Month: August 2007

Insight into the teenage mind?

Hey bloggy peeps, I need your help. (Again.)

Next week, I’ll be doing a presentation about social media, and more specifically, blogs, at the CEGEP were Beloved teaches. (CEGEP is creation of the Quebec school system, sort of like a middle school between high school and university or college. The kids will be in the 16 to 18 year old age range.)

I’ve done a few presentations on social media to groups of public servants, but I have to tell you I’m a lot more intimidated by this group of teenagers! With public servants, I am usually pretty confident that I know more about social media and blogs than at least the majority of the people in the room; maybe not so much with the teenagers! The prof insists that I should start with Blogs 101, and that in her new media classes, only one of two of the kids actually have a blog.

So what I’m asking you, bloggy peeps, is this: what blogs would be interesting to the average teenager? I’m planning on walking them through a basic what and how, and talk about technorati and links and RSS, and go through some of the free blogging platforms. But can you think of any blogs they will find cool? I mean, I started out in life pretty far from cool, and now I’m a mom and a civil servant – my coolness factor drops by the day!!

I was thinking maybe the Grey’s Anatomy writers’ blog, and I was going to do Wil Wheaton’s blog – but Star Trek TNG might be too old skool to be appealing to them. There’s Barney’s Blog, from How I Met Your Mother, but that’s not even a real blog. Lame list, eh?

Help me! What’s cool in the blogosphere, from the perspective of your average 17 year old?

The other men in my life

So while we’ve been paying so much attention to the little man I’m busy gestating, the other men in my life have been busy with their own milestones.

Can I please have a round of applause for Simon, who has remained in DRY underwear all day long for the past two days? YAY Simon! It took him maybe two days to catch on, and yesterday was a completely accident-free day. The nanny said she had put him in a pull-up to go to the park (just in case) and he told her he had to go and then even held it for the 10-minute trip home.

What’s been really adorable, though, is listening to Tristan coach Simon. Now, Tristan has a personal investment in Simon’s toilet habits on two fronts. First, he was benefitting from our bribes to Simon. He too watched Queen Amidala on Sunday afternoon, and he too has received a steady stream of ju-ju-beans when Simon successfully voided his bladder. But more than that, Tristan seems to be extremely phobic about Simon’s bodily fluids and goes to great lengths to make sure Simon goes in the potty and nowhere else.

They’ll be playing, and Simon will pause and say, “I need to go to the potty.” Tristan will shepherd him into the bathroom, coaching him the whole way: “Okay, now pull down your underwear. Good! Be careful, back up, and point it down. Good. Now go. Yay! Great job, Simon, you did it!!” Imagine this scene repeated maybe every 20 minutes, all day long. Beloved turned to me at one point and said, “So, when did Tristan become Simon’s mother?”

So, how trustworthy do you think a six-day-old potty training habit is? This weekend is our Smuggler’s Notch getaway, and Simon can join an age-appropriate day camp if he is potty trained. If not, he goes to a daycare centre type of thing, with the 6 week to 3 year olds. I know which one he’d prefer, but am worried that he’ll be a little too distracted by the excitement of day camp to remember to listen to the call of nature. Thoughts?

More parental bragging: both boys passed their respective swimming lesson levels this week, too. I was hardly surprised to see Tristan pass from Preschool level C to level D, after his performance jumping off the diving board into the deep end of the pool this month. I was less sure about Simon, mostly because more often than not, he would be happily playing off by himself while the teacher coached the kids who were obviously less comfortable in the water than Simon. On his “report card” the teacher observed: “Simon has amazing confidence in his aquatic abilities.” Translation: he’s friggin’ fearless. Her final comment made me laugh the most, though: “Don’t forget to focus!” Ha! Runs in the family.

So it’s not exactly an official “yay day”, but it seems that this whole month has had me bursting with pride at how quickly my boys are growing up. And the best part? If Simon stays on track, I get a five-month vacation from diapers. If that’s not worth bragging about, what is?

No really, what is? Consider this bragging thread officially open!

The big reveal

The ultrasound appointment went very well this morning. Beloved was teaching and couldn’t make it, but my lovely Mom accompanied me. She was there for Simon’s big reveal, too. What a great thing to be able to share with Granny!

Baby was sleepy, not moving around too much. The technician knew I was squirrelly to find out the gender so that was her first stop, but Baby’s legs were tightly clenched together. She did a few more measurements, and exclaimed with delight about how healthy all of Baby’s parts are. The organs, the spine, the brain stem, the heart – they all look perfect. The placenta is on the low side and near the cervix, but nothing to yet be concerned about.

And then she scanned back up to Baby’s bits and Baby’s legs were splayed wide open. Turns out just like Tristan and Simon, this Baby is an exhibitionist after all. No doubt about it, for the next five months or so I have a penis.

It’s a boy!!!

Pink or blue? Lay your bets!

One more sleep! Wednesday morning at 9:00 is the big reveal, assuming baby is amenable to the exposure. (And you know I come from a long line of exhibitionists.) We finally get to find out whether baby has indoor or outdoor plumbing.

I swear, never in my whole life have I expended so much energy in not thinking about something. For weeks, I’ve been careful not to speculate, not to wonder, and certainly not to hope. But despite my best efforts, I’m now emotionally and intellectually engaged in this pregnancy. I can feel the baby moving almost every day, and a couple of people in my office have tentatively approached me and asked if maybe I had some good news I wanted to share while looking pointedly at my no-longer-subtle belly. (Seriously, people, unless a woman has another human being dangling from between her legs, “Are you pregnant?” is still one of the most dangerous questions on the planet!) So I’ve let go of the fear and given myself over to joy and anticipation.

And tomorrow, the last big question will be answered.

It’s no secret that I would like a girl. Here are the top five six reasons I hope this little passenger is of the female variety:

  1. I want a girl because I think it would be an easier family dymanic to have two boys and a girl rather than strand Simon in the middle of three boys.
  2. I want a girl because I was a girl, and I’ve always had such a wonderful relationship with my mother, and she with her mother before that, and I would love to carry that on to the next generation.
  3. I want a girl because when boys grow up, they tend to move away and girls stay close.
  4. I want a girl so she can be daddy’s little girl, just like I was… and, erm, continue to be.
  5. I want a girl because I fear the grocery bills – and the infrastructure of the house! – if we have three towering teenage boys in the house at the same time.
  6. I want a girl simply because I don’t have one.

And yet, I would be delighted by another boy. Here’s why:

  1. I know from boys. I’ve got five and a half years of insight into mothering boys. I know their bits, I know their preferences, I know their foibles.
  2. I’ve always preferred the company of boys over girls. The idea of spending the rest of my life surrounded by men has a certain appeal.
  3. Mean girls and middle school. I’m not sure I could do it again, even (or especially?) by proxy.
  4. I’ve got a pretty good stash of boy-stuff. Rugby shirts and toy trucks and baseball caps and Sponge Bob videos; I spent a lot of time weeding through the pink pieces at Gymboree and Old Navy to find some truly great boy clothes.
  5. Simply bellowing “BOYS!” to get their attention is far more effective than “CHILDREN!” or – god forbid – actually trying to get out the right name first.
  6. Last but not least, how could I not want another Tristan or Simon?

In the mood for a little prognostication? Throughout this pregnancy, I’ve had a hard time not visibly shuddering every time someone smiled and leaned in and whispered confidentially, “I think this one’s a girl!” (Funny how nobody thinks it’s a boy… at least not out loud.) But I’m ready now! Lay your bets on the table, folks.

Is it a boy?
Is it a girl?
… or…
Will it be too stubborn to divulge its secrets?

Best quiz result ever!

As seen at Expectant Waiting.


You’re Catch-22!
by Joseph Heller

Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of people.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Is that not the best quiz result ever? I read Catch 22 when I was a kid and loved it even then. I should crack it open again.

***

Speaking of books, it’s back to school time, and Andrea over in the Fishbowl has a great back-to-school photo contest. You can win an HP Photosmart C5280 printer/scanner! Click over to Andrea’s place for details and some good photography tips, too.

Pregnancy songs

You remember how it is with your first pregnancy, when you actually buy the pregnancy magazines, and hang out on the message boards at iVillage comparing each twitch and twang with 600 other pregnant mothers due in the same month as you, and you spend months agonizing over the nursery decorating scheme and hours browsing baby gear at Babys R Us and have the baby’s whole wardrobe picked out and washed and folded and carefully placed in drawers when you’re still only six months along?

*snicker* Ah, I remember those days… barely!

Ahem, anyway, back when I was still all dewey-eyed with the idea of being pregnant with Tristan, I invested hours searching the Internet and local record stores for a copy of one of my all-time favourite soundtrack albums, She’s Having a Baby. Way before I had kids, I loved that album, and practically wore out my cassette copy in the early 1990s – and not entirely because I’ve always had a wicked crush on Kevin Bacon.

Alas, despite a stellar effort, I couldn’t find a replacement copy when I was pregnant with Tristan. Well, there was one copy on eBay for about $60 including currency conversion and delivery and duty, but that was a bit much even for me. But the other day, I was downloading some music from iTunes and out of the blue wondered if I could get some of my favourite songs from the album on iTunes. Turns out I couldn’t (maybe you’ll have more luck on the American version, but iTunes.ca is still occassionally disappointing in its limited selection.) I did, however, find out that the album was re-released in 2003, and I used one of my MotherTalk Amazon.com gift certificates to order one. It arrived on the weekend, and I love it all over again.

But it got me thinking – aside from the ubiquitous country and western songs, there aren’t really a whole lot of pregnancy songs out there, are there? My favourite of all time, which I listened to about a million times when I was pregnant with Tristan, is Danny’s Song (the Kenny Loggins version, thanks), and of course there is Creed’s Arms Wide Open, which came out the year I had my first miscarriage and made me cry gallons of tears over the hormonal years, and Nancy White’s hilarious folk song, It’s Chic to be Pregnant at Christmas.

Danny’s Song by Kenny Loggins
People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one, and we’ve just begun,
Think I’m gonna have a son.
He will be like she and me, as free as a dove, conceived in love,
Sun is gonna shine above.

(This song also has the line “Pisces, virgo rising is a pretty good sign, strong and kind, and a little boy is mine” which I can barely type, let alone sing along, without choking up. Tristan is my little Pisces.)

Apron Strings by Everything But the Girl
And I’ll be perfect in my own way
When you cry I will be there
I’ll sing to you and comb your hair
All your troubles I will share

This Woman’s Work by Kate Bush
Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman’s work,
This woman’s world.
Ooh, it’s hard on the man,
Now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father.

Arms Wide Open by Creed
Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

She’s Having a Baby by Dave Wakeling
Mixed drinks and mixed emotions
Head in the clouds, put your feet on the ground
All change,
She’s having a baby
You’re growing up now,
You’re settling down, down, down
Will it be a boy or a girl?
And what will it think of the world?

It’s So Chic to be Pregnant at Christmas by Nancy White
It’s so biblical to be pregnant at Christmas
No matter what stories you believe.
And only suffer from gravid senilis
And heartburn and nausea and charley-horses and overwhelming fatigue and frequent micturation and varicose veins and swollen ankles and shortness of breath and that .. tired achy feeling in the groin.

That was about all I could come up with. Can you think of any more?

The end of Storyland?

I read in yesterday’s paper that Storyland, near Renfrew, will likely be closing at the end of this season, and the news made me sad. First the Hershey chocolate factory in Smith’s Falls; now this.

Storyland is truly one of Ottawa’s hidden gems, tucked away in the woods near a scenic overlook on the Ottawa River, 40 minutes from the city. We paid our first and now maybe only visit to Storyland last summer, and I found it a sweet and nostalgic place; a downmarket cousin to the fancy and expensive theme parks in most metropolitan areas.

There were two things I loved about Storyland. First, it appealed to me because it reminded me of my own childhood favourite places, where the slides were metal and coated in chipped (and likely lead-based) paint instead of modular plastic in primary colours. Like this!

July 06 004

The other thing I loved about Storyland was its simple and authentic charm, and its inherent lack of glitz, loud music or moving parts. If Disneyland is a $200 computerized, interactive, automated remote control toy, Storyland is a free wooden train set discovered stashed away in your grandparents’ basement. Not only is it filled with character, but it’s staffed by characters – literally. The (mostly young) staff are dressed in character costumes inspired by Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm and Disney alike, and are open and friendly and unselfconscious about their attire.

There are playgrounds and paddleboats, a bouncy castle and mini-golf. What really gives the place its charm, though, are the little features tucked away on easy to follow paths, like this wishing well:

July 06 005

Or Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage:

July 06 003

Or the three little pigs:

July 06 010

When I was growing up, my favourite place to visit was a little park in my hometown of London, Ontario called Storybook Gardens. I’d like to bring the boys back there some day, simply because of the many happy memories I have of going to Storybook Gardens at least once, and usually many times, over the course of a summer. Storyland is like the country cousin of Storybook Gardens, just a little bit more wild and unkempt, but maybe a little bit more fun because of that.

I’m sad to see Storyland close its doors. Maybe I’m just nostalgic, but I’d like my kids to spend more time in charming places like this. Matter of fact, gems like this one – relics of the 60s and 70s just like me – are probably tucked away in hidden corners all over the place. Is there one near you?

Edited to add: Hooray!! On May 10, 2008, a small article ran in the paper stating that Storyland has a new owner and will re-open on June 21. Yay!

10 pixels in – my first video game review

Not too long after my recent post talking about how the boys have transitioned from a TV addiction to a computer game addiction, I got an e-mail from a nice lady offering me a sneak preview of “the first video game made for kids 3-6 on Nintendo DS.” The boilerplate advertised that “Storybook DS features skill-based mini-games and read-aloud fairy tale adventures for shared play and interaction between mom and child.” I wrote back to say thanks for the offer, but we only play games on the PC and we don’t have any game consoles. She wrote back to say, “No problem, we’ll loan you a DS console for a while to play to the game. You can keep the game cartridge, and send back the console when you’re done.”

Hard to say no to an offer like that, isn’t it? And that’s how someone who doesn’t really like video games becomes a video game reviewer – or at least whores her children out as video game reviewers. Let the record show that they didn’t seem to mind.

So I have to start out by admitting that I’m a little bit biased against handheld games, especially for the preschooler set. I like to see and hear what they’re doing, and it’s harder to share a four-inch game console than it is to sit together in front of a 15 inch monitor.

Nintendo StorybookHaving said that, I have to admit I was immediately impressed with Storybook DS. I know kids get this stuff so much more intuitively than we did, but literally within one minute of snapping the cartridge into the console, Tristan was using the stylus to colour a picture. A few minutes later, he was showing Simon how to do the same. With no input from us, they found their way through a counting game, a music game, a drawing tablet and a storybook reader.

Tristan and Simon playing Storybook DSBoth boys enjoyed Storybook DS, even if it was a bit on the simplistic side compared to what they are already playing on the computer. Tristan had an easier time navigating and exploring, but both boys could use the stylus to play by themselves. I’m not sure about it being billed as “shared play and interaction between mom and child” – more like interaction between child and video game. I peered over their shoulders a few times to see what they were up to, but three of us jockeying for position around a four-inch screen didn’t work well for us. If you’d like to pick one up, they’ll be available in stores in late September. (Sorry for the lack of links. I had asked for a URL to point to, but never did get one.)

It was nice to be able to test-drive the Nintendo DS as well as the game itself, and Beloved didn’t waste any time going down to the local rental place and picking up a few other games for us to try. I can see the appeal of handheld games, especially for long car rides, or for when one wants to watch TV and the other wants to play games, but I’ll stick with my initial assessment of handheld games. They might be a nice treat for the older kids, and no doubt my 3 and 5 year old would love to have one, but when we finally capitulate to a game system for the family – sadly, with three against one I know it’s a matter of when rather than if – I’d much prefer a full-size, TV-based console rather than a handheld one.

So what do you think? What age – if any – do you think it’s appropriate for kids to start playing with personal, handheld video games? I don’t think I can hold out on this one forever, but seven or eight years old sounds about right to me.

Yay Day!

It’s a dreary kind of day here, grey and threatening rain – not that I can see a window from here. And I have a cold that kept me up all night and so I might have otherwise been tempted to be a little cranky and feel just a little bit sorry for myself.

But then I started thinking about all the things that I have to be grateful about these days:

  • a healthy, happy pregnancy. (What they say about the second trimester being the “honeymoon trimester” really is true, isn’t it?)

  • the new nanny. I don’t know who is happier, the boys or Beloved and I. Not once has Simon said, “I don’t want Jen to come over today” whereas he complained endlessly about going to the previous caregivers’ houses.

  • a four-day weekend this weekend, and a four-day weekend next weekend. Yay!

  • as if a four-day Labour Day weekend weren’t enough to celebrate all on its own, we’re going on a mostly FREE weekend getaway to Smuggler’s Notch resort in Vermont!! The media relations folks out there (Hi Karen and Barbara!) caught some of my posts about the trip to Bar Harbour in their ‘family vacations’ google filter, and they’re doing an experimental blogger outreach campaign. They’ve offered us the standard press package, including two nights of accomodation – free! We’ve got all sorts of cool activities lined up, like an “evening wildlife watch” family canoe trip, and day camp for the boys on Saturday so Beloved and I can enjoy a (don’t laugh!) Segway tour of the resort. You know, those stand-up motorized scooters? Now picture pregnant, naturally clumsy me on one of them – hilarity, if not trauma to innocent bystanders, is sure to ensue. Plus they have FOUR pools, EIGHT waterslides, a couple of different playgrounds, trail hiking, shopping… it’s going to be a busy weekend! (Don’t hate me; it’s an embarrassment of riches, I know. I’m not worthy – but I still said yes!)

  • and last, but not least, the boys continue to make me laugh every single day. We haven’t told them about the baby yet (the anticipation of the new school year is enough to make their little heads explode; I can’t burden them with a five month wait when I can barely stand it myself) but we have been casually dropping babies into the conversation a lot lately. The other night at bedtime, the boys spontaneously started talking about having a baby brother or sister. Tristan’s preference is for a baby boy, whom he thinks should be named “Joe Joe”. Simon, on the other hand, favours a baby sister, and he insists her name should be “Darth Luke”. Note to self: don’t engage the boys in the baby-naming process!

Now you go! What’s making the sun shine in your world today?

Administrative notes

So it’s been almost a week, and I am getting comfy in my new bloggy home. There are still boxes of clutter everywhere and I’m still tinkering with where I want to keep the blogroll and whether I like the sofa under that window and whether I should plaster all my categories on the wall beside the Green Day poster or tuck them away in a dropdown box. But in general, it’s starting to feel like home.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how the look of a blog and the voice of the blogger are so intertwined? Or is that just me? It took me weeks to get used to seeing my words in a new font last time I changed it back on the old site, so I think it’s going to take a while for me to get used to all this happy yellow and fanciness. (No joke, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I fixed the columns so they were left-justified instead of centred yesterday.) Do you think the new look suits the overall character of the blog?

I’m pretty happy with WordPress over Blogger, and will likely write a couple of posts detailing exactly why and how I went about the transition (should anybody care) and maybe writing up a comparison of Blogger-hosted versus WordPress on my domain. The short version is, I’m glad I made the switch.

I know I shouldn’t give much credence to the stats, but it’s still a little humbling to go from a Technorati rank of 35,790 all the way down to 3,915,745, and to watch the traffic stats fall by almost half because of a non-existant Google Page Rank over here. (Ooo, as of today, Technorati acknowledges a second blog linking to me, so my rank jumped half a million blogs to 2,469,418… how exciting! But, if I can see that at least half a dozen of you have already adjusted your links to point to the new blog, why doesn’t Technorati see that? Step away from the stats, DaniGirl.)

Speaking of which, if you’ve honoured me with a link from your blog could I please trouble you to adjust it to point to http://danigirl.ca/blog instead of the old blogspot address? If you want to pick up the new feed, it’s at http://danigirl.ca/blog/feed/.

I’m actually surprised at how quickly Google indexed the new blog. If you Google “Postcards from the Mothership“, the new site is already the fourth link on the page – so feel free to click on it to boost it up the page for me!

And by the way, does anybody have any idea how to get the hypen off the end of the blog name on Google and Technorati? It’s obviously reading something from the meta data, but I’ve played with all the options and have no idea where it came from or how to get rid of it! Anybody know from meta data and tags? Anyone?

(Edited to add: hyphen problem fixed! Yay! And an interesting factoid for anyone else interested in Technorati rank: did you know that only links that are hard-coded into the blog are counted by Technorati? Blogrolls that are maintained by a script – i.e. through Blogrolling.com – are not counted. Interesting!)