three hands making sugarplums...

only two more sleeps!!! every night before bed abby says "tomorrow morning when i wake up there will be my little pony castle under the tree? right?".

renee really doesn't get it yet. she thinks it's still halloween. whenever we walk by a decorated house she points and yells "MOM HALLOWEEN!!!". cute, that one is cute all right.

this will be the first year ever that we have not gone to my parents for christmas eve( except for two thunder bay christmases when we were in school).
after many late, late christmas eves' -which were great in our earlier post-kid days -we'll be home and as my sister said "maybe we'll drink just a little too much wine" and watch it's a wonderful life and leisurely wrap the last few gifts. abby and renee are still small enough to not know that they could get us up at 3 am to open gifts.( thank god!) probably the last year for that.

today there are only a few more gifts to buy (two!) - thought we were done but there is always one or two left isn't there? i have to stop myself from buying any more stocking stuffers. they are going to be crazy huge stockings as it is!!

ok, speaking of sugarplums i'm off to get two little ones dressed. abby of course in a "fall dress with two pair of tights - i won't be cold i promise". no pants for that one. she has officially become a girl in the last few months. princess and dresses and lipstick.
as i wrote to kathleen the other day - this is my punishment for the years of my black mini-skirts and frost-bitten "no, i'm not cold" legs all those years and years.

off to find the tights brush the hair and find the boots.

it's a nice dress but....

" oh mommy! that's a beautiful dress -but it doesn't cover her baby-food!"

abby said this about 20 times as we were looking at pics on people.com - cause not many of the stars worry about covering their baby-food these days. she cracks me up.

summer sisters

are they not the cutest?


i promise not to have them hawking oscar meyer...they could though...they are that cute!

aversion therapy

a few sips of this and i think i will no longer be a slave to the silver can.

like the 26-ers of peach snapps and orange juice kathleen and i drank in the 80's. it was years before i was able to drink orange juice without shuddering.

Happy Birthday Adrienne, Mom, Grandma...!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!





happy birthday mom.

all the best to you ( a little late but with all the love!).

last year on your 60th birthday i wanted to write you a birthday letter - i had thought of all the things i wanted to tell you - for the past year i have been thinking of how i didn't write you the birthday letter and how i didn't say all the things that i wanted to so...in the hereditary, genetic, better late than never way that we have here it is.

you are a nurturer. my lifelong cool hand on a hot forehead. aliments and troubles are brought to you by family, friends, and strangers. you kindly look, touch, advise and soothe.

you are grace under pressure. when hair is on fire, heads are cut, minds are troubled, and feelings are hurt --- you make it all ok.

you are smart. quietly smart. you excel without bravado. almost surprising people because how can someone so nice also be so smart.

you are political and believe in the good fight, the left and that people can change. you aren't afraid to speak up when you believe in something - chanting louder "take back the night" when we marched past the Hamilton Club and you saw suited rich men drinking scotch, watching us- they closed the windows after you passed. you know the words to old union songs. you listen to cbc. you read.

you watched the musical "hair" with your four kids on summer afternoon. you let us watch "hair" with all it's drug, free love, and anti-war sentiment but you wouldn't let us watch "nightmare on elm street" because it was violent.

you baked real cookies, muffins and bread. you cooked real food - city chicken, leek and potato soup, crock pot oatmeal, moussaka(even though you had to hear bratty "idontlikeit"'s), lasagna, stew and dumplings... you canned pickles, jam, beets, beans and onions at a time when it was not so vogue. your kitchen is always comfort.....

you are youthful, when you were 59 yrs. i heard someone say " 59? what do you use formoldehyde?", you and dad newly define grandparent - riding bikes and hiking the provinces. you are beautiful. eyes like ocean-blue cut marble and white shoulders. you never wore track pants in public, instead you wore skirts and matching beads.

you sewed for all the important things. communion dresses, easter and christmas outfits, graduation and prom dresses, wedding dresses, baby blankets, family quilts for all of us, coats, jackets, scarves, hats, raggedy anns...we wear your love.

you rarely said you 'should'....i never got why all my friends were so frustrated with their mothers..unlike them you weren't a "witch, warden, pain, doesn't understand, doesn't get it" kind of mom. not that you didn't have rules. my 11 pm curfew until age 18 kept me in childhood a lot longer than most.

likewise you are a popular mother-in-law. no monster-in-law has ever been said in your name.

you love to laugh - it's one of the first things i think about when i think about you. your whooo, whoo, whooo laugh that makes us all feel good.

you are a good grandma. trying to be something special to each grandchild. sewing till you are almost blind at christmas so that they sleep in new cosy christmas jammies. i watch you with my own daughters and at times i see how you must have been with me. tender.

but most of all to me you are my mom. who i love. who i want to be and who is still my make-everything-ok mantra even at 38 yrs. happy birthday mom. you deserve all the best.

love, jen, terry, abby and renee

Happy Birthday Bibby! ( and i mean that literally...)

happy birthday siobbhan. we all wish you the very best today - and a little dose of luck in hopes that little jack is born today.
i can't believe that you are 34 today! what.? my little sister 34? the curly-haired quick to laugh little bibby is 34? ok, i'll retire the little bibby part. but there is no getting out of the little sister part.
you were the one who tried to make your older sisters and brothers laugh - you would perform again and again - arrid extra dry?

you were the baby in all our games and plays - our little gert to be carried up the stairs a la the sloans present the sound of music.

you were sosososo cuddly--your little arm around my back when you slept in my bed at 6.

you were the cute one - the one people would stop on the street because your curly hair and blue eyes and little nose couldn't be ignored.

you were the risk-taker - dying your hair, cutting it all off, reverse mohawk in grade school. but still somehow shy.

you are almond eyes, smooth clear irish skin, and yes, the hair again. coveted.

you were the wild,wild teenager. the mom still has no idea how wild teenager with the baby face. with wild, wild friends who also passed as normal.

you are a lover of music, a great smoky voice, harmonizing quietly. like your horn playing - great when really heard. not trying for the spotlight.

you are a proud mom. always a story about sadie and what she said or did or can do - as a result a girl that is confident in her choices " gelato is way better than soft-serve!".

as with sadie you are in love. with a lumberjack. after all these years a story about what he said or did or can do.

you are a earth mother at heart. at your center you are kind, caring, funny, and smart. i love you for that. but mostly i love you because you are still in my mind my little sister, your little hand in mine making me feel like i am good.

happy birthday siobbhan and all the best.

love, jen

happy birthday amy!!!

happy birthday amy!
you, my sister, deserve only the best wishes.

i am smiling as i think of you and what i should write. where to start?
as far as i can remember back i think.

i swear i can almost remember the day you came home from the hospital. although only two i hazily remember you in a blanket in mom's arms coming up the back stairs where the grape vines grew.

amy at four willingly marrying marco at the request of rosanna and i in an elaborate play, italian lace tablecloth on your head, picked flowers in your hand and two bossy big-girl priests.

amy at five walking to holy family school with charlie and i - past the old man's house with the hornet's nest and mrs. robinson waving from her blue-house porch.

amy at st. margaret mary school reciting "me and my shadow by robert louis stevenson" in front of the whole school in late spring. seeing my sister as separate from myself for the first time and watching the people around me like you. feeling pride "that is MY sister up there."

amy at 7 with confidence from i don't know where. smart and funny. shades of what's to come.

amy and i in brownies - our jokes about the leaders afterwards that had us howling with laughter. i can't remember what the jokes were but something about tawney owl and her trying to dance around the toadstool?

amy also at 7 - your love of singing - especially catholic hymns - the may crowning, fresh flowers and your first communion.

amy at 8 - first summer in our new ashford ave. house. no friends yet. but one of the best summers of my young life. the four of us best friends- jennifer, charlie amy, siobbhan. swimming at scott park, our own "club", and the library - god, the library where we would take out 25 books at a time and cart them home in plastic bags to be read on our front porch with a bag of swedish berries.

amy at 10. the quieter one of us four. more thoughtful and watchful. and kind.

amy at 11 my paper-route co-conspirator. spending all our collection money on full course seafood meals at connaught fish and chips - canvas paper delivery bags at our feet. our shared terror at being thrown in jail for defrauding the hamilton spectator.

amy at 12. one of the smart kids at school. in the fashion show. a very big deal at st. columba. and then getting kicked out of the fashion show for jumping down the stairs with your uncorkable enthusiam. mr. debrizzi was such an ass.

amy at 14 - twirling rifles and flags with that same me and my shadow confidence. you were the one to watch on the floor.

amy at 16 in st. joseph's hospital after getting your appendix out. thin, fragile and so unlike your normal self it was scary. but of course, some humour. your story of how you were dreaming the pope was standing on your stomach torturing you before you woke up and were rushed to the hospital.

amy at 18 and in love with a rocker named jay. you and i at the same time finding the real thing.

amy at 25 and in labour. brave and strong.

amy at 26 - on your wedding day - beautiful, excited and happy.

amy for the last ten years. full of talent. a comedian. a writer. a public speaker. a good friend to many. a great mom to beautiful kids- sam, monty and lucy. an entrepreneur. a reader. a student. a writer. a singer. a dancer....a lover of life.

happy birthday amy.

love, jen

if it isn't on t.v.

for days i have been thinking about the 4 canadian soldiers killed in afganistan. i have been really disturbed by harper's ban on the media covering the return of the soldiers - they have had to film through fence to get pictures and film of the caskets return to canadian soil.
like a lot of people i find it very disturbing that the government wants to somehow cover up or minimize the impact of their deaths. those images of the families receiving the caskets is really hard to watch but you realize that those soldiers were family members, sons, fathers and husbands. they are made real human beings like the rest of us and not just soldiers lost in battle.

what makes me really nervous is that harper appears to be following the lead of george bush who banned repatriation ceremonies in the states back in 2003 - right when they started to see an increasing number of caskets return home. in canada at least the media were able to film through fence - in the states the press can't even get near the military base so the soldiers return home without being reported to americans. their government says that the soldiers will be visible in their own towns and communities during funeral ceremonies back home. but we know that if it isn't on t.v. most people don't know it's happening. so if you aren't in one of those hometowns, you don't notice that young americans are dying in iraq in greater numbers every month. which is exactly how the bush government wants it.

i know we aren't american so why does it matter? my cynical side ( i know, i said i would try not to be cynical when i was in my lenten mood) - my cynical side make me wonder about harper's recent similar ban and his admiration of the u.s. and george bush and the continuing trouble in iraq and now iran. i am really hoping that harper isn't thinking about sending canadian troops to iraq or iran if called upon by the u.s.. it makes me wonder why the ban now? we aren't like the states where there are returning bodies every day. it's still a very big deal here when canadian soldiers die.

the conservative government says that they enacted this ban to respect families. i have heard several of these families on cbc and they are not respected by this. they are angry and hurt by the governments actions. one father even showed video footage during his son's funeral this weekend. http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6688

in the end i guess i will watch to see what happens. maybe i'm wrong. i hope.
i hope that the loss of canadian citizens who are also soldiers is always a big huge deal here in canada.

Cpl. Matthew Dinning
Lieut. William Turner
Cpl. Randy Payne
Bombardier Myles Mansell

happy earth day!

happy earth day to:

abby who loves all things green and collects maple keys and pine needles like they were dropped money.

renee who loves to be at ground level grabbing handfuls of grass.

terry who reads thoreau, shows me the stars, wants to be a farmer, and says soil rather than dirt finding the latter to be an insult to something so alive.

adrienne and mike who taught me the joy of shopping at farmer's markets and supported the people who grow our food, that real cheese comes wrapped in brown paper and has endless variety, not sealed in plastic under white coolers, and for riding bikes at over 60.

kathleen for trying to live what she believes more than almost anyone i know - making her dream come true even if for a while - wear on earth. and for knowing so much about so much. unlike most of us who know a little about a lot.

to those whose religion is gardening - evelyn and brenda - coded notebooks, paper bags of seeds, pride of little green shoots so dependent on things not in their control.

amy and siobbhan whose passionate love of thrift stores is unrivaled, whose love of a great find supports the little old ladies raising money for the church and for the disabled.

and for all of us who know we should do more - who still drink tim horton's coffee from unrecyclable cups but know better.

and for everyone who loves a sunny day, a good apple, or a blue sky. walks instead of drives. eats less meat. collects rainwater and composts. wears sunscreen. takes books out of the library. watches the sky. notices the flowers. and worries about the melting icebergs.
happy earth day.

table number 12 rides the pony

charlie with "the hot bun"

Table number 12....apres moany, moany...

terry and charlie waltz for the crowd

this morning roz and i were talking about nat and pete's wedding this fall. although we haven't been invited yet we talked about how we were already arranging babysitting for the kids.
it's march.
the not yet officially announced wedding is in late sept..
we don't get out much.

then we reminised about one particular classy evening about 15 years ago. nick and patty's wedding where we were seated at table number 12. our table drank many, many, many bottles of wine. we drank. a lot. even charlie drank. we thought we were the life o' the party. throughout the speeches we played amusing games like pass the hot potato. except it wasn't a potato. it was a bun. pass the hot bun with a steak knife from person to person. later we ceremoniously mounted the bun on our table number. like i said classy.
then billy idol and moany, moany came on and the classiness continued to the dance floor. god lord, the humanity. that song should be banned from public.

can i just say that at almost 40 and all of us armed with video and digital cameras, i for one will never jump up when moany, moany, ride the pony comes on. there will be no drunken "I LOVE THIS SONG". ( which is not true - i never, ever listen to billy idol or moany, moany outside of drunken wedding or stag and doe performances). i will not join the throngs of ladies who act out the lyrics and sing along, (while the guys watch from the sidelines) , you know the words...."everybody get.....".
yeah, that won't be me. i don't want to embarrass my daughters when i'm fifty. i have to start practicing now.

It has been 20 years since my last confession...

ash wednesday yesterday - lent is here. it's been years since i thought about lent. years and years - about 20 years since i gave something up for lent. i was never very good at it. i always changed what i was giving up mid-stream. like most things in my life, i started off very enthusiastically ...slowing waning as the days went by. i will say though, i loved the whole easter season - the purple sashes decorating the church, the weekly walk to st. pat's from our school for mass, the songs, the candles, the smell of the church, the whole quiet, reflective mood of the four weeks before easter.

i miss the catholic church. i miss the mass especially. if it wasn't for my politics disagreeing with almost everything about the catholic church i would go now. i was a good catholic as a kid. i prayed with heart, felt awe for the priests, believed i was made better by confession and communion. loved the order, the group "peace be with you", and the coolness of the church -dark in midday.

most of all i loved all the little rules - the timed reponses, the confession before communion, the secret language that you only knew if you were catholic, the rituals like the waving of incense, reflecting at the pew, the "don't chew the communion because it's the body of christ", the priest wiping the goblet and drinking the wine, blessing yourself with the holy water...and easter was full of rituals - the black smudge not to be touched, the palms, the stations of the cross...i was so earnest. i think as a kid i understood more about contemplation and peace than i do now. that is the part that i miss the most.

there was no sarcasm, or wit-filled doubt in my belief. so it's not the mass i miss the most, it's that feeling of sincere belief in the good. i try to find this in my life, sometimes i feel worn out by all the cynicism and doubt about everything in the world. i participate in this sometimes like it is my religion. but now that i have kids i find it almost too much - i want to see the good, the happy, can-be-changed...maybe my new religion is this - to find and most of all - see the good. to stop the complaining, joking, finding the fault, hating george bush and stephen harper, seeing the disparity, the inequality... instead seeing the other side - not in a "chicken soup", there are angels in all of us kind of way - but see that life is good. most of the time - it's good and sometimes it's great. that the stars are out every night - shining - even if they are sometimes behind clouds. they are still there, and you can see them if you really try.

renee meadow at one...

you are our happy baby. you smile, you laugh, you giggle all day long. you cry so rarely that when you do, we know you must be having big, big troubles.

you came to us on a warm february night - you made a quick entrance to the world. your daddy came in the door from his wed. afternoon hockey game at 6pm and i said "i think the baby is coming soon". a few hours later at st. joseph's hospital down the street you did. we were nervous about you coming - scared by abby's long labour and our struggles in her early days but you came so easy, we were laughing seconds after you were born - counting your fingers and toes and most of all holding you right away.

you are "scooter" - scooting around our place on one leg - you travel great distances on that one leg - from the livingroom all the way to the kitchen in 10 seconds flat. especially to follow your big sister, abby. for who you will scoot back and forth for hours just to be near her.

your smile is big. you put your whole self into that smile. your perfect eyebrows arched way up high. your round cheeks squishable. everything in our world is made ok when you smile.

you are the baby of many names : nay-nay, nayser, nas, nay, baba, and of course renee.

you are a little sister in every sense of the word. you baby-worship abby and want to be near her always. even when abby is a short-tempered 3 yr. old you still follow her around. your favourite time with abby is in the morning when abby crawls in your crib and snuggles you. you laugh and giggle more in that 10 min. than in the rest of the day.

you are a great dancer. you hear music and start to move your little arms up and down and spin your body. now you stand at the edge of the couch or chair and bounce up and down. we think you already have excellent rhythm.

you are an earnest speaker. when you talk you are all business. you say "a baba dada don dee" with a wrinkled brow - we just know you are giving a very serious opinion on the state of the world. we all listen and encourage your new words of wisdom. abby is the best at interpreting - she says "mommydaddy she just said " abby " or "dada" or "she likes me"....

you don't really love your sleep. you are still waking up many times throughout the night. but you do it politely which really really helps your mama. you don't wail or scream - it's a small cry and standing in the crib talking to your mommy and daddy at 3 am. although your mommy knows that you should probably be sleeping for much longer at this age, she also knows how fast you will grow up to not need her in the middle of the night so it's almost all right that sleep is fleeting for now.

you are a great snuggler. you love to have your little neck and cheeks kissed by your mommy and daddy. you giggle and laugh with little piggy noises. you are soft and so so so so huggable. you are carried often more for mommy and daddy's benefit - to feel your little soft body in our arms.

you are our baby and always will be - even though you are getting your walking legs and growing bigger everyday.

happy first birthday little nay-nay.love. mommy, daddy and abby.

son of the devil himself....

watched the leader's debate last night ( most of it anyway) after about an hour and a half it all started to sound fuzzy.
can i just say one thing - why in the heck was stephen harper ( conservative party) smiling so much. i know that he has recently undergone an extreme makeover - the newly darkened hair, whiter teeth, wardrobe update etc. but his folks should tell him that the smiling constantly doesn't make him more likable. in fact, it was spooky. for instance - he was talking about taxes ( i know, boring ..) and how he will cut taxes blah, blah, blah...then the moderator steve paikin ( from tvo and hamiltonian!) said " what about the poorer canadians - how will tax cuts help them". stephen said with a creepy smile " poor canadians don't pay taxes". umm, is there some kind of get out of tax card free that i don't know about? when i was working and making peanuts it seems to me that there was always a little deduction from the gov...

in any case, it took everything in me to just watch the debate - that smile was so annoying... on gun violence he said with a grin " we need tougher penalties...not soft promises to fix the root of the problem". right, more jails, more prisoners, less jobs and opportunities for the thousands of poor people crammed into the toronto housing complexes with no jobs and seeing their friends make some cash doing crime. not that i think there are excuses for shooting people. but becoming american and filling jails will do jack.

speaking of jack. jack layton. he was great. answered the questions with real answers, not just
"we must do more" statements. i really liked how he gave numbers and actual dollar amounts for the programs he would implement. jack can do no wrong really. except that he might not want to say "there is a third option" so much. but other than that the ndp has a great guy - would love to see him as prime minister. won't happen i know. but would be great.

terry and i were actually really impressed with giles duceppe from the bloc. left-winger and smart. i loved how he gave examples of how martin and harper were on the same side during votes in parliment. "mr. arrrrper and mr. martinnnn you both voted on the same side so many many times it is unbelievable that you guys are not friends together". and loved how he said "mr. martinnnn you campaign like a ndp and rule like a conservative". smart guy. but as terry said though, " i have to hate him because he's a separtist". true. too bad he doesn't really care about the rest of canada. like how he kept saying "quebec and the provinces".

had to feel sorry for paul martin. cause he looks so sosososo old and beat up. and because he was constantly on the defense. oh, well, guess when you pay your friends lots of our money illegally it's hard.

one last thing. what was happening with harper's tie. like i said before, i know they are trying to make him more likable but geez - a plaid tie. where were his groucho marx glasses and cigar?

now, jack's tie. that was tasteful.

not so scrooge-ish

after reading amy's post yesterday (http://anybodysguess1.blogspot.com/), i saw my own post as very, very scrooge-like. although we were sick we had some great moments throughout the holidays. here are a few:


one last pitch for the "fast car that jumps" by abby...

A FAMILY PHOTO!! for some reason this never happens - either one of the munchkins spots a more interesting toy or we just forget to do it - thank god terry had the patience to deal with me who kept saying "we're going to be late" and abby and renee who kept moving about....
ladies in the kitchen - sorry eileen but in all three you have your eyes closed - still very cute though...


handsome man with nay-nay ( terry, i know will say 'jeez' when he sees this)

cousins in jammies ( handmade by thimblegran herself - adrienne)

dad and girls opening gifts on christmas morning

this hat? no, i'm not hot, this matches my outfit all right?

the family men plus one honourary team member.

what's bred in the bone....

and to all a good night...