Shark Roars and Butterflies
Supper on the table at 5pm so we can eat together as a family before rushing out the door to the older children’s music class. Kevin late. Supper being dished up, Kevin arrives. Family enjoys fresh-made biscuts and beef stew with potatoes and sweet potatoes. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Then the friend arrives whom we take along to music class, and we’re out the door again, at least it feels like again, and off into the dark night, accompanied by what looks like a full moon. Eerie clouds across its face. I’ve dragged along a whack of library books on butterflies, as that is the theme of Apple-Apple’s upcoming birthday bash. While the kids are in class, I read through them. They’re disappointingly similar in content and arc. To summarize: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Throw in an attempt at plot in one form or another (class watches the butterfly life cycle; tortoise observes the butterfly life cycle; butterfly observes caterpillar yet to discover butterfly life cycle). Anyway, fourteen books later my eyelids are feeling a little heavy, so to the chiming music being made behind closed doors by my children (and the moan of a saxophone from down the hallway), I let myself drift off. Actually, not sure whether I have much choice in the matter. I’m pretty tired (see below). As I drift, I sense a mother and child coming to sit beside me on the bench, but lacking all pride don’t even attempt to shake off the waves of sleep. The child explodes with an unnerving random roar at least once per minute. As my brain wanders into reverie, suddenly “ROAR,” and my neck jerks involuntarily. His mother says nothing to suggest this behavior is inappropriate, and later, when I’ve given up on the catnap, or it’s given up on me, I realize that this isn’t just a behavioral tic, but a response the shark book he’s thumbing through. Should have opened my eyeballs earlier and offered him a tome on butterflies. They’re quiet.
This pretty much sums up my day. Disappointment over a new 1/2 bushel of sweet potatoes found half-rotten and unsalvageable in the cold cellar. Grumpy griping children. Baby napping only to wake in a foul mood half an hour later. Oh, and CJ is not sleeping through the night. Did I say anything to suggest that he was? Yah, he must have stayed up late last night reading that post and deciding he was far too clever to fall asleep on his own after a mere fifteen minutes of crying. Last night was one of those write-0ffs, and despite letting him “cry it out,” he never got to out, and we ended up walking him, patting him, and, finally, bringing the infuriated little soul back into bed with us. It was a long one. You’re almost glad to see morning so you can get out of bed and have a cup of coffee.
Scoops Aren’t My Forte
Here’s something I’ve never done before: blogged while watching an event live on my computer. I’m sitting here in our disastrously toy-littered living-room, kids in bed, Kevin at hockey, watching the 2008 Giller Awards unfold live online, computer perched on the piano bench. The Giller is just about as exciting as a literary event gets anywhere–in Canada, certainly nothing comes close to topping it. Though in my younger, more Communist days, I held a smallish disdain for the wine-and-dine-them-with gala-glamour of the Giller; the medicinal, humbler, early morning non-dramatic announcement of the Governor General’s Awards seemed somehow better. Or better-for-you. I had a Pilgrim’s Progress streak back then.
Well, all proletariat disdain is gone. What a wonderful, generous gift to the Canadian literary world: of course these hard-working, creative, utterly underpaid people should get one evening to shine and dine and wine. Who cares if it’s illusory. And never mind that the nature of all prizes is to eliminate a whole passel of potential worthies; though that’s sad. Let’s just say that those chosen are the most fortunate of the fortunate and leave it at that.
Okay, if I type the winner’s name, then press “publish post” will I scoop the Canadian Press?? Heh.
Joseph Boyden.
There we go. He’s telling his mother not to cry, but of course she is. Wish I could remember the name of his book … Through Black Spruce, maybe? I read his first, very fine book, Three Day Road, and this one features some of the same characters. I think. I’m not proving very useful in the fact-checking department, which is ironic, because once upon a time that was how I earned a living. Fact checker.
And, no, I did not press “publish,” but instead watched the speech. So much for this bit of reportage. Were filing a coherent piece on tight deadline my actual job, I would not have an actual job.
Back to the living-room. Bedtime. Will take to the comfort of my humidifier-enhanced sleeping chamber last year’s Giller prize winner: Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay. And enjoy. Or maybe not. Did I just dare to write in my very last post, mere hours ago, that baby CJ is sleeping well these days? I knew that was tempting fate. Sigh. He’s howling upstairs, after being put down less than an hour ago. Here I go, off to said chamber, not to read after all …
Work for Peace
Want to note that CJ has been sleeping much better (at night) in the past couple of weeks. This is the sort of news I hardly want to mention, for entirely superstitious reasons, of course. So touch wood. And rejoice. What happened was that after we returned from our Halloween weekend at Kevin’s mom’s, CJ had gotten pretty comfortable spending all night in our bed, and was waking soon after being put to bed at night, just so he could come and cuddle with his mama. I have only a vague sleep-deprived memory of the magic moment, but what I recall is going to bed early (because he’d woken and wouldn’t go back to sleep otherwise), nursing him off and on till sometime after midnight, CJ remaining fussy and restless and miserable, and finally turning to Kevin and saying: “My tank is on empty. I’m going to let him cry.” So I laid him back into his playpen, tucked him in, and let him cry. I patted him a couple of times, and he cried for a full fifteen minutes, but that was it. Fifteen minutes of suffering and he fell asleep. All by himself. And it’s been much easier getting him into his playpen since then, and he sleeps longer when he’s initially put to bed, too.
But he is right now downright miserable in his giant bouncy device, probably hungry, and the living-room is filled with children playing Playmobil (playdate). So I should really, er, get off this electronic device and attend to some non-virtual needs.
Oh, and I had the kids wear the Mennonite Central Committee Remembrance Day button to school today, a red button with the words “To remember is to work for peace.” We had a fairly long talk about it before school this morning, and at the end, Albus said, “I think it would be easier to just wear the poppy.” I told them they could also wear a poppy. I hope I wasn’t overstepping parental bounds by asking them to wear this pin, too, especially because I wasn’t entirely convinced they “got’ it. But I have deeply ambivalent emotions around Remembrance Day, having been raised a pacifist. To me, wearing the button isn’t about standing against people who offer their lives to serve our country, but about being aware of the effects of war, and imagining more peaceful solutions … but I’m typing one-handed … and my children are behaving most unpacifistically all of sudden.
Things to Keep
Things I want to keep and remember:
Yesterday after supper, I was lying on the floor with baby CJ just cuddling him and squeezing him and kissing him, and he was so thrilled to be the centre of attention, and the other kids were sitting around me enjoying the scene too. Apple-Apple told me to sing the “zoom, zoom, zoom, we’re going to the moon” song, and we did, and then had CJ “blast off” in my arms, flying over my head. He was just busting a baby gut, he was laughing so hard. That was round about when Kevin got home from his training day, and so children ran off to greet him, but Apple-Apple came right back and sat down near my ear (I was still prone on the floor; actually, I was down there partly to play and partly because it was nice to be lying down). “You look so cute, Mommy,” she said. “You look like you’ve gone back to being a little girl again, and CJ is your dolly.”
One more thing to remember: This afternoon I baked granola, and cooked apples (going soft in our cold cellar) down to a rough sauce, which I planned to serve for supper, along with–not on top of!–leftover chicken noodle soup and olive-sourdough bread from the market. As the sauce and soup simmered, just before it was time to set the table and call everyone together, I went into the living-room to nurse a very grumpy baby, and told Kevin the admittedly eccentric supper plan. He will dispute this, but it sounded like he said something critical about granola and applesauce as proper supper items; I will not attempt to recreate his actual words, which, heaven knows, might have been altogether pleasant on the subject. I was, in any case, not in the most cheery of moods, having just spent over an hour preparing this granola and peeling and coring mushy apples, and what I heard was criticism. I growled and marched upstairs to continue nursing CJ in the peace and quiet of the “baby” room, in my great-aunt Alice’s rocking chair … except for reasons unknown Albus was hiding in the dark room and jumped out when I entered with an exuberant and highly effective “BOO!!!!” I replied with a blood-curdling shriek. Baby CJ did pause his nursing briefly to reflect upon this.
So I sat in the chair and announced to poor Albus, who really had only been doing his duty as a child, that I was quitting my job. Those were my exact words.
Of course, after CJ had eaten his fill, I went back downstairs and dished out the supper I’d planned, no one complained, everyone ate happily, and all was well. Albus was on his third slice of bread when he said, out of the blue, “Are you still going to quit your job, Mommy?”
I hope I didn’t worry him too much. We all had a good laugh recalling the BOO and the shriek, and Apple-Apple observed how some things are very funny afterward, even if not so funny at the time.
Nick-Names for Children
Oh my goodness, my friend Katie has posted pics of her brand-new baby boy, Quinn, on her blog, and I am so in love!!! I don’t know how this is possible under the circumstances, but those pics make my ovaries ache … and technically I still have a baby. Good grief. However, we tried to fit the whole family into a photo booth at the Steam Whistle gallery at my bro’s art show in Toronto, Wednesday night, and we were really ridiculously crammed in there. A’s head appeared giant (the ‘fro) as he was clumped near the front, and the rest of us were squeezed shadowy fragments of face behind the ‘fro, and Kevin and I both said, “No more kids.” Maybe that’s not a good measure (too many kids to fit into a photo booth??), but it seemed as good as any.
The kids have the day off school today, and we spent the morning having a lovely family playdate with another family, quite peaceful, mostly conflict-free, plus the other family brought snacks–cake with canned peaches. That was a lucky thing because without my CSA box and Nina’s buying club, and because I’ve gotten out of the habit of going to grocery stores regularly, our cupboards are truly bare. And our fridge. Our root cellar is nice and full, but sweet potatoes, onions and garlic are not big hits at snacktime. Unless one is feeding bunnies.
I have been thinking about giving my kids nicknames for the sake of this blog. I hope it won’t sound too twee, but calling them by a letter seems terribly uninspired. So here’s my plan: A will now be identified as Albus (yes, after the Dumbledore variety); AB will be Apple-Apple, which is what she wanted to name her little sister when she was born; F, aforementioned little sis, will be Fooey, which was what she called herself awhile back (I miss those days!); and baby CJ will stay as is, because in his case, the initials work. Though we never actually call him that.
Well, it’s nearly time for another playdate (Albus is having a friend over), then it’s swim lessons. I am drinking the entire carafe of coffee by myself today because Kevin has gone to Toronto to run a training class. I’ve boiled up a lovely chicken stock with which to make noodle soup for supper, along with cornbread. I’ll be counting on the kids to help. Do you hear that, kids? I’m counting on ya! They’ve been playing outside for the last half hour because rain is on its way, but it’s still beautiful right now. And we haven’t reached hibernation mode yet.
Okay, OCMama, slug back this extra cup of coffee and rouse yourself, because it’s time to be “on” again. This is why I like blogging. It’s a wee bit of time off. I need some moments inside my own head every day. If I don’t blog, I just stare blankly off into the distance, or something similarly unproductive (I’m convinced the brain needs this “blank” time in order to recharge), such as surfing the net, or clicking on the “next blog” feature at the top of this screen. Have you tried that? You’ll go to all kinds of places all over the world and see photos of strangers and read oddly similar but intimate details about their lives–or more likely, the lives of their children. Just like here. Oh dear, just saw someone walking by on the sidewalk glance with concern toward our backyard from wherein emerged a blood-curdling sound effect courtesy young sir Albus.