Sensitive

If there is one word to describe our Girlie Goo that is it. She is of course every bit as complex as the rest of the human race is, but sensitive covers a lot of ground.

Because she is sensitive, she wants to please and not get in trouble. She is generally very obliging. You combine this with her excellent memory and she will actually remember to occasionally bring her dishes to the counter. And if she doesn't she'll apologize for it.

When it comes to parenting a sensitive child we are very mindful of her seemingly fragile state. Even the slightest tenseness in my tone and she'll accuse me of yelling. Or say she is afraid.

Just today, the kids were bickering about something. I went to the family room to ensure things did not escalate to where any furniture might be thrown across the room.

Jackson immediately gave his side of the story (not that I asked). It was incomprehensible. "Sydney and I ... and then she wanted the guy ... but the yo-yos ... and I told her it was dangerous. You know ... because of the guys."

Sydney did not hang around long enough to give her side of the story, or to see if I was even listening. She stomped upstairs wailing and expelling large tears. I take it she disagreed with Jackson's version of events.

At school, she is keen not to offend, does not like being called out and is an extremely obedient and conscientious student. However, she is in the middle of a turf was between 2 girls on the playgrounds at lunch hour. Both girls are older than her and have strong personalities. Unfortunately, she is the turf that is being fought over.

Girl 1 asks her to play and she obliges. Girl 2 comes up and takes her away and she is unable to say no to Girl 2 and feels she has wounded Girl 1. Just this weekend, she made an "I'm-sorry-will-you-forgive-me" card when this scenario happened (again) last week and Girl 1 burst into tears. It's all the more complicated because the 2 competing playmates, appear to be mortal enemies. As I said, she is the turf in turf war.

Husband and I struggle with how to deal with all of this sensitivity. She is who she is. We cant jump in and protect her from life, tempted as I may be. We can't change her. But honestly, I wish we could toughen her up a little bit. Let her roll with the punches a bit more. Not take everything to heart.

Last week Sydney's teacher, asked to see me. Mrs. K really understands Sydney and told me she has a daughter (now in her twenties) who has a very similar personality to Sydney.

Mrs. K told me what happened in class with a tear in her eye: "We have a boy in our class who has been having a hard time paying attention and keeping quiet in class. Yesterday he was going around the room and was really trying hard to be a good student and friend and he was asking the children if he could help them clean up. Student after student declined his offer. Sydney saw him ask again and again and she went to the other side of the room to ask him if he could help her clean up. She knew what this boy needed was to help that day."

I know we'll have more hurt feelings and tears and upset in our future. But now I don't want to toughen her up at all. She is sensitive to others in a way I will never be. And the world needs more like her.

Not Up and Down

A few weeks ago I was driving the kids home from an activity and the kids were engaging in one of their favourite past times - comparing family members.

They love to rank the four of us in just about anything: whose birthday is earliest in the year, who owns the most princesses, who likes cleaning the house the most. (Mommy always ranks the highest on that one.)

On this occasion they were talking about who was the smallest in the family.

"I'm the smallest, then Jackson, the Mommy, then Daddy" Sydney proclaimed.

"No" Jackson corrected, "it goes Sydney, me, Daddy, Mommy."

"I'm the OLDEST. Daddy is the biggest."

"Daddy is the tallest, but you are the biggest."

"Daddy is taller than me, and he weighs more than me. How can I be the biggest?"

I can't believe we are having this conversation.

"Daddy is tallest. That is up and down. But BIGGEST is side to side. And you are the biggest side to side." He added for emphasis "Mommy I'm not talking up and down, I'm talking side to side."

Just for the record, that is not true. And even if it was, those are childbearing hips and should hardly count.

Domestic Engineer: The Final Frontier

Purge-atory. The basement Where all the stuff I wanted out of every other room in the house ended up.You can see the enormity of the task.

This is our rec room. It has mostly been a toy graveyard for the 3.5 years we haved lived in this house. The most popular played-with toys have always had their official and mostly theoretical homes in a) the family room b) the upstairs play room or c) the kids' rooms. In actual fact these alpha toys have been in the middle of the floor in any room of the house so Husband or I can trip over them and I have an excuse to be exasperated. The toys in the rec room were the lesser played with ones or ones I was too lazy to purge.

With the great purge of 2009 in full swing, we have removed virtually all toys from the kids' rooms. We've put a small subset of the popular toys in the upstairs playroom along with the games and have one small basket of "character" toys in the family room. My plan was to create a fun playspace in the basement that is organized so the kids will know where the toys are and, importantly, KNOW WHERE TO PUT THEM AWAY.

Husband agreed to take the kids to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon so I could get to the task in seclusion.

Honestly it was hard to know where to start. I brought out a recyling box, an enmormous garbage can and designated one side of the room as "give-away". It was slow work at first, but after an hour I have made great headway.

It bordered on ridiculous how far spread out certain games and toys were. I found marbles EVERYWHERE. I had neither had any idea how many marbles we owned, nor what the kids would ever want to do with so many of them.

It was a bit of a trip down memory lane. I came across the colourful woodens blocks that we gave Jackson for Christmas when he was 13 months old (do not ask me why THAT is using up memory space in my head as opposed to something useful like remembering to send Sydney's planner to school today). It came with 100 blocks. I was borderline obsessive-compulsive counting the blocks every time we played with them. If I found only 99, I would look for the lost sheep.

One time I brought the blocks to my parents as we were going to spend the day. My father observed my neuroses and actually went to his workshop and made an extra one, thinking it would drive me crazy when one day I counted 101!

Well I counted on Sunday and found only 92 and that only slightly bothered me. But I found about 5 more spread throughout the basement and after almost 7 years, I think losing about 4 of them is entirely respectable.

I also found something else I used to count daily: Jackson's Hot Wheels cars. I used to know how many and what colour. If I only found 16 of 17 I could immediately scan and realize the YELLOW firetruck was missing.

As long as I'm making counting confessions, you should know that I also used to count crayons. Yes, we had so few that I used to count them. I theorized that if I did not leave a stray purple crayon on the floor, a certain creative someone (see photo) could not adorn the walls with it while I was checking email one day.

You won't be surprised to hear that I did all this before Sydney was born. I was at home full time and was not about to put all those hours of daylight to any real productive use, like keeping the house clean and tidy. No I kept track of stuff.

Keeping track of stuff is one of the many things I gave up when I had a second child, like good personal hygiene and any semblance of sanity.

(Photos of the final room, which Jackson has renamed "Fun Hous", when it's completed. You know I'll need to brag).

Farewell October

Well Halloween is in the books for another year. Halloween being on Saturday meant about 11 hours for the kids to wait to trick or treat. They actually didn't ask about it much but in the morning they were VERY hyper. Especially Jackson. And Jackson's ability to hear is inversely related to his hyperactivity level. So I asked him no less than 25 times to get dressed for skating lessons this morning. I stopped counted after that.

We thought we'd do something fun and kill a few hours in the afternoon. We went to a nearby university where they were having "Science Spooktacular". Physics and chemistry with a Halloween theme.

I always hear from people going to these kinds of family events: "We took the kids to the renaissance fair on the weekend. They loved the costumes and the play and the sword fighting!"

Whenever we attempt these events I always feel we line up for 3 times as much time as we actually do anything fun. One ill-fated Canada Day trip we joined a very long face painting lineup we realized that the face painter had gone for lunch and we were waiting for him to come back. The line up only moved when people realized the lineup was for nothing and left. Then we lined up for 30 minutes so the kids could take 2 slides down an inflatable slide and then we went home.

So off we went to see some Spooktacular Science but not before some terse words for Jackson who refused at the last minute to go as he had become engrossed in a Scooby Doo Halloween episode.

We arrived and saw professors and students were demonstrating science experiments. A lot of it would have been quite interesting but you couldn't get very close to see or hear what was going one. At one table we waited long enough for Sydney to get to the front only to be mid experiment. "Why do you think this egg is floating?" How would we know. We were at the back when you started.

They had a one hour show and we went to get seats about 30 minutes early. Husband tried to convince the progeny that they could look at some other experiments while Mommy saved the seats but they insisted on staying. They burned through all the snacks and water I had on me and finally the show started. It was 5 minutes in when Jackson put his head down on my shoulder. I thought he might have been bored as the narration left a little to be desired in terms of capturing the imagination of kids.

No. He was hungry. He had an enormous lunch and snacks. He whined and moaned and begged to leave. Then Husband remembered they were handing out free popcorn out in the hall so I went and lined up.

We saw some very cool fiery pumpkins and some balloons explosions and some hair stand on end. It was okay. But I won't be bragging about it.

And this evening was the trick or treating. Jackson was a little testing over a number of things. (his trick or treating bag, my taking a picture) but was very pleased with his haul of candy.

And so here are our two trick or treaters:
And sorting their candy.

I wonder where they get that from?

Oh and we had 55 kids, 2 more than last year. They were fairly evenly distributed through out the evening with the biggest bubble in distribution between 6:30 and 7:00.

A Spooky Checklist

Things to do for Halloween:

Decorate house. Check.

Put up Halloween craft projects. Check.

Carve Pumpins. Check.

Label Ziploc bags for this year's loot. Check.

Get candy table ready (without eating any of the candy). Check.

Prepare for gathering of Halloween statistics (number of kids by 15 minute intervals). Check.

A girl should get to have a little fun on Halloween.

Mommy vs. Halloween 2009 Edition

As I mused last year, sorting out Halloween costumes is challenging for me. I don't sew. I am not creative. And my name is not Rockefeller. A few years ago I finally got over my stinginess and decided just to buy costumes for the kids.

As I found last year, when I was blanketing the city in mid October trying to find a skeleton costume to fit the J Boy, you can't leave it too late. Ultimately he had a skeleton costume that was a size too small and he wore it daily so that on Halloween night I had to fix multiple seams. Have I mentioned I don't sew?

The problem with acquiring costumes too early is that the under 8 set are not known for making a decision and sticking to it. At least one year I had to put together a ghost costume the night before the Halloween party.

I decided this year that I would roll the dice and go with early acquisition. It was late September and when Husband got home from work I told him I was going costume shopping. He took my temperature. We had only just got through a crazy September, what was I doing borrowing trouble thinking about Halloween?

I was steadfast.

However, I needed the kids to pick costumes that:

a) they would stick with

b) were available for purchase

c) in my budget.

It was actually easier that I thought. Sydney was still on a fairy/princess high post Disneyland so she chose Tinkerbell. Jackson agreed to anything Star Wars. I headed out to the place that puts the most amount of costumes out the earliest: Walmart.

I went through rows and rows of smaller costumes, and found Tinkerbell only available in a size too big or a size too small. I opted for too big.

Star Wars was a little challenging as I had to goes through literally a hundred costumes to find Jackson's number one choice, Darth Vader, in his size. Major Mommy score! Really, I have this whole Halloween thing all figured out.

I came home and the kids were excited and obligingly tried on their costumes. Sydney's needed some adjustment as the wings flopped on the over sized fairy suit. No problem. I have over a month to figure that out.

Jackson was infatuated with his suit. He found his lightsaber, or lightsaver as he calls it and in no time was spreading evil throughout our house.

Much like other infatuations, Jackson's evaporated the next night when he decreed that he hated his costume (after tags and wrapping had been discarded) because it was only a Darth Vader mask, not a full helmut. Very uncivil words were exchanged along the lines of "I'm never wearing that costume!!" and "Then you owe me $25 plus taxes and you will have nothing to wear for Halloween!!".

On a trip to Walmart returning all the things that didn't fit on my first trip, I bought a yard of dark black shiny fabric for a couple dollars and hoped I could fashion some kind of hood to address the helmut situation.

I had well over three weeks to sort this out. But we had Thanksgiving. And then Husband was at a conference and before I knew it, it was the weekend before Halloween. Several times I tried to get unobliging children to try on their costumes. They resisted.

Monday night was my hard deadline. They would need their costumes for Friday at school and since I work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, productive things at home don't happen in the evenings during the week unless they are getting out the next days clothes or practicing spelling.

Monday, as it happened, Sydney was home sick. She tried her fairy costume on somewhere during the all-day-movie-marathon and I figured out pinning the shoulder mostly solved the floppy wing problem.

The J Boy continued to deny me access to Darth Vader until Thursday evening, when I am exhausted and frankly not very good at problem solving. Armed with black electrical tape, craft scissors and iron determination and with Husband available as consultant we tried to figure out how to convert a mask into a helmet while Darth would not sit still for more than 8 seconds at a time and heaved heavy sighs of impatience. But we came up with a jerry-rigged solution.

I know it's really flying nun meets the forces of evil, but it's the best I could do:

And here it the dark prince with light saber:

Good and evil side by side:

And good and evil battling:

Yin and Yang, Part 2

I blogged last year about some of the differences between my kids. I am home with a very sniffly Girlie Goo and I am struck with another difference.

When Jackson's nose runs, he will let it. When it becomes too much he will use his sleeve. Or his hand which he will than wipe on any convenient surface. He could be used in the most lethal form biological germ warfare.

It's not like he never touches a tissue. He does quite frequently pick up a tissue and rip it into tiny tiny pieces and leave it on the family room floor to clog up the vacuum.

Sydney, on the other hand, went through well over a box of tissues yesterday. She has an exceedingly runny nose, I grant you. But not that runny. She does not want to really blow her nose, to empty her sinus passages. So she dabs her nose quite like a delicate southern belle, and then discards the tissue. And reaches for another.

Today, she is home from school and she informed me that her box of fresh tissues was empty. I opened that one for her that YESTERDAY. I went around the house to discover we are out of tissues, except for one cute,decorative, overpriced one that I bought for the powder room on the main floor (ask Husband sometime about my obsession with the tissue boxes matching the bathroom decor).

When the flow is just too strong, well she has a plan for that. Anything but actually blowing her nose:

Yes, those are custom made by the Girlie Goo herself.