Jun 18

The end of the school year is upon us and this year I’m going out on a limb and making a gift for Avery’s kindergarten teacher. I can’t remember where I got the idea for this project – likely somewhere in the depths of the internet and I’m just not willing to dig that hard. So I documented the process here in case there are other people out there who just don’t want to buy the same old gift certificate year after year.

So. Let’s begin:

1. The idea is to make a set of pens that look like flowers in a pot or vase.  You start with a standard BIC pen. Make sure you get the kind with the soft plastic casing and an end that can pop off. Some of these pens come with a rubber grip around the bottom and that can be helpful but is not necessary. Or you can use a random pen from your drawers that appears to have come from Las Vegas and spend many hours wondering how it got there as you have never been to Vegas. Hmmm…..

2. Take the pen apart and discard the cap.

3.  Pry off the cap from the end of the pen. Some are trickier than others. If you can’t do it with your fingers use something to try and pop it off. I used a philips screwdriver that fit through the tube to try and push it out from the inside.

4. If, like me, you are a weakling and still can’t get the damn thing off, use scissors and cut the tip off. It doesn’t matter if the end looks a bit jagged. This part will be covered up.

5. It is mildly disturbing that this picture looks like those pregnancy test photos that bloggers sometimes post.

6.  You’ll need a fake flower for each pen you decide to make. Theoretically any type could work, as long as the stem is small enough to fit into the pen tube. I think daisies are pretty cute.  This time I used some zinnias as well and they turned out well. Trim the stem of your fake flower to maybe 6-8 inches, depending on your preference. You don’t want it to be so long that the pen is too heavy or wobbly to write with. Put the pen back together and insert the flower stem into the open end of the tube. If you can wedge it in between the plastic-ink-holder-thingy and the tube so it sticks in there a little bit that is helpful.

7. Use the florist’s tape to wrap around the pen starting at the tip and continuing up and around the flower stem. Wrap the flower stem right up to the base of the flower so the stem colour will be consistent.

8. You end up with a flower that looks like this one below. Repeat the process to create as many flower-pens as you want.

9. Find an appropriate vase or flower pot to hold your flowers. I used this metal pitcher but I have done this using a basic terra cotta pot as well.

10. Fill your pot or vase with…something. Pebbles, dry beans or seeds, decorative stones or small marbles or anything with particles that are not too small (like sand) and not too big (like large stones or marbles that won’t hold the pens in place when they are stuck into the pot). I used decorative coffee beans bought at a craft store. They smell nice and they are a dark colour like dirt.

11. Now your flower-pens can be stuck into the “dirt”. You can tie a pretty bow around the pot or have your child paint it to personalize it.

12. They almost look real, don’t they?

Of course handmade gifts are a gamble. Some people will find this gift quirky and adorable. Others will find it weird and too crafty for their taste. But, for good or for ill, you can be sure that none of your child’s classmates will be giving the same gift! I think it’s a cute gift for teachers of young children because half the appeal is showing kids the secret and teachers always need pens!

Dec 10

It’s time for a bullet post. Sorry. If you don’t like it you can come back another day! 

  • I think I have the only five year old in THE WORLD who is afraid of Santa. I know, I know, just weeks ago I was saying she’s about to blow the lid off the whole Santa story. But she seems to have embraced her belief for the time being and that belief includes sheer terror at the thought of the Jolly Old Elf. When she was 2 and 3 years old this terror made a little more sense. But at five I thought we would be able to reason through the whole thing a little better. When I was a child I had my picture taken on Santa’s lap every year from birth to maybe 8 or 9 years old. But I have not been able to convince my daughter to sit on Santa’s lap one. single. time.  This year her school (for some bizarre reason) had a Santa come to the school and the kids were allowed to have pictures taken with him. Avery told me she most definitely did NOT want to do this. No matter how much we discussed it, tried to assuage her fears, and tried to figure out just what kind of unholy atrocities she expected to experience while sitting on the lap of a mythical gift-bringing creature, she would not give in. So I wrote a note to her teacher explaining her apprehension and that she was not to be traumatized by standing beside Santa for a picture unless she changed her mind. Well, bless the teacher’s heart, when Avery’s turn came, she held her hand and walked her up to Santa and even stood with her. So I’m not sure if we’re going to be sent home a picture of our daughter’s kindergarten teacher or if she jumped out at the last second. But either way, it’s a small victory for confidence!
  • Age two has descended upon our household with the vengeance of a…well… a rabid, drooling two year old. Where two year old equals screaming defiance, stubborn refusal to let sustenance pass his delicate lips, stamping, time-outs, shrieking, climbing, hysterical wailing with a healthy second helping of OMG THE STUBBORNNESS! 
  • Today I helped with a PTA fundraiser at Avery’s school which mostly involved wrapping dollar-store presents that the kids were purchasing for family. Can I just say that a two foot long back scratcher is a bitch to wrap!!! And I had the distinct pleasure of wrapping at least a dozen of them. Also? Five year olds have NO CONCEPT of buying gifts for anyone other than themselves, the little narcissists. I can’t tell you how many kids the adults had to gently explain that they had not been given ten bucks to blow on themselves, but to buy for their family members. And still, almost every one of the little narcissists came through the “check-out” with something for him/herself. Five year olds are also utterly incapable of any real thought regarding appropriate gifts for people. To my family coming for Christmas: be prepared to smile in appreciation for pencils that say “#1 Teacher”!
  • It is a fact that if I walk into a salon I will ALWAYS get the stylist who I deem to have the worst haircut/style and will therefore, in my mind, give me a bad haircut/style. But sometimes I am lucky enough to be wrong and get a sweet cut by a large, Hungarian woman with a rat’s nest on her head.
  • Starting tomorrow I will have houseguests every day for the next 18 days except for the 3 days we will be gone on a short vacation. So posting may be a bit sporadic while I’m busy entertaining drinking partying overeating celebrating. Happy Holidays!
Dec 1

If you were a Canadian (like me) living in the United States (like me) (or even, gasp! vice versa) you might have to deal with the small unpleasantness of having to sort out the issue of immunizations and school and the territory in between. You might have to show your child’s school evidence of said shots and this may have involved all sorts of trips to and from the doctor and phone calls to and from doctor’s offices, public health offices and hospitals all over civilization and harried conversations regarding records, faxes and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HURRY. And after these many phone calls without any resulting yelling or expulsion of your child from her (or his) school you might relax and choose to believe that all required faxes have been sent and received and that these things will sort themselves out.

You would be wrong.

Because after three full months of school your child’s school might finally get around to checking out the forms submitted when she enrolled in school and they might call you and leave a message on your phone in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS telling you it’s Very Important that they get your child’s Immunization Records because she May Not Attend School without Proper Documentation of her Vaccinations.

So you, being a responsible parents, would speak with the school nurses and discuss the reasons for the delinquent information (our records are in Canada and apparently faxing documents across the border is Very Hard). The nurses would probably be calmed by your Responsible Parent Voice and give you permission to bring in your personal documentation of your child’s frequent puncturage the following Monday. Which you would go ahead and do because you care about following rules.

When you bring the school nurse the information she requires she would reward your conscientiousness with a damning proclamation; your child is not fully vaccinated! UNCLEAN!!! The USA requires Hepatitis B vaccinations and Canada does not. Your child must not be allowed to pollute the school air with her dirty, unvaccinated little self one second longer (nevermind that she has already attended school for three months)!

And so you might be told to take your child home so as not to defile the purity of the school atmosphere. And your child might be brought from her classroom in tears, not wanting to leave school and you might feel ashamed, as though you had done something wrong, even though you know you haven’t.

If you were like me you might start playing phone tag (once again) with two different Canadian offices to try and get your child’s immunization records faxed to your new doctor’s office so that your doctor can sign a form for the school so they can untie the giant knot their panties are in. But both offices say they faxed those forms back in September like you asked them to. When you ask them to do it again you would probably discover that the number they originally faxed to was incorrect. So you would get them to do it again.

You would make phone calls to the doctor’s office to see if your leperous child can be immunized today so that she can return to school tomorrow. The child would weep because she fears shots like little else in this world. I mean *if* you had that kind of a kid.

And after your child is punctured you would probably ask them to confirm that they received the faxes from Canada. But they would dismiss you disdainfully, saying they had received no such fax. Because that’s the kind of day it is, and apparently fax machines in Canada are made from twigs and leaves and therefore take much longer to cross the border to America, the blessed land of technological ingenuity. 

So you would go home and although you should be making more calls to verbally kick some ass you might be feeling a tad discouraged and you might need to break down and cry for a while. Especially after your husband does some searching online and discovers that the first fax number, given to you in September was actually the right one and not the one given to you today. Then you might just want to lock yourself in the closet for a few years. I mean, that’s how I would feel if it were me.

But it’s so totally not me.

Aug 26

Today I took Avery to Kindergarten Orientation – which she insists on calling OREO-tation, despite being corrected. Because we may not know much about the education system, but we DO know our cookies around here. It’s all about priorities, folks.

We managed to work through the great backpack debacle of 2008 and found a backpack that did not make me pour bleach in my eyes. What design won my daughter’s heart, you ask? Why, a cupcake decal, of course! Because while we DO love our princesses, baked goods come first in our family, my friends. PRIORITIES.

Last year in London (Ontario, not England) Avery became fast friends with a little girl in her class who was petite and girly and so adorable I was tempted to put her in my pocket and take her home many times. (Don’t get me wrong, no one takes the place of my own girl, but this child was so petite I literally could put her RIGHT IN MY POCKET. You’ve gotta admit, that makes it tempting.) When we moved we promised we would send a letter once we were settled and we still intend to keep that promise. Of course we didn’t know that it would take us THREE MONTHS to finally move into our own permanent place. Avery loved to play with little A, but she also dearly loved to chase A’s brother G around on the playground after school.  It developed into a seriously intense obsession crush and she looked forward to playing with both of them after school each day. And now, three months later, what do we hear about every day? The love letters she is going to write to G, how much she misses G, all the things she needs to tell G about her new house, with nary a mention of her once-BFF A.  The girl is lovesick!  Because girlfriends are nice, but girlfriends’ older brothers are waaaay nicer!

Short list of Very Important Things in Life: sugary snacks and boys.

Why, hello teenage hormones! You seem to be about 5 or 12 or 37 years too early!

Jan 18

I have an essay due in my 18th Century Literature class next week. One of the options is to write my own “Modest Proposal” based on the original work and style of Johnathan Swift. If you are not familiar with this work you have likely heard it referenced somewhere in your life. Swift creates a satirical proposal in which he suggests that the poverty-stricken families of Ireland should sell their babies and toddlers to the upper class to be cooked and served as food. This would be a delicacy and would solve the problem of the numerous poor, starving children in that country. The parents would be paid well for their child and would therefore be given an opportunity to make a living and the country’s economy would receive a boost. He even suggests ways that this proposal would improve the morality and social systems in the society.

It is a very interesting read and I am intriuged by the challenge of writing my own Modest Proposal. But I am lacking ideas. Everything I come up with still seems to have something to do with poverty. I thought of allowing poor Canadian families to sell their children to the government for use in medical experimentation, thus giving the parents a means to make money and saving children from a future of pain and suffering and helping aleviate suffering in the general population. The government could even sell medical discoveries made from this program to other countries for a price. This would be an economic benefit.

The problem with this proposal, like I said, is it still deals with the issue of poverty. I’d like to try something more unique but I am lacking ideas. So I am asking you to help me out if you have anything. It could be related to political corruption or any marginalized group in Canada. It just has to address a real problem and have a solution that is completely horrifying, though utterly logical if you take emotion out of the picture.

I’d appreciate any help you guys can give me.