Category Archives: The Boy

Slogging

Things have been pretty cranky lately. The boy was sick last weekend, which necessitated cancelling a much-anticipated outing to see Real Live People whom we hadn’t seen in ages, and it’s still trailing on; he’s got a cold and is carrying a low-grade fever that’s not high enough to keep him home, so he goes to school, and then it’s higher when he gets home from school but is low enough to send him out the next day. He’s also dealing with a lot of social stress, both from friends and bossy/manipulative kids at school and here at home while he works through growing-up stuff.

He’s not the only one carrying a lot of stress. Financially things are pretty much stretched as taught as they’ll go; I logged back on as an active freelance copyeditor with the publisher again at the beginning of January, three months later than we’d planned, but nothing’s come my way yet. I’ve had to drop cello entirely for now, though I’m hanging on to orchestra every two weeks as my single get-out-of-the-house-and-see-other-adults time. Nana has made it possible for the boy to continue his own lessons, for which we are very grateful. Owlet is charming but wearing on us all, as she’s working through a lot of her own developmental stuff plus her two lower incisors are taking their not-so-sweet time about breaking through the gums. Her sleep patterns are all over the place (today she didn’t sleep for more than ten to fifteen minutes at a time, and is just as disagreeable as you might imagine as a result). Our nights are still broken a lot, and I don’t do at all well on fragmented sleep. Basically, I’ve run out of what energy I had in reserve, including the new-parent adrenaline that sees you through the first couple of months, and I’ve got nothing left.

In good news, the boy got his spot in the International School we were hoping to transfer him into. Now we get to angst about the social stress of switching him into a new school that’s full French immersion. In not so good news, the USB ports on my computer have decided to stop working, and none of the permission-resetting/PRAM resets/redownloads of updates have worked so far. I can’t sync or update my iPhone, use my printer, or back up via Time Machine to my external hard drive, and the USB receiver for my wireless mouse only works some of the time. All of this makes me pretty crazy, as my computer is my sole method of accomplishing work, and if I can’t work I can’t… no, I’m not even going there. I could always use HRH’s computer for work if I have to. In the meantime, Berny is very kindly talking me through repairing permissions and PRAM resets and reinstallation of updates, just in case it’s something along those lines, but nothing’s worked so far. Next up is upgrading to Snow Leopard, something I hadn’t done because it came out two weeks after I got my Mini and I wasn’t going to risk botching something that worked perfectly well. (Yes, years of Windows updates have scarred me.) HRH is going to talk to the certified Mac repair guy at work to see if he has any ideas or solutions, too.

So, um, yes. Things are hard, and weary, and I can’t get up here to write much at the moment. There’s Owlet’s six-month post coming up later this week, though!

Christmas Glee

The boy has been very, very patient, waiting two whole weeks for the workshop to be cleaned up, a table to be built, and the box of his very, very special Christmas present to finally be opened.

There are already plans to build a Lego train station, and to take Lego minifigs on a ride in the gondola car. He’s being very careful, very responsible, and couldn’t be prouder of his very grown up gift. He did let go for a second to throw back his head and wildly yell, “Thank you, Santa!”, though.

2011 In Photographs (And Some Words)

January 2011:

First loose tooth:

Starting cello:

The new spinning wheel:

February 2011:

The new spinning wheel, finished:

The boy’s first ever self-directed school project with no teacher input: He planned, designed, and executed a three-dimensional model of a penguin.

March 2011:

Oh hey, by the way, we’re going to have a baby around the end of July:

This is what 1.5 km of Polworth singles plied into a two-ply yarn look like:

April 2011:

We planted a crabapple tree:

Spring sprung in our backyard:

May 2011:

The crabapple actually bloomed, bless it:


Book reports:

HRH made his stage debut as bassist with the band known as Invisible:

June 2011:

The boy’s last day of kindergarten:


Sparky’s visits La Ronde, our local Six Flags amusement park, for the first time:

The boy’s first cello recital:

At which I also played, of course, and loved what I did:

Six years old!

July 2011:

We buy the boy his very own cello:

Eight months pregnant made playing in the Canada Day concert a challenge to say the least, but it all worked, even though I looked like a poster child for How To Not Play The Cello:

I knit my first real lace project that involved more than one line of pattern, a cap for Owlet:

August 2011:

We had the baby!

Who wore the lace cap:

September 2011:

The first day of Grade One:

Owlet had a tongue tie clipped after five weeks, which made nursing so much better:

October 2011:

Owlet with her owlet:

Owlet greeeeew:

HALLOWEEN!

November 2011:

Cute baby was cute:

December 2011:

Someone was a walking cliche for his sixth Christmas. Suggestions on FaceBook for snappy comebacks when people sang the song at him were, “You should see the other guy,” or “But the puck went in, so it was worth it,” courtesy of Rob:

We tested the “babies get bonuses to cute when dressed in overalls” theory:

We decorated the tree:

Owlet received a delicious Lamaze toy for Christmas from Nana and Grandad:

And a very, very special commemorative dish made by Birdsall-Worthington Pottery in Mahone Bay, a partner to the plate Aunt Wilma gave to Sparky when he was born (Sparky’s has a family of three ducks on it, Owlet’s has four):

You know what else happened in 2011? HRH finished the existing attic to give us both an office space. We’re finally assembling pictures from that odyssey; stay tuned!

Behind

I’m never going to catch up, not with everyone home from school and work. I’m going to try to finish the draft post I’ve had dragging on for two weeks this afternoon, but we’ll see how successful that is. I just don’t want it dragging over into the new calendar year.

I haven’t had time to tell you that the boy lost his other upper front tooth, so was a gleeful personification of “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” or that Christmas was an absolutely lovely day with all the family here, that I cooked a knock-down brilliant turkey, or that this is the Plague House because everyone has the flu or horrible colds and so everything social we’d planned or planned to plan this week has been cancelled. I haven’t been able to sit down long enough to say that both the boy’s goldfish, (known as Goldie One and Goldie Two) died this past week, or that he has discovered Angry Birds, or that he adored the Star Wars Lego advent calendar that Ceri and Scott gave him, or that Owlet’s first solid food was a piece of homemade pancake, snatched off my plate then blissfully sucked and gummed into a soggy mess yesterday morning.

I haven’t been able to sit down and rail at you about how I discovered that my washing machine, my year-old washing machine, “saves energy” by substituting half of the water in a hot wash with cold water and how that was the underlying problem with washing the cloth diapers (that is NOT A HOT WASH and I don’t know in whose mind it possibly could be). I haven’t even mentioned the Christmas recital and how well it went (music-wise, that is; I did mention that Owlet had been prepared for the cello playing, but not the first crash of applause that freaked her out, and so HRH spent the recital in the church basement walking her so she wouldn’t wail after every piece). I haven’t been able to crow that I got my box of author copies of the bird book, and rhapsodize about how gorgeous it is (I knew it would be pretty, having seen the full-colour galleys, but it’s stunningly beautiful and I love holding it).

I have photos to post, too. Maybe I’ll just kind of throw a series of mini-posts up this afternoon while Owlet naps. If she naps for more than twenty minutes, that is.

And May All Your Christmases Be Bright

Look who loved Santa! Thank you, powers that be, for making her one of those instead of one that freaks out. We woke her up in line, and I expected to have to feed her to calm her down because of over-stimulation, but instead she was entranced by the lights and music and the new Christmas carousel the mall has installed with their holiday redesign (long overdue, I must add… although it’s a bit heavy on the red).

Also, who authorised the boy to become a string bean?

Christmas merry-go-round!

We kept the boy out of school and had a family day, seeing Santa and having lunch out, instead of trying to make it all happen on a weekend day when the malls are hellish. It was a great decision; the crowds were pretty much non-existent. I think we’ll do it again next year.

In Sparky News

The blog’s been pretty Owlet-centric lately, so the boy should get a post of his own.

The most important news first: a newly lost tooth, as of this morning!

There was much angst about wanting it out properly but being afraid of pulling the last thread by which it hung yesterday. I was hoping it would fall out by itself overnight, as the last one did, but it was still gamely hanging on this morning. The boy twisted and pulled, and HRH finally gave it the last gentle tug required to free it from its shackles. Tonight, the tooth fairy visits!

We got his first report card mid-November. He’s brilliant in English language arts (I don’t think even I got a 98 this early on), excellent at art and music, quite competent in math, and at the class average for French. Problem is, the class average for French isn’t great, and that’s not surprising when you think that they only get an hour a day, or 20% of their class time.

We made a mistake back when we registered him for kindergarten, and erred on the side of caution: I wanted to make sure he had secure foundation in English and math concepts before turning to French immersion. I had no idea his capabilities would explode so completely forward in both areas during kindergarten. In hindsight, if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have put him in French kindergarten and carried on our regular reading and counting in English at home, because it wasn’t going to be an issue.

My problem with all of this is that he’s not being challenged. He’s conscientious about his work, his teacher tells me, which is great, but it’s still too easy for him. He’s not learning coping strategies; he’s not learning how to break problems down and conquer them step by step. And that’s going to come back to bite him badly at some point, like it did me and lots of other people I know, be it in high school CEGEP, or university. So… HRH and I went to the open house information night for the local International School, into which we are seriously considering transferring the boy. The International Baccalaureate programme is a certified standard that focuses on lots of good stuff, and we discovered, to our delight, that there’s lots of arts in this school, as well as sports. The only drawback is that it’s total French immersion, literally the opposite of what he’s doing now: everything is in French except English class. (Interestingly enough, in grade 3 the programme switches to 50/50 French and English… except they do it all French for half a year and all English for the next half.)

The current principal of the International School was transferred there a month ago from the school Sparky is currently at, so she recognized us at the info night (HRH was on the governing board with her). She did the initial presentation to a gym full of parents hoping to test their kids into grade one (the school doesn’t offer a kindergarten programme) and was accordingly mobbed by people afterwards, so we went off to fill in a form with our contact information and leave it with the secretary. Well, two days later the phone rang and it was the principal, apologizing for not being able to spend more time with us, and suggesting a private meeting so we could discuss the curriculum and the potential transfer, since it wasn’t a regular testing into grade one procedure. It’s nice to know people. The meeting went really well, and we got a tour of the school in which we passed not one but three music classes in progress.

So working on the French at home is important for us. At our parent-teacher interview I put in a request for material to work on his French at home, since he doesn’t get French homework and he zips through his reading and math homework in less than fifteen minutes. I downloaded a couple of free French apps for my iPhone, which he began playing with of his own accord this weekend, and already his accent is improving as he works on reading and spelling numbers, and identifying animals (not even I knew what a pieuvre was!). I’m going to get him a Tintin book from the library next time I’m there, and we’ll read that together before we see the film this Christmas holiday.

Cello is going pretty much as expected. It’s symptomatic of the easy ride he’s having at school that he gets frustrated and upset when practicing because it doesn’t come easily to him. It’s a bit overwhelming for him, and so we have to work on breaking a larger task down into smaller elements. Essentially, a lot of homework and learning comes down to self-discipline, which is one of the reasons I initiated music lessons. Working on good practice habits and attention in lessons will, I hope, carry forward and inform other areas in his life.

More Halloween!

A very enjoyable evening, indeed.

Presenting Baby Batman!

I love working with felt; there’s no hemming. That’s a onesie Ceri and Scott bought for her, a pair of black tights, a strip of yellow bias tape, a felt cowl, and a felt Batcape held on by arm straps. Easy-peasy and adorable!

We do Halloween over at HRH’s parents’ house, so the boy trick-or-treats through his dad’s old neighbourhood. The house is always wonderfully decorated with strings of orange LEDs, pumpkin lights, various scarecrows and skeletons, and jack o’lanterns. There are huge bowls of candy to hand out (lots of which mysteriously ends up in the boy’s bag), loot bags for all of us, and Grandma makes hot finger food for everyone both before and after the outing. I am also usually handed a glass of wine, which makes things very special! We look forward to it a lot.

I don’t know what the boy enjoys more, going out door to door, or staying home with his grandfather and giving out candy. He does a bit of each, and is very enthusiastic about both. We weren’t sure if all four of us would do the walkabout or not, as I enjoy going out with the boys, but Owlet was hungry after being stuck in traffic for over half an hour (who shuts one side of a major highway down for paving during rush hour on a weekday? and then reopens it two hours later, at night, when there is less volume?), and besides, if we took her out her costume would have to be covered by blankets. So she and I stayed behind, showing off her outfit to the trick or treaters; it was very well received, with kids cooing over her and calling their parents to see.

Last night when he got back from his round, he poured out his candy onto the couch next to me and declared, “I am going to share this with all of you!” And he picked out a treat to bring in for his teacher this morning, too. I think we’re doing an okay job at this parenting thing.