This is what a feminist writes like:

... from the bottom of my heaaaaaart.

Despite all appearances, I have not left the planet. I will get back to writing soon.

Have a most wonder-filled holiday

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So, I've started bring TLG to this playgroup near my house. The playgroup rocks. For starters, it's free AND it has great snacks. They have a huge variety of toys, a sing-along, story-time and every kid gets welcomed by name in circle time. And to really top it off, they schedule toy clean-ups every few months and the parents get together and dip all the toys in bleach and water - so you know that the toys haven't been accumulating crud since time immemorial. It's lovely.

What's not lovely is this woman who attends regularly and who may or may not be one of the organizers. She's there with her grandson (I think) but she seems to spend more time monitoring the parents' behaviour than watching the kid.

The first day, I was following TLG around as he poked at everything. He sat at the kids' picnic table in the centre of the room and started shaking this play kool-aid jug that some other kid had left there. It made a rattling noise so he handed it to me to open. I gave it a perfunctory twist but the top wouldn't come off so I assumed it was just one of those play-food toys that makes a sound like there is food inside. TLG, however, was more diligent and with some vigorous shaking, he managed to dump a few grains of rice out onto the picnic table (they have a rice table instead of a sand table).

This woman drags herself away from her conversation, snatches the toy from TLG, looks pointedly at me and says "We don't allow the children to play with the sand toys anywhere but at the sand table. It gets rice everywhere, and it's dangerous for the other children."

That in itself makes sense, and it is true that it would be dangerous for the other kids, but her tone was ridiculous (and it wasn't a 'sand toy' is was a jug from the kitchen set, I had no way of knowing there was rice inside - my psychic powers don't work so well under those neon lights). And I always get annoyed when people accuse me of something I didn't do. And she was accusing me. Of reckless endangering the lives of the other children. Like I was a negligent mother letting my child away with ignoring the rules. Which I clearly was. I mean, I had obviously let him bring rice everywhere, all willy-nilly.

She could have just said 'Oops, he spilled some rice there." Or she could have waited a second to see if I was going to clean it up, or she could have handled it about a million different ways without pissing me off. As it was, she put me on the defensive and I felt like a jerk. I hate when no one tells me the rules and then I get crap for breaking them (I can handle almost any situation if someone tells me what I must definitively NOT do).

Admittedly, my reaction was probably somewhat out of proportion to her comment, she likely meant nothing by it and I do HATE to screw up (or worse, seeming to screw up when I did not). But I was annoyed for the rest of the play session.

Now we move on to this week's playgroup session. I have both boys with me because The Boy is in afternoons, and playgroup is in the mornings, and I thought it would be fun to bring them both on TLG's birthday. We explore the various toys around the room, eventually making our way to the puzzle table. We put a couple of wooden puzzles together, and then the call goes out that it is time to clean up because it's almost snack time.

I start to put the various puzzle pieces in place (these are those puzzles with the wooden trays with holes in them for the pieces, each of the pieces have a plastic knob on them) so I can put the puzzles on the shelf. Picture me here, on a tiny blue chair, with TLG on my lap and The Boy at my elbow, trying to quickly assemble puzzles while bobbing and weaving around TLG's head as he tries to undo the puzzles again. Dictator lady comes out of nowhere and says 'Now, Mommy, we are trying to clean up for snack time.'

I wanted to throw the puzzles at her. But, alas, that would be setting a bad example for my sons. So I just gritted my teeth and said 'ACTUALLY, I am putting the puzzles together so I can put them away' and she says 'Oh, okay then.' Like I had owed her an explanation for my behaviour and she was marginally satisfied with it.

I couldn't believe it. I know of no other way to clean up those wooden puzzles than to put them together. And there is no way that she looked at me rapidly jamming the pieces into the frames and thought I was playing with my sons, I was not exactly engaging them in the process.* So she seems to be someone with an inexplicable need to be the expert, the rule-minder, the person who knows better. She ends up just coming across like a jackass. A jackass who calls other women 'Mommy'.

Listen, lady, I am not a problem parent. I WILL follow the rules. But you have to give me a godblessed chance to do so. And if you pull that crap again, let's hope it is not on a day when my patience is low. Or I will forget about being a good example and just let you have it.

Neither of us wants that.

*Sorry to disappoint 'the experts at Comfort, Play and Teach', but sometimes you just gotta get the clean-up done quickly and the teachable moment has to wait for another time.

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Don't buy into the hype! The terrible twos are not so bad.

Well, at least as far as I can tell.

The Little Guy turned two at 2:22pm today and he's been much easier to wrangle than any other time this week.

I suspect that, like his Mommy, he just hates to fulfill a stereotype so he's not doing what a two-year-old is expected to do. Either that or the "terrible twos" is actually short for "the terrible-time-leading-up-to-turning-twos" and the specifics were lost in the mists of time.

Either way, I'll take a few more low-stress days like this one please.

Perhaps I could get a raincheck for a few and cash them in as necessary.

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I know that a time is coming when my children will want little or nothing to do with me. And while I try to be grateful for this time when they want and need me all the time, it is sometimes difficult to get enough room to breathe.

Right now, TLG is still nursing umpteen times each night, and we're co-sleeping, and his preferred location is in my arms. If he is not in my arms, he is climbing up somewhere, pulling something down off a high place, trying to pull open the treat drawer or the refrigerator. If I go to the bathroom he either comes with me or says 'Ma, ma, ma, ma' outside the door until I come out. When I sit down to eat, he'll start the meal in his own chair but he'll soon climb down and climb the side of my chair, trying to get into my lap. And sitting on my lap isn't enough, he wants to stand up on my legs and investigate the middle of the table, or the shelf behind me.

Meanwhile, The Boy, wants to tell me EVERYTHING. And he wants me to remember what he already told me, in detail. And I have to know all about Lego Star Wars, and regular Star Wars, and every TV show. And I also have to know the answers to all scientific questions AND be prepared to spell everything at moment's notice. He would also like if I could somehow divine what he wants for a snack, to save him the onerous task of choosing.*

Yet, even as the boys drain me of energy (energy vampires, they are), most of the time I manage to be grateful, especially when I end up with the two little monsters grinning at me. I would like a little thinking time, a little break here and there, to be able to freeze them in their tracks and take a few deep breaths.

What would be really cool would be if I could somehow timeshift between now and the more independent years to come. I could spend a few days in the years of 2 and 5 and then spend a couple of days in the years of say, 8 and 11. I'm sure the switching would help me appreciate the joys of each stage a little more.

Barring that, I'm going to start lobbying for legislation that gives me a kid free lunch time so I can recuperate.

*TB: I'm hungry.
Mombie: Okay, what would you like to eat?
TB: I don't know.
Mombie: Well, I don't know what you are hungry for.
TB: Can you make a list?
Mombie: No, I can't make a list. You tell me. I'm not a menu.
TB: But I'd LIKE you to be a menu.

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Something tells me I should have bought a lottery ticket today.

When I went to run to the drugstore while The Man was home at lunch I realized that I didn't have my bank card in my jacket pocket so I borrowed The Man's rather than going back upstairs to hunt for it in the back pockets of various pairs of pants.

When we were heading out this evening, I did look for it but it wasn't in any of the places I thought it might be. I had this sudden recollection of tucking it under my leg after using it at Wendy's on Saturday, I couldn't put it in a pocket because I couldn't reach my jacket on the back seat and I had no pockets in my pants. But I was sure I had put it in my jacket afterwards.

So as The Man is driving us all around in the vain hope of getting the kids to sleep (it worked for The Boy, not so much for The Little Guy) I am patting the floor in the backseat trying to see if my card just slipped off the seat or something. No go.

We get home, I carry The Boy up to bed, get him settled, and then come downstairs, take off my jacket and pick up The Little Guy, all while talking about how weird it is that I can't find my bank card.

Turns out not finding it wasn't so weird. What's weird is finding it in my HOOD after running out to the drugstore at lunch, walking The Boy to school and back in the wind, sitting in the car for a while and then walking around the supermarket to pick up some milk and the like for tomorrow.

It was in my HOOD. IN. MY. HOOD.

Go figure.

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In honour of my 34th birthday today, I present...

1. I LOVE my birthday.

2. My favourite colour is green. Dark green.

3. I think I would make an excellent spy.

4. Because I talk a lot, people think they know all about me. They don't.

5. I tend to see people how they could be, rather than how they are.

6. This has caused me some disappointment, but overall works out well.

7. I think marriage takes constant work. But overall the work is pleasant.

8. People rarely surprise me with things, I think they are afraid of getting it wrong.

9. I love it when people get it right.

10. I give really good compliments

11. Conversely, I can dish out really harsh insults.

12. I would love to have a weekend away with The Man.

13. My grandmother died in 2000. I still miss her all the time.

14. I would like to meet Leonard Cohen, but I'm afraid I'd make an ass of myself once he spoke. Ditto for Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG:1)

15. I love, love, love personal development books and websites. I don't buy into all of them, but the thought that my subconscious is the key to improvement is very, very satisfying.

16. I have lots of friends coming to my party, but I also wish I could import Marla, Ann, Andrea, Jen, Marrit, (might-as-well-be-my-brother) Mark, and (been gone from NL too long)Daniel. But then the party might get to be too much for me to handle.

17. I will never see a psychic or have my fortune told. It scares me to think I have no control over how things turn out.

18. I'm outgoing, but enough of an introvert to have to rehearse things in my head before I go out, and rehash them once I come home.

19. I'm really, really bothered when I'm unable to make myself understood.

20. I feel awkward talking to someone who speaks English with a heavy accent, or doesn't speak English at all. It's not that I think everyone should speak English or anything like that, it's that I'm embarrassed that I don't understand them, or that I am unable to make myself understood.

21. I miss The Man when he is at work. Every day.

22. I love Yoga but I don't make enough time to do it.

23. I think things will work out, overall. Just maybe not the way I envisioned it.

24. Mothering is the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

25. I don't want to be famous; I don't think I'd handle the criticism well. But I would like to write something that really touches, and really helps, someone else.

26. I often let people off the hook when they let me down. I'd like to get out of that habit.

27. I'm an expert worrier.

28. I like being in charge. But I prefer it when my minions actually do what they say they will do.

29. I'm a good friend.

30. And a good wife.

31. And a good mom.

32. But there's room for improvement in all of those roles.

33. I think I'm a good writer, but I'm afraid I'll find out that I'm deluded.

34. Apparently I like to talk about myself, I have way more than 34 things to say here.

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