Snippets of Vancouver

Many many years ago, my grandparents lived in this city, merely 15 minutes or so away from where I now live and only five minutes walk from my office.

I think I've mentioned this before.

What I haven't mentioned is that five minutes west of there is a rather infamous beach. A nude beach. A beach that has been there for a long, long time. Nudity isn't strictly allowed -- we're Canadian, and we're a little prudish -- but for some reason this beach has been around for 30, 40 years or more, just conveniently ignored by law enforcing bodies, and tolerated by the more conservative of Vancouver's citizens.

One of my early memories is of walking along that beach with my grandmother. Why she took me and my sister there, I will never know. Perhaps she was unaware of what type of beach it was; perhaps we wandered too far around the coastline and accidentally happened upon it. The only thing I remember for certain is my grandmother, in a hushed British whisper, saying "(My name), don't stare!!"

This afternoon I played hooky from work for an hour and a half. I picked up some snacks and went to the daycare to fetch my son. We went to the beach for some mother - son bonding time. I figure that whatever's going on at daycare, this might help and certainly won't hurt. And we went down to the coast. I parked the car, we ambled down to the rocky beach. The waves were fierce and wild, spraying up on the rocks, the sun was shining, and the city glinted in the light way off into the distance. This beach is juuusst far enough from the city that it's much less populated than many other beaches, and the solitude was very pleasing.

To the left, if we walked far enough, was the infamous beach. To the right was a long stretch of beach that, once you get out of the forest park, is a public recreation area. You know -- barbeques and picnic tables and volleyball courts and stuff. We walked to the right, strolling along the rocks and the logs and picking up various things we found and chatting about our walk. After about a half hour, we sat down and had a snack.

When we got up I realized we were mere metres from the main beach recreation area. The only human in sight was partially hidden from view, someone leaning up against the sand sunbathing. We went a little closer, it's a middle aged, balding man. Slightly paunchy. I think nothing of it.

A little closer and it's clear that the man is wearing nothing more than what could generously be described as dental floss. As we approached, he seemed to be a little disconcerted, and he reached about and found some clothes. Soon after he left the beach.

I didn't mean to make him uncomfortable, and I wasn't terribly concerned about my child seeing the man, although I really would prefer that he not be exposed (ha!) to that. But at the same time ... people, please! When a very welcoming, accepting, rather famous nude beach is only a few hundred metres -- maybe a couple of kilometres away, wouldn't you just be more comfortable there?

It's a puzzler, that's for sure.

Annnndd ...

Yesterday's news was that my child was The Hitter. Four times, even. Once where they had to physically separate him from the herd.

I don't know where this is coming from -- he's been angrier at home too, hitting both his parents over the weekend for one reason or another. We don't spank, and we let him know in no uncertain terms that hitting is not acceptable but ... I feel like both a failure as a parent and a pariah at the daycare. Who will be friends with The Hitter and his mother? And yes, I'm totally overreacting because it's not THAT bad. Many kids, at one time or another, hit other children and it's nothing more than a developmental stage and they don't grow up to be serial killers. Many parents have been That Parent, the mother of the One Who Hits.

But GAH. Can't this be easy??! What happened to my perfect child??!

I know, I know. He never existed, he was never perfect. He was just only ever himself, and right now himself is having a bit of a struggle finding where the boundaries are in a social situation. And it's just one day.

Just a thought

So I was talking yesterday with a friend about my introversion, and how being so in the midst of an office full of extroverts feels terribly tiring. I was questioning this about myself, and being annoyed with myself that I am often rather worn out after a day of meetings, and she was saying that it simply takes more energy for me to cope with the number of people than it does for others, which I admit that I dismiss. If they can do it, so can I, right? I MUST HAVE NO LIMITS.

I was at the beach today and lying there in the sun and suddenly had a thought about reversing the situation. My colleagues are all extroverts -- one in particular is amazingly social and outgoing, always flitting off to one place or another, and I thought ... what if she had to live in a world where she was alone, with no social interaction at all 24 hours a day? What if she managed to have 20 minutes of conversation all day? Would that be awful for her? Would it be torturous? Would it make her absolutely freaking miserable?

Yes. It would.

And all of a sudden, I felt just a bit better. On some days, I get about 20 minutes of real alone time, the really, really soul-fulfilling alone time that I love. And so really? It's no wonder that I get driven a little crazy some days.

What I've angsting about recently

Because we might as well call a spade a spade. It's not as though this is an actual problem, it's just what I've been ruminating on lately.

The new daycare is going well. The Boy has made friends and plays with a variety of children, from the young to the older, and seems to get along well with them all. He doesn't seem to mind going, he seems happy to be left there and I get positive reports about him from the teachers almost every day. When I go to pick him up, he's eager to leave but before he notices I'm there, he's playing away happily.

Except for one thing: in passing conversation the other day, one of the teachers mentioned that The Boy was having trouble sitting still at circle time. "Oh?" I queried. "He has such a great attention span at home!" (For a three-year-old, anyway)

Upon further investigation is comes to light that he's leaping up to talk about the story, to point out words that the teachers may have missed in paraphrasing or similar. I am perplexed by this knowledge. He never does this at home.

"Oh," says the teacher, "A while back there was some questioning by the older kids whether he could actually read or not, and I think he may have overheard and maybe he's doing that to 'prove' it."

Oh.

Oh.

Well, that would explain a while back when The Boy was looking at something -- some sign or some writing somewhere -- and after he read it out loud looked at his father with some delight and said "Daddy! I can read!" To which we as clued in, in tune (ha ha ha) parents just kind of went .... uh, yeah, of course you can, silly child. Why he's suddenly loving "Super Why", the kids show about reading.

I know that this is something really stupid to get upset about, but all I can see is that this is the very first incidence of what will be many of my child slowly learning that he's different, and that kids think that's strange. And don't believe him. And don't like it. And he's responding by showing off, which is also not a good strategy. And I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.

I'm kind of surprised, on the one hand. The daycare is in a demographic of highly educated folks -- every child there has a parent with a degree, sometimes several. Now this doesn't mean they are necessarily especially intelligent, but it *does* indicate that they value education, and I would have thought that out of 25 kids, one-third of whom are heading to kindergarten this fall, one or two of the children would have had a combination of parents who encouraged and a child who was inclined and would have learned to read. But none of them has. When I asked, she said that some of the children know "most of their letters" and some can "read a few words here and there, but not sentences."

I'm also kind of surprised that this early, it seems to matter. That the older kids, at five, felt threatened enough by a three year old who could do something they couldn't that they felt the need to express to him, to their peers, to their teachers, that they thought he was lying.

I'm even kind of surprised that it matters to him.

The only thing I'm not surprised at is that he's dealt with the situation by showing he really can. It's normal human nature, even if it is unpleasant behaviour. It's something I want to address with him, but while he can perform the behaviour, he probably isn't emotionally aware enough as a three year old to realize why he's doing it, why it makes the other kids uneasy, and how he can approach this problem without being unpleasant. All he's going to learn from this is that the kids don't believe him when he tells them something, that they tell on him, and that the teachers (for completely different reasons) discourage him from proving it. And in the end all that teaches him is that his difference is not something to show, and is therefore something he shouldn't be proud of.

How do you explain to a child this age that you can be proud of something about yourself without rubbing your peers faces in the fact that they can't do what you can? That it's still something to be proud of, and that you should use your skills and talents whenever applicable, but not at the expense of other people's enjoyment?

I do believe that in the end this is a grounding in social behaviour. That in the end this will teach The Boy about relating to others, and this is all crucial knowledge to have. It's something all kids have to deal with on some level or another -- how we relate to our peers and our surrounding environment in a comfortable, rational, pleasant level. How we keep the social courtesies going.

But, OH GOD, how I wish so much that it wasn't this issue, and this early. I just want to sweep in and take him away where no one's disbelief in him can hurt his feelings, where in turn he can't step on the feelings of someone else in his reaction, thus perpetuating the cycle. I believed so much that putting him in a non-academic centre would help buffer this, that when concentration is on something else that his differences, his academic abilities, wouldn't be so apparent and he wouldn't have to deal with other people's reactions for another couple of years, until he was more emotionally ready and able to deal with it.

I know, I know. This smacks of unbelievable hubris on my part. Oh, POOR ME, my kid is bright, and more so than some of his peers. I am reminded of a line from Friends that ended with "My fifties are too big for my wallet, and my diamond shoes are too tight!!" Yeah. I know. Of all the problems to have with your kid ...

Only it's not. Because it's not about him being bright. It's about social interaction, it's about peer rejection, it's about hurt feelings on all sides. Peer rejection and hurt feelings are the same whether it's this issue or any other. It still sucks. Yeah, in the end, he'll be ok. He's not one of these kids who will attend Harvard at 13 -- he's not a super genius, and so his social ostracism won't be that bad.

In the end, it just comes down to the fact that watching your kid struggle in peer relationships still just plain sucks.

** Updated **

I wrote this and decided that I should just ask him. So I asked him how he felt when the other kids said he couldn't read. And he said that he's been feeling "a little bit sad because the other kids say I can't read, but I CAN." So I said something about how it's unusual for three year olds to read, and so the other kids were unsure if it was true. "Three year olds can't read." he replies. "But I CAN!"

We talked a little more and then it was clear he was done. I haven't resolved anything. I haven't made it better.

But I have succeeded in making myself feel more helpless and sad about the whole thing.

Yoga for three year olds

Yoga is something I've flirted with for years -- about ten years ago I started out with a book, which was impossible to learn from when you've never done yoga before, then I did classes in Toronto, and then more classes, some regularly, some sporadic, in Vancouver. The problem with yoga in Vancouver is that it's extremely popular, so they can get away with charging exorbitant amounts for classes, and there comes a point when I sign up and have to miss a class and really realize that I can't afford to miss a single one, and my lifestyle just doesn't cope with that well.

So I had been looking around at some alternatives -- bought a magazine with some pose sequences in, which was good but not good enough. And then I found podcasts.

There are yoga podcasts, my friends. Available from iTunes but also from websites. My current favourite is yogadownloads.com, where there are free 20 minute sessions, and 30, 45, and 60 minute sessions available for money -- a fraction of the cost of the yoga classes down the road. I haven't gotten any of the longer ones, because let's face it -- between working and a kid, twenty minutes is the most I have available any day. And they go through the poses with you, it's just like having a yoga class in the living room! They are perfect for someone at my level, who has basic knowledge of yoga poses and how it all works, but who really isn't so immersed to need something really challenging.

One of the side benefits of doing yoga at home is that my kid can do it too. He does an excellent downward dog, and is pretty good at child's pose, upward dog, cow, cat and of course the lying down pose. I actually think it's excellent that he's getting this exposure at such an early age, and I hope very much that he will continue to do this kind of thing later on in his life.

One of the amusing side benefits of having your three year old do yoga with you are the poses he makes up. For instance -- there was the rolly pose, which involved you starting at one end of the yoga mat, and rolling down the length of it. And then there was the flashlight pose, where you stand at one end of the mat and run around the mat in ever-decreasing circles until you fall down. And you must hum at the same time.

And last but not least, there was the race car pose, where you spin around in a circle until you fall down on your bum, and then you start making vrooming noises and run wildly around the house making those noises until you crash into the bedroom door.

And it occurs to me, really, that those sorts of poses? Might be just as relaxing for adults as warrior one. Mostly because of all the insane laughing at your acting like a three year old.

Working on a Saturday

Not me, The Man. But me, really, since that means I'm home alone with a three year old and have to make sure we have laundry and food and all those kinds of weekend things. So far I think I've done rather well, I have done some grocery shopping and made a roast chicken and potatoes dinner and done about a million (give or take) loads of laundry ... and that was after taking my child to a birthday party this morning. Which was almost an unmitigated disaster, unmitigated only because my child didn't actually cry or throw a tantrum, but he didn't want to play party games and didn't want to do the party craft and he didn't want to wear his party costume that I'd actually had to go out and purchase (curse folks for having a themed costume party for four year olds!) (Don't worry, I bought small accessories only, at a small cost, but he STILL wouldn't wear them). He also wouldn't eat the party food and wanted to go home before the cake. Since by that time it was two hours after we got there, I thought ... meh, I want to go home too, so let's just go! Of course that interrupted the party eating because the mother of the child decided if we were leaving, her child should open the present from us so as to thank us properly, which was nice, but my kid did want to go and was slightly nonplussed when the birthday boy opened it up and delightedly exclaimed "hey, I HAVE this one already!" To which I replied "ah, gift card, exchange!" as an aside to his mother. Who was terribly embarrassed, but I waved it off ... after all, that's why I made sure there WAS a gift card. At The Boy's party one of the kids gave him a copy of a book he already had, with an inscription and no gift card and now we have TWO of a book that I hate to read, and would really rather have been able to exchange it.

I guess four and five year olds have a longer attention span and can stay at a party for a long time. My kid, not so much.

Anyway. In the end I am glad my child is making friends -- such friends that after only six weeks at this new centre he was one of 6 boys invited to this party. And it was also nice to meet another family who live only two blocks from here.

But after today, DAMN, am I ready for wine.

Things I learned today

1. a ziploc bag is not an appropriate storage container for cornstarch

2. cornstarch spreads really far when it's squeezed with force from a (broken) plastic bag by small hands

3. cornstarch clogs the inner workings of a vacuum *really* fast.

4. cornstarch is also really, really hard to clean off the floor with cloths and water, especially while dinner is burning.

5. swiped white markings of half-cleaned up cornstarch on a floor add panache to a kitchen. Really. I swear. It's the new big thing.

Roaming tangents

I was going to write a long and probably whiny post on workplace culture and how I feel so meeesunderstooooood at my current job and how I am soooo alooonnnne and how they are all extroverts and annoy the living snot out of me, but I just can't. I do genuinely like my coworkers, and I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. If I don't like it, I can always leave. And let's face it: I have a pretty good gig, and don't need to start whining.

So, onwards. 

To ... who knows. But I did want to relate this little anecdote which will be amusing only to those of you who a.) know what my master's thesis was about and b.) have a reasonably sound knowledge of Viking armaments and if you know the answers to both of those -- wow, you know me very well! And hey, we should get together! Anyway, suffice to say that I did my Master's thesis on pre-Conquest Northern European history --- otherwise known, in some parts (specifically the parts I was studying) as the Viking Age. And it irritates me no end to hear people, when I mention that, say -- hey, yeah,  the fat people with braids and the horns on their helmets! Because this is a Victorian reconstruction of Vikings, as I recall, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual people who sailed forth in longboats from Scandinavia for the pillaging etc. 

So. As I was saying. A few days ago my son and I were in the kitchen. I'm making dinner, he's playing around doing his thing. He tells me we are playing pirates, and relates all kinds of things to me about the pirate game we are playing and how we're on a ship and he's the captain and we're sailing here and there and I'm kind of half listening because, hell, trying to cook dinner, which isn't something I'm that great at (I give you for example tonight's dinner which in the end was pizza delivery because I made something COMPLETELY INEDIBLE.)

Sorry, another tangent.

Anyway, so he's playing away, and then suddenly announces to me that he's not a pirate anymore, he's a Viking. And I rather carelessly ask how we tell the difference, since we're pretending and all, between the pirates and the Vikings, and he says -- I kid you not -- "The Vikings have horns on their helmets."

WHHHAAAAA??

I have to laugh. Seriously, if you'd asked the very committed and studious 24 year old me if her child would ever have uttered such a statement, I'm sure I would very seriously have told you it was impossible that any child of mine would make such a grievous error. But here we are. Life has changed. I have changed, my priorities have changed, and I haven't thought about Viking battle gear for many a year. I miss it, I miss the academic life and my pursuits, I miss loving every single word I read, of being excited every time I opened a book. I don't miss the politics, I don't miss wondering what I would do with a PhD in Viking history in this country, I don't miss a lot of other things. But I do somethings think, as I pull together yet another proposal on engineering wastewater, that that life might still have been better. 

And I miss it.

Addendum

And tonight, when I lay with my son in bed at bedtime, his hair smelled deliciously of sea salt air and little boy sweat and bathtime.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Beach party

Victoria is a lazy town, a slow and relaxed type of place. If it weren't the seat of government, there'd be very little here at all. 

Which means that there's just not that much to do. Oh, there are parks; entertaining a child in Victoria in nice weather is easy as parking yourself at the nearest beach or park, and lazily watching them do their thing. It's nice that way. 

But God forbid it rains.

**********

We're off to the beach. I get out the sunscreen. The daycare is militant about sunscreen, which I greatly appreciate being pasty white and freckled (although my child has somehow inherited his father's gorgeous golden skin tone, the lucky thing) but which means that my child HATES sunscreen. He does, however, want to go to the beach.

"I can't wear the sunscreen." he informs me. 

I'm not prepared to budge on this one, as it is sunny outside and we'll be there at the hottest part of the day. He is offered the choice of beach -- which he does want -- and sunscreen, or no sunscreen and no beach. He ponders.

"The sunscreen dries on my body at the end of the day." he ventures.

I allow as how that is probably true.

"Then it falls off my body."

I register some surprise at this fact.

"Then it falls into the road. And the cars can't go. And the cars HAVE to go, mommy."

He looks at me for confirmation of his superior logic skills, as if expecting me to capitulate immediately and release him from the necessity of sunscreen. To protect the cars.

********

We are at the same beach, mere blocks from my house, that I frequented as a child. I've mentioned before that the sound of the waves makes me calm; this beach in particular is a comforting place, it has the familiarity of home. I look around at the surrounding cliffs and see the latest erosion. I look at the rocks that I remember climbing on during a first grade field trip and the rocks several years later where I found the engraved silver ring. I remember the friends I came there with, I remember bringing my grandmother down the long stairs to the water. There are ghosts everywhere, but they are laughing, playing, happy ghosts. I smile at them, and hope that one day, I will come back here and see the ghost of myself as a young mother, with my happy three year old.

********

For a child who can't get over the television at my parents' house, and declares it is all he wants to do, he sure is enjoying the beach. He is all over the place, digging, splashing, walking in the water, picking up rocks and wet sand and piling them, digging holes, filling buckets, hoping to see small crabs. I build him a castle, which is nothing more than a moat with a flat place inside where he can stand, since he stomped all the sand down.

The place is mostly deserted when we get there, a few college kids here and there. The university is only a few blocks away. Soon after we get there, a few more come, and a few more. I admit that I admire one guy without a shirt -- he's got that long physique, lightly muscled, thin hips and wider shoulders. The place is full of guys -- it's a great place for boogeyboarding, because there's a long stretch of sand with shallow water, and there's a dozen or more of them in about an hour. I wonder why there are suddenly so many of them, and realize that it's 2pm, that the nearby high school just let out for Friday. I've been ogling a high school kid. 

Ew.

*********

We move up the beach, away from the water. The top half of the beach is rocks, ranging in size from cooler size to tiny pebbles. We seat ourselves on a nice pile of them in behind a patch of sand. The Boy clambers barefoot behind me, gamely following along. I'm amazed, but don't offer to help -- he's a sensitive kid, and walking over rocks or sand has sometimes caused howls of outrage, and I'm not about to interrupt this, even though he punctuates each step with "ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch."

I love the rocks. As a kid, my parents used to think I would be a geologist, I would collect so many. I got in trouble at my early private school for putting rocks from the playground into the pockets of my uniform. I still don't know why that was a problem.

The Boy continues his clambering, up on logs and over rocks, down to the water and back again. I sit on the rocks, combing through them. I pick up a few, hold them in my hands. I like the smoothest ones, the tactile sensation of them, the weight of them. I hold them, turning them over and over, it's somehow immensely soothing. Between the sounds of the ocean and the rocks in my hands, I'm more relaxed than I have been all week. I realize that this would have been a far better choice than yesterday's ill fated trip to the land of knitwear.

Eventually I have filled an ice cream tub with rocks. I'm going to take them home, to my office, get a small bowl. And look at them each time someone asks me to write something I really don't want to do. Or just when I don't want to be there. Or just because. I miss this beach, and I think that having its rocks with me will be a little piece of home.

********

The Boy is convinced that the rocks are dinosaur eggs. He brings me rock after rock, hatches them and then chases the dinosaurs away. He roars at them. Eventually he starts pretending he IS a dinosaur, and roars at me. 

"You're a chef!" he roars in a growly voice. "Turn into a chef and then I WILL DESTROY YOU."

I have no idea what he has against fine cuisine. Sometimes I wonder if maybe he's a little insane.

Life in hometown

I go out for the evening, to meet a friend downtown. I am thinking on the way about where I should park, and then remember: Oh yeah, it's Victoria on a Tuesday night. I have my choice of spots. We are the only people in the restaurant for a good half hour, and when we leave there are only a half dozen tables with customers.

And they still undercook my fish.

The only place that is busy is the coffee shop, which for some reason at 9pm on a Tuesday night is packed. This is a university town.

I don't have to stop for a single traffic light all the way back. 

*******

I head out to the mall nearby, the one I worked at as a teenager. It has the advantage of having a Sears, which has cheap small boy clothes. I find underwear but no shoes or bathing wear that the boy will consent to. We go for a walk in the mall -- there isn't much else to do in this town -- and I get The Boy one of those little ride-in cars / shopping trolleys and an ice cream for 20 minutes of peace.

The demographics of this area have changed. I went to a high school with over 1000 students, in just two grades. There were 500 kids in my graduating class, and I swear to you at the grad ceremony people walked across the stage that I'd never seen before, in two years of being at that school. 

In the last seventeen (EEEP!) years the demographics have slightly changed. My elementary school, across the road from my high school, has closed. The high school is now four grades instead of two, because there's so much space. 

The mall ... the mall. A black hole of bad knitwear. No one should ever own that much knitwear, especially with bows (!!) and ruffles (!!!). I know they are catering to a neighborhood that is now almost entirely retired folks, and no new families because no one can afford to move here (or no one will die and leave open the houses, and who would want to, there are NO SCHOOLS?!) but please, people: the knitwear is blinding. There's even a Cotton Ginny which I will not claim holds the world's most stylish haut couture, but at least had decent t-shirts. SOmetimes a jacket / hoodie or two, and a nice pair of cords for weekend wear. And I think still does in other areas of the country but here ... ruffles. Bows. Enormous prints. YEEEAHHHHHHH. 

And don't even get me started on the number of places selling comfortable shoes. Not a high heeled strappy sandal in sight, I tell you.

On the way home I went by the park -- make out park, it was, as a teen. Because of course my recently toilet trained child waits until we are in the car to let me know he is desperate to pee. So we stop by there and he does his thing and I realize that there is almost no one there, and the cars that are there are full of -- you guessed it -- retired people. Crazy. 

I didn't expect anyone would be there making out at 3:30 pm, but there used to at least be CHILDREN. It's like one of those apocalyptic stories where we've all lost our fertility due to nuclear bombs and the population is all ancient. 

But at least they have knitwear and comfortable shoes.

********

I wondered a little bit when we got rid of our tv if our child would become addicted because of the deprivation. And considering his first words every morning are "Let's watch Treehouse!" I think I might well be right. 

This afternoon after our trip to the mall, we came home and The Boy said "I want to watch Treehouse!" and I replied, well, *I* want to go outside! In the hopes, of course, that he would realize what a great idea that was.

Instead, I got a thoughtful pause and then a bright face, and "How about you do your thing, and I'll do mine??!"

Whoops.

Constancy

One afternoon, many years ago, when I was still living at home, I went down to my parents' chest freezer to search for something. I don't remember what. I looked and looked -- tubs and tubs and tubs of blackberries, applesauce, green beans, broad beans, blueberries, raspberries, nuts, seeds, dead baby robin.

imagine sound of record scratching and the entire world halting

Uh. Gross??! 

My mother is a park naturalist, and sometimes keeps things ... strange things ... for use in displays. Dead baby robin bones are, as one might imagine, a great thing for a display. 

Not so much for someone's freezer, though.

Fast forward to yesterday, we're out in the garden. My son is helping my mother weed one of her herb patches, and I notice over in the rose garden that there is a thistle bigger than any I've seen before. "Hand me the little trowel", I say. "I want to get out that big thistle!"

My mother looks at me nervously. Which one? She asks. Where are you digging? she asks.

That one, I show her. 

She hands me the trowel and says -- just be careful, close by there will be some great blue heron bones I'm saving. I found it and brought it home to bury. I'll dig it up in a few months and get the bones for the nature sanctuary.

I hand back the trowel. I'm not that interested in getting the thistle, I say.

It's good to know, I suppose, that some things never change.

Out of the mouth of my three year old

Me: Daddy's not coming home tonight. He's still at the office.

Him: WHat's he doing?

Me: (The Man is gaming with friends, and I don't want to get into details) Uh, he's doing something fun!

Him: [gasp of surprise] like DRIVING A DUMP TRUCK??!

* * * * *

My mother gives him a bowl of applesauce with blackberries in it. She gives him three, but he asked for 10. The next time, she asks how many, he says ten again, and she says, how about three?

He looks up at her, scowl on his face. "I already TRIED three, Gran!"

* * * * *

The other day, The Boy is eating and for some reason The Man decides he wants to get him to enjoy it more, and asks him to pretend like he's in a commercial. Smile! he says! Making mmm'ing noises! 

The Boy is confused. We finally realize why.

Between DVD and Treehouse, he's never seen an ad.

Thinking ...

Of the insanity that is the murder of a doctor who tried to live his life to help others, in church no less. 

I am a mother. I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity of life, and I have never felt more physically connected than when I felt my unborn child move within me. In an ideal world, all children would be loved, cherished, and wanted as much as I love, cherish, and wanted -- still want -- my son. 

But it's not an ideal world. I have never been in a position that would have required me to make the most difficult and harrowing decision I would ever have to make -- and thank God for that. I don't know what I would have done.

Complicating my opinion is the fact that, should abortion have been an option 36 years ago in Canada, I might not have the lovely partner I have now, nor my child have his father. (well, you know what I mean.) I am selfishly intensely grateful that The Man's biological mother decided to give her baby to his parents instead of what alternatives were available to her at the time. My life is richer because someone didn't exercise that option.

But despite all that, despite how much I treasure my family, I still don't believe that I have the right to decide what's right for another woman. No one has the right to make that decision for me. I would fight for my own rights, I would fight for the rights of any (hypothetical) daughter I might have one day, and I would fight for the same rights for any woman my son might meet. 

I know that that doctor was helping. I firmly, wholeheartedly believe that. I haven't had to exercise my rights in that area, and I'm so very glad that somebody -- one other person in particular -- didn't do so. But that doesn't change the fact that he was a good man, that many women owe their lives to him, and no matter what you believe, taking a life to avenge another life is never the right thing to do. 

And I'm sad, more than I can say, that we still live in a world where so many people believe that this is ok.

Must be a good one

So I got five -- count 'em, five -- compliments on the new haircut today, which encompasses the entire female component of my office and the single daycare worker on early morning shift. I like the cut and it's nice to have it confirmed as a nice one from acquaintances.

Although I suppose it's also possible that my old cut was just really bad.