This morning I was out and about with 4-yo, and we stopped for a coffee and a treat. She had a taste of mine, and said "ooh, that's nice. What is it?"
"Apple pastry Danish" I replied.
"Could I have an apple pastry dangerous too?" she asked.
Prickly pear jelly a few days ago; dangerous apply pastry this morning. I'll be watching out for lethal oranges, threatening bananas, and hostile peaches.
(Actually, shouldn't that have been 'apple Danish pastry'? I was just quoting what was written on the display cabinet. It didn't strike me as odd at the time, but now I write it, it seems wrong. It had a lower case 'd' too, but the European in me had to correct that.)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Moments
There are moments here that I love. They are the moments when I pause and think
"That would never have happened if we'd stayed in Britain".
At preschool, 4-yo has been learning about the desert. On my kitchen wall I have a cut-out and coloured-in armadillo, coyote, lizard and rattlesnake. Also an unidentified bird with a newspaper tail, and some kind of warthog cut out of sandpaper. When I picked her up the other morning, I asked her what she'd had for her snack. She replied,
"Prickly pear jelly on crackers."
That was definitely one of those moments. And because I know you're going to ask, yes, she did like it. She said it was delicious.
"That would never have happened if we'd stayed in Britain".
At preschool, 4-yo has been learning about the desert. On my kitchen wall I have a cut-out and coloured-in armadillo, coyote, lizard and rattlesnake. Also an unidentified bird with a newspaper tail, and some kind of warthog cut out of sandpaper. When I picked her up the other morning, I asked her what she'd had for her snack. She replied,
"Prickly pear jelly on crackers."
That was definitely one of those moments. And because I know you're going to ask, yes, she did like it. She said it was delicious.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Blogging and Margaret Thatcher
One of the things I love about blogging is how it’s really just an extended conversation with a bunch of friends. You see, I’m sitting here saying “now where were we? Ah yes. Margaret Thatcher.” It feels to me like we were chatting away over coffee, everyone chipping in, and I was just about to say a big thank you to you all for dropping by, and then the doorbell rang. It was an award being delivered. So then I had to show off the award, decide who to pass it on to, and just as I was rewinding to what I really wanted to talk about, there was a phone call, about a picture meme. I’d been dying to show off my mural to you all anyway, so I had to dig out some pictures and pass them round. So here I am, still drawing breath, and still saying “where were we?”
Perhaps this is why blogging is such comfortable territory to people with small children. Which of you hasn’t had a conversation along the following lines?
“It’s not the same as going out after work for a drink and chatting to someone all evening. Huh. Lucky if we get an hour before ‘someone’ gets tired and we have to head home.”
“Yup, and it’s not like it’s proper conversation anyway. [Sigh] I guess that’s just one more skill we all develop. The art of talking while chasing a snotty-nosed toddler round the room with a tissue. Come here, you.”
“Right. They never warned us how we’d have to talk in two-sentence chunks all the time. Share nicely please. I mean, it’s fine. You get used to it. I said ‘Share’. But it’s not the same. Anyway, what were you saying about your mother-in-law’s ingrowing toenails? If you can’t take turns, we’ll have to put that Postman Pat V-Tech learn your shapes and colours talking boomerang right away. Surgery?”
Those of us who are a bit longer in the motherhood tooth no longer even have the novelty of self-congratulatory awareness that we are doing new things. Get me. I’m so multi-tasking. We’re the ones who would now probably struggle to talk to the same colleague for a whole evening and would be thinking of a way to leave the pub politely. We merely furrow our brows, and search each other’s faces in companionable memory-lapse silence, until one of us says “Margaret Thatcher”, and the other slaps the table, takes a gulp of tepid coffee, and replies:
“Yes. Margaret Thatcher. Well, I loved everyone’s comments, and what an interesting read they made. As for my own opinion, well, it rather changed as a result of the debate. I’ll even confess to lying awake at night not being able to sleep for thoughts of Margaret Thatcher.
I started off with several of you, thinking she wasn’t a proper woman, because she got to the top by being like a man. Then I realized what a very unfeminist position that is. We women really are our own worst enemies. I mean, what would I want a woman Prime Minister to be? Someone younger, more attractive, more fashionable, whose choice of outfit would make the news alongside her policies? Or a mother of young children, so we could all smugly wonder whether she found time to help her children learn their spellings in between meetings at Number 10 and voting at the House of Commons? How we love to do down women who achieve. Yes, we are our own worst enemies. This article, put my way by A Modern Mother, says it so well. It’s about Rachida Dati, the French politician who took five days’ maternity leave when she had her baby. Five days. I can't even imagine... But I don't need to. She's not me. She doesn't have my life, I don't have hers. That's the point.
So I have shifted. I now think Margaret Thatcher was a proper woman (handbag and all). I think she found her way, fought her way, to where she wanted to be, regardless of her gender. She was a feminist without having a feminist agenda. And yes, I think it did make a difference. I don’t think she was exactly a role model, but having a woman PM did prove to us all that no sphere of life could any longer be considered the sole preserve of men.
I’ve just created a picture of her for myself (and this is pure whimsy) losing her thread, and scanning Geoffrey Howe’s face in a moment of silence, before slapping the cabinet room table and exclaiming 'The Single European Currency. Yes. I knew there was something else I wanted to talk to you about.'"
Perhaps this is why blogging is such comfortable territory to people with small children. Which of you hasn’t had a conversation along the following lines?
“It’s not the same as going out after work for a drink and chatting to someone all evening. Huh. Lucky if we get an hour before ‘someone’ gets tired and we have to head home.”
“Yup, and it’s not like it’s proper conversation anyway. [Sigh] I guess that’s just one more skill we all develop. The art of talking while chasing a snotty-nosed toddler round the room with a tissue. Come here, you.”
“Right. They never warned us how we’d have to talk in two-sentence chunks all the time. Share nicely please. I mean, it’s fine. You get used to it. I said ‘Share’. But it’s not the same. Anyway, what were you saying about your mother-in-law’s ingrowing toenails? If you can’t take turns, we’ll have to put that Postman Pat V-Tech learn your shapes and colours talking boomerang right away. Surgery?”
Those of us who are a bit longer in the motherhood tooth no longer even have the novelty of self-congratulatory awareness that we are doing new things. Get me. I’m so multi-tasking. We’re the ones who would now probably struggle to talk to the same colleague for a whole evening and would be thinking of a way to leave the pub politely. We merely furrow our brows, and search each other’s faces in companionable memory-lapse silence, until one of us says “Margaret Thatcher”, and the other slaps the table, takes a gulp of tepid coffee, and replies:
“Yes. Margaret Thatcher. Well, I loved everyone’s comments, and what an interesting read they made. As for my own opinion, well, it rather changed as a result of the debate. I’ll even confess to lying awake at night not being able to sleep for thoughts of Margaret Thatcher.
I started off with several of you, thinking she wasn’t a proper woman, because she got to the top by being like a man. Then I realized what a very unfeminist position that is. We women really are our own worst enemies. I mean, what would I want a woman Prime Minister to be? Someone younger, more attractive, more fashionable, whose choice of outfit would make the news alongside her policies? Or a mother of young children, so we could all smugly wonder whether she found time to help her children learn their spellings in between meetings at Number 10 and voting at the House of Commons? How we love to do down women who achieve. Yes, we are our own worst enemies. This article, put my way by A Modern Mother, says it so well. It’s about Rachida Dati, the French politician who took five days’ maternity leave when she had her baby. Five days. I can't even imagine... But I don't need to. She's not me. She doesn't have my life, I don't have hers. That's the point.
So I have shifted. I now think Margaret Thatcher was a proper woman (handbag and all). I think she found her way, fought her way, to where she wanted to be, regardless of her gender. She was a feminist without having a feminist agenda. And yes, I think it did make a difference. I don’t think she was exactly a role model, but having a woman PM did prove to us all that no sphere of life could any longer be considered the sole preserve of men.
I’ve just created a picture of her for myself (and this is pure whimsy) losing her thread, and scanning Geoffrey Howe’s face in a moment of silence, before slapping the cabinet room table and exclaiming 'The Single European Currency. Yes. I knew there was something else I wanted to talk to you about.'"
Monday, February 2, 2009
Picture this
Everyone is playing this picture tag game, and Nappy Valley Girl has tagged me. The rules are:
Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures
Pick the 4th picture in that folder
Explain the picture
Tag 4 people to do the same.
This is very exciting, since there is something I've been meaning to write about and show you all for ages and ages, and haven't got round to it, and now I have to. This involved a small amount of cheating, but very minor stuff. You will see, when I explain the first 3 attempts.
1) The 4th folder wasn't a folder at all, but an icon which was a short-cut to opening Mozilla Firefox. So I just ended up on the BBC World News home page. I deleted the icon. What was it doing there anyway?
2) The new 4th folder contained lots of different pictures of a soccer ball, downloaded from the internet. The folder title was "11-yo's soccer logos". I didn't think that was very interesting for you all, so gave myself permission to pass on.
3) The next folder was titled "11-yo's aeroplane pictures". There were only 3 pictures in it, so I could pass on without even being guilty of cheating.
So on the 4th attempt at finding the 4th picture in the 4th folder, I found this.
Here is the story behind it. When we moved into our new home, in April 2006, having moved half a world, camped out with the sister of one of Husband's colleagues for 2 weeks, and rented a small duplex for 4 months, we wanted to do something special in the children's bedroom. It seemed important. Our two youngest were sharing the largest room.
Husband had bought a painting done by one of his students (he's a Philosophy teacher, but as you probably know, a US degree covers a whole range of subjects, so this girl was an art major taking one of his philosophy classes). I really loved it. It showed a boat on a lake, and was dreamy and impressionist. "Do you think she does murals?" I asked Husband, and that's how it all started.
This was Mylissa's first mural. We weren't very easy clients, or perhaps we were ideal clients, in that we didn't really have a clear idea of what we wanted. I just asked for it to be dreamy and impressionist, and of the sea. Oh how I missed the sea, which we could view from our bedroom window in the house we'd left in Scotland. We painted the room blue, she brought lots of pictures from books and websites, we told her which ones we liked and which we didn't, and she made a start.
It was a mutually very happy arrangement. Mylissa took her time (um, nearly 4 months actually - in sporadic evenings and week-end afternoons) during which period the room pretty much became her studio, and the 2 children slept on our bedroom floor. She didn't charge us nearly enough, and wouldn't. She had most of the vision, but we would chip in our ideas: how about a bird here, or a few fish there? We had a lot of fun doing it, and I loved seeing an artist at work. What a mysterious world is the world of the painter.
We couldn't have been more pleased with the result. The mural is on 3 walls. There's a tropical island, with a sunset and dolphins. There's a boy's side of the room, with a shipwreck (in the photo above), and a sailing boat in the distance. There's a girl's side, with mermaids lazily investigating a treasure chest, and a hazy castle in the clouds. Deep down, I know the mural is really for me, not for the children, although they do love it too.
Mylissa did a couple of murals after ours, but then went off to Hollywood to do clever things with Blu-Ray. Her creativity was, in a way, a key to unlocking some element of mine, which is something else I need to tell you about. Another time. Meanwhile, it's very hard to do the mural justice, but I thought you'd like to see a few more photos of it.
Here's a close-up of that wreck. I was going to say "you can't really see the detail", but you can if you click on it. It's worth a look.
Mylissa added a little Pikachu just by the door of the room (he's a Pokemon for those of you who don't know). We discussed putting him on the sailing boat or the island, or letting him hang out with the mermaids, but for the sake of artisitic integrity, she found him a spot out of the picture.
I am tagging Elsie Button, Potty Mummy, Expatmum, and Antique Mommy. And Pig in the Kitchen which makes 5. It's the new 4. Didn't you know? (But Pig, you're not allowed a food photo; it's got to be something else.)
Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures
Pick the 4th picture in that folder
Explain the picture
Tag 4 people to do the same.
This is very exciting, since there is something I've been meaning to write about and show you all for ages and ages, and haven't got round to it, and now I have to. This involved a small amount of cheating, but very minor stuff. You will see, when I explain the first 3 attempts.
1) The 4th folder wasn't a folder at all, but an icon which was a short-cut to opening Mozilla Firefox. So I just ended up on the BBC World News home page. I deleted the icon. What was it doing there anyway?
2) The new 4th folder contained lots of different pictures of a soccer ball, downloaded from the internet. The folder title was "11-yo's soccer logos". I didn't think that was very interesting for you all, so gave myself permission to pass on.
3) The next folder was titled "11-yo's aeroplane pictures". There were only 3 pictures in it, so I could pass on without even being guilty of cheating.
So on the 4th attempt at finding the 4th picture in the 4th folder, I found this.
Here is the story behind it. When we moved into our new home, in April 2006, having moved half a world, camped out with the sister of one of Husband's colleagues for 2 weeks, and rented a small duplex for 4 months, we wanted to do something special in the children's bedroom. It seemed important. Our two youngest were sharing the largest room.
Husband had bought a painting done by one of his students (he's a Philosophy teacher, but as you probably know, a US degree covers a whole range of subjects, so this girl was an art major taking one of his philosophy classes). I really loved it. It showed a boat on a lake, and was dreamy and impressionist. "Do you think she does murals?" I asked Husband, and that's how it all started.
This was Mylissa's first mural. We weren't very easy clients, or perhaps we were ideal clients, in that we didn't really have a clear idea of what we wanted. I just asked for it to be dreamy and impressionist, and of the sea. Oh how I missed the sea, which we could view from our bedroom window in the house we'd left in Scotland. We painted the room blue, she brought lots of pictures from books and websites, we told her which ones we liked and which we didn't, and she made a start.
It was a mutually very happy arrangement. Mylissa took her time (um, nearly 4 months actually - in sporadic evenings and week-end afternoons) during which period the room pretty much became her studio, and the 2 children slept on our bedroom floor. She didn't charge us nearly enough, and wouldn't. She had most of the vision, but we would chip in our ideas: how about a bird here, or a few fish there? We had a lot of fun doing it, and I loved seeing an artist at work. What a mysterious world is the world of the painter.
We couldn't have been more pleased with the result. The mural is on 3 walls. There's a tropical island, with a sunset and dolphins. There's a boy's side of the room, with a shipwreck (in the photo above), and a sailing boat in the distance. There's a girl's side, with mermaids lazily investigating a treasure chest, and a hazy castle in the clouds. Deep down, I know the mural is really for me, not for the children, although they do love it too.
Mylissa did a couple of murals after ours, but then went off to Hollywood to do clever things with Blu-Ray. Her creativity was, in a way, a key to unlocking some element of mine, which is something else I need to tell you about. Another time. Meanwhile, it's very hard to do the mural justice, but I thought you'd like to see a few more photos of it.
Here's a close-up of that wreck. I was going to say "you can't really see the detail", but you can if you click on it. It's worth a look.
Mylissa added a little Pikachu just by the door of the room (he's a Pokemon for those of you who don't know). We discussed putting him on the sailing boat or the island, or letting him hang out with the mermaids, but for the sake of artisitic integrity, she found him a spot out of the picture.
I am tagging Elsie Button, Potty Mummy, Expatmum, and Antique Mommy. And Pig in the Kitchen which makes 5. It's the new 4. Didn't you know? (But Pig, you're not allowed a food photo; it's got to be something else.)
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