la vie immédiate

month

March 2012

21 posts

Floored

Today was one of those scrambling, overwhelming days, parenting-wise. Everything went at such a fast pace, starting right after breakfast at 7:30. Playing with water, massive clean up, they slip in the water, crying kid, bad-parent-guilt, bath-time, get kids warm and dressed, bath clean-up, snack-time, snack clean up, cuddling, storybook reading, comforting inexplicably whiny while from EA, set A up with an art project, get EA to sleep, break, long enough to realize I was feeling overwhelmed and scattered, have a blissfully quiet hour drinking coffee and reading and writing, and…make lunch, clean up, dress them for outside, etc etc.

Even just wtiting this list is exhuasting. Some days I like the pace and rhythm of doing and moving and energy. And some days some kind of rhythm and pacing exists. Today just floored me though with it’s busyness and constantness.

The exception was our hour outside playing in the snow. We all slowed down and I forgot everything, all my shoulds and coulds and wishes, and just played.

Feb 29, 20120 notes
#kids and nature #parenting #outdoor play

February 2012

31 posts

Bananas plus coconut milk. Snow plus bin.

Came across this recipe for banana coconut milk pancakes I scrawled dwon this summer, and lo and behold I had both coconut milk and bananas in the house. So I tried ‘em, and they were deelish.

And I made a few important calls on my cell phone over lunch.

Also, propelled by Axel’s desperate boredom, (being tired of all his toys and all his climbing/wrecking-shit-up stations in the house), I went outside and filled up a storage bin with snow. Oh the success! It was smashing. He could hardly believe his luck, and just looked at me, disbelieving for a minute, before happily toddling off to get more shovels and cups.

Feb 28, 20120 notes
#snow play indoors #snow indoors with kids #toddler activity #SAHM tip #snow play #creative play for children
Mess 11

Feb 28, 20120 notes
#messes #messy #mess
Wearing caps, holding hands

Feb 28, 20121 note
#holding hands #play doh #play dough #kids creative play
Honey, honey

Don’t want to forget this combo, it totally worked: cheddar and raw spinach rolled in a Swedish pancake (kind of like a crepe) topped with honey and served with bosc pear.

Feb 28, 20122 notes
#Swedish pancakes #quick dreamy lunchity
The more it snows (tiddely pom) the more it goes (tiddley pom) the more it goes (tiddely pom) on snowing (A. A. Milne)

It’s snowing. Everyone is asleep. I’m leaving the dishes for tomorrow. It feels so different when it snows in late winter than when it snows before Christmas. Then there’s this buffer, you feel like it’s making everything cosy and picturesque. This feels more ominous somehow. No it doesn’t. It feels more peaceful. Or what is it? Neither, it feels like it’s pointing out to me that I am less comfortable. More questioning. I mean, no. That’s not it. I am perfectly comfortable but it’s like some reminder. Or there is something shaking me off balance. No, I wasn’t particularily in balance. Not shaking me off balance but reminding me that time is passing. Reminding me that I don’t have control. Do I want control? Reminding me not to stay too comfortable. Shaking me awake? Isn’t it spring that does that? What is this unease? It’s just snowing, it’s just a fact. Why complicate it?

I don’t know, I mean, I just went back and had another look and it looks good. Picturesque, and people are out walking their dogs in it and stuff. I’m over it. I like it. Not cosy, but not without magic.

Feb 27, 20120 notes
#snow #AA Milne #snowstorm #watching it snow you can see it under the streetlight
“And that was what she often felt the need of- to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless.” —Virginia Woolf
Feb 26, 20121 note
#Virginia Woolf quote
I`m flying my plane, right? No, I am flying my plane.

In Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones I read about a study on how women add qualifiers to their statements. For example “‘I like this, don’t you?” Or “This is terrible, isn’t it?” The study showed that in their sentence structure women were often looking for reinforcement for their feelings and opinions. They didn’t just make statements and stand behind them- “This is beautiful.” “This is terrible.”

The other thing was that women often used words when speaking such as maybe, somehow, perhaps.

I’m thinking about this. Wondering if I do this. And noticing that I often do. It’s interesting to become aware of it, and to think about how my use of words changes when I take away those qualifiers. I can see how in some cases, speaking in definite statements could be clarifying, even empowering.

Of course there are times when I need to say Maybe I do, I don’t know, or I somehow became this or that, but there are times when weeding out my “I guesses” and my “Don’t you thinks?” could be useful.

Feb 26, 20122 notes
#feminism #female language use
“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.” —Theodore Roethke
Feb 26, 20120 notes
#vulnerability
What is it?

I guessed a bear, but no, it is a groundhog. (One who sees with his body and his paws as well as his eyes, apparently. )

And this page painted black that I almost threw away, but then didn’t after I asked what it was?

His shadow, of course.

Feb 26, 20121 note
#groundhog #kids' art
Dirty boots are on (Sonic Youth)

Country for a couple days. Got to slow down and got to be outside a lot and got to get muddy. It was good. Went to a secret spot, climbed up to it sliding on the mud, ducking under branches.

And this was up there: green itself.

And these dark red and light straw colours were restful.

Even in winter there was plenty of play food around to collect. And when you play that your house is under a tree without realizing the time it gives you a sense of relief.

I wandered around for awhile looking at woodpiles and old buoys.

There’s no wind, the air is damp, and suddenly birds are in your world again. It’s like pressing Reset. It’s like pressing Esc.

Feb 24, 20122 notes
#colour #moss #nature #pretend play #woodpiles #dirty boots sonic youth #sonic youth
4:30

Feb 20, 20120 notes
#homemaking #domestic #mothering #parenting #the everyday #the ordinary #potatoes
Before we drop the subject

A. found a pile of Valentine’s themed scraps and fabrics lying around my desk. I’d pulled them together thinking I’d make a Valentine collage but didn’t get around to it. So I let her use the stuff and she came up with these two beauties. (In the first one I made lines for her to get started with.)

Inspired by hers, I made a quick one today before putting all the scraps away:

The charm and crookedness of hers can’t be beat though.

Feb 20, 20120 notes
#valentine's day #valentines #scrappy collage #valentine's collage #kid's art
Weekend-y

There’s been so little snow that when we get a bit we literally drop everything and run out to play before it gets rained away again.

This snow was so wet we were all soaked pretty much right away. But children, they do not care about such trivial matters.

Made asparagus quiche for my mother’s 60th birthday party dinner.

The “Puzzle Machine”. (And the Puzzle Wrecking Machine?)

A few hours without kids. Their toys laying around in quiet sunlight were nice.

Out on a walk I saw these straight, bare branches. I love looking at bare branches in spring, ready to burst but so contained and stark.

And this is my aunt’s clothesline. I love clotheslines and they’re awesome in winter.

Feb 19, 20120 notes
#clothesline #bare branches #play in snow
Today, randomly

-EA saying “hej då” (goodbye) to Per and waving
- buying asparagus
- EA and A sitting in the grocery cart looking all blasé instead of the more usual whiny meltdown mode
-coffee oh blessed coffee
-time to write for the hell of it
-clementines
-EA eating, so happily and satisfied
-A’s awesome collages she made while talking to herself in Swedish as if she was running a kids crafts how-to show
-big snowflakes fallin’
-watching, in a sort of tired, amused-annoyed way, EA and A roll around on the rug like crazy puppies, mashing pizza crusts into it, laughing maniacally
-wine
-blankets
-so February

notes: rebel against self more
do things you don’t expect yourself to do
find ways to make everyday-ish days more interesting less thought more action/motion

Feb 17, 20120 notes
#February
Build! Use everything!

There’s definitely something in the way kids play.

There’s something in their urgency. Build! Get in! Have the party! Tear it down! Build a different one! What’s next? What’s next? Don’t stop to analyse. (What does analyse even mean?)

There’s something in making spaces for yourself to crawl into and be whoever you want.

There’s something in that constant motion.

Just keep moving and you’ll figure it out.

Feb 15, 20121 note
#camps #forts #play camp #play fort #play tent #pretend play #play #motion #urgency #creativity #kids play
Fave Valentines

Feb 14, 20121 note
#Valentines #Happy Valentine's Day
Biscuits

I like watching things rise in the oven. An odd form of relaxation. You’re done, now all you have to do is wait.

Feb 13, 20121 note
#biscuits #baking
Everything flimsy

I got out and it was so windy and cold my fingers were immediately frozen and I could barely see or breathe but I just wanted to see, for myself, and not just from the car windows.

I only stood there on the boardwalk for maybe five minutes, but it was long enough to shake away my cobwebs and remind me that the Wild exists. This was exactly the kind of wild ocean I used to picture and miss when I lived in Stockholm. Way beyond my control, big enough to give everything perspective, and with that wind tearing past that shakes away everything fake, everything flimsy, everything unnecessary.

Feb 13, 20121 note
#the ocean #ocean waves #Atlantic ocean #Nova Scotia #winter ocean
Hard at work

You catch a toddler doing this and they look at you like, What, lady? I’m just doin’ my job! It’s part of my job description, already!

Feb 13, 20121 note
#parenting #toddlers
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