Can't Win

When Angus was three-ish, we went over to a friend's house whose daughter had a toy cash register. It was love at first sight. He played with it the entire time we were over there and talked about it for days afterwards. At his next birthday, it would have been just plain cruel not to produce the 'cash richister'.
I hated that damned thing. It made annoying beeping noises, the toy money ended up under the couch cushions, and some kid at a party put Doritos in it so the drawer didn't open as well and felt greasy even after I washed it (the kid's mother, quite sensibly, said that her son had just put in the cash register what had the greatest value to him, so fair enough). I looked forward ardently to the day when he wouldn't yearn after every plastic piece of crap in existence.

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Then came Eve. Along with a metric crap-ton of Disney Fairy Beauty Sparkly Pink Mermaid Princess dolls, nightgowns, dress-up clothes, sippy cups, pull-ups, towels, Kleenex boxes etc. She would have begged for a tire iron that had Ariel's mug slapped on it. I thought, some day she won't be quite so susceptible to princess merchandise. That will be a good day.

Yesterday I was paging idly through the Toys R Us flyer (idly because my Christmas shopping is basically done and I would rather walk naked through a firing range wearing antlers than go into Toys R Us in December.) And suddenly I was welling up, because there was a Disney Princess toy cash register that both of my kids are too old to want.

Somebody smack me.

Life is Good

My recent reading list has included Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, and February by Lisa Moore. So today I'm going to be grateful for living somewhere where I don't have to lie sleepless on the floor of my hallway in fear of being bombed in the night: for being able to pour a glass of water from the tap whenever I want: for being able to cross the street without wondering if I'm in a sniper's sights: for knowing my husband goes to work somewhere where his life isn't constantly endangered by poor safety standards and the capriciousness of the ocean.


I think it's important to read books like this, to know that some places and some lives are so different, to know why people flee their homelands and what they've left behind, to know, in my case, how good we really have it. No place and no life is unassailable, of course. Catastrophic illness and injury and horrible accidents can happen anywhere. The expression 'live every day as if it was your last' has often bothered me. How is it really possible to live every day as if it was your last and then have something left over for the next day when that day doesn't turn out to be your last? Then I think I realized that it doesn't mean to spend all your money and burn your house down -- it means not to miss any opportunities to have an adventure, to wear the clothes that make you feel like a princess, to tell people you love them, to help someone without worrying about looking odd, to sing out loud and laugh until your cheeks hurt.

I'm so far from perfect. I've gotten better at not collapsing in hysterics when tiny little things go wrong, but I still behave really indefensibly sometimes, considering how great my life is. It makes me feel helpless in a way, knowing that this is fiction based on horrible things that really happen, all the time -- bearing witness somehow doesn't seem to be enough. But for a start, I'm just going to try to be more grateful.

Right there, next to the three-year-old kumquats

I guess the list of things that drive me to the depths of despair is not that short. Watching the news. Bathing suit shopping. Trying to explain to my husband why my hair sucks. Never being able to remember which guy was prime minister when. Trying to help my son with his math homework. But cleaning out my cupboards? That's a whole new definition of despair. It's like dragging out hundreds of brightly labelled examples of how disorganized, slovenly, careless and unwholesome I am. I'm a freaking stay-at-home Mom -- shouldn't my cupboards be meticulously-planned, graphed-out marvels of neatness and order? Cans of tomato paste and bags of rice should leap into my waiting hands, ready for inclusion in my nightly menu meal. How the hell do I end up with six cans of black beans and no tomato soup on a regular basis? How many times can I get hit on the head with the same goddamned package of whole wheat pasta? And I swear to God, you know that disease where people are born and age like sixty years in five? Every can I buy has that disease. Seriously -- I clean out the cupboards at least every six months, and every time I find cans of beef broth or bottles of salad dressing that are older than this house.

I cleaned out the baking cupboard to get ready for Christmas baking. Turns out I have a five years' supply of peanut butter chips, flaked coconut and raisins, so I'll be looking up recipes accordingly. I also had an appalling amount of stale high-quality chocolate, which I can never bring myself to just throw out without trying, so I spent yesterday afternoon spitting out a lot of stale chocolate -- good times.

There is also drastic need for what my husband calls 'the sauce purge'. When we have a fridge and cupboards full of food but nothing to eat, it's generally because of a serious sauce surplus, without corresponding stuff in or on which to put said sauce. I think it's sort of like the shampoo-buying syndrome (this will make me pretty! This will make me a wonderful cook, perfect mother and a better lover!) If I went grocery shopping this week and bought a package of fifty chicken breasts, I'd have an outside chance of making a dent in the sauce.

So tomorrow for supper? Everybody gets one box of crackers. Of dubious freshness. With sauce. Then they can try some chocolate for dessert and see whether or not they actually feel like swallowing it (suspense! fun!). Then I will find some kind of twelve-step program (1. no matter how good the sale price is, nobody needs an eight-pack of condensed milk. 2. we already have applesauce. we already have applesauce. we already have applesauce. 3. when you think 'maybe we could try this', what you really mean is 'I want to pull this out of the cupboard five years from now and wonder what the hell I was thinking'. etc.) And we'll start clean.

T.G.I.....F?

It's a P.D. day. Which means in some ways everything is more relaxed, since the kids don't have to be bustled off to school or picked up. In some ways everything is louder and bouncier and more crowded since, well, the kids are indisputably HERE all day.

I was lazing in bed this morning after Matt had left for work. My alarm came on which meant CBC radio, and I was listening to somebody talking about an alternative prison system where inmates are taught spiritual centeredness and belief systems, which apparently is better for lowered recidivism rates than being whaled on by guards and sodomized in the shower (go figure). Eve came bounding in. This was the conversation:
"I want to get dressed. I need a pretty dress to wear to Marianna's. Usually you're facing that way when I come in. Where's that blackish blue dress with the polka dots?"
"It's too small."
"Awwww. I thought it would look nice with my rice necklace. I was thinking this would be the second time I got dressed having to pull something over my earrings, but that's not true, because the time I got my other ears pieressed -- HA! I said the time I got my other ears pieressed, how could I get other ears pieressed, I only have two pairs of ears -- HA!!! I said I had two PAIRS of ears, how could I have two PAIRS of ears!!! In Ice Age when the tiger has to sneak past the dinosaurs because the other elephant is having a baby he said 'I have to tiptoe! I have to tiptoe!' I'm tiptoeing, I'm shakin' my booty. 'I have to tiptoe!' I can't get that out of my head.... You know, for a Mom you don't say much."

(sound of me pulling the covers over my head).

One of my friend's kids used to call these 'Pity Days'. I kind of see her point.

No Green Christmases, Please

I'm feeling a little out of sorts. Generally I enjoy falling asleep to the drumming of rain on the roof. But it's freaking December! I really have no right to complain, because I did really quite like the freakishly mild November weather. My Mom and Dad are on my side -- my Mom says she can't get into the Christmas spirit with no snow, and my Dad said he felt like a moron putting up Christmas lights in a t-shirt last week-end. My husband said normally he'd agree with us, but at this point he couldn't care less if he ever saw snow again. 

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I need snow. I've wrapped all my Christmas presents while looking out into my backyard at an herb garden that's largely still viable -- in DECEMBER! In the capital of CANADA! I don't think I can start the Christmas cards though.
I don't know the real story about global warming. I know there have always been cycles, I know the Depression dustbowl happened without all the industry we have now, I know there are intelligent people that believe that we can't possibly have that much of an impact. But the Rideau Canal skating season seems to be getting shorter and shorter every year, the kids don't seem to need to wear anything to make their costumes warmer on Halloween, and it's raining! In December! And I have a bit of a sinking feeling. A feeling like I'm stuck in a science fiction story where I end up telling my kids about when they were babies and we would bundle them up at night and walk them through white streets with snow drifting softly down on us. And then they ask "what's a snowsuit?"
Please snow.

Why did the Stay at Home Moms Cross the Road?

This is my daughter's first year in school full days. My 'job' for the first few months was supposed to be getting the house in some kind of order (honestly, I was just aiming for 'not squalor'), doing some writing and getting into some kind of shape (honestly, I was just aiming for 'not perpetually lying in bed in a carb-laden endorphinless stupour'). Life does keep getting in the way, but significant headway has been made in the house (eight giant bins and four garbage bags of stuff donated, the laundry room floor rediscovered and a few flat surfaces actually staying empty for up to twelve hours at a time!), I got through NaBloPoMo with a small amount of grace and pride left intact (I wasn't reduced to cataloguing my medicine cabinet or describing my kids' rashes, anyway), and I've discovered a few healthy meals the kids will eat (sometimes I even cook them). I make it to the gym on a semi-regular basis again, and I try to go for a half-hour walk most days.

In the name of instituting a tradition that doesn't involve alcohol, my friend Pam and I go for a two-hour walk every Wednesday morning after dropping the kids off at school. I really look forward to this, because we talk and laugh and I have accomplished something significant before ten o'clock in the morning. But as far as making me healthier? 

This is how it goes: We meet in the schoolyard, kiss our kids and compare notes on how hard it was to get them out of the house. We sometimes get dirty looks for loud outbursts of hilarity when the kids are lined up quietly waiting to go inside (that's right. The kids are quiet. The parents get in trouble for being too loud). We walk up the street the school is on, walk down Strandherd a good long way to Steamers, where we may or may not stop for caffeine re-provisioning. We walk up the street past Eagles Nest (the baseball diamond). We loop around and start back down Woodroffe. We stop to rotate our ankles, in the hope (in my case) that it will stop me from feeling like my right foot is about to come apart at the ball-and-socket joint of my big toe). We go down the Burger King street whose name I can't remember right now to my truck. Pam gets in. I open the door, turn slightly sideways and try to lever myself in without actually bending at my back, which now doesn't feel like bending. We sit there and describe what hurts where, and talk about how invigorating a seven-to-ten kilometre walk is. When I can lift my arms enough to grip the steering wheel, I drop Pam off at her house. I drive to Farmboy to buy something healthy for lunch. Have you ever wrapped a cinnamon bun around bacon? Me neither, but I think I might try it. Assuming I can get up from this chair and hobble into the kitchen.
Yep. I'm on the road to wellville.

Day 30+1 (What? I'm obsessive compulsive, as if I'm going to be able to just stop now.)

I was working in the school library this morning. It was extra busy because the library was closed Thursday and yesterday, so it was a steady stream of classes. There were also classes I don't usually see, so I didn't automatically know everybody's name to check out their books.

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The library technician I work with is great, but she lacks a certain freewheeling wackiness, and I kind of see it as my job to generate a supplement. The problem, I've realized, is that if kids aren't used to humour being present in a certain location, they lose the knack for it. A good number of the teachers do joke around with their classes sometimes, but the library has clearly been a solemn, formal place. 
There's nothing more embarrassing than making a play on words with some kid's name, or saying something witty about their book choice, and having it go over like a lead balloon. And this school has kids named Scout, Flip and (I kid you not) Indiana Jones, so sometimes it's really hard to resist. I did have some fun with a girl whose last name was Freake -- clearly she'd had to learn some defensive humour walking around with a handle like that.
When I started going in, if a boy was a good friend of Angus's, sometimes I'd pretend to forget his name. Did they laugh? Did they call me a wise-ass? They did not. They stared at me earnestly and said "It's me, Noah, Mrs. Adams. I was just at your house for supper last night."

After two and a half years of this, the fog is starting to lift for some of them. When the library tech explains a rule and I chime in saying "because if you don't do that we tattoo the rest of the book on your arm" or "we've seen this go horribly wrong before", they smile (some of them even chuckle). When they forget to tell me they're renewing a book and not checking it out for the first time and the computer makes that horrible clunking sound and I glare at them theatrically (because they know how I hate it when the computer clunks at me), they laugh instead of bursting into tears or slinking away to hide behind the teacher.
And then today? While I was frantically trying to check everybody's books out as quickly as possible to make room for the other seventeen classes? A couple of them when I asked their names said "Guess!" Which I did, no matter how much longer it took. It was clearly my own damned fault.