box of treasures

toilet talk

One of my favorite parts about living with children is occasionally stumbling upon a tiny tableau left about by a child interrupted in play or just arranging their things while colonizing new spaces. I like to try to guess what the child was playing at, their inner lives being such a deep mystery, though sometimes I get the impression that there is a message there meant just for me.

Today, on a bathroom shelf, I discovered Hello Kitty and The Chicken With Socks having an intimate chat.


I can only guess at what they were discussing, but it did look serious.

Victoria: I am going to miss you

monday

I spy with my little eye...

An Uncle!

phat thoughts

Somebody help me, my brain is stuck in 1989!

I've recently had an old friend contact me (Skaters rule and preps drool!) whom I haven't seen since junior high. It's been great reminiscing about ye days of ol', when my heroes were Ice T and Tony Hawk, and I wore bicycle shorts with neon stripes in all seriousness (yewouch! A memory to suppress good and hard!). I've spent some time on Youtube lately, visiting the music and styles of the late '80s. Ah, the '80s...

I know you don't have to read any further to know that I'm not heading in a good direction.

Okay, old friend catch ups = good stuff! Especially this one, she's funny as hell. But actually having my mind wander over to my junior high experiences in general and I start to feel a dull pain like I've got my neck stuck in a banana clip.

One memory surfaced not too long ago of the stupidest compliment anyone has ever given to me. Are you ready for it? Okay, this is what some 13 year old guy said to me as we were hanging out at recess: "You know, you'd be really hot if you just lost five pounds."

Wow.

Really made me want to throw up my lunch and sweat off some water weight by running around the track a dozen times.

'Cuz then I'd be hot.

To a dude who looked like his hair had been cut by Stevie Wonder while doing the Running Man.

I repeat: wow.

It would be really easy to dismiss the little freak and get on with life, well, after kicking his skinny, stupid haircut ass around the playground a bit, but I've actually took his backhanded compliment to be true. Like, damaging or what? Can you say crap self esteem? Want to know what's worse? I still do, to this day.

Thirteen years olds aren't bright, him nor I apparently, but, seriously, this is the mentality of the '80s, of junior high, of Teen Beat and Seventeen magazine and all the other garbage I used to feed my head. Later, older and smarter, I did shake my head at this bizarre message, but by that point it was habitual thinking. (I don't think I actually heard the 'f' word out of the context of 'what, are you some sort of hairy, bitch feminist?' before I was 20.) I can logically argue the point and dismiss the continuing media imagery that equates fat with ugly, but the voice in the back of my head, the one I actually believe, says differently.

I think about weight and diet and exercise and lifestyle and habit and indulgence and restriction all the time. So does The Man. So does nearly everybody I know. We all carve up natural experience into artificial categories of good and bad based upon ideas about what makes a person's body a particular size and shape. And when we are scared or we fail, we look to ourselves for a reason, and it's really easy to believe what everyone tells us, that we fail because we are fat.

I'm starting to get the inkling that I hold myself back not because I'm fat, but because I believe fat is bad. Is fat bad?

Would anything be better if I was five (or forty) pounds lighter?

I know one thing, and I keep it in mind a lot when I start to beat myself up; Smootch would not be here if my body has been any smaller than it was when I was newly pregnant with her. I lost 25 pounds in the first three months of that pregnancy due to hyperemesis gravidarum. My fat saved my baby. Obviously, this fat equals bad and unhealthy is not as straight forward as the media would have us believe. I think it's worth looking into further.

For anyone else thinking about these things, here is a little primer to get the ball rolling from one amazing blog.

fat rant

I really do love this lady:

february whining

Hello February.

I know that I usually write long, sad letters to January, about the gloom and cold and lack of energy, but this year you`ve decided to throw your lot in with the most cursed of months, so you too get a long, whiny memo.

Hi. You need to stop messing with my head and body. Stop the dental surgeries and stretched ligaments and torn muscles and pale skin and complete lack of ability to cope with my children`s needs. Please. Stop being about wine from a plastic cup and huge piles of laundry and what looks to be the beginning of a massive ant infestation around the kitchen sink.

I know there are bright spots. Everyday there is a new message or email from a reader that is so wonderfully complimentary I think it may be a wind up. Sometimes the sun comes out. Sometimes one of the kids does something so amazing it makes me cry with pride.

But, February, you are so different this year. In fact, time has been different all winter. December is supposed to be all rushed and crazy and warm with twinkly lights and anticipation. New Years is always a bomb. Then January is the time I slump around, all bummed out, and as soon as you, February, begins, I can to pull my head up and start to really notice what`s happening around me. I notice the cool, clean winter air and the dazzling way the sun sparkles off the snow, and how red cheeks on a smiling child hauling the sled to the top of the hill one more time is one of the most beautiful things I`ve ever seen.

February is the time to begin searching for the new buds on trees. It`s time to start planning the garden and finding seeds. It`s when the sun is out long enough for me to have my dinner and then catch the sunset over a warm cup of tea.

So, what`s going on February? Why are you such a bummer?

Okay, I know. Because time is also place. And my place now is to be in the eternal wet and fog. The days haven`t changed colour or temperature since November. I`m dislocated and out of touch. Somehow, in this paradise of an island, I`ve lost my connection with nature. Feels like missing a limb or losing my mind.

Alright. I will grit my teeth (minus 1) and step lightly through the second half of this dreary month. I`m pinning all my hopes on March, to give me strength and imagination, to do what I have to do to get home again.

monday

A little catch up.

We just spent a few days in Victoria. Finally got in to see the Royal BC Museum, which has some amazing exhibits. Smootch was completely fascinated with the natural history portion and completely bored with the human history. Not surprising to me. Did I mention that Smootch is keeping a 'specimen jar', with various organic (as in not rock, not chemical free) odds and ends that are interesting to her? So far it contains a bird bone, which Birdie found somewhere outside and sucked it like a lolly for 10 minutes before I wised up to what it was, one of my toe nails, which finally came off last month after it's run in (literally) with the baseboard heater a few months ago, and a stick I picked up the night I met her father some dozen years ago. Don't ask me why I still have the stick, I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. Like her father :D

Birdie slept through the museum. Thank god.

I got some new wheels, which everyone else seems as excited about as I do.

Vrooommmmm!

My new wheels are faster, less sticky, and all around slick. I took them to derby practice last night and promptly sprained my ankle. Somehow, I managed to skate the whole practice with a hurt ankle and drive home (along the way I was stopped by the police in Nanaimo, a whole other story) but today is a major bugger to get around. My ankle is all swollen and bruised. Ugh. It's my sewing machine pedal foot too, which is extra annoying.

I am healing from my dental surgery two weeks ago. I've got kind of a phantom tooth thing going on, where I can feel the molar that was pulled as still there, but, of course, it isn't. I hate losing body parts. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Also, Smootch is still bummed out I didn't get the tooth from the dentist for her specimen jar.

Birdie is a No Boy. He says 'no'. He says, 'NO!' He says, 'Nnooooooooooo!' A hundred variation on the word 'no' that we are just beginning to realize are substitutes for whole other words, depending on where he puts the emphasis or inflection. If he just says, 'no', well, that's pretty much straight forward. But if he says, 'no-o?', he actually means 'yes' (you have no idea how much relief was felt after we figured this little bit out). When he feels threatened by his sister he says, 'no no no no no no no no!' in chain saw massacre victim mode, but when he's the aggressor with Smootch he says a sharp, 'No!' usually followed with a smack.

Birdie really is a completely unreasonable guy. It's amazing Smootch not only puts up with way too much of it, but actually defends him and tries to include him when she's playing with her friends. Even when the friend says, 'hey, let's ditch your little brother; I won't play with you unless you get rid of him,' she still stands by him. Beyond the call of duty, I believe. She's a good kid.


I love those kids. It's a good thing too, because otherwise I might follow up with my threats to list them on Ebay. Happy Monday all!

tuesday

Hello, we're still here! The weather is rainy, but nice. It's dark, January-esque, but the temperature is always above zero and sometimes, maybe once a week, we can almost see a bit of sun break through the clouds and fog.

The children are growing. Smootch is still herself, only more so. She's begun drawing. Drawing all sorts of things, almost any thing that she can think of. A month ago, if she was asked to draw a dog, she would say that she could not, as she did not know how. But one day she got this idea in her head to draw a dog, for example, even if she really did not know how, and since then she's drawn pretty much everything there is to draw. Our home is covered in bits of paper with a hardly a white bit showing through, with doodles of everything. Castles, trees, the Butchart Gardens, the ocean, boats, fish, our family, presents, sword, hearts, flowers.... We always have to make sure that there is a piece a paper by her, otherwise she'll draw on the table, walls, or herself. Like she can not help herself, she must draw.


Birdie talks. Mostly Birdie says, 'No.' Or rather, 'No! No! NOOOOooooooo!!!' like he's confronting a chain saw murderer. He's got a hideous new pair of boots, two sizes too big, handed over to us from our neighbors. They are really, really orange. Birdie will wear nothing else. He even wears them in the house. He is a child who knows what he likes.


We are plodding away here. Smootch has her classes, Birdie has his toys and his outdoors (he loves being outside), The Man just bought a guitar, and I am doing my thing, but now I also do it on roller skates. Mostly we are waiting out the winter and hoping for some drier days. Even when it's not raining, it's actually misty enough to get us a bit wet. Lighting a fire every day or two is more about keeping out the damp then heating our home.

Hope you all are keeping dry and warm.

xoxo

monday

Birdie is learning to ride a tricycle. I keep telling him that his brain isn't prepared to pedal yet, not to mention that he can't even reach the silly things, but he doesn't care. He crawls right up up on the tricycle and gives 'er.


I've been doing a bit of sewing for Smootch lately - she has been oddly neglected in that realm of late. Going through my fabric choices tonight, I asked The Man's opinion (I know you can already tell it's a mistake) and he suggested that maybe I should sew her something neutral to maybe balance out her wardrobe.

Balance? I believe Smootch's wardrobe is very balanced: Nothing goes with everything. What's the problem?

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Happy Birthday to The Man's Old Man - I hope you had great day!


Don't ask me why Smootch is topless - that's just the way she lives lately.

ps, me going to roller derby, though admittedly laughable, is not a joke. I've even got a new blog going here. I am a blogaholic. On wheels.

derby sit in

Last night Smootch and I sat in on roller derby practice with the Harbour City Roller Derby in Nanaimo. HCRD are just starting up as a league, only a dozen-ish members thus far, so I'm in an unexpected position of being able to join without having know what I'm doing.

This next Sunday, I am to become Fresh Meat, which is a technical term for 'woman who will be knocked on her ass'. This is slightly different than a more experienced derby girl, who is a woman who will be knocked on her knees, having learned how to fall without breaking too much or getting your fingers crushed under someone's wheels on the track.

You are wondering why a decidedly sedentary woman in her (gasp) mid-thirties who divides her time between sewing and taking care of her small children, one who is still actually nursing, and who's favorite activity is reading in a prone position while eating bon bons, is interested in joining a contact sport on wheels?

Well, mostly because a woman in her mid-thirties with small children and eats too many bon bons is a woman who really needs to smack somebody and there are few opportunities for such a woman to do so legally or with good conscience. Also, it seems like good fun, there is a possibility of legwarmers (something is child of the '80s has a strange weakness for), and I'd really like to meet some girls, now that I've gone and move 1200 km away from home.

Right now I'm waiting for it to stop raining so I can get outside and practice. I could use some (alot) of practice, though I'm sure that I will be learning quickly, having seen some of the drills at practice. I'm a bit freaked out about being out of control on skates at the same time as learning a high speed contact sport. Not to mention I'm a bit timid (oh excuse me, ignore me, I'll get out of your way, just give me a push if I'm in the road). I'm going to have to cultivate a derby personality, one that has a bit more, umm, balls?

Smootch loved watching the practice, although she was pretty upset that she didn't bring her skates. I won't be bringing her along to practice for the next while, it is mama's thing after all, but we will be skating together often. While the ladies were doing sliding drills (where they throw themselves down on their knees to stop), Smootch was giggling and cheering like the maniac she is. One skater managed to slide herself into the exit door and halfway out into the parking lot. Smootch thought that was brilliant. I started to wonder about the quality of my second hand tired looking knee pads.

I'll keep you posted on my derby progress. In the meanwhile, if there is anyone in the Parksville area also interested in derby and wanting to carpool, let me know. This 30 minute commute in the dark, along which yesterday there was a bald eagle sitting in the grassy bit between the two highways eating something sinewy, could end up being a bit lonely.

Happy New Year

It's been a busy year. Much drama and many changes. We're feeling the loss of what we left behind in Alberta rather sharply right now. More than anything this moment, I want to go home to my people and my farm. But, still, I know spring here on the island comes sooner and I can hold on for a few more months and see how I feel once the sun begins to stay out later than tea time again. We will definitely being going home next year for Christmas.

Thinking back over the past year, some things come to mind. I wish that I was somehow more profound and mature, having made so many changes, but I'm afraid that the only real change I've experienced is that I now have a glass of wine after the kids are in bed.

Still, I've encountered many new things these past 12 months. Here is a totally random list of some things I've learned in 2009:

- it is not only possible to take off your underwear without removing your gymnastics bodysuit, but it's fun too (thanks, Smootch).

- it is best to wait until the cat does his morning business in the box before you transport him to his new home.

- for sale by owner is a rough road to go. But I still don't regret it.

- good times is about people, not places.

- one car + two children + two adults + two cats + three days = all the excuse you need to buy more wine.

- garbage sucks but sea glass is cool.

- when you have two or more small children you should take as many pictures as possible, because you are never going to find time to fill out their baby books.

- if a car is going to break down just one time a year, it will always be just as you are boarding a ferry.

- if children start to whine you should feed them and put them to bed. There is no other cure.

- getting rid of all my stuff sucks. Sure it's a burden, but so is reacquiring it all, because there is, in fact, a reason why you bought it all in the first place.

- Still, I really do not need much to live my life. Just some food, shelter, shower, and a good book. Oh, and a laptop, internet connection, telephone, and a shelf for my book. A bed too. With sheets, and maybe some towels for the shower. Plus dishes and pots and pans, and the kids could really use some toys and books of their own. Also, a couch, a lamp, a desk, a bedside table (for my glasses). And some roller skates. But other than that, I really don't need much.

I hope that you guys can also benefit from these things I have learned.

Happy New Year
xoxo

hello family

Hope everyone is having a good holiday. We are terribly, sadly lonely here, with no family or friends. But don't cry for us, we've got chocolate, palt, and roller skates by the beach. So, you know, we're doing ok.

For those of you who were worried we were going to give you junk for Christmas again, you can stop dreading the post. This year, we've decided to support handmade and have actually gone even more eco-friendly. I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler, but if it hasn't arrived yet, Here is a preview of your gift. Don't worry about the extravagance of your present. We wanted to get you something special because, frankly, you rock.

Love you, Merry Christmas xoxo

rolling

Mission: To fight the fear and (re)learn how to roller skate, while ignoring the voice in my head reminding me that I am 30 plus years old and probably more suited to drinking sticky drinks than to have sticky skates.

My last time on roller skates was when I was about 10 years old. It would of been the same summer I broke my wrist navigating a curb, being the super awesome skater I was.

I may have taken awhile to jump back on this horse, but I learned myself up good. Check out my armor:


Check out my smile :D

Skills learned:

1) Stopping; using snowplow method (great for when I have 20 or more feet clear before actual cessation of movement becomes necessary).

2) Turning; by shifting my weight to one side. It's finally good for something.

3) Falling; by standing in one spot, squeezing eyes closed, and following the directions provided by slapstick pantomime of person making flinging themselves from a great height onto a very hard surface from The Man who is standing on the other side of the nearly sound-proof plexiglass. Someday I will learn to fall accidentally.

today's moments

most familiar: hugging both children at once, with one wrapped over each shoulder, sweetly enjoying their warmth and love until the back of my head gets knocked as they start swiping at each other behind me.

gluttonous: checking out 63 books from the library. And then spotting another interesting cover on the way out of the building, going back, and checking it out too.

most old couple-ish: when both kids were finally sleeping, having The Man clap his hands together and say, "Okay! Let's get some shit done!" Housework is the new romance.

yummiest: The Man made cabbage rolls for lunch.

most irritating: having the toddler catapult an entire cabbage roll at my head during lunch.

freakiest: buying black leggings of the type I haven't worn since I was ten and bicycle shorts were all the rage. I've already worn them.

weirdest: having the boy repeatedly ask me to give him snake bites on first one forearm and then the other. Repeatedly. At first I say no, but after being asked for a solid 10 minutes, I really, really feel like he deserves a couple.

slackerish: having a 20 minute nap (every night) while I help Smootch fall asleep.

slackerish part II: blogging rather than tackling the dishes.

worrisome: bringing in an armload of wood for the stove, dropping it into the wood bin, and then watching as dozens of spiders and ants are flung into the floor from the impact.

most horrifying: bra shopping with the preschooler ("I don't know, mom, they just don't look right from down here.")

most liberating: buying a bra for the first time in 6 years that doesn't have easy access flaps.

funniest: After sending the kids off to clean up a mess they made, Smootch whispers to Birdie, with the camaraderie of a fellow inmate, "I know. She's pretty mean, eh?"



You don't know that half of it kids. Wait until you actually comprehend what a blog is, my sweet darlings, and the public horrors you will face. Remember, it's all because I love you so much!

Mwaahahahaha!!!!!!

princess sticky skates rides again

I don't want to overwhelm you with pictures of Smootch skating (but, I could, if you like :D) but I had to post just one more. This kid slays me. Her latest dramatic play involves her being a princess who's domineering and evil mother won't let her derby because princesses aren't supposed to play rough sports. I suggested that maybe she make the 'mother' in her game a 'step mother', whom her father shacked up with after her own sweet mama died in a horrific derby accident (though, I suppose I'd rather be the bitch than dead). Smootch considered my version for a moment before she looked me in the eyes and said, 'No, I think I'll stick to the regular mean mom.' And I guess that's all there is to say about that.

We're waiting for it to stop raining before we can get outside and get rolling. Smootch has been able to skate around the house a bit, her bearing are pretty tight and she rolls a bit slower, but mine fly like mad and trying to move around a 5 foot square space is an invitation to muscle cramps in the legs. Getting going at the same time as having to stop is plain silliness. I can't wait for a couple dry days.

princess sticky skates' living room roller derby

It's surprising how much speed one can pick up in a 65 foot long trailer. We had to pry the skates off her feet after brushing her teeth so we could get her into bed. She's picked herself off the ground more times today than when she was learning to walk. And she's been studying roller derby tutorials on youtube (she paid particular attention on how to hip check your opponent). So, you know, be warned.

monday

For those of you in Alberta: ha! Look, the boy is out in a t-shirt and the ground is bare!


For those of you in New Zealand: oh, no, the kid is in a toque it's so damn cold!

xoxo

the irrepressable glamour of my life

I was completely convinced today was Wednesday... of next week. I don't know how, but my brain jumped ahead a whole five days and I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that it's Friday. Even Smootch knows what day it is. She was trying to tell me that today was the 4th of December, but told her she had to be wrong because it was Wednesday.

Wow.

Maybe it's got something to do with this:


My increasing connectivity. Between working on the computer, email, facebook, my blogs, skype and my new found love of playing YouTube roulette while doing dishes in order to escape the desire to punch myself in the head with the tedium of it all, I'm sort of losing track of real life here.

Apparently I think blogging about it will help.

I'm not the only one with a media obsession. Smootch is still embroiled in her Sailor Moon phase (I know, every female under the age of 25 has had one, yes?) and, being the independent creative sort that see potential in almost anything, it's terribly difficult to distract her from it.

Smootch is very serious about her fun.


Let me state that Sailor Moon is completely inappropriate for five year olds. The whole, "I Will Punish You!" thing has way too many bad connotations for casual use around the house and during play. There's also Smootch's refusal to be called any other affectionate nickname but "meatball head". This is the sort of thing that may affect me long term.

Superheros and special powers are just beginning to enter Smootch's consciousness. She's just getting the good vs. evil thing. I'm pretty sure she thought Sailor Moon was exclusively a love story between Serena and Darrin, and sometimes that guy at the arcade, until about a month ago when she finally noticed that there seemed to be some sort of point to all the costume changes the Sailor Scouts were doing. The transformation from ordinary mortal to super being is starting to seep into her dramatic play. Wands are more now than to just wave around. They can also shoot people. My girl is actually starting to turn almost every pointy object in her hand into a gun. I can't wait to hear how that fits into everyone's gender theories.

It is, of course, all about power. Or, rather, Power, with a capital 'P'. Special abilities, super powers and guns are her drama of choice now. She wants to rule the world and smite any enemies who get in her way. She will punish you!

Sitting at supper tonight, as I finally figured out today was day it really is, I had to tell Smootch she was right about the date all along. It's worth it to tell her that she's right just to watch the gleeful smile spread across her face (she loves being right). But then I jokingly accused her of stealing my special power to know what day it is. Her face registered some shock - I can steal powers?! - and then cunning - What other powers can I steal? That's my girl.

I asked Smootch, "If you could steal any super power from another person, what super power would you steal and from whom?" Smootch responded immediately with, "Auntie Cathee's k-words." A 'K-word' belongs to the same catagory of words a the 'F-word', so named by a preschooler who really couldn't see any difference between one letter or another when initially introduced to the subject of forbidden words. Smootch has heard a whole lot of K-words in her life, partly because of aforementioned Auntie and partly because her mother has no filters that tells her what is and what is not okay to say while in the presence of children. My kids aren't particularly innocent in that realm, and thus have to learn when it's appropriate to curse and who it's appropriate for.

Smootch believes that K-words are powerful, maybe like her Auntie, and that merely speaking them will punish your enemies. Tonight Smootch asked for a special treat. I said, no, automatically, thinking that she's asking for more ice cream or truffles (The Man has been busy in the kitchen) but instead she asked to be able to say a 'K-word'. More amused than I, perhaps, should be, I said, yes, but only once and if...

Before I could finish, Smootch triumphantly yelled out, "Shit!" And with a huge, world conquering grin, went to sleep.

I can't tell anymore if this parenting gig of mine is going terribly wrong or terribly right. But I do know we are all having a lot of fun.

Have a good weekend everyone. And thanks Auntie Cathee, for the LunaRock cd and K-words. It's too bad that you don't like kids because they sure like you.