Me, me, me

Fresh out of ideas

Anyone got any good party ideas for a small group of 8-to-9-year-old girls? We only have a small car, so we need to do whatever we do in the NDG sort of area, which includes Lasalle, Montreal West, Cote-St-Luc environs. We were going to take them all to the IMAX movie at the Old Port, until we realized that we can't fit them all into our car and it's just not cool to ask their parents to drop them off at the Old Port. The metro would be good, but would add significant travel time to an already-long party.

A home party is always an option, but that's what we always do and it's less easy to organize games with older girls. I might end up doing it anyway, with a dance party and a scavenger hunt, but it sounds like a lot of work for me...

So any ideas would be most welcome. Thank you my friends.

The Annals of Summer, part the first

Well, it's summer holidays, which means that my free time, alone time, time to think my own thoughts -- whatever you want to call it -- has evaporated like a puddle in the noon-day sun. My children, all three of them (what was I thinking?) are home.

I intend to put them to work like the mother in that comic strip, but so far I've been too depressed to do much besides yell at them. The rain isn't helping; yesterday when I finally gave in to their whining and agreed to take them to swimming lessons despite the fact that I would have to stand outside in the pouring rain with a sick baby for 1/2 an hour while they had their lessons, I walked out of my house towards the garage to get our bikes and slipped, turning my foot in a sickening, muscle-tearing wrench that hurt like fuck and fell on my right ass cheek. Now my foot is swollen and bruised and I am limping and feeling like everyone thinks I'm a big faker, 'cause that's what I think whenever I see someone limping.

This morning I vowed to be nicer to them and tried again, despite even heavier rain, to get them to swimming lessons. We got out on the bikes without incident and when we were halfway there my bicycle brakes failed completely. I couldn't walk because of my foot, so I had to ride anyway, veeery slowly, and to stop? Well, I had to drag my foot along the sidewalk, of course. It won't surprise you to learn that when we got to swimming lessons one of the lifeguards came out and said, Someone heard thunder so nobody's allowed in the pool for another half hour. Pop quiz: How long is the swimming lesson? Half an hour.

I could have stayed at home and put my aching foot up instead of using it as a primitive brake, but I thought I'd be nice and take my kids to their lesson. Like I said, what was I thinking?

Work Woes

I'm looking for a part-time job. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it pays money and is relatively consistent.

I saw an ad in the paper for part-time work in an organic food store and thought Hmm, I think I'd like that. I may apply, but I don't think they'd ever consider me. I'm way "over-qualified", a classification that irks me because, if I'm applying for the job and I know what my experience consists of, it would seem that I'm willing to do it, y'know? I'm also, unfortunately, underqualified, as I've never worked in retail. In fact I've never worked in a service job either, and the lack of these experiences disqualifies me from a whole lot of jobs. When I started my working life it was in clerical and administrative jobs and I missed out on the waitressing/bar staff/store clerk experience that so many people have.

I just want a little easygoing part-time job to bring our family income up a bit and get me into a new environment for a while every week. Doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it?

These are the days

My daughter looks through the newspaper every school day, looking for an interesting article to bring in for discussion in class. I think this is great, as it gets us talking about the news as she searches for something appropriate.

This morning she was looking at the editorial page, and read the headline for an opinion piece that said (I paraphrase) Children Today Don't Know How to Enjoy Silence. She read it out and looked at me like, "Wha?". I told her that they frequently run this kind of garbage in the papers because old people like to imagine that kids today are an infinitely diminished species of creatures from the days when they (the hardy, intelligent, resourceful, well-behaved generation) were young.

It gets tiring sometimes, hearing how kids today are so addicted to video games and TV and sugar and fat that they can't concentrate, don't read, don't converse, don't enjoy the outdoors, blah, blah, blah. As I told my daughter today, people who write and say those things are old and have lost touch with children. The children I know are almost uniformly readers, good conversationalists, funny, smart and well-behaved. If anything they're far too controlled by the adults in their lives so that they lack the opportunity to be alone together, get up to no good, light fires, smoke, beat on each other, eat tons of candy and generally act like the little shits who are now all grown up and writing opinion pieces in the paper.

Ant Spring

Is it just me, or are we being overrun by ants? Every time the weather heats up (intermittent as that may be) they come out again and make another assault on our kitchen.

My little FJ is obsessed with them. She thinks it's hilarity itself to step on them or swat at them and generally torture, maim and kill them. I try to stop her from doing this because I feel for the little things (even though I poison them if they invade my kitchen) . Strangely enough, she has actually eaten 2 of them (that I know of). This makes me crack up, especially because she gets this very singular, CHEEKY look on her face when I ask her, Did you eat that ant? Once she said It's spicy. Another time she said It's in my mouf.

Every child is unique.

Change

I had a strangely emotional yet very satisfying weekend. The reason is that we tackled a big job that needed doing. We changed the kids' bedrooms so that the older children (girl and boy) are no longer sharing a room and the little one (girl) is no longer alone in a room. Now the 2 girls are sharing and my son has a room to himself. This was a big job, involving furniture moving but also cleaning, sorting and transferring wardrobes, toys, books, etc. It took up a good chunk of both weekend days, but the result was 2 really nice, comfy rooms and 2 happy kids and one slightly unsettled toddler who didn't know what was going on, really.

Why was it emotional? That's hard to explain. It was a step in the children's lives, and so it was leaving something behind (sharing a room, having a "nursery" room) and embarking on a new experience (sharing a room for the little one, sleeping alone for my son). As I was turning the baby room into a boy's room I shed a few tears for the sweet, quiet, intimate moments I spent with my baby in her room, nursing her and looking out the window, or reading to her or singing or playing. We probably won't ever have a "baby room" again, and I guess the larger meaning of that made me sad and nostalgic. My emotional response surprised me; I never thought about that part of the changeover until I was in the middle of it.

I'm happy for them all. My big girl is super excited to have a funky girls' room and to share with her baby sister. The purchase of some new bedding helped with her enthusiasm. My son loves his new room and took to it right away. I told him that he can have a "sleepover" in the girls' room anytime he wants, but for now he doesn't seem to miss his old room or the good times he had with his sister at all. For the little one this is a really big change. She's never slept with another person in the room. Will it change her in some subtle way? Will she feel safer and more secure now that she's never alone? Does the sound of another person's breathing in the night make us feel connected somehow? All I know is that she woke up Saturday night and stayed awake for 2 hours, trying to chat with her sister and giggling about the situation. Yeesh. Sunday night was better, but she was a little unsettled.

The older ones were ready to have separate rooms, but I'm glad they shared a room for all those years (They'd been together in a room all their lives). They're very close and like to talk to each other. I hope that doesn't change too much.

Summer Love

I have a new love, much to my chagrin. I had hoped that I would spend more time on productive pursuits once the real TV season was over. I thought that I could leave the TV off if there weren't a new episode of Lost or The Amazing Race to magnetize my butt to the couch. But nooo, they had to go and program So You Think You Can Dance as a summer series. Now I'm stuck. I love this show -- The moves, the talent, the attitude, the sexy bodies!

Now don't you smirk with superiority. It's a really good show, if you like dance. Honest!

Misc.

You know what? I completely forgot to answer the latest question in my mesmerizing series "Ask Me Anything!". It was from L. and it concerned the Bible verse that refers to rich people and camels and needles... or something. No, just kidding; I know exactly what she's referring to and have been thinking about it on and off (mostly off) for the past few weeks, but haven't had the chance to do any real research. But I've just sent off a load of writing work that I've been doing, so maybe now I'll have time to put something together. It's an interesting idea and deserves some discussion.

Speaking of work, it's been super-interesting and stimulating, but has taken up much of my "free" (non-parenting) time of late. I'm way behind on the mundane administrative tasks of home management: bill-paying, form-filling, phone-calling, etc. Maybe I can get some of that shit done before week's end. What do you think? Maybe not.

On Tuesday I took the kids to the pool for the first time this season. It's so wonderful, and felt like summer had begun. It's made the week seem so long, having that summery fun in the middle of it. It's hard for the kids to be in school when the weather's so fine. It doesn't feel right somehow. I don't envy the poor teachers dealing with all those distracted monkeys.

I went to my big girl's class yesterday to listen to the kids each tell a personal story from his or her life. It was very cute and the stories were funny. U's was called "Couché sous le lit" and it was about the time when she was 6 months old and we took her to England. We stayed at my Uncle's house for a night and, since they didn't have a baby bed, we made a little bed for her on the floor beside our own bed, where we figured she'd be safe. All was well when we went to sleep. When we woke up, she was gone. We looked all over for her, gradually getting more and more worried and sick-feeling. Finally we heard a little coo and giggle from underneath our bed. She had rolled under there sometime in the night and had been fast asleep. It was cute, and made for a funny story when she told it in front of the class.

Fleurs

The peonies are opening! The peonies are opening!

This is always a thrill, as these flowers put on a gorgeous show every year, one that I can enjoy everytime I look out my kitchen or dining room window. I'd like to thank the ants, without whom this enjoyment would not be possible.

I don't have a picture of them yet (the flowers, not the ants); I'll wait until they're more full-blown. In the meantime, here's a picture of the sweetest flower there is.

Of Interest

In my work as a writer for the NFB's CitizenShift site, I get to view a lot of fascinating films about social issues. This week I've been writing about a project you may have heard of before, called Homeless Nation. It's a network of computers made available to homeless people across Canada, as well as a central web-based forum and blog community. If you're interested in seeing how others live, and want to gain some kind of understanding of the issues around homelessness in Canada, you should check out Homeless Nation.