State of the nation
It took me THREE hours to drive home tonight, thanks to the snow and the traffic mayhem that ensued. Fortunately Carl was way ahead of me and so Noah was eating and apparently watching Bob the Builder while I was trying my best not to get road rage. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had had any sustenance in the car with me, even if I had filled my water bottle, but I didn’t realize my commute was going to be Down the Rabbit Hole. And I didn’t dare stop at a strip mall lest I miss bedtime.
However, Americans take note: I heard the latest research puts 1 in 100 Americans in jail. That is, you have the highest rate of incarceration basically, ever, far ahead of all the other countries, including China, both in absolute and per capita terms. This sort of fascinates me in a horrible half-gleeful way, tempered by the awareness that my sister is probably moving from MI to TX really soon and that, you know, I am myself American and pretty much all my bio-family is apparently more in danger of being jailed than many, many other things.
I’d like to talk to you about how electing judges and what do you call crown attorneys? Prosecutors? OH District Attorneys might lead to this in part because “I put eleventy billion bad people in jail!” sounds better than “I took my time to determine the truth and also be merciful” on TV. Or how possibly your weird-ass drug laws are contributing. Or how really it seems to be a way to put black and Hispanic people away. And also, why do people who haven’t paid traffic tickets seem to end up in jail for a long time?
But instead I just condense these issues I really know very little about into one small plea: maybe you should reconsider “the land of the free” in your national anthem. I’ll make you a deal. Since Canada is increasingly a nation of immigrants, we’ll take out “our home and native land.”
Yes, I had too much time to think in the car.
Food post: no plan, and plan
As I stated somewhere, last week we did not have a food plan.
It worked out just fine that way. Of course now I have trouble remembering what we had exactly except for Friday, when we had penne with tomato sauce and eggplant parmesan. I also know we went through a lot of vegetables - broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, carrots, mushrooms, celery. And we didn’t order in, but we did get chicken from the store one night.
I offer the eggplant recipe because, having married a man who salts the eggplant first and fries each cutlet lovingly, I was shocked to discover it can be totally fast and easy:
- Toast two slices of whole wheat bread
- Toss a few small cubes of parmesan into the magic bullet blender and grate into oblivion
- Wash one eggplant and slice into rounds
- After toast is out and has been cooled by toddler flipping it around in his wee frying pan, toss toast into magic bullet along with thyme and marjoram and let it make breadcrumbs mixed with previously grated cheese
- Crack two eggs into a bowl and get toddler to break yolks and mix up
- Bread eggplant slices, all the while explaining to toddler that he cannot help or stick his fingers into the raw egg because he has a tendency to eat raw egg off his fingers. Introduce “salmonella” into toddler vocabulary, which becomes “melonelda.” Don’t get the melonelda!
- Throw eggplant slices onto greased baking sheet and bake at 375 until crispy, about 30 min
It was a hit. I will be repeating this often I think.
Saturday we had more eggplant, in an eggplant-tomato-”sausage” (veg) sauce over polenta. The polenta was not a hit with the toddler crowd though. Veg hot dogs and cucumber slices figured prominently.
Sunday in honour of both Carl’s mum being down and the fact that a 10lb ham (with bone, so not all edible meat) was on sale at the market for $8, we had ham, fried potatoes and onions, and mashed turnips and carrots. I froze about half the meat.
Monday we had leftovers.
Last night Carl was not home for dinner so I asked Noah what he would like and he said soup, so we had soup and toasted cheese. And banana. This replaced a lentil dish.
Tonight the plan calls for homemade pizza with, yes, ham. And veggies. And cucumber slices.
Tomorrow (sense a theme here?) we will have ham and broccoli quiche, which I will have baked tonight along with banana bread for Noah’s snack day, and beet salad, and raw carrots.
And Friday we’ll have pea soup, and hummus and crackers.
And people wonder why the Sunday night roast used to be such a feature.
Food quote of the week, upon opening the organic produce box: “Broccoli WOW!” Also, when we brought the box in: “My LIKE vegetable surprises.” (Wait until the kid learns vegetable boxes are not, in fact, like Christmas. Except at our house they are, every week.)
If anyone has some fabulous squash recipes, I would love them, because we are experiencing a bit of a squash backlog right now. Acorn and butternut.
Before the gate closes
Wow my life. I’m going to put a post on food up next. I keep thinking of good posts, not having time to write them, and then when I go to write, my mind goes blank. Since this is the last day the Brand New Internet Tracking Software is not installed at my workplace I can post but after that I will have to be judicious about it. To celebrate I will just toss things up at random.
My company is occasionally a little Dilbertesque but, it is their company, so!
So random thoughts:
I never did post about my little formerly gifted child meltdown. Noah’s at a Montessori, right? And thus, he does the activities at his pace when he wants to do them (during the work periods). Since beginning in the fall he’s mostly wanted to do the blocks and math-like activities. Which means that by now he is adding fairly competently, at least for numbers that add up to less than ten (I’m not really sure where he is on place value, ’cause I only learn these things when he informs me that 2 plus 4 is 6. When I ask him about it he tells me he wants to do other things, like play in the sink :)) So he is a little ahead of the curve. So at playgroup, one of the mums was counting with her toddler and saying how cute it is even if he skips 5 and 7. This same child, who is fairly demonstrably bright, has a significant speech delay, so for him counting out loud is really huge. So when this mum says “1, 2, 3,” to her son to inspire him to count out loud, my son says “1 plus 2 is 3!” and then he demonstrates on his fingers “see, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3.”
My first reaction was about like this (inside): NO DON’T ADD IN PUBLIC! AND DON’T SHOW OFF! AND NO DINNER FOR YOU! (okay, not really that last). What I actually said was: Oh let’s play with these diggers over here.
I clearly still have a lot of baggage to get over here. Asap. I have a meeting at the school tonight so maybe I can think about it then.
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My job is exciting and frustrating all the time right now, which is making my days fairly high-adrenaline. It will settle down, eventually, once the launch is over. It is kind of kicking us back into a slightly more multiple mode of doing things: I go to work, deal with the rush, and drive home (this last being important because we all know Lyr cannot drive) and then as soon as we hit home, I find myself really pushed back and Lyr sort of takes over (she feels strongly that a stressed parent is somewhat toxic) and we have this very calm homecoming, dinner prep, play, bedtime. I find myself losing track of that time and I don’t like feeling out of touch with Noah during the week. Something to work out.
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At work though I am slowly being much more myself; coming out of my Everywoman routine. This is helped by a) feeling more settled and b) having done the math on how much disposable income I’m actually taking home. Let’s just say that my long-term career goals are being served but in the short term? I’d make more on weekends at Starbucks. Maybe.
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I had a dream last night that I was wandering an art gallery and came across some half-finishing painting, and it was mine, and I wanted to finish it, but I couldn’t because I wasn’t Igen Weyrwoman. (I know, I know; my psyche seems doomed to forever circle that particular drain.)
This morning on the radio I heard the winning poem for the CBC Toronto spoken word event (or whatever it was; I’m that out of the loop) and it was really good – wonderful rhythm and imagery, although there was a preachy quality to it that I did not particularly care for. The winner was a first year U of T student and it got me thinking about that one choice to flee my parents and go to a small university across the country, one which was not really connected to a real arts community outside of itself. And how I could have gone to journalism school, but didn’t. And how the narrowness of my choices at that time, along with a host of issues inside and out, resulted in me choosing to throw my creativity into the never-ending black hole of the Internet.
And how I am still often replicating that choice over and over – both in a good, professional way, and also in a bad, dicking-around-not-writing-my-book kind of way.
And then I considered how if I hadn’t been doing that I wouldn’t have met really any of my current chosen family, ranging from Carl to internet friends (with a few exceptions, maybe). And although I don’t think I could never write again, if I had to choose never to be published and yet keep my family (the kind of choice one never actually has to make), I would keep my family.
But I still need to find a WEE bit of time to get back out there.
Busy bee
I am so busy at work that I hit that paralysed wall: what do I do next out of the 7000000000 things I need to do? That’s a good signal for a minor break and here I am. I am working from home today slightly against my better judgment, but it was snowing (still is) and I was running late and I just said “ha, no meetings, ok.”
The work is almost all good stuff though. Forgive me if this is too cryptic but I am trying to share without being either unprofessional or outing myself… I have people I actually admire from afar asking to work for me; I am meeting with a high up person in a big-ish publisher about a book idea that is not mine but it means making the contact; I have my site launching Real Soon Now. Of course once it launches I sort of suspect that some of the gloss will go off in both directions (it’s so easy to be a star when all your meetings are conceptual!) but my god. It’s exciting. And downright fun. The company I work for is a little bit Dilbertesque at times but it is still FUN. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.
My umbrella brand was in the news for being a success which was good but a little high profile for me. Especially since now it may be that people are looking for us to do something wrong.
I am going to pause here and be grateful, very very grateful, for some people that have given me chances and mentored me. Because I wouldn’t be here without that. Not sure where I’d be but today, for a brief hour at least, I feel like… I am in the right place in my work.
The bad part is people are poaching staff and I’ve lost people I planned around, so grr.
The other bad part is that I also have a lot of drudgery tasks and sometimes? I am downright lazy on them. And this has resulted in this little rush, but it’s ok.
Hope everyone is having a good Friday.
Long weekend blues
It’s a (new!) long weekend and I’ve spent 2/3 days sick as a dog. I should be glad not to be sick at work I guess, but given that I had a ton of grandiose plans to clean, get ahead on tax paperwork, etc., it’s feeling a bit like a kick in the shins.
Saturday was good though; had a playgroup, so my first floor was all clean, so that’s helped. I ran into a weird situation around being a Former Gifted Child that I may consult with you all about. Or not. But it was still fun, and then I got groceries, and have managed to do laundry, so we’re not quite sinking yet. :-)
No meal plan per se this week though. I have stuff. I will work it out as we go along.
Noah’s world: faces
While I’m working (”working”? Taking a break?) from home & can upload things here is one of Noah’s first drawings of a face, which he drew about three weeks ago. He actually did quite a series of them, both on the pad of paper I’d given him and then in my work notebook as I was not paying attention to either. (The squiggle that looks like a hand is pretty random; in other drawings those are circles underneath. They are variously identified by Noah as “lips” “tongue” and “buttons,” depending on when you ask.)
I sort of like taking notes on meetings over them - attack of the egg people!
As an incidental historical note I was musing over the paper dilemma - what sorts of things should we have around for drawing; is he condemned to recycled bits or what? Anyways as I was thinking back to childhood I realized we always had a box full of these wonderful rectangular pieces of card-stock weight paper to draw on. Of course there were occasionally holes in them because they were the PUNCH CARDS that held various runs of the data for my father’s dissertation. Like, punch cards that you fed into a fancy new computer thing the size of a room.
I am old. And I have no way to prepare my son for his future, in that sense. Just think my dad was doing that when I was older than Noah, and if I wanted to be, I could be typing this entry on my Blackberry.
Seasonal concerns
The good: There is nothing like getting one’s first valentine from one’s son. Yesterday we brought it home from school, a heart in construction paper, covered in those little tufts of tissue paper where you wrap it around the pencil and dip the bottom in glue to stick it on standing up… you know the kind. I oohed and aahed but Noah was too busy landing at home to really notice. But this morning he picked it up off the table and came over and said “I made this valatine for you my mummy.” Be still my heart.
The dance between son and mother is quite something even at this age, I have to say.
We had heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast and if work goes all right I will pick something nice up. Otherwise it is “take out and make out” around here (I love working around the corner from the young fashion mag team).
The amusing: Can anyone explain to me why a) I cannot read a calendar and b) Noah’s school had its party on Wednesday? Because either understanding would have prevented the mad panic yesterday morning when I realized I had to deliver 6 non-homemade goodies for the toddler goody bag (the school does not encourage individual valentines). I thought I had another day to shop for them in the convenience store in the lobby of my building!
A quick search of the house came up with nothing. We’d managed to take at least one sticker off every sticker sheet that looked remotely like valentines; the pencils we have are Hallowe’en-themed; we’d opened all the mini-playdough jars; our markers are used; we clearly do not eat enough things like granola bars, individually wrapped goldfish crackers, or anything like that. Finally I discovered a box of hot chocolate mix in individual packets (score! they were even red!) and since Noah had made valentines galore (see stickers, above) on the weekend, when I thought we would be doing those, I wrote “you warm my heart” on each of them and stuck them onto the packets. Ha! Thinking outside the box! (Okay, ok, but I tried.)
I guess I had better hit some stores and develop a basket of “generic crap for moments like these.” Because otherwise I would have to be, like, organized. It’s funny how when I was teaching I must have said or thought at least, oh, daily, that parents that could not remember a simple thing like bringing 6 plastic containers to school (with lids) on Monday should be ashamed of themselves, and now I have trouble with even the major holidays on the school-party calendar. I’m glad I’m on the learning curve before Noah is really old enough to notice.
Organizational suggestions are welcome, with the caveat that I really DON’T know what the issue is. Tuesday night I actually PLANNED to get the party favours (I was being facetious about the convenience store; there is a drugstore across the street! :)) and STILL missed that it was the NEXT day.
The hard: We have a lot of snow right now in the city, great mounds of it plowed up at the side of the road, half-melted, frozen, and covered again. It’s been a while since I had to scramble over a snowbank; while I was working from home and on mat leave I could pick and choose my errands and destinations. Now that I’m working full time there are places I must be, meetings where I can’t cheerily call up and say Noah refuses to put his shoes on, ha ha. And snowbanks in front of intersections I must cross.
Maybe it’s that rhythm, the 8-4, Monday to Friday rhythm, that is making this year so hard. I have phantom kicks in my belly. I am suddenly undone by the scent of the same soap that fate has decreed is used both at the Sick Kids NICU and in the washrooms of my new office building (or close enough). I freak out when Noah comes to ask me where did Emily go? (It turns out he means the Thomas the Tank Engine character, on You Tube.)
Maybe it’s that Noah seems stronger, more articulate. It’s not that I don’t know on a zillion, primal, levels that he is still a baby and still in need of my protection. But he’s not an infant. His legs are long and strong; his torso is lengthening out; his head is not quite so large in comparison. The child is replacing the babe. And I suppose that leaves the space for my ever-after newborn.
Whatever it is the currents of trauma which have moved calmly like a creek, then faster, are swirling now back around that experience and I feel them more and more, my moods quicker to sink.
Carl’s seeing it and feeling it too and in a sudden reversal of our usual roles, he sent me a text message on Monday: i think we should book the briars. So, we did. We’re now officially the people who put their child in daycare and work two jobs and take a luxury vacation and remain a little bit in debt, at least for a while. But I’m kind of glad to know where this rush will end: where we’ve washed up before, on the shores of a quiet, family-friendly inn, where meals are served in the dining room at set times, or delivered to one’s room for a small extra fee, there’s a pool to swim in, grounds to walk over, a lake in view, and a fire lit in the fireplace.
I blame starfall.com
Noah: dis a ‘A’
Me: it is an a
Noah: A, apple
Me: that’s right
Noah: Apple has two ps!
Me, to Carl: Did he just say apple has two ps?
Carl: He did.
Me: Noah, can you spell apple?
Noah: No my spill apple mummy. No mess!
Meal plan, last week and this
I never posted last week’s and then we had issues. But I want to record it so here goes. The plan was:
Sun - tortilla casserole
Mon - quiche (baked sun) & gigantes salad
Tues - pork chops & ratatouile
Wed - leftovers
Thurs - pasta & lentils & broccoli
Fri - soup & hummus & crackers
The reality was: Sunday, tortilla casserole, check - except Noah freaked out. That stomach flu he had with the vegetarian chili seems to have put him off anything that resembles it in the slightest, including some kinds of beans, which is representing a challenge. Anyways, total rejection on his part, so he had PB & J and cucumber slices and peas.
Mon - went according to plan, but I tried a very garlicky dressing for the beans and it was not really a success with anyone (all Tues I felt like I was burping garlic!). The quiche however was great (peas and some ham I’d had leftover in the freezer in it) and Noah ate an adult-sized slice.
Tues - I threw the plan out (and left the pork chops frozen) because it was Shrove Tuesday and so Noah and I made pancakes, and also had more of the quiche, and more cucumber in the name of a few more veggies. Mostly pancakes though. The cooking them together was a smashing success and Noah was awed by having them for dinner.
Wed - There weren’t really any leftovers at this point, but Carl was working late again and I was tired out so I’m sorry to say I opened a CAN of soup and Noah and I had soup and toast and peas and corn.
Thurs - we did indeed have the pasta, but for the first time that I remember, Noah picked the lentils out. Sigh. I know it’s a perfectly normal developmental stage but it made me sad anyway!
Fri - I got a rotisserie chicken, and we had the broccoli and some potatoes.
Sat - I finally made a real soup, with broccoli, carrots, onion, tomato, leftover chicken and macaroni, and we had that and Noah ate a good lot so finally back to some more balance than cucumber and peas. He also ate 6 baby carrots during the chopping stage, so maybe his body rebelled. :)
This week’s plan:
Tonight: baked pork chops (see! there they are!), roasted sweet potato & potato and then snowpeas; I’m also going to bake a cassoulet at the same time (Moosewood Collective’s recipe, but probably, depending on whether I get to the butcher with the good sausage, with real sausage).
So Mon: cassoulet (I’m determined to keep beans on the menu here)
Tues: b-b-q pork (leftovers) on buns and salad and veg
Wed: crockpot soup (type depends on veg box) + lentils/onion/rice/saffon (I forget what this is called but it’s lovely)
Thurs: To. Be. Announced. Well it is Valentine’s Day!
Fri: soup + either cheese toast or beans on toast or mushroom on toast, kind of depends on mood and what’s around the house.
Many things
Lots going on, but I am suffering some blues. Don’t write the prozac script yet; I think it’s a combination of stress, winter, lack of exercise, and coming directly into Emily’s season. I didn’t get an exciting new thing kicked off and I’m sort of feeling the lack of artificial new-thing high.
Work is just at this very frustrating, stressful point, and I have responded by procrastinating, which is unwise. Tomorrow will be catch-up week by force of deadline, and it will all be Just Fine, but meanwhile, I feel stressed, about 1/3 of my own making. Sigh. Journalist blues in a way. I remember how relieved I was when I discovered procrastination is almost a professional hazard.
On the home front today was one of the worse days we’ve had in a while. Last night I made the mistake of choosing to stay up reading a bit after hanging with Idaho; I was tired but not quite ready to sleep. Well you see where this is going. After going to bed around 11:30, Noah woke up at midnight, nursed, insisted on me bedding down in his bed (he has pretty much totally transitioned to his bed, but hasn’t made it through a night alone in it yet), woke up at 3 and nursed through until 4:30 in that horrid in-between state where he wakes up if he stops nursing (in point of fact, I have not actually seen this state in about 5-6 months except when he’s had a cold, so it was a bit of a surprise). At 4:30 I put my foot down, which I should have done at 3:30, because then he decided (after 20 min of wailing) that he was up for the day. I’d've made Carl get on duty except he’d worked until 2 am, so first (I am sorry to admit it), I cried. Noah patted me. And then I got up and staggered around getting toast and milk and then we read books for a while and then I descended to trying starfall.com with him for the first time.
He had a blast and so did I, sort of. My critical brain was screaming at me about toddler educational software being a crock, and losing it at the lousy animations and silly games but… he loved it, he learned that -ow sometimes sounds like o and a bit about how to use the mouse. It was sitting down and I could have coffee. What’s not to love?
The rest of the day gradually improved; we didn’t make it to weekend playgroup ’cause at 9:50, when I said “would you like to go to playgroup, or stay home… you look tired,” he wisely said “I want a nap,” and went and took one. Sadly a) I had had too much coffee to sleep with him at that point and b) he woke up hungry at 11:30 and only just went down at 7:15, so we’ll see if he’ll sleep well and catch up or if we’ll roll into one of those hell “I haven’t gotten enough sleep to sleep!” periods. And Carl managed to find 3 hrs this aft where I could sleep, although when I woke up Noah was watching Blue’s Clues and Carl was working, so.
And in between we got some good play going. Puzzles are a big deal right now, jigsaw mostly, and blocks and his Melissa & Doug mailbox and, of course, trains and cars. And balls. And Duplo.
And yes, weaning was on my mind. (Since he only nurses at night, it’s not night weaning.) It sounds like a good idea today, but most nights, it’s really not an issue. He usually nurses a bit falling asleep, which I probably could work to eliminate, since he also has an elaborate ritual with a cup of milk and a cup of water and arranging them etc., but so far I have kept bedtime as sacred bonding time and not move to the next stage time. Then normally, in this new bed, he wakes up between midnight and 2 am to “nurse” but that’s about 1 min and patting mostly will do. But then there is the 4 am nurse and that is the one he lives for. So… I don’t know. The normal status quo is ok. But last night was the devil’s work.
The Emily stuff is hitting hard this year. I have a few inklings why. One is that I doubt we are going up to the Briars and it’s hard to not have that total break to look forward to (if we change our mind, it will have to go on the line of credit for a couple months, grr). The other is that Noah is slightly less all-consuming as he does so much for himself now. And the third is that I am thinking of stepping back into the world of conception and pregnancy (although after today I truly think I would be insane to) and so I am scared. So. Also someone whose LJ I have followed for years had a pregnancy loss this month and listening to her hits some of those buttons too. What a strange community we are, bereaved parents.
I am starting a book about it, memoir-essay style, but I think it is only for me.