Growing Versions

 It you lived here, you'd be home by now.

We've all been released from regular school and, to some extent, work routines this week.  Almost immediately after getting home, the kids leapt into action, converting the house into a hotel.  They schemed about what to pack and what to order off (and put on) the menu. The staff have been run off their feet, organising the catering and ensuring all the guests are comfortable. The pool is a little small and the bar's selection is rather limited, but all 5 stars got earned by 10 a.m.

You know how you don't think of someone for ages and ages and then you do and they show up shortly after? Or how you don't ever hear a word before and then you hear it more than once in the space of a week? Well, that happened to me this week. The word was ossify*.  I did not know what it meant. I had never read the word or if I had, I had glossed right over it. However, the second time hearing it prompted me to look it up. It means * to harden like bone. These parenting, multitasking days keep me rubbery I tell myself.  I keep thinking this about myself until I encounter a missing shoe, or a pokey child or an unexpected road block and then I ossify like the dickens. My son pointed out the bird's nests he made on the playground. Maybe we can catch some birds and bring them home, but we'll need to put the cats in a cage or maybe the birds. We pick up a glop of grass and sqish it together so that the birds might decide to lay their eggs in one. I reckon...

It's a restaurant. It's a tent. It's a fort. It's a house. It's missing something. It's perfect. It's going to hold me. The cat likes it. It has a shelf. It has a bed. It has lights. I'm going to eat my supper in here. I'm going to sleep in here. Don't move it Mama.

Last night, as my son's restlessness and resistance to sleep intensified, I suggested "a talk".  Knowing that part of his challenge with falling asleep is letting go of the day and connection, I figured a talk would comfort him. He responded: "Well, we could talk about the problems for me at my old daycare." Me: "Okay, if you like." He changed his mind, "Or, we could talk about imagining things." Me: "That sounds like a great idea. You go first." "Carrots can talk to each other in the earth." "Monkeys can be camouflaged." "Geckos do not like to be touched but they like someone to talk to them." "Birds have special powers." "Okay, mom, it's your turn."

On Sunday, my son rigged up a sheet as a sling between the couch and a chair.  For hours, he hung out in this suspended sheet cradle.  He was happy to be held by it and often made references to being a baby again .  At one point, he asked that we talk about babies.  I could not help thinking as I glanced over several times that day that his contraption looked like a cocoon. He regularly would emerge from the cocoon but he rarely moved from his position. The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.  James Russell Lowell On a cold rainy day like today, I would like one of these cocoon (hopefully a sturdier one!) almost more than anything else. * co·coon   [ k uh - koon ] noun 1. the   silky   envelope   spun   by   the   larvae   of   many   insects,   as silkworms,   serving   as   a   covering   while   the...

We played "art school" yesterday.  I was the teacher, but as usual, the students led the way and heavily influenced the curriculum.  Here is the work we produced.  Materials: tissues, food colouring.   Method: layer (dribble and spill) food colouring and fold tissue to make patterns. One child was really into layering. The other was more into experimenting with patterns.   Uses: Tissues will be used to make cloth for Barbie clothes and decorate the front window.

So, I have this not so secret secret. I like to drink beer on Sunday mornings. I like to drink beer and watch  Coronation Street . A friend of ours, who grew up in Scotland, first got  us hooked 14 years ago by giving us informal tutorials on who was who and who was related (and who used to be related) and who did who wrong in the past.  The tutorials were critical to our ability to get sucked in. There have been countless weddings, deaths, accidents, fires, firings, affairs, babies born in unusual places since then.  Secrets are not kept for long on Coronation Street. It is re-broadcast on CBC here in Canada throughout the week and in one big 2.5 hour block on Sunday mornings. Nothing beats the cosy relaxed feelings that come over me as I sip my beer and watch both the minutae and mayhem unfold on the cobbles episode after episode, year after year. The kids don't have much interest in their parents watching a show for 2.5 hours at a stretch, so we hav...

It has been a very long time since I kissed and danced at the same time.  I should really do something about that.  That's what occurred to me when I saw this guy streaming past me yesterday on a skateboard, while simultaneously playing a guitar.  I always pat myself on the back for being such a master multi-tasker but time and time again being good at doing more than one task boils down to the same thing: doing double the tasks (i.e. work) in half the time (or double the time, if I mess up).  That's it.  Other than the sick satisfaction extracted from stapling and talking on the phone or boiling pasta and detangling a Barbie tangle at the same time, that kind of skill, if you can call it that, is nothing but a symptom of a hepped up work day that's crowded with tasks , not because they need to be done but because they can be done.  Really, most of the time, I get little more out of multi-tasking than the fleeting sense of "achievement...

Cloud, 2012 (Materials: painted wall, hole in wall, stuffing from kid's bed stuffed into hole) I'm just coming off of a busy streak.  Well, a busy chunk of years actually. As a result, my domestic situation has gotten way way off track.  There are literally heaps of unsorted laundry, Christmas ornaments (ugh...Halloween ornaments) jumbled together, and piles everywhere.  The toilets are clean, the kitchen is cleanish and there are clean clothes they just aren't stored  particularly well, but otherwise, we're in a bit of mess actually.  I'm so done with all this chaos and the feelings of perpetual defeat that accompanies it. Yesterday, for the first time in what felt like years, I finally had time to be at home when others were not.  Instead of feeling mired in chore-filled angst, all I could see around me were beautiful canvases. Instead of making me swear under my breath and stomp around, these tiny canvases stopped me in my tracks. ...

My daughter made the transition from handmade tickets to mass-produced ones. This time last year, an elaborate ticket making project and movie afternoon took all day to create. Saturday, my daughter spied an upgrade.  I completely understand.  I remember coveting the "real" waitress pads at the stationary store.  Having a "real" one would make playing restaurant so much more thrilling. My daughter lobbied to get these tickets the other day at the Dollar Store.  She has plans to use them in many different ways.  They are a more official looking version for sure.  Now that she's almost 7, what she wants a ticket to resemble are changing.  I'm curious to see how they will re-appear and be utilised over the coming months and even years.  Right now, they haven't been used yet. They sit there, quietly dispensing an open invitation.  To which events is to be revealed in time.

Usually when I am in charge of picking up my daughter from school on Friday afternoons, I hustle her out of there sharpish. A few Fridays ago though, although it was foggy and grey, you could feel spring seeping out of the earth.  All the kids were running around with wide open jackets. There is a big hill behind the school and the kids were racing each other up and down it. I was in the mood to let her fully take advantage of this warm spell and not rush her away. After a while, my daughter gravitated down to the foot of the hill to where a gnarled old tree sits.  She tentatively made her way around the tree, slowly but surely issuing suggestions/commands to her younger brother.  They weren't playing a specific game, just warming up.  For whatever reason, I, for once, was not impatiently drumming my fingers but rather possessed by a brief but intense ability to just be  there.   Simultaneously, a boy from her class circled the tree and watched on in i...

Recently, my kids attended a magic show at their friend's party.  At the very end, the magician asked each child to select a balloon and encouraged each child to come forward and request it be shaped into one of the following: -a giraffe -a monkey -a puppy -a sword After numerous requests for swords and an occasional monkey, my son was the very last child to make a request. Oblivious to the pre-selected options, he put a great deal of careful thought into what would be the coolest balloon shaped object.  He looked up at the magician, passed him his balloon and asked him if he could make him a sweater. If you could defy physics and find a magical balloon artist, what would you request?