It's been a while since I've sentout an update, and I'm not sure if that's because our lives are boring orbecause I'm lazy.
We've settled in nicely in Ottawa. Our house is mostly presentable,although our back yard is a big mudlot (we regraded). I feel like we've been living here for years, which often seems rather strange to me until I remember that I did live here for years. Most of my childhood, as a matter of fact.
It's very odd taking my kids to places I used to go to as a child. The Dairy Queen, the Nepean library, Merivale Mall, up and down Merivale road whereI held my first three jobs...
I was feeling kind of weirded out about the whole thing when I ran into an acquaintance from high school who actually moved into her parent's house after her parents decided to get an apartment. Now that would be a mind trip. The house where you were raised as a kid becoming the house where you're raising your own kids.
We also caught up on other high school acquaintances. I became aware of the fact 'catching up' on people my age doesn't just mean finding out that they're about to get married or start a new job. It sometimes also means finding out that they're having kids, getting married for the second time, or starting a second career.
I think Jerry Seinfeld said once that in the Midwest, people measure time by the ages of their kids. "Let's see now, Donny was 4 then so that would've been 1989..." In California, they measure times in terms of spouses. "Now that was after Cloris, when I was married to Barbara, so that would be... 1990 or 91..." I wonder how most of us will measure time.
It's been an exciting few months for the boys. Justin's been growing by leaps and bounds - verbally and mentally, that is, since he really couldn't get much bigger physically without us calling the cops.
He's at a great verbal stage. He's putting together pretty complex sentences, although you can tell he thinks some multiple word sets are actually one word. For example, his favourite word for a while was "Aneeda", as in "Aneedakiss" or "Aneeda hug" or "Aneeda candy".
He also imitates expressions that he doesn't always understand. For example, we always tell the boys that when we're in places like electronics stores or china shops, everything is fragile and expensive, so DON'T TOUCH. So the other day, I poked Justin's belly and he turned to me and said, very seriously, "I'm fwagile and 'spensive. So DON' TOUCH ME."
It's amazing being able to see what's going on in his little mind. The other day we were going to my mom's house and he was talking softly to himself in the back seat. "Going to Luli an Guy's house. Going to Luli an Guy's house. They love me. They my fwiends. I like them. Going to Luli an Guy's house."
He's also at the stage where kisses and hugs really are powerful. I remember thinking, when Daniel was at this stage, how sobering it is to realize that when your child is this age and they're hurt, a kiss from Mama or Daddy really does heal. It's like you're all-powerful to them. You can literally make pain go away. What an awesome responsibility.
The other thing about Justin is,as his grandfather pointed out once... he's a brute. He's shorter than Daniel, but weighs one pound more. When we go to get the boys clothing, nothing fits them, because Daniel is built like a beanpole and Justin is built like a pear. We get comments about what he'sgoing to be when he grows up, and surprisingly nobody says ballet dancer or basketball player. They say things like bouncer, linebacker, rugby player... or, as Chris says, he's going to be the rugby team. I'm continually reminded of a snippet of dialogue from The Princess Bride, when Andre the Giant is talking to Billy Crystal:
Crystal: I'll call the brute squad.
Andre: I'm on the brute squad.
Crystal: (looks up at him) You are the brute squad.
I was at a home schooling event at one point and one of the other moms commented, "Your boys, they're pretty close in age, right?"
"Uh... yeah, three years." That will be pretty close in age when they're 40 and 43, I suppose.
In the meantime, Daniel is at a stage where his imagination runs rampant. He seems to spend most of his day in a world of monsters, super heroes, witches, and guns, guns, guns of one type or another. We continually have to tell him that when he's crossing the street, riding his bike, or getting ready for bed, he has to turn his imagination OFF. Otherwise everything takes forever.
He's also not going to school this term, although he will in September. I was thinking of home schooling but it hasn't gone as well as I hoped. It's very difficult to do it alone and Ottawa doesn't seem to have much for people who are new to homeschooling. There's plenty of events, but most of them are aimed at children 7 and older, and most home schooling parents at the events seem to already know each other. We haven't really connected with many people, although we did do a lovely 6-week program at a local conservation area and met a few other families. They mostly lived pretty far away from us though - a big difference from our neighbourhood in London where our fellow child-friends and parent-friends were a couple of steps away.
We'll see. Daniel's education doesn't seem to be suffering any - he's reading small words with no problem, his writing is pretty good, and he often surprises us with his knowledge. Like for example, one time we were making muffins and I asked, thinking of doing a little mini-lesson on multiplication,
"Daniel, this recipe says I need 2 cups of flour, but I only have a half-cup measure. How many half-cups should I use?"
"4," he said immediately.
"Oh. What if the recipe said I needed 3 cups? How many half-cups is that?"
"3."
"What if I have a third of a cup and the recipe says I need two cups?"
"6," he said casually, and went back to his monsters and laser guns.
I mentally reviewed the CommonCurriculum expectations for Kindergarten. I may be wrong, but I believe that by the end of Senior K, kids are supposed to know all their numbers up to 20 and be able to do addition of 1-digit numbers. I don't think it says anything about multiplication of fractions.
He really scares me sometimes.
Daniel is also at an age where he's pondering the Big Questions of life. Like what happens after we die. It's a little frightening to field these questions, since I don't actually know the answers. I remember when he was really little (maybe 2) and we were listening to a reggae, and he asked me "What is Ja?"
"Uh... well, Ja is another word for God," I answered, thinking, OK, here we go, now he's gonna askwhat is God and I won't be able to answer. But no, he was quite content to leave it at that.
Oh how I long for those carefree days now.
In other news, Chris has initiated Justin into the great Rae tradition of Fishing with Dad. So far they have yet to catch anything. As a matter of fact, I believe Chris and Daniel have not caught a single fish in the last three years, but I could be wrong. They still enjoy it immensely.
I also took the kids to my mom's boyfriend's cottage too and we had a great time, even though Justin was sick the whole time (tummy bug, don't ask). One exciting event was that he took a dive into the lake. We were in a Pedalo (one of those little boats that you pedal) and all of a sudden my mother said "Justin don't-" and according to her testimony, before he had fully hit the water my arm had snaked out and fished him out. I didn't actually see him go in. I just registered that my mom's voice had that 'Oh Holy Bleep the kid's about to go in' tone to it and the next thing I knew I was hauling my wet little toddler back into the boat and we were all looking at each other in stunned surprise before he registered that a Bad Thing had just happened and started to wail.
Parental instincts are great.
I also took Daniel to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in the 'thee-AY-ter' as he calls it. I have no idea what kind of critical success it's achieving, but I will say that it's a hell of a lot of fun for a five year old. I was a little worried that Daniel would get upset about his hero Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vader, so Chris and I went to see it before declaring it ready for Daniel's eyes. Happily, the Vadering of Anakin is subtle enough that Daniel didn't notice it, although his sharp little ears did catch the fact that at one point, Darth Vader music plays in the background while Anakin is talking.
His favourite part had to be the part where Yoda does a lightsaber fight. He's been gleefully repeating over and over again, "Judge me by my size, you will?"
We're just not as interesting as the kids. I've been accepted into law school and got in part-time. I was told I had to have a really really good sob story for them to let me into the part-time program. I guess "I have two little kids and my husband is a medical resident who was in a horrible accident last year and is still dealing with it" qualified.
And I'm playing soccer again! It's a great team, and so far we are actually undefeated. This is made even more impressive by the fact that when we started I was one of the players with the most experience, in that I had played one whole season two years ago. Most of the rest of the women were asking questions like, "So do you like, not use your hands at all? So how are you supposed to dribble the ball?"
Chris is finishing inpatient psychiatry and looking forward to Child Psych. We'll see. It's 6 months of heavy call - at least,'heavy' as shrinks see it, which is ridiculously light compared to most other disciplines. I must admit it will be nice to not have to hear about antisocial patients, involuntary committals, and suicide attempts at the end of the day, although I'm sure I'll get to hear other, equally heartwarming tales.
Now I know how he felt when I'd come home with stories of rapists and murderers and child molesters. Sigh. What do normal people talk about at the end of the day?
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- Jimena
Tim: You never say please, Frank. You never say thank you.
Frank: Please, don't be an idiot. Thank you.
Homicide: Life on the Streets