoming post.

Ahem. Not too many of you took up the challenge (looks pointedly around) BUT the clever blogger from whom I stole the idea in the first place came through for me. Suzanne of Mimilou asked: “In a comment on my blog, you mentioned having a crush on editing as a profession. Other than what you are doing now, what kind of career could you see yourself pursuing?”

Well, the ‘kept woman’ career path never panned out like I had hoped, but in general I’d be happy doing just about anything with words.

In a ‘money-is-no-object’ fantasy world, I’d love to be a freelance writer and researcher. (Quelle surprise.) I’d love to have a little home office all to myself and a steady stream of small jobs on a huge range of topics. I don’t think I have the stamina (read: attention span) to be a book writer, and I’m not sure I’d be creative enough to write fiction. But just to write pieces that I could choose, enough to keep me busy about five hours a day… yep, that would be sweet.

In the real world, there’s a part of me that thinks I would have made a really good teacher, espeically to primary school kids. I would have loved to do that, and tossed around the idea of going to teacher’s college after I finished my degree in 1998. The main reason I didn’t, in fact, is that I had gone to school part time while working full time, and you can’t go to teacher’s college on that schedule. That, and I just wasn’t brave enough to give up my income entirely for a couple of years and start over after being in the paid workforce for eight years. Money talks, ya know?

I’m too comfortable in my government job to think about big changes any more. And I do love what I’m doing, albeit some days more in theory than in practice. I’ve worked pretty hard to get where I am, and I’m content now that I’m here. I’ve started to look at other opportunities within the realm of government communications, but I don’t think I’ll ever move outside that scope. Next month will be my 16 year anniversary with the government, and in addition to my handsome remuneration and benefit package, my annual vacation will be bumped up by two days to 22 days in total.

The other nice thing about my government job is that I’ll be able to retire with a full pension on my 55th birthday. That will leave me with a lot of free time to set up that nice little writers’ garret in the one of the spare rooms, as the boys will have just gone off to college. (Yes, I’m 36 years old and have my eye on my retirement. That’s not sad, is it?)

When I go back and read all that, it sounds a little bit like I’ve sold out and am just trudging toward my retirement. I don’t really feel that way – I’ve just always found that a job is something you do during the day that enables you to do the rest of the stuff you love in your ‘real’ life. I guess I’m a little underambitious; I can pay the bills and support my family, but what I’m really passionate about happens after 4 pm. Remind me not to give any future employers a link to my blog, willya?

So what about you guys? What’s your alternate-universe dream job? And, ahem, I’m still taking questions and ideas for future posts… throw a dog a bone, whydontcha?

Nothing to blog about today. The last and next few hours have been wasted invested in cramming for my French exam Tuesday at 8:15. Souhaitez-me bonne chance!

I’m right on the brink of achieving the levels I need, so depending on the amount of sleep I get Monday night and the relative positions of Venus and Jupiter, it could go either way.

For civil servants in Canada, if your position is deemed bilingual, you have to be retested every five years, unless you get the golden ‘exempt’ score. Kind of like the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I myself aspire to a much more lowly intermediate score, or B level. As of today, my job doesn’t hinge on being able to achieve my levels, but I’m in a pool of qualified candidates for a promotion and I can’t lock it in until I confirm my language levels. This is kind of a practice run, but if I succeed I can sock away my results for another five years.

After many years of on-and-off language training, and investing three to four hours a week of in-class training for the past year, I think my proficiency in French is as good as it’s ever been. I can follow a conversation with relative ease, and even contribute well enough to be understood, if not in a grammatically gorgeous kind of way. I’m actually quite pleased with my progress in general, but in preparing for the exam I’ve taken a series of practice tests – and scored lower on each successive test.

So think a kind thought for me tomorrow as I try to conjugate the subjunctive and identify my si clauses and distinguish between direct and indirect objects… and still have enough brain cells left over to tie my shoes.

… I just saw this incredible news over at Half Changed World. Starting tomorrow, you can pre-order on Amazon.com one of my all-time fave childhood television shows: The Electric Company!! I used to watch this every. single. day. when I was a kid, and I’ve often wondered what became of it. It was like Sesame Street, which I also loved, but with an edge.

This is something we simply *must* acquire, and it will be a nice addition to our Schoolhouse Rocks collection on VHS. Now I just need to get some of the old Sid and Marty Krofft episodes (Land of the Lost was my favourite, but I liked HR Pufnstuf too), and pick up some of the original Muppet Show series, and my kids will never have to watch commercial TV again!

(Is it me, or is it suddenly 1976 in here?)