Reboot

Well, I'd really thought I'd decided to stop blogging. For so many reasons, the largest of which was that I felt like what I was putting out there was pure negativity. But I've thought about it & decided that what I love the most about the blogs that I read are the honesty I encounter there. And truly, no one reads this, so my motivation now is for this space to be here for me. To think. To process. To remind myself.

So here I go again. I've got to work things out, and part of the way to do that is here. I think. And if that isn't true I can always stop again.

Tough

Oy. Well, I feel like it's been a bit of a brutal year & I'm glad to see its backside. All of the Olive goodness has been divine, but there have been many, many challenges. In many ways I thought that this past year was going to break us, but here we are, battered & hopefully ready to make 2008 something better.

Big changes coming down the pipe:
- we're moving. It's a mixed move. It's a step in the right direction but not a final resting place. Mind you, who ever knows if where they're moving to is going to be their last home. I've always had this fantasy/picture in my mind of my adult home - it features lots of old hardwood, natural light, a fireplace, a big kitchen, a porch & a yard with room for a garden. And this dream is kind of making my reality a disappointment. Making me never satisfied with the here & now. Which is so true of so much of my life. Always looking for what is wrong, what isn't perfect, seldom appreciating what is truly great about right now.

So the other big change is me making a very significant effort to change my perspective on things. Because I can decide how I'm going to react to things, how to perceive what is happening around me. And I'm going to do my darndest to stay open & stop shutting down ideas just because they scare me.

Olive is as ever a hilarious monkey. She started hitting this week. We've got to nip that in the bud. She is wildly in love with Etta. She's started calling Doug & I "Mamadaddy" instead of "mama" & "daddy". Because we're one unit. She likes it when we hug. She says "nice". She doesn't want to go to sleep at night. She's probably not getting enough fresh air because the weather has been pure misery - sleet anyone? You just can't take a kid to the park in the sleet. She was really sick this month & it freaked us out. Her hair is so long we can make pony tails. She wants to put her own socks on. She says "oraninge" & "noyse" & sqrinches up her face all funny. She would only eat cookies & crackers if we let her. She yells "juice!" all of the time even though she's only had it watered down about two times. She rocks her baby dolls violently then lets them have a nurse on mama. She calls milk "some".

We're all just doing the best we can.

I feel like I'm spending a lot of my days just struggling. I get so cranky when the girls won't eat their lunch - all they want is fruit & starch. Then they won't nap. And I have two sleep deprived toddlers careening around the house demanding books read, destroying the living room & dancing on the coffee table. Then I feel guilty because I should be playing with them more, but I'm so freaking tired that I just can't be on all the time. I need breaks and the only time I get to myself is when I ignore them for a few minutes or after Olive's in bed, the dishes are done and the diapers are in the wash. 9pm.

I'm also feeling bad about my body. Before Olive I was a big yoga/gym gal. I walked & cycled everywhere. I exercised regularly to keep my anxiety in check. Now I'm lucky if I get one visit to the gym in a week - I know that it shouldn't matter, that I should love my body for doing all that it does, but I just feel fat, lazy, neglected, anxious. I have no time to feed my brain or body. And I get so caught up in the negative, the critical, the judging, the hopeless that I can't manage to pull my head out of my butt and just embrace how amazing my life truly is.

Right now Etta is practicing her running in the hallway - today is the first day that she's really been running full tilt & her little face is lit up. What an amazing thing, to run!

5 Random Things

I've been reading various 5 Random Things posts this week & decided to do it too, without an invite. Because I'm cool like that.

- I really like the smell of the crook of my arm when it doesn't smell like soap or lotion. Like it smells after you haven't had a shower for a couple of days - like the real you.

- When I was a kid I used to count my breaths. They had to be multiples of eight or divisible by two or four but they couldn't be six or that would be bad luck. For real. Intense.

- I really like to be alone in public places sometimes. I love going to the movies or the theatre or out for lunch by myself. Then you never have to discuss what you just saw/ate/experienced - you can just absorb it into yourself.

- I LOVE the Muppet Show. It is burned into my brain. Especially the one with the ghost of the theatre.

- My favourite place on earth is the porch of my grandparents cabin looking out on the lake with a book in my lap. Or laying with Olive all curled into each other nursing.

What saves me

Really, the only thing getting me through these days is chocolate & alcohol. And knitting. And Olive's propensity to dish out a large number of kisses. Without these things, we'd all be dead.

Free! Hat! Pattern!

Here's the new hat pattern I designed. With lace panels. On 2.75mm needles. I almost poked my eyes out - knitting math is so hard.

Thinking about gifts & consumerism & meaning

I spent a great deal of time this week obsessing over whether we should try & buy Olive this barn for Christmas/Solstice. Which is crazy. It's $270 & she's only 16 months old. But it is SO beautiful & I love the ideas behind Waldorf toys.

So I had to sit back & really think about my motivations for buying. About toys & what I think about marketing to children. About what Olive would really enjoy. About my desire to give her things that will spur on her imagination & not just crap that only remains entertaining for a short period of time.

Last night I reread a couple of really great blog posts on toys & came up with some ideas for Olive & my niece Kaitlyn.

Olive loves doing up buckles & zippers. I have a book on sewing kids toys from about 1972 that features a house-boot that I can attach zippers, buckles & buttons to for Olive to play with. And I can make some little felt figures to go inside (like an old woman & her children?). I also received this amazing book for my birthday along with some cashmere (!!!) to knit the creatures out of. I'm planning on making the hen & chicks, along with some eggs & a nest. I was also thinking that a chalk board & some chalk for drawing would be fun, plus a couple of books of course. That should be good for gifts for the wee girlie.

My niece is 6, & is one of those kids whose room is jammed with 50 billion pieces of plastic. Literally. For her I'm going to pick up some early chapter books from the VPL booksale (Frog & Toad, some Doctor Seuss, Amelia Bedelia, good stuff). I'm also going to put together a finger puppet kit with felt, embroidery floss, & needles, & a kit to make clothespin dolls. Clothespin dolls kick Pollypocket's ass.

Toys. Knitting. Must. post. pictures.

Oy! Another amazing birthday present was 4 hours of housecleaning from a friend's lovely housecleaner. This afternoon Shawnee is going to scrub my floors, my tile, my grout. And Olive's going to go play with Etta. And I'm going to the gym! Woohoo!

Time

It was a gorgeous day today. I tried to close my eyes for a moment & just feel the sun on my face & feel that cool autumn air as I pushed the girls along through the cemetary. We had a good hard laugh on the swings. It's so easy to be frustrated with these wee ones, when really so much of our time together is such a huge gift. Olive tried to say "love" last night. Etta calls Olive "Ah-ah".

I'm having a hard time just being in the moment these days. I feel like I have so incredibly little time to myself that even when things are lovely my mind is racing on to the list of things that needs to be done or the many things I can fret over. It is a challenging time. It is busy. There are big life decisions to be made, but sometimes I feel like we are forgetting that the life we have now is it. This is the future. I don't know. It's tough.

Other things:

Joined ravelry. One more online addiction. Uh-oh.

Love this idea for a tradition. I'd like to start some things around here for our family. This Christmas/Solstice will be my first chance to begin some things.

Saw Across the Universe. It was fabulous. The music, the writing, the acting, the cinematography. I cried. It was lovely, lovely, lovely. Loved it. And Doug & I got to see it together. Extra lovely.

Finished a scarf for myself. And a baby sweater. I'll try to upload photos soon. This computer takes one million years to upload photos. And I don't have that kind of time.

Pretty

Overheard at the playground today, "Finn, don't do that, girls don't like to play like that!" (He was tugging on a girl & running around).

Said (by someone other than me) to Olive yesterday, "Don't you look pretty?"

Olive is routinely assumed to be a boy because she isn't always dressed in a) flowers or b) pink.

Who decides how girls like to play? Why can't it be how individuals like to play? Why are girls who are physical, who enjoy a little rough-housing, referred to as tom-boys? Why do we continue to steal our daughter's power like that? It makes me crazy. I felt like calling out the mums in the playground today, pointing out their inherent sexism, but decided that my energy would probably be met with nothing but animosity. It bothers me everytime someone uses the term "pretty". Pretty. Pretty = docile, powerless, pleasant & god forbid, ladylike. My blood is boiling. When will we embrace women as women, however they may choose to present themselves? Feminine is whatever I as a woman choose. And if you want to get technical, there would be nothing more feminine than a woman with hairy armpits & legs, because it grows there naturally.

Must go & nurse my daughter. My fantastically individual daughter.

Finished

Some recently finished objects - a lovely cashmere baby scrum helmet knit extra big in popsicle from handmaiden & an embellished black hoodie (Olive picked out the psychedelic kitty herself from an excellent local shop that closed :( ). I made the dark wool hat a few years ago for my niece, who has since regifted it back to my lassie. Who wants to read a book right now, so off I go.

Gobble that baby up

Olive started singing this week. We are routinely being reminded to bust out a little Baby Beluga ("Bay-bee! Bay-bee!") or The More We Get Together (with signs). It is sweetness personified. A growth spurt hit, causing her hair to grow so long that she now needs wee barrettes to hold her bangs out of her eyes. She is giving us huge hugs just as she falls asleep at night. She often wakes up in the morning exclaiming her need for a "booh! booh!" (book! book!) or "Dada?". She is beginning to respond to questions with eyebrow waggling & shifty eyes. She makes us laugh all of the time. She clings to my knees from behind if I try to cook or do the dishes. Her word for water is "ga". Everytime I hold her on my lap she asks for milk. She is rapidly turning into a little girl & I'm going to relish this wee bit of baby left, because I know that it won't be long before it is gone & she'll no longer want to be cuddled for hours on end. I want to gobble her up & keep her close to me forever.

I! Can't! Believe! It!

Olive has been asleep for more than 2 hours! I made a pie! I'm almost finished her autumn sweater! I'm listening to a Craftsanity interview with my favourite blogger!

And we're having a clothes-swap on the picket line tomorrow!

And the sun is out!

Woo freaking hoo!

Injustice

Oh, these days there is much need for long walks & for singing "Baby Beluga" with Olive. We went for a 4 hour hike in the woods yesterday & it was a balm for my soul.

We have been on strike for 78 days. Our primary issues are around pay equity & rights for our part-time & auxilliary workers (who represent half of our workforce). Pay equity is a human right. We, as a primarily female workforce, are asking our employer to join with us in evaluating our jobs using a gender neutral model to establish if we are indeed earning less than equivalent jobs in male dominant workforces. Hmmm, in Ontario they have pay equity legislation & the librarians at Toronto Public Library make $7 an hour more than we do. B.C. is one of only two provinces to not have pay equity legislation. We went to a mediator last week, a man, who indicated that he was very supportive of our cause. His job was to return a set of recommendations that reflected a fair balance of the desires of our employer & the workers. Then the recommendations came back & we were all slapped in the face by the incredible injustice of them. He made every effort to accomodate the employer & to split the workforce. He claims to have given us pay equity by giving the upper 40% of the workers an increase of one pay grade. I suppose that he expected us to turn on each other, to only care about ourselves. I feel surrounded by bastards. This city only cares about people with money, about making money, about spending money on completely ridiculous events like the Olympics. Why would they want to pay their workforce, who provide invaluable public services, fairly? Why would they give two hoots about affordable housing?

Thanks be for my sisters & brothers. When our bargaining committee recommended rejecting the mediators recommendations we cheered, hollered & cried. We banded together to say, "No, you greedy bastards, we will support each other until we receive a fair deal". We have to fight this, like we have to fight so much of what is wrong in this greedy, dirty, dead-end world. How else can I raise Olive? I have to believe that we can fight this, that we can become sustainable, inclusive, caring.

Naomi Klein came to the line on Friday, but I missed it due to a wee sleeping babe. Here it is. Can't wait to read the book.

Hold on sisters & brothers. Hold on. I'm with you.

Feeling like it's all too much

I just feel like crying today. I am feeling overwhelmed. I got cranky with the girls this morning - I find it really challenging to find a balance these days. I'm taking care of the two babes 3 days a week, picketing 20 hours a week, leaving only 1 day that doesn't involve 2 babies or walking around in the rain with a picket sign on. Olive has a cold (the 2nd this month) & is getting her bottom molars. She wants to nurse all night & my nipples hurt because she has to pop off to breathe, then latch back on & if I try to roll away to sleep she cries. Big D has been sick for 2.5 weeks & he hates his job(s). The house is a pigsty all of the time because it is too small & I can't get anything done when both girls are here because they want/need almost constant attention & watching. Someone is always crying or wanting a book read. I want to play but then I look around at the mess. My kitchen floor is caked with food. The bathroom is filthy. The laundry is half done. We are out of milk & cream. Olive has a yeast diaper rash that I refuse to treat with chemicals. I say 'no' a million times a day (no coming in the bathroom when I'm scrubbing a poopy diaper in the toilet, no tearing the books off of the grown-up bookshelf, no touching the diaper pail). I feel totally disrespected by my employer. I get almost no time to myself. Olive & Etta hardly nap. There are no breaks. And when there are the last thing that I want to do is clean up. I am exhausted. I spend no real time with my husband. I sit on the couch eating chocolate, watching TV & knitting when I get that precious hour or two to myself at the end of the day. I don't know how to make things easier. Should I hire a maid? With what, my strike pay????????? We live in a temporary house. Should we move? Should we mortgage ourselves up to our eyeballs to buy a tiny apartment?

Sigh. And I read other people's blogs & I think, how can their lives be so perfect? How do they do it? Nourish their kids & themselves & their relationships, keep the house clean, make money, be creative, write their blogs?

I am going to yoga tonight. That's what cans of soup are for.

Taking a break. Ignoring (um, maybe just not engaging with) the babies while they play happily. For 10 minutes if I'm lucky. I feel bad because I seem to be driving every day. It's the only way that I can get these monkeys to pack it in for a nap for any length of time. I think that Wednesday we will try to ride the bike with the duo in the trailer (which Olive hates after a multiple chin pinching incident). We went to the Eastside Family Place this morning because the sight of a used needle greeted us as we got out of the car & I just didn't have the energy to search the park for rigs. The thought of one of the girls getting pricked freaks me right out. Can you imagine giving AZT to a one year old. HORRIBLE. This city is getting me down. Between the crap everywhere, the pathologically angry drivers, being totally disrespected by my employer (the strike is in week 8) & not being able to afford our own home, I want out.

And I fell & twisted my ankle on Friday. Walking. On a flat sidewalk. Near where I saw the dirty needle today. Guess I'm lucky that I didn't get stuck.

Off to enjoy my gals this afternoon & try to forget about the filthy bathroom, piles of dishes & sheets that need changing.

Scenes from our lives

This is what our days look like. Olive dragging around her wad of yarn (once it was seperate balls - now it is her yarn wad. I don't care as long as she a) doesn't accidently throttle herself & b) doesn't unravel my current projects). Me stuck in my pjs for much of the morning. Showering is tough with 2. They like to eat the soap. (We're changing Baby DeeDee's diaper. Baby DeeDee is from Bamboletta - such a beautiful birthday present!). Olive's crazy awesome hair. Etta Mae, constantly looking at books (I love this picture so much). These girls are big into books - hmmm, does that make me feel good Ms. Children's Librarian? Olive sifting through her clean, folded laundry. Because what else are neatly folded piles for? And finally, lounging in the bedroom. Whenever I can't immediately find one of the girls, I know where they'll be - laying around on the beds, looking at books. And yes, that is a non-homemade stuffy. One. That she, of course, LOVES.

Wishin'

Fall Make-it List:
- mobile for our room (handsewn? felt? birds & trees & leaves & butterflies?)
- Olive & Etta cloth bags for taking their diapers etc. to each others houses
- leg warmers for Olive
- leg warmers for mama (black wool & grey kidsilk haze)
- finish Olive's fall cardigan
- matching bonnet?
- cashmere toque for O.
- yoda sweater & scrum helmet for a new wee babby coming soon to a friend near us
- mama sweaters x 3

chuckle heartily.

Knitting, striking, up to my neck in babies

I am she of the irregular posts. Somedays I feel inspired to share & sometimes it just feels like there are too many other things to do.

Caring for two babes has been a challenging shift, but luckily we've had the big daddy around to share in the caring. Unfortunately big daddy has to go back to work tomorrow & we are going to miss him like crazy. It sets us to dreaming about ways to not have to go to work. Then I start thinking about this insane strike. 7 weeks. No deal. No bargaining. We aren't asking for anything crazy, in fact we would accept the deal that all of the municipalities around us have received, but these f*&kers aren't offering. Are they trying to break the unions? Are they setting the stage for contracting out during the Olympics? Are they totally inhuman greedy robots who don't care about what this is doing to people both financially & emotionally? I know that we are in the right, that asking for the reasonable introduction of pay equity is a human right & that we are righteous. But it's getting harder & harder to pump up my sweet, lovely, brilliant brothers & sisters who are feeling crushed by this show of complete disrespect by our employers. I love my job. I can't wait to go back. But I won't give in.

So life is a blur of babies & striking & loving my co-workers. And knitting! These clever strikers are knitting up a storm, mostly toques for folks on the lower east side (acrylic - some insanely hideous, but you know, their hearts are in the right place - too bad acrylic going to stink in no time). Anyways, I'm working on a Scrum Helmet, as well as a cardigan & sweater vest for Miss O. Pictures to come.

Oy.

Excuses, excuses

My intention is to shift this blog from an angsty mummy blog to more of a crafty blog. Or perhaps a happy blend of the two. I'm constantly being inspired by the amazing work I see around me, and I think, hey gal, what's stopping you? In part it is the teeny tiny house - no room to leave the sewing machine set up, plus marauding toddlers who would love nothing more than to scatter buttons & needles to the four winds. Choking? Punctured internal organs? Oy. Perhaps I should stick to knitting (they only occasionally poke each other in the eye & let's face it, knitting needles are relatively blunt), embroidery & handsewing.

Other obstacles to my desire to craft/craft-blog? Caring for two babies/toddlers all day, followed by Olive deciding that bedtime only happens around 9pm these days. Oh yeah, & they're only napping when I push them around the neighbourhood, often for hours. Do you know how much it rains here in the winter? A husband I'd actually like to spend alone time with before we're in our eighties. Picket duty. Maybe one day my real job again (I miss you real job! I can't wait to see you again!). A rusty ol' computer (you've been so good to us, but the time is fast approaching for a new, zippier friend) that takes FOREVER to upload photos. A need to upgrade my flickr account.

I think that is the extent of my current excuses. Feels good to get it off my chest.

And so I bring you an image of Olive & her daddy at the lake on her birthday. No crafting, just a beautiful stormy sky.

Class war, grrrr!