Ms. Attitude

It's hard to remember she's only five years old sometimes.

I had ripped my thumbnail opening a package of pancake mix, and I was nibbling at the nail.

Rachel [indignantly]: Mommy, stop biting your nails.

Me: Oops, you're right, I better go get the clippers.

Rachel [sounding very teenage snotty]: Hah! So, who's the mommy now?

I figured I had another nine years til I had to put up with this level of snark.

There is no lack of self-esteem at our house

The spelling, however, could use some work.

Psycho

I planned the murders meticulously. I bided my time until late at night when everyone in the house was asleep. I tiptoed into the kitchen and pulled a steak knife from the block on the counter. The light from the range hood glinted eerily on the serrated blade. Swiftly, I went into the living room and found my first victim. One stab with the knife, and it was all over. I cornered my next victim and it too was quickly dispatched. Soon the floor was littered with limp bodies. I cleaned up the mess.

Crap, I hate getting rid of the left-over birthday balloons. I tried to suggest to the girls that they play that game where you sit on the balloons and try to pop them with your bum, but they want to keep the balloons. All of them. Leah might actually have named them. So every night this week, I'll cull the remaining balloons a few at a time, so that they don't notice that the balloons are gone all at once. Oh, I'll leave them a couple to play with, but there really is no need to have a living room full of balloons now the party is over. I am merciless and cold-blooded that way.

About last night

Things I wanted to do last night:

• Watch episode 3 of The Tudors which I missed last Tuesday because of book club, but Natalie tapes it, and loaned it to me until today, when she needs the tape back to tape something else
  
• Work on the slippers I'm knitting for Leah. Two years ago, I made a pair for Rachel, and Leah's been waiting for me to make her a pair ever since. To say I'm a rank amateur at knitting is to pay me a big compliment.
• Read. Seriously. I have a bunch of books out of the library, and I can think of nothing more desirable* than to curl up on the couch or in my bed and read for longer than it takes me to pee. Lately, my books have been living in the bathroom and are being ingested in pee-length segments. To say that this makes following the narrative difficult is somewhat of an understatement.

Things I should have done last night:

• Laundry. More specifically, folding and putting away laundry. The pile of clean and wrinkled clothing on top of my dryer is very large and teetery. One day it will overbalance and bury me completely and I won't be found until the smell of decay is stronger than the smell of fabric softener sheets.
• Clean birthday cake icing smears off the dining room floor and take down the streamers and balloons from Rae's birthday party Sunday.
• Vacuum fish pellets off the living room floor. Don't ask.

What I did last night:

• Turned the phone ringer off and went to bed at 7:45, right after tucking in the girls.
• Lapsed into unconsciousness.
  

*Well, OK, I have to admit that curling up with Johnathan Rhys-Meyers on the couch or in my bed would be infinitely more desirable. Sorry, book.

An inconvenient truth. Or four.

With apologies to Al Gore, I find that the most common inconvenient truths in my life spring from the mouths of my children. Small children delight in telling the truth about most things. They have yet to develop those social filters that stop most of us from saying things that, while truthful, might hurt feelings or cause embarassment or are just best kept to oneself. Some examples:

Rachel, to her friend while sharing a snack of baby carrots: "This carrot is long and skinny like my mom, and this carrot is short and fat like your mom." Fortunately, the mom wasn't there. I can only hope that that line wasn't repeated when the little girl went home.

Playing "I Spy" with Leah:
Me: "I spy, with my little eye, something that is grey."
Leah: "Your hair, Mommy? "

Leah when asked how she liked the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's version of the Nutcracker, which we dressed up for and stayed up waaay past her bedtime to see live at the National Arts Centre: "Well, it was exciting and boring."

Rachel to me (and everyone within earshot) at the grocery store: "Look at how big that lady's boobies are! They're HUGE!"

I have learned (the hard way) to not say things within my kids' hearing that I wouldn't want repeated. Well, I've kinda learned:

When Leah was in Junior Kindergarten, 4 years old, she was invited to the birthday party of a boy in her class. She wanted to go, so I RSVPd and got directions. When the day came, we pulled up in front of a mansion. No other word to describe it. It was huge. I was muttering under my breath about the size of the place to myself as we walked up the long driveway. Apparently, Leah was listening to what I was saying. The little boy's mom welcomed us into the foyer, where 3 or 4 other moms were helping their kids off with boots and coats. Leah looked around in wonder at her surroundings. The front of the house -- foyer, formal dining room, and office -- was easily big enough to hold our whole small house. Leah looked at me, and in a clear, high, very carrying voice said, "You're right Mom, this is a big honkin' house!" OK. It was an embarassing couple of minutes helping her out of her coat before I could escape.

I think it will take a while for them to learn that while honesty is the best policy, sometimes honesty out loud is not. I'm sure I'm not alone. What inconvenient truths have your little darlings blurted out in public?

Happy birthday, baby!

You're not a baby anymore. You're five years old today. Five! But you'll always be my baby. You aren't always easy to get along with -- you're fierce, independent, sure of yourself, stubborn, curious to a fault, quick to anger, and quick with the hugs and kisses. You are easily one of the most affectionate people on the planet (when you're not beating on your sister with a Barbie). You love babies, acorns, frogs, cats, getting dirty, sidewalk chalk, playing at the park, my make-up, and your sister. You don't know the meaning of the words 'slow', 'gentle', 'walk', 'quiet', or 'don't touch that'. And I wouldn't change a thing about you. Well, except maybe the hitting Leah with the Barbie thing.

I love you Rachel. Happy Birthday.

Tagged or 4 is a beautiful number

Josie at No Internal Editor tagged me with a meme last week sometime. Since I really have nothing to say today, here we go:

4 jobs I’ve had

Counter person at the Dairy Delite (I was about 15, lasted one day -- the final straw was when I made a banana split and forgot the banana); junior geological assistant (a.k.a. grunt - I ran traverse lines through the northern Ontario bush with a pacer and compass, carried rock samples through the northern Ontario bush, hammered rock samples into rock chips for geochemical assay, portaged an outboard motor through the northern Ontario bush, you get the picture); scientific editor; managing editor.

4 movies I could watch over and over

The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Bull Durham, Bridget Jones's Diary

4 TV shows I watch

Grey’s Anatomy, Hockey Night in Canada, The Tudors (oh the man-candy in that show!) and Torchwood (just started watching that last one, not sure if it'll become a regular thing)

4 places I’ve lived

I was born in Hastings, U.K.; when I was really little I lived in Freiburg, Germany; spent most of my life in Ontario (Windsor, Toronto, Sudbury), and I now live in Carp, Ontario, near Ottawa.

4 favourite foods

Caesar salad, cheeseburgers, seafood linguine, dark chocolate

4 favourite colours

Dark green, silver, pink, black

4 places I’d love to be right now

Curled up on my couch with tea and a book; on a warm beach somewhere with sunscreen, Coronas and (great idea, Josie) cabana boys; touring the Niagara wine area stopping at wineries and B&Bs; in England visiting relatives.

4 names I love but could/would not use for my children

Gemma, Nina, Julia for girls -- my husband didn't like them. Matthew for a boy -- didn't use cause I had girls.

Ooooo, now I get to tag. Hmmmm, I tag Briana at Life with Boys and Meanie at Meanoldmommy. Tag. You're it!

Girls' night out, the recap

I went out with a few girlfriends on Friday night. Had a great time. Had the following e-mail exchange this morning with another friend who knew we were going out, but lives too far away (Nova Scotia) to join us. You have to read it bottom to top.

Friends with snark are the very best friends.

*************************

From: Evelyn
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:33
To: Alison
Subject: RE: how did it go?

Ok good to go! The mittens are always a dead give-away.

---

From: Alison
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 10:21 AM
To:Evelyn
Subject: RE: how did it go?

Oooo, ouch. Probably mid-twenties. I don't think his mittens were pinned to his coat sleeves.

---

From: Evelyn
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:20
To: Alison
Subject: RE: how did it go?

Was his Mom with him at the market or how ‘young’ was he?

---

From: Alison
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 10:08 AM
To: Evelyn
Subject: RE: how did it go?

Pretty quiet, actually. Shell and I went out for dinner at the Cheshire Cat. Natalie joined us after dinner for drinks. Krista bailed on us -- had a house showing/open house she had to prepare for. Stayed at the pub til 11:30 or so. Nat went home. Shell and I went to my place and had a fire in the fireplace and drank a bottle of wine and talked til 1:30. It was nice though. And the waiter was cute. Young, but cute. And I ran into him the next morning at the farmers' market and he remembered me and said hi.

---

From: Evelyn
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 8:17
To: Alison
Subject: how did it go?

How did the celebration go?

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Well, I'm not counting the lone posting last September which said merely "under construction, check back later".

My blog started last October 11, and I've been blathering on at you for a year now. Can you believe it? Work is crazy busy today, so I'm going to cheat and direct you back to my very first blog post, which I'm sure no one but me ever read. Enjoy.

There's got to be a non-pc joke in there somewhere

I don't get a lot of hits on my blog. Mostly, my readers are a small group of family, friends and a few bloggy friends I've made by commenting on other blogs. Most people finding me by accident are searching Google for "Noresund bed", and finding my post on putting together my new Ikea bed.

I cannot hope to match Danigirl's popularity as queen of the "Ikea dog penis" search. Nor can I compete with the varied and strange search strings that have lead people to Chris at Rude Cactus. But, hey, I will now relate my own story:

Last week I got a hit on my blog from someone in New Delhi, India. Googling "cow penises". Seriously. Holy cow*, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

*OK, I tried really, really hard to resist saying "holy cow" in this context. But I am weak, people. Weak.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Be careful out there

I have several reasons to celebrate coming up in the next two months. Friends are coming to town to visit for different events. I have a couple of girls' nights out planned. Then, yesterday, I read this horrific story of a girls' night out gone horribly wrong and it gave me pause. Could this happen to me? I like to think that I'm too aware, too cautious -- but you never know. Please read it.

It also reminded me of something that happened, or almost happened, to a friend of mine. Nearly 20 years ago, I was living in Toronto with my boyfriend D and a room-mate S. S and I had gone to university together and now were just starting out in jobs in our field. The three of us went out one night to this huge barn of a bar in Mississauga to see a band -- FM. The place was set up with long tables, so we ended up sitting with people we didn't know. We were drinking beer. S and I were drinking at about the same rate, beer for beer. A guy sitting next to her, that we didn't know, struck up a conversation with her. He went up to the bar and brought her a beer back. Through a crowded dark bar. I think he put something in her beer. He was very attentive to her, leaning over and talking to her, putting his hand on her arm, pulling his chair closer to her.

A little bit later, S was really drunk, she was unsteady on her feet and when she got up to go to the ladies' room between sets, she was stumbling. I had drunk the same number of beers (4, I think) and was fine. I went with her to the bathroom, and she was hanging onto me saying "Please take me home. Don't let me go home with anybody else." As if I would. S was definitely not the type to leave a bar with a guy she'd just met. We went back to the table, and I said to D, "She's not feeling well, we need to take her home now." Mr Helpful at the table, the one who bought her the beer, was all "hey, why don't you guys stay and watch the next set, I'll drive her home." "No," I said, "Thanks, but we'll take her home." The guy was about to start arguing with me, but D stood up and loomed menacingly and told him that we would be taking her home, and the guy backed off.

S slept all the way home in the car. I helped her into bed where she stayed for the next 12 hours, emerging only to throw up periodically. By the Sunday she was pretty well back to normal again.

At the time, we weren't certain that he had drugged her. We explained it away to ourselves: S wasn't a big drinker -- 4 beers was a lot for her. She had been coming down with a cold, and maybe that had affected her tolerance to the alcohol. Maybe it was drinking on an empty stomach. But now, in hindsight, it seems pretty conclusive that he did, and it bothers me that we didn't tell anyone, we didn't take her to the hospital, we didn't call the police. I think perhaps that we were just naive and couldn't realize that someone would do something like that on purpose. But some people will. And some people do. Now. Today. And the story Karen told on Meanoldmommy didn't have a happy ending.

So please, if you're going out for a girls' night, be careful, be aware, and look out for your friends. I know I'm going to.

Pickle-ade

There's a wonderful cookware/kitchen gadget store called the Glebe Emporium over on Bank Street, about a 20-minute walk from my office. It's a great place for browsing or picking up gifts. It's the best place to find paté knives, wine glasses, giant stock pots, banana protectors for your lunchbox, or potato peelers with handles shaped like a tiny stack of spuds. Scattered throughout the store are little blackboards with quotations chalked on them. My favourite reads: "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. But if life hands you pickles, you might as well give up, because pickle-ade is really disgusting."

Well, last night, life handed me a small bouquet of pickles. Nothing really earth-shattering or serious, no grave diagnoses or untimely deaths, but just enough to make a day where I came out of 8 hours of advanced Excel training (pivot tables, anyone? Vlookup? What??) with a dull throbbing headache just that much worse.

• I was starved when I got home. I told the girls we would have to have supper before we went to do errands, including a trip to Dollarama which was a reward to Rachel for good behaviour. I took a pan of PC chicken sausage rolls (Rae's new obsession) out of the oven and she came over to sniff at them and she leaned too close and burned her chin on the cookie tray. Ice was needed.
  

• Stopping to have supper first got us to the dollar store at 6:17. It closes at 6:00. Many, many tears from Rachel. I am a bad mommy. I was left in no uncertainty at all about this fact. This didn't help the headache.
  

• We headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things. I promised the girls a treat at the checkout to make up for not getting to the dollar store. While chasing Leah around the various checkouts as she searched for white Tic Tacs, I wasn't watching the screen to see all the items rung up like I usually do. The beeping of the scanner sounded very loud and echoey in my sore head. I glanced at the running total: $121.89. "Stop!" I half-yelled at the checkout girl, "there's no way I've spent over a hundred dollars. Something's wrong." The people in line behind me looked mildly interested at this until it became clear that I expected the checkout girl (and she was only about 16 or so) to find the mistake and correct it, then there was a low muttering and some eye rolls. I cared not. Turns out she had punched in the wrong code. Instead of ringing up 2 croissants from the bakery, she had rung up two cases of rice milk at $33.99 a case.
  

• After putting the groceries in the trunk and starting the car, I had to get back out of the car to help Rachel with her seat belt. While trying to unlock the driver's door to in order to get out, I accidentally set off the car alarm. It took me nearly a minute to remember how to shut it off and the loud honking was making us all crazy.

• On the way home, Leah and I were talking about her new split class, and had the following conversation:

• Me: I don't know how the teacher can teach you everything she would have taught you if she was teaching you 100% of the time, now that she has to spend half the time teaching the Grade Ones in your class.

• Leah: I don't know. You could ask her, or the principal. We have a man principal now.

• Me: Yeah, I know, I saw him at the back-to-school barbecue. He looks about 12 years old.
  

• Leah: 12? No he doesn't.
  

• Me: No, I didn't really mean that. It's just weird for Mommy that all the people that I used to look up to as being older and wiser are now younger than I am: doctors, teachers, police. Even your principal is younger than I am.
  

• Leah: Yeah, waaaaaaaaaay younger.
  

• Me: Ouch. Thanks.

• Rachel slipped on the front porch stairs when we got in and added a skinned knee to the burned chin.
  

• I realized I had forgotten to buy paper towels and Advil, and I'm out of both.

I gave up. After I got the kids in bed, I opened a beer and took it to bed with me. No pickle-ade for me.

Differing ideas of hygiene

We were at the farmer's market this morning, the way we usually are on a Saturday morning. It was hay ride and hot chocolate day today. And a perfect day for it too. The sky was blue and the sun shone brightly, but it was cool. The Canada Rare Breeds organization had a trailer there full of heritage breeds of chickens and ducks, and a couple of sheep. The girls went through the trailer ooohing and aaahing over the heritage livestock, petting the sheep and picking up feathers from the grass outside the trailer.

We went on the hayride, and then lined up for the hot chocolate. The girls were sitting in the wagon, sipping on styrofoam cups of cocoa and marshmallows. Leah decided she didn't want her marshmallows, and before I could stop her, was fishing them out with her fingers and popping them into her sister's cup. "Hey!", I said, "Don't use your dirty fingers to put marshmallows in Rachel's hot chocolate. " "Don't worry, " Leah assured me, "I licked them first."

Ummm, yeah. That'll work.

Geese

I read this post yesterday, by Andrea at a garden of nna mmoy. It was still fresh in my mind when I went home after work and picked the girls up from daycare. Leah had done well on her spelling test, Rachel couldn't wait to tell me that they were going to make fruit salad in class today. Rachel set the table. Leah put away some toys that were left in the living room without being asked. All things that I want them to do, but at the same time their growing independence makes me just a little bit sad. I won't have them forever. I know that. And it's healthy that they grow away. I know that too. But you still want to hang on while you can.

Which is why when Rachel asked me last night at bedtime if she could sleep in my bed, I said yes. It won't be too long before she doesn't want to sleep pressed up against me, hogging the pillows, and I'm going to miss that when it happens. She had a hard time settling down, calling several times for drinks of water, one more story, Huggy Bear and her biddy (blanket). An hour later it was quiet and I assumed she'd fallen asleep. "Mommy?", I heard. I went towards the bedroom, sharp words rising in my throat, Just go to sleep Rae, Mommy's trying to get the kitchen cleaned up. It's so late, you'll be so grouchy tomorrow and I can't be late for work in the morning. But I controlled myself and said, "What's up Rae?".

"Mom", she said, her voice full of quiet wonder, "Listen! I hear geese." The window over the bed was open, and through it came the wonderful autumnal sound of a flock of Canada geese honking and calling as they flew low over the house. The sound blew in with the mist on a cool breeze smelling of fallen leaves. "I love that sound, Mom," she said. "Isn't it beautiful?" She heard something beautiful and wanted to share it with me. And I had been about to be angry with her because my housework had been interrupted. Housework. How crazy is that?

I climbed into bed with her and we snuggled for a bit and listened to the geese flying over the house and she fell asleep in my arms.

This and that

• Post-Carp Fair wrap-up: The fair was great. The weather was beautiful and the girls had a blast eating fair food, running from ride to ride, and petting the animals. And I was pleasantly surprised that everyone who parked along the street actually parked on the street. I only had to ask one person to move his car, which he did without complaint. But I was less impressed with the amount of litter I had to pick up off my lawn: 6 empty Smirnoff Ice vodka cooler bottles (Dude, I know when you're 16 it's cool to stand around on the street at night next to your buddy's pickup and drink, but take the empties with you, don't throw them on my lawn, or tuck them carefully inside the culvert in my ditch), a couple of blister packs of gum, two styrofoam poutine containers, a gatorade bottle, an Old Port package, and a Maaco damage appraisal form for a 2000 Honda Civic ($2400, ouch!). No underwear or vomit though, which was good.
  

• It's weird to live in the country and work in the city. Today, on the way to work I saw the following:

• Three wild turkeys walking along the side of the road (Run, little buddies -- Thanksgiving's in two weeks!!!)
• Cows mating. It really is as uncomfortable-looking and lumbering as you'd think. And since I was whizzing by at 60 kph, I'm not sure that the one participant was actually a bull. It didn't look like one. It might have been a cow all gender-confused from watching Barnyard. Or maybe she just swings that way.
• Some Hasidic Jews walking along the sidewalk in front of a Tim Hortons.
• A lady in jogging gear pushing a jogging stroller wearing a cell phone headset and carrying a Starbucks cup

• I probably could write a thought-provoking post about the dichotomy of mind inherent in living and working in two such differing environments, but screw it, it's Monday. All you're getting is bullets.
  

• I watched Zodiac on Saturday night, and now I think I'm a little bit in love with Robert Downey Junior. And Jake Gyllenhaal. Ok, and maybe just a tiny bit with Mark Ruffalo too. My friend Ev says this means I'm scarily not picky. I think it was just inspired casting. Or too much merlot.

• I fixed the cobblestone walkway. Finally. About a month ago, really hard rains washed out the sand and gravel underneath 7 or 8 cobblestones, and there was a dangerous sinkhole. Rae was drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk and watching me carry all the tools and sand over to the pathway. "What's that thing called, Mom?", she asked. "A crowbar", I answered. "Oh." [beat] "You better be careful with that, I don't want to be driving you to emergency." See, they really do listen. Not to absorb the info, just to memorize it to throw it back at you later.
  

Hey, look at this!

Hey, check this out! I'm Rant of the Day at OttawaStart Blog. (I'm wondering now if it's taking attention whoredom to a whole new level to link to a site that links back to one of my own blog postings, but hey, I'll take the attention where I can get it.) Look, Ma, I'm famous. Sorta.

And this:


Josie at No Internal Editor gave me this last week! It's the 'You Make Me Smile' award. How cool is that? The only thing is, that having given it to me, I can't give one right back. And I want to, because she really does make me smile. Hearing about the things that go on in her single-working-mom life really resonates with me, and her son Wonder Boy is the source of many giggles and the occasional cup of tea spraying the keyboard. To steal one of her sayings, I heart Josie and WB.

It's hard to pick 5 people to pass this along to, since each and every damn one of you makes me smile on a daily basis. But here goes:

Meanie at Meanoldmommy. Fellow Ottawa mommy with two girls and a liking for punk rock. What's not to like?

Mamatulip at Where am I going...and why am I in this handbasket? Her stories about life with Julia and Oliver and Dave rock. End of story.

Danigirl at Postcards from the Mothership. One of my inspirations for blogging. How Dani manages to blog daily while working, caring for two active little boys, and gestating the Player to be Named Later is a mystery to me. Her self-deprecating humour and similar experiences to mine make me smile often. Also, I like her phrase 'attention whore', and I'm so stealing it.

Antonia at Whoopee. Strange, but killingly funny. I smiled for days at the thought of her and her husband checking into a hotel dressed as Roman Catholic Cardinals.

Alissa at Life's Little Adventures and Briana at Life with Boys (I'm cheating and giving out 6). Often it's their photos that make me smile -- pictures of Alissa's boys on the farm, sitting in tractor wheels or climbing on hay bales, or silhouetted against a sunset sky; pictures of Briana's boys playing ball or heading off to school, or being held upside-down by their dad. Their boys are much the same ages as my girls, and the similarities and differences in raising them that I get from reading their blogs (Alissa was my other inspiration for blogging) make me smile.

So that's it for today, a little bragging, and a little bit of thanks for all the smiles.

An open letter to Carp Fair-goers

Dear Carp Fair-goers,

Yes, it's Carp Fair time again. That one weekend out of the year that you all drive out here to ride the rides on the Midway; see the farm animals and watch the heavy horses (damn, now I have that Jethro Tull song stuck in my mind); pay outrageous prices for drinks, fries, and cotton candy; and watch old rock acts in the beer tent. It's fun, I agree.

But see, here's the thing: I live here. I live in Carp 365 days a year, including the 3 or 4 days of the fair. So I'd like to just throw an idea out there for you. It's nothing revolutionary, really: Please be considerate of the people who live in the area where you park your car.

There, that wasn't so shocking, was it?

• Please don't park on my lawn. The street beside my house is wide enough so that you can park your whole car on the roadway and it won't be in danger of being hit by passing cars. It's really hard to mow those tire ruts you leave on the edge of my lawn. So please don't get all snarly and rude when I ask you to move your car so that it's entirely on the roadway.
• Take your little ones to the bathroom before leaving the fair. They have some quite nice bathroom facilities there, I've used them myself. Please don't wait til you get back to your car and then let your child relieve himself on my lawn.
• If you're one of the people who like to stay late at the fair, good for you. Party on, dude. I have 2 little girls who will be in bed by that time of night. If you have to have a drunken argument, or fist-fight, or break up with your girlfriend, could you do it before you leave the fairgrounds rather than doing it loudly in front of my house at 2 a.m.?
• Please don't leave any of the following on my front lawn (and these, I'm pretty sure, are from the people addressed in the above bullet point): empty beer bottles, empty pop cans, empty cigarette packs, a bra (I kid you not - it was pink), and vomit.
• Could you do me a favour and leave the little reflective green sign with my street number on it where it is? It belongs on my lawn so that the fire truck or ambulance can find my place in case of an emergency. It can't perform that function if it's been pulled up and thrown in my neighbour's ditch.

Thanks. Now have a good time. All-you-can-ride bracelet day at the Midway is Friday this year.

I never learn

Somebody, Albert Einstein or Ben Franklin (or Sheila Copps maybe, for all I know), once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results". I must be insane.

Despite my past history with the stuff, I once again pulled out the Krazy Glue to fix something for Rachel. Of course it went horribly wrong. I ended up with the head of a red, jewelled, dollar-store flower glued to my thumb and forefinger while the metal stem in the little pot sat on the counter. Seriously, the tubes of glue should have "Keep away from children. And Alison" written on them. And despite what it says on the tube, it doesn't work all that well at sticking a cheap metal stem to the cheap metal back of the flower head. It works much better at bonding the cheap metal back of the flower head to skin. My skin.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately -- I can't decide which) I'm an old pro at removing objects Krazy Glued to my body (see link in above paragraph for more details), and it's off now. So, I have three choices. 1) Toss the flower, and hope Rae forgets about it. 2) Back to the dollar store to get another flower, 3) Hey, there's a soldering iron and some solder in the basement!

I think I'll pass on 3), even though the trip to Emergency might make a great blog post.

Craftzilla

I have a seven-year-old daughter. I also live in a town small enough that the LCBO doubles as the beer store, but it won't accept the empties. For that I have to drive to Stittsville. You might be forgiven for asking what these things have in common with each other and with the title of this posting. I'll get to it eventually.

Meet my oldest daughter, Craftzilla Leah. Not a day goes by without her bringing home artwork from school. Not an after-school evening goes by without something being coloured, cut out, molded, or attached to a piece of yarn. Not a single recylable escapes her steely eye. Everything is fair game to be taped, stickered, glued and markered into something else. Toilet-roll binoculars. Cereal-box televisions. Shoe-box Little People apartments, complete with furniture.

It's worse when her friend Alora comes over, as the visit will inevitably produce a truly frightening number of crafts that I can't throw out. At least not right away or during daylight. I'm not sure if this is normal seven-year-old-girl behaviour, as she is the first seven-year-old girl I have raised.

Leah knows that the black box (paper and cardboard recyclables) is fair game. I don't mind if she fishes a box out of the black box for one of her little projects. On the weekend, it was making a guitar. You know, you take an empty kleenex box or cut a hole in a rectangular box, put rubber bands around the box so that they can be strummed over the hole, attach a paper-towel tube for the neck, and voilà: a guitar. Big deal, you might say. Well, Leah loves the creating part, but the finishing and prettifying -- not so much. She's too eager to move on to the next project. So the painting of the box or covering it in pretty paper; it doesn't happen.

Which is why we have a lovely Tampax-box guitar in the living room.

I guess it could be worse. She could have rounded out the string section of her little orchestra with a Trojan-box violin complete with the Canesten-box neck. It could have happened.

Oh, but I digresss. The beer bottles. Right. Last night after dinner, I left the girls doing a jigsaw puzzle in the living room and went to the bathroom. I was in there ten minutes, tops. When I came back into the living room, I stopped dead. My living room, which I had just vacuumed before dinner, was awash in rice. Yup, uncooked parboiled rice. It was on the floor, and it was all over the coffee table. As were a butchered Kraft Dinner box, several bits of cardboard, and two tape dispensers. When I finally was able to form words, I asked Leah what was going on. "Look, Mum," she said proudly, "I showed Rachel how to make maracas!" And from behind their backs they produced beer bottles half full of rice, with discs of cardboard haphazardly taped over the mouths.

After a decent interval, the maracas will be returned to the beer store. And I'm thinking of leaving them just the way they are. Beer store guys deserve a little artwork in their lives too.