Category Archives: The Boy

Forty-Six Months Old!

Or four years minus two months. The boy has become quite adept at informing people that he’s going to be [this many fingers] old on his birthday.

If I had to distill this past month down to two words, they would be singing and bunnies. I have been woken up a good five out of seven days each week by a small child burrowing under the covers with me, then singing such classic hits as “Little Bunny Foo-Foo,” the alphabet song, a little preschool ditty called “Ducks Like Rain,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” “Old Macdonald,” “Five Little Ducks,” and various little songs of his own devising. And perhaps it was the Easter thing, but he’s become obsessed with rabbits: pictures, stuffed ones, hopping around like one. He started carrying around the small white bunny my gran sent him to keep BunBun company, and just acquired a silky-soft black one for Easter whom he calls Blackie-Whitey, or Blackie for short (very inventive is my almost-four-year-old).

Ceri and Scott lent us the breathtaking Planet Earth series of nature documentaries, and we’ve been enjoying them immensely. They’re far beyond the nature shows of our youth. Of course, they do tell similar stories, and so the boy was introduced to the cycle of life rather graphically. “Why is that wolf chasing those deer?” he wanted to know. So we explained that it was chasing the caribou (ahem) because he was hungry. “RUN, CARIBOU!” he yelled at the screen. And so we talked about the fact that wolves aren’t good or bad, that this is just the way things are. We had to revisit the concept when the wild dogs chased the antelope, and the shark chased the seal (in graphic slow motion), but he eventually got it. He loves the different climates and landscapes, and all the animals, and he especially loves the planet rise in the opening title sequence.

This past month has seen a huge explosion in alphabet and letter recognition, complete with drawing letters and reading. Words he can absolutely read include Liam, Mama, Dada, cat, car, cello, train, school, and lesson. (Why have I not shown him how to write ‘book’ yet?) He demonstrates amusing logo recognition, too, pointing out Chapters, Zellers, Best Buy, and the toy store with great enthusiasm as we pass them in the car or see them in flyers. One morning we were cuddling in bed together and he started describing drawing letters. It took me a few moments to understand what he was talking about, but I clued in somewhere around the second letter. He described drawing the strokes necessary to write out his name, and I was wide awake by the end of it, at which point I gave him a huge hug. Being able to actually hold a pencil and draw it out is one thing; being able to describe it abstractly without the accompanying physical motions is pretty stupendous, in my opinion. Especially at stupid o’clock in the morning. He’s been able to write his name for a while, but now he does it clearly without prompting. He has become fascinated with the difference between upper and lowercase letters, although he’s making the classic mistake of confusing the lowercase D and B. He’s very proud of being able to write his name in lowercase letters and understands that the first letter of a name is capitalized. Serifs frustrate him, because he traces them and thinks they’re extra bars or ascenders/descenders and guesses the letter in question incorrectly, or asks what letter it is because it doesn’t match the twenty-six he knows.

The biggest new experience this month was without question riding the metro, or the ‘underground train’ as he calls it. He loved watching from the platform for the lights coming down the tunnel, watching the trains passing in the other direction, looking at the art in the stations while people got off and on; the entire experience was exciting. I’ll be taking him with me to a downtown meeting next week just so he can have another ride. The other exciting new thing is the Lego Star Wars game we bought for the Xbox, which he just adores. He figured out how to make the characters run around, jump, and attack in no time at all. Playing in co-op mode is a bit of a challenge because he’s likely to run off in the opposite direction, and the characters are yoked within a certain distance, but he’ll get better. This month’s awesome new film was Bolt.

One of the more curious things he’s been doing is pretending he’s Maggie. I know most kids pretend they’re animals at various times, but how many of them have a default pretend of being Mama’s now-deceased pet? (Not that he pretends he’s the zombie feline. You know what I mean.)
Having seen how sensitive he is about toys being forgotten in rotation, I suspect he’s doing it because he doesn’t want to forget her, or allow us to forget her. There’s a loyalty there that’s really touching. And he’s generous to a fault; in fact, he sometimes is overly generous with his lunch at school, giving it to others instead of eating it. Of course, this isn’t much of a concern for us, because he regularly eats three breakfasts. This kid isn’t anywhere near starving. He’s too cool for that.

Figures

The boy’s hair has been cut, I have paid a slew of bills (my poor bank account, at least it was flush for twenty-four hours), we have new books, there is a new Hot Wheels fire truck, and of course I missed a FedEx delivery while we were out. When do I get FedEx deliveries? Never. Well, not entirely true; two of my sets of author’s copies arrived by FedEx in the past. As I’m not expecting anything like that, however, I’m guessing that it’s the cello goody bag I won, but I won’t know till Monday. At least, FedEx says they’ll come back on the next business day, which I am assuming is Monday in their world as in mine. Woe. I would have liked to have opened a parcel today. Especially a parcel with surprises in it.

In half an hour or so I’ll start the dough for the rolls I’m making for tonight. I may make a double batch and freeze one set.

Yes, that’s about as exciting as it gets today. It’s damp. I’m going to go find a cat and an afghan.

Weekend Roundup

Busy, busy, busy.

Friday morning was sunny but cold for our outing to the Biodome with Curtana and Arthur. The fun began before we got there, because we took the Metro. The boy has no memory of being on the subway, which isn’t surprising because he was very tiny and in a stroller the last time we rode it with him. He was very excited, because hey, it’s a train! Naturally there was a unexplained slowdown, turning a half-hour trip into a forty-five minute trip. He entertained himself by identifying the letters in the graffiti on the windows. The Biodome was a very exciting destination because there is a rainforest pavilion, and the boy’s Nana has recently come back from Costa Rica where she visited the rainforest herself. Also, the boy was hoping there would be jaguars, even though I told him there were none. Hope springs eternal when you are a very earnest almost-four.

We met Curtana and Arthur at the station at the other end and there was a joyful shout from the boy and a running forward from Arthur, and it looked all the world like a slow-motion reunion on a film screen, missing only a swelling of music to cap it all off. And the running didn’t really stop: they were so excited about the Biodome that they ran through it once, then ran through it again. We saw crocodiles (caimans, actually), lots of tropical birds, very big fish, tiny monkeys, bats, otters, beavers, ducks and waterfowl of all kinds, puffins, and penguins. I don’t know what they enjoyed most, but the kid slide next to the otter slide was certainly up there, as was the big screen before the penguin exhibit upon which was projected Arctic footage. They were particularly tickled by the fact that the penguins on the screen were as tall as they were, and cavorted around with them.

We had a snack, and visited the boutique (where we bought some tiny toy turtles, to go with the larger turtles the boy plays with in his bath, and a lovely bone china mug with barn owls on it for me), and spent some time in the hands-on educational room before we all took the Metro back to our respective stops. And we made a date for Arthur to come play on Sunday morning. Lunch and nap were very late after so much excitement but he did finally take an hour and a bit of sleep.

Saturday was our all-day spiritual workshop retreat day, missing some people but still fabulous! It was a really great day with wonderful food, interesting workshops and discussions, fun activities and insightful ritual. I’m so glad we’ve decided to do this twice a year. It gets us together and talking about great topics, doing more ritual, and having fun. Carving out time here and there for these things is difficult; setting one whole day to focus on this kind of thing is easier and very rewarding. (Not that we don’t do it at other times, too! The two workshop days don’t replace the regular ongoing work, but supplement it.)

Sunday morning Arthur and his dad Forthright came over for a couple of hours of train and Lego play. I made some quite nice scones (adding extra brown sugar and underbaking them just a tad to produce a very sweet and moist result, nom nom nom) which both boys wolfed down (Liam was actually keeping track of how many he ate and proudly held up five fingers when I asked him what number he was on near the end of the playdate). There were tears at the end when the boys had to part, but reassurances that lunch was coming for one and that they’d see one another again for the other seemed to soothe them. After a lunch of pancakes and a nap, we were off to Ceri and Scott’s house for a movie and dinner, a treat rescheduled from last week when the boy had been very, very ill in the car. I got another three rows knitted on the damn ribbing of the mitts I’m working on thanks to Ceri’s presence, and the boys played downstairs. And I got a belated Yuletide gift from Ceri, a lovely set of fingerless gloves crocheted in the Phoenix Gloves pattern by Julia Vaconsin in a beautiful Lorna’s Laces colourway with soft greens and reds and pinks (Gold Hill, perhaps?). They’re exquisite and I adore them. I wanted to wear them for the rest of the day but I couldn’t handle the DPNs I was knitting with properly, as they kept catching in the gloves, and I didn’t want them to get spattered with tomato sauce from dinner, so off they came when they finally had to.

And to my surprise there was decent sleep each night as well. Wonders will never cease.

Now it’s headfirst into the anthology. Today and the rest of this week will see me tidying up last-minute loose ends or edits from the final contributors, scanning the original material for final comments and errors, and then playing with the order of the essays. It all takes a lot of brain power, more than it seems that it ought to.

In Which She Drags Herself To The Computer

Not dead. I wish I was (or rather, I have wished I was for a variety of reasons over the past five days but not at this precise moment), but no, I am not actually dead. I’m in a lot of pain, which is annoying and has been wearing down my patience and ability to deal with basic everyday things; I haven’t been sleeping; and the boy and I have had gastro. But today is a new day and we sent him off to preschool, and our fingers are crossed that everything goes well. Yesterday was an excellent day in which there were no bodily upsets and he ate and slept well, but you never know. And I only found out this morning when I called to let the director know he was on his way that there’s a kid waiting for surgery who can’t come into contact with any possible illness or the surgery has to be rescheduled. That would have been a good thing to know before we sent him in; I might have kept him home an extra day just to be positive. Except not knowing this plus my climbing the walls and increasing pile of backed-up work meant I really needed him to go in today.

Bah.

Today is St Patrick’s Day, and the boy is dressed in a new green t-shirt we picked up for him on Saturday and he looks great. They will be talking about Ireland at school today, and the boy has been reminded that he can tell them about the goddess Brigid, whom he learned all about at the little witchling circle (as one of the leaders calls it), as they probably don’t know about her. He was reviewing what he knew while he got ready to go: “She lives in water ( “And fire,” I interjected) and we throw pennies to her (they’d been told throwing pennies into water and making a wish was a form of communicating with the goddess, so now he tosses pennies into the mall fountains and shouts, “Thank you Brigid!”), and she has white skin and red hair, and she takes care of us when we’re sick and helps us get better.” I can only imagine how garbled that will come out at the other end, and how politely confused the teachers will be.

What lovely sun out there.

Evidently even when I am ill I can still make a kick-ass onion soup and chicken pot pie. The secret? Christmas dinner, and the absolutely fabulous turkey soup it made. I used a small container of the frozen turkey-heavy soup as the base for the cream sauce over the chopped chicken, and wow, it was spectacular. I’m still very confused as to why I wanted to make them when the idea of food had been turning my stomach all day, but they were delicious even in the tiny quantity I ate.

You know, the front staircase is like the bathroom: It doesn’t matter how often I sweep it, it’s dirty again immediately afterwards. On the bright side, the snow’s almost all gone in the front yard, and there’s only a thin layer left in the back. No snow and less mud can only make things better.

I read the entire stack of library books I brought home last Thursday by Sunday night. I resorted to rereading Anne of Avonlea yesterday while the boy napped.

Today: Yoga, then reviewing the final submissions for the anthology (yay!), reviewing edits/rewrites of the first round of essays, sending contracts for the ones that are done, and then I get to start playing with a new order of the fifty stories. And work some more on a scintillating, insightful, poignant introduction. I would love to hand this in early.

Forty-Five Months Old!

And only three to go before the big four years old. I have been informed that there is to be another Totoro cake. Duly noted. Also noted is the likelihood of the cake theme changing according to almost-four-year-old whim.

Someone brought home a medal from the annual preschool Olympics. They don’t give coloured medals out any more (“Because,” the director told HRH, “you would not believe how competitive they get.” “The kids?” said HRH, astonished. “No, the parents,” she said darkly. “You’re really laid back about this.”) but the director oh-so-casually pointed out that someone’s medal was strung on a gold ribbon. Apparently he’s giving the five year olds a run for their money. It’s not that he’s a conscious overachiever, he just throws himself so completely and totally into everything he does and does it with enthusiasm and energy. February was winter Olympics month at preschool, complete with preschool-geared Olympic events in which everyone participated. As HRH has a multitude of Canadian flags Liam volunteered to bring one, which meant he got to carry it in the little parade. I hope someone got pictures.

There’s a new assistant at preschool. She was helping him into his coat yesterday when he reached out and stroked her hair, saying, “You have really soft hair, like my mama’s, except hers is curly.” To which the teachers at preschool, and I when I heard it, all said, “Awwww.”

Porco Rosso was the new film he discovered this month, thanks to a deal he has going with Scott. Liam asked if we could borrow The Cat Returns from their collection, and Scott said only if he could borrow Cars and/or WALL*E and/or Ratatouille, as he and Ceri hadn’t seen them. Liam thought about it and decided they could borrow Cars and Ratatouille, but not WALL*E. Which makes sense, since it’s the newest one and he’s still a little protective of it. (Although we are personally stunned at his decision to let Cars out of the house.) Then he decided he had to go over to their house in person to effect the trade, which was fun because he ran around and around the central part of the house, and with Scott explored the little section at the top of the stairs where the boards lift right out of the floor to reveal a little hidey-hole. He also decided that he’d have to go back and watch Cars with Scott on the huge television they have set up in the basement. When we told him it was time to go he declared that he wanted to stay forever and ever, which was very sweet indeed, and quite remarkable because the cats wouldn’t have anything to do with him.

He seems to have developed a thing about food touching on his place, and sauces actually on things instead of being used as dips. And his big quirk right now is smelling things. “Can I smell it?” he’ll ask if we show him something new or put a plate of food down in front of us at the table. This applies to non-edible items as well like books, cameras, toys, clothes, pieces of paper, and so forth.

Puzzles are the current toy of obsession. He throws them together impressively quickly. He found an envelope of about six twenty-piece puzzles from a book that had gone AWOL, which had no reference pictures, and zipped through them. He also asked for black chalk the other day while drawing on his easel. HRH explained that people didn’t really use black chalk all that often, because you wouldn’t be able to see it on the chalkboard, and got a flat stare as a reply. Emo Preschooler Requires Black Chalk To Express Himself, we thought.

Books this month included yet more train books from the library, in particular an impressive pop-up one with stations and trestles and all sorts of things. And he went through all three of them plus his own Eyewitness train book and pointed out the Rocket in each of them, being very pleased to be able to match them up, too. The other awesome book discovery was Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile. Hilarious when you are on the verge of four, and so enjoyed that I’ll have to pick a copy up to own. I finally remembered that I owned the four Catwings books, so those are lined up for the next few weeks of bedtime stories because they’re the perfect balance of text and illustration, followed by the Brambly Hedge books. (In my defence, they had been moved about a year ago to a shelf which had space on it, as opposed to a shelf with other children’s books or a display shelf as they’d been kept for years.)

The new word he’s proudest of is “enormous.” Totoro is enormous! The Death Star is enormous! Our new house will be enormous! Dirigibles are enormous! If Gryff grew, he’d be enormous! The sandwich I want for dinner must be enormous! The rainforest is enormous! He’s playing with words and letters and nonsense syllables a lot, which is fun to listen to. The preschool director sent him home with five Eyewitness books and a dictionary the other day, because they didn’t have room for them any more and she knows he loves books. We may not have the room for them either, but we’ll never say no. Knowing that he loves books, loves sounds and words and illustrations, is more than enough of a pay-off. We’ll always find room for what he loves.

In Which She Rocks, With Awesomesauce

As everyone who was not me predicted, the workshop was a success.

Avalon Naturel, the meeting space in which I gave the workshop, has a wonderfully welcoming and comforting energy. I learned that the Avalon regulars are as equally comforting and welcoming. There were, to my astonishment (and, yes, initial panic) over twenty people crowded into the single room, some in chairs around the edges, some on mats on the floor. And they talked, bless them; they responded when I tossed questions and discussion topics out, for which I was heartily thankful, because nothing kills a workshop quicker than attendees who don’t respond. Respond these excellent people did; I had people talking to me throughout the break and afterwards, telling me how much they’d learned, both beginners and experienced people assuring me that I was making sense to them, giving them new ways to think about things or the opportunity to share their own techniques and ideas. I loved it.

It went so well, as a matter of fact, that less than halfway through it I was already thinking about what I could give from my existing slate of workshops for them. I’d been tentatively sketching a pregnancy workshop, but one of the co-directors told me that the Avalonians tend to be of below or beyond childbearing age/mindset so there probably wouldn’t be much response. But the other co-director in attendance caught me after most people had left and proposed co-leading a workshop around Harvest, which got us both very excited as it expanded and evolved into two different things.

So yes: A success, and the Avalonians are going to have a hard time getting rid of me. We have an informal agreement for me to show up one evening next month for a kaffeeklatsch type of thing once the hearthcraft book is out, so people can buy the book and I can sign them and we can all talk about lots of stuff instead of just what we can cover on one subject in three hours. (I sold every one of my previous books I’d brought except one, and signed dozens more people owned and brought along with them. Good grief.)

I know I always feel better after I’ve given a workshop or class, which is part of what gets me through the prep and anxiety leading up to the event. Part of that post-workshop feeling is relief, part of it is the sense that I’ve accomplished something, and part of that is coming away with what the attendees have given to me in the form of energy and interaction and appreciation. I came away from this one feeling so much better than I’d expected to feel that I amused myself. And frankly, I just sat back and let myself enjoy it for the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday afternoon was my monthly group cello lesson, which was so much fun. I love the group lessons as a rule, but this one was particularly enjoyable. Only four out of seven students were there, and we played some really fun stuff which I essentially sight-read because I hadn’t had time to play it through after my teacher gave it to me last Tuesday (last week = work + workshop insanity + brain burnout). I and my stand partner spent a lot of time laughing, which felt moderately wicked. I pulled some very nice stuff off when the less-confident people dropped out along the way, and tripped myself in a couple of particular places every single time because I hadn’t prepared the shifts. Last night after the boy got ready for bed I set up my cello and told him a little story about a moonlit barnyard at midnight, when the barn door creaks open and two eyes peek out, and then a little chicken steps into the barnyard to move one foot, then another, and then… dances! At this point I played the Chicken Reel for him, and he kept telling the story on his own. It was fun. When he was in bed I kept working on some of those nasty shifts and working out fingerings for various group pieces, and he sang along in the dark. This morning he woke up singing again, and when I went in to cuddle him he threw his arms around me and asked if I’d had fun at my cello practise. I told him I had, and asked if he liked hearing it while he was in bed. He said he did quite enthusiastically and asked what songs they had been (which resulted in a discussion about Dona Nobis Pacem and Ave Verum Corpus at much-too-early-o’clock), so maybe I’ll do it more often. Being comfortable enough to play with everyone at home here and upstairs was a definite indicator of how good a mood I was in. I actually liked the sound I was producing, too. Wonders will never cease.

The weather this weekend certainly contributed to my excellent mood. It was so mild, and even sunny! When we went out on Sunday morning to do groceries and errands we all wore spring coats with shoes or rainboots. Lovely! So easy to move around; no huge parkas to fight with getting in and out of the car, no mitts to keep track of! We even cracked the sunroof open on the way home from lunch yesterday. And while logically I know that we all woke up on Sunday at the same time we always do, to roll over and look at the clock and see the numbers 7:24 there when one’s son trots in and climbs into bed to cuddle is psychologically very uplifting. (This morning was a bit harder, of course, as we were waking up what felt like an hour earlier, but meh, it’s an acceptable trade-off.) I spent most of the weekend going about with a somewhat silly grin on my face. It really highlighted how hard things have been these past few months for me due to a variety of reasons, some health-related, some psychological, some SAD, and other stuff going on. Doing a really big grocery order and taking the boys out to lunch thanks to the workshop renumeration helped the mood, too. So did paying off some of my Visa bill.

I had such a fabulous weekend that this morning has hit a little hard (beyond the waking-up-an-hour-earlier thing). I slept awfully last night, basically passing the entire night in a twilight half-awake state, and I’m having a very physically achy and stiff day. The ibuprofen hasn’t kicked in after an hour, so I suspect I shall have to take another. It’s one of the fibro-related repercussions of having a terrific weekend. It’s moderately unjust that I have to suffer for having a good weekend the same way I suffer after a bad one, but at least I have the momentum of the good mood to carry me.

Today: Anthology, anthology, anthology! The rest of the submissions from the first round of invitees came in this weekend plus some early ones of the second round, so I have a week of solid work ahead.

Friday Morning

The boy bounced into my bed at about a quarter to seven this morning and announced that it was a Grandma day, as indeed it is. We cuddled a bit and then he said:

    SPARKY: What if someone took all the Star Wars movies in the whole world? Then we wouldn’t be able to watch them at Grandma’s and we would be very sad.

    A: We would be.

    SPARKY: And they would have taken them out of all the movie places and the schools and everything, and no one could watch them, and everyone would be very, very sad.

    A: But then you and BunBun could fly all over the world and fight them and get the Star Wars movies back, and you could give them back to everyone who was sad, and everyone would say, “Yay, Sparky and BunBun!”

    [PAUSE]

    SPARKY: Well, that would be impressive.

He was so totally humouring me. HRH and I nearly died of laughter.

I noticed last night that Nixie has become extremely thin. I know why this is: Gryffindor bolts his food and then moves to her bowl because she has a couple of mouthfuls then walks away, expecting it to be there half an hour later. We’ve begun feeding all three cats less and Gryff and Cricket have lost weight, which is a good thing, but so has Nixie, who really can’t afford it. So this morning I gave her an extra bowl of food in my office, behind a closed door, and she ploughed through it like she was starving (erm). Afterwards she came and found me to purr at me and rub against my legs and hands, then tried to entice me into my office ahead of schedule. It was like she was saying, And now we’re best friends! We’ll play, and cuddle, and later we can braid each other’s hair! When she was born she was the tiniest of the litter, and we gave her an extra feeding every day to make sure she survived; that extra bit of nurturing and bonding time was one of the reasons she evolved into being my cat. Starting that up again isn’t a hardship at all.

There is warm air outdoors, there is melting snow, there was sun for about five minutes till it got above the overcast line, work on the anthology continues apace, and I have a single two-part scene to write before the Orchestrated will officially be a complete first draft. That’s today’s goal, and then it’s out of the way for when the anthology kicks into high gear next month as more completed submissions pour in. That’s not the only reason it’s today’s goal, of course: I’m really excited about the idea of actually finishing the novel. Usually my books get stuffed into a metaphorical drawer because I can’t decide how they’re supposed to end. Actually that’s not entirely true; thinking back, over the past four years only two have done that, the Poppy book (or Creating the Muse or the GCN or whatever you might remember it being called in its vast variety of temporary names) and the Pandora book. And I think about the Pandora book a lot, trying different resolutions in my mind. Many Names got finished, Balsamic Moon was finished (albeit in a two-page summary of the final chapter), Il Maestro e le Figlie di Coro is technically a complete first draft, although I think it needs an epilogue (I’ll confirm that if and when I ever revise it). Swan Sister is ongoing, as are the non-fic twins Harpsichord Dreams and the as-of-yet-untitled cello book, although all three are hibernating at the moment.

So yes: very exciting. I suspect starting with a brief synopsis, expanding it to a detailed synopsis, then writing from that synopsis is to be thanked for the actual execution of the project. (See how I cleverly avoided the word ‘outline’ there?) I usually prefer to write blind and discover what happens as I go, but I have to say, knowing the end helped a lot on this project. There are a half-dozen places where I would have stalled otherwise.

More tea! And I must see if those scones are still edible. And I should probably put a batch of bread on to rise.