the other day, they ate salad

Cass is 'lergic to most vegetables. Or so he would have us think. Even baby carrots, oven roasted and glazed with brown sugar and butter rate an 'I ate some...but I didn't like them....'

while I gape at him, thinking sugar? brown sugar? and butter? Whose kid are you?

If it's not potatoes, C has his nose up faster than I can say 'Just try it!' Tomatoes, mushrooms, green beans, even corn....all on the no thanks, Mom list.

So salad seemed all kinds of wrong and I hesitated to even push it....but I love salad.

It's easy, and tasty, and you can put anything in there....

So we went to the grocery. Cass picked out the salad leaves (bag salad) and he chose romaine leaves, with slivers of carrot and purple cabbage. Rosey chose huge croûtons (sea salt and black pepper - hurrah for my spicy girl) and then helped me mix the salad once we got home, tossing in grape tomatoes and baby carrots, adding a quick dash of orange sesame dressing, fluffing it up with the big salad forks. I put a small amount on their plates (we were having pizza) and really didn't expect much.

Cass poked at it. 'Can I use the white dressing?'

Okay, but it already has an orange dressing on it, so go easy.

And he did, amazingly enough. He also ate the carrot and tomato I had sneakily put on his plate, without complaint. He actually ate all but a few naked leaves. R happily ate all on her plate and asked for more.

I checked. They weren't running fevers. Best not to make too much of this, I thought, so I just smiled and nodded and talked about my day, trying not to jump up and clap my hands with glee.

I haven't tried salad again, and I know there are no guarantees, but still - the other day?

The other day, they both ate salad.

hopped up

Today was a glorious sunshine-y day, full of blue skies and a nice breeze and cicadas droning out their message of hot. It's hot. Hot today.

So today the kids ran through the sprinkler,
slid on the slip and slide,
kicked the other sprinkler (It's a big inflatable ball that shoots water in spouts)
watered the garden,
ate popsicles with abandon,
helped me make meatballs,
ate a metric ton of raw carrots (gerrout of that! I'm cooking those!)
chased each other through the field on their bikes in giant swooping loops
made a small city of roadways and parking garages in the dirt of the driveway,
thundered up and down the stairs in search of things to take outside,
threw a frisbee around,
poked each other with dried fettuccine swords,
helped their dad pile wood,

and *still*

*still*

had enough energy to ask if we could practice hitting the tball before showers.


I live with two energized bunnies.





And I just want to know....where can I get me some of that go juice?

francophiles, turn away

'Wunging conteen doephleng-ay!'The Boy shouted after Rosey's fleeing back, clutching his dinky cars to his chest. R burst into tears and ran past me. I could hear him muttering to himself. 'Cawliflingkafllaaa medoesy lebluebing.'

I marched out into the livingroom. The jig was up.

'Cass, QUIT PICKING ON YOUR SISTER!

And for the LAST time,


YOU DON'T SPEAK FRENCH!'

I'm not sure if it's the French-cartoon channel I sometimes see him squinting at or what, but C has decided he speaks French. Fluent French.

This would be great...except his mother only speaks English.
(And knows enough French to know making swirly faces with your lips does NOT equal the French language.)

poorly phrased

I'm sure there's some way I could make this funnier:

Today was trash day. As I drove through town, I realized: every trash day, the cemetery's green compost bin gets pushed out to the curb, emptied, and replaced.



Which begs the question: What, exactly, are they composting??

christian

Oh my.....has everyone seen this??



*must go hunt down kleenexes*

deedle dee dee

There are so many posts, so many stories to tell and situations I want to talk about....
but I can't get this damned SONG out of my head, and everytime I think, it goes something like this:



My parent's house is full of grace. Sunshine falls in streams through the high, narrow windows, touching all the treasures they've found through their lives, all the bits of history they've gathered in estate sales and out-of-the-way antique shops.....Little ditty, 'bout Jack and Diaaaane...

*sigh* Okay, let's start over.


Going through customs got tiring. I went through (combined Canadian and American) a total of five times, each time a bit more spookier than the last. The coup de grace was at JFK airport, when I was suddenly denied entrance to my flight because my passport picture is eight years old and the document only has my maiden name on it. (Unlike everything else in the world, which has been changed to maiden-married.) I suppose I should have thought that New York's security would be the touchiest. Anyway, I......two Amuurican kids growin' up, (unh!) in da heart LAHND. Jackie gonna be A foot-bahll STAHR, Diane sittin' on the backseat, of Jackie's cahr.

*deep breath*

Damn, hell, and blast. I never liked that song to begin with. Why, oh why, is it haunting me now?? Okay, and I'm at work. So that does tend to slow down the posting. But tonight is sloooow.

I said OH YEAH, life gooooes onnnnn....


Ahem. And I'm watching the purple fingers of late sunset deepen and turn into navies and blues and sift down into velvet blacks, throwing the little garden into night....

It's pretty. But hard to get all zen-like with John Cougar continuously belting out something about Diane's baby in the back of my head.

Really hard.

i stayed at the niagara falls hilton and all I got was this lousy pen

The Hilton in Niagara Falls isn't as great as you'd think it would be. Impressive, yes, with it's fluffy beds and glass-enclosed pool (with a twisty slide!) but the housekeeping was (searching for a nice way to put this) dreadful, and the service severely stunted.

The company I was keeping, though, made up for the broken pen left in the tub* and wine-soaked sheets left on the bed for a second day and no washcloths in the room.** With a vengeance.

I've never laughed so hard for so long. Or met such a bunch of sparkly people.

Random House (woot!) sponsored a cocktail party to kick things off, and we all received copies of the new book The Gargoyle - I'm hoarding mine for the weekend, when I can disappear for a few hours with this very cool and pretty freaky book. (Yes, of course I'll tell you if it's wonderful.)

There was much carousing and giggling and getting to know one another, late into the night.

The next morning, we had a round-table discussion of what blogging meant to us, the hows and whys of we began to blog, the bloggers that weren't there that we considered close to our hearts. The Hilton's internet service faded in and out (not so impressive, since they'd known we'd be coming for months and the wi-fi for the conference room had been specifically ordered) but the mood was upbeat and fun.

Later we toured a winery with an excellent guide and ate many cheeses and drank much wine, then went off to the Hard Rock Cafe for supper. I managed to have a serious political discussion and not alienate anyone (altho' I think I blurted out a bit too much) amidst the babble of the crowd - then it was back for more craziness (now with extra wine!) and some side-splitting laughter.

Then the weekend was over, and it was time for BFF....to be over.

I'm so glad I went. Even if the pen I swiped from the conference room did break and run all over my purse. Small price to pay, to spend time with so many neat people.


*We don't know either. But it was there when we checked in.
**Lovely new towels. Just no washcloths.

holy mother of god, it's teh internets

I'll write about BFF soon, but this seems more important right now:

sweetsalty kate

Christ on a cracker, I'd be unimaginably pissed. I think of daysgoby as my place to talk about my life, my stories, my world. This is not a book of tales to be re-told in your own words, with your own characters.

This is sick and wrong and terrible.

gratuitous beach pictures

Okay, okay, I'm gone on vacation. But I can still show you pictures of the beach from a few nights before I left.

(Reminder: The reason it looks cold? I live on the Atlantic Ocean. That water IS cold.)

it's not you, it's me

I'm leaving tomorrow morning, and won't be back until Monday night.

Possibly spotty posting and probably no post reading until I gt back.

So do me a favour? If you write something that's BRILLIANT and want me to read it, (or just don't think I should miss something) leave me a comment and guide me. I'm going off into the wilds of upstate New York where the natives are friendly and.....and......(weeping) I will only have dial-up.

Then off to the big city, where I'm almost certain I can get wireless access but am not going to go hunting for it. Plus I'll have B's laptop, which doesn't work as well for me as something with a full-sized keyboard....

blah blah blah. Anyway, think of me off sipping a glass of wine and laughing with strangers.

I'll be home soon.

mah holy one-holer

I think we could say my religious up-bringing of the children has been...spotty, at best.
While I believe I believe, I'm very literal-minded - and resist. There's also the way there is no Sunday school for little 'uns in our church, and there you have it - kids with a half-assed God philosophy. (love, Mom)
So tonight I was really thrilled to hear Rosey trilling along with me as I warbled 'The Lord Is My Shepherd' *(a la 'The Vicar Of Dibley')...until I shut off the shower and discovered she was singing about poop.

I goggled at her. You know those aren't the words, right?

She giggled. 'Mama, sing it with me!'

At least she got the tune right.



*I do, however, have a HUGE fondness for the old hymns.

culinary disaster

To quote Ree,
(and really, because what else could I say that sums this up so well??)
Oh Mah Holy Hell, Y'all.

They're not all pumpkins.

Some of them are......are.......

ZUCCHINI.

(cue gnashing of teeth,some screaming and rumpling of hair)

(And yes, lovely in bread or muffins, enjoyable on the grill or baked...DOWN, Zucchini Lovers of the World, I didn't mean to insult YOU. You're lovely. I'm sure.)

but I remember.

When I was ten or so my parents had a big garden at a friends' house - loads of lovely vegetables - carrots, beans, peppers, Brussels sprouts, a bit of corn, some lovely little round watermelons.

But the one thing I will always remember about that garden was the zucchini.

It took over everything. It grew so fast you could hear it. We ran out of people to freely give it to and neighbors' porches that we could sneak a bushel onto.

That year I ate a LOT of zucchini. And by the end, I didn't enjoy any of it.




Well, you know how they say that part of parenting is passing on the lessons that your parents taught you?

This could be an object lesson. ALWAYS CONFIRM THE SPECIES OF YOUR PLANTS.


damnit.

'cause I'm a-leavin', on a jet plane...

I'm starting to pack, and getting so excited...

Not having the funds nor the inclination to go to the Mother Of All Conferernces, (BlogHer) I'm instead going to BFF.

Watch this! I'm going to BFF - I leave from YHZ, fly to ROC (with a stop in YYZ), spend the night in NY, meet up with MB and OLFB in NF, spend two days smiling and talking (aka R&R), drive back to NY, spend some time with the DAD, then fly back to YHZ (via JFK) and see my FAMILY. It's a week of acronyms!

I'm also starting to freak out about how much stuff I do automatically for the kids that B doesn't know about. So (lucky man!)I'm making B a schedule, and writing down things.

(This isn't a minute-by-minute reckoning - I really want them to feel like they're on vacation and having fun with Daddy - more of a 'tball starts at six, and C has a library thing on Mondays, and there's a party that both kids are invited to on Sunday sort of thing.)

And wondering way back in my head if I can go without goodnight kisses from my bebes for six whole days.

But the company of interesting, vibrant people will go to dull that ache pretty well. Oh, and wine.

'zackly how bad do I have to go?

true thursday: and the saga continues....

First there was this

then there was (ewww) this

and now....it appears some of those feet? Were related..

pretty bird

I bought R some gorgeous dresses this spring.

Girls are so much more fun than boys to dress, and these dresses were sweet and colorful and floaty and just...nice.

So of course she wanted nothing to do with them. I had almost resigned myself to a summer of my daughter wearing shorts and pink tshirts when suddenly the other night Rosey....changed her mind.

'I want a pretty day.' she said. 'The red and white dress?'
The next day: 'Oooh! The flowered one!'
Today she looked cool and grown-up in a seersucker sundress, sweet and crisp.

And now we're fighting to get her out of the dresses and into shorts for tonight.

T-ball and floaty pretty things don't much mix.

Crafty Tuesday

follow me over to Playdate...I'll tell you about a few disasters, and one I got right.

Oh, and I'll share two recipes that we're eating a lot of 'round here...

i has the dumb

and the tired. Back tomorrow.

yaaaawwwwnnnnnn.

festivaling

First, there was this:
(Rosey's first all-by-herself carnival ride!)

And some of this:
(Cass's favorite, the alligator roller coaster - huge quivering lip on the girl when she wasn't tall enough to go on)

And many other things. Including the Tilt-A-Whirl, which I was foolish enough to take them both on. No, actually, they both looooved it - I was the one whining and drunkenly listing to the side when we got off. Can we go again Mama? Can we? Through white lips: Ask your father.*

Then we came back to town at dusk and watched the world dim.

Cass is fascinated with the way the sky goes blue before night falls.
Why does it do that, Mom? Look, I see the moon! (And the moon sees me!)

Then, suddenly, there was this:

And this:

And many ooohs and aaahs later, this:

And we bundled them both in the car and drove home and the questions got slower and slower and then....and then they were asleep. Dreaming of rides that never end and fantastic lights in the sky, I'm sure.

It had been a big day.


*How the mighty have fallen. I used to love the Scrambler. Now one little ride on the tilt-a-whirl and I had to go home, take two gravol (anti-nausea stuff) and moan on the bed awhile. I missed fair food. Getting older sucks.

lelephant mine

It was a purchase I couldn't resist in a gymnasium filled with booths - old coins, pull-along toys, boxed Barbies galore, all sorts of odds and ends. I strolled through the indoor antique fair and was finally pulled to a corner, where a man turned it over in his hands and gave me a history. He'd found it in India, he said, and brought it back.

It's been a bookend, a place to hide rent money, a ring-holder, a cherished conversation-piece and the place to find stamps and paper clips.



It is a very old wooden elephant, hinged and on wheels. I have been told it was made as a cosmetic pot, but it seems more likely to me to be a toy or a sweet hidey-hole.

Whatever it is, I love it. It makes me smile, and I stroke it with a finger whenever I go by.

And I can't wait for my kids to be just a little older so it can come down off the high shelf it lives on.

I want to show them the small compartment in its' belly and the cunning wheels and talk about the uplifted lucky trunk and let them choose what Mama's lelephant should harbour next.

And I can't wait to find out.

punkins

These were gorgeous this morning before I left for work - unfortunately by the time I got home they'd all closed up shop for the night.

Pretty, just the same.



And this is just one plant. How many pumpkins are we going to have, a quadrillion??

And hurrah! It's the weekend. The local festival runs over the weekend - if we have decent weather we'll be taking the kids in to the little carnival, finding a parade or two and eating some hotdogs.

Really, isn't that what the essence of summer is?

pennies from heaven

The town I work in has a pulp mill.

I hesitated before writing that, because the pictures people invariably get in their heads once you say those words is more Allentown - gloomy, forbidding, a smudge in the sky casting a pall over everything and less like the town actually is. Really, it's just an industry in one area of town,* not a giant building looming over the landscape.

To make the pulp they use wood chips. Trucks full of wood chips trundle up and down the hilly streets, blasting your nose with the quick-dissipating scent of fresh-cut wood.

The backs of the trucks, you see, are made almost like a big wire cage. To get the chips out, the mill has a giant slide that hoists the trucks up in that air until gravity prevails and all the wood falls out. (here.)

Tonight I was toodling home behind an empty truck after a long day's work, idly watching the wind catch some chip bits - and then the sun gleamed just so, making it look like bright coins were skittering ahead of me on the highway.


A nice drive home.


*And it used to support a lot more workers than now, too. A pity, that.

the date, the garden, the cat

A quiet Canada Day here.

No parades, no face-painting, no ring toss or bouncy castles, just parents still waiting for all the allergy meds to kick in.

Two kids gleefully running through the sprinkler and then collapsing to look at the sky and kick their feet and discover the pictures the clouds made.




The pumpkin plants have lots of tight-budded flowers and three even unfurled to give us tiny waves today. If you're very still when you water them you can hear the vines stretch and begin looking for new ground to cover.
(They're so much prettier than all the flowers I planted around there - the ones that haven't bloomed yet, argh - next year I may just plant squash and pumpkins and sunflowers, easy crops that pretty much just soak up the sun and do their own thing)

Lucy (the new cat) is gaining a bit of weight. She was skinny as a rail when she got here, and has been making up for lost time and eating her fool head off since. Given her history*, we weren't going to stop her, just assumed she needed a bit of courage and then once she'd settled in, she'd settle down.
We work on a free feed system here for the cats - the bowls are always full. You see, I already have two cats. Chumba, who is so big that he outweighed Rosey until just before her third birthday, and Kate, who is teeny enough that if she loses more than a few ounces the vet gets worried. (Size difference probably most apparent here, although I swear he's bigger now.) We hesitate to go to timed feedings, for the few times we've tried, Chumba tucks in...while Kate (who apparently likes to purge in private?) puts her nose up and saunters off. It appears we will soon have two fat and one lean cat.

(How do we know it's Lucy doing most of the scoffing? Well, we see her there, and she likes to come in and lick Bear's nose at night and give him kisses with her hot little Iams-scented breath.)



Happy Canada Day! May you all have pretty things to look at, fun in the sun, and good things to eat today!


*We know she was found in a locked garage two weeks after the owners had moved out. Horrible, sick, twisted bastards.