It's great that she's learning . . . .Week 24 for both (review is week 23)

. . but eat your damn dinner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hannah has always fought me over what she'll eat at dinner (only). Since I re-arranged the house (again) she now can avoid eating by following her curiosity to learn. She sits against a wall that has a big huge sheet of metal on it. It holds all our magnetic letters. She will not stop turning around and trying to spell words. She actually spelled 'dog' DAWG. Nice. She puts words together and asks me to sound them out. Then I show her how to correctly spell said word, and then I switch off a consonant each time, showing her how one part of the word can change while the rest stays the same. Boat, moat, coat. Her Reader Rabbit computer program is right at this level too, as one of the games gives her a word (MAP) and asks her how they can change it to another word (TRAP). Do you change the beginning sound, the middle vowel, or the ending sound? She grins when she gets it. She's begun labeling the back of her art (like her brother, see below) and when she writes it's indescriminatly left to right, then right to left, then down the side and over the top. I love seeing how she'll work away at someting with no notion that she might be 'wrong'. How important it is at this age and stage for them to try and succeed first, at whatever level they're at, and learn more later.

When she's not ignoring my pleas to eat her dinner, she's asking me how things work. How do binoculars work? How do they make toilet paper? Where does gasoline come from? Well, I found websites to illustrate each answer, including a youtube of How It's Made that is all about toilet paper. I had planned to show her how water can bend a picture like the lenses do in binoculars by putting drops of water onto a covered magazine page. So she could see how the type was different under the droplets. But before I got around to it, we got started on our volcano projects, as both Hannah and Leif had lots of questions about them from our recent trip.

I found a great book at the library (the Kingfisher series of course) about volcanoes and earthquakes, with experiments to do for each topic. The first one we did was seeing how heat can keep thins circulating, like a current in the water. This was to larn about the magma in the earth's mantle, and how it was a current of hot liquid that just kept going around and around. I filled a clear bowl with cold water and into it placed a small bottle full of hot water and red food dye. The hot water cycled out of the bottle and moved in a current around in the cold water. While we were doing this experimen, I spilled some drops of water on our library book. Hannah noticed that the typed words under the drops of water looked bigger than the rest of that paragraph, and said "Hey maybe that's how binoculars work!". I love homeschooling.

We then did a puzzle using paper I'd traced the continents onto and cut out. This was of course for learning about Pangea (Pangaea?). I started to talk about how dinosaur and plant fossils were found on continents far away from each other and that paleontologists had wondered what caused this. Hannah piped up with "So they made a HYPOTHESIS right?". She'd recently watched a Magic School Bus episode where this concept was featured. Way cool kiddo. So these finds backed up the concept of the continents once being part of a larger land mass. I could relate this back to the earth's mantle because we'd already talked about it, and had settled on the idea that the earth's crust was like the shell pieces on a cracked hard-boiled egg. Seperate but touching, and attached to the egg itself. This brought us to earthquakes. After reading and discussing how and why they occur, we experimented with it. :)





Last weekend we celebrated the Chinese New Year at the annual Lion Dance Parade in Chinatown. Leif was interested to see our various Civic, Federal and Provincial representatives there. All of whom we'd voted for, back when I gave him my vote in our Federal and Civic elections. How cool is that? I introduced him to a few of the members who's names he'd recognise the best (Rob Fleming, Denise Savoie, Charleyne Thornton-Joe and our mayor Dean Fortin).

(** I uploaded al the pictures this week on the wrong setting, and it's to much work to redo it. Just double-click on a picture to see it bigger.)



Then we settled in to watch the Lion's dance through the street and munch on lettuce offerings and red envelopes.








We ended up at the Chinese Public School, which I've always thought is a cool building, and a great part of the Chinese community.




Okay, the dude, the Leifster, the Leiferamalama.

Well, the big event last week was opening his own bank account. Here he is counting out his cash, then filling in the deposit slip, and then making the deposit.







Then he asked me to order him a coveted Lego set and blew less than half his dough. He has changed paper routes to a route twice as big as his old one. $40 a month and it's a good hour of work for him. He plans to save $1000 and then spend $100. It'll take him 2 years to do that. He's been asking about the two other friends that he knows who have a bank account. One has a decent sum in his because his distant relatives (no grandparents in town) send him money for his birthday and xmas instead of gifts. And another friend is given an allowance instead of needing to earn the dough. I explained why these 2 other circumstances occur and how his life is different. He accepts this very easily and I believe takes pride in how he's earning his money. Maybe when he reaches a big figure amount in his account, I'll add a bit to. I'm still debating this. But the paper route will give him a $50 bonus if he has no complaints for the first 6 months. We're 4 months in and so far so good. I'm proud of what I've taught him about money, the little Jedi.

So I mentioned his art before. He's done about 15 of these, and the following are a sampling of personal faves, though they all rock. I LOVE the titles he chooses for these. If you look closely you can figure out what's going on, who's on what side and who's just a crazy-wierd animal. My personal favorite is DRAGON'S HILL, the one of the reclusive mountain goat herders who are afraid of strangers.

(Remember to double-click for a better view of these.)

THE PITS OF TREASON



THE DARK MOUNTAINS



THE JUNGLE OF MIS FORTUN (his spelling)



DRAGON'S HILL



And this is the card he made me for Christmas.

Isn't that awesome?

His chapter book reading is moving at a pace that rivals my own. He's plowed through a bunch of Thortun Burgess books, and keeps his current one under his pillow. He found one really boring, saying he kept reading it to see if it would pick up, but it was just about a boring old frog. Way to know what you like buddy.


Ivy is cute as ever, and still as small. Her over-sized younger pal Cohen towers over her by 3+ inches, and she's just fine with that. Favorite books are the Star Wars lego catalogue (of course!), The Gruffao, Goodnight Moon and the ones about trucks and planes and dinosaurs. She had Al hostage for a whole day on the sofa, when Mom and Al came to visit, bringing him more books to read to her. When she sees him in the morning, she brings him a book or three. She survives on Cheerios, eggs, bananas, smoothies and granola bars. She loves to make movies, so here's a few.

She's singing Peanut Butter sandwich made with jam, yum yum yum yum yum.



And then these 2, well, I love 'em. I missed the time where she hid the puppy and then commanded it to "STAY! Stay puppy!". Another time she ordered Bodhi not to eat her gnomes. "Don't eat 'dem Bodhi-cat!".








Kit and I are well, by the way. We're renovating our basement to entice another unsuspecting masters student to rent a lovely posh suite underneath our herd of elephants. We'll keep you posted.

C

Is the Force with you? (Week 21H and 22L)

Because it's alive and well in our house baby!

We've had others ask us why we care about Star Wars so much. If you have to ask . . . . nevermind. It's just something we totally built up to the kids, from our childhod memories, and then we let them watch all 6 episodes (in their original 4-6, 1-3 order, don't fear) 45 times each, so they are as into it as we are. Actually, they are way more into it than we ever were, but it works for us so that's that. So in that light . . .

The kids were given a Star Wars cookbook for Christmas (Wookie Cookies and other feasts of the Force) and I immediately thought "living skills, perfect!". Our first foray into the book was making Boba-Fettucine for dinner. Observe:








While the pasta cooked and sauce bubbled, the kids set the table for a Star Wars feast.








MMmmmmmmmmm good! As we sat muching and slurping our galaxy pasta, Hannah had the brilliant idea to make our own Star Wars game. Cool. but what? On our holiday, we played about a hundred games of the old-skool classic Clue. So that seemed like the perfect fit. Murder, weapons, cool 'rooms' and weirdly-named characters. Perfect!

Kit took charge of making the game board while I dug out the incomplete decks of cards (see why I kept these??)to glue Star Was stuff onto. Hannah got to work drawing the rooms for the board (the cantina, Uncle Owen's Farm) and Leif rooted around in the lego to come up with models of our characters to move around the board. Behold our finished product:







It was great and now we have our own 'Clue' to play (the original is at Grandma's house).


Hannah had a new experience this past week. At her weekly music class, a new student joined in for the day. His name is Noah. Usually when I go t pick Hannah up she is dressed and ready at the door. Not because she hates her class or wishes she were at home, but because fo her, the class is over, why hang around playing? Hannah is, shall we say, aloof with her peers. the really sweet, kind kids in her class save a seat for her, or ask to be her partner, and she's just kind of, well, okay about it. She does not reciprocate their enthusiasm. And the bitchy kids she steers clear of (smart kid). But when I went to pick her up last week, she was not waiting for me. She was building blocks with this new child. Then they were rolling across the floor. Then they tried walking like crabs. When she saw me she ran up to me and said "that's my friend Noah, can he come over to play?". She NEVER SAYS THIS. Never. After talking to Noah's mom and their teacher I learned that Noah never says that either and they'd been thick as theives all morning. Hannah asked to be moved to Noah's regular day (Thursday) so they'd be together, and that's a day she'd get more complex music instruction anyway, so it works all around. She's trying it out this week and if it's a good fit we'll make the switch.

Hannah's reading is just leaping ahead of me, I can't keep up. While we awaited our flight at the airport, she asked why does that plane say "Hawaiian" when we're in Hawaii. What's with the extra letters? At home she reads to Ivy regularly, by sounding out the first letters of a word and using that to guess (along with the pictures) what the words say. Nice technique. For just tuning in to this reading gig, I think she's doing great.

Our trip to Hawaii, and subsequent flight home to the cold, foggy climate we know and love, had Hannah asking about the difference. Once we got home we hauled out the big globe and turned out the lights and had Leif stand on a chair to be the Sun, flashlight in hand. And she got it. She could see how the hot sun at the equator was not as close to us up North. We also talked about the earth's own rotation on it's axis and how this gives us sunrise and sunset, and why when grandma and grandpa were away in Turkey, they got up when I went to bed. She could see it and we related how the Sun 'starts' in Japan, hence their flag, and that's just after it's set for our bedtime the night before. We tried to show her the seasons but it became to hard with the model set up we had, and she just got confused (as did we). I know we can mimic it using fruit and pins and pencils, which we may do. But there's also a simple model at the science store of the earth and the sun. I think it has our moon also. That may be a useful option.

Now that Hannah's mastered World of Goo, Kit has turned her on to Inkball. It involves blocking a ball's path to force it into one of two or three holes (like golf) using the mouse. Bigtime hand-eye coordination. She rocks at it, beginner level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InkBall

I introduced Louis Armstrong to Hannah this week and she's hooked. She lies beside the stereo and skips back and forth to her favorite tracks.



Leif is happy to be home with his usual stuff. He's back to building with lego for hours and creating stuff in the yard with Hannah.






I've had some lengthy discussions with Leif this week. We talked about the art in our livingroom. He really likes a painting I bought a few years back. It's oil paint and done in such a style that from far away it is a grove of trees by the river, but when you get close-up it's just slashes of paint, dabs here and there. this lead to a discussion of the other art in the room (Van Gogh and Emily Carr). I explained how painting with oils is different than watercolours or acrylics. He proclaimed he wanted to be an artist. We talked about how the Van Gogh (and Carr) are copies of the original, which is a museum. He asked why it's there, why is it worth so much, why don't they sell it?

We talked about the economy, what that word means. I explained it as being similar to the word society being descriptive of how we get along, how we live, that economy is about how we spend and earn, where our money comes from and goes. We discussed the real estate problem and the mortgage issue in the states, how the banks got greedy. He has a sense concept of the erm interest because we're going to get a bank account soon and I explained why they'll give him interest if he leaves his money there a long time, how they earn money through interest on loans, etc. He pointed out how we're lucky to be able to afford to have me home with him, how others have a harder road.




Next week is bank accounts, Leif's latest art and Hannah's words. Promise.

Has it been a year already? (Week 20H & 21L)

Lawdy lawdy, I apologise. But I feel no guilt. This parenting gig is a real back and heart breaker, and if you've been kept in the dark it's given me an extra minute to get things done here in the real world. A recent holiday in the tropics (yes it's becoming a habit for us) has given me a much-needed reminder of what laid-back feels like, and dammit, I like it! So I'm taking steps to cut back, to chill out and stay mellow. If I'm typing to you on here, know that I'm leaving laundry undone, crumbs on the floor and I'm wearing the same old pj's I've had on for a week. But the kids will have been fed and read to, put to bed, and I'm relaxing with you and my homeschooling notes, looking to combine my to-do's into a simpler life.

See, the way we homeschool is I do stuff with the kids, and then I tell our lovely learning pal Sarah all about it. She takes our wierd outings, cooking trials and lego ships and sees the geometry, life skills and science classes hidden within, and turns them into Ministry talk so I don't have to. We love Sarah for this. Learn more at www.wondertree.org

So I want to to keep in touch with you all about our lives, through photos and videos and such, and I need to keep in touch with Sarah about the kids lives specfically, through photos and videos and such . . . SO . . . see where I'm going here?

Ta da! This is now our keeping up with the St. Brightfamily + The kids are alright homeschooling blog. If the idea of reading about how unique and incredible my kids are bores you to tears, well, you can kiss off. :) This is not the blog for you. But there will be nuggets of Kit and I thrown in as well. We are Lord and Lady of this Queendom. And since the goal is to know what's up with us while you're away from us, heck, we're all about the kids, so now you'll be on the same page!


Kisses

Big C



Leif and Hannah's Week (Addendum to their Extranet O4L's)

While in Hawaii we talked a lot about volcanoes. Their presence in our landscapes inspired Leif to build models out of sand, and Hannah to re-create them in any given environment.

Here's Leif's one-boy model of Rabbit Island, a volcanic remnant off the coast of Oahu. You can see it in the distance in the first pic. See how his feet match the island's shape?







Then both siblings re-enacted the eruption of Diamond Head and Koko. They'd been asking how an erupted volcano left a crater behind. Curious yourself? Observe.




Shoot. There was a movie of this eruption but it's somehow lost in my harddrive.

Ola!

You know that scene in Jurassic Park, when the paleontologists are arriving at the island in the helicopter, and they see the island rising out of the ocean, a towering mass covered in tropical shrubbery, and he spots a flock of large birds flying off the shore, and then realises those aren’t birds, but in fact pterodactyls?

That’s what it’s like being here. The land on either side of the bay comes up out of the sea, and it is covered in rough-looking shrubs and cacti. Everywhere you look on the horizon, there are pelicans in your view. And they are fantastic. My previous experience of pelicans is limited to those in Finding Nemo, so excuse my prior perception of them as being dumb ugly birds. They are gorgeous. And graceful. Today I swam up to one and just watched it, as it floated on the waves, its long beak pressed against its tall neck. They fly back and forth across the water, watching for fish. When they dive for prey it is so sudden, and they look so cool doing it. Their wings bend into V’s and they just take a sharp turn downwards and pounce on the water. And it all looks so effortless. I am in love with pelicans and am happy to watch them all day. They are such beautiful birds.

We are having a lovely time here. Our days consist of eating, drinking, walking the beach and building sand castles. Leif and Al play soccer all day on the beach, and Hannah does nothing but boogie board in the surf. Ivy, well, she eats sand and sits in sand and gets sand in every orifice possible before lunchtime. Then we do it all over again.

The temperature and weather is perfect. Sunny, windy, cool. La Manzanilla is my kind of place. Everyone you see on the beach is most often tanned like leather, and is wearing whatever bathing suit they took a liking too. Rolls are not hidden, nor is that excess skin that creeps up on you as you age. All around us are glorious older people who look like they are enjoying life on their own terms thank you very much. My 3-kids body fits in just fine here.

The local dining fare is varied, and tasty. Okay a few places really sucked, but honestly, only a white person would ever offer Asian/Dutch fusion in a Mexican Fishing village. I mean really. There is an issue of the bugs when we eat. The restaurant staff try to convince us it’s mosquitos, but I’m sorry, we do not buy it. We are only bitten at dinner, only from the knee down, and mainly all around our ankles. I’ve only seen like 2 mosquitos since we got here, and the rest of my body looks as it should. But my ankles, I kid you not, look like I have swabbed them in some type of flesh-eating bio-terrorism toxin. They look horrid, and itch like fuck. As long as you don’t give I and scratch them, you’re fine.

La Manzanilla is a town of dust, and barefoot children playing in the back of pickup trucks. It is every car radio CRANKED as it drives past, and every small businessman advertising his wares on the speakers strapped to hood of his dusty, rusted car. The gas guy, the bottled water guy, some other guy we’ve yet to identify has a distinct horn that echoes through our apartment. But none of it is annoying. If it were in English, yeah it’d suck. For us though, it’s that cultural background. It’s some Latin singer literally BLARING from a family’s home last night at 10pm, so loud we actually went out in the street to see if there was a great fiesta going on. And there was none, it was just their stereo. But it didn’t bother us one bit. Not even when we realised the CD was stuck on repeat and we heard that same song over and over and over.

Our Spanish is pretty sad. We’ve read the phrase books and tutored each other, but in a pinch I revert to French and by the time Kit’s got a sentence together in his head, they’ve already presumed he only speaks English and so have spoken to him in his mother tongue. We did have occasion to all learn “Soy alerjico a las neuthes”, which means “I’m allergic to nuts”, so that next time we can help Al avoid further unpleasant breathing restrictions when he orders the local fish. Luckily for all I brought Benadryl with us, so disaster was averted.

Other than that everyone is well and healthy. I will admit to a sudden, now chronic gas issue. Since yesterday I can produce such an odour as to cause others to start looking for the dirty diaper in the room. I have no shame, I cannot help it, it was something I ate. Luckily for all of us, it’s mostly been a hilarious reality, and I pray it will abate most quickly.

It might have been the chicken. Or the pie. Or the pina coladas . . .

I confess another birding affair of mine. We were on a long walk along the beach and I spotted a cool-looking bird fishing in the surf. It was an egret. It had white feathers, and his overall style was that of the windswept head feathers, with a sleek long neck. Kind of like Billy Idol, if he were a bird. Their sad backwards-knee design makes it hard for them to escape my advances too quickly, so I get lots of close-up views.

Between digging for treasure and getting our accents just right when we request “una cervesa por favor”, Kit and I have found the evolutionary link between fish and birds. It must be in the fossil record already, as we opted not to pick up the rotting body we found on the beach. It’s a long fish, like an eel, with a long sharp bird-like beak, huge eyes and sad fins. Perhaps a barracuda? Ugly yes, scary, YES. Makes me keep an extra close eye on my surf child Hannah, as her confidence pushes her further and further out to sea each day.


One week down, one more to go. Ivy turned 1 yesterday, Leif turns 7 in 3 days. If I can post again before our return I will. If not, just read this one again next week, it’ll likely be the same activities on our end. Minus the gas, hopefully.

Adios.

C

What if . .

. . . the ball was bouncing, and it bounced up on top of your computer and it bounced up and your computer flew off the table and flipped over and the ball bounced along down the hall and your computer smashed into a billion trillion google-plex two-hundred and ninety-five plex-billion pieces and then the ball kept going and it bounced against the wall and then up through a hole and out into space in the sky and up all the way to Jupiter and then it bounced back and hit the sun and melted and turned to a fart and it stinked up the whole world and then the poo and pee . .

oh I'm sorry, is it hurting your brain to read such a tale?

Imagine that you hear tales of this sort every day, all day, in the never-ending style that IS Hannah. Then you'd have an inkling of why my brain hurts right now. Why I cut her off a bit, say 'oh yeah?" when asked if 'that would be funny'. If you've seen me out at the store with her, do not presume I do not love her, or that I'm a meanie. Yes, it *is* creative of her. woohoo. It's also mind-numbingly FRUSTRATING WHEN YOU HEAR IT ALL THE TIME OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. mom? mom? mom? mom? Lookit what I made, lookit this, lookit my cards, lookit what I built, lookit Ivy mom! Lookit Ivy!!!!!

BBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

okay, I'm done. Thanks for the space to bitch about the sweetest child you could ever meet.

Okay, that's a lie too. She's cute, sure. And she's happy to spread the love around. But only when it suits her. Today we reached a crux, a point that I will refer back to in my mind for years to come, the point when I threw down and let her know how it's going to be from now on. "Hannah can you come here please?". "NO!". "Hannah I need to talk to you please". "No!" and runs away.

So I chased her. Good lord. And she let me know, with words and lungs and feet, that I'm not the boss of her. And she's right. And I love that she cannot be pushed around, that she's ready to stick up for herself and take issue with anything any of us do that is 'not right'. But god, do I have to live with her?

"I said I wanted it un-toasted!!!" "Don't Speak to me like that!" " I wasn't talking to you!!"

Yes mother, I write this for you. Merry Christmas. So you can harken back to my sweet self as a child. Do you remember when I was 4 and you asked me to get my slippers and I told someone else to get them for me? Hannah was clearly listening even then, as she hung out in my ovaries awaiting her moment to shine. Last week when her grandma, Susan, asked her to carry her backpack inside, Hannah, with not even a glance over her shoulder, said "You carry it" and sauntered inside. Oh yeah, she shines baby. Like a radioactive isotope.



Leif is like a tender old man in comparison. Albeit an old man who cheats at poker. and golf, and Scrabble. He thinks that when he gets 120 points with his first word of the game that on one will suspect he chose specific letters from the bag. He's just a lucky guy. Really lucky. But he balances it out with his Piglet routine. This is my own secret term for his darling demeanor. The boy who says 'oh dear' when I spill something (I of course say Shit!). Or when the deck of cards falls on the floor, or he drops something, or any variety of little household mishaps. "Oh dear!". It's like living with a genteel little companion. And when his sister unleashes her well-earned fury, pulling his clothes, kicking him, scratching his arm, he just melts into a puddle of woebegotten hard-doneness. (Yes I think motherhood gives me the right to invent some words, okay?). "She scared me!" "She hit me!". What more could a feminist want then a gentle and sweet, though deceiving son, and a daughter who has no issue with fighting back, or heck even attacking others? Possibly a week alone. But I know I will be alone eventually. And so I document their lives here, so that when I look back on their childhoods, I do not just recall how 'little' they were, how sweet, how much I loved to cuddle them etcetera. I want to be able to recall their specific awesomeness. How they drove me nuts and then wiped it all away with a cool Lego creation or crazy joke. How Hannah can roll her eyes at me and stick out her tongue and with those subtle moves make me want to strap her in the car and drive her to the Ministry For Children's office. Here, take her, before I kill her!!!! How Leif can be the picture of sweet sibling empathy, talking to Hannah at length about how it will be much easier for her to play soccer if she uses the very large, heavy ball that he hates, claiming it will be easier for her to kick it because its so big, unlike the tiny gold soccer ball she's using which he covets and hopes he can hide away so she never ever takes it again. This is what it's all about, isn't it?

And yet it's all I ever wanted. I never really wanted to do anything else with my life but be a mother. I mean yes, I entertain fantasies of being a doctor, or owning a cafe, or singing in Broadway musicals. But it dawned on me the other day, that I've got all that already. I fix cuts and settle disputes. I diagnose strange ailments based on tangible evidence or mysterious feelings as described by patients with a range of language barriers. I serve up the chosen brand of yogurt, making sure I never stir it and upset the carveable flat surface within the container. I dish out meals to discerning customers, set the mood with candles and music. I can make a meal fit into the palm of your hand, so your other hand is free to play 5 card draw, or finish building the biggest Lego hospital ever. I entertain through toothbrushing by singing the ad-libbed 'sugar bugs' song, and my song and dance routines are known throughout the land. So really, I have my dream motherhood role, and then some.

This is what I keep telling myself. Repeatedly.

I'm finding that since I gave up giving up chocolate, things are much better. Takes the edge off for sure.

I leave you with a photo essay of life this fall. The background music would be the new Bonobo album (Hannah's favorite) or Vivaldi's Four Seasons (also Hannah's favorite) or Modest Mouse, both new and older albums (Hannah's long-term fave). Yes, she dictates our musical choices as well. I have been put in my place and agree to let her win. How could I do anything but?

Some of the pics are not vertical, and I apologise. Kit gave me a new hard drive, and upon loading new software and such, I clicked something and now I cannot rotate my pics. But the ones with the 6 foot Boa Constrictor are worth craning your neck don't you think?

Soon-to-be-Aunt squared

I am SO excited! Any day now my fantastic brother Ashley and SIL Virginia will have her baby, and I will be an Aunt! And then, to add to the awesomeness (word?) we've found out that Kit's brother is expecting a baby with my other SIL Qing in December. Woohoo!!!! Don't worry, I'll be cool about it. I'll make little in roads slowly, and then once the kids are looking to get away from mom and dad and just cruise the malls or the forest, I'll be there! Yes!


I know i'm behind on talking to y'all. We have camping do discuss, crawling, Hannah and her efforts at world domination, Leif and his efforts to learn every card game there is (poker and blackjack are his current faves). And the pictures, the pictures. It's all coming, I promise. But right now, Hannah is begging to watch a French vid and my computer is the only screen available (tv's busted, which is not really a bad thing). So I'll get to that stuff asap. For now, let's reflect how cool it is to have an Aunt lke me in the wings of your life. Wooooooooooooohoooooooooo!!!!!

It's all about learning . . .

. . . and I learned, oh yes I learned. I learned that I am truly afraid of heights. I thought everyone was kind of afraid, and assumed I was just more so than others.

This is not the case.

I'll make this brief.


Here is me, on the practice night:





Now, I am only about 2 stories high. And it took me about 5 minutes of serious mental bullying to get mself over the edge to go down. Everyone else there just . . went .. . down. No one had issues with it. And at least twice, i was planning to not even practice. But i told myself 'do this one thing, just this little thing. you don't have to do anything else, not even the big building. just do this. " and I did. and for me, it was huge.


On the drive home, I went past the building we would rappel down on thursday. And the truth started to creep in. it was really fucking high up. and I felt like throwing up. I never pictured 13 stories. I pictured about 6.


so I went home and looked up easter seal drop zone on youtube.com. holy shit. I watched a guy up at the top in TO, and i had to leave the room, I thought I'd fall right through the floor. and Kit, who was watching it with me, said "That looks like fun". what?

So I did a wee experiment. I posted the youtube link on my local parenting forum, and said Watch this. And every single post back said "that looks like fun!". And the Truth became crystal clear.


Not everyone is afraid of heights. I don't know what they see when they look down.I only know what I see. I see the earth tilting and me falling into space. Rational right? NO. bUt it's what is. And my fear is the same. Irrational. And immobilizing. And to me, therefore, insurmountable.


I am afraid of heights.

I think it was fantastic that I rappelled down the 2 story rock cliff. It was a truly scary, and it was an opportunity I'm glad I took advantage of. I have no regrets.

Until I realised I didn't have to follow through with the thursday rappel, I couldn't sleep. I felt sick, angry, anxious, paranoid. Ivy couldn't sleep, presumably from all the stress hormones in my milk.

It was only when my fantastic, not-afraid-of-heights husband said he'd go in my place that I could calm down. And sleep.

And so he did. And he was awesome. I went up to the top with him, and couldn't even bring myself to go near the edge. I can accept my fear. And I feel great about it. I am no longer romanticising the idea of overcoming one's fears. It is not always healthy, or necessary. Running the 10K was a massive challlenge for me. So was being able to admit that I cannot bear being up high. I accept this. I hope you're proud of me.


And so here, in all his caped glory, is the marvelous Kit, bungee jumper and office-building rappeller. He had a blast, and I am in awe of his view that it was 'fun'. that's just nuts. :) Ain't love grand?



see how there's nothing on the horizon but sky? holy crap.




he is up very high.




a friend who worked on the 4th floor snapped this awesome pic.





Thank you all for your support. I'm sorry I couldn't follow through. Please know I tried my hardest. Kit appreciates the opportunity to fly, and the kids at Easter Seals thank you so very much!


C

okay, here are some pics . . .

There are too many to post since we got the new camera. So here's a taste of how we spent the summer:



We got our cycling caravan in gear . .



and rode to swimming lessons every week.




Leif passed into level 3 and hannah is now an Otter (I think?).WE'll get back to it next summer.

Then we headed off to Mom and Al's cabin in Qualicum Beach.




See me?? I'm SO happy! Here's why:



That's the view from the front porch of the cabin, where I lounge in the huge porch swing and swing Ivy to sleep. I can relax, knowing my other two children are being sufficiently entertained (and exhausted) by Al, who's always game to play.





Cabin-soccer is the game. Where Toby has his own pre-punctured ball to distract him. Hannah plays goal with big red gardening gloves on to help her block, and Leif and Al fight it out at centre field. Al really gets a run for his money because Leif's spent a chunk of the summer at soccer camp (see below).




Leif loved being in goal. And he loved being in the field. Basically, he loves soccer.

We spent hours of each day at a fantastic park in Parksville, where the kids ran and swung (swang?) and climbed, and Ivy lay about on the grass, cute as heck.






Oh and Hannah discovered 'concession fries'. The true taste of summer!




A good time was had by all.




Ivy spent a lot of time naked.




And hung out in bed with Kit





And of course, got her first lesson in the art of disguise.








nighty-night.



C

Yeehaw!!!!!!!!!!

Saddle up your horses, the boy can read!!!!!

Oh it is fantastic. Fabulous. Fun-erific. To watch him read is like nothing else, and like everything else. As they learn a new thing, you get to watch them figure it out. It is the greatest priviledge on earth. I cannot put enough exclaimation points in this paragraph to fully illustrate my huge happy feelings. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tonight at bedtime Leif read me an entire story, 10 pages of text, full of words like 'frightening' and 'listen'. He has accepted that our language is just wacky. That it does not always follow all the rules set out to teach you english. Why are there silent p's and t's? Why doesn't that say 'h-ay've' instead of 'have'? It should be a long A sound because of the E after the V. And we nod, yes it should. But doesn't. I remember very clearly as a young kid, driving around with my parents and reading the street signs 'Taylor Way' and 'Marine Drive'. And now in the van I hear leif every few seconds yelling from the back seat 'Linden!' and 'Fort! And his fabulous sister Hannah, looking at one of Ivy's toys the other day (upon which it says Manhatten Baby or something, the name of the brand) saying 'B . . . buh . .buh-aye-bee . .buu-aye-bee toys . . baby toys!' thinking she is reading what it's called. It all just bows me away, it is so bloody cool.

Today Ivy was sitting on the floor in the changeroom (we were shopping with Kit) and she was playing with my kes beside the mirror. And we looked at her, and she was slowly lifting her hand with the keys up and down up and down, and wathcing it moving in the mirror. She was fully engrossed in this, marvelling at that baby in here. So then she sang to it, in her lilting alto way that she does. It was great!


So everyone's well here, and growing and changing as expected. I've decided not to go back to La Luna. As Kit put it, 'if you had one night a week to do whatever you wanted, for yourself, is that what you'd choose to do with it?'. Um, no. So I've signed up for Bollywood dance classes. (Be proud of me Shannon, my Bollywood princess!). Kit is back to Ultimate twice a week, and between that and working on designs and estimates after-hours, he's kept very busy. We're both learning to find ways to balance being with 'the family' and then finding time for our own interests. So we're learning and changing too, with the kids.



I met up with a friend of mine from high school the other day. He's in Victoria with his wife, because she's in a play that'll be showing soon at our local theatre (The Belfry, a beautiful restored building). So her play is called Homechild and it's about the home children basically stolen or tricked into coming to Canada, to work as slaves on Canadian farms. When I learned this, I kinda hopped in my seat. I know all about homechildren, my ancestor and his siblings all came to Canada that way. My friends were surprised, they had yet to find anyone who'd ever heard about homechildren. They called it Canada's dirty little secret. I told them about the documentary about the Bernardo children, and they had already seen it. It was great to meet people who actually had heard about this. I'm the only one of my friends who knows about it either. Thank you Aunt Lou for keeping such good records of all of that stuff.



I am excitedly awaiting the birth of my neice or nephew. Ashley and Virginia's baby is due in about a month, and we're all wishing them well.

Hannah is FOUR!!!


FOUR!!!



FOUR!!!! Can U Believe it????? She is one sassy, spunky little chiquita. Her current passions are playing music on the electric piano. You can punch in keys and get it to play a whole range of songs, which Hannah calls 'funny tunes'. Every morning, she goes right to the piano and fires it up. Before breakfast. She'll march around the room to the beat and laugh at the intricate sounds.

When Leif gets up, he immediatly comes to the kitchen table and sits down to wait. He's waiting for whichever adult comes out of the bedroom first (which is usually me) to sit down and play whatever game we left off the night before. It's always either Scrabble or chess. It's fabulous, as both Kit and I enjoy playing both of these games, so we're happy to play over eggs or pancakes. I play Scrabble online as well and Leif likes to sit beside me and asks about the words I spell and tries to spell his own.


I tell ya, this parenting gig rocks.


C

Late-night confession . . .

I refuse to look at the time, but suffice it to say I was drifting off into this lovely feeling of slumber when lo, my thoughts started to get too focussed and my brain started to whir and now here I am, wide awake and needing to chat.

I realise I have not posted in forever, and I have many excuses as well as much repenting to do for this. I can explain why later. Right now, I've come to tell a particular story.


So, over the past few years I've been struggling with this issue, this concept, if you will. I've found that even though I am approaching 32, and I'm in charge of actual beings, my children, and finances, and wellness of others, I'm still somewhat not really believing in my life. I mean this in the sense that, when I toss around terms like 'my husband' or 'my mother-in-law' or 'my neighbour', my internal dialogue or feeling is always one of being a giggling imposter. That secretly I'm still 11, and I'm so surprised no one else has caught on yet that I am not in fact the adult you see before you, I'm only her stand-in while she's on a coffee break, and she'll be back any minute now. In the meantime, I'm just supposed to play the part. Does that make sense? It's like an inability to accept wholeheartedly that I give a crap that my upright washing machine irks me, or that I'm supposed to be organised enough to remember to bring snacks when we go out. That when friends bitch about domestic stuff, I can join in with the best of them,and yet a part of me inside is saying "What are you TALKING about Caelen??? Jesus, you're eleven for heaven's sake, all you care about are clothes and making up dance routines in your bedroom to songs you've recorded off the radio, remember?". That it just feels surreal. Anyhoo, it is in this vein that I often find myself unaware of domestic things I think I'm supposed to care about. That my neighbour comes over and happens to look up at my ceiling and notices cobwebs in corners and on our ceiling fan, and makes a silly joke about them being leftover hallowe'en decorations. And I think "oh crap, this is a domestic no-no, you're supposed to be on top of this stuff, it's society's expectation of your gender, you must care if your ceilings are clean or your baseboards are grime-free". And then right away, when no one's around, I fix the problem, vacuuming the ceiling or cleaning out the fridge of the rotting vegetables, hoping I'm adequately covering up my crime so I can keep my stand-in job and no one will know I'm actually totally not up on this domestic scene. And so over the years this has gone from throwing myself wholeheartedly into giving a crap, being organised and uptight about cleanliness, being stressed and snarky and anxious about keeping up appearances, to a new and fledgling attempt at being relaxed and realistic, while still maintaining the expected status quo. Trying to hang out with my kids, instead of forever saying, in a lame and nasal-y voice 'sorry, I've got laundry to do". The thought that in years to come my kids will hear this refrain so often that they'll truly believe it IS in fact the duty of my gender to give a crap about domestic whip-cracking that they'll believe that's all there is to me makes me want to throw up, or cry. So I'm trying to unwind, to be laissez faire about it all. And it was going alright for awhile there. I accepted my limitations, I settled for what we all were happy with, and started taking more books out of the library to read, just for me. Sure I often had bowls of compost sitting out on the hottub, waiting to get dumped in our bins in the alley. They'd get dumped eventually, and no one's getting hurt while they sit there, right? I'd recently admitted to two girlfriends that I haven't mopped or washed our floors in any way, at all, for 3 years, and they were fairly aghast. "but they look so clean!" they exclaimed, "how can this be?" and I said "exactly! if they look fine, why stress about cleaning them?". I felt my newfound perspective of realistic acheivement was the road to freedom, and that I could possibly think of keeping this stand-in job, with confidence, and be okay with not knowing how on earth you clean silver (I don't actually have any, but if I did I'd be clueless as to it's care) or how to make a mustard plaster for a congested chest. It would be okay to let Mrs. Cleaver die in the past, where she belonged.

And then a couple months ago, before our neighbours left on holiday, I was in our yard with Sonya, my neighbour, chatting about this and that. And I unconciously noted movement in the bushes to my right. We have grey squirrels who use our yard as a thoroughfare on an hourly basis, and so I'm used to seeing them scamper along this exact path. And my neighbour said "oh my, a rat". Excuse-me-what? A rat????!!!!!! Okay, I'm back in my 11 year old hiding in an adult's body place again, realising I've flunked whatever Western culture test of class there is, if I have a rat in my back yard. I assaulted Kit that night as he came through the door "we-have-a-rat-the-neighbour-saw-it-holy-shit-the-whole-neighbourhood-must-hate-us'. Of course, he was cool as a cucumber. Next week, I woke up and gathered all the bowls of compost off the porch and schlepped them out to the alley. On my way back in I noticed a huge rat, dead, on our patio. omigodomigodomigod. The cat had killed it. What if someone saw it? The whole town will start egging our house, we'll be accused of spreading disease. So I put a bucket over it and went and pestered Kit. He said oh it's our compost, it needs flipping, I'll handle it, blah blah blah. okay, fine. So some months go buy, and suddenly our aging cat is having a bout of youthfulness, because she brings a dead mouse (?) to the back door one morning. I get mildly grossed out, and throw it away. Then she brings another one. blech! Then she brings one inside the house to my office/the playroom. oh man, this is gross. But somehow in my head, they were mice (I never thought of them as small rats), it was gross, but cat's are carnivore's and hunters, whaddayagonnadoaboutit? So then we go away to Vancouver for our little holiday weekend. I've left unfolded laundry on the sofa with no guilt, the house needs a vacuum but I'll get to it eventually, right now I have life to live, you know? And when we come home, and I go into my study, I notice right away that it stinks. like poo. human poo, dig? and I call Kit in to confirm my olfactory findings. But where? The room is hardwood (I'd recently rolled up the area rug to accomodate my new desk placement) and there was nowhere really to 'hide' such a thing, nevermind how it got there or who's it was. (did I mention this post was going to be gross, really gross?). We look about, can't figure it out, chalk it up to a house being closed up for 4 days, open the windows` and get on with life. A few days later (oh god) a friend is over, and she walks into my office and says 'holy crap it stinks in here'. I'd forgotten or gotten used to it, neither of which is an okay reality. She says 'when I had a dead rat in my vent it smelled just like that'. well fine but we have no vents, we have nowhere for it to 'be'. When I'd rolled up that carpet, I hadn't carried it out to the shop yet to store it, I'd merely shoved it under my desk for the time being. One whiff of the end of that roll tells us things are not good within. Kit (see how I totally defer to gender stereotypes here and never deal with the rats myself? Gloria Steinem'd have my ass) takes the rug outside and unrolls it, and yes, dead rat. jesusjesusjesusjesusjesus. I'd been sitting above it at my desk for like 3 days! The cat must have brought it in, not yet dead,and it found a great hiding spot to go die in. At this point, I am thouroughly, wholly unhinged about this whole thing, and start to panic. I pull stuff out of our kitchen cupboards, deciding to tackle our poorly laid-out kitchen dynamic and re-new with vigor a bit of domestic sanity. All I really accomplished there was making a huge pile of stuff in the kitchen, to match the pile of laundry on the sofa. I go to bed, chastising myself for the messes and deciding to attack them all tomorrow while the kids play with our neighbours who are home from vacation. So we all get up this morning, it is also Hannah's birthday party today, I have a cake to bake and I need to get my brain organised for all my tasks of the day. Kit is at the table eating his breakfast, the kids are on the floor amidst big towers of tupperware and boards games and craft supplies, playin a board game and amusing Ivy with tupperware lids. I'm making their toast and chatting with my mother-in-law on the phone. We've been in this scenario for about 20 minutes, when I turn around and get a view of the room I'd not yet had that morning. And (big profanity warning here) HOLY FUCK!!!!!!! There is a HUGE dead rat under the kitchen table, not 14 inches from where Ivy and the kids are playing. fuckfucfuckfuckfuck! I shriek into the phone, and lie, saying something's burning on the stove so I can hang up and I stutter to Kit as my soul floats away from my body 'there's a fucking rat behind the baby'. He needs to move piles to find it. I am standing still, looking away, losing my mind. jesusjesusjesusjesus. This cannot be happening, I'm a nice middle-class wifey in a very middle-class town. Rat stigma has never really played a part in my life, but suddenly it is here and it holds a status far worse than my cobwebby ceiling fan. I am a woman untethered. Kit tosses the rat (double-bagged of course) and bleaches the floor. I work on the denial necessary to cope with the rest of the day. C'mon now, I'm hosting a birthday party in a matter of hours, there's no time to give this the total anxiety attack it is warranting in my books. I wonder to myself if I can justify giving the cat away, because SHE is the one creating all this drama and vermin in my house. Okay yes, we're the earth-loving hippies with the hand-made compost bins, but really now, the CAT's the one to blame here. I test out the idea on the kids "maybe Bodhi should go live with Nana", but they exclaim "No!" and squash the idea right there. I put on my slippers, the best defense against noticing your floors are dirty, and turn my mind to baking Hannah's cake. Eventually all thoughts of rats leave my brain, and my day carries on in it's former manner. It is only as I fade off to dreamland tonight that images start flashing in my mind, gross gross images. And suddenly, I'm WIDE AWAKE. And feeling fairly crappy about my domestics. And yes I can rail against the fct that it isn't only MY job to care for our home, but really, I can argue about that or I can just get the dang job done. So I came on here for some soul-cleansing confessing, and tomorrow we're going to get all hands on deck to clean this place up. I have a freezer full of ice cream sandwiches to motivate the young crew, and a bittle of vodka for Dad. It may not happen often, but we're going to get things tidied up enough that I can actually clean these damn floors. And possibly muzzle the cat. Is that legal? I imagine it is.