Right now, i am roasting vegetables in balsamic vinegar with a dash of thyme & rosemary. It’s 9:30 pm. Tomorrow’s meal, with chicken cooked in white wine. i am always relieved the next day when i can cook meals ahead of time, but am always overly tired that night when it comes time to whip something up.

The past two weeks have been more or less hectic. We are getting rid of stuff. Our extra bedroom, which hoarded the house’s leftovers (you do have a room like that too, don’t you?), is now being reclaimed by our youngest as his own bedroom. Forever he’s been bunking with Sandrine, & we think now is the proper time to let them have their own wings.

We have such a tiny house that there is not much left in terms of spare corners. A few feet under the stairs, a few inches in the shed … & that’s about it. So we have been donating a lot of stuff to goodwill, have thrown some cables & wires out, have shredded an inhumane amount of receipts & papers we kept longer than was due, & well. All of that again. i had to say goodbye to a few great pieces of furniture with lots of history, but there is no sense in keeping things “in case” when there simply isn’t room. i am sure others will make great memories with my losses.

We should be done come the end of this week-end, if we timed things right, if the good got going. The evenings are long for us these days, & i am anxious to be done with all this cleaning & re-arranging. The upside is that this is a heck of great spring cleaning. And also, i get to shop on Etsy for some things for the kids. Yeah!

Oh & of course, there is still the playing in the snow whenever possible.

Dear Nathan,

This Thursday, you turn twenty-nine months old. i cannot even begin to tell you what an amazing month this has been. There hasn’t been just one grand moment that has made this last month so special; it’s been more of a combination of perfect, inconsequential little things, tied together nicely with baker’s twine. The adage remains very true, about good things & small packages.

You’ve discovered your sister’s stash of bling & fantastic accessories. She is delighted with this, of course. Now she has a partner in crime, as you both embrace a lifestyle of flamboyant excess & wear Elton John sunglasses or the Mr. T collection of sparkling necklaces. You will ask to wear her headbands, rubber bands, nail polish & rainbow belts, but like any guy completely secure in his masculinity, you stuff your comb in the elastic waistband of your shorts.

You’ve picked up a few expressions this month that kinda have our blood boiling. By far the most annoying one is “bébé lala,” which is your response to everything when you don’t get your way. Sometimes, this is interchanged with “pow pow!” & a very hairy eyeball. i do not like your reactions, & i hate even more how angry & powerless they make me feel. Any reaction on my part won’t be the right reaction. If only you had picked up these idioms from us, it’d be far easier to handle. But these are expressions you borrowed from your friends at daycare, over which we have no control, & bottom-line, we kinda like being in control of how we raise you.

Guess who’s potty-trained? Butt. Kicked! You’ve been clean for more than a week now, & it has changed our LIVES. We’ve already gotten rid of the diaper pail, & i am real anxious to throw those changing mats away. True, we’re keeping the diapers around for your nap & bedtimes, but we’re taking it bird by bird.

We are still parents of a kid who jumps around everywhere, & this remains uncomfortably new to us. Your sister has always been a pretty low-energy child, & so our experience as parents has been markedly different this time around. Now you’ve learned how to hop on one foot. These are bragging rights, by the way. Most kids hop on one foot around age three. You know what this means, right? Upcoming silver trophy for Hopscotch Champion Of The World. We are already making room for it.

You know the names of your four fingers (& opposable thumb!). In English, this isn’t a big deal, the names are easy to pronounce & remember. But in FRENCH, this is a whole other story: “index, majeur, annulaire,” & your favourite, “au-rrrrri-culaire.” Too bad toes are anonymous.

So this twenty-month old Nathan, what’s his like or dislike list? You unequivocally hate: eggs, couscous, pooping on the toilet, cooked zucchini, wolves, white cranberry juice, Mike the Knight, & dried prunes. You are fond of: puzzles, cereals, your stuffed cat & dog, vanilla soy milk, Mike & Sully, colouring & music.

You told me your first joke the other day. You were playing with a magnetic puzzle on the fridge, & then you started humming, which turned to making farting sounds with your mouth.

You promptly stopped, did the farting sound again, & laughed.

“Quoi ?” i asked, grinning.

You giggled, & said, “Le casse-tête fait des pets !”

i’ve never laughed so hard or been more aware that there is nothing in life more wonderful than this, you, my youngest, my favourite son.

Love,
Mum

We’ve had a couple of potties hanging around the bathrooms in this house for a very long time, namely because they work as footstools when the kids need to reach for something (or the stars, too). For Nathan, these potties weren’t necessarily enticing. He’s tried them, occasionally. He’s flirted with them, banged them around, & being the Nathan that he is (who else would he be), he’s also taken them apart.

We bought underwear for him sometime last Fall. We tried a few times to get him to use the potty, or sit on the john – but no dice. He would throw us a winning smile, & just hop off.

Until this weekend, that is.

It’s cold in January. On the really cold days, when it’s so cold you have to open the fridge to heat the house, we don’t really feel like playing outside. So we more or less went for attempt #3 at potty training Nathan Saturday morning. Our weekend activity, if you will. It did not go well. He wet himself, his seven pairs of underwear, his socks – traipsed wet footprints across the floor, & evil laughed in the face of it all.

How we decided to go another round of this on Sunday, i DO NOT KNOW. But we did. Good thing, too. Because on Sunday, he wet his underwear ONCE, & peed on the toilet for the remainder of the whole day, right until the very last two minutes before going to bed.

And then, the rest is almost history. He wore, & is wearing, his underwear to the sitter’s, & has only had a few accidents in three days. So i guess, once again, we’re officially starting potty training! Naps & bedtimes mean diapers, of course, but the rest of the time, Nathan is sporting his tiny buns in very teeny underwear.

There might be hiccups down the road, & i am desperately trying not to jinx it nor think the worst, but right now, this is a pretty good place to be with Nathan. One more sign that he’s growing up in a blink of an eye.

i have some pretty crazy news. Last summer, i submitted a text in a call for papers initiated by the City of Val-d’Or’s cultural services department, who wished to put together a book of local literary talent. The excitement i experienced at sending off a poem was not unlike what i imagine it would feel to leap off of a building butt-naked.

Earlier this week i got THE call. The one where they tell you that they loved your piece, that the poem would be published, & wouldn’t i come to the meeting to review the selected works of peer authors?

i felt both giddy & apprehensive. The thought of seeing my work in print was aphrodisiac, to say the least. But being part of a collective of authors, professional or not, & sitting down to not only chew the fat but dissect it, then swallow it whole? No. This was one of the reasons i chose not follow through with my Master’s. i love literature & can argue with the best of them, but i don’t like finding myself in contemporary circles. Something about how the artist is never appreciated in her own time, i imagine.

Still, i mustered up the courage (yes, it took some courage; the older i get, the more chicken-shit i find myself becoming) & found myself amid a small group of authors whose works had equally been selected, in the basement of the library, with nothing to my name except for a few publications in some literary journals in college & university, & a wooden IKEA pencil in my purse.

The evening was, surprisingly, better than i had anticipated. We were given the details of the publication process, copyrights, fees (yes! i will get a small sum of cash for my words!), name of the anthology & tentative release date. We talked about ourselves, a free-form author bio if you will, our work, & how we envisionned the outcome of this collective.

i was singled out, at one point. You see, not only was i one of those “unknown” in the small circle of published authors, but i was also the only one who had submitted a text written in English. Obviously, the book will be entirely in French, save for my poem. Cheerfully, everyone applauded the committee for having not only selected an English text, but having unanimously selected a praiseworthy one. & at that, my cheeks were flustered & i died (happily) within.

i’ll post more official details when i’ve been given the red light. In the meantime, you can expect to see my name to this collaboration on some distant shelves this spring!

January, so far, has been a month of playing in the snow. This morning, for instance, the four of us trekked to an area of town where toboggans & sleds collide, figuratively. The site offers one, big slope of sliding fun. We had the best intentions of going during the Christmas season, but going today was not by all means any less special.

The kids had a blast – especially Sandrine, who is at that age now where little risks seem more thrilling than ever. She itched to go straight to the top, & we let her, of course. No freaking out, no screaming hysterically like her mum – just a big, fat grin plastered to her face, hidden beneath her scarf.

The littlest, on the other hand, & surprisingly, should i add, had a few great runs, but after a while, he opted to go to the nearby park for the swings. Still, he’s a great sledder, & had a swell time.

(i really tried to remember the last time i had gone sledding, & if i’m not mistaken, i think it dates back to almost twenty years ago. Jen, you’ll have to help me with this one – i think we had spent New Year’s Eve in a bar in St-Tite with some of your friends & had decided to go sledding the day after with that same gang. Anyhow, one way or another, my sliding days were long overdue.)

We topped off the activity by heading to the car afterwards & drowning our happiness in hot beverages we had brought along – hot chocolate, & black coffee. This activity will definitely be worth repeating!