Category: Chores
Thursday, Mar 12, 2009 | Chores, Kevin, Kids, Music, Sleep |
Son CJ will be a year on March 29. He can now enter a room, say, the kitchen, and open all cupboard doors not rubber-banded shut and empty them in a matter of seconds. Last night, while I did dishes, he layered the floor with baking trays and muffin tins, which made a most satisfying crash as they landed. He then got stuck head-first in the corner cupboard. Then he practiced opening and closing the heavy kitchen drawers and attempting to heave-ho the largest of the pasta pots. Nothing delights him more than to march about hoisting high an implement at least three times his height: brooms, hockey sticks, et cetera. He also loves to toot on a plastic recorder or bang a drum, and will stop mid-stride at the sound of a good dance beat to bop up and down. I’ve also just realized he is talking to us using actual words–“da do” for thank you, “na-na” for nurse and/or mama, head shake for “no,” “ma” for more, et cetera. He waves bye-bye, and last night climbed the stairs in the dark (guess he’s put aside his fear of heights) and ran into big brother Albus’s room to wave an enthusiastic and loving goodnight.
There are more photographs on the parallel photo blog, but above are a few. He’s been running to the front door to wave hello and goodbye, or to watch his big siblings playing outside in the cold. And two mornings ago, I let him eat (destroy) a muffin all by himself.
He still nurses several times a night, but he just fell alseep by himself for the First Time Ever. Naptime, and I laid him down, tucked him in, came down and read stories to Fooey. We kept listening for the enthusiastic screams of protest, but they never came. A little fussing, and then silence. He was fast asleep. My goal is to be able to kiss him goodnight and leave the room. I know it’s possible, because Albus was falling asleep contentedly by eight or nine months; though the girls were much later. Apple-Apple was twenty-six months, and Fooey was about twenty months. In fact, I couldn’t get Apple-Apple to sleep without pushing her in the stroller. After she was weaned, Kevin did bedtime, and when he was travelling for work, I would have to call a friend or grandma to sit in our quiet house, Albus fast asleep, while I pushed Apple-Apple round and round the block.
Ah memories. Can you tell I’m trying to distract myself from worrying about another subject entirely?
Update on The Knee: it’s shattered, according to x-rays, which explains why the swelling never subsided. My sweetheart is at the hospital as I type this, waiting to be assessed by an orthopedic surgeon. He hasn’t eaten all day in anticipation of possble surgery, and was looking a little wan. And in pain. He’s very stoical, however, and fundamentally optimistic, and I know he’ll be doing all that he can, and probably more than he should, as soon as the surgery’s over. But darn, I hate waiting, and not really knowing. Good thing the kids are having friends over after school, and I’ll be more than occupied from 3pm on with the purposeful basics: school pickup, snacks, cooking, supper, cleanup, bathtime, bed.
Time for a cup of tea.
Tuesday, Feb 24, 2009 | Chores, Kids, Local Food, Music, Organizing |
A new discovery: soup on Wednesdays, with fresh bread and cheese, has been a big hit these past couple of weeks. Wednesdays we need a fast meal, on the table by 5pm, in order to get the big kids to their music class after supper. Cream of cauliflower, made with frozen veggies, last week; black bean and hamburger, the one before. This week I’m planning to try a grain & bean recipe that sounds easy, nutritious, and will make use of some frozen beans.
This week theme is: Dig in the Freezer. Honestly, frozen apricots? Suggestions? I froze a couple of bags last summer, lovely and organic, and have no idea what to do with them now.
Yesterday it was a big red sauce from the freezer tomatoes, with basil shrimp (both basil and shrimp from the freezer), over pasta. The leftover tomato sauce will be sent back to the freezer, in easy-to-use format. Always handy to have tomato sauce prepared and ready to heat and serve.
Tonight, it’s turkey sausage with chickpeas (both from the freezer), and cabbage. I’m winging the recipe with flavours leaning toward curry. Over rice. Wednesday, soup, as mentioned above. Thursday will be baked potatoes with leftovers on the side. Friday, I’m boiling up a big frozen chicken for broth and stock and meat. I’ll make some of it into a comforting illness-fighting noodle soup.
This week, thus far, has felt a bit scrabbling-about-ish … I have to remind myself to focus and remember to set priorities and stick with them, to keep the planning very basic and simple. Can I continue to blame the weather? I have felt overwhelmed at moments this week, incapable of figuring out what needs to be done most urgently. Partly, it’s due to Kevin working this past weekend. That removes my day of cleaning and organizing, otherwise known as Saturday, and it means the floor is still covered, in parts, in last week’s crumbs, and last week’s scattering of toys hasn’t been gathered and sorted and returned to order. I really like when all the toys are in the baskets and drawers and containers to which they belong: craft items in the craft cupboard; doll clothes in the orange bin the girls’ room; books on shelves; baby blocks and puzzles in the baby blocks and puzzles bin (okay, honestly, I’m the only person in the whole house to whom this really seems to matter, so it is a losing battle, but nevertheless one I intend to keep on fighting).
Priority at this exact moment: wake baby from nap, change diaper, load handful of children and off to music class. Like, now.
Tuesday, Dec 16, 2008 | Chores, Kids, Sleep |
There’s something about lack of sleep that puts me in the blog-mood. My baby will not sleep at night, and apparently is also refusing to sleep during the day. He’s in the sling right now, lazily chewing my hair and stuffing banana-scented fingers up my nose with a look of supreme exhaustion upon his gorgeous features, hanging on by the sheerest of threads to consciousness. Of course, if he does decide to fall asleep, I will have to wake him up anyway to get to Fooey’s afternoon “recital” at her music class.
But it’s my own sleep deprivation, not his, that makes me want to type. I’m too tired to analyze the whys and wherefores, though I’m sure something applies. I was up approximately once an hour last night with this child. He refuses to nurse during the day unless he’s beyond starving and nothing like a banana is in sight, yet at night he seeks milky comfort to lull him back to dreamland … last night I saw midnight, 2am, 4am, 5am, 6am; those were the ams I recall seeing, anyway. By 7am the whole house was up, woken by Apple-Apple’s surprise nosebleed. Did I mention we also had a child, who shall remain nameless, pee on top of the toilet lid last night? That was my second unexpected opportunity of the evening to really clean the bathroom. The first followed a series of reckless baths. I’d no idea what had rolled under our tub since the last flood. Apple-Apple asked whether I’d found a dead mouse. Nope, just a giant fuzzy hairball.
You can thank me for that image later.
I’ve just laid CJ down, awake, protesting but weak. If he falls into sleep now, I’ll be dragging him out of dreamland in, oh, twenty-seven minutes or so. I run on precision timing.
Was just packing the diaper bag for aforementioned outing, and discovered an old cloth diaper lingering, shall we say, in one of those handy stuff sacs. Maybe we’ll go disposable just for this event. At the rate this day is going, I anticipate solids arriving somewhere mid-performance. And no, he’s still awake. His howls just took on real drama. Twenty minutes till departure.
I’m going to go pick him up now.
Friday, Nov 28, 2008 | Chores, Laundry |
Just don’t seem to be getting to this virtual typing page as often as I’d enjoy.
Today I tried doing a writing afternoon–really a short amount of time, approximately two hours total–and approached it with the notion that if something got written, that would be pleasant, and if not, it would be two hours of not entertaining a three-year-old and an-almost-eight-month-old. Then I went off on a story-tangent and had a blast. Felt all revived and did not stress about getting everyone ready for the walk to school, or the after-school mayhem. I encouraged the kids to stay outside and play in the snow when we got home, and set baby CJ in the snow, too, with his little sock-mittens. He was enchanted. What is this stuff? What are the big kids up to? Loved it. Then we got cold, so came in for hot chocolate. I had done prep work for supper earlier in the day (turkey broth with noodles, and cornbread and baked squash), so just waited till Kevin got home to do the rest. It felt easier, more pleasant, though we ate a bit later than usual. More civilized. Mama hanging with the kids. I could focus better on their demands and issues and remarks. And Albus even studied for his French dictee tomorrow, which he’d been resistent to doing. I don’t know whether this is good mothering or bad, but I’ve been trying to encourage him to work a little bit in advance–to learn good study habits–and showing him how that little bit of extra effort pays off. Which it has. But the kid has this inborn confidence that he knows everything. I don’t want to shave that off of him; yet also want him to appreciate that hard work can be rewarding. Heck, not even hard work. Just a smidgen of labour. Just copy the darn words a couple of times.
I also got out for a haircut tonight. So it was a day of pampering and luxury, all-around. Then I raced home and washed the rest of the dishes with my fancy new haircut smelling pleasantly salon-ish, and put a tantrum-inclined Fooey into her bed (she was planning for a birthday party for her Pooh Bear tomorrow and had covered the bed in tea cups and plates; and I must mention that Pooh Bear is Poor Bear in name only; it’s a pink filthy stuffed bear with a stocking cap). We had to clear the bed, and I made promises about tomorrow’s party. After we’d kissed goodnight (a kiss-fest with CJ joining in), I heard her whispering to her bear: “Tomorrow’s your birthday!”
Then I hung the laundry that I’d washed first thing this morning. Funny thing, walking to school this aft, I walked with a mom I’d never met before, we ended up talking laundry–and it turns out she’s at least as obsessive as I am about not using the drier. She uses dowling tacked up to doorways, and hangers. I use ugly cheap racks and banister railings. We both have a constant never-ending flow of dampish clothes in progress. It was nice to find unexpected company in this particular domestic peculiarity.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2008 | Chores, Lists |
My kids are in love with Eric Traplin. We have one CD called Bubbles and it’s pretty much on every time the kids think to push “play” on the CD player. (And they put the CD back in if I’ve removed it for something I’d prefer to listen to–piano music or the Curious George soundtrack). It’s pretty standard kids’ music, always on at high volume, guitar, drums, piano, cheery upbeat simple tunes. Everyone’s favourite is called “My Superhero,” and it tells the story of a vaguely drawn superhero who has goodness in his heart, is brave and kind, and runs down the hallway saving the world before bedtime. I like that A, despite being a “sophisticated” second-grader who says “su-weet” all the time, dances around the living-room singing along with these truly sweet (innocent) songs.
But anyway, I wasn’t planning on blogging about Eric Traplin. It just happens that F’s turned it on and is dancing around the living-room singing along … in fact, it’s the superhero song.
Preparations. As I said in my previous post, our schedule feels relentless these days, with no time to stop and catch our collective breaths. Or say hello to each other (me and Kevin). And to add to this, we are preparing for a pilgrimage of sorts tomorrow night. Hallowe’en night. Last year, on Hallowe’en, Kevin’s dad Jim died of cancer at around 6pm. The kids had just gotten dressed up for trick-or-treating when Kevin’s mother called with the news (she’d called about an hour earlier asking Kevin to come home as soon as possible, which we were already preparing for). As soon as the news came that Jim had died, I looked at Kevin and said, “We’re all going to go along with you.” But first, Kevin took the kids trick-or-treating. We decided not to tell them until afterward. While they were out, I packed for the trip. By the time they were home with their loot, I’d made necessary phone calls and gotten organized. We explained to the kids what was happening, changed them into pajamas, and drove off into the night–about a five-hour journey. It was an oddly and unexpectedly wonderful trip for our whole family. It felt like an adventure, full of significance and mystery and emotion. We were sad and the two older children had questions about death and Grandpa Jim, but it felt positive, not scary. At the time, Kevin and I almost jokingly said we should make that trip every year, as a way of marking Jim’s passing–making up our own unique and uniquely meaningful family tradition.
So we’re going to try it out. I love the idea, but am feeling overwhelmed by the logistics. Not only is tomorrow Hallowe’en (that would be the point), but the kids also have swim lessons right after school, and Nina’s very last buying club of the year (hopefully not forever!) is tomorrow night, and I couldn’t resist ordering even though it was, frankly, madness to add that in to the packing and the trick-or-treating and the rest of it.
I found this week that I was having greater than usual difficulty organizing myself, and I started making all these lists. I have a list for every day with all the mundane details written out: meal menus, what veggies in the fridge need to be eaten, and all the weird little odds and ends that dance across my brain ever so briefly and if not immediately attended to slip just as quickly away, probably till some three o’clock in the morning moment when “order cheques” is pretty much an impossibility. The lists made me feel slightly more in control. I haven’t put blogging or writing on any list, however. This week I ended up not having any writing day whatsoever. Kevin had a dentist appointment this morning, so I hosted playgroup instead. Then my babysitter cancelled on the afternoon too. Oh well.
Abruptly must end. Kids need their mama.
Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008 | Chores, Exercise, Kids, Laundry |
Voice getting worse. I can now barely squeak, which is frankly quite a disadvantage with these children to round up and boss around. Heh. It is very frustrating to have to whisper things like, “Please don’t play in the leaves on the road!”
Baby CJ is playing with Little People and a pink pretty pony, sitting on the floor behind me, and F is having a playdate here with her best friend, but for some reason there seems to be more conflict between them this morning–and I’m having trouble helping problem solve. They just stare blankly at me as I hoarsely murmur, “You need to share with your guest,” and other anodyne suggestions. Last playdate they played for an hour with a couple of raggy Polly Pockets and Polly Pocket debris, alone, without a word of disagreement.
Whoops, I’m losing baby CJ. He is crawling out of the toyroom and toward the stairs. I must figure some way to get him out of our bed at night. Somehow we’ve gotten into this unbreakable pattern of nighttime nursing, after which CJ refuses to go back to his own bed in the middle of the night, but screams and howls till I give in and return him to our bed, which is cozy and warm and has a permanently open snack-bar, so, really, I don’t blame him for wanting to hang out with us. But it’s taking a toll. I’m always waking in awkward positions, not to mention I’m always waking. In my experience, things have to get really very bad before I’m ready to make a drastic change, and my resistance and conviction are extremely weak at 3 in the morning. Downright anemic. I wonder what it’s going to take.
Kiddo has had it. Must change a diaper and try to get him down for a little nap, so we can make some muffins and hang some laundry.
Back. Baby asleep, girls playing beautifully. They just needed a change of scenery–upstairs an improvement on down.
Two tidbits from recent Globe and Mails struck a chord with me:
One was from Saturday’s paper, on cities which have car-free downtown cores (they were all European or Northern European, though apparently Montreal tried it for ten weeks this past summer, and a couple of big American cities are considering it). The planner who initiated this in Norway said that people are happier, more content, when their feet can touch the ground. As someone who has made walking part of our family’s lifestyle, that really resonated. Not that I don’t like a long-distance roadtrip with the iconography that accompanies that kind of journey. But for short hauls, nothing compares to putting one foot in front of the other. That connection to the earth.
The second item was a blurb in the Life section about the pleasures of hanging clothes to dry. It stated that some people (gasp!) actually prefer hanging their laundry to dry, not just because of the energy savings or because they’re eco-freaks, but because the task itself is very satisfying. Yes, yes, yes. Being outdoors, listening to birdcalls, hearing squirrels rustle the leaves, the patient task of shaking and clipping and pushing the line out over the yard … apparently others find this soothing too. Though I just heard on the radio that a mixture of rain and damp snow is in the forecast for today, so I’ll have to make-do with my indoor drying system. Brrr. The walk to school this morning felt a little bit like purgatory, with this chilly wind blowing against us. (Is purgatory cold?) But still preferable to strapping children into car seats, then unstrapping, and still having to run through the bleeding cold wind to achieve the final destination. If you walk everywhere, you’re much better prepared for the weather.
Snacktime now. Buttered bread and apples. And for me, more of my garlic-ginger brew, with apologies to all in breathing distance.
