Confessions: Bottomless Pit

You may have heard, there is a problem with hunger and starvation in many places in the world.

Well, I am embarrassed to admit: it's my fault.

I am 5 feet tall and I weigh 110 lbs. However, in the global rationing of foodstuffs, I eat both my portion and Ethiopia's. I kid not. It is really sad. I was reminded of this a few days ago when I went to have supper at a friend's house and while still trying to be diplomatic she commented casually on my consumption. ''Wow.. you are good to eat.. heh *awkward forced chuckle*,'' as I cleaned my plate, and Anna's and her daughter's. A shameful display.

I am reminded of a comment I received from the waitress at a truck stop once. Chris and I stopped at this same truck stop when we were still dating, 2 Saturday nights in a row. The first night I ate effortlessly and completely cleaned a full pot roast meal with rolls, salad and finished off dessert and coffee afterward. The following week I only had maybe a side salad and water, and didn't finish the hot chocolate. When she came to clear the plates she asked, ''Are you done?''
''Oh yes, thanks,'' I inattentively replied.

''Really?'' came her response, ''Cause I remember you from last week, and for a little one, you sure can put it away!''

Chris of course buckled laughing. My reputation precedes me. Great.

All my years growing up it was commonly accepted and referred to among my family and close friends that I had a hollow leg. That was the only psysiological answer they found for, ''where does she put it?''

People would refer to that Purina commercial years ago about how small dogs eat twice their weight or something, a bunch more than big dogs, and likening me of course to the small dog, that the same principle must be at work in my situation.

And it hasn't changed in adulthood. It has been excused for the last four-ish years under the clauses of pregnant and breastfeeding, but really we all know that it was no different before, and it likely won't be after weaning. My dinner plates raise the eyebrows of any unsuspecting visitor, and not because the pattern is striking: one would need GPS to locate the pattern under the mountain of food.

So Africa, India: sorry.

Autumn colors

Anna quote of the day, while all us girls were out driving together.
"When I grow up I'm gonna marry someone and I'm going to drive his car."
You go girl.

This "out driving together" was so wonderful. It was like going on vacation somewhere, but only 5 minutes down the road. The fall colours here are phenomenal. This area is known for them, and has a chunk of tourism based on them. Well, this year did not disappoint! MAN they are gorgeous! Yesterday we had rain all morning and then later in the day, we went for a drive. We saw two striking rainbows in the East, a patch of yellow trees that looked like they were spray painted they were so opaque, solid, intense yellow. No branches to be seen, nothing, just LEMON yellow! My favourite part of colours here however, are the cooler tones. When I think of autumn I tended to think of mostly orange and brown leaves. Not so here! Try FUSCHIA, purple, garnet, cranberry, salmon, coral, violet, and this neon red color that reminds me of Manic Panic. And all these fantastic colours in no small quantity!
It's like the angels had a ginormous paint ball fight.

I don't know how many of you share that frame of reference. Manic Panic is a hair dye used by punks, at least the ones at my high school. Does everyone know that brand or is it just me?

Anyway, we stopped by the beach on the way home, though it was too chilly to linger. The waves were high and rough and depositing copious burgundy seaweed onto the beach. The texture and shades of the clouds hold my attention totally rapped indefinitely. Some days they put on quite a show, and this was one of those days.

I always enjoy the perspective I find the sea gives me. I always feel in my gut this weighty sense of the profundity of God's work, of his majesty and miraculous creation. It quiets me (an accomplishment) and is like a touch of the Divine, untouchable, Infinite in a harried world.
I love it.

E-Props!

Here's a shout out to Eolaí for breaking the 8 post long, 2 month drought of comments! Thanks, Bud!

For all the lurkers, I know you are there, cause I see you on my Statcounter. You're not hiding completely. I'm left to my own conjecture however of what you leave here thinking. I of course turn it to my favor.

I choose to think you're not commenting because you are stunned speechless, in awe of my wit and wisdom. Every thought is so well laid out, so complete, self-evident and instrinsically understood to be true and universal, it leaves nothing left to add to it.

Oh, and you're all self-conscious because my coloured pencil blog banner is so much cooler than most other things on the web. That's what keeps you coming back, isn't it?I know. You just can't stop looking at my awesome creation. Who could blame you.

a day lakeside

My parents-in-law have a cabin on a lake. We went there this weekend and Anna pretended to fish.

It was beautiful. I do enjoy it there, as I do pretty much anywhere with water, I've discovered. If I was a moth, it would be my light. I am drawn to it.

Another Anna quote, from when she was colouring, and pretending to write.

"Hey Mommy, I'm writing you a message. Do you know what it says?"

"No, I don't."

She looks at me like I am crazy and answers:

"Of COURse not, ya Goose, it's just all wobbly!" Meaning, she is just scribbling, cause she doesn't know how to write yet, so how could I know what it said, since it says nothing. Silly Mommy! What were you thinking!

Grammarranter

I hate words like this.

littoral \LIH-tuh-rul\, adjective:
1. Of, relating to, or on a coastal or shore region, especially a seashore.
2. A coastal region, especially the zone between the limits of high and low tides.

Doesn't it sound lovely? Yes! Great! What a great word. Let's incorporate it into our vocabulary! NO! Because I will be the only one who does it, and then when I use it, everyone will think I'm dumb and mixing it up with literal and of course making no sense when I talk. And then I will get cross at them and they will be impatient with me and it's just not worth it. I have the same problem with consonance, which, as my high school English teacher taught, is alliteration just using consonants (assonance being alliteration with vowels). But not once in my life have I been able to use the word and had someone understand that I was not saying consonants. Spelling it out, and an extra 10 minutes of conversation to explain the one word you decided to throw out usually isn't a welcome addition to the interaction buffet, at least in my area of the world, so there's no point in knowing it. I'm stuck wanting to express myself with my colourful and specific word that is left itching inside me, trapped, unable to be unleashed and set free like the little bird it is and it causes nothing but angst and brain bruises from its poor beating wings. Excuse my overdramatism. I got caught up in the moment.

I had a similar problem that I am still bitter about when I wrote an article for an Irish magazine in Toronto, and I described someone (Paddy Canny, to be specific, if you know him, or of him) as having a snell sense of humour, which means acute, or sharp, but the editors changed it to swell without informing me and it got published that way.
I still haven't forgiven them for it.

Anna Quote of the Day

"Mommy, I smell something, and it ain't no angel mist either."

Context:
One of Anna's storybooks is about the night Jesus was born, written from the perspective of one of the shepherds. Angels come and leave angel dust on the ground and trees and angel mist, which apparently has this fantastic fragrance, that could only be angels, and all the shepherds pick up and go to Bethlehem to check it out.

This was her cute way of telling me that Niamh had pooped.

Riding the Techno Wave in Nova Scotia

We have something new, we've never had before.

What, you already have one? Well well, aren't you special.
I haven't had one in 7 years. I missed it. Old things become new again.

I was disturbed with how difficult I found it to write those names. My hand was so shaky. Gonna have to drop out of my brain surgery degree program. I was free-handing it with a sharpie on slicky curved metal, in my defense, but still, in former times I could have controlled it way better than that. Oh well. I'm sure the mail lady won't be offended.

Since I have been in Nova Scotia, we have had to drive a couple minutes down the road to pick up our mail at the gas station. Since there is no 2nd car at home for me (which I would like to say is because I am environmentally responsible and happily sacrificing my consumption for the greater good... but is more like, insurance is expensive and I often complain about not being able to consume more, to my shame), going to check the mailbox was not an option for me. We were left to wait for my in-laws t0 check for us and drop it off whenever they came.

So I am all excited now that I can check the mail everyday if I want, and I can actually MAIL LETTERS if I want! *Gasp* Which, after only having the opportunity to visit a post office maybe 4 times a year since I've been here, (you read right) access to outgoing mail is also a VERY exciting development. I don't think anyone has had a Christmas or birthday card on time in all those years. But, hey, we are in with the techno revolution now! No waiting! Ultra convenience! Woohoo!

There's no such thing!

In an attempt to soothe Anna's fear of monsters, we consistently tell her, there is no such thing.

So when Chris was leaving for work today, he and she had some exchange about why he had to go to work. He said he had to make money, she said why, and he said something to the effect of,
"I have to or the bankers will come and take our house."

Well I guess this sounded scary to Anna. Someone might come and take our house?? Surely Daddy must be kidding.

So this afternoon she was recounting this me and said, "ya, he said he has to make money so that the bankers don't take our house. But there's no such thing as bankers, right?" she said, sluffing it off with casual confidence.

And I answered, "oh yes there is."
She gasped and balked wide-eyed. "What!??!?!"
"Oh it's ok. They're not going to take our house. But yes there are bankers." And then explaining about financial systems of debt and ownership. To a four year old. That went well too as you can imagine.
Maybe I should have agreed with her. "Yep. No such thing."

Perfect Paradox

Deep Thoughts, with Jen Dandy.
Installment #2
a mere 10 months after the first episode.

I played a ceilidh last night. Mar is dual dom, I managed to omit supper from my getting-ready regimen. So I stopped at a grocery store that was on the way, and thought, I'll grab something quick. I found a little serving bottle of chocolate milk (they didn't even have the plain milk I was hoping to get), and a little insta-lunch of Stackers.

I don't usually get this kind of stuff. As much as possible, I try to not eat processed food, except for flour and dairy products. I had never had one of these Stackers things. Somehow I managed to turn it into a philosophical experience and an opportunity to pontificate.

It was so perfect. I'm not at all saying that I enjoyed it that much, rather I mean that I was amazed by this hermetically sealed, formed plastic, formed cheese, pre-prepared insta-meal. Everything was perfectly counted out; there was a perfect number of crackers to pressed meat rounds and cheeses, sitting neatly in their perfect little divided plastic sections. Not a cracker was broken, nor crumb astray. They were all formed to stack on each other in perfect little piles. There was no evidence of the stink and squawk of the turkey who gave his life for my lunch (this isn't a post about animal rights, if you were getting worried).

We also like things like this lovely shelf. I evidence this fact by the booming business of organizer products and proliferation of Neat shows on HGTV, TLC or whatever.

We have manicured lawns, impeccably mastered music recordings, tidy rows of matching boxes/baskets in our basements/closets/shelves. We all have antibacterial hand wash that so any bacteria that manages to float over and touch us will get the KO. Lets have perfection on the molecular level! Lets even program our sperm-egg combos while we're at it.

We want perfect teeth (bleach 'em, paint 'em, align 'em), perfect skin (treat it, cover it, shave it), perfect moods (we'll drug you if you're not), perfect partners (we'll divorce you if you're not).

Everything! From the font and finish of a book cover to a woman's Perfecting Concealer, everything has been thought of and somehow "improved" from its natural or former state.

And yet...

We are a bottomless pit of desperate filth on the inside and more or less content to deny our state of tarry blackness.

It reminded me of this verse, Matthew 23:27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.

I heard this quote, and will sum it up like this:

Isn't it ironic that at the end of the bloodiest century in the history of world, namely the 20th century, where we've seen the Holocaust of 6 million Jews, 20 million in Ukraine under Stalin, 50 million in China under Mao Zedong, 20% of Cambodian population under Pol Pot, 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda, just to start, that you find in the universities now a denial that there is anything called evil? And still people will maintain that one doesn't need salvation, just education.

I'm gonna go out on my uneducated limb and say that I bet most of these perpetrators were educated people.

We need Jesus. Plain and simple. We are hopeless left to ourselves. We are whitewashed tombs of rot and stench with no good of our own. Our pretty facade deceives only ourselves.

God is not fooled.

If there is a moral to my story it is that.

My primary observation in writing this was the pure irony of how perfect we hope to make our immediate world, or own personal environment and situation, and yet how deathly horrid we are under our bleached teeth and ironed shirts, to the end that we have a murderous and suicidal love affair with sin, and the denial we live in about this hypocrisy.

nice hat

We went on a day trip to PEI recently, and Anna, with her very vibrant artist's taste and love of colour, chose this hat. If the bright colours weren't enough, it also has rows of sequins. I chose homemade Gouda. We all have our kryptonite.

It was great.

I love trips.

It is beautiful there. We went over on the ferry, and it might as well have been a Caribbean cruise as far as I was concerned. Beautiful water, splashing and reflecting a coral sunset... mmm. Me loves Beauty.

I have composed sooo many entries in my head lately, I am surprised when I check back and none of them are actually on the site. I might get around to it. We'll see.

Here's a crazy Anna story. We were driving on the highway, and the following conversation ensued.

"Hey Mommy, I know how we can go fast."

"Oh ya? I thought we were going fast."

"No. Not fast enough. There's fire in the trunk!"

"WHAT!?!?! *checks rear view... sees nothing* What do you mean, Anna?"

"You can't see it, but it's in there. That's how we go fast. The fire comes out of the trunk and then we go supa dupa fast."

"Is that so?"

"Yep."

Niamh hacks Mommy's Blogger account

Dear blog,

Attention babies!
Bored? I figured out how to get like 4 baths a day! Mommy wouldn't just put you in there cause you asked or point at it (she's too busy.. ya right!), but if you totally get filthier than filth, she will! Here's what I do. Take whatever you are given for you meal- oatmeal, potato salad, anything works. Grab handfuls of it, squeeze it through your fingers to start, and shmear it through your hair like shampoo. Try to get it in your ears, up your nose, up and down your arms like lotion, massage your scalp with it. I mean take mess to a whole new level. I guarantee, you will get a bath! It works for me every time!
Party in da tubby!

what I see

Incredible injustice.

I watched one of those unsanctioned bootleg online videos of the opening ceremonies in Beijing, and all I could think of the whole time, was the money, the money, the money, burning and gone with every amazing and gorgeous display of fireworks, millions more in costumes and manpower. There must have been a zillion individuals involved in performing. Then there is facilities, power consumption, you name it. All these people attending these events are not hurting for money. They are not going hungry.

Watching the huge explosions and grandeur, I could not get the picture of a small hungry child out of my mind. Blame too many Compassion infomercials if you want, but it is a reality. How many could have been fed, given medicine, shelter, education etc. with the mad money expended at this kind of stuff? Maybe this is wildly oversimplified, but picturing the laughing, indifferent affluent, partying and having a great time while another suffers hopelessly and helplessly is just desperately sad to me, and I do believe justice will be served on the other side.

and the winners are:

Nobody.
Well, nobody guessed right, but I love your attempts! Thanks for participating in my vain activity!

To end the suspense:

Why am I a toucan? Well, the answer isn't perfectly wholesome, it makes an anatomical reference to something I have two of.

Why am I a daisy? Cause I'm pretty but I stink.
I can't help that I really like Mexican food.

Such flattering terms of endearment from the ol' hubby. ☺

Two riddles

Kinda.

If I was a bird, I would be a toucan. Why?

If I was a flower, I would be a daisy. Why?

The first person with the right answer wins my uproarious laughter.

I will give answers later, but not until I have at least a couple guesses in the comments.

Here's a clue: my husband Chris has dubbed me with these attributes.

Good luck, and happy guessing!

for the record...

I thought of these first.

Brain Rain

When it's like a desert out there, rain is sooooo refreshing. It turns dust into productive soil, and a dry hole into a pool.

And when cool things happen that stimulate your mind and your artistic muse, it is similarly rejuvenating.

I played a ceilidh last night with a great fiddle player who was driven'er as they say here, and that was musically great. Some of the best playing I've done in while, which was nice, cause I was wondering if I had lost it entirely. When you get a mojo going with another musician, I am amazed and what it pulls out of you that mightn't otherwise have been there. So fun.

So that was cool. And then I noticed against the wall, an older gentleman who had Is féidir liom JIG a dhéanamh written on his t-shirt. That's Irish, by the way, and I knew those shirts are only available in the Gaeltacht in Ireland, or online, but probably this guy had at least visited a Gaeltacht, so I had to meet him. He came up to me at the break and when asked, yes, he spoke Irish, and come to find he is from Conamara (a Gaeltacht), and is familiar with the area where I stayed, has worked near there etc. We had almost 15 minutes solid of Irish conversation which was super encouraging and fun for me: encouraging that I understood him, and he me. I press on in my goal! Then after playing a tune on the tin whistle he told the crowd that one of the reasons he had come to that town was to meet me, and how impressed he was that I sound like a native! Yay me! :)

This sounds egotistical I guess, but if you know me, you know I'm just excited for affirmation, since I have done soo very much of this as an auto-didact, I'm not super confident in my pronunciations etc. sometimes.

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I have a new game I play. It's called give-the-phone-to-Anna-when-a-telemarketer-calls. Anna likes the game too. I like hearing her responses to their requests for one of her parents, and her attempts at making conversation with them.

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some of Anna's English:
covereds = cupboards
tugga four = tug of war
their chuthers = each other
high hill shoes = high heel shoes

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One of the best rains on my brain of late has been that I have been somewhat frequenting

here...

*sigh* aaaahh yes, fresh beachy watery airy goodness how I love you.

Did I mention this is 5 minutes from my house?

That is Atlantic Ocean by the way.

Did I mention that I have lived here 6 years and it was 6 years ago when I first visited this beach, then didn't see it again til this summer when I have become a bit more vocal about my wants, and I've been half a dozen times in the last month nearly. And it is love...

To All 1 Year Olds: A Notice:

FYI: Cream of Wheat is not finger food.

You have now gotten the memo.

Don't miss next week's installment: Our Friend, Gravity!

Here's a sneak peek!
He's the one who pulls the food off your spoon onto your lap when you hold it upside down!
He's the one who makes you crack your head on the floor when you walk backwards off the edge of the chair!
He's the one that pours the contents of upturned food bowls and drink cups onto the floor!
He's the one that makes balls and toys come hit you in the head when you throw them up in the air!
He's the one that makes Mommy's... uh, never mind.

Basically if it was up, and then it went or is going down, you can blame him.
He's kinda like a floor magnet.

Knowledge is half the battle!
Tune in to next week's edition for techniques on avoiding incidents thanks to this ubiquitous and pesky force!

If I were an artist...

I would paint a picture of how I feel right now.

I would use a lot of bright colours.

I am invigorated.

I just got home from a trip to Halifax, and though I could give all kinds of stats to try and quantify and validate why this was big and wonderful for me, I really don't care to, as I weary of feeling like I have to find excuse for my feelings. So in this post, they will just be as they are, unqualified.

I so loved it.

There was one image that kinda sums up the trip for me. We did a lot of walking, in beautiful Cape Cod style neighbourhoods. Through one there was a bridge running over a stream , with a series of small waterfalls on one side. At one point, because of the arrangement of boulders etc., there was a 3 ft square ish pool of water that only seemed to swirl in itself. It wasn't plugged in to the flowing fresh current of the stream over the falls. Water would run/trickle over into it, but then was kinda stuck there. It would swirl around in circles, not going anywhere, at least not at any pace more than a gradual drain, with foam on it and looking kinda murky. The rest of the water rushing over the falls was clear as glass. It looked bright and alive and on the move. It looked like it was full of diamonds.

I can really identify with that little pool of water.

I feel like I got to run in the clear water for a couple days.

Refreshing.

I got to see beautiful things, and spend time with wonderful people, especially a friend I dearly miss. I feel more impetus for life, and for being better able to embrace it.

This was the view from my hotel room. Purrty. ☺ Beauty does a body good.

G.I. Jomance

Anna's little neighbour friend has one of those foot tall G.I. Joe dolls and she brought him over to play a couple days ago. In the hands of two 3-4 year old girls, however, he loses all his macho in a big way. They even named the poor mute guy Romance, his sealed plastic lips unable to defend himself against this imposed image revamping. He was Prince Charming, and the purpose of his big muscles was merely to save Rapunzel from the tower. No shooting or wrestling or sweating. He was probably minty and/or Axe fresh when he rescued her too.
---------------------------
I have apparently finally acclimated to Nova Scotia. Every year until now, I never found the summer hot. It never got as warm as Kansas City, so I was comfortably enjoying what the locals felt was sweltering. This year, everything changed, and I knew it was changing over the winter. I wore my actual winter coat, maybe twice over the whole winter, and that only while building snowmen for hours. My unlined denim jacket sufficed otherwise, plus a scarf of course, because I am a white person after all.

However, this summer, barely here, has not even reached 80 yet, and I have already begun sweating, and been borderline to complaining about "the heat," which would not have hitherto have been acknowledged as such. In former years, I was just finally taking off my sweater. I was always embarrassed to be standing behind a girl in the grocery store who was wearing shorts, a tank and flip flops, while I still had my scarf on, socks, boots, and had not yet identified where in storage my tank tops were.
Adaptation does apparently happen.
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Two cool quotes from today:
"The only way to see is to shut my eyes, to gaze on that which I cannot see."
Anna: "I wish I could hug Jesus...."
me: "Me too, Sweety."

acorns and an old doll?

Anna went on an overnight camping and fishing excursion with Nanny & Grampy this weekend. she caught a trout while fishing in a brook. She got so very excited when she caught it that she totally forgot herself and forged out into the stream, well over her boots, after that fish. When it started to take off on her, she tried to stop it with her boot! I love the visual of her big eyes, probably squealing, wildly stomping and slapping at the water trying to catch a fish with her foot.

With Grampy's help, she did end up catching it, and ate it, the WHOLE thing, for her lunch the next day. She was so proud.

Then after the fish experience, they were picking strawberries, and at one point in the picking Anna stopped and said to Nanny & Grampy, "When I was young, we didn't have strawberries. I only had some acorns and an old doll to drag around."

It is not necessary to say that everyone split themselves laughing at this tale of unknown origin. Hilarious. Great old-fashioned entertainment.

I love leaves.

I love it when this....

becomes this...

and this.

Jenni smiles. She likes it a lot.

back from vacation

I wish. In reality, I am beginning the third week of not leaving my house.

But I am here to say, you know what one of my favourite things is about having kids? Cause there are a number of them:

One of my favourite things is how being around them takes you back to my own youth, and I can remember feelings and experiences that would otherwise have remain untriggered, pushed into some old storage box in the attic of my brain.

I love remembering the feeling of no schedule or time limitations. Remembering being so unconscious of self and unafraid of men's judgments on you: such freedom. Exploring the veins in a leaf for as long as I felt like laying there in the grass. Listening to an entire symphony on headphones, giving my attention to nothing else, eyes closed, absorbing every nuance and colour. I probably sang along too. I'm sure that was brilliant to observe.

I would put on a 2nd Chapter of Acts or Phil Kaeggy album and dance around my house like a nut job. I loved it. I thought I was amazing. I would play air piano along with the band on the coffeetable. Actually, that`s not true. I played air piano on the top of this big stone elephant that I assume was a plant stand, I don't know what else you would do with it, except play air piano that is.

Fun times.

blabby bloggy

Optimism is on vacation in Florida.

I miss music. I miss long extended sessions of sitting with tapes, rooting through someone's obscure repertoire and gleaning some new choice prizes for mine. I miss the inspiration of learning. Music and otherwise. I miss the chemistry of playing music with other humans. Laughing and enjoying each other's company.

I get tired of no sidewalks and that means muddy shoes.
I get tired of insufficient social interaction and seeing something besides my own kitchen rather infrequently.
And there's a few others,
But when Spring, glorious Spring comes, and I walk even so much as down my driveway, and the crisp sea wind blows my hair back, and I smell the chlorophyll and the wildflower blossoms, and look out to the ocean, the brilliant blue sky, the whole earth is just bursting with rejoicing and praise, exalting its Creator, I am recentered and contented.

So, walk into your driveway for pete's sake and stop complaining!

Yaaa. Well, it doesn't work that way EVery time...

Anna says:

A couple weeks ago Niamh broke a mug of my grandfather's and I cried. I was already homesick and stressed feeling. Then a couple days ago I was scooting Niamh away from the table so she couldn't get to my current mug. Anna had me explain to her why I scooted her and I did.
"... and if she breaks your mug you will cry and weep!"

Weep??? I don't think I'll weep for pete's sake. I cracked up laughing.
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We were dropping off a friend from church at her house after the service. It was the first time we had given her a ride so Anna inquired, and I explained. Later in the trip, she piped up glibly from her booster seat in the back, "Ok Mommy: you can just drop me off at Tim's."
Ya, right. Dream on.
--------------------------------
This summer it will have been 2 years since my mom was able to visit.
Yesterday Anna packed a little backpack and said,
"I'm going to Kansas City. I'm going to find Mimi! Bye!"
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Pulling into the grocery store parking lot, Anna sighed romantically and said,
"Oh, isn't this a marvelous place?"
Wow, we need to get out more.

If Niamh could blog

Dear Blog,
It's really too bad Mommy's hips aren't bigger, so that there would be room for entire villages, as well as myself, of course. She could be an incredible asset in war torn areas. She could go in, and carry everyone on her hip, and they would all be safe there! I am invincible there; it would be great for all those poor people to also be safe there. She wouldn't mind. I know when I am scared, which is pretty much anytime I see a person that is not my parents, sister, or grandparents, and I start to quiver and bawl in fear, I'm always relieved and safe as long as Mommy holds me. And of course the milk is so comforting! I'm sure Mommy wouldn't mind sharing that with everyone across the world who needs comfort too. She doesn't mind me having some whenever the mood strikes me, which is most any time.

*smiles*sigh* I would share her hip with other suffering individuals in the world.
Mmm, happy thoughts. Mommy's hip... mmm... I'm safe from the vacuum. She's tricky my Mom. She can carry me while she changes clothes, brushes her teeth and washes her face, washes the dishes, does laundry, did I mention vacuums? I love my Mommy. :)

Would you like some cheese with your whine?

I feel like I'm losing myself. Not in the spiritual, absorption-into-God cool kinda way either.
I used to have a niche in an Irish session- don't anymore. Could no longer hold my own there.
I don't feel I fit in at church, in a university, with fiddlers or in a symphony, with my blood family (the family I came from, not Chris and the girls). It is confusing. Where do I fit? With whom?

I feel reduced to a function. I have thought a lot about this post from my friend Katherine, where she says, M is for Mom, not maid. I laughed out loud when I read that, saying, Oh, is it?

I suppose it is part of life, and its cycles. I had seasons where I could develop my interests and pursue them, and now I am mostly tasking. The predetermined to-do-for-others list every day more or less indicates that I am an adult now, as opposed to being someone to be pitied. I am a grown up and everyone has to do it, whether they are at a paying job all day, selling their life for a house and groceries, or at home with the kids wiping bums, your time is not your own.

I hear a ''Suck it up, Princess'' somewhere in my head, and I know where from.
You know who you are. ☺

Don't worry, I'll get over myself. Misery loves company, so here I am sucking you into my vacuum. Oh - sorry! I thought you were the curtain! my bad.

Anna's quote of the day: ''Wow, Mommy! You are so tall!!''
Also, she has renamed the 7 dwarfs: Lumpy, Dumpy, Frumpy, Bumpy, Zitsy, Ritzy and Ditsy.
Lovely, isn't it?

I'm stealing Martha's quote of the day thing.
I have a couple from today.
after hearing Jesus Christ sung in a song, she asked,
"Why does Jesus cries?"

Eating and enjoying an apple, she exclaimed,
"God makes the BEST food!!"

These don't compete with Martha's quote from her son,
"Why would you be tired, Mommy?"

"I don't know Pablo Rodriguez."

"Neither do I. Does he play the fiddle?"

Makes sense, eh? No?
I know.
But it is what I swore I heard someone say the other day when in fact they had said,
"I don't know a thing about fiddle music."
Don't ask me how I got the 2 confused. I really must be half deaf. I'm sure Chris would concur.
------

So I've gone back and forth with myself a lot on whether or not to talk about MS stuff here, but that is part of the reason I started this blog, to have a venue to say freely what I mightn't otherwise, as stated before.


I've started taking walks. The weather is nicer (positively heavenly today), it is good for me, I need the exercise, the girls and I need fresh air and to get out of the house. Thus the institution of a new tradition.
But during and after each walk I've had some kind of weird malfunction. The last time it felt like my dentist had rammed shots of Novocaine all over my thighs. The good part, I suppose, is that recovery time seems to be getting progressively shorter. My first walk left me unable to control my feet well enough to stepdance for the whole evening, but my last one was better within 10 minutes. So that's cool. I'm still unnerved to be seeing pretty much daily, not entirely predictable activity, however. Had some emotional upset from it too, but am not going around all freaked out or anything. I still feel confident that whatever happens should be gone soon enough, so when it comes on I don't get too worked up. That does not mean I like it.

I get periods of weakness, where I can't really lift Niamh, or cut through cheddar cheese, but it passes. It was bad for a while where I didn't have the strength to lay Niamh down in her crib. That was an unmentioned reason why I couldn't get her to sleep in her crib for a long while. I couldn't lay her down gently enough, I would always wake her with a plunk. How I groaned after the work into the last 45 minutes of getting her asleep and getting that close to total crib-sleeping nirvana, only to have my hopes of free(er) time dashed on the rocks of an unhappy, sleepy child's cries. It is hitting me more, the potential reality of a reduced functionality in the future, a future that I can imagine now. Maybe that sounds fatalist, but as I pointed out before, that's not always entirely bad.

That'll suffice for my complaining today. Loves to all y'all.

One final thing that is probably only funny if you grew up as a long-haired female in the 90's like me:
Do a Google image search for scrunchie. Kinda cracks me up.

conspiracy theory #1

I think Weight Watchers got together with Christie to make sabotage packaging. It is singularly the most noisy plastic to manipulate that I can think of, making access to the cookies an affair of volumous announcement.

In other words, you can't get them quietly, no way, no how. There is no hiding it.
Everyone in the house will know -
JEN IS GETTING A COOKIE.
*crinkle*crackle*rumple*
JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.
*crack*smoosh*gerkl*

This is not helpful.

a new painting

This is one of my mom's newer ones. I am a poopy photographer, and it is washed out from reflections etc. But I still wanted to try to share it. I like it. :) I love my mom's work. She has done some really amazing stuff over the years.

your muscles are talking

I have always been fascinated with physiognomy. I watch people (yes, be paranoid) and how their muscles move, how their expressions are formed, affects, etc. It often is telling for self-consciousness, nervousness, pride, and others. Very interesting to me.

My favourite, however, is a baby. They are so perfectly natural. No affects yet. No mimicry. No self-consciousness. I love it. No weirdness. Totally genuine and pure.

Today is the 3rd day in a row that Niamh has taken a one hour nap in her crib. Why is this newsworthy? She hasn't slept more than 10 minutes in her crib for the last 2 months. So yes, I am excited, and I am hoping and believing that this is the beginning of a new era in independent sleeping. She is 11 months now, so we're all good and ready for some normalized sleep habits.

She is also walking exclusively. I haven't seen her crawl at all in a week now.

I was talking to Anna about likes and dislikes, and how everyone has different ones. She said, "I like three things. My baby, Niamh Eileen, Nanny, and Santa. And presents."
I didn't bother telling her that was four. I was very glad that Niamh was included her in list of likes though! Yay! I hope and pray it will always be that way.

false assumption

heard last night at a 50th birthday party:
scene:
someone hands me a Bailey's and I make an unsure expression.
"OH go ahead!" another female attendee encourages me.
"Your baby is 10 months! It's not like you're nursing!"
*laughter erupts*

uhmm... nope. Not at the moment that is. If Niamh had been there, the likelihood that I would be nursing at that moment would be pretty good though. I had to laugh at the assumption that of course one is not still nursing at 10 months.

flushing diamonds with dung

Many posts are simmering. I will complain in this one about how youth is wasted on the young.

I have been SOO discouraged from encounters with teens lately. One was complaining about how school is useless and boring, how it is so ridiculous that they are learning about World War II. "It's over," she argued with annoyed indignance. "It's done, it's in the past. It isn't happening now, so why would we need to learn it? " *rolls eyes*

I was so blown away I was speechless to even argue with her. Why? Goodness sakes, where do I begin? There are so many reasons. The utter disrespect and cluelessness as to the pain and suffering of so many people, and the people who put themselves in the line of fire for someone else so she could be leading this comfortable affluent life. The self-absorbed world of these teens, while I will likely get comments saying, oh they all are that way, you were too, or whatever, is making me nuts. Ya, Girl, you're right. Who needs education. Pffh.

I talked to another guy who recently became active, we shall say, with his girlfriend, and was kinda proud of it. His cocky demeanor nearly made me vomit. HE was not spared the earful of my first individual. He was willingly oblivious to emotional and spiritual impact on either of them or any potential physical repercussions. Throwing away precious gifts of purity. A completely topsy turvy value system to my perspective. No no, this short term physical thing is TOTALLY worth potential parenthood, disease, emotional disability and spiritual corruption! Sure, why not! Sounds great. Who needs God, who needs health or wholeness.

Then there is the plethora of little people (who am I to talk, I know :P) I see on Facebook, people I know in our community here, who play with sin. Walk the tightrope, dabble in this or that, and then come and play church. I am not even sure if they know what they are doing. I feel certain they don't understand severity or implications of their actions. SO much is bound up inside me when I see this. I am successfully containing all manner of screams, running over and shaking them and falling on the floor with tears, begging them to heed wisdom. That's what I'm doing on the inside.

I've also had more MS activity lately, which very effectively drives the point home to me of the tremendous value of the strength and energy (and TIME) in youth. That it is cluelessly taken for granted and wasted on video games and flirting with sin is just bringing me to the edge of psychosis.

so, waddya wanna know?

I have a lot of questions about what is appropriate to actually be including on this globally public format. (unless you happen to live in a restricted access country)

The issue of information availability is seeing increasing attention as it becomess increasingly problemmatic .

I have friends who hide pretty well nothing in their blogs and/or online profiles, save bedroom details, and some who don't even disclose the names of their children, assigning them a letter or fake name. They keep things pretty anonymous.

I just realized in thinking about it, that if one wanted, they could follow the link trail and learn:
all about my daily life and schedule,
religious beliefs, church affiliations,
how much and what supplements I take,
how and when I've had any MS exacerbations
what books I read, have read, plan on reading and what I thought about them,
mine and all my family member's names, birthdates and ages,
plenty of pictures of me and my family and some of my house,
most all my likes, dislikes and hobbies,
favourite games and hobbies of my children and family,
my group of friends and associates,
you name it.

The only thing that was not right out there was my phone number and address which one sec: yes, I checked, they are available on Canada 411. Everything but the street address.

That's kinda freaky. I love being able to share all my intimate thoughts with my friends who are not local to my area, (that would be, uh, pretty much ALL of you), and just venting my feelings in general. However, I'm starting to have a little paranoia about the readily available nature of it all, to anyone less friendly. Not just blogging, although it discloses a lot, but also on social network site profiles. Hmph. What to do.

love/hate relationship

with these 2 websites.

Play Blogger is a real-time slideshow of whatever photos people upload to their blogs. So it can be anything. At all. Sometimes it is boring, but other times it is riveting. I find myself living vicariously through other people's lives, their travels and trip pictures, restaurant plates, you name it.

Irish KC is as it sounds kinda. It is the blog of a Dubliner who lived in KC for 8 years, and wrote humorously about the differences between the 2 places. Having a connection on both ends, I find it riotously funny. And stupidly time consuming. I know I am setting myself up for everyone to say, "well, Jenni, you are clearly spending too much time online," after my last post.

Ya, well, shut up.

Poor Niamh is a little confused. Although toilet sounds like toy, it is indeed, not. *Sigh* so for now I will scrub the thing every day, at least, with touch ups in between. For those times when I or someone else forgets to close the bathroom door.

techno world part 2

I remember renting VCRs. We only became the owners of one when I was maybe in grade 6. We would go to our local grocery store and rent a couple videos and the silver monster of a VCR for the weekend of movies.


You had to be kind and rewind, because pushing play didn't automatically start you at the beginning.


If you jogged with your walkman, you might get a bruise on your thigh from it slapping against your leg, and you couldn't even attempt in with the discman, because it would do nothing but skip, and you would be lucky if you could get through one whole cd without having to change the batteries anyway.

I remember the days PG (pre-Google), going to the library when you had to do a paper, looking through the card catalogue, then searching the rows of shelves for the number of the book you found, on the paper card. A book, made with paper, and a reference number scotch taped to the bottom of the side binding. Be quiet, go sit down and read a while only to find this book talks about your topic, but only aspects totally unhelpful to your specific paper. Rinse, repeat: like ten times.

Now it's just - Google it. You only have to ferret out your search results, scan a few irrelevant web pages. But you don't get to hold and smell any books in this process.

Speaking of doing a paper, I remember how completely shell-shocked I was when. in university, I learned I couldn't hand in hand-written papers anymore!!!! What? You're kidding, right? How can they possibly say that? What is happening to this techno world. How can I do that. I don't even own a typewriter... hmph.

I was talking to a friend recently who was shocked that my mom didn't have Internet. "How does she get pictures of Niamh?" she queried, full of concern, and slightly confused. I told her I print them out, and mail them to her. In a paper envelope. "Oh. Right."

-------------------------------------------------

I have another speech brewing. It will likely never come to fruition as I will never find answers I'm satisfied with sharing. Right now it is just these questions:

Why do we have less time with all these supposedly time saving "conveniences"?

Why, with so many more means of communication, do we truly connect less, and have less community?


The discrepancy between what they did in the old days compared to what I do today is mind blowing to me. I personally know a lady who raised 13 kids, had an alcoholic husband (safely assume, not a big help around the house or with the kids), no indoor plumbing, grew and ground their own flour for the bread that she baked, you name it. She says she built a big wooden box into which she would throw the children when she had to make the trek out to the well for a bucket of water, so they could only hurt each other and nothing else while she was gone.


How in the world did she manage? I can't comprehend accomplishing that much every day.

Of course she didn't blog. But I really don't spend that much time blogging. Once or twice a week max, 30 minutes-ish. Sometimes I go a couple weeks.

I don't have to scrub my laundry on a board, or spend an hour or more hanging it out to dry. What/Who/Where is the real time bandit? Where does the guilt fall for the great Black Hole of Time?


I am looking into it. I'll let you know what I come up with. I just started a good book (made of paper) that will help me with this at least a little bit.


Input?

and I just thought He was tidy

Ooooh, but it is so much more than that.

I just came to a better understanding of a verse (a dull way of saying, I got goosebumps and tingles in my tummy) through some cultural information that would have been common knowledge to the people of Jesus' day.

The verse is John 20: 6-7. It is describing the time after Jesus rose from the dead, and a couple disciples came to the tomb, and this is what they found:

6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.

I believe that everything in the Bible is there for a reason- that God is purposeful and doesn't include anything just to fill space. So why did He bother to mention that the handkerchief was folded and separate? And why didn't Jesus just let it drop to the ground in a pile when He got up, or toss it in with the others?

WELL, it was the custom in that day, for servants to wait for the Master's cue before touching anything on the table. Don't clear anything til he is good and done. If he tossed his hanky down in a heap and left the table, that meant he's all done.

However, if He left the hankerchief folded, that meant

He was coming back.

techno world

I've been reflecting lately on the techno explosion.
When I was in high school, nobody I knew of had a cellphone unless you were Posh Spice. If you were cool you might have a pager. I did, of course. Cause _I_ was cool!

I did not have an email address until after I graduated high school and got a job. My boss signed me up for the hotmail I still have. I didn't even know what email or the internet was. I remember hearing about the internet on the news and being suspicious of this new weird thing.

It's of the Devil, Massy!

Aahh, the days when you could count the number of emails in my inbox(s). Now there's also the social networking sites I'm embarrassed to admit to, Facebook and Myspace, even Goodreads. That's where you pretend to be intellectual and literate. At least I do, maybe other people really are.

I have already confessed to still using a walkman. Oh, and a 3.5" floppy disc.

I saw a really funny cartoon that was a cassette dressed up like Darth Vader and it said,
"Ipod, I am your FAther."

About half the people my age I know are at least moderately computer competent, being able to do some light programming. The other half laugh and say, I'm not good with computers! hehe

I know very few of my parents' generation who can program even enough to post a layout on their blog or myspace page. If they know what those are.

I know NO one of the younger generation who can't do that stuff. They all have cell phones, ipods, laptops, jump drives, and whatever else I don't even know exists.

I sound like my grandmother. (read with gravelly voice) "When I was a child, we played tag outside til the streetlights came on. We didn't spend time on the computer or check our email cause we didn't HAVE email or know how to turn on a computer. "
Since when am I old??

Determination

Struck by potential.

I mentioned once a while ago that someone, ok, Niamh, sometimes violently opposes getting her diaper changed. Picture this little fart of a kid, a 20 lb, 2 ft long baby. Not a great big bunch of muscles compared to you or me (especially me) and not much weight to be throwing around. But when she really gets it in her head that she is not getting her diaper changed, holy moly, call in the SWAT team, it is a serious effort to keep her tush on the ground and get it re-wrapped.


This 20 lb weakling, if you add to her natural muscles the force of her determined will, can almost take me. She can pretty well quadruple her strength with her pluck, if she so desires.

Am I the only one that finds that remarkable? If she really gives herself to the idea of opposing my intention for her, she has a fighting chance against someone almost 6 times her size.

It makes me wonder how much potential and productivity is drained from our endeavors because we don't put out heart and soul into it. We don't give ourselves to it. We don't give everything we've got. Why do we hold back? What are we afraid of?
What could we accomplish if only we would? Why does fear so grip us?

How intense is our desire?

Niamh can make a mild protest, and it is nothing for me to keep her there. If she really digs deep and kicks, squirms, puts all her gusto into the battle, the things she can accomplish are remarkable. And her, this tiny un-formidable form.
Am I a silly optimist or is there anyone with me on this one?
I apply it : spiritually, socially, personally.

Are we really as powerless as we may think?
Maybe we are a Hercules that hasn't yet realized it.

I asked a music mentor in high school once how far I could make it with the violin. Give it to me straight, I implored.

He answered me, "That's up to you. The only way to find out is to do it. I can't know. It depends on you. The possibilities are far beyond what we can know."

She's a quick one.

Well, well. This morning in the shower I realized for the first time that my url, bowbreath, while it originally meant the nonphysical "breath" of my violin when the bow was drawn across it, can also refer to my breath, as I am a Bowman.
Duh.

Let them eat cake.

It is a birthday after all.

I'm copping out on saying something with words or having ideas and going for more pictures.

It's funny that I consistently brag about my cakes when they are not that awesome, and not that gorgeous. Also my photography is rather lacking. But I'm still proud of my little molehills.

Somebody turned four. That is a chocolate trifle, my interpretation of her request for "Chocolate milk cake." It is supposed to have kahlua poured over the cake in a soggy but wonderful tiramisu type idea, (I have had that version and highly recommend it, for more aged company) but we omitted the ethanol for this event and added produce in the form of strawberries. Yum!
I believe that makes it healthy.

The birthday girl said it was the "best party ever!!!"
Well I'm glad you liked it, Sweety. I'm also glad to know you are not frequenting other parties -clearly, if you thought this was that great.

Niamh has started playing peekaboo from behind curtains, laptop screens, blankets, whatever she can get behind. Pretty cute.

A good time had by all.

wonders for the senses

Chocolate is to the sense of taste, what baby skin is to the sense of touch.
There is just nothing like it. Fresh from heaven, the most perfectly soft, fresh & smoothe thing ever. Watch out cashmere, velvet, rabbit down: you ain't got nothin' on this.
------------------------------------------------------

Flowering teas:
Gorgeous, delicious.


It starts with a tight little ball, and when the water is poured over it, blossoms into a beautiful bouquet in your pot. What a delight for the senses!





I was given the pot and a few balls for a gift recently. So perfect. This is a luxury item I can really get behind. Looking for a gift for a friend who is a tea-lover? Look no further. Except for where in the world you will find this to buy it. Please, Truth, don't burst my bubble and tell me that the workers are only paid a half penny per ball to sew them...

Lupin flour alert

Putting this out cause one of my friend's children went into anphylactic shock when they ate a chocolate from Belgium. His EpiPen saved his life. The kid has a peanut/legume allergy, and though this said no peanuts, it was a chocolate candy after all and most of them have potentially come in contact with peanut molecules, it still triggered a reaction. They are apparently using Lupin flour with frequency now in Europe, cutting it in with regular wheat flour, and it doesn't have to be labelled anywhere yet. But it will trigger people with nut allergies. So I'm just spreading the word, since it is potentially fatal after all, and I certainly had no clue and was shocked to hear this.
Read more here if you want.

seeking a muse

in a sea of ennui ~

such an inspirational malaise of late. Daily duties need sprinkles of delights.
Need the rumble of rumination taking flight.

I've recently discovered a new world that is inspiring me - New York hoofing. It is the new, crazy, no-sailor-suits-here tap of the young generation, and it is sweet. Check out Jason Samuels Smith or Sean and John on youtube. It is crazy awesome. Or the kathak tradition from northern India: a tradition I didn't know existed at all. This blew my mind. Ironically enough, I learned about it from a documentary on Irish television!

I artistically plateaued with everything - my dance, fiddle, piano: everything has gone stagnant, lost the spark of creativity. One heck of a nasty rut. Blech. A stinky trench.

So I've got to stretch - gotta grow. gotta move, find the flow....

Happy Valentines!

Mmm... chocolate, flowers, a card, a box of strawberries...

In my book, you can't go wrong with the classics. Especially fair-trade organic chocolate. mmmmmm.... and strawberries.... oh baby. And my favourite colours of flowers. Good job, Chris Jo! That was better than my birthday. :) Oh, and pad thai for supper was rockin too.

cocoa and flowers buys my favor anyday. Did I mention how much I love flowers? I do. They are pretty even without Mary to photograph them. :)

Jenni has music in a book.

I can't believe I've forgotten to say this until now, but I am a published composer as of December! This book came out at the New Year and I have 3 tunes in it, of which I am quite proud. I am not an avid composer at all, but the very odd time something non-regurgitated spills out, much to my surprise. My high school music theory teacher would be in shock, as she compared trying to get me to compose to dental extraction. Sorry, Ms. Gates. :)

Heard today: "Space Snakes are forever dropping off mustard pickles at the door."
Even if you had been there, it would not have made much more sense.

2nd verse same as the first

so, remember that Irish speaking Fred Sanford? I'm expanding my repertoire with Irish cowboy/hillbilly, Irish valleygirl, Irish Ernie, Irish Bert, Irish Cookie Monster, British Irish (I could almost go into convulsions on that one, the bipolar disorder -identity crisis kicking in).

At least Anna is having fun and using more Irish. If it takes me sounding like a hillbilly, I'm good with that.

Wow my house is fun, if a little strange. We'll say, distinctive.

What language is THAT?

Hi. I've been a little absentee because I'm working on other things. Remember the elation mentioned 3 posts back? So now I am working on my vocabulary etc. in an attempt to keep ahead of speed-learning children. I'm absolutely amazed at the things coming out of her mouth on a daily basis... some new words, sentence structures, etc. So exciting!

I might have before mentioned Anna's infatuaion with Shrek. Well, she pretends to be Fiona, and usually she says Niamh is donkey. Poor Niamh. Someday she will have a say in these these things. Well, Niamh must have been napping one day, and I became Donkey. Remember, that I endeavor to use Irish exclusively with her. I've also learned that one of the reasons she wasn't liking when I was using Irish was that I would do more funny voices and be sillier when I was using English. So shoot... stretch, Jennifer! I took a deep breath and did the best Irish-speaking Eddie Murphy I could muster. I was surprised, actually, it wasn't bad. I was pretty impressed with myself. Although it turned into more of a Fred Sanford from Sanford and Son after a while, the idea was still there, and it was hilarious if you are me.

But the excitement does not even end there. Who out there has seen Jonah, the Veggie Tales movie? Remember Chalil (however you spell it.)? mmmm... do you see where this is going? Yes. There is now frequently heard in this house, Irish Gaelic with a ghetto and/or Pakistani accent.

Classic.

I hope my children don't grow up too confused.

29

Happy Birthday to me!

Anna's world

Anna got a little tikes camera for Christmas and she had taken over 100 pictures within the week. This is one of my favourites. It is actually pretty! I had been journalling at the kitchen table, and that is the book and centerpiece. What lovely composition! Mind you, most of the others are unintelligible, but I had to show this one off :).

Most of them are more like this:

Also, recently heard:

"I'll be there in a gypsy!"

"JOY to the world, the Lord is fun!"

One more for the road:

My own little Everest

This cannot possibly be as cool to anybody else as it is to me.

I have been reeeally discouraged for the last, oh, year, about the progress, or lack thereof, of Anna's Irish. Mind you, I believe she understands everything I say, but she wouldn't ever use it with me. We have always had bilingual conversations in which I speak Irish to her and she replies in English, minus the odd Irish noun tossed into an otherwise English sentence.
"Mommy, can I have some bainne?" (milk)
"I'm not tuirseach." (tired-adjective, I know)
"Look at that puiscin!" (kitten)

I was just about to get downright depressed about it. I knew many people at the University of Toronto who had been raised with their parents speaking something else to them (Mandarin, Arabic, Bengali, you name it), but they always answered in English. They all reported understanding the parent language but being unable to use it themselves. I did not want this for my girls! I wanted them to SPEAK it.

Not wanting to give up, I tried to find ways to be more proactive. I joined an online group for parents raising their children with Irish (to which my brother-in-law said, "Wow, there really is an online group for EVERYthing."). I've gotten some great ideas and most importantly, encouragement, from other parents in there. I sought out Irish blogs to read, worked on my own Irish blog more which was surprisingly helpful, and made the general daily effort to be as exclusively Irish speaking to them as possible. In some literature I got from another parenting resource in Ireland, when it is only one parent seeking to pass on the language, it is recommended that that parent uses the language exclusively with the children. Ouch, I said to myself. Not possible, but I'm trying!

WELL! It has happened! Finally! Anna started using it with me all the time and I am simply ecstatic! That is part of her motivation I'm sure, that she has seen it gets her approval and some big mommy smiles, even when she might have been about to get in trouble. (no, it doesn't get her out of trouble, try as she might).

I don't think I can communicate why or how thrilled I am at this, but it feels so huge to me. Growing up in purebred mono-lingual anglophone Midwestern USA, bilingualism seemed so exotic, foreign and untouchably elite to me. I never imagined it for myself (even though I am not calling myself fully bilingual yet, since I'm not fluent at all in Irish) and to be passing it onto my kids is just thrilling. It feels like I have conquered a huge personal mountain.

Cool. :)

Memory Lane #1

For Auld Lang Syne, or old time's sake, as the song recommends, I'm making a new recurring segment, which may or may not recur more frequently than the other recurring segment which is yet to recur.

This segment is A Walk Down Memory Lane, in which I tell some old story from my life that you may or may not know or be bored with hearing, and you can chalk it up to either having nothing of interest to report in my current life, or having genuinely exciting stories from earlier in my life than bear repeating, y'know, just like old people. Which is, by the way, a category I now fit into, depending on whom you ask. High school and uni kids now think I'm old cause, I mean really, I have kids and EVERYthing... I must be at least thirty, right?

Anyway, we won't go there.

Today's story is from my summer in Ireland. I spent a couple months there, lived with an Irish speaking family for a month doing Irish immersion. This host family put up students wanting to immerse from all over the world. In the house while I was there were also 2 Polish girls, a German lady, a Dubliner and an old guy (no really, he had turned 30 more than once... working on his 3rd round) from Texas. It was interesting, to say the least.

I had been looking for a copy of the Bible in Irish to no avail. Finally after one mass I approached the parish priest to ask him if he had any idea where one could be obtained. I thought it would be great for me to be able to combine my Bible study with my language study. He seemed quite surprised to meet a young lady who actually read the Bible, and who was so interested in both God and Irish. He had no information on how to locate an Irish Bible, because, as he said, it has been out of print for some time. He saw my disappointment, but we agreed that I could keep trying the used bookstores.

A few days later, our transcontinental crew was all sitting around in lazy recovery mode after the satiating supper, and there was a knock at the door. The woman of the house answered the door and after talking a moment came in and quietly called for me to come to the door.

"Jennifer, the priest is here to see you."

However, between her soft tone and the blaring Gaelic football game on the television, she was misheard by us all, and with huge eyes and gaping gobs all the girls were looking at me, "the POLICE??!?!" What did you DO?!?!?"

What?? I didn't do anything!!! I swear! I can't think of anything anyway!

Of course my fear was alleviated when I saw the priest at the door and understood the misunderstanding.

The others, however, continued to whisper furiously back in the living room theorizing about what trouble I might be in.

The priest had come, believe it or not, to give me his own personal copy of the Biobla Naofa . (I didn't know about this site at the time) I could not believe it. I argued with him about it, but he had made up his mind.

To this day, it is one of my most prized possessions. I still want to track him down and tell him that it is actually in use, it isn't just some expensive souvenir, or token that has gone to dusty waste on a shelf somewhere. That little girl still is pursuing both God and Irish.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Everybody!!!!!

monkey see, monkey dance

I saw my friend do this, and I couldn't resist.

If you want to see the girls and me dance around in elf costumes, click this link.

It took me about nine million tries before the site decided to save my pictures, and by the nine million and oneth time, my patience was waning and my skepticism was flourishing, so the photo edit was better on any number of the early tries, as I got sloppy later on, thinking, it won't save anyway.... oh well.

Tao of Poo

not Pooh.. but poo. Oh, you thought I meant this cute book? ha.. ha.. no.

you've been a SAHM not getting out enough when you start pontificating on waste.

There's that whole, 'the natural speaks of the invisible' principle, and observations in that vein teach me most about life, and well, I happen to be dealing with a lot of poo, as any mother does, and I can't turn off my observations, soooo... here I am with readers dropping like flies...
(she's not really going to talk about poo is she??)

2 things I've noticed:

The intensity/strength/potency/foulness of what comes out of us increases as we get older. The more impure that goes in, the more impure that comes out. Literally and figuratively. A newborn babes waste has virtually no odor. The more foods are introduced however, the more stink, with an exponential jump when meat is introduced. Then as adults we eat all manner of processed and unhealthy stuff and watch out - phew!

I want to say it is the same with our mind/soul. We have and continue to take in more and more impure things, and our output becomes more and more foul. I am thinking of all the sinful things of the world we are exposed to - and commit ourselves - that corrupt and pollute us spiritually.
Is it too much of a stretch if I liken the meat to our conscious, informed and still sinful choices? Wouldn't those constitute some of the real moral 'stinkers'?

I know for myself, I remember when I was younger, in grade school, and first learned about someone calculating a manipulative argument with me. They knew how I would respond to something, and lied to get a desired response. I was absolutely floored, as I couldn't even imagine thinking that way. That wasn't honest. It would not have even occurred to me to behave that way. Now, unfortunately, it does occur to me. I have to choose not to act on the sinful ideas that are now in me. Yuck. My corruption has gotten more stinky.

This one is less universal but still on the poo theme.
I know a child whom I won't overtly incriminate, but who really doesn't like to have their diaper changed. She hates hates being dirty, but the actual laying down and cleaning process she has a serious aversion to. She will lay there and cry through the whole thing. Let me go! Let me get up! And I thought, y'know, metaphysically, I can relate. I'm like that with God. I don't like my crap, but I don't like having to get it cleaned either. I wish it were as easy as wiping a wet rag over me to rid me of sinful habits/thoughts/motives/actions. But nooooo. These have ingrained for years and they are right in my nature. That doesn't excuse any of it, but gives one reason why they are not easy to get rid of. The other being that we are stubborn and evil and part of us loves our sin.

Thank God (literally!) that this is not the end, and HE doesn't leave us stranded with our poop. He will wipe our preternatural bottoms clean.. again and again. He is a good God and Father. He is patient with us while we make big mountains out of all our little molehills.

changing with the times... Christmas times!

Niamh , aka Spitty Gonzales, is 6 months now. How my life has changed:

*Sweeping the floor has become a game of keep away, as she is crawling, and chases the pile wherever I scoot it to. I have to pretty well keep it with me as I go.

*what I might have lost in laundry from poopy messes, I have gained in meal messes, as she is eating solids, and shares her meals with her shirt sleeves, because, of course, fingers make a perfect complement to any pureed veggie or grain.

*I can no longer take a step without looking to see that it is safe, as someone is always ending up under my feet, or even intentionally following my feet around, so as to enjoy hanging on my pantlegs, or pulling on my socks. Who wouldn't, really!

*I have to make rounds examining each room of the house a few times a day, to both locate her and certify that she has not found anything she shouldn't have.

This is turning out to be such a cool holiday season. I am FINALLY settling in to living here, feeling more at home. I'm not feeling like I'm stuck somewhere weird when I should be home with my family... I am home with my family. A good feeling.

We have had insane snow lately, and made snowmen, baked cookies, decorated trees, fire burning in the stove, you name it. It has been so festive and fun.

The girls c r a c k m e u p.

Anna plays with Niamh, gets her laughing and vice versa. Anna is sooo good with ehr, I kinda can't believe it. Niamh is so happy and good too. Loves to laugh. Now that she is crawling she will play on the floor by herself with toys. Yay for entertaining one's self!!! My arms are getting a few more breaks (HALLelujah!) and she is more content, longer.

Here she is in her Christmas dress:

I think she looks so much more grown up dressed up like that. Beautiful!

and here we are decorating the other day:

I love this season! Ignore the vacuum and holloween chip box that had th Christmas balls in it.

A very merry season to you all!

Thanks, Anna

last night in conversation:

*while patting my tummy* "Mommy, are you going to have more babies?"
*confused, replies* "Not that I know of, Sweety. Why?"
"Cause your belly is so BIG!"

...

Gee, thanks for noticing, Anna. Maybe Niamh was an inconsiderate tenant and left a bunch of her stuff behind when she moved out.
Or maybe I had too many candybars. Naaah. Can't be. You can never have too many candybars. :P

A video on education

Heya-

for anyone interested in education, your own or your children's, or the future of the world, I think that this is a super video. It is 20 minutes long, but there is a lot of good humour, and is also stimulating intellectually. A must-see for teachers and recommended for parents. I really enjoyed it, obviously, if I'm blogging it. I must think there is something of import there. The only downside is the BMW commercial at the end.

creepy coincidence

So I know these 2 ladies. One of them is from Nova Scotia, one is from Kansas. They don't know each other at all. I am their Kevin Bacon.
They have the same name.
They are both singers, both altos.
They are both blonde.
They have remarkably similar personalities, in my opinion. Remarkably.
They both had a terrible 1st marraige.
They divorced.
They remarried and had the marriage that people dream of, love love love, and were the envy of most all their friends because of it.
Their 2nd husbands were diagnosed with really similar fatal diseases, giving them 2 years to live, within a couple years of being married. One of these husbands has already died. The other is still in the 2 yr window.

I mean really. Is that not freaky? The universe is a vellly intellesting place. Creepy too, sometimes.

Any sugar daddies out there??

This is a shameless plug. My hypocritical apologies for the fishing.

Follow this here link to the Litriocht (Every Irish book in print) website, to a wishlist I have compiled. It is kinda like registering for a wedding or something... if you happen to want to buy something for Anna for Christmas or just in general, here are a few great ideas! This is a bunch of Irish books, to further the cause of bilingualism. You can pick something off my wishlist and buy it for me - er, her. There are something like 400 more books on the site in that age category. I sifted through to the 10 or so that I thought best. Although, I'm sure there are 100 others just as nice.

For Christmas delivery, time is running out! Hurry! Make a rash decision! Prices starting at only 3 Euros!

No one understands me.

Maybe I should paint my nails black.
Watch this if you don't get what I mean by that. Don't watch it with young children around. But from my background, that is hilarious.

I should clarify, since I am yet to make any sense so far this post. Some people understand me and my extremely small audience jokes, just no one with whom I'm regularly in contact.

When I'm running around the yard with Anna, I find myself making all these jokes that I crack up at, but no else gets, because they are referring to things like :

-my Grandpa's made-up language
-expressions excessively used to the point of humor by one of the sports announcers on Ireland's Raidi0 na Gaeltachta.

and other things that would just confuse the vast majority of people. Oh well.

Niamh doesn't care. She laughs with/at me even when I make these inacessible jokes. Usually. Sometimes even she gives me the blank stare.

A River Runs Through It

Did you know I had a river in my back yard?
ya, me neither.




Anna found it. You see, we have kinda clay-ish soil, and after a bunch of rain, which we have had the past week, any holes or in this case, trenches, become reservoirs. So Chris dug this trench around our garden a couple years ago to help with drainage. It was a great help to the garden. Anna calls it "the river."













These holes-come-puddles are the finest features of the yard, if you are 3. Funny, they were kinda one of my least favourite parts. While I fastidiously avoid them, she makes a bee-line for them as soon as she is released into the yard, and will spend most of her time outside jumping in them.




See exibit A:

This is her rear about half-way through this escapade.
It got a lot worse. I suppose this is just normal kids, but I always tried to stay so clean, it is funny to me.

Now all this running and play in a water-logged yard would have been great, if the bottom of my boots didn't look like this:

For your benefit and clarification, I have circled the areas on the soles where there is no longer any rubber. These shoes have served me faithfully, year round, for approximately 7 years though, so I am not criticizing. But still. I have tromped over the globe and danced many's the dance in them, but I think they have now had the biscuit (a local expression).

If anyone has about $200 burning a hole in their pocket, these would do me nicely for a replacement. :)

Mommy Superpowers

So far as I can tell, there are a few special dispensations that God gives mothers upon the birth of their children, like Lactation. But there are others.

I've seen in myself, a super power to catch dangerous flying objects, including the child themself.

Once, a wine bottle came flying off the top of our fridge headed straight for Anna's wee head. I turned, lept and *pak* - caught the flying bottle in mid-air, just like some great wide-receiver or something. Everyone looked at me with gaping mouths, in disbelief. If you know me, you know that I am NO athlete, which made this all the more difficult to swallow.

Another time Anna was rough housing with Chris on the bed, and she took a leap, and her lil' head was headed straight for the footboard. I spun around from a couple feet away, apparently having seen and perceived from the eyes on the back of my head, and shot my hand out, intercepting her head just before it bashed, like something from a superhero movie.

We can only call on these powers when they are needed. They are not just there all the time to show off with or anything.

God also gives us the ability to see invisible things. We can find lost things that take on an invisible cloak to the rest of the family. "Where's my ____?" The seeker can look and look and look to no end, staring at the desired item even, repeatedly, and not see it. Moms, however, can find these invisible things. It's a gift.

On another note, my Dad is here visiting! So if you find me absentee, that is largely why, for the next 2 weeks. Yeah! So nice for my family to meet my family, my kids, esp. with a new baby! This is the first anyone on my side has met her. :( Distance can stink. Poor Dad, this is the first time he has been to visit since 2 years ago, when Anna was only 19 months old. Crazy, eh?