Bibliomama

I went out to get some groceries tonight since Matt's leaving for Asia early on Saturday and the kids don't have piano/guitar on Monday afternoon, which is when I usually get groceries for the week. I also went to the public library. This means I did my Monday errands on Thursday. I can't figure out if this puts me ahead or behind. Eve came and hung out with me and the librarian while I was shelving books in the school library. She found a Roald Dahl book that she hadn't read yet and the librarian checked it out for her even though she already has her two books checked out for the week. She then danced around the library singing "I'm so happy, I have so many books", confirming that she is indeed my child. On the way home someone on the radio referred to someone (from Liberia) as Liberian and she sighed dramatically and said "I can't STAND when they don't speak properly - is it so hard to say LIBRARIAN?" And you must never, ever tell her...

Every year we have trouble getting down to Winterlude . It begins right around Eve's birthday, and by the time we're done planning and executing the party and family celebrations and remember about Winterlude, it often seems like too big a hassle to get ourselves downtown. If anyone's wondering, yes I do realize this makes us lame and loserish - I comfort myself with the fact that we have never claimed to be otherwise. So this year, my lovely husband used some of the air miles that Air Canada keeps throwing at him in the hopes that he'll, I don't know, not quit travelling an insane amount for the sake of his marriage, to book us into a downtown hotel last week-end so we could partake of Winterlude festivities (the draw for me and him) and then retreat quickly and easily to hotel facilities (the draw for the kids).  There's something so decadently luxurious about staying in a hotel in your own city. The view is familiar, and yet not: We went out ...

I woke up early this morning. I could feel that my fever was back up. I thought about sitting up to take some Tylenol, but I knew this would aggravate the flaming girdle of cough-strained muscle that has been my torso for the past forty-eight hours. And I thought, why not let the fever do its noble and intended work of burning off the sickness? So I lay perfectly still, trying not to swallow or breathe in a way that would provoke the knife shards in my throat to further lacerating activity, and imagined the fever sweeping through my body in a cleansing, scouring fury. Some time later I rose triumphant from my bed, feeling rested and restored and that my decision had been amply justified. Then I realized that, in addition to feeling stronger and faster than I had in some time, I was also apparently now a man. And that I may have inadvertently confused the healing fire of a fever with a radioactive spider bite. And that I wasn't, perhaps, upon further reflection, awake at all. My...

I know blogging about your kid's birthday party is a little lame, but I'm uninspired and dispirited and, in truth, I was pleasantly surprised at how well our old-fashioned crafts-and-games no-laser-tag-or-swimming-or-skating-or-movies-or-clowns-or-what-have-you party went off (not that I am AT ALL opposed to the gimmicky parties - we had just run out of appealing gimmicks). For starters, Eve made up her list of invitees and it only had eight kids on it, rather than the normal sixteen-to-twenty. I asked her what the deal was (was she fighting with some girls? Had they done something?) and she said "well, I'm older now, and I don't need...well, I still want a PARTY, but I don't need to have everyone I know at it". After I stopped gaping cluelessly, I agreed vehemently that this was indeed the case. Later on, my mother said that Eve told HER that she had figured out that when there were tons of people at a party, they were all loud and crazy and it really pr...

This is what my newly-minted two-hands old daughter says to me every time she jumps out of the van at school, leaves the house to play next door, or just goes upstairs without me. She hugs me, or kisses me on the cheek if I'm baking or cooking or working at the computer and she doesn't want to disturb me. Then she calls out "Love you, mama" as she skips away. Every time. "Love you too, babe/sweetie" is usually what I say. Once when she said "Love you, Daddy" as she was going upstairs, he didn't respond quickly enough because he was reading the paper, and when she pressed him he called out distractedly, "See ya", and after soundly mocking and scolding him she now demands the same response from him every time. But I just say "Love you too", or, occasionally, "Love you more", if I have the time and energy for a protracted "nuh-uh, I love YOU more" battle, which we have now enshrined in this bracelet (which...

The charmingly-named Bunnyslippers asked if I would link to past year-end book review posts. Who are you, Bunnyslippers? I feel like I should know you. In any case, yes, yes I WILL link to past year-end book review posts. Huh. There aren't as many as I thought. Books read in 2010 post here . Books read in 2011 first post here , second post here , third post here . (Last year was the first year I started dividing them into two-star, three-star and four-or-five-star posts). So, it's February. Honestly, I think January wasn't the worst one ever. Which is mostly good, and a tiny bit bad, because since I wasn't absolutely mired in despair I was frustrated with myself for not doing more, but I didn't really fell well enough to do more, but I felt well enough to be pissed at myself for not doing more... yeah, it was a whole idiotic cycle. I joined Weight Watchers Online because my doctor said Weight Watchers is a worthwhile program but the thought of going to meeti...

Yesterday we had plans to go tubing with two other families at Le Domaine de L'Ange Gardien in Quebec. We'd never been before. Eve was nervous, legitimately, that she would get hurt or be too scared to go on anything. I was nervous - the physical timidity and awkwardness she has comes straight from me, after all - about looking stupid, or hurting my neck or back, or Eve not having a good time. Matt was nervous that he was going to be too cold. Angus, if he was nervous, was probably only nervous about the rest of us embarrassing him in some fashion (did I tell you about when I was driving him to school on a really cold day, and we were stopped at a red light right in front of his bus stop, and there were two girls he knew waiting for the bus in the freezing cold, so I said we should offer them a ride, and he said no it would be weird, but I rolled down the window and asked them anyway, and they refused, and he was mortified? It was awesome).  So anyway, we were collectively a b...