Sick Day
I woke up feeling unpleasant. So did Fooey. She felt even more unpleasant than I did. I won’t get graphic on you, but let’s just say it was messy. And she was feeling so unpleasant that she just leaned over the side of her bed. CJ almost suffered a moment of sympathetic upheaval himself, but AppleApple was able to coax him away from the scene of carnage. I seem to be on the tolerable side of unpleasant as long as I don’t eat. I can stand and cope and do laundry (very important, under the circumstances, especially since Kevin is working in Toronto for the day.)
Photo number one depicts the three eldest children (yes, Fooey, too!) embarking on the walk to school, yesterday, without adult supervision. Well, to the walking school bus, which is only a couple of blocks uphill. At the family meeting, we’d decided that for the purposes of crossing the street, she would walk in the middle and each of the older kids would hold one of her hands. The after-school report was pretty good, though they had difficulty crossing “the hard street,” the one with the four-way stop and cars hurrying to commute to work. Apparently there were conflicting instructions from the drivers at the four-way stop. One woman waved them on, and another “old woman” waved to them not to cross, because she wanted to go. She went. The kids wisely waited. I was proud of how they handled it, making the best decision for themselves.
Photo number two depicts us this morning. Yes, I’m strangling Albus. Mostly in jest. He is a natural ham in photos and strives to hog the limelight. A gentle restraint was in order. I love the chaos. I love my family. We had ourselves a bit of fun.
The two oldest are quietly playing Lego together, after taking charge of lunch. With a bit of nauseated-Mama assistance, and some decent teamwork, they made tuna melts in the toaster oven. AppleApple sliced the bread and cheese, Albus worked the broiler. A friend has offered to bring supper, and I won’t turn her down. Even AppleApple, who had experienced a mild frisson over being in charge of the food prep today, thought it was a happy development: “Or we would probably be eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches for supper.”
If all goes as planned, the two eldest will be heading out soon with hockey sticks for a game of street hockey around the corner. I’m glad this gorgeous spring-like weather won’t go unappreciated.
My Morning
Chili in crockpot. Children off. House quiet. This is my morning. I sometimes think it is my favourite three hours in the whole week, but these hours couldn’t exist as my favourite if it weren’t for all the other hours filled with noise and choas and needs to be met.
A few mundane updates … (Now there’s a sales pitch. Readers read on!)
1. Swim lessons. Latest term completed. Fooey passed, again. She’s now passed this class twice. It’s called Sunfish. She has an aversion to the next level which is called Crocodile. If it were up to her, she’d do Sunfish again. I might just let her, till she’s five, and can take other classes not named after aquatic animals, but placed in sensible numerical order. Neither of the older kids passed, again. They are pursuing their Master’s in Swim Kids Five. Albus was sure that he would pass, but wasn’t perturbed to discover that he hadn’t. I said I’d eat my hat if he passed. Maybe that’s not a kind encouraging motherly thing to say. But they thought it was funny. I’ve watched them swim. AppleApple looked decent. Albus looked like he’d regressed; though yesterday he seemed to have improved. There were a couple of kids in the class who could actually swim (this is not usually the case), and I think this is the level where they really try to make sure the children have the technical skills before passing them on. The comments are always unintelligible to me, a non-swimmer. Whip kicks, and arm and hand position, and etc. And as a non-swimmer, I aspire to have children who can actually swim. I love the way real swimmers look, cutting through the water.
2. Family meeting. It was a good one. We passed the “talking necklace” this time. Basically I just grab a smallish nearby object that can be thrown across the countertop. Strawberry cheesecake gelato. Good discussion of a wide variety of topics, including piano lessons, and setting goals. Both older children agreed, in theory, to continue with piano lessons next year. I would like them to reach a level of proficiency before they can decide to quit, but haven’t figured out what–Grade 3 conservatory? Grade 6? We have figured out a way to convince them to practice. It’s not (quite) bribery. Every day that they complete a practice session–ie. play every song assigned to them for the week, and practice for about ten minutes–they mark it on the calendar. We add it all up and when they’ve reached 60 days of practice, each one gets a reward. For Albus, it’ s a Star Wars Lego ship (an inexpensive one). For AppleApple, it’s her horse lessons (never inexpensive, unfortunately, but of equal value emotionally). Albus skipped yesterday, but has otherwise been very faithful. AppleApple has been additionally motivated because she passed to the next level of piano books, and the songs are “more meaningful,” to her, as she told us last night at the meeting.
Good meeting.
Good grief. I should have a 3. to complete this list, but feel I’ve gone on long enough. And the house is quiet! And I have work to do within this quiet! Other than blogging. Which isn’t work. At all.
Wait–I have to do a 3. It’s CJ. The photo above is from one of our afternoons this week, when he didn’t want to wear a diaper for awhile. And he had toileting success (followed 45 minutes later by a suspicious puddle on the kitchen floor which he pointed at with some excitement: “Water! Water, Mama!”). Best of all, diaperless, he wanted to wear the purple princess dress that is too small for anyone else in the family.
Hair Hat Reviews
Pickle Me This has posted links on her site to several more Hair Hat reviews–all as part of Canada Reads: Independently.
The first is a reprint: Buried in Print originally reviewed Hair Hat when it came out a few years ago. This is easily one of my favourite reviews of the book, ever, and it’s lovely of her to reprint it now.
The second is a passionate review is by a literary blogger (at vestige.org) who absolutely despises the hair hat man–or, more precisely, the conceit of the hair hat man. What I find most fascinating about his review is that he actually seems to like the stories themselves. I remember that when Hair Hat was first published, it received a few reviews in this vein, which I found difficult and personally painful to take, though the positive reviews were more numerous, and besides, I’d known in advance what to expect: there’s no way to please everyone, and pleasing everyone isn’t the goal of book-writing. It was a bit of trend: a handful of reviewers did not understand why the hair hat man was a necessary component of the stories, and saw him as a gimmick of some sort. It’s a fair opinion. But he was never a gimmick to me. The stories revolved around him, arrived out of his existence, and seemed to me entirely inseparable from him. He was a puzzle, a curiosity, and I came to accept his presence in my imagination as a gift, even if sometimes the gift felt like a bit of a curse, too–why did he have to wear his hair in such a ridiculous style? Was I supposed to take him seriously? I couldn’t seem to get at him directly, so I kept angling at him through the eyes of these other characters. The stories felt necessary. I couldn’t help writing them how they were written. I suppose that to be one of the secrets about writing: not everything is in the author’s control. I could have removed him afterward, I suppose, but I can’t imagine doing it.
It’s been a number of years since I wrote these stories, and I’m pleased to report that I can read that review with distance and curiosity. I urge you to read it, too. It’s fascinating.
And I really like what Kerry Clare, of Pickle Me This, had to say about the hair hat man: “I love that he exists in your book as someone who makes people uncomfortable, and he does the same thing to your readers.”
That aspect of his existence had never occurred to me before: that something of his power is his persistence and ridiculousness and the way he makes different people feel differently. So it’s okay to despise him. You can even tell me and I won’t hit you. Or cry.
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Great success here, this afternoon: I’ve managed to cook an extremely mediocre feast of Indian food, which is not the fault of the Indian food, but of my distracted cooking … blogging while cooking while supervising hungry children is a recipe for slightly burnt nan bread with slightly undercooked yellow split peas in rice. (There’s also dahl, and spinach with mustard seeds, and turnips with coriander). And the turnips are way too spicy for the kids to eat, though I suspect Kevin and I will love them.
Overheard
Fooey: “But I don’t want to be the grandma!”
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
After the success of last week’s Chocolate Sunflower Granola Bars, which lasted most of the week and worked well for kids’ lunches and take-along snacks, I thought I’d try adapting another cookie recipe to the one-tray bar version (we all need variety, even in cookies). This bar is a little more chewy and cookie-like, and a little less seedy and granola-y. It’s adapted from the chocolate chip cookie recipe found in Mrs. Restino’s Country Kitchen.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Cream together 1 cup of softened butter with 1 cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 cup white sugar.
Next, add the following ingredients to the creamed mixture, and mix them in with a spoon till incorporated: 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use canola), 2 eggs, and 2 tsp. vanilla.
In a separate bowl, sift together the following: 2 cups unbleached flour, 2 cups whole wheat flour, 4 tsp. baking powder, and 1 tsp. salt. Add to the wet mixture in two additions, and mix till it comes together.
As usual, I kept my recipe nut-free (otherwise, I can’t send the end results in the kids’ school lunches, which totally defeats the purpose). In place of nuts, I substituted: 1 cup of oats. Stir those in, along with 1/2 cup of wheat germ, and 1 cup of chocolate chips.
Spread the dough on a greased cookie sheet, and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 25 minutes. Cut into squares as soon as the giant cookie comes out of the oven. Let the tray rest, with the cut squares, on a rack till cool.
Kevin thought he liked last week’s squares best (more roughage to chew on), and Fooey thought these were the best. I give a gold medal to the baking method. I’ve been avoiding cookie-baking for awhile due to how time-consuming it is to drop the dough onto the tray in individual lumps, and then hang around the kitchen while baking tray after tray after tray. Both of these recipes make a substantial amount of bars that last the better part of the week. Bulk baking, baby.
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Yoga day was wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I am finding in this seemingly individual physical experience a collective joy that it wouldn’t be possible to find alone. I continue to reflect on the nature of awe, wonder, the body, and the spirit. I am glad. Plus, I baked four loaves of bread before leaving the house yesterday, so added to these cookie bars, and the waffles made fresh this morning and frozen for three breakfasts this coming week, it was a productive kitchen weekend. Kevin and Albus are working on supper together, while we are all glued to the hockey game. Albus’s menu: caesar salad with homemade dressing and homemade croutons, pasta with homemade pesto, and devilled eggs–for protein. Tonight we’ll be enjoying dessert, too: ice cream. Or, possibly, banana splits.
And Canada just scored the first goal of the game. I’m going to miss the Olympics.