Baby powder smells vile

I'm a laundry slacker and I tend to tackle it in half-hearted spurts.  Generally, I will fold large bath towels and washcloths almost immediately, but smaller items like socks and undies will usually be ignored for a few days until I get the urge to mow the pile down to a more manageable size.  Today's urge struck around noon, after a long phone call to a distant friend.  Immediately after this long phone call, I was beset by a feelings of unfinished laundry.  My thoughts turned to the teetering piles of clothing on the counter and I made the snap decision to put them away.  I bustled up and down the stairs, feeling very productive.  However, with each trip down the stairs, I found my nostrils increasingly assaulted by a cloying odour in the air.  It reminded me of my high school years - more specifically, the smell the always hung in the bathroom air after gym class.  I rounded the corner to the laundry room and noticed that the air had acquired a smoky hue.  In the haze, I could just make out the 3-foot-tall outline of Malia.  She was vigorously squeezing a giant-sized bottle of baby powder onto the lockers in the mudroom.  The room literally reeked.  Still does, actually.

 

Malia had emptied about half the container into the mudroom.  And about half of that remains unaccounted for, still airborne and landing who-knows-where.

Cleaning up the mess wasn't too bad.  I learned something interesting, though.  Did you know that cornstarch creates a charge as it is sucked up into the vacuum cleaner?  It's the weirdest thing.  The nozzle was crackling and zapping like you wouldn't believe.    The whole time I was vacuuming, I was picturing the charge building up in the garage canister until - KABOOM!

Wouldn't that be a story to tell, eh?

Burnaby Village Museum

On May 15, Brianna and the rest of her Grade 3 class went to Burnaby Village Museum.  The kids were all encouraged to dress up in old-fashioned clothing and most of the kids turned up in the coolest, vintage-style outfits.  Even the teachers and some of the parents dressed up.  The kids looked like a walking museum exhibit and some of the foreign tourists that were visiting insisted on having pictures taken with them.

I made Brianna a simple apron, along with a set of hairbows and an outfit for her doll.  (This is the sewing project that Malia "assisted" me on.)

Brianna and her classmates had a grand time and the weather was beautiful.  The wonderful weather was a real treat after the monumental amount of rain we've had this season.  Three years ago, I went along on Dani's Grade 3 field trip and I remember that the rain was blowing sideways.  So the sunshine was a treat indeed.

This sign is so cool.  

All in all, Bri and I had a wonderful day!

Jacob's garden

Jacob has been collecting vegetable seeds for the past several months.  I'm not sure what the attraction for him is, because although he gets enormous satisfaction from growing vegetables from seed, he will not ever actually eat a vegetable.  He is dismissive of flowers, as he has no patience for their purely ornamental qualities.  However, vegetables seem to fill a need in him somehow - perhaps they satisfy his desire to nurture others.  He is quite tickled when we enjoy his garden's harvest and I am quite happy to give him free reign.  If he grows up to be a guerilla gardener, can I really complain?

Last Thursday, we set to work clearing weeds and (ugh!) horsetail out of Jacob's garden plot.  He diligently  uprooted all the visible weeds and raked fertilizer into the soil.

Then he planted his seeds.  First a row of sunflowers.  Then 2 rows of corn.  

While our backs were turned, Malia tore open the bean packet and poured the contents into the dirt behind us.  Jacob was not happy.  These same seeds had been lovingly hidden for the past 2 months in his sock drawer and he wasn't going to take their abuse lightly.  In frustration, he quickly scooped up as many of them as he could and planted 3 rows.  Malia, unflustered by his anger, calmly tore open the pea box and poured them out as well.  Jacob leaped up in frustration and begged me to remove Malia from the scene.  I knew that short of tying Malia to a tree, I would not be able to keep her away for any length of time and suggested that he find a way to involve Malia in the planting process.  

The last 3 rows Jacob planted were carrots.  We used seed tape - and what a clever invention it is!  We used a bamboo pole to drag a groove in the dirt, laid the seed tape in the groove and covered it with dirt. Voila!  Three tidy rows of carrots. 

After Jacob was finished planting, he washed his hands at the tap outside.  He said, "Mom, I think I have an allergy.  Whenever I wash my hands, I have to go pee right away.  I had the same thing last year."  *snicker*

Snipping and sewing

Two days ago, I began sewing a doll outfit for Brianna.  Next week she has a field trip to Burnaby Village and I've made it something of a tradition to create a child-sized apron and a matching doll outfit for the occasion.  The kids are all encouraged to dress up in period clothing and far be it from me to keep my child out of the loop.  In fact, I'm hoping that all of my daughters will treasure their respective doll outfits and aprons.  I used the exact same pattern each time.  Right now however, all the outfits from previous years are in Breezy's doll box and I think the girls couldn't care less if they get trashed.  Pity, isn't it?

Anyway, back to the project at hand.  Brianna and I went to Fabricland and picked out a cheerful floral and a gingham fabric for the dress and apron.  Not one to let the grass grow under my feet, I began snipping out the pattern pieces immediately after supper.  Malia, of course, was all over me.  She had me tie on Emma's old apron (which I will use as a pattern for Breezy's apron), located a pair of scissors and dove into the tissue paper.  After repeated attempts to shoo her away, I gave up and handed her some scrap pattern pieces.  She studiously reduced a strip of tissue into confetti, then turned her attention to my pin cushion.  With cheerful aplomb, Malia pinned a pattern piece onto the fabric, looking for all the world like she actually knew what she was doing.

Tidy, isn't she?

Haircut

Malia likes to twirl her hair around her forefinger.  However, her hair is very fine and scanty and it quickly becomes tangled and fuzzy.  When she twirls her hair, she'll generally leave a funny looking corkscrew sticking out of her head at an odd angle.  Or, worse yet, her finger will become stuck in her hair.  And then she must pull and tug until her finger is free.

A few days ago, I noticed a bald spot on Malia's head.  She had literally twirled her hair right out of her head.  What had been a rather charming habit of hers suddenly seemed like a much more sinister hobby.  What child repeatedly pulls chunks of hair out of her follicles to the point of baldness?

She needed a haircut - badly!

I also had the hunch that neatly trimmed  hair would make Malia would cool and modern.  Nelly, a good friend of ours, offered to do the trim.  This morning after our walk, we plunked Malia down on the porch and Nelly set to work.  She was rather dubious about the giant orange shears that I handed her, but she gamely set to work.  Snip, snip, snip....soon Malia's lap was full of sweet blond tendrils of hair.  I couldn't tell if she was curious or worried about their appearance on her lap.  She was staring down so intently.

Post haircut, Malia looked hip and relaxed.  I think she new "do" suits her.  Unfortunately, we can no longer comb over the bald spot.  It's there and it's visible.  

Happily, this bald spot in no way impedes Malia's ability to have fun.  After her haircut, Malia and Carter played with abandon.  When it was time for Carter to go home, they both cheerfully displayed their dirty, chalky hands.

Swinging

You know this all started with someone saying, "Hey, I have an idea......"

And Marian, I know you're not gonna read this in the next few hours but I'll say this anyway, "Will you kindly hurry up and have that baby soon?  I hate being immobilized by anticipation.  I can't do laundry.  I can't do anything productive.  I'm just sitting here....waiting.  And just for kicks, I think that you'll have a baby boy.  8 pounds 9 ounces, dark hair and looking like Josie.  Born at 1:00 PST.  

  

Twinkle

Danielle has a riding lesson every Saturday.  Normally, we arrive a few minutes before 11:00 am, Danielle grooms and saddles up her pony and begins her lesson.  This Saturday however, began with an interesting chore.  Because the pony that Dani has been riding no longer boards at the barn, she has begun riding on another pony.  Twinkle does not live at the stables but boards on a farm about 1 kilometer away.  Last Saturday, it was Dani's task to walk Twinkle from her home to the stable - about a 20 minute walk.   I know next to nothing about horseflesh and have never walked, let alone ridden, a pony.  But Dani had walked Twinkle down the road with her riding instructor the week before and knew how to get her safely to the stable. 

Before we left to pick up Twinkle, I carefully punched her riding instructor's phone number into my cell phone.  I had visions of Twinkle breaking lose from us and galloping off into the unknown, Dani and I staring mournfully at her departing behind.  That, of course, was a worst-case scenario.  My lesser fears included being slobbered on, stepped on or side-swiped by her hairy, tangled mane.  In any case, I figured that this would be walk on the "wild side" and that I would regret it if I didn't record it for posterity.  So I took my camera too.

Twinkle was in an amenable mood and walked obediently along beside Danielle.  However, we got only as far as the end of the driveway before she came to an abrupt stop.  

She had spotted a smorgasbord of fresh spring grass.  Her head went down and she began to eat.  Danielle, mindful of the time, tried to urge her along.  Reluctantly, Twinkle's head came up and she plodded onward.

But then, she spotted some more grass.  And down went her head again....

And again....

And Twinkle's favorite....dandelions.  Just look at that yummy mouthful.

Jacob was sympathetic to Dani's predicament and offered to walk ahead and stomp on all the dandelions.

  

It didn't really help - but we appreciated his valiant effort....

Almost there.....

Well, we made it.  Here you have Danielle, on top of Twinkle.  Who's the star now, eh?

Controlled destruction

In the heart of every child lurks the desire to bust something.  And it's not often that kids can indulge that desire without worrying about getting into trouble.  So it was with obvious glee that the kids took on the task of dismantling an old John Deere tractor.  This tractor was a beloved toy of Jacob's.  He acquired it one fine day when he was about 2 years old.  We had gone to Trask's in Rosedale, planning to buy some birdseed.  Jacob came along and made a beeline for the green area of the shop.  You know, the corner that is bristling with John Deere model tractors and paraphernalia.  The corner that the owners probably secretly refer to as "our little gold mine".  He parked his rotund bottom on a John Deere pedal tractor and we all knew at that point that that particular set of wheels was coming home with us.  Sure enough, Jacob's dad capitulated to the pleading look in his toddler's eyes and the deal was sealed.  We loaded up the tractor into the van and it was ours - or rather, it was Jacob's.

He spent many a gleeful afternoon pedaling up and down the sidewalks at our previous home.  When he was feeling particularly brave, he would push his tractor up the road and then let gravity pull him back down at the furious clip.  He would end that particular exercise with a tooth-chattering bump over the curb and then sprawl onto the grass in triumph. Fun!

Fast forward 4 years and that same tractor had become a faded relic.  We knew it's day were numbered when it spent last winter sitting outside, cruelly exposed to the elements.  The front tires had been squashed by an unknown workman who had backed over it when leaving our yard.  The back tires were worn through in places from repeated skids.  The chain came off repeatedly and the seat was dangerously wobbly.  Indeed, it was headed for the dumpster.  

I briefly considered buying 4 replacement wheels but I figured that even then, it would be only marginally roadworthy.  It's fate was sealed when, two weeks ago, Bryan brought home a shiny new John Deere for Malia, our latest 2 year old.  Parked next to the new favorite, our old Johnny looked pathetic indeed.  John Deere #1 had been officially sidelined.  

Our only remaining dilemma was how we were going to dispose of our old tractor?  Can you put something so decidedly green and bulky into the trash can and pass it off as household garbage?  We thought not.  We had a better idea.  We would give our kids an assortment of tools and a saw, and let them dismember it.  And did they ever.  Jacob removed the wheels with a flourish and then Danielle set to work with the saw.  I could hardly bear to watch.  Although Danielle's intentions were noble, she had asked Breezy and Jake to assist with the operation.  Jacob's task was to sit on the Deere while Brianna was to subdue John with a sturdy foot applied to the fore section.  I feared that with one slip of the saw, either Jake or Bri would become howling patients.

All went well, however and the tractor has now been firmly consigned to the garbage.  

Malia has her say

Today I offered Malia cake for lunch.  She eagerly accepted the slice I gave her and took a hearty bite of it.  At this point I had walked away for a moment and came back to find her leaning over the garbage can, vigorously spitting it out.  Evidently, the cake I had presented to her did not approach her culinary standards.  In fact, she found the cake so repulsive, she stuck out her tongue so that I could wipe off the remaining crumbs from her offended taste buds.

 

Actually, I didn't really give Malia cake for lunch.  It was banana bread.


I think I need to take a different approach when I offer good food to my children.  Like, maybe not lying to them.

I gave Malia yogurt for lunch instead.  She liked it very much, thank you.

Happy Birthday Marlayna

On Sunday, Marlayna celebrated her 15th birthday.  She was born on Wednesday, April 17, 1996 - eleven days shy of our 1st anniversary.  I still remember the feelings of dismay I felt when she cried through her two first nights at home.  In desperation, I paged through my What to Expect When You're Expecting handbook and found the section on colic.  Could it be that my newborn darling was suffering from this dreaded ailment at only 2 days old?

Then my mom gave me some wonderful advice.  If baby is well-fed, burped and does not have a wet or dirty bum, let her cry.  Oh, what a wonderful release of anxiety and worry these words gave me!  In effect, she was telling me that mothering is imperfect, but so are babies.  At times, they'll cry - for no apparent reason.  And Marlayna did cry - probably more than my other children have at that age.  She also spit up a lot.  And I'm sure my lack of experience and bewilderment as a mother contributed to her frequent squalling.  She probably ingested too much gripe water.  It was our go-to solution whenever she howled without obvious explanation.  But to her credit, she was sleeping through the night by six weeks old.  And she made her for smelly hiccups and howls by having a sunny disposition.  Marlayna rolled over at just under 3 months old.  She could sit at almost 5 months old.  Her first tooth erupted at 6 months old and she could belly-crawl at precisely 6 months and 1 day old.  She was our sunshine.

Last Saturday, I went shopping with Marlayna.  To see her striding through the mall (she takes big steps and her ponytail swings when she walks) was an eye-opener.  She is growing up and new character traits are evident.  I appreciate her confidence.  I love her sense of humour.  I'm in awe of her social skills.  She is (mostly) considerate of others and is kind to her younger siblings.

Marlayna, I love you.  Happy birthday 15th birthday!

 8 years old

 loving newborn Malia

enjoying ice cream - Veere, the Netherlands

Soccer

Well, it has come to this.  Bryan, in his eagerness to sportify our kids, has signed up four of our children for spring soccer.  This new activity was met with barely lukewarm show of enthusiasm on my part.  I've always hated soccer.  In high school, I couldn't stand the game.  Kick and run at the same time?  Are you kidding?   It is a sport I simply cannot do.

Seeing my children out on the soccer field fills me with subdued admiration.  You see, the weather conditions have been far from optimal.  I found Monday's weather rather miserable.  It was overcast and cold.  Yet, Jacob and Marlayna played their games and actually enjoyed themselves.  I am so proud of them both!

Yet it was today's lamentable weather that literally set my teeth on edge.  Breezy and Dani play games back-to-back, which means that this evening I was forced to watch for 2 hours while my offspring were slowly turned into perambulating popsicles.  It was heartbreaking to see.  The whole way to the soccer fields, the girls were betting that the games were off and that we somehow missed the announcement.  But it was not so.  When we got there, we saw the the usual horde of parents and kids.  We squished our way the playing field where Bri was handed a white T-shirt and a pair of immaculate white socks.  Somehow, this girl had to put them on while surrounded by a see of wet grass and mud.  How in the world....??

It pains me to admit it, but at first I just stood there and watched.  I could feel the cold (only 6 degrees above zero) seeping through my gloves and boots.  Taking my gloves off at this point would only diminish any chance of me getting through the next 2 hours in relative comfort.  But I soon took pity on Breezy and helped her lace up her shoes.  I couldn't watch and not be moved at her stalwart courage.

Breezy, trooper that she is, enjoyed the whole muddy fiasco.  At the end of her game, she materialized out of the gluey haze with a triumphant grin on her face.  She and her sodden team mates had played - and survived!

Danielle was a little less thrilled with her accomplishment.  She is more like her mother and spent most of her game pondering the insanity of it all.  It will take a healthy dose of sunshine and an even healthier trouncing of the opposing team next time to banish this detestable experience from her memory.

Going potty

Malia is learning to pee on demand. This however, is not to be confused with toilet training. A toilet trained child will recognize the signals her body is sending to her brain and duly make her way to the bathroom, where she will remove whatever clothing is standing in the way of successfully consigning her bodily waste into the proper receptacle, be it a toilet, potty, or heating vent in the bathroom floor.

Malia however, is learning to pee when I ask her to. This process starts with me asking her if she "has to pee", and generally she will answer in the affirmative. Together, we will peel off her clothing and already-sodden diaper. Then, with a look of obvious delight (she knows she has my full attention) she will ascend the single step to her throne. And it is from that lofty vantage point that she will rule my day.

I'll say no more. If you've potty trained a child, you know what I mean. If you never have, you can probably do it 10x better than I can. And if you are in the midst of toilet training your child, I wish you every success.

Clam chowder

On Saturday morning, I woke up with a steel rod jammed into my spine. Now before you hand me a supersize bottle of Advil and inundate me with sympathy, this steel rod is exactly what I've been needing for a long time. It is a metaphor for my new attitude - toward motherhood, wifehood and general life here in the 'hood. I've long thought that molding myself to the wishes of my 6 children and busy husband would, in the long run, would net me a peaceful home and swimming pool full of warm fuzzies. However, aside from the bucketfuls of lint I scoop out of my dryer, the warm fuzzies have been in short supply lately. With two of my daughters now in their teens, one in her preteens and the rest of my children madly scrambling for their share of attention, things have been rather chaotic around here. It is not unusual for my hubby to be out working many evenings as well as weekends (although never Sunday, thankfully) so to be honest, the raising of the children generally falls into my lap. And don't get me wrong, I LIKE my job. I love my kids and generally adore them. But one area of their raising has continually confounded me. I have always found it incredibly hard to get them to eat (let along appreciate) the food I cook for them. Four out of five new recipes will generally get an almost unanimous thumbs down from my whole family. And to add insult to injury, the snide comments will begin before I've even thumped dinner onto the table. While I'm cooking, the kids will file in varying order into the kitchen in inquire what I'm cooking. Generally, my response will be met with an upturned nose (if they're feeling sensitive to my feelings) or a full-out deflating comment about how gross they find that particular meal. And let me hasten to add, I'm not that bad of a cook! I have my standards and I like good chow as much as the next chick. I've eaten in enough restaurants to know what other folks are willing to eat and I'm convinced that what I cook is NOT pig-slop in comparison. Sure, what I prepare is not restaurant fare. I don't plate the kids' food, nor am I willing to stick a sprig of rosemary in their mashed potatoes for a haute-cuisine effect. I'm sensible enough to know that those efforts would be wholly unappreciated. The rosemary springs would only end up dangling from their lips as mock cigarettes or be flicked back and forth across the table between dueling siblings. But my food is decent and my purpose has been pure - to feed my family with good food that balances flavour and nutrition.

However, the upshot of all this mealtime melodrama has been that I've been taking, more and more, the easy route. You want potato skins? No problem darlings. Let's throw some extra salt on them and really make your kidneys writhe. You like your boerenkool with more sausage this time? Good idea - the grease oozing out of them DOES make such pretty swirls on your plate. And so on - my own sarcastic comments an unhealthy sidekick to the boring and uninspiring fare hitting their plates at mealtime.

Which brings me to my steel rod. I woke up Saturday morning with a plan to do better. No more side-stepping the disparaging mealtime comments. No more ducking when the kids sling their verbal mud at me. I would fix 'em good - I was gonna make clam chowder. And make it I did. I started off with crisped diced bacon (a nod to their baser instincts for artery-clogging fat) and then brought out the big guns. Carrot, celery, onion - they all went into the pot. A full 28 oz. can of plum tomatoes. Splat - there it went too! By now the soup (stew?) looked decidedly healthy and I knew the kids would squirm when they saw it. But it gets better. Next I added (are you ready for this?) clam nectar. It's basically a cloudy liquid heavy on the salt with a pinch of clam saliva added for authenticity. Not content with this insult to their tastebuds, I added the final affront. Clams. Yeah, minced clams. Not the whole, perfect little clams that were gently hoisted from their shells at the seafood-processing plant. Nope, these were the reject clams. The ones that were either clumsily pried out and inadvertently minced by novice clam-harvesters or else ones that spontaneously exploded while being processed. These are the clams favoured by mothers who are trying to hide seafood in the soup. They're ugly but serve a nefarious purpose. These clams are so nondescript that when your child (or better yet, all six) ask whether there are clams in the clam chowder, you can honestly say, "I don't think so". I mean, I really had my doubts that I was dealing with real shellfish at this point.

The whole nondescript concoction bubbled in the slow-cooker for about six hours. Then I transferred it to my big soup pan to cool. This process took a further 3 hours and then I transferred it to the fridge for the night.

Sunday evening was the big reveal. To sweeten the deal, I had bought a nice crusty loaf of French bread and some fresh sliced deli ham and cervelat salami. All I would require of my children was that they eat of small ladle-full of soup.

Things were off to a rocky start when Bryan, fresh out of bed after a sweet 2 hour hap, saw the soup reheating the stove and asked, "What IS that stuff?". His question was innocent enough but the fact that he promptly made himself a plate of cheesy nachos 15 minutes before dinner did not bode well. The kids, of course, had to have nachos too.

When the family was finally sitting down for dinner, I gamely spooned up a small ladle-full for each of them. Their collective expression was one of, "Aw, gross!" The meal wound down to it's inevitable conclusion. The kids gorged themselves on French bread, each at a bare spoonful of chowder and I was left with a heavy soup-pan full of unwanted soup.

When we were cleaning up Bryan, in a typical show of spousal support, held up the soup pan and asked, "Can I chuck this stuff out?"

I resignedly told him, "No, I'm having that for lunch this week". And have it I will. I should last me *sigh* until Friday.