I should take my own parenting advice

 Anyone ever get a weird vibe about what might have been?  I was browsing through some of my Facebook feed and  spotted some (not mine) reunion pictures - and I went to bed thinking "what if..."

What if I'd married the serious boyfriend?

What if I'd married the boy next door?

What if I'd married the boy who was in love with me?

What if I still lived where I grew up?

Who would I be?

Welllll, the serious boyfriend is still a friend on Facebook, but we kinda don't share the same core political values and we're both quite outspoken. (AKA: there would be noisy fights at the Thanksgiving table) He's chosen a life I can't see myself living, although I think he has peace with it. 

 The boy next door - le sigh. I still sneak peeks at his profile every once in awhile just to see how he's doing. And I miss who he was, although I'm not sure we'd like each other if we just met now.

The boy who was in love with me - ahhh. He was (and still is!) a sweetie. His lovely wife and brilliant children do him credit. He is, of them all, the one who turned out the most like I thought he would - a creative, science-y career, a lovely life.

I'm really, truly afraid that if I hadn't uprooted everything and moved here I'd still be moribund, still stuck doing all the same old things - and never feeling the need to change.

I guess I gave myself roots and wings, and I soared.

They grow up too fast

 This morning during the whole 'Ahh! Must leave for work NOW!' madness, Bear was hollering for his shoes and I, half-paying-attention and on my way to the bedroom from a swooping run for the dryer and the sock bucket, was pointing out 'There, there, do you see them THERE' and was stopped by B's puzzled "Those aren't mine."

 

"What? Of course they're yours. I wore them yesterday when I was tromping around."

 

(I have big feet.)

Bear grabbed out another pair. "No, mine are here. See? Different colour."

 

"Well then whose are....." there was a pause before our eyes met in horrified realization.

 

Yesterday, I wore my son's shoes. All day. Comfortably.

 

Cass is TEN, and apparently going to be tall like his grandfather.

 

I am in so much trouble. I also need bigger bricks.

 

walls of stink

I realized tonight my house is full of scent. Not the usual 'mmm what's for supper' stuff, but scent.

My dishwasher - and hence, the dishes -  smell like lavender.
B bought new laundry detergent, Apple Mango (Madness?) Something, and it makes our clothes smell like bubble gum.

The kids' shampoo smells like peonies, while mine is a blend of erm... musk and chrysanthemum green, and B's is minty and cool.

The dog smells like dog, at least, although his ear meds make him smell a little fruity. And we'll be polite and not talk about his back end. It too smells like....dog.

The cats litter is almost too scented (mm! Overly-perfumed clay!), but since I have three cats, frankly the stuff could be asbestos and rhino toe-clippings, and I wouldn't care.

The downstairs reeks of Swiffer fluid and Pine Sol and oil soap and Fantastik and oven cleaner (okay, for tonight, anyway) and the bathroom smells like scrubbing bubbles and soapy steam.

Tonight, I'll go to bed on my Apple Mango Bubblegum  sheets and wish it was warm enough to sleep with a window open, and wonder....just why is it that we're all so afraid of just smelling like....ourselves?

traffic stop

I took the curve in front of the grocery too fast.

My mind was elsewhere, full of the daily hubbub, the usual go-here-go-there-are-we-getting-low-on-that that runs as background most busy days.

So I pulled out too fast. And stared, incredulously, as a telephone pole (was that there before?) was suddenly in my way, filling my vision.

I swallowed hard, feeling the echo of what-could-have-been deep in my chest, the THUD, the disjointedness of the moment, the sudden silence. Air bags? A screech of brakes? WHUMP and a disjointed did-I-do-that?-shit-I-did-that and an overwhelming desire to turn the clock back just a few minutes. The sheepishness of the crumpled car.

It seems the body does remember  - I've been in one car crash, and it was 24 (twenty-four???) years ago. This was visceral, deep and automatic.

Swallowing hard, I took my foot off the gas, and turned neatly past the pole.


I will never pull out of the grocery parking lot so quickly again.

the silver bells of whye*

I'm taking a quick break from putting the bulletin together on this blustery, wow-winter-really-is-here day. (it's cold and bitter and not at all what we've become accustomed to)

I'm not used to being here in the manse at this time of day anymore - it's light and bright and the school bus drops off kids right off on the corner.  There's a lot going on!

(The parents have decided to take their munchkins in warm cars - no homeward strolling  in this wind today.)

But yes, I haven't been here in the middle of the day in awhile and I can hear the church bells and they're lovely and pealing out over the wind and still joyfully ringing out

and still
and still??

It must be a wedding. Except who gets married on a Thursday at three pm? That must be a coooold wedding party. I started to feel sorry for the bride in her white dress, resolutely setting her teeth against the shivers that wanted to crawl up her spine and worry her knees, the groom, wishing he had a wool waistcoat instead of just a cummerbund, the flowergirl pulling at her skirts and sitting down to protect her ankles.

And then I remembered that the minister here is an avid gardener who loves windchimes.




*Why so worried, sisters why?  (Look it up, it's pretty. And kind of grim.But pretty, like the windchimes here)

things that go scritch in the night, or I get itchy just thinking about it

I didn't get a lot of co-operation when I suggested ripping the bedclothes off and letting the beds air a bit today, (actually, I got the rudimentary beginning snortings of a snit from one and the total involvement in a video game from the other) so....

so I pulled out the big guns and gave them a science lesson about dust mites. How they live on dead skin. How a protein in their feces (we covered what feces were, too) causes wheezing and runny noses. How about 80% of the dust floating in a sunbeam is bits of dead hair and skin.

And when that wasn't enough, I showed them the weird, headless elephant pictures of microscopic dust mites.
 Viewing those was a fine line between health hazard that you should watch out for and nightmare material that will wake you up screaming in the middle of the night, but I think they're both okay.


The beds were stripped. Windows were opened (briefly, my gosh it was -12C out there!) and dust wiped out of corners. Fresh linens on, we all checked our pillows (I sharpie-marker the date we started using them on the tags) for their sell-by date (2 years) and talked about how fresh air and sunshine was important for everybody, not just growing boys and girls.

It was a nice night.

Now up to a verah long shower and pj's fresh out of the dryer.

Goodnight, all.

and then we'll find shelving for the garage

Or something.


The list for next spring is growing. Ominously. 

Paint the house, including the trim around the windows.
Finish the ceiling in the livingroom
Choose a colour for the livingroom and paint it.
Repaint the bathrooms, the kitchen, the kids' bedrooms and the upstairs hall
Put MAJOR MONDO shelving into Cass's room
Put some bookshelves up in R's room
Hang R's chandelier
Bathroom floor.
Re-do front steps.

BUILD raised-beds for garden.
Figure out how to raised-bed garden, and DO IT.
Cass's bed.
Furniture-polish (anyone remember Mrs. Murphy's Oil Soap??) everything
Find and buy pot rack
New desk lamp
Build and populate chicken coop. (What?)
Graft and/or replace aging apple trees

Yes, there's a reason Bear goes pale whenever he sees me with my big pad o' things to do...

I mean, we'll get it done. We will. But right now looking at all of it, here in mid January, it's a whole pile of stuff looming into my sunny spring days.

no chlorine

Rosey and I were floating in the pool night before last (before all the chlorine tabs and pool-shock and whatever else that goes in there went in there) and I was trying to explain to her how if she dipped her head back and closed her eyes and just floated, how that was like my summers were like growing up, because I grew up near a lake.  And she looked right at me and said 'Awww, Mama. You never got to go to the beach?'

(Because 'beach' to her means the Atlantic.)

It's weird how different (in mostly small and indefinable ways) their growing up is than mine. I guess I never thought about how they'd grow up as salt-water kids, thousands of miles away from what I think of as home, and from another country to boot - and how alien that would make me feel. They've dipped their toes in Lake Huron on our last vacation, but have yet to see Lake Michigan - which is strange to me, as the big fierce body of water governed so much of my childhood. I'm sure I'm idolizing the bay, but there's just something about the memory of all that water and constant fresh-water breeze that makes me astonished that they don't have that as a governing thought in their bodies too.

  last August, on the shores of Lake Huron, in one of the tiny towns that populate the lake-side there.

A better example: last night Cass told me to shush because he wanted to hear the Pledge of Allegiance on tv. (Because he's never really heard it.) And I, of course, cannot bleat out O Canada at any time.

I'm not sure them being raised as Americans would make them any better. (I think they're pretty spectacular, after all.) This is all situational stuff.  But it's different than I thought it would be.

I wonder - do you catch yourself sometimes and think about how different than yourself your children are?

Today they're out at 'the beach', frolicking at the ocean with their beloved aunt, having a wonderful time. Soon they'll be home, sandy feet, windburned cheeks, and all, bursting with stories and adventures and pocketsfulls of treasures.

We're alike in that way. I can never leave a beach - freshwater or salt - without stuffing my pockets full of momentos either.

Hm. Maybe we're not so different after all.

just deserts

Scene: I am on the computer. It has been a verah long day. Bear is watching hockey? something? on tv. The children are upstairs, supposedly getting ready for bed. In reality, this means they're irritating the hell out of each other and trying to make each others lives generally miserable.

I tend to ignore it until it reaches shouting level and I have to go do something about it.

Suddenly, into my quiet evening floats the sound of my much-beloved son's voice.
'Piss off, Rosey. Out of my room!'

My eyebrows climb into my hair. My jaw drops. I wheel around and stare incredulously at B, who is staring right back at me.

There's a small pause. Then Bear shrugs. "Why are you looking at me like that? I don't say that."

Yep. He learned that......
from his mother.

(Bonus points for using it correctly, but still.....)

I should probably go wash my own mouth out with soap. Time to have the 'grown-up words' talk again!

saturday

This has been both a cheese-grinder and a low, slow easy morning.

Lovely because there was sleeping in and johnny-cakes and fresh coffee sweetened with maple syrup and hard, fingernails on the edge hard because of a homework packet that Rosey tra-la-la'd her way into my bed with.

Math and trying to teach checking your work to someone who would (to be fair) reeeeally rather be hugging the cat too hard is sorta......difficult.

Especially for the cat. Lucy looked pained.

I'm beginning to see why so many of the kitchen table sessions I remember with my parents were excruciating.  (That said, I STILL remember most of the sneaky number tricks that you taught me, Dad. Even thought I bitched A LOT while you were going over [and over, and over] them with me.)

But now even the horror of realizing Rosey learns just like me (oh, I weep, I wail)  is fading when faced with a new book and a weekend of doing nothing but what I want to do.

playing catch-up

Last Friday, I was laid off from my job.

This was not the best time to have this happen - it never is, is it? - but it wasn't the absolute worst, either.  I'm counting my chickens before they're hatched, but I've had some (preliminary) good news on that front already, and I think bigger and better things are soon on their way.

My ticket's bought, my itinerary set - I'll be going to the States next month. A flying visit (no pun intended!) for my step-mother's memorial service. I can't wait to hang out with my Dad, and am going to see Erin too!  (Am trying to set up some other blog-friend meet-ups too, but everything's still up in the air. No worries - it's early days yet.)

I've been busy - Rosey's getting baptized on Sunday (it, uh, slipped my mind and we never had it done) and the preparations for that (The whys! The hows! The yes, the minister is going to get you wet(s)! The fancy dress! The anticipation!) are extensive. It should be a pretty service, full of pomp and circumstance and Cass reading a verse and her relatives grinning. I'm really happy that R is being baptized in the same church her brother was (although he was much, much smaller - darned second-child syndrome and lousy maternal memory) and that B and I were married in, and I'm happy that the minister that R and C happily chat with and are learning from gets to assist in the process of welcoming  Miss Rosey into the church.

Beyond that, we're having a lazy Saturday, planning to have a walk later - maybe some running through fields and kicking of rocks, maybe some exploring. 

After all, it's a beautiful day.

the wild, wild woods

It's pretty easy to get my kids to behave. All I have to do is take them out on their bikes and show them the dangers of living where we do.

Things like:
showing them the GIANT BEAVER teethmarks on the freshly fallen trees by the river..... (hungry beavers)

and how the ice on the river looks like sharp monster teeth, all jagged and cross....

and the MUTANT FISH ALERT signs that are everywhere.

Actually, it's kind of a wonder they go outside at all. Huh. Must be the spring air and the sunshine.

 Beware, children! Evil things lurk in that there underbrush!

It's been lovely the last few days, and there's been lots of bike-riding and running outdoors. Hurrah for spring! 

WHERE have you BEEN, lovely????? We've missed you.

sheen is a nutbar

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson




I'm supposed to be putting together quotes (uh, merchandise quotes, not copying the Emerson) and all I REALLY want to do right now is put my head down on my desk for awhile.  Damned cold. And I blame the time change too.

I should have some news on the school possible closing front next week - the big school board meeting is the 23rd. I think we've done about all we can do and now we....wait. (I'm not so good at waiting.)

Happy things! The sun is out, Rosey just went to her best friend's birthday party, and I heard a robin this morning! (Scintillating blogging, I know)

Somewhere deep in the archives of this blog is the account of Rosey's friend P's FOURTH birthday. P just turned SEVEN. I was one of those kids who had long-term friends as well (and while, okay, three years isn't that long in the grand scheme of things) I can see that tendency in R.  It makes me happy.

Now! This week, so I don't implode over the school issue, I intend to make a LOT of cookies and maybe some soup. Feel free to send recipes.


Maybe I'll make some nut bars too.

total recall

This morning at the gas station (yes, the same one) a woman held the door open for me. We locked eyes and she smiled swiftly. 'Well hi Jessica, how've you been?'

I burbled something and nodded and she zoomed off . I went in search of coffee. It wasn't until I was putting the lid on my cup that I realized I had no idea who she was - and I'm not sure the morning huhs? had anything to do with it.

I think my brain might be full.

Well, you can't blame it, for Pete's sakes. It's full of trifles like ancient phone numbers, words to Duran Duran songs, what we ate for dinner last night, multiplication tables and immunization schedules. It remembers things - book titles, household projects, no pink with red, table manners, how to make piecrust, websites. I can recall at a moments notice the smell of fresh-cut grass in the spring, how the sunlight striped the walls and the canopy of my bed when I was seven, my grandmother's fingers touching my arm. The melty goodness of ice cream. It knows the name of every boy and girl in my daughters' Grade One class, and can follow the plotline of (God help me) Star Wars the Clone Wars, with a side of Discovery Science.  Really, my brain should have had a stress leave years ago.

I'm probably not giving it fair odds, either. Wandering around and talking pre-caffeine is never a good idea.

So, friendly lady, I'm sorry I forgot your name. But hey, the next time you want to sing any Eighties pop songs?

I'm your girl.

convenience store

This afternoon at lunch I slipped out and went to go buy a soda at one of the nearby gas stations. I'd won a free bottle of water there a few days ago, so I gathered that up too. Checking out should have been quick and easy...except the winning slip on the water wouldn't go through, and then my debit card wouldn't connect.

We tried three times.  At that point, the woman running the register was about ready to drop-kick the machine and I was casting anxious glances at my watch - I'd only meant to be a moment..

And then we noticed., both of us at the same time....

I was trying to pay for my Pepsi with my library card.

I am obviously not equipped for Monday and need to be more caffeinated than I originally thought.

snowed, and parenting FAIL

Well, it snowed.

You'd think this would be a moot point, up here in the wilds of Eastern Canada. You'd think we'd be inundated with the white stuff - but not this season, not so far. As a matter of fact, the latest storm that blew through last night skipped, hopped and jumped all over the province - the town thirty clicks away got snowed in (and hard) and the town the other way was socked in too - and we had enough to make a portly snowman and to skid down the sledding-hill a bit, and not much more.

But a great day for rosy-cheeks and cocoa, for snuggling on the couch and reading books while the coats and mitts steamed themselves slowly dry.



Cass was nonchalant. "Hey, Mom? What's texting on fire?"  
The punchline to a joke I don't know? Is that a commercial you saw?
(In my head, I was trying to picture the ad campaign. 'Our rates are so fast - it's like you're texting on fire! Poof! [Sirens sound.])
He rolled his eyes. (Hmph. So blase at nine.)
"Nooooo, Mom. It's a song. On my ipod."
Oh! A song! Well, I'm not sure what that could be. Bring it here and I'll tell you.

And, of course, while he was off getting his music player, I realized that I downloaded all the songs onto his ipod and wait....what? That song wasn't supposed to be on there!

It was, of course, King Of Leon's 'Sex On Fire'. Which is now known around these parts as Your Text Is on Fire.

He's pretty impressed that anyone could move their fingers that fast.

Moral of the story: Don't EVER think you can just put all your 'club' (read hoochie-dance mama) songs on a playlist to get them out of the main section. Well, actually, that part works, but when you take the fast route and download your main playlist onto your son's ipod? Download  = every.single.playlist you've ever made, all your audiobooks, your podcasts, everything.


Thank God I don't listen to porn.

dear people, I am insane

Insane? but why? It's almost C*H*R*I*S*T*M*A*S!!!

To which I snort Christ.

I need a year to get ready for Christmas, and I never seem to find one. Oh, I start out the year with plans! Big plans! Plans about how this year I will buy only meaningful things! We will give more, spend less! This year will be the one my children have less under the tree, but more in our hearts!

And while we're doing more as a family and being careful to be more in the moment, do you know what I did? I went on Chapters last night and bought not only a paper electric guitar (I have no idea either) but an accordian. For a child.

Insanity runs rampant around here at Christmas time....

Add to the usual holiday psychological mish-mash the fact that beginning next week, I will be unemployed, and you begin to see why an accordian seemed like such a good idea last night. I'm out of my mind.

(Unemployment short version, minus the wailing and knashing of teeth: Agency re-structuring and not renewing my position. They gave me a month's notice. I bear them no ill will.)

But it doesn't do much to lessen stress levels. Or obviously, my insanity threshold.
Step away from the Chapters website, Jess.....

frustrated foodie

I have a lot of food links. 

I like food, you see, like creating new recipes and old cookbooks and figuring out the kids' latest favourite thing and eating, my god, can't forget eating and planning a grocery list (altho' not so much the actual shopping) and trying to re-create experiments and remembering suppers gone by.

(I mean, holiday suppers. I don't moon around thinking of last Thursday's corn pudding and sighing.)

I am lucky enough to have found some great food bloggers and to have several sites that send me new recipes to try. And I do, really, but there are some things that I just cannot make, no matter how easy they are. Things that would never get eaten.

There should be a sub-set on many recipe sites:
Food that may taste good, but your kids? Are nevah, nevah gonna let any of this pass their lips. Good luck on that one.

Can someone tell me what would possess a person to name a pasta salad "Fruity Pasta Swiss Salad"? Or tout Eggplant Roll-ups as a family favorite? Put zucchinni on a grilled cheese sandwich. Or even use marshmallow in a main dish. Italian Marshmallow Chicken, anyone?

Trying to get my kids to eat that would be an exercise in futility. I can pick my own battles, thank you. And frankly, I'd rather deal with the tried-and-true narrowed-eye suddenly suspicious 'Do I smell onions?' than to break new ground with those horrors.

My kids have had all types of different foods. Some they even liked! And we never stop trying new things. Some recipes, though, are just not worth the trouble.

Although they do love Peanut Butter Pork, so what do I know......

decade

Holy crap. Have we really been married that long?

I knew I should have faked a lobotomy or something. And you should have run.

Wanna go for another round? I mean, since I kinda like you and all.....

things I wonder about

There are things I wonder about, you know.

Small things, inconsequential things meshing in with the big questions, ponderings that strike in the shower and follow me through my day.

What will we do when one of the cats passes away? While Lucy is still technically a kitten (although she's as round as the moon and twice as tricky) Chumba of the Motorboat Purrrr is twelvish and Kate The Venerable seventeen. I like having three cats around - I enjoy their camaraderie and personalities, but really - litterboxing for three? Not fun.

What do people do with the nose pads on their glasses when they get dirty? There's obviously some trick to it - everyone doesn't wait until they get good and filthy and then slink into the optometrists to ask, all red faced, for them to be changed, do they? Judging from the muffled snickers that drift out from the back room where all the twee tools are kept, they don't. So there has to be some rhyme or reason to it, and poking at them with q-tips doesn't seem to be working. (She said, huffing indignantly while picking at bits of fluff caught under the threads of the screws)

I wonder whether this vacation (a trip to see my father and step-mother, then a rocket ride up to U-Haul some of my mother's belongings out of my step-father's garage) is going to be more happy then sad. Gosh, I hope so. It's been ten years since I've been back to where I grew up, and I want to show my kids everything.

Is B's head is going to pop clear off his neck when the kids get their hair highlighted? (It was their choice as a reward for getting awesome grades. B, sweetheart, it's just hair. It grows back. But be warned. I took your preference into mind and scheduled their appointments for after we get back from seeing my family, but September 2nd? 6 pm? It's on.)

Yeah. Those things. So if you're standing behind me in the grocery and I look glazed and troubled in the canned food section? I'm probably not pondering War and Peace. Feel free to interrupt.

Seriously. Anyone know the trick to cleaning the damn nose pads?