When I was pregnant with Captain Jelly Belly, and I used to quiz each other from time to time, to make sure we’d make good parents. We’d ask each other, “Why is the sky blue?” and “How do they make crayons?” and “Which NFL team is the greatest ever?” — all in anticipation of the day when our kid would want to know all about the world. We imagined ourselves imparting wisdom through a soft-focus lens while our kid nodded and absorbed everything we said.

The Captain is at that stage now, but he never wants to know about the big and interesting questions in life, like we studied. He only ever wants to know about mundane stuff. I used to dream that I’d never have to say “Just because!” when asked “Why?” by my kid, but now I so, so understand. Here’s a typical conversation that I’ve had every morning with Captain Jelly Belly for the past two weeks, as he eats his morning cereal.

CJB: Who is this?
Me: Snap, Crackle, and Pop.
CJB: What are these?
Me: Those are their heads.
CJB: Where are their feet?
Me: They aren’t in this picture.
CJB: Why?
Me: It’s just a picture of their heads.
CJB: Which one is Snap?
Me: This one.
CJB: Which one is Pop?
Me: This one.
CJB: What is the other one again?
Me: Crackle.
CJB: Which one is Crackle?
Me: This one.
CJB: Where are their feet?
Me: It’s just a picture of their heads.
CJB: What is this one named?
Me: Snap.
CJB: Where are his Krispies?
Me: He doesn’t have any, just the other two are holding some. But I’m sure they will all share.
CJB: Where are their feet?
Me: I DON’T KNOW. Breakfast over!

He’s also obsessed with what “kind” everything is. As in:

CJB: I don’t want this.
Me: Just put it down on that chair.
CJB: What kind of chair?
Me: That blue one.
CJB: What kind of blue one?
Me: The small blue chair beside the table.
CJB: What kind of small blue chair beside the table?
Me: JUST PUT IT DOWN.

Or:
CJB: What is this picture of?
Me: A gopher.
CJB: What kind of gopher?
Me: There are no kinds of gophers, it’s just a gopher.
CJB: What kind of gopher?
Me: The brown kind.
CJB: What kind of brown kind?
Me: How about we play trains instead?

Man, if I knew how little of my actual life knowledge the Captain would be interested in, I’d never have bothered to learn how rainbows are formed, or how they make candles, or why the sun shines!

Today Gal Smiley is turning one year old. It’s gone by crazy fast, and I’m a little sad that my baby girl is growing up. I’m pretty happy about the weaning though — this past week I’ve had wine, caffinated coffee, and peanut butter, luxuries I’ve been denied for more than three years. Whee!

A while ago Gal Smiley had her first taste of cake, with her lunch (Captain Jelly Belly was frantic about getting his hands on the cake, so neither one of us could handle waiting until dinnertime to cut into it). Gal Smiley is an awesome eater — carrots and broccoli are her favourite foods — but I think that she might never eat anything other than cake again. She loved it and would gladly have eaten all that I offered her.

Afterwards she was totally on a sugar high and it was pretty funny. She has just started walking and she was rushing around and falling all over and alternating between laughing and crying. We tried to read a book but she just wanted to flip the pages really really fast. Eventually I found one of those little head-bow things that people put on babies that I really hate, that matches the dress she is wearing today, and put it askew on her head. Combined with the hyperness it was quite a hilarious effect — as if she’d gone to a party and gotten really drunk and put a lampshade on as a hat. Does it make me a bad parent if I laughed at her?

Anyway, happy birthday little girl :).

Conversations with Captain Jelly Belly today:

Me: Captain, do you need a diaper change?
Captain: No diaper change!
Me: Okay.
Captain: No diaper change!
Me: Okay!
Captain: No diaper change!
Me: Captain, I’m saying no.
Captain: No, I’m saying no!

And later:

Captain: What are those?
Me: Green beans. Would you like to try one?
Captain: No.
Me: You know, when you were a baby, these were your favourite. Every day you wanted to eat nothing but green beans. You liked green beans the best of all foods. So would you like to try one now?
Captain (scornfully): No, me not a baby!

My favourite day of the week is Garbage Day. It’s no fun gathering up the smelly stuff and putting it on the curb, but I feel such a rush of excitement when the truck appears to haul away all of our crap. If we’ve gotten our act together enough to put out something really big in addition to the usual bags it’s even more rewarding. Less stuff! Yay!

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the amount of garbage our house produces. I’ve never been a really “green” person and when our kids were born I knew I’d never do the cloth diaper thing. I don’t regret going disposible but it’s shocking the amount of waste it produces — at least a whole extra garbage bag every week full of nothing but diapers. That’s more than 50 bags a year from just our house going into some landfill. Scary.

A few weeks ago we stayed with Sir Monkeypants’ sister and she is a marvel of recycling. She takes literally anything plastic, any small plastic part from wrapping or packaging, and puts it in the recycling bin. And they take it! I wonder if we can get away with that here. Last year Ottawa decided to stop recycling anything plastic except pop bottles, so things like margarine and yogurt containers had to be thrown away. Due to public outcry they’ve restored plastic recycling to some degree but I still find myself throwing stuff like ziploc bags and the formed plastic fronts to cardboard packages in the garbage. I think probably I could be doing more. Anyway, something to think about.

This weekend we rented Alexander, the Oliver Stone film starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie. It was unbeliveably bad. I’m sure I’ve seen worse films but definitely not in recent memory — one advantage to never seeing anything in the theatre is that, by the time it comes out on DVD, you know if it’s worth the rental. I’d do a mini-review for Alexander but it was so terrible I barely know where to start. It was directionless and pointless and difficult to follow. The characters were poorly developed and when members of Alex’s posse were killed, I barely knew or cared who they were. The script was like the opening scene of a Shakespearean history — awkward language and clunky exposition delivered by undeveloped nameless characters — only repeated over and over again. Colin Farrell lacked charisma and never seemed to get a handle on his character, and definitely looked uncomfortable in his fright wig. Just about the only positive thing I can say is that Val Kilmer, clearly flying under Oliver Stone’s radar somehow, hammed it up to hilarious effect as Alex’s father, giving us a break from the tedium from time to time.

Despite the fact that the film was just awful, I kind of liked seeing it. It’s nice to know that crap is still out there, and it throws all the good stuff we’ve seen recently (In Good Company, and surprisingly, Hitch and Spanglish) into relief. It makes me feel like I’m not really missing all that much by no longer hitting the theatres every weekend.

Here is a typical conversation with Captain Jelly Belly that had a few minutes ago.

Sirmonkeypants: Captain, I’m going outside to water the grass, do you want to come?
Captain: No.
Sirmonkeypants: Okay, then, stay inside with Mommy and I will be back in a few minutes.
Captain: Noooooooo!!!!!!
Sirmoneypants: Do you want to come outside?
Captain: AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Sirmonkeypants: Captain, please don’t shout. You can come outside or stay inside, whichever you like. Do you want to play trains with Mommy?
Captain: Noooo!
Sirmonkeypants: Do you want to come outside?
Captain: Noooo!
Sirmonkeypants: How about we put your shoes on then, and you come outside with me?
Captain: Okay.

Yesterday was a real red letter day for Captain Jelly Belly. Not only did he pee in the potty for the first time ever, and have peaches, pears, and pineapple at dinner (trying new foods, especially fruits and vegetables, is unheard of), but also Sir Monkeypants taught him how to say, “Mendelbaum, Mendelbaum, Mendelbaum” and “It’s go time.”

Now his life is complete!

And another thing…we were visiting a relative that I don’t know very well and while talking to me, she made a comment that I consider racist. I just made a non-committal noise and the conversation moved on. But afterwards I felt bad about it and wondered if I should have said something. I’m really not a confrontational person at all and I wouldn’t have been looking to start a fight. But I felt as though I’d betrayed my morals somehow by not standing up for what I believe.

On the other hand I don’t know her that well, and while I doubt I could have revolutionized her way of thinking by pointing out her remark, I’m sure I could have totally offended her, causing a real problem and a real scene at my mother-in-law’s house, which would not have been good.

I don’t know…do you think that if someone says something that offends your sensibilities, that you have some sort of obligation to yourself to speak up? Or is it enough to think to yourself, “I don’t agree,” and leave it at that? My kids were sleeping at the time, but if they had been there, maybe it would have been more important to say something — so that they knew it was not okay to think that way. Hm.

We just got back from 10 days visiting relatives in southern Ontario (and thank you, FameThrowa, for picking up our mail because I know I will forget to thank you later). Some weird things happened while we were down and if I had had a computer handy I would have posted. Instead I’ll just have to issue multiple post-trip updates.

The first weird thing involved this recurring nightmare that I’ve had about every other month for the past 10 years or so. I dream that I am getting on an elevator, usually with luggage or bags. The elevator is crowded, usually with strangers but sometimes with a few relatives sprinkled in. The elevator is made mostly of clear glass (sometimes it’s even open on the sides) with a yellow or gold frame. I press the button for my floor and we start to go up, but when we reach my floor the elevator just keeps going higher and higher. The group of us realize that the elevator is broken and isn’t ever going to stop, and we keep going past the top of the building into the sky. I realize this doesn’t sound like a really tough nightmare but I always wake up pretty scared. It’s not the height thing, it’s the fact that we are powerless to stop the machine that scares me.

Anyway, while we were down we had to take Captain Jelly Belly to the emergency room at Sick Kids’ Hospital in downtown Toronto (for an asthma attack; he’s a-okay, no need to worry). And while there, I went out into the main lobby to take the elevator to the parking garage, but accidentally got on the elevator to the upper floors instead. And while accidentally riding up to the 8th floor I realized that the Sick Kids’ elevator is THE elevator from my dream! It was all exactly the same! There was even a random group of strangers on board.

Needless to say I was pretty creeped out. thinks that now that I’ve faced my fears, I’ll have closure, and that will be the end of the nightmare. I hope so. In any case it was a really weird event.

Once upon a time I read that there are only four basic emotions in life: glad, sad, mad, and afraid. Since then I sometimes amuse myself by trying to think of emotions that don’t fit. I’ve definitely found a few borderline cases — anxious? Afraid, I guess. Hopeful? Glad, I suppose. Cranky? I guess mad.

But I think I may have found something that doesn’t fit at all, even with a stretch, and that’s “surprise.” I was reading the Thomas The Tank Engine catalogue with Captain Jelly Belly today, and there is a Thomas in the book with a face where his eyes are wide open and his mouth is making an “O” shape, and we taught the Captain that this is Thomas’ “surprised” face. He’s making the face, incidentally, because a jet engine that he is pulling has suddenly started up, and now he’s zooming fast on the rails like a rocket.

So what, basically, is Thomas feeling in this case? I conclude that “surprised” alone isn’t enough to describe an actual emotion. There’s happy surprised (exhilarated), sad surprised (crushed), mad surprised (shocked and offended), and even afraid surprised (startled). Interesting semantics. I would say, using this theory, that Thomas and his jet engine are partly afraid surprised, and partly glad surprised. Or, do you think that surprised just falls under the afraid category and that’s it? Hm.

On a related note I’ve been watching a lot of Blue’s Clues lately and every day they introduce one or two new signs, for sign language. I wonder, do they bother in sign language to have a motion for every single possible word in English? I guess they could spell stuff out if need be, but do they have different signs for “happy” versus “glad” versus “joyful”? Or do they just have one “positive feeling” sign and go with that? Do they bother having different signs for the different verb tenses, or is “walk” and “walking” and “walked” all the same sign?

Hm.