November 21, 2012
Scaredy Squirrel Gingerbread House (with a Building Permit)
Of everything we’ve ever received in the mail, the Scaredy Squirrel gingerbread house certainly takes the cake. It’s not just any gingerbread house kit, you see, because it comes with a building permit, and special instructions by Scaredy Squirrel on building the house right to code. Further, the gingerbread is completely delicious and has filled our entire house with the redolence of Christmas (already). Perhaps reminding us that there are only 30-some days left in which to come prepared for the holiday, and in accordance, we’ve also been equipped with the brand new Scaredy Squirrel book, Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Christmas. With instructions to wear a hockey helmet (in case of falling ornaments), and to avoid candy canes (might shatter!!!).
The kit arrived yesterday, and Harriet insisted that we build it while her little friend Iole was visiting. It occurred to me at this point that 3 year-olds are far better are being agents of destruction than construction, and so this might be a terrible idea. It also made it quite possible that I’d end up swearing at Harriet in front of Iole’s mother.
Fortunately, the girls were very helpful, and we did the windows, and put the walls and roof up. I figured the instructions to wait overnight before decorating were only optional and we got started on that too, but then the house collapsed in on itself over and over again and I realized that maybe Scaredy Squirrel knew what he was talking about with his instructions. So we let the house dry, and Harriet finished decorating it this afternoon. We love it, and don’t know how long we can wait before we eat it– that smell! And the best thing is that I didn’t even swear once.
November 11, 2012
We go to the theatre: Soulpepper's Alligator Pie!
Yesterday was a monumental day, as we took Harriet to see her very first play. It was Alligator Pie, an original Soulpepper production based on the works of Dennis Lee. We’d been seriously preparing for the experience by reading the book entire, which is beloved by our whole family. It’s just as wonderful as Dennis Lee knew it would be to “discover the imagination playing on things [we] live with every day”, but I suppose it’s not just about the here and now because I really love that with Dennis Lee books, Harriet is enjoying the books that were mine as a child. But yes, I love that we get to read about the streets where we live: “Yonge Street, Bloor Street,/ Queen Street, King: Catch an itchy monkey/With a piece of string.” Walking around the city, we get to see our books brought to life, and that’s an extraordinary experience, the very best way to love literature.
Seeing Alligator Pie on stage took it to a whole new level though. In spite of our prep, much of the show was new to us, based on Dennis Lee poems not just from the books we know (which are Alligator Pie, Garbage Delight and Jelly Belly). And even those pieces we recognized had become otherworldly by being translated into song– “Psychapoo” as a doo-wop ballad, “Tricking” as a rap. The show was loud, and fun–I noted beaming faces in the audience all the around the theatre throughout that were mirroring my own. Its emphasis was on friendship and also on play, not one of the many props on stage ever used for a single purpose of the one you’d imagine it was intended for. The actors (who were also the show’s creators) were full of energy, charisma and talent, and did justice to their material, even made it something new.
The show was an hour long, which was the perfect length of time for any audience members who were 3. It was only in the last few minutes when Harriet announced (in a rare moment of silence in the room, of course): “I don’t want to watch this show anymore.” Which was fine, because by then it was over. We got to walk out to the theatre by stomping on a huge sheet of bubble wrap, and all of us were very satisfied with Harriet’s first theatre experience.
We’d even do it again!
October 14, 2012
On Barbara Gowdy, cut-out cookies, and other decapitations
Over the weekend, I read Barbara Gowdy’s We So Seldom Look on Love, which readers and writers I admire have been talking about for years. In a collection full of devastating stories, I was most devastated by “Lizards”, in which a woman’s very tall lover decapitates her baby daughter by carrying her on his shoulders and walking too close to a ceiling fan. For some reason, I thought this was an essential plot point to share with my family, including those among us who are 3.
Harriet, whom I’ve accidentally given a fascination for all things macabre, couldn’t get enough of this story. “What happened next?” she asked. “Well,” I said. “The baby died. Her head fell off.” And no, it couldn’t have been put back on. Harriet eventually suggested that they should probably get a cutting board and cut off its arms and legs for good measure. And then we decided it would be an excellent idea to bake some gingerbread men.
Well, not gingerbread, exactly. We made “chewy oatmeal” cut-out cookies, but we call them gingerbread men anyway. Even the women. Their chewiness was part of their appeal, but it also meant that the men were partial to losing limbs and that the day’s focus on decapitation continued. Stuart and I surreptitiously gobbled up the casualties, which meant that by the time the cookies were all decorated and Harriet was permitted to have her “just one”, we were about ready to be sick.
Incidentally, this version of The Gingerbread Man story is our favourite. As with Gowdy, its author doesn’t shy away from darkness, but points out that a cookie getting eaten is far from the worst way a story could end.
September 30, 2012
Block Letters
Yesterday we dared to skip nap to attend the Block Letters event at the Lillian H. Smith Library, as part of Culture Days. The show began with Cybele Young reading from her book A Few Blocks, which we’ve been fans of for a while, as well as from Ten Birds, and from her latest book, A Few Bites, which we were happy to purchase for ourselves.
After the reading, the kids were given a map of the neighbourhood, and we all left the library to go for a walk together. Not just any walk, however. It was an ordinary walk bursting with stories and imagination, similar to the one partaken by Ferdie and Viola in Cybele Young’s books. A little bit of imagination transforms an ordinary walk into an extraordinary adventure. We found a shoe, an empty lake, a strange tower with “Danger No Admittance” on its door. Where did the shoe come from? Why was the lake empty? What was inside the tower? (For the last, the kids came up with a hypothesis involving diamonds, a princess and the British King.)
We explored the alleys and strange pathways of the UofT campus, wondered where all the big rocks along Huron Street had come from, found a secret forest whose trees were sleeping monsters (who turned into rhinos if awakened), and began noticing small, wonderful things we might not have paid attention to before. What’s going on down in the sewer? The sound of streetcars passing? We discovered that everywhere is steeped in wonderment in you only stretch your mind enough to note it.
Returning to the library (its own wondrous destination, with gryphons guarding its doorway), kids were equipped with markers and crayons, plus their own storybook with Cybele Young’s drawings inside and enough blank spaces for them to collaborate and tell their own stories of neighbourhood walk. Harriet dictated her tale, and drew some scrawly pictures in Harriet styly. Stuart and I helped her out so it became a bit of a family project.
There was popcorn, fun and plenty of inspiration. More than anyone could ask for from a Saturday afternoon.
September 11, 2012
The Comics
It’s true that from a very young age, I read the entire Saturday paper cover-to-cover, if by “the entire Saturday paper” you mean the Toronto Star comics supplement in all its glorious colour. I loved Blondie and Beetle Bailey, Family Circus and For Better or For Worse, The Better Half and Spiderman. I liked Broom Hilda, Dennis the Menace, Hi & Lois, and Hagar the Horrible, though I was confused by Little Orphan Annie because it wasn’t like the movie at all. I was depressed by Jon Arbuckle and Cathy, but read their strips anyway, and all the others I didn’t really understand– Ernie, and Mother Goose and Grimm, Shoe, and many others. In fact, it’s likely that I didn’t understand any of the comics, really, but it didn’t stop me from poring over them every Saturday morning, lying on the living room carpet in my pajamas. There was something in their colours and cartoonishness that made clear that this was my part of the paper; the comics were an invitation and an introduction to the pleasures of newspaper reading.
I do love newspapers, inky ones. When we lived in England, we used to buy so many weekend papers that getting them read was our chief occupation. And these days, we subscribe to the ever-shrinking Saturday Globe & Mail, and it’s still one of my favourite parts of Saturday morning, Tabatha Southey, tea, book reviews and croissants.
Lately Harriet’s got her own part of the paper, and she starts shouting for it as soon as I bring the paper in: “Comics! Comics!” Which is kind of funny because The Globe & Mail comics are mostly terrible, but Harriet doesn’t know and doesn’t care. She sees the cartoon pictures, and she thinks they’re for her. And so she makes us read the whole section aloud, some comics over and over. I don’t know if there has ever been a family so intent on Drabble. Sometimes the comics are even less terrible then you’d think, and when that happens, we’re always kind of amazed.
And thankfully, when the comics are too unfunny, we supplement Harriet’s hunger for them with regular trips to our local kids’ comics shop.
September 7, 2012
First Day
I’ve been struggling all week with Ian McEwan, been hard at work on a couple of wonderful projects, and occupied by playschool prep and a dinner party. I did do a short interview with Kyo Maclear at 49thShelf, so I have something to show for my week at least. And Harriet started playschool this morning, and we’re so proud of her. Drop-off went without a hitch, and I think she’s going to have a wonderful time.
May 28, 2012
Harriet turns 3
Harriet turned three this weekend, and highlights included a fire station tour as part of Doors Open Toronto, much fun with good food and sunshine, and a fantastic party yesterday with ten friends, their siblings and moms and dads. We had a wonderful time, and the party met with my definition of party success, which was that Harriet didn’t cry. Or at least not until after everyone had left, and she was sad because, “There’s only one kid now. I want my friends!” But during the party itself, she had the most wonderful time, dancing, running, laughing, cupcaking, pinning tails in hilarious manners, and delighting in her wonderful pals. A terrific celebration of a girl who’s just as good. And now we’re all a bit tired…
May 14, 2012
"I’m not sure if it’s sad or amazing that this is my life now."
“I’m not sure if it’s sad or amazing that this is my life now,” is something I wrote here nearly three years ago, not long after my life had changed forever and I still wasn’t sure if I liked it. “Now, must wake baby, feed baby, change baby. For we’re off to a program at the library that promises songs, and stories and “tickle rhymes” for all.”
And we all know how that worked out, of course: that first day, Harriet fell asleep in my arms, and we kept going back and back to learn new songs, hear new stories, so I could learn new ways to engage with my baby, to memorize the tickle rhymes that made her smile so I could pass them onto her Daddy when he came home at the end of day. The library became our community centre, its staff became some of our favourite people (and there was a time when Harriet referred to four people by name: Mommy, Daddy, Elmo, and Cindy [from Spadina Road] so that means something).
We had good company, made some excellent friends– though truth be told, not so many. I used to spend a lot of time sitting in circles of Mommies I could never love, wondering what had happened to my life, and also why everybody was thinner than me. I also dealt with a reputation as “the mom who knows all the songs”, which was a little embarrassing. But then as Harriet got bigger, we grew more secure in our new world (and found enough friends gathered from here and there that we always felt bolstered), the crowd seemed to matter less and less and the library program became about us, something fun for us to do together. We also weathered the stage where she wouldn’t sit still and I spent Baby Time chasing her around the library.
We graduated to the toddler program at the Lillian H. Smith Library, which came with a door that closed so Harriet couldn’t escape. And like that touchstone first day of Baby Time, when Harriet fell asleep in my arms, we had our toddler touchstone too when at the end of The Beanbag Song, 18 mos. old Harriet could not stand relinquishing her beanbag and howled inconsolably. The next week, however, she’d got with the routine, and returned her beanbag with all the other kids, and I had this sense that here was my girl learning the ropes, figuring it out, watching the world around her and deciding how she’d fit into it.
And so I got a bit teary this morning as I watched Harriet put her beanbag away for the final time, so at home in this environment and 
without a doubt that she’s entitled to the richness our community offers us. I remembered that 2 mos old baby in my arms that very first day as we sat in a circle singing Sea-Shell, Sea-Shell, Sing a Song to Me, and that screaming toddler clinging to her beanbag for dear life, and now this fabulous child who will be three in two weeks, who knows the ropes in some ways but is still figuring out in others– she likes to watch up to strangers and say, “I’m Harriet.” Sometimes she will hug them. Sometimes they are more or less comfortable with that, and my heart seizes. I already feel like the mother in Kristen den Hartog’s And Me Among Them who’s silently imploring her daughter’s schoolmates as she follows them all on their way to school, “Walk with her, please walk with her. Walk the rest of the way with my girl.” My girl. Yes.
But then my girl is also fierce, hilarious, loving, enthusiastic, fun, and kind, and her hugs are still age-appropriate enough that they’re met with the same. And now she knows all the songs too, singing along out of tune and half-screaming. Today when Joanne read us Jamberry, Harriet amazed us all by reciting the book along with her. Last week, she didn’t even sit with me, but up at the front with the other kids where she took her cues from the rowdiest ones and had a brilliant time. And once again, I wasn’t sure if it was sad or amazing that this was my life now. Sitting back, watching Harriet begin making her way in the world– it’s incredible to see her independent of me, but I miss the squishy goodness of her body in my lap, in my arms. Watching her put the beanbag away one last time, like a veteran toddler. When the program begins again in September, Harriet will be too old and enrolled in nursery school.
And so it’s away with one stage and onto another, sad and exciting, tragic and wonderful, and I’m getting the idea that being a mother means that we do this over and over again.
