Monthly Archives: June 2009

… And Birthday Prep

Today is kind of a mess. There needs to be a cake and two batches of cookies baked, as well as our regular bread. HRH is doing most of the grocery shopping after dropping the boy off with the caregiver, while I finish up the latest assignment and hand it in. We need to head out to the craft store in the east end to pick up supplies for the crafty part of tomorrow’s party; party decorations need to be picked up as well, at a different store. We need to hit a particular grocery store for a couple of items not available at our regular grocery store, and another speciality store to pick up gel colouring for dyeing roving tinting the cake icing. I have a cello lesson tonight and it would sure be nice to get a lick of practise in today before I go. Dinner needs to be made and eaten in there somewhere, too. At least HRH has offered to ice the cake while I’m at my lesson. (ETA: Ack, need to pick up reserved books at the library, too.)

I think the tension is coming from the fact that I’m thinking of today as a work day with a bunch of other stuff that needs doing.

I suspect I will pass out once everyone’s left tomorrow after the party. I intend to hit Ariadne for the subversive Spin (Not Knit) In Public day when the boy naps, but evaluating how achy I am today after yesterday’s outing, and knowing what today and tomorrow morning entail, I suspect it’s not going to happen, no matter how much I want to try the wheel.

Ooh, news flash as of a phone call two minutes ago: Sparky has a new baby cousin! Well, of a sort; my cousin has a new daughter as of this morning, and we call our children cousins. (His daughters are my cousins once removed, but I don’t know what the term is for the relationship between our children themselves.) Hurrah! Can’t wait for pictures. We’ll get to meet her when we go down to Toronto in ten days.

Birthday Aftermath

Last night: After an extra-long bedtime snuggle, I tucked the boy in and kissed his forehead. He held his arms up for one last hug. I obliged, and he gently nuzzled my cheek with his and whispered, “Thank you for my happy birthday.” My heart just about exploded.

This morning: “Look! This blue balloon isn’t going up any more! I throw it up, and it falls. I need to pop it.” Oh, blue balloon, your usefulness is at an end; your immediate execution is ordered.

Four Years Old!

Four years ago today, during a humid heatwave that was nothing like the cool damp weather we’re having these days, we unexpectedly found ourselves with someone who wasn’t scheduled to arrive till after the Wicca book proofs were handed in um till after the first draft of the green witch book had been handed in er till the nursery was ready no till we were fully unpacked from the move for another nine weeks.

One…

Two…

Three…

FOUR!

The four-year doctor’s appointment is next Thursday, but we know he’s over a metre tall (he shot up over the winter; all his pants are too short), and we’re betting he’s passed forty pounds. He has been using the toilet all on his own for over a year now, and doesn’t even wear nighttime pull-ups any more. He wears size 4 tops and pants, and size 9 shoes (!!!). We love the complexity of conversation he has with us, and how he’s trying to make jokes, and how he has fun with wordplay and nonsense sounds. He sings with glee and enthusiasm, uses French randomly, counts glibly and adds simple numbers, loves crafts. He still sleeps about ten hours at night and averages a ninety-minute nap, although on special and rare occasions the nap can be forgone without spectacular meltdown, so long as we are quiet when we get home and go to bed half an hour earlier. (Although he has passed out around naptime in cars and at concerts even when told he doesn’t need to try to rest. Case in point, my recital last month: “The cello music was so beautiful I fell asleep.”) The fave foods list can pretty much be reproduced verbatim from last year: Chicken nuggets, sausages, pancakes, waffles, maple syrup, cinnamon toast, freshly baked bread, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, ice cream, blue popsicles, peanut butter sandwiches, pizza, pasta, chicken hot dogs, cheeseburgers, homemade granola bars, Rice Krispie squares, cheese, popcorn, all kinds of crackers and breadsticks, milk, apple juice, sneaks sips of iced tea when he thinks I’m not looking, “coffee” (AKA warm milk with a touch of sugar and the foam from a cappuccino on top), “tea” (AKA cambric tea without the hot water), and creamy yoghurt, with the addition of pork chops, steak, salami sandwiches, shrimp, Polo mints (just about any mint, really, but he asks for Polos by name), and “iced cappuccino” (crushed ice blended with chocolate milk, served with a straw).

Current passions: Transformers, short chapter books at bedtime, playing Go Fish, doing more complex jigsaw puzzles, writing his name everywhere, drawing on his chalkboard, going out for hot dogs and french fries ( “and a bun” he always specifies, as if he’s worried they’ll serve him a weiner alone), Lego (he is currently very proud of the Slave 1 MLG bequeathed to him, and has partially disassembled and reassembled it quite capably), and always trains and cars.

Current challenges: Getting him to use the pedals on his trike (he’s been told that he’s not getting a bicycle until he demonstrates that he can consistently use the trike pedals), getting him to understand why it’s rude to shout at people from windows (especially strangers, even if all you’re doing is shouting a cheerful “hello!”), getting him to focus on identifying letters and sounds if he doesn’t initiate it.

Things we’re very proud of: How well he behaves himself at concerts and in public, how good he is when we give him a five-minute window to play before we finish up or leave wherever we are, how much better he is at eating what we’re eating for supper instead of whining and asking for something else, how clearly he spells his name and how capably he copies words out for cards and such, how appreciative he is of gifts (“Oh, wow, this is aweshome. I’ve wanted one of these for years. Thank you!”), how polite he is when he interrupts a conversation (“Excuse me, Mama… excuse me, Mama…”).

Amusing developments: He’s started narrating the cats. One night at supper Nixie appeared in the window between the living room and the kitchen, right next to the table. She delicately used the table’s corner on her way to HRH’s empty chair. And suddenly, there was a soft running narrative in a little falsetto voice happening from my left: “Hello, don’t mind me, I’m not really on the table, I’m just on my way to this chair, yes, like this, and ooh look there’s my water bowl, I’ll just hop down to it then, thank you!” He narrates Gryff, too, in the same slightly gruff, dorky voice we use for him. It’s hilarious. We laughed till we cried when we first heard it.

He’s just… such a fabulous little boy. Even when I’m exasperated because he’s dawdling over something, I’m fully aware that I’m bothered because his behaviour generally sets a high standard that he can’t possibly maintain 24/7. He starts preschool full-time around mid-August, the last step before kindergarten. We’re so proud of him, of his character and his accomplishments. He’s fun to be with, and we’re so very fortunate to have him as part of our family.

The plan for the day: We switched his day with the caregiver to tomorrow so that we could take him out on his birthday itself. We’re headed to the train museum, then lunch out at St Hubert, otherwise known as the “chicken and french fries restaurant.” There was a party at preschool yesterday (which they handled, bless them), a little party at the caregiver’s tomorrow, and then the actual kids’ party on Saturday. I wonder if it’s possible for Sparky to get birthdayed out.

Belated Weekend Roundup

Okay, here we go.

Thursday night: Marc’s vocal concert, at which I unashamedly cried because I’m so darn proud of him. He gets better every year, and his range is really expanding. (I mean vocal range, but the style of songs he’s exploring is also broadening.) There were about ten of us there, and it’s always fun to sit with friends at this kind of thing. We are all about the support.

Friday: Lunch meeting with Marisol, at which I was much more with it than the meeting we had in late winter. We nattered about a bunch of different things connected with her thesis, which she’s trying to recast as a personal memoir and anthropological exploration of language, cultural origin, and spirituality, specifically in Quebec with all its wackiness. It’s fascinating. I know nothing about anthropology, but I made a few suggestions to help make it more attractive for marketing and she’s all excited and fired up to begin. It’s fun helping someone uncover and refine their focus. Then I wandered around downtown in the sun for a bit, hitting the Body Shop and Lush and a used bookstore, where I scored copies of Deborah Lipp’s The Study of Witchcraft, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, and Robert Jourdain’s Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy, all of which I’ve been wanting to read. (Eclectic, that’s me.) The boy begins showing evidence of a cold.

Saturday: Errands, mainly going out to pick up a gift certificate for Jeff and Pasley’s eleventh wedding anniversary, and prep for the family dinner. The big event of the day is the boy’s family birthday party. This is kind of blurry for me, as I was low on energy and doing stuff, but it went well. Everyone arrived around four, was served a drink, and the boy opened his presents. We were somewhat shocked to watch him tear one open then another and another without pausing to appreciate what was inside, which is most unlike him. We suspect an unintentionally misleading gift bag with a large WALL*E on it, which led him to think there was a large WALL*E toy he’s been coveting inside, so when he found clothes he kind of rifled through them and then turned to the next large thing, expecting to find it. Once everything was open he did go back to each gift one by one to explore it, though. There was a simple Millennium Falcon kit, a bug terrarium, new Lego, and Transformers, which wowed him thoroughly. He got me to open them right away, and grabbed Bumblebee from my hands. I said, “Just a second, I’ll show you how to…” and didn’t bother to finish because the four year old who’s never seen a Transformer before went flip-flip-flip and transformed it from car to robot in no time flat, then back again. (HRH and I = very proud. Also, go us for choosing a cool toy.)

Dinner was excellent: wet-brined home-cut pork chops glazed with a Dijon/maple syrup/beef bouillon glaze, and grilled vegetables, preceded by various seafood hors d’oeuvres courtesy of our mothers, and followed by a chocolate cake with vanilla icing, upon which the boy had scattered sugar dinosaurs. There was a lot of wine consumed. The boy went to bed around nine, two hours later than usual. Yikes.

Sunday: I slept horribly and woke up thoroughly ill. The boy and HRH made the Millennium Falcon while I tried to get some more sleep. We met Mum and Dad at their motel and headed over to Ceri and Scott’s house, because Mum was giving Ceri her old spinning wheel for the sunroom. (An antique great or walking wheel, for those who are interested and wondering why I didn’t jump on it; it’s technically functional, but it’s a Saxony style and I have no room for it, and I’m looking for a modern compact castle-style wheel.) The medication I took for the cold started kicking in and I don’t remember much about the visit other than it was sunny and we were outside for most of it. We stopped at La Belle Province and had hot dogs and french fries for lunch, then went back home and the boy conked out for two hours straight. Mum and Dad joined us later and we had a very pleasant visit. Once the boy was up things moved outside, and I was so out of it I couldn’t drag myself out after them all; I lay down and read. My parents left early, and HRH fed the boy while I went to bed. We ended up having to cancel our late dinner out with friends, because I was non-functional. (I remember hearing HRH call to cancel, and him using the phrase “she has a bit of a cold” and being annoyed, because “she can’t get out of bed” would have been more honest and made the cancellation sound less wishy-washy.

Monday: The boy stayed home from preschool as his cough wasn’t completely gone, thereby annihilating one of my precious work days this week. We got out to wander around and tried to do errands, but were thwarted by lack of stock. I was still dragging myself around with low energy, and cancelled my bi-weekly anime night with Marc. HRH and I ended up watching TV together after the boy went to bed, a very pleasant thing indeed as (a) I don’t get to spend a lot of time alone with HRH these days, (b) I don’t watch TV much but I was curiously in the mood for it last night, and (c) both House and Bones were on back to back, the only two shows I’m even remotely interested in these days, and I had seen neither of the episodes.

Today: Cold mostly gone. Dark and cold and rainy outside. An hour of cello. Baking bread.

And now, to work.

In Which She Drags Herself From Bed

The Weekend Roundup will be late, Gentle Readers. The boy woke up Friday morning with a terrible cold, which he generously shared with me. We were okay for the first birthday celebration of three or four on Saturday, but I was knocked off my game on Sunday, my parents left early, and we cancelled our evening out due to me not being able to stand up straight thanks to a combination of the evil sinus cold and the evil medication I took for it. I was in bed at five-thirty and didn’t get up till seven this morning.

The boy is home with me today because his cough isn’t completely gone, so don’t expect to hear from me overmuch.

The weekend summary: Wonderful in every respect but for the health thing and associated fallout.

Have a good day, everyone.

Meandering

I understand now why I’ve been avoiding doing a second draft of Orchestrated. I have to rework the beginning, and I don’t know how to step into it properly. I’m doing a lot of staring at the renamed document on the monitor, the printout in front of me, and feeling like I’m going nowhere.

In other news, there are four more rehearsal till the Canada Day concert, one of which I will be missing as we’re out of town. I need to work on the speed of the Grieg dances, and to smooth out the shifts of the Ralph Vaughn Williams and the Faure Pavane. But really, that’s it. We’re coming together. So long as everyone keeps up their end of the practise-at-home bargain, we’ll be golden. Gods, I love the Vaughn Williams. But that’s just me; I like RVW to begin with. The cellos get to do a lovely stompy theme in the first movement, and a nice lyrical theme in the second. And because I know the piece well, I can play it better.

HRH cleaned out the garage and sorted things into give away/sell/donate piles, and reorganized the storage area. We can all get to the bikes now. I went through the piles of clothing to donate to the local charities. It’s good to have all that out of the way. It was getting very frustrating not being able to find things down there, or easily access the things we needed. I finally saw the water/mold damage to my lovely thick white office carpet Blade gave me as a birthday gift a few years ago, and it’s awful; it was rolled up with one end resting on the floor and got soaked one day. Just one of the irritating reminders of the past downstairs tenant whose washer leaked regularly, flooding the garage floor (and yet she insisted nothing was wrong, argh). I’m pretty sure a thorough steam cleaning will rescue it, and as the upstairs furniture needs that kind of cleaning too we shall rent one of those special vacuums from the grocery store and go to town one day.

Things are ramping up in the family for the boy’s series of birthday celebrations. This Saturday it’s the family thing, with my parents coming in from out of town to join the local grandparents here. Next Wednesday we’ll send cake and possibly balloons to preschool. Thursday is the day itself, and if the weather’s good we may abscond with the boy and take him to the train museum and lunch out. Then next Saturday is the kid party. That’s two cakes and a batch of cupcakes to make, which also means a lot of icing. I hope butter’s on sale somewhere. We asked him what kind of theme he wanted this year, and it wavered between Star Wars and superheroes for a while, before settling on superheroes. Not that we go deep into the theme thing, we just like to have a loose thing to tie colours and cake and invitations together. This is the first year I haven’t done homemade invitations, which makes me slightly sad, but there’s that whole not having colour ink for the printer and money being tight. (Till, well, today, but today would have been too late for the invitations.) It was less expensive to buy them.

I have just discovered Amanda Palmer. I am, as usual, late to the party. I knew about her, but hadn’t actually heard her music till today. I’m currently listening to Who Killed Amanda Palmer, and it’s excellent. Not something one can just throw in the CD player; it’s a very specific sort of music. But very good. Lovely sting arrangements.

HRH got his provincial tax refund today, which means mine is close behind. Hurrah!

Mailbox Joy!

Not one, but two cheques for freelance jobs! I wasn’t expecting the second one for another three months, and while it’s tiny, it’s good for a dinner out. Must rush to the bank to deposit them, as the Canadian dollar continues to gain strength against the USD and I don’t want to end up losing money on them. Also, well, hey; it’s money. And it does me no good as little pieces of paper on my desk.

Right; back to the freelance assignment that I started this morning. I want it done by the end of the work day. It’s short, although that’s never an accurate indicator of how much work it will require.