Category Archives: The Boy

Adventure

Today, the boy and I went to the library.

This may not sound like an adventure to you, but ours is a family that thrives on books and money is tight. Add to this the fact that over the past decade HRH and I have lived near only one excellent library for three years (during which my reading time was otherwise occupied), and that in the past I’ve repeatedly had the irritating experience of being interested in reading the type of books that libraries rarely carry, so while having a library card is a Good Idea joining this one was never a must-do thing. I’ve wondered about our local library a few times over the past three years but for whatever reason never got around to checking it out (no pun intended). Today, however, I planned the outing for us as a diversion for the boy and a book run for new reading material for me.

The first thing we did was get library cards, which involved having our pictures taken and printed on hard plastic passes. The boy has one of his very own, which he insisted on carrying around in his hand until I persuaded him to put it in his back pocket, just like Mama. That lasted all of ten minutes before he pulled it out and dropped it into the basket he was carrying around for my books. He was very helpful once he had darted around the adult section as his whim took him, exploring everywhere. I had a list of books to pull (hurrah for on-line catalogues!) that I filled before taking him by the hand and leading him into the children’s section. He was thrilled with the ladybug stools and the low tables with paintings on them, the kid-made dollhouses displayed on top of the stacks, and the bins of picture books that he rifled through enthusiastically. Then I took him to the stacks and we talked about how libraries shelved their books by subject, stopping at the transportation section. He pulled several books on cars and trains out and sat on the floor going through them, eventually choosing one to bring home. He placed it very proudly in the basket on top of the Leo Lionni omnibus, an orchestra book, and a Tonka trucks book. I sat him on the check-out counter so he could see the woman scan his card and then each book, and print out the slip identifying the books and their due date. It was all very, very exciting. I wish I could find the kid-sized I Can Read bookbag I used to have so he can carry his own books next time. I’ll sew him one for his birthday, one with a pocket for his card.

Personally, I was impressed at the selection of English books in both the adult and children’s sections. I didn’t get a chance to see the adult non-fiction sections but I’ve already searched a handful of non-fic titles I want and found about three of the five. I took out six books, two of them Laurie R. King mysteries that I haven’t yet found in stock in a bookstore (why does no one carry backlist?), two of them novels that I know I’ll read once and never again, one a YA fantasy, and I can’t remember the other one. Maybe there were only five. I intend to put holds on the others I want too. So all in all I think I saved myself about eighty dollars today, and I have reading material for the next week.

I am smug, and very satisfied. And I am now going to return to reading Austenland by Shannon Hale.

Friday Photos and The State Of The Me

I have had a really horrendously bad past couple of days. There have been good parts, but my patience has been fraying. Much of it has to do with people being oblivious to others around them, or downright stupid. Much of it happens in the car: people don’t understand how to turn into the proper lane at an intersection, what yield means, how to take turns merging, that parking a vehicle in the middle of a street blocks traffic, or what a full stop means. (I had to deal with three separate incidents today alone of people coasting through stop signs and yelling at me when I pulled away from my stop sign. I’m sorry, I was expecting you to, you know, stop.) Phone calls to wrong numbers, and people ringing my doorbell (for me or the wrong address) when I’m trying to get myself into a better headspace or to get things done. All the idiocy on top of the miserableness I’ve been feeling is wearing me down, so things like going to the store today to pick up a DVD to send out as a gift and finding it out of stock garners a much more emotional response than it ought to. The plans to burn mix CDs for people today has also obviously been shot. So what I’m fighting moves closer and closer to rage, which is really not what I want to be feeling, thanks.

As if things aren’t bad enough, it looks like my desktop computer is now officially dead. And of course today was the day I had scheduled backing up the new files I’d added in the past three weeks. Can I afford the new computer right now? No. I’m using the laptop out of necessity and I feel cramped. At least having ninety percent of my music on the external hard drive means I can plug it into the laptop and listen. If I get tired of the tinny sound I can plug the speakers into it as well.

I did have a fabulous rehearsal on Wednesday night. I tried a new bow hold (thank you Christopher Bunting) and it automatically forced me to hold the right arm in that more balletic curve I’d been trying for to affect how I draw the bow. We got the new music for the My Fair Lady and Sound of Music medleys, and after really working the overture and playing through the delightful (and not really Mozart’s) Symphony no. 3, we did most of the SoM and had a blast. I’ve been reading through Position Pieces for Cello by Rick Mooney as well, and the geography quizzes are brilliant. If your second finger is on D on the A string, what note would your fourth finger play? The first? What would the fourth finger play on the D string if you crossed to it? It may be obvious, but it’s just what I need to help positions sink in. I should have bought both volumes.

Liam and I went out to Greene Avenue in Westmount to shop for a birthday gift for a friend of his yesterday and had a lovely time, except for the bits where he wanted to be carried and I couldn’t do it which resulted in whining or crying, but we got past it all. We had custody of the baby squirrels yesterday as well, to allow Scarlet the opportunity to finish her paper (and yay to Scarlet for finishing it!), and he was a tremendous help, holding the white one on his lap after I’d fed her so that I could feed the grey one, then letting both of them curl up in his lap to doze while I refilled their hot water bottle and cleaned out the cage. Both HRH and I feel this is a wonderful experience for him, teaching him about the delicacy of baby animals as well as responsibility and cause and effect. It’s also a valuable opportunity to teach him the difference between wild animals and domestic ones.

It is Friday, so here are your photos. There are others up on the Flickr photostream.

Weekend Roundup

The weather was beautiful, which went a long way towards offsetting how ill I felt over the weekend. Going downtown on Friday really messed with my energy levels and I paid for it. This is one of the big reasons why I was reluctant to commit to a full-time in-house job: the commute alone would kill me, thanks to the FMS. And if I needed proof to demonstrate how much the medication I’m taking for it has been helping, skipping a night because my throat thing was making sleeping difficult what with the dry scratchy feeling I couldn’t shake no matter how much water or honeyed tea I drank and throat lozenges I sucked, because the meds dry me out and made the whole throat thing worse at night, illustrated precisely how much they take the edge off the pain. We had to cancel a dinner on Saturday because both Liam and I were sick, and HRH was at the tail end of a stomach thing. Then because I was still too wiped out we passed on the public Beltane ritual on Sunday as well. I slept badly all weekend too, but that’s a given when I have bad FMS days now.

Instead we took things nice and easy over the two days. I spent a lot of the weekend just kind of sitting down, mainly reading Christopher Bunting’s Essays on the Art of ‘Cello Playing Vol. 1 (which is brilliant) and Kim Harrison’s The Outlaw Demon Wails (which is also excellent, moving things in the series along, further developing characters and relationships, and addressing some very interesting issues) while HRH and the boy enthusiastically overhauled the garden and prepped it for planting vegetables and whatever new flowers we decide to add. Late Saturday afternoon we meandered down to Dorval for some ice cream at Wild Willy’s. Sunday we picked up grass seed and vegetable seeds in the morning, HRH laid the grass seed and raked in new earth with it, and when Liam woke up from his nap we packed the wagon with water bottles and an apple and ambled to the park so he could play. He is a mad slide fanatic. HRH fielded him as he threw himself down various slides while I sat in the sun and watched. When the boy had reached the clumsy stage from all the activity we trundled to the corner store to buy Freezies and ate them on the way home. I picked three wild violets just around the corner and drank in the sweetness the rest of the way to the house. The side garden along the path to the backyard is a windy happiness of tulips and daffodils too, which makes me very pleased.

Orphaned squirrel update: There was a second one rescued the day after the white one was brought inside. The new baby is a more usual grey colour. The white one’s eyes opened on Saturday (lovely brown eyes, so it’s not an albino) and the grey one’s opened on Sunday. They are both girls, and the white one does seem stronger than the grey. They both suck lots of formula from the syringe, though, and curl up so sweetly in a hand or under the chin once they’re done. They are remarkably good-natured and behave much like gerbils do. At the moment they’re about the size of a large gerbil, too, fitting very securely in the palm of my cupped hand. Liam has held them and petted them very carefully, has rubbed them gently against his cheek, and has decided that the white one is his favourite. He asked to sleep with it the other night and we explained that it was very very tiny and he might roll over on it and squish it. I’ve posted three of the pictures at Flickr taken last Thursday evening when we first found the white baby on the ground. I don’t have pictures of the little grey one yet, as when I’m with them now I’m usually handling them.

It’s cool and rainy today, which is a good thing because the gardens all needed a good soaking.

The Hat Drama: Resolution

It’s now been a day and a bit since the boy lost his hat. He has asked us dozens of times what happened to it, not because he doesn’t remember, but because he’s making it sure it all happened and learning the story by heart. After yesterday’s nap, we have decided that ducks are going to use it to make a nest.

Last night at the dinner table he said, “My hat fell in the water.”

“Yes, it did.”

“The ducks are going to make a nest in it.”

“That’s right.”

“And they will have sweet dreams in it.”

That part was new, and all his own. HRH and I exchanged startled but touched glances and agreed that yes, any duck who slept in a nest made from his hat would have very sweet dreams indeed. The boy is very satisfied with this, and we are, too. He’s a good-hearted kid.

Tuesday So Far

An excellent morning! It’s sunny and there’s absolutely no wind, so it feels much warmer than the thermometer says it is. Sparky and I spent two hours at the Ecomuseum this morning, stomping in puddles and through mud. The original and earnest plan was to do it on foot, but right out of the car he asked to be carried. Uh-hunh; I don’t think so. So I pulled the handy-dandy Emergency Umbrella Stroller out of the trunk, which delighted him because he decided he wanted to push it. This would have been fine if the paths hadn’t been mud and water, and if he knew what a straight line was, and if he didn’t have that I-am-three-and-I-can-do-it-MYSELF streak flaring up that refused to allow me to help steer the thing.

Anyway.

There were a couple of class groups and a handful of families there at the same time, but the compound is big enough that we only ran into them once or twice. We saw an Arctic fox, and a pine marten doing intense laps in his enclosure, and deer, and crows, and the ravens flying around their enclosure (wow). Then we went to see the ducks in the waterfowl pond.

And there it was that disaster struck. See that faded green hat in the post icon? It is now at the bottom of the duck pond. Yes, Sparky leaned over the railing a little too far and suddenly wailed; his hat had fallen off. I grabbed for a shovel and threw myself down on my stomach and tried to hook it but it was just out of reach. Let me tell you, the wails and the tears and the running of the nose turned it into a Titanic-class tragedy. I tried to reach it from the next edge but there was no way. So I soothed him as best I could, but he didn’t want to leave it behind. I suggested going on to see the foxes and the wolves, and checking back later to see if the hat had drifted to shore. “Maybe the ducks will bring it to the edge of the pond,” I said, so he pressed his face against the railing and hollered, “PLEASE DUCKS, BRING MY HAT!” Finally he agreed to continue along, but he wanted to be carried so I managed the stairs up to the next level with him on one hip leaning his tear-stained cheek against my shoulder, and hauling the stroller up with the other hand. Then he wanted to sit in the stroller (aha, finally) and didn’t want to get out to see the animals, but complained that he couldn’t see. And the entire time he was saying, “Where is my hat? Is it in the water? It fell off? We will ask for help when we get back.”

The bears were out for the first time this spring, and we saw all three of them. And we spent about half an hour watching the river otters from both the top level and the window looking into their tank. There were more tears when I finally said that we had to keep going, and after a quarter-hour of resistance he climbed into the stroller on his own and waited for me to catch up and push him along. We took a side trip to check the duck pond but the hat was nowhere in sight; it had sunk, as I had expected when I saw it taking on water as it made its initial progress across the pond. There was no point in asking the staff to pick it up for us. So we agreed that he could wear his Thomas the Tank Engine hat from now on, and we’d keep our eye out for a new cap too. Then we saw the owls, and then we went inside and had our peanut butter sandwich while watching the birds in the solarium.

The car was nice and warm from the sun; I took off both our jackets. He almost fell asleep on the way home, but I kept him up with raucous Muppet songs. We finished lunch while watching the DVD disc of the new They Might Be Giants album Here Come the 123s, and now it is nap time. (This is a big improvement over last Tuesday, the day upon which there was no nap.)

Good day so far, with one bad bit. After the nap, I think we’ll bring out the home-made play dough again and make another army of Totoros. Or maybe the finger paint. [ED. NOTE: It ended up being making cupcakes and watching the TMBG DVD again instead, then playing in the backyard till we decided to take the wagon to the bus stop to meet HRH when he came home from work.]

A selection of photos from the Ecomuseum are up at Flickr. And now, bonus pictures: We have crocus-age!

Thirty-Four Months Old!

It’s been a long winter, but we’re finally free of winter coats and boots and gear, and no one is happier than Liam (unless it’s HRH and I). He’s so much easier to get in and out of the car now, and handles it very nicely all on his own again now that he’s unencumbered, which is a relief for us. Now the next goal is getting the 40lbs+ seat with flat edges, so in and out is even easier all round.

In the wake of the metres of snow, we have found all sorts of things. He has been cheerfully stomping and shovelling the snowbanks in the backyard with HRH to break them up and help them melt. In so doing he also found his hockey sticks and the whiffle ball, and has been batting them enthusiastically around the yard. Every day when we go out we have to check on the progress of the crocuses coming up in the front garden, and he announces with great energy that “Mama, I’m watching the flowers grow!” He hugs the big maple tree that divides our front yard from the neighbour’s, and usually kisses it too. We saw a robin the other day (“Look, Mama, a robin bird!”) and he asked what it was doing. “I think he’s looking for little twigs to build a nest,” I said. “He’s building a nest?” he said, very interested. “To sleep in?” And then we had to go through all sorts of animals and identify their beds and habitats. I love that he asks so many questions.

With the weather so much milder we’ve been outside a lot more, and the wagon is seeing use again, as well as the new trike. Unfortunately we’ve discovered that the new trike is a bit stiff, which may be why it was in the second-hand shop. Oiling it hasn’t made a difference. I think it has to do with the plastic front fork and the metal hub not playing well together. We’ll look for grommets to line the holes in the fork, and put blocks on the pedals; maybe that will help Liam put more power into pedalling to overcome the stiffness. In the meantime he walks it and pushes it around the backyard quite happily. When we went out to play the first weekend the driveway was clear the passel of boys next door were out too. The eldest, an adolescent, is a really excellent on a skateboard, and his little five year old twin brothers have their own tiny boards they can zoom around on too. Well,Liam saw one of these and abandoned the trike to the three year old brother and went right for a loose board. He kept trying to stand on it, so I went over and held his hands and showed him how to push with one foot and balance on the other. Does anyone know how to skateboard, and would be willing to teach him in a couple of years if he’s still this enthralled? HRH’s knees would pop off and walk away in protest, and the only time I’ve been on a board was in a school hallway outside the chem lab in grade ten; my lips are sealed, and I don’t think there’s anyone else left who can tell the tale.

We’ve been trying to teach him knock-knock jokes, because he’ll say “Knock-knock!” to get us to pull aside a curtain or blanket. Last weekend he was in the laundry basket (don’t ask) with a blanket over his head like a little pot pie, and HRH and I were sprawled across the bed. “Knock-knock,” he said to get us to pull the blanket away so he could pop out. “Who’s there?” I said instead. “Liam,” he said carefully after a moment. “It’s me,” he added, in case I needed reminding. “No, no, Liam; when someone says ‘Knock-knock’ you say ‘Who’s there?'” I said, and fed him the line: “Knock-knock!” “It’s Liam!” he said, throwing off the blanket with a grin. So we kept at it, and he kept looking at us as if we were crazy. Finally, when I said “Knock-knock!” he looked at me seriously and said, “It’s Liam, I’m very pleased to meet you,” and took the hand that I was dangling over the edge of the bed and shook it politely. We howled until we cried. He grinned and looked back and forth between us, but he had no idea why it was funny. Not that it mattered; he threw himself on top of us in the bed anyhow and laughed along.

Playtime has become quite complicated. His two main toys are his set of metal cars, and his wooden train set. The cars and train have long conversations among themselves, and go through small crises that they solve. It’s very interesting to listen to him. He actively tells us stories at night now, too, instead of us leading him along. It’s a wonderful feeling to walk up the street with him after a day with the caregiver and ask, “So did you have a good day? What did you do?” and listen to him chatter on about what he did, and to understand it all.

Last week we were watching Kids’ CBC and there was a host interstitial about the letter O. Liam said, “Oh, the letter O!” and dashed out of the room. This is not unusual; he is a very busy boy. What was different about this time was that he came running back in saying, “Here, Mama, the letter O!” and handed me the red magnetic letter O from the fridge. I nearly turned cartwheels, but settled for praising him, giving him high fives, and hugging him fiercely. We regularly hear him count to twenty (the numbers fourteen and sixteen optional). Since then he’s been asking “What’s that’s name? (Translation: What is the name for that object?) What’s at the front of that name? (Translation: What letter does it begin with)?” When I tell him I hand him the magnetic letter if I can, because drawing on a sheet of paper doesn’t satisfy him. He knows how to say certain alphabet sequences when given a letter to start from, but not others without their context.

Ceri and Scott brought us all presents last weekend, and he got a book on knights. He opened it and said, “Thank you! I have something for you, too.” And he reached out and took the (empty) gift bag that was behind him, and handed it to Ceri. It was so terribly sweet, even if all that was in it was tissue paper; it had held HRH’s video game, but Liam hadn’t been in the room to see him open it. It was very touching to see him want to give a present to someone else because they’d given him one. In general he’s very polite, although we’re still working on sitting at the table while the parental units finish their meals (or most of them, anyway). Sharing is consistently getting better and better, as is helping to clean up, now that he more clearly understands the concept of hurting other people’s feelings by his behaviour.

Gryff still sleeps outside his door at night and during naps, and when Liam wakes up some times he lies down on his side of the door and plays with Gryff under it, little fingers and paws darting back and forth. The other day he found Hammy, the old cat toy that had been Gulliver’s special toy. Hammy is the terribly imaginative name we gave to the stuffed hamster with a motor in it; when you pull a string it vibrates. HRH had it on a shelf along with Gully’s old collar. Liam saw it and wanted to hold it, and the moment he discovered the pull string Gryff was there too, grabbing for it. The two of them rolled around on the bed together playing with it, and HRH said that yes, Liam could give it to Gryff to play with. “I think Gully would like that,” he said, watch the two of them laugh and romp with it. Bringing Gryffindor home so Liam could have a cat to play with was one of the best decisions we’ve made for Liam. (I am assuming it’s been a good thing for Gryff too, and judging from the amount of purring that goes on he’s very okay with it all.)

His local grandparents came to stay with him so HRH could attend my last concert, and it was really nice not to have to rush or try to plan out complicated car scheduling. When HRH and I were getting ready to go he looked up at me and said, “Where are you going?” “I’m going to my concert,” I said. “Mama is playing her cello for lots of people tonight.” “Oh, you’re going to your concert? Can I come?” And it felt so good to say, “Next time, yes. This summer you can come watch Mama play her cello in a big, big church. And then we can see fireworks.” On Sunday morning I suggested that we play our cellos and he was all for it. He set himself up very well and started playing his baby cello, and I quietly brought out my music stand. “Why do you have that, Mama?” he said, as he’d never seen me use it before. I explained what it was and what it was used for, and then I started playing ‘Sampo’, the opening title song from the Totoro soundtrack (reading it in treble clef, thank you very much, go me). He looked up right away and said, “Mama, that is Totoro music! You’re playing Totoro on your cello!” It was very gratifying to have him actually recognise what I was playing, and to see him so happy about it. I think I am now officially the coolest mom on the block because I can play Totoro music (thank you, Joe Hisaishi, for making your themes easy). He didn’t even let me get to ‘Kaze no Torimichi’ or ‘Tonari no Totoro’, though; he ran off to bang on the bathroom door and tell his father, who was trying to shower, what I was doing.

I am so thankful to have such a happy and enthusiastic boy. Life is a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to having this book done with for a while, so we can go back to spending more time together. Besides, we only have two months in which to plan the three year old birthday party. I’m thinking that this one’s going to have to be split into two: one for the kids, because they’re all old enough now to do the party thing, and one for the adults at a different time to celebrate the awesome parents he has.

Other Liam posts this month:

– a hero shot of Liam
– Liam discovers the metronome
– Liam’s new tricycle!
– and the 34-month the teaser post