On occasion I have also been know to be somewhat dead-pan and black-humoured. It serves me well, but it often loses something in my writing here (because it’s hard to tell my monotone inflection, for example) and it can be hard for strangers to grasp, immediately. I often forget to italicize my sarcasm, which I’m sure doesn’t help matters.

Italics = SARCASM. Or emphasis. Or a title.

Okay, I can see why some people get confused.

Let’s move on.

Coffee reminds me regularly that small children usually do not grasp sarcasm. That reminder never fails to make me laugh because I imagine having very complicated conversations with a wee one who thinks that when Mommy says, “Yes, of COURSE we can eat chocolate until we explode! Only SUCKERS need vitamins, baby-face! Now, hand me that Mars bar so we can fill up on THOSE before the stupid carrots are cut into appropriately non-choking sized chunks!” they have, indeed, died and gone to heaven.

I know, of course, that children do not grasp sarcasm.

I know this because I am also aware that a good number of adult-people do not grasp sarcasm. I see it in the occasional concerned email from a (usually new) reader of my blog who sends me a very serious email detailing how I ought to deal with something or change something or how to live my life.

(Um. For the record? I also know that chocolate IS fine to eat until you explode as long as you have plenty of napkins handy and don’t have anywhere to be the next day. Duh.)

This lack of ‘getting me’, quite frankly, concerns me greatly when I consider my future blogging about parenting. I know – I really do – that Coffee and I are going to be the kind of parents who make mistakes, who laugh about it, who try our best.. and who have a decent concept of reality and what children do and do not require to thrive. I know we will be good parents – maybe even great parents – if our ability to handle the other shit in life is any example.

Truly, I expect that we will have days of anxiety and days of hilarity and days when we think we’re losing our minds and days when we feel blessed and days when we wonder what the hell we were thinking. I mean, that, really, seems to be the perfect summation of “parenting” from all that I’ve heard and read and witnessed.

And that’s the thing.

I fully anticipate that, when I have a spare moment, I will blog here about how we’ve decided duct tape might be a good substitute for a babysitter, or how we’ve given up trying to convince little Petunia to eat vegetables and are instead just giving her cans of Coke with ground-up Flintstones chewables tucked inside. I will make jokes about all sorts of inappropriate things.

There will be posts in which I wax poetic about whether it’s appropriate to feed your child Gravol and NyQuil – when they’re feeling perfectly well – just to avoid hearing a little voice questioning, “Why? Why Mommy? Why? But.. why?” for seventeen straight hours.

Posts will be drafted about whether I can actually tie the child to a post outside the grocery store, like a dog, so they are unable to grab all thirty-two chocolate bars from the check-out line and stuff them into their pants while I’m overwhelmed by the option of paper versus plastic because I haven’t slept in a week.

But I worry, a little, about being misunderstood.

Generally speaking, I work very hard not to reply to comments or emails that are left by.. TURDS. You know, the people who say mean things just because THEY CAN and who, in the words of most Jerry Springer guests, DON’T KNOW ME!

I used to be the sort of person who, on reading something negative about me, would launch into explanations and justifications and long stories and rambling monologues. I’d talk myself around in circles, convinced that I could make them UNDERSTAND ME if I only tried HARDER. Those who love me would have to work double-time to explain that no, I am NOT a horrible person, I’m a decent person and everything is okay and that one person who said something mean is just a big jerk.

I got over that lunacy, mostly, though sometimes I find myself swirling around in a vortex of my own making, shouting about how EVERYONE IS A FUCKER because they DO NOT UNDERSTAND ME. Like a petulant teenager, really. I work myself up. I think “Gosh darnit, I’m a good person and they’d see it if only I sent them a 22 page well-worded email to explain my side of things!”

The good news is that I’ve got that reaction down to a minimum – now I just blink a few times, smile, and move on. I do not have time to spend with people who do not “get” me. In particular, I do not engage with strangers anymore. Unless I like them.

And, of course, writing is my coping mechanism. It’s where I get to lay everything out in neat little words – and my brain feels better for having done it. All the jumbled bits are made linear, sensible even, though they appear scattered to anyone else who reads them.

So I think I’ll try very hard to continue that. I don’t want to be the sort of mother who feels like a failure if everything isn’t perfect, if everyone doesn’t approve, if someone suggests I’m just plain terrible. I don’t want to be the sort of blog-writer who feels that way, either.

I mean, I long ago accepted that I will never be one of those bloggers to whom everyone links – I recognize that my tendency to flip between sensible, essay-like posting and ranting profanity-filled blather is not everyone’s cup of tea. Some people read regularly but don’t link to me for that very reason. It used to bother me; now it doesn’t phase me at all. (Look at me! All grown-up!) I am an acquired taste!

My online AND offline community of friends has always – always – been that of the non-community. The people who are a little punk-rock, a little traditional, a little unconcerned with social conventions, a little trendy, a little goofy.. ALL AT ONCE. We flit and we fly between the groups, sometimes with ease and sometimes not, and make our home wherever we most need it at that moment. Intellectuals one moment, deranged toddlers the next.

Quite frankly, or so it seems, we are most irritated when we are pigeonholed. To be trapped under one perception at all times. Labels are fine as long as they’re the type you can write on and wipe off and start over any time you want.

Perhaps part of my anxiety about blogging with my sense of humour, pertaining to childrearing, stems from the adoption process – having to prove that I am, indeed, an upstanding citizen. Background checks, references, copies of insurance policies, home inspections.. Is it okay for me to answer that yes, I will allow my child to dye her hair when she is five?

Shouldn’t all the work we’re doing now reassure me? I mean, if a government agency can find me fit to parent, why would I worry about someone anonymous stranger being horrified by my decison to homeschool?

I know that the community I belong to will support me and giggle with me and understand. I know that my friends “get” me and love me and think my kid is going to be raised to a functional human being who has their own quirks and grooviness. So…

Can someone please explain to me why I’m worried about this? Why I am so sensitive about this? Why I already feel sort of mama-tiger about the parenting thing, even though I don’t yet have a kid?

I learn interesting things this way.

Being a mom gives you cred, for example. My purple hair will become less strange when I am clutching the sticky hand of a toddler – it will prove I am responsible and that I, most likely, don’t spend my evenings punching holes in my various body parts with a sharp stick. Unless my child has a runny nose or a dirty t-shirt on – then, all bets are off.

The parenting books are all over the place – advising about how to be a zen mommy or a structured mommy. It reminds me of all the other how-to books I’ve read in my life. It’s all a matter of choosing the right books to suit what you already know about yourself.

If you’re a messy person who hates to dress up, you need to pick up the book that talks about being a relaxed parent who doesn’t yell about koolaid stains on the hand towels. Don’t bother with the “having it all” books – they’ll just make you feel like a failure. Like that time you read the “How to Get Ahead At the Office” book and realized you not only hated your job, but that you were likely to hate every other job on earth, too.

This isn’t advice just for mommies, by the way.

I have learned that everyone has an opinion – and, especially, that everyone has an opinion about what kind of a parent you will be, based on that one time you smoked pot, stuck licorice up your nose like a walrus and then laughed yourself mute. Or the fact that you prefer to eat Marshmallow Peeps for breakfast sometimes.

Hypothetically speaking, I mean.

I have learned that parents like to share their knowledge – hard earned as it may be – and that it’s okay to ask questions that seem ridiculous, just because you want a second opinion or someone to confirm your thoughts. Other parents want to tell you what they’ve learned.

Remember, though, that those parents have opinions of their own. And they are only offering advice – not gospel.

I am learning that I could not survive pregnancy, were we to go that route, without a heavy dose of sedatives, anti-anxiety meds and, perhaps, some of the aforementioned pot smoking. And a straightjacket. I do not have the disposition required to stay calm about things like “fetal growth rates” when it pertains to a little creature in my belly.

Having said that, there are people who find our adoption to be far scarier than pregnancy and childbirth. This makes me laugh – I am not requiring sedatives, anti-anxiety meds or pot smoking to wade through this process. It seems very much ‘right’ and ‘normal’ and ‘just fine’ to be doing this. No matter how many adoption-related horror-stories I hear, I am unphased.

I am feeling somewhat sad, however, that I will never get the chance to blame my stretch marks on someone else. Except maybe Cadbury or Hershey. I do not get to use the phrase “eating for two” except in jest.

WNET had a brief conversation about baby showers recently and I commented that since we were not adopting a baby, we would not be having a shower. Our child will not require a “diaper genie” or a carrying sling or tiny onesies – and we are pleased by this. But I felt sad, for a bit, that we won’t have the celebration that’s tied to a child’s arrival.

Robyn commented that a “welcome home” party would be acceptable, however, and it made me ponder the idea. We’ve been instructed not to overwhelm the child with too many new people, too many introductions, too many festivities when they first arrive. But, at the same time, this child will not have a large extended family in the sense that many children do.

We want to teach our child that we are not alone in this world simply because we do not have parents or grandparents around. We have so many friends who love us – and who will love our child – and a family that you make for yourself can be better, sometimes, than the one you may have been born into.

And so we’ve talked about gifting the child with books – everyone’s favourite stories, with an inscription on the inside cover – to be read before bed, in the bath, before naps, in the car.. I love this idea.

Like any new undertaking, I want to learn everything I can before this child arrives – and I know that’s impossible. I will learn from the adoption training, of course, and I am learning from friends now. I am learning from books and magazines and online web sites. Mostly, I suspect, I will learn from trial and error – or trial by fire? – because, like there are no two mothers exactly the same, no two children are either.

And somewhere, deep inside, I suspect I already know how to do the important things. Love, affection, feeding of healthy non-Peep foods. And to keep learning. I can do that, too.

She lived a very environmentally-conscious lifestyle, complete with organic foods and eschewing the ownership of an automobile, but couldn’t find an “earth friendly” dishwasher detergent that actually got her plates and cutlery clean when she used it.

She felt absolutely terrible about the chlorine smell coming from the vent on the dishwasher, worried about what it was doing to the world around her, felt like it was sabotaging her efforts to live in a low-impact manner. She was seeking advice from the advice columnist as to how she could remedy this problem.

If I remember correctly, the columnist advised her to get over her anxiety and accept that she could not be absolutely perfect in absolutely every way. S/he noted that washing dishes using a dishwasher used less water than doing it by hand, generally, and that this woman was doing everything else she could to minimize her impact.

Thinking more about this, recently, I started considering the ways in which I’ve changed my life (over a number of years) to be more conscious of my environment, and the other things that I absolutely cannot seem to give up. There are things I’ve managed to minimize (but can’t stop doing) and there are some things I just cannot give up at all no matter how hard I try and no matter how hard I seek alternatives.

The good, not in chronological order:
We’ve switched to eating primarily organic food with a focus on locally-produced. We’ve begun to use more environmentally friendly cleaning products and have, for the most part, phased out the more harmful chemicals (though, in some cases, we’re still trying to use up that old bottle of X or Y rather than simply toss it). We moved closer to Coffee’s work so he could stop commuting a large distance and I sold my SUV to purchase my tiny Toyota Echo 2 door. Our dogs no longer eat commercially-prepared foods and eat local poultry (BARF diet) and vegetables like we do. The lightbulbs we use regularly have been swapped out for CFs and when we’re slowly switching the rest over. We wash our laundry in cold water only, with the exception of bedding and towels – and we use biodegradable detergents. We both dye our hair with vegan-friendly goo. We mow our lawn with a ‘reel’ mower and we don’t use leaf blowers or other weirdo contraptions.

The not-so-good:
We have many computers, always running, in our house. I still own a car that I drive very seldomly (I fill up on gas once every 2 months or thereabouts) when we could possibly live with just one. I buy cotton t-shirts regularly – and not organic cotton. I use papertowels to clean up dog pee because I cannot handle the idea of using my microfiber cloths for THAT. We still consume foods, on occasion, that are not local, not organic and that are shipped from far, far away. Our house is not completely “green” and we are not purchasing bullfrog power. We both love showers and I love deep bubblebaths. We sleep with noise-generating fans and humidifiers and air purifiers running. I subscribe to print magazines rather than the online versions. We waste things. Sometimes I forget to recycle things. (This is just a partial list..)

So I ponder this, and I ponder why it is that I’m unwilling or unable to change some of the negatives. Part of it is financial cost, of course. Part of it is selfishness. Part of it is believing that I do my part in other ways or that the things I don’t change are not the “big” evils. Part of it is the weariness that can come from feeling like everything is a challenge and getting tired of examining the alternatives.

And I think about the woman with her dishwashing detergent angst and I understand her completely. This urge to do everything right, to be okay, to not make a mess on a grand scale – to be accountable for EVERYTHING in the world, in a way.

I have friends who make little to no effort to change their impact. I have other friends who are far-better at being conscious of the world than I could ever hope to be. And all of them seem okay, usually, having made peace with where they stand. Then I think it’s okay – it’s okay for all of us to be imperfect sometimes, in our own ways.

(There are heaps more to choose from here!)

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(Today’s first song – Nutopia by Pigface.)

I have lost my ability to nap.

Let me repeat that: I HAVE LOST MY ABILITY TO NAP.

Life has lost all meaning! Woe is me! How will I define myself NOW?!!? WTF am I going to do?!

I don’t know if it’s the arrival of spring or the lesser dose of the Celexa or.. well, I don’t know. I can only say that I wake up in the morning WIDE AWAKE and then spend all day running around like a lunatic and then, by 10pm, I’m exhausted and ready for bed. Lying down for a nap is absolutely impossible – I twitch like I’m flutter-kicking in a swimming pool when I try to stay still Yeeesh.

Sadly, I’m not accomplishing much with this extra energy – I’m just standing in the living room dancing like some poor raver-kid and tormenting the dogs.

Really though, you must pity Coffee – he returns home from work at 9:30 and I’m already ‘coming down’ and ready for sleep. Then I spent the next hour muttering, “Is it bedtime yet? How ’bout now? Now?”

Maybe it’s all the marshmallow Peeps I’ve been eating lately? Hmm.

God, my own energy level is annoying me. Sheeesh.

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A week or so ago, I took advantage of the ridiculous energy levels and signed up for a few classes – all of which start in April. On Tuesday I start my Creative Writing (short story) class, the following Monday I start my glass fusing class, and the week after that Coffee, Kelly and I are starting our Saturday morning NIA classes.

Oh, and our adoption training/homestudy starts on April 18th.

Phew. That oughta’ knock some of the excess energy out of me nicely, wouldn’t you say?

I’m pretty excited about the classes – other than NIA with K&C, I’m signed up all on my own. This will force me to speak to people I do not know while doing fun stuff and making things. All part of my master plan to take over the world. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone about my plan, ok?)

Truthfully, I will either love this or end up weeping after each class about how I can’t work up the nerve to speak to my fellow classmates.. I’m a social butterly in the right context and an antisocial hermit, otherwise. Could go either way.

Time to walk the dogs, head to the library and find some groceries. Then I’m coming home to read some more of my library books while I still have time…

Have a wicked-good Friday, ok?

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I started reading “Lullabies for Little Criminals” this afternoon. I paused to cook and eat dinner with Coffee when he came home at 5pm and then I picked it back up again. I couldn’t seem to stop.

I finally flicked the light on when it grew so dark that, even with the book held up to my face, I could no longer see the words. And then it was over and I sat very still for a long while. Speechless.

The book ended as I expected it would, for the most part, and it was the most heart-wrenching piece of fiction I’ve read in a long, long time. I kept feeling sick to my stomach, dreading the turn of the page, and tears kept dripping down my face. I couldn’t stop reading. I didn’t want to stop reading.

I have no idea how to describe the book without using really trite, really superficial words. There’s a very good reason it won the Canada Reads competition.

It’s beautiful. I mean, it’s a terrible story and it’s sad and it’s heartbreaking but oh, my god, it was beautiful to read. Heather O’Neill is just.. awe-inspiring. I’m sure someone, somewhere, has remarked that it’s a “great first novel” but, in all seriousness, I’ve never read anything that was so perfectly written – every word was in the perfect place. It just stabbed into me while I devoured every paragraph.

Every character seemed real and human and every drop of dialogue was realistic. Every description was exactly as the main character would have described it, without once falling out of synch, which is incredible given that the narrator in the story is a young girl and the author is, well, an adult woman. I’ve never wanted to literally grab a character out of a book and run like hell before.

It just totally broke my heart and left me speechless.

I’m gushing. I know. But holy shit, what an amazing book.

You must read it. Buy it online, at your local bookstore, borrow it from the library.. whatever. Just read it.

If not clay, is there something similar that I could pick up (at a reasonable price) and make some stuff out of without it crumbling three days later?

I don’t have time right now to sign up for a sculpting class at a studio, but I’d like to spend some time playing on my own.

Anyone? Anyone?

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When I worked full-time, at a JOB, I used to listen to an mp3 CD all the way to work. While sitting at my desk I’d have a playlist to sing along to, quietly, as I poured over sales quotas and model number movements. And then, at the end of the day, I’d get back in the car and crank up the mp3 CD all over again.

I have a terrible singing voice. It’s off-key and I tend to get dramatic and shouty during particularly “moving” choruses and, well, sometimes my own singing voice makes me laugh. It’s just.. not good.

But I sing. A lot. In the car, in the house, in the shower, in bed.. I sing. And I dance. And I shake my bum like a bum-shakin’ bum-shaker. Music has IMPACT on this body!

(In theory, all the singing I do should make my singing voice better – or at least stronger – but there hasn’t been much change over the years. I still suck at the singing! And the dancing.. and the.. yeah..)

As soon as Coffee leaves for work, I crank up the playlist on the computer (which broadcasts through the stereo in the living room entertainment unit) and I sing. We have thousands of songs to choose from, but I let the software (on random) decide what we’re in the mood for on any particular day.

Today it started with “Turn It On” by the Flaming Lips. This song reminds me of my third year of university, living with Otis, when I first heard the song. It has a great bass thunk through the floorboards. It’s a cheerful, loud, danceable song – and, of course, I know all the words. It reminds me of getting high and eating Lipton Sidekick Noodles. (*shudder* Ewww!)

This album – Transmissions from the Satellite Heart – is the only Flaming Lips CD I own. It’s the only one I like; I’ve tried to listen to the newer and older stuff and.. nada. No zap of energy. But if you put this one on the stereo I’ll bounce myself alive. The entire CD rocks.

Immediately after Turn It On, the playlist flipped over to Princess Superstar, and “My Machine“. Oh, how I love me some Princess Superstar.

Today is very clearly going to be a good, bouncy day. Shall we run around the block a few times and torment the dogs? Yes, yes, I think we shall. I’ll be that purple flash zipping by your window…

everyone loves nataliedee.com!
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Now that Coffee has fully kicked the cooties, I’m back to cooking again! Yay! Yay!

Earlier I whipped up the usual carrot-ginger soup (it works well for freezing) with the approximately 10 pounds of organic carrots I had saved up in the fridge.

Then Coffee came home for dinner – homemade fish tacos.

And once he left for work again, I started peeling some apples so I could make Apple Scone Cake. It finished baking a few minutes ago and oh, it smells heavenly. I hope it turned out well, but I don’t want to taste it until Coffee gets home and has some with me – I prefer to share.

Just 40 more minutes to wait – perhaps I’ll meet him at the door with a plate and fork in hand in order to speed things along? Would it be wrong to meet him in the middle of the driveway as he’s geting out of the car?

Coming up in the next few days, I’ll be making my favourite quinoa stuffing (but I’m going to attempt it with RED quinoa) and I’ve got two bunches of organic bananas on the windowledge waiting to ripen, then overripen, then turn into banana bread.

I’ve also got a pound of organic ground bison thawing in the fridge (with which I’m going to make baked ziti) and I’m trying to decide if scalloped potatoes can be frozen (? anyone ?) for Coffee’s lunches next week.

The funny thing? Cooking makes me LESS hungry. I’m not even the sort of person who ‘samples’ along the way – I just find the smells and visuals fill me up along the way. Clearly the best way for me to lose weight would be to open a restaurant.

Or, maybe, cater Andrew’s life for him? He DID say he wouldn’t mind some frozen soups, didn’t he? *wink*

The dogs had an appointment at the vet this morning to get their vaccinations and rabies shots and general checkups. Both dogs are in great health, decent weight (Daisy is perfect; Zoo is, as always, a bit chubby) and they had a lovely time, all told.

The humans… well, not so much of a good time.

I woke up with a raging headache and nausea which wasn’t really improved by the car-ride-from-hell.

Since the dog seatbelts are still packed in a box somewhere, I sat in the backseat of the car while Coffee drove. One dog on each side of me, I held onto their collars and leashes to keep them from visiting the front seat.

It was like trying to manage an entire herd of buffalo in the backseat of a Toyota Echo. One dog would lunge forward, the other out the window, there was a sharp paw in my groin, hair flying, someone pawing at my face, slobber flying, a tongue in my ear, and much, much, MUCH, shrieking and yelping from one black dog in particular.

I thought we’d never arrive. Ever.

But we did. And on arrival, we were ushered into an examination room. The door was shut and we allowed the dogs to explore the tiny room. It was calm for about 2 (blissful) minutes.

Zooey contented herself by sniffing everything she could get near. She snorted, sniffled and wooshed her way around, investigating the memory of every dog who had ever entered the room.

Daisy, on the other hand, decided to shed every single hair on her body in massive fluffy clumps. By the end of the appointment, the exam table and the floor were covered in a thick carpet of fur. It was awe-inspiring, to be honest. Just plain awe-inspiring.

Did I mention how pretty I looked with my clothes fully coated in fur, my face (sweaty from holding dogs and keeping them calm) covered in a ‘beard’ of dog hair, and my head pounding? Gorgeous.

It felt like we were in the office for twelve hours. It was much less than 45 minutes.

I paid for the visit and bought new licenses for both dogs, asked whether I could just “leave them” there for a while – no, not boarding, just, um, leave them? No? Are you sure? – because the ride home wasn’t going to be much more fun than the ride there was. I was willing to start over with new dogs.

We came home. The dogs ate some cookies, drank some water and are currently passed out on the floor – I assume they’re working hard to grow all new hair to replace the folicles they left behind. And holy moses, I am exhausted. And my head still hurts.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding upstairs. Where the dogs cannot get me.

I’m gonna’ be fishing dog hair out of my mouth for the next YEAR. Yeeesh.