playdate

Do YouTube? I certainly do.

I confess.  When YouTube started out, way back in 2005, I was not a fan.  But then, my first experiences with it were watching videos of teenaged girls trying to convince their boyfriends that they didn't sleep around, and the same boyfriends singing pathetic (and poorly sung) love songs while accompanying themselves on guitar.  I thought it was all just a bit...lame.  I had no interest in watching the videos, and there was no way on God's green earth that I would ever be caught dead uploading any personal video of mine.  I have since changed my tune.

Heh, Heh - She Said 'Bush'

On Saturday, my brood and me headed out on a chilly but sunny morning, and took part in a great (Southern-Central) Canadian tradition – heading to the sugar bush to celebrate the greatest of all Canadian inventions, maple syrup. Yum. And, yum.

We went to the same place we went last year, although I did get it mixed up with the place we went apple-picking in the fall, and ended up guiding us on a very slow, if not scenic, tour of places with names like Lowville and Cambelville and Yourcopilotingskillzsuckville and We’rehalfwaytobuttfucknowheresville.

From Weakness, Strength

We are not always appreciated for what we are - and neither are our kids. Sometimes we wish that slow kid would hurry up, the loud one would pipe down (oh god, please?), the shy one would hold his chin high, forgetting that those traits are part of what make that child who they are, and that there is a flip side to every negative, a silver lining to every cloud.

Cockeyed optimism? Perhaps. But these tales remind us to appreciate those things and remember that there really is a time and place for everything - sometimes you just have to find it. Much like some of us have felt like we've found "our people" in the blogosphere (or for me, library school), the characters in these tales just have to find their niche to be truly appreciated, or a moment when their foibles become just what is needed to make them a hero.

Happy Endings

(We take a break from our regular scheduled programming to bring you the saga of Papa Drama and his audition woes....)

Hello all regular readers of Mama Drama!  Mama Drama is recovering/recouping after her successful run of Proof and has asked me to fill in this week.  So I thought I'd give you all a glimpse of the awful, anxiety-filled, depressing, demoralizing world of auditions.

The Plan

There's been lots of talk around the blogosphere regarding weekly meal plans, and I figured that since, hey, I write a food column and like to help people eat healthy, easy to prepare family meals, I would weigh in too.

I don’t make a weekly meal plan.

Well, ok, I’ve already copped to the fact that I indulge in a partly-sentimental, partly-OCD meal log, but that is an after-the-fact record, and only helps me plan future meals by reminding me that we have already eaten lentil soup eight times this month, and maybe I should try something different.

Back(yardigans) OFF!

So okay, I don't want to be a traitor to my kids' generation and all, but I just don't get some of the shows on TV today.  I mean, come one, it looks like they they just fall out of some guy's head and put on some bright colours and take their cutesy songs - EW - and cover them up with some random "lesson" storylines and like, we're expected to swoon?  I don't think so.

Marking the Days, One Meal at a Time

I have never filled in a baby book. I have never scrapbooked, and while there are a collection of nearly 10,000 pictures of my children sitting on an external hard-drive in the office, only about 1% of them have ever been printed. I’ve taken my children for professional photos twice, and have managed to send out family holiday cards exactly zero times.

I have never balanced a checkbook, and while I do make grocery lists, I have never remembered to actually bring a list with me to the grocery store.

Funny then that I have managed to record what my family has eaten for dinner, every evening, going on three years now.

Community Helpers: Building the City and Keeping it Neat

Last post, I introduced the idea of community helpers as a topic. It is, as I mentioned, a kindergarten curriculum element, and a good way to familiarize children with the world around them, allowing them to make text-to-life connections, and giving them both understanding and vocabulary for people in their neighbourhood.

Two of the loudest and most visible, and therefore fascinating from early on workers that a child will notice are construction workers and trash collectors, both of whom come with big, noisy trucks and eye-catching orange vests or coveralls. What child doesn't love these? Here are a few books that give them a bit of a closer look at what's going on with those people and machines that build our communities and help clean them up.

The Play: Adjudication and Reviews

Overall, I have been really pleased with the production that I'm currently in.  The actors all get along really well, and for the first time (ever, I think), I am 100% confident in everybody's work onstage.  For those of you who have done local theatre, I'm sure you've experienced those cringe-worthy moments when you know something is bad, but it is just never going to be fixed and you have to deal with it.  I don't have that with this play.  Not for one single second.  The acting is strong, the set is wonderful, the direction is good.  It all works.  And I'm pretty harsh when it comes to shows I'm personally involved with, so saying that means alot.  This week brought us our reviews and adjudication, and for the first time, I felt a bit deflated.

Slow Night

The thing I love most about my slow cooker – oh hi! Didn’t see you come in; have a seat, grab a coffee. *ahem*. As I was saying, the thing I love most about my slow cooker is that it allows me to prepare food on a weeknight that I would normally never have time for. I mean, I work, people. Yes, it is an early schedule, and I am home before 5, but the last thing I want to do when I get home (and the last thing my kids want me to do) is rush past them into the kitchen so that I can start cooking.