Excellent Accidents of Parenting

Tree Roots Drawing by Enchanted Crayons

All this living small seems to be paying off. For someone who hasn't really been anywhere in a few years I seem to finally be getting somewhere.

I have nearly entirely eradicated "Oh my God" and the addictive, incorrect use of "like" from my vernacular.

I'm starting to get the hang of meal planning and I'm actually sticking it to it. It's been six successful weeks of grocery shopping only once a week (with the occasional extra milk run) and I figure I'm saving nearly $200 a month!

I won't go so far as to say that I've come to know myself more as the years have passed because I think I was much more of a black and white open book in my youth and I'm glad to say I've only grown in complexity these past few years.

Sometimes it feels I know myself less as I let go of the emotion-based truths I held so dear and my youthful passions are tempered with rationality. It can feel like I'm diluting my dreams but I know I'm only changing them and leaving some behind. This process can be painful and lead me to wonder the local cemetery pondering the brevity of life but I believe it's a necessary part of growth.

I also find that I am less swayed by those who impress me but fail to take to the time to get to know me. I must be growing up. Or at least I'm coming to comfortable terms with being in my thirties. I am learning that there is a great deal of terrain you can cover when you stay home. Roots certainly travel farther when you stay in one place; it's just hard to see them growing underground.

ABC, Oakley's Three!

I need a new camera. I threw a birthday party for my newly 3 year old recently and I didn't take a single photo. I already regret it.

If I do say so myself, the party was pretty Pinterist-worthy - for an event held in my proudly "nifty thrifty" home and not involving a professional party planner.

I used punchbowl.com for the invitations for the second year in a row. Their free offerings are customizable yet user-friendly.

The party itself was minutely lower key than Oakley's second birthday; 23 people rather than 30. Thank goodness it was sunny and we were able to get out into the backyard at one point. I'm beginning to understand why parents host parties in rented rooms and parks now.

I never knew before having a child with an "o" name just how great it would be for him. O's are everywhere. They're circles and zeros and faces and wheels and bagels, not to mention a well-used vowel. My son notices them all the time so I did an alphabet theme. I hung Lisa DeJohn's alphabet animals cards on twine with clothes pins, stuck ABC stickers all over balloons, put ABC bathtub stickers on our bathroom mirror, planted flowers in our entrance way planters and stuck in  a couple over sized whirligigs for good measure.

I served the essential alphabet pretzels and a plethora of "o" shaped food including pineapple rings, apple chips, rice crackers, olives, carrots, cucumber, and peppers cut in rounds, and Dad's O cookies. We played a couple simple alphabet games and at the end we handed out goody bags with each child's initial on the front and stickers, a bouncy ball, a whirligig, and an ABC book inside. But really, the cute kids  - all 12 of 'em - made the party.

And yes, I admit it. This party - exemplifying my love of typography and words and pattern and food and fun - was a little bit for me. I mean, my son's only three; he loves monster trucks, Lightning McQueen, hockey, Spiderman, tigers, Dora, Diego, AND the letters of the alphabet. I just chose something he likes that I could really get behind! He had a really good time and so did I. Now it all fades into a blurry memory faster than you can say "cheese". Thank goodness Grandma took a couple photos!

I made a fresh orange and olive oil bundt cake; we just called it
"o cake". The glaze made it extra delish but it also absorbed
all the decorative powdered sugar!

Maybe my boy's really getting into toys now that he's 3
or maybe the other parents are all super in touch with
what 3 year old's like, but every gift he received has
been a major hit (including the stomp rocket they're
all crowding around here).

This Week's Books

The Rain Train by Elena de Roo

I seem to have come across a glut of great books lately. Books that look right up my alley at the library but when I get them home and read them to my kids I find myself paraphrasing or rephrasing the text or wishing there was more or less story. Other times as I sift through the shelves at my local branch using my standard critical approach (title, illustrations, amount of text, and subject matter in that order) and I wonder how many of the titles I pick up belong to wonderful stories paired with unappealing illustrations. If that's the case, back to the shelf it goes. I'm only looking for the best and that still amounts to over a dozen books that make it to this week's short list, the ones we sign out and schlep home. The Rain Train is one that I wasn't entirely sold on upon first read (I think the title first sold me on it over the illustrations) but now I just can't seem to cull it and return it I enjoy reading it aloud so much.

The story is a poem with a lot of great lines. And though I don't recall reading the first page in the library, the opening lines really get me: "When the rain fingers drum out a dance on the pane, / When the windows are foggy enough for my name". And the other set of lines that I savour: "And all of the time / Always the same... / The wail of the wind, / the sway of the train, / The strum of the wheels to the beat of the rain".

Every page pairs poetic description with often-rhyming, sometimes alliterative onomatopoeia, my favorite being: "Past lighted houses -- / Clackety-clack. / Out of the city -- / Shackety-shack". (I always find myself whispering the onomatopoeic phrases.)

Now I don't claim to know what a rain train is, but my guess is that it's made-up by a child lying in bed, falling asleep listening to the rain. This train carries him off through the night to dreamland. The passengers are all in pajamas and carry umbrellas and the last page shows a boy asleep in his bed with a train going by outside his window and it reminds me of the late train that I used to hear if I was up late enough when I was young - perfect.

Beach Feet by Kiyomi Konagaya Illustrated by Masamitsu Saito

This is the other book I can't part with at library return time. The story and the perfectly imperfect illustrations just keep me reaching for this one over others at storytime. The entire book is about a few lively moments of a child's day at the beach. The first person narrator is easily distracted, nicely representing the short attention span of a real child.

Emotion, movement, speed, and even temperature are conveyed in the brilliantly messy illustrations of this book. Toes and fingers are shown to be excited, paddling, or wiggling by their numerous outlines as with the hot toes shown above. My favorite drawing is the intentionally imprecise underwater legs (at right); a few scribbles and realistic shimmering water and moving legs are perfectly achieved. Saito doesn't appear to care about colouring in the lines of his own drawings and the oil pastels lend themselves nicely to blurring and smudging. Attractive, effective imperfection is one of the things I like about the art I like - you know how bittersweet chocolate is better than sweet chocolate on its own? A little imperfection goes a long way in terms of poignancy.

Excuses, Excuses

I've got a few excuses for not blogging lately. Whether or not they are good excuses I'll leave up to you.

First of all, my longtime friend, sometimes client, and newly certified massage therapist, Dana Smith, has begun publishing her own blog, The Anatomy of Touch, in which she explores the quirky workings of the human body and the benefits of massage and various other roads to wellness. Her website is also hot off the press and these two projects display not only my newly acquired html code-writing skills as well as my editorial consulting skills (much to the detriment of my own blog).

Then it was Christmas - merry and bright and full of family, toys, treats, a little snow, and a week of night terrors. (As soon as I learned to handle them, in other words, to not handle my boy as he was going through it, but to simply standby, they disappeared). And then we all got sick (see previous post for the play by play on that one). So here I am to report, in photographic detail, on these events.

There's not much left of our snowman now but a few arms, buttons, and hair (sticks, rocks, and ivy).

The carousel at the Vancouver Christmas Market was a big hit as were the waffles on a stick.

Bennett's first fishy encounter.

Our annual visit to the aquarium.

Playing with his cousin's new Christmas present.

Grandpa is the best stroller driver: he aims for the icebergs!

An icy day for a bike ride on the Richmond dyke.

Hot baths aplenty.

Midweek in January, Granville Island is essentially a ghost town with buskers.

Third attempt at ice skating and he's only holding one hand!

A rainy day hike in Lynn Valley after which we all came down with terrible colds. 

Season of The Soup

We've all been there. My family of four has had the displeasure (and discomfort) of having just been there last week. We've been in the land of the sick. Congested, coughing, and sneezing with only soup, lemon n honey's, trucks and trains, and BBC's "Parade's End" to get us through it.

My soup season began with an old standby, Green Soup:

Next I made this pureed cauliflower soup from Vegan in the Freezer. Next time I'll try a version where the cauliflower and garlic are roasted for more flavour.

Most recently, I made a version of slow cooker "nutrient dense" chicken soup based on this recipe from Paleo Infused Nutrition but with more veg and noodles:

And though, according to The NY Times, the data is inconclusive on whether or not one should take in more fluids when suffering from a cold, we've decimated the tea cupboard and burned through honey, lemons, and ginger. 

The aforementioned trucks and trains (most of which were new additions at Christmas) have been a source of entertainment for our boys during these days of runny noses and ugly weather. The back edge of our sectional sofa has never seen so much traffic and the coffee table has been transformed into a bustling train station whose hours of operation perfectly coincide with the boys' bedtime. 

Today, we are officially over the worst of it and I have the best intentions for tomorrow. We will be out of pajamas by 8:30am and I plan to venture out into public after my husband heads back to work. The only downside of our recovery is that along with our tea supply we've also plowed through all five remarkable episodes of the BBC's "Parade's End". A return to regular life would seem dreary after our evenings spent in Ford Maddox Ford's parade if we weren't so thankful to have our nasal passages back in working order. 

I Love Me a Good Bedtime Routine

A consistent bedtime routine can make or break a vacation, settle a late night or a rushed bedtime, and generally make the day to night transition smoother. A routine gives a sense of familiarity and comfort and it can be taken and used anywhere - on a road trip where the kids are strapped into car seats in the back seat at bedtime, on an airplane with children on your lap and strangers all around who are hyper sensitive to sound, or in a foreign hotel room or distant relatives' guest room. I've taken to memorizing my favorite rhymes and songs so that I don't even need light or books to read so long as I am within earshot.

When I sing to my kids at bedtime I tend to always fall back on the same old songs. There's the predictable and wonderful "May There Always be Sunshine", (we fill in the names of the people in our family or who we saw that day). There's the somewhat unlikely "Brokedown Palace" by the Grateful Dead; it's pretty cute to hear a two year old sing "listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul"! And then there's the unlikely two verses of the hymn "How Great Thou Art"; it's a long story, suffice it to say it's a fond memory thing.

There have been some new additions to my repertoire since attending baby time at the library for two years straight. I've appropriated the short but sweet ditties that can be repeated as much or as little as the situation requires. You know how it is; sometimes you need a short little four-liner to get your toddler through book closed, light off, and into bed so you can get out the door and other times you need something simple enough that you can repeat it until your wakeful baby returns to slumber while you're still half asleep yourself.

Sailing, sailing over the ocean
Sailing, sailing over the sea
Sailing, sailing over the water
Sail back home to me.

Tall trees, warm fire,
strong wind, rushing water.
I feel it in my body.
I feel it in my soul.

Do do mon petit
Do do mon petit
Do do mon petit
Et bonne nuit, et bonne nuit.

Some nights I just can't bring about a singing voice and so I've started memorizing stories. So far I've committed to memory "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown - who hasn't? "The Big Red Barn" by the same author, "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" by Eugene Field, a dozen R L Stevenson poems (which I adore), more than a dozen traditional sleepy time rhymes from anonymous sources, and one beloved poem by Shirley Hughes titled "Alfie Weather" but which I call "Benny Weather."

If you're not already acquainted with Shirley
Hughes and Alfie get yourself to the children's
section of the nearest library!

Alfie Weather

Whether the weather is sunny
Or whether it's drenching with rain -
A river along the garden path,
A sea of mud in the lane;
Any old weather is Alfie weather,
He doesn't really mind,
Even the sort that nips his toes
Or the steamed-up-windows kind.
Sooner or later the clouds will set sail -
Maybe after tea...
Sooner or later the sun will come out,
And so will he.

Working for the 'Hood

It's a whole lot better than working for the man and there are decent perks too. Since moving to my current neighbourhood and staying home full-time with my two kids I haven't been able to get involved enough in the local goings-on. I like to feel like I'm making a difference and being active on a super local level lets me see the change my efforts make; it's more gratifying than vacuuming! I've also really honed my clip art skills as you can see below.

Here's a sample of a few of the projects I've help organize.

My Local Orchard

I never would have guessed how much local fruit I'd be eating living in my central city location. This August I picked, ate, shared, baked, and froze a bowl of superb yellow plums, a handful of Italian prune plums, a couple buckets of blackberries, three colanders heaped with red Santa Rosa plums, 150 apples, and at least two dozen bunches of the best green grapes I've ever eaten - and all grown within one square block of my house! 

In our backyard we have two apple trees. Last year we had two dozen apples from the big tree and maybe two edible ones from the small tree. We pruned the trees last fall and this summer we got 100 apples off the big one and 50 off the small one!

Doin' it homesteader style

We ate and baked with the gorgeous 100 apples from the big tree but, other than giving the somewhat scabby little apples to my younger son for teething toys, I figured sauce was the solution. I was able to borrow from a neighbour (who's also a friend) an apple saucer (well, that's what I call it). She had it from her mother (who's also a neighbour) who used to use it in her homesteading days. 

I covered the apples in water, brought them to a boil, simmered them until the flesh was soft and the peels cracked, then tossed them in the apple saucer and sauced 'em. I added back in half the cooking water to lengthen the sauce (and not waste that pink gold - yes, the apple cooking water was a lovely pink lemonade color) and my boys ate it up right away. I got two mason jars out of two dozen of the worst apples and I feel right pleased about it!

Last meal ever eaten out of that tea cup;
he broke it on his way to the dishwasher.
Fortunately, no apple sauce was harmed.

Apples, sauce, and a prime example of
applesauce coma after two helpings.

Apparently our wall color is a dead ringer for homemade applesauce.
Put that on your paint chip Benjamin Moore!

Family Mathematics

My husband and I knew we wanted more than one child before we'd had our first. (Heck, I knew I wanted more than one child before I had a husband!) We didn't exactly anticipate having another quite as soon as we did; some loving friends with a child the same age as our first told us that we were crazy when we announced the second pregnancy. In truth, it wasn't a mental condition but an illness of the heart; we'd been bitten by the love bug. Our 7 month old was sleeping through the night, was a good eater, had never had a fever nor a diaper rash, and the unpredictable early days were quickly becoming a distant memory.

Now as a mother of two tots I find myself having an internal daily debate about whether or not we should have a third. The overwhelming argument for is the simple equation that another child equals more love. There was a time when I wondered how I could ever love another as much as my first, but the most mind-blowing part of parenting is that one's capacity for love grows with each child. And then there is that child's potential love to both put into the world and to draw out of others which perpetually raises the world love-o-meter too. It may sound hokey, but, honestly, what's wrong with more love? (Well, besides the increased work and stress and money and landfill space it takes to raise that little love machine.)

Our #2 has rather seamlessly fit into our family. It helps that so much of the world is set up for foursomes: cars, dinner tables, board games, roller coasters - not that we've taken him on any amusement park rides as of yet. In my experience, the second baby is easier simply because I'm more relaxed; I hardly check in with parenting books and have visited the doctor for check-ups less often too. The second learns to "deal" as the firstborn sometimes takes precedence (i.e.: when the older one is about to run into oncoming traffic the younger one might just have to cry while safely buckled into the stroller parked with the brake on well out of harm's way). 

Of course, we already had all the baby paraphernalia, all we had to get was a second car seat and a double stroller (see previous post). Personally, I don't miss alcohol much as I never got back into the habit after the first, so I kind of forget what I'm missing now that it's more than three years on the wagon. And, let's face it, breastfeeding is a wonderful bonding and cuddling experience and the cuddles are a top reason to do it all over again. 

On the downside, getting a family of four out the door, to the dinner table, or into bed takes more time, though at least with two kids there is still a parent to wrangle each child. Also, with each subsequent baby, there is the fear (and the fact) of losing further touch with the working world and one's career and personal aspirations. 

One mom friend of mine recently returned to her job after her second maternity leave ended and she found work to be a welcome change of pace. She said it was a luxury to be able to focus on something without being disturbed by persistent whining... for the first week. Soon her decent job became "same old" all over again. As for myself, as someone who decided not to return to the ol' 9-5 and is choosing to keep my kids at home and out of daycare for a little while longer than mat leave allows, I try to keep one or two toes in the working world so that I don't end up with a big gap on my resume. Despite knowing the truth of it, "stay at home mom" just doesn't cut it when explaining what you did for those "unemployed" years. 

My hubby and I are in agreement not only about our kids not going to daycare right away but also about the benefit of siblings. We each value our sibling relationships so much that we couldn't deprive our kids of it. 

When all is said and done, the truly unpredictable baby days (the first 3 or 5 months of a wee one's life) are challenging because of the lack of sleep and readjusting to it all, but I honestly believe that if I had five kids or nine it would be the same: I would make it work. I figure I will not ever regret having another but I might actually regret not having one if I don't.

First Comes Love...

Then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage, and then another one 17 months later and now you need a double stroller.

There was a time not so long ago when I disdained (and very possibly even mocked) the owners of double strollers. I mean, really, they are worse than motorized mobility scooters; they take up as much space and often contain crying babies. As with so many things in life, watch what you laugh at because you too may be laughable one day.

What I'm driving these days, the 2011 Baby Jogger City Select

While this new stroller felt conspicuous and ego-tastic for the first week, as with many aspects of motherhood, it soon came to be essential, and not long after that, taken for granted.

A Brooklyn neighbourhood proposed turning bike
lanes to stroller lanes; local moms were quoted saying the
lane wouldn't be wide enough for their double strollers. 

I could tell you that this is the best double stroller out there - if you don't mind the price tag - for many reasons. It has ample shade canopies (a surprisingly hard thing to find), serious storage space underneath, foam-filled tires (air-filled are prone to punctures), it accommodates multiple configurations (both kids facing forward, backward, facing each other, facing away from each other, et cetra), you can add on pieces like trays, rain covers, bassinets, et cetra, and it easily converts to a single stroller. All this to say that the real clincher for me was that it is not a double wide stroller. I just don't think I could handle bumping pedestrians off the sidewalk constantly. I mean, have you ever been on the receiving end of one of those bad boys? Proponents of the side by side strollers can be heard saying, "It's only as wide as a wheelchair!" as though it's a selling feature. But I've seen the dismay cross the face of oncoming walkers when they see the wide load of a double wide stroller and twenty sticky fingers rolling in their direction. 

After having my first baby I remember feeling as though I would never again be able to leave the house to go grocery shopping. Now I've grown so accustomed to my big stroller that I find myself wondering how I will ever grocery shop once the kids have outgrown it. Carrying shopping bags by hand? Or worse, driving to get groceries? Give me my 34 pound baby-mobile any day!

This Week's Book

The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger

I just discovered this author and book (published in 2008) and yet the latter feels comfortably familiar while keeping me turning the pages.  I'd call it an instant classic but I'm willing to bet someone out there has already dubbed it thus.

The Little Yellow Leaf had me at the cover. While title is sweet as are the illustrations, I also admire the font, the colour palette, and I that the entire book jacket is one image so that when the book is being read an onlooker sees the big picture.

Upon first read I liked the story and it's quaint clarity as well as the previously mentioned comfy yet fresh quality of the art that comes, in part, from the use of collage with hints of text, textbook graphics, foolscap and graph paper. (I wondered where the term foolscap came from - I'd always thought it was "full scap" surely due to some grade school teacher's pronunciation - so I looked it up. Just follow the link to learn more.)

In case you were unsure which
little yellow leaf is our protagonist...

After a couple more reads I see now just how much the artwork adds to the tale. The author/illustrator is an expert at perspective. The tree itself appears straightforward but if you look closely (the images you see here don't do the book justice) there are words in them there trees, literally! Throughout the story we see the little yellow leaf's oak tree in different light, weather, and from different distances and angles.

Brilliant perspective: view of the
oak tree from above

Once the leaves are airborne the fields far below are a patchwork quilt of understated colors and patterns, but they are not simply a two dimensional backdrop, the fields have hills at their edge and sky beyond so that the viewer is not looking straight down on the field but is there, in the air with the leaves.

Collage patchwork quilt of fields and hills

This book is whimsical, homey, and full of hope; now to go find more from this author!

My Thomas the Tank Engine Dilemma

By guest blogger Daniella Fast 

It was not an all-star mom moment: holding my nine month old while dragging my screaming two-and-a-half year old out of a friend's house.  A month later my friend's little boy still remembers when "Thaniel" didn’t want to go home.  Nathaniel had been having way too much fun with the Thomas the Tank Engine train set table; it even had Cranky the crane. Maybe my timing for making an exit was off, maybe he was extremely exhausted, or maybe my little boy was experiencing the first stages of toy obsession.

Before having children, my husband and I spent a year abroad experiencing the world. One of our stops was in Northern Kenya in a small village called Gatab. My husband made a trip with a German doctor to Nolpilipili, a neighbouring village a day's hike away. Their task was to complete a water line that would eliminate the village mamas' burden of walking an entire day to fetch water. Knowing that there was a schoolhouse in the village, my husband and the doctor decided to bring a new soccer ball for the children. Immediately after the ball was handed over a full blown soccer match ensued. That one ball brought a day of laughter and enjoyment to those children.

After Kenya we flew to Ethiopia, landing in the capital, Addis Ababa. As if this wasn't far enough from home already, we proceeded to travel north for two weeks to the village of Debark. From here we took a day’s drive to a tiny village near the Simien Mountains and trekked 10 hours into the mountains on foot to find ourselves right in the middle of nowhere. Here, our group was greeted by children playing a simple game of "Bao". Their game board was two parallel lines of holes dug into the ground and their game pieces were rocks. I won’t get into how the game was played, the point is that it kept the children entertained for hours: a simple game played with a handful of rocks.

Getting back to my screaming little boy…. He didn't want to leave that day because he was excited by the toys that his friend’s house had to offer. Making matters worse in my mind, he often requests to go to his friends' houses because he loves their array of trucks, ride-on toys, and train sets. It saddens me that he isn’t content with what he has, especially after seeing how little other children have. I realize that we live where we live and I also, as a teacher, understand that toys develop physical, cognitive, and emotional processes. However, one still needs to stop and think about where the line is between materialism and encouraging developmental skills via toys. On one hand, I want my child to learn and develop; on the other hand, I don’t want to foster selfishness and discontent with what he has. 

I hope that over time I can help my little guy leave someone’s house content with the time he had playing with their toys. I want him to know that it’s not the toys that he takes with him that will give him joy. I want him to know that he has a creative mind capable of entertaining himself wherever he is, with whatever he has. The photo on the right shows three African boys I met on the coast of Zanzibar – it has a prominent place on my family room wall. I found these boys using scraps of garbage they gathered on the beach to build an amazing, fully functioning sailboat. They are daily reminders to me to teach contentment and simple creativity to my children.