Yesterday, Things Went Wrong

It could have been worse, of course, but:

1. The phone line, which was supposedly fixed, went dead again yesterday. And then came back this morning. Then it was dead again. And now it’s back up again, but for how long?

2. My printer is officially also dead, which means I need to buy another new one. I’ve tried everything I can to get it back on its feet. Although this one lasted me two years and worked wonderfully when it was operational, so I shouldn’t grumble too much. I seem to replace them every two to five years, and while that seems horribly wasteful to me, it’s probably the lifespan of what’s made these days. (Which disappoints me on a whole other level. I don’t like thinking of small appliances and electronics as disposable.)

3. The new umbrella stroller I bought yesterday at half price to replace our old tatty one (a canopy! reclinable!) was missing two wheels, and I didn’t discover it until I unpacked it after dragging it and the baby in our other stroller home. So I have to take it back again today.

4. My rickety Windows laptop finally bit the dust. It won’t even boot up now.

So I baked chocolate shortbread bunnies. They were very good. And I made veggie-cheese nuggets and froze them for quick Owlet meals, but it took great strength on my part not to eat them all myself.

Update!

1. We have an operational phone again! After the spectacular failure with the last live chat thing with Bell, yesterday’s session went off without a hitch, and an hour later the phone rang. It was Bell, telling me they’d fixed things from their end. I was staggered. I’d expected it to be a song and dance and entail a tech here on site being annoyed, and having to argue with head office… but no. So it was a thing on their end and not our wiring, and they fixed it, and it’s all good now.

2. No word from the magazine position I applied for… but the work gods gifted me with my first freelance editing project from the publisher in almost exactly twelve months this week. I am so incredibly relieved. My professional self-esteem was taking a really bad hit, as was my sense of financial responsibility regarding being able to handle my bills and the household bills I used to cover, too. Unexpectedly being a one-income family for a year really hurt us a lot. I’m always going to be bitter about being denied maternity benefits. (The kicker is that if Owlet had been born a year earlier or later, I’d have made more than enough to qualify for the benefit program.)

3. Two days left of school, including today. While I am excited for Sparky, I am also realizing that this means he will be home 24/7 until camp begins, and I get exhausted with both kids home in just an hour after school. I have also realized that unless we build a daily schedule, he is going to want to drift all day from playing Pokemon on the DS to watching videos and playing games on the computer, to watching movies downstairs, all things he does once his homework is done after school and he is free to relax. And while that keeps him out of my hair, it also is way, way, way too much screen time. We need to schedule cello, and perhaps an hour-long block of quiet reading time (possibly concurrent with Owlet’s afternoon nap), and I have a French workbook that we’ll do two pages of each day. We may schedule a walk, too, so we all get out.

4. Owlet has figured out how to sit up on her own (finally — it came very soon after she figured out Real Crawling), is cruising around the house at an alarming rate, and is practising crouching down and standing up again without holding on to anything. Eek.

General PSAs

1. Our phone voice line is officially on the fritz after being dicky for the past two weeks, and Bell can’t open a help ticket because they’re experiencing technical difficulties. (Fills me with confidence, that does.) Our internet is still functional. If you need to get hold of us, please use e-mail (or a Twitter DM or Facebook message if you’re on either of those, since notifications for those go to my e-mail as well).

2. The Canada Day concert is rapidly approaching: July 1 at 8:00 PM, in St-Joachim church in Pointe-Claire village. It’s free! It’s fun! Come early and enjoy the festivities in the village, and stay for the fireworks after the show!

3. One week left of school. Gods help us.

4. No reply yet from the magazine to whom I submitted an application for the position of part-time editor last Friday. I am totally not stressing. Totally not.

5. Happy Father’s Day weekend to all the dads out there!

Recital Post-Mortem

That went well!

When we last left our cellists, we were prepping for the end of year recital, and I was feeling neutral about my piece, which was about as good as I could feel when I’d been working on it with no guidance for four or five months. The last two lessons were full of things going wrong (everything falling apart is an important part of the constructive process, I know, but it’s no fun when it happens and certainly not seven to ten days before a performance, because reconstruction and mental rewiring usually takes longer than that), and my rehearsal with the accompanist was mostly a disaster with a couple of acceptable patches. By that point I had pretty much accepted that whatever happened happened, and as long as I muddled through it and came out somewhat alive then I’d be okay with it. Now, that’s a huge step forward for me, because usually I worry and worry and worry. This time, I knew that I’d had months off, and if my performance reflected that, well then, that was fair. I was also more concerned about Sparky, who was being more sensitive than usual about performing his piece. (If such a thing is possible, because he angsts about it every time.)

Sparky played second, and he did very well indeed, keeping a steady rhythm and remembering to keep a high third and fourth finger so that his F# and G were in tune, and to reach back to get his E in tune as well. He played a pre-Twinkle piece called “The Little Mouse,” which ends in a squeaky bit played on the string between the bridge and the tailpiece that he just loves to do. I was near the end, and I went in with pretty much zero expectations. I wasn’t entirely happy with how thin the sound was at the beginning, but around the third line of the first page things kind of clicked and I sailed through all the trouble spots and even sounded good. If I ever see the video I’m sure I’ll be embarrassed at how incredulously thrilled I looked at the end when I’d done and I looked at both my teacher and my accompanist.

So that’s the end of Suzuki book 3. Due to both my and my teacher’s schedules we can’t fit in another lesson this month, and we’re both taking the summer off, so that’s it till September. Now I get to start working on book 4 and the Breval sonata, which I played in its entirety with my first teacher; it was my first public recital piece, in fact. And I get to do some swotting up on the orchestra pieces, since the Canada Day concert is in only two weeks.

Sparky: Seven Years Old!

Is anyone else in denial about Sparky being seven? Because HRH and I are having weird time-fluctuating flashes where he cannot possibly be seven, because we remember what it was like when he was born so very clearly. And yet, at the same time, we are very aware of how much he’s grown up, and that takes a lot of time… so is he only seven? Really?

Seven years ago today, during a humid heatwave, 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 well till we were fully unpacked from the move for another nine weeks.

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…

Five…

Six…

SEVEN!

Seven years ago he was born nine weeks early, and we’ve been trying to keep up with him ever since. (That thing about preemies sometimes being slower at milestones and having to adjust gestational/chronological age expectations? Totally untrue in our case.)

I love his sense of humour. His jokes are starting to make more sense, thank goodness; he no longer comes out with non sequiturs then laughs like crazy. We’ve had to dissect his punchlines and explain why they’re not funny, then offer an alternate and point out why it is. Reading lots of jokes in kids’ magazines and joke books has helped, too.

I am so very proud of how he’s worked on cello. Most of the time he whines and drags his feet, and getting him to actually start practice is like herding something worse than cats, but when he steps up, he steps up, and he mostly enjoys it while he’s actually doing it. HRH tells me every once in a while that he wouldn’t be able to handle managing the practices, that he’s impressed we keep on, but I know what it’s like to practice because you Have To, and there’s a natural resistance to doing it even if you like playing. He did brilliantly in his little piece at our recital yesterday, remembering to reach for his F sharp and his G, and reach back so his E was in tune.

He is reading at an early grade six level, according to the final reader assigned to him by his language arts teacher this year. That means he can read just about anything. There are hilarious mispronunciations sometimes, because he does sound a lot of stuff out and doesn’t know where to put the emphasis, or sounds the whole word out all at once as a unit instead of doing it slowly, and so misses some sounds or jumbles them up. It’s hard to choose books for him now, because his reading level is above his level of comfort or interest with the potential subject matter. We have this problem with Lego, too. He’s gotten to the point with Lego that because he’s seven, he loves the superhero sets and the police sets and that sort of thing. However, he whips the sets for 7-14 year olds together and it’s over in five minutes, while the 14+ stuff is too complicated for him and really can’t be played with once it’s built. He can play with the 7-14 year sets afterwards, but since the main fun is in the building… well, we’re looking for something a bit different. Maybe some Knex, or Meccano.

He’s wearing size 6-7 shirts, size 6 pants for length (we cinch the waists; in fact, he’s wearing a lot of his size 4 shorts this summer, because they fit the waist and the length doesn’t matter the way it does with pants). He’s in size 13 shoes. His appetite is finally slowing down. In fact, Owlet often eats more than he does at a meal. We need to remember to adjust our servings sizes and our expectations regarding how much he’ll consume.

His imagination runs non-stop. He is constantly pretending to be something or someone, and narrating a story, like he’s a living storyboard artist. Fortunately our lines are handed to us, which eliminates the need to keep up with him by thinking on our feet. He does exhaust us physically and runs us to the edge of our patience, though, with constant repeated requests for things which have already been denied and a reason provided, or by ignoring us when we call or give him instructions because he’d rather be doing whatever he’s doing at the time. But that’s a general kid thing.

He’s got a lot of challenges ahead of him this year. He’s going to an arts-focused day camp for the first time; he starts at a new school this fall, in French. His reading skills and strategies are already helping him, though: I brought home a couple of easy French picture books from the library last week and he either outright read some pages, or sounded words out and puzzled out the meaning from the context of the words around them that he knew and the accompanying pictures. It’s going to be hard for the first month, and the trick will be keeping him optimistic and his outlook positive when he feels like he’s behind instead of leading the class, like he’s used to doing. Then everything will fall into place. He’s a bright kid. It won’t take long at all.

The State Of Cello

I see that all I’m managing is a blog post every couple of weeks, which is not so great for my record keeping. I’m going to try to blog more often. (That makes it sound like I haven’t been trying. I pecked this out last night on my iPhone during break at orchestra using Evernote, then synced it up this morning, copied it to the blogging software, and edited it. Whatever works. It’s not something I can do for anything large and writing-related, though I have been using the same process to make notes for the basis of the kids’ posts.)

Let’s start with a cello post.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to schedule a couple of lessons leading up to the summer recital. I’d been going to the group lessons and working on the group pieces, but I dropped private lessons entirely in February. When my teacher asked if I was doing something for the recital I wibbled. I hadn’t planned on it, as I hadn’t been really working on anything properly, although I’d been playing Allegro Moderato, the last assigned Suzuki piece now and then. She said she’d like me to, but if I didn’t feel comfortable doing the Allegro I’d started in January (and had all of two lessons on) then I could pull out something old and brush up on it. I agreed, because it would feel odd to play in the group pieces but not a solo, and it would be the first recital I didn’t play in since I started lessons again three years ago. (Is this really going to be my sixth recital with this teacher? Wow.) So for my first lesson in months, I brought in a pile of things I’d played sixteen years ago and had read through at home as potential back-up, but I set Allegro Moderato on the stand and played it for her first. She said, “Oh, this will be fine; we just need to polish it a bit here and there.” That made me feel remarkably good. I was relieved to know I hadn’t broken it irreparably over my months of practicing alone. Now, I’m not entirely happy with it; I’d like another two weeks of working on the targeted areas. I’m playing it at a slower speed than I’d been practicing it at home, because I couldn’t get it to hang together smoothly enough the other way. (It’s, um, very Moderato.) But I won’t crash and burn. (I hope?)

Orchestra is fun. We’re working on the Canada Day concert, which has a Northern theme, Russian and Scandinavian music… and one Canadian piece, too! We’re preparing Glinka’s Ruslan & Ludmilla overture (which we’re taking at a sane seed, so my initial conniption has been assuaged), both Peer Gynt suites, Finlandia, Borodin’s wonderful Third Symphony, and a piece by our conductor, Stewart Grant. I’m still sitting last chair, and that’s just fine and relaxed for me. It’s not like I have lots of time to work on my stuff at home, though it’s not a very challenging programme cellistically. I’m really enjoying this programme a lot. I won’t lie; it’s probably a wee bit due to the less challenging skill level required to pull it off as compared to our last couple of concerts, but also it’s also because I’ve loved most of this music for ages.

My A string is starting to feel rough. I may have to replace it. In fact, I haven’t taken my cello for a tuneup since I bought it two years ago; I can’t afford it. But it seems to be carrying on quite well, and if it’s taken two years for the A string to reach this point, then I’m pretty impressed, frankly. And the sound just keeps getting better. The 7/8 was a good investment: it still sounds fabulous, and much better than an entry-level student model is expected to sound.

Owlet: Ten Months Old!

I will never again doubt my mother’s claim that I did everything at nine months — walking, talking, complicated piano riffs (no, not really) — because this past month has been an explosion of development for Owlet.

In the Big Achievements department, she can now:

• Drink from her own handle-less 10-oz sippy cup (which is filled to the brim with water when we give it to her, and she usually drains one every day, sometimes more)
• Clap with actual open hands, not knocking the knuckles of her fists together.
• Crawl! We have real crawling, with all four limbs moving in sequence! Her tummy even lifts off the floor for about half the endeavour! Though she often goes back to the baby army crawl because she can move faster that way. And if she has her druthers, she’d rather be standing, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, she’ll insist on it.
• Hover, as in stand on her own for a few seconds while she lets go of one piece of furniture or hand and reaches for another.
• Cruise around a room with ease, going from bookcase to loveseat to end table to coffee table to chair to cedar chest. I draw the line at the spinning wheel.
• Stand next to someone holding only one hand, and even take a few steps that way.
• Stand for a few moments on her own, usually because she doesn’t notice she’s let go with both hands.
• Stand on her own, not touching anything, and drink from her sippy cup (yeah, this one really freaked us out). We’ve gone from a couple of seconds of hands-free hovering, to standing unassisted, while tilting the sippy cup back to drink from it. I don’t think she realized that she didn’t have a hip resting against the edge of the coffee table, as she usually does. It kind of blew my mind: she had her head way back, with both hands on the sippy cup and elbows up and cocked out, and she didn’t even wobble.

And…

• WALK. It’s only a shaky step or two at this point if she’s on her own, but if she’s holding on to someone’s fingers she motors along with great determination. And she doesn’t hang her weight from your hands either; she’s on her own feet and she lightly uses you as balance when she needs it. HRH built beautiful wooden baby gates in the style of the attic railing (true hinged gates that open and close at the top of each staircase), and they came at the precisely correct time.

Owlet won’t. sit. down. It’s all standing, all the time, or there is shrieking and arching the back and throwing herself around. She loves to stand at one of the little play stations we’ve set up on end tables or low shelves for her. The play stations have a mix of blocks, books, small shaky toys or stuffed critters. I keep trying to teach her the put-things-in-other-things skill, but she’s still too delighted with the taking-things-out-of-other-things part. There’s a big cognitive jump between the two. Books are suddenly more than chew toys (although that is still their primary purpose): they open and close, and flipping pages is lots of fun. She got a wooden swing this past month, and has therefore been introduced to swinging, which, judging from the cascade of throaty giggles, she adores.

In the realm of teeth, she’s up to seven, four on top and three below. She’s working on her eighth, the lower right second incisor, and is utterly miserable right now. This poor kid can’t get a break. It has to slow down at some point. Seven within two months? I don’t remember Sparky’s coming that fast.

Owlet’s eyes have gone a beautiful grey-blue, and her hair is coming in nicely. It’s long enough at the sides to start sticking out over her ears in funny little swoops, and at the bottom to start hinting at clumping into thin little waves. It’s still an indeterminate colour, but it’s got a lot of red to it for now. (Red tones and waves… to no one’s surprise, I’m sure.) Her skin is so fair that it turns red about five minutes after we go outside, even when we’ve slathered her in SPF 50 sunscreen and she’s in the shade. I’ve concluded that it’s a response to the heat. She grew out of the awesome little denim bucket hat someone passed along to us, and Nana brought her a new floppy wide-brimmed white eyelet hat this past weekend that we call her chapeau. It covers so much more of her neck and shoulders.

New foods include toast and raspberry jam, salmon, scones, orzo, baby corn, garlic shoots, edamame… I’ve lost track. Pretty much anything except nut products, shellfish, and berries, really. She is so incredibly enthusiastic about food that she wants whatever anyone is eating, and doesn’t turn anything away. We haven’t done cow’s milk yet; still holding off on it. Maybe next month. She’s using that sippy cup like a pro for drinking water, though, after having so much trouble with them. You know what did it? Buying her a sippy cup without handles. We were using two kinds of handled ones, but all she did was get hung up on the handles, either by chewing them or getting them tangled up in her hands. I suspect they stuck out too far and needed too much fine motor control to adjust the cup so that the spout was at the right angle. I bought these Tommee Tippee ones instead, and the very day we got it she had it tipped up to drink from it. The cup is much more secure and doesn’t wobble, since she’s holding it right between her palms.

And oh, the talking. After worrying a bit, she seems to have suddenly switched to the vocal development track after working so hard on the physical development one. So far, the words she uses are: cat, Dada, Mama, mi (milk), mo (more), mmm (her yummy sound), booh (book), awl (owl), beh (bell). She has said “eh” (not “aay” but a short e) and “yeah” for a while now, using them as greetings or general comment. The other day Sparky called her name and she said, “Yeah?” And then they did it again, which was fantastic. She has an interesting “ee-AH” sound for her brother, which is odd; I’d have thought it would be “EE-ah,” echoing the syllabic emphasis of his name. It is also entirely possible she said “nana” and “amma” when her grandmothers were here.

Sleep is slowly approaching something like reliable. About an hour to two hours of nap both morning and afternoon. Generally she’ll go to bed around 7, wake anywhere between one and four, nurse then sleep again, and wake up around 6:30 for the day. That’s a rough average, of course. There are nights where she’s miserable from teething or a cold or the bloody cats wake her up, or the wind changes, or whatever. (Like now. Now we have the ‘shriek and fuss for ninety minutes before finally sleeping, no matter what Mum and Dad do’ thing happening. So much fun.)

She’s figured out dancing! She holds onto the edge of the coffee table and bobs up and down with a ginormous grin on her face. She watched someone drumming on Sesame Street one morning and started banging the table in response, so there’s that connection, too. When we sing to her she sometimes “sings” back with “ah ah ah ah”s. She’s loving Sparky just as much as ever, too. She toddles into his room, dragging whoever is walking with her behind her, and explores his books, toys, and bed, whether he is there or not (if he is, it’s an exciting bonus). He has played with her properly at least once a week, making up games around her and her toys. They danced to the radio one day, which was priceless:

Nursing is leveling off, of her own accord. She is very busy, you see, much too busy to curl up and have some milk. She much prefers standing at the coffee table and munching diced apple or rice rusks. And if she is game for milk we need to pay close attention to the latch, or her sharp little teeth make things uncomfortable. She’s making the sessions she does have shorter, too. Whereas they used to be ten to fifteen minutes, now they’re five to eight. Plus we have also attained the nursing gymnastics level, where baby wants to wiggle and roll and move around while drinking, and when you’ve got 23 pounds of enthusiastic baby trying to multitask, well, it’s frustrating and uncomfortable. I’ve ended nursing sessions because she’s climbing around, and she hasn’t seemed upset yet. I’m bruised and sore from the toes dug into the ribs and abdomen as she climbs over me, I’ve cut another two inches off my hair to reduce the amount of yanking, and I grit my teeth against the pinching when she tries to grab my clothes and gets the skin underneath as well. I forgot how all-or-nothing babies are; they do everything full-tilt, because they have no governors yet.

And full-tilt is her default setting. She wants to do All The Things All The Time, unless it involves sitting quietly. If she has distraction and stimulation, she is thrilled. If she has me, I get boring very quickly. In purely selfish realm, I wish she was more of a cuddler. I have a baby who yanks and pulls and head butts and jabs – all in enthusiasm, I must add, not maliciousness. Instead of cuddles, there are struggles. I’m hoping she mellows somewhat, because I’m a cuddler myself, and the only time I get to cuddle her a bit is when she nurses… which is, of course, becoming rarer. She’s growing up, the way babies do.