Hockey Night in Canada, indeed.

So we said all we'd say about TV and then yesterday...

Scene
Mother dashes to grocery store while child sleeps. Father is responsible for post nap child care. Child is sleeping late and will be likely very hungry when she gets up. There is pizza left in the fridge from Friday.

Mother approaches the house laden with groceries. It is after 5 pm drapes are still drawn in child's bedroom; there will be hell to pay if the kid is still sleeping because Dad wants to watch hockey.

From inside
Father's voice: Coming.
Mother: OK.
Door opens, Father steps aside, TV is on, Sens lead 2-0.
Child seated in chair opposite TV eating huge helping of pizza beams widely: COME IN, Mommy!
Mother laughs heartily and Sens score.
Child: Hoooockeeeeeeeeeee! Look Mommy, Hockey puck!

Face it, there have to be exceptions to prove the rule, right?

Bad Parenting Confessional : We are so inconsistent

I swear to God, sometimes I think somebody is gonna lose a limb!

We have reached a serious phase of the parenting that we are entirely unqualified for, that being, the part where we must deliver only consistent messages. Now me, despite what I say, I do read the parenting "literature". I am a parenting pragmatist but not completely without theory. I feel it is my responsibility, and good sport, to try to decode what the hell is going on with the kid. I go for the following: belief in the right of the child to a range of emotions; clear communication; redirecting incorrect behaviour; and, parental fortitude to get stuff done.

Papa-man's style is *under construction*. Let's just say it does take a lot from the shit shared between siring dads in the workplace.

When things go wrong 8 times out of 10 we offer different responses. I understand if we keep this up the child will eat us alive by the age of four. When we try to discuss the matters in front of our talkative child she is now prone to say "stop it".

What frustrates us most is our complete uncertainty that the divergent choices will ever become complimentary.

Ask Wotan

Gee Wotan, how do you feel about being the guy behind 'hump day'?

Who do you like better: Loki or Doug Henning?

What's with Norwegian cinema- why so glum, chum?

I haven't been posting much lately. I am attempting to follow the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" aphorism re: the online self, but it's difficult. I say it is difficult, because who wouldn't want to potshot, ventilate, and otherwise froth at the silly, the stupid, and the pompous from the safety of one's laptop, or Wotan forbid, your office computer (Hi boss!), even if one possesses all of the criteria set on the "Are You Silly, Pompous, and/or Stupid" test? I know I do (on both accounts). Lighthearted sniping from the binary Maginot Line is fun- sure, the war has long sincee passed me by, I am surrounded by attractive and dangerous men in leather boots and riding pants... wait, that's something else.

What I am saying is, I have discovered I do not have much to say unless what I have to say is, in some manner, negative. I would comment on that phenomenon but I don't have anything nice to say about it. The result of all this navel-gazing, this sad little navel-lint-weaving exercise is I am unsure what I would even have to say if I wasn't trying to take a run at someone although I am about to try. My concern is that I will be left with little by way of subject matter beside oblique self-reference and a description of my life's events. Is that the point? If it is, I can assure you now, if you suffer from insomnia, you won't after reading me typing about me. Me on me action. Meology.

PMO

Baby name selections for the week

You might have thought MetroDad had it all settled for us a while back with the suggestion of Apollo. We are, AMAZINGLY, still on our quest for a half decent name for a boy should one happen upon us.

This week for your feedback the names now declared out of the running.
Malcolm, mo-wo pick, p-man veto
Alistair, p-man pick, mo-wo veto
Parker, friends of ours just took this one... really for us, no loss
John Henry -- I have decided I am just waaaay to into that Johnny Cash: Live at Folsom album that has been left in my car.

You know I always really wanted to name my son James Garner. But p-man won't have it; damn Rockfish!

NB: MD, Apollonia is in the running for our next feline acquisition.

TV Broken

There has, of late, been a lot of talk about the issue children and television viewing. At our house, and in the life of our 19 month old, TV is still a non-issue. Our process has been as follows:

0 to 3 months
baby gets lots of ambient TV rays while mother does lots of feedings.
3 to 6 months
Little eyes now look to the TV and this freaks mother out. No more TV.
6 to 12 months
Wimbledon on and father off work. The child watches some TV but that's it, really! Daddy, unplug that TV. Shrink wrap remains on Elmopolooza video.
12 to 15 months
Child starts daycare, they have TV time, oh god the Wiggles! Mother scoffs to no avail. Still, the rule at home is no TV. Child learns to say "TV Broken?", Mother and Dad reply, "Yep"
15 months on
Child does not care about TV.

But who cares about how we don't watch TV with Miss Fancy? The controversy seems to reside in why people don't. Why don't we watch TV as the Wo family? Is it ..... ?:

Our concern over the negative aspects of media and the commodification of society represented by TV? Nope, sorry we're quite too pedestrian for that.

Because we are not cable subscribers and are, in fact, really grounded earth lovers who read only highbrow literature published on recycled paper? Wrong again. Our courtship was studded with a range of programs that have proved core to our relationship. Sad isn't it. We actually like TV.

Pediatrics Societies do not recommend television for children younger than two years of age (some individual doctors will stretch the cautions to age four). Not really. We aren't serious parenting researchers and only picked up this factoid after we had 'broken' the TV at our house.

So why don't we? Well, to be honest, we don't have time.

I listen to all the acrimonious arguing (and all the friendly arguing) about little guys and the TV and don't get it. I look at our days and simply cannot see where the TV would fit. P-man and I watch it at night while our daughter sleeps. During the day I only have enough energy to live our lives of work, housework, food prep and transportation as necessary; interspersed with traditional children's distractions, puppets n' books n' buckets n' balls. You get the idea.

Unlike p-man I hate having the TV just on; it bugs me no end. I have recently come out as someone raised in a house where the TV played a pretty inconsequential role. My Mom would tolerate Sesame Street but she hated a dozen other children's programs. She thought they were dumb and a waste of time - go outside already! We never cultivated program loyalty in our home so maybe that's another reason: I don't care.

Yep, at the Wo house there is no TV for baby e. because we are too busy and we don't care about what's on. We obviously have never mastered quality television and instead we only deploy this entertainment medium at the end of a day when all aspects of our basic needs have been met and time then remains to waste. There is precious little of this sort of time.

Shopping for a new skin

If any of our great readers can recommend sites offering new blogger skins I would appreciate it. I will likely work towards something custom but if I could plug and play instead maybe you know some good sources? For now I'll offer this muddy, newsprint footprint, with a new and improved blog roll!

I'm not quitter! And bad puns in bold.

What is it now, a week? A week since my last chance to come clean about my latest professional weakness. How appropos.

I am currently staring down the sort of soft-core feminist flakiness to curl the hairdo of that dame of matriarchal splendor, Linda Hirshman, or irritate Leslie Morgan Steiner... I should be turning down work. But I am not.

I did this in my last pregnancy. Imagine the three-month pregnant me completely breaking down at a blessed picnic canalside on a beautiful day at Versailles. Burying the last major vacation we had planned for YEARS in the tears of realization of my inability to sustain the achievement my middle-class upbringing had pounded into me. At that juncture I was pretty settled into my current job as well as a couple months off the conculsion of a new experience for me, university instructor, that had been a delight and success. As events turned I was offered a position of writer for a new online course when I first found out I was pregnant and I took it. STOOOOOOPID.

I suddenly careened into a spiral of substandard performance that I am pretty sure was more stressful than any aspect of my pregnancy. The perfectionist inside of me was dying a slow and painful death. I could not handle it. I was so upset about doing a horrible job.

Am I about to repeat this mistake in the name of supermom-dom, or whatever it is? What makes it stupidest is that I know whereof, etc etc. I am truly -- as the saying goes "I am teat-ering [sic] on the precipice.."

Last week I met with my university masters to "continue" my career development over there. Yep, that's me breezy and confident, reliable and up for the challenge. Yep that's me -- at least in part -- pretty full of it. This time I'll run an online course following a rewrite of the contents over a 12 month contract, starting when our next child is about 4 weeks old. This is not the one that scares me.

What is frightening is that it is also planned that I teach an in-person course when the nuthatch is 3 mos. What am I thinking???? One of my former students was the first to ask, "Mo-Wo, uhm, wha'dar ya... stupid?" and "Why don't you do in January instead?" She is right, so right. Other teachers in the department have backed me up on making the change and that, in fact, it is neither here nor there to the program. Still I say nothing. I don't want to do the work then, I know I will not do a good job but still I keep mum.

With every passing day I am making it worse that I don't quit/ask for the reschedule. What are the mental barriers?
1. I would rather work? (HA!)
2. I haven't come up with the tidy excuse to make it all sound ok when I say it?
3. I procrastinate over whether the request is better made in-person, by phone or in an email (email would be so gutless, right?)
4. I will not quit because I wanna be tough enough?
5. I am in deep in some pollyanna world where I believe I'll still draw satisfaction from my designs on childrearing while I run my career at the same level I was running it pre-rug-rats?
6. I think we need the money?
7. I am too busy to deal with this?

I am pretty sure all of the above are true and pointless. I slowly feel the courage coming on to write that email, signed off with 'I will follow this up with you by telephone later today' ... next chance I get. Thank god for blogging to institute effective gutlessness adjustments. Doesn't mean I'll ever give up my propensity to hide behind my email address though, eh.

Please note this post is assigned to category : Cadillac problem #9.

I Raise My Ass...

...in a toast to the City of Toronto, this paragon of our national virtue, this cosmopolitan oasis in a vast arid field of backwards-looking provincialism, which is today counting its homeless population. Our reliable national broadcaster tells us this survey is to include both those homeless people who use the homeless shelters, and those who do not. Efforts will be made to search Toronto's valleys, ravines and other natural features for homeless people who are "roughing it".

Some have said this program will not produce reliable results. The subjects of the survey are, well, homeless, and have no fixed address. They are mobile, free of identity cards and other means of idendification, which would assist Toronto's tabulators of misery in producing an accurate count, and so on.

In an effort to assist in producing accurate results, and amidst some furore from civil liberties groups, one councillor has suggested the city tag its homeless. The benefits, she says, are not limited to accurate results in the present, but include the savings to be reaped on future surveys.

Isn't it great that people care?

Baby names selections for the week

So after listening to our weekly serving of classical music yesterday we have come up with what we think is a really great baby naming strategy. What could be classier than naming your kid after some high-fangled record label, noted for delivering the masters to the rabble, and thus conferring upon our spawn the illusion of intelligence, and identifying us as total wankers?

So what about:
Hyperion
Naxos
Decca
Avie
Harmonia Mundi or our favorite,
Deutsche Grammophon!

Sadly, though we like Victor, by the way, all those really great 'V' names are out since our last name begins with 'D'.

Happy Easter

I do enjoy Easter. Drawn from the traditions of my mother's Ukrainian-Canadian family there is customarily, ha, a lot to do. First, of course, Lent then tons of food all interspersed with egg making. I was my family's one-woman Pysanka tradition preservation society. This means I used to make a dozen eggs up every spring for blessing and giving away. For weeks before hand I would sit crossed legged squinting into a candle heating my kistka of beeswax and thinking of the Uke chicks that came before me: my grandmother; her mother; my grandfather's sisters; and, others many of whom had lives laid waste by wars or by Communism. I would work long into these nights considering my good fortunes over those of my predecessors in the many years gone on. It involved a lot of legs falling asleep and good bit of smoking in my prenatal days. These eggs looked like this:


This year no 'official' Pysanky... Eggs made up were only hard boiled Krashanky, not blown; they were for our family not for others and they weren't trotted off to church for blessing by the priest I am currently in debate with over the concept of church 'membership' -- that is so another post! This year's eggs were painted by my nuclear family (what's that 78% Anglo?) and looked like this:


Most beautiful eggs ever! And, shout out a big hooray to Baba and Auntie Olga for coming through with the traditional breads to keep it all mystical without much work on my part for this year. I wish you all the very best in the coming spring and summer seasons. I hope many of you have enjoyed special time with your families over the holidays and more specifically Happy Easter to my compatriots in the Christian quagmire, where applicable.

Gentlemen and scholars

A big thanks to the class acts of my husband, Crouton Boy and the Pet Cobra for some really slick responses on my tag. I learned a whole lot more and if you want to too check our this, this and that.

Beastly Number

Thank you, dear spouse, for tagging me. Thank you, Dexter, for crawling on my chest while I try to type this, and for bringing your crusty ass within sniffing distance of my face. I feel, at last, that I belong... ah, until I read Dutch's next post, whereupon I will bemoan my renewed feelings of deep inadequacy.

I can scarce think of three things about me which are unknown to you, or which may be of interest to anyone but me. Nonetheless, and having read Jason's response, I will begin my list, starting at 1 and going upwards in number until I am done, with the number being in the range of 3 to 6.

1. I have a morbid fear of public washrooms. It's not so much the bacteria I imagine swimming up my piss stream at the urinal, or the rat which will burrow up into my colon when I rest uneasily on or slightly above the throne, nor is it the multitude of offending smells - it's the fear of embarrassment. I leave that to your capable imagination.

2. I love puppies. They taste best with a peanut chili sauce.

3. It is not enough that I should succeed. Others must fail. (TY, Oscar Wilde)

4. I love spiders and I dislike insects, except the ones which are helpful in my garden. I have pulled off the highway to remove wind-blasted arachnid from my rearview mirrors for careful placement on roadside flora. I will not kill a spider but I hunt down ants and crush them like the bugs they are.

5. I cannot stand pretentious people, or people whom I believe are pretentious, holier-than-thou shits for brains. I want to confront these people and knee them in the gonads. There is no reasoning with them. I believe I am a pretentious holier-than-thou so and so just for holding this particular belief (that of a false superiority, the sense I can somehow improve others' pathetic and worthless lives merely by sharing, unbidden, my insights) which makes for some mildly entertaining internal dialogues, and some reasonably amusing external dialogues. While my adherence to this principle is noted mostly in the breach I believe it takes all kinds to make this earth, and we need to be tolerant of others, or at least we should ignore them and hope they go away.

6. My favourite record this week is "Full House" by Wes Montgomery. If you do not own a copy it is because there is something wrong with you. I was kidding about the puppies. Their meat is stringy.

Six

Thank you to the lovely kittenpie for tagging me. I don't know that I quite nailed the "you will be sorry you asked" part but here are six miscellaneous things that you did not know about me.. but might have suspected...

One
I once hit a teammate square in the face with a grass hockey stick while on the sidelines during a game. I have the distinct feeling it was not accident. Yes, I am one nasty mother.

Two
The only thing that cured me of listening to the same music my Dad did for my whole life was that my cousins brought me back an 8-track Beach Boys tape from California. Cousins are great! As you likely have guessed, I have no taste in music.

Three
I failed Latin in university. Twice. Because of this poor performance I had to take what I call 1 year, mandatory sabbatical. Got me, I am a totally bourgeois version of stooopid.

Four
I have NEVER been to Disneyland or any related Disney facility. I like to outsnark the snark king.

Five
I agree with George Costanza... It's all pipes! I have no shame.

Six
I blame my mother for stuff every chance I get. So as you can tell.. I laugh in the face of karma!

So who will I tag...?

UPDATE:So the deal on this meme was that I should:
1. Reveal six weird facts/things/habits about myself and then tag six people. (SIX!??)
2. Leave a "You're Tagged!" comment to let the people you have tagged know they have to reveal six things (or the entire blogosphere will explode and it will be their fault).
3. Leave a comment letting my tagger know that I have completed the mission.

Well, after looking around... I agree with nonlinear girl, the worst part of being tagged is the carrying on. And, to top this one off everyone is up to their armpits in memes already this week... Everyone 'cept the fellas that is.

Dare I do it? Tag a daddy?

Well I suppose it is as risky as dropping my number on a cocktail napkin at the rattiest disco in town. Am I that stupid? Yes, yes I am. So I will tag the boys I guess. No pressure that way really since everyone knows they'll just say they lost my number anyway and never call.

Still, if on the off chance some penis bearer does come through I'll make it a bit easier and a bit harder. Here is the morphed meme gentlemen.

1. Reveal only 3 facts about yourself. I'll prefer they be facts that a reader might have suspected from your allusive and elusive writings online to date.
2. This is an end of the line meme, don't tag anyone but please leave a comment at my house when you are done.

For this rubric I tag 3 dear lads:
1. The man who put the B in blog, the Caesar of Cheekydom, Crouton-boy
2. A reliable dadcentrist, Jason
and 3. My life/blog partner p-man

Behold, the Ass Speaketh

Given the recent spate of posterior-related postings, from Wood's story about her spouse's reticence to break wind in the presence of his beloved, a child who required what must have been painful and terrifying surgery to his, um, anus, and some other butt-related post by one of the Dadcentric contributors which I cannot clearly recall, I have concluded that blogs, much in the way the internet, with its military-industrial beginnings, its capacity to distribute broadly information of broad social and political importance, is used by sad little men to scope porn (thanks to our visitor from Egypt, brought here looking for "mother daughter sex", we need you, buddy!) are meant, by dint of usage, for serious and not-very-serious discussions about our nether areas and their functions.

To that end, I recommend the above book, which we purchased at our local fish-jail in a moment of bubbly happiness. The story, which espouses the "better out than in" philosophy, gives hope to those who are too ashamed to give vent publically to their inner humours. Taken literally, the recommended tale also tells the sordid truth about herpetological flatulence - a dark little secret Kermit's controller still bears in shame (do not shake this man's hand).

P-man out.

Spinny

When the radiant and wise BMC wrote "she won't be my only baby to baby any more. She needs all the time and attention I can give her now "... ooh I felt it.

I had been doing a super-duper excellent job for a couple weeks of spinning my whole this new baby thing is not so scary crap all over. My latest hobby horse had been to stress how fortunate p-man is going into the changes. My principal argument was that e. is a damn fine baby girl with tons of attitudinal contingenices built-in such-like to render negligble the parenting handicap of papa-man when faced with increasing responsibility for the toddler when the nuthatch hatches.

She is a good girl and he is a lucky lucky man..

While this is true.. Its truthfulness is synchronized with BULLSHIT.

I am pretty scared. This pregnancy is a nice surprise but it has had its negative effects. The one that concerns me most is that it has me distancing myself from my beloved. I remember in the weeks before the clarity of this enlargement of being within me I was still deep in my rapture of e. I had been lovingly schooled to adore the childhood of my offspring by the gaggle of amazing persons who I share my concrete neighbourhoods with, my coworkers, friends and family, call it before blog dear ones. I took it to heart.

I 'spoiled' my girl a lot by forgoing numerous busy activities of maternity leave, ugh shopping, to always leave room for a dance before nap time or an afternoon snuggle over tea for me and teat for her.. maybe an extra long chat over the book of the day. I did enjoy every moment ... but since the realization of another I have toned things down a bit. At first quite unconciously. Now, I have full-on weekend freak outs. The weekends remaining countdown in my mind and some part of any Sunday or perhaps early on a Saturday I will be staring blankly into the face of p-man thinking, "You, my friend don't have a nanobit of a clue." I can't imagine what is in store when I feel there is anyone between me and her; especially when that someone is potentially -- naturally -- as precious to me as her. Her in whom I discovered the meaning of preciousness, erstwhile foreign to me.



Have I ever mentioned I will not be carefully burning this blog onto a DVD for my daughter to in any way review in 20 years. It is not some electronic scrapbook. I most earnestly appreciate the newfound value of near-daily writing but it is for ME ME ME... NOW NOW NOW not, as it turns out, in anyway a suitable artifact for posterity.

Baby names selections for the week

The names discussion is really taking off. Thank you for all your valuable input. Our tack this weekend was to get away from the Ernestine type name (not baby e.'s real name) ... maybe go with something more modern like:

Sapphire -- or Safire
Maybe Wizzerd
or
What about Gigabit?

Or are those actually post-modern? I am never quite sure about that stuff.

Wo Family Open House Project Episode 3

So this week we didn't make any efforts to attend open houses though they are growing in number. I guess we maybe have made a turn one direction as last week we braved the hell of IKEA weekends and purchased, with some efforts, a new set of kitchen cabinets. So the reno hell is pending hard. I am currently whacking the side of my head repeatedly with frustration at my lack of renovation contractors. I actually had one promising lead in the midst of the Vancouver shortage and I failed to do the call back.

Damn, damn, damn.

To add to my pressing need to beat the p-man new home selection out with my new home reknow-vayshuns the following:

1. Another kick ass week at the park. The weather has been pretty good lately and all the families in the hood are out there everyday. 4 to 6 pm everyday we found a range of our neighbours in the thrall of the slide or swings. We have a couple new little friends for little girl... And, one pair of kashi cereals beggin' ducks have shown up despite the fact there is no pond.

2. Went out to friends place for a Saturday night wingdingadoo. They live in a newly acquired suburan castle... Oh my god I cannot go there. More space seems suicidal, just more room to keep a trillion pieces of kiddieobelia. Eew.

So I am off to get the Not So Big House book and a renovation team. I guess we'll be spending some time at my folks place this summer and I'll be honing my project management skills even on mat leave.

For lack of a better word, sheesh.

Recommended title: Sport-- players, games & spectacle.

Sport-- players, games & spectacle.
by Barrett, Norman S.
F. Watts, 1993.

Subjects
Sports -- History

ISBN: 0531142809 (lib. bdg.); 0531152626; 0531157075 (pbk.)
Series: Timelines

I suggest this book for really only one reason. To scream to YOOUUU... get your children some non-fiction already?? I notice the kiddie bookshelves are ALWAYS dominated by fiction. Understandable, yes. Ubiquitous... cmon!

Outside of a scant few DK photo books I didn't have any non-fic for Miss Fancy until she was about 10 mos. Why not? And this book .. Sport... well it is all different kinds of balls to learn about, how great is that?? She loves it. Maybe more than her Stars and Planets book, or the Book of Oceans. Some of the relatives are really happy she already with familiar with all manner of sport, including hockey, of course.

My Dad is an atlas collector and his interest got me thinking non-ficttion for my 'if I wrote a children's book' it would be... Has anyone ever seen an atlas for the under 5 set? I would want to do it with downloadable city maps for kids in many major centres. You know how you can get those 3D tourist maps, those guys could likely adapt content for the project. At 16 mos. e. started learning some of the street names around here and she loves knowing where she is.. I think a book like this would be a hit. What do you think?

ps... So Sweet Juniper's Wood put out the challenge to find kids books with NO ANIMALS... this book qualifies but it is not entirely in the "infant's book" category I think the contest rules imply. I am working on the bibliography for anti-earthling kiddie lit, chime in on any of your favorites. So far I have this and this.. but there are strong arguments against #2 because it is really about how living with boys is like living in a ZOO!

The little [BIG] woman

It has been a trying few weeks. I had my run in with a very helpful coworker. This in the context of a server crash I got word of at 6:45am on a Monday. Do you know how hard it is to deny library service to 50,000 young minds before 7am while dragging an "I don't like Mondays" toddler out the door? Messy. On this score I am soundly, roundly, grateful to the kind commenters of this here site. I believe you might have all saved the life of one ignorant misogynist who is so not worth my time.

On to the roundnesss. I have had a week wherein I must face the facts of my girth and put away 97% of my standard wardrobe. I am definitely gettting past it on the 'big clothes' even and it is maternity wear time. Even though everything in that department is still technically too big. My daily wardrobe choice either entails a button, zipper or hook that digs into my side with every step or spin of the office chair... or I can choose a pair of pants that will by increments sink down around my hips and nearly cause "costume malfunction" whilst speaking at a meeting, walking up to the store or working in the garden.

As you know we moved daycares last month. The new place is ok but the schedule I arranged for this setup is a disaster! I am currently working only a half day on Monday and Tues, then full days Wed, Thurs, Fri. This was to achieve a few things: 1. reduce my hours of work as I got more preggers 2. limit the daycare days due to concerns about expenses and the lady's schedule at the new place 3. to get my Mom back in performing babysitting shape.

1. reduce my hours of work ... has turned into, run horribly behind all the time and work the same hours over 6 days instead of 5, burning my 'personal time' window on Saturdays going into the office or working at home.

2. limit the daycare days ... has turned into have 3 good days at daycare and 1 really retarded one... On Mondays, I drop e. off at 9am. I want to pick her up at 1, or better yet 1:30. But don't you know since I made the plan her 11:30 nap pre-lunch has become a 1pm post-lunch nap. I am going through a bunch of crap over two days just to get my ass to work for 3 hours? Then on the Monday I get to come home to pick up a girl who is really tired at daycare and will have her nap all screwed up by me hauling her home again to bed 30 minutes past "naptime"

3. to get my Mom back in performing babysitting shape... is goin' ok. It is great to know I can skip doing laundry on a Monday night cause she'll help out Tuesday. E. goes ape shit knowing she is coming.. But, yep I will dare complain. Two things 1. it is a constant reminder to me of our rotten relationships with the grandpeople. We are always at odds with them it seems about silly things like, please don't feed our baby jolly ranchers for snack -- or in fact EVER -- and no we don't give her French fries for lunch. Please don't have her suck on all the fetid refuse in the recycle bin. Let's just say it occassionally gets so strained I have thought about getting my Dad a webcam so e. can see him more often and he lives 20 minutes drive from here! (E. hasn't seen her other grandparents, who live 5 min away for 6 weeks, since the invitations are still at the engravers.)

Then 2. to cap it this week my Mom took her life in her hands with the charming and dismissive 'hormones' comment.

What is wrong with me??? I seem to have forgotten, maybe, what a normal thing it is to have a range of individuals assess my life based on a simple computation of hormonal imbalance??

Forget that I have myriad of responsibilities that may or may not be going swimmingly on any given day. Please overlook that I have a demanding profession to care for and two new job opportuniities to sort out. Never mind I love this job and will miss it a lot with a departure coming on sooner than expected. Then, let's put aside the household duties I seem to feel chiefly responsible for around here. One should not at all stew in the challenges of the developing social, physical and emotional toddlerhood in this home which I feel is my primary occupation. Silly to be troubled by the negative aspects of our family politic on our lovely little girl. Further it would be best to forget about concerns I have that we need to move forward with a new housing arrangement. Who cares that I haven't even filed for my maternity leave and I have only 3 mos. left to cook up a brain, some organs and limbs, etc. on a new human being inside my body... ?? Silly to be concerned about my ongoing anemia in the light of this physical occupation of mine, human cookin'? I am such a ninny, really. Thank God you cleared that up Mom... It's all those hormones that is making me feel less than shipshape?? You're right, I am just 1 good nap away from everything being a-ok.

end o' rant.

ps... what bugs me the most is that my Mom is not the only one on this bandwagon. I do seem to have hit some golden 'little woman' stage of pregancy where everyone from my spouse to a stranger on the street will start talking about my hormones. Somedays I hate being a girl... but that is probably just the hormones talkin'

Wotan's Ass

This post is not at all ass-related except insofar as it self-relates. In an earlier post (which you did not appreciate sufficiently, you swine!) I commented on my usual manner of response to things which annoy me, which response, I must say, is not Gandhi-like or even Ed Grimley-like.

My child, my lovely daughter, is not to be measured by adult standards (although we measure her in adult measures such as centimetres or inches, kilos or pounds, and by her ability to dodge rapidly descending objects, which does seem to ask a bit much of one so fair) but it's a mad mad mad mad world, people and we are in training for the end-times over here. Speaking of which, this week parliament has reconvened, and our new (and much-improved, I have NO DOUBT- NONE!) government has stepped in, or slid in, leaving a slimy sluglike trial behind it (well, to be fair, there is no shortage of gastropods in our federal house, and it's not even that the current governing lot are that much worse than the prior group, who were incorrigible swine, it's just that this group will align us with other, bigger, meaner kids in an effort to take over the schoolyard, when what made us special [at least, mom said so] was our geeky but determined ability to say no to bullies, to be a little less aligned, not to be a rogue and feed the beast of anomie and blah blah blah middle class blah socialized health care blah blah Volvos blah) and I wish I had a salt shaker on hand the size of, I don't know, this egg, and the means to take it to Ottawa. While there, I would try to say hello to the delightful Mary P and skate on the canal.

So, back to the part of the post where I am not, ass-like, the subject. E learns, as children do, by observation. She's picked up words by repetition (Damnit!) that maybe we'd rather not have said so often... so, to our topic, THE VOICE OF COMMAND!

I tend to speak in a specific tone to our evil and disgusting cats when they do something which is foul and worthy of castigation (which is frequently). It is stern, firm, and a bit loud. It is the VOC! I say: Dexter, come here! or, Filip, don't do that! It does not work, mind you.

This has not deterred e from using the VOC! in her dealings with the cats. If they are engaged in one of their flat-eared cat-boxing matches and she is near: Guys, don't do that! Carpet scratching: Filip, don't do that! Don't do that! It's great, having this assistance in my never-ending cat management program. It takes two people. (And when the Nuthatch hatches [or APOLLO, thanks MD], it will take three people.)

Sadly, I cannot convey how e sounds when she uses the VOC! It involves her furrowing her brow, dropping her chin, raising her voice and speaking from the top of her throat and sinuses in a deeper voice than is usual. It's, um, hilarious! But the VOC! must be used appropriately, and largely on cats, and not on fathers. Witness the child as she seeks both parents to join her in her room: Daddy, COME HERE. DADDY, COME HERE! Someone to push her cart: Daddy, DO IT. DO IT, DADDY! AGAIN!

Of course, during those less formal moments, she will say: P-man (not my actual name) COME HERE! COME HERE, P-MAN!

What have I done?

Baby names selections for the week

So we've made it to R in the boys list. Selections by p-man, as follows...

Roger, Rupert and Rudolph.

What do you think?
Me, I think girls name are way easier!

Feeding e

At home we freeze these unsafe, slightly radioactive-looking yoghurt-in-a-tube snacks. E likey. The other night, we were in e's room, beating the cats or something along those lines, when the following occurred.

Me: I think the child feels peckish. (Leaving room) I'll get her some apple.

Mo: Apple sounds good. E, would you like this drumstick for playing?

E: Stick! Stick! (heads for freezer...)

Me: Hi e, how 'bout some apple?

E: (Standing at freezer) Stick! Open!

Me: Tasty free-range apple?

E: Open!

Me: Apple?

E: Stick!... Open!

Me: Yoghurt stick, e?

E: Thank you.

Recommended title: Alison's Zinnia

Alison's zinnia.
by Lobel, Anita
Greenwillow, or Mulberry, 1996, c1990.

Subjects
Flowers -- Fiction
Alphabet

ISBN: 068808866X (lib. bdg.) ; 0688147372 (pbk.)

Miss Fancy likes to ask for this great alphabet book by author; "Anita’s book!", she’ll say. We sure can recommend this beautifully illustrated arrangement of flowers to contemplate just in time for spring. For us it is a very important work that ensured little girl learned to say Auntie Olga for her Auntie Olgas very early! Since not every family is as knee deep in Olgas as us... maybe you’ll just be pleased to hear your own kid take to the word begonia, daffodil or urtica?