Let it snow. Let it snow. Or not.

'Tis the season for kids to have Christmas concerts. And rooms full of cyborgs to attend said performances, viewing it through their upheld rectangular glowing unblinking eyes. It really is amazing what having one's own relation on stage can make endurable, and occasionally even enjoyable.

We didn't get any record of the kids' school concert. The gym was absolutely packed and stifling. I ended up in the very back corner, an overheated sardine. I didn't bother to get my camera out. It was quite a relief that it seems every single parent ignored the somewhat passive aggressive note in the school newsletter which informed everyone of the disruptive rudeness of getting up and leaving as soon as your child's part was over. Emeth's class was near the middle of the performance, and Istra's was third from last... the gym was comparatively empty by that time. It was a bit embarrassing actually, all the empty seats at that point. I considered sitting down, but then decided to hold my position with a few others remaining at the back to give the illusion that there still was a standing-room-only presence. And I even stayed right until the end, not missing a moment of the excitement of the last two acts.

We had thought with the kids doing their regular school concert, maybe we'd skip putting them in their music school's Christmas concert. Emeth was much gladdened by this, still being very against playing his guitar in front of people (despite being a better player than many of the other kids). After Istra's seizure and paralysis at the last music school concert, and her pretty poor effort at practising lately, we thought she might be relieved as well -- but she surprised us by insisting that she really, really, really wanted to be in the this concert. Apparently we couldn't say no to that. So, instead, we used it to "encourage" her to practice a little more seriously...

Istra, calm and collected, before moving her her assigned seat in front of us.

It seemed to work. She improved greatly just in the week or so before the concert recital (which was today). And she seemed, having even practiced with a microphone this time, ready and fine... right up to the moment it was her turn to ascend the stage. She was the 23rd performer of 26, so the show had been going on for quite a while as she sat waiting. When her turn came, she turned to us, gripping tightly the back of her seat, her face twisted in fear, she tells us she isn't going up. We tell her she has to now. She says she can't. We tell her she can do it, to just do it, and she'll be fine. She groans and whimpers. Everyone waits. Time stretches out! Will she? Won't she? At this last minute, with Grammie, Aunty Priscilla and Gigi with us, she will not let go of the death grip she has on the back of her seat? No other kid had anything like this reaction. Good grief.

And then suddenly, she gave up all hope and she went. As if on a death march. To the front. Her music teacher, Grace, scurried over from the other side of the room and gave her a bit of a pep talk. After the concert, Grace came over and told us she didn't know if it helped, describing Istra's shell shocked face. But I saw Istra smile momentarily as she turned away from Grace, who was opening her mouth exaggeratedly wide at her to remind her to do the same while singing.

And then the song. It was fine. She didn't crack. She sang quite smoothly, kept in time with the music, and hit her notes. Frankly, considering her seeming state at that last moment in her seat, we were amazed she performed without cracking. As soon as she finished singing though, her face again puckered up in anxiety, as she took her leave of the limelight...

We all congratulated her. And a few minutes later she was fine again. Wheh!

Until next time...

Special guests, Aunty Priscilla and Gigi.

How Emeth preferred to hog an entire pew to all himself and relax during the recital. (He was forced to come sit with us, when the place started filling up.)

Camp and Campy

When was it we dropped Istra off at her first overnight camp? Saturday or Sunday, or some such day? Anyhow, we got an email from the camp yesterday saying everyone is having a great time. And there are a few more days yet to go. Above you can Istra showing off her cabin... the last time we saw her.

As one might expect, she got pretty nervous when camp day arrived, and made many an attempt to get the whole crazy thing called off. But when we finally got there, and she got her bunk chosen and set up with her stuff, and (most importantly) found another girl her age (who had the bunk over her), everything was instantly good...

We can hardly wait to hear how things went from her. So many new things packed into a week. And there was a massive thunder storm in the area on her first night, too.

As for Me and Mommy, and Em... we yesterday did what some might consider the most Canadian thing possible. We actually canoed to Tim Hortens. Seriously.

Istra warbles

Here's what Istra's sounding like after about 6 of her voice lessons. Her seeming natural aptitude is being combined with the new vocal control techniques she is learning. From a young age she has (for reasons unknown to us) attempted to mimic an operatic vibralto, and loved singing soaring songs. Now she is learning how to hit higher notes without getting louder, proper breathing, and other such details.


This recording is just casually done on a tablet. She's not trying very hard, and can do better. Still, this gives a sense of what she's up to.

Solful and Swavy

So Istra was introduced to Scrabble tonight. Just her and Mamma (as she wrote on the score paper) played. I helped, and generally made a nuisance of myself. At one point in the game, Mamma was stuck again, so I helpfully suggested she put her S in front of WAVY. I was informed that thatdoesn't make a word. Yes, I agreed, it doesn't... but it SHOULD! Surely, I agrued, "swavy" should be a word. It's an awesome sounding word. It would be, in short, a truly swavy word!

Istra agreed. And, believe it or not, even Mamma did not deny it. In fact she suggested to Istra that she should start using the word with her friends, and then her friends will start using it, and their friends... and we'll have invented the swaviest word ever invented. Istra again agreed! She was up for it.

Later, Mamma lamented that there was no place she could put down all her letters, because they --- she turned her holder to show us --- spelled: NURSEEZ. And surely if swavy should be a word, than so should nurseez. I suggested that maybe words could even go together, and you could then have swavy nurseez.

Istra thought this was just great. She demanded a piece of paper to write down all the words we are making up. She also said that she now wanted to make one up too. A bit later she came to us to tell us the word she had made up. It sounded like she was saying, "soulful". Soulful, Istra? She showed us the written down version. It said: "solful'. Ah, okay, solful it is.

After the kids had gone to bed, I found the paper Istra had written the new words on, and saw that she had put definitions beside them. I read:

swavy = beautiful
nurseez = caring lady
solful = sunny

Sunny! I had to admit, that was indeed a much more brilliant new word that I had thought.

Anyhow, in other realms, we were at the paddling again today.... on the map below it looks like we paddled right up onto the land... but I assure you our craft were not airborne, nor earthbound. Though we did portage across a little road at one point rather than try to squeeze through a culvert. The kids' first portage. Another adventure...

Exploring the Wildwood ways... (click for bigger map & pics)

Anniversaire Girl

If not a roaring success, it was at least a sprinkling success — Istra's birthday party at the park. It was also a roaring success. Everyone was sick of cookies and icing and sprinkles by the end. What more could you want? (Or maybe that was just the adults?) And the pirogi-fueled VIP after-party party rocked, too. Never mind the smashing lemon curd blueberry cheesecake. Making less and less sense, as I am, let me just take my leave with a snap and a flick et une chanson...

Happy 8^th

Spring-time Homework

Istra working on her homework, with Mommy's help, on a lovely spring afternoon.

Emeth's first video (Poppy's been demoted)

So apparently Emeth, at 6 years old, had some creative issues with the video of him skateboarding that I last posted. Too much Istra, among other complaints. He asked me how "hard" it is to make a video. When I told him it's not too hard for the basic stuff, just a bit tedious, he said: "Okay, I'll make my own video". He hauled me outside to shoot all new footage at his (whispered) direction (though strangely now not complaining about Istra being around). He also had been saying he was going to do some "falling off, on purpose".. because that's the main part he liked in my video... but this also seemed to be forgotten once we got outside. And I didn't remind him. I didn't want to interrupt his creative process. Then we came in and I gave him a quick basic instruction on how to use the kdenlive video editor. And an hour later, his first video edit is done. He then ordered me to upload it to youtube.

Next time he'll forbid me from writing the description, no doubt..

Previously, after asking me how hard it was to make a video, he also inquired as to how hard it is "to put fake video in a video". I finally figured out what he was asking about was how to put (specifically) minecraft computer animation into a live action video. (He probably had in mind something like this.) I said that this would be a little more complicated. And by a little, I meant a lot. So, his (apparent) plans for digitally replacing himself on the skateboard with a minecraft character were dropped.... for now.

Also, I can't at all explain the sudden skipping.

Or the green.

(The one alternation I did make in the above video is the slight censorship of Istra at one point -- lest Em be arrested for posting this. Speaking of Istra, yes, I had advised Istra to wash her face... but oh no, that was just apparently another example of clueless oppression of free artistic expression from old Pops.)

Skater Em & Dandy Istra

Can't keep the kid off his board! We'll still have to get him those pads sometime...

(Attention family! Note the knees! No scrapes!)

[P.S. While I was putting the video together I was showing it to Eme and on a clip preview which had the first fall looping... Eme thought it was hilarious... so we put it into the completed video. That's why it's there.]

Istra's March Break Opus

So here is Istra's version. It's nice that she illustrated the pictures I missed. So, between Istra and the photographs, I think we have these events very well covered indeed. (Especially if you look really, really closely into the car window, and can make out us eating tortilla chips and dip on the way -- Thanks, Grammie!) You may find Istra's interpretation of words a bit challenging in places, but that's only because you don't know how to spell properly and only Istra does. This is what she assures me. Repeatedly. (Though it is also interesting, from a more boring conventional view, to see how French immersion has affected her creative English spellings in places.)

Click the images to (hopefully) enlarge text, if the pictures aren't enough for you. And here's a bit of help for the non-Istra spellers out there: bodrfly = butterfly, botanncle = botanical, cacdisis = cacti, igsibot = exhibit, museeom = museum, popo = papa (?), war = where.

Dire hazards of Istra-land.

Istra, age 7, describes the portraits she has drawn of the "bad guys" that plague her personal secret world, Istra-land.

Istra Loves Autumn Leaves

Istra is Bused

Conquering her fears (especially after the mix up on her first attempt last Friday), Istra managed to make it home on the school bus for the first time today. On Friday, for her first time, Selena and I met her after school and went with her to the bus to reassure her and make sure she got on the right one. While helping "motivate" her up the bus steps, I mentioned to the bus driver that she was particularly nervous, because it was her first time. The bus driver asked her name and where she got off. Everything seemed good. Selena and I jumped back on our bikes to race the bus home to meet Istra at the other end. On our way to the bus stop, Selena wanted to run in to take off her coat (or something). While inside the phone rang, and it was the school. They said they had Istra in the office there. What?!!! But we put her on the bus ourselves! There was much confusion, no one seemed to know what was happening. We figured maybe Istra panicked and got off. Going back to the school to pick Istra up didn't add much clarity. The secretary said that she came back in because she was on the wrong bus; but this made no sense because we were absolutely certain we put her on the right bus, and had even talked to the bus driver. Anyhow on the way home Istra finally revealed that the bus driver had checked a list before leaving and said Istra was not on the list so had told her she had to get off and go to the office. So anyhow, this morning we verified with the morning bus driver (she takes a different bus in the morning) that Istra was definitely on her list. So today I went to meet Istra after school again to be extra, extra, extra sure she was on the right afternoon bus. It was the right bus. The bus driver recognized us approaching and told me right away that it was the wrong bus. I showed her the print out the school had given us which has the bus number on it. The driver insisted that Istra wasn't on her list. I explained that she was on the list of the morning bus. At this point one of the other girls on the bus piped up and confirmed that she'd seen Istra on the morning bus. The driver asked her what stop she got off at, because she didn't recognize the stop as it was on the print-out the school gave us. The girl explained that she got on at a different stop than Istra, but Istra was definitely on her bus. At that point an observant boy came forward and asserted to the driver that Istra got on at his stop. (The very boy that can be seen getting off just behind Istra in the first picture.) So he told the driver his stop name, and the driver scowered her lists again... and ... then... all of a sudden... yes, there's Istra on the list! No idea how it was missed before. But in a blink everything was suddenly all sorted.

I raced home to meet the bus. Gramma decided that she needed to come too, and bring a camera to immortalize this momentous occasion (as can be seen gloriously above), so everyone can share this magic moment.

And here's mommy, in grade 1 (or 2?), also immortalized waiting for her school bus, with Aunty Whitney. They are waving. (The bus is sneaking up from behind a mailbox.) But where are their classic Rainbow Bright and Fraggle Rock lunch boxes?!

Oh, here they are....

Woo!

Istra's Face

Istra's been having a rough week. Or, at least, her face has. Literally.

The morning after getting back from being away, north, for Thanksgiving weekend, she awoke with a few rashes on her face, and enough puffiness that her right eye looked quite droopy. She had no other symptoms except it itched. It seemed like it must be some sort of alergic reaction. Maybe a light case of poison ivy, even? We have no idea how or where she might have picked this up, whatever it is. She's not alergic to anything we know of, and it's hard to imagine how she'd get poison ivy on her face and nowhere else.

We've been giving her some children's Benadryl and Motrin to deal with the swelling and itch, as well as putting cream on her face at night. It seems, slowly, to be getting better. Slowly.

Zeebie

Several years ago, for her 5th birthday (top photo), Selena's friend Rachel gave Istra this cute striped sock horse that she made. Several years later, soon approaching her 7th birthday, Zeebie has become Istra's Velveteen Rabbit. Wearing thin in some areas, with seams which have had to have been restitched in a few places, Istra insists on sleeping with her belovèd Zeebie every night. (See bottom picture.).

As the famous passage from the story describes:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

So, Zeebie is well on its way to becoming real around here. It may be a bit of a strange thing when that pink and black stripped, big-nosed, fellow starts clomping around this place on it's own. But it's okay, because we'll  understand.

Sometimes it's hard to know what is going to become the most real for us in the future, and what is going to break or just slowly fade away. Anyhow, in this case, as it works out, it couldn't have happen to a nicer horse-zebra.