Category: Music
Monday, May 2, 2011 | Local Food, Music, Play, Siblings, Writing |
Monday supper. Ginger beef in crockpot, with tofu and brocolli. Baked rice on the side. The kids were off school today, but Kevin had to go to work (Easter Monday). I swam and ran early, and napped early, too, before Kevin left for work. I managed to file a story while the kids played. Or maybe they played wii, truth be told. In the afternoon, the kids and I went to a super-delicious “soup party” to which I contributed a big cake-shaped paska. It rained most of the day, but the kids played outside — soccer and hockey. We dashed home to get changed for swim lessons. CJ and I had many long chats about going in the pool alone, and he mostly said, “NO!” but was swayed, sort of, by the idea of a treat afterward (oh bribery!). When we arrived at the pool, my heart fell — his regular teachers were both sick; two substitutes instead. It turned out not to matter, though; the teachers kindly let me get in the water, too, and CJ willingly went with them, while occasionally leaping with a fake pout toward me. Mid-lesson we took a bathroom break (curses! this happens every time!), and when we got back, the kids were putting on life-jackets and playing with toys. CJ was thrilled. He didn’t even noticed when I climbed out of the water, and he waved happily to me for the rest of the lesson. Afterward, he got his treat: to spend a quarter at the candy machines. Of course the other kids got in on the quarter action, too. Dentist appointment next week. Is this a case of short-term gain for long-term pain? We squeezed in drum and guitar lessons after eating supper together. Kevin practiced soccer at 10pm.
Tuesday supper. Roasted red pepper soup with homemade croutons. Gallo pinto on the side. Green salad. (Gallo pinto is beans and rice fried together: always delicious, and an easy way to use up leftover rice and/or beans). The soup was delicious: I used red peppers roasted and frozen last summer. I had my last spin class of the season (everyone’s riding outside now). The little kids and I enjoyed a quiet morning together, and then our babysitter arrived for an extra afternoon (thank heavens — I missed two writing days due to Easter!). Kevin came home early so I could go to yoga. We waited and ate supper together, though AppleApple ate late, due to soccer practice (successful carpooling!). There were playdates all around after school. And the sun was shining.
Wednesday supper. “Roast” chicken in the crockpot: seasoned with garlic, onion, and sage. Green salad. I peeled and sliced the potatoes first thing in the morning, and kept them covered in cold water until arriving home from music class: then I boiled and mashed them up fresh. No one had to race off anywhere, so we could eat at our leisure: big thumbs up around the table. Today was an unusual day and I did not get a lot of writing done. Instead, Kevin and I met for lunch, and I decided to go ahead and buy a road bicycle and all the accoutrements. Exciting, and terrifying. (I hate spending money, especially on myself). After supper, I walked Albus to piano, and then jogged over to my dad’s to practice, along with my siblings, for his upcoming retirement dinner. We are singing and playing two songs together. My sister Edna and I worked out some pretty harmonies. We didn’t even know we could harmonize together. It took longer than expected. I ran home after Montreal tied up their game seven to go into overtime; and wasn’t home long before the goal that killed their playoff dreams was scored. Kevin was watching, of course.
Thursday supper. Sweet and sour chicken and tofu in the crockpot (oh, and a bit of leftover beef and brocolli, too). Served with baked rice. Kevin got up early this morning for yoga, so we are back to our regular schedule. The kids and I enjoyed playing with friends in the morning, then dashed to the grocery store. I also baked bread, made yogurt, and supper, and hung laundry in the early afternoon: domestic multi-tasking hell, to be perfectly frank. But it all got done in time for me to go to a vinyasa yoga class before supper where we tried a crazy upside-down hand-stand. We cancelled our babysitter due to AppleaApple’s soccer practice, which was then cancelled last-minute due to rain. Oh well. My dad and sister came over to practice the harmonies some more. Good feelings all around.
Friday supper. Braised squash, yams, and chickpeas in the crockpot, with couscous on the side; devilled eggs, too. (Leftovers were also served). The braised squash was a pitiful fail. I think it was the mushrooms I added to the mix. It was something. There was a funky scent going on. Sometimes crockpot meals seem to go from delicious to overcooked in the waning hours of the day. Next time, no mushrooms. At least the buttery couscous was delicious, and everyone liked the devilled eggs. After supper, we dumped the squash straight into the compost, though Kevin and I did eat a fair share; weirdly, it tasted okay, it was just smelled disgusting. I didn’t blame anyone for not trying it. Albus had a friend over who politely thanked me for supper. I felt like apologizing: sorry, kid, I know it was gross and you ate cold leftovers instead. Don’t tell your mother. I had a writing day, and started the morning with a swim. Kevin and I got some tv time together after the kids were in bed. We also met with a different contractor about the porch/office project, and with more optimistic results. We both like this man, we like his work, and his quote was significantly less than the previous quote, and within our budget. It looks like we will be getting the ball rolling over the course of the summer. AppleApple and Albus are already plotting who will get to claim the spare room upstairs (and Fooey and CJ would like to share a room). Lots of groundwork ahead: architectural drawings, permits, etc. We are all dreaming.
Saturday supper. Homemade pizza. The grownup portion had sliced cauliflower and hot pepper flakes, in addition to the kid version of roasted red pepper and cheese. I served nothing else, and we ate every last slice. Uh oh. Double batches, here we come. This was a fairly low-key day, and we finally enjoyed sunshine and warm breezes. There was soccer, of course, and AppleApple’s rehearsal for her theatre performance coming up at the end of the month, and errands, a birthday party, and also my first bike ride ever on a road bike. I only fell once, and it was at a stand-still into grass (the clip-in pedals take some getting used to). I’d meant to take the day off to rest for race-day tomorrow, but oh well. It was just too fun getting out into the sun and riding fast.
Sunday supper. Homemade burgers, nitrate-free hot dogs, homemade french fries, cut-up veggies. Kevin did most of the work, though it was supposed to be “cooking with kids”: Albus’s turn. He and his friend chopped the veggies, then went outside to play (messy, muddy, sandy play = ridiculous amounts of laundry!). The french fries were delicious. I ate more than my fair share. The morning was focused on my 10km race: my maiden voyage. It was so hard. I was chilled to the bone afterward, though I didn’t notice it until we got home and Kevin said: “Your lips are blue.” I took a long, hot bath. The kids gamely came along despite the rain, and my mom even got to see part of the race: she walked over from her church, which was nearby. Fooey’s favourite part was the hot chocolate: “I love hot chocolate,” she reported when someone asked her how the race was. I tried to nap, but was very physically wound up. Instead, I wandered around uselessly, and did a bunch of laundry. My dad and sister, and one of my brothers came over to practice again. I think we’re all set for Tuesday’s performance. One more chance to practice with the mics and the sound on Tuesday afternoon. The kids and I finished off the day together, watching an episode of The Amazing Race. We’re starting a bit late in the season, but it’s an easy show to follow. I really really enjoyed it. Sometimes tv is alright. I fell asleep last night just before the Obama announcement, though I did see it coming on Twitter. I heard the news about OBL early this morning, when I was running on the indoor track: two old men were discussing it. Funny, my Royal Wedding moment happened in the same building on Friday morning. I was swimming, and I looked up through my foggy goggles and saw the tv in the snack area: there were William and Kate pledging their vows. I watched for a breath or two, and thought, there it is, my wedding moment.
And there it is: our week in suppers.
Wednesday, Feb 16, 2011 | Blogging, Kids, Music |
I’ve been re-reading old blogs as I attempt to organize them into a format that is printable, and I’m wondering, fellow bloggers, do you do this, too? Do you keep your blog entries in hard-copy? Do you have a method for organizing old material? Or do you trust in the online world to hold your posts in perpetuity? In looking back over this blog, it feels like a public diary, like a scrapbook of our family’s life, and I want to have it available to leaf through. There’s nothing like paper. But then, I’m an old-school girl. I like my books as books.
Which is not to say that I don’t like reading online, too.
In reading over the old entries, I was struck by how much this blog has changed. It used to be much more about the children, and it’s shifted over time to be more about me. I’m not sure whether that’s because as my children get older, I feel less inclined to invade their privacy by recording things that they may disagree with; or whether I’ve shifted in my own priorities away from the daily parenting. When I started the blog, CJ was four months old. Fooey wasn’t even three. We grow. We change.
In the spirit of the older blogs, I have to record a few CJ sayings. He’s just so articulate and lovely, my almost-three-year-old big boy. “I’m a big boy. I’m a little brother.”
As I was putting on his socks this morning, he looked at me, and said, “I see you down there!” It was the down there part that pleased him especially. It made me realize how in his world, he mostly sees people up there.
He is usually the last one out of bed, and a few mornings ago we were treated to the sound of his door opening and closing, and his sturdy feet hopping down the stairs (yes, he hops from stair step to stair step), until he arrived on the landing where he stopped and, taking in his admiring audience in the kitchen below, he began to sing. He sang a full verse and chorus to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, but with made up words, his long blond hair fluffed around his head like a halo, wearing his red footie Christmas pajamas. Then he jumped into my arms. I asked, “Did you learn that song at nursery school?” and he said, “No. I just made it up in my bed!”
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2010 | Baking, Cooking, Holidays, Kids, Music, Running, Yoga |
As we exit another Christmas season, I want to take time to note down, quickly, and for future reference, what worked for me this year: the rituals that held meaning, and why, and the little things that drew me into the magic of the holiday.
1. Cooking and baking. Yes, it’s a lot of work to make sticky buns fresh-baked for Christmas morning. And turkey dinner, and cookies, and treats, and all the rest of it. And I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing as my offering for the holiday.
2. Christmas eve service. This year, we attended an informal children’s service on Christmas eve. I’d been so busy all day with last-minute preparations that it was tempting to drop one thing off the list–and the service jumped to mind right away. No, I thought one beat later. And we went. And it was so lovely, and such a reminder of what Christmas celebrates, for many of us.
3. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I read this to the kids all in one gulp one evening leading up to Christmas. Everyone loved it. Of course, I cried at the end, and Fooey, perturbed, comforted me. This could be the beginning of an annual ritual.
4. The Christmas Story. Could it be Christmas without a viewing of that classic movie?
5. Songs. Getting to sing while my sister played piano, and one of my brothers played bass … for hours. Couldn’t be better. Even though it was nearly midnight, I wished we weren’t at the end of the songbook.
6. Music. The CBC played wonderful Christmas music all of Christmas day. I ate my first sticky bun to the Messiah. And I was peeling potatoes during the reading of the birth story, and found myself filling up with mystery and joy at the words of Luke 2:19: “And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
7. Ebb and flow. The best family events have a slowness to them, time to come together and drift and come back together again.
8. Gifts. I don’t know. It’s so much work. But I do love choosing gifts for family, and giving them. I prefer that the gifts aren’t the main focus of the event, but I do appreciate giving and receiving. I like making gifts, too. (And since my speciality is page design, photography, and writing, my children gave homemade gifts in that vein this year too: Albus made everyone a poster with a photo of one of his Star Wars Lego ships on it; and AppleApple wrote and touch-typed a new version of Noah’s Ark, and took photos to illustrate it using Playmobil figures; and then I laid them out, and my brother printed them at his press).
9. Not drinking too much. I didn’t. And I felt better for it.
10. Exercise. I managed to squeeze in the occasional run or yoga class, and always felt better for it.
11. Decorating the tree early! A month of Christmas.
12. Baking and delivering treats for neighbourhood friends.
:::
Things we didn’t do, that I would like to do next year: daily advent calendar activities; a night lantern walk on solstice; decorating a tree outside for the birds; Christmas cards for family and friends (sorry, family and friends, it somehow did not happen this year!).
:::
I also have a list of things that didn’t work … but that sounds like grousing. Now, today is my birthday, and I am celebrating by heading out for a few hours on my own. I look forward to a little time of uninterrupted reflection (she says, as her youngest climbs the stairs yelling, “Mommy where are you?”).
Sunday, Nov 7, 2010 | Music, Organizing |
I’ve been thinking about how to move between the variety of activities that I do every day: some of them on my own, some with individual offspring, some as a family, some with friends, some with people I don’t know, who I may be meeting for the first time of many, or the first and last time. What seems to work best is when I can apply that cliche of “living in the moment.” How to live in the moment? It’s not a superficial pursuit, in my mind. It’s a way of being present and committed to whatever I’m doing at any given time. Actually, it makes life way more fun. Throw myself in: that’s how it feels. Just plunge in.
Going to church has been a helpful reminder of how to live in the moment. Going to church is not always an activity which I feel like prioritizing; but if I do it without thinking of all the things I might otherwise be doing, or all the things I have yet to do, if I simply go and be, it’s a very lovely experience. I talk to people I wouldn’t otherwise; I hear and sing music; sometimes I listen to messages that are interesting or valuable; I am with family. I realize it’s not for everyone, and I realize also that there are times in a life when it is next to impossible to commit energy to anything but sheer survival, but when the luxury of time and energy exists, a great deal of pleasure comes from entering fully into a moment.
I’m not against multi-tasking; sometimes multi-tasking is what saves a really dreary day from mind-numbing boredom … but it’s really freeing to do just the thing that one is doing, and nothing else. That sense of impatience, of wishing one were elsewhere, disappears.
:::
I got to go and dance for a few hours last night. My youngest three siblings have a band called Kidstreet, and they were opening for another Canadian band called Shout Out Out Out Out at a local club. We got us some babysitting, and I put on dancing shoes and sparkly eye shadow (couldn’t waste the stuff I bought for Halloween), and off we went, ready for a good time. It was so fun. Dancing itself was wonderful. Seeing my brothers and sister get the crowd happy and excited was wonderful. Being out without children was wonderful. I would love to take my kids to see their uncles and aunt play sometime, too (well, the older ones, anyway). My brother Karl is teaching AppleApple drums and Albus guitar, and he’s also doing a lot of musical education: giving them ear training so that they can pick out the different instruments and parts of a song, and also having them listen to some real cool music. I would love for my kids to come to experience music as something they love and have opinions about, but also as something that they can play and make themselves. Music is so easily shared. And music can make those “living in the moment” moments absolutely effortless.
Wednesday, Nov 3, 2010 | Chores, Music, Organizing, Yoga |
It’s a blessing, not a burden, to be this busy.
Yes, I sometimes feel overwhelmed. Yes, my life is written out in point form in advance. No, I don’t always feel like doing what I’ve planned for myself. But it’s amazing what can be squeezed into one day, what can fit.
Today, for example: breakfast, big kids out the door, swim lessons with little kids, home to start laundry, walk to a friend’s house, play, home for lunch, prepare supper, listen to podcast on CBC radio on beauty (“beauty will save the world“), plan via email a talk I’m preparing to give on Sunday about being a “Mennonite” writer (quotation marks necessary?), walk to school to get kids, bring friends home, trade off parenting duties with Kev, walk briskly to yoga, 90-minute yoga class, walk briskly home, blissed out and thinking semi-deep thoughts, eat leftovers, listen to kids play drums and guitar, tag-team the dishes with Kev, head out with sibs for a drink, walk briskly home, chat with Kev before trading off as on-call parent, watch video of beautiful youngest singing along to the Cranberries, plan tomorrow’s crock-pot supper, write blog. There’s still time for a small snack before bed.
Taken from the radio program (Tapestry): when you embrace beauty–the beautiful, the moment of grace–you accept that it will pass, that you can’t keep it. What is beauty? Goodness, kindness, compassion, acts of selfless impulsive grace.
Friday, Oct 8, 2010 | Cooking, Fall, Kids, Music |
Yesterday, I did not go to my planned yoga class. Instead, I cooked a risotto that reminded me of an evening out last month, rich with reduced wine, garlic, butter, parmesan, and I stayed home over the supper hour and savoured the food with my family. In order to exercise more, I have to skip something: which ends up being supper, most often. And I miss supper with my family. When I’m home, more things happen. Good food is prepared. Homework gets completed. Musical instruments get practiced. Real talk is exchanged.
What is the mysterious balance? Everything I choose to do weighs against everything that therefore will not happen.
Yesterday afternoon, on the most beautiful fall day imaginable, I took the little ones to the little park and we played. I must have pushed them on the platter swing for half an hour, singing songs, and reminiscing: in the blink of an eye, my babies have grown. Only a minute ago, I was pushing the older two in the same swing, singing the same songs. It was so peaceful, I did not want to rush home and make supper so that I could rush out the door to do something by myself. I wanted to let them lie on their backs and look at the rare cloud passing by, and be soothed. I wanted to sing. Impossible, when in a rush. Impossible, when hewing to a pre-arranged schedule.
Still, I love my schedule. I love to get out by myself.
But here’s a toast to being flexible. To breaking plans. To changing my mind.
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