Category: Birthdays
Sunday, Apr 3, 2011 | Bicycles, Birthdays, Kids |
A few weeks ago: note the child’s expression of concentration and concern (it was visible in all the photos I took).
Earlier this afternoon: practice at the empty lot across the street. CJ’s birthday gift: a balance bike!
Right now: she can ride her two-wheeler! She just showed me her “trick,” which was to cycle independently all the way around the apartment building next door (which Kevin running along beside, just in case).
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In other news, CJ got to blow out more candles last night when we celebrated his birthday along with his best friend’s birthday (they are about two weeks apart in age). But even an excess of candle-blowing and cake cannot change our boy’s mind: “I’m still two.”
Tuesday, Mar 29, 2011 | Birthdays, Kids |
Yesterday, you were two.
Now you are three.
It’s okay.
Happy birthday, kid!
The sound of the bedroom door opening. Siblings and parents waiting excitedly to greet him as he walks down the stairs. “Happy birthday! It’s your birthday! You’re a big boy today! You’re three years old!”
Deep frown. Adamant tone. “I NOT be THREE! I be TWO!”
So far, he’s sticking with his story. Yesterday, I took a photo of him holding up two fingers, to show his age. My plan was to juxtapose this with a photo taken this morning of the birthday boy holding up three fingers (which he’s been practicing). But it is not to be. The other kids have decided to shelter him from the dark truth that he is really and truly three years old. Albus keeps saying, in a comforting baby voice, “It okay, CJ. You still be two today.” Anything to give the child a happy birthday.
Monday, Jan 3, 2011 | Birthdays, Holidays, Yoga |
So, what’s new?
We survived another holiday season intact. Even the stolen stroller story had a relatively happy ending, as we bought what is now our THIRD sturdy bike/winter-tire stroller, a thankfully inexpensive find with help from kijiji. We also bought a major heavy-duty lock (approximately the value of our new/old stroller, come to think of it) on the recommendation of the kindly police officer who took down the report, and remembered me from the first stolen stroller incident, c. June 2009.
It felt like I didn’t get enough exercise or outdoor time during the holidays, but when tallied up, it was only marginally less than usual. Still, I felt off-kilter until yesterday morning, when I dashed off to the first yoga class of the year, followed by church, and it was back to the regular routine: there, I felt fabulous, grounded, much less growly, much more energetic. The late afternoon saw me baking a batch of bread, cooking tomato sauce from my canned tomatoes, making a huge pot of hot and sour soup from scratch, and a pizza, too, since the kids don’t like hot and sour soup. The kids’ lights were all out by 9. Kevin and I met for our usual Sunday night planning session.
Ahhhhh.
It was good to take the holiday and realize that regular life is like a holiday. I have built into the everyday so many sustaining routines that I don’t feel a need to take time off or away. But I wonder: how to make room for magic and stepping outside of the bounds of everyday during the holidays. I struggle with that. It is hard to balance the work necessary to bring about such magic moments, with the peace necessary to enter into them.
These next two weeks will be different again as I am going on a writing binge. I won’t be with the kids as much, and meals may be served more often from the crockpot. The plan includes an earlier bed and an earlier rise in order to exercise almost every day, as a way of kick-starting the year.
I am testing out a new word for this year, and will report back soon after meeting with my word-of-the-year partner. She should be the first to know.
This end-of-year has been different for me. I usually spend a solid chunk of time on my birthday, which falls on December 29th, journaling ideas about new projects and goals, often quite major, dreaming big shifts and possibilities. This birthday, nothing of significance cropped up. I thought and thought, and scribbled a bit, and talked it over with Kevin, but only came up with this: more of the same, please! Keep writing, keep taking photographs, keep being with the kids, keep exercising, keep spending time with Kevin, keep going to church, keep spending time with friends, keep staying open to possibilities sent by the universe. It feels a bit strange not to have a list of must-dos and want-to-dos, but I think it’s okay. I am where I am.
May your year be filled with what feeds and sustains you, too–whether it’s new or more of the same. Blessings.
Friday, Nov 19, 2010 | Birthdays |
How could I not have gotten a photo of this beautiful child, dressed in her new sparkly black wizard robes and an elegant black hat, as she accompanied me post-cake, post-presents, to The New Quarterly’s fall launch party last night? Let’s just say I was filled with pride.
We juggled a packed schedule yesterday and celebrated eight years of AppleApple. She is quick, hard-working, serious and silly, talented, creative, thoughtful, perceptive, eccentric, independent, an old soul.
I’d planned a chocolate cake, but when consulted, AppleApple said, no thanks, she doesn’t like chocolate cake. Friends on Facebook had just posted a retro-sounding easy-to-make cake recipe: yellow cake mix, vanilla pudding mix, coconut, sour cream (we substituted crema, because it makes anything just that much better). Kevin and the little kids baked the cake yesterday afternoon, and AppleApple decorated it herself after school, with leftover Halloween treats. It was tasty and old-school.
We’d organized a birthday brunch for family, and let the big kids stay home from school for the morning. A horse theme was apparent from early gifts, but later gifts revealed a taste for Harry Potter, too. After a somewhat rushed supper (chicken noodle soup and devilled eggs, as requested by AppleApple), and the candle-blowing, the cake-eating, and some fracas over who could pass out the gifts (Fooey was in a state), AppleApple and I raced out the door to our literary date. She and Kevin traded places after 8pm, and she spent the rest of her evening at home putting together her Harry Potter Lego. She still has her friend party, tomorrow (and, I must add, so do we … send us strength). Our house will be transformed into Hogwarts, potions and wands will be made, unicorns sought, and some more of this cake will be eaten–it was such a success, we’re reprising it for tomorrow.
May this year to come be blessed, my child.
Thursday, Nov 18, 2010 | Birthdays |
Today is the last day that AppleApple will be seven. So, as is tradition, we took a photo to mark the occasion. Her sister appears in the background of one with a most pitiful expression and a gash on her head, self-inflicted (which may be better than the alternative; not sure), when she was jumping with excitement to get into the back of the truck. I was at home trying to write another story, and Kevin was managing all the kids. It was a picture of gore when they arrived home–gore and chaos. We cleaned her up and steri-stripped the wound (Kevin’s job; mine was to hold her and remind her take calming breaths). At one point, post-supper, I was fielding information that required a response from all four children, simultaneously, while trying to clear the table and do the dishes. With today’s story rattling slightly unfinished around my head. AppleApple was going down the party agenda, in detail; CJ came to report that Albus was being mean to him; Albus explained that he just needed some Alone Time; and Fooey desperately wanted to be held, too (I was holding CJ). I looked at Kevin and said … I am feeling some stress. He agreed.
But onward. This is the pace. I will do my level best to keep up. And tomorrow my seven-year-old will be an eight-year-old.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 | Birthdays, Holidays |
Our weekend involved more cake. I had not had time to bake in advance of Albus’s slumber party, so I thought, hey, this could be a party activity. It’s a credit to these sweet boys that they all said, “Yes!” when asked whether they’d like to make the cake. I decided to let them do as much as they wanted–read the recipe, measure the ingredients, dump, mix, beat the batter, work out amongst themselves who would do what. The resulting cake (sour cream chocolate) tasted fresh, light, and airy, and may have been even better than the previous evening’s cake. I should let children measure and stir every time.
The slumber party consisted of two guests (a third wasn’t able to come), no gifts, order-in pizza, cake, pop, a comic book shopping spree (Kevin had a blast witnessing the three boys making their excited decisions), and two movies. The boys set up the basement lair for themselves with three futons, but claimed to have all slept on the same bed, fighting for the same covers. They also reported being up till two o’clock in the morning (parents, I assure you, this could not have been true–we had the baby monitor set up in case of emergencies, and all was quiet after midnight … which is plenty late for three nine and almost-nine-year-old boys).
I got such pleasure listening to their party stories–how late, who had slept where, what they’d eaten for breakfast (chips and cheezies). After the guests went home, Albus appeared to be suffering from something resembling a hangover … lethargic, irritable, bored by everything. It’s hard for the party to end.
“All good things must come to an end,” I quoted cheerily last night as the children complained, at length and great volume, that “You’re ruining all of our fun!”
“Yup, that’s my job. I signed the parenting contract. I had to promise to ruin the fun, make my kids get enough sleep, force them to bathe and pick up their toys and throw their socks to the basement. It’s all in the contract. My hands are tied. What can I do?”
“Rip up the contract!” (That was Albus.)
The fuss was over bedtime. It was also over the end of the our long weekend. Listen, I was sad, too. Why must the fun end? Kevin and I got so much work done yesterday. I weeded the front bed, and trimmed the lilac (that was way too much fun; it was like giving a good haircut to a kid who really needs it … which, come to think of it, would describe Albus). Is that sad that I just conflated fun with getting so much work done? I even organized the linen closet (thanks, new Chatelaine; that may be the only good thing that comes out of the magazine’s re-design, in my opinion; so much saccharine fluff that I felt ill upon glancing through it, instant sugar-shock; and no Katrina Onstad, though I searched and searched; and this aside will be meaningless to all non-Canadian readers).
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There was more to our weekend. There was another party, and (believe it or not) even more cake. And that’s our new nephew pictured above with CJ and Fooey (photo by AppleApple), who visited from afar with his mum and grandma. And Kevin built that cool-looking box for the front veggie beds, and got the stones partially laid for our new walkway. Among much much else.
But I have a CJ on my lap stabbing me with a pencil, and a Fooey lying on the floor beside the stool shouting, “You’re wasting time for me to get dressed! When I even need you to get me dressed! I want a dress! You have to come upstairs, okay Mommy! Even if you say no, you have to come upstairs! This instant! I’m s’pposed to already be dressed in a dress!”
Yo. I signed the contract. What can I do?
