KateEvans

Normal, commonplace baby activity: playing with blocks.
Normal person’s reaction: Oh look, the baby’s playing with some blocks.
Old woman’s reaction: Maybe he’ll be an architect one day!

Normal, commonplace baby activity: banging on drum with stick.
Normal person’s reaction: Ha ha, cute, now enough with the banging.
Old woman’s reaction: Look! He’s going to be a musician!

Normal, commonplace baby activity: scribbling on paper with pencil.
Normal person’s reaction: Look, a scribble.
Old woman’s reaction: Mark my words, this boy’s going to be an artist!

Why do they DO this?

Daddy to daughter, who is poking him in the tummy: Yes, that’s Daddy’s fat tummy.

Daughter: You’re not fat. You’re old!

Dear people with pale-white skin, by which I mean people who deliberately keep their skin pale white because they cover it with sunblock factor 45 every single day between March and November; people who have no medical need to do this but have nonetheless decided that a moment’s exposure to the sun’s rays will not only disfigure and kill them painfully but will also disfigure and kill their children too, so that they swathe themselves and their children in long flappy sleeves and trouser legs and hats and scarves and caftans and tents during any remotely partially-clouded day and soak them in sunblock factor 50 and then reapply every ten minutes or so or whenever a drop of humidity appears in the air:

I just wanted to let you know that,

despite doing all this, blocking out every single ray the sun has ever and will ever produce,  

you are still going to die of something someday regardless of how much SPF you wear,

and you’re going to look really, really, really nasty and pale and revolting until you do.

Yours glowingly,

KE

The lady from The Bug Lab visited E’s preschool recently.

“So, children,” she said brightly, “I’m here today to talk about bugs and insects. Do any of you know the names of any bugs or insects? Put up your hands and tell me if you know the name of a bug or insect. Yes, you there?”

Little boy: uuuuuuuuuuummmmm…………………………..bugs!

Bug lady: Er….yes! Bugs, that’s great! Can anyone else tell me the name of a bug or insect? Yes, how about you?

Little girl: A dinosaur!

Other little boy: I went to Whistler this weekend!

Bug lady: Great!

I was innocently walking along with my children today, minding my own business, when I was suddenly immersed in a stupid conversation with someone I barely know.

I had bumped into this mother, who I am only on smiling terms with, and casually asked her if they’d had “lots of chocolate” this past weekend. “Oh, no,” she said, darkly. After then detailing for me the pains she had taken to source a small amount of organic chocolate for her child, she then launched into a monologue about nutrition. “My sister is a naturopath, blah blah, and she has been to a conference where they discussed HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, and the chemicals in it are awful for children, and carcinogenic, blah blah, and it’s in so many of those Easter eggs”.

She went on to tell me that high fructose corn syrup is in so many “treats” and she takes great pains to source “treats” that are free of it. For instance, she told me, “Oreo cookies have it, so I try to find substitutes for those…also, did you know that so many of Kraft’s products have HFCS in them? You really have to watch out for it.”

I spent almost the entire conversation staring blankly at her. My mind, however, was going 16 to the dozen, thinking of helpful comments like:

Are you listening to yourself? 

Do you really think a few Easter eggs are going to give your child cancer?

Why do you need a ’substitute’ for Oreo cookies? Why is your child eating them regularly in the first place?

Why are you buying anything from Kraft and feeding it to your child? Does Kraft make any products besides Kraft Dinner and Cheez Whiz? Isn’t their motto “Proudly processing food since before the dawn of time”?

You do realise, don’t you, that you are massively overweight?

At the risk of sounding unbearably smug, I don’t need to worry about any HFCS in my kids’ Easter eggs, because I make most of the food they eat myself. If they have something not terribly good for them on holidays, it won’t hurt them. I’m not an earth mother; I just cook meals with ingredients I buy at Safeway. I did say something along those lines to her, and no doubt I came across as insufferable; but, Oreo cookies?? She was kidding, right?

A while back I went to one of those market-research evenings where someone feeds you stuff and then asks you to talk about it in an inane and unnatural way. The product was children’s “organic” styrofoam-like rice wafers with artificial strawberry flavour. A woman at the end of the table said that she would definitely buy these vile wafers, “because they’re organic”. It did not occur to her or anyone else at my table to read the War-and-Peace-length list of ingredients on the side of the package, a sort of Top-50 list for food processing chemicals. As far as they were concerned, the wafers were “organic” and therefore: Good For You.

I’m not really down on organic things, or on limiting chemicals in your kids’ diet, or anything like that. It’s just that I wonder sometimes if most people are really able to absorb all the information thrown at them these days. These two mothers - and there are many, many more like them - only seemed to have processed certain bits of information they’d heard in the media, and totally ignored or misunderstood other equally important bits. They’d heard that organic food might possibly be better because it has fewer chemicals on it; but they hadn’t understood that just labelling something “organic” didn’t mean that there were no chemicals in it, nor that it was healthy. Or, they’d understand that they needed to check the ingredients list for a certain additive, but it didn’t occur to them that they didn’t even know what all the other additives on the list did, and some of those might even be worse. Nor does it seem to occur to so many people that you don’t have worry so much about an ingredients list if you make the food yourself.

This is a pointless and unfocused rant - sorry about that. I suppose you could sum up my feelings on this issue, and on so many other issues, by saying that I think lots of people are stupid. I’m going to go have an Easter egg now.

Him (putting batteries in a small flashlight): ….hmm. It doesn’t work. (plays with switch) This flashlight doesn’t work.

Me (cooking supper, cleaning house, dealing with children, paying bills, doing taxes, etc): Give it to me.

Him: It’s not working. It’ll have to go back to the shop.

Me (take out batteries, turn them over, replace them, turn on flashlight): There.

Him: What did you do??

Me: I put the batteries in the right way.

Him: I thought I did that already.

Me: No. They were in the wrong way.

Him: (pause)….well, I have no idea how that happened.

Am just gearing up for my first-ever “swap meet”. A swap meet is a Canadian event where you get together with other people who have excess stuff (in this case, stuff for kids), and you do not under any circumstances “swap” it with them. No: you sell it, to third parties. There is no swapping going on whatsoever. So even though I had visions of going in there and saying something like “Hey, I like those thirty-seven outfits you have, plus that fur coat, and that miniature Jag, and the live-in nanny. Can I ’swap’ them for my Quinny Buzz?” And, given the price of the Quinny Buzz, the other seller would say “Of course. Please allow me to throw in my firstborn as well, to make it a fair trade.” And then we would SWAP.

So that’s why they call it a swap meet. See? Remember that there is no swapping going on at all. It’s only just selling. See?

I need to make $18 to break even. I need to make about $750 to save face.

Proof that delinquency begins early in life, from the report of a child development assessor who visited our daughter E’s preschool class today:

“At the water table, E played alongside two peers…at one point she filled a container with water and it appeared she was going to pour it back into the tub. However, she walked over to me and poured it on my lap. She found this very funny and laughed…do these impulsive actions happen often?”

E clearly doesn’t understand that this sort of transgression will one day derail her Harvard application.

I just signed up to Twitter and I’ve absolutely no idea why.

How come when everyone does the same thing these days, no matter how dull the thing, it’s called a phenomenon? You know, like the “social networking phenomenon” that I’m getting so sick of hearing about?

Back in my day, when we all wore legwarmers for no reason, even when our legs were perfectly warm already, it wasn’t called “the legwarmer phenomenon”. It was called bloody stupid a fad.

I had twelve pairs of legwarmers. Man, was I cool.

A preschool near us (not the one E attends) decided that it didn’t want to offend its non-Christian students by celebrating Christmas.

I suppose this is fair enough (though why not celebrate several cultural festivals instead?). It is right in the middle of the city, and there are all sorts of cultures represented in the class.

So…in order to avoid offending other cultures, what this preschool is doing all throughout December is, er, singing Christmas carols. Except that they are changing the words. So “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” has become “We Wish You a Happy Holiday”, etc etc. In other words, they are performing a Christmas tradition, on a daily basis, but pretending that they are not.

So - to avoid causing offense to other cultures, they are treating other cultures as though they are complete idiots.

Are you following this? I’m not sure I am.

Today I wondered for the millionth or so time whether I should tell people exactly what I think about their comments about my daughter, or if I should do the Mumsnet thing and smile sweetly while saying something twee and passive-aggressive.

E is her own person. She is smart, but not because she is gifted or anything like that; it’s because she watches everything, and thinks about it a lot, and comes to her own conclusions. This entails a bit of spending time on her own, of observing and not always joining in. It also means that she will not ‘take’ to people right away, and will often avoid people for days while she gets to know them better. I am thrilled that this means she is not always desperate to be the centre of attention; far from it. She hates the pressure of people pointing and staring and expecting things from her. In this, she is exactly like both her parents and while we are far from antisocial, we are happy in our own company.

I think she is perfectly normal. I hope she will soon learn to play with other children more easily, because it hurts sometimes to see her perhaps wanting to join in but not quite knowing how. But she is only three, and it will all come, if we give her time and space. What will not help, however, is the nasty old woman habit of constantly calling her shy. “Oh, you’re SHY!” they screech delightedly as my daughter shrinks away. “Isn’t she SHY?” they say smugly to their old woman friends. “Don’t be SHY!!” they shout at her retreating back.

Unfortunately, the old women in question tend to be relatives. (One of them is my mother.) I want to smack them all and fantasise about giving them a taste of their own medicine. Screeching: “Oh, you’re OLD!!”, to one. “Isn’t she UGLY??” about another. “Don’t be such a NASTY OLD COW!!”, I could shout delightedly.

But flying into a precious, snarling rage against defenceless pensioners is not the best example I could be setting for my daughter, who is bearing up pretty well regardless. Tonight, after a busy day with too much attention, we were relaxing at home and I said to her: “E, you’re a really special little person.” And after a moment, she beamed her thousand-watt smile back at me, and said: “That’s what I am.”

(She also flew into a tantramous rage when I turned off the ‘toons this afternoon, and later did a poo in her pants while I was eating supper with guests, but that would hardly make for a Disney ending to this post, would it?)

Last night we had fun reminiscing about what we were doing on the same night, one year ago. We had had childcare, and so were out having a wonderful dinner at Cafe de Paris. We had champagne to start, lots of raw red meat and a very nice bottle of red. When Yarb went to pay the bill, the maitre d’ joked with him, asking why we would leave so early (8.30pm). Yarb told him that “we’re having a baby in the morning”.

The maitre d’ laughed, but then noted pretty sharpish that Yarb wasn’t kidding. I was also pretty enormous and could barely reach the food and drink I was eagerly shoving down my gullet. While Yarb took care of the bill, the maitre d’ came over to our table and asked me - was it true? Were we really having a baby tomorrow? And how did we know? He had, he told me, four children, and all apparently had arrived the old-fashioned way, so he was really interested to hear about pre-booked caesarian sections (for health reasons - why do I feel it necessary to add this?) and how they made it possible for parents to go out for a relaxing supper the night beforehand, so long as they stopped their guzzling by midnight. Three of us left our table some time later, all a little misty-eyed.

That unborn conversation piece, Baby L, is one year old today, and as I told him over tooth-brushing tonight, I can’t hand-on-heart say I’ve loved every single minute of the last year as much as he probably has; but I’ve loved a lot of it, certainly some of it, and I now adore the little fecker. It helps, sometimes, that he adores me too, but not all the time. I am temperamentally suited to independent people, and the fierceness with which my son insists on my constant company and contact can occasionally be a little exasperating. I will probably get used to it around the time he discovers independence.

Baby L just learned to crawl about a week ago. He is still new to it and crawls slightly maniacally with his head down, concentrating fiercely on staying upright, not concentrating at all on avoiding obstacles. (Bonk! Waaaaah! And repeat) My son does a lot of things fiercely. He also does some things with a great deal of humour, such as when he demands a drinking cup at mealtime only to take a quick sip, then hold it momentarily out into the ether before quite deliberately dropping it. Repeatedly. He does it repeatedly because Mummy, despite having at least one university degree and an IQ apparently in the three figures, still for some reason insists on giving him back his cup when he asks for it.

I have been telling my son that as the second child, he is expected to be the easy-going one. It’s early days yet, but I think I can confidently predict that I have not just one but two children who disregard everything I say.

What the towels look like after the female has used them:

What the towels look like after the male has used them:

WHY???

I’ve had it with keeping a food diary.

It’s exhausting. Also, all this “keep a food diary and lose all sorts of weight” stuff is a load of nonsense. I faithfully wrote down a lot of what I ate, on quite a few days, and sometimes posted it here, and what do I weigh? Maybe two pounds less than I did two weeks ago, or perhaps two pounds more, depending on whether or not you count the four brownies I ate today, which I don’t, because I didn’t write them down.

I am also concerned that all this obsessing over food is not setting a good example for my children. They are active, healthy kids with normal appetites and I want them to grow up with healthy attitudes towards food. If they see me always counting all the brownies I eat, or fussing over whether or not I had two bowls of Breyers Double Churned Cookies ‘N Cream ice cream or three, then who knows how warped their eating habits could become?

Today at lunchtime my kids and I were eating with a responsible member of the older generation. My son screeched between each mouthful of food (a charming* habit which, I am reliably informed, I too was guilty of as a baby) and my daughter dutifully ate precisely three small mouthfuls of cheese sandwich. There was chocolate for afters and I was asked gently if my daughter would be allowed any, given that she had not really eaten her lunch. “Of course!” I said. What a silly question. Then I ate the four brownies, having myself only consumed the leftover crusts from my son’s sandwich, and one pickle.

Sorry, I’m getting all diaristic again, aren’t I? Never mind. So, from now on, my new mantra is: eat what I want, and as much as I want, when I want it, and don’t worry about it, and then wonder why I need new jeans, and then blame it on having children. And repeat.

* not remotely charming in any way

bowl raisin bran

I can’t stop eating.

2 cups coffee
half grilled cheese sandwich
4 choc chip cookies
2 more cups coffee

It started out all right today, but it’s been tough this evening. For supper I made fishcakes - Jamie Oliver’s in November’s Good Food magazine - with sauteed chard and courgette on the side. (They’re good, if you like things that are really, really bland.) While cooking I had three more cookies, because they were there. An hour after supper I had a cup of cottage cheese and some raspberry rhubarb crumble. And I could eat something else right now. I know I’m not hungry, but actually, I am hungry, dammit. I really fancy some nice salami.

Last night we had pork stir-fry for supper. If I list what was in it, I will get even hungrier.

My children are driving me crazy at the moment. My daughter has taken to coming out of her bedroom up to an hour after we have put her to bed. She says she is hungry and wants a snack. I want to tell her that she cannot have one, and send her back to bed; partly because this is Good Parenting, and partly because if she doesn’t get a snack, there will be more for me. As it happens, I cannot argue with a sweet-natured, hungry 3-year-old so I give her half a banana. Then I send her back to bed, and I eat the rest of the banana, and then go and get myself some cheese.

Perhaps some gin will dull my appetite. And if it doesn’t, who cares? Urban Fare is open until midnight.

I can’t wait to see how many pounds I lose this week!

Writing down everything I eat requires a degree of self-obsession that I just don’t think I have anymore, since the kids came along.

I know that I had poached eggs on toast for breakfast yesterday, a bowl of raisin bran today, both with the usual coffees. Lunch yesterday was a cup or so of cottage cheese, and probably something else, I’m not sure now; today it was another 1.5 tuna sandwiches with avocado on that fantastic honey bread.

I baked choc chip cookies this afternoon to amuse my toddler (riiiiiight), so there have been more than a few of those today.

Dinner last night was lemon parmesan seabass, with a salad; tonight it was a fabulous home-made chicken jalfrezi. Really fabulous. With rice and salad, again. I try to have salad every suppertime. I had half a bottle of wine and a g&t last night, but for some reason it felt like a lot more booze than that; must learn never to let the man of the house mix the drinks.

Actually, I had two portions of jalfrezi. Mainly just to up my veg count for the day, you know.

Let’s see -

2 slices banana bread
2 cups coffee/milk
large smoothie with banana and strawberries

There was too much sugar and not enough protein or substance in this breakfast, so I was feeling dizzy and a bit shaky at noon - not the condition I want to be in while grocery shopping. It might have been my weakened state which caused me to buy a loaf of white bread instead of something more worthy. It wasn’t horrible cheap white bread but what the bakery calls a buttermilk and honey loaf - though why a normal loaf of bread needs to be sweetened, with honey or anything else, I have no idea. Is bread normally sweetened?

Anyway, it tasted fabulous, so for lunch I had

1.5 tuna sandwiches spread with avocado instead of butter

and, chastened by my vindaloo experience earlier in the weekend, I treated us to a much more nuanced

green Thai chicken curry with broccoli and bamboo shoots,
rice,
and salad

for supper. The kids loved it too, which means it wasn’t quite spicy enough, but it was still delicious.

I have also decided that, while coconut milk may have as many calories as lard, it simply is not worth the disappointment to use low-fat or half-fat versions of it. I did this last time and regretted it terribly. Tonight we had full-fat and I will go to sleep happy - though of course I would probably have done so anyway, because after supper I had 1.5 jumbo choc chip cookies.

I like to think I am setting a ‘healthy attitude towards food’ example to my children. But maybe they think I’m just a big pig.

Keeping a food diary is tedious. (Reading it is even worse.)

I write down little scraps of food here and there, but unless I am paying full attention to the project, things are easily left out - thereby defeating the purpose completely. Breakfast yesterday was scrambled egg on toast and the usual two cups of coffee. Anything else? Not sure. There was a cookie in there at some point, a banana, a bit of cottage cheese, some Ukrainian sausage. How much? How many strawberries?

I shop in fairly large quantities for my family. I’m not a bargain hunter, because I frankly can’t be bothered; but if I notice a very good deal, I’ll grab it. Last week’s was 2lbs of strawberries for $5 - great price, nice fruit. But that does mean I’m eating strawberries for quite a few days - and writing them down in my diary over, and over, and over again.

In an effort to break the monotony of my food diary, we went to a big catered event yesterday afternoon and I filled up my plate - and my mouth - with a Nanaimo bar, a Turtle brownie and some carrot cake. Then I had a steak and salad for supper, and three glasses of wine.

A week ago, when I started doing this, I mentioned that I was testing the theory that a food diary helps with weight loss. Last Sunday, I weighed in at X lbs. This morning, I weighed in at X minus 3lbs. This is most likely due to dehydration following the three glasses of wine last night rather than any help from the diary, but it’s just enough for me to keep it up for another week to see what happens.  X is my pre-pregnancy weight, and all summer I have been hovering between X and X minus 3lbs. If I can break that barrier, then it’s worth keeping up. We’ll see.

two poached eggs on toast
2 cups cafe au lait
1 cup cottage cheese
banana
3 strawberries
the hottest homemade vindaloo in all of recorded history
rice and spinach
1 glass red wine

I was going to blog the recipe but I think if anyone else makes it I could be sued for damages. I felt like I was eating it to win a bet.