glue in my head

Yesterday, Cass was outside with B, helping him Build Things. A very important job for a boy, since Only Big Boys Can Help and Little Sisters Are Too Small To Assist And Should Go Indoors.

(I'm sure You Get The Point, so I'll Stop Capitalizing Now.)

Bear has been putting together a new trailer for his four-wheeler (the old one is in bits) and had taken the old pieces apart to measure and use as templates for the new. C found a bit of rope where someone had tied the back gate shut and ran for the scissors to help.

(foreshadowing)

He actually made it back with the scissors, but leaned too close to see what he was doing and ended up poking a hole in his eyelid (near where the nose meets the eye socket. Neither eye was affected.) so he and I went to the hospital, where the OPD doctor was very calm and kind with him and soothed him so much with her soft voice that I thought he fell asleep on the table, so relaxed was he.

She cleaned it out and decided that glue would work just as well as a stitch or two, so he held veeerry still and she pushed him back together.

She thinks it won't scar. (Hurrah!) He was thrilled not to get a needle but a little dismayed that they weren't going to patch his eye up completely - with Halloween coming, he thought he'd just be a pirate.

Of course ice cream on the way home (Thank you, McDonald's, for selling ice cream even out of season) made him feel all better, and today he doesn't have a black eye or even a headache.

Just a pale purple swatch near his scab that he uses to tell all his friends about it.

'See! They put GLUE IN MY HEAD!'

stuff to do on a (tame) Saturday night

be smart and donate rice

search for other books you might like

check and see if someone owes you money

look at some really neat how-tos and interesting stuff

play an old arcade game

find some new words

paint a wall (or two)

cook some freakin' good spicy food

have fun reminiscing about (or discovering) the past

get step-by-step instructions on how to cuddle

The rest, as they say, is up to you.

dregs

I remember the Bitacle debacle. So. Much. Fun.

I think at least half of Blogland put copyrights on their work after that.

I was fooling around on technorati and noticed a blog I'd never heard of linking to mine. I found this.
Hmm. No credit given. My hackles began to rise. I typed a (reasonably nice) request to have them CEASE AND DESIST and GIMME CREDIT, DAMNIT, which went ignored until this afternoon, when the site went under for a few hours then re-appeared with tags (although mine is still not correct) and jiminy gee, my letter of complaint is GONE.

I read a few more entries and the whole blog doesn't make any sense, really. Take a look, if you want a laugh.

whirlwind

When I woke up this morning I didn't think the day was going to be crazy.

Oh, there was the usual. Get dressed get dressed get dressed *now* please get dressed B COME AND GET YOUR CHILDREN BEFORE I EAT THEM kind of stuff, but that's a regular thing. I'm relatively sure they do it just to see Mama turn red and make funny faces.

But soon the great big bus of sanity-comin'-back appeared, and half my stress went with it. And B was home, so the girl was at least 60% malleable...

(She's stubborn. She comes by it honestly. Doesn't mean I have to like it.)

So! She was dressed and pony-fied -the Reign of Pony Terror? The My Little Plastic Doohickeys To Stab You In The Ankles and Trip You Unawares? - have taken over the house. Whee.

Flew her into pre-school (No, you can't take the pony in. Because the teacher said no. Because that's the rule. Because Pony might get scared. Because Pony might get lost. Because - because I said so. Give me the pony and nobody gets hurt.)
dropped her off, then headed off for a nice coffee* and a day at the manse.

A nice quiet day. At the manse. Me and my computer. Typing away. Ladidadida...thunk.

After handing out my e-mails, the computer obligingly spit out a request to upgrade. Having been tricked by this before, I was hesitant - but it insisted, and I gave in. Of course it didn't load properly. Or work correctly.

It was about then, a few hours into that mess, that I got a can-you-come-in-now? 'phone call from my other job. I spluttered a bit, not being really dressed for it. "I'm neat and presentable, but I'm in jeans."

They didn't care. I flew home (that's twice I've called driving flying. Guess now you know how fast I go.) switched cars and trundled back.

Where I am now. All the hurrying to get to a nice steady-but-not-hectic day.

My life - she's a little crazy.


*amazing, how something full of caffeine can calm you right down.

hope for the hungry

Did you see 60 Minutes tonight?

Anderson Cooper did a great story on Plumpynut, a processed food that sounds like it will be able to help curtail child hunger in the poorest nations. I couldn't figure out how to imbed video from CBS, (I don't think I can, actually) but here's the link.

Go. Watch. Be amazed.

petty thievery

I came home today and the damned woodpile had been stolen.

A huge pile, it had been mocking me something I kept putting off doing, one of those last-minute chores you secretly hope will disappear under a comforting cloak of snow? invisibility?

I gawped at the spot on the yard, curses rolling through my head.

How could this happen? Did I need to call the Department of Natural Resources? The Mounties?

And what was I going to tell Bear?

The kids were long inside, front door hanging open. I stalled for a minute out on the lawn, putting it off, unsure of what to say.

Bear came outside and loped over towards the woodshed, casually opening the door and grabbing an armload. "So, Jess, how was your day?"

Whimper. Caught. 'Um, hon? Something happened....'

Bear was caught up in fixing dinner. "Yeah, the kids are hungry, and...why are you white? Did something...is it your Mom?"

'No,' I stammered, 'it's the...the...wood.' The wood I've been promising you I'd put away for...well, months now.

Bear swung open the door again. "It's here. I was bored today."


The Pod People strike again, folks.

rosebud three

School was amazing, Mommy.

sentimental

Three years ago tonight, I was trying to figure out what those weird backache things were that kept me from enjoying Thursday night television. And then we went to the hospital, and things sped up (as they do) so that parts of her chaotic, confused birth are crystal clear, and others (like the memory of the pain, THANK GOD) are receding into the mist.

The memory of the first time I held her, though, is still crystal clear. It was the day after she was born and she was hungry, rooting against me with that rosebud mouth and squalling a little. The nurses were astonished and pleased she was trying to suckle my hospital shirt and urged me to try her out. (We were still pretending I could breast-feed then.)

She was perfect, from her shock of black hair to her tiny bird feet.

And tomorrow is both her third birthday and her first day of pre-school.

Happy Birthday, Rosemary.

a few for a saturday

O Canada:

It was a bit surreal.
Cass and Rosey and I were heading out of town and Cass started to sing 'O Canada.'

He's six. And knew all the words.

This was odd on a few different levels. Coming from the States, where the schools aren't allowed to sing America The Beautiful anymore (God forbid we mention God) this was a real eye-opener. And neat. Heart-swelling, even.

They sing it every morning. In school, facing the flag. (I didn't ask if they saluted.)

I forget, sometimes, that my children are Canadian. That they don't have the memories and stranger-in-a-strange-land feelings that I do, that the American flag isn't a comforting, familiar sight to them. That my son doesn't automatically think of The Star Spangled Banner when asked to sing a song for his country.


Warthog:

Cass has a habit of echoing everything Bear says, even while not paying attention to the conversation. So,

B: Oh, my head hurts!
C: (In the other room and playing dinky cars) I have a headache!
B (exasperatedly) I have a big wart on my behind!
C: I have a....(pause) Daddy? Really? Can I see?

And one from work:
Correlation:
The amount of drug-seeking behavior is directly amplified by how young the doctor appears.

Idiots. The docs all know who you are already. And it doesn't help your cause if you miraculously stop hobbling and crouching over when you go around the corner to the parking-lot. They're young, not blind.

Or stupid.

Musically Declined:
And last of all, back this spring I was trying to figure out a song: here it is! The jingly-wah-wah sound still gets me.


okay, the video...is not exciting.

she comes in colors everywhere

I'm determined to paint the livingroom this month.

The last coat it had was a few years back and was a pale shade that was supposed to look white on the walls - one of those 'rosy' type whites that would brighten and romanticize the space.

Yah. My walls are pink.

It's most obvious when the sun is full into the room - it nips in and pours over the bookcase, flooding the room with...a pinky glow.

It's a long, narrow room - I've been debating deep colors as I don't want to make the proportions appear too small - but the lighter colors all look...well, the same, and I want a change.

Cinnabar Glaze, Bengal Grass, Deep Sea Odyssey, Saguaro. The names alone make me shiver.

I thought a nice deep blue, picking up on some colors on a much-loved litho - but after I brought the chips home, that idea was deemed horrible (livin' in a blue bubble, ladies and gentlemen!) and so I turned to (where else?) the internet.

And now thanks to a few different sites that let you dummy up a practice room and fill in with the color you want, I'm finally decided.

It's DEFINITELY either going to be a lovely deep olive green. Or something cinnamon-y.

Or? Or. Damn.

Maybe I should wait to see how the winter light falls.....

the aliens in my midst

Last night, all of Bear's family went out to celebrate his father's birthday and Canadian Thanksgiving (we went modern this year and had Chinese.)at a local restaurant. Cass sat at the end of the table with his aunts and uncle, and B and I sat near the middle, with Rosey attached to B like a little limpet.

Yes, you read that right. R had an attack of the shys.

This was new. And strange.

But stranger yet...was that both kids had impeccable manners. Im-pecc-able.

Now I'd done the usual warm-up in the car, reminding them that they needed to sit still, not shout or run around, and say thank you...but this was uncanny.

Cass wiped his lips with his napkin, asking "Can I go see Papa?" before walking over. He said please and thank you, didn't use his outside voice once, and remembered to put down his knife when not using it.

R whispered "Daddy, I havta go potty" and ate her supper quietly, playing (in her seat!) with a small stuffed animal and smiling at people.

It was like they were aliens.

Now, I don't want to give the impression that my kids usually slop at the trough like hogs. They don't. But it was very unusual to see all the good manners at once.

Maturity kicking in? The fear of parental displeasure? Who knows?

Whatever it was, I'll take it.


Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, everyone.

love the new signs

october fourth

Today was a BANNER MORNING. Y'see, Cassidy turned SIX.

So! There were pancakes for breakfast and the Opening Of Some Of The Swag and Delighted Dancing when he saw the neat cards his faraway relatives sent.
(One had a fire-truck bell on it that when pressed, went off. And another had a frog whose tongue flipped out at you when you opened it. And the dinosaur cards. Seriously dino cool.)

The best part, though, was him sliding into bed this morning and asking me about the day he was born. My God, he's SIX. How can he be that old when I still remember every minute of the day before he was born?

(Okay, the actual day? Really good drugs. I'ma leetle fuzzy in places.)

I blearily remember staring at the light in the operating room and catching glimpses off the reflective surfaces of something red and shiny (Hello, insides! So this is what you look like!) and the minute he was grappled out, all purple and red and outraged and so long (was that in me? Really? Wow, it's loud.) and my husband carrying something wrapped in his arms so carefully, so gingerly with a look of utter, shocked bliss.

'It's a boy' Bear said, his voice breaking. 'He's beautiful.'

Happy, Happy Birthday, sweet boy.

hi there!

Show your face! De-lurk! Or at least say hi!

suddenly, someone laughed

Last weekend B finished a project I've been hounding asking nicely for him to finish for some time now. Then we called the cable company and had them move our cable hook-up to downstairs, moved some things out and some things (furniture) in, and set up our computer in the livingroom.

As opposed to the hallway or (ahem!) bathroom, where it's resided for nearly three years (since Pinky came to be, natch.)

I was pretty sure the computer would be next to the bathtub until the kids were old enough to use it, so this has (thrilled) surprised and delighted me.

Except I keep forgetting B's there, and then nearly shooting out of my chair when he comments on the television. For years now, once the kids go to bed, he's upstairs, I'm downstairs.
Or vice-versa.

But now, I have company. And it's nice. We're talking about the news, our days - even our terrible taste in tv... things we did before, but much more comfortably and with much less speaking over the kids that happens at the dinner table.

And to think I hated the idea of having the computer downstairs. In the way.
Actually, it's kind of fun. Now that someone's laughing.