Say "Cheese"

I'm not teaching Little Bro to say "cheese" when I take his picture. I've learned my lesson.

My older son is a gorgeous fella (if I do say so myself) with beautiful brown eyes and the longest eyelashes you've ever seen, but ever since he's been told to say "cheese" for the camera, all my pictures of him turn out like this:

Great. Instead of his handsome smile, I get Threatened Chimp. I won't have a souvenir of what his smile was like, but I will have a record of what all 20 of his teeth looked like.

I'll try, "Show me a happy face," but that just results in an enthusiastic, jaw-wagging "Cheeee-yay-yay-yay-yayse", which results in a big ol' wide open mouth, so I get teeth AND tonsils.

Never mind. The candid ones are better anyway.

"The Little Things"

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_brault.html#jGbbBEewD6vUeuP5.99

 "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." 
-Robert Brault

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_brault.html#jGbbBEewD6vUeuP5.99

Every Mother's Day in recent years, I've drawn my mom a cartoon card depicting a good childhood memory. Usually it involves my usual humour and self-deprication, but also with a little bit of sentimentality, because I've always been a big sap about these things. I appreciate all the more what my mom has done for me and my siblings now that I have kids, and I figure I'll tell her that now, since kids don't always say it at the time.

My best memories of growing up were always those "little things" that are actually BIG things upon reflection, which I think is true for most people. 

One of my very favourites is on those snow days (back when they existed-- remember snow days?) Mom would be just as excited that we didn't have to go to school as we were. She couldn't wait to tell us and spend the day with us. On such mornings, we'd all pile into my parents' bed with her to chat and joke around in our jammies for a good long time before getting up.

She remembers this too, but other times I'll remind Mom of these kinds of things, and she won't even recall that she'd done them. Just goes to show how certain things stand out to kids that you may not realize at the time.

I hope my kids will grow up and have good "little things" memories with me, too. Curious as to what they'll be. Maybe they'll share with me one day what stood out to them, if they're at all big saps like their mom.

Me, my sister and brother enjoying a "Snow Day" with Mom

Can't Take Us Anywhere

Sometimes it feels, for us parents of young kids, that you can dress us up but you can't take us anywhere.


As I mentioned in my last post, I was set to present at the 2014 Blog Out Loud event last week, and realized I had food colouring-stained hands from doing science experiments on the front sidewalk with the kids. Great! Way to make a first impression (as this was to be my first--but hopefully not last--  kick at the can). I mean, I'm blogging about being a parent, but let's not look TOO much the part. Why don't I just show up in yoga pants while I'm at it.


Luckily, I got most of the colour off in time and only had to worry about a regular old bad hair day from the rainy weather.


But it got me thinking of how this was not the first time one of the adults in our house has tried to be professional out in the world, but ended up inadvertently wearing evidence of kids nonetheless.

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Ha ha. Those stickers seem to stick to anything! Except, of course, the original surface they were stuck to, which was usually the kids' faces. They fall off and lie in wait around the house, hitching a ride on unsuspecting adults' clothing like Disney-themed burrs.

Has anyone else inadvertently worn the "I have small kids" neon sign on their forehead (or the back of their pants, or wherever) when out and about? If so, when I see you at the store, should I tell you if you have paint on your ear or post-hug kid handprints on your behind?

I just know I'll be at a big, important interview or something one day, realizing too late that my short-sleeved dress shirt reveals the sleeve of stamp tattoos I let Big Bro give me the day before.
"Can I take your coat, Janet?"
"Ah, no, no. I'm a bit chilly. I think I'll keep it on, thanks."

I tell ya. Can't take us anywhere.


____


If you missed Blog Out Loud last week, here are the selections that were read. Really great variety of topics and perspectives! I was thrilled to be a part of the event. Check it out.


There's also a great review on the International Writers' Festival site here which mentions Cartoon-Coloured Glasses. "A pithy post of prose and pictures", it says (pithy is a good thing; I checked). Delighted!
It also likens the audience's experience of Blog Out Loud to being at Costco on a Saturday... which I assume means there were a lot of samples of great things to be had-- not that it was full of aggressive jerkfaces and you couldn't wait to get out of there (That's 'Costco on a Saturday' to me).

Blog Out Loud Tonight!

Hi all! Just a quick post to remind you all that Blog Out Loud is tonight. This is a first for me. I'm so excited to be a part of this event and reading alongside some great Ottawa-area bloggers.

Check out the fantastic write-up on Cartoon-Coloured Glasses. Sheer comedy gold, it says! I'm so flattered. Can I put that on a resume?

If you're looking to say hello, I'll be the one with the blue-stained hands. Probably shouldn't have done an activity with food colouring yesterday.

Hope to see you there!

The Art Process

I have a sneaking suspicion that my older son may not currently be the biggest fan of doing art.

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In addition to these (surprisingly tactful, for a three-year-old) responses, I was once invited to finish a project for him. "You can do the rest, Mama." Can I? Great. I was hoping you'd get out of the way and let me have at that googly-eyed toilet paper roll bunny.

I learned long ago that he doesn't like "messy" stuff like apparently all toddlers do. No problem; I don't want our kitchen to smell like shaving cream anyways. But it seems these days that art in general isn't his thing.

It's fine. He doesn't have to like art. He's a smart, curious kid, but just not about that right now.

I would, however, like to stop making a lot of work for myself for no reason. (I touched on this in my Pintimidating post last year).

See what I mean in this visual of the art process, in terms of time and effort:

It's all those fabulous preschooler blogs I subscribe to! I get all inspired to channel my teacher self and let my kids create and develop skills through exploring new materials (and maybe try them out myself).

I used to teach Kindergarten. Shouldn't I be good at this?

I know!... it's the peer pressure. A kid will do an activity if others are also doing the same thing. Kind of like why your toddler will merrily eat peppers at daycare.

I could showcase an album of my "Pinterest Preschooler Art Activity Fails", only they'd mostly look like unused materials and white paper with a crayon line on it. And maybe a kid in the background dancing around pretending the two halves of a plastic Easter egg are his eyes.

So a friend and I came up with the idea of alternating hosting playdates with her three-year-old and preparing an art or sensory activity. Her hit-and-miss experiences are similar to mine, so we figure we can make half the effort and hopefully at least one of the boys will enjoy the activity, so it won't be a total loss.

This week I prepared templates for an activity I found online; Wet Chalk Tape Resist Easter Eggs. Looks great for a preschooler, and what nice results they got!

Aaaaand it bombed, and royally. Both of our kids had a sing-songy "Alll done!" after about two chalk lines.
It's probably for the best because the tape I used (the only kind I had) tore the paper, even though it came off fine on my test egg. I might've felt bad if they'd spent more than 15 seconds on the activity.

(I never claimed to be good at art. Drawing, yes, art, no. Even my art teacher in high school said my style was all the same and too "cartoony").

So anyway, I think we've concluded our kids are more into science-based activities these days. Good. Next nice day, Mentos and Diet Coke geysers out in the driveway. No prep!

________________

P.S.: If you're in the Ottawa area, come see me and some fantastic fellow bloggers read at the Blog Out Loud event, which is part of the Ottawa International Writers' Festival. Blog Out Loud is being held at 6:30pm on April 29 at 120 Lisgar St. It's free and promises to be a great time. (I might even wear "no pants " for the occasion!) Hope to see you there.

P.P.S.: You can now follow CCG on Twitter!

A Few Minutes to Myself?

It must be that the boys aren't used to seeing their mother lying down.

Somehow, though, the sight of me trying to relax is interpreted as an invitation to bombard me with kid attention.

Maybe I look all lonely with my magazine and look like I could use some company in the form of having my eye poked or a head-cracking cuddle. Maybe I look bored, like I'm wishing someone would come along and arrange an extensive collection of blocks on me. Maybe I look too serene, like I need an energy boost via being rolled on and bounced on like a horsey.

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What I don't get is how Hubs sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading hockey blogs on the laptop counts as "busy" but what I'm doing isn't. I think he got to them somehow. Sitting there, looking all contented and smug...

My mom tells me all that attention is due to the fact that they love their mom so much. That must be it. I'll keep that in mind the next time my attempt at a ten-minute stretch on the couch is interrupted by a loving toddler butt in the face.

Technology Buffs

Don't let your kid play with your technology, even if you know they aren't old enough to know how it really works.

While Skyping with my parents, Little Bro managed to bat-bat-scratch the laptop keys and flip the screen orientation sideways. It took my computer scientist husband a while to figure out how to fix it (it's Ctrl+Alt+up arrow). I'm glad we solved it, because I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to lie down to use the computer. Kind of frustrating when you feel you're pretty good with computers and yet you've been had by a 1-year-old.

Then last summer, we were headed on a mini-road trip to a neighbouring town. I prepared to set the GPS, and this happened:

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We discovered that Big Bro had set our preferences to "shortest route" instead of "fastest route", so we were on a course down the most remote gravel roads ever. It felt like some kind of horror movie. (The scariest part would've been hungry kids and our not having packed anything to eat for what was supposed to be a half-hour drive. Desperate parent caught pilfering from cornfield in middle of nowhere...)

How did he make all those changes? Some of them, I wasn't even aware one could do. Big Bro's fiddling managed to set it so the GPS moos every time you pass a beauty salon. It's like it's giving me a hint or something.

They can mess up your stuff, but they do it with flair. It's amazing what one can accomplish from just some random button-poking. I've seen friends' toddlers post to Facebook-- or so I assume, unless my friend felt like sharing a capital D with all of us that one time.

I also know there are toddlers who are already proficient with iPads and the like. Big Bro at least knows how to find and play the "Car Game" on my phone. In my day, it was a Fisher-Price record player. (Do I sound like an old lady? Well, it feels that way sometimes...)

Our family has never been one of those "have the latest gadget" people, so I'm not always up on what there is out there. But I know that, soon enough, the kids will be able to manage our technology and do these things, and more-- on purpose this time-- so I guess I'd better try to keep up. At least for now I can try to get the GPS to stop mooing at me.