Postcards from the Mothership

So I’m still taking French lessons. Four hours a day, two days a week. I think I’m improving, because the voices in my head speak an endearing Franglais for a couple hours after each class, so that’s got to count for something.

I’ve taken a LOT of French lessons in my life. Took it in school up to grade 10 or so, took lunchtime courses on and off throughout my career, took a semester of eight-hours-per-week lessons, and for the year before I failed my oral exam (twice) earlier this year, took two-hour classes twice a week. (Gah – I look back at all the lessons I’ve taken through the years, and am truly beginning to wonder if this second-language thing isn’t going to be my Waterloo. How many times do you kick a dead horse, anyway?)

Ahem, though, my point was that I’m becoming a connosieur of language schools. Language schools proliferate in Ottawa, where there are juicy government contracts to be had and a surfeit of painfully anglophone public servants who need to learn a second language to survive in their government careers. (At least I’m in good company.) I think this time around I got stuck with one of the more colourful language schools in the city – kind of like the Island for Misfit Language Instructors.

I think I mentioned here that the first teacher I had with this school was a bit of a newbie – in fact, I was her first student. Ever. She’s a lovely girl, and smart, with a journalism degree and a masters in French literature, but she doesn’t quite get that I am no longer interested in the lofty goal of learning French – I just want to learn how to pass my exam. (I pass my exam, I get five years of grace before I have to do all this over again, and more importantly, I lock in the promotion I earned fourteen months ago that is now completely dependent on me passing my exam by the end of October. ) I really like her on a personal level, but she seems a bit intimidated by me and doesn’t correct half the errors I hear myself making. Rather than correct me or redirect me when I get turned around, she simply says “It would be better to say XXX” and launches into beautifully constructed phrases that are both poetic and completely beyond my linguistic capability.

I had to change my schedule around, so I ended up getting a second teacher. I see Anie on Thursdays, and the other teacher on Fridays. The new teacher was absent for our first class two weeks ago, so I got a substitute – Denis the bitter expatriate Belgian. Denis is definitely the most colourful language teacher I ever had, and he’s got some interesting ideas on language acquisition. He describes the various verb tenses as worlds – the indicative is the Earth, the passé is the Moon, and the conditional is Mars. The subjuntive, on the other hand, has something to do with a car with one driver, or a car being pulled by another car and the ‘que’ in a subjunctive phrase is the little trailer hitch. All of this is illustrated with detailed schema, which I dutifully copied., and which I can now make neither heads nor tails.

Quite frankly, Denis’s approach was so unique and deviant from the norm that I actually got a lot out of it. I might have even asked for him to be my permanent teacher, except that in between all the little schema and illustrations, you had to listen to a big rant about how much he hates Belgium and Belgians and how hard it is for him to get a job as an IT professional here in Canada and how desperately he wants his Canadian citizenship and what a waste of his life this teaching thing is.

By the end of the four hours, I had a unique perspective on language acquisition and Belguim – but a massive headache. Oy.

I started with my other half-time professor last week. After the first hour, I was almost in tears because I hadn’t understood more than a dozen words he’d said. Ahmed is from a little country in Africa that I was embarrassed to never have heard of: D’Joubiti. He speaks so quickly that by the time I figure out the first three words in the sentence, he’s a full paragraph ahead of me. When I begged him to slow down, he just smiled and shrugged and told me it was part of the learning process to teach my ears to hurry up. He’s right, of course, but it didn’t stop me from grinding my teeth in annoyance for the next hour of the class. By the end, I had learned to listen a little quicker, and found that I was gazing blankly at him after only every third or fourth phrase instead of constantly, so I’m taking comfort from that.

It’s quite vexing, this whole second language thing, but I’ve become stubbornly determined to master it. What happens when an irressistable force (my determination to pass) acts on an immovable object (my inability to internalize this crap once and for all)? Stay tuned for that, and more dispatches from the Island of Misfit Language Instructors…

It’s been a good week. First, the public annoucement of the whole Motherlode conference thing, and the flurry of planning that resulted when we all realized it was a scant two months away. (My heart is thumping just thinking about it.)

And then this morning, I was playing in the referral logs again and realized that some very kind writers over at National Geographic Traveler Magazine online have quoted me and my posts about our adventure this summer in their feature on 48 hours in Quebec City. How cool is that?

Hey, wouldn’t “traveling with preschoolers’ make an excellent Squidoo lens? I know, I’m incorrigible.

I had no idea that anyone was listening. I must be an important cog in the Blogger machinery, because the very week I lamented Blogger’s lack of categories and started my first cautious exploration of other blogging platforms, the Google folks behind the screen unveiled a new and improved iteration of Blogger called Blogger Beta.

I saw the invitation on my dashboard to convert my blog into the new platform and took a quick browse through, but didn’t get organized enough to actually submit my blog for conversion. It’s a damn good thing, too, because this weekend when I read Phantom Scribbler’s harrowing account of losing her HaloScan connection and her custom-made blog banner, my heart froze in sympathetic terror. Luckily for her, she was able to restore her original settings and step carefully away from Blogger Beta, but her experience served as a cautionary tale for me.

I found myself with enough time on the weekend to set up a test blog so I could play with the new features, and I rather like them. There’s a new drag-and-drop functionality for template building that makes it easy to customize your colours and fonts, you can specify who can read your blog (and, I think, particular posts) and finally, they offer – be still my heart – categories, which Blogger calls “labels,” just like in parent-company-owned Gmail.

The biggest problem is that you can no longer edit your template html, so you can’t have add-ons like HaloScan commenting or customized banners or other embedded blog tricks. Blogger Buzz promises this will soon be incorporated, but until it is I think I’ll be staying with the devil I know. But, categories!! Woot!

If you’d like to set up a test blog yourself, you can sign up for a new blog and give it a go. Let me know what you think.

And as if I had enough time for yet another online addiction, the clever and lovely but subversively evil Ann Douglas has introduced me to Squidoo. (If you’ve got some time, check out all of Ann’s lenses – seven of them! That woman’s boundless energy and enthusiasm never fail to amaze me.)

Do you Squidoo? How could you resist playing with an application with a name like that! So what exactly is Squidoo? In their own words:

We have built a new online platform and community that makes it easy for anyone to build a single page–called a lens–on a topic, idea, product or cause he is passionate about. These lenses in turn help finders get unique, human perspectives instead of computer-selected and often irrelevant search results. Not only can Lensmasters spread their ideas, get recognized for their knowledge, and send more traffic to their Web sites and blogs—they could also earn royalties.

Like blogging, it’s surprisingly addictive. I started with one lens on Fun for Families in Ottawa, and soon branched out to a second lens on (quelle surprise) iPods for Newbies. I think the former worked out a little better than the latter, but I’m having fun playing with both of them. I have a third one under construction, and probably more to follow. Once you get going, you find Squidoo-able topics everywhere!

It’s been a dog’s age since we’ve had a meme around here. Don’t you think we’re overdue?

Filched from Pilgrim/Heretic by way of Phantom Scribbler. “The idea behind this meme is that you’re supposed to click on this page, generating semi-random quotations until you find the five that best express who you are or what you believe.”

I spent an embarrassingly large chunk of my Saturday night playing with the random quote generator. Really, I HAVE to get out (or laid) more often! But seriously, it’s a little bit addictive. I had a very hard time keeping myself to just five, and finally narrowed it down to this list of eight that spoke to me about the condition of my life.

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
A. A. Milne

There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.
Doctor Who

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.
Fran Lebowitz

I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It’s been about two months since I’ve worked out. And I just don’t have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.
Ellen DeGeneres

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.
Bill Watterson

I write because I’m afraid to say some things out loud.
RealLivePreacher.com

If you can’t be funny, be interesting.
Harold Ross

And that’s when I discovered an entire page of Douglas Adams quotes, and I could easily attribute my entire life philosophy to a crunchy mix of the Hitchhiker Trilogy (in five parts), Star Wars and Jesus Christ Superstar. As Phantom did with Dorothy Parker and Woody Allen, here are my favourite Douglas Adams quotes:

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.

and my new favourite quote, suitable for framing in my cubicle:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

I always feel bad tagging people for these things because I worry about hurting the feelings of all the people I didn’t tag, so feel free to play along if you’re so inclined. But two friends have recently started new blogs, and I’d like to tag them to give them a chance to pick up their first meme. Kerry and Cakes, I’m talking to you!

I was going to write a long, gushing post about how excited I am to be a part of the upcoming Association for Research on Mothering’s 20th anniversary “Motherlode” conference this fall, but I couldn’t do a better, more succinct job than my bloggy friends have already done.

Five of us are going to be presenting a panel discussion on blogging and mothering, and you can bet I’ll be asking you for your thoughts and opinions between now and the conference at the end of October. Here’s the official scoop, as cut and pasted from Ann’s blog:

Mama’s Got a Brand New Blog: The Rise of the Weblog and its Impact on Mothering

• Mothering in the Age of Blog: Ann Douglas (author of The Mother of All Pregnancy Books)

• Welcome to My Sandbox: Danielle Donders (Communications Strategist) (that’s me!)

• A Blog of One’s Own: Marla Good (Freelance Writer)

• I’ve Been There, Too: Andrea McDowell (Editor, TheWholeMom.com)

• Tool of Revolution or Online Shrine to Parental Self-Absorption: Jen Lawrence (Creator, T.O Mama)

Ann will be doing a solo session on the history of the modern pregnancy book: Modern Pregnancy: Doing it By the Book.

A whole flock of other mom/writers/researchers will be heading to the conference — Andi Buchanan, Amy Tiemann, Miriam Peskowitz, Faulkner Fox, to name just a few of the dozens of fascinating women who will be conference bound. I would encourage any mom who can make it to the Greater Toronto Area that weekend to block off these four days on her calendar now. This is the most exciting motherhood conference event ever. I am thrilled and honoured to be a part of it. Don’t miss out. Grab a mom-friend and plan to make a date of this four-day celebration of everything mom. If you plan to attend the Motherlode Conference, you’ll want to register soon. The registration deadline is September 12, 2006.

I’m so incredibly excited to be included in this group of smart, insightful, opinionated mothers. Excited, and humbled. And terrified. Yep. Definitely terrified.

But this means that I finally get to meet Marla and Jen in person, and I think I’m more excited about that than anything!

Oh oh, it’s Friday again and I forgot to put something in the can for this morning.

Anybody got any bright ideas on what I should write about this morning? Something witty and insightful and full of colourful vocabulary that can be slapped together in about 12… nope, make that NINE minutes?

* sound of crickets *

Yah, me neither. Okay, hows about we play the comment game again? I know, I know, my two year old doesn’t fall for the same trick twice in one week, and here I am asking you to do it. I promise, next Friday I’ll have something clever tucked away (the pledge of the procrastinator).

So, if you weren’t here last week to play, here’s how it goes: I’ll propose a movie, and you post an actor/actress who is in that movie. The next person posts a different movie that said actor is in, and the person after that posts a different actor in that movie… and so on, until the end of time. You can check out the comments from last week to see it in action. We made it to 48 comments last time – can we hit 50 this week?

I’ll start you off with: Moulin Rouge, because I have the soundtrack rattling around in my head. (One of the best unanticipated features of the Escape Pod is having Ewan McGregor croon sweet nothings directly into my ear – be still my heart!)

I’m blatantly taking advantage of my burgeoning local audience with this.

We need a few tradespeople to do some work around the house. We’ve managed to fritter away almost the entire summer without getting around to stripping and staining the deck, or getting the roof repaired, or washing the windows. As the temperature moderates and the days become shorter, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that we’re simply not going to get around to doing any of this stuff by ourselves. It’s time to farm the work out.

Can you recommend a good contractor for any or all of the above jobs? You can e-mail me at danicanada (a) gmail (dot) com if you prefer.

Thanks!

In three weeks, Tristan has his first meeting with his junior kindergarten teacher. In four weeks, he has his first small-group, delayed admission first day of school. Ten days after that, he has his first full-class day of school.

One of those is his first day of school, but I haven’t yet decided which one it is.

It’s hard to believe my son is school-age already. I remember being in JK – not clearly, but in fuzzy snapshots of event and emotion. I used to walk to and from school myself, through a big field and a park. It’s about the same distance that Tristan will travel, but he will have to cross a relatively busy suburban street. All the same, I still can’t imagine the day when I’ll just open the door and kiss him on the cheek and say, “See ya, kiddo. Have a great day!”

I don’t think I’m going to be one of the moms with fingers laced through the chain link fence on that first day(s), sobbing disconsolately for my lost baby, but I definitely won’t be clicking my heels and doing the viagra dance either. Going to school is a big transition, no doubt, but sending the boys off to daycare was way more daunting.

It would be more difficult, I think, if it weren’t so obvious that Tristan is more than ready for school. It’s more than just his early forays into reading and math and his inate curiousness, though; where I really see his readiness is in his interactions with other kids. Funny, just as I’m typing this I’m realizing that my deepest fears for him are not how he will do academically, but how he will do socially. He’s plenty bright and quick and curious, and I have no doubt he’ll do relatively well with his reading and writing and arithmetic, and I have no reason to doubt he’ll do just fine socially – but it still makes me breathless with anxiety to think about it.

School was a minefield for me, socially. Sometime in the early primary years, for reasons I’ve never understood, I became one of the target kids. I was always an outsider, picked last for teams, and teased mercilessly. We moved when I was in Grades 1, 4 and 7, which although gave me a couple of shots at a fresh start, also meant I was pretty much continually the new kid. It got worse instead of better, and by the time I was in high school I was deeply afraid nobody would ever find me worthy of love. (Which left me hugely vulnerable to my first serious boyfriend, who turned into my first husband when I was barely 20 years old. Who me, issues?) Not to say I didn’t have a terrifically happy childhood with plenty of blissful memories, but when I think back to my school years pretty much through the middle of high school, the first things I remember are the excruciating awkwardness, the overpowering desire to be liked, and the mystified hurt of rejection.

As a toddler, Tristan was relatively shy. He is often just as happy playing by himself as with the group, and he doesn’t seem to share Simon’s gregarious bravado. But over the summer, I’ve seen him suddenly start to notice the other kids, and to want their attention. We go to the park almost every evening after dinner, and my heart alternately aches and soars watching him interacting with the other kids. He gets a look of joy on his face when the other kids include him in their games that makes it painfully obvious that he’s going to have the same need for inclusion and affirmation that his mother has – poor wee soul.

I wish there was something I could give Tristan, something I could do to prepare him and to smooth the way for him. I wish that in hindsight I could look back and say, “You’ll be fine if you just avoid XXX” or, “Above all, just make sure you XXX” – but I have no idea what formula separates the happy, popular kids from those on the fringes or worse – the kids who become the targets.

It also occurs to me that I’m doing a lot of fretting on this one in advance of there actually being anything to fret about. He hasn’t even started school yet! But he’s growing up, my baby is. He’s becoming his own self now, so much more than an extension of me. The whole world is about to open up for him, and I couldn’t be more proud, or more excited. But I can also see on the horizon the first of many hurts that I won’t be able to heal with kisses and a Scooby-Doo band-aid, and that’s the part that I’m simply not yet ready for.

And I thought the labour and delivery would be the hardest part of mothering…

Tristan: And did I tell you about that time when I was four, when my mother tried to kill me twice in the same month?

Therapist: Hmmm, I don’t think so. There was the episode where she locked you and your brother in a running car while you were sleeping…

Tristan: Right, and then less than two weeks later, she yanked me off some playground equipment and I dropped like a stone from eight feet in the air.

Therapist: Surely she didn’t mean to…

Tristan: It was one of those things where you dangle off a handle and zoom across a beam from one platform to another. She called it a zip line, but I insisted on calling it a zip code, which was pretty funny because we don’t even have zip codes in Canada. Anyway, I had just barely mastered holding my own body weight up but I loved that zip code. We went to a new park one evening on our bikes, and I was so proud to be able to actually reach the zip code from the raised platform, and all I did all night long was zip back and forth.

Therapist: And what did your mother do?

Tristan: Well, she was watching and cheering for me at first, but then she said it would be easier if I used my feet to push off the platform at the far end. The big kids could hurl themselves across really fast and bounce half way back on one push, but I kind of had to wiggle and squirm to make it all the way across and back. Remember, I was a big kid for my age, but I was only four years old.

Therapist: Mmmm hmmm…

Tristan: And so my mother said, ‘Here, let me show you. Just use your feet to push off the platform…’ and she grabbed me by the ankles to demonstrate, but she pulled me off balance and I lost my grip on the handle. I fell face first in the sand, and because she was still holding my ankles I landed with my whole body perfectly horizontal, basically doing a giant belly flop into the sand.

Therapist (cringes): Ouch! That must have hurt!

Tristan: Yah, it knocked the wind right out of me. There was a long minute where I just lay on the sand and tried to figure out if I was still alive or not, and my mother later said the entire city of Ottawa fell silent and every pair of eyes at that very busy playground turned to me to see what would happen next.

Therapist: Were you okay?

Tristan: After I cried for a couple of minutes and got over being pissed off about all the sand in my mouth I was okay. My mother said she had nightmares for days about how close my head came to hitting the platform on the way down. I mean, I got over it pretty quickly and once my mom finished wiping the tears off my face and the sand out of my mouth with the corner of her t-shirt, I went right back to playing on the zip code for the rest of the evening. Funny, though – when we got home my mother had a whole bunch of new grey hairs I had never noticed before…

Bonus conversation!

We were playing in the driveway last night, and there’s a little plastic toy that was supposed to have gone in the garbage. I’m not sure how it migrated back out into the driveway, but I ended up running over it when I backed the car out of the driveway to give the kids more room to play.

Tristan picked it up and ran over to me excitedly. “Look mummy! You sure broke the hell out of this thing, didn’t you?”