Snot. A boy’s best friend. Not.

I’m cuddling the Ender before bedtime and he’s sniffling and snuffling and yup, there’s a big booger up the nostril. And I look at that booger and I become obsessed: IT MUST COME OUT NOW! So I reach and snatch it—Ender wails at the intrusion of his personal space and the violation of the mother-toddler nursing contract (Section 4.3.12 “The mother shall not use the promixity of nursing as an excuse to a. Pick the nursling’s nose, b. Scrape cradle cap off the nusling’s scalp, c. Clip the nursling’s fingernails or toenails)—and I am immediately punished. For there I am, all settled for the night in bed, with a giant booger on my finger… and not a tissue in sight.

I look at Ender. He looks at me. He has this, “Well, you’re the dolt who took that out of my nose. It wasn’t bother me at all” look on his face. I’m pretty sure I have a speculative look on my face. He’s my third baby, see, and my other two, well, they shared a habit that would be very useful right now. Yup. They ate snot. Which at the time struck me as horribly, terribly gross—but now I find myself thinking was a pretty useful thing to do.

I can’t believe I’m about to do this. I look at the booger.

“Want to eat it?” I ask Ender. Ender looks back at me. His little eyebrows go up. His little eyes go round. And very slowly, very solemnly, he shakes his head.

“Yuck,” he says. “You eat it, Mommy.”

It took me three kids, but I finally got one that won’t eat snot. This is good news, I remind myself. But there’s that booger on my finger.

I play my last card.

“Your brother would eat it,” I say.

Cause he would. When Cinder was this age—two-and-a-half and change, my life revolved around snot. His snot. Flora’s new baby snot. Her lack of snot. Here are the four bestest snottiest moments:

They share everything

So we’re in the nursing chair, Flora sucking away and holding on for dear life, Cinder climbing on my head, and me 1) reading (for the 7th time that day, god help me, perhaps I can accidentally “lose it”) Pooh’s Grand Adventure, 2) trying to keep Cinder from falling on his pantless bum, or 3) landing on his sister’s head, when all of a sudden Cinder leans over, pats Flora’s face, and says something. I’m sure I heard him wrong. I squint, I ask him to repeat. He says it again. I think, I can’t possibly be hearing that right. I say, “One more time, sweetie?”

“I jus’ put some of my snot in Flora’s nose.” (From Life’s Archives, March 22, 2005)

Things I’d never thought I’d say…

3:30 a.m, “Mama, wake up, I have a booger!”

“Hmm?”

“Should I eat it?”

“No… ah… here, give it to me, I’ll put it on the wall…”

3:56 a.m. “Mama, I have another booger. Should I put it on the wall?”

“Yes.” (From Life’s Archives, July 9, 2005)

They share everything still

J: Cinder, what are you doing?

C: Oh, hi, mama. I’m giving Flora some of my snot, because she doesn’t have any. (From Life’s Archives, July 13, 2005)

Why does my life revolve around snot?

Here’s the sequel:

C: Mama, look, Flora has a mosquito in her hair.

J: Oh, no. Oh. It’s not a mosquito. It’s… snot… how on earth did snot get in Flora’s hair? (minute examination of Flora’s nose for signs of a cold)

C: Oh, I remember. I put a booger there in the night.

J: ??? Why did you do that, sweetie?

C: I couldn’t reach the wall. (From Life’s Archives, July 19, 2005)

2012. “Your brother would eat it,” I repeat. Ender gives me the Look. And very slowly rolls away from me.

“Yuck,” he repeats.

I put tissues, box of, on the shopping list.

Nose diagram.

Nose diagram. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

10 habits for a happy home from the house of permissiveness and cool chaos

TheStressedMom.com posted this list of 10 daily habits for a well-run home last month, and yesterday social media brought it to my circle. These habits would probably help a lot of people. People like me? Not so much. If I were making a list of 10 daily habits for moms–or 10 habits for a happy home based on life in a family like ours–I’d need to flip almost everything she recommends on its head.

 1. When to wake up

StressedMom says: Wake up early.

NothingByTheBook says: Sleep as long as the baby sleeps. And then when you wake up, and the baby is sleeping, stay in bed working on the laptop until he wakes up, because that’s a minor miracle.

2. When to go to bed

StressedMom says: Go to bed earlier.

NothingByTheBook says: Sure. Go to bed when you’re tired. When you have little kids, and you’re exhausted by 7 p.m., get thee to bed and sleep. But if late at night is the only time you can work–the only time you can get alone time–the only time you can grab to read that book–the only time you can snuggle with the gorgeous dude who helped you make them babies–take that time. (Sex is more important than sleep. But that’s a topic for a separate post.)

Continue reading →

Do you think he got the stomach flu when…

Cinder: Do you think Ender got the stomach flu when he ate that gum ball off the floor at Market Mall, or when he licked the watch display case?

Flora: I think it’s probably food poisoning from when he grabbed those chicken bones out of the garbage.

I’m spending the day today on the couch with a puking toddler. What are you up to?

Flora Takes a Nap

“Why isn’t it natural? Why isn’t anything about mothering and parenting natural?”

Length warning: this isn’t a post. It’s not even an essay. It runs on for more than 2,200 words. It would make a space-conscious editor cry. So if you’re on the run and just skimming right now, skip me. Come back when you have time for a leisurely read.

2012. One of the tough consequences of being a writer, especially one prone to documenting life as it unfolds—and one’s life philosophy as it develops—is that you leave behind a record of what you used to think. Non-writers can rewrite their history much more easily than those of us who write…

As we were discussing my “recycling” of past posts to build up this blog’s archive, a friend asked for this, what she remembered as one of my most “powerful and poignant” posts, written in the fervour of new motherhood when Cinder was three and Flora nine months old, an impassioned rant about why “parenting” (in very self-conscious quotation marks) wasn’t—here come those quotation marks again—“natural.”

I found it… read it… and wasn’t sure what to do with it. See, I’m glad I wrote it then. But I could not write it now. As I evaluate it from this vantage point, I have mixed feelings. It’s important. It expresses my frustration and anger and passion and, dare I say, mission at that stage of my journey. And it makes me blush a little at the zeal, and wonder how much judgement for those on a different path, or a different tangent, or simply a different stage along the path, is (or was) hiding behind the zeal and the passion. 

I started editing it to… soften it? Write it as I would argue it now, because the key points are important—and I could argue them so much more effectively and rationally now, because I would do so with much more compassion and understanding. But then, I stopped. I will write that post—the more rational and compassionate one. But this one, impassioned, inflamed, and zealous, flawed though I now think it is, deserves to stand alone.

Well. With that sort of build up… what follows better deliver. Continue reading →

Team Awesome!

Flora to her friends, as they’re about to take off on their bikes to terrorize the ‘hood: “So what should our name be? Team Awesome or Killer Bike Squad?”

Ogri-Bike Magazine

But I like poking Flora…

Nobody who hasn’t been there understands just how much effort goes into keeping a baby alive when there’s an active toddler in the house. Flora’s three months old in the following vignettes. Cinder? About six weeks short of three years, and the most loving big brother imaginable. Yet their parents are terrified Flora will not make it to her first birthday. Why?

Babies are for wrestling:

J: Why is Flora crying?

C: Because I wrestled her.

J: Did she like it?

C: No, that’s why she’s crying. She’s too little. I’ll try again tomorrow when she’s bigger.

Babies are for jumping on:

J: Cinder, what are you doing?

C: I’m going to build a mountain and jump on Flora.

J: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

C: It is a good idea. Flora said she wants to play with me like that.

Babies love to play leap frog

J: Stop!

C: What, mama?

J: You’re stepping on Flora.

C: No, I’m not. I’m playing leap frog, like Franklin and Rabbit.

Brothers like to poke babies

C: Mama, can I poke Flora in the eye?

J: That’s not a good idea. We have to be very careful about eyes.

C: Mama, can I poke Flora in the ear?[etc. Etc.]

J: How about we don’t poke Flora at all?

C: But I like poking Flora.

From Life’s Archives, April 5, 2005.

2012. Poor Flora. She’s going through it all again… with a baby brother. At least this time around, she outweighs him. Although, because I make giant boys and small-boned girls, not by much. Do you have a “But I like poking Flora” story from your toddler/baby life to share with me? I’d love to hear it. Tell me I wasn’t alone with this phase…

Agneta Block (Emmerich 29-10-1629 – Amsterdam ...

Why Rabbits Lay Eggs

Heading out to do an Easter Egg hunt with the progeny? Take a three-year-old’s words of wisdom with you.

Cinder was two months short of three years old when he had this profound insight:

Cinder: Mama, do rabbits lay eggs?

Jane (not realizing the whole Easter thing’s around): No, baby, they don’t. Rabbits give birth to live baby rabbits.

C: Oh. Then why Easter Bunny brings eggs?

J: The Easter Bunny?

C: Easter Bunny says rabbits lay eggs.

J: He does?

C: Yeah. Rabbits lay lots and lots of eggs. And chickens hatch out of them.

J: Really?

C: Yeah. So I can eat them.

That boy is just so not going to be a vegetarian.
From Life’s Archives, March 27, 2005

Easter postcard circa early 20th century

Easter postcard circa early 20th century (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Four minutes to go…

Jane: Guys, I need you to wrap up this game—you’re about five minutes away from someone getting seriously hurt and screaming in pain.

Cinder: So that means we have four minutes to go—call us in four minutes.

A typical Deutsche Bahn railway station clock

For the record: Cinder and I have had this precise same conversation on October 10, 2009. It’s nice to know that we’re consistent in some things…

The day I stopped reading parenting books

My friends and I have been passing this Science Daily article to each other—a short piece reporting UK research to the effect that for some five decades now, child-rearing “experts” via their manuals and how-to books, having been telling mothers to do impossible things. The authors use the term “setting the bar too high”; I would use the expression “setting mothers (and fathers) up for failure.”

Now, if you’re a 21st century parent like me, you’ve consumed at least half-dozen different parenting books, a bunch of them before your baby’s first birthday. Probably more, right? How many? I think in the first two to three years of my own journey, I read them all. This is the (short) story of when I stopped reading them and why. Flora was about 10 months old, and Cinder three and change.

From 2005: My son peed in my daughter’s ear today, and in the split second of silence between my “Oh, God, Cinder, gross, gross, gross, what were you thinking?” and his ear-splitting, half-remorseful, half-angry “Waaaaaaaaaaaah!”, I condemned myself as a parent. He did this because I breastfed him too long/not long enough, because I did not script the introduction of his new sister into his life as perfectly as, say, Dr. Sears did each of his eight children, because I let him eat too much Halloween candy, because I laugh at his other scatological jokes, because I did not punish him that time he peed on the pigeons in the park…

Minutes later, we’re washing Flora’s head together, Cinder repeating to himself, “We pee in the potty, we pee in the potty, sorry Flora, sorry mommy,” then, “but I can pretend pee on Flora, right, Mommy? Is that funny?” I look at him and blink my eyes. I really don’t know what to say. I have half a shelf of parenting books, including Dr. Sears’ Discipline Book and What to Expect the Toddler Years (the book I love to hate). If I look in the index, I will not find, “pee on sibling” or “how to discipline when pees on sibling” or “pretend pee and poop play, how to deal with.” I’m on my own here, and if I say or do the wrong thing, Flora will smell like urine for the rest of her life.

Cinder climbs into the tub beside Flora and piles bubbles on her head. “Flora is a bubblehead, bubblehead, bubblehead,” he sings. “Look, Mommy, I’m washing Flora,” he says. And at that precise moment, I have an epiphany, at least party because my crisis has been averted—he is no longer looking for guidance as to whether pretending to pee on Flora is funny; I don’t need to provide that particular answer right now.

Here’s my epiphany: I’m a damn good mother, and will remain a damn good mother regardless of how I handle the “pee on sibling” incident. One, in the long run, my specific response to this specific challenge doesn’t matter. He will not be peeing on his sister when he’s six; much less when he’s sixteen. Two, three minutes later, it’s all forgotten—at least by Cinder and Flora—apparently one of those events the universe just throws at you to see if you have a sense of humour. Three… parenting books suck.

From Life’s Archives, November 7, 2005 —Yes, he really peed on her // The Day I Stopped Reading Parenting Books

Calliope Hummingbird / Stellula calliope - fem...

From 2012: So is it true? Have I really stopped reading parenting books? Well… there’s a chapter of Gordon Neufeld’s Hold On To Your Kids I revisit almost every year (I’ll tell you which one, and why, soon). I’ve kept Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting on the bookshelf still… I haven’t re-read since the pee-in-ear incident, but I think the world’s a better place because that book exists. And I do have a handful of blogs on living with children, learning and family adventures I like to visit. I like to laugh at their adventures, empathizes with their misadventures (so many of theme echo my own), and maybe get inspired by their solutions—or reject their solutions as inappropriate to my family and our path. None of them—not even Dr. Neufeld—will ever—nor should they—tell me what to do when my son pees in my daughter’s ear. I’ve got to figure that out for myself.

House Rule #713, or why we don’t hold a lot of dinner parties

Sean: Gaaah! My children are grossing me out!

Jane: What?

Sean: They’re playing with vermin! While I’m eating lunch!

Jane: Oh… Flora, do you have to change the meal worms’ bedding right now?

Flora: Yes. Because I’m supposed to do it every Sunday, and I didn’t have any Raisin Bran yesterday.

Cinder: Do the meal worms eat the raisins?

Flora: No, I’m picking out the raisins.

Sean: Didn’t you specifically tell me to buy the Raisin Bran?

Flora: Yes. The raisins are for me.

Jane: Ender! You can’t eat your turkey wrap if you’re playing with the meal worms. Here, give it to me.

Sean: New house rule. No eating while playing with vermin.

Cinder: Good one. How many does that make?

Jane: I don’t know. 713.

Cinder: Huh. I remember when we just had one.

Flora: Really? Which was was that?

Cinder: Pants at the table. Mom put it in place after the penis in scalding soup incident.

Jane: You remember that?

Cinder: Do you think I’ll ever forget?

Sean: Flora! There is a meal worm crawling towards my plate!

 

PS We have 24 meal worms–beetle larvae–living in our kitchen because a neighbour gave them to Flora. We’re getting him a kitten next week. Cause apparently that’s the new way we’re showing each other love in our neighbourhood. By giving our children pets. Patrick, you’ve been warned.

Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor larvae)

Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor larvae) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ferocious Five

For all the mothers of five-year-old girls, current and coming-up-on-five, in my life.

From Life’s Archives, January 27, 2007

Flora is five years and three weeks old today—the three weeks is important, as important as the “half” was when she was four and a half. She’s just come off a very long—for our healthy, active girl—illness, almost two weeks of intermittent fever, sore throat and cough, sniffles and overall body aches, with two days of puking thrown in at the start just for fun. She’s physically well now, but weak. And fragile. Each of her nerves and emotions is exposed to the harsh air of every day life, and the smallest of life’s trials rub her raw and send her spiraling into misery.

It’s driving us mad.

We’ve been here before with her. She celebrated turning two by being sad for three weeks, non-stop. (Funny thing about time: at the time, we thought it was months. Perhaps an entire year. Fortunately, I keep records. It was three weeks on the dot, 21 days of almost incessant crying, over everything.) Between three and four—and especially on either side of three and a half—life thwarted her at every step and she barely survived (us too). At four and a half there was a brief—six days, but oh dear god what a six days—reprisal.

So this is Take Four of Flora being uber-fragile, and I’m trying very hard to approach it as a yet another opportunity handed to me by the universe to crack the Flora code. (We successfully cracked the Cinder code when he was two [this post is coming to the blog Archives soon!] and haven’t been significantly challenged in our interpretation of it since then; Flora is proving to be more complex. Perhaps we women really are.) However hard, each take has offered amazing insights and lessons. The first time around, when she was two and in tears, the lesson to us was simple. Happiness comes from within. We cannot make her happy or peaceful—it is not, indeed, our responsibility to make her happy. The best we can do is provide a certain type of environment, some coping tools—but the only one who can make Flora happy (or not) is Flora.

The lesson of Take Two was more nebulous, and it wasn’t really about Flora. It was about me and you (yes, you, the reading you, the you walking past my yard, the you I pass on the park path, the you paying a visit to my house while she’s having a meltdown). In a nutshell, it was: you don’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter, your reaction to Flora or to my reaction to Flora or to anything else that’s happening right now in Flora’s world doesn’t matter. Sorry. You don’t want to hear that, but I need to remind myself of it, throw you out of my mind, and focus on me and Flora. Then, I need to put me to the side—I’ll come back to me later, recharge, re-examine, ponder exactly why I was feeling the way I was and wanting to react the way I was, I’ll do all that, but later.

Right now, with you and me out of the way, I need to focus on Flora, I need to help her cope, work out some tools that she can use to help find herself, work through whatever inner turmoil she’s experiencing right now, and come back to a place of balance. This moment is all about her, and I need to surrender to that first. Only then can I help her… and maybe helping her just means being there while she can’t help herself. And then, when there is a moment when she wants and needs and is open to help—then, I step in. Without my baggage, without making this about me—much less you—but just her.

This lesson is much harder than calculus and I’m still studying it, reviewing it, intermittently failing it, because, at least some of the time, I want you to approve of my and my child and my parenting.

Flora—the current, five year old Flora—is stirring on the couch beside me now making whimpering unhappy noises as she wakes up from a quasi-nap, and I’m revisiting the second part of the lesson. Not about me. About her. What does she need? (Part of me says, a kick in the head.) Apparently, she says, her whole self covered with the blanket. Translation: control over her surroundings.

Take Three’s lesson was simple, so long as Take Two’s lesson was mastered. Repeat: it’s not about you or me. It’s about her. In capital letters: It’s about HER. Between three and five, children are as purely and completely selfish as selfish can be. They’re not psychotic, unsocialized, undisciplined: they just are. Purely, beautifully selfish. The world is all about them, and that’s all that matters to them.

This can suck to the rest of us having to live in the world alongside them. Until, that is, we realize that developmentally speaking, this is normal and inevitable… and it is possible to “work” with it. Asking a child in that stage to do something—or stop doing something, or, ha!, feeling something—because of the effect it has on other people is a recipe for frustration. They can’t comply: they don’t hear you. Oh, they can learn to fake complicity through coercive discipline. But they don’t get it. The world is about them.

At four and half, and into five, I know this. Flora’s world is all about her. In retrospect, on either side of five, Cinder’s world was all about him too. But he manifested it in a different way and it was easier to live with. It was all about doing stuff. For Flora, it’s about feeling stuff. Waaay more complex.

So, here we are in Take Four. Obviously, for me, part of the lesson here is a remedial review of Take Two. It’s not about me. It’s all about her. This part, I’m doing pretty well on. I need to work a little bit more on the fact that you don’t matter. And also, I need to flip the fact that it’s not about me on its head. I actually need to make it about me: that is, seize each of these moments as an opportunity to work on ME. MY response. MY feelings and MY expression of them. MY understanding. What am I doing in this moment and why, and can I be the me in this moment that I want to be? Can I be that me just a little bit longer? One more minute? Another after that?

People pay big money for transcendental moments like this: they go to workshops, retreats, read books, meditate… and lucky me, motherhood is delivering these life-changing, self-reflecting opportunities to me just about every day…

I wrote this post more than two years ago. Flora is now seven and three and a half months—she could probably tell you her age precisely to the day, perhaps the hour. And while we are not in “Take Five,”  we are still learning our sensitive, fragile Flora. She’s learning us too—the selfishness of five is long gone, replaced by hyper-awareness to the feelings of others, and hyper-despair when they are negative. Sometimes, this hyper-awareness makes me long for the selfishness of five. But that’s a topic for a future post. 

Bust of Flora

Why Parents Swear

…or, more appropriately perhaps, why children swear?

Language warning for the sensitive of eye and ear.

What they didn’t tell you in any of the parenting books is just how gross the first years of parenthood are. Snot. Poop. Or, as we used to call it in the time before children—shit. So many, many shit stories.

So here, to celebrate April Fools’ Day, is the one of the best two-in-one poop-n-swear stories from Flora’s first year. Cinder was two months short of three years.

Flora has the mother of all blow outs first thing in the morning. (I’ve always thought people exaggerated when they reported these kinds of things; now I know.) There was poop up her back to her hairline; grosser still, it went up her sleeves to her elbows.

“Aaaah!” I say, as I realize it left the diaper.

“Iiick!” I say, as I realize it’s soaked through the entire sleeper.

“Ugh!” I say as I realize it’s leaked through the sleeper onto the sheet and the mattress.

“What happened?” Cinder, sitting beside the bed, asks. I summarize. Cinder looks.

“Do you want to say fuck?” he asks after a moment.

“What? Why?” I stammer. My toddler—my baby—what’s coming out of his mouth?

“Daddy would say fuck,” he says seriously.

From Life’s Archives, March 31, 2005.

Seven years later: The first time Ender said fuck, I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised. Mortified beyond belief because of where we were at the time, but definitely not surprised (that story’s here). We do learn something along the journey. Not always what we’re supposed to learn, or what we should learn, but we do learn something.

diaper pile

How boys learn geography

India. Area controlled by India in dark green;...

Cinder: Did you know India’s the seventh largest country in the world?

P: Really? Which one’s India?

C: The one that looks like a penis.

P: That one, that looks like it has a drop of urine coming out it?

C: That’s the one.

P: Oh. Is there one that looks like testicles?

(So… I keep on looking at India, and I just don’t see it.)

“He’s not evil, he’s a toddler.”

Yesterday, mid-day:

Cinder: Mooooooom! Ender’s got the handsoap and is smearing it everywhere!

Jane: Ummm…

Cinder: Well? Aren’t you going to do anything about it?

Jane: Ummm… well, probably not. It’s pretty much the least destructive thing he’s chosen to do today, so I’m just going to go with it.

Cinder: Oh. [Pause] Saving your energy for bedtime, huh?

Yup.

 

Earlier:

Jane: Oh, Ender, I love you. I love you.

Cinder: You’re saying that as if you’re trying really had to convince yourself.

Jane: No! I love him! Always!

Cinder: Even right now? When he’s being this evil?

Jane: Even right now. [Pause] He’s not being evil. He’s being a toddler.

Cinder: Was I ever this evil when I was a toddler?

Jane: [Pause] I know it might be hard to believe this, but if anything, you were worse.

Cinder: Really? Huh. And you didn’t freecycle me. [Pause] Because you loved me?

Yup.

Jane Austen

These Balls, Not Those Balls

Have you seen this yet? The Moment Your Son Asks About His Balls, by Megan Rubiner Zinn at Jezebel.com. I think I’ve had the same conversation with Cinder…

Caveman Redux

Good news: Ender does not have a younger sibling to torment right now. Bad news: He’s got Maggie the runt Boston Terrier. And his baby cousin. Good news: his baby cousin is almost in the same stage. That’s Karma. If you think we’re being cavalier about Ender’s current caveman stage… well, we’ve been here before. And Flora survived. Mostly intact.

Flora’s 10 months old in these vingettes, and Cinder’s a solid three-and-a-half. Oh, God. A full 12 more months of this? Where’s the secret chocolate stash? (By the way, have you seen this research report that chocoholics are thinner than abstainers? Ha!)

J: Cinder! You need to be more careful with Flora. What do big people do?
C [sullenly]: Big people take care of little people.
J: That’s right. Big people take care of little people. You’re big and strong, so you have to take care of Flora…
C: Well, I know that. But sometimes I just want to poke her!

C: [to Flora] I love this little bald creature who won’t get hurt.
J: She’s not bald. She has hair. Look, lots of hair!
C: I love saying I love this little bald creature who won’t get hurt, okay Mommy?

C: Mommy? Can I pinch this little bald creature so she wakes up?
J: I’d rather you didn’t. I like it when she naps in the car.
C: Well, I do too. But I really want to pinch her, too. Can I pinch Daddy instead?
J: Well…
S: No!
From Life’s Archives, November 30, 2005―The fun and the frustration…

Through the Chaos

Through the Chaos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Everyone isn’t an artist

There is a lovely quote attributed to Pablo Picasso along the lines that, “ “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” In Quest Theatre’s production of For Art’s Sake, the lovely children’s play that played last weekend at Y-Stage in Calgary, the playwright and authors draw attention a couple of times to another Picasso soundbyte on art: that the great master spend most of his adult life trying to paint (think?) like a child. The message of the play, delivered repeatedly by one of the characters and proudly parroted back at the actors at the end of the play by my own Flora? “Everyone is an artist.”

Except they’re not.

A caveat before I go any further: I enjoyed the play—the actors were terrific, the setting and its use of multi-media inspired, and the little people loved it. I love Quest Theatre. I support Y-Stage unreservedly and will be back for their offering next month (here’s a link to details about the show at FamilyFunCalgary).

But I disagree with its fundamental tenant. Everyone is not an artist… and I’m not sure why these days, artists are so darn determined to convince the rest of us that a) they’re not that special and b) if only we opened our minds / cleaned our chakras / freed our inner elves, we could do what they do.

I am a writer. I don’t think everyone is a writer. Nor that everyone should exert themselves to be a writer, to express themselves, fulfill themselves—earn a livelihood for themselves—in this particular way. If everyone is an artist, is everyone an engineer? A plumber? A mathematician?

My artist child is shining under the influence of the play. She’s an artist. And she loves the message that everyone is an artist. It’s reassuring to her fledgling confidence.

Her older brother? He laughed in all the funny spots. Clearly enjoyed himself. As we leave the theatre, however, he’s unforgiving. “It was kind of crappy,” he says. “Art this art that. I don’t like art. I don’t like drawing or painting very much. Or even looking at pictures. That’s just not my thing.”

He’s not an artist. Nor a thwarted artist—not an artist denied. Surrounded by paints, crayons, markers, pencils, chalks, in a house in which walls were prepped for painting and drawing on, he abandoned all that as soon as he grew into consciousness of choice. That is not how he expresses himself, fulfills himself, processes information, relaxes.

But it is what his sister turns to do all that. She draws when she’s overflowing with happiness. And when she’s sad. When she’s at a loss. It’s what she does when she listens to books on tape. Her handwriting practice sheets are works of art—an interplay of colour, patterns, creation. Will this love stay her lifelong passion, lead her to her livelihood, or remain a steadfast companion/form of release and expression throughout her life?

Maybe. And will she try to convince her brother that he’s an artist too? That everyone is an artist?

Frankly, I hope not. It’s a gift, a talent, a passion that not everyone shares or aspires to. And claiming that they do denigrates its meaning. Its value.

Everyone’s not an artist.

What do you think?

Just another day in the ‘hood…

Boston terrier b&W

)

“Flora! Get the naked baby; I’ll chase the @#$#$# dog!”
PS Note to self: Get screen door. With lock. Or at least a a #$%#%$# baby gate.


Spell Is a Four-Letter Word

Or, How My Boy Learns

 From Life’s Archives, June 6, 2011

I think the first word Cinder ever wrote was FART. He didn’t actually write it, if I recall correctly, but carved it into a styrofoam meat tray. For a while after that, he changed every “art” he encountered into a FART. Very joyously. Then he learned how to spell POOP. We still come across the odd random POOP smear—I mean, written on a wall, book or garbage can.

And he hasn’t precisely grown out of that phase yet. We recently started working with the All About Spelling programme, as Cinder started to stall and get frustrated with his progress, or rather lack of, with the next level of Bob Books and reading. We had been doing it fairly regularly in March and April, and then reached a frustration/stall point again, so took a break to let it all simmer and marinate, and I put it back on the table today. Flora’s working through the program with us too, of course, and I did the Step with her first, and it went sort of like this: I reviewed the concept, she repeated it or nodded her head, I read the three-letter word, and she spelled it. Then I did it with Cinder. I reviewed the concept of “sh” and “ch” and “th” sounds. He spelled “shit” to illustrate. I said ok, now we’re going to spell the “u” words from the Step. He changed “shit” to “Shut up.” Somehow—after grudgingly spelling gun, bum, and butt, and rolling his eyes at hug and tub—he ended spelling jack ass and asshole.

I was so proud. (Up to you to figure out if there’s a sarcasm sign flashing behind me).

Meanwhile, Flora was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to a book on tape and drawing rainbows, hearts and flowers.

Every Women’s Studies course I ever took? Lies. All lies.

Writing For Children

Anybody who writes down to children is simply wasting … time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. Children love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.

E.B.White, “The Art of the Essay” (Paris Review, 48, 1969)

… and therein, you have, I think the secret to why E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web continues to delight children (and their parents) more than 50 years after its debut. Reporting from a household where there’s a cardboard box labeled “Zuckerman’s Famous Pig” in the kitchen, a two-year-old who thinks he’s Wilbur, a seven-year-old playing Fern, a dog cast as Charlotte, and a “I’m too cool for this” almost 10-year-old who drops everything and sits down to listen the second “Fern” starts playing the audio book of Charlotte’s Web for the one-hundredth time.

Here, by the way, is a great story by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan about how the book was “spun.”

Charlotte's Web