It was getting to be a bit much, seeing how long that page of text was. This page will not change, and the links may decay. Here's everything, from 2004 to pre-Dragon Boy days. :-0
Return to the Land of the Blue Sheep
Elf Update, November 20th, 2004: OK, it's not too long since the last update, but I'm in a bit of a rush. I have so many pics to go through it's not funny, and too much Christmas sewing to do! (And whenever I sit down at one machine, I always feel like working on a different machine. I thought "The Artist's Way" was supposed to take care of that. >:( Hmph.) But on November 12, I drove 'way, 'way north (for me) into blackfly country, almost to Ottawa, in fact, to look at a piece of property that was coming up for sale. Elfland is still a dream, for now. But this is exactly what I've been looking for for a very long time. Have a peek. Warning: you will not be impressed if trees are not your thing.
There are also KID PICS on site. I'm getting the hang of resizing the images from the digital camera. One day, I'll take a bunch of CDs to a printing place, and get some hard copies for the albums, for when the power goes out again. Sheesh. It's more trouble now to get pictures than it was before, when I had to take a roll in for development, and I'd find out only after the prints came back just how good the shots were!
Elf Update, Family Update, Whatever Update, November 7th, 2004: Oops. Another too long since the last update. OK, um... we're all fine. The cats are fine. The kids are fine. We're actually living our lives instead of telling you about it. The parenting classes were a huge success. There's lots to tell about that: we invited a worker to come observe our home life, as some of our "issues" with the former Hellion were a little more complex than the group workshop dealt with. Observer couldn't add anything helpful because the kids behaved delightfully every time she came. The one time when it would be helpful for them to claw at each other... Oh well. The funniest thing happened, though, when we were closing up the file, having graduated "parentis cum laude": the kids were running around the house with a blanket over their heads, and Dragon Boy ran full tilt into the corner of the kitchen wall. Fortunately, I was right there up to my elbows in dishwater, and grabbed a tea towel to stanch the gush of blood. Yep, it was hospital time, and he was getting stitches fer sher! I shipped Tiger off to a neighbour's house, got a ride to the ER, and got the same triage nurse as the month before, when Dragon Boy split open some skin right in the corner of his eye the previous month. (No stitches that time.) That was the day of the laceration wound, it seemed. He waited as patiently as a 4-year-old can wait, and eventually fell asleep after the wound was numbed. This did not raise any red flags, for some reason, as a kid with a head injury is supposed to be on concussion watch. He got his head glued together by a very pretty doctor -- too bad he slept through it! We went home, and found a message on my answering service: it was our family observer, she forgot to have me sign a couple of documents to close the file, could she come over the next day? Wasn't that just the icing on the cake? My son has a gash and a bump on his forehead the size of a goose egg, and is on concussion watch. My house is not just a mess, it's a CRIME SCENE with blood everywhere. And I'm chewing on live wires at this point, I'm so frazzled. So I call her back, and say, "Yeah, sure. Come on over."
Dragon Boy's got a scar on his forehead now, bigger than it should be because it should have been stitched, not glued. But hey, anything that reminds him that running around the house with a blanket over his head is NOT a good idea, is a good thing.
Tiger's doing great in 1st grade, and Dragon Boy is really happy in JK, especially with his very pretty new teacher. Mrs. H. got promoted out of the field into a consulting position in the school board, and the new teacher is a MISS K. All of the little boys in her class are in love with her. I have a feeling these boys know instinctively that they never had a chance with a "Mrs."... :-P Dragon Boy also takes piano lessons, right after Tiger's Acro-dance lessons. Yep, she switched from ballet to Acro. It's basically cheer-leading, but without a team. She can already do the headstands with her legs in various positions, and her cartwheels have become genuine cartwheels. It means Thursdays are known as "Crazy Day": school, zoom home, zoom to dance class, feed Dragon Boy, zoom to piano class, feed Tiger, and zoom home to put everyone to bed.
Myself, I keep busy with gardening, sewing, and writing. Ho-hum, and blah to most people... except for Tiger's massively GORGEOUS Hallowe'en princess dress (pictures may be forthcoming... ha! promises!), and Dragon Boy's Spiderman costume was a major pain in the coccyx. (Easy to do, but I didn't have stretchy fabric in the right colours, just broadcloth and microtex fleece, and shiny blue stretch velour... He looked great!) The Apothecary&Grossery was better than ever, in my opinion, with the addition of slimy fungi and things to sniff, but we're considered out-of-the-way, now that the other neighbourhoods closer to the school are all built up. We had too much candy left over, and we didn't even have to open up the box of chips. Tsk.
In a more personal vein, I have achieved a size 10 jeans again. The poundage doesn't matter so much, as muscle is denser than fat. *ahem* Two weeks of hauling the kids to day camp and home in July/August behind me in a bike trailer (uphill both ways, I add!) gave me excellent muscle definition, and my cute ass is back! :-D Spock, my DH, is almost officially an Old Man, when he realized that he now fits the smallest waist size of men's trousers offered at Old Navy. Poor fellow. He was so used to having trouble finding something with a small enough waist, but a deep enough crotch... Let's all shed a tear for him and have a moment of silence.
OK, that's enough.
Speaking of OLD MEN, my father is staring down 60 like a deer caught in the headlights. No word yet on whether his pants still fit the same. Oh, and my brother is officially All Grown Up. He's finally marrying his girlfriend of 9 or 10 years. News of that some other time.
And yes, there will one day be new pictures up here. I promise. It's just that most of them are digital, and it's such a pain in the coccyx to crop and resize them, and compress them. WHY WON'T THE FREAKING CAMERA DO IT AUTOMATICALLY??? It was so much easier when I just developed the film, and scanned the images I wanted, and uploaded them here...
Oh, and a NOTE OF CAUTION: please double-check your prescription with the pharmacist when you pay for it. A family on our street suffered a near-tragedy when their infant son, who has already spent more time in a hospital than most people should have to in their whole lives, was mistakenly delivered an overdose of codeine after a routine surgery. The pharmacist made a mistake, even though he was informed that the medicine was for a TWO-MONTH-OLD INFANT. The boy stopped breathing, and fortunately was revived in hospital, and appears to be recovering with no lasting harm done. If his mother hadn't tried to wake him for a feeding when she did... Well, let's just say you'd be hearing about it on the evening news, and reading about it in the newspaper, not here. So always double-check with the pharmacist before you take your medicine home. Say: "THIS IS FOR A CHILD. Are you SURE you got the right dose?"
Family Update, June 6th, 2004: Oops. Too long since the last update. We're all fine. The cats are fine. The kids are fine. We're actually living our lives instead of telling you about it. Tiger's doing great in SK, reading almost fluently, and sounding out words she doesn't yet understand. She's probably at Grade 1 level right now, and I hope to keep her reading through the summer after school's out. We've downgraded Hellion's online name to "Dragon Boy". Yay! We got into a parenting class. Unfortunately, it's on the same night as Tiger's ballet class, but we couldn't put this off until the start of the next course in August. She still gets to go to ballet with her friend in the same class, but I don't get to go with her anymore. I miss that. Still, this is really important, learning how to be a better mommy so Dragon Boy can be a good son. And of course they're not teaching me anything I don't already know -- but I'm getting support, Spock's going to the classes too, and we're both on the same page, now. That's a world of difference! The "Hellion" still rears his ugly head from time to time, but now we can effectively deal with him, and "Dragon Boy" returns shortly after. Now that the good weather is here, we catch frogs together in the pond at the end of the street. He's a good frog-catcher.
I guess these parenting classes mean this page is going to get a lot less funny... Thhhhrrrrrp! Too Freakin' Bad For You! It's so much easier now to love my son, now that I don't have to look at scars on my hands and arms, and explain to people that no, my husband didn't beat me, it was my preschool son who gave me the fat lip!
That doesn't mean Dragon Boy and Tiger don't fight... but when they do, I make them do hard labour in my community garden. It's on a new site; the old garden was on private property, and the owner of the business that let us stay there kicked us out to expand the production plant. Ah, that wonderful soil... The new site is supposed to be permanent. We're there by the grace of the municipal neighbourhood services, which leases the land owned by the Town, and the Town said we could stay there forever. It's never been tilled before, so the soil isn't all that great... but it's never been tilled before, so it's not all that bad, either. But I think someone threw a box of rock seeds on the ground a few decades ago... either that, or someone dug up Newfoundland and deposited it on the community garden. There's so many bloody rocks in the dirt! I get to direct and oversee the no-till zone of the garden. I'm the only no-tiller, though, and there's not enough compost to go around for just my plot, so I have to plant in the rocky ground anyway. My idea was to just build UP, instead of breaking something digging through that clay and ROCK. My tomatoes got the lasagna beds, and we'll see how the potatoes do. I still haven't finished planting it -- it's about a 45 minute walk from the house, so it's a major undertaking to get there and back with the kids, and of course, I can't get much work done if the kids are there. It's just down the street from a McDonald's, and a Fabricland... (Oh no!) We're also putting in a 3-bin composting system, so we can make our own compost for next year's lasagnas! (Guess who opened her big mouth and got volunteered to work on that, too?)
Spock's hooked on a little thing called MontrealBBS, so he spends a lot of his down time online there. In fact, he spent so much time online that I whined about him hogging the phone line (yeah, yeah, we're still on dial-up, we're not downloaders!) so that I couldn't even check my own email -- and he installed an ethernet in the house so we could share the connection! Geek. Still, it's nice to finally have access to the digital pics I never get to see, because they're on his computer, not mine. He's getting old, too, and feeling it: he's signed up for this work sports team, and that work sports team, and is trying to get back into cycling -- but he has to haul the kids around in a trailer behind him, and they're too big for that... I'd let him help me garden, except I don't share my garden very easily. :-)
Family Update, March 5th, 2004: Tiger's two choppers finally fell out, with the new ones already growing in behind. The second one fell out on the ferry back from Vancouver Island, so I had to go through the rest of the vacation with a baby tooth in my change purse. Apparently loyalty to the ONTARIO TOOTH FAIRY MINISTRY appeals to her. Lots of pics, as we brought the digital camera, not the manual. I really wish I could get the printer to print some decent images, just to have something to put in the paper photo album.
Family Update, January 29th, 2004: Tiger still has a loose tooth. She actually tried the "cat thing" to remove it, but chickened out. Maybe, if I can get the digital pics cut down to proper size without sacrificing too much resolution, I'll post that documentation. It's at times like these I wish we had a video camera. That makes, oh... three times since my Tiger was born. :-) Tiger tied one end of a strand of dental floss to her loose tooth, and the other end to Bruce Lee (the cat), and then shot him with a water gun. She wouldn't let go of the floss, however, so the bolting cat didn't take the tooth out. I imagine she'll work it out on her own, especially when the tiny crescent of pearl emerging from her gums becomes visible to her, too. :)
Hellion is getting sneaky with the bathroom taps, too: he's figured out how to open the sink faucet without the water making noise. No, no water damage, but I did have to end my phone call to my parents very abruptly, when he showed up in the kitchen wearing nothing but soapsuds. No pictures of that, but Take a look at ballet and preschool classes. I've also added a picture of another compost snacker on my Garden Page, and a picture of the princess dress for the first birthday party of the year.
Family Update, January 24th, 2004: Happy New Year, western, and Happy New Year, eastern. Some pretty exciting things have happened over the holidays: we got a new pet fish (and let this be a warning to all people who give pets as gifts: CHECK WITH THE PARENTS FIRST!!!), the cats got a new interest, the kids got crafty things, Tiger got a loose tooth, Hellion is a true Potty Man, and I finally slimmed down enough to put my wedding rings back on -- and they're not stuck! Spock still has no grey hairs (damn him), but is beginning to feel his fossilized age. OK, so it's exciting only for those who actually live here. Pictures soon.
Family Update, December 17th, 2003: DH spent about four days out of town. Fortunately, I had the car. We were all dripping from the nose for a while, and I had a screaming ear infection which I managed to chase off without antibiotics, so I couldn't take the kids outside to play, even though the weather was great. Besides, being a single mom was bearable after the second day only because I knew it wasn't going to last for more than four! (How those single moms do it and still blow-dry their hair is a mystery to me, and my hat's off to them.) So, you may have seen the rant below. (Oh, yes. Another entry in the Destructo-Log.) Tuesday night, I took Tiger to her ballet class, and because I had no one to look after her brother, he had to come too. And the routine after ballet is to take the ballerinas to Tim Horton's for a treat (and to give the moms a chance to catch up on their week). You may remember I have removed most refined sugar from Hellion's diet, resulting in vastly improved behaviour. He's a glucose junkie. One of the ballerinas prefers those sugar-coated, strawberry-filled Timbits. I bought Hellion a plain donut and apple juice. (Tiger gets sprinkles because she knows how to handle her sugar.) Hellion snatched one of those sugar-bomb Timbits from the ballerina's plate and ate it in a single bite! I cringed, the other moms laughed, said it was all right, and I explained what sugar did to my son, and they all laughed some more. This week, I reported the result of that 7:30 p.m. sugar rush: in the five minutes it took me to use the toilet, wash my hands, and wipe a few spots from my bathroom mirror, Hellion had brushed his teeth, squished enough soap from the dispenser to kill a tree-ful of leafminers, flooded the counter, flooded the carpet outside the kids' bathroom, and caused the ceiling below to drip, much to the cats' utter fascination. The other moms couldn't believe it. Hellion is not allowed to watch TV until Christmas. And I made sure it really pains him: his sister is allowed to watch TV. It means I can't get any laundry done until the kids are in bed, as I can't leave him unsupervised for a minute, and they've run out of undies twice in one week, but DAMN!
However, not everything is bleak on the Hellion front. I have discovered his ultimate weakness: candy canes! Yes. Despite what I have just said about what sugar does to him, I now hold the key to pooping in the potty! He will do anything for a candy cane, including having his picture taken with Santa (but I have to be between him and the Guy in Red), and giving up the last of his infantile ways. By the end of the week, I hope to throw a Potty Party to celebrate the fact that he is fully toilet-trained! Maybe next term, I won't have to stick around at his preschool for potty insurance! (A whole hour and a half to myself... what'll I do?)
Family Update, December 9th, 2003: It's been mostly good, it really has. Tiger adjusted very well to her new school, and now I get regular emails from her, including pictures she drew on the Kindergarten Smartboard! Way Cool! Hellion's adjusted very well at preschool, and has actually bloomed faster than I could have hoped. His sentences are comprehensible to everyone on the street, not just me, and he's mellowed a lot when playing and sharing. He is positively a lefty -- just like great-grandfather Poppa! It's fun to watch him try to use his sister's right-handed scissors. I debate whether to give him left-handed safety shears for Christmas, or to just postpone that particular form of destruction as long as possible. I get paintings from school now, and a couple of times I stayed to help out in the class, and watched him painstakingly paint his picture, concentrating like a dedicated artist. He enjoys reading books now, too, if they're bright-coloured, and not too involved. He knows the whole alphabet, and has even started writing some letters in his name (well, painting them). It's kind of frustrating, though, giving him tactile things to do, like paint and model dough. He'll play civilly for a while, but after a couple of minutes, he'll start throwing flour around and holler: "It's snowing!" And that's whether I'm there or not. I don't know how to get through to him that havoc is not an acceptable form of play. He doesn't act this way at school. I've tried to get him to clean up his own mess (or scoop out with his own hand the toys he dropped into the toilet), I've tried revoking toy, TV, and story privileges, confining him to his room, I've mostly eliminated refined sugar from his diet (what a difference that made, but now I can't withhold chocolate as punishment!), I've consulted my family doctor about possible behavioural disorders... Looking back at this newsletter page, I feel like my relationship with my son is based entirely on dealing with destruction! I can't even bear to take him grocery shopping, because he runs down the aisles with an arm outstretched, knocking everything off the shelf!
But enough about that.
Tiger has come up with some pretty fun questions about Life, now that she's exposed to more than one version of it at school. She asked the usual "How do the daddies get the babies inside the mommies?" at the dinner table one night, and I briefly explained the mechanics as Dear Husband tried hard not to choke on his food. She frowned at me, and abruptly asked Daddy to pass the salt. Subject closed. Definitely Daddy's girl. However, my absolute favourite question is: "Where does the Tooth Fairy get the money?" She's got a wiggler, and some of the kids in her class already have gaps. I hear the going rate is now a dollar! And Tiger also wants to know what the Tooth Fairy does with the teeth she collects... And we're painstakingly figuring out what is apparently a very complicated and vibrant Fairy economy. She's reading short words by herself now, too, and sounding out the longer ones. She can add and subtract small numbers in her head, too, without resorting to counting on her fingers. She has started to compare her lunch with the other kids' lunches, too, and gets very specific about what I should put in her lunchbox, and how it should be prepared. Hmph. I'd give her gourmet food if I knew it wouldn't just come back home. She also tries to make sure she gets exactly "the same" as her brother. I imagine we'll be counting macaroni noodles to make sure one child doesn't get more than the other. It's not even that she gets less of some food galling her, but that she might get less than her brother!
I'm steering without a compass here. I can handle them up until age 3, and after that, it's all uncharted. :-)
P.S. We parents are doing fine, and so are the cats.
Family Update, September 9th, 2003: Tiger's in school. She's in walking distance now, which makes volunteering for classroom stuff a lot easier. She doesn't come home for lunch, though, as I can't rush out to pick her up, walk her home, shovel food in her mouth, and walk her back in the 45 minute lunch period allotted. It's a brand new school, built from the ground up with internet access, networked classrooms, and other forms of technology-based learning. They haven't finished the landscaping outside yet, so guess what's happened? I'm casting covetous eyes over the school grounds! Argh! This is sickness!
Hellion is entering preschool, two mornings a week on Tiger's school days. The toilet training progresses -- sort of. I broke down and got my Hellion a "gimmick" potty: der blinken lighten. He does his thing, the lights blink, we all cheer, and then we empty the bowl for the next time. He's still not doing it on his own, though. The ladies running his preschool said they'd let him come in a pull-up as long as I stuck around in the building to make myself available to handle poopy pants. This kid doesn't have "accidents" -- we're not even close to getting him to care about what he's sitting in! Argh! I'm hoping that peer pressure will push him into underpants at last. I'm also ready to bribe him with chocolate, candy, ice cream -- whatever! I am so sick of this kid's bum!
The gardens produce. We've been eating fresh-picked corn about two nights a week, and it's delicious! Stowell sweet corn gives at least three ears per stalk. Some of last year's tomatoes sprouted, so I'm eating yellow pear and green zebra 'maters along with Chadwick cherry and Big Rainbows. Those Big Rainbows are funky-looking! And yummy!
Dear Husband sprang a surprise "vacation" on me just before Labour Day: "Let's paint the inside of the house!" Okay! Let's paint the inside of the house in the week leading up to Tiger's first day at school! While I'm trying to get our Hellion toilet-trained in time for preschool! While I make a princess outfit for Birthday Girl #8, instead of buying a gift! (Tiger gets invited to an obscene number of birthday parties every year.) Needless to say, we're still painting, but at least the upstairs hallway is done. We're running out of paint. Thank goodness we've run out of pretty unicorns. Having a unicorn infestation in the house (paint fumes do strange things to me) isn't any fun for a non-virgin. And of course I got stuck with the bulk of the work: the actual painting, while DH thought he'd acquitted himself rather well with just patching and sanding. His idea, my labour. Figures.
As part of the "mini home reno" project, I busted up a broken-down couch in the basement, and tossed everything that wouldn't burn. The wood is piled in the back yard, waiting for the marshmallows. We did some special Mars-watching as we mallow-roasted, too. Special evening times like that make up just a little for all the yelling I had to do to keep the kids out of the wet paint. Now I just have to get some help moving the upstairs couch into the basement, and put a desk in the living room for the kids' computer. I like having their computer in the common area of the house, where I spend most of the day. Hellion's actually learning his ABC's with the ABC Theatre programme! I couldn't get him to sit still long enough to finish Hop on Pop before we got that computer.
Mother-in-law found a place to live -- the right location, the right price, and moved out in early August. Things are slowly returning back to normal around here -- or will, once all the furniture finds itself in permanent placement. I hope we don't run out of paint before we finish. I'd hate to have to redo a whole wall with a new colour!
Elf Update, July 15th, 2003: Okay. Not more gardening. Actually, the hard stuff is done: My personal garden is self-maintaining, and I just had my first real bunch of decent-sized "baby" carrots, after thinning them again. Yum! My community garden plot is, and I say this without modesty, because none is due, the most robust plot in the garden. I can't eat all the lettuce coming out of that thing right now -- off to the women's shelter with some produce this weekend! I've sown a second round of radishes, the end of the dry spell has set the cucumber beetles back, so I think I may actually get one or two white pumpkins off the decimated hill, and my corn is almost chest-high. The other gardeners tell me they just can't get corn to grow very well. Nyah-nyah! :) Coffee grounds do it every time. I wish I liked coffee, so I could put the grounds in my garden at home! I have a THIRD garden going, too. Plot #41 was left unplanted, with the gardener not returning calls, up until July 1st. So the absent gardener was ousted, and the plot was turned over to the garden for food bank growing. Having hauled coffee grounds from Tim Horton's every day for almost 2 weeks, I published a thank-you letter to the staff in a tiny, local newspaper. Someone at Canadian Tire saw it, and offered up free veggie seedlings to the community garden, as they would otherwise just be tossed into the trash. Then I started begging newspapers off the gardeners like some kind of eco-freak, and hauled compost from the enormous, lust-inducing pile I mentioned before, and I "lasagna'ed" that plot, instead of weeding it. Lots of cabbage, lots of radishes, maybe we'll get some tomatoes, possibly some potatoes, and hopefully some peppers, but I only just finished planting the whole thing yesterday, on July 14th. We'll see. Lucky seedlings, they're planted in PURE compost.
Keeping busy in the community garden keeps me from casting covetous eyes on my neighbours' yards.
Mother-in-law has also been staying with us for about a month now. She called the week before her arrival to let us know, and my parents called the night after she called, to let us know they were coming to visit for the last week of June... So the kids had both sets of grandparents visiting at the same time. DH and I camped out in our kids' rooms for that week, giving my parents our bedroom, and his mom the basement couch (her choice). We also exacted a price for this visit: a weekend away, without the kids. We rode every spine-crunching ride at Six Flags Darien Lake. The Ride of Steel really is worth the wait in line! You know how you have just enough time to reconsider your ride as you climb to the top of the first hill on a roller coaster? You get that much time, and more, on the Ride of Steel. There aren't any shoulder-harnesses, either, because the ride doesn't flip you upside-down... quite. :D *sigh* You know you're parents when you get to the hotel for your first night away from your kids since they were born, and the first thing you do in bed is sleep. (After sleeping a week on the floor in my daughter's room, can you blame me?)
We also got the exterior of the house painted, AT LAST! I got the painters to remove that decrepit board from the top of the front, and replace it with a new one I'd just cut. It looks great. Next on my list: the INSIDE! And regrouting the threshold of every exterior door in the house. And redoing the front patio. And then redoing the stairs into the back yard. (I'm thinking a small walk-out deck, big enough to hold the barbecue, instead of those treacherous stone risers...) And next year, moving the garden away from the birch tree, which means moving the compost from the corner on the right to the corner on the left... Ah, it's so much fun! :D
Family Update, June 13th, 2003: Okay. No more snow. The temperature is wonderful. I like it in the low 20s. My personal garden is green and growing, and my community plot is... ravaged by evil ducks. I have to replant a whole bunch of beans because a couple of ducks with a taste for bean seedlings stopped by for supper. But that's gardening, I guess. Hellion has outdone himself, in the tantrum department. There was the time I tried for 45 minutes to get him out of the grocery store, without resorting to physical restraints, and finally hauled him kicking and screaming to the car so I could dash back in and pay for only half the groceries I needed. There was the time last year in Boston when he was completely out of control, and I tried to warn my mother-in-law not to touch him, but she didn't listen and he drew blood on her face with a fingernail. And most recently, there was the time when I had him at the community centre, waiting for his sister's arts and crafts activity to end, and I didn't have enough change to get a drink from the drink machine. It began with: "Oh, I have only 50c, let's go to the front desk and get this $5 bill changed," and ended with: "Fine. Be naked. In public. Screaming at the top of your lungs. There will be no treat after this kind of behaviour." He sustained ear-damaging decibels for 45 minutes, and stopped just in time to greet his sister as her class finished. The Tiger's decided this insolence is a fine thing to cultivate, too. I'm thinking: BOARDING SCHOOL.
But the Sign of the Apocalypse has manifested itself: SPOCK HAS NEW GLASSES! Yes! He actually spent a substantial amount of money on something that isn't electronic, something he actually needs! Let's put this in perspective: when I met him in 1989, his glasses were already 10 years old. In 1990, I made him go get new ones, because he looked like he was driving with his eyes closed. And two days ago, in 2003, his frames SNAPPED in three pieces. At work. He had to forego his after-work ball game. He had to drive home with his nerdy-taped-up glasses, and HE TRIED TO FIX THEM. We're not talking about stripped screws, or pieces that could be glued back on. We're talking about METAL FATIGUE. The arm didn't just come off, it took part of the lens frame with it! It wasn't even like he didn't have his latest prescription, either, as we all got our eyes checked when the Tiger's school screening came back with a "warning flag". (She's fine. Her eyes didn't seem to track in synch because she was fidgeting, and the screeners weren't optometrists, but Lion's Club volunteers.) So I drove us all to Lenscrafters, and a couple of hours later -- he did have to pick out new frames, after all, and have them fitted -- he walked out feeling like he's ten feet tall. Everyone who's put on their new prescription glasses for the first time knows what I'm talking about. :)
Elf Update, March 31, 2003: Now it's personal. It's snowing. I think we're going to get a 15cm accumulation. I know it's going to melt in short order, but ARGH!!!!!! I've got onion sprouts and tomato seedlings and carrot seeds that need to go in the ground!!!! Doesn't Nature understand we are DONE with the snow up here? Can't she just give us some nice, sweet rain? Did I mention ARGH!!!? Let me say it again: ARGH!!! (New kid pics forthcoming. As soon as I get Her Highness' epic birthday party out of the way. It's on Easter Monday. She's been planning it since November. She wants a surprise party, and she's choreographed the moment she will walk up from the basement, to find herself faced with a beaming crowd of friends and family, all shouting: "Surprise!" She rehearses her delighted gasp of surprise on a daily basis.)
Family Update, February 3rd, 2003: It's interesting. The Hellion got up on Sunday morning, and was a perfect little angel. I didn't find anything on the kitchen floor that wasn't supposed to be there, or in the living room, nor did he wake his sister with a dump-truck rally over her blankets, nor did he wander into my bedroom and yank off my covers... and he behaved himself ALL MORNING. He even went down for his nap without a fuss. Just as I started to breathe normally, thinking maybe this wasn't just a "good boy" act, the Tiger tried to put a tape in the VCR. The upshot of it is that there are crackers in the VCR, and the tapes won't play. There weren't crackers in the VCR the night before. The other shoe had dropped, and I just had to find it.
Hellion Update, January 21, 2003: That's what he's called now: Hellion. "Destructo Boy" doesn't seem to really capture the depth of my despair and desperation. I am just ducking my head between my knees and holding my breath until he turns 3. Three. I'm holding out for THREE. It's only a few months away. I desperately want to be rid of my 2-year-old.
Let's recap the past week: poopy diapers strewn about the house, as he no longer allows me to change him, but he refuses to even look at the potty, unless he's got a toy in his hand that needs flushing and fishing out; waking at ungodly hours of the morning (never mind we're atheist, there ARE no atheists at 5am in the fricken morning when cussing is required!) to get the jump on Mommy with the poopy diapers; no longer requiring the afternoon nap that Mommy so desperately needs him to have so she can get ahead of him with the damage control; 2kg of dry cat food strewn through the kitchen; Daddy finally getting sick of the mudpan that is the vestibule floor, and mopping it up in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to help out, but leaving the bucket of water and a mop standing in the corner there overnight, with predictable results the next morning; Mommy scaring the daylights out of little Hellion when she sees the lake at the front door; Mommy cussing to make a sailor blush as she mops up the lake at the front door; Mommy putting the mop away, but attending to the call of nature she had to ignore while there was a lake at the door, and not dumping out the bucket first; Mommy screaming blue bloody murder at the little Hellion two minutes later, the flush still trickling through the pipes, as there is a NEW LAKE at the FRONT DOOR, with Little Hellion's flannel jammies wicking up everything and Little Hellion doing his best imitation of a lawn sprinkler (and yes, he got spanked); next-door-neighbour coming over to see if "everything is all right", and Mommy lying through her teeth as she's standing in her socks in the lake at the front door with an arctic blast of air turning everything into a skating rink; Mommy's mommy calling not two minutes later; Mommy cursing all mops; Little Hellion scared poopless; and the next day, more cat food strewn about the kitchen, with Daddy thinking it's funny to save that particular surprise for Mommy; and this very morning -- MORE CAT FOOD ON THE FRICKEN KITCHEN FLOOR!
That's it. Those cats are going to eat right next to their kitty litter. The Hellion is going to live in his bedroom until his next birthday. Daddy is going to work REALLY hard to appease Mommy. The Hellion's sister can stay just the way she is. And Mommy's going to walk to Cuba for a break. And maybe a few cuba libres.
Don't tell me's bored and just looking for something to do. We do plenty together. But there's only so much Lego you can step on before you have to clean it up. There's only so much Play-doh you can roll on the table before it's time to scrape it off. There's only so much nose-bleed-dry, sub-zero, death-wind-knifing a mother can stand outside in the snow, where at least the town comes by with a plough to clean up the mess for me. The dishes need doing, meals need preparing, the laundry needs washing, the cat litter needs scooping -- and these are the naptime tasks for which he no longer naps. Even his "Monday at the Sitter's So Mommy Can Have a Break" is turning into "Monday at the Sitter's so Mommy Can Patch the Walls and Recaulk the Tiles". Caulking comes out in one long strip, you know. Usually during bathtime. With lots of splashing.
And right now, I can update the page because Hellion is in his room, and every time I hear the door open, I tell him to get back in there.
You see, he upended the compost bucket while I was ducked inside the dishwasher.
Elfie's Holiday Rant, January 1st, 2003: Sorry for not updating here more often, but actually living life tends to get in the way of telling people about it. And it's been mostly good. Except for the past three weeks. And you know that's what I'm going to tell you about. :-) October was great. Hallowe'en was marvellous. I pulled off a family Thanksgiving dinner singlehandedly, and Elfie's Apothecary and Grossery was a huge success on Hallowe'en. I upgraded to fresh vegetables, having found a little Thai grocery in the area. Someone stole my pickled human ear, though. November was okay, but aside from the minute of silence on the 11th, there was nothing noteworthy. December stank. The pits. Bottomed out, and got a shovel. You'd think a month with three major religious festivals coinciding would have a little more cheer... Well, I tried to get the crayon and food colouring and ink on the walls all painted over, but I couldn't get rid of both kids at the same time to really get that done with any satisfaction. The food colouring and ink had to be sanded out of the walls, and in some places patched over, before it would stop bleeding through the primer to the surface. Destructo-Boy was sick on and off, like a strobe light, practically, so my babysitter didn't want to have anything to do with him -- all that news about Norwalk virus knocking out whole cruise ships of people, and closing a Toronto emergency ward. Finally, his nose dried up, his cough disappeared, and I shoved him through the sitter's door, and got the house patched and painted. I got the Christmas tree purchased and set up. I single-handedly pulled off a Christmas dinner get together on the 14th with a long distance friend, literally -- I hurt my left hand cleaning crayon off the wall (before I painted, otherwise we'd be down one or two kids) and lost all strength in it, so even loading the dishwasher was just barely bearable. The kids both got sick AGAIN, and kept yo-yoing in and out of health. I got sick, but you know moms: they're juggernauts, right? We were supposed to have Great-Grandma over for another dinner on the 21st, but having taken Destructo-Boy to the clinic on the 19th, and Tiger to the ER because the clinic was closed before her fever spiked on the 20th, that being my SECOND trip to the hospital that day because I had an appointment to get a fricken SPLINT for my fingers, we cancelled it. Dear Husband ended up going to Chinatown for dim sum without the lot of us, and came home laden with rubber insects and something infectious. We all crashed right before Christmas. We were so miserable, we actually came out the other side and laughed a little -- not too much, as that would set off painful spasms of rack-convulsing coughs. The kids don't seem to notice just how bad the days surrounding the gift-opening really were, and that's the important thing. It took over a week, but three of us managed to stop circling the drain, and start getting some energy back. Dear Husband, however, just kept getting worse, and wouldn't go see a doctor. He thinks there's something noble about suffering, and that pain is the path to pleasure, and without pain, there can be no gain. I don't know what he thought he'd get out of it. I stopped giving him sympathy two days after his symptoms started -- I had my own to worry about. Besides, when your symptoms include SERIOUS halitosis, which can't be brushed away with toothpaste and mouthwash, something is REALLY wrong, and you have to get it checked out. And he wouldn't. New Year's Eve was a waste. We didn't even tell the kids it was December 31st. I just put them to bed, and spent the evening alone in the basement catching up on the laundry I couldn't do before, while Dear Husband watched TV. (He was feeling marginally better: four days ago, he couldn't even bear the glare from the clock radio.) So no Christmas vacation, no New Year's kiss, and finally today he went to the walk-in clinic to get his unshakable flu checked out. It turned out it was TONSILLITIS, not the flu, and had he taken himself to a doctor five days ago, we could have actually had some decent vacation time. Yes, I sound bitter. Because, you see, the antibiotics are making him feel so much better -- just in time for him to disappear back to work tomorrow, after spending the entire Christmas holiday in bed.
So if you ever actually looked forward to a newsletter from this address, and wondered why you just got a card, or wondered why you were supposedly dropped from my Christmas list -- now you know. There was absolutely nothing merry about my Christmas, and all the heartwarming memories of this holiday season actually stoke my temper. I can't even raise my middle finger, because it's bound to a piece of moulded plastic with velcro.
Kid Update, September 28, 2002: Destructo-Boy just took five years off my lifespan. I will die before I'm 40 if he doesn't ease up on doing those kinds of things. What did he do? Well, it has to do with me setting aside a day on the weekend to muck out the garden and composters. This really does take a whole day, as there are two composters, and a zillion tomato vines. I'd already taken care of the potato side. I was in the back yard, just pulling up the last few stakes in the ground when my son banged on the sliding glass door. He was covered head to toe in splatters of ruby-red liquid. IT WAS EVERYWHERE. I thought he'd SEVERED AN ARTERY, but he just seemed delighted to have found a new paint. IT WAS EVERYWHERE. I thought SOMEONE WAS DYING IN A POOL OF BLOOD. I ran to the front door and in, screaming for Dear Husband, who was supposed to be watching them. The red stuff was EVERYWHERE, on the carpet, streaked on the walls, splattered on the tiles... but no one was hurt.
Of course he'd pick up the RED bottle. Green, blue, and yellow just don't have the same impact. He didn't understand why Mummy was white as a sheet, he wanted help washing it off his hands. He didn't care much about his clothes, or his hair, or his feet... But he knew he was in trouble when I started to cry in relief, and yell at him for what he'd done to the house.
It came out of the carpet almost completely. We'll have to repaint the walls. Yes, he hit the part of the house that was painted, not the builder's special. I don't think there's any help for the grouting in the tiles, but that's all right, eventually all the grout will turn black.
And once I knew he was OK, I wanted to kill him. :-)
General Update, September 3rd, 2002: Tiger starts school next week, in Junior Kindergarten. Woo-hoo! The road trip to Boston and Montreal was a great success -- sort of. And avoid driving in New York City. The garden is huge, and we're all sick of tomatoes. The potatoes are crunchy as apples, however. Must be why they're called "earth-apples" in French. I hung myself out of my son's bedroom window to sand the wood in preparation for the painting, and have bruises on the backs of my legs for it. Nice to know I still can fit through a window. :-) Donated a nest of live hornets to my neighbour with the imaginary Great Dane. Bees and wasps can't fly after dark. It wasn't risky at all, as long as no one opened the container. Actually, my life is pretty boring to anyone who doesn't get excited at the prospect of painting the exterior of a house, digging up potatoes, or antagonizing venomous insects.
I'm all steamed up over the prospect of having my neighbourhood fogged for mosquitoes, however, in an attempt to control the spread of the West Nile virus. I garden organically, and I choose not to use sprays or fertilizers that can harm the Earth, and of more immediate importance to me, will not choke the breath out of me! Now I read in the paper that my municipality is signing on to MALATHION FOGGING! Malathion isn't mosquito-specific, meaning it will kill even the beneficial bugs, and it DOES induce an asthma attack! To add insult to injury: this stuff will drift into my ORGANIC GARDEN, rendering it a NON-organic garden. Now, the term "fogging" means blowing a vapour into the air, much like spraying a bathroom with an aerosol air freshener. (Which I also can't tolerate.) According to my parents in Winnipeg, where fogging for mosquitoes is a regular thing, the actual spraying takes place at night, when the fewest people are about, but there is argument about whether it is effective in reducing the mosquito population. Good lord, if you want to reduce the mosquito population in suburbia, STOP PLANTING LAWNS! OR mow them regularly, whether they need it or not! Disturbing grass and clover disturbs mosquito habitat. They don't just lay their eggs in stagnant water. If you fog the air with malathion (and if you read the warning labels on those kinds of insecticides, you will see that precautions include wearing gloves, long sleeves and pants, and not allowing the product to come into contact with skin and mucous membranes. What kid doesn't roll around on a lawn, pull grass and clover, put his fingers in his mouth, and track what's outside indoors?)
So. No more organic garden. No more playing outside. No more opening the windows at night. No more asthma-free summers. I don't think the benefits of preventing West Nile by fogging will EVER outweigh the harm done to asthmatics, children, animals like toads, birds, and the fox in my conservation strip, and the chemically-sensitive. I wonder how commercial organic farmers feel about malathion landing on their money-making crops? "Sorry, your stuff isn't organic, there's pesticide on it! Sell it to Sobey's."
Family Update, July 15th, 2002: Not much time left before my two egg-timers sound off (aka Tiger and Destructo-Boy): The Sheep's Garden has been updated. No new pics yet. Like I have time to scan and post and all! The garden is huge, and we've been mostly sticking close to home. I put up a clothesline, and have put up with my neighbours twitting me about flying my "flag", as well as a rather fun "anonymous" correspondence with a pretend-outraged neighbour with an imaginary Great Dane... I like this street. I'm also planning the street party -- takes place in 12 days! Eep! Also planning a road trip. Eep. Also painting the exterior of the house. Eep! I shouldn't have teased my husband about the insurance money paying off the house if he fell off the ladder... now he won't go back up and get that decrepit board down at the very top of the roof! I was JOKING! The kids are growing like weeds, and my weeds are growing like kids. I have pictures that aren't yet developed, so you'll see what I mean. I stuck a little kiddy chair in a bare patch after pulling out the last radish, and Destructo-Boy likes to sit there under the giant sunflowers. It's his "forest". I just hope he doesn't start pulling down the tomato vines. :-) Tiger's psyched up about starting school in September, and going on the school bus. It's tough for her to understand that September doesn't come for another six weeks. She's also been invited to an obscene number of birthday parties -- a little too popular, methinks! Must be that Tiger personality of hers. Destructo-Boy has perpetually scraped knees from taking chances on the playground, and sometimes I think the only reason he doesn't have a broken neck is that I've always got a hand under him as he climbs something. Every single time he gets to the top of a slide, I have to tell him: "Feet FIRST, on your BUM!" Is this just a "boy" thing, or is it peculiar only to my son?
I've lost about 25 lbs since I got sick -- and most of the reason has been (drumroll) CUTTING OUT COCA-COLA! Yes! I am COKE-FREE! Heresy, I know, but I took a long look at the contents of my blue box, because I was bugging the husband about how it was always overflowing... with Coke cans. The stuff *I* drank. I would just like to apologize to Flying Yank for that stuffy, uppity, and self-righteous argument I had with him ten years ago about quitting smoking. I still want a Coke. I will always want a Coke. I will fall off the wagon from time to time. But I UNDERSTAND now.
Husband is not happy, of course, that his own home stash has been cut off, but at least he has a small fridge at work, and can put whatever the hey he likes in it. What we've saved on Coke, we've spent on orange juice, however. Can't win that battle, but at least my skin's clearing up a bit, too. It helped that I quit cold turkey during the hottest days of summer -- too hot to drink sugar.
And one day, I will get my energy back. Now, to focus on the baby-gut...
Family Update, April 6th, 2002: We're all feeling much better now. Garden production has been ramped up, too. The kitchen is... VERDANT!
Family Update, March 27th, 2002: Agh. I had a round of antibiotics to get rid of the bronchitis, made liberal use of my inhaler, as the doc advised, and judicious use of a marvellous cough syrup with codeine and my name on the label (mmmmm.... codeine...). Tiger also got an inhaler to help her get rid of her pack-a-day smoker's cough. Destructo-Boy had a round of amoxicillin for a double ear infection, and Dear Husband decided he could get better on his own, so he refused to do anything about his cold. Well, I felt better for about a week after I finished taking the drugs, Tiger got better almost the next day, and Destructo-Boy remained at his light-speed energy level. Now I sound just as bad as I did in February, Tiger's coughing again, and Dear Husband never changed status, except a noticeable reduction in gross stuff production. With gardening season just around the corner, I can't STAND IT! Someone get me a sinus vacuum cleaner!
Oh, and Destructo-Boy's started potty training. :-) Seems I'm always wiping one end or the other for my family.
Family Update, February 19th, 2002: Agh. I've been sick since my birthday. Beware harsh household cleaners such as Fantastik and ammonia Windex! Every time I've used these things, and it has been less and less often since I turned 28, I've gotten sick. This time is the last straw. I've given away the last of the Fantastik, much to Dear Husband's chagrin. ("How could you give away TWO LITRES? Why couldn't we just use it up?") I hate it when he buys that stuff in bulk. :-) From now on, the harshest thing we keep in the house is borax. Well, that and Toilet Duck cleaner... I still can't bring myself to pour a good Coke down the toilet just to get rid of the rust stains. Anyway, since I got sick first, I've had no energy to properly look after my healthy family members (God bless granola bars and Jane's chicken nuggets!). As I started to recover, my energy still sapped, everyone else came down with it, pulling me back into the vortex of phlegm. (Hmm. I'll have to use that in a story.) You have no idea how gross it is to be awakened at 2am by your preschool daughter throwing up on your pillow beside you. On the plus side, it's a lot easier to get everyone to bed by 8pm. No one has the strength to argue.
As I write this, we're all clawing our way back to health, and hopefully, Tiger will be well enough for her friend's birthday party on the weekend, Destructo-Boy and I will be able to go to our mom-and-tot swimming lesson on Monday, and Dear Husband will stop hogging the phone and work from the office, darnit!
Family Update, February 2nd, 2002: Life is a yo-yo, especially in the weeks preceding my birthday (this year, I got a date with Dear Husband: Lord of the Rings and sushi). Note to brother and sister: MY BIRTHDAY'S COMING UP! Mostly good, thanks to the copious amounts of caffeine, and the occasional lows have plenty of spin, thanks to the copious amounts of caffeine. :-) Tiger is in preschool, and loves every minute of it now. She has a boyfriend, too. I've met his mom, and I approve, although I don't think we're ready to pick flowers and invitations just yet. They're both very verbal, and usually at the same time. It's like listening to my mother try to have a conversation with my grandfather! Destructo-Boy desperately wants to be in preschool, too -- they have lots of really neat toys and a waterplay station, and a sandbox station, and lots of yummy crayons and glue. His latest thing is to wiggle out of his pants and diaper and run around the house giggling: "Naked baby! Naked baby!" What a little Tarzan. Potty training will happen very soon, methinks. He can reach doorknobs, but hasn't the dexterity to turn them yet. He lets Tiger do that. I sort of became lax about sliding the top bolt the last few weeks because Tiger had stopped wandering about the house at night, but now we have to be extra vigilant: she's started answering the phone and door, sometimes without telling me a neighbour's in the house! So far, it's just been people we know and trust. Safety-awareness training has commenced. "Tarzan" also likes talking on the phone: he will grab my leg and shake it, barking: "Talk! Talk!" When you give him a live person, however, he shuts up. We have had to disconnect the telephone that has the 911 speed dial button after the second time he called 911, got a live person, and hung up. I keep catching myself thinking: "But Tiger NEVER did anything like that!" I'm told it doesn't get any more difficult after the second kid -- but I'm glad we're not going to ever have to worry about finding out! On decluttering: Not going to happen. I cleaned the entire basement (put everything away in its proper place and completed various toy sets scattered through the house), and as soon as Tiger woke up from her nap, everything was right back in sight, where it belonged.
New Year's Update, 2002: We had fun at a friend's house. The kids wouldn't nap more than an hour that afternoon, they stayed up until after midnight, tooted the horns, played with party hats, and still got up the next morning at 7:30AM!!! But we did have fun. See links above for the latest kidpics (from before Christmas, I'm still waiting for the Christmas film to be developed). I've found a useful and fun thing to do with all my old Christmas cards: make little gift boxes! I can see them holding many beads, screws, and other tiny oddments that keep turning up in the corners of the house, which I have resolved to de-clutter. First thing to be decluttered: my SEWING TABLE! :-)
Christmas Update, 2001: The Christmas Engine ground gears as we tried to shift into high, only to be wallopped with serial sickness: First Destructo-Boy had a bit of a fever for a couple of days, then Tiger got a fever and puked all over the living room, and then Daddy (who drew janitor duty since Mummy pulled the night shift nursing duty). I think I was too busy to really pay attention to the virus, if I got sick at all. Thank goodness we had a "Postal Christmas", instead of running ourselves ragged preparing for Family Dinners and Guests. I was worried we might still be contagious to Great-Grandma, my 89-year-old grandmother-in-law, but this tiny lady seems to be the epitome of health, and a former player in the NHL. I tried to pick up the cheque for Dim Sum on the solstice, and she body-checked me, almost knocking me off my feet. She hurt me, too! I don't think my honour will ever recover.
We didn't get any Santa pictures with the kids. My children don't like Santa Claus. It's more than just a mall madness: Destructo-Boy chokes me with a death grip whenever I get near a bearded man in red. I took Tiger to see him (without her brother), we tried four times at the mall, but every time we got to the front of the line, she didn't want to go anywhere near him. At the IBM Christmas party, Daddy had to back up to the jolly old elf, making sure our son never saw who was behind him, just to get a decent picture with a red suit in it! Tiger wouldn't go near him at all, though she watched him from under a computer table or peeped around the door. When he finally got up to leave (and turn back into an Ops guy), Tiger dashed out ahead of him. She happened to turn down the hallway he had to take to get to his office, and shrieked in terror. "Mommy! Santa's CHASING ME! GO AWAY! You're BAD!" She screwed up enough courage to squeeze past him along the wall and into my arms, wailing at the top of her lungs. Moms aren't supposed to laugh, are they? Oh well. At least I won't have to break her heart when she's six or seven...
Christmas Day proved just as magical for the kids, however, with all the wrapping paper and new toys (is every toy nowadays battery-operated?!), bundling the cats up in bows and ribbons, and the usual mayhem. We had some friends over for a formal turkey dinner on Christmas Day, but no relatives since they're all in their own time zones. It was a relatively non-threatening, stress-free day, relative to previous Christmases, anyway.
We hope you and yours had a good holiday too, whatever it was you celebrated.
Hallowe'en Update, 2001: It was a good day, and by the time Buffy the Vampire Slayer was over, Tiger was coked to the gills with sugar and holiday excitement. I can't believe how cooperative she was today: she ate her dinner without argument, settled down in her room for "quiet time" without seeking me out six or seven times, she got dressed in warm clothes under her frilly pink dress (see her birthday pictures), she helped with the decorations and pizza dough without getting tangled up in my hair... all because of the declaration: "Hallowe'en happens after dark, and this is how we prepare for it." All the same, I'm glad this night comes but once per year. :-) This was her brother's first real Hallowe'en, and we took him to a few houses on the street. He didn't really get the idea of holding out his wee pumpkin for candy, but he marched right up to every door with his sister, and capered cutely for the neighbours. Nothing scared him... mind you, the people on our street who used to do graphic gore have majorly toned it down this year, and the number of police officer costumes, firefighter costumes, and doctors was through the roof. I draped muslin fabric about my garage and garage door, then lit my candelabra, and stayed nice and warm in my "Apothecary and GROSSery". Pictures to come when the roll is developed.
Family Update, August 17th, 2001: Well, my son's walking everywhere now, hardly ever crawling except to go up and down stairs, which he does like a pro. I don't worry about him on the stairs very much anymore, except when his sister is playing near him; she tends to the horseplay side, without understanding the risks of doing it on an uneven surface. He also climbs onto chairs and low tables by himself, although he doesn't have the confidence yet to get down. He reminds me a little of those turkeys my dad told me about when he was growing up: Christmas and Thanksgiving were their names, I think. They would fly up to the top of the coop during the night, and then squawk in a panic because they couldn't figure out how to get down, so my grandfather would have to knock them off with a stick. :-) I believe my little guy will eventually either figure it out, or just grow a little more and be able to touch the ground without making a leap of faith. He's even talking a little bit, sort of: he will throw something off the chair, or down the stairs, or out of the bathtub (so far, nothing has made it into the toilet), and then crow "Uh-oh!" I can't believe his first non-parent word is "Uh-oh!" I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.
Tiger is turning into quite the lady. She refuses to eat dinner without a napkin, and she actually uses it! She is also very bossy. She inherited that from my sister. Tiger has been invited to a couple of birthday parties, hailing the onslaught of social engagements that will dog us for the rest of her life at home. Birthday parties are going to get expensive... she has a lot of friends! She likes to wear party dresses, but she plays rough in them. I'm just glad I've made most of them, so I know they're as indestructible as cotton can get! We have also signed her up for ballet lessons (more of a "creative movement" dance class, but with a ballet veneer), starting in September. This should be very interesting... I used to take ballet, and enjoyed it for nine years. I have to remind myself that I must NOT relive my dance classes vicariously through my daughter, but I'm looking forward to sewing up her first recital costume...
He's WALKING! July 22, 2001, he took his first steps. He refused to do it in front of anyone but his mum and his sister, so Daddy thinks I'm just bragging. But he's really fast now; on July 25th, I turned around to get some dishes from the cupboard for lunch, and when I turned back, he was sitting on the dining room table munching on chips. And later that afternoon, I mowed the lawn (a muscle-powered thing, so I usually have him on my hip), and had to put him down on our front step for a second so I could attend to one of Tiger's many insistent needs (loose sandal, I think), and when I turned back ten seconds later, he was sitting ON the reel of the mower, somehow having navigated the flower bed and the hedge without me hearing him. I suspect I shall have many, many more heart attacks with him... This can't be a "boy thing", can it?
July 19th, 2001. Happy Birthday, Little Guy! He's a year old, today, and STILL teasing me about walking. He'll stand up, shake a leg without actually lifting it off the ground, and then flop forward and crawl to where he wants to go. He'll actually fall like a tree so he won't have to crawl, if I'm in reach. He knows I'd never let him hit the ground. Twerp.
General Update, April 17th, 2001 Tiger will be 3 on Saturday. Her grasp of the language is quite good, although I think it's more like a fist of clay, with bits oozing out between the fingers. She's still figuring out how to express a negative: "Mommy, you have to not to give that to the baby!"... and my personal favourite: "Baby has to not get out of his not my crib, he can't want it!" All this to say she doesn't want me to take him out of his crib in the morning. :-) Her brother's grasp of the language is somewhat less refined, but he says "Mamam" and means me, and he says "Dadadadadadada....dada....dadadadadaaaaaaaaa" when he means his daddy. He also clucks his tongue and smacks his lips when he wants to say (verbally) that he's hungry. If he's REALLY hungry, he switches off "verbal" and cranks up the gain on "vocal". Tiger's just starting to understand the art of getting up in the middle of the night to potty. This came about because buying Pull-Ups for nighttime comfort is breaking our monthly budget. That, and she keeps sneaking into my closet and climbing the ladder and hanging off the hanger rack to get at them so she won't have to wear panties and use the potty during the day. She's becoming quite resourceful when it comes to scaling the heights of my closet.
Voila! The signing cloth from my wedding is complete! I just gave it a border and put a sleeve on the back of it so I could hang it on the wall. Sure beats pinning it TO the wall, which was my husband's solution. Check here for Sewing page updates. I put up a picture of my dad's 3-in-1 jacket. Next on my project list: a "quillow" for Tiger (quilted fleece blanket that folds into a pillowcase), summer grubbies for Little Guy, and my very own winter coat pieced from Ultrex scraps: the "Seamstress Special". (Terry Pratchett fans should keep their minds in THIS world and avoid getting any funny ideas about my skills.)
Family Update, March 1, 2001: Wow. I'm online again! I just wanted to let Neil know that he's not getting the same cat back that he left with us when he went to Israel for 2 weeks. Poor Tuo-te is going to sleep for a very long time. My Tiger, if you recall, used to chase anything that moved and greet it. This has not fundamentally changed -- she is only more agile and articulate, and has graduated from greeting terrified arthropods to mammals. Little Guy thinks this cat is the greatest thing since the wet washcloth. He used Tuo-te as a model for speed crawling, and once as a prop to pull himself upright. To the cat's credit, he didn't try to take a chunk out of my baby. However, we will wait until the Little Guy's at least three years old before we adopt our own cat. Thank-you, Slick, for letting us test-drive your cat. There are so many things you understand intellectually about keeping cats: the pervasive hair, the litter, the rips, the kitty kibble, the noise... But you just don't remember what it's like until you pick up the cat and say "Welcome!", and then futilely brush at the high-contrast fur on your shirt. Or you crunch over some scattered cat litter as you haul a basket of laundry past the box and make a mental note to drag the vacuum cleaner into the basement for a thorough once-over, but forget because you got distracted picking up the kitty-kibble your Tiger sampled and then overturned, in the vain hope that you'd get to it before your souped-up crawler found his way to that corner of the kitchen for his own foray into chat-gourmet.
Nope. We're not ready for another cat.
Kids Update, November 30th, 2000: Wow. I can't remember when I've been so preoccupied with so many things! I finished Tiger's princess costume only to discover the day before Hallowe'en that she wanted to be "Kiki the Witch" (her favorite movie so far). That costume entailed a long black T-shirt, a red bow, and a broom. She was "Princess Kiki" instead. She had a blast, even went so far as to dish out candy to the other kids, and chase them down the street if they didn't take enough in her opinion. My Little Guy was "peas in a pod" -- nice and warm and non-ambulatory. :-) I have pictures. I finished his baby quilt. There. Done. I also finished the wedding signing cloth -- and am getting ready remove myself from the gene pool.
Tiger Update, October 19th, 2000: I update again with one kid in my arms. All I want to say (besides what I put up in the new photo album pages) is that I had better put pockets on ALL of Tiger's clothes. I changed her diaper the other day to find my amethyst and geode collection stashed in there. :-D
Kids update, October 9th, 2000: Well, I update this page with one kid in my arms and the other kid holding a telephone to my ear because Anastasia doesn't hold her attention as long as it used to. Tiger does some pretty outrageous things these days in the never-ending competition for attention. Last week she gave a door-to-door salesman an eyeful when she joined me on the threshold. I knew something was amiss when the salesman's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. She was naked as the day she was born. We also had a successful potty episode at a restaurant, and a few spectacular near-misses at home. The baby plays counterpoint to her antics, too: Tiger will declare loudly (better if it's in public) that she's poopy, and the baby will use the sudden circle of amused silence to let rip a huge movement of his own. Or he'll grab my shirt and try to bury his face in my bosom if Tiger zooms by and says, as usual: "Mommy, don't feed him!" On the plus side, she's dropped her "Boo-boo" (the soother). Not making a big deal of it really did work!
Tiger Update, August 23rd, 2000: Tiger did the cutest thing today. She took a bath and I stepped out to check on the baby -- when I got back, she had Bear (blue stuffed bear, looks ratty, tag says "Surface Wash Only") in the bath with her and was scrubbing him. I had to explain to her that it would take a very long time to dry him out, and that he'd have to "sleep" in the basement tonight. Oh, she cried! But after rolling him up in a towel and squishing most of the water out, we brought him downstairs, and Tiger "tucked him in" on the laundry rack, and even put Blanket (cherished white knitted blanket my grandmother made for her, the most sacred unsharable possession) over him. Then she kissed him and said: "I love you, Bear."
Now that she's in bed, Bear's tumbling in the dryer. :-) With any luck, he'll be cuddle-ready by next bedtime.
Family Update, July 30th, 2000: June 8th, 1999: Jane - On June 8th, at her home in Sonoma, peacefully and with great dignity, Jane passed away in the presence of her three children, at the age of 82.
It's been a little more than a year since my grandmother Jane passed away, and the roses I planted for her that day (digging the beds well into the witching hours) are doing fantastically well, no thanks to me. In October it will be about 14 years since my grandfather H. died. Those of you who have been asking why I saddled my son with such a... classic name now know. Unfortunately, I best remember my grandfather as a frail old man who walked with a walker, and the last time I saw him, used a wheelchair, whose hand shook as he fed himself. The few family photos we have of my grandparents as young parents and such have either perished or are lost -- but H.'s images are of the outdoors, usually hiking. I also found out in his obituary the reason for his nickname "The Turtle" (he boxed in college and had a very tight defensive stance), and that he was once the mayor of Sonoma. Apparently he managed to keep parking meters at bay. As well, back in the 60s he billeted the Black speakers for what we would now call a "human rights" rally when no hotel in the area would let them check in.
My little Dragon has the name of a great man.
Tiger Update, December 15th, 1999: First salon haircut today! And what a little angel she was in the chair! (Bribery, how else do you think I managed it? She got a red lolly at the end.) We can see her cute face again, whether we futz around with hair-things or not. Pictures to come. I'm still carrying around the roll from Baba and Poppa's 60th anniversary, trying to remember to drop it off for development!
Baby Update, December 5th, 1999: Our first plane trip was a smashing success! Tiger loved the airports the most, I think, more than being confined to Mum's lap at any rate. The family in Winnipeg finally got to meet her. I think this may be my last trip out West since I seem to be pregnant every time I go there. The Tiger howled when she first met her Baba, but warmed up to her by the time we had to leave. My grandparents ("Baba" and "Poppa" to Tiger) renewed their vows, my mom cried because she always cries at weddings, and the dishes and laundry flowed without end during our stay, what with all the entertaining that goes on when an out-of-town family member appears on the horizon. Just don't tell Baba it was a "beautiful wedding": you will be risking your nose, ears, and possibly the hair on your head as she delivers her tirade about how DARE we imply she wasn't married before! :-)
