Christmas 2007
Christmas went very well this year, and was very low-key. The two may well be related, but maybe not.
Noah was awed by the sudden appearance of presents! He gravitated first to the dollhouse and then kind of did the rounds of the other gifts. The Thomas stuff is getting a lot of play too. The dinner came out well, which is good since it’s pretty hard to mess up prime rib. :) And Carl’s mum joined us yesterday.
As for me, I’m tired. It’s this ongoing sinus problem combined with the time of year and probably too much chocolate. I am trying to just let myself experience the tired and not get a thousand and one things done. But in the meantime, I am pretty out of words.
Hope you and yours are having a good time out there!
Holiday menu
I somehow ended up with Christmas meal (we will eat in the afternoon I think) this year so, thanks to sales and what’s left out of my organic box (no delivery this week):
Prosciutto-wrapped melon + tipsy olives
Prime rib roast (organically raised; I practically had to sleep with the butcher; next year to save money I’ll just offer my body to the farmer directly hee hee)
Sauteed mushrooms
Roast potatoes
Rosemary-balsamic roast mixed veggies (zucchini, eggplant, onions, all very thinly sliced)
Mashed carrots + turnips
Bourbon-chocolate-pecan tart (not made by me)
Yummy! I am avoiding the Big Bird ’cause I find working with raw poultry hard with a toddler about. At least with the roast you just rub it the once and toss it in the oven.
Problem solving skills come online
Yesterday I left work a bit early, pre-holiday, and had a chance to have tea with Noah’s nanny.
Noah: Mummy play with Noah?
Me: When I’m finished with my tea, honey
Noah (repeat every 20 seconds or so): Mummy done yet? Mummy tea finished? Mummy tea all gone?
Me: not yet, not yet, not yet (ad nauseum)
Noah: Mummy put tea in sink?
V. and I cracked up.
Just now, Noah is playing at my feet, verbalising:
Noah: train go on track. Uh oh, no more track. (long pause. Noah gets up and goes and gets his err… drawing thing, not sure what it is called, but it’s the magnetic drawing thing that’s flat and has a stylus): My draw track!
And he does, and puts it where he wants the train to go.
Wow, this is a cool age.
Tiny bits
Sorry for the dual comments yesterday which might lead one to believe I am anti-Christian. I’m totally not; I do have issues with some streaks of fundamentalism though. Montessori fundamentalism among them.
As a round up here on the last day of work before the holidays are some things I have learned about toddlers, and about parenting and working ft out of the home:
- change your clothes the minute you walk in the door.
- one of the best parenting tools for 2 year olds is the “one finger touch”
- if you make it out of the house without “washable” (okay, they really are, except you can’t wipe them out of fabric easily in the car) marker on you, it’s a banner day
- scrambled eggs with veggies, toast, and a glass of milk really is a well-rounded dinner now and then.
- regardless of what you do not have, with the possible exception of toilet paper, DO NOT stop at a store after daycare. Just don’t.
- If it’s toilet paper, stop on the way TO daycare.
- 15 minutes of play, before starting dinner, before checking the phone messages, before anything else EXCEPT, see above, changing clothes, pays back in hours at bedtime
- toddler chat is the best at bedtime. “My ATE my dinner.” (pause) “My put food in my MOUTH” (pause) “My food in my TUMMY” (pause, during which sensible adult will not laugh in anticipation) “My POO!” Ah, the scientific education of the young child.
- Never leave without a kiss goodbye
Santa dances with Mohammed
Well I think I’ve clarified my own religious beliefs some lately.
I got into an argument about Santa with a parent who insists that Santa is “not Montessori” because telling kids Santa is real is a lie, and Montessori focuses entirely on physical reality. I think I would have backed away and shrugged had she not felt compelled to follow up with that as Christians, her family felt the story of Jesus was much more important anyway!
Okay so given these two things:
1. Gabriel appearing to a virgin teenage girl to announce that surprise, she is pregnant without sex and the father is God, and her son will be born under a star and be the light of the world
2. An old man who likes reindeers breaks into my house to leave chocolate
Which do you think is more likely? Hmm?
The discussion has just gotten progressively more surreal. Says she “well Santa does not come down the chimney!” Says I: “I haven’t noticed Jesus on my front doorstep lately either!” “Well Jesus was a real person!” “Well so was St. Nicholas!” Etc. I think Adam Sandler could make a great little song out of this one.
I actually think the message of both is about a gift to the world/kids, I mean, God loves you. I am dead serious about this: I think there is a tradition of presenting gifts to small children and sharing food midwinter as an expression of unconditional love. So yes I think Santa is, despite his appearances in ads and change to red and white and all that, really just as legitimate a story as the three wise men. I was also listening on the radio about Eid and how the animals that are sacrified for Eid are required to be shared with the less fortunate. Sounds kind of Santa like to me too. Or Jesus like. Or God like.
What also hit home for me is just how non-Christian I am in some ways. I honestly do kind of believe as much in fairies and elves as I do in Judas and Jesus and Hera and Zeus. I believe they are all ways to frame something that human beings perceive that they can’t quite measure. I guess I do think there are good (feeding poor people) and bad (killing heretics) ways of treating with this thing, but I am not all that hung up on whether He/She/It brings stockings or bread and fishes.
Man are we going to have a fun time trying to decide what to do about Noah’s upbringing.
Holy tense shift Batman!
Seen today around the whole Jamie-Lynn Spears thing: (??)
Jamie Lynn and the entire Spears family needs to be made an example of. God Blessed America and does not want this degree of shame.
The power of a tense change is enormous. I always thought it was an invocation: [please] God Bless America. But it’s God Blessed America! I missed that part of the Bible…
This explains so much about American foreign policy.
Weaning, co-sleeping, and toddler timelines
Yesterday I had to see one of the alternate doctors in my doctor’s practice, for meds for this sinus infection that is never ending (new allergies? Stress? Dry air in the office?). I said I needed a drug that is not penicillin-derived because Noah is allergic to penicillin, and that we are still nursing.
There was a long pause while he, white Boomer male, rifled through the file and then said, obviously not able to find the documentation, “How old is Noah?”
“Just over 2,” I said. This sparked a mini-lecture about nutrition and weaning which basically came down to: wean your toddler you hippie freak.
Now I don’t care about this doctor’s opinion and I checked with the pharmacist that the drug he prescribed is ok for nursing toddlers. But it did bother me, partly because I have been thinking a lot about this weaning thing. I am getting tired of the nursing routine, which is currently “before sleep, and from 4-6 am, and maybe a little snack at midnight. And maybe 2 am.” The maybes are more related to colds and things, I think, and cosleeping does make them fairly low-stress. But I am still tired of the whole thing. I also did the math and if we have another baby and I nurse for the same length of time, that will be 5 years of nursing.
At the same time I’m finding that I like cosleeping more than I ever thought I would. It’s just nice to all nestle down after a crazy day of work, school, play, chores, dinner, and so on, and to feel Noah curl up into my armpit at 3 am or whatever.
(Out of the womb for 2 and a third years, and he still likes best to sleep in a manner that I assume reminds him of being head-down against a cervix. If no person is available, he uses the corner.)
I have this theory that it helps smooth out the rough edges of separation during the day. And I was kind of pleased to see that many Japanese parents agree with me, at least if I believe this article.
So although we have plans to get Noah a big-boy bed over the holidays, I have no plans to push for him to use it, except for naps. But I do have a plan to try weaning over the break. So this morning I decided to start talking to Noah about it.
“When you were tiny baby, you didn’t eat toast,” I said, “You only nursed. But then you grew and grew and started eating toast and cereal and eggs and cheese…”
“Cookies,” Noah supplied.
“And cookies. So now you are getting to where you don’t need to nurse any more. Mummy doesn’t nurse. Daddy doesn’t nurse.”
“MY nurse!” he said.
“Yes but soon it will be time to say bye-bye to nursing.”
There was much protest over this, so I dropped it for the moment. Noah went on with his playing and then he came back and said, out of nowhere, “No sleep big bed.”
“No sleep big bed?” I repeated.
“No. My sleep MY bed.”
Apparently he just has his own plans. I’d better get myself to Ikea.
What a day / Santa’s miracle / baby Jesus
I keep waiting until I scan the pic of Noah with Santa for you but it looks like hell will freeze over first, so here’s the story. And some weird angst. After this whine: I am sick again (sinus, still; all the same problem, just no solution yet) and went to the doctor and managed to get my Volvo stuck in the snow. With a delay for tow trucks for 2 hrs, to get towed 2 feet to clear the snow. It was very annoying plus unproductive work-wise. Whine over. This story is worth the whine.
So Saturday I decided to take Noah to get his picture taken with Santa, the same Santa we have had pictures with the last two years; he sets up shop at a smallish local mall. I got the previous years’ pictures out to show Noah and to talk about this whole Santa thing, but as soon as he saw the first one he pointed to it and said “Santa LOVES you.” I was a little surprised his school indoctrinated him into the Santa thing (his school is nothing if not multicultural, but it ultimately makes sense… first of all, their version of “multi” is including every holiday and second, the other kids probably had something to do with this.)
So, the key elements of Santa having been covered - love, photos - we set off for the mall. I thought the website said Santa was there at 9:30, which would prove to be an almost fatal error as Santa really began at 11, but Noah and I and his grandfather got breakfast and then his grandfather left and we rode the horses (mechanical) and messed around until joining the lineup at 10:40.
Have you ever tried to line up with a 2.something year old? I do not recommend it for the solo parent, which I was on this venture. However, Noah was pretty good up until we paid, at around 11:10. But then we went and stood on the ramp and Noah started to realize that he was going to be expected to do something. And the tears started. And the emotional insistent “NO SANTA. NO SIT SANTA’S LAP.”
I stayed, musing on how before I had a child I always thought that I would never force my child through these horrible traditions. But a) I had two pictures of Noah on Santa’s lap already! Must. complete. set! and b) I had paid. And c) I don’t know, there is a certain kind of madness that takes over at times; it’s a variant on the stubborn gene. I did reassure Noah that he did not have to sit on Santa’s lap. I told him that he could sit on Mummy’s lap, just like last year.
And then it was our turn. And Christmas arrived.
Santa, at least this one, is a pro. He did not get up from his couch nor did he lean forward or ho-ho. He simply held up his hand and waited. And when Noah got interested in the hand he said “give me 5!”
So Noah ran up and gave Santa 5. Then Santa started to just talk with him. What’s your name? (”Noah.”) “Oh, Noah,” said Santa, with a glance at my hand, “I know you. You live with your mummy and daddy!” “Yes!” said Noah. “And you like… Thomas the Tank Engine.” “Yes!” said Noah. “And Dora!” “Yes!” said Noah, sort of. I don’t know that he really knows Dora but he was all into it.
Then Santa got into it. “Do you know that I am going to bring you a present?” Noah just looked. “Yes, probably… oh I don’t want to say too much but at least a colouring book.” “Book!” said Noah. “Yes!” said Santa. “But that’s on Christmas. Today I am going to give you a candy cane, after you sit on Santa’s lap for your picture.”
So Noah hopped up and did.
And that was the Miracle this year, I think. Writing it out now it occurs to me that it’s a bit scary that pedophiles possibly have the same MO, but then, that is the thing about superpowers - they can be used for good or for evil. And Saturday Santa used his for good.
~~~
Given that we are going the path of mild Santa indoctrination (small gifts; no naughty-or-nice, just love) it seems odd that I keep stumbling over the baby Jesus. But, I do.
I cannot really yet bring myself to try to explain to Noah this bizarre story of Mary getting knocked up by God, and tax collectors, donkeys, wise men that are kings, or maybe not, angel choirs, and Herod chasing after this small baby. Nevermind all the issues around seasons and kneeling camels and skin colour.
The grown up Jesus, perhaps, is somewhat accessible: a man trying to do the right thing who gets slain for it and rises again. But this whole nativity thing just reads badly to us; it’s the cultural weight of virgin births and nativity plays and snow when the sheep are out and all those things that starts to drag it down for us.
So I’m not really sure what to tell Noah about Christmas. It doesn’t matter quite so much this year; Santa can stand in for gods of unconditional love everywhere and we can readdress it next year. But it is kind of astonishing to find just how much reluctance there is both from me and from the rest of the system to even talk about baby Jesus.
We might sing a carol or two though.
Crazy week
I flew to Montreal yesterday for the day to work with part of the team there and it was exhausting - up at 4:30 to catch a 6:20 flight; home just before 10 after a 7:30 flight back. Partly this is because we live sooo far from the airport, and partly it’s because you have to leave so long to go through security.
I haven’t flown a whole lot post 9/11. I always have thought of myself as someone who could find her way around the airport, but this was based on all the travel I did in my early 20s; I haven’t done much at all since. So when I run into the new airport reality I start to feel like - well, like I perceived my mother at my age, really. Competent but not exactly knowledgeable. The only thing that helped this feeling was using my Blackberry to board with a virtual mobile device boarding pass thing. That was fun.
I’m feeling the same around work. After talking to Sass today (reminds me I have not finished with my gratitudes) I worked out that I feel incompetent at work because my areas of real competence, which are in editorial, have not yet been really engaged; it’s been mostly planning, and so I haven’t been able to BE competent yet. It’s frustrating. But identifying that was good. Of course that means soon I will have a chance to demonstrate incompetence, too. But it does explain for me why I feel so wobbly. I am trying to manage the project of creating the site, which isn’t the job for which I was hired and where I have some skills and stuff, but it is not really “what I do” and so it feels - weird. Aha.
Noah dealt with my long day okay, but was very clingy this morning, so I’m hoping to leave a tad early and go pick him up for some quality hanging out time.
More later. :)
Books part the second: Disney is the evil (but we have some anyway)
I did promise the second contradictory part, did I not?
So in my first post about selling books by pitching them to girls or boys I said that I don’t want to wake up in a world where there are the “men’s books” and “women’s books” sections in the bookstore. And I pretty much implied that letting marketing drive your content is evil.
The same week, I got into a discussion about why I don’t throw out Disney books that people give to Noah or burn them or treat them as evil. I also don’t explain to Noah that those books are lousy or bad. And although I think I can honestly say I haven’t purchased any, I have bought Mary Poppins and now Cinderella for our home viewing.
(Amusingly, perhaps, for some reason Noah took one look at the Cinderella DVD cover and instantly hated it. He calls it “the umber-ella” and each time I’ve even moved it he’s shrieked “no umberella,” so it hasn’t actually been shown yet.)
I know why I got hold of that end of the stick: for me it’s one thing to say why I won’t spend my toy and book dollars on something, and another thing to destroy something that someone’s given to Noah.
But then there’s the larger question of how I am going to handle Disney and is it the evil. Because really you cannot be a parent and not have to come to terms with Disney in some form or other.
I am pretty uncomfortable with the Disney message, if there can be said to be one beyond “buy our next/new thing.” First, there’s the Disney world of, as brilliantly parodied from time to time, singing chipmunks and watered-down fairy tales. We all know the heroines have gotten increasingly weirdly proportioned and that, Mulan aside (and even then), their position as rescued and not rescuers remains suspect. Not to mention happily ever after as a concept - not that Disney invented it, but they certainly have perpetuated it.
And of course there’s the question of its marketing practices, which are massive and dastardly (although I am glad they are no longer in partnership with the ironically named Happy Meals, being neither meals nor happy.) The Disney Princesses have to be about the most evil, if brilliant, repackaging of material like, ever, and their message is hardly benign. And I’m sorry, but Celebration, USA, is just fucking weird.
And of course it is not the most ethical company in its practices.
And there’s the fact that I grew up with one of the original, I swear, Disney fans. My mum took great pride in being able to sing a zillion Disney songs, and we solemnly went to see each film as it was released or re-released. There was always time for reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club.
The less than benign lesson that was absorbed into our system - in some fairly odd ways actually - was to try to create that kind of a world on the surface of things. The ever smiling and helpful daughter.
I hesitate to try to apply almost anything from my childhood to the real world because my life was so half completely normal and half completely abnormal, but for me, and perhaps not only me, Disney represents much of the darker side of what Robert Bly terms the Sibling Society in his book of the same name: the push by a corporate entity to keep people basically stupid and young so they will not grow up and keep buying their shit. Except for us, it was even more personal than that: it was the push to make things come out okay.
(This all came back to haunt us on the day that Teresa went out with my mother to get a simple, tasteful wedding dress and came back with a dress with beads, sequins, and the 1994 bow on the ass. (Had these existed, we might have had to worry about an exorbitant price tag, too. And yes, this is the logical extension to the Disney Princess line.))
Even with all this awareness, though, and skepticism and sheer grumpiness, I cannot honestly say, as a child of the 70s, that I think Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, Bambi and Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp, are awful, per se. I’m even sadly fond of the fairy godmother zapping Prince Valiant’s sword - “o sword of truth fly swift and sure / that evil die and love endure.” That could possibly be my life motto in some ways there; that it was a sword of truth is what I like most about it. Not might or strength or something.
For what they are actually I think there was care in the production of them. They certainly don’t have the power of the originals where I have read them, and of course women’s roles are totally what one expects of them, but as I rewatch some of them I am more struck by what I think is interesting than what I think is awful. And although Mary Poppins the musical is nothing to the four Mary Poppins books, I actually think it holds up pretty well.
And going on my own experience, well, my mum pushed Disney. But she also took me to see real ballets - Swan Lake, La Fille Mal Gardee, Romeo and Juliet. After R&J she took me to see West Side Story at a rep movie theatre, to compare the stories. We had a ream of Disney books alongside Journeys Through Bookland, a volume set of classic “kids’” lit (not sure 1001 Nights fits into this really) and Little Women. And ultimately, I guess, if I had to describe that as a little war going on in our literary sphere, I would have to say that the good stuff pretty much won.
Not because my parents explained that Disney sucked - blasphemy - but because the good stuff simply was better. I’m sorry, but it’s kind of cooler when the stepsisters cut off their heels and are betrayed by the blood trail, and Cinderella hitches them to her wedding carriage and drags them around the town. And no one who has read Hans Christian Andersen in any decent translation is going to be swayed by a callypso beat.
Maybe I’m over confident but I guess I believe that there is room for the odd badly drawn Lion King book (a gift from cousins) or even “the Poppins” in Noah’s world, as long as there are also the luminous and quirky and complex books and movies and music and art alongside them.
Now I must add that over all of this there is the awful Disney schlock - mouse ear mugs and endless variations on “Ariel sits and plays with jewels and does her hair” and whatever else; I’m not really up on it, thank the powers that be, other than a Disney Babies set of books we got in a box of hand-me-downs that I hate but Noah loves (they have flaps and talk about letters and opposites and that sort of thing). I hope to keep a fair amount of that at bay.
But I can’t quite shake that if I were to tell Noah that these things that I secretly sort of like on this very well, kid level, are terrible things and ban them, that I would be losing out on something else.
Not least of which that childhood probably is the appropriate time to think that Peter Pan is a hero and Wendy a good friend.
So no, no Disney ban at my house. But I am busily stocking the originals.