I feel like we hit a parenting milestone this week when the Husband and I helped the nine year old with her long house model. There was a bit of arguing and tears and probably more than a little co-opting of the project by the grown ups. I’m sure the latter was cause for the former. In the end, we had a lumpy, twig, bark and hot glue structure in a base of modelling clay.
I never had to do models or dioramas when I was in school. I do remember my mother helping my brother fashion a puppet of White Fang out of toilet paper tubes held together with cooked white rice as glue since white glue wasn’t something we kept on hand. My mother was endlessly and optimistically creative. She could see the possibilities in so many mundane things, a artistic combination of clever and frugal.
The Husband suggested that we send the nine year old on the bus with her model, but I couldn’t bear the possibility of our hard work getting crushed or dropped, so I drove her to school the next day, her longhouse safely ensconced in the passenger seat next to me. I’m sure (I hope) that I will become less possessive of the school projects.
In my habit tracker, I have a category for blog/art. The “art” category was leftover from this past year when I was taking the drawing class… a reminder to spend time every week creating. The art boxes on the habit tracker have been woefully unchecked since spring. But I realized that this week and last thatI have been making art. I mean these cardboard and tape and twig and glue concoctions… That’s art, right?
The rest of the week was a combination of drizzly days and mild days. On the drizzly day, in my effort to spend time outside, I took the baby to a new to me park – it wasn’t really a park; it was an old golf course that is no longer in use, but which the city took over. The city is still trying to decide what to do with it, but in the meantime, it features a mesh of walking paths. It’s interesting to see the vestiges of the sand traps from the golf course interspersed with over grown natural vegetation.
Wednesday was chilly. We awoke to frost on the ground and ice on the windshield. I pulled out the hat and mittens and winter gear. There was a frustrating moment of stress when I couldn’t find the ice scraper as the kids were loading themselves into the car on the way to the nine year old’s 7:15am piano lesson. I texted her teacher to know we were running late, turned on the heat and fans, and tried to figure out how to clear the windows. “Use the windshield fluid!” The Husband reminded me, and luckily the icy layer was thin enough and that did the trick.
We have a (admittedly arbitrary) rule that the heat doesn’t get turned on until November, and we certainly didn’t need to this year. In the past, getting through October without turning the heat on was always a challenge, but this year I’ve been lulled by the mild, summer-like fall. Its kind of like the temporal equivalent of hedonistic adaptation.
Anyhow, I’ve located the ice scrapers and I’ll be ready next time.
Thursday the nine year old was off school so we took our Fall trip to Longwood Gardens. I had a fear of the children being cold and then complaining and immovable, so I made everyone wear long underwear, hats, and gloves in addition to their coats. Turns out it was a little bit of overkill. The weather was sunny and brisk and beautiful.
I’ve been doing these mediations with the four year old on the app Smiling Mind, and one of the practices is about noticing colour. In the meditation, the voice slowly recites the colours of the rainbow and encourages the listener to find each colour as he says them. I’ve found this also to be a great game to play with the kids. I always think of Fall as a colourful season, but one of a limited palette. But while, there certainly was a riot of oranges and yellows, the other colours proved easy to find too. Except blue. I didn’t find any blue plants, so the blue sky will have to do.
Rainbow!
On the way home, there was this beautiful evening sky, which I thought especially fun juxtaposed against the red taillights.
I had written last post about how quickly the county and pharmacy’s 5-11 COVID vaccine appointments booked up super quickly. Well on Thursday while we were at Longwood Gardens, I checked my email and our pediatrician’s office had sent an email saying they had vaccine appointments available. The Husband got on the phone immediately and was able to book the nine year old for her first shot the next day! And to be super efficient, we also booked flu shots for her and the four year old. (The baby got her flu shot at her 2 year check up.) I’m so excited and relieved that this is done. There seems to be new appointments opening up every few days so I know I ultimately didn’t have to worry about not finding her an appointment, but still it’s good to know that the first shot is in her arm. We have the second shot scheduled for after Thanksgiving so by Christmas she’ll by as fully immunized as she can be at this point. Hooray!
The whole process was quick an pretty painless. A 9am appointment. 15 minutes waiting in the reception area afterwards for side effects and then we were on our way. The nine year old said that the flu shot actually hurt more than the COVID shot. The four year old was so cute… he thought the Band-Aid was the flu shot and refused to take it off. And when he took a bath he was so worried that the Band-Aid would fall off. I had to explain the whole thing to him several times and eventually he did let me take the Band-Aid off.
Things I’m looking forward to for the nine year old:
– eating in a restaurant. Her favorite restaurant is having live music again and the Husband and I are thinking this might be the place to take her on a special daddy-mommy-daughter celebration date.
– joining a basketball league. She has been taking indoor dance and swimming, but somehow the close contact nature of basketball seems more risky, so we’ve been putting this off.
-maybe having a birthday party for her. She has a winter birthday so there aren’t a lot of outdoor options. Of course this means I’ll have to plan a birthday party, which I’m not terribly looking forward to. (But I’ve been reading Oliver Burkeman’s book 4000 Weeks, and he says that once we confront the finitude of our lives, we learn to feel fortunate for even the most painful and mundane tasks…. I’m trying to embrace that.)
So a very full week, but not much knocked off the to do list. Many tasks just got migrated to this week. I did do my emissions test (and paid the late fee) and picked out tile for a rental house repair. I guess two things on the “Done” list is okay. And we did finish watching Schmigadoon, which given our poor record for finishing anything on TV, does feel like an accomplishment. And it was a delightful show too.
Oh: a haiku from last month that I just now found randomly in my time log journal:
September apples
A two bushel haul. Transformed
to October sauce.
What We Ate: The nine year old wanted to plan the menu this week
Saturday: Pizza leftover from the previous night. And Star Wars finally.
Sunday: Halloween – not quite sure. It was probably leftovers and lots of candy.
Monday: Mac and Cheese and Cucumber Tomato Salad. The stuff in the blue box.
Tuesday: Salmon Burgers and Caesar Salad.
Wednesday: Cornflake oven fried chicken and roasted veggies (Squash, sweet potoates, leeks, and potatoes – basically kitchen sink)
Thursday: Chipotle on the way home from Longwood Gardens
Friday: Pizza (Husband made) and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. I hadn’t seen this when it originally came out in 2005 and it’s surprisingly less dated than many other movies from the time. Afterwards, I saw that it had been directed by a man, and that struck me as interesting because it feels like this kind of female friendship movie is something that would most definitely be directed by a woman these days. And it made me wonder about how so much of the movies that I watched and loved in the 80s and 90s were directed by men, and whether of not the way I saw myself reflected in the media I consumed was influenced by the male gaze. Would my ideas of what is considered attractive been different?