How else could you explain the way a kid and an adult can look at the same thing and have such different reactions to it?

Take a field covered in ice and snow, for example.

Most adults would look at that field and see only the potential to fall, or the damage it could be doing to plants or lawn underneath.

Most kids see a glorious skating rink. Not that they need skates for this kind of rink - no, this kind of skating needs only a pair of winterboots and some soft, squashy snowpants, because the whole point of sliding on ice is to fall down.

I thought of this as my kids ran for the bus down our ice-covered driveway again today. They thought it was hilarious that they actually slid part way down, whereas I cringed and hoped they didn’t get hurt.

Later, I thought that it was the perfect example of the things kids have to teach us adults.

If you get the chance to go outside in the cold with some kids, take advantage of it as a chance to re-discover the joys of winter.

Push aside your grown-up worries about bumped elbows and shovelling out the car, and just enjoy the freedom of gliding along on your butt because you threw yourself at a pile of snow.

And when you do come inside, add extra marshmellows to the hot chocolate you make, and let them melt just enough to remind you of this wonderful season, filled with ice and snow.

This week, he was asked at school what he wanted to be when he grows up. He told them that he wanted to be a music teacher because he wants to be a musician and he wants to be a teacher so he figured he could put both of them together.

While some parents might hope for their children to be a doctor or a lawyer, my husband and I were very pleased with music teacher. In fact, we suggested he think about teaching Music For Young Children - the same program he’s currently enrolled in.

Five might be a bit young to decide a life goal, but our five year old certainly has come up with an aspiration that suits him to a tee. He quirky, and musical, and loves being around people.

I’ve always said that my measure for successfully bringing up children is how happy they are as adults, not how much money they make. So far, it seems, we’re on the right track with our five-year-old.

[As an aside, our seven-year-old has been waffling for years between teaching English in Japan and geologist, with a brief desire to make Gameboys. He’s not settled yet, but I know he’ll do what makes him happy. And it will probably mean visits to Japan :)]

So when I do find a blog I like (usually by random accident or recommendation), I try to follow it daily, if possible.

A couple of months ago, I discovered Lunch in a Box, a blog written by a woman in San Francisco about bento lunches. After I lost my job, I kind of fell off the internet for a bit, but when I returned, I looked up her blog right away.

I don’t actually do bento lunches (though I do pack lunches for my sons almost every day), but the idea of them absolutely fascinates me.

Last week, I used an idea I read on her blog with one of my kids’ lunches. My youngest wanted plain whole wheat pasta in his lunch. I wanted to get some protein in there, so I suggested some cheese cubes and cut-up hot dog.

As I cut the hot dog, I remembered Biggie’s entry on octo-dogs. I happened to be making chicken stock at the same time, so I used the end of the hot dog to make an octopus for my son’s lunch.

(You can read how to do it yourself here.)

He thought the octopus in his lunch was the best thing he’d ever taken to school. He made a point of showing it to his table-mates, who also thought it was awesome.

It also inspired an idea for soup - which I haven’t tried yet, but may next week. It’s Octo-dog Soup.

I’m thinking of a chicken or vegetable stock, whatever veggies I’ve got on hand, a little rice, and a bunch of hot dogs cut into octopi (octopuses?). It mightn’t be healthy, but it sure will be fun!

I’ve written before about being shy, and about the idea that it’s different than being introverted.

For a long time, I thought the two were the same thing (it’s actually how I learned the word synonym, even if couldn’t say it properly).

With my last post, I talked about the special-ness of solitude when walking in the rain, and it got me thinking about the difference between enjoying being alone and not enjoying the company of others.

Ever since I was small, I valued solitude. Not to the exclusion of everything else, but I knew how to enjoy things like curling up with a book or being the first one downstairs for breakfast in the morning.

In fact, the enjoyment of quiet mornings is the biggest factor in becoming a morning person - even in university, I would be up before 8 - and usually by 7. Even now, I find it hard to sleep in. (Though I have managed to do it on occasion!)

Tangents about being a morning person aside, yesterday’s walk in the rain made me examine just how many things I do alone purely for the enjoyment of being alone.

I enjoy yoga classes - but feel most comfortable when the class is small, and I can focus on my own experience. I like to do yoga at home - except I’m pretty bad at it, so I still need an instructor to tell me if my bum is sagging in plank.

I still love reading, and walks in the rain, and I relish those times when I can crank the music and clean the house because the kids and my husband are away.

But at the same time, I crave social interaction. I always feel happier if I’ve managed to visit the local café, and need to throw or attend a party every couple of weeks or I get cranky.

I love being in the same room as my husband at night, even if he’s watching sports and I’m knitting - because I like being around another person to blurt my ideas out to.

I’m beginning to wonder if the “solution” to being shy is to allow for the enjoyment of those moments of solitude, and then to give myself permission to act on my social instincts, too.

I’m going to test this theory out for the rest of the month, aqnd let you know how it turns out. Happy knitting!

I developed a theory years ago that most people are most comfortable in the kind of weather they were born in. So if you were born on a mild spring day, like me, you feel best when it’s between 10 and 15 degrees Celcius, with a slight mist and the smell of fresh mud in the air.

My theory falls apart with my husband, born in the middle of February, who detests snow - though that is more due to the impending shovelling than anything else.

We had some weird weather last night/this morning. It started snowing lat yesterday afternoon, and turned to ice pellets at about 8 p.m. By this morning the temperature had gone from -7 Celcius to about 3 degrees celcius and raining. Shovelling the driveway was back-breaking, but I got it done in about 45 minutes.

Even though I was soaked inside and out (sweaty from the effort and soaked by the rain), all I could think about was going for a nice walk.

I didn’t get out until an hour and a half later, after getting the kids to school and finishing tidying up from breakfast, but man, was the walk good.

My older son doesn’t share my love of walks in the rain, but the younger one does. Maybe that’s because the older one was born in the hottest part of August (pregnancy tip - don’t time your due date for the end of August, it’s horrible), and the other at the end of October.

Or maybe my youngest enjoys the fact that when you take a walk in the rain, you are pretty much the only one out there. And that makes it pretty special.

The kids finally started back to school today, so all of my excuses for not blogging (or cleaning house, or whatever else I’m supposed to be doing) are officially gone.

The last few weeks have been weird for me, a combination of enjoying family time and stressing over the job situation, which has resulted in a lovely set of mood swings which may have my family wondering if they need to call an old priest and a young priest.

Every year, when the holidays are over, I have the same feeling of relief when it is time to resume the old routine. This year it seems magnified by the fact that the routine is so vital to my staying sane.

Yesterday, my husband and I decided that we would start setting the table for breakfast before we go to bed at night, in an attempt to make mornings run more smoothly.

Today was a good day to start that routine - my husband had to go be an expert at court, the kids had to get to school on time - and it couldn’t have worked better.

Breakfast today was so normal. Despite getting frustrated when our five year old knocked over his juice (hey, I’m still working on the mood swings) and when our seven year old took two bites of the big bowl of yogurt he fixed himself before proclaiming that he was full, I felt less like the wicked witch and more like a normal mom.

And the morning routine set the tone - I took the kids to the bus stop, kissed my husband on his way out the door, did the dishes, swept the floor, and felt no guilt about putting the laptop on my back and heading to the local cafe to write/surf the net for the morning.

I still need to find a job, I still need to figure out how I’m going to finance going back to school in September, but at least I feel I’m making progress on re-defining my place in the world.

Imagery is an important part of most poetic forms, and for good reason.

If poems try to share a thought, feeling or moment, they need to draw a picture for our brains to connect with the words.

Take this famous poem by William Carlos Williams as an example:

This is just to say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast. 

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold.

He’s been so excited about the opera, especially since he got his costume two weeks ago. He’s a bat, so he got cute little bat ears on a headband and some shimmery black material for wings.

Initially there was to be just one performance, on a Monday night, but a second performance was added for the next day, so that the local Grade 3, 4 and 7 classes could attend.

By Sunday, our son was definitely in the throes of the worst cold he’s had all winter. That night, he woke twice through the night with asthma attacks and stomach aches.

We reluctantly sent him to school on Monday, and weren’t surprised to have his teacher call to say she had to give him his inhaler.

When he came home, my husband volunteered to lie down with him so he could have a nap and therefore, half a chance at staying awake for the entire 30-minute show.

By 5:30, when we were preparing to get ready to go to the performance space, it was clear that he was barely able to stop coughing enough to sing his lines once through, let alone the eight or nine times he was supposed to in the opera.

I came up with the idea of giving him a spill-proof bottle of water to drink, to keep his throat clear. He could drink it backstage, right up until he had to go on stage, and keep the cough to the minimum.

That night, among a myriad of other problems, our youngest son didn’t end up on stage until the bow. He was upset, both because he had a bathroom accident, and because he didn’t get to do his dance with the other bats.

When he woke up Tuesday morning and had another bathroom miss, we decided he should stay home from school. We made him stay on the couch and watch a lot of television, but by 11 a.m., it seemed that he was in no condition to perform.

He had gotten over the bathroom problems, but was a little warm, and couldn’t stop coughing for more than 15 minutes. He was very pale, with the glassy eyes and rosy cheeks that scream “I’m sick” to every parent in the world.

When I told him that I didn’t think he could go, he burst into tears. Which set me off. There is nothing more heartbreaking than a five year old begging to perform even though he is sick. Well, maybe there is, but that morning it didn’t seem that way.

After a talk with my husband, we decided that the lesson of rewarding him for determination and hard work was an important one, and allowed him to go.

He was so proud of himself when he got off the stage. He cheeks were still bright, his eyes still glassy, but his smile was priceless. The only time it faded was when he realised that it was over.

I reminded him that this is really just the beginning - there will be plenty more performances to come. And as I watched him take off his costume for the last time, I realised that there probably will be, and it made me happy.

Friday was one of those days for me.

After my beautiful impromptu vacation day (see previous post) I arrived at work refreshed and ready to face two of the craziest weeks of the year before taking a week off for Christmas.

At 8:45 a.m., everything changed.

Anyone who has heard their boss say the words “I need to see you in my office for a moment” knows exactly what is coming next. Seeing the lady from HR in the office when I got there just confirmed it.

The newspaper I work for (a small, free community weekly) hasn’t been making money for a long time now, and on Friday they eliminated both the paper and my position.

The parting was positive - they assured me that they would give me great references and keep me in mind if anything came up.

It was positive in other ways, too. I’ve been wishing for more time with my family, more time to write, and the opportunity to try out some of the other projects I’ve been wanting to try my hand at.

Of course, there are all the obvious negatives - the loss of our health insurance plan, the hit to the family income, and all of those financial problems, but overall, I feel pretty good about the whole thing.

My husband thinks it’s our own little version of the “Monkey’s Paw” - he had been wishing for the car more often, and I had been wishing for more time to write, and now we’ve both got what we wished for.

Today, I’m heading off the the employment office to apply for Employment Insurance Benefits. It’s been a long time since I drew on this particular social program, so it will be weird to go back to that.

But it’s also nice to know that I live in a country where that option is available. And I have yet to get to the end of the claim period while on EI - I always end up finding a job first.

In the meantime, I’ll have lots more time to devote to writing - including on this blog.

Enjoy your Monday - I know I will!

Last week, I found out that I have two extra vacation days that I have to use before the end of year or they disappear. The same day, my older son’s teacher suggested we meet today, in the middle of the afternoon, so I decided it was a great chance to use one of those two days.

My workplace is pretty flexible (unless we’re in production mode and on deadline), so I could have just taken a bunch of work home at lunchtime and worked from home for the afternoon. But honestly - I needed the break!

Since deciding to take this vacation day - a day which until 1:40 anyway, will be mine to do whatever I like - I’ve been looking forward to it with what can only be described as lust.

Other than the meeting with the teacher, my only concrete plan is to do the one thing I have been most jealous of husband for. Hanging out at our favourite cafe, writing and talking to whoever passes by.

To be fair, my husband doesn’t actually spend that much time doing this. He is a freelance writer, among other things, so probably two or three days a week he spends one or two hours at the cafe, and most of it is spent doing work.

But in my little fantasy world, this is how I could spend my days if it wasn’t for that dratted job. Yes, life would be a never-ending visit to the coffee shop, with a constant supply of like-minded friends and fair trade organic coffee.

Since starting to write this blog, I’ve talked to three friends and waved hello to four others, and started my second cup of coffee. And it’s not even 9:30 a.m.

I’ve savoured every second of this day so far, and mostly because it is so precious. I’ve forced myself to walk slower, listen more, use all of my senses as much as I can - the opposite of my usual mode of living.

It’s made me realise just how important it is to do these things. So often we are in such a rush to get to the next place, see the next thing, that we forget to enjoy where we are and what we are doing. That’s the appeal of practising yoga - forcing your body and mind to focus on only the moment in which you exist.

As I write this last paragraph, my free hand is wrapped around the glass mug of coffee held to my chest like a security blanket, and I’m taking in the deep, dark smell of the coffee, the murmurs of my neighbours at other tables. I feel comfortable in this place, at this moment.

Namaste.