My Bountiful Life…

Babies and bubbles and dandelions.

I love Spring. I had forgotten how much I love it - not because it’s been a whole year since we had it, but because it has been years since we had a *real* one. This year it is perfect: some very warm days, some very cool days. The nights are sometimes cold and we are not clear of frost danger yet. Sun and rain, wind and calm, warm and cool, clear and overcast. Perfect :)

The Baby spends hours every day exploring the backyard: picking flowers, digging in the pots, splashing in the bird bath, driving toy trucks through the grass. Jordan blows bubbles and then together they chase them down. There is a rabbit that comes to visit. He seems unconcerned and happily nibbles dandelion leaves in the lawn as long as we don’t move directly toward him. When we do, he slowly hops away without any real urgency and is always back a little while later.

The trees are *almost* in full leaf now and when they are, it’ll only be a few weeks until Summer. We have some plans for the Summer: a week at a cottage, days at the pool.. but not too much. The rest of the year is jam-packed with events and outings and classes; we’re going to keep our Summer low-key. Jordan has asked for a hammock. He envisions spending hours at a time, lying in a shady spot reading a book. He is working on his summer reading list. It gets longer by the day *grin* I used to spend my summers reading and remember it fondly and not without longing. I’ve already begun shopping for that hammock :)

Happy Mother’s Day!
and I have to say… I am one happy mother :P

A dinosaur raincoat makes even rainy days GOOD days :)

We’ve been… are you ready? … it’s going to be shocking…. we’ve been BUSY! omg. Our schedules are packed full with regular outtings and classes and such, and then there are all the special events on top of that and it seems that I am always planning special menus or packing bags or making lists and just preparing for stuff. I knew that April and May would be crazy but I think I’ve reached my limit. No more! Well…. ok.. more.. just maybe spaced a little further apart.

New! Sandbox!

A couple years ago, we freecycled a tonne of stuff… that now we have to buy again. lol ummm… it’s good for the economy? :P One of those items was a sandbox. Last weekend, we got a new one and Jordan got to work setting it up for The Baby. Seriously…. Jordan is the best big brother. He happily gives up his time/space/energy for The Baby. And he works hard to keep his little brother happy. He was very serious about this sandbox and even donated some of his beloved Tonka trucks to the project.

Yay! Sand!

The Baby loves the sandbox… almost as much as Jordan does. lol. And a lot of days we spend hours out in the yard, picking dandelions and throwing playing in the sand.

Just a few more weeks, and things will start to slow down. A little. Maybe. I hope. lol. There are a bunch of posts up at Suburban Green Is People; remember to check it out.

Spring hasn’t wasted any time. It has been warm (hot even!) and sunny. Sadly, even the smog has arrived. :/We spent Earth Day at the RBG. Jordan played games and made lists and made a filtering system for water - all part of the “Helping the Earth” programme - then went for a hike along the trail.

The first wildflowers were out in clusters on the forest floor, brilliantly white in sun. There were also bunches of daffodils, transplanted by squirrels from area gardens, all sunshine and yellow. The chickadees came, peeping and looking for seeds and a squirrel watched us intently from his tree.

We also celebrated Earth Day by planting a tree in our front yard and eating the first chives from our garden. They were tender and mild and satisfying :)
Today is my birthday and it is cool and rainy, which I love, so I’m considering it a birthday gift. I woke to the sounds of soft rain and singing and to kisses and gifts. A pretty good day, I’d say ;)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been busy with a new project that I’m really excited about. It is, as is almost everything we do, a work in progress, but it is far enough along now, that we can announce it’s creation to the whole world. I’m excited about the whole idea and about all the plans how they are coming together. Please have a look and let me know what you think.

Brothers

The weather has been gorgeous: warm and sunny. The Baby has come to expect at least one trip to the park each day. He enjoys the trip there and back almost as much as the playground itself. The back road is a long stretch of paved path so he can Walk! By himself! Outside! hehehhe :) Those little legs don’t look like they could carry him nearly as far as they do. He is determined and undeterred by stumbles or distance or the longer legs of his travel companions. His favourite companion is always Jordan. The two of them have formed a Society of Intense Mutual Adoration. I like to watch as The Baby’s pair of little eager legs trot along beside Jordan’s long athlete’s legs that stride with confidence, both boys travelling down the same road, but each with experience and motivation so uniquely his own, that if it were not for their companionship, they could be on different roads altogether.

My favourite goalie in the whole world. Photos by my dad.

Last weekend, Jordan’s team played in the championship game for his hockey division. It was a nailbiter, with our team looking like it would take the win until the very last minutes, when the other team came from behind to take it. It was a great game, with both teams playing hard. The champions were undefeated in the playoffs and second place is nothing to sniff at. Jordan played well and made some great saves. And we celebrated with family for the whole day.

I don’t know how he does it. Being the goalie is so out there. You are One. You don’t blend in with the rest of your team. And your mistakes are counted on the scoreboard for all to see. Only I count all the shots kept out of the net. People tend to see the loss and think, “if the goalie had only stopped more shots…”. But in this game, like many others, the losing team’s goalie had a higher save percentage than the winning team’s goalie. It its truly a team sport, but the goal tender is right out there, in plain view. He plays the whole game and knows that the less informed blame him for games he didn’t lose. There are a lot of things that are difficult about being a parent, and parenting Jordan has had it special challenges. But one of the hardest things about my role as Jordan’s Mom, is being a Goalie Mom. It isnt’ the schedule or driving to games and practices. It isn’t even that we have to hemorrhage money every year for new equipment (but being a regular player would be WAY cheaper)… it is the stress. I know how much pressure he is under - from himself, but mostly from his teammates and their parents. I know how bad he feels when a goal goes in. I know that he knows that sometimes people blame him when it isn’t his fault. I know that some players intentionally charge the goalie trying to injure him. And while he seems to actually ENJOY all that… I sit in the stands wondering vaguely if I’m having a heart attack and feeling my hair going grey and mouth going dry and I try to remember why I didn’t sign him up for choir or something instead.

The answer of course is, because Jordan has always loved hockey and from the time he was two years old, he said he was a goalie. To a parent, this is a Sign - not that your child is going to play in the NHL, but that you really need to make room in your family life for hockey, and a lot of it. And yeah. We’ve done and are doing that, but I am certain it has shortened my lifespan significantly.

Glove save! Always a crowd pleaser :)

A few weeks ago, Jordan got out the ministicks and taught The Baby to play. The Baby took to it right away and brings sticks to us, especially to Jordan, so we play stick hockey in the kitchen with him. Jordan insists that he will be a goalie too but I find myself saying, very firmly, “No”. This is contrary to my parenting philosophy - that you must follow your child’s lead, take cues and listen. That you must do what you reasonably can to give them the opportunity and tools to explore and experience what interests them. But I don’t know if I can do this again. Hockey Mom, yes. Goalie Mom, I’m not so sure. I know parents whose kids played goal for a while, then the parents found it to be too much and told them no more goal tending and that was it. I know parents who have an older child who is a goaltender and then didn’t give the option to their younger children.

I know that it is too soon to decide. I know that some of the biggest and proudest things Jordan has ever accomplished are part of being a hockey goalie. I know that it is about him and not about me. But I also know that when The Baby picks up a ministick to play hockey in the kitchen, I’ll often remove from his hand the goalie stick he chose and give him a player’s stick instead.

We’re into week two of the new regional waste management plan and I still think it’s pretty nifty :) The first week’s collection didn’t exactly go off without a hitch, but those things rarely do. I remember the prof in my waste management course in my final year of engineering school telling us that after designing your landfill and your recycling programme and your composting programme and educating the public and getting them behind the plan and ready to participate… the hardest part is working out the curbside collection. The variables are endless: the number of houses, how far apart they are, how much of each type of garbage each house will have, traffic patterns, road construction etc etc etc…. and then all this has to be put together in such a way as to minimize the distance travelled, the distance travelled with an empty truck, the number of left turns etc etc etc. I remember praying that we wouldn’t be expected to design a collection route.

According to the local paper, the pick up during the first week was complicated by participation in the new programme that was much higher than expected - unprecedented, they say. Yay! So, there was some delay and the blue boxes and green carts sat at the curb for 1-4 days. Also according to the paper, some people were infuriated and called the paper to complain.

Really?

I mean…. REALLY? People get “infuriated” over stuff like that? That seems pretty ummm.. small. And if you are going to have unrealistic expectations (ie: perfection right off the bat in a new and complex venture), then you must spend a lot of your time being infuriated, I guess. And I feel sorry for you.

Also… why would you call the newspaper? How about the waste management offices instead - you know, to be helpful and informative rather than just whining at somebody who might quote you in print? Or… why not take a crazy leap of faith and leave your stuff at the curb and not worry about it because you know that somewhere, someone is working on it and a whole bunch of people are doing their best to make this work in the best way possible. You could even take pictures of your stuff at the curb and post it on your website.. err.. nevermind ;)

So.. up there… those are some of the blue boxes and green carts on my street last Sunday. They were supposed to be picked up Thursday, but soon after I took that photo, someone came in a really big truck and picked up the recycling, and later, someone in another kind of really big truck came and picked up the compostables. Note that those someones were working on a Sunday, after days of overtime, trying to work out the kinks in the new collection scheme all while being thrown by over the top participation. That’s a win in my book and not something I’d ever be infuriated about. I feel really good about it, actually :)

Spring doesn’t so much arrive here as it does jump out from around a dark and wintry corner and pounce on us fully formed. This game of hide and jump may be repeated a few times, but rarely is the transition from Winter to Spring a drawn out affair.

Less than two weeks ago, I took these pictures:

Yesterday, as I was racing out of the house on an emergency errand (Cookies ARE SO an emergency! Sometimes.), I was stopped dead in my tracks at the site of my herb garden. There was this… green stuff. And the soil was all fluffy and not frozen and … just… begging to be touched. I bent down and pulled up a handful of dead leaves and I could smell that warm earth smell. At that point, it took serious effort to step away and go to the store. The day was packed full of hockey and family visits, but today… today… as soon as I could get out there, I was digging in that soil.

It is still much too early to plant anything, but this is the perfect time to clear out most of the dead plant material from last year and to get a head start on those pesky weeds invasive pest plants enthusiastic herbaceous beings that positively overflow with Life Force. *ahem* Yeah.. the mallow, the cat mint and the horehound are out of control again. I try to think of it not so much as a battle to control the plants, but as an equal partnership in the loving effort to attain a dynamic equilibrium beneficial to us all.
Okay… it’s a battle. A constant battle. But I like it *grin*

The good news is that the soil is so friable that the mallow comes up easily in spite of its deep roots. More good news: lots of lady bugs and earth worms. Strangely, there were no rabbit droppings in my garden. As we walk through the neighbourhood, we see them everywhere, in all the gardens, on all the lawns (there are a LOT of rabbits here) and my backyard is covered with them. But not my garden. hmmm. Probably a good thing as in the back, the little critters have eaten all my hosta sprouts down to nothing.
I can certainly start eating the chives. There are a lot in the garden and they are big and green and smell heavenly. Some even have flowers already. I love the way the whole yard smells of fresh chives even as I just weed around the plants.
Now the challenge will be to be patient until I can start planting out there. That’s going to be tough :)

I’m not sure if it actually takes three generations of men (and a wee spectator) to take down some Christmas lights, or if they were using that as an excuse to spend a little time out in the mild Spring air. I strongly suspect the latter ;)
I’m still in the middle of my crazy-busy time, so obviously, this is the perfect time for my brain to hatch a Great! New! Idea! and before I know it, I’ve registered a new domain and I’m holding certain people hostage and making them listen to me go on and on about my Awesome! New! Project! I’d say that maybe I need to get a life, but I don’t have time for one and so perhaps I just need to get a grip. :P

I’ve finished the knitting on a sweet little sweater for The Baby. Now I just have to block it, sew it up and sew on 10 buttons… which means this project has entered the Knitting Bermuda Triangle and might NEVER come out. O_o. Really. In my dreams, though, I’ll have it finished by the end of this week. uh-huh. Go ahead and laugh, because I’m laughing too. In the meantime, I have started another sweet little sweater.
Okay… I’d better end here. The laundry is calling. And the dishes. :/

A lyfe of glammur.
i haz it

:P

Yesterday it was finally warm enough and enough snow had melted for us to walk on the back road again. It was the first time this year and it was awfully nice to be back. Late last year the city did some work back there, so it looks like we’ll be able to make better use of it now. It was an old road, closed to traffic, with an old-fashioned black top surface that oozed tar in warm weather making it impossible to walk there. But now, it has a new asphalt surface and some shoring up of the cliff edge, hopefully reducing erosion. The down side to this is that while we used to walk back there and maybe see one other person, the back road has become a busy pedestrian pathway, making it harder to pretend that we have left subdivision hell behind and are in actual wilderness. But still, there are huge oaks and old apple trees and the sound of the creek… I’ll take it anyway :)

There is still snow in patches in the dark cold corners of yards and the mountains of snow in commercial parking lots will take some time to go, but mostly, the snow is gone. But looking down into the creek ravine where the sun barely reaches, there is still a blanket of snow uninterrupted except by the creek itself. But the robins are back and the red winged black birds and the morning doves have been cooing and soon, soon, the ravine will be green and the tree toads will sing and whirr Spring back to life and then everything will smell different and warm and earthy and I’ll sit on the porch in my rocking chair and knit and sip tea and it will be Good. It will be Very Good :)