Here he is (in the blue plaid shirt) giving it his 5 year old best for all of you, his devoted fans. In the audience were his mum, little sister, great-aunt Dorothy, great-Uncle Peter and Auntie Jeet (not quite as many as his stage debut in Saint John but a good showing). His teacher, Mme Salmon, is in front leading her charges on and off key. She is so enthousiastic. As you can imagine, Seb has loved her energy and creativity through the year. To Seb's right are Aislin (the blonde) and Jet (dark hair and blue dress) who are both headed to the Grove alternative school next year, and in the top row in orange is Jude (Seb's friend who will be heading to Trudeau, the French school). But more of friends and school options another time. By the way, a) they are 5 and 6 year olds anglophones singing in French (so don't worry if you barely understand a word of the lyrics) and b) Seb performs encores if you want to be serenaded by phone.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Friday, 12 June 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Au revoir, Alice
Alice has taken care of the kids once or twice a week for the past 8 months. But on Saturday, she headed back to France for good. So we had her over for tea and to look at the 1500 photos of her most recent trip (the babysitting money seems to have funded these tremendous travels across North America). It included: Vancouver, Victoria, San Francisco, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and a week on working cattle ranch. That's why she is so tanned.
She very kindly gave the kids each a French book. Seb got his very first Tintin!
A bientot, Alice?
She very kindly gave the kids each a French book. Seb got his very first Tintin!
A bientot, Alice?
Auntie Jeeta makes good pizza
Say that 10 times fast: auntie jeeta makes good pizza; auntie jeets makes good pizza; auntie jetta mak goo pissa...
Need I list all the things that Auntie Jeet does for us? Making pizza barely scratches the surface.
Need I list all the things that Auntie Jeet does for us? Making pizza barely scratches the surface.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Our visit with Dorothy & Peter
In a word : "wonderful"
In another : "brief"
But we showed them our neighbourhood and our routine with the weekly market and the parks and community centre. They had the highlights of the McMichael Gallery, the best sticky bun in North America (that may well be true) and Sebastian's kindergarten concert!
See, they all found the sticky bun so lip-smacking, thumb-sucking, finger-licking great!
The McMichael and the sun is in Sophie's eyes, poor sweet.
"Ah, a new person to read to me" said Soph.
"New people to hip-hooray with" said Seb. (Could be D&P themselves or the fact that the kids got to add peanut-free chocolate chips to their pancakes in honour of D&P's visit).
In another : "brief"
But we showed them our neighbourhood and our routine with the weekly market and the parks and community centre. They had the highlights of the McMichael Gallery, the best sticky bun in North America (that may well be true) and Sebastian's kindergarten concert!
Lunch in the garden at our new table
See, they all found the sticky bun so lip-smacking, thumb-sucking, finger-licking great!
The McMichael and the sun is in Sophie's eyes, poor sweet.
"Ah, a new person to read to me" said Soph.
"New people to hip-hooray with" said Seb. (Could be D&P themselves or the fact that the kids got to add peanut-free chocolate chips to their pancakes in honour of D&P's visit).
Friday, 5 June 2009
Daily Life (part 1)
Here are some recent photos illustrating how we typically spend our days...
Goof around, especially at mealtimes.
Hang out on the porch in our pjs.
Father and son head off to school when the former is on evening shift
Our favourite place to stop and sip on the way home (or before pick-up with other mums and tots).
Pantry's delectable offerings
Seb loves the high stools.
Goof around, especially at mealtimes.
Hang out on the porch in our pjs.
Father and son head off to school when the former is on evening shift
Our favourite place to stop and sip on the way home (or before pick-up with other mums and tots).
Pantry's delectable offerings
Seb loves the high stools.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Just let them be
Good theory - now for the practice. Where did I put that martini shaker?
New York Times Magazine
Let the Kid Be
By LISA BELKIN
Published: May 29, 2009
Perhaps you know it by its other names: helicoptering, smothering mothering, alpha parenting, child-centered parenting. Or maybe there’s a description you’ve coined on your own but kept to yourself: Overly enmeshed parenting? Get-them-into-Harvard-or-bust parenting? My-own-mother-never-breast-fed-me-so-I-am-never-going-to-let-my-kid-out-of-my-sight parenting?
There are, similarly, any number of theories as to why 21st-century mothers and fathers feel compelled to micromanage their offspring: these are enlightened parents, sacrificing their own needs to give their children every emotional, intellectual and material advantage; or floundering parents, trying their best to navigate a changing world; or narcissistic parents, who see their children as both the center of the universe and an extension of themselves.
But whatever you call it, and however it began, its days may be numbered. It seems as though the newest wave of mothers is saying no to prenatal Beethoven appreciation classes, homework tutors in kindergarten, or moving to a town near their child’s college campus so the darling can more easily have home-cooked meals. (O.K., O.K., many were already saying no, but now they’re doing so without the feeling that a good parent would say yes.) Over coffee and out in cyberspace they are gleefully labeling themselves “bad mommies,” pouring out their doubts, their dissatisfaction and their dysfunction, celebrating their own shortcomings in contrast to their older sisters’ cloying perfection.
After all, that is the way it is with parenting — which I bet was never used as a verb before the 20th century, when medicine reached the point where parents could assume their babies would survive. At its core, raising children is about instinct and biology, yes, but on top of that, we build an artificial scaffold, which supports what we have come to think of as parenting truths but are really only parenting trends.
Going way back, the Spartans probably thought they were oh, so modern when they left defenseless infants on wild mountain slopes. So did wealthy Norse mothers who had poor women foster their children, and European aristocrats who employed wet nurses. More recently, as Ann Hulbert chronicles in her book “Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children,” rigid feeding schedules were all the rage in the United States in the 1920s. The next two decades brought an emphasis on discipline.
In 1946, Dr. Spock came along and told parents to trust their instincts. Later, parents became buddies with their kids, and by the end of the last century, the debate was about the quality versus the quantity of time spent with your children. That was followed by the concept of mothering as an all-consuming identity. Mothers chose their gurus — T. Berry Brazelton (touchy-feely parenting), William Sears (attachment parenting) and John Rosemond (Christian parenting) — then diligently wore their babies in slings and nursed them into toddlerhood, all the while judging (and feeling judged by) those who did not do the same.
After a decade of earnest immersion in parenting, though, the times are ripe for a change. The first sign was the wave of confessionals — from anonymous Web sites like truumomconfessions.com (where mothers admit to transgressions like feigning stomach cramps to steal quiet time hiding in the bathroom) to bylined blogs like the wildly popular dooce.com (where Heather B. Armstrong chronicled her postpartum depression and continues to write about her struggles as the mother of a charming but somewhat high-strung 5-year-old) to memoirs like Ayelet Waldman’s (in which she cops to such “sins” as using disposable diapers and loving her husband more than her children).
But in the past few months, a second wave has taken hold — writers are moving past merely venting and are trying to gather the like-minded into a new movement. Carl Honoré is one. He calls it “slow parenting” — no more rushing around physically and metaphorically, no more racing kids from soccer to Suzuki. Lenore Skenazy is another. She calls it “free-range parenting,” a return to the days when childhood was not ruled by the fear (overblown, she says, with statistics to prove it) that children would be maimed, kidnapped or killed if they did something as simple as riding their bikes alone to the park.
By far the most chipper is Tom Hodgkinson, whose book “The Idle Parent: Why Less Means More When Raising Kids” was just published in England, and whose cover — Mum and Dad lounging with martinis while their well-trained toddler sits on the floor mixing up the next batch — illustrates his message that parents should just chill. Pay attention to your own needs, he writes, back off on your children and everyone will be happier and better adjusted.
All this certainly dovetails nicely with new economic realities. When you can’t afford those violin lessons or a baby sitter to accompany your 10-year-old to the park, you can turn guilt on its head and call it a parenting philosophy. But is it fundamental change? Or is the apparent decline of overparenting (and its corollaries: feelings of competition and inadequacy) actually the same obsession donning a new disguise?
The one constant over the past century has been parents’ determination to find the right answers when it comes to raising their children. In this latest chapter, we have replaced the experts who told us what a good parent worries about with experts who tell us that a good parent doesn’t worry so much. We may even see parents stop aiming to prove how perfect they are and start trying to prove how nonchalant they are. But worry is worry. The search to keep from messing up goes on.
Lisa Belkin, a contributing writer for the magazine, writes The Times’s Motherlode blog
New York Times Magazine
Let the Kid Be
By LISA BELKIN
Published: May 29, 2009
Perhaps you know it by its other names: helicoptering, smothering mothering, alpha parenting, child-centered parenting. Or maybe there’s a description you’ve coined on your own but kept to yourself: Overly enmeshed parenting? Get-them-into-Harvard-or-bust parenting? My-own-mother-never-breast-fed-me-so-I-am-never-going-to-let-my-kid-out-of-my-sight parenting?
There are, similarly, any number of theories as to why 21st-century mothers and fathers feel compelled to micromanage their offspring: these are enlightened parents, sacrificing their own needs to give their children every emotional, intellectual and material advantage; or floundering parents, trying their best to navigate a changing world; or narcissistic parents, who see their children as both the center of the universe and an extension of themselves.
But whatever you call it, and however it began, its days may be numbered. It seems as though the newest wave of mothers is saying no to prenatal Beethoven appreciation classes, homework tutors in kindergarten, or moving to a town near their child’s college campus so the darling can more easily have home-cooked meals. (O.K., O.K., many were already saying no, but now they’re doing so without the feeling that a good parent would say yes.) Over coffee and out in cyberspace they are gleefully labeling themselves “bad mommies,” pouring out their doubts, their dissatisfaction and their dysfunction, celebrating their own shortcomings in contrast to their older sisters’ cloying perfection.
After all, that is the way it is with parenting — which I bet was never used as a verb before the 20th century, when medicine reached the point where parents could assume their babies would survive. At its core, raising children is about instinct and biology, yes, but on top of that, we build an artificial scaffold, which supports what we have come to think of as parenting truths but are really only parenting trends.
Going way back, the Spartans probably thought they were oh, so modern when they left defenseless infants on wild mountain slopes. So did wealthy Norse mothers who had poor women foster their children, and European aristocrats who employed wet nurses. More recently, as Ann Hulbert chronicles in her book “Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children,” rigid feeding schedules were all the rage in the United States in the 1920s. The next two decades brought an emphasis on discipline.
In 1946, Dr. Spock came along and told parents to trust their instincts. Later, parents became buddies with their kids, and by the end of the last century, the debate was about the quality versus the quantity of time spent with your children. That was followed by the concept of mothering as an all-consuming identity. Mothers chose their gurus — T. Berry Brazelton (touchy-feely parenting), William Sears (attachment parenting) and John Rosemond (Christian parenting) — then diligently wore their babies in slings and nursed them into toddlerhood, all the while judging (and feeling judged by) those who did not do the same.
After a decade of earnest immersion in parenting, though, the times are ripe for a change. The first sign was the wave of confessionals — from anonymous Web sites like truumomconfessions.com (where mothers admit to transgressions like feigning stomach cramps to steal quiet time hiding in the bathroom) to bylined blogs like the wildly popular dooce.com (where Heather B. Armstrong chronicled her postpartum depression and continues to write about her struggles as the mother of a charming but somewhat high-strung 5-year-old) to memoirs like Ayelet Waldman’s (in which she cops to such “sins” as using disposable diapers and loving her husband more than her children).
But in the past few months, a second wave has taken hold — writers are moving past merely venting and are trying to gather the like-minded into a new movement. Carl Honoré is one. He calls it “slow parenting” — no more rushing around physically and metaphorically, no more racing kids from soccer to Suzuki. Lenore Skenazy is another. She calls it “free-range parenting,” a return to the days when childhood was not ruled by the fear (overblown, she says, with statistics to prove it) that children would be maimed, kidnapped or killed if they did something as simple as riding their bikes alone to the park.
By far the most chipper is Tom Hodgkinson, whose book “The Idle Parent: Why Less Means More When Raising Kids” was just published in England, and whose cover — Mum and Dad lounging with martinis while their well-trained toddler sits on the floor mixing up the next batch — illustrates his message that parents should just chill. Pay attention to your own needs, he writes, back off on your children and everyone will be happier and better adjusted.
All this certainly dovetails nicely with new economic realities. When you can’t afford those violin lessons or a baby sitter to accompany your 10-year-old to the park, you can turn guilt on its head and call it a parenting philosophy. But is it fundamental change? Or is the apparent decline of overparenting (and its corollaries: feelings of competition and inadequacy) actually the same obsession donning a new disguise?
The one constant over the past century has been parents’ determination to find the right answers when it comes to raising their children. In this latest chapter, we have replaced the experts who told us what a good parent worries about with experts who tell us that a good parent doesn’t worry so much. We may even see parents stop aiming to prove how perfect they are and start trying to prove how nonchalant they are. But worry is worry. The search to keep from messing up goes on.
Lisa Belkin, a contributing writer for the magazine, writes The Times’s Motherlode blog
Monday, 1 June 2009
They must have green thumbs
Here is the evidence of all the work that my love and the little ones have been putting into the veggie patch. Tomatoes, potatoes, thyme, basil, sunflowers, lima beans, corn, green beans, arugula and butter lettuce (plus our sturdy grape vine) will all have their time in the sun.
Note the brown mulch between rows. It is cocoa husks (from the luxury chocolaterie, Soma). The smell after rain or in the baking sun is divine!!!! I swear our backyard smells of chocolate chip cookies or a sweet, glorious bar of milk chocolate. And it is not the Cadbury's factory that we pass on the way to school.
The weekend that didn't go exactly as planned
First off, we were late leaving. It was 9.15 Friday night by the time we picked up Mr. Tofu-earner from work. It was also raining and the traffic was still heavy and slow.
So we pulled into a motel in stunning Brockville at 1 a.m. Not even downtown Brockville but side-o'-401 Brockville. Which is great for 5 year olds. Opening the curtain at 6.55 a.m., Sebastian declares: "Wow. You can see everything. The highway. The parking lot." We aim to please, dear child.
Seb probably woke so early because he was eagerly anticipating motel brekkie. Ever since his paternal grandparents and Nannie took him to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Maine almost 3 years ago, he has loved motels - and their chemical-laden breakfasts. But with allergies, what is safer than Fruit Loops and milk! I tried to dampen his hopes but to little avail. Turns out the Travel Lodge loves 5 year olds right back. He (and his sister - and his dad...) happily munched on colourful Os and apple juice at 7.05.
By the time we pulled into Montreal, we knew we were underdressed and generally ill-prepared for the weather. It was supposed to be clear, sunny and a tad cool. It turned out to be downright frigid, windy, and driving rain on and off - all weekend (though brilliant sunshine would blow in for 20 minutes at a time, giving us all hope until the next dousing). We had no rain boots, though fortunately, at the last minute I had returned home to grab our rain jackets (see the bit about hitting the road late). I froze, and couple with late night on the road, my cold worsened...
The kids, however, were excited, especially the big guy as he remembered the previous year with glee. And Westmount did itself proud. By the time we had warmed up with coffee at our hosts, the rain had (temporarily) eased and the funfair die-hards were joined by softies like us. I'll let the photos (before the batteries died...) do the talking but the rain mostly held off for 3 hours and we all had fun (and for free!!). The Y's Healthy Day on Sunday was also a big hit with Seb & Jacob holding hands at the start line. We went on to play in the playground, swim at the Y pool, hang out at the Westmount library, pick up some bagels and eat a family meal at Villa du Souvlaki (which seems a tradition now).
(I'll try to upload some video later)
So we pulled into a motel in stunning Brockville at 1 a.m. Not even downtown Brockville but side-o'-401 Brockville. Which is great for 5 year olds. Opening the curtain at 6.55 a.m., Sebastian declares: "Wow. You can see everything. The highway. The parking lot." We aim to please, dear child.
Seb probably woke so early because he was eagerly anticipating motel brekkie. Ever since his paternal grandparents and Nannie took him to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Maine almost 3 years ago, he has loved motels - and their chemical-laden breakfasts. But with allergies, what is safer than Fruit Loops and milk! I tried to dampen his hopes but to little avail. Turns out the Travel Lodge loves 5 year olds right back. He (and his sister - and his dad...) happily munched on colourful Os and apple juice at 7.05.
By the time we pulled into Montreal, we knew we were underdressed and generally ill-prepared for the weather. It was supposed to be clear, sunny and a tad cool. It turned out to be downright frigid, windy, and driving rain on and off - all weekend (though brilliant sunshine would blow in for 20 minutes at a time, giving us all hope until the next dousing). We had no rain boots, though fortunately, at the last minute I had returned home to grab our rain jackets (see the bit about hitting the road late). I froze, and couple with late night on the road, my cold worsened...
The kids, however, were excited, especially the big guy as he remembered the previous year with glee. And Westmount did itself proud. By the time we had warmed up with coffee at our hosts, the rain had (temporarily) eased and the funfair die-hards were joined by softies like us. I'll let the photos (before the batteries died...) do the talking but the rain mostly held off for 3 hours and we all had fun (and for free!!). The Y's Healthy Day on Sunday was also a big hit with Seb & Jacob holding hands at the start line. We went on to play in the playground, swim at the Y pool, hang out at the Westmount library, pick up some bagels and eat a family meal at Villa du Souvlaki (which seems a tradition now).
(I'll try to upload some video later)
We also managed to visit my dad in the hospital. That was the other part of the weekend that didn't quite go to plan. Yes, Westmount Family Day is fun, but it is also a great opportunity for the kids to see their maternal grandparents active and out with neighbours (and to present little kiddies to said neighbours). To his huge disappointment - and ours - Grandad had to go into hospital over the weekend. The kids trooped in a couple of times and Sebastian was still able to wow him with his magic trick (singular). But we were hoping that we could all enjoy the fun and that Seb & Grandad were going to staff Westmount's Healthy City booth together.
Grandma did her best to be everywhere and everyone to us all - a tad tiring I would say. And tonight, my aunt and uncle arrive in Montreal for their 1st visit in 11 years. And then it is on to us in Toronto - yipeee!
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Life is good
