It's Like I Live in the Village, People

I was sitting on the bus yesterday, looking at the floor as I thought. A man stepped in front of me, and I noticed shiny, black monk-strap shoes. Which would be nice, but was slightly odd with the rough, pebbled texture of his leather pants. I looked up a little.

A similarly rugged leather comprised his jacket, a bit of flannel peeking out from between jacket and trouser. I scanned up a little further.

Flannel collar, mustache, aviators. A little further.

Leather cap with some sort of badge-shaped brooch clipped to the front.

I smothered a giggling snort as I rose in front of him to get off at my stop, holding it in until I was at least on the street corner. Whatever possessed the man to put all of that together, I had to wonder?

Things I Have Learned

The last week or two have been interesting. Here are a few things I have picked up, and I share my new-found wisdom with you:

- Little girls can pull off outfits that would be heinous on anyone whose age is counted in double digits. Pink cowgirl boots and shiny purple zebra-print cowgirl hat? Awesome. Cute as a button. Can you imagine an older girl in that? Thra-sheeee. Replace the hat with a basket worn as a helmet, handles for chin strap? Space cowgirl is just as cool a costume, is it not?

- Husbands cannot necessarily be trusted to be as conscientious about medication as we might like. Leaving it at daycare, and then in the bathroom, not the refrigerator is, um, not so cool.

- Calling a cat in for a cuddle is way more effective than threats of violence when you want them to shut up in the middle of the night. Last night's SnuggleRama not only got Henry to be quiet, but allowed me to fall asleep to the soothing rhythm of his purr. As opposed to last week, for example, when my offer to skin him and wear him as a hat got me exactly nowhere.

- Not all libraries are as wild as the one I call home. Really. This is seriously food for thought.

- Very stinky people visit the library, even in more civilised branches. God, it's making me totally ill, the smell of people right now. I keep having to run to the back to swallow it down before I head out again. Misterpie packed me a tiny tub of Vicks' Vapo-Rub to put under my nostrils like all the medical examiners do in books and on TV for when it's really bad. It helps, actually. He's a smart guy. But god, why are people so smelly? If it's not some nasty body odour or greasy hair or something they ate, it's weird lotions or god alone knows what. It's not doing my stomach any favours.

- Sometimes when you put a lot of frying pans in the fire, they all get hot at the same time, and suddenly you have too much on your plate and don't know where to start. I'm a bit overwhelmed at all the things that have come to a head right now, all of which were in the cards or being looked for since last summer. Now it's all coming up on me at once. Gah!

- Somehow, pants can apparently be belted actually below the rear end and still stay up. I'm not sure how this is accomplished, but I almost had to seatbelt myself to my seat on the subway so as not to ask the guy sporting this gravity-defying fashion statement. I mean, I'm pretty sure he didn't actually have a bulgy waist, concave ass, and the shortest legs in humanity, so how did that work? And his girlfriend looked perfectly normal, not like someone who would somehow find this attractive. Because really, it just looked weird. But I am so curious about how he pulled it off. Why, oh why, did I not ask?

And the Beat Goes On

So we were a mess in October and November aronud the House of 'Pie, rallied for December, and then Pumpkinpie has been wrestling hard with the germs again this month. Another round of croupy business, followed a week later by a nasty, congested, coughing cold, and now, that cold has morphed.

She woke at 10:30 Thursday night screaming, crying and making herself cough until she was near to choking up dinner. We tried to hold her as she flailed, tried to breathe deeply with her to calm her crying and coughing, tried to give her a drink, a bite of animal cracker, to rub her back or rock her or whisper softly in her ears, but nothing was working. It took a full and agonizing 40 minutes to calm her down enough that she could tell us what the trouble was. Her ear hurt, and badly.

At this news we fed some tylenol into her mouth to ease the pain a little, and Misterpie lay with her until it took effect and allowed her to slip back into sleep. As he emerged from her room, we looked at each other with dread, envisioning a night of further wakings and hard-to-calm wailings. One is draining, but a whole nightful enough to drive one to the very edge. And so the bargaining began - whose commitments the next day were more important? I had a programme to run, he had been building up to his culminating activity for a week now with both classes. And had a batch of dough ready for it. He won.

Come morning - after a surprisingly and blessedly uninterrupted sleep - I bundled up Pumpkinpie and took her to the clinic to get looked at. She told me her ear was plugged, now, and still hurt. With breakfast and more tylenol in her, books and a banana and Misterpie's cell phone in my bag, we headed out early to get in line. Fifth in line. We waited, read books, sat nicely. An hour later, still fifth in line. Pumpkinpie was beginning to lose her cool, easy demeanor by this point. I fed her half the banana, read another book, but she just wanted to lie on the floor of the waiting room, poor muffin. By the time we saw the doctor, she was moving quickly towards meltdown, having waited for close to two hours. Indeed, with one ear described as "goopy and red," we had a prescription to get filled before going home, not to mention one other quick errand on the way and a stop by the nurses' station to get a date for my 12-week scan.


By the time we were at the nurses, Pumpkinpie was starting to wail, and who could blame her? We grabbed up her prescription quickly, and she told me she wanted to skip the hot chocolate I'd promised and just go home, as she'd been asking for an hour or so. I reclined her stoller a little and we set off, Pumpkinpie crying and complaining as we went. I was feeling downright desperate, but there was nothing more I could do, no matter how bad I felt for her. Arriving home at noon, more than three hours after we left, she didn't even want lunch. She lay down on the living room floor and slept. For three hours. Without anything in her wee belly but a diose of medicine of some tylenol to let her rest more easily.

Last night she was warm, so again with the tylenol and meds before bed, and we skipped her bath. And thank the gods of sick babies, she slept through, telling us this morning that she felt better already. Phew.

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And here's a new wrinkle to the birthing business... Now there is so much demand for the 12-week scan, and the window is so small, that the hospital who does them likes people to be pre-screened for dating, meaning a super-early ultrasound to measure the size. Being so early, the belly ultrasound alone does not give them a good enough look. So on top of that, they slide a condom over an ultrasound wand and go internal. As I told Misterpie that night, there was a condom and lube jelly, and he wasn't even home! Sheesh. Last time they left the actual invading by strangers until near the end, but now they just aren't messing around.

Saved by the Blog

So I was home on a day off a week or two ago, eating a snack and idly watching part of Oprah while I did, when a guest doctor, who was answering questions from the audience, started to talk about fibroids. While the physical cause of fibroids is unknown, she said, the mind-body connection to fibroids is that they are unused creativity or creativity being shoved into a dead-end job or relationship, and they are a message to us. The woman who had posed the question looked like someone had hit her with a shovel, and then burst out laughing. Yes, she agreed, that sounded familiar.

So I ask you, bloggers - are we improving not only our mental health, but our physical health, too, in this pursuit? Can we now totally justify any hours spent away from laundry, cleaning, or family members as essential to our well-being? I mean, if a creative outlet can have that big an impact... Blog On, I say. That's the ticket.

Meatless Wonder

We once went out to brunch with a pair of friends, one of whom is vegetarian, who happen to live across from a branch of Fresh Restaurants in Toronto, a small string of vegan restaurants who serve things like wheatgrass shakes as beverage options.

Misterpie is a meat and potatoes man, born and raised. He is deeply suspicious of anything labelled as vegetarian, let alone vegan. Point out that pasta is meatless, and he will add that it's better with meatballs or meat sauce. Tofu? Aw, haaaiiilll no.

This was not a meeting of tastes or a turning point, in any way. But to someone more open-minded, there were some interesting things on the menu. And now, it can come to you table. I discovered today at work a cookbook from Fresh restaurants, so you can have some professional help in your meatless meal challenge, if you are following along at BlogHers Act Canada.

ReFresh, by Ruth Tal is available at your local library, not to mention other good veggie cookbooks. Not that Misterpie is buyin' ...

A retching dilemma

So I'm wondering - here I am, nauseous, and while it feels like I am always on the verge, always fighting it, I am not actually puking. The times I have retched a bit, I have had nothing in my stomach, so it's been over without the burning of stomach acid in my throat. So I feel like I don't have it as bad as some. It's worse than last time - it started a week or two earlier, and is getting stronger, but so far, I'm keeping on, if a bit weakly and not quite all the time.

But if my rather tenuous hold on my stomach lets go, and I cross over into the kind of sick that a couple of good bloggy friends have been enjoying experiencing, what do I do? Heck, if I have more days like last Monday, when I felt too weak and nasty to carry on and had to go home early, what do I do? What have you done, trying to carry on with going to work and talking to your husband and doing the laundry and looking after your kid, when you are constantly holding your belly and swallowing against the rising in your throat? I am starting to find that peppermint and ginger have their limitations. So do the small meals or snacks that sometimes help. But neither can I just take the next couple of months off, even as a lucky, well-cared-for union employee. How do you keep marching on, keep caring, keep yourself from yakking on the people you are there to help? And how do you not tell your boss why you are constantly lackluster and looking ready to drop?

I'm starting to despair because yesterday and today, it's getting worse.
And I have another two months to go, at best guess. Ugh.

Skin Products

So I was noting how much I love Lush and their products a couple of months ago and how I'd like to use better products, switching over as I find stuff that I like and that works. Frankly, some of my old faves are letting me down lately anyhow, but with more and more discoveries being made about the long-term effects of chemicals, I think it makes a lot of sense to switch. So I started rooting around for other possibilities, too...

At Big Green Purse, I discovered this page about products. And within that, I found reference to this compact signed by cosmetic and skin care companies to avoid chemicals known to be linked to cancers, mutations, or birth defects. It is so far mostly small, local companies, which makes it tricky to use for shopping in a practical sense - it's a big list. But there were some bigger companies on it, which I was glad to see. The Body Shop (who have long been leaders in all things environmental), for one, as well as Burt's Bees. And Kiss My Face, which I think is also carried in drugstores and so on, where it is easier to find. Much as I am willing to go to specific stores that are not in my neighbourhood for products I know I will want, much as I like supporting smaller, local companies who do things right, I also know that in lots of cases, especially for busy parents, ease is key, so it's nice to see that there are companies that are more widely available and more commercial that are willing to make this a priority. Kudos to them.

On the flip side, there are companies that are trading on plant essences and such that are not represented. Origins, a personal fave of mine, and Aveda, who supplies my hair care so far, being prime examples. Maybe it's because it's a newer thing, maybe it's because they don't know about it yet, maybe it's because a larger company takes more time to make a decision about things like this that will potentially impact their product lines. I hope that's it. Because the alternative is that, like cosmetics giants Avon, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, Revlon, Unilever, and Proctor&Gamble, they have refused to sign. That, I find totally disturbing. And it means I will looking for alternatives to those companies, looking to remove my dollars from their coffers, looking to find products that my family likes as well, but that are made by other companies. Companies that, even if they haven't signed yet, have not refused, either, at bare minimum.

I realize that cutting all chemicals from our lives is, where we live, well nigh impossible. But I figure if you can cut a chunk of them out, particularly ones you put right on your skin, it's a good start. There are, of course, multiple sources of exposure for all sorts of nasty chemicals around us. But what if we could reduce them, or remove a portion of them? Surely that would be a good first step. So in addition to being more careful about plastics, I'm looking to do the same with my skin products.

Kittenpie Has Been Reading

... for a whole year!

I noticed today when I went to post some new reviews that my book blog for older kids and teens - Kittenpie Reads KidLit - is a year old! It's not something I've been pimping much, but it's been a nice side project, and even useful at work sometimes when I need to think of something good to recommend. I don't know if anyone reads it, frankly, but I'm enjoying keeping it, and I hope one day it might be useful to some of you, too, as your kids get older. By then it should be extensive! Heck, I just published posts 59-61 today, so at this rate, it could become bloody epic.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's my "about" post.
If you have been enjoying it, drop a little note - I'd love to know.

But meanwhile, I just wanted to say happy birthday to one of my blog babies!

Greenery

So, hey! Have you heard about Izzy's latest and greatest project? You know she's always been concerned with living as healthy and green as possible, right? Well, she and a few others have gotten together to create a green version of Cool Mom Picks. The thing I love most about Green Mom Finds is that it includes products and resources, which is even better. So far, I've seen a few things I'm think I might need one day, and a website that tests toys for toxic content - and you can even nominate toys you'd like to see tested. Awesome. Fine, fine work, ladies, and I can't wait to see what's ahead.

And speaking of things good for you and your body and your baby and your baby's body... Canadians, have you seen the new ad for President's Choice organic baby foods? Loblaws (a major grocery chain in Canada, for the Yanks in the crowd) has decided to sell their organic baby foods for no more than regular baby food. I am impressed. That's got to be, at some level, taking a position on the matter instead of going with the status quo, and I like it. I like it a lot.

Another thumbs up goes to Origins, my favourite skin care line, for starting a new line of 95% organic skin care. They've always been very plant-based, much like Aveda, blending nature and science, but this is a step further that is quite welcome (another post on this soon). They gave me a couple of samples of the skin cream, and it is a nice weight, not too heavy, but enough to moisturize nicely. Plus, with my latest restock, they gave me a nice organic cotton tote bag - completely plain, natural cotton, no logo or anything. They are staying on my list of good boys and girls, that's for sure.

It's always nice to have new green bits to share, as sometimes it can be hard to pay as close attention as we would like, with all the other things going on.

On Braggart, On Boaster, On Doting or Smug?

Mim recently wrote a post about bragging. Bragging about our children. I occasionally read posts by bloggers asking why we don't brag and encouraging us all to brag about something in comments. What a great way to get comments... even the most dedicated lurker would come out for that one! (Speaking of which, why do I always miss delurking day? sigh. maybe next year. Meanwhile, if you are a lurking lurker and feel so inclined, feel free to delurk late - hey, I'm late, why not you?)


But getting back to this - Mimi talks a bit about why we might not brag. Is it merely that our culture dislikes a boaster, and teaches us it's better to be modest, that people will like you better? Well, that's a part, I'm sure. But she also suggests that it seems as if by extension, we are suggesting that other kids are not as good, that people will take it for nasty, CompetiMommy behaviour. Maybe so. But why?


Why is saying one thing is great suggesting that others are not? I am not talking about the others. In many cases, I may not know the others. I've noticed this in other circumstances, too. A staff member will be talking about someone else, mention that they are a great librarian, then say to me, "Not that you're not, I mean, you're a good librarian too..." in an awkward fashion. But why? Praising someone else doesn't reflect on me. You weren't talking about me. I know I'm a good librarian, but we weren't talking about me. Another librarian also being good at her job takes nothing away from me. In fact, it gives me a good colleague to trade ideas with and consult if I can't think of a good title. I love competent people.


Same goes for kids, right? Your kid being awesome takes nothing away from my kid's own fantasticosity. I don't know why we seem to see that as setting up competition. I don't think it is, in most cases, though there are those people, of course. You can hear it in them, I think, though. And that might be why I'm not too braggy here - you may not know me well enough to know I'm not all bitchy, and you can't hear my tone. You may not know that while I think my kid is terrific on many levels, it doesn't actually mean that I think she's the greatest child ever born, that all doors should be opened for her automatically on her approach, every rule should be bent because she is so special, and she should skip directly to Harvard because she is clearly a genius. No, I just really like my kid. I'm impressed with how much she has learned, how well she connects with the world and communicates it to us, how her imagination works. But maybe you couldn't tell that's all I mean from reading me. So yeah, I try to keep it subtle, too.


But whaddya think? Can we brag a bit without someone taking it the wrong way? And why do they take it that way? Insecurity? Certainty that their child is in fact better in every way? A competitive streak? Do they see their child as some extension of themselves, and are all crazy Type A (not good type a) about them? I don't really get it, frankly. We can all see our kids as amazing without thinking someone else's child is less. If we really knew those children, we'd think they were amazing, too, though with less of the haze of mommy love to make it really shine out to us. Truthfully, I know a ton of bloggers with awesome children. Children beautiful and clever, sweet and funny, willful and brave, musical and physical.

So next time I feel like bragging, perhaps I will just link back to this post to say, in shorthand, I know you have amazing kids. Mine is no more or less fantastic, and can we celebrate them together for a minute? Because I just have to tell you about this thing that made my heart expand out of my chest yesterday... And you are always welcome to tell me about your babe's latest impressive feats in return. Because they are all just so very, very mind-blowing, these children of ours.

Maude-Lynn

Pumpkinpie has been a sweet, cuddling thing this past 24 hours, and it's making me goofy with love and teary with the maudlin realization that she won't be this small forever.

Last night, as I tucked her in, she asked me something (which I think I also left much of in Sage's comments):

PP: Can I keep you?
KP: Of course, my pumpkin.
PP: Forever?
KP: Yes. I will always be your mommy.
PP: Even when I'm big and grown?
KP: Yup. Even when you're big grownup woman.
PP:Can you live in my house?
KP: Oh honey, when you are big enough to have your own house, you won't want me to live with you, trust me.
PP: Yes, I will.
KP: No, sweetie. You will want room to do your own things, and maybe find a husband or wife of your own. You won't want me there with you always. You will want your own things.
PP: No, I won't.
KP: We'll see, lovey. But you know, I will still be your mommy, even if we don't live together, but it's a long, long time from now, so don't worry, okay?
PP: Okay.

Then this morning, she lay along my lap and outstretched legs, head against my stomach, enjoying back and tummy rubs. Typically, she is more interested in doing things than sharing a prolonged cuddle, so I was really soaking it in, and realizing, too, that she wouldn't be this size, just right for a long lap sit, for too many more years. That it wouldn't be okay for me to run my hands in soft circles over the velvet of her belly forever, that her back would grow longer and broader, her cheeks less plump and kissable. I understood today what mothers mean when they say they will miss having a little one around. It's a funny thing, feeling nostalgic for something you still have, but the occasional reminder that these days are numbered will, I hope, at least remind me to try and trap them in my mind and enjoy those moments more fully when Pumpkinpie turns cuddlepuss.

Rudolph Was A Fetish-Loving Drag Queen

And he's taking the rest of the guys along for the ride...
So to speak.

On Vixen, indeed!
Yee-haw!

Or do you think maybe it's just that Mardi Gras came early up in the North Pole?

Revealed! At Long Last!

So hey, remember way back in early November when I was carrying on and on about Pumpkinpie's new room and promised pictures of some of my favourite parts? And then I actually got hold of a camera for my birthday and then took a while to figure out why it wasn't talking to my computer and the dialog box wasn't popping up and the option wasn't in the programmes menu and it turned out that Misterpie hadn't loaded the main programme, only the extras, because it wasn't clear he had to load the BIG part, and I finally just got it all together and started posting pictures, like, last week? 'Member? Well guess what? Now you can have pictures! These are just some of the things I liked the best, things that weren't just another cute purchase from a store all the rest of you shop at anyhow. (Well, with a tiny exception or two.) They are a few special touches I enjoyed adding in.

I found, when Pumpkinpie was a tiny baby, a cloth height chart at Winners. (Yes, my favourite store.) I think it cost two or three dollars, on deep clearance. And so as she grew, I recorded her heights, and this past fall, I stitched them on the chart, with the date of when she reached each height.

This painting is one of my mother's, one of many I have on my walls. It is of my own dress and shoes from when I was a young girl. I love that I can now give some of her best offerings to Pumpkinpie. Her art is so a part of her, and one of the parts that I remember being so special when I was younger, it's still one of my favourite things about her. I love being reminded of what she was, and I love that although Pumpkinpie may only really know her as her crazy grandmother, she has some tangible link to the amazing woman she was, and still is in some parts of her.

Mo-Wo will appreciate this one best, I think. This is actually a free publisher's poster for a gorgeous Jon Muth book, Zen Shorts. I put some japanese paper around it, framed it in a cheap Klips frame, and hung some lovely fans around it, some of which I already had, one of which came from Japan with an auntie, and a couple of which were bought for very little in Chinatown. She loves the fans.


This mobile is simply a purchase, but it was so lovely, in its bold, simple colours and shapes, that I bought it and worked it into the planning of her room.

This leaf, too, was just a purchase - but an Ikea item I so loved, I bought it while pregnant just in case they should ever discontinue it. They really do have the best children's stuff - there is plenty of it in her room, some practical, some whimsical. I just adored the fresh green colour, and the feeling of sitting in a little nest in a tree, or being covered over and protected while sleeping. I wish I'd had one as a child!

Her dresser is probably Ikea, too, though I found it on the kerb. I have put my own practical little stamp on it, since it is not precious, adding labels to the drawers so she can easily find her own clothes, and painted the boring white knobs with a bit of fun patterning. I am totally sending the labels thing into parenthacks. I've never once had to help her go get her clothes.

The blank wall above her dresser needed a little something, and preferably something that would also distract from the badly done joint running through it, so I busted out some spare paint we had in the basement and dabbed on some fun, fresh little flowers for her, to go with the room's yellow, green, and pink tones. I have one little Christmas cactus on her dresser, but thought I would add one or two other plants, which could kind of blend into the painted greenery a bit. I'm thinking maybe a jade plant, which are good air cleaners, too.

And finally, I made a lovely stained glass for her window in the pattern I was working on for another window in the spring, though I am waiting on Misterpie to make the frame for it and hang it there. I will hang it in the lower portion of her window, where it will also serve as a sort of barrier. So much prettier than bars!


So there you have it - snippets of what was keeping me so busy in the fall. Finally.

Again. Gah!

I was dragged from the depths of sleep Monday morning - early. there was a plaintive, frightened call from Pumpkinpie's room. Mommy? Mommy! Pulled along faster by the note of panic in her voice, I ran to her room to find her coughing and gasping and sounding much like she had in October when she had croup. Greeeat.

I quickly wrapped her up in a small duvet and carried her out to the front porch where we sat in the light of our porch lamp and stared out at the darkness of 6 am. The only people out were dog walkers, and then one neighbour, who slipped silently from her dark house, leaving the rest of her family sleeping. A lone car passed by some time later. Finally, Misterpie came downstairs to dress for work, and the living room light flicked on. He passed the cats, who were staring through the screen door, wondering what would bring on this strange turn of events, to say good morning. After a good stretch of time outside in the cool, moist air that is so good for croup-type ailments, we went in.

We went for a few more walks through the day, and I left her room window open wide during her nap, when she was hot with fever. At night, after a walk with Misterpie, we found her fever had returned, so we left the window open a crack and the humidifier blowing full force. By midnight, when I slipped in to push a little more Tyelnol into her sleeping mouth, she was not so hot, and her room was the perfect oasis for a croupy child - cool, but nor cold, and as moist as a rainforest. We are so lucky that Monday came with a major warming and melting, for a week earlier would have seen us with cold air and little moisture. Though I hate to see my girl sick, I am counting my blessings that the weather was right for her to be feeling much bettwe already by this morning. I hope she fares okay today, with Misterpie home to care for her, and doesn't have another spike in fever. Poor wee thing.

Ode to an O

I think it's about time someone talked about the thrilling perfection of cheerios. (Did you think I was talking about something else?) Perfection, in a breakfast cereal? Yes, perfection. In a breakfast cereal. You see, while my tagline might in fact read more than just breakfast cereal, I have a deep appreciation for the humble cheerio.

Humble? Cheerios are not a flashy, showy cereal. They have no animated mascot, they do not come in five colours, with marshmallow bits, or in the shapes of TV characters. They only prizes I've retrieved from Cheerios boxes have been not plastic licensed toys with movie tie-ins, but children's books and CD-ROM of classic games like Boggle. I like that they don't show up yelping ads between kids TV shows, that they are a quietly, unpretentiously good, solid cereal choice.

The cheerio, you see, has the perfect combination of flavour, texture, healthfulness, appearance, and ease of handling. It has nearly no sugar, yet it is slightly sweet. Not in the milk-altering sweetness of sugary cereals, but subtly sweet, made so by just the barest hint of sweetening and the enzyme action it undergoes once in your mouth. Genius. The cheerio is robust enough to float in your milk for some time without succumbing to the dreaded cereal sog, an enemy of mine that rules out the eating of any "flake" cereal. It is whole grain, made with oats long before such a thing was popular, long before we actually knew that that could help scrub cholesterol from your veins.

The O shape, too, is nothing less than ideal. After all, it's cute, it makes for fun playing, it is large enough to pick up more easily in the event of a spill, and it is easily picked up by the clumsy fingers of toddlers. No wonder most pediatricians actually recommend them. Best of all - and my mom laughed when I said this while Sisterpie was a baby, but I think it's great - with the hole in the middle, they should allow for continued breathing if your toddler happens to swallow one, shouldn't they? Brilliant.

Oh yes, those Os are ahead of the curve in every way. Long before we were all fearful and protective and the world was fraught with recalls over choking hazards and worries of childhood diabetes brought on by too much sugar and whole grains were hailed as the new food messiah, the cheerio was the perfect cereal, designed with all of that in mind and more. And so they float in my spoon as they have since I was a toddler myself, more days than not.

All hail the humble cheerio, and its quiet perfection.

Eggshell Optimism

So. I'm feeling a little hopeful and optimistic, but also a bit like I'm walking on eggshells.

You see, this past year we made our decision. Yes, we'd like a Pumpkinpie II. And our first attempt did not go so well. Over the last several months, I may have lost that one and maybe another, or perhaps I am becoming less regular than I had been for my whole life beforehand. Whatever the case, I seem to be there now. But while I am happy, I am also filled with trepidation. Since I spent a long time making that decision, and since it was not as easy as it was with conceiving Pumpkinpie, and since I think I might have lost an early, early one or two, it seems more delicate, more tenuous. I scoffed at the idea of not lifting bins of books last time, but find myself wondering if I should now. I am feeling more protective.

It's way too early to tell anyone or get too excited, and I know we still have a long way to go and many hurdles to clear, but still, those two lines on a stick are giving me a little hope for a pretty exciting New Year. And because I can't help being me, that comes with a little planning, too...

I'll keep you posted.

A New Year, A Fresh Coat

On New Year's Day, the world was painted a fresh coat of white.

I love new snow.
I mean, I hate the cold and the wet,
so sometimes I just like to look at it from inside,
a warm cup of tea cradled in my hands.


But it is so simply, starkly beautiful, the sound so muffled,
sometimes, you just have to step out
into the wonder for a few minutes and drink it in.

What a lovely new beginning.

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And, speaking of new beginnings, I have come back from my vacation from kidslit and have posted up a few fresh reviews over at Kittenpie Reads Kidslit. And while y'all were off eating turkey for the holidays, I was busy posting more Picks of the Litter over at MBT, too. The librarian never rests, I tell you.

It's Not Really a Shoe Blog, But...

a post from pre-Christmas, but finally with photos attached.
I still wanted to share, so you can have extra posts this week, I guess!
That's one way to start a Happy New Year!

You know when you are out Christmas shopping? And you see stuff for you that is just great, and well, you pick up a few treats for yourself along the way? And then realize you basically spent the equivalent of a good Christmas gift on yourself and find yourself telling your husband not to get you anything because you kind of already did by accident? You do this too, right? Right?

Well, here's the thing: I'm an accessories girl. So along the way, amid shopping for MIL's ankle weights and mother's gloves and so on, I found some goodies at Winners, our local discount store (think TJ Maxx, Filene's Basement, Daffy's, that sort of thing). And, well, I have to gloat and show off some of them because, you know, good accessories! Ahem. Sorry. Sort of lost my composure there for a minute thinking about them. Phew. I'm okay now, really. But seriously:

Shoes. Shoes that reflect the total opposites of me better than I could explain. Shoes that are tomboyish and comfy and casual:


and shoes not so casual, and quite girly:










Plus: a shopping tote for further Christmas shopping (environmental!):

And a pair of sunglasses that kind of make me look like a movie star, not a pudgy, nondescript librarian/mom:
Seriously. You may never see me without these shades again. I am going to wear them all through Christmas. That way, if things go awry, no one will see me rolling my eyes and trying desperately to pretend I'm sleeping on a beach somewhere far away.