crooked house

Happy Spring Kindle Deals!

Happy Spring, everyone! Did you check out the Google doodle? If not, go have a look. I'll wait.

As I was walking up the hill after dropping Sylvie off at preschool this morning, I noticed it felt a little warmer than usual, which isn't difficult when the "usual" has been -10 degrees Celsius,  and commented to the dad walking beside me, "You can feel spring in the air."

He responded in a voice more fit for a charismatic church than polite chitchat, a kind of joyous bellow: "It's HERE! I can FEEL it!"

I almost shouted " Hallelujah! Amen, brother!" and briefly considered dropping to my knees in the mud but figured that might be going a bit far, so I smiled and got in my car. When I turned it on, Vivaldi's "Spring" was playing on the radio. So all in all, it was a nice start to the day.

And now I've noticed that Amazon has some great deals to celebrate the first day of spring: they're offering five books by Italo Calvino at $1.99 each. And then, you really put you in the spring mood, they're offering The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre! and The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals: Choose the Best Breeds for Small-Space Farming, Produce Your Own Grass-Fed Meat, Gather Fresh Eggs, ... Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, Pigs, Cattle, & Bees for $1.79 each, as well as some similar gardening/nature books, at similar prices. Don't you just feel like getting out a shovel and going crazy in the mud today? Even if it means having to remove a layer of snow first?

It's True, She Is

Last night, three-year-old Sylvie and her father were having a bit of a disagreement about her dinner. She didn't want what was on offer and was suggesting a list of other items she might deign to eat instead. (I tend to cater to their whims; David thinks they should eat what's been set in front of them.)

David (frustrated): You should've grown up in MY house!

Sylvie (in the same frustrated tone of voice): I AM in your house!

Son Day

Luke: It feels like Sunday today, instead of Father's Day.

Steph: It is Sunday, honey. It's Sunday and it's Father's Day.

Luke: No, I mean it feels like Son Day. S...O...N... Day. Because instead of me doing things for Daddy, Daddy is doing things for me!

Steph: You're lucky to have such a good dad.

Luke: Yes, I am!

Breastfeeding and Birthing Dolls and A Rather Heated Conversation About Vaginas

We seem to be talking about breastfeeding and birthing here all the time lately, weirdly, since we are done with that phase. But the kids are still very interested in the subject and clear information and a healthy attitude about the whole thing will help to prepare them for their own future families. I just happened upon these Mamamor Dolls and I think they are hilarious, adorable, and informative. The babies have little snaps for mouths that attach to nipples, also made out of snaps, on the moms. (The designer should consider using pink, red, and brown snaps instead of silver ones, though.)

Some of the dolls also show how the babies are carried in the moms' bellies and how they come out. Some of the babies come complete with detachable umbilical cords and placentas.

 

There are even VBAC dolls, which also have a slot in the stomach through which the baby can emerge. Which reminds me of a conversation Luke and I had on the weekend. It was the kind of conversation that should have been an exchange of information expressed in a matter-of-fact, healthy manner, but it got away from me.

Steph (witnessing Luke putting shreds of a red balloon that has burst into his mouth): Luke! Never ever ever put pieces of balloon in your mouth! They can get stuck in your stomach and KILL you. And especially not red ones! A surgeon won't be able to find the red pieces in your stomach because they look just like blood and all the other stuff inside you.

Luke: How about if I chew this yellow one? Yellow wouldn't be hard for the surgeon to see...

Steph: Absolutely not! I don't care if yellow is an easier colour for the surgeon to see. It is NEVER a good thing if you have to be cut open.

Luke: All girls have to be cut open when they have their babies.

Steph: No they don't. Just sometimes, when the babies won't come out their vaginas. And it is NOT a good thing.

Luke: Ewww. They come out their vaginas?! Ewww. I came out your VAGINA? (starts laughing)

Steph: No, you did not. You wouldn't come out properly so they had to cut my stomach open and take you out that way.

Luke (still laughing): I came out your vagina! Ewww!

Steph (laughing too, but getting annoying and starting to shout): No! You DID NOT COME OUT MY VAGINA!

David (entering the room, says mildly): Well, now the whole neighbourhood has that clear.

Luke (continuing to snort and giggle): Did you come out of your mother's vagina?

Steph: Yes. Yes, I did. (muttering) Everyone comes out of their mothers' vaginas and it is natural and beautiful. That is what the vagina is for.

Luke: But you just said that I didn't come out of your vagina.

Dreams of Riches

Grampa: Steph, how does it feel to be rich?

Steph (puzzled): What do you mean?

Grampa (laughing): Last night I dreamed you won the lottery.

Steph: Oh wow, I hope your dream comes true. Wouldn't that be nice, Sylvie, if we were all rich?

Sylvie: Grampa have bad dream? Like my dream treasure cat?

Steph: No, honey, Grampa had a good dream. Not a nightmare, like your bad dream about the Cheshire cat [from Alice in Wonderland]. He dreamed we were rich!

Sylvie: That bad dream.

Steph: No, it's a good dream! I was rich and Daddy was rich and Lukie was rich and Vivi was rich!

Sylvie (looks appalled and insulted, screeches at the top of her lungs): I NOT A WITCH! (bursts into tears.)

Plans for Vivi

Vivi, wearing Mrs. Potato Head's lips upside-down and talking on her set of plastic car keys.

Vivi is reading aloud to her friend Eden, who is also two years old. "Point to the black cat!" she instructs Eden.

"Sylvie, are you going to be a teacher, like your mom?" asks Eden's mom, Kat.

"No," Sylvie replies.

"Well, what are you going to be when you grow up, then?" asks Kat.

"Doctor," says Vivi.

"Oh that's great!" says Kat. "Doctors make lots of money! You will have a fabulous house and a really big collection of shoes!"

I laugh.

"What?" says Kat. "She LOVES shoes."

It's true, she does.

 

Things Grampa's Grandparents Told Him

Gorgeous image of snowflakes by Yuji Obata, found here.

"The old woman is shaking her feather bed." Grampa mentioned this one just now because enormous soft snow flakes are falling from the sky. "What old woman?" I asked him. "I have no idea," he said. "Just the one who lives in the sky," said Luke.

"The devil is beating his wife." Grampa explained that this one was said when it rains while the sun is shining. "Is the rain supposed to be the devil's wife's tears?" I asked, wondering about the poor devil's wife -- why have I never heard of her before? -- and her wretched life. "I have no idea," said Grampa.

"Freckles are caused by raindrops falling on your face." How did they get this one so very wrong? It's too much sun on your face, not rain. Unless, like me, you were simply born with them.

"If you go to someone's house and when you walk in the door, there is a broom lying on the floor in front of it, whatever you do, do not bend down and pick it up." "Why not?" I asked.  "Because it will prove you are a witch. Just step over it," instructed Grampa. As a boy, Grampa himself visited the houses of people who performed this test on unsuspecting guests. "They were known to be fanatical about witches," he explained.

See also: the devil's darning needles.

(I get these in dribs and drabs. "Is that all you can remember right now?" I just asked him. "Yes, that's all," he said. But while I was searching for a good image of snowflakes, he came back into the room. "Did I ever tell you I wasn't allowed to watch during pig-killing time?" he asked me. "No," I said. "Why weren't you allowed to watch?" "Because if you pitied him, he wouldn't die," said Grampa. "I was allowed to watch after he was dead.")

 

 

The Crooked House Paper Village

Here's a shot of the paper village we always put up around this time of year. Some of the houses -- the three-dimensional ones with pastel roofs -- I made a year or two ago using a Martha Stewart winter village kit. At some point, I used Country Home's plans to make the plain white buildings, which are flat. And this year's addition is the one in the middle  -- it's made from a photograph of our own crooked house, printed on vellum and taped to a square glass vase. I got the idea from Hutch Studio. They made similar ones of their shop. (Via the lovely new blog A History of Home.)

I've taken photographs of other houses in our neighbourhood, and ones of the houses of some relatives and friends -- you know, the people who don't actually live in our neighbourhood but we wish did. (Gramma, when you read this, please email us a photo of your house and Den's.) And, time permitting, I'm going to add those houses to our paper village, too. So that even if the real world isn't perfect, our paper one will be.

Or maybe not. If you look closely, you can see where the roof of our porch is starting to fall down, right above the steps. And unfortunately, there's another slight problem. I suggested to Luke that we might like to put little cut-out photographs/paper dolls of him and Vivi on the felt, next to that snowman say, and he thought that was a great idea. "We should look sad, though," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the house is on fire," he said. And unfortunately, it does look a little like that. Luke thinks the glossiness of the map behind the roof of the house even looks like smoke.

We could just go with that, I suppose. Add a toy fire truck and all.

 

All you need to make your own is a photograph of your house printed on a sheet of vellum, a battery-operated tea light or two (whatever you do, don't use real ones), and some tape. The glass vase or candle-holder is optional. If you don't want to use one, just fold the photo of your house in a kind of tube around a tea-light and fasten it with the tape.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Nails Parenting

That Was Dumb, Wasn't It?

Vintage telephone ad from here.

Luke: Mommy, could you call [my friend] and ask her to come over and play?

Steph: Why don't you call her?

Luke: I'm too shy to speak to her father.

Steph: Well, you have to get over that. I used to be very shy, too, and my mother made all my telephone calls for me. Then, when I was teenager and went away to live by myself and go to university, I remember that I was afraid to call the hair salon to make an appointment to get my hair cut! That was dumb, wasn't it?

Luke: Yeah, you never should have lived alone.