Babies and wishlists and reading and homeschooling

Funny how busy you can be even when you really don't have that much to do.

Good weekend. Saturday we cleaned the house to prepare it for the resumption of the kids' D&D club. I'm told D&D was a success, even though only two of the kids came (summertime, nobody's home). I say I'm told it was a success, because I wasn't there. I was babysitting the tiny ninja_kat Jr., who now crawls, eats solid food (lots of it!), talks animatedly (sans words, but he's got the general idea of verbalisation = communication), loves the bathtub, and has a deep belly laugh.

I heard that deep belly laugh a lot, especially at the end of the day when it was time to put a new diaper on. Because I couldn't quite manage it at first; the damn things have changed enough since Justin used them that I got confused as to which end was which. I figured it out in the end, and actually the confusion was good because apparently he usually fusses during diaper change time and he was too busy laughing at me to fuss, but still. I was laughed at by an infant. Ouch.

The only time he actually fussed was at the very end of the day, when I went to put him in his sleeper and get him to sleep. He didn't think highly of that. He started to cry, full-on screaming, letting me know just how vehemently he objected to my plan. Continued at full blast for eleven minutes. Rested for a bit, then positively shrieked... for another minute. Then he snuggled down and went to sleep.

Easiest baby I've ever babysat. Almost made me envy ninja_kat and Mr. ninja_kat, for having a baby around all the time instead of in little bits here and there.

I said almost. I still remember the sleepless nights and the constant demands and the lack of personal- or couple-time. Not to mention the whole bodily waste issue. Not going there again ;)

***
Justin and Daniel are at Nature Camp this week and (hopefully) Martial Arts camp next week, so I'm getting caught up on lotsa stuff that needs doing in and around the house. I've even got a ( wish list )

***
Justin is reading. Not terribly quickly, but yesterday he read several pages of a Step 2 SpongeBob book with our help ("SpongeBob was eating breakfast at the kitchen table. 'Gary, look!' he said to his snail"). I think he would be able to piece out a Step 1 book by himself, actually. I think I'll see if he can tonight when he gets home.

He's also doing the same thing Daniel was doing at this age, playing with numbers in his head and then coming out with little factoids. "You know what's half of thirty? Fifteen." "Is sixty plus sixty one hundred and twenty?" "Hey, if eight times two is sixteen, then nine times two has to be eighteen. Because it's eight times two plus two."

Doesn't sound that impressive until you realize he's six and just finished kindergarten. According to the Ministry of Education, this year he was supposed to reach the following goals:

( Look Ma, no hands! )

Um, yeah. I think he got them ;)

***
Daniel wants to do home schooling for another year, instead of going back to school. Which is good; I want the same thing. Justin also wants to stay home, though, and that's... um. We'll have to talk about that. A lot.

Anne! Hi!

From my vague memory, this is what we talked about on Friday:

• How to upload pictures, using Photobucket at photobucket.com
  
• How to upload icons at livejournal (go to your User Info, Manage Userpics, upload using their friendly upload dialogue box)
  
• How to add Friends on your livejournal (go to your User Info, Manage Friends, Edit Friends, Add Friends)
  
• How to create a livejournal entry (go to your User Info, Journal Update, fill in the form and type Submit)
  
• How to edit a livejournal entry (go to your User Info, Manage Entries)
  
• How to decide whether you want posts to be public, private, or Friends Only (toggle the Security menu)
  
• Touched on cut-links, and decided to save that for later :)

Did I miss anything?

If you're looking for icons to start with, I've got a few I wouldn't mind sharing, behind the cut link. I also included other people's icons that I found really cool, but please note they are not mine and therefore I cannot give permission to use them. I don't even whose they are; I just like collecting cool icons on my hard drive.

Anybody on my f-list is welcome to take a look beneath this cut-link and also welcome to use any of my icons behind the cut. If you are going to do that, I appreciate a note telling me so :)

Oh and BTW, warning: the icons below are not all kid-safe. As in, some feature naughty words or single entendres ;)

( icons and icons and icons, oh my )

Anniversary

Today is the second anniversary of my mom's death. It's strange how it doesn't feel like it's been that long, yet at the same time it also feels like it's been a lot longer.

I find myself thinking of my mom a lot lately. Just in terms of things I wish I could have shared with her. Like Justin's ballet recital; she went all of mine, through my whole childhood, and it would've been really neat to take her to her grandson's. She would've been so proud of him, and would have probably taken dozens of pictures and showed them to family and friends from Ottawa to Thurso to Germany to Chile.

Or like babysitting ninja_kat Jr. I think she would've gotten a kick out of his belly laugh, and his completely adorable eye-crinkling-grin. I also think she would've been so incredibly proud of how ninja_kat has handled motherhood - not just the regular new baby challenges, but the additional physical problems brought on by her pregnancy as well.

It would've been so neat to talk to her about everything to do with the Law Review. I don't know how much of it she would've been interested in, but I'm sure some of it would've intrigued her. Not to mention being able to tell her friends and family that her daughter was an editor :)

Oh, god, the kids' schooling. She never got to see any of Justin's. His first day of school, his starting French Immersion, Daniel's homeschooling, watching Cosmos together for home school science...

Not to mention the end of Chris' residency. The last few years that she was with us were heavily laden with Chris' bloody residency and the damage it wreaked on all of us. The exhaustion and the fighting and the general suck of life. She wasn't exactly supportive throughout it, and that still hurts, but it still would've been nice to be with her after it was all over. If only because she had a distressing habit of being rather unsupportive during crises, then looking back after the crisis was over and saying things like, "I felt so bad for you back then," or "I didn't know how to help," or even sometimes "I was so proud of how you handled all of that."

Which, granted, always made me want to yell something like, "Well then why didn't you bloody well say so then, when it would've actually helped?!" but it did help, somewhat, even after the fact. It would've been nice to hear something like that after Chris' residency was done.

The whole trip to Hawai'i was such a bittersweet thing for me. I went there with my mom when I was about 11, so a lot of what we did really reminded me of her and made me wish I could've told to her all about it, and heard again stories I'd forgotten, of what we did back then. My own memories are a bit hazy - I was 11, after all. And it bugs me that anything I've forgotten is effectively gone - from the Hawai'i trip and for most of my childhood, actually, since she was a single mother and I was an only child.

I'm glad she didn't have to go through Guy's illness and death. It would've been devastating to her. But I think in part she would've dealt with it by helping the kids through missing their grandpa; she often dealt with personal problems by going out and helping others, and the kids could certainly have used extra TLC dealing with it.

To a small extent I feel a bit envious of people whose belief systems allow them to think of their loved ones as watching over them, or waiting for them in the next life, or whatever. Because I'm pretty much a confirmed atheist, and pretty firmly believe that my mother is completely gone and now only exists in the memories of those who knew her. ( Musings on life, death, and atheist spirituality, cut for length )

So yeah. That's where my thoughts have been going for the last several months. And... I dunno, maybe it's not the way most people deal with life and death and loss, but believe it or not I find my way comforting too. I'm still not sure why, to so many people, my beliefs are incomprehensible or wrong or bad. I'm still not sure why it seems so many people believe that people who believe as I do are to be pitied or censured or convinced of the error of our ways.

Oh well, one mystery at a time ;)

Ah, that's why

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