A song for my girl

Question: If you can pick a song for your child what would it be?

If I have to answer that question right now, it would have to be Short Skirt Long Jacket by Cake.

I kind of hope that my little girl can grow up to be a bit like the girl in this song.

A girl who can embrace her femininity, sensuality (and even sexuality, though, I would really rather not think about this for many, many, many years), beauty, and also be smart, confident, resourceful, and a girl who definitely will not take crap from anyone.

I love some of the dichotomy in this song, the yin and yang of it all. And that is what I want for my girl. I want her to be able to be and to do everything and anything; to have all possibilities opened to her. I want her to be both the princess and the knight; to be a model and a doctor; to be a ballerina and a scientist...

So as the song says....

"I want a girl with a mind like a diamond

I want a girl who knows what's best...."

and...

"She's playing with her jewelry

She's putting up her hair

She's touring the facility

And picking up slack"

and...

"I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity

Who uses a machete to cut through red tape

With fingernails that shine like justice

And a voice that is dark like tinted glass"

and

"I want my girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnnnggggg jacket."

What song will you pick for your son and/or daughter?

Going to the Theatre... sort of...

When I was a little girl, my parents took me to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, and I fell in love.

Now, I am by no means a theatre buff; I had been to Stratford and Shaw Festivals only once in my life - basically if you can compare to my theatre going experience to books: I am more of a Jane Austen girl as compared to War and Peace, more Dan Brown than Umberto Eco. I like theatre lite.

However, I still feel there is something quite magical about a live production; for one thing, you are watching something in actual 3D! And, it is always fun to dress up and go out on a special occasion.

So, I would really like to share the experience of going to musicals, concerts, theatres and other extravagant live shows with my little one. I think it is good for her to experience different sorts of art and culture and entertainment, and to learn to sit still.

Now, just because I want to bring my daughter to a show, does not mean I can just pick any show, buy tickets and just go. There are very important considerations.

• We have to consider subject matter – I have a five year old, so the show has to be family friendly, and for us, MUST have a happy ending. Hopefully it will be entertaining for adults as well.

• There should be a easy to follow plot – i.e. no time paradoxes, weird soap opera like subplots, or anything else that will require me to spend the entire time of the show trying to explain what is happening to my daughter.

• Colourful costumes, and cheerful characters – once again, my kid is five, and she likes colours and cute things. She is also terrified of the dark, so I doubt we will be seeing a show like Phantom of the Opera anytime soon.

• Stuff should happen (besides plot) – people or things should move, and talk/sing, and do stuff, to hold her attention. There is no way my child can sit through anything slow and cerebral, nor do I expect her to.

• Length of show - the show should not be too long, unless the show is spectacular with lots of special effects, my child cannot sit still for more than an hour at a time.

• Price – I am hoping that it would not be too expensive. I just do not want to feel bad if I have to leave in the beginning or middle of the show, or feel that I have to force my kid to stay for the entire thing even if she is not happy (“mommy and daddy paid a lot of money for this so you are staying and you are going to like it”). I understand this is not always possible, but one can hope.

So, when I saw the Disney on Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy, I thought maybe this will be a good continue introduction to live shows. Last year she saw Disney Live! presents Three Classic Fairytales and loved it.

Let us see if it can meet my pre-show checklist:

• Subject matter – it is a Disney show, and since I see nothing that would imply Old Yeller or Bambi's mom will be involved in this show, I think we are good.

• Plot – there are cars, toys, mermaids, fairies and of course two very famous mice. I think she might be happy even if there is no story.

• Colourful costumes – we are talking about cartoons coming to life, so the costumes are probably going to be pretty spectacular.

• Stuff should happen – it is an ice skating show, pretty sure there will be lots of action, spins, jumps and tricks. And, I believe there will be cars on ice (granted, I can always watch cars driving on ice by looking out my window in January...)

• Length of show and price – I am not sure how long the show is, and the tickets are not cheap, but not unreasonable either (okay, I think the top tiered seats are a little bit much, but they are supposed to be the best seat in the house).

I think my kid might really enjoy this show. Hopefully, if she has a great experience, she will be more open to other kinds of shows (the only show she likes so far is the ballet the Nutcracker, and I can only watch the Nutcracker so many times before I go nuts, and my wallet empties)

And maybe, when she is older, we can do a family trip to Stratford or Shaw.

For more information about the show, please visit Disney On Ice .

Fine Print:
Feld Entertainment may be providing me with complimentary tickets to this show, in exchange for my time and efforts in attending the show, and reporting my opinion within this blog. However, the opinions about the show, and everything else are 100 per cent mine.
pictures courtesy of Disney characters and artwork, © Disney. Disney/Pixar characters and artwork © Disney/Pixar.    

Halloween Costumes...

My daughter wants to be yet another Disney princess this Halloween.

I am not thrilled about it (she is a bit obsessed with princesses), but it could be worse. For one thing, I have a rather large collection of princess costumes given to me by various family members and friends, so I neither had to pay for nor make a costume. So YEAH! Also, the princess costumes we own pretty much covers her from head to toe. Double YEAH!

Nevertheless, I am still starting to worry about the age appropriateness of costumes, so much so, that I am starting to dread Halloween (or sometimes wish I had a boy around this time of year). Every year as I look down the aisles of Halloween costumes, all I see are hemlines going up and necklines going down (I also realize that I am becoming a prude). It almost seems that children costumes go from fully covered and 'cute' for the six and younger crowd and then jump right to skirts that barely cover their thighs for the seven plus crowds – almost like for every year, the skirt gets shorten by an inch. I understand that Halloween is a time for dress up and to pretend to be someone or something you are not, but I really do not want my five year old to play dress up as some little lolita.

Even if I ignore the fact that I find a lot of these costumes not age appropriate, these costumes, with minimal amount of material, is highly impractical... most kids still trick or treat. And where I live, it is bloody cold at the end of October; who the hell wants to stop getting free candy to go home because you are freezing your ass off? And, what is the point of wearing a costume if you have to cover the entire thing up with a ski jacket or risk hypothermia?

Yes, you can argue that I can always make a more age appropriate costumes for my little one, and allow her to help and to use her imagination. But I do not always have the time, have no crafting skills whatsoever, and frankly, I am lazy...

So dear retailers and costume makers, I am willing to give you my hard earned cash, but please have something available that I would want to buy my little girl – something that will allow her to still look like a little girl and not some tiny twenty year old.

Is it okay to ask? Or is it too late?

There is a park near my house that my daughter and I love to go to. The park is just the right size, I can see her from one spot, there are lots of communal toys in the sand box, and there is a set of monkey bars (my daughter's favourite playground apparatus).

We especially like to go, because we have a set of 'park friends'. Yep, my daughter has her own posse of little people, and I have a group of moms that I can talk to while the kids play.

Now here is my problem. There are a couple of moms that I see on a fairly regular basis; I know what they are going to have for dinner, I know what their kids like to eat, how fast their kids eat, their kids' extracurricular schedules, if people in the family are sick, heck, I even know about their kids' bowel movements (which is surprisingly quite a common topic of discussion for parents...).

HOWEVER, I have no clue what their names are, and I have known these women for years! I am pretty sure, at one point, we introduced ourselves, but at the time I was probably staring at my kid making sure she was not going to break something.

So how does one re-introduce oneself (I use to have dogs, and we had the exact same problem)? Is it too late to do it politely? Should I just keep my ears open and hopes someone else use their name? Or should I just suck it up and say 'look, I am so sorry, but I have no clue what your name is'?

And, my worst case scenario, which has happened more than once, occurs when my husband drops by. The group of us usually stand around and chat for a bit, and then everyone suddenly quiets down and stares at each other, waiting for me to make introductions. But I can't!! Because I do not know anyone's names.

I swear I am not being rude, I am just incredibly forgetful. Can I blame mental incompetence?

The only good thing I can think of... even if they think I am being rude ... they probably do not know my name either.

Is there fun in fundraising?

It is that time of year again... and I do not mean Fall... It is the time of year that I start receiving emails and letters asking for money, donations, and volunteer time from my daughter's school. I believe in helping to enhance my kid's education, and think getting involved is a good idea... but...

I am a lazy person. There, I said it. I also procrastinate, and have a great talent for being able to accomplish nothing for long periods of time (but that is another story).

Anyway, being lazy means I do not always like to help out at school, and when I do help, I would like to do the least amount of work as possible. I also complain, as in bitch, a lot.

However, despite the complaints/bitching, I think deep down I do kind of like volunteering. I really like hanging out with some of the mothers (and nannies) at the school, and volunteering means that I can talk, okay gossip, with them for more than the five minutes we have during drop-offs and pick-ups, and who knows, I may actually get to meet new people.

And, last year, I volunteered once every two weeks in my kid's class. It was a great opportunity to see her at 'work' and to meet her little friends; and I can now match faces to names (my daughter likes to call every kid she meets 'friend' so we have lots of 'friends' but no real way to tell them apart, which makes scheduling play dates challenging – here is our typical conversation: daughter, “My friend invited me to her house.” Me, “Great, what's her name?” Daughter, “I don't know... my friend, the one with the hair...”). Being in the class was actually a lot of fun, as long as I armed myself with lots of headache medication prior to entering the classroom...

So, I guess I really should stop whining and just embrace helping out more. I want to teach my daughter that helping others and being involved in your community is a good thing.

On the other hand, as one the other moms suggested, I am also quite happy to just write the school a cheque at the beginning of the school year and forego this fundraising stuff.

Now, if you please excuse me... I have to go bake some cookies...  

Filling notebooks - I really should write more

When I was little, I loved blank notebooks. Okay, I still love pretty notebooks and journals, especially the leather ones. This is the reason why I own a small collection of notebooks (it is now small, because I am more fiscally responsible, and I managed to actually, but reluctantly, give some of them to my little one – I hope I am not turning her into a notebook addict as well).

I love blank notebooks because they are aesthetically pleasing. Who doesn't love the smell or a feel of a soft leather covered journal?

But mainly, I love notebooks because of the potential and promise they contain.

I love to write. So I see each blank page as a new story, a new adventure, a new emotion, a new thought, a new idea, that is just waiting to be pulled out of the ether, to become something concrete.

Unfortunately, as much as I love to write, my crappy time management skills, combined with my advance procrastination skills, leaves me little time to actually put pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard. And, I am not the kind of person who likes to listen to the sound of my own voice, so usually I do not write unless I feel like it is something that should be shared. This leaves me very little to actually write about, and thus the blog is so rarely updated.

So now, I hope those of you who read my blog is willing to be patient with me. I am going to actually try to write more, sometimes it may be thought provoking (I hope), sometimes it may just be silly, sometimes I may just babble nonsensically (I hope not), and though it will mainly be about life with a kindergartener, maybe I will also just write about me.

I know I need the practice; I realize just because I like to write, does not mean I am any good at it. It is time to actually start filling and using those notebooks.

... and I am glad that I am not obsessed with something more expensive... like cars...

picture courtesy of: Paul Preacher

a walk in the park, followed by a smack in the face with reality...

During a walk home from the park with my daughter, my little one started to talk about her best friend, AND how the two of them decided to get married someday (she told me he already asked and she replied yes, but he has not asked for my permission yet...)

I, of course, looked at her and smiled, and told her she would not be getting married for a number of years, and maybe she, or he, may change her, or his, mind before then.

She has plenty of time to think about when, and who, she is going to marry. Also, if her father has his way, she will not be marrying until she is at least 40.

I then took her little hand in mine, looked at her, and said, “Besides, you cannot legally marry until you are at least 18 years old, that will be 13 years from now.” (I skipped the part about getting parental permission or getting yourself declared an adult.)

As soon as I said the words '13 years', I immediately felt a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. Though I know logically that 13 years is a long time from now, it really does not feel that far away. In a little more than a decade, my little baby will be legally a grown up!

Where did the time go? And how in the world can I stop her from growing up, or at least, prevent her from becoming a teenager...

Then she looked up at me with her big innocent eyes and told me 18 is very old – if she thinks 18 is old, what am I? Some sort of ancient hag?

She then shrugged her shoulders, and told me yeah, maybe he or she will find someone else. And, she happily skipped off to play.

It made me kind of want to freeze her at this age forever.

from this...

to this in a blink of an eye... sigh...

ring picture courtesy of Johanna Ljungblom