March, 2011

When Franklin was a toddler he was extremely interested in trains. Trains on train tracks, trains in books, Thomas the Train, the parts of a train (especially the wheels) and how a diesel engine worked as opposed to a steam engine.

Later is was about dinosaurs. He was correcting my mother on the pronunciation of all the different names and had a collection of dinosaur literature, figures and puzzles that we still have kicking around 5 years later. We even went to Drumheller when he was four years old and it blew his mind.

Soon after dinosaurs it was sharks. We’ve been wanting to visit my brother in California and see the aquarium there for awhile now. Sharks swimming above your head! ack. He has a Jaws poster in his bedroom. He can tell you all about the megalodon and has seriously considered entering into the profession of Cryptozoology.

I was never into any of these things – as a child, anyway. I had an obsession with blue whales but that’s as close as I’ve ever come to sharing Franklin’s interests. These days he’s got a mixture of fantasy (dragons), a smattering of video game (Little Big Planet), a dollop of Pokemon and an unwavering stream of Lego. Underneath all of that interesting stuff is his love of science – most especially physics. It seems to crop up with almost everything he does, actually. Physics was not a strong subject for me. I could understand what would happen in all those college physics scenarios but I always had a horrible time explaining how it would occur and the measurements to predict where that bloody ball would end up.

Also, math. I’m good at it. I even enjoy discussing a little math theory with the odd theoretician. However, to explain it to an elementary school kid? I’m not that good at it. Thankfully, Franklin’s a smart kid who, when left alone or left with his father, understands math quite well now. The words, “I’m the best at multiplication in my class!” uttered yesterday were music to my ears. I know I’m not responsible for that – it’s all his determination and intelligence. And Dickson’s ability to not get anyone worked up about anything.

How does he do that?

Anyway, my husband’s laid back personality aside, I find parenthood quite challenging in that I am constantly entering into worlds I would never voluntarily enter on my own. The science of space, the physics of thermodynamics, electrical resistivity, the earth circumference, Galileo’s gravity experiments… my head spins while I try and tackle kits like the one we gave him for Christmas.

But it’s amazing. It is really all so wonderful. He’s into such incredible things and it’s great to see him so independent. If he was drawing the interior of imaginary buildings, writing in journals and reading Nancy Drew, it would also be cool because we would have shared interests but he’s into solar flares, mythical beasts and how to propel a car using a rubber band. It’s part of being a parent, I suppose – letting your kids explore the world outside of your own bubble and supporting their interests even when they are wildly outside of your own comfort zone. It’s one of those things that you can’t dispute, having children enriches your life in many more ways than you can ever know.

Kale (kale kale kale kale), originally uploaded by Ada I dirtyolive.

I’ve had such wonderful love in my life. I know much of this is luck – luck of where I was born, the family I was born into and the people I have around me. Everything I produce, my garden, my children, my cooking… it is all a product of the people around me. People who help in so many ways if only to smile understandingly at me when I’m late or to offer me a coffee or a walk across campus for fresh air.

The other day I received an email from a friend to let me know that something I had written had ended up in another person’s academic paper. What did I think? Didn’t that make me angry? These were my thoughts and my ideas. What right did they have? I worked hard for those words…. and so on.

When I first heard, I was flattered. Then I thought something must be wrong with me as I could not find anger.

Perhaps I don’t think of my words or ideas as anything original or exceptional? Yes, that is so.

Perhaps I don’t think much of the world and expect this sort of thing to happen? I do publish on the internet. I should expect this, right? Yes, I would say I shouldn’t be surprised.

Perhaps I don’t really care? Well, almost.

It’s not that I don’t think I’m special. I try very hard to find specialness in myself. It’s not easy but I try very hard.

I also think very highly of the world.

I’ve spent much of the last week thinking about my words and where I write them and you know? The things I put up here are for you. I don’t mind that you take them. I don’t mind that you make them your own. If they spoke to you and you felt ownership enough to sign your name at the end of that paper, then I’m proud of myself. I’m proud to be able to speak to someone else like that. If you were merely scrambling for a creative writing topic and thought I would be a plausible voice with a satisfactory grade, then I’m also fine. I’m more than fine. I’m happy. It’s like I gave you a hat that I knit and you wore it the best way you knew how.

Take whatever you need.

Question mark, originally uploaded by Pete&NoeWoods.

So it’s has come around again – the “Why’s?”. Of course, she’s been doing it for awhile now and after Franklin, I certainly the reasoning behind it. I also know all the strategies to not let it get too out of hand. I have even found the miracle in it all as her brain so quickly develops and she’s grappling with a changing world.

But trust me, it would be a hell of a lot easier if she didn’t start her first “Why?” with a pause, a mischievous grin and then a confidently pronounced… “WHY!“

Because dammit, I hate it when I KNOW she’s just trying to pull my chain.

Tyres Tires, originally uploaded by Stuart Axe.

The fevers have broken…. I hope. They seem to come and go so inconsistently that as soon as someone declares that at least one of the children is officially “on the mend” they turn around and spike right back up again. We’ve had such a great winter. Hardly any major health catastrophes and no trips to the emergency room. Let’s not ring in the Spring season with a pneumonia, please.

I’m tired. And grumpy. And in the middle of my last midterm for the course. As I stroke Eliza’s sweaty head and watch a Pokemon marathon on television with Franklin, I try to read my article on mixed land use. Today I snuck out for a few hours to photograph a some areas around the city to include in my essay.

The Design District
Songhees
Dockside Green
The RailYards
Selkirk Waterfront Community

Out of the three of them, the Selkirk Waterway seems to have the most mixed use and also seems to be the most livable. So many of these New Urbanist developments become enclaves for the wealthy when the theory behind them is to be socially inclusive and classless. I’m trying to find a good formula as to how this particular area worked as opposed to the others. Is it the injection of government? Out of all of the areas I went to today, only Selkirk has provincial government offices and municipal government housing. It is also the only one with a school – a private Montessori school, but still a school.

Songhees seems to be still developing. I had hopes for the future development of the old railway roundhouse area as the designers were the ones who were originally a part of Granville Island. Dockside Green is beautiful, but a beautiful, elite, symbol of You Can’t Live Here. Normally, this wouldn’t really bother me except that they advertised their initial development as a place for all incomes and then took it away like it was the least of their priorities in reality. The Railyards are cute but seem so removed from anything except for the Galloping Goose Trail. However, this is also still developing. It would actually be an awesome place to be if the ground wasn’t guaranteed to liquify come earthquake time. The Design District? Hipsters are Us. I’m not a hipster.

This is quickly leaving the realm of objective analysis keeping in mind the midterm. It’s only me – deciding where I would want to live if there wasn’t an earthquake and tsunami on my brain, if I had at least enough for a down payment of a 3 bedroom townhouse, if I was certain of my future here.

Get well, kids.
Concentrate on the essay, Ada.

JAPAN-QUAKE/, originally uploaded by italo_pol.

Last night both Franklin and Eliza came down with a horrible cold. They both had raging fevers through the night and again all through today. The three of us stayed in bed all day while I stroked their sweaty heads and made sure they sipped watered down apple juice.

Dickson told us in the morning that Japan had a major earthquake and I was hesitant to turn on the news with the kids in the room. The media gets so hyped up about natural disasters. Sometimes they lose judgment and show things on television that is inappropriate without giving a warning first. I decided on BBC, hoping that there would be a little discretion. CNN was an immediate no go and CBC has let me down in the past. Franklin wanted to see what was going on and since Eliza was mostly sleeping, on went the television.

Wow.

This is beyond horrible. I mean, Japan is used to earthquakes and builds accordingly but… so much destruction. I only hope that the thousands of cars they repeatedly showed flowing down a river were from a car dealership, not from a highway.

An entire bullet train was swept away.

A cruise ship.

The farmland.

The airport.

All those homes.

All those families.

And yet there’s still Haiti, New Zealand, Libya, the typhoons, earthquake and tsunami in the Asia Pacific, the flooding in Pakistan, the global food crisis, homeless in our own city…

Sometimes it feels like there is so little that I can do except make sure that we will be okay when it happens here. Well, that’s done to the degree that it can be done and the rest? Well, what will be will be.

We’ve also donated to Unicef and The Red Cross. What else? This doesn’t seem like enough.

On the BBC website that is streaming news from Japan, someone from Sendai asked that everyone pray for unity, wisdom and love for Japan as they try to recover. I can do that too.

springtime, originally uploaded by rare earth.

This time of year is hard. Spring is popping up all over the place. The sunshine through my office window warms my back and taunts me while I’m stuck inside and working on file after file after file. I love my job, I really do. Odd that I would love my profession when it wasn’t something I really pressed myself to work toward. Perhaps that’s just the way things work though.

Still, at this time of year, I would much rather be outside digging in the earth or going for a long run. The problem is that my running shoes have finally died their slow death and my work days are too long. I don’t run at night. I’ve watched too many Law and Orders to feel okay about that. I have an overactive imagination and I’m a paranoid human being. Bring on the longer days!

Also? The earth isn’t ready. The weather can’t seem to decide if it’s going to warm up or not. Sure, we can plant the spinach and the peas and perhaps even the beans but after some careful thought, I’m not ready to put out the seedlings yet. The only thing I think I’ll grow indoors this year are tomatoes. The rest I’ve decided to direct sow. This decision has been harder to stick to than my decision to give up sugar for Lent. There is only so much manure, compost, and seaweed one can spread on one’s garden before it gets tiring. Pretty soon I’m going to start sifting out the little pebbles.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea…

After my course is done, of course. Just two more assignments and a slide exam and I’m finished one of the most challenging courses I’ve ever done. The content isn’t really what has been hard but instead it’s what is riding on the results. I don’t think I’ve ever had a prof that has both inspired and discouraged me more. Every assignment I hand in puts me on pins and needles. I am at a point where I can mark myself. I know what I’ve done well and what I could have improved on – if I had more time, if I had the ability to do more research off campus, away from my desk, not only on my lunch hours and in the middle of the night.

This spring has been such a roller coaster of a ride. I’ll be both sad and happy to be finished in April. Sad the course is done and that the prof is retiring and won’t be teaching any longer. Happy that I’ll be able to concentrate on the garden and it’s impending move.

Hrmm, that reminds me, I don’t think I’ve written about the community garden move in awhile. It’s a long post about a lot of stuff. I’ll get on that… too.

rainbow, originally uploaded by greg_jonsson.

You know what holds me up 80% of the time when I want to write a post? Finding the picture for what I want to express. Not only finding the right picture but also finding this photo in flickr – among those who are not professional photographers and are okay with me using it on my blog. Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes, it’s damn hard. Finding one that gives a visual representation on Eliza these days was especially hard.

Eliza likes colour, it seems. For picture day last month, she wore a bright pink shirt with a bright pink tank over top that had a lemon with sparkles on the front. She had multi-coloured rainbow leggings and a neon green tutu, purple socks and pink sandals. Oh, and a bright very large green hairband and bow in her hair along with her white and pink Jackie O sunglasses. Of course. We can’t go anywhere without the sunglasses.

Last weekend Dickson took her shopping at Claire’s, a girl’s accessory store that I normally find over whelming and confusing. They came home with another pair of sunglasses, pink hued. She’s enamored;

“Everything I see is PINK!”

What could be better? Pink!
Everywhere!

Today is her birthday. We don’t normally need to buy clothes for her as we have very generous friends with amazing hand-me-downs. However, after a field class last night, I stopped into Zellers to grab a cake pan. I didn’t find the right cake pan (or rather, I wasn’t comfortable paying $23 for one) but I did wander through the little girl section. Normally, I would look at comfy clothing. Something with lots of room at play around in and maybe with an interesting design on it. Pretty much each time I’ve picked something, she’s been “meh” about it. However, this time I went with colour. The brighter the better – minus the tops with rhinestones and shirts made to look like there is a bra strap peeking through (what the ever loving hell is up with slut wear for toddlers?).

I bought a bright (B.R.I.G.H.T.) pink top with ruffle cap sleeves and rainbow butterflies all over the place. The pants were too long for her so I got leggings from a different area – super bright purple with lace on the bottom.

She loved it.

I asked her about the lace and she said she liked it because it was “dainty”. I may have used that word once or twice but I really had no idea she knew how to apply it.

“Dainty”.
Hilarious.

This is a new thing for her. In the past she has stuck with very specific staples and didn’t really want to veer away from her maroon a-line Winnie the Pooh corduroy shift or her blue fleece pants. My attempt to get her to at least try on the variety of floofy dresses she’s been given were fruitless. These days, it’s all an adventure. Each day is a new outfit.

My little baby is growing up in bright colours. Happy birthday, girl!