Growing Versions

It is a painful decision, any easy one to put off. The decision is trying to decide when to correct your kids' misheard words. I treasure these phrases and protect them from correction for as long as possible. "I was running so hard Mama, that my heart is bleeping like crazy." "I fell and made a face platter right into the puddle." "Backpack  (Dora the Explorer) is on!" Those misunderstandings are part of the process of learning the language we speak together. They eventually fall away...they fall so very far away, that they are hard to remember when they are gone. That's what makes it so hard to decide when they need to know about them.

The snow has started to fall. Not here exactly, but still, the cold wet rain that is the remorseless usher of snowfall certainly has. As I steel myself against the cold rain, I always start plotting how to get warmer boots and more waterproof clothing at this time of year.   I fantasize about being toasty as an element inside me starts to calibrate to the falling temperature. We work hard to heat up the molecules in the room in which we sit and play. How will we keep the molecules warm this week, this month, this season? I get there soaking wet--a chilly cold has set in that is hard to warm up from, but my friend has a floor vent, and that changes everything. The heat rushes up to meet me.  I quickly take off my socks and stretch them across the grate eagerly anticipating their dryness against my skin. I stood over that grate, just for a moment, to fully experience the blast of heat. I turned my attention to my friends...

That's not a pizza box, that is a wall of a house and if you look very carefully, you will see a tiny door. ...see that window next to it. Over by that tiny cabin with the door in the roof. Let us burn it up together.

 School is in session.  Be sure to bring your cheques for the field trip to the mountains.  The Remembrance Day assembly is starting at 1:30.

My daughter and I were talking about friendship the other day.  We were talking about how hard it can be sometimes. It is hard to find the balance between what you want and what your friend wants.  It is hard to share time with someone and figure out how to get what you need out of the relationship. It sounds easy and natural, but friendship can be hard. She summed it up.  "It is harder than a crab's shell over the soft part underneath."  

What I have learned recently is that even though my nine year old daughter can now set the timer on the microwave if needed and can read time on a clock, her sense of internal time has not yet calcified. More or less, I can, at this stage in my life, approximate 5 minutes.  I set the timer for my tea to steep and walk away. When something inside me tells me to, I head back to get it, and the timer dings on my way. We wait for approximately 5 minutes at a customer service counter and my daughter is unbelieving how long it took to get served.  "It was like 40 minutes Mom!" Partly, she was bored and when we are bored all time denatures into jelly, but partly she had no idea approximately how much time she had spent looking at brochures while we waited for them to process our return. Ever since both kids have entered the school system, their grip on time has tightened. Our daughter corrects me on a regular basis when it comes to time, my son still relies on us to clarify...

I have observed these past few sugar rush filled days that with Hallowe'en candy eating  is only a small fraction of what kids like to do with it. Getting it, redistributing it, and planning what to do with it take up a lot of the time spent with it.  Before they even head out to get the candy, the kids talked for weeks about their plans for saving, stockpiling and/or recommissioning the candy (we could give it as Christmas gifts) after they got it.  Once it was safely back home after being lugged through the streets, it was piled, counted, sorted, categorized, briefly packed up and taken to the library to ensure they weren't too far from it and then finally became stock in a hand made vending machine (with a slot for parents' money) and then arranged as a homebased "snack shack" complete with a price list.  It was even taped together to form a pattern.  Briefly they had a sizeable amount of anything (bonus being that it was as de...

Both of the kids came up with costumes that, in the right light, scared me out of my wits.  My daughter was Coraline's other mother .  That may not seem so scary to you, but I know just how terrified she has been by Caraline's other mother  who has kind of tortured her in her imagination over the years, and trust me, her ballet flats, grey scarf and eye make-up all added up to something bone chilling.