Time

Every once in a while, I look back on my grandmother's time with some envy. This happened more often in my twenties, when I was trying to decide what career to pursue, what to do with my life, and was so completely frozen with choice stress that I thought that living in a time when my choices were limited to two or three (wife / mother or teacher or nurse) might have been kind of nice. 

Life in other times seems like it would be more straightforward. Of course I would quit my job as a mother. Of course my husband would just work full time, and of course for a single corporation for much of the rest of his life. One that he would like, of course. And of course I would live close to my mother and sister and my in-laws so that we could help raise children and do things around the house.

Never mind that neither of my grandmothers ended up living even remotely close to their families. Never mind even more that my one grandmother would have given her damn eyeteeth to have the opportunities that I have right now -- she was a very bright woman, who earned a degree in the 1920s and taught school until she got married. And then I think while she was happy, she was a little envious of my grandfather who went on to have an illustrious career while she stayed home and raised their children. I don't think she minded, per se, but I do think that she could have had as great as, or even greater, a career than he did. 

But we recently found a show imported from England -- BBC -- called Victorian Farm, in which three modern people go to an abandoned Victorian Farm and attempt to live on it -- with only Victorian technology and Victorian breeds of animal and plants and Victorian clothing -- for a whole year. 

Now I realize that neither of my grandmothers grew up in Victorian times, but this show? Has cured me of my envy. Oh, dear God, the work they do! The laundry that takes four days! The fencing that has to start with cutting down the damn tree! The cooking on a wood stove! And let's face it: while my grandmothers didn't grow up in this time, neither did they likely have a dishwasher, nor electric iron with steam, nor microwave (although neither do I), nor even perhaps a clothes dryer. Or frozen foods, ready meals, pizzas. Or the variety of foodstuffs that we have. So many things that we take for granted.

In any case, I haven't spent much time recently wishing I lived in past times. Despite the chaos of life today, and the need to slow the heck down to feel like you can catch your breath, and despite the agony of choice ... I still would never trade my dishwasher for love nor money. 

Pressures of writing

My current daycare centre only accommodates children up until age 3, and my darling boy is turning three in less than two weeks. This is not as much of a tragedy as you might think; it's not like we're hard up for daycare now. He merely has to be moved from one centre within the larger complex into another, which will involve it's own set of adjustments of course ... but I am merely grateful that I don't have to go into full daycare search mode which in this city is a recipe for insanity and sobbing near the phone.

Anyway. There are no spots in the 3-5 centres currently, and given that the local government is all gung-ho about regulating daycare but not on actually spending any money on it (not that I'm bitter or trying to make a political statement here, although YES I AM) the licensing regulations of the province won't allow my child to stay at the 12-36 month centre more than one month post third birthday. So what do we do? Paperwork. 

I do have a point, stay with me.

So the daycare lady and I sat down (figuratively -- we spoke about it while I was trying to hold a squirming child who wanted to GO HOME ALREADY DAMMIT) and talked about this paperwork, some of which she has to complete and some of which I have to which will beg and plead with licensing to allow us to keep him at this centre just one more month until a space opens up at the big kid centre. My part is to write a letter telling them just how much my life would be ruined should my child not have daycare for a month.

So I came home, sat down at my computer, and wrote a letter. There wasn't much to go on, and I didn't want to seem overly dramatic about it, so I wrote a few paragraphs about how great the daycare is, and how they will be just fine accommodating a three year old amongst the smaller kids, and how much the daycare helps me be a good employee and pay my bills on time, etc. 

And I gave it to her, full of trepidation -- what if that's not what they want to hear?

But more: will she think it's good enough?

See, this is the peril of writing for a living: I have the crazy need to still, after ALMOST TEN YEARS, ensure that everything I write is excellent, down to the last email, because DAMN what if someone reads a letter I wrote that is totally NOT for my job and it's not absolutely perfect and they start thinking -- what, really, how they hell can this woman write for a living if she can't even spell?

Now I know this is not fair. Good god, most good writers have editors, that's what they are FOR after all. And who cares who judges me? Clearly I am good at my job or I wouldn't still be employed in the same field after all this time. 

But I admit that I was working with another writer this past week within my organization and she was defensive about her writing and couldn't spell the name of the company we were writing to despite repeated reminders, and then she got all snooty about it, and I was COMPLETELY judging her. Like -- I'm sorry, first of all, as a writer for an organization, you have to have at least BASIC copyediting skills, and one of those skills is looking at words and making sure that you are spelling the name of the company right, for God's sake. And one of the other most important parts of writing for someone else for money? NOT GETTING SNOOTY ABOUT IT WHEN THEY ASK FOR CHANGES. I cannot emphasize this enough, mostly because I know full well how freaking hard that is. I spent my first two years as a writer feeling completely demoralized because people kept criticizing my work, and I didn't want to BE a writer in the first place BECAUSE it involved so much criticism, and even now after nine years I sometimes get all ... Hey! I'm good at this, don't you dare suggest changes! ... about things (but only in my head, because I am a Polite Girl) but I have to let it go, because that's what I do. I signed up for this, the red pen life, and I just need to deal and a writer who can't ... well, you ain't going to last long.

I feel a little bad about it, I do. I feel pressured to be perfect, but mostly because I know that I look and I judge and maybe if I stopped doing that, I wouldn't feel the pressure. 

But perhaps I should also admit that I like writing well. I get personal satisfaction from a well organized, well argued document that flows well and reads well. And I've come to understand that for the most part, editors (whether professional or otherwise) make some good changes. And I appreciate them.

But mostly? I need to give myself a break. The daycare letter didn't need to be a work of art; it just needs to be a letter. And I need to remember that I *like* doing this, and therefore it shouldn't also be a source of angst. I can like making things perfect all I want, but there comes a time when I need to give over a letter, and not worry about how good it is and whether people will judge me for it.

A letter is just a letter, after all.

Hat

Look! My very first crochet!

The top of the hat kind of came to a point when I finished it off, so I thought a tassel would be the perfect touch. And I really like the hat, I think it's quite cute and it even fits!

Alas, on me, it looks like sh*te. 

I'm not even being modest, it just doesn't look good. I don't know why. It probably just makes me look pinheaded or something. I don't have good luck with hats. 

Anyway. I will work with it and see if I can't figure out how to wear it so it looks good. Or barring that, I can just find someone who DOES look good in it and give it away.

Crochet

I suppose it's just a little strange of me to admit that I took this with me and worked on it last night at the restaurant. But after all, sukiyaki takes time, and The Man does all the cooking, so while I wait I may as well get things done.

Right now it just looks like an enormous headband, and I suppose that wouldn't be a bad use for it. Maybe once I get done the hat I can crochet a headband for warmer days. 

I'm not nuts about the pooling (says she who most recently wrote "I don't mind how yarn pools!" but that's mostly because if you knit with this yarn you get a lovely variegated look instead of colour blocks ... anyway. We shall see, I will post pictures once it is done ... wish me luck! I still have to figure out how to decrease ... 

What was she thinking I would do with it?

This evening The Man and I went out on another date. We did a few errands, went to the game store, and went to an early dinner at a nearby sukiyaki restaurant. 

The restaurant does a typical (so I am told) Japanese sukiyaki, wherein they give you a hotplate at the table, and a pot with broth in it, and you cook your vegetables and meat and noodles etc. on it. Apparently in Japan they also supply you with a raw egg, which you crack into a small bowl and dip the meat into as it's cooked. 

This kind of grosses me out, so I always leave the egg. They bring it, in a bowl, and I leave it. The Man likes this, and eats his egg. 

The Man also eats more than I do so I was sitting for a while as he finished his meal; when he was finished he turned off the (propane) hotpot, stacked the dirty dishes. They came over to clear, and took the dishes away, our cups and empty drinks, and cleared up the hotpot. And the egg.

And let me just say for the record that it was clear we were done eating. There was no food on the table, no hotpot to cook it, no meat to dip in the egg. No more vegetables. Not even a drink. 

But she picked up the egg last, and then turned to me and said "Are you sure you don't want the egg?"

And I just blinked, and then said slowly ... "No, thanks." Because at that point? What was she expecting, that I'd take the egg and eat it whole? Bring it home for breakfast? Put it in my pocket for later, like a little shelled doggy bag??

I feel sure that somehow I violate some obscure and ancient Japanese custom and now will become severely allergic to sushi as punishment. Which would be, for the record, a fate worst than death. 

Beyond imagination

Lately The Boy has been doing a lot of pretending. By this I mean, he's taken on different personas, such as his favourite Backyardigan character, and assigning us various characters as well. I always have to be Pablo. Sometimes we all get to be animals, usually crocodiles or tigers or some other equally fierce thing.

This morning The Boy decided that instead of characters or animals we would be happy foods. Yes, you read that right. Happy foods. "I am broccoli," he chirped. "Which happy food are you, Mama?"

Where this concept came from, I don't exactly know. We haven't ever discussed which foods are happy and which aren't -- perhaps this is a concept introduced in daycare. I decided that I would be brown rice. Brown rice is a happy food. The Man became almond, and the cats sushi (because it makes us happy, not because it's a happy food) and broccoli two (because we ran out of food ideas that early in the morning). 

And then ... the elephant in the floor puzzle became Peanut. Not a happy food, but a food that apocryphally makes elephants happy.

But the craziness was complete when the (imaginary) yellow frog snake that was sitting in the corner of the living room also needed a new (imaginary) identity, and he became orange. Let's just note that again. I had to come up with a new imaginary identity for an imaginary creature. 

I ... I don't even know where to go with that, but I think it's clear that we're taking this imagination thing way too far. 

Knitting?

One of the things I figured I'd better do, before dropping lots of hard earned cash on the yarn for Lucie, was to figure out how to crochet.

You see, I learned to knit from a magazine a few years (eight, I think, now) back. Oh, sure, my mother had done the obligatory attempt to teach me when I was six but I wasn't terribly motivated or interested, and hadn't picked up yarn nor needles since. She had better luck with sewing -- I sewed things well into my teens -- but yarn craft was missing entirely from my childhood.

Until now, my entire experience with a crochet hook was using one to pick up stitches in my knitting. I think this is not entirely uncommon amongst knitters. The knitting needles are instruments of great worth, items that create works of great beauty, but the crochet hook is merely for fixing mistakes.

But Lucie's edges are done in a lovely crochet, and I think it adds a lot of charm to the piece. And let's fact it: I think that if one is a very serious crafter, one ought to at least know the basics of many yarn techniques. (I plan to try spinning next!) So I got out some older yarn (some Lorna's Laces sheperd sport, poor me!) and a crochet hook and started experimenting. 

My first swatch of crochet looked very much like my first knitting swatch of old: lumpy, misshaped, and full of increases and decreases that I didn't intend. But once I was done I had a reasonable idea of the basic stitches -- not the complicated stuff, just the basics -- and felt pretty good about myself. Not so bad for an hour's work! Crochet! Taken care of! Cross that off my list!

I had intended then to cast on more crochet and learn the actual stitch that is needed for Lucie. That is, after all, what this whole project was about -- learn enough crochet to make that edging as nice as I wanted it to be to finish off the sweater. 

Instead, I took the yarn and cast on a long chain. Long enough to fit around my head. And then joined it up -- awkwardly,  admit, since that hadn't been on my list of learned items -- and started crocheting a hat. I had originally bought this yarn to make a nice little hat, and I just hadn't managed to find a knitting pattern -- online or made up -- that worked. The temptation was just too great.

So now I've abandoned the sock yarn and sock knitting AND the Quest for Lucie, and am busily crocheting myself a hat. 

I may somehow lose my knitter credibility with this one. 

Walking with my mother

My mother is -- or rather was -- a park naturalist. She's semi-retired, but still knows a great deal about the natural world and isn't afraid to share. It's a fairly consuming passion; she's heading to Ecuador in a week for a three-week trek through the jungle in search of rare birds. Faint of heart, she ain't.

When I was a child I was regularly dragged out for walks in teh Nature. I say "dragged" because I loathed them, and let's face it, I live now and have lived for close to ten years in a city environment -- not even suburbs -- and I love it. I am more than happy to spend all day every day in a built environment, and actually hyperventilate when driving in a place where no human habitation can be found. I will likely never be found trekking through the jungles of Ecuador. 

These hikes and walks through the nature, when I was a child, were more prolonged (and therefore, in my mind, more gruelling) than might otherwise have been because my mother could not walk more than ten steps without pausing to admire and point out something that was fascinating and interesting, to her and probably many other people, but which prompted in my impatient and wishing-for-my-book self merely eye-rolling and theatrical sighs. 

My sister was once heard to remark that you couldn't walk anywhere with my parents because if it was the daytime my mother needed to stop and look at the flowers, and if it was night my father needed to stop and watch the stars.

Yesterday my mother came to visit for the day and we took The Boy to the nearby park which has ducks in the pond and a beach and many other things. And I watched my mother take my child in hand and show him how to tell the boy ducks from the girl ducks, teach him the names of the different kinds of ducks, show him how soft the feathers are, and even point out the teeth marks on nearby trees from the resident beaver. We came home afterwards and she sat with him through two iterations of the book she bought for him on reptiles. 

And he loved it.

And so did I. 

In the years since I was eight years old I learned that even if I didn't enjoy my mother's nature walks, I sure did respect how much she knew. I stopped going hiking with her, but I still looked at her millions of photos of birds in flight -- often fuzzy -- that she brought back with her. I may not share her enthusiasm, but I am so pleased she has her own enthusiasms.

And yesterday, watching my son enraptured by her tales of beavers, ducks, and beach dwellers, I finally managed to enjoy a nature walk too. 

God bless small immune systems

By the time bedtime rolled around last night we had finally established that "my tummy hurts". There were the usual tears around bedtime and a particularly heartfelt plea to not wear a particular pajama shirt, but after a few stories, he fell asleep in no time flat. 

And this morning? Like it never happened. Usual happy cheery energetic self. Whew. 

This is why we pay exorbitant sums to live here

It's hard to see, since I took this with my rather useless cell phone camera, but those white-ish spots on the grass?

Flowers. Blooming. In February. 

It's days like this I think it's actually worthwhile to pay so much to live here. 

You know it's not good when ...

Your child cries when you pick him up at daycare.

He wants you to carry him to the car, when he will often walk ... or run.

He's quiet all the way home.

When he gets home, he says he wants to go and sit on the couch ... and does so. Without any kind of show on or toy.

He refuses dinner. And then his favourite food item, specially prepared. And then a yummy smoothie.

He sits quietly on the couch all evening. 

Huh. Maybe he's just tired ... he doesn't have a fever at the moment, just a cold. Let's just hope it doesn't get worse ... 

Sexism

So I've been exchanging emails with a colleague at work the past few weeks; we're working on a project together which I'm trying to pull together before she heads off on mat leave / parental leave in a couple of weeks. I'm being effusive about the baby -- many congratulations and best wishes and gushing all that kind of thing, all normal behaviour for a mother confronted with someone else about to have a child.

Or is it?

I'm not like that with male colleagues. If a male colleague is expecting a child with his partner ... well, I hardly ever know because despite Canada's reasonable (note I didn't say generous) parental leave policy, men hardly ever take leave. But even if I did know that someone -- male -- was expecting a baby, I probably wouldn't talk about it the same way.

It's not even that she's pregnant and I'm being effusive about her pregnant belly; it's her wife who's having the child, their second together. I haven't seen her wife while pregnant. I expect it would be the same if they were adopting, for any mother adopting. 

The fact is that I am more comfortable gushing woman to woman about babies than I would be woman to man. Which is weird, given that I know full well that my own father and my own partner are no lesser as parents just because of their sex. I know The Man talks about The Boy to his friends and colleagues; I know they like to spend time together. My own father is more effusive about his love for me and my sister than my mother ever is. 

So I don't know. I never really thought my reactions were sexist, but they kind of are. Is this just me? Or do you gush to expectant mothers more than to fathers?

Excellent

I now have 30 chocolate truffles sitting in the freezer for future consumption, and several more in my belly. They were scrumptious. Seriously. Delicious, oh my heavens delicious. Yum. YUM. Of course they were a bit of a pain to make and I had to have chocolate all over my hands and they look absolutely terrible, like tiny little bumpy brown balls. Not terribly attractive. Next up: must learn to make aesthetically pleasing AND delicious food. 

Also, yesterday I went to another LYS and found yarn that will, I think, be perfect for Lucie but which doesn't break the bank. Well. Let's rephrase that and say it falls on the good side of $100 rather than the evil side. Whee! I haven't bought it yet -- I must have some self-discipline and finish a few other projects first -- but hopefully soon. I'm quite stoked, I thought I would never find yarn for it that wasn't frightening expensive!

How I traumatized my child just this morning

Oh, trust me, I realize the irony of posting this right after this morning's post, but bear with me.

A few months ago a friend of mine who is considering adopting a child -- not a baby, a child who was the ward of the province, which almost certainly means the child was abused or at the very least neglected, and then removed from his or her home, resulting in almost certain emotional trauma -- asked me if I was worried about screwing up my child. If I was worried that I would irreparably harm him through some parenting mishap.

I said no. And then I added that it was not because I was so sure of my expertise as a parent. It was because my parents, as good as they were and are, screwed me up. And the things they screwed up they totally don't even remember. It was some thoughtless comment, completely forgotten by them, that I remembered well into my adulthood. 

I said I was in fact sure I was going to screw up my child, but I wasn't worried about it because there was nothing I could do to stop it. It would be something I wouldn't even remember that would harm him and put him into therapy as an adult. You know, because if I did something wrong and I remembered it and felt bad about it, I would likely apologize or make amends somehow, and then it wouldn't be something he would feel horrible about. 

This morning I was putting in laundry -- just a few clothes and all -- and I happened to have in my hand a blanket. A blanket that came into our world tucked into the body one precious crocodile stuffed toy. A crocodile that was lovingly named by his small boy owner, who then in turn named the blanket as well, once his dear father rolled it into a snake and then made up songs about the crocodile, the snake, and the boy and their adventures. Songs that were repeated ad infinitum at the express enraptured request of the small boy.

At first, I think he thought I was kidding about the blanket, throwing it into the laundry. It was only once I slammed the door of the front loading washer that his face crumpled into a horrified teary mess and I realized what the hell I had done. 

Luckily I hadn't actually turned on the washer, so I hastily opened it and pulled out the green fuzzy thing, and handed to the child who clutched it to his traumatized self, tears streaming down his face, looking at me with horror and disbelief. I said I was sorry, I told him it was ok. I felt like a monster.

We sent him off to daycare and will wash the blanket surreptitiously at some point in the future. And hopefully one day my child won't be lying on a therapist couch weeping about the blanket, the washing machine and the cruel, cruel mommy.

Good mother

A few days ago on my weekly playdate the mom and I were having a discussion about things we do poorly as mothers. I'm frustrated because getting rid of diapers has been an exercise in frustration; she's feeling bad about herself because her little boy, no longer in daycare, doesn't tolerate other children and sharing as well as he once did. 

Neither of these things has anything to do with us as mothers. Kids just go through these stages, and they are ready for new developmental leaps when they are ready for them, not before. 

And we talked about how as mothers it is completely crazy for us to take personal responsibility for things that we have little to no control over, to feel as though we are parenting poorly because our not-quite three year old can't always remember to use the potty or doesn't want to share his favourite truck. 

And it is even more crazy that we don't take any responsibility for our children's good qualities. The fact that we both have children who speak and articulate well, play well together, use polite voices, clean up toys when asked, hold hands at street crossings, don't watch six hours of television a day, treat strangers politely, welcome new people to our homes, eat reasonable meals, and don't throw (many) tantrums ... well, that has nothing to do with us. They're just good kids! And it's true that some of that, like the sharing and toileting, has nothing to do with us. Some kids eat and some don't, and there's very little you can do about it until they decide to eat. Same as sleeping -- some do, some don't, but just as with eating by the time they are 18 they don't need you to feed them or dress them or lie with them while they fall asleep. All kids get there in time. 

But isn't that crazy? I'm personally responsible for my child NOT learning something, but I take a completely hands off approach for all the things he has learned easily. It's similar to taking on a negative personal view because I'm not that great with numbers, despite the fact that I earn a living using words. Yeah, words, so what, everyone can write. (ha ha ha one of my most reviled statements.) I mean, sure, I do that too on occasion, but at least I know it's crazy.

What is it about mothers or just human nature that we focus entirely on the negative and skip the positive? I know I'm not alone in this; I hear it all the time at daycare. Mothers, with apologetic tones saying "yeah, but he's not a great sleeper" or "yeah but he throws such bad tantrums at home" or .... anything else, as long as it starts with "yeah, but ..." Like we can't be proud of our own or our children's accomplishments. And maybe, sure, we don't want to rub people's noses in our greatness, but I do think that we need to get rid of this tendency to really own our faults. Seriously -- we either need to own it all, both the positive and negative, or have a hands-off approach to it all. But this owning the bad and getting rid of the good? is just plain crazy.

Sock progress

So here it is, the sock so far. As a reminder these are for The Man, so that's why they may appear much too large. He also got the Koigu because it makes a slightly thicker sock. I knit him another pair a year or so ago and he wears them fairly frequently, and doesn't wear any other kind of knitted item, so if I want to knit something for him, my choices are socks or socks.

Here's an example of the colour pooling I'm not that keen on. I don't normally mind if colours pool in socks; I'm fine with variegated yarn just doing its thing. If it pools and swirls, fine. If it just combines, whatever. I don't care. But this ... this pooling is just plain ugly. The greens are nice, but the yellow / purple / grey combination is just kind of gross.

Of course on the heel (pardon the horrible picture, it's early morning and I didn't have the patience to try again) the pooling stops and the colours just combine and I think ... hey, maybe this is what they had in mind? Because the greens combined with the yellows and purples all spread out together isn't too bad. I mean, it's not exactly stunning, but it's not that bad either. 

Ah well. No one will see them anyway .... and it seems that there is even enough for a whole sock per skein, even for large feet, so I shall post when they are done ... 

Early morning observations

Mommy, groggily: "What numbers are on the clock?" (We've been establishing that when the first number on the clock is a seven, it's "wake-up time!" ... anything before that means it's time to lie down and be quiet, dammit.)

The Boy: "Seven ... one .... eight"

pause

"Eight is a big number mommy. A BIG number."

pause

"One is a small number, mommy."

pause

"Seven is a flat number."

more pausing

"A circle is round!"

pause

"But a square is not."

pause

"Oh look! It's a nine! Mommy! A nine! YAYYYYYY!!!"

Now if I could just greet the day with that kind of enthusiasm.

Leftovers

When I was a child, my least favourite dinner of the week was leftover night. Leftovers was a dirty, four-letter word. 

My mother loved leftover night. I could never figure out why. Gross, wilted vegetables, all reheated in the microwave. Stuff we'd already enjoyed, leftover in the fridge turned from an appetizing dinner into gross goo that was sure to poison me if I ate it. 

This aversion to leftovers carried me well into my adulthood. In my twenties we would either eat fresh dinner every night or eat delivery ... living on my own meant fresh dinner or cereal or salad for dinner, which suited me fine. 

Moving in with The Man gave leftovers a small break -- his cooking is so awesome that I'd often like to eat leftovers for lunch at work the next day. But that was the limit. Not for dinner another night, no not me. Ok for lunch, but dinner had to be out, delivery, or something new and delicious. 

I still maintain that most things taste best fresh, especially things that are vegetable heavy i.e. good for you.

But being a mom? Has finally convinced me that leftovers are a good thing. I love leftover night. Leftover night means coming home with my child and putting dinner in the oven and SITTING DOWN. Blogging. Knitting (you should see the sock!). Spending time with my child. And still eating something yummy. 

Funny how things change, huh? I am getting more and more like my parents with every passing year. It's still scary in some ways but just plain amusing in others. Leftovers. Who knew?

It's just not fair

How can a kid who woke up coughing several times last night -- and woke his mother up, too, of course -- have more energy than a whirling dervish come morning? Because said mother feels a lot like she's been run over by a truck.

Ugh.

Social Modelling

So yesterday we had a wee girl at our home for playdate. She's The Boy's bestest friend at daycare, and I genuinely like both her and her mother, although I don't know either of them very well. I've noticed, though, that the little girl is a little bossy with my son, which I'm not so keen on. I know that this is as much his problem as hers -- he needs to stand up for himself just as much as she needs to figure out not to boss people around -- but even so it's one thing I'm not pleased about.

The last time we had a playdate, there were a couple of quarrels and some tears, so I was unsure as to how this would go over. And apart from the fear of the cat (which I hadn't expected at all, and which did throw me for a loop a little. I shouldn't be surprised; not everyone likes cats, and I should try and remember that.) it did go well. 

But at one point, the two kids were playing with a little racer car that you pull back to make go. The Boy took a turn, and the car shot across the floor. "My turn!" cried the little girl, fairly enough, because it was indeed her turn. She went over and got the car, and shot it directly underneath the dining room table. And then she turned, and said to my child, "Name, go and get it!"

Now, to be fair, he went over, tried, and said, "I can't reach it, you try!" and she did, gamely. In the end, The Boy moved a chair and fetched the car, and then the girl reached out, grabbed it again, and said, "My turn!"

The whole interaction was fine -- I mean, maybe The Boy should have taken the car back, but if he genuinely doesn't care, I don't think he needs to make an issue of turns -- but it was her mother's reaction that kind of bothered me, when she laughed and said "Make him go and get it, and then it's your turn again! Good girl!" 

Before you gasp in horror, her tone was obvious to me as being sarcastic. So I smiled, because I knew that she wasn't complimenting her child. But here's the kicker: children at 2.5 don't understand sarcasm. So between her words and the fact that neither she nor I intervened and said "No, it's The Boy's turn because he hasn't had a chance to make the car go", what both kids took away from this interaction was that it was ok -- nay, it was good -- that The Girl made The Boy fetch her toy and then took it away from him. 

I don't know. I'm not faulting the other mom here -- neither of us reacted perfectly, and I am far from the perfect parent. It was as much my social modelling as hers that made the mess -- if it can even be described as such. I use a fair amount of sarcasm myself at probably inappropriate times. It's just that it made me realize how much we model and what kids take away and how even the tiny things show kids how to behave and treat each other. It's a tough job being a parent, knowing that kids are watching every little thing we do and learning from it. It's hard not being able to let your guard down for a moment, and it's really just impossible to do -- you can't be perfect the whole time. In the end, all I can hope for is that I do the right thing most of the time. And try to give my kid a break when he doesn't always do the right thing either. 

Humph

Two minutes after I posted that, I went back into the kitchen to ice the rest of the cupcakes. I was followed by my child who came and stood on his stool to watch me. While there his eyes lit upon the recent product of our grocery shopping trip.

"Avocado!" he glows. He picks it up. "Can I have some?"

Mother, perplexed, "Don't you want a cupcake?"

"No, I want the avocado!"

Who am I to argue with this? He ate the entire thing. No cupcake. Who is this child??

Domestic Goddess

I found this recipe online. They are pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing. They have molasses and spices and raisins in, so along with the pumpkin and cheese I think that they can almost be passed off as healthy for a playdate snack.

I tell you, though, that standing in my own kitching icing cupcakes in time for my son's upcoming playdate ... I have never felt more suburban.

Confessions

Of the knitting variety, of course. This is a family blog, after all.

So confession number one is that I've been working on the second sock of that pair that time forgot (TM). I think it shows some super human strength that I managed to get past the heel before I thought ... damn, I'm bored. And man, are these needles ever tiny! The glow of the Lantern Moon has worn off somewhat, alas. But I am persevering. They will be nice when they are done, and they are for ME after all. (Mostly because expecting someone else to wear socks knit three years apart is just too much. Especially since -- further confession -- they lingered so long on the needles and were so poorly stored that they have moth holes. I know. I feel like I just admitted to something dirty, like, I never clean the bathroom (which I do!). Moth holes in knitting seem to be something that you only whisper about, and never in mixed company.)

So yesterday in my day of quest for self-fulfillment I also hied myself to the yarn store, determined to overcome my intimidation and fear of mitten knitting. I had the gauges all worked out and knew what I was looking for, and was sure that I could go in, find it, and buy it and come home with it and NOT BE SCARED. 

And then, as I was walking towards the yarn store, I saw something that made my heart go pitter patter. A large red sign with SALE written on it. 

I gathered my strength and went in. And looked around, and saw some yarn and at first wasn't interested until I saw this:

Be still my beating heart! Sock yarn! On sale! And not just any sock yarn. Lorna's Laces! Koigu! Oh heaven, oh rapture!

Well, ok, perhaps I exaggerate. I'm not insane, after all. 

So I snatched up a few items, and almost bought some wool in a bag as well, enough for a sweater. I thought that perhaps I would soon become one of those people who has more stash than she knows what to do with, but I stopped myself. I don't want to be able to insulate my house with yarn, and I think that overbuying in this economic climate is probably a bad thing. Neither The Man nor I are in any immediate danger of job loss (which is to say, we are no more or less likely than anyone else right now to lose our jobs) but I still think that prudent spending is wise. Not that buying loads of sock yarn is exactly prudent. But at least I know what I will do with it, and buying yarn without a project in mind, especially yarn you don't LOVE, is probably silly.

I couldn't help myself, I cast on for a sock right away:

This is the Koigu, and I admit that I can see at only this stage why people love this yarn so much. It's very nice to work with. Alas I can also see why this particular colour was on sale -- it pools horribly. The greens all pool together (nice!) and the grey, yellow, and purple all pool together (hiss!) and the result is not exactly pleasing. Ah well. It was half price, which helps.

These socks are also for The Man, and I fear that there is not enough of it to make decent length socks for him, as he has rather large feet. So we shall see. In any case he won't mind if the socks aren't the prettiest in the world, as he only ever wears boots and no one will ever see them. He's likely more concerned with how they feel than how they look. 

Last confession: I have gone completely off my rocker. I bought this because I finally found a source for it and this was the book I wanted in the first place. Seems ever more ironic that it arrived on the day  went to buy mitten yarn and didn't end up getting any. But I will keep it close by and stare at the cover lovingly and longingly and eventually find the courage to go and find something to fulfill my mitten dreams. 

(To be completely honest, I did find some mitten yarn that would have been fine, but it wasn't exactly perfect. I have a very clear idea of what I want for the mittens, and I just couldn't find it. Had it been there, I likely would have bought it, but I think that I'm likely to find what I want at another -- cheaper -- yarn store. I'm not so intimidated as I pretend ... it's just that if I'm going to put in the effort, I really do want the yarn that I have in mind. That's all.)

(And wow, that was quite a load of confessions, all in all.)

Mortality

I should preface this by saying that I have always been a.) a hypochondriac and b.) a worrier. I'm not so much a hypochondriac that I'm in the doctor's office day to day, but enough so that every little twinge or unusual pain is cause for me to wildly imagine the worst possible outcome for an hour or two or overnight and then forget it again in the morning. 

Since having a child, however, everything has changed. Before I had a child it was all about me ... and let's face it, if the worst happened and I died, well, people would be sad and mourn, but they would all be ok eventually. And me, well, I wouldn't be there to worry about it. Of course I didn't WANT that to happen, and it concerned me ... but now the worry about things is always overshadowed by the knowledge that if something happened to me, there is someone who would be very, very adversely affected, for probably the rest of his life. Obviously The Boy has a great father and a lot of great family members, but not having a mother would be a pretty horrifying.

Now obviously I'm not sitting huddled in the corner in a little ball of fear over this, I am just using this as an example of one of the many ways that being a parent has changed me. I am aware of my own mortality, and how it might affect people; I am all encompassingly aware of the awesomely important role I play in the life of my child. And with that knowledge comes the further knowledge of how important it is that I live the best life I can, to be the best mom I can and to also lead by example -- living a balanced, healthy life so that I can be the best person I can be, and he can learn from that. 

One of the things that I need to get better about is taking time for me. I'm not at work today, I'm at home. Alone. I dropped off my son at daycare and came home to have a day to myself. I have a massage later today. And I felt incredibly guilty about doing that. I believe that working for a living is best for him, so I don't feel guilty when I'm working and leaving him at care. I do feel guilty sitting here alone enjoying myself. When I turned to leave him at daycare today -- a happy, playing boy -- I felt a terrible twinge of guilt.

And I know I need to stop that. I need to believe just as strongly that taking time for me is in his best interests. I can say the words, and other people can say them to me, but deep down inside I still don't really believe it. I'm coming to that realization, slowly, but for these first three years of his life, I poured every single iota of myself into my child and my home and my husband and my work and left nothing for me, and it really hasn't been a good thing. I felt so good for so long making everyone around me happy and safe and well, and I don't regret for a moment that I dedicated that time to him especially when he was so young ... but now I need to do some reorganizing and some reeducating, of both of us. I need knitting. I need time alone. I need to write. 

I need to show him that I am important too, so that when he's an adult and a parent, he'll do the same, and take care of himself. So he'll respect himself, his partner, and other adults. It is a good thing, to take this time. It's important. 

And soon, I hope, I'll really believe it. 

Must pay more attention when getting dressed in the morning

I have a job where it would be quite ok for me to wear a full suit, pearls, hose and heels to work every single day. I don't. I would never be able to stand it, let alone find each morning a pair of pantyhose with no run in them. Mostly I wear dress pants and a nice sweater -- not like a knitted wool one, something thin with tiny stitches that you don't need to wear a shirt underneath. I hate ironing, so the modest collection of dress shirts that I own almost never see the light of day. I'm the writer, I never have to see people, what is the point, anyway??

This morning, however, I decided to shake things up a little, and wore a skirt. A denim skirt, since I had no meetings and could get away with denim, and some tights. Tights are slightly better than pantyhose, they don't run as easily. Alas I look like I'm about 16 when I wear them, but ... oh well. Anyway. Tights. Denim skirt. Ballet flats and a sweater and I'm out the door. I was in a hurry this morning; I was told yesterday that I needed a particularly important letter ready for the boss' boss by 10am, and I hadn't had a chance to look at it last night, so all I had was this morning. I dropped off my kid, rushed to the office, and got straight to work (only to be told 10 minutes before 10 that the letter wasn't needed after all, of course). 

And worked, and worked, given that that's what I do, after all. 

I sit at a desk most of the day, so I didn't notice the creepage very much. Only when I got up to walk around -- visit a colleague, get lunch, go to the washroom -- did I notice that my tights were doing some definite ... creeping. I wasn't so much getting the elephant ankles as the crotch was hovering somewhere mid thigh. I lost some weight in the fall and so many of my clothes are looser, and I just shrugged and figured that the tights were ones I had bought while I was a little heavier, and that's all it was. 

Turns out yes, but a LOT heavier. 

This evening I arrived home around 7 and immediately went off into the bedroom to get rid of the DAMN TIGHTS which by then were of course driving me crazy and had a bit of a laugh when I saw that they were by then closer to my knees than where they should be ... and looked in the mirror. And paused. 

Because the front of them was lighter than the rest. Almost like there was a U-shaped ... panel ... in the front of them.

Lord, I can't even remember BUYING maternity tights, let alone wearing them (I think my enormous size at the end would have made tights an instrument of torture), but at least now I know where the HELL THEY ENDED UP. Back in the sock drawer, to torment me once again. 

Mental note to self: probably a good idea to watch what you're doing when you get dressed in the morning. 

Re-reading

I re-read that last post and realized that telling people I let my child play in the sink sounds a little ... strange, and I just wanted to note that what actually happened was that I was making a dessert for tomorrow's daycare potluck and so he set himself up to play in the sink with some measuring spoons and some running water. This is an amazing thing, for anyone else who reads this who has a two year old (population: zero, as far as I know), but he can be entertained by running water in the sink with some measuring cups and a plastic pouring cup for a good hour while I work in the kitchen. SO much easier than trying to work with a kid hanging off your ankles and shrieking "come play with me" or else playing extremely quietly in the other room and when you check on him you realize he's been prying keys off your expensive laptop for fifteen minutes. 

Whirlwind

Lately we've had a regular playdate each Wednesday with a friend of The Boy's whose mother is on mat leave with her second. It's a great thing, we alternate houses and the boys play together very well -- no tears at all, which was certainly not the case with the playdate we organized a month or so ago with a little girl from the daycare. We were only there an hour and a half and both the kids were in tears several times from conflicts. Why we invited her and her mother over this weekend I'll never know. Oh, right. Because we'd like our child to have a normal social life, unlike us, the hermits. 

Right. Where was I?

So today the other mother called and asked, in a rather embarrassed tone, if she could perhaps come by for a visit and then leave her 2.5 year old with me over lunch while she took the 6-monther to the doctor. He's had this nasty cold for some time, she explained, and it's just so much easier with one of them ... ? 

I of course said yes. Not only is it actually almost easier to take care of one child when he has a playmate, but let's face it: someday *I* might need emergency babysitting. 

So they came on over, and there was much excitement, and much playing and running about. And then she left, and I made lunch, and the boys were almost too excited to eat, and there was more playing and more running about and Dear Lord that other child has an even shorter attention span than mine which really is saying something since they aren't even three, either of them, which naturally makes their attention span about 0.015 seconds, and so we had trucks! and diggers! and hockey! and train set! and drawing! and more running! and then trains! and hockey! and let's play ball! And so on and so on and I cannot even begin to describe the chaos of the two children and how we made it through until she came back to fetch him.

But you know? It was kind of fun. 

One of the many things we discussed re: childrearing when she was here was her inability to get the kids to nap -- they are so excited about each other and they each want her there to nap, and so she can't lie down with one while the other is up and vice versa, so what ends up happening is that neither of them nap during the day, which makes for a very cranky two year old and a six month old who falls asleep at the drop of a hat at inopportune times, and so she is getting rather desperate ... and so I was extremely pleased to get an email from her after they arrived home to say that BOTH her boys were asleep for naps at the same time. A much needed break for her, and some happier boys later on. 

As for mine, we had our usual naptime quiet time (because we no longer nap) and at the end of an hour, when he's usually up and ready to go, he looked at me and said "Mommy, I want a nap". I can tell you that those words have almost never left his lips before. I looked at the clock and saw it was 2 and mentally calculated that if he fell asleep at two for an hour I would get to bed at approximately 3:30am* because it would take him hours to fall asleep and then I would be so frazzled I'd be awake even longer ... and so while the extra break would have been welcome, I was rather relieved when after 15 minutes of quiet lying in the dark he declared it was "wake up time" and we went out and played in the sink for an hour or so.

And now it is later, almost four o'clock, and I am hoping for an hour of quiet play before I have to get up and make dinner, because with an hour of play I could get the sock heel finished on the next socks. This weekend, I really will have to buy some mitten yarn. What will I do with my time otherwise?

Ha ha ha. 

*exaggerated for comic effect.**

** I hope.

Knitting News

So yesterday on our date I dragged The Man to the knitting store. I know, I know, that's hardly a date. But I needed some new needles for the other pair of socks. I'm using 2.25mm, and I have bamboo and they are warped from how tightly I clutch them in my hot little hands. I know I should probably learn to knit looser, but I can't exactly go back and unwarp needles. 

Such a hardship, buying new ones.

Even more of a hardship was that of course the LYS doesn't supply 2.25mm metal needles (which I was going to buy, honest!) in sets of five. And I hate knitting in the round in sets of four. So I HAD to buy Lantern Moon needles (imagine hand to forehead, woe is me!). I found the new Sox Stix, which are shorter and made for socks and I immediately went back to the car and switched them over (what? You don't carry sock knitting with you everywhere?) and I've been knitting this morning and Dear Lord they are nice. Not only are they just the right size but they are just ... perfect. By which I mean ... I don't know, the yarn slides over them perfectly. They are just so haptically pleasing. Here's the link.

The next sweater I want to knit is this one. However, I realized belatedly that the yarn she uses for this is her own yarn, and so therefore is not easily found anywhere else. Now I can probably find a substitute, but neither her yarn nor any substitute I can find some in less than $100. More like $125-$150, and I am just hesitating spending that much money on a sweater. Now I could potentially get a lot of use from it, since in the right colours I could easily wear something like that to work and on the weekend, but ... Yowsas. That's a lot of cash to spend when I could run down three blocks and buy a sweater at the store for half that. Now I do figure that spending 20+ hours on such an item AND wearing it in place of another bought sweater would mean that my hobby comes out at less than $5 per hour, which is not too bad for a hobby, since going to a movie or out to dinner would work out to far more money. 

But you know, I could get a book from the library for free and get just as much pleasure from it, so it's not like it's a cheap hobby either. 

Anyway, I will think about it. Perhaps if someone asks me what I want for my birthday which is coming up in two months I will ask for yarn ... 

WTF??!

This cannot be real.

A last note

Last night we had our favourite babysitter over. The one who takes our kid outside and makes sure he eats fruit for snack and feeds him dinner and can get him to go to sleep at night. 

And this morning when I got up I realized she had almost cleaned the kitchen last night after dinner. Washed the dishes, shined the sinks, and cleaned the counters. NO KIDDING. 

I mean, I suppose I am paying her PRETTY DAMN WELL for her services, but I can't even begin to tell you how awesome it is that she takes great care of my kid, puts him to sleep and cleans my house while she's here. SO DAMN AWESOME. It's only once a month and it's WORTH EVERY PENNY.

Random thoughts on almost three

This morning, my child woke up at the usual 6am. When I told him to go either get up and stop cuddling with me (get up with Daddy) or go back to sleep with me, he chose to sleep in. And we slept until almost nine. 

(Of course it took almost an hour to convince him to go back to sleep, but still.)

Almost-three is turning out to be a great age. He is slowly coming out of those terrible twos where everything is a battle of wills. He's getting to be more logical, and can understand and reason and be reasoned with, which makes behaviour SO much better. He doesn't want a time-out, and so will modify his behaviour to what's acceptable instead of just freaking out. I can't emphasize enough just how much this makes life more pleasant during the day.

We're still not napping and that ALSO has made life much more pleasant, because we have stopped the nighttime battles as well. Well, not entirely stopped, but at least severely truncated. He seems to have finally accepted both the bedtime routine and the fact that going to bed is just a thing we do, and actually just goes along with us. I'm sure some kids got this fact early on in life, but our kid still hated doing bedtime as little as a few months ago.

But truly the best part of being almost-three is the fact that playing and interacting has become so much more interesting. The kid has an imagination, and he uses it, and the stories and games and playtime is getting more and more interesting. We still read books, but much fewer, and I was concerned about this until I realized that now instead of reading 10 or 12 books a day, we only read four or five at minimum. Which, you know ... still quite a few books. And we can talk about them more and imagine more about them and count the things in them. 

He still reads his own books, and can type his own name and is working on typing other things. We've been talking a lot about the letters that go in words, and now when I tell him a word he can tell me the letter it starts with. I can help him type words by exaggerating what each letter in the word says -- he typed "mommy" the other day from this method. And we've seen the very beginnings of number / math activities, when he holds up two fingers on one hand and one on the other and says "two and one make three!" I asked him what happens when he had two fingers on one hand and TWO on the other and it took a short while to answer, but he finally did get it right. 

He's getting a little bored at daycare, because he's the oldest kid there and he'll be moving on to the older kid centre in a couple of months. I think he's tired of all the "babies" because they are, of course as littler kids are, fascinated with him, and so they hang around and smile at him while he's trying to play and it's kind of annoying. I've been talking up the new daycare as much as I can, but I still think it'll be a strange transition for him. I think he'll love it eventually, having other kids his own age to play with as well as more interesting toys. 

I also love almost-three because he hasn't lost the last of his little-ness. He wants to be more independent and do things himself -- clothe himself, walk by himself, get in the car himself, shut the car door himself, feed himself, play by himself (rarely!) and even just be alone, but he still likes to sit on the couch cuddled up with his mom and be carried on occasion, and he still loves to fall asleep cuddled up with one of us. He still comes over to me after daycare and gets a big hug and likes to kiss me over and over. He tells me that he loves me. Almost-three is a delightful combination of little kid and big kid, and I kind of wish I could hold on to this stage for a really, really long time.