1. Cheerios. Once upon a time I was going to have a no-eating-in-front-of-the-TV rule. Then I decided I wanted to have SOME peace and quiet in the day.
2. Popcorn. And if the kids can do it, so can hubby and I after the kids go to bed.
3. Socks. I mentioned this in the laundry post. My question is: do they fall down there? Or is somebody stuffing them down…
4. Hot Wheels cars. I didn’t even think either of them played with these anymore.
5. ??? Something that’s flattened, darkened and dried out beyond all recognition. Is it a piece of dried fruit? Some kind of chocolate? Dare I … smell it to try and determine its origin?!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
5 funny kid quotes
My Facebook friends may be familiar with some of these...
1. Germs.
Me: Max, can I have a sip of your water?
Max: Shakes his head. I don’t like other people’s germs.
Me: Even your mummy’s? You used to live inside my body, you know…
Max: Yeah, but I forget what it tasted like.
2. The Letter P
Me: ...And what letter is this?
Sarah: P!
Me: And whose name starts with P? (Motioning towards myself...)
Sarah: Momma!
Me: Yes, but what's Momma's real name?
Sarah: Thinks for a moment and then... Babe!
3. Glowing. Sarah and I were reading this morning. She got to the last page of her book which depicted a cartoon firefly all lit up and underneath it read “I like to glow.”
Sarah read, “I like glow.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing to the “to.”
Not understanding that she just missed a word and thinking she read something wrong, Sarah started again, “I like to….. I like to….. I like to light up my bum!”
4. Birds and the bees. I decided a while ago that an open approach to this topic with my children is best. So when Max asked me the inevitable baby question a couple of years ago at about age five, I tackled it head on. The ensuing conversation was much less traumatic than I anticipated. In fact, not at all so. I answered his questions frankly and he took it all very much in stride. I gave myself a little pat on the back for being a mom of the millennium! Answering sex questions with honest, age-appropriate responses.
So later my mom was visiting. (You see where this is going?) She was here on her yearly visit from Australia. We were spending a lovely Saturday afternoon, Doug was relaxing with a cool drink, Max and Nana were doing a puzzle, I was – you guessed it – Facebooking as usual. Out of the blue, Max pipes up, “Daddy, did you stick your penis in Mommy’s vagina?” As hubby stammered, grappling with the appropriate response to this question in front of his mother-in-law, Max muttered, “That’s so ‘isgusting.”
5. Birds and the bees, continued. After the aforementioned big revelation in front of my mother, I thought we had the whole issue resolved … and then some. But apparently I was wrong.
About a week later I was making a cake. (I know, I sound wonderfully domestic and June Cleaver-like, don’t I? I won’t mention how Duncan Hines was involved.) After I was done mixing I let Max have the beater to lick. He was sitting at the kitchen table happily licking away when he pronounced, “I’m so glad to be alive!” (I know. The kid kills me. Where does he come up with this stuff??)
So I said, “Well Max, I’m so glad you’re alive too! What would I do without my guy?” To which he replied, “Yeah, aren’t you so glad you put your vagina on Daddy’s belly button?”
Um, yeah.
Share your funny kid quotes!!
1. Germs.
Me: Max, can I have a sip of your water?
Max: Shakes his head. I don’t like other people’s germs.
Me: Even your mummy’s? You used to live inside my body, you know…
Max: Yeah, but I forget what it tasted like.
2. The Letter P
Me: ...And what letter is this?
Sarah: P!
Me: And whose name starts with P? (Motioning towards myself...)
Sarah: Momma!
Me: Yes, but what's Momma's real name?
Sarah: Thinks for a moment and then... Babe!
3. Glowing. Sarah and I were reading this morning. She got to the last page of her book which depicted a cartoon firefly all lit up and underneath it read “I like to glow.”
Sarah read, “I like glow.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing to the “to.”
Not understanding that she just missed a word and thinking she read something wrong, Sarah started again, “I like to….. I like to….. I like to light up my bum!”
4. Birds and the bees. I decided a while ago that an open approach to this topic with my children is best. So when Max asked me the inevitable baby question a couple of years ago at about age five, I tackled it head on. The ensuing conversation was much less traumatic than I anticipated. In fact, not at all so. I answered his questions frankly and he took it all very much in stride. I gave myself a little pat on the back for being a mom of the millennium! Answering sex questions with honest, age-appropriate responses.
So later my mom was visiting. (You see where this is going?) She was here on her yearly visit from Australia. We were spending a lovely Saturday afternoon, Doug was relaxing with a cool drink, Max and Nana were doing a puzzle, I was – you guessed it – Facebooking as usual. Out of the blue, Max pipes up, “Daddy, did you stick your penis in Mommy’s vagina?” As hubby stammered, grappling with the appropriate response to this question in front of his mother-in-law, Max muttered, “That’s so ‘isgusting.”
5. Birds and the bees, continued. After the aforementioned big revelation in front of my mother, I thought we had the whole issue resolved … and then some. But apparently I was wrong.
About a week later I was making a cake. (I know, I sound wonderfully domestic and June Cleaver-like, don’t I? I won’t mention how Duncan Hines was involved.) After I was done mixing I let Max have the beater to lick. He was sitting at the kitchen table happily licking away when he pronounced, “I’m so glad to be alive!” (I know. The kid kills me. Where does he come up with this stuff??)
So I said, “Well Max, I’m so glad you’re alive too! What would I do without my guy?” To which he replied, “Yeah, aren’t you so glad you put your vagina on Daddy’s belly button?”
Um, yeah.
Share your funny kid quotes!!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
5 laundry mysteries, mishaps and frustrations
1. The amount. Am I right? Those of you who have children and are in charge of the laundry in your house know what I mean. How does a family of four manage to generate enough laundry to keep me doing two or three loads every couple of days?? It just doesn’t add up, I tell you!
2. Pajamas. Because of my aforementioned frustration with the amount of laundry I’m constantly doing, I try and encourage the other members of the household to wear their pajamas more than once before they throw them in the laundry hamper. (And by laundry hamper, I mean floor.) I wear my pjs a few times before I wash them, why can’t they? I don’t think this is unreasonable. So anyway, one day back when my son was four and I started this battle to get him to put his pjs back in his dresser as opposed to leaving them strewn about his room or putting them in the hamper after just one wear, we had a bit of an incident. I was in my room puttering about and the kids were down the hall playing. Suddenly the two of them came over and started playing in my room. I asked them to go back and play in their rooms, to which Max replied, “We can’t Mom, it’s too smoky in there.” Oh, okay. Wait, what? Smoky?? I ran down the hall and, sure enough, his room was full of thick grey smoke. I tracked the source of all this smoke to his lamp. It was one of those tall floor standing lamps from Ikea I think, with basically a bowl on the top that houses the light bulb. You see, apparently folding up his pajamas and putting them back in his drawer was much more difficult for my son than throwing them up into his lamp where they sat smoldering against the light bulb. To this day he still leaves his pajamas lying around his room or I’ll find three pairs in his hamper after just three days since the last laundry cycle. But I’ve given up bugging him about it. Maybe this isn’t good parenting but at least my house hasn’t burnt down.
3. Tshirts. Hubby has a thing about Tshirts. He wears one under his dress shirt to work. Then he comes home and changes into another. Then he’ll have some work to do around the house or in the yard so he’ll put on another. Then he’ll be sweaty so he’ll have to get another. Then he has to have a fresh one to wear to bed (see #2 Pajamas, above). You may think at some point he would go back to one of his earlier shirts that wasn’t really dirty. But why would he go through the hassle of trying to find that shirt when he can just open the magic Tshirt drawer where shirts just magically appear all clean and folded again? I know, you’re thinking the amount of laundry mystery is maybe not such a mystery after all… .
4. The rogue sock. Everybody hates how there are always single socks left without their partners at the bottom of the laundry basket. Actually that doesn’t even bug me that much. What I find annoying is when I spend a day doing laundry, because maybe I’ve let it pile up a little more than usual (like an extra day) and I do loads and loads until it’s all done. Ah. The hampers are empty, there’s nothing on the floors, everything’s folded and in its place. Peace. Order. I go to sit down on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye I spy something dark coming out from between the couch cushions. I pull it out: a sock. Argh!!!
5. Me. Okay, okay. I can’t blame all the laundry frustrations on my family. The other day I pulled a load out of the dryer. I put it in the basket and set it down. Then I got sidetracked, I think maybe the phone rang or something. Afterwards I had one of those moments when I’m standing in the middle of my house thinking, Now what was I just doing? Oh yeah, laundry. I go back, grab a basket of clothes and start throwing it in the washer. As I’m doing it I’m wondering, why are these clothes warm? Yeah. I was rewashing the load I just pulled out of the dryer. Our clothes were extra clean that day!
2. Pajamas. Because of my aforementioned frustration with the amount of laundry I’m constantly doing, I try and encourage the other members of the household to wear their pajamas more than once before they throw them in the laundry hamper. (And by laundry hamper, I mean floor.) I wear my pjs a few times before I wash them, why can’t they? I don’t think this is unreasonable. So anyway, one day back when my son was four and I started this battle to get him to put his pjs back in his dresser as opposed to leaving them strewn about his room or putting them in the hamper after just one wear, we had a bit of an incident. I was in my room puttering about and the kids were down the hall playing. Suddenly the two of them came over and started playing in my room. I asked them to go back and play in their rooms, to which Max replied, “We can’t Mom, it’s too smoky in there.” Oh, okay. Wait, what? Smoky?? I ran down the hall and, sure enough, his room was full of thick grey smoke. I tracked the source of all this smoke to his lamp. It was one of those tall floor standing lamps from Ikea I think, with basically a bowl on the top that houses the light bulb. You see, apparently folding up his pajamas and putting them back in his drawer was much more difficult for my son than throwing them up into his lamp where they sat smoldering against the light bulb. To this day he still leaves his pajamas lying around his room or I’ll find three pairs in his hamper after just three days since the last laundry cycle. But I’ve given up bugging him about it. Maybe this isn’t good parenting but at least my house hasn’t burnt down.
3. Tshirts. Hubby has a thing about Tshirts. He wears one under his dress shirt to work. Then he comes home and changes into another. Then he’ll have some work to do around the house or in the yard so he’ll put on another. Then he’ll be sweaty so he’ll have to get another. Then he has to have a fresh one to wear to bed (see #2 Pajamas, above). You may think at some point he would go back to one of his earlier shirts that wasn’t really dirty. But why would he go through the hassle of trying to find that shirt when he can just open the magic Tshirt drawer where shirts just magically appear all clean and folded again? I know, you’re thinking the amount of laundry mystery is maybe not such a mystery after all… .
4. The rogue sock. Everybody hates how there are always single socks left without their partners at the bottom of the laundry basket. Actually that doesn’t even bug me that much. What I find annoying is when I spend a day doing laundry, because maybe I’ve let it pile up a little more than usual (like an extra day) and I do loads and loads until it’s all done. Ah. The hampers are empty, there’s nothing on the floors, everything’s folded and in its place. Peace. Order. I go to sit down on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye I spy something dark coming out from between the couch cushions. I pull it out: a sock. Argh!!!
5. Me. Okay, okay. I can’t blame all the laundry frustrations on my family. The other day I pulled a load out of the dryer. I put it in the basket and set it down. Then I got sidetracked, I think maybe the phone rang or something. Afterwards I had one of those moments when I’m standing in the middle of my house thinking, Now what was I just doing? Oh yeah, laundry. I go back, grab a basket of clothes and start throwing it in the washer. As I’m doing it I’m wondering, why are these clothes warm? Yeah. I was rewashing the load I just pulled out of the dryer. Our clothes were extra clean that day!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
5 times my kids have amazed me
(I'm going to be posting new lists soon - I promise! In the meantime, here's another oldie from Facebook...)
1. Max’s hair. Like all new moms, when I was pregnant for the first time I thought a lot about what my baby would look like. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would he have my husband’s nose? Would she have my eyes? All the regular things. One thing I never gave any consideration was hair colour. Since I’m half Japanese with dark hair and my husband is Caucasian with dark hair I never even wondered about our baby’s hair. So when, after over twelve hours of active labour, the midwife plopped our son onto my deflated belly I was …. well, I was surprised! Red. Not strawberry blonde. Not auburn. Definitely, unequivocally red. And I love it. Five years later I still field the “Where does he get his hair?” questions. I have yet to come up with a witty retort to the inevitable milkman jokes. But that hair. I look at him and it’s like a daily reminder, a little sign saying “Life is full of fun surprises and little miracles.” Don’t take anything for granted. You just never know.
2. Sarah walks. My son was fairly average when it came to hitting milestones. He could hold his head up off the floor at three months, rolled over at four months, sat up at six months, and walked at about one year. So when our daughter started striking a sort of “downward dog” yoga pose at four months, I was pretty intrigued. And then she walked. She walked when she was eight months old. I know people who didn’t see it don’t believe me when I tell them now. I’m glad I have the little videos we took, otherwise I’d start doubting my own memory. People used to stop me in the mall. I guess we were an interesting site: me and this little, teeny, tiny baby, who looked like she should still be in a stroller, walking around. Now that I think about it, it’s no wonder that, nearly two years later, she still won’t sit in her stroller. No one’s holding her back!
3. The lock. Last year we sold our house. I could rant … but I won’t. This isn’t about that. This is about the lock we had on our front door. You know the kind: it’s a combination lock real estate agents use that has your front door key inside. Well, one day I pulled into the garage with the kids and realized that the last agent who showed our house locked the door into the house from the garage and I didn’t have a key. No need to panic, though. I called our agent and asked him for the combination to the lock that held the extra key. I got the key out but couldn’t seem to figure out how to replace it and close the panel. It wouldn’t stay shut. So there I am on the front stoop of our house, Sarah trying to dig in my flower planters, Max yammering away in the background as usual, and me on my cell trying to hear the agent explain how to work the lock. “Shhhh, Max!” I snapped. “I’m on the phone and I can’t hear!” After a few more unsuccessful attempts I told the agent to wait a moment while I put the phone down so I would have two hands available to contend with the lock. That’s when I realized what my four-year-old had been trying to tell me. “Mom! You’ve got it upside down!” Oh. I turned it around. Click. It went right in.
4. The pantry. Experts say you can’t expect children under the age of three to really understand the concept of sharing because at that age they haven’t yet developed the key emotion: empathy. So at just two years old, Sarah surprised me a few months ago when I was digging in my pantry. The pantry is a bit of a sore issue. Last year when we were going over kitchen specs with the builder, I wanted pantry shelves that would pull out. My husband thought it was something he could do himself, much more economically, with supplies from Home Depot. I’m still waiting. And smashing. Smashing bottles, unintentionally, that get pushed off the edge of shelves as I manically sift through trying to find the illusive item I need at that moment which is inevitably at the very back of the pantry. So it was after one such episode, as I was crouched in front of those shelves, on the brink of tearing my hair out, muttering “Where is it? Where the hell is it?” that I felt a chubby little two-year old arm around my neck. A soft, little voice said: “It okay, Momma. Don’t worry.” Suddenly paprika was just paprika again as I regained my composure in my little girl’s hug.
5. Max wakes up. All the moms whose kids started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks raise your hands. Okay, I don’t want to hear from you. Sorry. Not to be grumpy. It’s nothing personal. It’s just neither of my children are “sleepers.” Try going three years without more than four consecutive hours of sleep and you’ll be grumpy too. It’s made me very, shall we say, protective of my sleep. That’s why one night last year when Max woke up at about 2 a.m. to use our ensuite bathroom – He always uses ours. The main one is about three steps from his room but that’d be too easy. He walks right by it to come into our room every time. – I pretended to be asleep. He went in, peed, flushed, came out and stood by the end of our bed. Oh no! Why was he stopping? Eyes closed, I willed as hard as I could. Just keep going, Max. Don’t talk. Don’t ask for a glass of water. Just keep going. I really didn’t want to spend the next hour convincing him to go back to bed. Then I heard a soft mmwah and a faint blowing sound. The sound of a four year old blowing a kiss. I surreptitiously opened one eye in time to see him wave at his “sleeping” parents as he walked out and quietly shut the door behind him.
All of my complaining aside, this is the real snapshot of my kids. Smart, funny, intuitive, full of surprises. Authentic. Beautiful.
The amazing red haired Japanese baby.
Downward dog at 4 1/2 months.
1. Max’s hair. Like all new moms, when I was pregnant for the first time I thought a lot about what my baby would look like. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would he have my husband’s nose? Would she have my eyes? All the regular things. One thing I never gave any consideration was hair colour. Since I’m half Japanese with dark hair and my husband is Caucasian with dark hair I never even wondered about our baby’s hair. So when, after over twelve hours of active labour, the midwife plopped our son onto my deflated belly I was …. well, I was surprised! Red. Not strawberry blonde. Not auburn. Definitely, unequivocally red. And I love it. Five years later I still field the “Where does he get his hair?” questions. I have yet to come up with a witty retort to the inevitable milkman jokes. But that hair. I look at him and it’s like a daily reminder, a little sign saying “Life is full of fun surprises and little miracles.” Don’t take anything for granted. You just never know.
2. Sarah walks. My son was fairly average when it came to hitting milestones. He could hold his head up off the floor at three months, rolled over at four months, sat up at six months, and walked at about one year. So when our daughter started striking a sort of “downward dog” yoga pose at four months, I was pretty intrigued. And then she walked. She walked when she was eight months old. I know people who didn’t see it don’t believe me when I tell them now. I’m glad I have the little videos we took, otherwise I’d start doubting my own memory. People used to stop me in the mall. I guess we were an interesting site: me and this little, teeny, tiny baby, who looked like she should still be in a stroller, walking around. Now that I think about it, it’s no wonder that, nearly two years later, she still won’t sit in her stroller. No one’s holding her back!
3. The lock. Last year we sold our house. I could rant … but I won’t. This isn’t about that. This is about the lock we had on our front door. You know the kind: it’s a combination lock real estate agents use that has your front door key inside. Well, one day I pulled into the garage with the kids and realized that the last agent who showed our house locked the door into the house from the garage and I didn’t have a key. No need to panic, though. I called our agent and asked him for the combination to the lock that held the extra key. I got the key out but couldn’t seem to figure out how to replace it and close the panel. It wouldn’t stay shut. So there I am on the front stoop of our house, Sarah trying to dig in my flower planters, Max yammering away in the background as usual, and me on my cell trying to hear the agent explain how to work the lock. “Shhhh, Max!” I snapped. “I’m on the phone and I can’t hear!” After a few more unsuccessful attempts I told the agent to wait a moment while I put the phone down so I would have two hands available to contend with the lock. That’s when I realized what my four-year-old had been trying to tell me. “Mom! You’ve got it upside down!” Oh. I turned it around. Click. It went right in.
4. The pantry. Experts say you can’t expect children under the age of three to really understand the concept of sharing because at that age they haven’t yet developed the key emotion: empathy. So at just two years old, Sarah surprised me a few months ago when I was digging in my pantry. The pantry is a bit of a sore issue. Last year when we were going over kitchen specs with the builder, I wanted pantry shelves that would pull out. My husband thought it was something he could do himself, much more economically, with supplies from Home Depot. I’m still waiting. And smashing. Smashing bottles, unintentionally, that get pushed off the edge of shelves as I manically sift through trying to find the illusive item I need at that moment which is inevitably at the very back of the pantry. So it was after one such episode, as I was crouched in front of those shelves, on the brink of tearing my hair out, muttering “Where is it? Where the hell is it?” that I felt a chubby little two-year old arm around my neck. A soft, little voice said: “It okay, Momma. Don’t worry.” Suddenly paprika was just paprika again as I regained my composure in my little girl’s hug.
5. Max wakes up. All the moms whose kids started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks raise your hands. Okay, I don’t want to hear from you. Sorry. Not to be grumpy. It’s nothing personal. It’s just neither of my children are “sleepers.” Try going three years without more than four consecutive hours of sleep and you’ll be grumpy too. It’s made me very, shall we say, protective of my sleep. That’s why one night last year when Max woke up at about 2 a.m. to use our ensuite bathroom – He always uses ours. The main one is about three steps from his room but that’d be too easy. He walks right by it to come into our room every time. – I pretended to be asleep. He went in, peed, flushed, came out and stood by the end of our bed. Oh no! Why was he stopping? Eyes closed, I willed as hard as I could. Just keep going, Max. Don’t talk. Don’t ask for a glass of water. Just keep going. I really didn’t want to spend the next hour convincing him to go back to bed. Then I heard a soft mmwah and a faint blowing sound. The sound of a four year old blowing a kiss. I surreptitiously opened one eye in time to see him wave at his “sleeping” parents as he walked out and quietly shut the door behind him.
All of my complaining aside, this is the real snapshot of my kids. Smart, funny, intuitive, full of surprises. Authentic. Beautiful.
The amazing red haired Japanese baby.
Downward dog at 4 1/2 months.
Monday, December 15, 2008
5 things that seem to gather and breed in my house
There’s the usual dust, toys, clothes and dishes. But what about these things that seem to proliferate around my home…
1. Blankets. I think this is from my daughter who is always tucking in her dollies, putting them to sleep. Or maybe I need to keep my house at a warmer temperature. But every morning my family room is littered with various blankets. So I gather them up, fold them in a pile and leave them sitting at the bottom of the stairs. This, as all females know, is the internationally accepted sign for “Please bring me upstairs.” But somehow men and children don’t seem to be versed in this international language. They will sidestep, overstep, take two steps at a time to avoid the thing and leave it at the bottom of the stairs.
2. Recycling. Are you the only one in your house who moves the recycling from the kitchen to the garage? Me too. When the recycling box under the sink gets full, that’s when the recycling starts to grow, like buildings in a downtown core, around my kitchen sink.
3. Lists. Well, you know how I am about lists. As I tidy my house I find my lists, my husband’s lists, and now even my kids’ Santa wish lists. Little scraps of paper littered around my house reminding me of stuff to do, stuff to buy, stuff to remember from weeks ago. I’ve seen a website dedicated to people’s discarded lists. I should send mine in. I could keep them going for years.
4. Hats. Ball caps, winter toques, cowboy hats, even princess tiaras, which I don’t think you can really categorize as a hat, but anyway, you get the idea. All these items appear one here, one there around my house until they’re everywhere. As I try and scurry around putting ball caps in closets, tiaras in the toy box, winter hats with the coats, I slip into an activity which my sister has affectionately termed “Moving Things Around.” This is when you spend an hour or more of your time moving things from one area of your house to another until you have lost sight of why this certain item has to move up your stairs until it rests in a different spot from the spot it was in before.
5. Artwork. This one is the worst. Which sounds terrible to say. What kind of a mother says her children’s artwork is the worst? Okay, here’s the thing: my children are 7 and 4 years of age. It is a special time. A magical time. A very … prolific time. And far be it for me to squelch this emerging artistry. I mean really, I love to see their fledgling stick figures, their first misspelled words, their attempts at illustrated stories. But it’s just hard to deal with all the … works of art that come at me from everywhere. They’re produced at the kitchen table, the toy room in the basement, their bedrooms; at school, daycare, camps; at Grandma & Grandpa’s house, parties and play dates. And it’s not that I don’t want them to create. I keep a cupboard full of markers, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, paper, cardboard, everything for crafting expressly because I’d much rather they create than stare passively at the TV. But what to do with everything afterwards??? Some people frame certain special pieces and decorate the toy room or child’s bedroom with their art. I should totally do that. But pretty soon it would be like wallpaper if I kept that up for any length of time. So what do I do? I let everything pile up for a few weeks – in case, heaven forbid, I throw out something only to be asked about that one certain picture the next day – and then I go on a throwing out rampage. I save a few choice pieces from each artist, in case I ever get to that framing thing, and then valiantly try to swallow up my guilt as I see their drawings, their crafts, their signs saying “I love you Mom, you’re the best” get filed in the big round file in the garage. Oh, the guilt! THE GUILT!
1. Blankets. I think this is from my daughter who is always tucking in her dollies, putting them to sleep. Or maybe I need to keep my house at a warmer temperature. But every morning my family room is littered with various blankets. So I gather them up, fold them in a pile and leave them sitting at the bottom of the stairs. This, as all females know, is the internationally accepted sign for “Please bring me upstairs.” But somehow men and children don’t seem to be versed in this international language. They will sidestep, overstep, take two steps at a time to avoid the thing and leave it at the bottom of the stairs.
2. Recycling. Are you the only one in your house who moves the recycling from the kitchen to the garage? Me too. When the recycling box under the sink gets full, that’s when the recycling starts to grow, like buildings in a downtown core, around my kitchen sink.
3. Lists. Well, you know how I am about lists. As I tidy my house I find my lists, my husband’s lists, and now even my kids’ Santa wish lists. Little scraps of paper littered around my house reminding me of stuff to do, stuff to buy, stuff to remember from weeks ago. I’ve seen a website dedicated to people’s discarded lists. I should send mine in. I could keep them going for years.
4. Hats. Ball caps, winter toques, cowboy hats, even princess tiaras, which I don’t think you can really categorize as a hat, but anyway, you get the idea. All these items appear one here, one there around my house until they’re everywhere. As I try and scurry around putting ball caps in closets, tiaras in the toy box, winter hats with the coats, I slip into an activity which my sister has affectionately termed “Moving Things Around.” This is when you spend an hour or more of your time moving things from one area of your house to another until you have lost sight of why this certain item has to move up your stairs until it rests in a different spot from the spot it was in before.
5. Artwork. This one is the worst. Which sounds terrible to say. What kind of a mother says her children’s artwork is the worst? Okay, here’s the thing: my children are 7 and 4 years of age. It is a special time. A magical time. A very … prolific time. And far be it for me to squelch this emerging artistry. I mean really, I love to see their fledgling stick figures, their first misspelled words, their attempts at illustrated stories. But it’s just hard to deal with all the … works of art that come at me from everywhere. They’re produced at the kitchen table, the toy room in the basement, their bedrooms; at school, daycare, camps; at Grandma & Grandpa’s house, parties and play dates. And it’s not that I don’t want them to create. I keep a cupboard full of markers, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, paper, cardboard, everything for crafting expressly because I’d much rather they create than stare passively at the TV. But what to do with everything afterwards??? Some people frame certain special pieces and decorate the toy room or child’s bedroom with their art. I should totally do that. But pretty soon it would be like wallpaper if I kept that up for any length of time. So what do I do? I let everything pile up for a few weeks – in case, heaven forbid, I throw out something only to be asked about that one certain picture the next day – and then I go on a throwing out rampage. I save a few choice pieces from each artist, in case I ever get to that framing thing, and then valiantly try to swallow up my guilt as I see their drawings, their crafts, their signs saying “I love you Mom, you’re the best” get filed in the big round file in the garage. Oh, the guilt! THE GUILT!
Monday, December 8, 2008
5 of my favourite Christmas songs
1. Blue Christmas, Elvis Presley
When my sister was little she entered a Christmas colouring contest at Shoppers Drug Mart and won an Elvis Christmas LP. In retrospect this seems an odd prize for a children’s contest but I think we were both just thrilled that she won. From that Christmas on, whenever we put up the Christmas tree, we had to play that album while we decorated. I particularly remember Blue Christmas. It just doesn’t seem like Christmas without Elvis warbling, “You’ll be doing alright, with your Christmas of white, but I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas.”
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Barenaked Ladies with Sarah Maclaughlin
Steven Page’s current felony drug possession charges notwithstanding, this song is a relatively new favourite. The Ladies give this tune a little folksy, toe tapping lift, while Sarah’s haunting melody give it an almost wistful feel. I totally dig it!
3. The Prayer, Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli
This is not, strictly speaking, a Christmas song but they seem to play it every year around this time. I’m not a huge Bocelli fan, but I just love the pairing of him with Celine in this piece. It is so breathtakingly beautiful that, even though I have no idea what the Italian words mean, it moves me to tears every time I hear it. I know, I’m just a big sap.
4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Judy Garland
And speaking of me being a sap, this is my very favourite Christmas song. Not just any old version though; it has to be the original Judy Garland version which is much more maudlin than the later, more recognizable one that has been covered by so many artists. The major difference is apparent towards the end of the song when Judy laments, “Some day soon we all will be together / If the fates allow / Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” I guess since my family is overseas, being the sappy masochist that I am, I like to listen to this version at Christmas and miss them. According to Wikipedia, in 1957 Frank Sinatra asked the writer to “jolly up that line for me” and so it became the innocuous, “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” Maybe it’s slightly more jolly, but bo-ring! Is it un-Christmassy to have a drink and miss people during the holidays? You should hear what the writer originally wanted the song to sound like: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past.” Now that’s depressing!
5. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
I’ve always kinda liked this song but last year it took on an extra special meaning. Hubby was slated to go in for an … *ahem* … operation. You know, snip snip. The big V? Okay. So I’m driving him down there and guess what song comes on the radio? Yup. As if his chestnuts weren’t already feeling the heat, he had to have Michael Bublé singing about them roasting on an open fire. But it doesn’t end there. For about two weeks afterwards, every time we got in a vehicle together and switched on the radio it would be yet another version of Chestnuts, and never the same one. Nat King Cole, The Carpenters, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Linda Ronstadt. Who knew so many people had covered it??? But it was uncanny how that song followed him last year... and kinda funny. I’m evil! I know!
So what are your favourites? White Christmas? Rudolph? Something a little less mainstream? Tell me!
When my sister was little she entered a Christmas colouring contest at Shoppers Drug Mart and won an Elvis Christmas LP. In retrospect this seems an odd prize for a children’s contest but I think we were both just thrilled that she won. From that Christmas on, whenever we put up the Christmas tree, we had to play that album while we decorated. I particularly remember Blue Christmas. It just doesn’t seem like Christmas without Elvis warbling, “You’ll be doing alright, with your Christmas of white, but I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas.”
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Barenaked Ladies with Sarah Maclaughlin
Steven Page’s current felony drug possession charges notwithstanding, this song is a relatively new favourite. The Ladies give this tune a little folksy, toe tapping lift, while Sarah’s haunting melody give it an almost wistful feel. I totally dig it!
3. The Prayer, Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli
This is not, strictly speaking, a Christmas song but they seem to play it every year around this time. I’m not a huge Bocelli fan, but I just love the pairing of him with Celine in this piece. It is so breathtakingly beautiful that, even though I have no idea what the Italian words mean, it moves me to tears every time I hear it. I know, I’m just a big sap.
4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Judy Garland
And speaking of me being a sap, this is my very favourite Christmas song. Not just any old version though; it has to be the original Judy Garland version which is much more maudlin than the later, more recognizable one that has been covered by so many artists. The major difference is apparent towards the end of the song when Judy laments, “Some day soon we all will be together / If the fates allow / Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” I guess since my family is overseas, being the sappy masochist that I am, I like to listen to this version at Christmas and miss them. According to Wikipedia, in 1957 Frank Sinatra asked the writer to “jolly up that line for me” and so it became the innocuous, “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” Maybe it’s slightly more jolly, but bo-ring! Is it un-Christmassy to have a drink and miss people during the holidays? You should hear what the writer originally wanted the song to sound like: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past.” Now that’s depressing!
5. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
I’ve always kinda liked this song but last year it took on an extra special meaning. Hubby was slated to go in for an … *ahem* … operation. You know, snip snip. The big V? Okay. So I’m driving him down there and guess what song comes on the radio? Yup. As if his chestnuts weren’t already feeling the heat, he had to have Michael Bublé singing about them roasting on an open fire. But it doesn’t end there. For about two weeks afterwards, every time we got in a vehicle together and switched on the radio it would be yet another version of Chestnuts, and never the same one. Nat King Cole, The Carpenters, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Linda Ronstadt. Who knew so many people had covered it??? But it was uncanny how that song followed him last year... and kinda funny. I’m evil! I know!
So what are your favourites? White Christmas? Rudolph? Something a little less mainstream? Tell me!
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