Today is the Day After Eve's Twenty-Third Birthday

Eve had dinner with two friends (from elementary school) who came from Toronto on Friday night, 

and yesterday she did a jewellery-making workshop with two friends from university. Sounds like it was really cool - she got to solder! 

Nicole (who is obviously the sweetest) reminded me yesterday (like she usually does) of this post from 2012.

Today is the day after Eve's ninth birthday

When I was pregnant for the second time, I waited anxiously to feel the baby start moving.

I'd done this once. I thought I knew what to expect.

Good heavens, I thought, what on earth is this?

Flutters? Please.

Kicks? Ha

It felt more like roundhouse haymakers.

Firecrackers in my belly.

Jack Dempsey going three rounds with my spine.

"Look, Baby," I said,

""Whatever it is, we can discuss it,"

"Is it the turkey sandwich? Would you prefer egg salad?"

"Are we talking a marked preference for reality television over vampire dramas?"

No answer.

Just a concerted effort to switch the positions of my liver and kidneys

My friends said "how does it feel?"

I said "it feels angry!"

I asked the doctor "is it all the pistachios?

Do you think I've made this baby........ NUTS?"

I looked at my strapping little boy and though

"Watch out, kiddo - this one's going to give you a run for your money."

The days turned, as they do

The baby inside came out, as ever they have.

The midwife said, "it's a girl!"

I said "WHAT??!!"

Then I though "SHE'S got some explaining to do.

I mean, really - what WAS all that?"

Now I look at her and think,

"If she only knew how wrong I was",

It's silly, really.

Because I should have known all along...

........that she was dancing.

Happy birthday, Crazy Baby.

Happy Christmas

 I finally read something today that made me feel more at peace with how roller coastery my feelings always are around Christmas (even though it's pretty screamingly obvious, I think, that in spite of what Hallmark tells us, Christmas is seldom uncomplicatedly joyous). 

The kids came home! Matt went to get Eve and brought her home on the 19th, Angus flew in on the 20th. the 21st and 22nd there was more baking, family hang time and movie watching, Eve seeing her friends, Angus and I puzzling, everybody getting dog snuggles. 

The 23rd we did the annual tree-decorating and Christmas photo shoot. Past props have included Nana's old teacups, The Collected Works of Shakespeare, covid masks, tools (the year the house was falling apart), champagne glasses, and wrapping paper tubes. I was feeling a little uninspired this year - we finally went with fake flowers.

We watched an episode of The Simpsons (it's the one show every member of the family likes) called Parahormonal Activity, in which Marge enters perimenopause. At the end, Eve said quietly "there's a really popular meme from Euphoria called 'Is this play about us?' I feel like that's relevant for you here." It was really, really funny and also *sobs hysterically*. Also, in the show the medical establishment has nothing to offer Marge for her issues but treats Homer's erectile dysfunction as a medical emergency, and Eve recalled a time in her lab where the prof asked them to guess the top three medical issues in terms of funding, and Lauren guessed longevity for number one, which is particularly hilarious because, of course, it's ED. The Simpsons is so educational!

Christmas Eve my parents always come over and I do appetizers. There was really great conversation - both my parents grew up in rural Saskatchewan, my mom on a farm and my dad in a 'hamlet' in Northern Saskatchewan, only 50 miles south of the Northwest Territories. The story Matt always brings up is that my dad could only ride his bike in the winter when the river froze and provided a flat service. He also couldn't go to school in winter when the river wasn't frozen enough, and in summer had to cross the river by boat. 

Christmas Day our usual routine is we get up and do presents with the kids, then go to my parents' for breakfast (where my sister's family stays when they're here, which they were not), then come home and putter around or nap and then my parents come over for dinner. This year I proposed that we switch it up, and have my parents come here in the early afternoon, have an early dinner and finish up before we're all falling asleep. 

I do ninety percent of the Christmas prep, up to Christmas Eve. My mom used to cook Christmas dinner, but now we do the turkey and my parents do the sides, and Angus picks up my parents and brings the food over.  And by 'we' do the turkey, I mean Matt does the turkey, which is possibly the greatest Christmas gift of all. This means my Christmas responsibilities are basically over by Christmas morning, which is good because my body and brain have generally started shutting down by then. 

Not gonna lie, I believe the plan was Pure Genius on my part.  My parents came over, Angus got home from his Christmas weight-lifting, I put on The Muppet Christmas Carol just for fun, but my mom had never seen it and ended up loving it, we had a great dinner, drove my parents home and I still had time to finish the puzzle with Angus (we had to have dinner with it because it wasn't finished and we were determined to finish it before Angus left) and watch the three and a half hours of Stranger Things that dropped at eight p.m. with Eve (I did not have this in my mind when I made the plan, but wow, did it ever work out). 

I was not feeling great when I went to bed last night - I've been taking cold meds non-stop to function and keep my Cough of Death at bay, and it was starting to make me feel icky. But I had an amazing sleep with only a couple of coughing spells, and today we are lounging around in our pajamas. Angus leaves tomorrow, which is sad, but Eve is here until the 30th, which is happy. 

I hope everyone had some family time, some good food, some laughing, and some rest. And if not, I offer sympathy and love. 

Raise a Reader? You Can Try

In the summer I had dinner with a friend I was extremely close with in grad school, touched base with when I got to Ottawa, and then fell out of touch with and hadn't seen since Eve was about four, so, a long time. It was amazing - actually never mind, I'll do a whole post on that later. But she has two daughters and neither of them are readers and she said she had kind of a hard time with it until one of them had to say cool it, you're making me feel bad and it's not going to change anything.

I'm not sure how I would have felt if neither of my kids was a reader. I know it's a big part of my personality. I loved children's books and had a collection before I even had kids, and reading to them every day was really fun. Eve moved smoothly into chapter books and is definitely what you would consider a reader. With Angus I read one entire Percy Jackson book with him, and it was great, but after Diary of a Wimpy Kid his reading fell off and it didn't really bother me. During one camping trip a few years ago he pilfered my stack of books and took one and since then has been asking me to give him books for Christmas. I think he still only reads a lot on vacation, but that's fine. Would it have bothered me if neither of them read? I honestly don't know.

I am constantly getting frustrated with myself for not being able to lay hands on old pictures - I started organizing all of them last year and then put the mess away for Christmas and then got horrifically depressed in January and here we are again. Anyway, years ago I took a picture at brunch of Angus leaned over a Harry Potter book intently while absently stabbing at pancakes with his other hand and sent it to his grade three teacher saying 'job well done!' I mentioned this to someone a few weeks later and he said indignantly "she SHOWED THE WHOLE CLASS", but he hadn't mentioned it before then so it can't have scarred him that badly. 

I did love the way Eve and her friends talked about our book-stuffed house. I took Eve and a friend to meet the teacher night in middle school because the other mom was busy, and the friend said to their English teacher "their house has books EVERYWHERE. Eve goes into her mom's room and asks for a book and she just GRABS one out of a pile!" She left out that there are so many books there's no room for anything else to be put away properly, so also a win. 

Eve and I like a lot of the same books, and sharing books with her has been kind of magical. We buddy read some of her books in undergrad, I never have trouble finding books to give her for Christmas, and now she recommends books to me, which is a bit trippy. I gave her my old ipad last year and she got into borrowing library ebooks and loved it because then she could turn off her lights except for the little fairy lights and read in the dark and be cozy. 

We both love Miriam Toews, and she has had the weirdest good luck with finding used Toews books on sale at new bookstores. This is the latest one - is it not just stupidly beautiful? It looks like her lamp and the Coach purse I got her for her birthday last year. 

Last week she told me she was going to put a real actual paper book on hold (I guess she wants to be more like Sarah too) and then sent me this picture. We were on Facetime and I said it gave me a tiny bit of a weird feeling seeing her last name, which is different from mine, on the label. 

I'm also a bit jealous that she has an A name so will also be right at the beginning of the holds, rather than an M name which is always, always on the bottom shelf. Have you tried picking up seven books from the bottom shelf? It is inelegant, to say the least. ALSO Also, it's an Olga Tokarczuk book that she is now reading before me. Is that even allowed?