Happy New Year!
Last year I took a photo out the back window every day. Yesterday I took the last one. They’re a bit dull to look at on the Shuttercal site so rolled them all into this video. Watch for the sap bucket in March!
Today I took the kids and one of their friends skating. It was a beautiful, bright day. Cold and crisp. Dusting of snow on the ground. Clear blue sky with a few wisps of clouds. Brisk breeze at our backs. People smiling and birds chirping. Actually, it’s probably too cold for chirping birds. And even if they had been singing beautiful harmonies I wouldn’t have heard them because all I could hear was this:
Wow, it’s windy. The wind is blowing us. Wind can’t pick people up. Well, tornados can. But we don’t have tornados here, right? In Toronto? Is that why you decided to live here? And tornados can kill people. If you get bonked by a car or something in a tornado you can be like a zombie made of blood.
Imagine bug tornados! Mama, what would a bug tornado be? Like a really small tornado? But that couldn’t pick us up. It’s waaaaayyy too small. A bug tornado would be like a leaf twisting around. Hey, I never heard of a cloud that can touch the ground!
Can hippos kill you? If they bite you? Or stomp on you? Hippos can bring down your boat with their mouth. Are hippos’ mouths really really big? You know how they can go really fast? But almost as fast as a leopard and a lion?
Can they?
Then we went skating. Luckily he can’t really balance and talk at the same time. It was very peaceful.
The Character Assassination Carousel continues to turn in its vicious circles, whirling character after character off into the popcorn-littered mud. The Cat in the Hat has, I hope, been soundly ejected. The next blog on the Carousel is Hitting the Crossbar where James will show you a side of Maleficent – of Sleeping Beauty fame – you’ve never seen before. Turns out those meddling fairies had us figuring her all wrong.
I’ve done all the Christmas shopping. I almost called it ‘holiday shopping’ but even though I’m half-Jewish and K is Buddhist (but really just Marxist) I won’t fall into the ‘holiday-seasonal-winter-festival‘ trap. I lost my tolerance for extreme holiday celebration political-correctness the first time I heard the term ‘spring orb’ used to describe an Easter egg. We give the kids presents on December 25th so I’m calling them Christmas presents. So there.
Anyway, I’ve bought them all. And last night I piled them all on the bed after the kids were asleep so I could count them and make sure they’re evenly distributed and doubt my choices and ensure that I don’t waste any time not festering or obsessing. They matched. The kids will receive an equal amount of crap.
Akka’s pile looked like this:
Malli’s pile looked like this:
Then I felt like throwing up. If the piles of presents could talk, Akka’s would say “the most important thing about you is how you look and it has to be exactly like this.” Malli’s would say “play! pretend! build! But also kill things and always, always be strong.”
I’ve been calming myself down by remembering that I also used to love girly toys and tiny little collectible useless things and I turned out ok. Cabbage Patch kids, Sweet Valley High books, china horses, about a million little Bonne Bell lip glosses. Ah, those were the days! Akka will be fine. And hopefully she’ll learn not to apply too much blue eye shadow. It’s never too early for important lessons like that, right?… Right?!!
Welcome! We’re on the Character Assassination Carousel and my horse is up next. Organized by Ninja Mom, the Character Asssassination Carousel calls upon various blog writers to submit a children’s book to scrutiny and critique; ultimately reducing it to a cardboard pulp under the heel of a formerly-fashionable and still-comfortable-so-I’m-wearing-them-until-the-style-returns leather boot.
The last assassination credit goes to Vinny C. from As Vinny C’s It who’ll have you thinking twice before trying to put one over on a bear-fox-cow trio should the opportunity ever arise. Once this Carousel ride is over and you’ve regained your balance, James from Hitting the Crossbar will be up next.
Riding the Carousel horse this month is the king of all unwelcome house guests: The Cat in the Hat.
Simple story: Mother is out. Kids are home alone, seemingly left in the care of a goldfish. Then, BUMP! Bigger, unknown creature comes in uninvited, imposes a game, mocks the goldfish, trashes the place, ignores a request to leave, goes to get his friends and trashes the place some more. Then, when the kid finally speaks up to kick him out, the Cat guilt-trips him for not liking his antics, sulks and leaves. Cat returns once again to clean up and leaves the kids wondering whether or not to tell Mother about it when she gets home.
Classic passive aggressive narcissistic behaviour. Let’s break it down:
1) Mother is out:
Go Mama! Have fun! Tell us all about it!
2) Kids are home alone, seemingly left in the care of a goldfish:
I’m totally on board with this. Seriously. Kids are too coddled these days. Back in the Cat’s day (first published 1954) you could leave your kids home alone while you popped out to meet your lover or fill your valium prescription. Everybody did it. Plus, the goldfish has a good head on its shoulders. Or gills, or whatever. Actually, the fish’s lack of shoulders and accompanying arms and hands with which to either pre-emptively lock the door or grab a Cat roughly by the scruff of his neck and toss him out into the rainy afternoon may be the main oversight here in terms of choosing a sitter.
3) BUMP! Bigger, unknown creature comes in uninvited:
Just rude, really.
4) Cat imposes a game and mocks the goldfish:
Here’s where things start to get weird.
“I know some good games we could play,”
Said the cat.
“I know some new tricks,”
Said the Cat in the Hat.
“A lot of good tricks.
I will show them to you.
Your mother will not mind at all if I do.”
Whoa! whoa! Hold the phone. “Your mother will not mind at all if I do?!” Who introduces a game with that line? “Hey – let’s play checkers. Your mama won’t mind.” Or “Let’s go ride bikes. S’ok with your dad!”
More like “Come on into this gingerbread house made of candy, kiddies. Your mom texted to tell me to tell you to follow me down this dark forest path. Let’s go!”
First red flag: right there.
Up to this point the children are silent due to, at best, politeness; and at worst, paralyzing fear. Meanwhile the voice of reason (unfortunately housed within a fish whose protective instincts are thwarted by its inability to breathe air) speaks up to protest.
The Cat’s response? Bwaaahahahaa! Shut it fish! I balance you on an umbrella! Your protests invoke not sympathy but a scolding that you do not know how to have fun! Fun for me is entertaining your charges by threatening your life! Into the pot with you!
5) Cat trashes the place, ignores a request to leave, goes to get his friends and trashes the place some more:
Rude, rude, rude, rude.
6) Kid finally speaks up and the Cat lays on the guilt.
The kids are still awfully quiet. First: “Sally and I did not know what to say.” Ok, paralyzed with fear. Then: “Sally and I did not know what to do.” Still paralyzed. But later:
And I said,
“I do NOT like the way that they play
If Mother could see this,
Oh, what would she say!”
Followed by the first real action on No-Name’s part: he fetches his net and catches Thing One and Thing Two and finally finds his voice:
Then I said to the cat,
“Now you do as I say.
You pack up those Things
And you take them away!”
Go No-Name!! For this little outburst he gets a guilt trip from a sulky Cat. What a shame. What a shame. What a shame.
7) Cat cleans up leaves the kids wondering whether or not to tell Mother:
This is the one and only point in the book where the kids crack a smile. It seems that lots of good fun that is funny, not to mention FUN-IN-A-BOX wasn’t such a laugh after all. The only thing that gets a smile (of relief) out of these two is the tidying up bit.
Still, I fear it’s too little too late. Narcissist-Cat (Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW!) tidies up the crap on the floor but can he clean up the psychological mess in little No-Name and Sally’s minds as they wrestle with the decision of whether or not to tell their Mother that they’ve just survived a home invasion?
A Cautionary Poem
For Those Who Hear a Bump That Makes Them Jump
The Cat in the Hat
Is a creepy old guy
He comes uninvited,
He doesn’t say why
He breaks all your stuff;
He thinks this is fun
But it’s not; it’s quite rude
And it shouldn’t be done.
Learn from the fish
He’s really quite wise
He wouldn’t allow
A beast twice his size
To bring in his Things
To fly their two kites
And balance your knickknacks
From towering heights.
And so, if you’re faced with a Cat,
so,
so,
so…
Here’s how to proceed (and the key word is No!)
If someone comes in
And upends all your toys
And ignores your protests
And then brings in his boys
Speak up! Tell him no!
You shouldn’t stay quiet
With a Cat who can’t tell
A game from a riot.
The fish knows what’s right;
You must listen to him
You should put that Cat out
And pour Mom a tall gin
With tonic and lime
And some ice on a tray:
A nice treat for Mom
On a wet, wet wet day.
Our kids are city kids. Now that they’re a bit bigger I’m starting to be able to do more city things with them. Lately we’ve been using not only the city’s parks, community centres and kid-oriented drop-in centres but also its galleries and its theatres; both performing and political.
Toronto is home to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It’s great. It’s full of art. I have been there many many times but it was only on my latest trip that I saw any actual art. Until now all of my visits consisted of herding kids through the revolving door, making a bee-line for the coat check, hanging out in the kids’ play area, running for the bathroom, back to the play area, enjoying short and hopefully unnoticed nap on one of the giant cushions, secretly changing a diaper behind the bookcase, hitting the cafeteria, back to the coat check and home. I’m told there was a lot of art upstairs but I had to take other people’s word for it.
Now, it’s different. Stroller-free, I steered my littles up to the galleries. They looked around willingly. Akka sat down and copied some Inuit art into one of the guest books. There was a visiting exhibit of abstract expressionists and as we walked in, the staff handed us two kids’ activity booklets. To my amazement, they were completely on board. We walked from room to room eagerly looking for the paintings in our booklets and then sat in front of each one to work through the questions. They explored brush strokes and textures, we talked about how the works made them feel; speculated about how the artists felt as they created them. For one activity the kids were asked to draw an animal. Akka drew a giraffe:
The next task was to draw the same animal using only five lines:
I was pretty impressed. Malli isn’t as into this stuff but Akka was really getting it. I just had a stupid smile on my face through the whole exhibit as it dawned on me that I can take my kids to cool places and look at cool stuff and have interesting conversations with them, not just in spite of them.
Another task was to draw feelings. This is happy (on the left) and sad (on the right):
Newly optimistic about this wonderful city and my ability to navigate new parts of it with my children, I discovered the noon-hour free concert series put on by the Canadian Opera Company. This outing was especially for Malli. Akka was at school and it’s Malli who shows an interest in music (seriously – he’ll sit still for half an hour to listen to the last two movements of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Repeatedly.)
One weekday I fetched Malli after kindergarten and whisked him downtown in a taxi to the show. We heard a rousing 45 minute concert by the “Greek God of Guitar”, Pavlo. It was exhilarating. It was fairly cheesy. It was perfect for a four-year-old boy and his mother out on the town of a lunch hour.
Not all our recent outings have been oriented to the arts. We’re keeping it political, too. I envy those of you who don’t know this but Toronto’s current mayor, Rob Ford, is an embarrassment. He swept into power promising to cut fees and freeze taxes. He did. Then he set about trying to make up for the revenue shortfall by cutting government waste. He couldn’t find any. So now we’re facing service cuts in the form of library closures, lost daycare subsidies, public housing sell-offs, public transit fare increases, higher user fees and reductions in garbage collection to address a financial crisis entirely of the Mayor’s making. This paragraph is the most polite I can be about this issue.
A few weeks ago the people of Toronto came together to demonstrate against Ford’s proposed cuts. I think people sometimes forget that when governments don’t have any money to spend on public services it’s because they’re not getting that money from us in the form of taxes. If we don’t want our services to be cut we can’t allow ourselves to be governed by politicians who refuse to (fairly) collect those taxes. The kids’ signs at the rally express my very simple proposed solution to our municipal fiscal crisis:
Even if it is currently governed by a buffoon, I’m loving our city. I’m loving exploring it with the kids and want to plan some more suburban and far-flung urban adventures with them soon.
K and I have even headed out into the urban night to soak up some culture on our own. We’re not really theatre-goers; musical or otherwise. I was, however, raised with a healthy dose of musical theatre. We used to sing along to Oklahoma and South Pacific on long car rides. So I do have a favourite musical and it’s probably not one you’ve heard of. And if one’s favourite musical is a saga of Cold War chess-tournament rivalry set to music by ex-ABBA members, one must live in the biggest city in the country in order to have a chance of seeing it live. I knew if I bided my time the pull of 80s-retro would gather strength until a production company could no longer resist the urge to put this gem back on stage. Chess was great. I just wish it had been a sing-a-long version so my fellow audience members would have stopped snickering and put a little effort into learning the harmonies instead.
For a while now I’ve wanted to find some way to make music. I used to sing in a choir and I used to play in the high school band and I used to take piano and guitar lessons. That was all a long time ago. It took me a while to realize that I missed it. I put Akka in piano lessons last year and, while she went along with it, she didn’t really dive in. Aha! I’m the one who wants to make music. She’s not craving it. She’s fine. She gets music at school and sings in class every day.
I thought of joining a choir but it’s too much of a commitment and always right at dinner time. Then, in Vancouver, my Mom walked into a gathering of ukulele players. She was pretty enthusiastic about it. A week later, together in Toronto, we looked for something similar and found the Corktown Ukulele Jam. Two ukuleles later ($30 each in the shop at the end of the street) we rounded up some friends and showed up for one of their special events: a campfire sing-a-long. Um, it was awesome. I loved it.
From the first paragraph of this post it should be clear that I wasn’t the coolest kid on the block. I wasn’t really hanging out on the block that much, what with all the choir practices and oboe lessons and piano recitals to get to. I didn’t even mention the ‘gifted’ math classes or the fact that when I started high school at age 13 I could easily have been mistaken for an 8-year old boy. Oh jeez: or the Star Trek obsession (I’m sure if I’ve left anything out my sister will provide full details in the comments below).
I’ve made peace with my geekiness. I’m ok with it. But I don’t broadcast it either (well, until now) and I can confidently say that I have adult friends who have no idea what a nerd I was (well, until now). So I was a bit worried about becoming enthusiastic about a weekly drop-in ukulele jam. Wouldn’t that, perhaps, be a step backwards? It probably doesn’t help that I found out about the weekly drop-in ukulele jam from my mother?
Screw it. Ukes are awesome, man! They evoke an urban nouveau-nerd coolness (as an aside: so does knitting). They’re affordable, accessible instruments and when you get a room of them together you can play anything! In my two visits to the weekly gathering I’ve learned parts to songs by the Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Nash, Nancy Sinatra and others. It’s not all “Ukelele Lady” and empty plink plink sounds. And the people who show up to these things are nice people. They like music. They like playing music. They’re very supportive of newcomers who don’t really know what they’re doing. Nobody takes it too seriously: they can make fun of themselves. Some of them knit during the open-mic portion of the evening. (Two for one!)
Ukulele night is good for me. I feel happy when I go. Plus, it takes place in a bar. I’ve already rounded up three friends to join me in a Uke101 learn-to-play class in a few weeks. It’s better for everyone if I find friendly and casual ways to indulge my music-making urges. Otherwise I’d be on my way to becoming that crazy lady who bursts into song at every opportunity, dressed head-to-toe in her favourite colour, smiling at the unfortunate people trapped on the same subway platform saying (in a sing-song voice) ”I just love to siiiing! I love to make MYUUU-ZZZ–IKK! Join me at the next chorus. C’mon, EVERYBODY!” As long as I make it to a weekly uke night now and then, this future vision will never manifest. Good idea, right?
Every year the same thing: the kids insist on sprouting ever-longer arms and legs and they need new winter coats. Last year we managed with coats we’d bought the year before but Malli’s wrists started poking out into the cold February air and I defy you to find a winter coat in a shop when it’s actually winter. Can’t be done. So he managed with long mittens for the last couple of cold months and this year I started my quest early.
My first venture into children’s clothing stores way back in 2007 left me in a gendered-clothing-fury that got my name in print. I no longer expect to find gender-neutral or simply-designed children’s clothing. Or at least I know the only chance of finding them is in the boys’ section. Still, I fester.
My kids are failing to back me up in my weak and futile quest for clothes that don’t scream girly-girl or tough-guy. Akka’s neutral dressing days began to expire when she started kindergarten and got an eyeful of the Barbie backpacks, glittery tights, sparkle hairbands and skorts. Since then she’s been picking out her own clothes before bed and usually heads out the door in a symphony of colour and patterns (because one pretty thing looks pretty but three pretty things look three times as pretty!)
Malli couldn’t care less. Aside from expressing the occasional preference for a button shirt over a t-shirt he just pulls his clothes on and won’t even let you turn them around when they’re backwards. When he presents himself in the morning I wearily ask “Malli, are you wearing underwear?” Usually he is but I still ask because not long ago the answer was “No, but it’s ok. I’m wearing a belt.”
Part of my iron-clad argument for clothes to be gender-neutral is that I should not have to shop for two sets of clothing for two kids. I should be able to pass clothes from the oldest to the youngest. Gendered clothing negates hand-me-downs. Wasteful. I proudly identify and reject the planned obsolesence of gendered clothing. But my kids’ growth patterns have forced a re-evaluation. Malli is a big four-year old. Akka is a small six-year old. This winter they’ll both be wearing size 5 winter coats. The hand-me-down argument is blown.
Malli fits into the coat Akka wore last year. Size five. Warm. Orange. Simple. From the boys’ section. She still fits into it too, of course, but she wants a long coat, preferably with a tie around the waist. There aren’t any of those in the boys’ section and given that he’ll never wear it, I gave up and walked reluctantly to the pink and sparkly side of the store and bought one. Size five. Warm. Purple. Not so simple. From the girls’ section. She loves it. She wouldn’t take it off all afternoon and we’re months away from below-zero temperatures.
Our main drain was blocked. It was an old clay pipe and it broke and we didn’t know. It had been blocked for a while causing the sinks and toilet and dishwasher and bathtub to drain very slowly. My response to this was to flush an obscene amount of water down the drains in an attempt to clear some blockage. Bad idea. Then, when emptying the bathtub during a torrential downpour brought water up through the drain in the basement, we finally called a plumber. It was not an easy fix:
For several days these guys dug a 13-foot hole in our front yard to get to the broken section of pipe. In the meantime we had to try not to send any water down the drain since it would only seep out into the growing hole. The timing was impeccable: my in-laws were visiting from Sri Lanka and my own mother arrived for a visit bringing the population of our four-person house up to seven for the duration of the plumbing problem.
I felt some mild panic. Then I rallied: it’s like camping. I love camping! I can use very little water. I can bathe my children in a bucket (or, you know, not bathe them). I can wash dishes in an inch of water and pour the dishwater on the garden instead of letting it go down the drain. My mom and I talked ourselves into the fun of camping at home and making do and getting by. We filled a bunch of pots and jugs for when the supply had to be turned off. We put basins in both the sinks and a bucket in the shower so we could carry used water out and pour it directly down the sewer. I did laundry at the neighbour’s.
As for my in-laws, this is how they handled the crisis:
Me: “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. We can’t pour water down the drain until the pipe is fixed. It’s going to take a few days.”
Them: “Ok.”
Didn’t faze them a bit. Infrastructure in their neighbourhood in Colombo isn’t hidden away. There are visible drains that take water out of the houses. There are tanks on top of the roofs that hold reserve water for when the municipal supply wavers. They turn the pump on to fill the tank and turn it off again when it’s full.
The Canadian-born folks in the house had to pause and think about where the water comes from and where it goes and how to cope when the circuit is broken. For the Sri Lankans? No biggie.
Two summers ago the kids sprinkled cosmos seeds in cracks all around the back alley. This year we remembered to weed out other things and water the little seedlings. Now look:
We feel like The Lupin Lady; doing something to make the world more beautiful.
