Big Gardening Project(s)

The big gardening project for 2007 is currently underway. Did I say project? I think I really mean projects. Add a big old 's' to pluralize that 'cause there is definitely more than one underway.

Since the waterproofing of the house, in reality, the whole landscaping around the house has become one big project. And, the garden is a largest part of it.

The tomatoes are under a grow light in the basement and they're doing pretty well. I'm looking forward to eating them, as are my kids. Wifey, on the other hand, is determined to give them all away. I had to tell her yesterday to stop offering up my black tomatoes. If I were to give away all the plants she'd promised, we'd be in a trade deficit.

It's not that we don't have plenty to share. We do. It's just that it's my job to give them away. Not hers.

Some are flourishing more than others. This just popped up today. I'm going to have to find out what the markings on the tomato leaves mean. Any thoughts?

I've also got a compare and contrast growing note. Here is the basil under the grow lights. I don't think it's actually grown at all in the past two weeks (unlike the tomatoes).

This is the basil that I left in the kitchen window sill. It's flourishing, other than it is a wee bit leggy, in the southern sunlight.

Where is the home to all of these plants? It's here! Our former driveway turned future raised bed veggie garden.

Now that I've got rid of the railing, some patio stones and the washing machine stored in the garage over winter is about to depart, a big truck of dirt will soon be visiting our home. Our plan is to put about 6 inches of top soil over the gravel and to build 5 raised veggie beds along the cedar hedge border. We're also going to build a small fence to block off the yard, purchase a rain barrel, and make a container garden alongside the house.

Last week I discovered Freecycle and promptly joined the Ottawa group. Someone responded to my post about the garden railing and picked it up on Sunday. When someone posted a need for patio stones, Wifey and I jumped at the opportunity to help someone out and dispose of one of our back patios.

I spent a few hours on Thursday lifting and stacking the old stone. Yesterday, the stones were picked up and the screening will be going this afternoon. This is going to leave us an excellent space for....grass. I know, I can't believe I actually am going to make lawn.

A few years down the road, we'd love to knock out the windows (see ledge at top of photo), put in french doors and build a big 'ole deck in this space. In the interim, I've rationalized that more grass can be a good thing because it will provide clippings for the compost bins and materials for the lasagna garden in the raised beds.

I spent the other part of my Sunday afternoon weeding the back garden bed, or rather, taking calculated guesses at which ones were weeds and which ones were plants. I really wish I had a before and after photo.

Since re-claiming the over grown bed last summer - the bed where the phlox took over bee balm and everything else - we've been deciding what is and what is not a keeper. It's going to take a few more summers, but we're slowly getting there.

And, while I weeded, Wifey decided to fix the rock wall that was half knocked over during construction last fall. She opted to have less wall and more bed. I'm not complaining as I now get to plant and try out some new flowers.

Yesterday, I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that some of the trilliums survived the pre-construction transplant. I'm not quite sure how these two got here, as I had moved over ten of them under a tree on the opposite side of the front garden. But, I sure was pleased to see them.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Wifey had to work all day Saturday. The kids spent all of Saturday asking when she'd be home.

Wifey went into work on Sunday morning, too. I called at 10:00 am and kindly requested that she return home as the kids were asking for her again in 5 minute intervals.

Laden with parental guilt about her absence, Wifey wanted to make sure her return was marked with the memory of the weekend.

After much coaxing and convincing, on went the bathing suits and sandals. Out into the pouring rain they went. And, together they ran around the house three times screaming with laughter, "April showers bring May flowers."

Talent Show

Last night Bella performed at her school’s talent show.

Wifey and I prepared for days to be supportive like Olive’s parents in Little Miss Sunshine (you know, the scene at the end when it turns out that Olive’s dance talent as choreographed by her Grandfather is really a stripper routine that leaves the audience in shocked, open-mouthed awe at a beauty pageant. Comically hilarious, yet mortifying if it’s your child).

When Bella first decided to audition for the talent show it wasn’t her singing weakness that concerned us, but her choice of songs. See, her song of choice is what she calls her evening lullaby. For us, it just happens to be the only song that Wifey could remember the lyrics to when Bella first called out for a bedtime song in her first few nights here. Now, Wifey serenades the kids to sleep each night with Both Hands by Ani DiFranco.

Both Hands is a song about a relationship dying. Or, according to my Wifey, it’s a song about sex. All in all, not normally the song you hear at a talent show performed by kids in grades 1-6. The poetic beauty of the lyrics “And your bones have been my bedframe / Your flesh has been my pillow” make adults shift uncomfortably in their chairs when they come through lips of an off-key 11 year-old.

At first, we tried to encourage her to make a different song selection for the audition. She wouldn’t.

Then, we expected that the teacher’s would ask her to choose a different song. They didn’t.

And last night, we were there, ready to sing our hearts out alongside her if she morphed into Olive. Thankfully, she didn’t.

We have the whole performance on tape.

What we don’t have on tape is footage of two red-faced parents, shifting awkwardly in their seats, visibly made uncomfortable by the eyes of a packed auditorium boring into the backs of their heads. I do believe that the accompanying unspoken mental narrative would have been, “Who the hell taught their kid a lesbian sex song? Thank god that’s not my kid! That was awkward.”

Am I the Right Parent?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing good by our kids.

The highlights of my weekdays are the moments spent in solitude, puttering around the house, doing things for my family in anticipation my children's return from school. The anticipation is always a prelude to being let down.

Perhaps it is because I’m not genetically imbued with sympathy, or to stretch it further, empathy for that matter.

Bella complains that her neck hurts. All I can think about is how I’ve asked her every day for over a week if she really needs to truck every single duo tang and textbook back and forth to school each day and that’s the cause of the so-called neck injury.

She’s been playing dumb again. This time it’s with math. It’s hard to discern whether or not she’s actually forgotten how to do multiplication and division or if she’s faking it. That’s how she often tries to get attention. And, I hate it. I hate falseness and pretenses. I have no patience for this kind of behaviour. These guises drive me further away instead of towards the closeness that she desires to attain.

I sometimes look at her and dislike the person she is and wonder how we’ll make it through the turbulent teen years. Those are just around the corner.

Under her skin, I wonder who the real person is. I wonder who she’s going to be. I wonder if we’ll like each other at the end of it.

More often than not, my thoughts are punctuated by weaving wonderment if I’m the right person to parent this child.

How much does it cost to feed a family of four?

Since going on parental leave, every dollar is counted and accounted for. The transition from a two-income, no kids household to a one-income, two kids has changed our relationship to money.

Gone are the days of buying things on a whim. Where I never used to worry about having enough to pay for expenses and extras, the mere act of having to make sure there’s always enough has pushed my money-related stress level through the roof.

While our net income shift has by no means left us not well off, we haven’t been so successful in adjusting how we spend what we have to make it through a month without racking up more debt. No more consumer debt is my month-end goal – every month.

We have a budget that allocates our income. For the most part, we’re right on or under with all line items. That is, with the exception of food.

We don’t eat out. We don’t buy tons of processed or packaged foods. I plan ahead for our weekly dinner menu and kids lunches. I shop from a list for the most part. I’ve moved to from shopping at Loblaws to Food Basics. We serve more kid friendly meals and rarely anything remotely gourmet, which has led to a slight gastronomical death of this foodie!

All of this, and I cannot stick to a $500 monthly budget.

The Walrus included a photo essay entitled Our Weekly Bread in its December/January issue depicting families around the world with the contents and final costs of their weekly grocery shopping displayed in their homes. It explored a fact uncovered by photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D’Aluisio that the same number of people in the world are overfed as underfed. From $30 a week in Mali to $329 in the USA, this photo essay takes its readers around the globe to peer into human food consumption.

Using one family as a barometer, and doing the math on my overfed counterparts in similar countries, who on earth can afford these monthly grocery bills!

Of the two Canadian families in the mix, one is from across the bridge in Gatineau and they spend $158 a week for a family of four. Now, I can more relate to this at this specific point in time, but before our two kids I scoffed in amazement as our grocery bill for two far exceeded that. I don’t, however, see any meat in this photo.

The other Canadian family is from Iqaluit and they spend $392 a week on groceries and that is accompanied by the fact that the father is an avid hunter and often provides the family with fresh meat. That grocery bill totally floors me and I have no idea how it’s financially possible to spend nearly $1200 a month on food!

Comparably, perhaps we’re not doing that badly in our house, albeit, we’re probably more on the overfed side of the equation. We never go hungry. You can always find something to eat. We’re not necessarily able with any regularity to invite extra mouths to our table. Sometimes our meals are lacking in taste and balance (i.e., Kraft dinner once a week).

All of this goes to say, I still don’t feel I have enough money to easily feed all the mouths in our house. How much should it cost to feed a family of four?

What would you say....

Bella just called home from school because she thought she forgot her lunch. While I was on the phone with her, I checked the fridge and counter. It wasn't there.

I then asked her how hard she looked for that lunch and she responed that she just checked for it once. I asked her what she was going to do to solve her problem. She thought she should go look in her bag a bit harder.

What would you say if I were to tell you that just as I was about to hang up the phone with Bella, I spied her lunch sitting by the door and opted to say nothing to let her do a good double check and come up with a solution?

Grow tomatoes grow!

This year, I'm growing tomatoes from seed.

I've become fascinated with the thoughts of eating sun-warmed tomatoes freshly picked off the plant from the garden. I've also started to nourish the desire to dabble in heirloom tomatoes.

One of the challenges I foresee with this project is that I don't have grow lights. We do have, however, a fabulous south facing window that gets lots of sun. Of course, it's been rainy and overcast since the seeds have germinated and that's why they're doing this big stretch towards any hint of light.

Queer politics for 12 and under

Sometimes when you talk to your children about that which is queer and queer-related, you're not really sure if they understand, how much they absorb, adopt or appropriate as politics of their own. Discussions regarding all things LGBTQ are common place in our home. And, every once in a while you hear your nuggets of wisdom come out of someone else's mouth.

At the breakfast table heaped with pancakes and sausages, this conversation was heard.

Neighbour boy: Does your dog, Gus, have a girlfriend?

Wifey: Well, there’s Chloe…a shitsu…but she doesn’t like Gus as much as he likes her. Then there’s Maggie who lives next door.

Me: Gus also has some boyfriends too. Remember Deuce and Sunny from the dog park?

Bella: Our dog is a bisexual. That means he likes both boys and girls.

Green Thumb Sunday

Exposed!

One of the complexities of adopting older children is what I will term “the nudity factor.”

When babies are born, they emerge naked from the womb. We count fingers and toes, inspect them from top to bottom,examine and count up all their body parts. Daily, through diaper changes or baths, we see our children’s naked bodies.

For adoptive parents with younger children, I’m assuming that early in the relationship, they become familiar with all of their children’s naked parts. Five-year-olds need help in the bath. A two-year-old may need help on the potty. A six- or seven-year-old may need help getting dressed. In the course of daily living, the naked body makes a regular appearance.

We adopted Bella (11) and Bubaloo (9) who are perfectly capable (at least, we think) of bathing, eliminating and dressing themselves. There’s no everyday circumstance where we would just happen to see our kids naked. As a parent, it’s quite a bizarre thing to have never seen your kids’ bottoms or to know whether or not your son is circumcised.

Even more so, as our kids are older, nudity has been a site of awkwardness in the home. Before kids, Wifey and I would sleep naked or walk around the house as such. With kids, we don’t do that, but especially more so because these kids are older kids and carry the entire social stigma around bodies with them. Our kids are no more comfortable seeing the naked parts of the strangers that became their mothers’ overnight, than they are parading around in their birthday suits. Mix the privacy needs of their age with the presence of strangers and we no longer have a naked house.

Over the past two months, as the familial bonds and intimacy have been slowly building, we’ve seen more and more of their naked parts. Seeing a chest while putting on a shirt. Looking at the wound on a leg. Running around the house in their underwear. The oldest one has seen more of us naked than she’s wanted, as she doesn’t understand that the invisible cue given by a shut bathroom door is not “enter” but “knock first.”

With the little one, building that bond of trust and comfort have been ever more prominent in my mind because we do have some medical concerns.

He had a hernia removed over a year ago somewhere in the region covered by underwear that was only discovered accidentally by his foster father when Bubaloo was walked in on in the bathroom. Apparently the hernia was the size of a baseball.

Bubaloo had a few anxious nights before he finally shared with us that he was worried because it looked like the hernia was growing again. After a Dr’s visit he checked out okay.

We’ve also have some concerns around his bladder and urination.

Swimming lessons for us have turned into an opportunity to challenge the nudity factor. We use the family room, and to make sure we get out of there in a reasonable amount of time, I’m directing the kids through changing so they can see what our expectations are.

Showering after the swim lesson has revealed the soap touches every part of Bella’s body and Bubaloo doesn’t believe that washing involves any amount of soap.

For the most part, the kids have been changing from swimsuits to street clothes behind strategically positioned towels. I’ve also showed Bella how to hold onto the towel if she’s not comfortable with being completely naked while changing.

Last night, we got our full exposure in this change room event.

Me: Okay, kids time to get changed.
Bella: Okay Mom. (And she gets right to it.)
Me: Bubaloo, would you like me to hold the towel for you?
Bubaloo (as he points to his sister): I can’t change with her in here!
Bella (already standing stark naked): But we’re brother and sister, Bubaloo! It doesn’t matter!!
Me: Okay, Bubaloo take your swimsuit off while I’ll hold the towel as a screen.
Bella (still standing naked): Bubaloo, it’s okay. See, I’m your sister.
Me (parent with a sense of humour): Bubaloo, why don’t you moon her?

Bubaloo, naked as a jay bird, drops his towel to shake his front three times and then turns around to shake his rear another three times.

Not only have we overcome the nudity factor, as his did his sun and moon dance several times in succession for us, we also had to explain that a moon is the butt cheeks only.

Two Degrees of Separation

Last weekend, I had a two-degree of circular separation incident.

At our annual Bowl-A-Thon fundraising event for camp, I put out a notice that we were desperately looking for a new Treasurer. One of our most fabulous camp counselors, who has been with the project since the beginning (both a kid from an LGBTQ family and LGBTQ-identified), and had put a team into the Bowl-A-Thon, introduced me to BoyX. BoyX looked familiar, talked familiar, and was just in general familiar. Together we unearthed that we went to different universities at the same time. Then, the puzzle was solved.

Separation formula

BoyX – Camp Counselor – Me

Me – Best friend – BoyX

BoyX was the mysterious male that my best friend had a crush. I remember orchestrating several evenings out so we could casually bump into BoyX in an “effortless manner.” The only thing I cannot seem to remember is if we just stalked BoyX for a month or if BoyX and my best friend had actually gone on a single or multiple dates at some point in time.

I write all of this in an ode to tangential thinking that has been invaded by worlds merging by Kevin Bacon pop cultural references. The six degrees of Kevin Bacon has been around for a long time now. And now, Kevin Bacon is playing on the game to help fundraise for charities through SixDegrees.org.

Basically, the site is about social networking (think MySpace) with a twist of charitable conscience. You can create a badge and through this badge you connect to your charities of choice, raise money for them, and learn about the charitable causes near and dear to your heart and those of other celebrities. It calls on the average joe to become a fundraising celebrity.

Right now, the site is running a challenge to provide a matching grant of up to $10,000 for the top six charities. Now, what’s interesting in the end is that it isn’t the dollar total that matters (well, at least once your past the $10,000 mark cause you do want to maximize your matching), but the number of people who donated. Because it’s all about who you know and the number of people you can motivate into giving.

What I love about this is the mixture of pop culture and charity with a dash of celebrity.

I learned about this from Family Pride (now on their mailing list after having attended the not-so-great OutSpoken conference in November, in the sense of not what I expected, but it was another two degree of seperation that got me here) which is participating in the challenge. As of today, they’re ranked 3rd.

Here’s their badge - nicely designed and eye appealing and user friendly - which won't embed in the page.

This is yet another organization that I admire for their smart and savvy fundraising copywriting. They are really good at creating a narrative, pulling on the heartstrings, and motivating you with multiple calling points for action. Albeit, they engage in too much virtual fundraising for my taste, I’d love to be able to emulate some of their donor building and fundraising strategies if we were to secure some high end supporters for camp.

But alas, SixDegrees.org is yet again another American exclusionary phenomenon in which we cannot participate.

I just wish, yearn, and hope that some fun and innovative fundraising initiatives like this could be launched for Canadian charities. Puhlease!

Uncaffinated parenting

Today, Bella and Bubaloo have been living with us for 1 month + 3 days. In 2 days, Wifey and I will have been a partnership for 4 years. Since becoming a full time parent, I've upped my daily coffee consumption from 1 to 3 cups. And, this morning was a testament to why I should never again consider parenting without coffee.

Our children, particularly Bella, need lots of cueing and redirection in the morning. Until a month ago, I never really thought it would be possible to ask the question, "what were you doing for the past 30 minutes," and get a blank look. Because literally, she was doing nothing. Sometimes, she spends 20 minutes looking at herself in the mirror. Other times, she spends 15 minutes picking out an outfit, looking for a sock, petting the dog or brushing her teeth. Sometimes she'll use 10 minutes to get her lunch from the fridge and put it in her bag. And at others, she'll take 5 minutes to locate her snowpants and jacket in the front hall closet, which at most has a maximum of 8 jackets in it.

She dawdles, she dilly dallies, and often she makes us late.

This morning, due to a miscommunication with Wifey, we delivered conflicting cues. The end result was that she didn't have her skates ready to go and we had to leave house or we'd miss the bus.

Wifey had prepped the skates the evening before, but neglected to put said skates and helmet in a bag for transportation. The same child who can't remember her mitts, hat, scarf and book bag at the same time and loses precious items to the vortex under her bed daily, isn't quite yet ready to separately carry two skates and a helmet to school (regardless of the fact she literally cannot carry all that stuff).

As I hustled her out the door, Wifey mentioned the skates to Bella. Since it would take Bella the time we didn't have because she opted to spend the last 15 minutes doing ________ (insert tooth brushing here?, and definitely not brushing her hair or putting outdoor clothes on), I had to make the executive call that we couldn't bring the skates.

The flood of tears from Bella and the death eyes from Wifey clearly made that the wrong decision. But, the stubborn person I am who was already freezing my butt off in -31 weather, said screw it, and decided to deliver the logical lesson of choice. I didn't not deliver the lesson of let's support our kids and have them start off the day right, which apparently was not a good choice on my behalf.

"Well, Bella," I said as we trugged down the street. "I know it really sucks that you won't have your skates today to skate. That's really disappointing. Too bad you chose to spend your time upstairs after breakfast instead of getting your skates together. I guess next time, you'll consider making a different choice."

I guess that stung, because the flood of tears multiplied thousand fold, and the walking was even slower. Along with the pouting and feet shuffle/thump on the pavement.

Running down the street yelling "Hurry up" to Bella, dragging Bubaloo by the hand (who was snowpantless and mittless by choice with said items in bag and not on body complaining about the cold), having the Wifey walk determinedly behind us with anger, and the poochie pulling on his leash must have been quite a scene for those making their daily commute.

The bus arrived right away. Bella left without a good bye, kiss or hug. I threw it on thickly sweet, "Have a great day, Bella. I love you." Kissed and hugged a stunned Bubaloo who looked as if his loyalties were divided between his sister and myself. Watched my Wifey storm away muttering about my battles and me.

And then, the poochie took a poo.

In front of the bus stop that had just watched our family drama, acknowledged by lack of eye contact, I searched my pockets for a poo bag. The people were watching my dog poop. I called out to Wifey meekly, "Do you have a plastic bag? The bag went with the kids on the bus."

"No," she responded.

The disapproval and shunning by the gathered collection of neighbours at the bus stop radiated as I threw up my hands and walked away. To no one in particular I called out, "Well poochie, I guess we're going home to get a bag." Just so, you know, the neighbours would know that I'm not THAT dog owner.

I got home. Exhausted. Drank a coffee to gain perspective.

Just for the record, the poop is still out there.