From there to here, from here to there, Funny things are everywhere
Goes kind of nicely with the whole “Donders = rogue / scoundrel” thing, dontcha think?
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Even though you’ve been described as reckless, selfish and cocky, you’re the type of person others love to be around. People like you because you’re a scoundrel.
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Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test
(Sorry about the wonky formatting – it comes pre-formatted and I can’t figure out the code!)
Ahh, there’s nothing like a meme when you’re too sick to blog…
My name is Dani and I have a problem.
I am a packrat. More than a packrat, I have what is bordering on a pathological inability to throw things away.
What things, you ask? Well, I’m okay when it comes to throwing out dirty diapers and pizza crusts and apple cores and whatnot. But the rest of the clutter that migrates into our house on a daily basis, moves in and procreates in corners, in piles on end tables, crowding into bookshelves and spilling out of drawers? It’s taking over.
Some of it I keep because I think I might need it again some day. Stacks of magazines with interesting articles on parenting and astronomy; recipes I might want to try some day if I ever develop a taste for food I don’t currently like; things the boys might some day find interesting about art and classical music and politics. Newspaper clippings that are about people I know, or were particularly interesting, or I thought some day might lead to inspiration for an unspecified future writing project. Eight years worth of bank statements because once I needed to find one from the previous year. Containers of any shape or size, because you can never have enough containers in your life – even when they begin to take over your life. Flower pots, mismatched cutlery, coffee carafes, empty picture frames – because you just never know when they might come in handy. A full series of 1990 Topps baseball cards. Almost a dozen boxes of comic books. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of three million paperbacks.
Way too much space is occupied by things I think might make good crafts some day. We’d have to make a craft every day and night for the next six years to use up all the bits of flotsam and jetsam I’ve stashed away for unidentified future crafts. Meters and meters of fabric scraps, each scrap too small to be a quilt square. Ditto for scraps of wrapping paper. Construction paper with only one corner cut off, or one line drawn and then abandoned, saved for a rainy-day project. Socks with no mates, or socks with holes in them, that would make lovely sock puppets. Straws, popsicle sticks, shiny bits and sparkly things. Scraps of lumber leaning in the corner, waiting to inspire. Greeting cards from people I no longer remember, saved not for sentimental reasons but for the craft-able-ness of the pretty pictures.
Speaking of sentimental, that’s a whole other category of stuff that I’m destined to keep for the rest of my natural life. Simon’s soothers, for example. How can I throw them away? I think I still have Tristan’s tucked away somewhere. And every greeting card I ever got from the people whom I do care about, like Beloved and the boys and my folks. Photos. Who can throw a photo away, even if you can’t quite remember who the photo is of? And clothes that don’t fit anymore, or are ridiculously out of style, but were bought for me by my mom. I can’t throw those away!
Clothes are hugely difficult for me to throw away, or even recycle. My grandmother used to recycle my grandfather’s shirts by pulling the stitching out of the worn collars and cuffs, turning them inside out and restitching them. Now myself, I can barely sew a hem and certainly not an invisible one, but I have baskets of distressed clothing that I imagine could be resuscitated – if I only could figure out how. And since Tristan is so hard on the knees of his pants, there are many pairs of one-kneed pants just waiting to be converted into shorts. Or, you know, to sit in the drawer and take up space for eternity.
And even the undamaged clothes I find hard to part with. I have five, maybe six rubbermaid bins of clothes too small for the boys that are stacked in Simon’s closet. Some days I think I’m saving them for a potential future baby of mine. Other days, I’m saving them to sell on eBay. Mostly, though, I’m saving them because it’s less emotionally difficult than deciding to get rid of them. That’s without even mentioning the entire maternity wardrobe hanging patiently in my closet, from work clothes to weekend wear to underwear. I might need it, and if I don’t need it maybe I can sell it. Or maybe give it away. But not yet – someday, but not yet.
And then there’s the boys’ artwork. They love to colour, to draw, to paint. I simply can’t in good conscience bring myself to recycle their masterpieces, no matter how minor. They print colouring pages off the Internet by the ream, and each of them is a work of art, even the ones where they never actually got around to finishing the colouring. And now that Tristan is in school, he brings home workbooks and exercises in addition to artwork, and there’s no way I can bring myself to turf the products of his labour. We’ll need a new house to store it all by the time both boys have made it to university.
No wonder I can’t keep the damn house clean – I spend all my (albeit rather limited) dedicated housework time taming clutter instead of actually cleaning. But I’m not ready to part with any of it. Not yet, anyway.
Surely I’m not alone. What do you collect?
I’m feeling joyous today. Simply happy. I’m having trouble suppressing a smile. The sun is shining, the first of our family summer vacations is next week, I’m going for a pedicure with my mom tomorrow night. Life is good.
You seemed to really enjoy the last time we shared our happy thoughts, so let’s do it again. Here’s how I described it last time, in case you missed it:
I’d like to know what’s going on in your life today that makes you happy. What’s worthy of commentary? What are you proud of? Why do you (or someone you know) deserve a pat on the back? Share an anecdote of how life is good in your little corner of the universe right about now.
Mine is small, but I’m very pleased. Simon is officially sootherless. Yay! You know what, it was so easy. The day after I posted about it last week, Simon again forgot to ask for his soother at bedtime. The next night, when he asked for it I told him we didn’t know where it was. He asked me to look in the usual spot where it ends up when we take it away in the morning and are to lazy to put it away properly in his room, and I lifted him up to show him it wasn’t there. I told him we’d look for it the next day. The next night, we couldn’t find it either. (Because it was hiding in my jewellery box, of all places.)
He never shed a tear, and did not once wake up looking for it. On the weekend, Beloved took the boys to Toys R Us and got him a special treat to compensate for his lost soothers – an Incredibles bubble blower that Simon has had his eye on for some time. And that was it! Simon asked for the soother last night, and Beloved reminded him that he’s a big boy now and doesn’t need a soother anymore, to which Simon replied, “Oh. Okay.” And that was it!
Okay, now it’s your turn. Brag, share, boast, celebrate. Big things or small things. What’s good in your life today?
I’ve just been to Tristan’s annual check-up, something that has been delegated to Beloved the past few years. (So much so, in fact, that I showed up at the wrong building. Good thing we were running a bit ahead of schedule – in the year or two since I’ve been with the boys to the pediatrician, apparently he moved his practice across the street.) I feel the need to reassert my maternal ‘ownership’ of appointments every now and then. Who me, control issues?
I adore our pediatrician. He has the reputation as one of the best in the city, and it’s well-deserved in my opinion. He makes me feel like a wonderful parent with every visit. He earned my undying affection and loyalty way back in the early days, when I had to bring newborn Tristan in every week for the first month for a weigh-in because he wasn’t latching well and wasn’t gaining enough weight. It seems we were in the ped’s office endlessly that first year – Tristan had an EKG when his eyes were doing a weird little roll-back-in-his-head thing around 6 months, then he had a UTI with a fever so severe that we were in the ER for all of Christmas Day – and of course each had a series of follow-up appointments. No matter how anxious or neurotic I was, Dr Bialik’s calming manner not only reassured me but bolstered my negligible parenting confidence.
That long, skinny baby, who was almost failure-to-thrive before we figured out the whole breastfeeding thing, is now a whopping 3’10” and 51 lbs at five years old – more than 95th percentile for height and for perhaps the first time, more than 50th percentile for weight. And five years later, Dr Bialik still finds ways to reassure me with the most casual observations. I didn’t even pointedly ask any questions, and yet he managed to allay my concerns about Tristan’s social development (he seems painfully shy to me, and I worry just a little bit about his lack of interaction with the other kids) and to completely put to rest any nagging fears I had about hyperactivity and ADHD.
While Tristan flopped around on the examining room floor like a carp and bounced around the room like a pinball on Red Bull, Dr Bialik assured me that he could see clear evidence, in this short appointment, that although he has a high energy level Tristan has the ability to reign it in and concentrate on a task when asked to do so – exactly what you need to see in your average engergetic five year old.
I feel like a good mommy today. I wish I could stuff this feeling in a jar and keep it under my pillow for the next time I need it!
Parents of preschoolers, consider yourself warned: Thomas the Tank Engine’s popular “Day Out With Thomas” is coming to Ottawa this summer!
Props to Nancy for sending me a note yesterday. The Day Out With Thomas extravaganza will be held on August 17 -19 and 24 – 26 at the Ottawa Central Railway’s Walkley Yard. (Never heard of it? Me neither. It’s just across from the Home Depot near South Keys.) Festivities include a half-hour ride on a train pulled by the Very Useful Engine himself, a chance to meet Sir Topham Hatt, and of course the largest Thomas memorabilia gift shop on the planet.
Tickets went on sale this morning, and I couldn’t help myself -I picked some up for the boys. They aren’t cheap at almost $20 a person, but the boys still enjoy Thomas enough that it will make for a memorable summer event.
Not nearly so memorable, of course, as our first and only previous Day Out With Thomas adventure back in the summer of 2005. We trekked eight hours across the province to St Thomas for that one – and it was truly worth it. The boys still look at the pictures and talk about the day we met the real-life Thomas the Tank Engine. (Funny for me to look at those pictures now and see that Tristan is then the same age that Simon is now. Time flies!)
I recently received a review copy of Missy Chase Lapine’s The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids Favorite Meals. When the publicist first offered it to me, I’ll admit to being a little bit skeptical.
The blurb in the introductory e-mail said, “Learn how to make the meals your children already love — but with secret sneaky ingredients that pack a healthy punch. Your kids will never suspect that there’s blueberries pureed into their brownies, cauliflower in their mac ‘n’ cheese, or sweet potatoes in their lasagna — but they’ll love every bite! Here are simple, practical recipes and techniques that will help every busy parent create healthy meals for the whole family.”
I was skeptical, but I was also curious. Curious, and rather exasperated at trying to get Tristan, my fussiest eater, to consume even a few bites from each food group every day, let alone hitting the recommended daily targets.
I was formulating a post in my head before I even received the book. I had doubts about the premise of the book, about the concept of hiding healthy food inside foods my kids might deign to eat. Spinach in brownies? How the hell would that work out? And it would probably be a lot of extra work, and I’m not so fond of cooking in the first place, let alone anything that makes cooking even MORE work. And anyway, isn’t the point to teach kids to make healthy choices, not to trick them into eating good stuff they wouldn’t even know was there?
Okay, so I was a little biased. And you know what? I ended up really liking this book. Mind you, I haven’t actually tried any of the recipes so far. I’ll blog a few of them over the next little while. But once I got over my initial skepticism, the recipes intrigued me enuogh that I’ve bought into the concept in principal.
My only criticism of the book itself is that it takes WAY too long for the author to expound upon her food philosphies. She spends three long chapters giving background and justifications and rationalizations, discussing why kids are fussy eaters and why we need to improve their diets. Can’t say I learned anything from the first 55 pages, but I really liked the section titled The Lists, which includes a list of the 12 most important and 12 least important foods to buy organic. (#1 most contaminated food = peaches; #1 least contaminated food = sweet corn.) I was also greatly reassured that maybe this was a good cookbook for me, the world’s laziest chef, by the fact that not only did I recognize all of the items on the shopping list of staples, but I already had most of them at hand.
The recipes weren’t what I was expecting either. I was expecting tips like add shredded carrots to meatloaf and spaghetti sauce, and using apple sauce instead of oil in your baking; the kind of tips that are in my favourite-of-all-time cookbooks, the Podleski sisters’ trio of LooneySpoons, Crazy Platesand Eat Shrink and Be Merry.
I admit, I cringed when I first read The Sneaky Chef’s premise. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. She suggests 13 make-ahead purees of concentrated, nutrient dense foods. For example, the “purple puree” contains baby spinach and blueberries with lemon juice; the “orange puree” contains carrots and sweet potatoes; and the “better breading” contains whole wheat bread crumbs, almonds, wheat germ and salt. The idea is that the purees and blends are rich in nutrients but deviod of unpleasant textures and easy to hide in foods kids will eat.
The thing I liked best about this cookbook is that it has a whole whack of recipes for foods my kids (and by kids, I mean Tristan and Simon and Beloved, the latter being perhaps almost as if not more fussy than the first) will actually eat.
Some of the recipes are simple in a “why didn’t I think of that?” kind of way, like adding wheat germ to oatmeal (my kids, they love oatmeal from a box), or adding “orange puree” to quesadillas. I was won over completely by the idea of adding “orange puree” to canned pasta, as my boys adore that unnaturally neon-orange pasta in a can and I feel a twinge of empty-calorie and maxed-out preservative guilt every time I serve it.
There are more complex and interesting recipes, too. I’ll be trying the Magic Meatballs soon. They contain the usual lean ground beef or turkey, a bit of tomato paste, an egg and some salt, but also 6 to 8 tablespoons of “green puree” (baby spinach, broccoli, sweet peas and lemon juice) and 1/4 cup of wheat germ. And both the Unbelievable Chocolate Chip Cookies (with hidden special Flour Blend, rolled oats ground to a powder, ground almonds and “white bean puree”) and the Brainy Brownie (with “purple puree” – the one with spinach and blueberries!) sound intriguing enough to try at least once.
And for the truly lazy (you’re looking at me, aren’t you?), the author even suggests that if you are averse to food processors and blenders, you can replace the home-made purees with store-bought baby food.
Am I really thinking about putting a blend of spinach and blueberry baby food in my brownies? Hey, if I have learned one thing in this whole parenting adventure it’s that my motto ought to be “whatever works.”
What do you think? Crazy idea, or just crazy enough to work?
(Editorial aside: In my continuing capitulation to commercialization, I’ve finally signed on as an Amazon Associate. My book review links now contain a referral code that give me, in theory, a small commission if you happen to choose to buy one via my link. No pressure, though. The boys can always panhandle their way through college.)
As I’m painting our main-floor two-piece bathroom, I’m blogging the entire thing in my head. I have no idea why I think anyone in the blogosphere needs a scintillating stroke-by-stroke account of me painting the bathroom, but here you go.
After years of listening to friends rave about Costco, I took advantage of a deal that knocked $20 off the price of a membership and signed up online. Today, we took our first trip.
I swear, I must be the only person in North America who can walk into a Costco and walk out with nothing but a bag of milk and two loaves of bread.
This post was inspired by MotherTalk’s Blog Bonanza called “Fearless Friday”, to support the paperback launch of Arianna Huffington’s book On Becoming Fearless.
In thinking about what to write about, I chewed over lots of times when I’ve been fearless: travelling for a month by myself through Europe when I was 25 comes to mind (except, I wasn’t so much fearless as terrified and too far from home to to anything about it except keep going), as does when I left my ex-husband. Even choosing to undergo the IVF treatment that lead to Tristan begged a leap of faith, and more than a bit of fearlessness.
That’s not where I want to go with this, though.
Last Saturday, I took the training wheels off Tristan’s beloved bicycle. We had been talking it up for a while. Since the middle of last summer, I’d been asking him if he was ready for me to take off the training wheels, and he’d answer unequivocally, “Not until I’m five.”
He turned five this March, and I think we both knew it was time. It’s been a funny season here, and we’ve had snow on and off enough that he’s only managed to ride his bike a few times – although I’m sure he asked for it every single day. Finally, last Saturday was one of those gorgeous days that vault over spring entirely and instead more closely resemble early summer. Tristan and I decided early that morning that it would be the big day, the day the training wheels came off, and he pestered me with endless enthusiasm as I tried to get a few quick things done before we set off for the school yard with its wide expanses of flat, untrafficked pavement to try it out. In the end, it was just easier to drop what I was doing and indulge him than to keep putting him off. He practically flew into the house when I told him to go find not only his helmet, but a set of knee and elbow pads, too. (He is my son, after all. We’re not graceful people by nature.)
Somehow, I thought it would be difficult to take off the training wheels – I’m always thrilled for an opportunity to haul out my toolbox – but the bolt holding the wheels in place twisted off in my fingertips. Just a few twists, and suddenly my oldest son was the proud but nervous owner of a wobbly, unpredictable two-wheeler.
Used to a bike that didn’t fight back, he was having trouble controlling it even in the driveway. We only made it as far as the stop sign at the corner, him not sure how to maintain his balance and me not sure how to impart my knowledge on to him, before he started losing his patience.
“I can’t do it!” he whined. “It’s too hard.”
“Yes you can,” I said through gritted teeth, hot and frustrated and more than a little impatient myself. We stumbled on for a few more meters, but both of us were rapidly losing interest.
“I think maybe I have to be six,” said Tristan, now pushing his bike and walking beside it.
“You know,” I replied, getting my breath and composure back incrementally, “nobody can ride a bike without training wheels perfectly the first time. It’s a little bit of work, and you have to learn to balance yourself. But if we practise a little bit each day, I’m sure you’ll be able to do it.”
He remained unconvinced, and politely declined when I suggested we try again. Later that afternoon, I suggested we have another go at it, but he again declined. We’ve had the most gorgeous, mild weather this week – perfect for bike-riding – and yet Tristan’s bike has languished, abandoned in the garage on its kickstand.
He’s so much like me, Tristan is. He doesn’t like to fail, doesn’t like to do it wrong. He doesn’t like to be anything less than perfect. This, I think, is at the root of – among other things – my endless troubles with acquiring the professional level of French I’ll need for my job if I want to get a promotion some day. I don’t like looking foolish, don’t like taking the risk, don’t like facing the possibility that I won’t be perfect the first time I try.
I found myself thinking about it over the last few days, this fear of failure. It’s a strong fear in me, perhaps even more so than my near-legendary fear of change. If I can’t do it perfectly, I’m often too embarrassed to try it at all. In thinking of all the things in my life that would not have happened if I hadn’t been afraid to screw things up royally, I’ve realized that the best things have come from throwing that fear to the wind. One can only ride with training wheels for so long.
Wednesday night after dinner, I suggested to Tristan that we try again with the bicycle. He’d had it in the driveway a couple of times to practice his balance and scoot about by himself, but we hadn’t really tried any long distances since that first day. To our mutual surprise, half way around the block some synaptic/physical connection was forged and Tristan was suddenly pedalling madly with me running beside him but no longer holding the bike seat. If I lagged behind, he would falter, but as long as I kept up with him, panting heavily at his shoulder but not touching him, he was able to maintain his balance.
We were both delighted. “I did it!” he cried, pride and surprise mingling in his voice. “I can’t wait to tell Daddy. I did it!” Just before the final stretch to the house, he hopped off his bike and started to walk it the rest of the way home. “I can do it if I want to,” he assured me. “I just need a little rest.” He knows his limits. I don’t know many adults who have acquired that skill yet.
It never fails to amaze me how much our kids teach us about being parents, and about being people. Sometimes, you just have to suck up that fear of gravity, that nauseous uncertainty, that reluctance to risk an ungainly crash. Sailing down the street with the breeze in your face for that first liberating ride is a lot more fun than sitting on the porch, watching the other kids whizzing by on their bikes while you wish you were brave enough to try.
I peed on a stick yesterday morning. One line. Sigh.
I’m not terribly surprised. I knew I had ovulated fairly late in my cycle, if at all. (Funny, I spent all of our infertile years being mystified by my body, using a microscope to read its inscrutable signs. Now it sends me fertility signals in 72-point font, and yet I still can’t force it to succumb to my will. I am truly my own worst enemy.) I would have been expecting day one last Friday given an ordinary cycle, but I might have ovulated up to five days or a week late, so I really shouldn’t have been expecting my period any time before this weekend.
I got sucked in by hope, though. Damn optimism. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but I simply felt like I might be pregnant. Part of that might have been the absence of the injustices my body usually offers in the week before my period arrives either. I’ll save you the gory details, but we’re mostly talking about minor mood swings, bloat, and an inability to stop eating – especially eating junk food.
By Monday, pregnancy watch had officially commenced with the scrutinizing of the toilet paper. You know how it is, where you begin wondering if you are peeing all the time because you are pregnant, or because you just want the chance to check the toilet paper again to stave off doubt and denial. And there’s that brief suspended moment just before you examine the tissue where you are braced for the tell-tale smudge of blood, but holding out hope for a pristine smudge-free wipe.
While making dinner Tuesday, I had begun thinking about home pregnancy tests and when I might be able to test without feeling foolishly premature. I’d been idly thinking about a possible leftover (unused!) test from last summer, and when I rooted through the bathroom cupboard and found one, it seemed like a postcard from fate. It was a freebie; I could test and be sure of the answer and stop what had become a near-constant cacophony of “what-ifs†in my mind with one quick trip to the bathroom.
To test or not to test. This is the question of women the world over. So much hope, so much fear, so much possibility, so much dread, all imbued into one little chemical strip. There is widespread agreement in the infertility community that “pee sticks” are evil. Assuming you are trying to conceive, the positive test is the best possible outcome. However, the negative test doesn’t allow much closure. We’ve all heard the stories of people who have negative hpts and go on to have lovely babies nine months later.
I’ve had a rocky relationship with the pee sticks myself. Three positives, one of which was Simon (I never got that far in to the two week wait with Tristan; I had a positive blood test when I started showing signs of OHSS nine days after the embryo transfer.) I can’t even count how many negative ones. Dozens, probably.
So in the gloaming of an early morning, before anybody else in the house is awake, I pee on a stick. Every single time I’ve taken a pregnancy test, I am swept up by the swell of possiblity and the suspension of disbelief in that breathless moment where the urine surges up the little stick. I’m almost afraid to look, afraid to give up the hope of speculation to the harsh reality of fact. The moment seems endless, my optimism champing at the bit, my mind already formulating announcements and due dates and nursery colour schemes.
One line. With an exhalation of breath, I take an embarrassed moment to reign in my rampant optimism. Of course it wasn’t positive. How silly of me to think so. I never really thought I was pregnant. I was just, you know, making sure.
Later that afternoon, I can’t help myself. I pull the test back out of its nest of tissues in the bathroom garbage bin. I peer carefully at the used test, trying by sheer force of will to conjure a ghostly pink line in the hopelessly blank space beside ruby-red test line. I step to the window and turn the test back and forth, squinting at the test from various angles until I am nearly cross-eyed. Despite my best efforts, the test remains stubbornly negative. I move to toss it back into the waste bin, but stop and lay it carefully on the counter. I’ll check one more time, later.
You never know. Hope springs eternal.
