Month: January 2006

It’s Simon’s birthday next week. Two years old already – I can hardly believe it.

We’re having a hard time coming up with gift ideas for him. There are already so. many. toys. in the house that don’t get played with. He’s got all the toys that we bought for Tristan at age two, plus all the new stuff Tristan gets, and aside from his obsession with the Wiggles, we’re having hard time finding things that are distinctly Simon.

A lot of you have kids in the two-year-old range. What were the big hits from Christmas time this year? Any thoughts?

Some days have a gentle magic by virtue of simply being ordinary. It’s been that kind of day. I wish I could catch hold of its essence and tuck it away, to keep it and remember it – the joy, the bliss, the gentle peacefulness – for days and years to come.

I couldn’t tell you what combination made an ordinary Saturday extraordinary. I got to sleep in late, all the way until 8 am, even though the dog and the noisy boys and the sounds of the day roused me every half hour or so after the rest of them got up at 5:30. Not having to start my day at that ungodly hour was definitely an excellent start.

I made it to the gym, which is also a fairly reliable indicator of a good day. Snow had been falling heavy and wet all morning, so when I got home from the gym the boys and I shovelled the driveway, inasmuch as one can shovel the driveway while simultaneously playing hockey and building a snowman and replacing wandering mittens every ten minutes or so.

There was a quiet moment in the middle of the afternoon, just after I finished reading not only the best parts of the Saturday paper but a quick chapter of a new novel as well, when Simon was sleeping and Tristan was playing trains contentedly in the next room and the snow continued to fall silent and white outside, that I closed my eyes and savoured.

And in this expansive day, I still managed to vacuum rooms that have forgotten what the vacuum looks like, and do laundry, and build with Tristan a looping wooden train track that covered the dining room floor, and even make a meatloaf dinner. Everybody acually ate the dinner, and while there was cajoling and prodding, there was no arguing. And it was good.

And because it had been that kind of day, after dinner we played hide and go seek, the four of us, and my sides hurt from trying to hold in my laughter over and over again. Tristan can never manage to stay hidden, and Simon wanders the netherworld between hider and seeker, and makes me laugh so hard the tears run down my cheeks as he carefully counts to ten and calls “Here I come!” – as you’re trying to hide with him in the closet or under a blanket. He watches us hide and tries to tell Tristan where we are, but Tristan either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t believe him, despite Simon’s excited gesculations and shrieks of “Here she is! In here! Here she is!”

Some posts I write for you, my dearest readers, but this one is for me. I don’t care how it’s written or how it sounds – I just want to remember this magically ordinary day, a series of beautiful moments that I wish I could capture like photographs and hold on to forever.

I just picked up the mail. I was pleased to see the baptismal certificate I requested last week had arrived – until I opened it up.

Yep, there’s all the details of my religious origins – baptized into the Church on 31 August 1969, as witnessed by my sweet aunt and my mother’s cousin, who went on to do jail time in Florida and Britain for, among other things, bilking his own mother of her life savings.

And there, at the bottom, under “Other Notations”:
Confirmed, 21 October 1982, St Pius X Church and
(ack!)
Married, 19 August 1989.

Hey, it was just a practise marriage. Nobody told me it would be on my permanent record!

It didn’t seem terribly indulgent when I forked over the $12 to haloscan to upgrade to premium service. I mean, I had to do it – all my precious comments were disappearing, and I worked so damn hard to get them in the first place.

But now I kinda wished I’d saved my pennies, because I really really really need one of these. And my birthday is so very far away…

So we finally broke down and bought a laptop. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘Beloved pestered me every single day for about an eon before I finally capitulated and said, “I don’t care whether you buy the damn thing or not, but if you read one more Future Shop flyer out loud to me I’m going to sue you for human rights abuse.”‘

I gotta admit, it’s pretty sweet. First of all, it’s shiny. I like that. And it’s fast. Apparently I have a pretty good desktop in my office (Beloved was admiring it over the Christmas holidays), but the laptop surfs much faster. Here’s what flavour it is:

AMD Aflon 64 4000+ processor
15.4 widescreen ultrabright
Operates at 2.6 GHz
1 GB DDR onboard memory
ATI radion x600
128 MG videocard
100 GB harddrive
with a multi-format double-layer DVD burner

I don’t know what most of that means. I had to get Beloved to dictate it to me. I vaguely recognize some of the terms from the endless hours of Future Shop and MDG flyers he used to read out loud to me, before I gave up even the pretense of paying attention.

Did I mention it was shiny?

So I figured, since we have this fancy-ass new computer, and since I’d spent a couple of hours one afternoon over the Christmas holidays rooting through our CD collection to transfer some of my favourite songs to my MP3 player (finally!), I’d set myself up on the kitchen table with the shiny laptop and do it during Simon’s nap.

Really, I should be a Luddite. Three hours later, and I still couldn’t get it to work. The actual ripping of CDs went pretty well, but the first time I uploaded (downloaded?) the files to my MP3 player, only four of the 22 songs in my playlist went over. So I deleted them and started over.

Then I realized I had entered the track name in the album name spot, so I went through and moved the track title to the right spot for all the songs, and tried again. And this time while it loaded all the songs, it put them alphabetically instead of in the way I had arranged (and rearranged, and rearranged yet again, for optimum listening enjoyment. I mean, you just can’t leave Prince sitting there in between Freddie Mercury and The Tragically Hip. Pul-leaze. And David Bowie back to back with Barenaked Ladies? I don’t think so.)

So I erased the MP3 drive thingee again and transferred each song over individually, in the correct order. And then when I tried to remove the MP3 player from the USB port (okay, so I know a bit of the lingo now), the laptop said no. Well, it actually gave me this message that I didn’t really understand, but Beloved was emphatic that we don’t remove the MP3 player from the laptop without the laptop’s express permission. And by that point I was pretty much fed up negotiating with the laptop and left Beloved to have a conversation with the laptop about relinquishing the MP3 player that involved a lot of words I’m glad Tristan and Simon weren’t around to hear and repeat during Catechism classes.

After Beloved and the laptop and I each had a little time out, we did in fact manage to liberate the MP3 player from the laptop, and when I clicked it on I was crushed to discover the songs were STILL in alphabetical order. It was at this point that I considered either opening the help file on the music master program thingee, or maybe reading the instruction book that came with the MP3 player, but it had already been close to two hours and I wasn’t going to waste any more unnecessary time. So I started making shit up making educated guesses.

I tried a few more ways of sending music from the laptop to the MP3 player, one of them being seminole signals, and no matter what I did, the songs would show up in alphabetical order. So I finally figured, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, and I renamed every track numerically in the order they were supposed to play. I mean, they’re my damn songs, I don’t need to see the track name (which, by this point, I had labouriously entered into the laptop no fewer than three times) in the little window on the MP3 player. So I renamed numbered all the tracks, transferred them all over to the MP3 player again, managed to convince the laptop to let go of the MP3 player, and Voilà! – random numbered tracks in neither alphabetical nor numerical order. And that’s just about the time I lost interest in the MP3 player and the laptop and their unholy union.

What, you were expecting a happy ending? I told you right off the start I couldn’t get it to work. And you wonder why it took me seven months just to try to load a few songs on there. It was fear, pure and simple. Fear of failure.

I have to admit, though, the laptop kissed and made up with me when it invited me into the wonderous world of wireless Internet. Who knew blogging in the bathroom could be so much fun? Wireless ROCKS!

I wasn’t sure what to blog about today, then I read the paper and I wasn’t sure what not to blog about. Where to begin?

First, with the serious business. I can’t tell you how pleasantly shocked I was to read this morning that the Vatican has come out with an article saying intelligent design is ideology, not science, and should not be taught in schools (I might have mentioned this before). The author of the original article in the L’Osservatore Romano said juxtapositioning evolutionary theory and intelligent design “creates confusion between the scientific and philosophical and religious planes.” I dunno, maybe this is a personal thank you from the Church for coming back to the fold, but it’s a great start!

There should be some sort of segue at this point, because I am changing gears and subjects entirely, but I have no idea how to bridge the Vatican’s thoughts on ID and a giant toboggan run at the base of the CN Tower designed by one of my favourite Canadian authors. But hey, did you hear that they’ve commissioned Douglas Coupland, my first literary crush and author of Generation X and Eleanor Rigby, to design an eight-acre park in downtown Toronto? And part of his vision is trucking in 20,000 loads of soil to make a giant toboggan hill, then “scientifically carving out the parabolas to make sure you get the best run ever.” Now we just need to make sure than instead of hot chocolate, the concession stand stocks beer and Beaver Tails. Because nothing says Canadian winter fun like inebriated sledding.

And finally, on the subject of (in)famous Canadians, did you hear about William Shatner’s kidney stones? (See, it’s not just a blog, it’s a public service. I mean, you can’t pay for ice breakers like these, and I give them to you as a gift.) Canada’s quirkiest son, who gets more bizarre and hilariously eccentric with each passing day, has sold his recently-passed kidney stone to Goldenpalace.com for the pittance of $25,000. Apparently there are now plans in the works for Goldenpalace.com, a Canadian online casino site known for its ecclectic acquisitions, to take the kidney stones on a road show and exhibit them with such cultural treasures as Britney Spears’ used pregnancy test and McDonald’s french fry shaped like Abraham Lincoln.

And I thought I had nothing to blog about.

Baby Bear goes downstairs and sits in his small chair at the table, he looks into his small bowl. It is empty. “Who’s been eating my porridge?” he squeaks.

Papa Bear arrives at the big table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl, and it is also empty. “Who’s been eating my porridge?!!” he roars.

Momma Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells, “How many times do we have to go through this with you idiots? It was Momma Bear who got up first, it was Momma Bear who woke everyone in the house, it was Momma Bear who made the coffee, it was Momma Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night, and put everything away, it was Momma Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper, it was Momma Bear who set the damn table, it was Momma Bear who put the friggin cat out, cleaned the litter box, and filled the cat’s water and food dish, and, now that you’ve decided to drag your sorry bear-asses downstairs and grace Momma Bear’s kitchen with your grumpy presence, listen good, cause I’m only going to say this one more time.

“I HAVEN’T MADE THE DAMN PORRIDGE YET.”

Worth a snicker at least, eh? I post this one a little bit sheepishly, because in all honesty, it’s Beloved who does a lot of this stuff around our place. I’m out the door to catch the bus by 6:30 each morning, and he either stays home with the boys or gives them breakfast, gets them dressed and brings them over to Bobbie’s house. By himself. Not bad, eh?

As I mentioned before Christmas, he’s been asked to teach in a new faculty at work, so he’s teaching almost full-time this term, but he managed to arrange his schedule so he’s still home one full day with the boys. I’m so grateful for this, not only because I want to maximize the time the boys spend with one of their parents at least, but also because we need all the help we can get on the domestic front.

I have to admit, in a “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” kind of way, I never realized how good it’s been. With Beloved home two days out of five, there was someone to feed the dishwasher, perpetuate the endless laundry cycle and stem the tide of toy trains that threaten to take over every inch of floor space on a daily basis. Heck, he even made the beds every now and then. The house is never spotless, but at least it’s within arm’s reach of presentable most days. Sheesh, we even let our relationship with our cleaning lady peter out after the summer. I’ve been spoiled.

Now that we have to switch gears, I think we’re in trouble. With Beloved covering the daily tidying and minutia, I used to spend the little window of precious time I am willing to waste on devote to housekeeping and chores on deep cleaning. Now, by the time I make dinner, clean up after dinner, load the dishwasher, sort the laundry, and pick up the daily toy dump – let alone pay attention to the boys for a minute or two – the evening is done. Lord knows when we’ll get around to cleaning the bathroom, or picking up the clutter in the bedrooms. And I can only cringe every time I see the the bare gypsum board and bits of torn wallpaper in three rooms, where we peeled off the wallpaper border with the intention to paint – last fall.

All this to say I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have Beloved at home, taking up the slack. He’s done a great job with the boys, but he’s also taken on a big chunk of the other domestic stuff that keeps a house running smoothly. It’s been a year this month since I came back to work, and it looks like we’ll have to start again from scratch, finding a way to make all this work. I think the first step is to find another cleaning lady!

How long is it until the end of the semester?

So here’s a question for you, because I am enjoying all the activity in the comment sandbox recently: if someone offered you a gift certificate for a year of any kind of domestic service (cleaner, cook, gardener, valet, personal shopper, masseuse, hairstylist – whatever) free of charge, which would you choose?

Speaking of fours… as seen everwhere on the Interweb these days:

Four jobs I’ve had
1. Scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins
2. Assessing tax returns (Only thing I ever failed in school? Income tax returns. Go figure.)
3. Marketing for a program that recycles used computers into classrooms
4. Communications advisor

Four movies I’ve could watch over and over
1. Moulin Rouge
2. The Princess Bride
3. Anything featuring Monty Python
4. Bull Durham

Four places I’ve lived
1. With my folks in London, Ontario
2. With six students in an 80 year old house in the Glebe (Ottawa)
3. On my own in a tiny apartment in Old Ottawa South
4. With my boys in beautiful suburban Barrhaven (also a neighbourhood of Ottawa)

Four TV shows I love
1. Lost
2. Corner Gas
3. Scrubs
4. Grey’s Anatomy (kind of cheating to put that one on the list, cuz I’ve only ever seen two episodes, but the one I saw last week was one of those recap episode and all I could think of was, How did I miss this show until now?)

Four places I’ve been on vacation
1. Cooperstown NY (baseball hall of fame)
2. Las Vegas (I was 12)
3. Paris (twice)
4. Florida (bunch of times, all before age 15)

Four blogs I visit daily
Read the sidebar bit about my ideal bloggy dinner party. They’re the milk in my cornflakes.

Four Favorite Foods
1. Guacamole
2. Barbequed steak and baked onions at my parent’s house
3. Ruffled plain potato chips and Helluva Good french onion chip dip
4. Just about anything that gets delivered to the door

Four places I’d rather be
1. Curled up on the back patio in the shade watching the boys play in the sun
2. Driving the back roads with a hot coffee and sleeping baby(ies) in the back seat
3. Browsing just about anywhere, from a flea market to a book store to Ikea
4. At a daytime matinee with Beloved, holding hands and sharing popcorn in the dark

Four CDs I listened to most recently
Eponymous – The Tragically Hip
Maroon – The Barenaked Ladies
Wiggly Safari – The Wiggles with Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin
Oh What a Feeling 2, Disc 3

Last four vehicles I’ve owned
1991 Mazda 323 (bought new, drove the hell out of it, traded it for $1k )
1998 Pontiac Sunfire (leased)
2001 Ford Focus Wagon (leased)
2004 Ford Focus Wagon (bought; identical to previous Focus wagon except for colour)

I think I’m the last person on the Interweb to do this meme, but if you haven’t yet and your muse has gone out for smokes, feel free to consider yourself tagged. Drop me a note and let me know you played!

There are four little words I really need to hear right now. Four words that will probably save my sanity, if not the future well being of my sons. Four little words.

It’s just a phase.

Please remind me it’s just a phase, and tell me it’s a short one at that. I was reading one of the blogs in the momosphere, I don’t even remember which one, and she was lamenting about the terrible twos. She asked for advice, and her commenters said something along the lines of, you think two is bad, wait until three and a half.

Yeah.

Is anybody else finding the few months before the fourth birthday particularly trying? I think we’re caught in a double-whammy, with Simon in his terrible twos (officially, less than 20 days from now) and Tristan coming up on four. It hasn’t been pretty.

With Simon, at least I get where he is coming from. I understand, from a behavioural and cognitive perspective, what’s going on in his world and why he is so frustrated. (For great insight into the two year old mind and how to work with it, take a look at Marla’s post from last week.) And by luck and default, I’ve figured out some coping strategies. What I’m having a hard time dealing with is how he expresses his frustration – he hits or throws things or kicks things. What’s most troubling is seeing my own bad behaviours (I don’t always cope well with stress) coming from a two year old.

With Tristan, it seems to be more of an emotional thing. He’s argumentative. And obstinate. And whiney – oh, the whines. I know it’s all fairly normal; I think I read somewhere whining peaks around age four. But he’s a meltdown waiting for a trigger lately, and I’m not so sure that’s normal. Whenever he doesn’t get his way, he says things like “Nobody wants me” and “Nobody understands me”. I didn’t expect that one for another ten years or so. Is that on the developmental curve for preschoolers, too?

I have to say, I’m quite pleased that I’ve figured out how to manipulate at least one of the boys in my house. I read a lot more of the ‘literature’ on parenting (everything from books to magazines to blogs to message boards) than Beloved, and I’ve been looking for a way to dial drag him into the conversation. I found out they have a lot of the more popular parenting experts on videocasette, and if it’s on TV, Beloved will sit through just about anything! (kiss kiss, sweetie) In the summer we watched Thomas Phelan’s 1-2-3 Magic, and last week we watched Sal Severe’s video workshop on “How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too.”

In the Sal Severe video, he was saying the parents who have the hardest struggles with behaviour often have children that are bright (check!), have strong verbal skills (check!) and are persistent. Well, if we define ‘persistent’ as ‘stubborn as the day is long’, then yah, I think we qualify.

So tell me, mothers who have been there or are there – is three and a half to four really one of those known ‘phase’ times? And how did you cope? And are there more minefields ahead, or have I done all the hard work once we get through this one and we’ll just rest on our laurels from here on in?

(Editorial note: I wrote this two weeks ago, when I thought we were supposed to post our goodies. I STILL don’t know who my secret santa is!)

The suspense is killing me! Who who WHO was my Winter Holiday of Your Choice Blog Extravaganza Secret Santa? Whomever she is, she has put Secret Santas the world over to shame.

Everything came the week before Christmas in a nice big box with a return address but no name, just to let me stew in my own curiousity.

Inside, there were two boxes marked open me first and open me second. Each box had three compartments in it. (I told you, she’s the best Secret Santa ever!!!) And each of the six compartments had not only a little gift, but a little handwritten note addressing various things I’d written in my ‘101 things about me’ post, the one I pointed to from my questionnaire.

There was homemade shortbread (BEST SECRET SANTA EVER!) with a note that said, “In the darkness, there are no shadows.” There was a lovely sparkly heart ornament from Pier One and a Pier One gift certificate with notes about my silly fear of wide open spaces.

There was a little keychain photo album (way cute!) with a note that said, “Sometimes wide open spaces can make us feel small… weak… afraid…” and then the most sparkly, gorgeous butterfly ornaments (remember, I have often admitted to coveting sparkly and shiny things) with a note that read, “… but you are a very important part of this huge universe. Just ask your loved ones.”

Did I mention best. Secret. Santa. Ever??

And finally, a little stamp pad and a stamp to personalize my books. I mean, it’s a day later and I’m still blown away. Heck, my best friends couldn’t have put together a more lovely, appropriate, charming package.

And you know what? I got all the way to the end, and I still have NO IDEA who it’s all from. I’m beginning to think it’s from the real Santa, because even he could take a few pointers from this Secret Santa.

So come out, come out, whoever you are – I’m dying of curiousity!

And thank you for the most extraordinary gifts. Really, I mean it!

Edited once more to add: AHA!! After reading the comments, I started to scour the blogosphere, and my very first guess was right! My brilliant and generous secret santa (best secret santa EVER, you will recall) is one of the funniest people who play in the comment box, Kristina from Freakazojd’s Palace. She ROCKS!!!!

Thank you, Kristina! Mwah!!!!!