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.

Picture this:

Since I am camera-less, I feel like I cannot post, as I cannot show you the moments in my life. But since when has such a simple thing been an impediment to my desire to communicate? Never.

Snapshot #1: The kids and I packed into Ruby (the van), complete with tasty snacks, baby stuff, playmobile bits, crayons and paper, roaring down the highway to the ferry last week. We're blasting our latest fave tune, The Swimming Song by the lovely Kate & Anna McGariggle. I am wearing blue, hair is newly cut short. We're headed to Vancouver, for a short but overdue visit. My dear friend of my youth, Katie Jane, is in town from Pittsburgh, and I have yet to meet Shona and Ryan's lovely baby, Miss Bryn. So we called Nana, packed our gear and took off.

Snapshot #2: I'm driving through downtown Vancouver with the kids, telling them about when Mommy and Daddy worked as bike couriers, preparing them for the Lions Gate bridge, an awesome sight. Pointing out Daddy's first apartment, Mommy's first job (the White Spot at Park Royal Mall), Daddy's first job (the Esso Station at 15th and Marine), the cottage-y house with the best candy and spooky soundtracks playing on hallowe'en (15th and Fulton) . . . it was a bittersweet walk down memory lane. I recall my West Van youth fondly, though at the time I was unaware of how happy I might have been. Hindsight is like that you know? I suddenly longed to live there, to buy up the little cottages on the hillside shrouded in mist and towering trees. But I knew it wouldn't be the same. We picked up Katie and went to John Lawson Park, and amidst the yoga class on the lawn and nannies perched on the benches, the kids played, Katie and I caught up, and I knew my childhood town had changed. At least as far as I could tell. And why not, I have changed too. The kids, well they soaked it all up and hoped they got a cookie after lunch. So easy to please.


Snapshot #3: Kit, bent over in the back yard, digging up plants, moving hunks of concrete, working all day to create the ultimate Secret Garden for the kids. And it is way cool. Gone are the veggie beds, which were really just a monument to my overwhelmed life, being too busy to weed them so they just fill with mint and morning glory, taunting me and making me feel shitty for never using them to their fullest potential, in the way my apartment-dwelling friends ache to do. Now there is a circular area, surrounded by plants and tall grasses, that will let the kids hide in plain sight and concoct whatever fantasy play should call to them. Yes!


Snapshot #4: Ivy. Big blue eyes, hair blonde yet short, except right on the top of her head, where it sticks straight up and flutters in the breeze, like a dandelion held out a car window. ??? er, anyways. Now you see her, now you don't. Why? Because she's rolled over and is now showing you her bum. oh yeah, we've arrived. at that place, you know the one. Where she is not yet able to sit up or crawl, but no longer happy lying down. 'Wait a minute' you say. 'If she's not happy lying down, but not yet able to do anything else, what on earth is she doing?' Pitching a fit and squirming like a grub, yesiree-bob. the holiday is over, the trying times are here. Yet she's still as fabulous as ever, and in this pic she's sporting her white worn booties, grey karate pants and striped shirt. It's way cool dude.


Now you're kinda caught up. Oh me, you ask? I'm looking fine, thank you very much. my fine cheekbones are complimented by my gentle tan, and my hair is in that perfect place of not too long, not too short, nice and spikey yet flat, kinda tousled. I look good, picture it.


I'm working through a stack of novels these days. I've just finished two books by Sara George: The journal of Mrs. Pepys and The beekeeper's apprentice, as well as Tiger Claw by Shauna`Singh Baldwin. I really liked the first two, learned from the second but was a bit bugged by the heroine's undying-love-thing. Oh, and before those I read The Sisters (or Secrets?) Of Jin-Shei, which I really enjoyed. But this is all pre-ambled to sneak in my latest read, the classic The Bell Jar by Ms. Plath. I just read this paragraph and really like it:

"I saw my life branching out in front of me like a fig tree. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another a brilliant professor, and another was E.G., the amazing editor, and another was Europe and Africa and South America, and another a pack of lovers with queer names and off-beat professions, and beyond these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing just one meant losing out on all the rest."

Yes. I'd switch doctor for poet and actor for professor and writer for editor. But the gist is the same. I've never before heard my feelings explained so perfectly and succinctly. I do not at all regret the branch I've chosen, it was entirely my choice and I revel in every minute of my great great life. but I do not want it to be the only branch available to me either, for the rest of my life. And so I sit and think, and post these little snippets.

laundry beckons. oh to dig it up just like the never-weeded veggie beds, and end the task forever.


kisses

C


P.S. The 5th snapshot is of it and I and the kids, so excited because Shona and Ryan and their kids are coming out to visit us this weekend. Woohooo!!!!!

saturday morning . . . .

found a chin hair
found a chin hair
found a chin hair Clementine
I'm only 31 soon be 32
found a chin hair Clementine

on the left side
kinda gray-white
'bout a cen-ti-metre long
kinda greyish
mostly whiteish
about a cen-ti-metre long

not gonna' pluck it
no I won't dear
not gonna' pluck it Clementine
makes me feel wiser already
not gonna' pluck it Clementine

Hoo-boy. The tales I have to tell . . .

Gather 'round the campfire kiddos, I'm brewin' up some stories here on the westest side of the country. Seriously, I'm in a really shite mood and know talking about my kids'll make me right again.

his post has no pictures, I'll explain why later. Oh and I'm writing this on Kit's way-too-big keyboard, so typos shall ensue. At least more than usual.


So, I'm lying in the bed trying to get Ivy to sleep and I'm listening to the two sibs in the kitchen. Hannah has drawn something on a piece of paper, and then says to Leif: (verbatim)

"Guess what animal this is."
"Can I have a hint?"
"No. guess guess guess"
"okay. an elephant'
'no'
'a bear'
'no'
'a wolf'
'ooooo, no. good guess though' (reminder: she's not yet even four)
'a fox'
'no. do you want a hint?"
'no.do not give me a hint. is it a chicken?'
'no'
'okay. give me a hint'
'okay. rabbit'

!!!!!!!!!!

So then he draws somethig, and asks her to guess. she says: (exclamation marks intentional)

'a bear!'
'no. do you want a hint?'
'yes!'
'okay, it's something you live in'
'a chicken!'
'no'
'scrambled eggs!'
'no hannah. it's something you like to hide in'
'easter eggs!'


what the hell is she talking about? I mean really. he told her it was a structure, so she guesses scrambled eggs? between this and her pasttime of spinning around and then lying on the floor because 'the room spinning is silly' makes me think either artist or druggie. time will tell.


okay. no pics. why you ask? well, Kit took the kids o an adventure yesterday. want to knw more? okay then. he's had an itching to go on this river cpaddle for months, and I've just bowed out of it entirely. so he decides to take the kids, both of 'em, solo.he rustles up some other adults to go along. i pack many meals the night before, and then kiss my two kids goodbye at 7 amthe next day. i miss themalready and feel like y day at home with just Ivy is not going to be the big woohoo I'd imagined. On that point, I was right. but back to the kids. I needn't delay this any longer, the canoe caught on a tree/branch/thing on the river,and tipped over. I'm not saying capsized because that just paints a middle-of-the-ocena-scary picture. this was probably armpit deep water? the shity thing is that right before it tipped, Kit had all the dry bags open as he doled out snacks and took photos. So when the canoe flipped, it all went.He did find the camera, but it was underwater. he did not find his gps norhis cellphone, and sadly, the kids dry changes of clothes were al in those opened dry bags too. so it ALL got wet. wallet, clothes, all the sandwiches, lifejackets, kids, nature books, backpacks . . . the lovely part of the story is that the head adult in the other canoe, behind Kit, and not a paddler himself at all, said "no no Kit, you don't approach it that way" and in his sweet and genteel arrogance, he flipped at the exact same spot. In the end they survived, they shared wet food and the least-wet clothes. as Kit tellls it, 'we were alll in good spirits anyway. you'd have hated it though'. okay by me.

so we await the drying out of the camera. if it's crap, KIt knows he'll be forking over some dough. Until then, I think posts will remain pic-free. Unless I start drawing stuff. :)



Oh, but wait! he best news of all!! Ryan and Shoa had their baby!! Shona used all her mighty power and yelled with all she had, and a lovely baby sister for Isla was born.Dear Bryn looks like the rest of the family. And Shona's words were something like 'while i'm glad I got to have a natural vaginal birth this time, I'm never fucking doing that again!'. A wise move sister. We hope to be blessed with a visit from them in the near future, and I'll have a camera by then, don't worry.
Okay, must go, Ivy's pitching a fit.Teething bites.

oh, a pun.


C

And time just marches on . . .

. . . look at her! Already chilling out in the exersaucer, laughing at the crowd. Do I never get to just stop time and look around and try to hold the moment? Apparently not. You can still track down pictures of Leif in this same exersaucer, if our old website is still running somewhere out there in cyberland. www3.telus.net/babyhead. It may not exist anymore.


Well, to keep on the theme of time, I'm proud to announce I've let go of some control in the kitchen (see, I CAN grow) and even more proud to inform you that the boy can feed himself! Check out peanut butter sammy-man:




The final installment in this time-themed intro is this pic. To see my firstborn holding my third born is beyond words. My 16 year old punk-rock self would be blown away. The present-day me can't grasp it either.



. . . okay, moving on. Hannah would like to be talked about please. She's working away at soccer, but it seems an aspect of her personality previously unseen has cropped up. I'm not exactly sure of the descriptor for it, but I think of it as the first-strike-I'm-out point of view. When she tries to do anything for the first time, if it doesn't work, she's really, really not cool with it. She's both sad, and pouty, and heartbroken, and angry. It's tough to watch, tougher to get through. She'll ask me how to write Ivy, so I write out I-V-Y for her to copy. And her version ends up looking like those spam-blocker 'type the letters below' type things, where you need to squint to figure out what the letters look like. And she's upset, it's 'not right!!!'. I'm thinking 'give yourself a break love, you're only 3 and a half'. But to her it's more like she's the only one in the family who *can't* do it. Leif can write, I can, Kit can. Leif can play soccer . . . so when Hannah's coach says kick the ball over here, and she kicks it over there, she turns and walks off the field in tears. It sucks, a lot. But we're working on it. Here's her save while playing goal in her wee class of crazy 3 year olds.




I don't know if this pic will be clear or not, but you need to see her eyes . . . she is glorious!  I needed to share her big bright blue orbs.






So check out this pic, from our photo session on our big bed the other day.




In the background is one of my favorite paintings, can you guess why? Cause she's asleep! Doesn't she look peaceful? Anyway, one day we're lying around in bed (homeschooling at it's best) and hannah ays "that lady looks like Mummy" and I say "Oh really?" and she says "yeah, except your feet are different". Er . . . .

I tell you, she's un-describable, a new word I created perhaps?

So, an update on the back yard. The weekend involved a lot of this:



I harangued Al into helping out, and the 'just one day please' turned into 3, and then they had to go. Then Kit used his charm and got his parents over to help out, and I found the three of them out there in the dark, 9:30 at night, guided by the light of the construction lamp and Susan's direction from the pattern layout in her hands, they finished the brick work. It looks awesome!





The places with wood are being blocked out for custom work. We're going to do poured concrete, and possibly some marbles and kids' drawings or something in there. Then it's furniture, irrigation, final touches and voila! We will live out there all summer. I hope the plants don't die before then. I keep forgetting to water them. (Don't tell Kit).

And so fine travellers, I leave with this really cool picture. Anyone remember that Bugs Bunny when Bugs falls asleep and his den floods and his bed floats out and along a river right into some weird Dr. Frankenstein's castle and the doc has this helper monster thing that has no arms and is covered in red fur? Remember that guy?

This picture totally reminds me of him:





good night my lovelies


love always
Big C


There's talk of a Leif & Hannah funny faces photo shoot, so stay tuned!

And hopefully the next post will include news of the arrival of Ryan and Shona's fabulous new baby. Can't wait!

*this post was written to Hayden's "I hate bunkbeds". Leif likes it for the yoga lyrics. :) *

What's goin' on?

Not much. I'm writing this to the background sounds of the dryer, and a lovely english woman reading The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit. No, I haven't hired a British nanny. Our long-awaited book on tape CD's have arrived. Woohoo! While Leif is enjoying lying in bed and listening to them, it's doing little to quiet Hannah's regular cries of "I'm still hungry/thirsty/too tired/too awake/it's too dark/it's too light/I don't want to go to soccer/Anna's/french/swimming . . .'. Seriously, she's fine. She loves her classes and she just ate a bowl of cereal and a PB and banana sandwich. This is just her *thing*. And I will tire her out and make her stop. This is night two of just escorting her back to bed everytime she gets up. As soon as its 'bedtime', life becomes very dramatic for our dear second-born.

Ivy she's in the crib in the kitchen, sucking on the foot of Dompy The Flying Horse. He's cool. Kit's at Ultimate, the first game of the summer season. I think sometime's I can measure my life by which season we're in and which night he therefore has Ulti. I try not to think about it too much. :)

This morning, I forgot which direction of the faucet would give me cold water. I kid you not. I stood there for about 10 seconds trying to remember, baffled that I had no clue. Then, since no answer was coming to me, I thought I'd find out via an experiment. I'd turn it on to one side and see what happened. Towards the toaster gave me cold water, and it stayed cold, so I figured that was the side for cold, my right. I have no memory of 'knowing' innately what side gives you what. This is not good. I've borrowed a friend's calculus text to see if I can jump start my brain. Otherwise, I'm screwed. Truly. I mean, who the hell forgets where you get cold water? Kids rot your brain.


So how about some pics of the darlings? :)




This is Leif's own set up shot. It's very avant garde.




Hannah's still in the more straightforward place of a 3.5 year old.


On Friday we celebrated May Day with the Waldorf Society at a local park. The kids made flower crowns and cool little bees out of pinecones and wool, and then danced around the maypole. Leif and his buddy Taro got silly with it, whereas Hannah was all about correct procedure.









To finish up on the whole 10K fabulousness, here's some pics of my number and my name in the paper. This is obviously a big deal to me. I took a week off afterwards, and got a crappy cold, and now the thought of running again on Friday is horrible. thank god my dear friend will force me to do it. Now revel with me in that great feeling of accomplishment.







Now, I need to tell you about the Yellow Dress. It was mine as a baby, and it is very cool and bright. Ivy's in her last days of wearing it, as it slowly morphs into a tunic and eventually a shirt. Either way, it's great. All the kids have worn it. How cool that I too was once so small. :)







Updates: Shona's baby is still getting it's finishing touches put on. And Melissa's dear son was born last Thursday. The very darling Cohen Peter, born to be Ivy's dearest friend, is also her buddy in wierdness. To Ivy's tailbone Simple Dimple, Cohen matches it with his own Mongolian Spot. When they're older they can compare asses.



kisses
C

Can you feel the thrill?

I can. I did it!!!!!!!! I ran the 10K. The whole bloody thing. Good god it was great and brutal. At 6K I was ready to die and lie down in the grass. By 7K I thought maybe I could actually do this thing. Some highlights all occured between 7-8K which really made it worthwhile. The elderly lady on the corner in the bright red coat, who blew kisses at the runners and said "You go darlings, you can do it!". The handicapped guy beside me being pushed in his wheelchair by a friend, and when we started going down a tiny incline the guy in the chair said "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" and sported a huge grin. And the otter who came out of a hedge, ran along beside us for maybe 5 feet and then ducked over the seawall into the ocean. Add in the blazing sun, the Tai Ko drummers at 9K, and my good buddy at my side, and it couldn't have been a better day. The details: my time was 77:07 minutes, and I placed 5700 out of 10,000+. How can you not like being average?


As I secretly feared, this has turned Erin and I into 'runners'. Shoot. Now we have plans to continue our 7K/3 days a week schedule, and aim for doing 10K's every weekend by June. Good lord!!!! Now there's talk of doing the half marathon (that's 21K btw) next summer. Dammit!!!! We should've just stayed on the couch.


Okay, while Hannah at 3 and a half is an impatient emotional wreck (but not in an annoying way like other people's whiny kids), man is she funny. We were sitting at the table eating dinner, and I look across to Kit and comment that Hannah is really articulate. She leans in to my right and whispers "don't forget to tell him I can undo my own seatbelt too!". Maybe you have to be here to get it, but it was too fabulous.


What can I say? Weather is great, my body is not as dead as I feared it would be, May is upon us tomorrow, and our backyard is taking shape. What more could a girl want? Okay, well, let's not get into that here.

It's a brief update, free of pics, but hey! I get it in whenever I can. Don't hassle me about it. :)

C
now know as a 'runner' don't forget. as in
"do you know Caelen?"
"oh, you mean Caelen The Runner?"
"yeah her"
"oh yeah, I know her. She's cool".
"no doubt."
:)

My Life Uncensored

I often get asked what life is like with 3 kids. I try to put it into words, but honestly the best I ever come up with is "It could be worse". The highs are so so great, and the lows, well, they can be as messy as cat puke.

First things first. After seeing Hannah's soccer pic on here, Leif requested that he be featured as well. Aiming for a quasi-democracy here . . .



next? We took the kids kite flying last weekend at the beach a few minutes away. Man they are cute. Leif's kite is a black shark, Hannah's a green octopus.





It was a gorgeous day. The beach is on a point and then there are big bays on either side. It is a really popular spot for all types of kite flying. From the simple family style to the double-stringed box kites, to the ones the folks sit in and hover above the grass like hesitant birds, to the full-on kite surfing down on the water.It was a crazy windy day. Nice to see so many folks out enjoying it.

So, in case you're wondering how the rest of the house has fared in our lives as parents of 3 kids, a growing business, an overturned yard, and homeschooling all hours of the day? Here's two pics, one Kit's office and one mine. You can tell which is his cause it has actual chairs.




Yes, the pic of my area, that which surrounds the phone, had an added bonus for me when we came home from our earth day potluck tonight. A nice pile of cat barf on my new book. See it? Yeah. Nice isn't it? Bodhi's not too thrilled that we keep having more babies. She pines for the days of fresh-fish and tummy rubs. I try to tell her that was 7 years ago. So she puked on my book. Like I said, this is my life, no censors.


I finally spent some quality time with little Ivy, and managed to snap some pics, even one with me in it! We hung out in the van, a favorite spot. We'd been in the art store nabbing new sketch books for the kids, when Ivy had a massive poo that ran right out of her pants. As I paid with debit while juggling a truly shitty baby, I grinned kindly at the woman behind the till, who offered up her sage thoughts in return "It only gets worse". Ah, I've been mistaken as a new mother of just this one child. Oh to strip and show her my battle scars, to outdo her in progeny and tales of poo and night-vomit and teething woes. No need, I know I'm the winner. And it's all good, the prize was worth it, as I got these great giggles out of the little pooper in the car afterwards.






The 10K is in 7 days. It does not look good, but we shall persevere. And even if it sucks and I fall down breathless only feet from the finish line and scrape my knees and crush my elbows . . . the after party's gonna be fabulous!!!!

Have a great week all.


C