Ordinary Day

This is Jane

Now take away the backpack.

Add two pigtails.

Add one snotty noise, and a bunch of tears.

Then add the faint odor of baby puke, and one doozey of a fever.

Now you have a good picture of what Jane is like tonight and why my blogging hopes of book reviews, stories about sheep on the loose,the truck and the new chickens have all come to naught.

I leave you with a few words of Great Big Sea’s Ordinary Day:

“…It’s a double edged knife, but there’s always tomorrow…”
“…At the end of the day, you’ve just got to say
It’s all right.”

Ivy’s Favorite Things at Five Years Old

Mar27

A little over a year ago I tried to ask Ivy as many questions as she asked me. I never succeeded in my efforts to even out the question asking but I wrote down some of her answers and you can find them here: Ivy’s Favorite Things.

A year later and Ivy is still full of insatiable curiosity. Lately it’s been questions about books and songs, lots of questions. Recently we were listening to Great Big Sea, she was happily singing along and then…

“Mom what does corpse mean?”

“Mom, what does bore mean?”

I started thinking that I’d better put in a different CD before I had to answer trickier questions than explaining that there was a dead guy floating on a piece of wood. Then I got distracted…

“Mom, why did she give him a baby?”

Oops!

Personally I didn’t think about the words of the songs I was listening to until I was about 25. Apparently Ivy’s a bit more precocious than that.

In any case, I thought it was once again time for a little score settling on the question asking, so I pulled up our list from last year.

Ivy, what is your favorite…

Color- pink/purple

Animal –unicorn -giggle, giggle – horse

Food – grilled cheese sandwich

Clothes – blue stripy dress (the one in the picture)

Dog – Trip

Cat – Fiona

Person – Katie (Way to go Katie Sal!)

Thing to do – Play with Joe. (Umm… Katie it’s possible this answer moved you from the category of favorite person to favorite mom of the friend I’d like to play with right now – sorry about that!)

Thing to do inside – take a nap (and to that I say – HA!)

Chore- “I don’t like doin’ chores.”

Time of day – noon

Place to go – museum

Thing to do at the park – swing

Book – Walter the Baker and Pancakes Pancakes!

Thing to do with Clara – play

Thing to do with Jane – lay (as in lay on the floor next to her)

Friend – Natalie

Meal – “I don’t like breakfast.” (Me: “Yes, but what do you like, what’s your favorite?” Ivy: “Pancakes.” )

Movie – Milo and Otis

To do in the car- read books with you

Song – Pick Yourself Up by Fred Astaire

Flower – planies (Known as peonies to the rest of us.)

Farm Animal – horse

I had a fun time comparing this list to last years, I’m hoping I can remember to do it again next spring!

Why I Love Great Big Sea

Dec23

After a crabby sort of an afternoon and evening I am positively cheerful. John is home for FIVE whole days. He brought Makers Mark with him and we watched my new Great Big Sea DVD tonight (thank you Laura and Happy Birthday!). In case you are sadly uninformed of the wonderfulness of the band Great Big Sea, their website can be found here .

My top ten reasons I love Great Big Sea.

1) Their songs involve words like, cheese, gypsum, and shebang.

2) They have two songs about horses falling through the ice.

3) They play the bodhran, bouzouki, fiddle, tin whistles and banjo.

4) Once I heard them sing acapella with no microphones, (the cheese song no less) awesome.

5) They make mildly inappropriate jokes thorough out their concert while bouncing, dancing and smiling. I should know, I have seen them in concert eight times.

Should I be admitting something like that?

6) Facial expressions, it’s all about the facial expressions.

7) The drummer can also play the piano accordion and sing U2 songs

8) Their music inspires dancing, bouncing, clapping and happiness. Despite the fact that I am so musically uninclined that I can not clap along, (pathetic but true) I love it.

9) Ivy has renamed River Driver “the food song”. My singing range is small, I can sing (OK I can try to sing, it’s not always good) some of their songs, this was her lullaby when she was a baby. She may be scarred for life, only time will tell.

Should I be admitting something like that?

10) “From the tropical island of Newfoundland” it’s Great Big Sea. Go listen and be happy.