2024-03-28

To do

A to-do list I found on M’s floor today. I detect a nascent world domination plan here, which I suppose was inevitable given her genetic material. I’m intrigued by the possibilities of the “fake lightening machien” and the “bat machien” and I wonder what the stuffed horse robots are going to do with their remote-controlled […]

Latest in plush: statistical distributions

Having pretty much exhausted biological subjects (roadkill, organs, diseases), makers of fine plush lovies have moved into statistical distributions. You can buy a full set of ten, or individual distributions if you’re particularly fond of one. I note they also sell “statosaur” burp cloths featuring embroidery which combines dinosaurs and statistical distributions. Excellent!

Quilts

A few weeks ago I finally finished M’s quilt: It’s roughly twin-sized – 55″ by 75.5″. I’m quite happy with it, although the back (off-white lightweight polar fleece) isn’t perfect — sewing fleece is an occult art, I fear, and even the walking foot on the machine wasn’t quite up to the task — and […]

It Gets Better

I’ve long had a lot of time for Dan Savage, low-bullshit un-shockable sex columnist and general sensible guy, but his latest project is really something I’d like everyone under the sun to both know about and spend an hour of their time with. The It Gets Better Project is Dan’s attempt, through video, to convince […]

School, v.2

80/365 Sept 7: First day of school Originally uploaded by morecoffeeplease. To our intense dismay — because we are both strong proponents of the public school system — for the past few years we’ve found ourselves deeply dissatisfied with our local public school. Which, according to all publicly available data, is supposed to be a […]

Better safe than sorry

Walking up the street today on the way home, M and I were passed by the ice-cream truck, which then stopped a hundred metres up the street by the park. M: The ice-cream truck comes every day in summer! Me: Yep. M: But not in winter. Me: No. M: (thoughtfully) When do you suppose is […]

Pierced ears!

50/365 March 19: Pierced ears! Originally uploaded by morecoffeeplease. M is very pleased with her newly-pierced ears. She chose studs with tiny pink pearls and tolerated the piercing with not even a squeak. I was a bit nervous that she’d get through the first ear and balk at the second, but I needn’t have worried. […]

Women don’t breastfeed? Here’s a thought —

— maybe hospitals should be nicer to midwives. I gave birth at Women’s College Hospital, and of all places I fully expected them to support my midwives. But they were unspeakably awful to them — rude, dismissive, demeaning, the whole gamut of bad behaviour. They topped it off by ignoring me (I was admitted unplanned, […]

The Annual Food Groups Collage

Starting in Senior Kindergarten, it seems to be traditional to send kids home with a badly-photocopied Canada Food Guide and some badly-photocopied grocery store sale flyers and assign a Food Groups Collage as homework. For SK, fine, this is more-or-less appropriate: you’re five years old. You can practice reading and cutting and sticking and since […]

Advice for idle parenting

The Idle Parent Children actually have an inbuilt self-protective sense that we destroy by over-cosseting. They become independent not so much by careful training but in part simply as a result of parental laziness. Last Sunday morning, Victoria and I lay in bed till half past 10 with hangovers. What a result! And the more […]

M’s new bike

M’s new bike Originally uploaded by morecoffeeplease. She chose the red one over the white-and-pink one. I hold out hope that perhaps the pink phase might be nearing its end. Of course, finding a bell that matched the bike’s frame colour was THE most important thing. We spent some time practicing starts and stops at […]