Category Archives: The Boy

Day Off

I’m glad it’s a holiday weekend and I have an extra day off. Conversely, this takes a day off what I’ll be invoicing the company for this contract. On Friday I tried to e-mail the file to myself from the work address to put some time into it today, but it hasn’t come through. I have a feeling the corp filters may have decided it was Not Allowed because another message without attachments I sent made it to my home inbox. Ah well; I tried.

Band was impressively awesome on Saturday. Easter dinner over at HRH’s parental home was lovely on Sunday. Sleeping in until seven this morning was blissful.

There is surprisingly little chocolate in the house. This ought to be remedied.

We went out this morning for groceries and other stuff, and I finally found a cap for Liam despite his stubborn refusal to try them on. This one appears to be acceptable; at least he keeps it on his head half the time right now. All four of Liam’s molars are making white bumps on his back gums, as HRH found out when he braved the Toddler Jaws of Doom to put Orajel on them yesterday. No wonder the poor child is cranky.

Wednesday

Poor Liam; those two-year-old molars are really bothering him this week. Today he slept dreadfully during his nap, and he’s already woken up crying once tonight. Normally I wait until it sounds like he really is awake and needs reassuring, and nine times out of ten he falls asleep on his own again, but tonight I went in not long after he called for me and cried briefly, even though it sounded like he was settling down again. We snuggled in the armchair together and he fell asleep almost immediately. I sat there with this long boy on my lap in the dark, his head on my shoulder, feeling his warmth and his weight, and wondering when my baby became a boy. It’s been ages since I cuddled him back to sleep; it’s not something I do often, but tonight I just wanted to be with him for a bit.

I attended my first group meeting at work this afternoon. I learned a lot: namely the new delivery schedule, key personnel shifts, and so forth, and am now a lot more aware of how the project is structured and what it entails, as well as gaining a better idea of What It Means (to the market, to the end user, to the company, etc.). I am in absolute awe of this producer who juggles the entire show, and juggles it with poise. Two platforms, both still relatively new, QA, product testing, basic design, the needs of the administration, the needs of the team, the needs of the market… he’s a very capable, principled, and well-grounded man. I also learned that everyone in the room is a member of the team. There are about forty people. This is a small team compared to other projects in the company, I know, but I hadn’t realised the extent of the manpower required. I simply hadn’t thought about it before.

I finished cutting a ruthless swathe of pink-highlighted-destruction through the supplemental dictionary today, and began to look at the main dictionary for words to strike out and/or edit. I am already tearing my hair out — it has ‘backward’ and ‘backwards’ (well, not any more, because I marked one for deletion because of its derogatory definition), but not ‘forward’. I’m suffering from a lot of double takes and “you can’t be serious” and “wha?” sorts of gestures and utterings of exasperation. (There was a mild ripple of relief that ran through some of the team when I was obliquely introduced as the contractor bringing the dictionary up to par during the meeting. Every hour I am there I come to better understand why this reaction is common when I am introduced and my purpose is made known.)

One of the benefits of working in a mostly male environment is that the women’s bathrooms are always empty. And clean.

Note to self: Don’t wear the zip-up stacked heel ankle boots to work again. They have hard soles, and they click when I walk. (See above re: mostly male environment. I’m uncomfortable with the high-heel click, especially since I tend to walk quickly or decisively, and these are mainly hardwood floors. Loud noise tends to call attention to she who makes it, and I’m not big on the calling attention thing.)

I got lost trying to find the cafeteria to fetch hot water for tea today. Thank goodness for helpful maintenance staff.

One of the neat things about working on-site for this contract is that Meallanmouse and I make a point of walking out of the building every day for lunch. So far she has introduced me to three excellent restaurants with very affordable lunch specials and delicious food (bonus: all healthy). Otherwise I would be eating at my desk and that is bad for my brain, my productivity, and my health, quite frankly. Hurrah for friends who poke me, and keep me social and clear-minded.

Enough; bath, and bed.

Concert Recap Etcetera

First and foremost, a heartfelt thank you goes out to the nine people who made it out to my concert last night. I’m sure it was wonderful. All reports I’ve had have been to that effect, so I’ll trust them. I don’t remember much of it myself, being under the influence of a double-dose of cold medication. I do remember being very pleased with my expression in general and with my intonation in a couple of tricky places, and every once in a while doing the “Are we here already?” sort of thing. I received a couple of very nice compliments, both from inside the section and from the audience, so I will trust those as well. My section leader is very encouraging and supportive of me, and I learn so much just from sitting next to her. I wish I had more time to properly devote to music, and to take lessons from her.

HRH only got to the concert just before intermission, as Liam was very irritable and fought going to bed more than he usually does. Liam has been rather cranky in general and a challenging handful over the past couple of days because of his cold. (I seem to have the worse cold, which is just fine; I’d rather it be me than the boy.) Arriving late meant that HRH missed the Boyce symphony (very pleasant and my intonation was much better in it than it has been over the past week — why it previously suffered I have no idea, because it’s dead easy to play. Perhaps because it was the first thing we played in this week’s rehearsals, and so it was like a warm-up for my fingers and brain?) as well as the Vivaldi double violin concerto plus most of the Water Music suite. Fortunately he caught the Haydn symphony, which was nice and tight and relatively gaffe-free, and had a great impact.

When we walked out of the church, the sky was very clear and the stars and moon were so incredibly bright. I was out four nights last week for various music rehearsals and meetings, and every night it’s been the same. Lovely.

I’ve been up to my ears in contract work the past couple of days, very mind-twisty as I work out what the client wants from his abstract notes and rewrite/expand upon them. It’s always an interesting challenge working in this client’s projects. I have to finish it up today during the boy’s nap and tonight after he goes to bed, as I begin the full-time on-site contract tomorrow.

We have finally opened the last box of the tissues left from the bulk pack we bought at Costco last fall. Liam and I will go out today to get more, along with a new cell phone for me and various other little things. It’s the Cancer Society’s daffodil weekend, so we’ll certainly buy some of those as well. Hurrah, daffodils! Our bulbs are up a good four or five inches along the south side of the house; it won’t be long before they’re real flowers themselves.

Monday Morning

So very, very tired. Yes, it’s my default setting these days. That doesn’t make it any easier.

This morning I found some artificial flowers left over from a craft project a few years ago, twisted them into a bunch and tied odds and ends of ribbons around them, then hung them on the front door. Spring will be here tomorrow night, and I’ll be damned if I let the piles of snow continue to depress me.

We bought a new 18-gallon recycling bin yesterday, to complement our regular size bin. The new one is already full. (My life is exciting, is it not?)

Saturday night we had people over to celebrate Tal‘s birthday, and it was interesting to see that while we’d stated a late-afternoon start time to accomodate those with families and later engagements (of which we knew there were many), a surprising number of people not in those categories came earlier than we’d expected too. It was terrific to see so many friends again, most of whom I hadn’t seen in ages. Apart from the unexpected lack of birthday candles (later I remembered that I’d brought them to my mother in law for a party last year) the cake recipe I tried for the first time flew impressively well, although I somehow managed to unintentionally get all the way from one to ten o’clock without having a meal. I think all I consumed were two cups of tea and a bite of a bar cookie, until most of the guests had left and I made myself a sandwich. (That may have had something to do with the amount of desserts people brought to the potluck — holy cats!) I was very impressed by Liam, who went to bed only a bit later than usual and slept through the last four or five hours of the party. While HRH was reading to Liam in his room we sang Happy Birthday to Tal; the boy looked up and listened to the song, then applauded when everyone else did and said “Yay!” before going back to his book.

Today: more work, more outlining, more brainstorming, some research. The kind of thing that I know theoretically qualifies as work, but doesn’t feel as satisfying or as if it really counts as accomplishment because there aren’t words on a page. It’s been a while since I brainstormed random ideas for stories. It’s both more and less work than I remember it being. Sure, now I have a list of ideas, but no details spring to mind for any of them. Details used to pour into my brain faster than I could note them down. And the end of the Pandora book is going very slowly indeed.

Because Today Is All About One Step Forward, Many Steps Back

I nailed the damn bouree last night. Twice, in fact. Then I blundered in the hornpipe, which is attacca directly after it. Sigh.

Most of my Haydn is better. The trouble passages aren’t as troublesome, except when they are. (No, there’s actually meaning to that. I’ve improved to the point that the really hardest bits sound worse because everything around them isn’t a complete disaster.) And if I could just get past the damn mental block about playing A flats things would be very much better.

This has been a very trying day so far. The boy is off the rails, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and things just keep going wrong (the cats weren’t fed before HRH came to bed last night so they woke Liam and I up early, Liam didn’t want breakfast, he was dressed and put in the car without having a diaper change before we left so we had to turn around and come back, and so forth). I got to deposit my latest cheque from the publisher (and yay for that), but the grocery store was crowded beyond belief. Also, that grocery store has taken to locking the gate that allows wheelchairs and strollers through, because people were walking out with carts. This left another woman with a stroller and I standing outside in frustration. We flagged down a store employee as he left and he told us to go ask at the front desk. “We can’t get in to do that,” I said, “because we can’t leave our children out here.” He went back inside to fetch someone with a key, looking mildly annoyed because it wasn’t his job. Time to rethink the brilliant client-defeating strategy, people. If it had taken any longer I would have turned around and gone to another store, one that I know I can get into with a stroller, except I couldn’t face the thought of wrestling the boy in/out/into the car again.

It took the boy forty-five minutes to fall asleep for this afternoon’s nap. I’m ready to… I don’t know what I’m ready to do. I should try to squeeze work into the next hour, but I think I may practice instead, except that will frustrate me too. I wish I could just play something pretty without working at it. My computer refuses to recognise any blank CD I put into it to record a practice CD to listen to in the car, so that project I’ve been working on for the past hour is on hold too. It’s just that kind of day, you know? Nibbled to death by ducks.

Reading

Yes, the jacket looks fabulous, and the only way I could possibly like it more is if the back was just a tad more tailored just below the shoulder blades. It’s nice to have something pretty and new because I have been feeling remarkably unpretty for a few months now.

So far it has been a week of mailbox joy, because in yesterday’s post a box of discounted books arrived. Lots of YA short fic, including a copy of the collection known as Swan Sister, which has nothing to do with my work in progress. The titular story was so moving that it made me cry, but then, apart from being well-written it was about a little baby who doesn’t live very long, and I’m hypersensitive to fragile little things in hospital incubators. Also in the box was the copy of Starhawk’s The Earth Path which I’ve been meaning to get since it came out (thanks for the reminder, Fearsclave) and Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier which I read most of before bed last night (it’s that good, as I expected it to be, and now I have to order the second one quickly). And for the boy there was Kitten’s First Full Moon, a book which I saw before he was born and wanted to get for him, but found the published price a little steep. I wanted to wait for the paperback but there’s still no sign of one despite the fact that it’s a Caldecott winner, so when I saw it listed on my favourite discount site I ordered it for him. He loves it, and has brought it to HRH and I to read a dozen times since yesterday afternoon. I’m glad it’s a hit.

I’m also reading Murder Must Advertise, and why has no one ever handed me one of Dorothy Sayers’ books before? I adore her writing style, and the mystery part is nicely buried in character interaction without being ignored or poorly constructed. I’ve added her to my list of authors to look for when I am in secondhand shops, which is all too infequent. (GingerGirl recommended a couple of her titles to get me started lo these many years ago, but alas, I never found them when I remembered to look. Why is it so hard to find classic mysteries, new or used? And I miss you, Ginger, wherever you are.)

I’ve been struggling with a headache off and on these past couple of days. I’m hoping it’s the change in weather.

I can feel a ruthless purge of accumulated Stuff coming on. I have no idea when it could be done, however.

Right. To work.

Twenty-One Months Old!

This month has been an explosion of new words. Among them have been French fry, bean, animals, shade, table, chair, jam, elbow, noodles (which he calls ‘noddles’, terribly cute!), rainbow, two, blue, mail, CD, night-night, dear, deer (yes, he differentiates), puppy, little, yo-yo, bell, sticker, snowplough, tow truck, dump truck, paper, tickle, happy, down, yoghurt, running, beaver. We’re thrilled that he can identify ‘happy’ correctly. He’s working on ‘mine’ and ‘sad’, and he tells us he’s tired by saying ‘night-night’. Of course, he also says this when I pull the afghan over my legs when I’m cold, since tucking someone in is an indication of bed. He names lots of body parts, and strings words together: “Dada go? Puppy up. Love Maggie. Yoghurt later.” But the best new word this month: LIAM! Not only that, but he can look at himself in the mirror, point, and say “Liam”, or pat himself on the chest and say it. He’s also said “Me!” a couple of times while looking in the mirror, or when we say his name to him.

Well, to be honest, ‘Liam’ is tied with ‘love’ as the best new word of the month. He walks up to me, leans his head against me, and says “Love” in a very contented tone. Oh, hey, is that my heart swelling nigh unto bursting?

He is so terribly gentle with Maggie. He leans his cheek against her as well and says ‘love’, or ‘gentle’, or ‘nice’. He touches her various body parts and names them: “Maggie ear… toes… eye… tail…”. HRH explained to him that Maggie was actually the oldest in the family. He loves her so much that I can already see the issues we’ll have to deal with when her age finally negatively affects her quality of life.

As his fine-motor skills improve he is becoming better at crafts. We had a lot of fun making Valentines for people this year, drawing with markers and glitter glue (which is great fun to smear). He is also in love with stickers, which we were using as toilet training reinforcement for a couple of weeks, but stopped once he began demanding stickers just for running into the bathroom, or brushing his teeth. When given a sticker he would want it on the back of his hand instead of the record sheet, and then he would peel it off and stick it on someone else happily (usually HRH or I, but sometimes he’d get a cat). We’ve stopped the reward thing, as it served its purpose for the first ten days or so, and now the stickers are just fun-time treats. He tries to eat them, the nut, and once he’s licked them they don’t stick to anything. If they were paper-based I wouldn’t think twice about it, but half of them are foil-based, so we keep a close eye on him. He also likes to give stickers to his favourite toys and pictures in books. He’s generous, that’s certainly not a problem.

Remember that picture of Thomas the Tank Engine he drew? Every time he passes it, he glances up and says “Ati!”. So not only did he draw something representational, he recognises it as the original subject weeks after he drew it. This boggles my mind. Last night HRH asked him what he wanted to draw, and he said “Nemo!”. He picked the marker colours on his own, pulled the caps off and snapped them back on again properly, and drew something orange with green, blue, black, and brown accents. And then he later looked at it and said “Nemo!” again. I don’t know what to be more excited about: the ability to uncap and recap markers properly, or the execution of a representational drawing and correct recognition of that representation after a delay.

The daily routine is nice and simple. Liam wakes up on his own around 7:00, and has some toast and milk. At 7:30 we let him watch Thomas and Friends on PBS. Then at 8:00 he gets dressed, and then sits down at the table for cereal or oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, with juice. Then it’s either out to the caregiver or Grandma, or to run errands, or settling down to play. Around 9:45 he has a snack of more juice and crackers. Lunch is served between 11:30 and noon, and usually consists of some combination of grilled cheese sandwich, pasta, chicken nuggets, potatoes, and vegetables, followed by fruit or yogurt. After lunch we settle down with some milk to read stories for about ten minutes, then Liam goes down cheerfully for a nap. It feels like he shoos us out of his room — yes yes, this book, now this book, okay, bed now, bye, later! Naps last between 90 mins and 2 hours (although last week he pulled a 2 1/2 hour nap, yikes). Once he’s awake we play some more, have a snack of cheese or fruit and crackers, and sometimes watch part of a film or some TV episodes on DVD. We all sit down to dinner around 6:00, then Liam has his bath around 6:30. By 7:00 he and a parent are snuggled in the chair for a couple of stories, then he asks to be put down in the crib and left alone. He reads to himself, talks to his bunny, then nods off and sleeps for around twelve hours.

Toilet training proceeds apace. He stayed dry through his nap last Thursday, but I think that was luck. Some days he only uses two diapers/training pants, other days he uses six. He adores brushing his teeth, to the point where he’ll brush them five to seven times a day. I’m not going to argue.

This bitter cold was driving us all crazy. With this very welcome thaw, complete with sun, I’m so looking forward to being able to go for walks in relative comfort again.

Oh, and the aquarium score: we’re down to a half-dozen fish.