Marketing Genius Targets Suburban Mother, Scores Direct Hit

Posted on 1/8/2009 by cheesefairy

We gave Trombone a copy of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day for Christmas. It’s a bit wordy but he gets the gist and has asked to hear it a few times. I was hoping it would help his emotional language develop, to replace the growling and pinching and knocking over of Fresco that he currently resorts to when expressing himself.

But this entry is not about Trombone. I just mention Alexander because I fully acknowledge that this entry does have a bit of the old Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad flavour to it.

This morning I was determined to go for a walk. Outside. With my kids. Because they could tell that I really wanted this, they put roadblocks in my way. Poopy diapers. (Trombone) Falling into tables. (Fresco) Screaming fits. (both) “But I wanna play with my kiiiiiitchennnnnnn.” Etc. I did not care. Eventually, at 10:15, we left the house.

You can tell I haven’t been out of the house with the buggy for nearly a month because I used to be out of the house at 9:15 at the latest. Am seriously out of practise because of the snow / ice / slush / snow.

Surely, I thought, after three days of rain, the sidewalks will be passable.

Optimistic, much?

Our own backyard was misleadingly clear. When I got out of the gate and was halfway up the middle of the road because the sidewalk wasn’t even findable, let alone passable, I got buttonholed by the postie who proceeded to bitch about how she was going to sue our building for not salting the walk and then refuse to deliver the mail until the sidewalk was clear. I explained it wasn’t my building, just my gate, and that I totally agreed with her. She proceeded to attack the next person who came out of the building, a little old lady with a cane. Stay classy Canada Post.

We continued on the road, dodging cars going well above 50 in a 30 zone, found one sidewalk that was clear and then hit one that was solid ice. Almost a whole block of solid ice. Tracing back the weather layers, that means it hadn’t been shoveled or salted in 2 weeks. I thought about waiting for an old person with a cane to come out so I could yell at him / her but instead I wrote a note and tucked it in the doorway of the apartment building whose responsibility it was.

Based on that 2 block experiment, I decided today would not be the day I tried to do a “big” walk up town so we went to our local Safeway. The minute we got inside, Fresco started wailing. Wailing, wailing, wailing. Why, I do not know. I tracked down three items we needed and then had to stop in the middle of the baby isle to take him out and put him in the carrier on my chest because he would not stop wailing. While I did this, Trombone nattering on about crackers and cookies and chocolate and things he would like to eat, I glanced over my shoulder and I saw it. The solution to all my problems.

Happy Time Shower Cream with Caring Bamboo.

(oh yes, please make sure to love the post partum fringe on my forehead.)

Our return trip was much more successful; I got a cup of coffee, found an alternate route to our home that is almost completely clear, which means later we can go for another walk to the liquor store AND after an admittedly rocky couple of hours (ie: I am just now drinking said coffee,) the children are both napping at the same time.

You know what that means? I don’t even have to USE the Happy Time Shower Cream with Caring Bamboo. I just have to carry it around with me and it makes the Happy Time Happen!

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It’s Not Paranoia If, Etc.

Posted on 1/7/2009 by cheesefairy

Toddler plays with cluster of ribbons. At some point in the playing, cat eats some ribbon. While toddler naps, cat suddenly starts heaving green, ribbony puke on the floor while I watch in horror, remembering something about cats and ribbon and death (and thinking about the $23 I just spent on cat food this morning). Mop up green, ribbony puke hastily with cloth diaper and immediately hear the splish splash of the baby taking a bath in the cat’s water dish. While I am mopping up water with several more cloth diapers, baby drags his soggy bottom under the table to gnaw on my computer’s power adapter.

I am smarter than one but cannot compete with all three working together. They know that to take me down, one has to wear me down with sleep deprivation, one has to wear me down with exquisite sentence structure and non-stop demand for chocolate and one, the dumbest one, just has to puke strategically. Each has a role perfectly suited to him. Just like in Oceans 11.

In other news, the Most Depressing Mall in the Universe has a website! (those people pictured in the masthead? They do not go to that mall. But hey, meet you at the Completely Above Average Sidewalk Sale, ‘kay?) And today, when we went to said mall, by CAR because I still cannot take the buggy out on our dad-blamed, frickin-frackin, juniper-berrying sidewalks in this town but if I stay in the house one more minute I am going to eat someone’s brain, I figured out how to make the ice cream truck ride go without putting money in. I rule. I rule HARD.

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In My Arms

Posted on 1/6/2009 by cheesefairy

I hold my babies while they go to sleep. Not Trombone, anymore, but when he was wee and now Fresco. I was thinking today, imagine if I was someone who refused, who put her babies in bed to sleep (and whose babies participated in this quaint ritual!) I would not know the sweetness of a round, sleeping cheek, the complete relaxation of a furrowed brow, the heavy sink of muscles released, if I had never held them, watched them, breathed them down to unconsciousness.

Fresco is in the midst of a sleep regression, the nastiest of all, the 8.5 month-er, and so any hope for him to sleep normally, whatever that is, is lost. This week he nurses to sleep, unless he doesn’t and then he jiggles to sleep, unless he doesn’t and then sometimes I just stare at him and try to will him to sleep, but that hardly ever works and then I try everything again until finally, he gives up, heaves a sigh, moans a little, collapses.

This morning, in the dark of 7:30 am it was nap time so I performed the rituals and finally he dozed and as I waited for him to be asleep enough to be put down, I remembered holding Trombone while he napped, every nap, until he was about this age. With some exceptions, I took it for granted at the time and now I haven’t watched Trombone sleep in almost 2 years. After Fresco begins sleeping normally (this will happen, right?) I will not, hopefully, be witness to my children at rest for the rest of their lives and I rocked as I thought and I watched my baby drift off, moving his arm rhythmically like a swimmer; up to his ear, back down to his side, up to his ear again and then, finally, tucked under his belly, still. I imagined him months ago, in the womb, in his deep sea bubble, moving his arm like this, or trying to. It made me smile.

I want more sleep. I fantasize about sleep the way people do about more carnal, less pedestrian things. My eyes are two chemical burns in my head. My skin is the colour of sick concrete. When I go to bed at 9:15 pm and am woken at 9:55 from the deep dive into unconsciousness that I take as soon as my light is out, I sometimes cry along with the baby as I lift him from his crib, nestle him close, watchful as he barely interrupts his slumber to eat, comfort himself, be sure I am still there, still coming to him. I twitch, doze off, sometimes get back to bed to see that 45 minutes has passed and I know the baby does not take more than 10 minutes to eat. All I want is 5 hours straight, or 6, or actually what I want is a month in bed, alone, my pillow and me, actually what I want is quiet, earplug-quiet, my own sore bones absorbed by the pillow topped mattress, all I want.

All I want. I want all.

What I want is the peace for myself that I see on my baby’s face while he sleeps. But I do not begrudge him this, not now. Not today. Today the room, the air, was so still I swear I saw his eyelashes grow. Today I saw a smile pull at his lips that made him look years older, years wiser, like a funny old man. Today I am glad I was awake to see him sleeping, there to witness his most vulnerable beauty.

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Great News!

Posted on 1/3/2009 by cheesefairy

Got a call from UBC daycare yesterday. They have a spot for Trombone, 2 years later!

Sure, I’d have to go back to work full time to justify the expense. Oh and do something with Fresco in the meantime. But it’s a small price to pay for a full time daycare spot in a great facility, plus sibling rights for Fresco, no?

No?

Really?

I have to TURN DOWN a daycare spot? In this country? Jumpin’ Josephine.

Life’s a funny old bitch, innit.

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I am a Wild Party

Posted on 12/31/2008 by cheesefairy

I have cupcake frosting in my hair. What’s for dinner is cooking from its frozen state in the oven. Tentatively I sip at a glass of wine, hoping Fresco sleeps till at least midnight. Not that I will still be up at midnight. I hope to have logged at least 3 hours of sleep by then. It is New Year’s Eve.

To celebrate, I think I will watch the final episode ever of the Royal Canadian Air Farce, just to make sure they don’t pull a “..it was only a dream” at the end and go on for another 18 seasons. If that happens I want to be prepared to march on Ottawa and give whoever’s in charge a thorough trouncing with my new fabulous boots.

I snuck out and bought myself new boots in November without even telling you. This was the year I was not going to get new boots. This was the year I was not in need of anything new for my feet. Maternity leave and attractive shoes are at opposite ends of my spectrum. I had my $20 rubber boots and the hiking boots I bought last year when we went to Tofino in January and that was going to be good. e. nuf. for the winter.

The day I went to the mall to pick up our fantastic photo package from Sears, I stopped in at a shoe store that was advertising half off all their boots! I saw a great pair of Danskos at the front and they were marked down to $100 which I am told is a good deal for that brand of shoe, a shoe which has changed the lives of many, so I asked about a size 11. The teenage salesclerk brought me a size 41, which did not fit because a 41 is a size 10. She argued with me about this but eventually could not deny that the boot did not in the least fit me so she went to the back room to find other boots in a size 11 for me to try. Three whole pairs of boots returned with her and I was sad to discover that two pairs did not fit at all. The third, however. The third were a beautiful fit. Lined with wool. The foot part covered with waterproof goretex but not in a terrifyingly ugly way. The leg part in treated suede. I am not describing them well. (Here, go look. They are this boot except the foot is waterproof.) They were Ecco boots which meant that at half price they were still well outside what a person should pay for a pair of boots when she is decidedly not boot shopping.

I justified them thusly: I walk a lot. Every day. My rubber boots have no insole to speak of. My hiking boots are just a titch too small. A comfortable shoe would do a lot to ease my back pain. A waterproof, warm, comfortable boot is just the thing everyone needs. Who doesn’t need that? Footless people, that’s who.

Still though, I had a bit of buyer’s remorse. I didn’t NEED them. They weren’t the boots I went in for. I bought new boots last year that I wore twice before getting my old boots fixed and continuing to wear them every day. I have a Boot Impulse, I know this. There is a recession. Etc.

Then it snowed. And snowed. And rained. And rained. I have worn these boots every day for at least two weeks now. They are the most comfortable boot ever. They are waterproof. They are warm. And they are taller than the snowdrifts. And they don’t give me electric shocks! And they are not ugly! I love them. I love them. I love them so much.

It all came together, you guys. I bought a hat with ear flaps a couple of months ago and then was all, why did I do that? I bought the boots. Why did I do that? Back in the fall there was an infant snowsuit at London Drugs for $5. How could I not buy it, but really, would I ever need such a thing for Vancouver? I insisted on the Phil and Ted’s buggy. Why? But then, two weeks ago when there was snow everywhere and the wind was blowing making it minus 18 celsius, I comfortably and warmly took my children for a late afternoon jaunt to the liquor store for some much needed wine. Suddenly it all made sense. I will never doubt my shopping instincts again.

That’s why today I bought the sunglasses pictured below. (Well, that and it was really bright outside and I broke my sunglasses last week.) Maybe in 2009 I will join a band of roving David Lee Roth impersonators or become the world’s first 30something mother of two supermodel. You just never know.

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