Growing Versions

My follow through on resolutions is uneven at best.  I decided to ask my children their thoughts on how they would do things differently in 2012 for some ideas. Mama: "Tomorrow a new year is starting.  When a new year starts  people choose something they will try do more of or do something better than they did this year.  What will you do differently in 2012?" Six Year Old: "Only sleep at night (staring meaningfully at Mama.)" Mama: "You mean I can't have any naps at all?" Six Year Old: "No, you just can't sleep when there is some fun around." Three Year Old: "Make a snowman!  Go skating! Go swimming!" Six Year Old: "No more after school program!" Mama: "What would you like me to do differently in 2012?" Six Year Old: "Oh I don't know! It is your decision." Three Year Old: "Draw." Okay, it is settled, my resolution will be to fight sleep, go skating and swimming m...

This is the future of portable listening devices.  It is a fully customisable listening bud that you can change to match your outfit. I want one!  My daughter invented it one afternoon.  How about you?  What prototypes have you or someone you know  created in 2011?  Do you have an invention on the back burner you are just waiting for the right moment to reveal?

In contrast to the summer holidays ,when I am so willing/planning to get lost on vacation for getting-lost's sake, I approach the Christmas/New Year vacation with a determination to find things.  Maybe it is because, unlike the summer holidays, it is not exactly business as usual at this time of year.  The obligation to get myself and my children out the door with matching socks and mittens is temporarily suspended and I get the opportunity to search for some things as time congeals and oozes through days of movie watching, game playing and chocolate eating. Whether it is to find things I did not know I wanted to find, i.e. how the light throws shadows on the snow across the street, or  to re-find the matching mittens, I discover that by the time this holiday comes I have a need to sort some things out.    Across the candlelit table. I see my kids sitting, mesmerised by eating supper in semi-darkness and in the midst of all the dim, multi-coloured light cast ove...

My three year old son is a Christmas artist.  His favourite part of the season so far is the decorating part. He petitioned to have the tree up early in the month and took charge of decorating it,packing ornaments on to the tree in a concentrated clump of shiny glory!  Even though I would say most, if not all, of our decorations have already been put up, he continues to implore us to keep decorating. Maybe there are more things in the basement that we missed?  We need to make more decorations.  Perhaps, that ribbon can go on the tree? The other day, as he sat in the swing on the edge of the woods on a cold clear and extremely quiet mid-December afternoon, he noted that the swing was making a tick-tocking sound, just like a clock.  We were quiet for a while in the stillness, the swing tick-tocked. After a while, he added: "It's nice here." He gestured over to a nearby home and said, "you know,that house is really nice, the decorating is really nice." He went on...

Markers have had a lot of appeal to me ever since I was given the green light to start using them. They come in vivid colours and usually produce lush, unbroken lines  As soon as they were introduced to me, I immediately abandoned crayons and pencil crayons.  Crayons were always a bit disappointing to me.  They look so charming in the box but when they are applied to paper they do not saturate the paper as their marker counterparts do. They break when they are gripped too hard. For these reasons, I was a little puzzled when my daughter started lobbying a few weeks ago for a box of crayons.  She's had access to markers for a couple of years now. What would she want with crayons?  She was so vehement I was curious to see what she would do with them.  The crayons came home and through her eyes I began to understand.  "Oh Mama, I love this one. It is called scarlet."  "How about this one, turquoise?"  I started to see how the nomenclature of th...

I go through phases of intense list making.   In the past, writing them has given me some way of mastering the otherwise uncontrollable. Lately, I've just found list making to be a fruitless exercise.  I think I'm going about  it all wrong.  I heard once from a time management expert that you should unload you mind once or twice a year. According to him,you should take every single category in your life and break down all the tasks that need doing in that category, i.e. financial, file taxes....health, make dental appointment.  However, coming up with categories in which I might be able to sort out what parts of my life need batteries has proven extremely difficult for me. I end up with way too many subcategories.  It is also difficult because writing the list feels like I've failed before I have even begun. If I can't do all of the things on the list, I don't want to do anything. Part of my problem with lists is that instead of helping me manage the thing...

Red pepper jelly making, lots and lots of socializing and, hopefully, some Christmas movie watching are the plans for this weekend. We've also been brainstorming good gifts to give the teachers and caregivers this week.  Here are the top three gift suggestions: 1. our t.v. 2. a Christmas tree 3. a Barbie What are your suggestions?  Have a great weekend!

I heard once that the zebra finch practises its song in its sleep to perfect it for the time it is awake. This fact has captivated me for a long while.  There was a time when I could not play enough school and kitchen and store.  I would devotedly go down in the basement and teach a classroom full of imaginary students (some obedient, many who were not) from 3 until supper day after day, I even kept records. I would prepare meals and make cash registers out of bread boxes.  All of these activities would thrill me and give me so much pleasure.  When I actually started to get up in front of real live students and finally got my hands on a real cash register in one of my first jobs, I started to grapple with how gruelling these activities can be.  Preparing meals continues and although, it is not without its pleasures, it is not always as fun as I thought it would be.  I think back to my first apartment and how there was a fleeting feeling of excitement t...

We are rolling up our sleeves to get some baking done.  I'm just realizing that we already missed the first round of teachers as their program ends today.  Maybe I can bring them some New Year muffins?  Or 2012 resolutions' fudge?  It won't be the first time.  I've been known to convert Christmas cards into Valentine's Day ones because I was a little late sending them.  We like to make cherry balls, hello dolly squares, brown sugar fudge and lots and lots of shortbreads.  Shortbread are so popular because they are little blank canvases!!!  We're going to try these this year:   salt dough ornaments   too for the same reason. What are the favourites in your home?

Every year it is the same thing:  "I am going to make my presents this year".  Trouble is, I cannot sew and my skills at making anything that anyone would actually like to have are extremely limited.  I also never give myself enough time.  I know that people who make things that people wear or put books on or in start back in September or October.  Alas, I can bake and mix stuff together though, so I usually go for making bath salts or cookies and put my skills into decorating the packages.  Part of what I like most about this time of year is totally opening myself up to whatever the big box of odds and ends inspires me  to create.  The kids and I sit at the table and assemble all kinds of glittery ornaments and Christmasy things.  For days now, presents have been made and decorations have been planned and created.   The tree has been decorated a few times now and there are several little gift bags and packages under the tree already. ...

My children spontaneously start little collections on a regular basis.   My daughter collects all manner of things in a bag or suitcase.  Her collections are usually associated with a project.  She is going to start a school upstairs or go on a trip somewhere.  My son assembles collections of teeny objects in little pots, boxes and containers. Chestnuts, cars and little figures get purposely selected to be contained together for a time to be observed, to be rearranged, to be touched and jangled as he walks from room to room, from house to car and back again for a day or two before he abandons it and picks up a new container and starts over.  Both kinds of collecting are done with great purpose and the process is enjoyed. The other day, my daughter, poising to fill a purse with carefully selected items, asked, "Mama, what do you carry in your purse?"  ---beyond a wallet and keys, I could not name one thing.  This is the case, even though it is overflo...

There is a new playground at the neighbourhood school. it is brightly coloured and it has the newest kind of feature, a spider web. It, along with an adjacent one, has plenty of slides and climbing apparatuses.  Close by there is a beautiful tree that is, in places,  almost parallel with the ground. It has several branches splayed out from the the trunk before it climbs upward.  During the week, the tree is off limits.  Kids are not allowed to play on it.  Safety reasons are cited, the childrens' and the tree's!!  However, during the weekends, when we venture over to have a play, the kids completely bypass the fancy playground, save the swings, and head for that tree.  I understand its attraction but I thought I'd ask them: Mama " Why do you like to climb the tree and not the playground?" Kid 1: " It's just funner." Mama: "but why is it more fun?" Kid 1: "I can make a flag and it has more secret things." Kid 2: "Yeah, I...

Back in the spring, my good friend invited me to a herb gardening workshop at the Tatamagouche Centre.  Frankly, herb gardening was just about the farthest thing from my mind at that moment.  I had just started a new business and, with two young kids, I tend to be rather protective of weekends. There were other reasons, I'm sure.  However, whenever this friend of mine and I have a chance to do something together, I never turn it down.  So, regardless of my ambivalence about herb gardening at that moment, which I had done precious little of in the past 7 or more years, I jumped at the opportunity to spend some time with my friend.   More than 15 years ago I had worked for a summer at an organic farm, and when I returned to rural NS, I had started a garden.  Since then, I had let the garden grow over due to all the usual excuses:  work stress, commuting and child rearing.  I diverted all of my creative juices away from the gardens in my life towards...

I recently had to travel to Toronto for a conference.  I eagerly anticipated two nights away (alone!) in a hotel with a swimming pool.  My daughter,who relishes hotel stays and plane trips, presented me with my going away gift: a spoon and a bracelet so I could play ring toss on my trip.  She also presented me with the silver box that you can see above with a collection of little treasures she felt I would need for a good trip.   The pool more than surpassed my expectations. It was half indoors and half outdoors, in late October, in downtown Toronto.  As I arrived in the morning on the pool deck, the steam was hitting the cold, early morning air and as I swam on my back down the length of the pool I gazed up at skyscrapers.  The swim cleared my head and woke me up for sure, but I credit the ring toss game for making me extra mentally prepared for the presentation.  

I'm not sure how much pipe cleaning pipe cleaners get up to these days, but despite the decline in sales of pipes themselves, the pipe cleaner trade is still strong.  Instead of becoming anachronistic, they have found new purposes that have supplanted the original one. In the hands of my kids, "piper cleaners" are pliant objects that can be suggestive of so many other things.  Lately, they are being shaped into puppets, flowers, crowns and jewellery.  I am constantly amazed how much they get used.  They are called upon at times when nothing else seems to  work.  A car keeps falling from the string it has been dangled from, messing up a bigger plan to connect the whole thing to two pieces of furniture. A pipe cleaner emergency, of a sort, is declared and they are diligently sought out to reinforce the arrangement.  I think they are popular with them because they can so easily be controlled and do what they are supposed to do in that moment. ...

Counting and measuring time is a relative thing no matter who you are. Even though I don't always realize it, I'm sure my internal clock is actually extremely regimented. However, my version of how fast or slow the seconds and hours are being meted out is constantly being amended and altered.  My counting of time most definitely gets pushed through a sieve in a crisis  and denatures in times of uncertainty and boredom.  In my kids, time counting has been an activity that they have been grappling with throughout their short lives.  My son is at a stage where he is constantly testing new vocabulary words and theories to describe time passing and he uses them rather experimentally.  I was a little shocked by how quickly my daughter passed through a phase of not really knowing what day it was to correcting me.  Currently, the advent calendar has been re-named a Chocolate counter which I think suits it perfectly.  Of course, with his evolving sense of measu...

Recently, I heard a talk about Artifactual Communication. The idea, in a nutshell, is that the stuff on your desk,  or the way you decorate your locker or your home communicates information about you.  The word artifact makes sense to me because essentially I accumulate, covet and adore artifacts.  I've been carting around my Grandmother's collection of match books for ages.  She collected them on trips she took and at weddings she attended between the 1960s and the 1980s (I know because she wrote on the back of each one).  I often wonder what those artifacts say about me, and I guess I know that their presence means I have a hard time letting go of the past.  I like simple objects from the past that were often used and cast aside  without thought.  I like objects people touched and fiddled with everyday. Perhaps she sat in a church hall listening to the toast to the bride and she turned the match book over in her hands. For me, it is like h...

My kids have a few consistent games/play scenarios at the moment.  Some of them have endured for years, others are fixed to a place.  My daughter continues to play some version of restaurant.  She's been at it half of her life and now it has become a lot more sophisticated. For a while in the summer, she had a Tim Horton's set up in the living room, she has since decided a cafe would be more fun.  She stockpiles throw-away coffee cups and continues to revise the menu.  For my son, he is much more likely to make up games that involve manipulating objects (creating an elevator with a scarf on the banister or a marble/car tunnel with a wrapping paper roll).  If he's at Grandma's he insists on pouring and re-pouring a lot of tea with his mobile tea trolley and if he's at Mana's he and his sister raid the wrapping paper drawer and wrap and re-wrap/decorate various objects and practise giving them to us all.  I keep watching, noticing, the subtleties of how ...