Spider Count 2007

• Innocently on a wall: 7
• Lurking Somewhere and Scaring the Crap Out of Me By Suddenly Moving: 11
• Killed by Misterpie Surreptitiously, But Not Surreptitiously Enough: 1
• Ones Misterpie Just Told Me To Add Because He Killed Them On The Sly: 10
• Those weird stripey little jumping spiders: 5
• Baby Spiders: 4
• Giant Spiders: 2
• Ones That Got Away: 2
• In My Dreams: 5
• In the Bathtub: 1
• Living In my Basement Window By The Laundry On Compromise: 1. Oh, god, where did Aragog go? Oh, there he is. He just moved to the top of the window.
• Living in a ceiling corner on compromise because I can't quite squash him when he's wedged in like that: 1. Crap. They sent a replacement.
• Ones that were in totally predictable places, so fortunately I was pre-armed: 2
• In my bedroom: 4, all of whom succumbed to the Slipper of Doom.
• Ones that caught me with my pants down: 1, on the back of the bathroom door at work. Sneaky bugger.
• The one Misterpie caught on the last day of the year and I only know about because Pumpkinpie ratted: 1

In A One-Mom Open Sleigh...

As my Toronto girls will recall, the week before Christmas, we got a mountain of snow dumped on us. We are talking about a 25-cm dump, though our local expert informed me that in our area, it was more like 30. That's a foot, for you Yankees.

And Pumpkinpie had to go to daycare so I could finish the Christmas shopping off. But how do you transport a child who has not yet figured out that walking on snow was okay? (Thank god she's over that by now!) Strollers don't work well in snow this deep, street corners are terribly blocked in by berms of snowplough buildup, and you can't count on everyone having shoveled. There's always a few turkeys who don't think about other people trying to get past their house. I can totally understand why there are always some little older ladies at the library who simply don't go out much in winter.

But back to my kid. The solution is obvious - if wheels won't work, this will:

I was wishing I had some sled dogs by the time I got to daycare, because it's some work, dragging a toboggan all the way there, but we made it. And I took this photo just for you, southern folk. Have a nice non-winter.

(And do you notice that this means I now have photo capabilities? Yes, we sorted my cute little new camera and the computer all out last night. Oh, the stuff I've been waiting to share. Updates on former stories ahead - now with photos!)

All Wrapped Up With a Bow

So I took some time off before the holidays to avoid holiday meltdown by making time for the gifts/cards/wrapping, work on the destruction, and take a break from general madness so I could be mentally prepared to face a cuple days of family togetherness.

And family? Well, I convinced my family somehow to let us host so we wouldn't have to dine and dash, and could stick around after we tuck Pumpkinpie away. Which worked. And in the process, we figured, we'd have some control over things, so we might avoid some of the more common issues, like having no heat and weird food, not to mention appropriate entertainment for the wee one. You know, basically trying to avoid last year's fiasco. Which! totally worked! I am thrilled and somewhat shocked to day it was virtually drama-free. Which is great, but also creates a whole nother issue about things like what is my family without drama? And what the hell will I blog about? But still, all good. Bizarrely good, really. It felt like an actual reconnection, because we got to sit around and talk with the grownups instead of monitoring Pumpkinpie who, while a good kid overall, does need an eye on her at other people's houses, you know? And the gifts were hits, too, which is always nice. Sisterpie's boyfriend came along, and he is very nice. My dad's girlfriend, Lawyer Lady, is very nice, too, and has been around long enough that we could do one big dinner with her, Opapie, and my mom all together. I'm delighted, satisfied, and all warm and fuzzy, if still slightly weirded out.

Pumpkinpie was thrilled that Santa took her last minute requests to heart and produced a few small and highly desired items for her stocking - "a couple of doggies and a couple of ponies" (that would be beanie baby doggies and My Little Ponies). Hey, small little things like that I could add on at the last second. And she loved the doggies with bed and carrier that I had given her - Madeline's dog, complete with a bowl and bone and a leash attached. Very cute. And a few new books she loves. We haven't even cracked the puzzles yet, we've been running around so much. We didn't even get much in the way of stuff I'd never buy her, really, which is pretty good!

Me, I got a bunch of books I wanted, some cute new mittens and hair clippie businesses, and at least half my body weight in chocolate. I should make some headway in becoming, um, well-rounded this coming year! Misterpie did okay, too, so the gifting was good in all corners. And he got a great little Kitchenaid version of a ceramic-lined cast iron pot in the boxing day sales for $30 (instead of $100), so he's pretty pleased with that!

This week we also shoveled, loaded, and took to the dump station some 600lbs. of plaster, and that being after we dumped a good hundred or so into the garbage truck, when the nice guys let us dump some in there. Whew! We have a little further to go on that, then we have to bundle the lath up into shorter lengths and get rid of it, too. Anybody got a fireplace you need some kindling for? Next up is running some new wiring and installing lights and outlets (!) before we start putting it all back together again.

I've missed you folks all week, but it was a nice little break, adn I love getting some stuff done for a change. Isn't that what holidays are for?

A Surefire Sign of Impending Adulthood

I think I may be an adult now. I was out the other day, when I found myself totally laughing at a couple of teens who obviously found themselves oh-so-cool.

The first, decked out in RocaWear and some gold-toned bling, checking himself out in the mirror panelling at the mall, proceded to slip and slide down the moving ramp. Heh. Sliiiiick.

Then, coming off the subway and heading for home, I noted a young guy sporting all the hallmarks of pop-punkdom - the black jeans, the belt with no less than four rows of studs, the wallet chain, the dark, spiky hair. The humour in this? Came from the delicate balancing act that was being played out between his jeans, so low-slung they must have been clinging to the last two hairs on his behind, and the weight of all that hardware. Good Charlotte! Would he be exposing his little Ramone with one slip, or did he have a Simple Plan to keep his drawers in place?

Okay, maybe it's not being a grownup, maybe it's the opposite...

Aren't I Supposed To Be Relaxing?

So you may be aware that I am working on my house, right? And since we took down two walls up there, there is some wreckage to clear before we get to the putting it back together part. Which I'd really like to get on with. So as per the way it always seems to go around here, I decided I'd better start it up, and Misterpie would feel shamed pressured into joining me.

So. I get my grubby pants on and head up to haul plaster. I load up too large, lidded kitty litter buckets, and head down the stairs. Which are, it turns out, littered with tools. Both hands full of heavy buckets, I set one down to hold the railing while I step over the occupied stair, then reach back for the bucket. And it tips a bit. Dropping plaster and dust down the stairs, and into the laundry at the bottom. Which is not nicely contained in laundry bags as per usual, because those are in the basement, where the laundry is being done. So now I have plaster mixed in with some loose laundry. Yay. Luckily, it was not too much, and I got it relatively cleaned up with only a slight rise in blood pressure.

Down on the first floor, I dump those buckets into the waiting garbage cans, and decide to go down and move the laundry along so I can bring one bag up with the empty buckets. Efficient.. I like efficiencies. So off I go. I am manoeuvering the large laundry bag past the pile of boxes and craft thingummies I just brought home from work, when I feel my elbow make contact with something light. Something that falls with a huge crash clatter kssshhhhh to the ground. Something that involves a cookie tin full of small, colourful buttons.

This is not relaxing, this holiday. I am supposed to be happily getting things done, crossing off my list, but this, when I have to clean up something else for every chore I get done? Is not making me happy! So now I am going to put on Christmas music and sort out the last of the gifties. Can't be grumpy through christmas music, can you? Better go with the Boney M, just to be on the safe side.

Bites of 'Pie

A few bits and bites of Pumpkinpie lately. She's cracking me up and amazing me at the same time with her mad language skillz, her imagination, and her amazing memory. A few scenes...

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She had a balloon. We had the tree up. She was playing near it. We were explaining that perhaps she should not bring the two together. We like to have her factor in the explaining when we can, to make sure she gets it. So:

KP:Pumpkinpie, I think it would be a good idea to keep the balloon away from the tree. Do you know why? Because the tree is... [open-ended for her to fill in]
PP:Spiky!
KP:yes, exactly.
This was repeated a couple of hours later, but the filled in word was:
PP: Prickly!

I am loving the descriptives. Description is one of my favourite things about the richness of words.

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We were walking to daycare one day, her riding in the stroller, and she was noting that because it had snowed a few days before, but was largely cleared, there were just boulders of old snow left by the side of the road. They bore a grey, icy crust on them. First, she told me they looked like rocks, as they indeed did. Then she told me this:
"That grey is the snow's coat. It is wearing a grey coat, and underneath it is the snow. Then underneath that is the ice. And under that is the ground."

Again, the descriptives. Almost like poetry here. And she just seems to get stuff. She's just knocking me out.

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And some days, she's funny. Sometimes because she's telling silly jokes (full of charming words like poopoobutt), sometimes because she's being silly, and sometimes without meaning to be.

PP:Wanna feel my strong muscles?

KP:Sure *squeeze* Woah. Wanna feel mine?

PP:Sure. *squeeze, then eyes open wide* Wow, yours are even stronger!

Not said: That's because you're getting so heavy, kid. Lay off the pasta, will ya?

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She's been singing more lately, singing really quite well, and is even willing to sing with me sometimes, which is new. (It used to be her or me, never together.) And tonight, she sang me a song, an original composition, much more tuneful that her meandering, high-pitched princess songs. Instead, she sang me what she said was a funny song:

Unicorns in my hair,
Unicorns in my hair:
It would make a great picture
For everyone to learn.
My friends would think so, too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Unicorns in my hair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Unicorn ornaments on the tree,
Unicorns in my soup,
Unicorns everywhere.

Unicorns in my book,
Unicorns in my puzzle,
Unicorns in my picture,
Unicorns everywhere.

Unicorns in my house,
Unicorns in a rooster,
Unicorns everywhere,
And a penguin in my soup!

Whaddya think? Do we have a hit on our hands, or what?!

And hey, this time it wasn't even a full moon!

I'm on holiday for two weeks. I am kind of missing my coworkers, but I'll tell you something - I won't miss the madness.

Seriously. People are asking for weirder things all the time. These are from the past two weeks.

• I had a man ask us if we had copies of Microsoft Office he could borrow to install on his computer. (um, illegal much?) (This is, sadly, really common. People are just not getting the whole copyright thing.)
  

• And a kid tell me that she had a project to do about Canada and did I have any magazines she could cut up? NO!
  

• Another woman asked for books on not bullying. I gave her a few good picture books on the topic. She came back to say that these were about bullying, and she needed ones on NOT bullying...

• I was also asked for Advil for a headache. I told her I could not give drugs out to patrons, even if I had some. It's not drugs, she argued, it's medicine. Um, that would be drugs, lady. Argh.

• And then there was the man whose car got stuck in the (well-signed) parking lot he was not supposed to park in and came in to ask if we could help him push his car out. Me, I do think my duties for manual labour stop at the door.

And now, with my shopping only one store and one elusive sweater away from done, I am going to enjoy those days off, even if they are supposed to include family gatherings (with lots of their own mad potential), house cleaning, construction, and so on. 'salright. Tonight, I go and watch my Pumpkinpie sing.

Celebrity Toilet Watch 2007

I am beginning to understand why celebrities get a little cranky about being constantly followed by paparazzi, their every move watched, someone constantly calling out for their attention as they attempt to go about their business.

Because quite frankly, I haven't been able to go about my, um, business in peace for some time now, either.

There is something about me dropping trou and trying to have a moment in the bathroom that brings out the short people with emergencies. if it's not a cat who needs a drink, it's a child who wants something found or has spilled something, has hurt herself or maybe even simply wants my company for some reason, despite mostly being all about the daddy. It's exhausting. It's aggravating.


I am beginning to think that some of these world agreements on human rights ought to include the fact that being able to wipe your own ass in peace seems like a small but essential component of basic human dignity. Gah!

The Week in Review

Um yeah, so, I've been a bit busy and preoccupied... sorry. Really, I hate being the person who just disappears without a word, but I wasn't quite planning that little hiatus. Ahem. So waht was I up to? Um...

Well, work has been crazy because things are changing and we have a bunch of stuff to wrap up to make that happen. Before my holidays start, which will be nice. So there's that.

And then there's Christmas stuff. Cards, present shopping, putting up trees and lights and wrapping presents and trying hard to induce a small girl to sit under the tree so we can take pictures and get them into the cards, and adressing labels for the cards and getting Misterpie to take them to school to print them because our printer is acting all wonky, and and and phew! It's a blur. But I did manage to work in the posting of the Great Pick of the Litter Holiday Gifting Edition over at MBT. So don't say I never give you anything, okay?

And the holiday rounds are starting, including library parties and MBT parties and everything else. And I am trying to push through the plans I'd like for our family gathering so I can maybe avoid a fiasco like last year's. Remember that one? Yeah, I don't want to repeat that or anything like it, thanks.

I have also been destroying my house. No, really. We have moved everything from our third floor down to the second (and our living room is now also our bedroom - cozy), and now we are knocking out the walls up there. I worked for 3.5 hours the otehr day and knocked down a good lot of drywall and plaster and lath. I feel very tough. And very sore. But it's progress! A few more days of demolition, and we should be ready to clean that up and start moving wires, then on to the putting it back together again... What have we done? But really, it will be nice when we are all finished up there to have one big room for TV/living/office, and with a deck off the back, too.

What else? I got the camera I've been eying for my birthday... ooh, it's cute. So once I get the software on my computer, I'll post you some pictures of things I've been meaning to show you. Like Pumpkinpie's new room, that mirror over my fireplace, and maybe even the aforementioned destruction. Whoohoo!

What else? Well, one thing: reading. Not keeping up exactly, but spottily trying to not miss out on anything big in your lives. Like the BIG and delightful fact that one of my bloggy friends and MBT gals and fellow eco-trippers, Blog Chocolate is back on the scene. With a vengeance. Welcome back, honey! We've missed you!

A for "All Aboard!"

I write today in praise of the Type A mother. Oh, I know, us bloggers like to make fun of these compulsive overachievers, these moms who want to squeeze every last drop out of the experience. We tend to distance ourselves, and talk about being slacker moms, bad mothers, parents who are lazy, cynical, and so on. I'm the same. I think I'm pretty laid back, in general, about the parenting business. Pumpkinpie is not in any lessons this fall because I missed the signup date. I don't know about and couldn't be bothered going to special Santa breakfasts at the Bay, and have never taken her to meet the man in red at a mall or anywhere else, for that matter. I get that stance, I really do. Hear me out.

Pumpkinpie has a friend, I'll call her Ella. The two of them get along nicely, and the family is one of a handful I've found in the daycare that I really like, and we occasionally get together for dinners or brunches, sometimes with another family or two. The kids get along, the grownups seem to like each other, it's a nice thing. Ella's mom cracks me up. She's insanely Type A, and she knows it. In fact, I'm going to call her Reese, since Reese Witherspoon is famous for admitting to her Type A tendencies (even naming her production company after them). Anyhow, Reese laughs at herself for it, which makes it funny and charming, and she is laid back in many of the aspects of parenting that I am also relaxed about. It fits, even though I think I am quite the opposite of her ambitious self.

Last week I got a message through Misterpie that Reese had acquired tickets to a launch party for kids. She had caught wind of an event, tracked down the people involved in the planning, and somehow wangled herself four free tickets for it. Could we go along? Sure, I thought, why not. So we got organized, met early, got there early, I did my little librarian thing and produced some books and snacks to keep the kids happy while we waited, it was all fine. And then, when we got in the door, she turned into the Planner - she made sure to get all the photo ops, the good seats, the activities, and everything involved. Seriously, she worked it over, picked it clean, and left its carcass to bleach in the sun. It was quite something to behold.

The girls had a great time, and were perfectly behaved together, and it was an altogether most excellent outing. After all that wonderfulness, on the way back, I mentioned that I had some time in December, and had promised to take Pumpkinpie to a couple of places, so if she was around too, maybe they would like to come along. Her response? Was to tell me if I could give her dates in advance, she would try and get some discount passes for the four of us. I had to laugh. She was on that like a duck on a junebug, as they say. And it made me realize something.

If not for her, I would have had a normal, boring old morning, trying to get Pumpkinpie to daycare on time, and me to work. Instead, we had been at a party, had a whole thrilling new adventure (for the girls, anyhow), and still gotten back to daycare before 11. Awesome. And here she was, ready to jump in and get special passes for other trips. She'll get in there and organize anything! Oh my god! How fantastic is that? I can ride her coat tails to perfect motherhood, and she takes pleasure in doing the work! Laugh all we may, bloggers, these ladies are awesome forces of nature, and I have come to the sudden realization that we can totally harness their power for our own children's good.

Seriously, if you don't know a Type A mom among your friends yet, find yourself one. I can't believe I didn't notice before what a great ally and resource they can be. I am so riding this train until the wheels fall off. But, you know, I'll bring snacks and entertainment for the trip to hold up my end.

Winter Is A-Cumin' In

Winter arrived last week with an icy blast. I wasn't quite prepared for that. Neither was Pumpkinpie, who had apparently forgotten about winter over the last 8 months. Brrr. Well, we dug out the warm, wooly hats and scarves and mitts, tucked her snowpants into the boots I purchased just on time. A veritable pink marshmallow, she was ready to hit the outdoors. Or not.

The problem? She doesn't want to walk on snow and ice. Kid, it's going to be a long, boring winter if this keeps up. Seriously. How are we supposed to have those lovely memories you imagine about winter? The skating, the sledding, the romping in the snow, and coming in pink-cheeked to sip cocoa cuddled on the couch?

I am really hoping she gets over this in a hurry.