Category: Kids
Monday, May 28, 2012 | Bicycles, Exercise, Kids, Readings, Soccer, Swimming |
date-night dinner
Sorry, folks. I have not got back into doing my “week in suppers” feature. With soccer almost every night, we’re eating early, and that means a rushed and thrown-together meal. Quick sides, lately, include asparagus oven-roasted with salt and olive oil, and spinach salads with homemade dressings. Seasonal happiness. But nothing very special.
However, Kevin and I had an at-home date on Saturday. He sourced the ingredients, and I was the chef. And it was really good. Seared tuna steaks served atop smashed, roasted potatoes, topped with a reduced red wine sauce with capers and scallions. Plus the stand-by of the asparagus mentioned above, also roasted with portobello mushrooms.
Seriously yummy. Kevin made us a couple of martinis. And we watched a funny/sweet movie, completely chosen at random, called Adventureland. I’d recommend it.
:::
Yesterday I ate a banana for supper. Not recommended. I played a soccer game from 4-5:30, then raced home to shower and wash the blood off my knee (seriously; I was playing against a rough defender), and pretty myself up in order to bike to another reading. The banana was all I had time for until arriving home, nearly 10pm, when I devoured Saturday night’s leftovers. I love leftovers.
I also managed to bake four loaves of bread yesterday, and make and freeze six meal’s worth of turkey stock. Productive! Which is good because Saturday was most unproductive. I felt myself melting into a anxious stasis. General exhaustion. On Friday afternoon, racing to squeeze in one last errand, I found myself fantasizing about just stopping. Standing still, refusing to go on with the tasks before me. Of course, that wasn’t an option. Instead, I kept up the momentum, and biked off to pick up the kids from school for swim lessons.
Worst outing ever. (Maybe I should have just stopped everything …)
It was so hot! Everyone was so grumpy! The complaining! The epic whining! And to top it off, we had one kid bleeding from a pedal injury before we’d even reached our destination. And I hadn’t brought bandages. Let’s just sum up this adventure by stating for the record: Everyone survived!
Parenthood is not the most romantic occupation. If anyone’s trying to tell you otherwise.
:::
On the plate for this week …
:: I’m in Burlington tomorrow morning at Books & Brunch. Readings start at 9:30am.
:: Wednesday evening, I’m looking forward to hearing my former boss, Noah Richler, talk about his new book What We Talk About When We Talk About War. Here’s the invite on Facebook. Join me? Starts at 7pm, at the Laurier Centre for Military and Strategic Disarmament Studies (now that’s a mouthful).
:::
One last thing to note. Another lovely blog review of The Juliet Stories, this time from a fellow red-headed mama. Read on.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 | Birthdays, Exercise, Kids, Play, Running, Soccer |
almost eleven
I want nothing more than to write a big fat juicy post about our weekend. But I’m on a tight deadline. So here’s the quick and dirty version.
tournament
Soccer girl played six games in a tournament this weekend. Kev took the the first two days, and I went yesterday. That way we could manage to run errands, do some gardening, and not have to drag the other kids along. Her team finished with a bronze medal and a lot of happy faces.
Yesterday our eldest turned eleven. It was a good party, from what I hear. My great regret is that I spent virtually the entire day not with my eleven-year-old. AppleApple and I were off early for the tournament, and home later than expected. The party was already in full swing. I had just enough time to download photos from the various cameras I’m testing out before changing into soccer gear myself.
Off to play in the pouring rain! On a weird field with a wide strip of mulch and grass seed sweeping across it! Against a team of 19-year-old girls who had a coach and a full line of subs! (My team is, well, my age-ish, and had two subs.) I was tentative and terrified for the first ten minutes, but finally got my foot on the ball, and then it got better. There’s nothing like playing a new sport to make you feel out of shape, but I quickly figured out that I would recover from the sprints; thankfully, I have endurance. I badly need better ball-handling skills. And to hold my body differently against the big contact players. (I felt very very small, let me tell you.) But it was really fun.
eleven for real
And then I came home and spent some time snuggling my big eleven-year-old boy, who was feeling kind of sad that I’d missed his whole day. Me too. In fact, that feels like most my days right now — rushed and hurried and squeezed. Am I running on adrenalin? Will I wear myself out? What am I missing???
Onward.
Thursday, May 17, 2012 | Chores, Driving, Family, Friends, Kids, Publishing, Readings, Writing |
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| at the Starlight on Tuesday, photo credit Zara Rafferty |
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| photo credit Zara Rafferty |
No, I’m not a real surfer. But life feels a bit ocean-like these days, rolling, never steady. I spent yesterday in Toronto. It turned out that parking was easier to find than anticipated, so that bike never left the back of my vehicle. (Although parallel parking on Queen St. West at rush hour was an exciting opportunity to test my driving skills.)
Some fine moments from my day …
:: smiling at people passing on the sidewalk, some of whom seemed shocked to be making eye contact with a stranger
:: meeting another Snyder from Kitchener-Waterloo at Book City, and trying to piece together our geneological connection
:: eating Korean stew with my lovely little sister on Bloor street; and hanging out together, not in a rush at all
:: making an it’s-a-small-world connection with Daniel Griffin (who also read last night at Type)
:: mingling with the awesome crowd at Type Books before the reading, and putting faces to blog-names
:: being introduced by the lovely Kerry Clare
:: reading a story to a group of people who were really listening
:: getting teaching-creative-writing advice from Heather Birrell (who is a high school English teacher, and who also read last night)
:: finding all the dishes done when I got home
Some less-fine moments …
:: worrying about my dress
:: the chilly wind that swept Toronto all of yesterday
:: forgetting someone’s name during the book signing (AUGH! This happens virtually every time, and every time I curse my name-bank-blank-spot. This is how bad it is: I have literally blanked on the name of a family friend, known for twenty-five years, and seen on a regular basis. I don’t know how that’s even possible. And I hope it doesn’t indicate early onset dementia.)
But this is all to say: Life’s good. It’s messy and it’s good. It’s crazy and whirling and I couldn’t quite believe that I was up at 5am this morning for a spin/kettlebell class, and there’s dirt all over the basement, and I have a basket of laundry waiting to be hung, and no, I will never catch up on my emails — or, really, on anything at all, ever — but this is it. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything less. I love the doors open policy that brings five boys into my house on a Wednesday after school (and leaves behind sweaters not belonging to my kids; be sure to check our lost and found pile, parents). I love seeing my kids excited about moving dirt into new garden beds (yesterday’s major project, overseen by Kevin, bless him). I love lifting kettlebells over my head (is that too weird?). I love getting to read my stories out loud.
Keep the waves coming.
Monday, May 14, 2012 | Bicycles, Chores, Exercise, Kids, Laundry, Parenting, Play, Readings, Running, Spring, The Juliet Stories, Work |
party night
My thoughts are all over the place on this Monday morning. I’m wondering: should I blog our week in suppers? Skip over that and write about my weekend of solo parenting? Share news about upcoming events and unexpected Juliet feedback?
Last night, I set my alarm for swimming. I woke at 2am. I’d been dreaming about sleeping (again!). I decided to turn off the alarm and really sleep. I have three early mornings planned this week; given that I also have two evening readings, self-preservation starts to come into play. It was a little easier to turn off the alarm given that yesterday, late afternoon, I ran 12 pain-free kilometres, keeping up a good pace and plotting my return to distance running. That counts as my first real distance run since my injury in January. It’s short, as far as distance runs go, but it was a blast. Next week … 14 km??
Uh. Where was I? Oh yes, self-preserving.
Tonight, I’m ferrying children from dance to soccer practice while Kevin has an early soccer game. Tomorrow, I’m at the Starlight in Waterloo (come, too!), from 7pm onward. Readings start at 7:45. And on Wednesday I’m headed to Toronto for an event at Type Books called the “Short Story Shindig” with Heather Birrell and Daniel Griffin, and hosted by Kerry Clare; 7pm (come, too!). This is all very exciting, but doesn’t go terrifically well with excessive early morning exercise.
As I said to Kevin this morning, “This isn’t the year of the triathlon. This is the year of The Juliet Stories.” (Which may be the first time I’ve admitted that, even to myself. I really really liked the year of the triathlon. I felt so hard-core. Sharing my book feels less focused, less goal-oriented. Maybe I need to start thinking of readings as races. They definitely affect me in similar ways — I’m nervous before, wired and happy during, and it takes me a little while to come down afterward.)
So. Slightly less focus on exercise, slightly more focus on evening events.
Now. Let me tell you all about my weekend with my kids. We had so much fun! Why can’t we have this much fun all the time? Is it because I’m usually trying to get too many other things accomplished? That can’t be entirely it, because we seemed to accomplish quite a lot, even while finding time to relax. Our weekend included …
:: watching Modern Family on Friday night while sharing an entire bag of Cheetos (which were utterly disgusting, may I just add)
:: trampoline ninja jumping (everyone!)
:: a bike trip to the grocery store for picnic and party supplies, followed by a picnic in the park
:: reading outside while two girls rode giggling past me on scooters and bikes too small for them
:: hanging laundry on the line, baking bread
:: playing on electronic devices; taking lots of photos
personal pizzas for party night (the one with the olives, asparagus, and eggplant? yes, that’s mine)
:: “Party Night,” wherein we had homemade personal pizzas and punch with ginger ale while watching a movie, then gorged on episodes of Modern Family while simultaneously gorging on boxed cereal and utterly disgusting candy; the rules for Party Night go like this: everyone gets to choose one treat from the grocery store (under $4), and we stay up as late as we want; oddly, three of four children chose boxed cereal (Corn Pops, Frosted Flakes, and Froot Loops, for the record). We have never felt so collectively gross. I blame the milk. Maybe the sugar too. It was surprisingly easy to herd the children off to bed at a not entirely unreasonable hour (9:30ish) …
:: … though AppleApple and I got distracted searching for my old Grade One piano book in the basement, which we never found, but we did find one of my old and relatively simple classical piano books, and ended up staying up for another hour playing songs. The Wild Horseman. The Happy Farmer. One of Muzio Clemente’s simple Sonatinas (she’s learning it!). Minuets from the Anna Magdalena Bach notebook). Bliss!
:: sleeping in
:: making and delivering, on bicycle, invitations for an 11th birthday party (a week from today!)
:: more bike riding and trampolining and laundry hanging; hey, whatever makes us happy
Mother’s day was capped off by the return of Dad, and supper out at all-you-can-eat sushi with my mom, too.
And that is plenty for one blog post. Never got to the unexpected and lovely Juliet feedback. Well. More tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 | Big Thoughts, Kids, Mothering, Spirit |
thanks to my mom for taking this photo of my kids walking to a diner for breakfast
This morning, our littlest piano player was becoming frustrated with her practicing. Slam, slam, slam the fingers on the keys, wrong note, BANG, wrong note, BANG, wrong note, BANG. “This song is too hard!” This was preceded by a ridiculous argument with her sister over the “funnies” in the paper (which no one finds funny, yet everyone insists on reading; which I find funny). And it was followed by a ridiculous argument with said sister over a sunhat — she wanted to wear her sister’s hat, which was apparently much superior to her own. “I only have one hat and she has two!” was the cry of misery.
Suddenly I realized — she was tired. It had been a late night, her first soccer practice of the season, bedtime pushed back by an hour, and she’d woken early.
Ah. It all made perfect sense.
I’m feeling a little bit the same way myself, frankly. Need more sleep.
Monday, May 7, 2012 | Kids, Running |
after the race
This weekend my big kids ran their first race. Signing up was of their own initiative — inspired by friends. Albus raised quite a lot of money, also of his own initiative, for the cause (Kidsability). They trained regularly with friends in the weeks leading up to the race, sometimes led by a parent, but also on their own. And on Sunday, they each ran their own very individual race, according to their unique personalities.
Albus stuck with a friend. He finished in good time, with faster splits than we’d been doing our training runs (5:43/km), 162nd of 540 runners. Here is a classic Albus-defining moment: As he approached the finish line, he found Kevin in the crowd and stopped to wave. By contrast, AppleApple was so focused in her sprint for the finish line that she had no idea anyone was yelling her name and cheering her on. She ran entirely on her own, and much faster than we knew she could (4:40/km), finishing 50th of 540 runners.
Both children loved the experience, and want to do it again. I love that they each did it their own way, and that each came away happy and proud. To thine own self be true!
