Someone offered to organize my bookshelves the other day and I started quaking in my shoes. I'm not mentioning names because I think she reads this blog occasionally and even if she doesn't, people who know her read this blog and someday one of them might say

"You know, Hero hates it when people threaten to organize her bookshelves. The thought terrifies her. It sends her spiraling into that dark place where panic attacks metamorphosis into full blown identity crises."

Unlikely, yes. But I feel safer not naming names. The possibility of someone grouping my books by subject matter or, even worse, alphabetizing my bookshelf does not make me feel safe. I love my bookshelves. Love might not be a strong enough word. It thrills me that Lorna Crozier's Inventing the Hawk is snuggled up next to the Penny Whistle Birthday Party book and Isaac Asimov's Words of Science, that Shakespeare's The Tempest in nestled in between a battered copy of The Blue Fairy Book and Chris Hedges collection of essays: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning. Leonard Cohen and Bruno Bettelham share shelf space with Mike Holmes and Lee Child...I can only imagine their disdain and I love the thought. I like to imagine cocktail parties where all of my books are the guests. In fact, that would be the only organizational system I could actually get behind. I could arrange my books based on the debates they might have, stack them according to how much tension they could generate together.

The scattered bookshelves are my favourite thing about my house. Well, along with my wall of haphazardly framed family photos and the fact that my cutlery drawer plays a thin, mechanical sounding jingle bells when you open it because someone stuck the Christmas Train's tender in it ages ago and no one's ever bothered to fish it out. I live with boys who scatter their belongings throughout the house like seeds they are trying to grow: A tree of hot-wheels here, a bush full of backpacks and half read library books growing in a field of odd sneakers and marble shaped flowers. I love that all of our belongings somehow manage to get along and find their own nooks and crannies and unexpected hiding spots. I love that on any given day I can find a partially constructed Lego ship, a plasticine pizza, an old birthday card and a book on Canada's National Parks on my computer desk. It makes my house interesting. My house is messy but it is interesting. So are my bookshelves. Although obviously not everyone feels this way. Just ask "she who must not be named."

And the dreams that you dare to dream...

Okay, these pictures are from June. But I just had to tell everyone about the best fundraising idea ever! Put every truck you can imagine in one place and let families come and explore them. Make the admission price a donation to a charity and you will have a perfect day. They had a "Touch a Truck" day just like this in Ottawa and my boys and their cousin were in seventh heaven.

by the way

I may have forgotten to mention,

but someone is...

We went to the doctor today because my children have canker sores in their mouths and, yes, I am one of those mothers who thinks that canker sores are inevitably strep throat or something even worse. Did I ever tell you about the time we spent five hours in emergency because I was positive that Leo had flesh eating disease? As it turns out, he had a scratch.

Russell is not at all co operative with doctors. His big brother is a pro, as long as there are no needles involved. He sticks out his tongue, says aaaah with aplomb, and sits perfectly still for the thermometer and the ear and eye explorations. He knows exactly where to find the Spiderman stickers. Russell is almost completely the opposite. It's not that he screams or cries or protests in any way. He just closes his mouth as tightly as he can. Our doctor couldn't even get her tongue depressor past his bottom lip. He lets his body go completely limp and he averts his eyes. It's the classic ostrich pose. "If I can't see her, she can't see me."

I worry that he's afraid of doctors, somehow permanently scarred because of that broken collarbone and all those x-rays and hospital visits. He stops speaking as soon as he enters the doctor's building. Really, I'm surprised that our doctor believes me when I insist that he is speaking in sentences because he gives her no evidence at all.

Today, while ineffectually examining him, our doctor noticed that he has a bruise on his forehead. "How did you hurt your head?" She asked him.

"He bumped it." said Leo. At the doctor, Leo speaks for Russell.

"How did he bump it?" asked the doctor.

"He fell and hit it on something that was lying on our floor. There are a lot of things lying on our floor."

Thanks Leo. The doctor may, at least, be reassured that I do not beat Russell but now she thinks our house is a disaster. Geesh, what's with five year olds giving away all my dirty little secrets?

It's true though, our house is a bit of a disaster right now. I'm so paranoid about having things to fill these summer days that I've developed a bit of a clutter problem. It's so bad that Kurtis is afraid to throw away any of the empty cereal boxes or old ice cream containers in case they've been earmarked for our burgeoning "guy" city or the fleet of rocket ships that lines our computer table. We're being consumed by cardboard. Someone may have to call that Hoarders show and arrange an intervention.

My mother has a theory that she made us all 'gifted' by letting her house be really messy and basically ignoring us for most of our lives. The theory is that she provided all of the raw fodder for us to develop our minds and then left us alone so that we could get to it. I don't know about the 'gifted' part but I do know that I am now unable to recognize a mess when it surrounds me. It just looks like home to me.

So my children grow up in a mess. It's who I am and where I come from. I can't protect them from it. I don't feel the need. I'll be happy if I can just protect them from flesh eating disease.

Jane Jacobs as a mother

Yesterday, Leo told me that he remembered being in my belly and, in a rather startling revelation, he informed me that there is an entire city in my belly where he lived before he was born. Supposedly, it has trees and squirrels and buses and houses and "even a tower, like the CN tower or the Eiffel tower or one of those ones like that."

Obviously, I was a little surprised. having no idea that there were pigeons and stray cats roaming around inside of me. No cars, however. Leo made that very clear. No cars and no people other than a few bus drivers and him, when he lived there.

I asked him when I had built this city and he told me that it must have been a long time ago, before Aidan was born, because he was pretty sure that Aidan had lived there too, when he was in my belly. And Russell had definitely lived there after him. He was sure about that because the bus drivers told him to leave his back pack behind, when he came out to be born, because Russell was going to need that backpack. We then had a long discussion about the back pack and how, when it comes time to buy a new back pack for him to take to senior kindergarten in the fall, we will never be able to find a back pack that is as good as that blue and orange back pack that he had before he was born.

Somehow, Leo always seems to say exactly what I need him too. My life is so full of impermanence and futility these days. I don't make anything that lasts. Brownies disappear in a day. Laundry is washed and folded and worn and re washed and re folded and re worn. I unload the dishwasher only to turn around and load it again, almost immediately. I tidy up blocks and books and paper clutter, all to no avail because ten minutes later my house is twice as messy as it was when I started. At the end of the day, or the week, or the month, it's rare that I can say "Well, I accomplished this." "I changed that." All I do is keep the daily cogs turning, keep the pool chlorinated, keep the children alive.

But I have built a city somewhere inside of me. Long before I became a mom, before I resigned myself to this tidal life, I was building homes and trees and spires and back packs inside me. I hope it lasts. Not for the sake of any more babies. I'm so grateful for the babies I have but I'm done with babies. Just for my own sake. I might need it someday.

I thanked Leo for telling me about the city. I told him that I was amazed that I had been able to build it all by myself, that I couldn't really believe that I was smart enough or strong enough to build a whole city on my own, that I didn't know I was capable of building things like that.

"Yes, you can, Mom. You could build me!"

It's true. He's way more complicated than a city. I told you he always says exactly what I need to hear.

Tally me bananas

Yesterday, when I was sitting in the comfy chair, reading, Russell walked up to me, handed me his half eaten and quite mushy banana and said "Happy birday to you."



Yesterday was not my birthday but Russell recently attended his cousin Olivia's third birthday party and ever since then he's developed the habit of handing people random objects and wishing them a happy birthday or birday, as he likes to say. And you know, even if it's just a sock or a little lego head or even a mushy banana, there's something nice about a grimy, little baby boy face smiling at you, telling you it's your birthday and handing you a present straight from his chubby little heart.

Of all the gifts I've been showered with in the last few days, the mushy banana stands out. It reminds me of the first birthday present that Kurtis ever gave me. We were newly dating and the relationship was still full of all of that heightened significance and pressure. Birthday gifts are hard for at least the first five years of any relationship and the first birthday is absolutely the worst. You have to find something that communicates the right message. You want something that says "I listen and I know what you need." But it can't be a personal organizer, no matter how much that might be needed. The gift has to say "I want to have fun with you" without being leather lingerie or a whip. Really, it's all so complicated it makes you feel like giving up...which, I'm pretty sure, is exactly what Kurtis did. Because he bought me a banana for my birthday.

Yes. A banana. And, although it was early in our relationship, it wasn't that early. We were clearly in a relationship. There was no excuse for the banana. He claims that it was because I used to say that I didn't like bananas because I'd never had a perfect banana. The bananas I'd eaten had always been slightly mushy or brown or, conversely, too green and kind of hard. So, he saw a perfect banana and thought that that would make a wonderful gift. Of course, by the time he gave it to me, he'd been carrying it around in his back-pack for a while and it was quite brown and covered in bruises...ahh, the romance.

Since then, Kurtis has made up for his little lapse in judgment by giving me a lot of wonderful things. He's given me a lens for my camera, a guitar, long birthday hikes, perfect cakes and other amazing gifts that have shown me how well he knows me and how much he cares. But I have never let him live down that banana. Especially because his first birthday present from me was a book by one of his favourite writers and a blue marble, referencing a favourite poem of mine. Inside the book was a bookmark that I had lovingly made. The bookmark had a funny and touching quote on it, a quote that Kurtis and I had discovered, a few months before, hanging, framed, on the wall of dry cleaners while walking around in downtown Toronto.

Kurtis still has the bookmark and the book and the marble. I didn't even eat the banana. Don't judge me. You wouldn't have eaten it either. It was gross.

Look!

I have pictures!


of haircuts...


and before the haircut.


my little hockey lover


homework is always easier with a superhero by your side.


fishing parachutes off of the roof of the shed.


pity the sandman...he was later buried in a dark corner of the garden from which he has not yet emerged.