27
December
Wordless Wednesday – Christmas
21
December
Making cupcakes
I missed wordless Wednesday this week, so here are Wednesday’s pictures with a few Thursday words.
This year marked our second year participating in Cupcakes4Christmas, and initiative that asks Ottawans who love to bake to donate a few dozen cupcakes to the Mission’s annual Christmas Dinner. We were sad to have missed participating last year while we were living in India, so all were keen to help with the baking.
Goose starts to measure out the flour.
Woo was very careful about ensuring that we had all the right ingredients, and didn’t forget to add anything…
Watching the batter.
This was their favourite step!
The finished product! They had no interest in helping with icing, surprisingly! We were lucky enough to have enough extras to give an extra half dozen to the Mission, and have one each to taste!
18
December
Domino effect
Today has been one of those days. The weather outside was just bad enough to make you worried about getting out and getting things done, my lil boy was home sick with me, and I spent a good part of the day waiting for others to get back to me so that I could do some things that HAD to be done. Being at the mercy of others is one thing, but the not knowing when they would let me get started was driving me NUTS. And it is my birthday, and my license was officially expired.
By the time that I got out to start my day, it was almost done. Luckily, I flew through most of the errands, and landed at the MTO with an hour to spare before I got Goose from school. Upon entering, I looked to see how many people were waiting and grabbed my number. There were not that many people waiting, yet I was ten or so numbers away. As I jammed my little slip into my bag, I saw that there were actually two numbers stuck together. “Oops”, I thought, knowing that there was nothing I could do about it.
After a few minutes, I noticed that the room started to fill up rather quickly. The guy that had sat down beside me looked like he was having a bad day. He seemed rushed, had forgotten his forms, and was quite fidgety. I looked at him and asked, “What number do you have?”, then handed him my second number. He looked at his and noted that the number he had pulled was much higher than the new one in his hands. He thanked me profusely before turning to the person next to him and said, “What number do you have?” I watched them exchange their little slips, then was called to the counter. As I walked up, I heard one more exchange of numbers going on.
I know that handing over the first number likely helped the first guy, but actually delayed everyone between us. I’m ok with that. It made my day to see that it actually changed his day and helped him, and to see that the others who were waiting repeated the gesture without thinking. Here’s hoping that those who were bumped didn’t notice, or if they did that they didn’t mind.
15
December
Turned off
Today was the day that I tuned it out. I don’t want to read anything else about what happened in Newtown, Connecticut. I knew enough in the first reports. I can’t watch to see who was hurt, what lives were lost. I don’t have the energy to get angry at the coverage, and can’t cope with learning about the lives that were lost. In my professional life I have seen a lot of horrible things, but this tragedy is that got to me the most.
I’m not going to judge; I am not going to pay attention to how others deal. Everyone deals with tragedy and horrible news differently, and no one does it the right way or the wrong way. I am not going to hypothesize as to how this tragedy could have been prevented or point the finger to what social programs would have helped. The opinions I have are going to be saved for another day.
Instead, I hugged my lils until they pushed me away, and I kept hugging them. I cried when they weren’t looking, and was thankful that they were young enough to be blissfully unaware, for today. Instead of the Christmas Advent activity we had planned, I asked for a family hug and kiss under the mistletoe, the activity that I save for days when we are too busy or forget to do our activity. Then, once they were snug in their beds, I sat with Willy and chilled with a glass of wine and tried to talk of anything but the events of the day.
All that really matters is that the lives of so many were shattered today, and it hurts so much for me, let alone those who lost loved ones.
11
December
Giving back
Now that we are somewhat settled back home, one of the things that I hope to do more often is contribute to Kids in the Capital, an awesome website for Ottawa families. The post that I have up there today is on Giving Back at the Holidays. It’s an update of a post that I wrote two years ago, inspired then by some discussions about how to involve really small children in some charitable giving around the holidays. When I got involved in some similar conversations last month, I figured that it was time for an update. It was also time for me to look for inspiration for our own family.
This is the third year that our family is following Missfish’s twist on an advent calendar, where we do twenty-five days of Christmas-y activities in the month of December. We have planned for at least one third of the activities to involve a charitable giving component. This year, the lils have asked many more questions than the last two years, and have really started to think about what the giving means. Like when we were sorting through old snowsuits for The Snowsuit Fund last night, and Woo came across a toque that just fit his head. He insisted on keeping it, so I asked how many toques he had and he answered that he had about eighteen (the real total is three). So I asked him how many he could wear at once, and if he thought that a boy or girl who didn’t have a hat would like a warm head on cold days. He thought for a minute, brought it back to the pile and helped me count up the toques to see how many little people could now have warm heads. He got it.
Many of the activities that we are doing as a family are listed in the post on Kids in the Capital. Please check it out if you are looking for ideas for your own family.
4
December
My favourite
I knew I liked Willy’s Auntie Murie the moment I met her. It actually was one of the worst possible circumstances under which you can meet someone for the first time. Her husband, Ron, had just passed away, and we were paying our respects. I know that it is unusual to meet someone at the wake for their spouse, but she knew of me and I knew of her and wanted to let her know that I was sorry. In the months that followed, we actually got to see a fair bit of Murie. We were the only Ottawa based relatives, and we wanted to check in on her. That like became love, and even though I had met few of Willy’s relatives at that point, she quickly became my favourite.
It’s not that Murie became my favourite because the other members of Willy’s family were crazy, mean, or crazy AND mean. I am blissfully free from most of the stereotypical in-law “qualities” that plague many families. I really like Willy’s family. The thing about Murie is that she welcomed me from day one. I always felt included by her, and that she truly wanted to talk to me, hear about my life and career, and hear my thoughts. The feeling was mutual, so we always had fabulous visits with her. I loved to hear her stories; tales of her sisters; her time in England in World War Two, where she met her husband; and her memories of their life together. We missed her when she moved to Toronto, and our visits became so rare.
We were not surprised, but still upset to get a call on Sunday afternoon, letting us know that Auntie Murie had passed away that morning. She was 98 years old, had led a full and exciting life and her health had been deteriorating. We are fortunate enough to have artwork, books and furniture that she gave to us when she moved to Toronto. It has always made me think of her, and will continue to do so now. Her presence will be missed by all of those in her family, including me. She was my favourite.
Auntie Murie chatting to her son Jim, the last time I saw her
27
November
Mind blown
Most nights for me end the same way. I read on my iPad until I get the nods, wake almost dropping said iPad at least twice, set it down, roll onto my left side and nod off. Somehow, when I did this last night, Willy was still awake (this is not normal), and he called me out for not kissing him good night. I was feeling cheeky and let him know that this was because he had chosen the wrong side of the bed to sleep on(I sleep on my left side, and this faces away from him). He was perplexed, and said, “but, you don’t even like this side of the bed…”
Willy and I have been together for almost fifteen years. When we first started having “sleepovers”, I noticed right away that we both preferred the same side of the bed. Not counting on this being a decision that I would be living with for the rest of my life, I ceded my side of the bed without even discussing it. In time I got used to it, but I have always slept on “my” side of the bed when Willy is travelling. Last night, I let him know that this was the case.
At first he didn’t believe me that I had done this nice thing for him, and refrained from telling him for such a long time. He tried to come up with proof that really, I just didn’t want his side of the bed. “I slept on the outside at your house so that I wouldn’t disturb you when I went into work so early”, said the man who NEVER got up early before children. I, on the other hand, often crept out of bed being cautious not to disturb him as I walked to work at 6:00am. He persevered, and pointed to my reluctance to learn how to work his old alarm clock. The clock that all the writing had been rubbed off the buttons, and could have easily been moved to his side of the bed, whichever side that might have been… He kept trying, but these were the two strongest arguments that he had.
We lay in silence as he tried to digest this information that had clearly altered his world view. He confessed that his mind was indeed blown. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that I had done something that I derived no benefit from, but that he clearly had. I never told him as he happily and blissfully slept on the good side of the bed, not realizing that I secretly wanted to as well. I let him assume that I slept on his side when he was away because I missed him, but the truth is I just wanted a few nights on the good side. I could tell that he wanted to ask me something by the way that he almost started to speak a couple of times, so I asked what was up. He hesitated, but confessed that he was worried that there might be other good deeds that I had kept from him. I quickly set his mind at ease by telling him that this was the only nice thing I’d secretly done for him, ever. “I kinda believe that,” he replied, as he drifted off to sleep, snug on my his side of the bed.
23
November
The garbage pickers
It started when the lils were infants. As I walked them around our neighbourhood, I would stop and throw any garbage that I found on the street into the bottom of the stroller. As they got bigger, they started to point it out to me, then started to collect it themselves. I wanted to teach them to have a little bit of pride in their community, and it worked. A little bit too much. I had to start setting limits on how much they spent picking up the trash when all we would do is pick up litter at the park, instead of playing on the play structure.
Living in Bangalore was incredibly hard on us all because of the trash. There is litter everywhere that you look. We all wanted to do nothing more than clean up the city, but we couldn’t. We actually didn’t even feel comfortable cleaning the trash, as it was really dirty. There are many stray animals, far from healthy and clean, that lay in and on it, men and children were often seen going to the washroom anywhere and everywhere, and the volume of trash was mind blowing. The lils always asked “why do so many people litter, don’t they care?”
The answer is that it’s complicated. The areas of India that I lived in and visited lack the infrastructure and facilities to collect and process the garbage. If there was collection, it was generally in the gated communities, and almost as much fell off the trucks as was collected. Once collected, I am not sure where it was taken to be “processed”, but I can guess that it was likely just incinerated in the open somewhere. In addition, modernization and rapid growth in the cities has meant that there are a wealth of products that are now made available at prices that many Indians can afford, they all come over packaged, and these cheaply made goods break easily. There are very few public spaces that have rubbish bins, and if they are present, they are old and damaged (or so was my experience). There are the people who don’t have space in their tiny dwellings to store trash for a collection that is never going to happen. Finally, there are the people who just don’t care, or come to feel that way after living with all the trash. The end result is that it gets dumped on the streets, in the parks, the open fields and in the waterways. It’s one of the factors that contributed (albeit in a minor way) to our decision not to stay in India.
We were happy to come home to the land of public receptacles, regular collection (well in Ottawa its semi-regular now), and a renewed interest in cutting down on the trash that we produce. We’ve done pretty well, but the lils have noticed that there are still people in our community who, either intentionally or unintentionally, litter. We notice it most on our walks to school, are really aware of the garbage that stays on the sidewalk and peoples lawns for days and days. The lils started asking me to carry a trash bag a couple of weeks ago, and after about a week of false starts, we finally remembered to bring it with us. Sure, our walks to school are a little bit longer now, but the lils are pretty proud to be cleaning up the ‘hood.