Spooky

We went to Montreal over the weekend and I hopefully lugged my camera along, wanting a fine vista from Mont Royale and some last-of-the-autumn shots.  Rained out.  Sigh.

However, we dropped in on Little Stuff and her parents to help her prepare for her Halloween outing and eat pizza and I now, finally, have some photos of the jellyfish costume and her mother's classy spooky decorations for the great night.

As of this morning, I am told that the costume was a great success - she got a lot of compliments and interest - and candy, of course.  Which were deserved; she worked very hard to make it.


091/365 - the Jellyfish girl is admired by all.

092/365 A tour de force jack-o-lantern face.

093/365 Decorated for Hallowe'en

094/365 The full jellyfish rig.

095/365 bat light

She also had glow-in-the-dark face paint.  I have no idea how her mother got her cleaned up.

Tangles

A while back my daughter and granddaughter presented me with a Martha Stewart magazine of Halloween projects. Along with the maximum labour pumpkin faces and other décor ideas, there were some pages of costumes for the big day. Adult costumes, and very elaborate. And on one page was a photograph of a woman about my age, dressed in white perfection, holding above her head an umbrella that had been crafted to resemble a jelly-fish. Seven year old Little Stuff was fascinated by this and asked if, maybe, I could make her one like that, big brown eyes staring imploringly into mine.

'I have a cloche umbrella just like that one,' said my daughter, cheerfully.

I know when I'm outnumbered. I promised LS I would make her a jellyfish umbrella.

Yesterday she and her mother came out to our place from the city, lugging big bags of bubble wrap, rolls of cellophane and tape, the umbrella and the illustration. I read the directions beside the photo. I read them again. Not a lot of help there. And so ......... we propped the photo up on my desk, plugged in the glue gun (but forgot to turn it on) and started cutting strips of bubbles, diagonally across the large size bubble wrap. Not a fun job, that. If you are not very, very meticulous in your cut, you can nick the side of the bubble and it goes foof. LS was getting frustrated and grama was starting to perspire, gently. We developed a technique where we cut only every second line of bubbles, in strips. Not perfect like the ones in the photo, but possible.

Then we had to make the handle and edge of the umbrella white, while taping the strings of bubbles to the edge. White book tape - miserable to stretch out and impossible if it touches itself - was laboriously applied and the bubble strings untangled. And untangled again. Next we had to make the umbrella sections look like turquoise jelly.

The instructions said "Cut 8 same-size strips of lightweight iridescent cellophane; sandwich each between 2 bubble strips; hot-glue smooth edges of tentacles to umbrella spokes. (Plastic will melt.)"  We made a pattern. We cut, fringed, pasted, untangled the strings of bubbles, untangled the fringe and repeated. Two hours passed while we did this, again and again. Little Stuff was indomitable and hung on for the whole time, with one digression out to the swings while I put the roast into the oven and one small pause for a snack (and coffee for grama) when we discovered the glue gun was still cold.

The pattern cut from the newspaper had most of a photo of Muslims at prayer on it - down on their knees with foreheads on the floor. "What are all those people doing, grama," said LS. "Praying," says I. "They look silly," said little Miss. Oh, dear. While I tried to get bubble wrap to stay square, not drip the glue all over and untangle the strings of bubbles, I also had to carefully pick my way through the minefield of discussing tolerance of one another's differences with a judgemental child.

I asked her what she would do if a friend wearing a dress she loved but that looked ugly to Little Stuff asked LS what she thought of it. LS allowed that she would not make her friend unhappy by saying it was ugly. Same with what people do that looks strange, I tried to explain, especially their religions, because that is something that a lot of people feel strongly about and it is both wrong and easy to hurt someone's feelings. After some discussion of this, LS read the caption under the photo, which accompanied a story on the firing of Juan Williams, "Remarks over Muslims cost top US radio host his job."

To the tangles of bubble wrap and strings of glue, we now added the tangles of political correctness. We got into 'jihad' from Williams' statement that Muslims on a plane madehim nervous. I finally wiggled loose after explaining that some people misinterpreted their religion and were very wrong. I clearly recall, in another post, saying that I was thankful that theology and all its ramifications were the province of parents, not grandparents. And after this I shall make sure that we make newspaper patterns with the comics section of the paper.

The umbrella looked quite handsome when it was finished.

An Afternoon at the Park.

Little Stuff spent part of July with me while her parents were away, part of it with all of us at a cottage and a few days doing fun stuff with her parents.  In August her parents returned to work full time and her program was to be gymnastics three mornings a week and a local day care for the rest of the time.  But by the start of this last week, Little Stuff had had more than enough of the large, noisy and disorganized daycare where she had been spending her afternoons.  The friend she was counting on hanging around with was being cool to her, and while she was loving the gymnastics, the afternoons and especially the two full days at daycare were reducing her to tears.

The ED called me and asked if I could go in to the city for a couple of days and provide child care: she did not have to ask twice.  I picked up Little Stuff from her gym and took her back to her own house for lunch.  The last bite was not in her mouth when her chum from next door, who had been away visiting overseas for the whole summer, appeared at the door to the breakfast room.  There was a joyful reunion.  Little Friend is a year older than Little Stuff and a grade ahead of her at the same school, so they don’t spend too much time together at school, but they are the best of companions otherwise.  They asked if they could go to the park and feed the animals.  No problem there.  Little Friend went home to gather permission and provender, Little Stuff gathered up stale bread, peanuts and carrots, and we wandered off  to the park, which is a riverside park, very large and full of overfed animals and birds.

The girls chattered non-stop all the way to the park, most of it lost on me.  Little Friend speaks four languages but not one of them is English  - the two of them communicate in soft and idiomatic French and Little Stuff translates as needed.  Going to feed the birds and animals is a regular treat that they have both been doing since they were toddlers and they know just what to do.  In a very short time they were surrounded by pigeons 

027/365 and 028/365

and, aside from Little Friend having a finger mistaken for a peanut, a very good time was had by all, including grama who was photographing like a mad woman.


They played in the park the whole afternoon, checking in with me only to let me know if they were going some distance away.  They climbed trees and giggled and collected weeds and giggled and showed off their new dance and gymnastics to each other 

029/365

and giggled and ran and jumped and .... well, you get the idea.  It was probably the first unstructured afternoon either of them had spent for a long time.

Grama lured in the wildlife with some of the stale bread and took more photographs.  The wildlife gets fed a lot at that park.  

030/365
Check out the tummy on the second squirrel, the grey one.  

031/365
The river carried masses of ducks 

032/365
and gulls, all with one eye for a handout, the park itself is full of squirrels and along the river bank live groundhogs and other small mammals.  When I finally decided that we had to go back (Grand-mere a besoin du cafe!), they were both rosy and exhausted and when we got back to the house they were glad to collapse in front of the TV and watch the Blue Planet video until supper time.

I’ve just described what appears to be a rather boring afternoon in excruciating detail.  It wasn’t boring to me, however; I had a beautiful day, a camera (should have taken a flask of coffee, though) and a happy, relaxed grandkid enjoying some truly unstructured time.

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to leave a record of who I am and how we related for Little Stuff.  She has just turned seven and if I died tomorrow she would remember me, I think, but probably only vaguely.  I was lucky to have one grandmother who lived until I was an adult with children of my own; of my other grandmother, who died when I was four, I have only scraps of memory and mementos.  I want Little Stuff to have much more than that available if, as an adult, she wants to know.  I wonder if she will remember this day, or the days at the cottage, as special, happy ones or if, like me, her memories of these very young years will be hazy at best.

If so, maybe this story and the photos will remind her.  I hope so.  It is always good to remember being loved.

The 365 Project - New Key Word.

Sue's prompt for this week is vintage Sue - Fair is foul or fowl is fare.  To take a look at the project as a whole, follow the link at the top of my sidebar to the right.

Since I spent a happy day in a park by the riverside photographing Little Stuff and Little Friend and some of their friends and activities, I do have only slightly skewed takes on this prompt.  And so, with no more ado, I give you fair is fowl.

025/365

and

Fed is fowl.

026/365

What I Did On My Day Off

We took Little Stuff home yesterday afternoon, after a nine day visit while her parents were at a conference and then took a mini holiday. She's hardly 'little stuff' any more, at seven, but that's how I still think of her.

We had a good time, given that the heat and humidity were severe for Eastern Ontario -- humidexes in the 40's mostly (That's 40 C, American friends, equating to 104 F). Luckily we have aquaintances with a cottage on a small lake nearby and we spent a lot of time on their beach. Not only does it have frogs and minnows and a crayfish, but it also has northern water snakes, at least two, much to the child's joy. ('Can I catch it, Grama?'. 'No, better not, we have nothing to keep it in,' said Grama, trying to keep her voice from quavering.

On the weekend her aunt (the YD) came out to stay and we ventured to a public beach at a nearby park, where the YD's dog decided to join a baseball game, necessitating a lot of chasing on the YD's part and a lot of giggles from Little Stuff. On Sunday we took the big boat out on Big Rideau Lake, Grandpa opened up the throttle and we zoomed up the channel, bouncing over the wakes of all the other boats, including a couple of big cruisers. Ouch - my poor butt. But Little Stuff and her aunt had huge grins on their faces and shrieked with delight at the wildest bounces and sheets of spray.

Inside we did lots of crafts and painting - and it took me a lot of time to remove blue spray spots from her brand new white pants.

There was one interesting difference in this visit. Little Stuff was homesick at times, mostly in the late morning when things were slow. She never has been before. 'I miss my mommy and daddy,' she would say, the big brown eyes glistening with unshed tears. Her mother and I figure she is now at a cognitive level where she realizes how long nine days are - and that much time does seem like a very long stretch to a child. I vividly remember feeling like that at about the same age, on a week long visit to my grandparents. But I suspect I was not as disciplined about it as Little Stuff. She didn't whine or pine and if given an engrossing activity she would come out of it pretty fast. It did keep me jumping to provide a steady stream of such activities, however.

A few photo highlights:

A visit with Milly, a neighbour's two month old miniature horse.

Batting practice with Grandpa.

 With Grama and Octoraft.  The weater fostered a horde of horseflies.  Little Stuff floated around on the raft looking at fish through her goggles with Grama standing guard to fend off the evil critters.  Chlorine and all, there is something to be said for indoor pools.

And now it is my day off and I get to blog in peace.  Ahhhh.

How I wrecked my daughter's refrigerator and other stories from the trenches.

I am living at the elder daughter's house this week, looking after Little Stuff while the ED and spouse are at a conference.  This should be quite an easy task as Little Stuff is now almost seven and can look after a lot of things herself.  Grama's tasks include putting together a huge lunch including three snacks and a main noon meal, finding something a starving kid wants to eat for supper, delivering her to school, picking her up from daycare, listening to and helping with homework, and keeping the menagerie fed.

It is this last task that was the undoing of the refrigerator.  This house resembles a small zoo.  There are lizards, snakes, fish, a tortoise the size of a punch bowl, a quite demented cat (of whom more later) and Charlotte Ann, the guinea pig. She lives in Little Stuff's bedroom in a well appointed cage and gets fresh veggies twice a day to supplement her kibble (or whatever - dried guinea pig ration, I guess).  On the first evening, Little Stuff opened the frig to get out some greens and ripped the front panel off the crisper.  Oops.

Well, Grama decided that fixing this ought to involve disassembling the three drawer pile and cleaning it all up, then putting the front panel back on and reassembling.  All went well for the first two steps as I carefully took out all the food, took the parts out and set them in order and cleaned.  The last step was a big disaster.  I could not get the pile reassembled in a way that allowed the door to shut.  I tried over and over.  Meanwhile the food in and out of the frig was getting warmer and warmer and so was I.  I needed help.

Now the ED is without doubt the most organized person I have ever known, even more so than my mother whom she resembles a lot, and so I knew that the manual for the refrigerator would be stowed somewhere logical.  I am not logical, I guess, because I could not find the dern thing.  I found labelled and dated photo albums, art supplies, correspondence supplies, camera manuals, a neatly stowed drawer of scissors and other necessary bits and pieces, an alphabetized disc collection, with notes and dates, a stash of cards and other games, financial correspondence, all neatly stowed and handy.  No frig manual.

Food still getting warmer.

Finally, in desperation, I stacked all the bins back into the frig, with the food in them, piled one on top of the other.  And the door shut.  Daughter and spouse return home tonight and will, alas, be greeted by an almost unusable refrigerator.  I have stacked the beer and diet pop in the front where they can get it easily.  Logic tells me this mess will seem less annoying after a nice cold brew.

As for the cat, she decided last night to abandon Little Stuff and sleep with me, having fallen in love with my dressing gown as a cat bed.  At approximately 1:00 am she jumped up onto my bed with a resounding thump.  Startled out of a sound sleep I flailed out with both arms and sent the poor kitty flying off the bed and onto the floor.  And then she disappeared.  I was afraid I had hurt her and so I got up and searched for her to see if she was intact.  Cat was no where to be found.  This morning she reappeared, her usual sinuous self, and when she saw me she arched her back and hissed.  I am persona non grata in cat land.

And here I thought I was going to have a fine, easy time.

A Milestone

We are looking after almost seven year old Little Stuff this weekend.  After lunch, when Granpa announced that he needed a nap, Little Stuff said cheerfully "I will get my library book and read it."  And she did!
It's all downstream from here.  Or I thought it was until she brought out the Uno game.

Life with Little Stuff

I honestly don't know how you young mothers find time to write a blog while dealing with kids, household and all the other bits of stuff and fluff that are needed to keep a family going. And hold down a job, many of you. I have had one six year old for ten days and I am a wreck. Not only that, I did not put finger to keyboard for the whole ten days, other than to write (at Little Stuff's dictation) emails to her parents detailing what frogs she had caught each day, what she had painted/made/baked, and how far she was with the latest jig saw puzzle. We went through two 500+ piece jig saws.

It would have been easier if it had not rained just about every blessed day. We did get out a bit between rain showers, mostly to the beaver pond or the marsh to collect the latest in the frog study. We had promised her the beach and a fishing trip in the big boat and neither of these treats happened. 'I guess we aren't going to the beach today Grama, are we?' she would say, small nose pressed to the rain washed window. Luckily the birds were not deterred by the wet and we had a hummingbird show every day on the screen porch. We also reduced the chipmunk population by live trapping the little wretches that were tunnelling in the septic tile bed and releasing them far, far away.

Grama is tired. Grama is tired, mostly, because Little Stuff usually spends 8:30 to 5:30 five days a week in either school or daycare. Her parents try to make her weekends fun to make up to her for lack of time during the week and what this boils down to is that she expects to be entertained or provided with things to do. 'What can I do now, Grama?' was heard a lot chez G this last while. Words to strike terror into the heart of any grandmother trying to make the visit fun so that the parents can relax and know their child will be happy while they are away. I will say for her that, given a craft or toy, she has good concentration and a long attention span. Grandpa taught her to play 'Doe, a deer' etc. on his keyboard and she practised it for hours. She worked at the jigsaws for up to an hour at a time, if someone was doing it with her.

Someone, meaning me or Grandpa. More often, me. I have created a couple of games that are ongoing, one being Spider and the other being a similar pretend game with two china birds that sit on the windowsill near the kitchen table. Spider appears at bath time and at tea parties, the china bird game is requested for each snack time and sometimes the birds join Roo and Spider at the tea parties. I get very tired of them and struggle to come up with new jokes and scripts but Little Stuff loves the game and I am not hopeful that she will tire of it soon. Spider is now almost two years old and the bird game has gone on almost as long.

Grandpa takes her out in the punt we keep on the beaver pond. They got a bullfrog into the punt but it escaped before they could tie down the screen over the top of the old drywall pail that was being used as a holding pen. He comes back wiped out, staggering into the house preceded by a pink cheeked, bright eyed Little Stuff full of stories about their adventures. They were not able to catch a garter snake either. I am thankful for small mercies. Two tree frogs, a leopard frog, a pickerel frog and assorted dragonflies and moths were quite enough.

We also took her to a local conservation area where there are a lot of showy lady slippers in bloom. I loved watching her; in between photographing the flowers she regularly peered under the board walk in search of amphibians and any other goodies that might be present. Looking, in her sundress and straw hat, like something out of a Victorian drawing. You've got to give her credit for perseverance anyway.

I now have two events for the Seniors' group I belong to; preparing and working in a booth to explain our programs and helping organize games at a picnic. One is on Sunday, one on Tuesday. Rain, of course, is forecast. After I get these two obligations out of the way, I may sit down and write something sensible for a change. And there are all of you, with all you do, writing thoughtful and wonderfully funny and fascinating stuff. But if anyone mentions a frog in the next little while, I may scream.

Bird Brain Day

The neurons in the brain are only firing intermittently to-day; I am losing things, forgetting things, wearing a sweater and a quilted vest in 70ºF temperatures, staring vaguely into space as I try to figure out what mindless task I can do until my brain wakes up. The computer is only accessible part of the time today; we have wave after wave of small but determined thunderstorms rolling by and as each one approaches, mindful of my poor fried computer last summer in such a storm, I unplug everything and zombie off to do something else. This is going to be, accordingly, one weird post. I guess I am resigned to that and will put up this less than stellar effort after I check the sky and plug the internet back in.

Random things on my mind today include:

• wondering why a blue jay has taken to pooping all over the deck and front windows, while hanging out in the trees just in front of the deck. I have had robins determined to build a nest on the light outside the bedroom door but I have never had a jay come quite this close for so long. I went to hang the duvet over the deck railing to air and could not find a section of poop-free railing big enough to lay the duvet out. The deck badly needs a coat of stain this summer, as soon as we have three days rain-free, but I am going to have to scrub it clear of jay shit before I can stain it. Not funny, bird;

• whether or not my newly potted geraniums have had enough water from the rain that comes with the thunderstorms and, concurrently, wondering where the @#$%!! I put the rain gauge when I took it in last fall. Or where JG put it, more to the point;

• mulling over various ways to inveigle JG into going through his closet and getting rid of the pants and shirts that are too stained to wear 'for good' but that have not been downgraded to work clothes or are not suitable. Also wondering what the dickens he got on his good green dress shirt that I cannot get out again. Do you find that some so-called 'perma-press' fabrics soak up grease spots and refuse to release them? I have tried all the usual sprays and bottles of stuff guaranteed to remove grease with no success. It's plain green fabric -- on a patterned cloth it would not show so much. Note to self: do not let JG buy any more dark plain fabrics;

• wondering where I put the quote sheets for an advertising flyer I said I would format and take in to be printed. I actually cleaned up all my work surfaces in the office this morning and the papers I needed did not appear. What I did find is a request to write a letter of support for a fellow CHC which was needed to-day. Such a letter would have to be passed by the Board and so I am too late. Shame and all too familiar feelings of disgust with myself for forgetting to do it ensue. I am feeling like that far too frequently lately;

• alternately laughing, feeling proud and wondering where the years have gone as I contemplate a letter I received this morning from newly six year old Little Stuff thanking us for her birthday gifts. Considering that LS goes to school in French and that she did this without any help, I am pretty impressed but, oh, where did my baby go? It can't have been more that a few days ago that she was humping herself along in her rompers smelling the daisies; and

• wondering what I should cook for supper. I had planned Chicken Cacciatori but can I actually get the vegetables in there without slicing off up my fingers in my present numb brained state? Stay tuned -- if tomorrow I am typimg flike thrjis, you will know that my index fingers did not survive the cut.

Grama Considers a Bit

This post is up at GNM Parents as a guest blog courtesy of Slouching Mom (whose slot I am subbing in for a couple of posts) and the technical whizzes who run the site. There are some really, really fascinating posts there and it is well worth taking a run through.

Our five (almost six!) year old granddaughter, whom I can't keep calling "Little Stuff" much longer, staying with us last weekend while her parents were away. When we took her home on Monday night, the house looked like a daycare from hell. A puzzle on the coffee table and another on the record cabinet, her drawing table and chair surrounded by ink sticks and paper and feathers and plastic eyes and stickers, her cross stitch pieces on the couch, her paint by number on my sewing table, assorted pine cones, pieces of moss and other treasures in bags here and there....... well, you get the picture.

I spent Tuesday alternately putting stuff away, wiping sticky finger prints off the windows, vacuuming up grit and collapsing in my reading chair where I promptly went to sleep. However, she had a good time. I got an email from her mother that said she had talked non stop from the time we delivered her until her bedtime, telling her parents all she had done and seen. And that's all good; if she likes to stay with us, her parents don't have to worry about her while they are away.
Little Stuff will turn six this spring. Watching her grow is a bit like seeing a speed video of a flower unfolding.
Still reading? Pop over to Grandparenting: Building Memories to see the rest.

A Picture Perfect Day

Grandpa wanted to drive back to the back hundred (100 acre parcel of land; we have three) and cut up some logs and Little Stuff and I went with him. It was a perfect day -- I could describe it, but the pictures tell it all.
We went to Grandpa's woodpiles. He has two 'landings' at the back; 'landings' are small clearings where logs can be stacked and stored before becoming firewood. He and two friends culled a fair sized area here last fall and Grandpa has been cutting up the logs and splitting them all winter as weather permitted. And so the trails to the back are, unusually, ploughed out. We drove back in our little ATV truck (wearing its tire chains) to the first landing, where Grandpa has finished his work.
While he sawed up logs at the second landing, Little Stuff and I went for a walk. We found that one of the small streams that runs out of the big beaver flood* at the back of our property had partly opened up and Little Stuff had a wonderful time exploring, splashing and gathering moss while Grama took photographs.
You can see a small pink Little Stuff exploring in this shot; it also shows what our woodland looks like. In the very back is a bit of the bay that sits at upper right in the first of the photos of where we live. Check out the footprints in the foreground. Little Stuff was not sinking at all.
Grama, on the other hand, was. After Little Stuff finished playing in the stream we walked upstream following some fox tracks. She went where the fox had gone. Grama mushed along, far behind, seeking higher ground and easier walking. We went all the way to the back beaver pond, along it and cut straight back, following the sound of Grandpa sawing, to end up at the second landing.
A really big hit was a huge wolf dropping, full of hair from some small animal. Luckily my pockets were so full of pine cones, large and small, by the time we inspected it that there was no room left to bring it along.
Boots, leggings and hat are now all drying over a hot air vent. And Grama is contemplating putting a hot pad on her back.
* The lower of a series of two ponds formed by industrious beavers. This shot shows about a quarter of it. The whole expanse was skatable today.

A Little Weak in the Knees

I have been boasting, here and there around the place, about what a laissez faire mother I was, how I let my girls try out unusual things, have adventures with risk involved, and all that. How I cheerfully watched the YD make her first parachute jump, following her progress with my camera.
That was then. The now is somewhat different. We are looking after Little Stuff this weekend while her parents are overseas. This afternoon, although cold, was a blaze of glorious sunshine. You could walk anywhere on the snow. Grandpa went out to cut down a tree at the edge of the maintained field so that he could haul it away while everything was still frozen. Little Stuff and I went out to watch, take pictures and follow deer trails.
After Grandpa hauled the tree away, I headed for the nearest deer path. Looked around for the five year old, who had been poking around the base of a tree. Heard a giggle. Looked up. Way up. See that little pink blob about ten feet off the ground?
Erk. 'Grama,' said the little monster darling, 'take my picture up here.' I obliged, but it took me several tries to get my finger on the button.
'Do you want me to come down now?' said the cheerful voice.
'Yes!' said Grama.

It's Still Winter Here

Here are some more photos of winter in Eastern Ontario, just for the fun of it. The first one is Little Stuff's mother, the ED, tapping a 'spile' into a tree in maple syrup season. A very long ago maple syrup season. I think she was around twelve in this shot.
Here is a shot of the trails the deer make when they come in to feed on the corn and 'deer ration' we spread out for them.
And here is Little Stuff on her spandy new high tech snowshoes. This was a different day than the one when she took off running across the field in them, caught a snowshoe and had her little red clad foot pull out of the snowshoe and boot. She lay on her back with the red foot up in the air like a danger flag and laughed and laughed. Until I waded out to her and shoved the foot back into the boot, snow and all. 'That's COLD Grama' she shrieked. We went back inside.
I'm really thrilled to be posting at Canada Moms Blog and have just put up my first post there which references this one, or would if I had not typed the link improperly. I will try to figure out how to get the button attachement for this site onto my blog --- as soon as I recover from my first experience with Typepad. This recovery may take a while and some black coffee and maybe some chocolate. But the Canada Moms Blog is a really neat concept and has some super good bloggers on it (besides me, of course. Erm?). Take a look if you can.

Status!

Grama! My tooth came out.

What can I do now, Grama?

I spent the weekend looking after Little Stuff. Miss Perpetual Motion. Miss Constant Chatterer. Miss 'What Can I Do Now, Grama?'. I'm not complaining, mind. She loves being here and if thinking up stuff for her to do is what it takes to give her mother a break, then I'll keep it coming. But it does mean that my brain is mush today* and the thought of tackling the Monday Mission is too daunting to contemplate. Maybe later. Much, yawn, later.

However, that is not what this post is about. It is about spool knitting.

I keep an activity box. It has puzzles, crafts, games, whatever inexpensive and amusing stuff I can find or collect. Little Stuff is allowed to dip into this box once daily, and whatever is on top (with a little cheating by Grama depending on the weather) is her activity for the day. On Sunday what came to the top was a purpose made knitting spool (also called a knitting Nancy or French knitting spool).

Those of you of a certain age may have had knitting spools made of an actual empty thread spool (wooden, and usually a twist spool because the hole was bigger) with four finishing nails driven into the top in a square and with another larger slim nail (or, if you were lucky, a crochet hook) to use to hook the wool over the nail. The one I bought is a far cut above that. It is a yellow plastic spool, longer than a thread spool and wasp waisted, with a bumpy strip at the centre to hold onto. It has a matching thread pick that has a cap to prevent it sticking the unwary owner. It has curved metal loops instead of nails. It is a handsome piece of equipment. (Athough not up to this one!)

It took Little Stuff about half an hour on Sunday afternoon to 'get' the pattern of making loops and lifting. She lost the pattern several times, I put it back together and she kept relentlessly trying. By the time her parents came to get her, she had the technique down pretty well. By Monday evening, her mother reported to me, she had worked all Sunday evening, from breakfast till school time on Monday, after school and all evening and had about two feet of cord. She is making a hot pad, she told her mother.

I wonder what I will have to come up with next time to beat that.

*Yes, I do know it's Tuesday.

Bits of this and that.

I had this nice little post I was writing and it was trotting along on its leash beside me, occasionally sniffing at things but pretty well behaving itself and all of a sudden it stopped behaving and took off, sniffing around clichés, lifting its leg on trite little aphorisms, tugging me along behind it. When I jerked the leash it paid no attention. Even when I deleted the tangential stuff it would not come to heel, just kept pulling me back into the dead wood. So, I have put it in the drafts kennel for now and it can just stay there and sulk for a while.

In the interim, a chez G yard update. We've had a barred owl visiting us the last few days. It perches on the old apple tree beside the bird feeder and hunkers down to wait for a mouse or red squirrel to visit. My daughter shoved her bare feet into clogs on Sunday afternoon and scrunched out into the snow to take its picture. The owl was so calm that she was able to get right up to it and take some marvellous portraits.

And you are getting these shots in all their glory because on Saturday we got hooked up to broadband. A local internet provider sent out a crew one of whom climbed 90' up the tall pine tree behind the garage and bolted an antenna to the top of it, and hooked in a node. The pine in question is the one in the centre of this photo, and the climber is seen as a dull blue blob in the zoomed shot below.He then ran wires to the house and set us up. Woo hoo! I am now able to go and read blogs with a really heavy upload without waiting five minutes for them to open. So expect my Following list to expand over the next while. I can even get video clips and music now. I'm not sure I'm ready for the 21st century, but it has finally arrived here. Until lighting strikes the antenna, anyway.

I'm hoping the owl has found the hunting so good here that it will stick around so that Little Stuff can see it this weekend. Grama will be child minding.

Introducing ...Madame Butterfly

This costume came into being because Little Stuff saw a photo of her mother, some thirty years and more ago, with butterfly wings and wanted a pair of her very own.


Her grandfather thinks it is a good thing that it was not a windy night.

I am delighted because this very shy child was pleased enough with how she looked that she would to go up to the doors by herself and thank people who complimented her on her costume.

Till I can see so wide...

"You don't need to push me on the swing anymore Grama. I can get up by myself."

It took her a while to gather momentum, but up she went. By herself.

Spread your wings, little bird, and fly. Fly high.

Party Report

Little Stuff's party was yesterday and it went off very well. Her mom, the ED, had purchased a castle backdrop and crowns for the guests to decorate, plus Barbie princess table decorations. Daddy provided a huge bunch of helium balloons in the party colours of yellow, pink and aqua ("Is there a yellow dress, Grama?" 'You do not need a yellow dress," says mom with more than usual firmness.) There was a completely OTT cake with a plastic fairy in a larger plastic blossom that opened and closed. There was lots of fruit and yogurt to cushion the sugar hit of aforesaid cake. There was one extra guest, as one little girl arrived with her eight year old sister, so the ED had to scramble for another loot bag. Only one crying spell, over a skinned knee while blowing bubbles on the back deck. All in all, a huge success. And the Birthday Girl was happy.

What amazed me is how differently they used the costumes than I had expected. Grandpa was worried that the guests might get into rows over who wore what. He need not have. What they did was take the costumes on and off, all except Little Stuff who chose the purple glittery one first off and stayed with it. I think that every kid, including the sister, had all the costumes on at one time or another. One little girl arrived in her own princess costume from last Hallowe'en and stayed with that. One was wearing a brand new party sundress and preferring to show it off, took her princess costume off after the photo op. The others tried pink and aqua and blue and green, helping each other with the velcro fasteners, and had a ball. They would swoop off to another activity (big brother's snake was a huge hit) and swoop back to the dresses.

This level of co-operation fascinated me. I am wondering if it happened because most of them go to the same daycare and kindergarten and are used to playing in that group. I am not familiar with how 'daycare' kids interact. The small herd of neighbourhood children that my girls inhabited worked rather differently – there would be one or more leaders and the others were assigned roles or parts or costumes or whatever. And if one of the others got offended, he or she stomped off home. This cannot happen in a daycare group, obviously, and I have to commend the teachers and ECE leaders who run the kindergarten/daycare that Little Stuff attends. I am sure I missed some of the nuances, as the party took place in shrill, high decibel French and I am, um, French language challenged, but I did not see any hurt feelings body language at all.

In fact, the body language was also very interesting. This group of little girls crowds together. They colour and do crafts touching one another. They gathered so tightly around Little Stuff when she was opening presents that her mom had to lean in over the top to remove the wrappings and opened gifts. They travelled from room to room holding hands. They hugged one another. They also sat quietly at the table to eat and almost nothing got spilled. Amazing!

Enough of Grama as social anthropologist. Except to say that it is a long time since I have been at a small child's birthday party. Thank goodness. Pictures to follow.

The Joy of Clothes

Lately I have been scanning and cleaning up old photographs. I have a huge, huge pile of them -- my mother took a lot of photos of me and got reprints done for both my grandmothers. I now have all three sets of prints. And so I am sorting, throwing away duplicates and retouching as I go, balancing the light, taking out the dust and scratches, trying to put dates and places on record. And as I do this, I am reminiscing a lot and thinking about the differences between how I was dressed and trained as a little girl in the forties and fifties and how Little Suff is being brought up.

Here's a pair of photos that are telling. I always had a Sunday Best outfit. It was called that. I wore it to church. I got a new outfit for Easter, with a coat and hat if Easter came early or just the dress if it fell later in the spring. In the photo on the right, Easter was late and I have a straw hat and smocked dress, the later having been made by my mother. I was five or six, I think, which would make the year '47 or '48.. In the snap on the left I was, perhaps, eleven, so 1953. Since I was older, I had graduated to a suit for church, also made by my mother. I remember the hat vividly. It was woven fabric, slippery, and had a horrible habit of slipping forward over my nose if I bent my head. You will note the socks and with the Mary Jane strap shoes. More about socks later. When I wore these clothes, my behaviour was supposed to match. I had to sit like a little lady (exact quote!), not run and, most important, stay clean and neat. Not my favourite things to do.

My mother made almost all of my clothes, in fact, until I started high school. Including my winter coats and leggings. The proper thing for little girls to wear in winter with their coats was long white woolen stockings, held up by a garter belt. I rebelled. No way was I wearing those stockings. They itched and the garters popped off and they wrinkled. My mother, who had also suffered with similar stockings, relented and made me pull up trousers or leggings to wear with my coats. I was the envy of all my friends. I also had a snow suit, also wool and made by my mother, knit when I was very small and sewn as I got older. This outfit was for playing only -- skating or making snow forts. It was not worn otherwise, any more than the dungarees that I was allowed to play in could be worn away from home. If we were even going to buy groceries, I wore a skirt and my coat and leggings. And my mother changed her dress, put on her second best coat and hat (best was for Church) and gloves.

In the photo above, I am five (1947) and have just graduated from hats with itchy chin straps. That's my Easter hat with just an elastic. On the right it's 1951 and I am nine. I loved this coat because of the hood. It was fawn coloured wool and the velveteen trim and leggings were dark brown. For once, I am not mugging for the camera, either.

In summer I wore cotton dresses. When I was eight my parents bought a summer cottage and at the cottage I was allowed to wear shorts (!). My mother made the halter top (she had one that matched). But the shorts were purchased! On my feet are cotton and rubber 'sand shoes' which I had to wear unless I was actually swimming. I am, perhaps, ten in the shorts and top shot and eight in the other. The dress I am wearing on the right was my summer Brownie costume, that I wore to go to Brownie camp. It was pale green and had a matching hat which was fastened on with a bobby pin. The accessory is my aunt's cat, whom I adored. My mother thought that the regulation fabric she had to use to make the dress was shoddy.

Definitely not shoddy was my red velvet Christmas dress. It was real silk velvet, not velveteen, and had, as you can see, a lace collar which detached. I adored that dress and didn't even mind the 'don't get dirty' injunctions that came with it, as any spots I got on it had to be cleaned off with naptha and then the dress didn't smell so nice.

What's the point of all this narcissisism? Well, not a lot really, except to say, horray for rip stop nylon and Goretex and permapress and cotton knit and velcro and a world in which a Little Stuff can wear tough play clothes when she wants to and girly, whirly skirts when she wants to and wool stockings and garter belts are in museums.

Where I will someday join them. In my pantsuit and wind jacket, I hope. And without a hat.