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.

Russell had his first taste of hot chocolate today - while wearing a raincoat. I though I was being so clever, putting his raincoat on as a preemptive measure. What I failed to realize is that when you drink liquids normally, the mess slips onto your clothing to be washed out in the next load of laundry. When you drink liquids with a raincoat on, the mess slides all the way down your front, onto your pants, your suede shoes, the chair, the table leg and the floor. I suppose next time I could use a bib but the bibs only ever seem to show up when I don't need them. I find them at the bottom of the camera bag or in his pajama drawer, underneath the misplaced, eternally single socks.

I tried a marshmallow dipped in peanut butter for the first time today. It wasn't good. Really, really not good. I thought it would be. Boy, I'm not often that horribly wrong.

Well, we're safely home from Florida. We're all a little sad, a little tired and a little bit lost, like our daily routines have lost some of their meaning and we're just kind of wandering through them, aimlessly, trying to remember what it was that made them so important. Florida was exhilarating and happy and relaxing, all at once. It was just what I'd hoped it would be and nothing that I dreaded...Leo did not kick the back of a stranger's airplane seat all the way to Florida. He kicked the back of my mother's airplane seat, so that was fine. None of my children had melt downs anywhere other than in the privacy of our rented vacation home. I didn't bother to hope that none of my children would have meltdowns but the fact that they did not do it in public, in front of Mickey or a random Starbucks employee, for example, makes me feel blissfully fortunate in my offspring.

It was really, really hot in Florida. Humid and sticky and hot, just the way I like it. My family spent most of the days that we were not at a theme park inside the air conditioned buildings but I soaked up as much heat as I could. I like being a little bit sweaty, smelling like sunscreen and the way that the air sits, heavy, in your lungs. I like it when the ice in my drink starts melting immediately and the outside of the glass is wet in your hand. Hmmm...this is starting to sound pornographic. I don't mean it too. I just really like hot, humid weather.

I also like the way that you can get unsweetened iced tea in the States. I love 'unsweet tea' and I can't find it up here. I ordered a lot of unsweet tea. I tried the lemonade, hoping it would be real lemonade but it was obviously from a country time mix so I stuck with the tea. I love real lemonade, like the kind that southern grandmas make. I don't know any southern grandmas but I imagine that they would make delicious lemonade from scratch with lots of sugar and a touch of mint. Actually, Max and Ruby's grandma makes lemonade like that.

I'm good with Max and Ruby trivia; we watch a lot of that show in our house. Max and Ruby's grandma is amazing. I think one of the best parts of that show is that she is the only adult that is even remotely responsible for Max and Ruby and, even then, it's only in a very indulgent grandmother sort of way. I asked Kurtis once where he thought Max and Ruby's parents were and he said that obviously they were constantly off doing that thing that rabbits do so well. I don't think that's true, however, or Max and Ruby would have a great deal more siblings, millions of other little Maxines and Ruebens running around. Unless, of course, Max and Ruby's dad was fixed. Which would make him a whole lot braver than chicken boy Kurtis over here. Kurtis is apparently about as stalwart as a possum (are they the ones that roll over and play dead when danger approaches?) because even the mention of the word vasectomy sends him running from the room with his hands over his ears.

This blog post has run off the rails. I don't know what I meant to write about, but it wasn't this. I could attempt a segue involving mouse ears or perhaps the possum at splash mountain but feel that I should probably just abandon ship before any more of you get lost in my random thoughts.

You may have noticed that my blogs no longer seem to include pictures. Kurtis replaced our operating system with Linux or Kubuntu or some strangely named new one and he has not instructed me as to how to install the photo thingy on the computer. I await his pleasure...hopefully it won't be too much longer.

obsession

You know how, no matter what else may be going on in your life, there are certain things that occupy your thoughts on a fairly constant basis. You wake up and think about them, you unload the dishwasher thinking about them, you play trains and make lunches and read Sandra Boynton books (and by the way, Sandra, I want to take this moment to thank you for teaching my children that it's a good idea to exercise before bed...and invite you to my house tomorrow at around 8:00 to convince my four year old that the natural follow-up to jumping jacks and somersaults is of course SLEEP!) and all the time that you're doing those things you're thinking about one or two things.

For me those things happen to be coffee and sugar. Or, when there is no sugar, frozen concentrated orange juice straight from the can. (Seriously, have you tried that? It's like sherbet only way better, like sherbet made from ground up orange zingy zaps...candy? from the 80's? come on, you remember zingy zaps.)

Aidan thinks about pokemon. He walks to school thinking about pokemon, he eats dinner thinking about pokemon and he even talks about pokemon through the bathroom door. Leo thinks about being super: a superhero, a super athlete, a super cool dancer/singer/ninja assassin. And Russell? He thinks about hockey.

You wouldn't know it at first. He wakes up like a normal one and a half year old, quiet and cuddly and wanting to be carried downstairs. He wonders where his daddy is and if he's going to see his 'gappa' (grandpa) today and then, as soon as he sees the front door, he becomes maniacal. He hurls himself at the door yelling "Hockey!" "Hockey!" "Hockey!" "Hockey!"...yeah. It doesn't stop. All through breakfast, "Hockey!" "Hockey!", while we walk the kids to school "Hockey!" "Hockey!" and as soon as we get back to the house he'll leap out of the wagon, grab a hockey stick from the driveway and start whacking away at the ball. There is no reasoning with my child. I can't go inside for a cup of coffee. I can't stop to chat with the neighbours. I can't put my stick down for even a moment or the screaming starts.

"HOCKEY! HOCKEY!"

I can't even describe what he was like at the arena during Leo's hockey practices this past winter. He spent most of his time with eyes glued to the door to the ice, watching like a hawk for any sign of weakness. Whenever the door actually opened, he took off like a shot towards the rink, shrieking and crying if I dared to stop him.

"No! Hockey! Hockey!"

Of course, Kurtis laps it up like frozen orange juice concentrate on a hot day. Not me. Regardless of how cute it is that Russell stops the play every time his stick touches the ball in order to raise his arms above his head and yell

"YAY! HE SCORES!"

I'm still not impressed.

On a recent summer sandal hunting excursion to Kiddie Kobbler (during which I discovered that Aidan is no longer a child in the eyes of shoe sales people but rather an extremely skinny young adult masquerading as a ten year old) I attempted to direct the attention of my sons towards the ballet shoes.

Aidan stared at me blankly and mumbled something about the ability to evolve according to environment and grass types versus fire types. Don't be fooled, it's not science. It's pokemon.

Leo was vaguely intrigued by the mirror next to the ballet display. I thought I had him, until he realized that the shoes in question did not light up or shoot rocket flames out of the back. He then went back to practicing his moves in front of the mirror, a common pastime that involves striking various threatening and mysterious poses at a rate that would rival the best of Madonna's back-up vogue-ers.

Russell, on the other hand, came running right over.

"Mommy" he said.

When I leaned down to his level, he took my face between his hands and stared lovingly into my eyes.

"Go home."

"Hockey!"

Leo's best friend has a new princess umbrella (Yes, his best friend is a neighbourhood girl and not a four or five year old boy with a father who is astonishingly comfortable with his own sexuality.) and in a four year old attempt to keep up with the Jones'es, Leo's been demanding one too. For two and a half weeks. Well, I finally gave way and bought him one. It was not, however, a princess one. Kurtis isn't that secure.





Funny how it never takes long for a four year old to turn an umbrella into a weapon...or anything, for that matter.

response to a facebook status

This month
every observation becomes
accidental haiku


Happy Poetry Month!

"...memory brushes the same years..."

I had the intense pleasure of spending an afternoon with an old friend today. You know the kind of friend that you've known for so many years you've actually lost count? Someone who knows everything about you without having to ask you awkward questions, who picks up broken conversations from the last time you spoke, following threads that you've been discussing for years. Someone who has seen you through a million bad decisions, a broken heart or two, a myriad of hair colours and a terrible pleather jacket. Someone who likes her rice krispie squares just as gooey as you do and who will always have some on hand when you come to visit. Everyone needs friends like that and I'm lucky enough to have a few.

My friend, Julie, just got married last fall, to a man who almost deserves her. He comes as close as any man can, which is a fairly phenomenal accomplishment. Julie and her husband Bryan hosted us (and all three of the boys) for a barbecue and marathon games session on their giant projector wall of video game joy in the basement. It was an amazing afternoon, not only because we played 4 person Mario kart on a split-screen where each person's quadrant was far, far bigger than our television at home, not only because I got to relax and fall back into company that I have loved for years but, best of all, because I got to watch my kids come to realize how truly funny and special my friend is. She made them laugh, she made them comfortable, she made them forget about winning or losing, she helped them to make fast friends with her puppy and she may have become my ten year old son's first crush.

On the way home, Aidan asked me how long I had known Julie. I couldn't remember the exact number of years but it was more than a decade...which is, of course, a life-time to him.

"Was she always just the way she is now?" he asked.

"Pretty much, yes."

"You're so lucky, mom. She must have been a really good friend to have."

"Yeah. She was."

She still is.

Does this look right to you?

Last Friday, during one of the many wrestling matches that take place in my house on a daily basis, Russell fell off the bed. I took him to emergency right away but they sent us home with no real answers to our questions, just some vague instructions to observe and monitor him for a few days. Well, he had a lump on his shoulder that persisted for the next few days and felt a lot harder than typical swelling would feel. As soon as my doctor's office re-opened after Easter, early Tuesday morning, I took him back in to be seen and x-rayed.

Even I can tell that that doesn't look the way it's supposed to look.

So off we went to the emergency room again, this time for a diagnosis of a fractured and displaced clavicle. We have an appointment with the fracture clinic specialist tomorrow morning and I'm left wondering why I couldn't have girls? Lovely girls who would like to sit around and braid each other's hair and play clapping games with one another in the mornings rather than wrestle and roar?

Aches and pains

In this rain, my knees and wrists hurt. I injured my knee a long time ago in a car accident and the rain makes it twinge and ache. Just like my wrists, which I crack when I'm nervous or bored and have done since I was a kid, that now rebel on wet days, demanding to be wrapped in warm compresses and given ibuprofen. Old pains made sharp again. Old habits rubbing me raw today.

Some days, rainy days like today, this is what it's like to have kids. All my old insecurities, all the failures I feared so much and felt so much as a kid suddenly rear their ugly heads again. And, yes, I'm older and I've learned my way around them. I've got confidence and a much harder shell. I could take them on. Except I can't. They're not my battles anymore, not in the same way. I have to stand there feeling frustrated and helpless and guilty while people I love, little people I love more than anything, fumble and fight them all by themselves.

I worry about my kids a lot. I admit it. I watch them on the playground and worry. I worry about Leo, who is always talking to himself. I worry about Aidan, who follows the other kids around, wanting to be a part of the game but never quite knowing how. I worry and I feel it, that sense of loneliness and separation, like it was yesterday. Like I'm still out on a playground, talking to trees or putting on acts for other kids, being silly, crazy, because I'm not sure how to be myself.

My kids are disorganized, like me. They lose their homework and their library books. just like I did. It's causing Aidan no end of grief with his teacher this year because he doesn't go over his work, because he's always in a rush to get his ideas out and he can't slow down and be clear and concise, because he can't sit still, because he's capable of brilliant work but he just isn't (according to his teacher) living up to his potential. Because he's gifted and he's hard to deal with. His marks are dropping and he's starting to dislike school. He's gifted and he's lonely and his peers don't really get him and he feel ostracized sometimes and like the one thing that he used to be good at, school, he can't succeed at anymore. I remember that feeling. Feeling it again, so helplessly, is making me crazy.

And Leo, well, Leo is just starting down his road. And I don't want to paint him into a corner, not even here, in a blog. I'm pretending that it isn't indicative of anything when he comes home from j.k. sighing that the other kids don't listen to him, that they don't like his ideas, the way he tells them things, stories, the way he reads the words that the senior kindergarten kids are reading. It doesn't mean a thing.

I understand my role. I've arranged for the third parent teacher interview. I've called the school's head of special education. I'm learning how to advocate and fight for Aidan, every year, with every new teacher. But as much as I advocate, as much effort as I put in to helping the teachers, the special ed department, the principal, to understand what it's like to be gifted and what the challenges are (because there are many), I still can't help them. They're my kids and I can't help them feel like they're the same as the kids around them, like they're understood and liked for the very things that make them different. I just hope they find people. Please let them find people who understand them, who make them feel like it's okay to be them. I think about it all the time. It aches in me. Even when it isn't raining.

Coupling

Overheard while Leo was playing with action figures:

Action figure 1:"Yawn. It's morning. I'd better get dressed."
Action figure 2: "Oh, honey?"
Action figure 1: "Yes, my dear?"
Action figure 2: "I'd like you to go to the baby store and buy me a baby."
Action figure 1: "Oh, Okay."

Some moments later:

Action figure 1: "Here you are."
Action figure 2: "Oh, thank you. This is a great baby."

...mama...mama...various baby sounds...crash...bang...smash...

Action figure 2: "Aaah! Oh no! My baby!"

At this point I peeked my head around the corner to see what he was doing. The best part...Action figure 1 was lego spiderman. Action figure 2 was a storm trooper. And the baby?

That was a mini monster truck.

words of wisdom

Yesterday I had to take the bus to work. I've been recording some voices for some episodes of a friends on line radio serial program (Check it out, it's at www.decoderringtheatre.com ) and, although it's a volunteer project, I force everyone in the family to take it seriously by calling it my work.

I walked out the door, after saying my good-byes and giving hugs and kisses to Leo (And surreptitiously kissing Russell a few times. You have to be very sneaky when you're saying good-bye to Russell. He can't handle separation very well right now.)and had just started off down the sidewalk when Leo came running out after me.

"Have a good day!" he called.

"Don't talk to strangers! Don't hit any cars! And don't call anyone an idiot!"

Thanks, Leo. I'll try to remember that.

Have you ever felt at home in the strangest places? I took the boys to Toronto Comic Con yesterday and, I admit, I was a bit worried that we would feel a little out of place. We don't hang out in comic shops very often and we don't watch a lot of shows on the Space Network (Doctor Who being the main exception) and Leo gets uncomfortable around stormtroopers. I honestly didn't know how the boys would react to all of the hoopla, the people in costumes and the grownups with way cooler collections of toys than all three of them put together. In truth, I wasn't sure how I would react either. But it was amazing.

Yesterday turned out to be one of the best days that I've spent with all three of my kids and considering that I had to manage them plus a stroller, diaper bag, snacks and drinks, on city buses, go trains and streetcars, as well as herding them through a large and crowded convention centre, I'm amazed that it was as pleasurable as it was. But, truly, we had so much fun. We got to test drive video games that haven't been released yet, we spent way too much money on Batman monster trucks and Star Wars bobbleheads that we don't need, Aidan got to watch teenagers in a real live Yu gi oh battle and quiz them for tips and tactics and Leo even touched the helmet of a member of the Imperial Guard. How could I ever have imagined that we would be uncomfortable? Afterall, I dress up in corsets and perform in the dirt in Faery Festivals. These are my people and if I'd had a Princess Leia costume I would have worn it, although possibly not on the go train.

Flicker

When you ask Russell to close his eyes, he scrunches up his nose and cheeks as though, if he really, really tried, he could get his bottom eyelids to reach up and touch his top ones. Maybe they'd even go right past the top ones and all the way up to his eyebrows. He seems to be working that hard.

Of course, I don't have a picture. I never seem to have a camera at the right moment. But I just thought you might like to know.

CBC defines my days

I heard someone on CBC radio yesterday saying that watching athletes perform at the Olympic Games was like watching 'the result of love'. The idea was that one cannot get to that level in a sport without truly loving it. I thought that was a beautiful thing to say. I don't know if it's true. I imagine that many mixed emotions go into training and competition: love and hate and fear, agony and joy, to name a few.

I do know that I get to watch the result of love, here in my house, every day.




And yes, I recognize the ridiculousness of these photographs. I thought that it might temper the maudlin sentimentality that seems to have come over me this Valentines Day.

All in one bed

We recently bought bunk beds with the idea that Aidan and Leo would share them at first and then, in a few years, Leo and Russell could share. Aidan is on the top, Leo is on the bottom.



But Russell wasn't willing to wait.

find my way...back home

So, maybe you've noticed, I'm a mom. I stay at home. I devote most of my energy throughout the day to changing diapers, adjusting cookie recipes so that they're healthier, building train tracks and 48 piece puzzles (why do they make puzzles with 48 pieces? Seems like a random number to me. Why not 50?)and cleaning. Although, to be fair, I don't actually spend much of my time cleaning. There's a dirty frying pan in my sink that was last used three days ago.

I make space in myself for other people's things. I make space for interminable games of superheroes, the same nursery rhyme sung a thousand times, lengthy discussions about video games I've never played, science projects and silk pajamas. (This is a pg rated blog so I'm going to use the phrase 'silk pajamas' to refer to many of the things that I give to my husband that probably shouldn't be thought of as responsibilities but, let's face it, sometimes are.)

I know lots of women. This is a common complaint. Being the mother is the most rewarding job in the world. Paradoxically, it's also the most mind numbing, least rewarding job that there is. We wipe noses. We zip zippers. We reassure. We give ourselves away in lunch bags and cookie tins and sometimes we lose sight of ourselves amidst the clutter.

Every once in a while, I need to let loose. I'm lucky that I have an outlet. I have women that I sing with and who sometimes take me to bars and force me to drink and laugh and sing songs about drinking and laughing and make me feel like I exist outside of my home and motherhood. I have books. I have words to write, although not very often.

But I wonder. Every time I do something for myself, I want more. If I spend a day in singing rehearsal, I want to do it again. If I take an hour to write one day, I want an hour every day or two or three. I have a friend who tells me that I will be a better mom, a better wife, if I do more things for myself but I don't know that that's true. Because the more I look around outside my house, the harder it gets to walk back in and focus on the cookies and the laundry again. What do you think? Is it a case of the grass is always greener? Obviously, the love in my house is not unappealing to me, Just the clutter, the repetitive tasks, the hours and hours of the same nine picture books, the monotony from day to day. Does everyone feel this way? Just the general malaise of certain times in our lives, the burden of responsibility?

I have a fantasy that involves running away to Indiana and working in a library. (Don't ask why Indiana, I think it has something to do with repeated exposure to the Music Man as a child.)I don't feel guilty about it. Kurtis has a fantasy about New Zealand. But sometimes I wonder if I go to that library too often in my mind, will I ever find my way back home again?

A few years ago, Kurtis was really interested in astral travel. I used to tie a lavender ribbon around his wrist because it was supposed to help ensure that your astral body could always find its way home to your physical self. I'm not sure that I believe in astral travel but sometimes I think I need a lavender ribbon anyway.

On Friday, during the homework struggle, Aidan told me that he hated me. Leo quickly followed suit.

"I hate you, Mommy."

"No you don't, Leo."

"No, seriously, I do. I mean it."

"No. You don't, honey."

At this point he walked over and gave me a hug and whispered "Actually, I love you. I was just joking."

Aidan folded up his French book, walked over and jumped on us both, punching me in the arm and tying little ribbons, with his brother, with their little boy hands, around me.



But then, that's the easy answer isn't it? The problem is actually much more difficult than that.

Well, the weather hasn't co operated that much this winter. This winter has been almost as good as the summer was, which is my way of saying that it has been one of the worst I can remember! Terrible! Where is the ice? Where is the snow? I've pulled my shovel out once so far this winter. Once! And it was a pity pull. There was only about an inch of snow, it would have melted by the following afternoon but my shovel was starting to look lonely and forlorn in the back of my shed behind the bikes so I thought I would get it out, let it see the sunlight and the sky, remember its rightful place in the universe.

I love my shovel. I love shoveling. Every winter Kurtis and I fight over who gets to do the shoveling at our house. I love shoveling so much that I will put a twenty five pound baby on my back in our baby trekker and shovel the driveway, just to make sure that I get the job done before Kurtis gets home because otherwise I know I will have to share.

But this year there has been no snow to shovel and very little ice. However, the kids did get about a week to take advantage of the work Kurtis did in the back yard this year.



The rink took several weeks to perfect, the kids loved for about a week and a half and now it sits, runny and bumpy and soft as an August slushy in some places, waiting for the next big freeze.

One little person

I had my first rehearsal of the year on Sunday. It felt good to sing a little, to talk about gigs, potential and booked, to think about music and new directions to take, and costumes and characters and muppets. Yep, muppets.

Somehow it came up that most of the band had never seen the Jim Henson Memorial and, despite the fact that it took place almost twenty years ago, there's a video of it on You Tube, like many other wonderful videos that don't involve gratuitous cat injuries, terrible acoustic versions of Coldplay songs or stupid human tricks...oh wait...I'm in one of those.

So we watched it. and we were all sniffling by the end. It's amazing how much of the sound track of my childhood is contained in music made by large puppets. Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and Fraggle Rock, all taught me songs that I can still remember the words to now. Songs that still affect me, obviously, because the tears running down my face at the end of the Memorial Medley were pretty uncontrollable.

And the real kicker? The coup de gras? At the end of the last song, all of the muppets come out to sing and the five year old boy who was watching it with us kept naming the ones that he recognized.

"I see Fozzie and Gonzo!"

"Look, I see Oscar and Prairie Dawn and Elmo!

"There's Telly!"

And at the end, as the camera pulled back on all the singing muppets, he said

"But where's Kermit?"

And he reduced a room full of adults to full on sobs. Yeah, you don't know how much effort it cost me not to blurt out

"Kermit's dead, kid! Kermit's dead!"

I would recommend watching the entire memorial medley sometime. It's on you tube in two parts and in total it's about fifteen minutes long but it is so worth it.

Here's the final number.

A few pictures

Aaaahhhhhh Christmas! (note how it's both a contented sigh and a scream of panic and agony.)