Category Archives: The Boy

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like…

No, we still have no decorations up. But the candles I am burning daily have frankincense oil in them. I have a bag of pine cones from Jan and t!, a spool of Christmas ribbon, and a glue gun; who knows what can happen. Sparky has been enjoying his Christmas playlist. And HRH and the boy are currently off selecting our tree, which will wait patiently outside till Saturday when we can put it up and decorate it. The handmade gifts are almost complete (the play kitchen HRH is building for Owlet is to die for), the previously purchased ones are all tucked away in the attic cupboard, and other than picking up gifts for a last couple of children once HRH gets paid this coming Thursday, we are just about done.

In the meantime, we had a visit to Santa:

Wow, does this slight upshot from the photographer ever make the kids look more like one another than any other photo I’ve seen, although Sparky still looks more like me and Owlet looks more like her dad. The angle of the shot rounds out Sparky’s face the way it isn’t in real life; he looks younger here. And how serious does Owlet look? She walked across the red carpet toward Santa with her arms out, but paused when she got to his chair and then wasn’t as excited to actually be with him as she’d seemed to be before she got there.

It was a new Santa at a new mall, and we are always very nervous about new places since we are so sensitive to energy, but the VERY RED redesign of the Christmas set at our previous mall of choice was so offputting that we needed another option. A friend recommended this one out here on the south shore, and we loved it. We got there just before the awesome Santa went on duty, and he was walking slowly through the mall in his long cloak with brown fur trim, sprigs of holly in his hat, saying hello to children. And the mall had the old-fashioned moving scenes inside little cottages as decorations, the way they were when I was a kid. The photo was printed right there when you left Santa, and you could choose which photo of about five you wanted done; none of this waiting an hour for development and having to go with whatever the photographer caught or decided on him/herself. We’re definitely going back next year. Hurrah!

We were actually on our way out to see Santa yesterday morning when Sparky’s old preschool/daycare director called and asked if we wanted in on a breakfast with Santa party that was starting in half an hour, as she had an extra ticket. A bunch of his old friends were going, too, so we said sure! The kids had a blast colouring and eating pancakes. The Santa was… well, he tried hard, but the suit was patched with duct tape, and the pillow in his jacket was very obvious, and his blue-tinted transition lenses weren’t standard Santa issue. But he was very jolly, and Sparky hugged him, and Owlet wasn’t scared at all. And it was marvellous to see some of the old parents we used to see when Sparky was there for two years, and to see the fresh batch of babies, and the toddlers Owlet will be pals with when she starts there next fall, who are the little brothers and sisters of kids who were there when Sparky was. The preschool alumni were running around together afterwards, and it was interesting to observe how they’ve all grown and become big six-and seven-year-olds, but you can still remember and see the little three- and four-year-olds you knew.

We had an early Christmas present this year, too:

When I got back from taking Nixie to the vet for the last time, there was a digital piano waiting for me. We inherited it from Ron’s aunt, who is destashing various things from her daughter’s childhood, and my in-laws brought it over when they came to stay with Owlet while I went out. It’s a Roland ep-7, so it’s technically a digital piano and not a keyboard. I’m actually impressed at how much more like a piano it sounds and feels like than the keyboards I’ve messed around with in the past. We’re pretty excited. Both kids love it, and both play on it often. I can even play a version of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ on it, complete with what I want to call left-hand double stops, but which are really I-III chords missing the V. It’s got surprisingly good tone for a digital, and the keys are weighted. It has 76 keys, so it’s short one octave, but I’m not complaining! We are very, very grateful.

And so we enter the final week before Christmas. I leave you with some photos of the Christmas cookies that Sparky made yesterday:


Christmas Is Creeping In

In the car today on the way to school I had the local classical station on the radio. They started slipping the occasional Christmas song into rotation on Dec 1, every five pieces or so. It was a string arrangement of a carol, and I started singing along. Sparky said, “I don’t know this one. I don’t know a lot of Christmas songs, Mama.” And he’s right. Mainly because I worked in retail for about fifteen years and developed a violent aversion to Christmas music that way, but also because I’m an admitted music snob and I dislike most “popular” versions of carols, preferring instrumental arrangements.

Now, every year we get together with a family of dear friends (we’re godparents to their girls, they’re Sparky’s godparents) and we have an intimate Yule singalong. I play the cello, Jeff plays guitar, the kids play bells or bodhrans, and if we’re lucky Pasley plays one of her recorders for a song or two (and I wish she’d play it more often, because it’s a beautiful sound, and yes Paze, I am talking to YOU) and we sing all sorts of stuff, from really old ones to some popular Christmas songs the kids know well, like Frosty and so forth. But every year, Sparky’s stumped by the more classic ones I used to sing in church as a kid.

So today, I find myself in the slightly odd position of developing a Christmas music playlist so he can hear the songs and learn them. I don’t have many recordings (see above about my snobby tastes and violent dislikes), so I’m digging through what I do have to find what I can put together. I may have to record myself singing some to fill out the playlist, which is a frightening thought.

And as every year, I find myself wanting to do something to decorate the house for the season, but coming up with a blank. Pinterest has me wanting to string pine cones on red ribbon and hanging them from found branches above the windows — so simple! — but really? And where would I find the time? And can you even get pine cones that aren’t drenched in cinnamon oil? (Hmm, this would be the perfect excuse to finally check out the new Michaels.) Candles we do all year round, so adding more seems pointless. HRH hung the Christmas lights along the peak and eaves of the house this past weekend, and they look wonderful, but that’s a night-time thing (and even that has me uncomfortable because it’s so early in December and there’s no snow again). And we don’t buy the tree and decorate it till Solstice, so that we can enjoy it during Christmas week without it drying out and having to be taken down right after the 25th. The boughs and swag for the front door don’t happen till the week before Christmas, because they’re fresh, too. I need to think some more about what we can do that is baby-friendly, works with our decor and layout, and isn’t expensive or overly time-consuming.

Part of the problem, I think, is that we have one box of Christmas stuff in the shed, and we take it out when the tree arrives, so I don’t have lead time on the non-tree decorations. Maybe we should separate them into two boxes, one marked ‘early Christmas’ and one marked ‘immediate Christmas.’ Because, you know, that would be intelligent and foresighted, two things that do not characterize my state of mind when we pack everything away in early January.

High Five, Sparky!

Sparky brought home his first official report card this week.

You may remember the second-, third-, and fourth-guessing we were doing when we decided to switch him into this new French immersion school for grade two. Were we going to kill his ease of social interaction? Would all his marks slip and his self-confidence plummet? Would he grow to hate school?

Ah ha ha. Guess who improved every single grade in every single subject? (Except gym, but as long as he’s running around and having fun and listening to instruction, I’m unconcerned about that.) His overall grade in French is a bit lower, but his marks in comprehension of written and oral texts and production of written work have actually gone up. It’s his communication/speaking that has dipped and brought the overall grade down with it, but that’s completely in keeping with being measured against a different set of criteria and expectations. While he’s technically just under a passing grade in French at the moment, I couldn’t be prouder of how well he’s doing when everything is taken into account, and it will only get better. Comprehension comes before ease of communication in any new language.

We had a parent-child-teacher meeting after school on Thursday, and his teacher is just as excited as we are. He told me not to be concerned about the low mark (I assured him that I wasn’t, because the higher than expected marks in the two other French areas were a good sign of his development) and that Sparky’s achievements were pretty impressive. And when we left, Sparky told his teacher that he was going to stay in this new school for grade three — “Right, Mama?” he said, turning to me with a sudden anxiety. “Oh, yes,” I said. “I think we can guarantee that.” That, plus the illustrated page for one of his projects on which he’d written ‘I love school’ and his ongoing positive attitude and excitement about going to school speaks volumes to me about the fit of programme with his nature and educational needs.

It’s always nice to be told that it’s a joy to have your child in a class, and that his expression, creativity, sense of humour, willingness to work hard, and general happiness are pleasurable to behold. His teacher pointed out a couple of art projects in which Sparky thought outside the box and came up with slightly unusual ways to achieve a goal, and said that his fine motor skills and sense of building in three dimensions were advanced for his age (no surprise there). Sparky showed me his “portfolio” (a binder of his work so far) and I could very clearly see the evolution in his comprehension, his understanding of French grammar, and the vast improvement in his printing. He’s started learning cursive, too, and his little practice lines of cursive letters are adorable. In English he’s writing one-page stories, and they clearly have beginnings, middles, ends, are exciting, clear, and leave no loose ends or introduce no new characters or plot strands out of nowhere.

Today is a nice sunny ped day, and we are just back from a celebratory trip to Starbucks. We bundled Owlet up in her new ski jacket with the owls on it (pictures eventually!), put her in the stroller, and walked over. I had promised him a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a cookie. And I got a creme brûlée latte, because I work hard supervising and guiding his homework with him, and I deserved a treat, too. Last time we did this Owlet was still only a faint hope, and Sparky could only finish half his cocoa. Today Sparky finished every last drop of his chocolate, and Owlet sat on one of the chairs and grabbed for everyone’s drinks. (I fed her whipped cream from my latte and Sparky gave her a couple of bites of his cookie. She let it be known that it was Not Enough and next time things had better be different, though we do this so rarely that next time she’ll probably be drinking her own cocoa.)

Trudge Trudge

I am struggling with a bout of being non-social. I’ve drastically reduced my use of social media, and as you can see I haven’t been blogging much. Part of that comes from not having the time–I’m doing the mum thing all day, and when the kids have been put to bed I sit down at my computer to work–but part of it also comes from fatigue. I don’t have the brainpower to write anything. And if I did, a lot of it would sound the same: Owlet is bouncing off walls and chattering and being cute. Sparky’s current obsession is Angry Birds. HRH and I are tired. I’m the one who’s losing out, of course, since I journal for my own reference. So here’s a scattershot of what’s been going on.

Work-wise, it was independently confirmed by my copy chief that editors are so happy with the work I’m doing on the novels that they’re starting to ask for me by name, which thrills me. I’m pretty much doing a two-week assignment, then I get a week off, and then I do another two weeks of work. So it’s steady.

We had lunch over at the Preston-LeBlanc household on Sunday, and it was so nice. Owlet wandered around completely overcome by all the things to look at and touch, and enjoyed Pasley’s potato-apple-carrot soup immensely, as well as an apple she plucked from a fruit bowl, the first she managed to bite into with the peel still on. Tamu and Pat and Flora stopped by the previous weekend and we delighted in watching BebeFlo and Owlet play together (especially the peekaboo game with a blanket at the end, where they both ducked under it and stood there giggling at one another). We got out to MLG’s fortieth birthday evening at Hurley’s before that, which was also fun, because I hadn’t seen everyone in ages.

HRH installed the new range hood this past weekend, and it’s a definite improvement over the last one. It no longer sounds like an aircraft taking off, as my father-in-law put it when he gave it to us. The only thing left to do is cut a hole in the kitchen wall for the new exhaust pipe. We’ve been without a fan since the attic was converted into the office, as the old exhaust pipe went up there and lay along the ceiling crossbeams on its way to the exterior exhaust vent. Once a floor was laid, there was nowhere for the duct to go (cutting holes through the ceiling crossbeams isn’t such a good idea, you know?), so a new vent needs to be made. That will happen this weekend.

I dyed fibre and spun it for a fellow Raveller, who won it in a draw for prizes in our Ravellenic Games team that she captained, and I’m quite pleased with it. I hope she is, too. It was my first time dyeing more than a bit of fibre to mess about with. I used Ziplock microwave steaming bags (which was an interesting experience in itself), and did the four ounces of fibre in four one-ounce batches. She requested raspberry and tangerine, and I blended a very nice colour for both from my Jacquard acid dyes, which of course blended and subtly altered when I spun it up. I did a DK/light worsted two-ply yarn, and I gt at least 300 yards out of it. It plumped up beautifully after a wash. Canada Post tells me that it’s out for delivery in her area right now, so she may have it today!

I am currently sewing the Halloween costumes for both kids, and mostly enjoying myself, although doing it in fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there is a bit frazzling. I lose my train of thought and a sense of what I’d planned to do next, or how to do it. (I am working without patterns for both of them, because I don’t have enough stress in my life.) I made a lovely pair of polar fleece pantaloons for Owlet, complete with two deep lace ruffles on the legs, and they’re possibly the most adorable things ever. I used polar fleece for warmth, because nights at the end of October around here are usually quite chilly. I made her a mob cap as well with polar fleece on the inside, but it’s smaller than I thought, so I need more deep lace to sew around the edge so it looks less ridiculous.

The last bit of current news is the worst. Today Nixie goes to the vet, and I suspect that she is not coming home. I am spending as much time as possible with her today. At the very least, the large, weeping, overgroomed area on her chest has become infected; at the worst, the overgrooming is directly related to a possible recurrence of the mass that was removed as part of her surgery this past spring, which makes the third appearance of it, and as something like 80% of feline tumours are malignant, even if we get it removed it will just happen again. We don’t have the money for tests and biopsies in the first place, nor treatment if the worst is confirmed. Sparky and I had a hard cry this morning when I reminded him that she was going to the vet today and she might not come home, and he railed against the injustice of it all: “I don’t want Nixie to die! I want her to come home! She is the best cat!” Of course you do, sweetheart; we all do. No one wants her to die. But things die, and we can’t stop it. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, and our hearts hurt so much, but it is a truth, and something we have to face, either now or in a few months, or a few years. When I dropped him off at school he met his friends at the schoolyard gate and stopped there, and I wondered why he didn’t go all the way in. And then I saw one of the girls put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and I understood what was happening: as soon as he’d arrived told them that Nix was sick, possibly too sick to come home, sharing his grief and his hurt, and they were sympathizing with him.

At best, I am hoping that they will be able to prescribe antibiotics and come up with a solution to cover the wound so it can heal properly, because everything I’ve tried has failed. At worst, I have to make the decision that every pet owner hates to make. Somewhere in the middle lies the “we can’t do anything but make her comfortable” diagnosis, and if that is what happens I will probably bring her home again until her quality of life deteriorates to unacceptable levels. Because right now her quality of life seems good: she is still eating well, moving in her usual fashion, using the litter box, purring and enjoying the occasional cuddle, and I am weak, and it feels wrong to say goodbye when she seems so normal other than the infected wound. Her energy hasn’t changed at all, and with every other cat we have known when they were tired, ill, and suffering, even though all of them were stoic they way cats are, because we are attentive and sensitive to that sort of thing. Nix doesn’t project any of that. Knowing when to make that decision is the hardest part of this whole process.

I’m so tired. I think the fibro is starting to creep back, as I’m having trouble focusing on things, lacking the energy to be happy and enjoy my hobbies, the body aches and weak hands are here again, sleep is not restful, and my appetite has vanished. Part of this could be attributable to the time of year, but I suspect that the fibro-quashing pregnancy and year of postnatal adrenaline and hormones are finally done with, and my body is slowly creeping back to normal operative levels. It is not fun. I am trying to find joy in small things, and it is very difficult. I don’t have much time to read, or spin. I can sometimes knit for a row or two. But most of my baby-nap time is taken up by cooking or baking or tidying or work or errands. And it’s all very well to think that this time next year she’ll be in daycare, which is exciting because we know she will love it, but that does not help me now.

Thanksgiving

We are thankful for making ends meet (it’s happening, and it’s only going to get better as we catch up), our lovely little house, our children, our family, our friends (near and far, in person and those we know and love thanks to the wonder of the Internet), our health, and the beautiful world around us.

And for leaf piles!

Sparky picked Owlet up and dumped her right into the middle of the pile of leaves that he’d raked up with his Nana, then rolled around with her. She loved it. Initiation into a Canadian fall tradition: complete.

Cello Season Again

Orchestra began two weeks ago, although I missed the first rehearsal due to that rush deadline (and may well miss this week for the same reason, alas). It looks like a fun programme: Mozart’s Paris Symphony, Faure’s Pelleas & Melisande suite, Bizet’s L’Arlesienne suites, Debussy’s Rhapsody for orchestra and clarinet, and no doubt there will be something else. It felt quite good to be back, and still a relief to be in the second to last chair. I missed being up front only a tiny bit.

And this past Saturday was an awesome first cello lesson of the season, for both Sparky and I! I was struck by how much taller he is now when our teacher set him up, verified that he should still use her smallest stool, and they adjusted his end pin. He fits his 1/8 cello perfectly now. I was so thrilled that after a summer of playing only once every week or so (and usually with frustration because nothing went right, woe woe and angst), he remembered everything: he snapped to the right positions when she said “proper posture,” remembered the notes of the last two pieces he worked on, remembered small finicky things he’d struggled with right at the end of the season like the proper spacing between third and fourth fingers and reaching back for his first-finger notes, and a decent bow hold. And his intonation was so close to hers when he played that I got a bit choked up, because I was so proud of him for how he’d internalized it all over the summer away from the instrument, and for going into the beginning of lessons again with a positive, cheerful attitude.

As for my lesson, I do not suck! More than that, there is actual good stuff going on! Perhaps there was some internalization on my own part over the summer as well, or maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that I played the Breval in recital something like fifteen years ago.

Starting book four feels momentous to me. It’s the first Suzuki book with pieces actually written for cello, instead of pieces transcribed from those written for other instruments. It begins with the two-movement Breval cello sonata in C major, written by a cellist as a study piece. I feel like I’m at a different starting point, which I am, but it’s curious to actually recognise it instead of constantly feeling like I’m hitting a wall the way I always do because new/different things are hard. I redid Suzuki book two with my current teacher when I began with her, having done it with my first teacher back in something like 1995, and then slowly worked through book three. I don’t move through the books very quickly, because I do a lot of other stuff too, and orchestra, and I’m at a level where we can wring a lot of subtle finicky things out of a Suzuki piece. But reconnecting with the Breval sonata has the feel of Something Momentous for me. It was my first public recital piece, my first piece of Real Music instead of something from a collection of stuff for cello. (No, that’s not true; I played both minuets from Bach’s first solo cello suite previous to this. But I played those in private recital.) And I’m approaching it from a completely different starting point, too, where my skills have been refined and technique buffed up. My cello stats have benefited from general levelling up as well as specific points being spent to raise my bowing and shifting scores. My understanding of how to make a better sound has developed, and I’m at a wholly different place head-wise.

It felt so odd to sit down and just play something without stressing. I felt confident; I felt capable. I know part of that comes from the fact that I have played it before, but I think a lot of it comes from just being better in general. As I played I noticed things like Hey, I’m not lifting my shoulder any more and Hey, check me out, I’m leading the shift with my elbow. I know I’m in a unique position with this sonata, and it won’t be true of everything in this book, but it will be for about half of it (guess what, those Bach minuets are in this book, too!). The better in general was also noticeable at my first orchestra rehearsal of the year, where I sight read Mozart’s Paris symphony, which I played several years ago (not a decade, but not two years, if you know what I mean) and I didn’t trip over the triplets in the first movement the way I did even after a couple of months of rehearsal the last time. That was pretty telling.

All this, and I managed to internalise what my teacher was demonstrating about scale rhythms in prep for the Breval. I got the bowing patterns right away, my intonation matched hers decently, and I understood her explanation of groupettos and trills right away. (Which has never been true in the past any time I have tried to learn trills previous to Saturday. I have had a block about them forever.) I am hoping it bodes well for this year in cello.

I’m tentatively scheduling one lesson every two weeks for myself for the first month, with the proviso that I may have to drop lessons entirely again if money is awful. If work continues to be good, though, I might be able to have a weekly lesson again, which I would love. Cello is my one thing that gets me out of the house that is just for me, and having to drop it so often last year hurt a lot. Gas is going crazy, too, which makes me suspect I might have to do orchestra every two weeks again because of the price of fuel, and the upcoming massive overhaul of the highways over the next five or more years scares me concerning my ability to get to my music activities. For example, construction closed my regular routes to our lesson on Saturday, so I took the long way around. There was less traffic and no detours, but it was twenty kilometers longer each way. A hundred-kilometer round trip for cello! I can’t even.

But it begins well, and I am optimistic. La.

Sparky’s New School

So last Wednesday (yeah, I’ve been busy, more on that later) was Sparky’s first day at his new school in his French grade two class…

… and he had a blast.

He’d been worried, and we’d been worried as to how he’d handle it. We did everything we could to prep him, including a tour of the grounds and a secret tour with his principal of the inside of the school the last night before school began, after studying French with him all summer and being supportive and encouraging, but it was all up to him after we saw him off into the building, following his new teacher. He came and gave us a few hugs while everyone milled around and lined up, and he nearly cried once, but he was very brave, and we are so proud of him. We introduced him to a random nice-seeming kid whose mother had bought him up to check in with the teacher just before we did, and he found a friend that he’d been in kindergarten with in his other school, too. So we felt better about the not-knowing-anyone part by the time they went in to class, anyway.

We know this is the right thing to do — his other school was just too easy, and we didn’t want him to run into the ‘I’m bored so I’ll stop trying’ trap at some point — but we also know it’s going to be challenging. Which is kind of the point, but still, as a parent, you hate doing anything that causes your child distress, even if it’s for a brief period. It will take a couple of months for everything to settle properly, but an awesome first day does a lot for everyone’s outlook.

In the interest of full revelation, I asked him how he’d done with the French, and he said, “Fine! Rebecca (the friend he’d known in kindergarten) translated everything for me!” Which is not exactly… well, whatever. It all starts somewhere, right? And we know he does understand a lot more than he can speak.

The nerves hit on the second day, though. I got a call from the office just past ten o’clock saying that Sparky wasn’t feeling well and could I come and pick him up? Owlet had just gone down for her nap, and I suspected he wasn’t actually ill, so I said I’d be there by ten-thirty. Five minutes later the phone rang again, and the receptionist said to hold off, because the principal had overheard who was in the office and now had him in her own office for a talk. The principal called me afterwards and we agreed that it had been nerves (although there was an element of seasonal allergy there, stuffing him up and making him a bit unhappy), and that to bring him home would make going back the next day even harder. So I picked him up as planned at lunch, as it was a half-day, and he was much better. I don’t know what we’d do without this principal. She’s part of why we decided to make the switch, and she’s been just wonderful.

Friday was the first full day, and when I met him outside under the trees he was bouncing. First of all, he’d lost his eighth tooth, always an exciting event at school. His teacher had put it in a little blue treasure chest for him, and he refused to put it under his pillow. (“Because it’s much more valuable to me than the Tooth Fairy, Mama,” he explained that night. Um… okay?) But there was something else, too.

“Mama, I learned two new French words today!” he said with great enthusiasm. “Really?” I said, very pleased. “Which ones?” And then he proceeded to rattle off, ”Est-ce que je peut aller a la toilette,” and “Est-ce que je peut aller boire de l’eau”, both of which are significantly more than two new words! And he said them clearly and with good accent, like it was easy, and it was. I should have known he’d learn better from people who were not his parents. It’s the same reason I didn’t start teaching him cello, but sent him to my teacher instead. We can teach him general skills, but when it comes to formal teaching, he learns better from someone else. Being in a group of kids who are all speaking French helps, too. It’s just like how he walked a week into going to a caregiver with other kids who could walk, after choosing not to at home for a couple of months.

So, school is just fine so far. He is positive and excited about it, for which we are very thankful. I’m so very proud of him for handling it the way he’s doing.

(And wow, do I ever need a new icon for Sparky.)