Category: Kids
Friday, Oct 31, 2008 | Kids |
Food. A neighbour dropped off a bag of sourdough starter batter for Amish Friendship Sweet Bread. I’m now on day 10 of the process, having followed the instructions all the way along, including the rather suspect pouring of a cup of milk into the ziploc bag on day 6–and leaving it sitting on the counter. Seemed wrong, somehow, but I guess that’s why the dough is sour. It smells fantastically yeasty. This recipe calls for two boxes of vanilla pudding, which, as a friend said (Nath) doesn’t sound all that Amish, but there are loads of alternate recipes online. I have no time to bake today, so I’m freezing the lot–it made five cups of starter. The idea is that you give away a cup to three friends and get them started. Sorry, friends. I’m keeping it all in my freezer. Not because I don’t think you’re worthy of Amish Friendship Sweet Bread starter, but because it’s feels too much like a chain letter. If any friend, upon reading this, is inspired to make Amish Friendship Sweet Bread, please let me know, and I will give you a cup of starter.
Our CSA was pleasantly chard- and kale-free on Tuesday. It was the last box, and it will make Tuesdays easier not to have to do pick-up and then clean and store all that food; but I will miss is sorely, too. Kevin picked a great box: lots of squash, another pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbages. I have been baking squash and mashing it with butter and a bit of salt, and it’s divine. Also have been saving some for CJ, who is a fan of tastes beyond barley cereal and breastmilk. He is savouring new textures (homemade bread crusts) and flavours (squash, pumpkin, banana).
It is a gorgeous fall day, sunshine and warming up, but I am NOT hanging laundry outside (or inside) today. I have made it this entire rainy, chilly month without using our drier, but I have three loads that need doing before we leave for the weekend, and I accepted as a smallish revelation the understanding that by not hanging all this laundry I could instead hang out with my kids this morning. And there is already way too much to do. Every once in awhile, economy and environmental considerations are not worth the extra workload. This is one of those times. I am definitely feeling stretched thin … or flattened, somehow, by all this responsibility. So will take advantage of modern conveniences, while they’re still in existence. Does that sound overly apocalyptic?
Aagh, am listening to the “new” CBC Radio Two–and it stinks! Easy listening for the dentist’s chair. Gonna switch to Jian Ghomeshi on Radio One … or try Radio Three. Feel like background music this morning.
Tuesday, Oct 28, 2008 | Kids |
Finding it hard to find time to write this week. The schedule feels relentless. There are so many little odds and ends I want to note and write down in order to remember, but I’m doing it all in my head, never getting my fingers to the keyboard (or a pen to the page of a notebook, for that matter). Baby sleeping poorly, STILL! Last night, we got him down, Kevin left to go back to work late, and I went off to bed–and by 10:30, CJ was awake and screaming and the magic boob had apparently lost all of its magical powers. No go on the nursing; he really wanted nothing, just couldn’t settle and sleep. I let him cry for twelve long minutes in his playpen, tried nursing again, nope. This went on. I almost called Kevin to beg him to come home and walk the kid around, but eventually CJ fell back to sleep in our bed, with me patting his back. And there he stayed all night, nursing on multiple occasions. The magic reappeared at around 1AM.
Our last CSA box will be picked up tonight. I’m guessing: beets, chard, beets, chard, beets, chard, a carrot or three, potatoes. In fact, in preparation for this arrival, I am boiling up all the beets to be found still huddling in our fridge. It’s my Tuesday clear-the-bottom-drawer boil-up. Except there’s still last week’s chard. Oh, and kale. Forgot to add kale into the mix. There’s bound to be some of that too. I can’t possibly eat it all myself, and no one else will, so it sits sadly in the fridge waiting patiently, growing weak and weary and all dried out and shrivelled.
Was supposed to write on Monday morning, but woke up unprepared and decided to run errands instead and go about a regular day. It was fine, but I do miss it. Still, the writing day really only works when I can string more than two or three hours together at a time. It’s just exquisite torture otherwise. Just enough time to get into something, never enough time to finish it. In fact, I’d say it takes about two hours to get chugging, like the brain is finally up to speed and connections are being made lightening fast, ideas stringing together, words flowing and dancing, and it’s just cruel to cut it off at that point.
Must cut this off at this point, however, because it’s F’s music class at the Beckett and we are leaving in about ten minutes, and I have to wake the babe and change his diaper and toss everyone into warm clothing. Hopefully CJ will be cheerier today, having had (a portion of) his nap before the class. He’s less and less easy to entertain for an hour in a bare hallway, waiting. I think the teacher likes us to stay in case there’s an emergency bathroom break, but maybe I could sneak off for part of today’s lesson and grab a coffee and a treat from City Cafe bakery just up the street. That would just about make my day.
Sunshine this morning as we walked to school, very very cold, but brilliant and beautiful colours that lifted my spirits. Now we’re back to grey. My least favourite colour. My least favourite mood.
Saturday, Oct 25, 2008 | Kids |
Wow. Unexpectedly, I have a full fifteen minutes to myself this afternoon. Actually, it was half an hour, but I just wasted half of it surfing the net looking for info on recalled toys and symptoms of lead poisoning, because baby CJ was discovered earlier this afternoon with a blue tongue caused by sucking on a little rubbery fireman figure, provenance unknown, likely a dollar store, definitely made in China, and claims to have once been a Tonka product. The blue dye was what his saliva dissolved off the fireguy’s pants. That doesn’t seem normal. I’ve been sitting here seriously considering chucking all made-in-China toys that currently populate our house, along with all toys with small magnets. CJ is so very very mobile all of a sudden, and I cannot keep my eyes glued to him every minute of every day.
But let’s move on to cheerier topics, shall we. Tomorrow I’ll get down on hands and knees and crawl the house in search of disposable toys, but hey, this aft, I’ve got a few free minutes and I wanted to write about being mute for a couple of days. It was such a frustrating and simultaneously enlightening experience. On Wednesday I literally couldn’t speak. I could whisper, but my actual voice emanated as a high-pitched whistle that a) made me sound like a squeak toy and b) was highly ineffective for virtually any communication. But still having these children to look after, life went on, despite an almost silent Mommy. In fact, life went on really darn peacefully. For example, on Wednesday, the kids and I walked home from school in near silence, just a few comments from them to each other since I could not moderate discussion. We walked through the door and things did not fall apart. On the contrary, big bro A was on best behavior. Supper got made in record time. Peaceable children read stories to each other. Any intervention I made was whispered and therefore calm-sounding, patient. Children started whispering to each other. I swear, it was the best after-school-hour we’ve had all year.
I’m big on silver linings, and must confess it was really really frustrating not to be able to talk, like having a vow of silence forced upon one, but what I wanted to take away from the (admittedly brief) experience was how powerful a quiet voice can be. Much more powerful than a loud one. And additionally, how children can be moved to pitch in and help when really needed, how adversity raises the behavior bar for everyone. Not that I want to be sick again!
Oh dear. Naptime is abruptly over. The kid has napped a total of forty minutes all day! And it’s almost 5pm!
Wednesday, Oct 22, 2008 | Kids, Writing |
I’m so appreciative of our new school schedule this year: last year, we had to race off to get AB to senior kindergarten by 1pm every single day, along with taking A first thing in the morning. This year, both kids are in full days, and I love those morning and afternoon walks and chats with the children. And I love, love, love that unbroken stretch between drop-off and pick-up. It means baby CJ gets more time napping in his own crib, and I can plan special activities for F, and it means we can have days just like this one: with no plans at all. And no hurry, no rush.
It means baby CJ can nap for two straight hours, like he did this morning, while F and I bake muffins together (Healthy ones. If these turn out, I’ll post the recipe). It means the two of them can play together in the living-room, as they’re doing right now, without me worrying that we need to stuff lunch into everybody and get dressed up in winter clothes for an unwanted outing. The fate of the younger child is to be dragged along on various outings that benefit other people. Yesterday, CJ was in his car seat, or waiting outside F’s music class, or in the stroller, for two and a half straight hours. He was going mental by the end, and I didn’t blame him. I sent Kevin for the CSA box because I couldn’t bear making CJ endure yet one more errand when all he wanted was the freedom to crawl around on the floor and play. The older kids spent an hour after school at a local history club organized by neighbours who are homeschooling. Having dashed from F’s music class, then home to walk to school, then walked the big kids to the library, then home again–a full hour of walking–I indulged my impulse to do NOTHING, and F and CJ and I played together in the living-room. I read her some stories. She coloured. CJ and I played the piano. It was as lovely as it sounds.
It felt like winter this morning, without snow, but the sun is gorgeous, and I hung out the laundry. I still have no voice. Laryngitis (sp?) is my Achilles heel (to mix metaphors). I miss speech! It feels very isolating. I’ve dug out the humidifier to use tonight, and continue to swill hot drinks, including my ginger-garlic brew. It would probably be best if I could manage not to talk for a full day, but that’s impossible. I have to squeak at these poor children on occasion. And tomorrow I’ve been invited to participate in a dialogue between Canadian and Chinese writers at the University of Waterloo. Apparently the Chinese writers don’t speak any English so we will be speaking through translators. At least it’s not a reading. I am a last-minute fill-in for someone presumably more qualified to attend, because the other Canadian writers are: Wayson Choy, Dennis Bock, and Alistair MacLeod. I was a little bit worried about being such a novice among these other writers, but my greater concern now is that I may not be able to say a word.
CJ is on the move! I just found him standing by the bookshelf. Completely standing! And F would like instructions on how to snap her fingers. Her face is covered with chocolate. The muffins weren’t completely healthy. I ad-libbed.
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.
Monday, Oct 20, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
Apparently doubling the recipe changed the proportions for those Ginger Snaps yesterday, and I have to confess, though they weren’t a flop, they were not the usual slightly cakey, chewy cookie that recipe usually turns out for me. Instead they should have been called Ginger Thins. Still very tasty (butter, sugar, molasses–which is cane syrup or sugar beet syrup, apparently; thanks, Nath!). But flat. I could have draped them over something, hot out of the oven, and they would have taken on that shape. I could have made Ginger Cups and filled them with daubs of whipped cream for a fancy dessert. But instead, I filled my cookie jar and freezer with loads of paper-thin flat cookies.
It’s nice to type. I can’t really talk. A cold has been creeping up on me for days and last night I felt it settling in. Do you know that sensation? Sliding down your throat to your lungs, settling in like a damp fog. My voice is particularly vulnerable to colds, and I’m often hoarse for days or weeks–once it was months–at a stretch.
We got to school early this morning. A wanted to play with his friends before the bell. I was able to drop them at the playground and walk home a bit earlier than usual. Today is storytime at the library, but first I’m enjoying a cup of coffee and will hang laundry, change a diaper, nurse the babe, and make a little grocery list because I’m craving orange juice. I also need ginger for my stalwart ginger-garlic tea, which I make whenever I’m sick. Here’s the recipe: a good whack of peeled ginger root, the cloves of a bulb of garlic, peeled and crushed, the juice of one lemon. Boil together in about 4-6 cups of water, then drink with lots of honey. You can also add cayenne pepper for a real kick (I don’t). Or steep a bag of peppermint tea in the mixture at the end to make it a little more palatable. But the weird thing is, it is very very palatable., even without the peppermint. Could be the honey. Don’t breathe on anyone after imbibing, however.
Okay, by my calculations, we have 15 minutes till departure time, and, some mmoments having elapsed since the above was written, I’ve accomplished hanging the laundry, feeding the baby, and (nearly) drinking the cup of coffee. We also read a story while feeding the baby. Who is obligingly filling his pants now, pre-diaper change, rather than waiting till storytime. Go CJ!!
