Category: Kids
Wednesday, Dec 12, 2012 | Kids, Organizing, Work, Writing |
Haircut, Monday evening, while waiting for the hot chocolate to cool, because, as always, “This hot chocolate is too hot!”
I wasn’t going to blog this morning, but I’m operating so efficiently that I genuinely believe I can write and post this in ten minutes (which is the time I’m allotting towards it). I have already been for a run (with a friend, in the dark, and oh it’s dark these mornings, which is why you’ll see me wearing a headlamp, even though I discovered it left a funny mark on my forehead this morning). I have a soup simmering in the crockpot. I got the kids up, dressed, fed, and off to school by myself, as Kevin headed off early to Toronto (thankfully he walked the dogs before he left, that might have been the straw for my this morning). I’ve had a nap. I’ve eaten breakfast! I just made a fresh pot of coffee.
I’m going to spend the day writing.
But I did want to report back re sad neglected advent calendar. Monday ended on a high: I put slips of paper into each empty pocket. I was so excited to tell the kids when they got home from school: check the calendar!
Monday’s activity? “Look at photo albums.”
“Oh! I just did that!” said Fooey. (Yes, that’s what gave me the idea, thought I. The photo albums were still out.)
Yesterday’s activity: “Write our family Christmas letter.”
Which AppleApple and I accomplished in an hour of manic productiveness after swimming, while the little kids got their own snacks and brushed their own teeth (Kevin and Albus were at soccer). Now comes the hard part: printing and sending. If you think you’re not on our list and you’d like to be added to our list (where is our list? note to self: find!), you are welcome to send me your address via email.
Today’s activity: “Wear red and green.” (Because today is “green” day in CJ’s “big school” classroom and I didn’t want to forget.)
I can’t remember what tomorrow’s is. But trust me, all of the activities are extremely low-key, or things I’d already planned to do. For those more ambitious, a friend sent me a link to this Pinterest page with advent activities that are, admittedly, quite do-able, but kind of overwhelm me with their impossible enthusiasm nevertheless.
Time’s up. Enjoy your Wednesday, whatever it is you’re doing today. (Just noticed that I’m not wearing red or green …)
Friday, Dec 7, 2012 | Kids, The Juliet Stories, Writing |
Creative discomfort. I’m in the throes right now. I am sitting with problems yet unsolved within in a book partially written, and it’s agonizing, I’ll admit. But it is also part of the process — no, it’s critical to the process — and the book I want to write cannot be completed without the discomfort, the discordances, the anxiety, the wish to be done with it combined with the knowledge that only patience will bring relief.
It’s been an intense writing week, in an intense writing month, as I lay down the bones and structure for this book begun many months ago. I’m desperate to finish building an arc from end to end. I’m close. But I can’t guess how close. Am I days, weeks, or still many months from creating a solid first draft? I imagine myself, with a pleasantly whole (if drafty) draft completed, marching back through these rooms to carve all the fancy parts, the elaborations, to paint the walls, and fill the closets, and scatter things on the floor. To make messy and lived-in what is yet quite bare and sparse. This book feels like a house. Which makes perfect sense because it is, in part, inspired by a house I once lived in.
I sometimes say that The Juliet Stories took six years to write, but it would be more accurate to say that The Juliet Stories took six years to get right. The actual writing of the actual stories in the finished book came in bursts and jags. Some required much rewriting. All needed polishing. Some of the best came quickly and suddenly from nowhere I could have imagined before sitting down and discovering them.
The whole of it looked messy and incomplete for a very very very long time.
How to live in a messy and incomplete house? A house that hasn’t got a roof yet, but that is already ghosted by characters? They wander too, wondering what I’ll build for them, wondering where I’ll arrange them, and why.
On Wednesday, the little kids and I finished reading Little House in the Big Woods. So last night we moved on to Little House on the Prairie. The Big Woods have become too crowded and busy for Pa’s liking. The little path in front of their log house is almost a road, now, and almost every day Mary and Laura stop their play to watch with surprise as a wagon passes by. One wagon a day is too many for Pa. So he builds his own wagon, and as Ma “does not object,” the family says goodbye to the little house in the big woods of Wisconsin and sets off for the less-populated West.
CJ was almost in tears at the loss of the cozy little house. Would Mary and Laura ever see their grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles again? (I think the answer is: no.) He couldn’t bear the thought. And I felt the pain, too, as if it were happening to us: the early dark of a March morning, the goodbyes of family, the emptied house which can’t see them go because its windows are shuttered.
They never saw that little house again, writes Laura.
What do I hold onto? Why? What do I think I could not bear to let go of? How rooted is our family, here? We feel so very rooted, such a goodbye seems impossible to imagine.
I just finished reading Alison Pick’s Far to Go, which I highly recommend. It ends with a reflection on how swiftly the world we think we know can fall to pieces. I don’t know whether it is this present state of creative discomfort, or this dark season before the coming of the solstice, but right now I am keenly attuned to the off-kilterness in our larger world with too many sadnesses and wrongs to list here, except to say that so many of them seem caused by greed, and by the hunger of the now.
Thursday, Dec 6, 2012 | Kids, Lists |
CJ’s big problem: He doesn’t want to wear snow pants because they make his pants slide up his leg. And it’s snowing! And we’re late for the bus!
Mama’s quick solution: Tuck pants into socks, and we’re good to go.
But Mama wonders, will the kid figure out how to tuck his pants in again at school? After all, he has to dress himself in snow clothes for two recessess, plus coming home after school.
Apparently, Mama needn’t have worried. He knew what to do! He just wore them tucked in all day long. Like this. Yep. It’s a good look.
*
Today’s post is all about practicalities. Sorry, folks. I’m going to post my kids’ Christmas wish lists here. If you’re an aunt, uncle, or grandparent, you may find these interesting, even helpful. If you’re anyone else, please accept my apologies, and check back tomorrow instead.
Albus’s Christmas list (spelling uncorrected)
1. cappachino maker (he saw it advertised in a catalogue, and here is what he told us: “I’ll just make decaf cappuchinos … or espressos.” I’m not endorsing his idea, but I had to leave it on the list, because, seriously, what 11-year-old asks for a cappuchino-maker?!)
2. Krave breakfast cereal
3. Crunchie chocolate bar
4. Settelers ‘o’ cantan (I think he means the board game Settlers of Catan, which even I can’t spell)
5. Lego minifigures (stocking stuffers: Santa will take care of this)
6. i-pod nano or i-pod-touch
8. Skylanders Giants figures: Whirlwind, Bash, Prism break, Wrecking ball, chop chop, Hex, fright rider, Stealth elf, Flame, Slinger, Sonic Boom (don’t ask me what all this means)
9.
There is no ninth request, but he wrote the number down, just in case.
AppleApple’s Christmas List (adapted from her birthday list)
-puzzle books
-doggy costume (ie. for the dogs)
-hat
-jeans
-apricot
-blood orange
-grapes
-kiwi
-pomegranite
-dragon fruit
-grape fruit
-papaya
-snake book
-mango
-mittens
-snow pants (size 10)
-horse books
-Fantasy books
-shakespeare plays (she has Romeo and Juliet already)
-chocolate
Fooey’s Christmas List
– Maplelea doll items: bed, wardrobe, hangers, prima ballerina, Katajjaq Giggles
– Lego friends
– i-pod touch
– Books
– Chocolet
– journel
– snow kitten writing set or snuggle puppy writing set (these may be Scholastic order items)
– Doodle journel
– my perfect puppy (?)
– Skylanders fugeirs like: Ninijni
x-mas list for CJ (transcribed by Albus)
1. Lego Star Wars
2. Playmobiel Pyrates (oh, the spelling, Albus, the spelling!) (pretty sure that means “pirates”)
3. Lego set with Iron man
4. Batman lego “the butcave” (surely Albus mean to write “batcave”)
5. Skylander feguers like: double trouble, trigger happy, bash, hot dog, pop fizz, and zap, thumpback, spyro (again with the Skylander figures! Hats off to those *&%^^ing wii marketers, whoever they may be, for sucking in three out of four of my children.)
I will just add, although not on every list, that books, puzzles, games, crafts, and creative off-the-wall toys are always welcome, and will please the children too. And I’m not just saying that!
*
Should I make a Christmas/birthday wish list? Ah heck, why not.
– books or gift certificate to WordsWorth
– clothes or gift certificate to Andie’s (my favourite shop uptown)
– tea
– exercise clothes or gift certificate to Studio Energi
– there must be more, but I’m blanking. No Skylander figures (or figeuers, or figeirs, or even figrers) for me, please.
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?
