Monday, January 19, 2015

A FEW OF BEAN'S FAVOURITE THINGS


Toys, they come in all shapes and forms but they are unavoidable once you have kids. I remember every Christmas my sister and I would gather all the flyers from our favourite big box shops and circle all the things we wanted to put on our wishlist for Santa. Toys are a big parts of a child's life I think, and can be a huge battle for parents. Advertising targeting children is probably one of the more disturbing facets of our modern media but I think (read: hope) that with the right foundation laid you can teach your kid to value things as more than something shiny, plastic and new. I'm all about fostering creativity, and even though he is only one I can already see his little mind working when it comes to his play things, here are a few of his favourites:

one. Empty lotion bottles
Don't ask me why but for some reason whenever Bean is on his change table he needs to have a lotion bottle in his hands, it has been like this for a long time but if he starts getting fidget-y or whiney when we change his bum or dress him all we have to hand him one of the empty lotion bottles and hes all smiles again.

two. Empty water bottles
Are you sensing a theme here? Bean has a thing for recyclables (not included here are empty cardboard boxes if he manages to find one lying around). My inner environmentalist is kicking me but Germans don't drink tap water, pretty much all water come pre-bottled but in their defense they have a pretty rigorous recycling system to compensate. So pretty much we have a lot of empty bottles lying around at any given time and Bean LOVES to knock them around and chase them around the apartment

three. Anything cup-like
If you can see above there is a blue sheep face in the lower right-hand corner and then near the top left is the bottom piece, its legs, Those are part of what is essentially a matryoshka doll made up of farm animals, and Bean loves to either chase them or find things to put into each half.

four. Anything round/with wheels
This is pretty predictable, the idea of motion still seems so novel to Bean so he is delighted when he can make something move or watch the wheels turn. The wooden police truck and the blue round block are two of his favourites but he really isn't too particular when it comes to things that are circular.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

ON BEING REMARKABLE


In my eleventh grade creative writing course, for the last term of the year we had to put together a poetry portfolio comprising of a few of our own original pieces as well as some course mandated ones. One of our assigned tasks was to write a poem with an epitaph and although I learned now that the term epitaph was used loosely (she just wanted us to begin our work with a quote) it lead to one of my poems that has stuck with me though out the years. I, being the lazy student that I was, used the miss-attributed and miss-quoted quote (serves me right for using something from the opening of a Criminal Minds episode) "nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable" supposedly by William Shakespeare. Now while this was an overall fail in just about every respect it has provided me with my motivation in recent years when trying to decide how I wanted to live my life.

Trying to be remarkable fueled my university years, I lived unconventionally (read: slovenly), I dressed weirdly (oversized coats and tight black dresses), I partied too hard and I came up short academically...yet all of that is pretty well the makings of any university typical university experience. Then something happened that did set me apart from the rest, I got pregnant and suddenly everything I was doing to try to be different could no longer co-exist with the fact that I was bringing new life into this world. In light of that realization I did what I thought I had to do, I conformed, I conformed to what was expected of me as woman, as new mom and I hated it. I feel more ordinary now than I ever have my entire life, and while it is comfortable and safe I know beyond a shadow of doubt that this is not the life for me. I probably won't be breaking out the black lipstick on regular basis any time soon, but I want to make a genuine effort set myself apart from everyone and live my life for me. I have never felt like I fit in, and it really brought me down for a long a time but now I want for my son to be happy with who he is and who better to teach him than me. It's time to let my inner freak flag fly and to stop caring about what I am supposed to do, and start putting my energy in to what it is that I want to do, even if it feels ridiculous (like wearing dresses every day) because you can't be remarkable if you worry about being like everyone else, you have to stand on your own and shine!

Wednesday, January 07, 2015

BOOKS: MARABOU STORK NIGHTMARES


I used to be voracious reader, like in high school I was the kid never paying attention because I would be reading a book hidden beneath my desk. Once university came around, reading for pleasure fell by the way side and minus a few bursts of binge reading I have never really been able to make a habit of it again. Well 2015 is going to be the year I change that and I started off with an interesting choice as my first book finished of the year: Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh.

This book was so out of my usual comfort zone for books which I think is what I needed. Generally I read trashy crime novels, YA fiction with several other miscellaneous genres in which the plot generally revolves around people who feel lost and disconnected from the world...I'm very predictable. Marabou Stork Nightmares still focused on an oddball character Roy Strang but the story is mostly told through his subconscious and just in general a very different style than I am used to. I am not sure how much I enjoyed the book for the book itself but I really enjoyed the fact that I had no idea what was going to happen and I liked the unreliable narrator point of view. This book was brutal and difficult to read at points (the Edinburgh Scottish accent) but I do recommend it, and I will definitely be reading it again at some point when I get my own copy.

Would recommend? Yes, but not for the faint of heart.
** Instead of ranking by stars which I think is super arbitrary I will just say if I recommend a book or not.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

YEAR IN REVIEW PART III: 2015

Happy New year, here are the final ten questions to ring in the new year.

forty-one. I want my theme for the next year to be progress, moving forward and getting myself to where I want to be.

forty-two. I'm not really one for seeing/discovering/exploring, I just want to live my life, I never set out to raise a family in a foreign land but it happened, so lets see what happens next.

forty-three. I live far away from a lot of the people I would like to see more so it would be an unrealistic goal but I want to appreciate my time here with my little family more, and not take it for granted.

forty-four. I want to learn how to do the splits, I want to be fluent in German (aiming high, I know), I want to be more disciplined with my writing and I want to master my self control around chocolate.

forty-five. I want to get better (and more consistent) with meditation, I want to foster my desire to be a better person and maybe volunteer, or be more rigorous with my recycling and I want a stomach that you can bounce a coin off of.

forty-six. Overall I want my everyday life to be productive, I survived the first year of motherhood by just getting through each day. Now that Bean is more independent I have no excuse not to be working towards doing something with my life.

forty-seven. I want to change my computer habits, I spend too much time on my computer doing nothing. Other habits I want to change or grow or get rid of have been touched on already.

forty-eight. Honestly, I want to have a job next year, any job really, I am not in any position to be picky.

forty-nine. I want 2015 to be the year that I found my footing, that I figured out what direction I want my life to go in.

fifty. My number one goal is to do what makes me happy. I feel like I have spent a lot of time worrying about everyone else and everything else and honestly wallowing in my own misery sometimes so I need to get it together and take care of myself.