Finally... keeping up with the Jones's

Finally! Finally I have my brand new shiny red camera, and I finally got some time to work with it and take a few new pictures of the girls that aren't all grayed out. Finally I can select shots that are really the ones that I want and not just have to settle for the half decent ones. So I celebrated by trying to take a few shots of what we did today.

It was such a lovely warm day above freezing, mostly all the snow has melted and so the kids were itching to get the bikes out for the first time in months. Norah is still too short for the real bikes, or even the tricycles, but she can scoot. And she's pretty darn fast at it too!

Not as fast as Abby though, so she settled with yelling "Abby!" over and over while her big sister lapped her around the driveway.

Abby was delighted she still knew how to ride her bike and spent at least a half an hour riding in circles and giving me a play by play whenever she got close to the flower bed.

Abby and I made homemade turkey soup and homemade buns for supper. Whenever I make homemade bread or buns I always ponder why I don't make them all the time. Unfortunately with Seth on a low-carb diet buns aren't really a staple food but once in a while they really hit the spot. And my kids love homemade soup so much! More than pizza, more than chicken nuggests, and only slightly less then french fries. (seriously, french fries are the most sought after food for my kids, but not the crappy ones, they have to be big nicely seasoned Steak fries.) Abby is really good at eating the soup broth and the bits, but really Norah is a broth girl through and through. So tonight HandDog came to visit and help Norah eat her bits so she wouldn't be all full of liquid and hungry in two hours.

At first HandDog was such an anomaly that she wasn't too sure, that silly handdog masquerading as Daddy's hand this whole time had her stumped for only a few seconds.

Then they were best of friends and HandDog quickly helped Norah eat some bits from the soup bowl by trying them first and proving without a doubt that the bits were indeed edible. She was very upset when Hand Dog had to say goodbye and help Daddy do the dishes and walk the dogs. Ultimately HandCat that tried to help Mommy do the bath was not nearly as popular and very nearly drowned via angry toddler.

Sometimes when we're tired or just plain wanting the kids to "do what we say when we say it," it's easy to forget that a lot of parenting has to be creative. A situation where we struggle to get the obstinent child to comply can be easily diffused with something as simple as HandDog. Even though today ended well I am still struggling with trying to balance time between the kids and things that I want/need to do. But when all else fails looking at the world through the imagination of a little girl can really change your perspective.

Time Well Spent

So here's the thing, because I spend all this time at home, and work from home and my husband is at home too and the kids are at home most of the time... well... sometimes I don't actually appreciate the time that I have with the kids. It's not like I am at work all day thinking about how much I miss their little faces, I am upstairs at home trying to work with a million distractions namely two very smart, very verbal little girls. So what could actually be a whole day of us doing things together turns into a day of me trying to escape for a few minutes and being interrupted, so I feel like my escape was jilted and therefore I am sore about it.

I take this sore spot and I flaunt it by huffing about it and then planning a household chore that simply has to get done and 'might' include a child but really isn't their idea of fun at all. So since they really couldn't care less about participating in putting away the laundry, or tidying the shelves I do indeed get that much longed for escape, but by then it is soured and tainted by the fact that I won it underhandedly.

 This year will be different, following up on my resolution to spend some individual time with each kid ( which is mostly working) I am trying to pay with cash instead of credit.

I plan an activity with the kids that we simply just do, a craft, or a game, something together... 30-45 mintues or so. I try to be wholly present in whatever we do, have a great time, and then after we are done I can ask for a few minutes to work on what I need to do. This way my kids already feel like they have cash in their pockets, I am not paying them with empty promises of some indistinct activity in the future I have already given them the gift of my time and am asking for a little back.

We started this off with shaving cream painting, you know the activity where you spray shaving foam all over the table and watch your horrified children as they tentativty poke at it while wondering transparently if their mother has really and truly gone mental? You know that one? well we did it.

After the initial spate of " Let's make as big a mess as possible before mom realizes just how big a hole she has dug here," we moved on to "hey this feels pretty great on the skin"

And finally the intended result, the paintings

A lovely flower above, and a rendition of Toothless the Dragon from How to Train Your Dragon

And Norah informs me that a reliable source has told her this is a cow, definitely a cow.

It was great fun, and I did really enjoy it. Letting go of 'the plan' is really hard sometimes but soon enough these kids will be off at school and time will drag for hours.

And lastly I'll leave you with a shot of poor Nemo who was out in the snow in the perfect conditions for this crazy snowball effect. Poor dog was waddling all over the house until I took pity on him and gave him a warm bath to melt him down a bit :)

Another Year has sprung itself upon us eh?

New Years always seems to be such a surprise for me, not that I don't know it's coming but more that the confirmation that all time is just slipping by faster and faster scares the pants off of me. And there is no better reminder than that crazy anti-climactic celebration with the odd pressure to drink copious amounts of alcohol and watch some crazy sparkly ball fall a continent away. And after you kiss your special someone ( and in my case marvel that there is this crazy forever marriage with this perfect person and how the hell did that happen?) and then it's all over. All the anticipation for all the holidays that are sandwiched into two months is suddenly let go and you feel.. well... tired.

We have been running at full tilt over here for the last few months, we had two birthdays within our little nuclear ( love the word and the completely volatile implications) family, one birthday in the extended family, 4 birthdays with friends, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then New Years which brought a new baby to a very best friend. Add to that Seth deciding to go back to school, Abby starting Ballet, Norah stopping her napping and I had two publication deadlines for other people and self published one other pattern not to mention making Christmas presents and what you you end up with? Tired.

I am looking forward to January, sweet sweet January with it's endless possibilities and unmarked calender.

The best thing about the first few days of the New Year is that you can fool yourself into thinking that life really should be this unblemished list of hopes and dreams, ideas planned and yet not made real. That you will indeed have time to complete all things which you desire and still have time to relax in a pillow of lavender steam each night while your children magically put themselves to bed after pouring you a glass of Merlot. That somehow all the gritty parts will be brushed over and a perfect silver lining will always gleam with promise like a beacon in the night.

And then the best thing about the rest of January is that you realize nothing has really changed, that there are still kids pulling each others hair, dogs pooping in the living room, books being ripped, favorite coffee cups smashed, not enough time to do anything other than laundry and work and cooking for the starving hordes. But this is the very best part of life, the part where we have other people to mess it up and change it around, to demand our time away from the very best resolutions we have made. Life is lived inside the in between spaces, the moments before and after the climax where we just be with each other and do our daily things.

For that very reason I would like to share my resolutions with you all:

1. Make a point every day of spending half an hour with each child separately doing something of their choice, I will do this without thinking of knitting, and without trying to double task a household chore because when my children are grown they will remember the small moments not the big ones.

2. Taking another half an hour to exercise each day, this does mostly happen anyways but making it more formal will make it more appealing. I will feel like I am healing my body, and making it strong, I will not bend to the image that society makes for me but carve my own.

Just to point out that at this point I have lost 1.5 hours of knitting time

3. To work my ass off at my now chosen career, to be the very best dynamic incredible artistic person that I am, and to never apologize for it.

I wish everyone the very best of the New Year, make the small moments count, and live the life you really want !

The Magic of Santa: Guest Post

I wanted to let you all know that I have a guest post up on a lovely friend's blog this week about the Christmas season and keeping the light and magic alive, you can check it out over here!

Happy Birthday Norah!

Well little Norah had her second bitrthday this week, the actual day was on Wednesday and then we decided to have her friend party today (being Sunday) so she wouldn't find one day too tiring. 

 Here she is modeling her Diego Rescue pack that I whipped up on Tuesday night, actually dusting off the sewing machine and spending a marathon 4 hours not knitting in order to fulfill a dream. Norah loves Diego and it was well worth the time spent to see her light up over this gift, immediately shove her spotting scope and rescue rope into it and pelt off to save... something, anything, someone get this gal a critter to save!

We had a chocolate coconut sugar free cheesecake for dessert and I know you are thinking (sugar free? what the hell? must taste like regurgitatated light Philly Cream cheese when they pretend to flavour it but really it resembles gelatenous white goo) well not this cake. I found the most amazing recipe for Splenda cheesecake and it is our standby, as then we can all partake since Seth is unable to have real sugar or cake. When we had cake for Seth's birthday we had a chocolate almond crust with cherry topping, it was great.

Norah was so pleased with herself for blowing out the candles, she blew them out halfway through Happy Birthday and I relit them three times to even get a picture with flame in it. As you can see I resorted to my hand in front of Hurricane Norah to prevent the snuffing before a last desperate photo.

 And she did actually get a nice sugary buttercream cake this weekend at her Party with her friends. And yes indeed that is baby Jaguar peeking at you from the top of a mountain of butter, sugar and whipping cream, I think he turned out pretty great.

This afternoon was so very tiring and Norah was done before the party even started so by the time we mistakenly left her and ABby to watch a movie at 3:30 it was far too much for the little rescuer. We came down to find her like this, curled around rescue pack, wearing her new Animal rescuer hoodie, fast sleep lying in a puddle of her own pee.

She had such a great day, used her new Diego plate set at supper, wore her hoodie until bathtime, read and reread her Diego book and took Mommy and Baby Bengal tiger for nursie time and bedtime. All in all her friends really know what it takes to make a happy little No

On Turkey and Cultural Amalgamation

I'll admit it right now, Thanksgiving in November usually feels like a bit of an anticlimax.

Having been raised in Canada Thanksgiving is part of October, the beginning of the month of excess. A 31 day stretch with a tryptophan stupor in the middle and finale of diabetic coma. Then you ususally have Novermber to recuperate before revving up again for Christmas and all that beer that just won't drink itself. 

Now that we live in the States we usually celebrate both thanksgivings because really, there is no better excuse for two turkey dinners in as many months. My mom and dad come for Canadian Thanksgiving in October and my mom spends the entire weekend educating any sales clerk willing to listen about that fact that " yes Canadian's do have Thanksgiving", and " did you know we are celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving", "this bag of potatos is for Canadian Thanksgiving."

And then when we celebrate again during November Seth's mom joins us, having grown up in the States herself she really feels more at home having turkey this month. And usually this second dinner feels like the great anticlimax, like a belated birthday card, or Christmas presents lost in the mail and delivered in July.

But not this year.

This year we had a great time, all crowded into the front room to watch the snow fall, and fall and fall..... we actually watched the Macy's parade on T.V. which believeyoume was the most surreal experience of my life. I felt like a kid on a tv sitcom; who was having a thanksgiving that someone had scripted to follow the classic idealistic American lifestyle as brought to you by Home and Garden magazine. We had dinner at the dining room table with a tablecloth and nice plates and a gravy boat and everything, The kids ate themselves sick and then had pie and whipped cream and ran around like crazy people. It was the idyllic American Thanksgiving... although admittedly we skipped the football.

I suppose the interesting thing about this year was that I feel like my kids are really going to have a very different cultural upbringing than I did. And I am not talking about saying zeeee and zed, or punctuating sentences with eh, or the differences between tourists and taurists (oh yes washingtonians I am onto you; as far as I can figure a taurist is someone who travels that has been born in May?)

But there really are cultural traditions that Seth and I grew up with that my kids will only learn about through collective memory, not firsthand. In Canada you are never fed that bull*%$@ story about the Indians ahem First Nations, and the Pilgrims ahem Pioneers and the great feast. Simply put Thanksgiving is exactly what it says it is; giving thanks for the bounty of food put before you and hoping like hell you aren't starving and freezing by January. Well I am thankful, and I hope I am not freezing in January.

I guess the best part is that we can do both, we can have two days for giving thanks and be extra thankful and extra full at the same time. I am thankful for my girls who make me wonder everyday if I can be big enough, strong enough, smart enough, gentle enough and humble enough to raise them. For Hubs the Great who really is the other part of me, and for realizing that even though I might be really far from where I came from I am exactly where I need to be.

Tis' the Season to go Shopping

Ohhh Christmas is coming, fast and furious. The bix box stores haven't even waited this year for Thanksgiving to pass before hauling out all the bell chiming, glittery, snowy marvelous Christmas crap that accompanies the season of purchasing. And I love it.

Most of my friends will have a lot to say about buying less, giving less, that children need less toys, there is no need to go wild and get them zillions and zillions of toys, and I agree... mostly. Because when it really comes down to it, I LOVE BUYING TOYS, LOTS AND LOTS OF TOYS FOR MY KIDS. This does not mean that I will dwindle my bank account to nothing this Christmas, it means that I will find the sales and indeed already have most of my Christmas shopping done. It does not mean that I will buy any toy I come across that is a low price. I will line up my children's interest with toys I think are worthwhile and at a great price. It does not mean that I will neglect making them something by hand. I have a handmade gift planned for everyone on my list and have most of them finished.

But I will refuse to feel guilty that I love to buy them things, that even though the money could be spent on a myriad of other things I will enjoy buying them something to fuel their imagination and play. I will teach them that they are lucky to own such lovely things and when the time comes when it is no longer played with we will donate it, or send it to a second hand store. This year will be the year we start buying a toy for charity, Abby can pick out a toy to donate and when Norah is old enough she can too.We are blessed enough to be able to afford new toys and I know that, I teach my kids that, we talk about how amazing our situation is all the time.

And quite frankly I love how many options for play we have in this house. Lately we have been keeping all the toys packed away in coloured bins. Everyday we pick a new bin and the kids get to play with whatever is in that bin. This means that each day there is something new and exciting, something that has not been seen before, and it fuels imagination like never before. Kids need things to play with, they need variety and they need to have the experience of deciding that they like one thing more than the other. That one item is more precious and their reasons why that item is more precious. They also need the ability to decide when to get rid of something, and how can you ask a child to get rid of a toy when they only own five or six. Preciousness increases when quantity decreases, and should we be teaching children that there are only small quantities that should be held onto forever? or that the world has bounty but we can share it, keep it for a while, covet our favorites and let the rest move on.

I read this on a friend's blog today and it really rang true, I actually wrote it down and put it on the fridge because this year I will revel in my generosity REVEL DAMNIT!

Gift-giving teaches generosity, after all. It teaches thankfulness. It gives a sense of blessedness.



This is not advocating that the only way to do Christmas is to buy buy buy, or that the only gift is a storebought toy. And there are of course families that cannot afford to have piles of toys for their children this Christmas, but I plan to buy my kids some, and then buy some for your kids too.