August, 2009

Child’s Size Paper Shoe, originally uploaded by ccerruti.

Did you know toddler shoes are expensive? They are when you trying to do the flexible sole thing, anyway. Eliza has just started walking. In fact, until about a week ago, she still had the stick leg gait of precarious mobility. Now, of course, she’s running after her brother with a light saber but a week ago, we were concerned about the choice of shoes open to us.

Also, it didn’t help that we breed children with blocks for feet. Luckily, Franklin’s feet have developed into normal, albeit dirty, 6 year old feet. Eliza’s will eventually become somewhat less sausage like, I’m sure. One day in the too near future, I will be listening to the scrap scrap scrap of clear plastic Cinderella slippers that someone will send to her knowing that I cringe at the very thought of my daughter becoming princess crazee.

I’m looking at you, Bernice.

Jim Kelly: Enter The Dragon, originally uploaded by MorpheusBlade.

When Dickson and I met, I had a list of things I asked a guy I was interested in. There were the usual sorts of “are you a master criminal?” and the not so usual inquiries. To tell you the truth, as much as I loooove to share things with all of ya’ll on this here world wide net, I’m not gonna tell you my list because then you would all be…

but what about a) b) c) and d)!
you ask what?!?
why would THAT matter?

It just does – or it did. In retrospect, none of it mattered much – except for questions 1 and 4.

Nope, still not telling you.

I can tell you that none of my questions mentioned martial arts or the levels attained in such. Those little tidbits were volunteered information.

So what I’m trying to say is…

Apparently, Dickson doesn’t have a black belt in kung fu. As this sort of fact is not all that important to me and not something I would care about making up – regardless of my active, psycho killer filled imagination. I am willing to swear on my first born’s Thomas the Train fortune that this mistake arose from those first few moments of “impress the girlfriend”. Quite similar to how I told him I was once a Cirque du Soleil contortionist.

I can’t be sure though.
Dickson certainly doesn’t think he said anything of the sort.

Dickson has a red belt in kung fu.
Just so everyone’s clear.

I am now starting to wonder about his apparent possession of this Flexalibur or Excalibur something or other. Is the very basis of our marriage a scam? Has anyone ever actually seen me even come close to touching my toes?!?

Faith, originally uploaded by Clack 3 (back from holiday).

Mornings took getting used to once I started work. Dickson does the pick up and I do the drop off of the kids. As a result, Dickson leaves earlier than usual for work to be able to leave earlier than usual for picking up. This leaves me getting the kids up and getting us all out of the house in time. No matter if it’s summer holidays or school in session, everyone has to be in their respective places by 9am. Activities start for Franklin’s camps by 9am, Eliza’s routines are in full swing at daycare by 9am and I have a daily meeting with my assistant that starts at 9am.

Everyone.
Ready.
9am.

It’s not a huge hardship, really. Dickson is an early riser so by the time he leaves, lunches are packed and breakfast is ready. The man is a saint – an organized saint. If his body decides not to decompose after death, I will petition the pope to name him St. Anal Retentive but So Very Wonderfully Retentive. It’s only fair.

Yesterday morning, like many of the mornings now, was going smoothly. Dickson was up, bathed and downstairs. Franklin was up and eating breakfast/playing with lego. Then I got up, drank my coffee, got everything in the correct packs and everything signed and prepared. Eliza woke up, decided to put on her own diaper (me do!) and ate breakfast. We left in good time with all the lights off and all the dishes… um… in the sink, at least…?

So we had officially started the day. We were on our way – walking, strollering and scootering to Franklin’s camp and then on to Eliza’s daycare and then on to my work. It was 8:05am. Plenty of time.

Plenty of time to… race down the sidewalk, hold our breath as we wheeled over the odd coloured sidewalk squares, spot all the rabbits, wave to the university maintenance buggies, and try new tricks on our scooter.

Try new tricks on our scooter that ended up in a nasty crash mid parking lot.

Franklin’s had many crashes and yet, I’ve never seen this much blood. It wasn’t a particularly large scrape but blood all over his leg, all over the sidewalk and all over my hands.

Yet?
Yet!
I was prepared!

Much like my father and his packing of a half litre jar of antibiotics, rubber gloves and sterile strips in my pack before I went to Europe; the stroller had antiseptic wipes, betadine and band aids of every size and shape.

He was okay. Eliza was concerned but Franklin managed a smile and hopped back up on his scooter so she was pretty good by the time we got to her daycare. Through all of that? I was 5 minutes late. Only 5 minutes.

After work, Franklin showed me how his bandaid had come off during swimming and the scab had formed well. He was laying down talking about about something else when Eliza came up to him and pointed (poked) (hard) into his knee and said “ow?”. So then it started,

Eliza: “ow?”
Me: “ow”
Franklin: “Ow! Eliza! Gentle!”
Eliza: “ow?” (poke poke)
Me: “ow, but be gentle with Franklin”
Franklin: “Ay! Ow!”
Eliza: “ow?”
Me: “ow” (now I’m holding her hand and showing her what we mean by gentle)
Franklin: (sigh)
Eliza: “ow?”

and on and on.

By the end of the evening Eliza would point at her own knee and woefully explain with a pained expression, “Ow! ooooooh, Ow!”

Guess who has a bandaid on her knee this morning?
Anything to be just like her brother.

FDF – i’ll put a spell on you, originally uploaded by Mrs Brownhorse / Baby Brownhorse.

I started reading the Harry Potter series – reluctantly. It was one of those book phenomenons that fascinated me and I wanted to know what the fuss was about. On the other hand, I used to belong to a bookclub and was still aware of the precious moments I had wasted reading absolute crap at the request of other members.

I am a book snob.
I am not a wine snob, a fashion snob or a gourmand. However, I do select my books with care. My time spent reading these days are in between picking up children or while on route to the garden. I’m picky because this time is precious to me.

(Yes, I am also a walking reader.
No, I have not ever walked into anyone, anything or off the sidewalk into traffic. I’m a mother. I can multi-task.)

However, this time the trailer of the most recent Harry Potter film looked good. So good, in fact, that I re-read the book previous to it, rented the movie and then read the book that links to July’s movie. I was doing research; I was looking up definitions for curses, ingredients for potions and perusing through wizarding family trees.

I have found that I am only slightly more addicted to the books than I am to the Harry Potter Wiki online.

So I’m declaring “uncle” to J.K. Rowling. Woman, you got me. I’m now 3/4 through Deathly Hallows and I’ll be sad once it’s done. I’m even thinking of coordinating a trip to Ontario to see a friend at the same time as the first part of the final movie comes out (yes, they are doing this in two parts – ooooh, how exciting! I’m tingling!).

I’m not going to read that vampire series though.
I simply refuse.

Green Tomato in the Rain, originally uploaded by Chiot’s Run.

Dickson has been away for a few days. He left on Thursday and is now back. I didn’t want to blog about it because I’m a paranoid person who has a horrible imagination. I kept imagining psycho killers creeping up my stairs while I slept, knowing that the “Man Of The House” was away.

Nevermind that Dickson and I are approximately the same size.

Although… a little known Dickson fact: he has a black belt in Kung Fu (and this isn’t for the psycho killers, this is for real).

He’s going to kill me for writing that out for the entire Internet to read.

Anywho. He’s back and I thought to myself as several days went by with busy children and busy schedules, that I would get to water the garden as soon as he got back. A big drink. It would be fine. I had watered it with Franklin and Eliza on Saturday and Monday would be fine.

Monday comes and it’s pouring rain.

So I get to spend more time with my black belt knowing that somewhere, the garden gods and goddesses are taking care of the calabash.

Everyone is safe and the garden is watered. What more could a girl ask for?

A longer blog post?
One’s coming, I promise.

, originally uploaded by Ada I dirtyolive.

An excerpt from the August/October 2009 edition of Organic Gardening magazine:

It’s your garden, so don’t worry about deadlines. Don’t let crops rot on the vine, but don’t feel compelled to harvest according to a rigid timetable. Try eating veggies at different stages of growth. You’ll be surprised by the variations in flavor.

I love my artichoke – both for the flavour and for the flowers. The bees love them too. However, they are attention seekers. My garden is right next to the children’s garden and the gathering spot in the community garden. As a result, people are always making comments;

“You know you can eat those, right?”
“When are you going to harvest those artichoke?”
“Do you want a recipe for your artichoke?”
“Did you know you can’t eat those artichoke once they start to open?”

Yes, I know. There are many thing I choose not to pull, chop off or remove from my garden. Sometimes I want to wait and see what happens when they go to seed – quite fascinating to watch the process, really. Of course, my penchant for wanting to see the whole process makes people nervous. Not everyone wants my artichoke seed gaining root in their garden.
Even more disturbing is the guy with the 6 or 7 bushes of seeding kale. That’s a whole lotta kale – enough to feed the entire island, I suspect. His response to my email (I’m the site coordinator so, no, I’m not a nosy busy body – that honour goes to someone else in our garden) was that he’s planning on making “seed bombs” with…. kale. Because there is nothing so pretty and appetizing as a vacant gas station lot than kale – not poppies or other bee attracting flowers, kale.

But whatever. Just harvest the suckers before they end up everywhere, right? No one wants their particular allotment bombed with kale.

Or, apparently, my artichoke.
Although, if you ask me, some gardeners are a little too anal retentive for my comfort. If it’s coming up in your plot and you don’t want it there, just pull it out for heavens sake.

Sometimes being a part of a community means letting people live in peace. Sometimes being a part of a community means that you let people man their own gardens and weigh what does with what reasonably should bother you. Sometimes being a part of a community means empathy, understanding and deep cleansing breaths.