Author: Liz

Life has gotten busier as the kids have gotten older, pandemic or no. It is demoralizing and destabilizing to think about how life and time just marches on relentlessly, perhaps a bit more so because I had my head down for most of this last year, hiding in my lockdown with my snacks and books and babies who are no longer babies.

Now that the kids are 3 and 6, we are doing things like going camping and going swimming and going on bike rides and sitting around during soccer practice. The above picture is from Caleb’s soccer practice, where Naomi and I hung around on the sidelines while Jon went into the shop. Here I am multi-tasking, yet another verb that has gotten a bad rap that I do basically all the time, mostly out of existential angst at life slipping past me: Caleb at soccer, reading, eating breakfast, taking a photograph for social media, and “supervising” Naomi, who is off cavorting somewhere on the other side of the park, co-mingling with other unvaccinated children, texting Jon about complicated customer service questions people are messaging me about on Instagram.

These days it seems like there is a lot of judgement around hyper competitive parents who overschedule their kids, not allowing them to have unfettered childhoods of gazing at the sky and being bored. I am striking no good balance at all, careening wildly between overscheduling them in the wrong things and underscheduling them in missed opportunities. A white lady at my church once shared with me derisively about an Asian family she knew that had scheduled their child into nightly Chinese lessons in an effort to teach them the language. What sort of childhood is that! Every night! I nodded grimly and glumly in agreement as paranoid and hyper active marbles rolled around loose in my skull, and thought to myself: where can I sign up my kids for that. My culture-less, language-less, feral children. “In the next twenty years,” the lady went on. “Everyone here will be speaking English in any case.” “Haha,” I said.

It turns out I really liked the above photo, even though relatively few people on social media actually, literally liked it. It is representative of so many of my favourite things. Reading, letter writing, coffee, a mask that I’ve sewn myself. Shade. No children. I need no reminder to slow down as all I do is think at warp speed about life seems to be zooming past me.

I have been adjusting to life these days. Naomi and Caleb are off in school, both of them in new worlds that I can only look in on from the outside. I regularly swing between unhinged and deranged and have been spending my days doing minor errands that seem to accumulate to nothing. Piles of laundry that satisfactorily get hung and then folded and then exuberantly strewn across a room by a child instructed to put them in his drawer.

Naomi’s preschool teacher sends daily photos of the activities she’s doing, crafts, and fooling around outside, and I sometimes go back and scroll through them, wondering how she’s doing, if she’s listening, if she’s learning, and then I have to wonder about what she would think about me, sitting here, looking at pictures of her. A teacher once told me how she had set up this cubicle area for a parent who wouldn’t believe that her son was misbehaving during class. She had put the parent in there, and then covered up all the walls except for a tiny peephole. Now that I’m a parent, I sometimes wish each classroom had a set up like this, although I’d probably regret asking for it shortly after sitting in it.

In any case, I’m also reading more. Maybe not more, it might be more like I’ve re-allocated some of my reading to during the day, when the kids are in school. Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw, Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee, Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries. I’ve also been listening to audiobooks and podcasts while I’m hanging laundry, vacuuming, sorting through cupboards. I recently finished Michelle Obama’s Becoming which took two years for me to get through the library holds system. Lots of stories, lots of ideas.

Caleb is now 5, and is halfway through his second year of kindergarten.

Starting earlier in this calendar year (when he was 4.5), I began reading easy chapter books aloud with him, which marked a real turning point in our reading relationship. Gone (almost) are the days where I read and reread and reread the same picture books over and over! We’re now entering into stories of kids and adults and adventures and thickened plots and tough decisions.

We read through the Mercy Watson series, Ricky Ricotta, The Magic Treehouse, Nate the Great. In all honesty I first started with Harry Potter because I had no idea how or where to start, and I got a beautiful illustrated version of the Philosopher’s Stone. Caleb stayed the course with me, despite much of it being clearly above his head. While there is some benefit in listening to books that are too difficult being read by a parent—familiarity with certain names or language like Hogwarts or the concept of Harry going to a magic school that will make a re-reading at maybe age 7 or 8 much richer—particularly if there are illustrations and someone is willing to pause at certain points to have a chat, I wouldn’t start with that again, certainly not at 4.5.

So I spent some time getting recommendations from librarians and book stores and browsing shelves, along with searching up lists online. I found it a bit difficult because many lists for kindergarteners were geared towards really great picture books, and many chapter books were meant for kids who were able to read chapter books on their own, so a bit too advanced in vocabulary or theme. We bumped along.

Over time, we began reading more complex books, like The BFG or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We recently finished My Side of the Mountain, which Caleb very much enjoyed. There was a lot of language there that was new to him, and I’m sure a lot of the nuances of the descriptions of Sam’s manufacturing of his tools or some of the nature vocabulary were also quite complex, however, Caleb really got into the idea of Sam’s running away from the city and being an intrepid and resourceful and independent boy, living in the woods in his tree hut.

Following that we took went into a different direction with Ramona—naughty, belligerent, wild child, entering into kindergarten—which was also fun. Caleb, not being particularly naughty himself, still enjoyed listening to how and why Ramona got into trouble, and was both a bit aghast and delighted at Ramona’s chutzpah.

What really spurred on this blog post, though, is that we’ve now started Abel’s Island, a book about a “civilized” mouse (who wears clothes and reads books) who gets picked up by a flood and stranded out on an island, and who then has to survive in the wilderness in an effort to either get rescued or rescue himself. I picked it up off the shelf at the library, never having heard of it before—it’s won a Newbery Honor, it has a good balance of illustrations to text, and it seemed like a good length for us.

Diving into it, though, I realized it had quite a lot of new language for a 5 year old—words like inhabitant, prolonged, primitive, beacons, equinoctial rains, branches proliferated—and yet, I couldn’t believe that I was willing to get into it, and, even more incredible, Caleb’s receptiveness to listening. Just a few months ago, I would never have attempted this, but through My Side of the Mountain, Caleb already had a lot of familiarity with the concept and words of living out in the woods: the changing of the seasons and the need to prepare for winter, foraging for food, and Abel’s different and various efforts to make it back across a river. Also, Caleb’s ability and focus in understanding more complex sentence structures and oral comprehension has also increased. He has really gotten into this story as well, especially with Abel’s efforts at crossing the river. He should build a bridge! Like with his grass ropes! And he should get some sticks!

I wonder a lot about this process of reading aloud to him. How often do we stop to discuss things versus allowing the flow of a book to carry him along, even if there are some gaps in understanding? How will we manage when Naomi, now 2.5, is old enough to start easier chapter books—will we go back and re-read Ramona? Or will we voyage on at Caleb’s level?

I recently heard from someone that they prefer to let their children guide and pick the books they’d like read aloud to them, because they want their bedtime reading time to be a time when their kids are fully absorbed in the stories and are thus growing into children who love reading. The two parents divide and conquer at bedtime so each child can pick their own book.

I mean, of course (of course!) I want both Caleb and Naomi to grow up to love reading. I wonder about my iron rule. Caleb occasionally gets to pick a Captain Underpants book that we’ll get through at bedtime, but otherwise, we read his Spider-Man books or his science books during the day or at breakfast, and he waits to see what the next book is at bedtime. I also want to read to the two of them together, to have these stories woven into their childhood. Even if perhaps Caleb and Naomi wouldn’t naturally be as interested in the same stories, maybe they will benefit from hearing them together, one influenced by the other’s enthusiasm. Or—would it be the opposite: one ruining the other’s enjoyment??

In the balance between allowing kids to choose their own books and exposing them to good literature, I worry I fall too heavily on the desire to expose them to the good stuff. The Good Stuff. I certainly wouldn’t want to make Caleb suffer through anything he really didn’t like, although we haven’t had to abandon anything (yet) because of either parent or child’s belligerence—whether it’s because Caleb is a kid who’s willing to give anything a go, or because we’ve had good luck (and good assistance) in finding the right books so far. Not all of these books will change his life, but maybe a few of them will.

To be honest, I don’t really want to read Geronimo Stilton at bedtime because I feel like once he masters independent reading, he will read those on his own, with their silly, cheesy jokes. Haha! Look, I’ve already summed up 35 of the Geronimo Stilton adventures. I want to walk through some of these richer, more meaningful journeys, with him, where we can discuss challenging passages, or debate what characters should do next. Will Abel get off this island, mama?? Who knows! There isn’t enough time! We still have to get through The Wizard of Oz, and the Jungle Book, and Robinson Crusoe, and Little Women, and Little House on the Prairie, and Treasure Island, and, and, and.

Books that he might not choose to or be able to get through totally on his own.

I think to myself, wouldn’t it be such a gift, to send him off into the world as an adult, with so many stories in his head and in his heart. And then I think, but of course, what 5 year old doesn’t need Captain Underpants every once in a while.

That’s all to say, it’s of course a balance, and I’m always teetering the wrong way. I continue to ruminate and tweak and throw the spaghetti at the wall. I’m probably over complicating things, but I also want to be intentional about these years I have with the two of them. I want them to love reading, and to grow up being readers. I want them to know what’s out there, to help them discover Neverland, whose faded pastel cover could never compete with a glossy foil Batman, to give them the language, and new ideas, and bigger dreams.

I’ve been flogging the dead horse of whining about how the Parliament Street Library has been closed for months for renovations, but I flog no more. 

It originally closed sometime in May, with an estimate of opening again in July. We were traveling through the summer, so I was looking forward to seeing it when we returned in August. The next update was September, then late September, then—a light!—an official date: October 7th. I asked for my holds to be transferred to Parliament for October 7th, but alas, more delays, and my holds were sent back to St. Jamestown. Having learned their lesson from pronouncing an actual date, the library went back to “mid-October.”

And then! With no ado at all, the doors opened. I wouldn’t have even noticed had I not been hounding the staff relentlessly.

And so the Parliament Street branch has opened again, and the relief is palpable. I feel like a troll that’s wandered out from underneath a darkened bridge, eyeballing all the new fixtures that basically look very similar to how they looked before. Apparently most of the extended renovations had to do with structural issues that, fixed, are I suppose not exactly noticeably different. I’ve been talking with/harassing all the librarians I could corner during this renovation downtime, if you didn’t get that sense.

I realize this all sounds slightly ridiculous. When the Parliament Street branch was closed, we had to go to the St. Jamestown branch, which is about a 15 minute walk away. This is nothing! Nothing. Especially if you’re listening to an audiobook along the way. But I’m typically not actually listening to an audiobook because I’m dragging the kids along and I need to have my ears open to listen to all the nonsensical rambling about secret treasures in holes and what happens when pigs eat pancakes and how Chicken is spicy. 15 minutes each way is an extra half hour, and afternoon school, when we’re also trying to fit in making dinner, always seems a bit tight.

And so now we’re back again. Ready to embrace a quick half hour at the library at the drop of a hat.

Summer is well and gone, and we’re deep into fall now. Despite no longer being a student or a teacher, September always brings with it a sense of a fresh start, and entering into a new year ready to get to work.

As both a small business owner and a mama, productivity is this weird thing where if you’re not productive enough, you feel like you’re wandering the desert confused by mirages and looming insolvency, but if you’re too productive, you wonder if your priorities are in the wrong spot and if you’re neglecting your children. Should they really be running around barefoot flinging Super’s tennis balls at each other? Exactly how dusty and hairy is it under that table where Caleb is hiding and reading his comic book? Shouldn’t he at least bring a book light with him so his eyes don’t go bad?

Jon and I run our shop “together” but for the most part it’s really him running it, and I chirp in with my opinion on the side, and then complain when things surprise me. Productivity, on my end, looks a lot like getting all the laundry done, making sure there are sufficient snacks in the snack drawer, and keeping up with the blog and social media, that never ending vortex of content creating. I sometimes pop in on an email or two, for projects that are spinning around in the ether. While I’m trying to enjoy and make the most of my time while the kids are young, especially with Naomi before she likely heads off to some sort of preschool next year, there is definitely still the other sort of hairiness that comes with a fluctuating income, and many of these projects are ones I’m tremendously excited and nervous about.

I always say there are seasons of life for which you should offer yourself grace: when your baby is an infant and you’re breastfeeding ceaselessly, when you’re adjusting to new routines for your kids (and therefore yourself), the holiday rush when everything is hairy and who can blame you if you don’t get a blog post up every week, the post-holiday-rush when you’re recovering. But during all these seasons, the bills still need to get paid.

My days usually consist of mornings with Naomi, house cleaning or reading books or grocery shopping (across the street), lunch, giving staff in the studio shop their break, Naomi’s nap time (during which I occasionally get a bit of work done), giving staff in the studio shop their lunch break, and then picking up Caleb from school. After school is general various forms of chaos, including after snack time, staff breaks, school activities, making dinner, watching the house completely deteriorate again from the morning clean-up.

It’s usually not until after I put the kids to bed that I spend some time clacking away aimlessly, hoping something sticks to the wall.

In any case, I’ve been a bit more productive lately, which perhaps isn’t saying much but I’m going to say it anyways. I had a hard time getting back into the swing of things coming back from the summer, with settling into new routines, but fall has brought with it many new and exciting stationery things, and projects are starting to materialize. Jon has been elbowing me back into the game, and I’ve been deluding myself about how important I am.

We got back from Hong Kong around two and a half weeks ago, and with the start of school last week, we’re still getting adjusted to new routines. It’s been busy.

Back to school, starting up lessons again, groceries to fill up the pantry. Paperwork and forms, apparently a lot of stuff is moving online now and I’m filling in these blank spots that don’t allow you to write in little extra add-on comments with arrows in the margins. New lunch time routines. Trying to borrow books from the library in time for book club. The library across the street closed for renovations in the spring, and was supposed to be open again in July, but it turns out it’s not supposed to be open again until October. Obviously a very small, inconsequential thing. Not even a thing.

Super, our aging dog, had his vet visit and then another one to get a biopsy on some of his lumps that he’s had for many years but are now getting bigger. They was one pea maybe five years ago, and now there are more peas and the original peas have turned into golf balls. Turns out he’s fine, just lumpy, and it was just an expensive bill and a stressful week. And now his lumps were shaved so they could do the biopsies and his pale, shaved lumps show up against his dark brown fur along his belly, so he looks like there’s something going on with him. Other than being lumpy. And also being a maniac.

Earlier in the summer, I had agreed to a monthly volunteering thing I was seesawing on,* which, of course, started the first week of September. In the apartment upstairs, we’re doing some shuffling and re-organizing and it’s required some painting of walls and some shuffling furniture and all the stuff everywhere and threats to throw out toys and what is this half chewed crayon that’s melted into the floor. We’re potty training “for real” now (Naomi is currently wearing a diaper, is how that’s going).

This past weekend, our local neighbourhood had the Cabbagetown Festival on Saturday and Sunday, which was a lot of fun, but it was several trips wandering around through dense crowds and ice cream and also manning the studio shop solo on Sunday because the main shop was open for its first Sunday hours ever and Jon had to go across to see about it all. So I manned the studio shop with the two kids who were eating snacks and spilling things and asking about using scooters while customers were trying to ask about pens.

Chicken brought home a dead bird and left it by the back fire escape stairs. It attracted things. I left it for Jon.

Since I’ve come back to Canada, I’ve also been having technology problems with a few things I normally do for the shop (blog, social media) that were really actually sort of not real problems that people who use technology frequently experience, but I was quasi using them as excuses to procrastinate. Jon kept trying to troubleshoot remotely, and I kept being belligerent.

This is all extremely trivial! And maybe also not completely trivial. It’s just life. Catching up.

In any case, I’m really looking forward to fall settling in. Getting back into routines, and the (ironically?) calmer pace of things ahead. Just enjoying the weather, and maybe reading some books, and finally catching up on the blog.

*Euphemism for trying desperately to escape.

We’re heading out to Japan and Hong Kong in a week, and I can hardly keep it all together.

I had a few things that I had bought weeks or months ago for the kids and had vaguely earmarked for the trip, but last week I went out to Dollarama—we live down the street from one—and picked up a few last things. There are likely more to add to it. I know it’s all about traveling light, but it’s more like I want to bring enough to ensure the kids (and I) survive, and I’ll shed the used goods, excess items, tattered books along the way. I keep dreaming of what it’ll be like to travel without the kids, and then have to remind myself that I love them.

Now that the kids are older, we’re hoping to do more and more traveling. The shop gives us certainly some opportunity and reason to go, and I’m sure it couldn’t be too hard to find other reasons.

Here are some of the books we’re bringing.

A few activity books, sticker books, sticker activity books. Colouring books. I let Caleb pick out a few super hero books that we’ll read together on the plane and then probably again and again. I also bought a set of “readers” that he’s been reading in kindergarten and that he can actually begin to read on his own. I bought his level plus one or two up, so maybe we’ll get 10 minutes of reading practice in here or there. Summer slide and all.

The 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury was a great Value Village find, especially because it was half price off books day, which brought it down from $1.29 to 65 cents. 65 cents! It’s a tome of various children’s books, from toddler favourites like Goodnight Moon and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to classics like Dr. Seuss and Alexander and the Terrible…Day to longer stories like Stellaluna and Mike Mulligan, which is perfect for a 1.5 year old and a 4.5 year old both.

To be honest, if I’d known this book existed, I might have bought it at full price to bring along on the trip, as heavy as it is, because it contains just so much, both ones Caleb has already read and loved and new ones to introduce. While it’s not abridged (thank goodness), they shrink down and condense some of the pages of the original books to fit more, so, for example, Good Night Moon is on 8 pages. It’s interesting to note in the introduction for parents that part of the process of selecting the stories was to consider how much the integrity of a story might be compromised by the illustrations being reduced to fit the format, which really is so important. There’s obviously been a lot of thought into which illustrations take up a full page, and which illustrations can be shrunk down together with the next few pages, and so on. It’ll be fun to see how Caleb recognizes some of these stories in a new format.

A few other books: the Fisher-Price Little People Big Book series is quite old and out of print—published 1989. I got a few of them used and loved them so much that I found a more complete set on Amazon US second hand, and had it shipped to a family friend’s parents in the US as the seller didn’t ship to Canada (it wasn’t supposed to be that complicated, I swear!). They’re great, even if they contain some obsolete or archaic information. Each book is on a topic and includes formats like poetry, non-fiction infographics or “newspaper articles,” longer stories, activities, silly word plays. The illustrations are obviously a little outdated as well, but it’s fun to explain how things used to be and what sort of changes have come about out of technology, and what’s still the same.

I got these little books that are theoretically emergency pull out of a bag books for throughout the trip. Some have activities in them, like mazes or colouring, and other have stickers. There is some ongoing internal family turmoil with regards to if one child has something the other child has to have the exact same thing or everyone is going to melt down including mama, however, (strangely now that I reflect on this logic) I feel like even if Naomi scribbles in one, she’s not going to scribble on every page, and so she can Caleb can eventually trade and I’ll get more out of both of them.

A few puzzles. Both literal jigsaw puzzles and a few clicky or wooden block type things.

And some toys. Stickers. Rubber bands (actually I just find these hand in general, tying up snack bags, hair, keep things closed). Some animals, foam stickers, light up bricks. Some packs of markers. Perhaps the kids might glue these Pom poms onto something. Who knows. The plan is not firm yet. There’s a set of mini post-it notes, because these are actually a fantastic occupation for Naomi. She can peel off one post-it note at a time for a shockingly long amount of time, just letting them flutter to the floor, as though she’s wondering if it’s an eternal supply. Keeping my fingers crossed she’s not reached the end of the run of fascination for her.

For the plane ride, the kids will each have their own little backpacks, where, Caleb, at least, will select a very small number of small items, such as maybe a book or two, a noiseless toy, some snacks, as his own set of colouring pencils and pencils and erasers, etc. I also got Caleb a notebook with the intention of helping him document the trip, as I have a little photo printer that he can tape photos in and write short little descriptors for (egads the teacher in me).

I normally relish the opportunity of traveling to partake of some overpriced airport food and junk food from airport shops, but with the babies, of course we’ll pack snacks as well. I’ve been trying to convince Jon to stop feeding the kids some of their favourites, like goldfish, so when we pull them out on the plane it’ll be a delight. I don’t know if it’s Jon or some other part of his demographic, but planning for the plane ride doesn’t seem to be high on his priority list when the babies are grabbing at his pants.

I bought some dollar store plastic containers for food, and then perhaps as we eat them out we can store the blocks or things in them again on the plane. I contemplated taking them all out of the packaging first, but they’re quite neat and tidy like this, and additionally, the joy of unpacking things is another 2+ minutes of occupation that I’m certainly not taking for granted.

Okay, long-winded! Trying to forge on with documenting some of this life stuff, especially as we head off on this adventure, and not getting too swallowed up with the busy-ness. It’s fun to look back on how we did things, and possibly also how crazy I was.