Category: Kids
Monday, Dec 3, 2012 | Books, Driving, Kids, Play, Sleep, Soccer, Swimming, The Juliet Stories |
Random facts.
My hair looks good this morning. So far, the only people aside from family to have seen it have been the school bus driver (who wears a knitted toque himself) and a man walking a dog (which sniffed me; dog, not man).
The school bus was late this morning.
I didn’t eat breakfast until after doing the dishes I should have done last night.
I was too tired to do dishes last night, or even to function as a responsible parent, and instead fell into a deep sleep on the couch while my children entertained themselves in the new Lego play area. Bits of their play drifted into my dreams. I swear they’ve got a game going on right now that involves taxation for the benefit of the greater good. CJ wasn’t keen to pay his taxes. This caused problems. (Meanwhile, Kevin took the dogs on a car-ride to pick up a child who’d been at a birthday party playing laser tag, much to the envy of her military-minded brothers, who bring me to grief regularly with their battle play. War is not a game! I feel this deeply! And yet my boys — yes, boys only — take great pleasure in imagining themselves blasting imaginary opponents with imaginary weaponry. Is this play harmless? Inexcusable? Inevitable? A necessary fantasy? Related to their genitalia? This aside is getting way too long, but I want to add an aside to my aside, and ask: Are humans hard-wired to desire conflict? Is conflict itself a kind of fantasy that helps us escape from the boredom of our adult responsibilities?)
Um. Where was I?
I did get hit on the head with a soccer ball yesterday. I meant to head the ball, which is not my favourite thing to do as I am a bit protective of my brain, and in my fraction-of-a-second hesitation was instead hit upon the head with the ball, which is not the same thing at all.
Also, we lost.
But my teammates have found out that I’m a writer, and one of them had actually heard of The Juliet Stories!!! Because someone at her book club had recommended it!! Which is really quite thrilling because it means the book is making noise enough to get through to new readers! And that is all an obscure CanLit writer can really hope for. (Maybe it helps that The Juliet Stories has been noted on end-of-year-best-of lists in The Globe & Mail, the National Post, and K-W’s own The Record? Do people shop off these lists? Do you? Do I?)
Driving home after my soccer game, I wondered, am I more fuzzy-headed than usual? But it was hard to tell whether it was ball-on-head-induced fuzziness or up-before-dawn-driving-all-day fuzziness. My big girl had a swim meet on the east side of Toronto, which required us to be poolside at 8 in the morning. She is not a morning person. She also gets carsick.
It was raining. The trip was by turns exciting (when we picked up coffee and bagels for breakfast from the sweet-smelling City Cafe Bakery on our way out of town), uneventful (safe driving), and tedious (nothing on the radio; aforementioned carsickness).
She won both of her heats.
I missed seeing the second one because I was chatting with a dad sitting next to me, whose daughter happened to be in the same heat, so we shared the parent-guilt equally. (Random fact: I enjoy chatting with people I will never see again.)
Anyway, AppleApple and I decided to skip her last race of the morning because it meant we could just make it to her soccer game in nearby Mississaugua. Her team won. I observed several girls heading the ball properly. We were then home in time for me to change and get back into the car to drive to my soccer game.
All of this activity involved way too much driving. I found myself making up the lyrics to a sunny little song: “I’m driving all day in my car / it’s really not that hard.” Sitting in the driveway, back home again, I felt this strange attachment to the car, as if it had become a cocoon world of slightly stale bagels and cold coffee and radio talk, temperature controlled, seat-adjustable. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. But I didn’t really want to get out.
Eventually I did. And then, it must be said, I really really didn’t want to get back in again.
Sunday, Dec 2, 2012 | Chores, Holidays, Kids, Play, Weekend, Winter |
Wake to a winter wonderland.
Date with daughter: Starbucks and errands uptown. Such a good start to the day, I’m thinking every Saturday morning should begin with a date with one of my kids. Albus calls the next one.
Advent begins. “Mom is so freaky organized she’s got an envelope in her office with advent activities!” (This is true. I just put them away from last year’s calendar, knowing the season would come around before we knew it. And here it is. Looks like we had a lot “hot chocolate for breakfast” last year.)
Today’s activity: Get a tree!
Uh oh. First we have to clean up the gigantic Lego living-room mess.
Good opportunity to create a new Lego playspace upstairs instead. Buy small area carpet while shopping for the tree, which comes in a box. Yes, we bought a tree in a box.
Tree-in-box was family decision: it’s economical and reusable. And it’s not like we’ve been hiking out to our back forty and chopping down an adorable and unique tree replete with picturesque memories that the children will carry with them forever. No, for the past couple of years, following some truly disastrous never-again hiking-around-tree-farm-experiences, we’ve purchased our tree in a Dairy Queen parking lot. So, really …
Also this afternoon: big kids had their second babysitting gig (he’s the other curly head in the foreground).
And now it’s dark, and we still haven’t had supper. Kevin and the boys are out picking up a take-out Thai order. I’ve got a very hungry and grumpy child curled in the rocking chair beside me, and another trying to solve a sudoko puzzle at the dining-room table (and she’s stuck on something, from the sounds of it). Also crossed off the list today: fresh sheets for everyone, tons of laundry, library run, creative Shakespeare presentation completed, and — still in the works — bread baking.
Hey, food’s here! As Fooey says, “Let’s eat! Let’s eat!”
Thursday, Nov 29, 2012 | Books, Kids, School, Writing |
Picture me here, if you’d like. This is my cozy office. “Carrie’s folly,” reads the pretty embroidered sign on the wall. The universe understands irony, right?
Anyway, here is where I am, and where I’ll be pretty much indefinitely, hammering together the structure of a new book. Unless the teachers go on strike. Now, if the teachers go on strike, which may happen as early as Monday, you’ll likely hear far more from me here on the blog since I won’t be tied up with writing a book. There will be no writing of books while I’m chasing children and wondering why I have no back-up plan.
Why do I have no back-up plan?
Monday, Nov 26, 2012 | Birthdays, Kevin, Kids, Soccer, Weekend |
four-layer cake for a birthday party with friends
whip-cream-covered poke cake for birthday party with family (same day; that’s a lot of cake!)
early morning indoor soccer game in Mississaugua, all-family-expedition
Remember when I said if I was quiet on the blog, it might indicate good writing going on? Well, that’s only half-true. It might also indicate extreme busyness going on, with no time for writing of any sort, even on the blog. This weekend was so non-stop, I was really looking forward to Monday morning.
Not pictured:
* a 12-km Friday evening speed run in an arctic wind that blew in quite suddenly; I wouldn’t have gone except that I go to great lengths to fit this Friday run into the schedule every week — once I’m there, in my running gear, I can’t not go, no matter the weather
* followed up the run with a surprise birthday party for a dear friend
* discovered The Juliet Stories had made the Globe & Mail’s top-100 books of the year
* late-night TV with Kevin, dogs, and a pot of tea (Inspector Lewis)
* my soccer game, which was wicked fun and tons of exercise, and made me swear I’d keep playing soccer as long as my joints could stand it; my mom came to babysit the little kids so that Kevin could come along: a soccer date. I appreciated having a fan in the stands.
* a visit to a book club who thanked me with a gift certificate to my favourite restaurant in town (Nick & Nat’s Uptown 21)!
And here it is, Monday morning.
Friday, Nov 23, 2012 | Chores, Driving, House, Kids, Parenting, Soccer, Swimming |
A funny thing. I’ve started to enjoy the trips in the car to deliver and collect children from their various activities. If I’m alone, I turn on the radio and cruise between CBC Radio One (talk) and CBC Radio Two (music). If I’ve got a kid or two in behind, it’s a chance to talk. We drive through the dark that comes so early at this time of year, watching carefully for pedestrians and cyclists. (Side note: we didn’t spot one cyclist wearing a helmet, let alone reflective clothing or lights, on the university campus yesterday; we even saw a young man skateboarding in the bike lane of a busy street, going the wrong way! Needless to say, he wasn’t wearing a helmet either, because really, if you’re skateboarding in the bike lane going the wrong way after dark, you’re clearly not concerned about head injury. This sparked a conversation about safety and being young and feeling invincible. “Why is it that the things people think are cool are risky or dangerous?” my daughter asked. Well. Why indeed?).
But anyway. The conversations range. It’s always interesting.
And as long as we’re not late, I have a feeling of contentment, of easily-fulfilled purpose. It’s emotionally uncomplicated. It’s relaxing, even. Maybe that’s because it’s so much simpler to drive from swimming to soccer, to tie a shoelace, to greet other parents, to drop off a carpooling extra, than to be at home with the remaining children over the same time, supervising piano practice and homework and doing dishes and laundry. Four out of five weeknights, that’s where I am. Last night, I asked Kevin to trade places, since he happened not to be coaching anyone. When I returned home from my drive, I noticed he had a harrassed impatience about him that is often mine as snacktime gets dragged out and children begin lying on the floor and complaining about tooth brushing.
Situations do that to a person. And I could walk through the door, all fresh and relaxed after completing my pleasant errands, and be the voice of reason. Which is really irritating to the person who’s been stuck at home with the homework and the dishes. Which makes me think that the more we share jobs, the happier we all will be; or at least the more sympathetic.
Monday, Nov 19, 2012 | Birthdays, Confessions, Kids, Soccer |
Saturday evening, basement “studio”, still nine years old
yup, that’s Shakespeare
Alright. This birthday did not turn out as planned. Honestly, it’s been a tough week, and we’ve tried to roll with the punches, but we really didn’t anticipate this particular change in plans. There they were, Kevin and the little kids all snacked up and ready to go, swim kid freshly out of the pool, dressed in soccer gear, hitting the highway for today’s game. Here we were, Albus getting to skip out on the soccer trip, and me getting in a few exciting and much-needed hours of writing work, when the phone rang.
“It’s Dad! The truck broke down!”
Luckily they’d made it off the highway and into a parking lot, much safer than sitting by the side of the road. Luckily we are members of our local carshare, so I booked a car immediately and off we set on a mission to pick them up. Unluckily for us, there was a problem with the car. Luckily for us, the woman at the carshare hotline picked up quickly and directed us to a different car just a few blocks away. Unluckily for us, it only seated five. Luckily for us, Kevin got a ride with the tow truck driver.
But there was the afternoon. No writing. No soccer girl at soccer game. No cupcakes to teammates.
AppleApple was upset at first, and then sanguine. She’ll take the cupcakes to her teammates at the Thursday practice instead. Back home, she put on her PJs, got cozy, and everyone watched a movie. I went to my soccer game. With help from Grandma, we were able to get out to celebrate at our favourite restaurant for birthday dinners. In short, it all worked out just fine.
Just not as planned.
Sunday evening, basement “studio,” barefoot in purple coat, now ten years old
If I don’t get a day to write, soon, I may, however, go crazy. My equilibrium is off. I didn’t run enough this weekend. I need to remember how to stay strong, no matter the weather; mostly I need to remember not to be so hard on myself. (I made one misstep at soccer that cost our team the win; we tied instead; I was so down on myself afterward that I contemplated quitting. Tonight, Albus walked home with me from the carshare drop-off spot, and I told him how I’d felt, and he was quite shocked. Sounded silly to him. One mistake and you want to quit? I know, I said, it’s just how I felt in the moment. He understood. But, he said, I’m pretty sure your team wouldn’t want you to quit for one mistake.) I need to let those moments of discouragement, or failure, or just plain wishing it were otherwise to wash over me. It’s okay to feel that way, just so long as it doesn’t actually cause me to quit or give up or storm off. Know what I mean?
We all went around the table tonight and said something we like about AppleApple. Fooey likes that AppleApple is teaching her how to sew. I like that AppleApple is inspiring with all she tries and all she does. Albus said AppleApple is good to chat with. Kevin likes AppleApple’s crazy smile she gets when she’s very excited about something. CJ was grumpy and refused to participate, but that’s because the ice cream was late coming to the table. Or because he’s four and a half, who knows.
AppleApple had one too: She said, I like being me!
She is an inspiring kid. I’m inspired by all my kids. Each of them try and do all kinds of new things. They’re brave. They’re willing to learn, happy to learn. They take practicing for granted — of course you have to do it in order to get better! And they’re willing to fall down and get up and try again. Which is, come to think of it, something they get to see me do, too, from time to time.
Happy birthday, ten-year-old daughter. You are inspiring, for real.
Random facts.