Sometimes this child is so punk it is unreal. Check out the sneer.
Of course, the kitten next to him, the cartoon sippy cup, and the Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirt do lessen the effect somewhat. (Thanks for the photo, Pdaughter!)
Reports on a most excellent weekend will follow later. I need to get back to work.
We’re all stretched a little thin here. HRH has injured his right wrist somehow and can’t lift things or grab things; he was sent home from work on Friday. The humidity, courtesy of a lovely rain/stormy thing that has happened on and off for the past 36 hours, makes everyone feel like they’re suffocating. Sparky is all right for a while then turns all Toddler Jekyll on us without warning. I have hit the phase I hit every couple of years where I absolutely cannot stand my house and must change it in some way. I feel as if there’s nowhere I can go to relax in my own home, which is problematic. The living room and bedroom make me tense, and my office is a workspace with no room for any other furniture, otherwise I’d try to put a reading chair in it. We can’t afford a new living room sofa and chair, of course, but these ones are now past well-used in a colour that has never thrilled me, and HRH and I can’t agree on slipcovers. (Come to think of it, the boy is the only one who has new furniture in his room. The only new pieces of furniture we’ve ever bought are bookcases, the fridge, the living room carpet, and the kitchen table.) The television is having major issues with the visual display on the screen and it appears to be dying, another costly problem we’re reminded of every time it’s turned on for a movie or to watch the news. I live and work at home, and if I don’t like being there, well, it creates tension in my brain and body. Not a good thing. It’s odd that I can put up with objects that I don’t enjoy for a long time, then suddenly, as if a switch is thrown, I’ve had enough and things have to change or I will go mad.
Also, no matter how many times I wash the kitchen floor, it remains sticky. Little things like this are dangerous to my temper.
But there is freshly baked bread as of an hour ago, of which I have eaten a quarter-loaf already.
I put the new strings on the viola Thursday night (I so want to say ‘I restrang the viola’), and I think the previous set of strings were violin strings. (Whoever owned this before I picked it up knew nothing about stringed instruments.) My trip to the easily-reached luthier reaffirmed that I don’t like them much; no matter who talks to me they seem to think I know nothing about the instruments I play or consider any of the research I’ve done ahead of time of use or import. Telling me you’re giving me forty percent off the list price of strings and making it seem like a huge favour when I know every luthier does it impresses me not a bit, and in fact makes me think you’re condescending to me. Also, if I wanted to spend a hundred dollars on a bow, it would be put towards one for me and not one for my son to mess around with. I’ll be going back to Archambault to pick up one of the cheap-quality ones for $37, thanks.
(Note to self: just stop trying to like them, okay? Give up. Use your regular luthier, even if it’s further out of the way via public transport and has no parking, and be thankful.)
We went out this morning to Valois, where I made a quick stop into the Bramble House for dolly mixture and Walnut Whips. HRH and Liam hung out at the train station and watched four long freight trains go by, up close and very loud. This thrilled Liam beyond belief because we took him to the Montreal train museum last Sunday and he has asked to go see “the big trains” every day since. I poked about the secondhand bookstore in Valois while HRH and the boy relaxed on the back bumper of the car with the hatch up at the station. It was a nice morning out.
The second batch of ratatouille on Thursday wasn’t as good as the first. I baked the first for a half-hour longer than the recipe indicated, which mellowed the vegetables out more, I think. The second batch was cooked for exactly the specified time, and the veggies were crunchy but not as sweet.
Read Christopher Priest’s The Glamour in its entirety on Thursday. Good, but not as good as his Extremes. I finally finished Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora which was good, but took me a long time to settle into. The style of storytelling wasn’t exactly easy, but the story was interesting enough that I stuck with it to accustom myself to the style. Once I had, it was enjoyable enough that I found myself chuckling now and again.
The boy just woke up early from his nap, crying as he does sometimes when he wakes up and wants to still be asleep. I slipped into his room and wrapped him in his blanket, picked him up, and carried him to the chair where we snuggled for about five minutes until he fell asleep again. I sat there in the dark with his long rangy preschool-like body across my lap, his head on my shoulder and his eyes closed, his breathing a bit snuffly, and I wondered where the past two years had gone. I have sat with him in that chair so often, more so when he was younger. There is a certain peace that descends when you hold your sleeping child. Part of my mind frantically tells me to make the most of this time by putting him down and getting stuff done, while the rest (thankfully) ignores it and rests in the moment, feeling that peace, the weight of the warm body, the soft damp curls on the head, the fists that twitch randomly in sleep, that snuffly post-cry breathing, the legs that dangle off the side of my lap. I’m having trouble with life in general these days, so moments like this give me the still time I need for both my mind and my spirit.
Once he’s awake (again, and at the proper time), we’re off to a barbecue with friends this afternoon. I’m looking forward to it.
SCENE: After the morning ablutions, SPARKY and MAMA are back in the boy’s room, getting him dressed. SPARKY has flopped down on the floor, lying limply, making it difficult for MAMA to get his jeans on him. He pulls a large book over to him and drags it up onto his chest. Then he inches it up over his face.
SPARKY: Where’s Liam?
[MAMA looks at him. She knows darn well where SPARKY is: lying on the floor holding a book over his face. Then she gets it.]
MAMA: I don’t know! Where’s Liam? Where did he go?
[MAMA continues to wrestle a pair of pants onto the boy.]
MAMA: Is he… under the bed?
SPARKY: [very quietly under his breath, as if he were talking to himself; also with a hint of amusement in his voice, because he knows something MAMA doesn’t know] Nooooo.
MAMA: Is he… under the chair?
SPARKY: [as before] Nooooo.
MAMA: Is he… in the cupboard?
SPARKY: [as before] Nooooo.
MAMA: Where is he?
SPARKY: [lowers the book just enough to peep over the top, eyes merry]
MAMA: There he is!
[SPARKY giggles. Then he puts the book aside and reaches up, placing a hand firmly over MAMA’s eyes — or, rather, the bridge of her nose, because the hand isn’t big enough to cover both her eyes.]
SPARKY: Where’s Mama?
(This has been repeated with toys… toddler fingers covering the eyes of Thomas the Tank Engine, for example, followed by Liam looking at me with eyebrows raised and the free hand palm-up in the air making a ‘who knows?’ gesture, asking, “Where’s Thomas?“. It’s a variation of the old peek-a-boo game, this time with words, and it amuses me so much. I love how it still centres around the eyes and being able to see them, only in a different way: now if you hide someone else’s eyes, they become invisible instead.)
I was just looking at some pictures of our weekend in Oakville, and I forgot to record that Liam discovered salmon sashimi.
Yeah. The kid who generally isn’t interested in meat or fish eats raw salmon like it’s going out of style. Also, he will eat chicken bites that have been marinated in sake and garlic. Go figure.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to us that we have a child instead of a baby, a child who can hold conversations, communicate abstract concepts, and with whom we can negotiate instead of legislate.
Among his favourite books these days are My Working Mom, Seuss’s In a People House (which he can read almost all of, so long as a parent supplies some of the connecting text), and Fish Wish. He reads the action depicted in pictures, describing what’s happening, often with snatches of actual story text interspersed. Lately he’s taken to running his finger along underneath certain words and saying the word itself. He’s not actually reading it, although it’s the first step: he’s recognising that these letters in this sequence means a particular word. Words that are mostly similar, such as ‘fish’ and ‘wish’, fascinate him. Compound words like ‘starfish’ and ‘jellyfish’ are very interesting as well.
His current favourite film is The Incredibles, although Lilo & Stitch is a close second. On Saturday mornings we sometimes allow him to watch Kids’ CBC on TV, so he has discovered and loves Arthur (which is fun because HRH worked on the show), enjoys Lunar Jim, and gets up and dances to the Doodlebops.
Among the new words in his vocabulary are enormous, cheeseburger, we, I, burgundy, too and also, sea anemone, trailer, whatever, Benjamin (as in Peter Rabbit’s cousin), and “yes, Mother” (a direct quote from the animated Tom Kitten story). If you ask him if he’d like something, he pauses for a moment then says “Ahhhhh…” as if he’s considering it, followed by a perky “okay” or “no”. ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ are used nine out of ten times, and without prompting (including when he and his younger cousin were racing around and around his grandparents’ house and he accidentally ran into a chair: he bounced, blinked, said “I sorry!” and kept on going). If we get in the car he asks, “Listen to Cars music too, now, please, again?” Sometimes we say sure, and other times we say that we need to take turns when we’re in the car and Mama or Dada wants to listen to something else for a change.
In his world, every computer is connected to the Pixar website and can immediately play Pixar trailers. Except Grandad’s computer; it shows plane and train pictures instead.
He’s taken to going into the pantry and surveying what’s available before requesting what he wants for breakfast. Lately oatmeal with added raisins and a swirl of maple syrup is his thing, spurred early this week by seeing the new bag of oatmeal on the shelf. (He asked for the raisins with it; I offered the syrup.) He spoons the stuff up with great gusto and eats it in no time flat, only asking for parental help to chase the last bits of oatmeal around the edges of the bowl. At his grandparents’ house he fell in love with organic kamut flakes, and I can’t blame him: they’re sweeter and crispier than regular cornflakes. After warning him away from the green tomatoes in the back garden and waiting impatiently for them to ripen, I gave him half a red cherry tomato this week and he spit it back out again. Blueberries may be the most awesome part of August; peaches, not so much. I made homemade cherry popsicles and he loves them. Sauteed mushrooms over pasta with freshly grated cheese tossed with a bit of butter is the best meal ever. He has definitely discovered doughnuts, and they are the food of the gods. Chocolate milk is a huge treat when we’re out. He drinks from a regular glass at the table, and only uses his booster seat when he’s in a particularly active mood and we need him to sit in one place for a bit.
He asks for crayons by specific colour. Circles are his newest favourite thing to draw. When he colours in an outline drawn by one of us or in a colouring book he no longer scribbles randomly: he colours very specific portions of the image. Red may be his favourite colour, followed closely by blue, if the frequency of the request for a crayon of that colour is any indication.
When he leaves somewhere he says goodbye to everything he can see (and can’t see), including ‘up’ and ‘in’ and ‘out’. He played in a big pool for the first time this month with his caregiver, and after resisting it he fell in love with it. He loves to play soccer and kicks the ball around the yard, and he likes flopping over a swing on his stomach to swing back and forth while staring at the grass. Lying on our stomachs and watching ants is still a great way to spend twenty minutes or so. He’s so good at walking while holding someone’s hand now that we can walk through stores instead of locking him in a stroller or a shopping cart.
We appear to be raising a small geek (which will come as no surprise to most, I’m sure). Not only can he recognise Superman and Spiderman along with their associated logos, he appears to have absorbed the Doctor Who revival as well. This will amuse PDaughter:
GRANDMA: [speaking of her sister] … so I made her go see the doctor
LIAM: The Doctor!
GRANDMA: Yes, Liam. Do you like your doctor?
LIAM: The Doctor! Sonic!
(As in, a sonic screwdriver. The one used by Doctor Who. Yeah. Grandma was mildly baffled.)
He “sings” along to songs on movie soundtracks, echoing repeated or random phrases in the song, and inserting movie dialogue at the appropriate places. When he hears tracks from a film score he can describe what’s going on in the film at that time, making him the only person I know who can visualise and identify musical cues better than I can.
He wears size 3T shirts, 2T pants, size 5 diapers, and size 3/4T pullups. Toilet training is going so well that I bought him his first set of underwear last week, which he wears with great pride and excitement in the late afternoons and evenings. He’s barely fitting into his size 6 1/2 shoes, and has worn through the toes of his racecar sneakers. Good thing we have a pair of size 7 sneakers in the wings.
Maybe it’s because our friends all have bright kids who are being raised in a similar fashion, but to me Liam doesn’t seem any different from them developmentally. And yet I’m told by people who work with kids not associated with our circle of friends that Liam is unlike other children his age. Whatever. He’s Liam to us. He is normal for who he is. We read to him; we communicate basic values like responsibility and sharing and turns and respect and courtesy; we insist on a regular early bedtime, naps, and toothbrushing; we share time with him and ask questions and talk to him. And if that makes him unlike the average kid, then I don’t know that it’s the kid in question who’s different, or the parents.
This is what happens when I am not online for any more than two brief moments for four days running: I sum things up in a very long post.
The boy stayed home with me yesterday because he had the developings of a nasty chest cold. He was fine other than the occasional chesty cough that didn’t disturb his nap or sleep, so we dosed him with Triaminic and it was pretty much gone by this morning. We had a great day together, though, especially since it stormed all morning and HRH came home.
We had another terrific weekend, with lots of family involved. The weather was beautiful, sunny and not humid at all. We took advantage of it by driving out to Finnegan’s Market in Hudson on the Saturday morning, and going to the Highland Games on Sunday. At both we met the Preston–Leblancs (the former unplanned, the latter a-purpose!), and Liam was in absolute heaven spending time with his godsister, whom he adores with every fibre of his being. At the market he asked if he could get out of the stroller and hold her hand, and after ascertaining if this was all right with her we set him free. He calls holding hands “pulling so-and-so’s hand”, and he’s not far off because when he moves he runs and ends up literally pulling the hand of whomever he’s walking with. The two of them trotted around the market together looking at various things, and she was wonderful with him, reminding him not to touch certain things and keeping him within certain boundaries. He was heartbroken when it was time for her to go home, and his tears upset her so much that she asked to pat his back to help make him feel better. When he saw her at the Highland Games the next morning he was thrilled and they got to run around together again, the boy heading around the track with great determination and a huge grin as he gripped her capable five-year-old hand. She introduced him to the concept of inflatable playgrounds and bounced around with him to his incredulous delight (“Liam bouncy-bouncy!” he chortled over and over). 
He clapped and danced like a mad thing to the pipers practising near one of our shady sit-down spots, was very impressed by the snare drummers, didn’t jump at all this year when the cannon went off to open the games (“Big BIG bang!” he informed the people around us, however), applauded the massed bands a lot, and entertained the masses by dancing madly to Kitchen Party as they did a sound check and warm up in the beer tent. He really is the best kind of audience: not only did he dance with great vigour and glee, he applauded every time they stopped (which was frequent, as it was sound check after all). Now that I’ve found the Bramble House I don’t need to stock up on the UK candy and foods available for sale at the games, and since I can’t wear silver any more except for short periods of time there’s no point in looking at the jewellery either, so the only stall I look for among the vendors is the one that sells meat pies. And as we were there so early this year they actually still had them in stock and there was no lineup, so I finally got to eat one! It was tempting to buy extra and freeze them, but we really didn’t have the money to do it.
This is the second and last time he wore the tiny kilt my maternal grandfather brought back for me from Edinburgh when I was a baby; it was a just-fit this year and will be too small for him this time next year. (I am assuming this based on the insane rate at which he grows. We may all yet be surprised, I suppose.)
This year we went early in the morning and ended our visit with the massed bands, which was an excellent plan and we’ll do it again next year. It avoids the really hot part of the day and the crowds that accumulate later. Usually we begin our day with the massed bands at the opening ceremony around noon, but with Liam’s strict nap schedule that wasn’t feasible this year. Even holding out till the opening ceremonies at twelve-thirty was pushing it, but he had enough to keep him distracted and busy (see above re. the dancing in the beer tent!). He fell asleep in the car on the way home around one-thirty and we transferred him to bed without mishap. After he woke up we headed out to see the local grandparents who had just returned from a two-week trip to Cape Breton (“Presents!” exclaimed the boy upon seeing the gifts awaiting us, although he was much more interested in the Mega Bloks crane than the scotch and the stained glass and the pretty little earrings we got). We were fed delicious steaks and salads and sent home with leftovers.
After Liam’s nap on Saturday afternoon we went out and picked up Eva at the music store (“Music store?” said Liam, perking up as he remembered the trip two days earlier. “Pulling Mama’s hand to the music store?”). She has lovely new flatwound strings (thirty-four dollars; I laughed and laughed and laughed), a strap (finally! — although I have to cinch it as small as possible), and a basic gig bag with lots of pocketses (also thirty-four dollars, at which price I also giggled madly, because this stuff is blessedly cheap compared to my cello outfitting). I also have two picks with which to experiment. I didn’t go into the whole suggestion of alternate tuning right off the bat, because over the past couple of weeks as I play it I’ve realized that the basic tuning enables certain playing patterns, which while irritating to stretch and shift and play on the cello are in fact stunningly easy to play on the bass. There has been a lot of “Ohhhhhh, I get it” happening as I work through chord sequences.
I’ve been sleeping better (all hail herbal insomnia pills!), but I’m still struggling with what feels like unfounded frustration and the occasional shimmering rage that pops up with no discernible trigger. This disturbs me, particularly since I’m extremely not prone to rage, and I’ve been trying to work it all out. The sleep and lovely weekend helped, but I’m feeling cautious, and really, there’s nothing that puts a damper on relaxing or just trying to do everyday stuff like feeling as if you’re being stalked by something like rage. I’ve been feeling uninspired by the August Writing project and have been writing a few sentences longhand here and there, but it feels mechanical and I don’t like not enjoying writing. I think what I need is a vacation, a real one, not just driving out of town to see family for a few days, because while that is enjoyable it is not relaxing. The problem with any vacation is, as t! pointed out to me once, you don’t get away from yourself, which is part of my problem I think.
I did get to bill for both projects I worked on in July, which was very pleasant and will no doubt go far towards alleviating some of the frustration (because finances are always frustrating, particularly when one has friends complaining about not being happy with things we would love to have and can’t). I’m hoping the first arrives before we leave for Toronto this weekend.
Cats woke me up at four AM by knocking over an empty glass in another room. I got up four times in the next half hour to handle various cat issues. I gave up trying to fall asleep again and have been working since five.
We had a wonderful weekend! Thank you to everyone who shared it with us in some way or another. Not only did we pick up groceries (very necessary) and really really really clean the house (everything except washing floors and windows, including laundry and mowing the lawn and gardening, although by Sunday the bathroom was dirty again, possibly because of the latter two tasks), but Saturday I went on a lovely UK-foodstuffs-import recon and purchasing jaunt with Pdaughter (no Penguin bars in stock at our newly-discovered Bramble House, alas, but I have a packet of real dolly mixtures and Jacob’s club bars and Fry’s chocolate tablets, joy!), and then we had a visit with Ceri and Scott (who have a stunning new car, rendering us victims of new-car envy, and they also spoiled the boy by bringing him a Cars puzzle; “Picture Lightning and Mater broken, Mama, help Liam fix” is therefore the newest order I am given when he wants to play). Sunday morning saw us doing yard work at the in-laws’ house, then we went out to the farm roadside stall on the south shore that HRH has been going to since he was ten in order to buy strawberries and cherries and peaches and peas and peppers and corn. There the boy was carried around by the farmer himself and given a half-pint of blueberries and raspberries and strawberries to eat as he did; the child proceeded to stuff five huge blueberries in his mouth at once, and ate the rest of the fruit while sitting on the cart piled with corn watching the activity around him. He said “Bye bye farmer and strawberries!” when we left. We ended the weekend with a lovely co-coven Lughnassadh BBQ with piles and piles of seasonal food and excellent company all around.
I finally got that month-late baby gift in the mail on Saturday, as well as another small parcel that had been sitting around for just as long.
Despite the fact that the days were full, everything was relaxed and we didn’t feel rushed or overwhelmed at all. The weekend went so well that everyone woke up in a vaguely bad mood today because it was back the work routine again. The boy was cranky because he knew he was going back to daycare (he loves his caregiver and playmates and always has fun, but he misses us and we miss him too), HRH was cranky, and I was already in not such a terrific mood thanks to waking up two hours early. But this week we return to a more normal rhythm as HRH drops back to part-time and I deliver the current project. And then next weekend we’re in ON visiting with my parents, so there’s plenty to look forward to in the next fortnight.
Also this week: a trip to my bank branch on the West Island to deposit this US cheque that’s been sitting here for two weeks, so there will be money again. As it’s in that neighbourhood I’ll be stopping by the Bramble House for those Penguin bars, and possibly some whiskey fudge as well. The fretless bass will also be taken into the local music shop for its set-up, maintenance, new strings, and case that day. It feels good to be catching up on things.