The Feminine Mistake
I bought a copy of The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts as a resource for a work-related article, but also because I was curious. (The hold list at the library was too long to wait for the work-related bit.) I’m not finished reading it but I am having such visceral reactions to it I thought I would write a bit about it as I go.
The basic premise of the book is that there is a new trend towards women dropping out of the workforce to be SAHMs, and that they are making a huge mistake from an economic perspective, particularly in the case of divorce or death/illness of a spouse. It’s not clear to me yet where Bennetts puts part-time work in the mix; she seems to waffle a bit on it, sort of like Paul saying “well don’t have sex, but if you must, at least get married first.”
I think the whole question of choosing to mommy-track or opt-out is an important issue (not like, say, AIDS research or something, but important to me anyway! and socially too) and I was looking forward to reading some in-depth analysis.
For example, statistically it does seem that women’s participation in the workforce is declining (in the US anyway) but she didn’t include stats about men, so I wasn’t sure if some of that could be attributed to generally rising unemployment rates, or unemployment rates in particular sectors. (Most of who she’s looking at is upper middle class women, for the obvious reason that they are the ones privileged to make the choice to stay out of lucrative professional jobs.) I was hoping to get some link between divorce, poverty, and workforce statistics and some interesting thinking about the impact of individual choice during child-raising years over one’s whole economic life.
Instead she seems to write almost with loathing about SAHMs. So far the book seems to occasionally mention macro-statistics, and then recount personal stories from interviews, with very little in between. Bennetts makes broad statements on both sides of the fence - working moms are apparently all happy, energized, interesting, if harried people, and SAHMs are apparently leading lives of denial and quiet desperation.
I keep wanting to shake her a bit, because although her book may appeal to younger women who haven’t had kids yet - it would have to me - it’s really disrespectful and really missing any depth on the complexity of these issues. It may be helpful to hear that not all daycare is bad (gasp!) or that staying home can be boring (gasp!) but she just brushes that aside to rant about stupid manicure-getting moms whose husbands leave them for 25 year olds.
So far it’s left me feeling like “who is she talking to?” and “what world does she live in?” and then a general sense of unease that as “a mom” I no longer seem to exist except in these stereotypical roles. It’s odd.
More later; I’d better work! :)
Catchup
As Carl, Idaho, and anyone else who has claims on my time know, in spring I tend to disappear. I get restless and exploratory and I end up dropping everything to simply be outside. Only work tethers me to my desk, well and lately when Noah’s napping or sleeping (more on this in a minute).
This year, thanks in part to that link on creativity, I have suddenly become aware (or re-aware?) of how much movement is linked to my personal creativity. I write best when I can get out and walk and soak up not only sun and air but also new sights, sounds, and smells. Snippets of conversation heard on the bus; a bit of graffitti at the local playground.
This year, I bring my toddler. And it seems like we are perfectly matched in that way right now: we go out, he gets tired, we come in, he naps, and I jot things down. I feel more whole than I did over the winter. And by next winter he’ll be okay with me dropping him at the gym daycare I think; every day, right now, he gains in independence. I am kind of happy right now, although my next post will be a bit more angstful. And that is where I am.
~~
All this has made our days busy. And insular. I have people I miss and want to call but now I’m in that weird state that I haven’t called them, so I can’t. Silly me.
~~
On sleep: As I mentioned, I got Sleepless in America out of the library and between the insight and tweaks I got from that really excellent book, the exercise, or just the end of the regression, things are going much better. I now have to recommend it over the No-Cry Sleep Solution; I think it is a really excellent resource.
Noah still gets up once a night and at that point now we just move him into our bed (usually it’s around 3 am), he has a very short little nurse, and then we all go back to sleep fine.
Even more interestingly now that I have stopped trying to move naps and bedtimes around on the “routine” theory (he got up at 7… so he’ll nap at noon; he got up at 6… so he’ll nap at 11) and just gone for straight sleep times (nap: 12:30; bedtime: 7:30), he’s started just… falling asleep at those times. Well, it’s not quite that simple. I slow things down a bit and then really dramatically have some connection time (something I got from the book) and then I tell him: time to sleep now. And then he does, in my arms, and then I lay him down. Ta dah. Now that I’ve written this on the Internet we’ll have two weeks of hell, of course. :)
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Noah stories
I’m safe writing these ’cause I have to pick my MIL up at the train station very soon, so I can’t get too braggy, right?
This language thing is fun. Noah has developed his own unique way of making sentences faster. He says one word and signs the other like “stop / cat(signed)” for “stop, cat!” At the same time.
He tells massive stories. The longest one so far goes “tv snow train like dada car bye-bye” which translated means, “I watched the Thomas the Train episode where he gets stuck on the snow on the ‘tv’ (ok, on YouTube), that I like, before daddy went to work”
He can’t say glasses so he calls them cock. He has been going around a lot asking for “Dado’s cock” (Dado used to be himself, but today he got “Noah” down a few times so I think his alter ego Dado is about to be laid to rest.)
Today apparently (he was with V.) he was at his playtime class thingy and one of the mothers was looking for the hammer and saying “where’s the hammer?” He was pointing at it and no one noticed so finally he shrieked “there!” and pointed again. He doesn’t have a play hammer, so not sure how he knew what it was.
He signed “I love you” to me. Be still my heart.
A -seriously- great link on education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
This is a fantastic look at education & creativity.
(Yes I am procrastinating!)
Happy International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!
http://matgb.livejournal.com/192974.html for an explanation.
I don’t write sf and am not a member of SFWA so I absolve myself of having to share anything for which I would get paid, which is good, because I doubt any of you are really keen to read my article on antioxidant supplements. Which I should be working on now. But I still think this is a fun controversy so I pass it on. :)
Boon companion
I admit that sometimes I really feel like I’ve made a mistake trying to be a 3/4 time SAHM. (Well esp. at times Carl is overloaded but that’s another post entirely). I sort of get bored and then I flit around half-doing things and berate myself for the undone halves and then I get into a mood where I feel annoyed Noah will not just, you know, conform to some crazy schedule I have in my head.
And then there are days like today. V. came at 7:30; she had to leave at 10. I decided to drive her to the subway and take Noah down to the boardwalk, which is to my mind one of Toronto’s best spots. Water, sand, boardwalk, bike trail, parks, and two blocks away, awesome coffee and organic food shops and ice cream parlours and all that.
So I did. And the luxury of going down there, MY GOD. It is unparalleled to be able to just get in the car and go down on a Monday because I feel like it.
And Noah at this age seems to love it too. We spent about 20 min on a 10 ft stretch of boardwalk looking at everything, climbing on the bench, etc. Later after he’d tired himself out a bit I took him up to Queen St. and got a latte and got him some watermelon to go with his hastily-packed lunch of bread, cheese, and peas. Then we went to the playground and men of Toronto! (not that you read this) if you would like to find a hot nanny, check out Kew Gardens ’cause there were a bunch of hot nannies there shepherding charges around. And yes, I’m sure they were nannies ’cause they were gossiping amongst themselves about their employers.
Noah played for a while although he’s just entering the “MINE” phase and was quite upset that he had to share… the slide. The bouncer. The steps. Hmmmm. This could get interesting.
Then we went back to the boardwalk, ate more lunch, and gradually walked back to the car. By 12:32 he’d fallen asleep for his nap on schedule. I brought him in and he’s napping at naptime.
(!!!)
This is a really nice day. I might even get out of my funk well enough to tackle the horrid drop I did on the social thing.
Spring!
Other than cleaning out the front garden, I have not really looked at my land yet. I’m just not in the gardening mood right now, probably because I feel like I am coping, but just, with the house right now and the idea that mowing is going to be added on feels gross. I should be glad to garden, as unlike the mower with its blades, it is relatively Noah-friendly (except for our deck which is a whole other rant). But I’m just not there.
However in the *other* elements of spring I feel very glad the good weather arrived the last few days, and have really been soaking it up.
Yesterday Carl ended up having to work from about 11:30 am on, after working ’til 3 am the night before, and this made me just a tad grumpy so after Noah’s nap (more on sleep in a minute) I put Noah in the car and drove to my (using the singular pronoun loosely here) old neighbourhood, the one explored on a bike with training wheels and then without and then a 5 speed and then a 10!!! speed. The one where I hid pennies in cracks and tree stumps and then went back to see if they were there. YOU know the equivalent neighbourhood(s) in your youth. I am fortunate in that mine is actually only about 20 min away.
And Noah and I played in my junior kindergarten playground (all spiff and new, of course) and had a blast. There were two open houses on that street, too. The first was a two-bedroom tiny, tiny semi with no parking. List: $329,000. The second, also a semi, was actually a house Carl and I had looked at when we were looking in March 2005 and at that time it was, if I remember right, listed at $289,000 and had knob-and-tube wiring, a horrendous basement, no kitchen really, a pink and black tile bathroom (not in a charming way) and was a small but decent 3-bdrm, if by decent you mean you can get at least a twin bed in the third bedroom. Anyways, whoever bought it then replaced the wiring, painted the basement, and put in a kitchen (but left the bathroom!) and it’s now listed at $389,000. All of a sudden my home started to look palatial in comparison.
Of course I also walked around the corner and got some wonderful organic bread and a Dufflet’s mini-carrot cake, so, you know. There are reasons for those prices, which are, by that neighbourhood’s standards, low.
Noah loved going through houses so we may have a new, if brief hobby. And it was really like a little fantasy, play with Noah in our old haunts, visit houses similar to ones we played in, get bread, go home.
Today I worked a bit & hung out online with lovely Idaho/Ell while Carl bravely dragged himself out of bed to watch the babe and then we went down to Bluffers Park along with oh, merely the eastern fifth of the city. We can actually walk down to the shore of the lake from our house, but it’s steep and I haven’t decided yet if I’m comfortable with the narrow path bit for Noah, hence the park. Noah adored the sand! The holes people had dug! The garbage he could find! And we came home sun-drenched and cheerfully worn out, had a meal thanks to the crockpot (and me) on the porch, and then had a terrible long bedtime.
Since we had sleep woes tonight though I can report without fear of the Blog Sleep Curse that actually sleep has been improving mightily around here up until tonight. I think I may have found a sleep book I can actually recommend, which is Sleepless in America. I did the little self-tests for Noah and discovered that by the quick and dirty standards there he is high-energy (no surprise there), medium-highly sensitive, mediumly intense, mediumly adaptable, very irregular in his body rhythms, and overall a sensitive sleeper. Okay that was not really news.
But I really liked a lot of the approaches in the book so far (I’m still getting deeper into it) and I decided to start even just this weekend with being more scheduled on meals and naps - I think we do pretty well on the predictability, but I have been sort of letting a domino effect happen so that if Noah gets up a little later, lunch is a little later, nap is a little later, etc.
So Fri, Sat, and Sun, I used the clock. Fri night he did better and Sat night he only got up once. (I figure a lot of this is him coming off the language explosion regression, but that’s one reason I wanted to try things now and not wait for the next regression). Tonight he wouldn’t go down but I think we overstimulated him a bit at the beach.
Anyways, my gut says that we may have found a few key things, and that’s before looking at nests and all that stuff. If so I will be a convert. And the book really reinforced to me why Noah’s particular temperment is not suited to CIO.
For the next 3 weeks I’m prioritizing naps/sleep over everything to see if we can’t get him to stay down to about one waking a night, though, ’cause he is so busy I just think HE needs it nevermind me.
Speaking of the language explosion, oh. my. god. Noah is kind of funny about new skills in that he cascades like he did with walking, but every day has been a cascade lately. Thursday afternoon he clued into the “uck” and “ock” sounds and started in on “t-(swallowed r)uck” and “lock” (”yock”) and “clock” and “duck.” Then he started in on anything with a k/hard c like ‘cracker’ and ‘cookie’ and whatever. Then he got going on “p” for some reason and Friday he was all “dumP t-uck” and “granPAPA” and “cuP.” Then Saturday he was into “R” (although he doesn’t really have it yet so it’s more like growling” so he was all “ti-rrrrrrrr” (tiger) and “rrrrrrorrrrr” and things like that. And today it was the hard g. (Glasses, tiger, gate, etc.) He literally picks a sound of the day and goes at it. It’s clear he knows what the words for things are, it’s just learning to spit them out on command. But it really is just so much fun to hear and watch.
And he’s such a chatterbox, but look at his mother. :)
PTSD parents: after the shootings
This post is a little judgmental. If you are here reading it it is very likely NOT directed at you since the (two) people I had in mind writing it do not, as far as I know, read my blog. So relax.
It’s also a little self-congratulatory. I am congratulating myself this week and I think I have learned something, even though I am sure I will forget it. Pride goeth before a fall and all that, yes, but sometimes I am glad to have a little pride even though it is rather sinful. (Same with lust & gluttony, ahem.)
Before I get into it though I direct anyone who’s into really personal but thoughtful reflections on tragedies (VA Tech related, but general) over here at Phantom Scribbler. Although my mother’s narcissism was slightly different, I so get that part of it. And I love the broader application. Plus, it’s kind. My post may not be, if it comes out at all like it is in my head right now.
(ETA: Definitely not entirely kind, no.)
~~~
So this post is about parenting and having post-traumatic stress disorder, which I formally have up the wazoo: extensive childhood trauma, rape as a young adult, and Emily’s labour & death. To name a couple of things. I won’t get into elementary school.
This week of course there was a horrible tragedy on a US college campus. And of course people reacted emotionally and with grief. And some people got triggered and some of them fell into “coping mechanisms,” which, you know - better a coping mechanism than to go kill people, or kill yourself.
But - here’s the judgmental part - some of those people are parents and some of those coping mechanisms really suck (cutting, going to bed for four days and not speaking to your kids, doing various drugs).
The thing is I have a lot of sympathy for that, because anyone who copes with these things probably has developed some negative coping skills (mine are drinking, and picking fights with people that hype me up, hmmmm, but I think we can keep this post to a minimum here) to deal with triggers.
What people who don’t have triggers (in the post-traumatic sense; I don’t mean “when my girlfriend cheats on me it triggers me to be mad!” - hello, that is an emotional response) hear about triggers they tend to think they work on television. Like I see the spider, and all of a sudden I am remembering spiders crawling on me when I was hiding from my abuser, and then I start screaming “spiders! spiders!” I mean yes, occasionally they work that way (when one loses the sense of the present they are then called abreactions). But mostly they work more like this:
- see the spider. I think “oh yuck a spider!”
- I get a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach that might resemble fear, or shame, or disgust, except before I can identify it, it becomes a rush of adrenaline (fight or flight). Of course when I see the spider I am actually on my way to a meeting so I just think hard about something else, really hard. God knows I don’t want to prod at that memory.
- In the meeting people don’t seem to be smiling. Why aren’t they smiling? They hate it! They hate me! I suck. I feel ashamed. No wait, they are just stupid. Stupid fucking people. Or maybe I suck! Augh! Shame! Fear! Cannot handle it!
- After work I think I am so stressed, well, no, I don’t want to think about that stress so I think I’ll just “reward” myself. Oh that’s it, right, here I am at the wine store treating myself. Okay, one bottle of Chardonnay for me! It relaxes me and god knows I need to relax.
- Yummy Chardonnay. Oooh happy glow. I’m sleepy. Night-night.
- Next morning I see that my husband has not taken the garbage out and we missed garbage pickup! Oh shit! We are dirty people! (with spiders!) Shame! Anger! Adrenaline! The garbage is here and stinky and it will be here for a week and stinky! This is the end of the world! Doesn’t Carl get that this is GARBAGE and it MUST BE TAKEN OUT. Otherwise you might get… not spiders… maggots! That’s it! Yell yell.
- Feel like crap. I’m stupid. I feel ashamed. Oh god no not shame! AUGH! Must go to work and overanalyse yesterday’s meeting. They’re going to fire me! I don’t want to deal with that. I will go on the ‘net and have a fight about… feminism! that’s always a good one!
(etc., until the adrenaline cycle passes, which can take a few days)
After I had Emily I lived in a great cycle like this for oh, a year or so. No seriously it was kind of fabulous in a sick twisted way. Some of the adrenaline highs can get good too, you see like this:
- I don’t want to think about my meeting so I’ll think about… sex! Yum! (sex & adrenaline, you see). Hey there is a hot guy! I’ll fantasize about him! Yum!
And I drank a lot of scotch at night. That probably has been my base coping mechanism since having Emily, with stupid fights a quick second.
Here’s the thing about a coping mechanism though: not only is it often something sucky, like, you know, doing drugs. But it also pushes the emotion down. Sort of like play-dough in a press. The thing is that it’s going to leak out somewhere eventually. Either that or of course the press explodes and you have a heart attack or whatever.
And I consider one of my major jobs as a parent to try to avoid lowering the lever on the press. I cannot always control what stress is going to come my way, and sometimes just to get through the day, I will have to lean on some coping mechanism and deal with the results. But overall, I think it’s key - critical, even - to deal with triggers in a way that breaks the cycle as early as possible.
And that means not doing that stuff. Okay?
Find out what would help you stop. Do that. Be kind to yourself in your failings, but not too kind. Don’t make excuses. If you fall of the wagon, get back on. Just stop! Stop!
(okay, breathing now)
This need to stay as much as possible in the stop the negative coping skills place is one reason that since Noah’s birth I have not been (hardly been, okay, imperfectly been, obviously) haunting the ‘net in any spots that I know will get me all riled up.
And also, since discovering that I was pregnant with Noah I have not really had any drinks (I think I’ve had 3 full drinks, and sips out of Carl’s here and there. I like wine and beer and spirits and I am not anti-them; I’m anti-them to reduce stress or to total excess). Pregnancy and breastfeeding help with this of course, since you’re not supposed to have much more than an occasional glass of wine (while breastfeeding; pregnancy I am kind of in the ‘don’t have any mmmkay?’ camp).
But really I gave it up because if I’m stressed, I need to deal with it, and not have some wine and not deal with it and then blow up at Noah the next day or whatever.
So what is the alternative? Have I achieved some level of zen where nothing bothers me? Oh no, although I keep trying.
But I’ve made the choice to put Noah first when I have a choice. And frankly, this week I had a choice.
I was up late last week and early this week with Noah’s fever and then (related? not sure) cold, so I knew I was sleep deprived. I knew I had to get a crown on Thurs. and that the dentist would freak me out. I knew that I had a work deadline that I was behind on due to the fever thing. And I knew this was not a great week for Carl to back me up.
So when the VA Tech shootings happened, I stopped reading about them. It’s not that I didn’t and don’t care; of course I do. But I knew that if I read about the victims specifically at that time and read about what happened and watched the reaction to it having been a permanent resident Korean in the xenophobic US, that I would get upset, sad, angry, and fearful. The loss of control and psychopathic aspects would trigger me on the childhood stuff. In particular though the loss of young people would trigger me on the Emily front.
So I turned the radio off and I didn’t read much about it. Of course some things got through from friends and family and that was ok. I just stayed vague on it.
This is not often possible with triggers; things come at you and you just react. But this was one where I could feel it start, the news, the fear, etc. And I chose not to step any deeper in it. It seems so simple. But it wasn’t, actually, very easy not to go and read about it. I kept craving that information. And each time I would say “not this week. Sleep dep, dentist, toddler.”
The thing is, it’s not just about me anymore. Noah and I are a tight unit at this age of his and although of course I am going to be as human - more so maybe - as anyone else, I just feel like it’s important to try to be aware of stuff that I can avoid. So I did.
I am slightly absurdly proud of myself on this point. There’s the pride, and my crowing about it right here.
Of course here are the other things that suffered this week: I really have dropped the ball on a social task/nice thing to do that I know is going to be hard. And I didn’t call to be nice about it, and it’s rapidly becoming a Thing I haven’t done. I didn’t get things cleaned up at night ’cause I knew I needed the sleep and now I’m a bit grumpy about it. I had to blow off conversations with people online and in person because they wanted to talk VA Tech. And I had to trade some free time with Lynn in exchange for HER not reading about it as quickly as she wanted to.
And this week Noah was a challenge: he didn’t feel great; he’s really starting to test some limits that I find hard (like he hit the cat and that’s a big discipline challenge); he was still a sicky-babe and he needed to breastfeed more than usual and be held a LOT. And although there will be many times that I fail, and I did raise my voice at him about the cat, and he cried, and he ate french fries one day that I forgot to pack a snack along, I do believe that this time, I avoided the thing that would have impacted on my capacity to be a good parent.
I did not end up having a great big gin & tonic after he went to bed only to be grumpy the next day; I did not get into fights on the internet that would make me feel all “warriory” and keep me up and keep my focus on that instead of whatever. And make me tired and crabby the next day and make my temper shorter and make me too energy-wasted to go out and do things to keep my toddler boy active and happy, or to find creative ways around things.
I did feel the fear that I couldn’t avoid, the deep fear that one day my beautiful, beautiful boy will be the wrong class… piss off the wrong person… be standing on the wrong corner and be gunned down. And my god it is a deep and terrifying pit of fear. And I brushed a little against the way that it feels to truly be trapped in a room and at the mercy of someone crazy. I felt it. I sat with it.
And then I went to bed on time and I got up the next day, and the next, and the next, and each day I stepped away from the news and I sat on the floor and played Little People Go on the Bus and I took Noah to the Home Show to walk around/be pushed around when he was a little better but not quite up to big things, and I took him to the zoo and the playground. When he freaked out about putting on his coat I sat with him and held him and then made a game for it, which did not, of course work. And then I held him again. And then I took him on the porch and showed him the cedar and slipped the coat on when he wasn’t looking. And he freaked out… but I never did.
And good god other PTSD parents, please try to do this.
It makes me so sad to read about how you went out and read things about the tragedy and then the senselessness of it all overwhelmed you and you did x thing and ended up in y place and to know that all this whole time, your children were around for it. You know? Next time turn everything off and go out for a walk in a park with the trees that grow regardless. Feel the sadness that some people won’t be able to walk in a park anymore. Call your therapist. Go back and enjoy your life in the now. And remember that you have a small human being in tow with you.
Please.
!!!!
V. just told me she’s writing a book.
About being a nanny and her experiences.
I’m not sure I like this end of the lens!
The AGO and I lose our identities
I don’t know what it is in me but I really find it hard to relate to people whose internet handles are things like “momtohedwig” or who have massive sig files with tickers and flashing icons about their kids. Even though, from my mother’s group, I know people who have done those things and are perfect normal - well-rounded, even - in real life. It’s so contextual - who cares if someone identifies themselves as mother in a parenting forum??? I shouldn’t.
And yet, it still grates. Maybe in part because my brain is like theirs in that it is often consumed with the minute worries and details of parenting, and I fear the results over time.
~~~
On to the minute details: Noah is all recovered from his fever, so it must have been the MMR (no rash, so not roseola). His sleep hasn’t been that great, possibly ’cause we’ve tried to keep him quieter (ha). And I think we will start nightweaning in May sometime, that far ahead because Carl and I will have to harden our hearts against the dramatics.
~~~
Yesterday afternoon Noah was so fine that we thought we would take him to the AGO to be quietly pushed around and look at the Emily Carr exhibit. Emily Carr has to be one of the most assuredly safe art things to take a kid too, right?
We’ve had a membership since two weeks before he was born, because I imagined that I would take the bucolic babe to gaze at the pictures and then, while he slept, write great novels. What I have learned since then is that I should have done this immediately after he was born, instead of being scared of germs and transit and things, because the calmly gazing at art phase passes awfully fast.
I think we’ve gone three times actually, and that counts the time I went all the way downtown only to remember/discover that it wasn’t open that day. But we renewed the membership anyway, because hope springs eternal in Carl’s and my hearts that we will spend our weekends in the service of art, and not at the service counter at Wal-Mart.
The AGO is ungoing massive, massive (and controversial, controversial) renovation, and as a result it’s really sort of like going to visit the AGO’s cousin, some smaller little gallery somewhere in the middle of a construction zone. The staff were weary of pointing people in the right direction, but regardless the very friendly security guy told us to take Noah down to the kids’ area. We glibly thanked him and took Noah up the ramp to the remaining gallery and the Emily Carr exhibit.
I always forget how vibrant Group of Seven art is in person; the prints that you see just about everywhere in banks in Canada are muted, somehow, and intellectually remote. But when you see a really good print or in this case, originals, the depth and colour brings it back to the actual landscape, where the scene may be remote but the emotion is so present. (I also am poorly enough educated on Emily Carr that I hadn’t realized she did so much sort of ethnographical painting, so her earlier stuff was astounding to me)
Noah, of course, would have none of the stroller and marched up the ramp and all about the gallery himself. I think he would have done fine; he was really into the Alex Colville painting of a woman in a bath outside of the exhibit and into the Emily Carr paintings, until he saw “Totem Mother“ (scroll down that page a bit). And this reminded him that he was my baby, as he signed frantically, and that I should be nursing him! Well, we don’t nurse in public any more so I sat on a bench and offered him a contraband sippy cup, and he was only offended.
So Carl took him out, and I wandered a bit longer, but it was really not any fun without them. I have many moods (Lyr does too) where wandering art on my own would be blissful, but I was in family outing mood, so I rejoined them. As it turned out Carl had taken Noah to the sculpture area where there is a modernist sort of nude with massive breasts the size of my head, but Noah had spotted the belly button (!!!!) first and was all into that. After a hushed conference we decided to just leave (wow! 15 minutes at the exhibit!) But on our way out the same security guard re-suggested that we go to the kids’ area, even though the kids’ art programme for the day was over.
So we skulked down the hallway to the room and it was fantastic. There’s a construction/installation there called “Bugs and dragons” which is like a dragon sculpture made out of toolboxes and bits, and inside the toolboxes they store amazing toys like straws with the connectors to build with, and they have massive bean-bag sort of pillows, and things to climb on, and great big plastic bugs. So we played there for about half an hour, and I only said about 20 times “why have we not been coming here all winter!)
And then I felt a bit of a pang, because - yeah. Emily Carr upstairs. Toys downstairs. There I was with the toys. Eeek!
But that is how it is, these days. I felt a deep kinship with the walls of the gallery: like I too have my collection mostly in storage, with an exhibit here or there, displayed against the palid backdrop of a wall that hides the renovating beneath. Except I suspect that I will not be reopening so soon, nor with such bold extensions of my original boundaries.
~~~
Then we stopped at our former hangout restaurant near Carl’s and my old workplace, where I used to sit for an hour and nurse a beer and an order of spring rolls until he got there and then we would have dinner and get the leftovers as takeout and overtip and where they still, yesterday, knew to ask me if I was getting the rice noodles with black bean sauce (yes).
But this time, Noah had a grilled cheese, and then he wanted to go watch the streetcars and Carl took him and I sort of rushed through the noodles and there was none of the peace that as a neighbourhood spot, I used to enjoy. And afterwards Carl felt ill and thoughts of food poisoning entered my mind (it’s sort of that kind of place, although we never ever once had an issue there) and it seemed so risky to have taken Noah there and to have fed him other bits off our plates, just for the purpose of having a full sit down family meal under $20. Including a beer.
But I wouldn’t trade the day away for anything.