Charged Up?

Warning: reading the following will be similar to watching Homer Simpson's father yell at clouds. 

Don't sweat the small stuff, right? Good advice, wisdom I aspire to. But I'll sweat like an inflamed hotdog on rollers if the situation involves 9@#%&*! rechargeable batteries. 

It all began innocently, fueled by good intentions: care for the environment by investing in reusable batteries. I could never have predicted what ensued LITERALLY OVER MORE THAN A DECADE NOW AND ONGOING UGH.

Step 1: Buy double A and triple A batteries & rechargers.

Step 2: Tickety-boo.

Step 3: Cut to many months later: access batteries as needed, but wait, where are said batteries? Begin a decade-long career as a part-time unpaid private investigator only to discover various family members have (repeatedly) stolen said batteries and removed them from the premises. Insert Dad sigh here.

Step 4: Buy more rechargeable batteries. Not cheap are they? Discover some rechargeable battery brands do not function with other charger brands. Draft a sternly worded email in my brain, a complaint for which there is essentially no recipient. Insert low growling here. Test and retest said batteries among chargers repeatedly aiming to actually charge some of my now 17 "rechargeable" batteries aka become a part-time unpaid "Customer Support Specialist/Technical Support Analyst." 

Step 5: After much problem-solving and testing and retesting, all said batteries are FINALLY CHARGING. Note to future self that some batteries must be clipped into the correct recharger quite delicately to avoid angry-red-flashing indicator light that said battery is not connected properly and therefore not recharging. Because of the time gaps between switching batteries, each reset requires 24-48 hours to successfully finagle this process, but thanks to (waning) neuroplasticity, my brain eventually forged a reliable system, a system I used repeatedly over the years, a system NO ONE ELSE CARES ABOUT OR RESPECTS AND IT'S SO CONVOLUTED I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN IT.

Step 6: Various family members continue to steal said batteries. Grievous family text chain dynamics ensue to no avail: Dad, who has time to figure out where the batteries might be now? EXACTLY. Begin to ponder the very 21st century notion that essentially, I need an assistant to manage my reusable batteries! 

Step 7: Finally, our kids move away with most of said rechargeable batteries, so I buy what I vow will be MY VERY LAST BATTERIES and promptly hide them in places I hope they will go unnoticed. 

Step 8: Tickety-boo....

Step 9: Years pass, but I flinch every time someone gets close to those 9@#%&*! batteries. However, my system holds until one day my life-partner needs batteries for spontaneously-purchased grandkid toys, forgetting the aforementioned drama and unwittingly interferes with the rechargeable batteries system NOT REALIZING THEY ARE EXTREMELY TEMPERMENTAL. After I return home to discover ABSOLUTE RECHARGABLE BATTERY CHAOS, said partner (understandably) observes my meltdown with facial expressions similar to Dorothy's from The Golden Girls. 

Step 10: Hangs head in shame and googles rechargeable batteries support groups then begins a TWO-WEEK RESET COME ON TO NO AVAIL: IT'S AS THOUGH THESE BATTERIES FORGOT THEIR SOLE FUNCTION AND, LIKE THEIR SCIENTIFICALLY-INFERIOR COUSINS, NEED TO BE REPLACED.... 

Insert sheepish epiphany moment here as this describes the exact moment I realized that these mostly old-ass rechargeable batteries have no doubt expired...BUT WHICH ONES?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UGH.

Things one should never outgrow:

Although she's under two, my granddaughter I is already obsessed with reading. She will take me by my finger to her room and while I seat myself cross-legged on the floor and lean against her bed, she will choose a book from her "library" then turn away from me so she can reverse-seat herself into the gap between my knees, a sign that the reading must commence, the book positioned in front of her, my arms surrounding her. 

Her print awareness is impressive; she knows how to orientate the book and understands when to turn the pages; she answers all my listening comprehension questions, pointing to the ladybug, the car, the pencil, the blankie. Every read and re-read positively impacts her vocabulary. A toddler, she is actively (and with agency) constructing her own brain. Yes, she has a mind of her own. Typically, she is rapt but before I can finish some stories, she closes the book and then chooses an alternative. The process begins again. I will forever chuckle at the way she reverse-seats herself.

But is she reading? Not really. Not yet. Reading to children should begin at birth. All my grandkids have been raised with this advice, so they all love books, yet it's typically I whom I discover "reading" a book somewhere. Although she cannot yet decode the words, she invests the time to be a reader anyway.  

Dear friends, in case you need a reminder today, don't worry about what you can't yet do: just begin. The future depends on what we do today. 

Sometimes

Sometimes I suspect that people rarely ever think about photosynthesis or how every leaf is truly astonishing. Sometimes I find this bewildering. 

Sometimes I wonder if it's odd that I changed Siri's voice to an Irishman to help me cope with the psychic weight of these 2020s. 

Sometimes I wish psychology was a core subject, like language, math and science and sometimes I think this might solve all the world's problems.  

Sometimes, unless it's about mobility or herding small kids, I am so deeply confused by people who park aggressively. Sometimes I park like a lollygagging idiot. 

Sometimes I wonder if the person I'm having a conversation with is also struggling to hear and hence we're both pretending to hear what the other is saying and nodding periodically and hoping for the best. Sometimes I wonder what I haven't heard. 

Sometimes I have to give my default people-pleasing self a stern talking-to. 

Sometimes when I press unsubscribe I picture the bot(?) in charge of fulfilling my request, smirking. Sometimes I wonder if I actually forgot to unsubscribe. Sometimes I can't recall from what I unsubscribed. 

Sometimes I wonder if my DIY shortcuts are actually genius—like carpet tape works just as well as glue to install vinyl in a closet, right?—and then I remember that time my Dad renovated and left the old chimney hole in the living room floor and just strategically placed a tv tray over it. (Sometimes I wonder if environment is also genetics.)

Sometimes I wonder in my grandson L is actually an adult comedian trapped in a toddler's body and he's pissed off because he knows it too. 

Sometimes I suspect I might be the only human who walks laps around the dining room table while I read. 

Sometimes I'm 20% in the room with you, but 80% also elsewhere. 

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

A pumpkin-spider-crab, aka "Gourd." 🤣

This year Halloween felt free and I was a bit inspired by the cheery nonsense so I thought, let's give those trick or treaters pumpkin to talk about. 🎶

I'd rate my creation 8 tenths adorable and...maybe 2 tenths nightmare? One kid called it cute, another assessed it as...eww. 🤣

Things one should never outgrow:

Thank you M, L, i, and little m. 

 the still life—however you define it. 

Thanks to a delightful week of playing with and tidying up after my grand-turkeys, I have discovered toys arranged in both haphazard and intentional (?) ways. 

What's happening here? Is this still life some sort of a minikin movie set? Or perhaps a precarious attempt made by tiny labourers to repair a massive dinosaur statue? Or is it a time-traveling Lego robot attempting to tap a dinosaur on the shoulder? Maybe warn him about that huge asteroid? Hmm....

Whatever the artist's intention, the still life invites closer inspection and contemplation. Children have a way of reminding us how joyful it is to pay attention to the world, to notice, to wonder, to imagine, to discover, to be curious. They can also make us long for the still life—a little peace and quiet, ha. And then (at least for me) to wish for them to return and liven things up because a (still) life is nothing if not fleeting. We only have so much time to compose our stories. 

As the inimitable Oliver Jeffers said, "The universe is not made of atoms; it is made of stories." Dear friends, what (stories) are you noticing? 

Things one should never outgrow:

Thanks for the reminder, L. 

politeness, charm, civility. 

Potty-training is challenging, but my grandson is teaching me a few things I suspect we should all review periodically.  

After his first BM in the toilet, and before he received several Smarties, my grandson (altogether sincerely) had this to say about that first flushing, "Bye-bye poop. Have a good day." 😄

 

Caturday, kinda.

Thanks, M. 

I don't own a cat, but my 4-year-old granddaughter does, so if you're into Caturday (or need some light-heartedness), here are her adorable cat drawings. 

How do you like meow? 😀

Maps

Well done, M. 

My 4-year-old granddaughter already loves to write. 

When I was a preschool kid, I drew. I loved to draw maps: houses and roads and streets and rivers and ponds and trees all from a bird's eye view. I believe my grandparents had an atlas which introduced this concept. So I drew my maps and told stories about the people who lived there. I'd say that's early writing too, or as it's sometimes called in the education field, "dwriting." One might call it simple imaginative play too, but it's also a solid form of therapy. 

When I did begin writing with letters, you might think I wrote the stories conjured from my maps. Nope. I wrote lists. When our family traveled, I would list the name of every town and city and roadside attraction we encountered as well as the odometer reading at each location. (Call me early google maps, ha.) When my parents discussed those trips with company later, they would use my list to recall details. I finally had an audience. This thrilled me. Always the odd kid out, I suddenly had an identity in my family. 

Eventually, my lists became more complex and—thanks to TV and Stephen King's books—typically morbid. There was no audience for this phase. I would write a list of character’s names then cut them in strips to prepare for a random draw to discover which one would be disfigured in a terrible accident or who would lose his mind (or hand) and be sent to an institution for the criminally insane or join a circus. I recall being completely rapt by these lists and stories. Time dissolved. I once wrote an entire lifetime of a set of characters in a point form list. 

You might think I really enjoyed all the writing assigned in school. I did enjoy it; I didn’t take it seriously though. They didn’t want lists. And I wasn’t a particularly skilled writer either. My teachers constantly pointed out that I would often leave the “y” off the word “they.” Here’s a sample sentence: “The enjoyed the trip the took to the Rocky Mountains.” Not so smooth, eh? 

Eventually, I studied writing in both my undergrad and graduate degrees. I love teaching writing strategies to kids, and yes, they typically involve drawing, and other easy-access approaches. I want to assist them in unlocking and sorting their thoughts, ideas, and feelings. I now know that writing is just one option in the positive psychology toolbox. 

Most of my writing now is (once again) therapeutic. For an overthinker like me, it's seeking solace, and like those maps, helps make my journey more meaningful than melancholy. 

Dear blogger friends, when did you begin writing? Why? For what purpose? 

Just the Right Amount

A sister to M & L, 
and a cousin to I. 

Especially after false labour way back in the first week of August, it's been quite a holding-pattern of a month waiting for our newest (third) granddaughter: 9 lbs and 9 days late! I'm so impressed by my daughter's resolve.  

But she's finally here: another M, her name a nod to my Grandmother and her middle name for my daughter's grandmother. Imagine being so fortunate to be named after two grandmas...that seems to me like just the right amount of grammatude, and I can't wait.   

Rewards?

Just as tasty as these scones. 

My chocolate scones? Let's just say they were here one minute, the next, scone!

Understanding this joke depends on whether you rhyme scone with Gone Girl or Game of Thrones. Either way, delish, also compelling entertainment. (Isn't it the worst when someone explains a joke? Sorry.)

Do you ever make something SO TASTY, you are tempted to immediately snarf it all down your gullet? If so, relatable. Humble brag newsflash however: I did not eat them all, nor did I even taste one before I shared them. Yes indeed, I'm a hero. Or maybe it's just progress? Or is it something else? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mention this because my latest scones have me pondering short and long term rewards/goals. 

Let's be honest: I HEART SHORT TERM REWARDS, but I know the marshmallow test has proved that those who can resist quick temptation (1 out of 3) have better long-term psychological, health, even professional outcomes. Or that's what we've been told...hmm...maybe this experiment is just another conspiracy orchestrated by Obama and Hillary Clinton? *rolls eyes*

I jest; my aim is not to undermine this experiment's key role in extending our collective understanding about deferred gratification and success, but let's be honest: if I had been one of the original marshmallow test children, I WOULD HAVE FAILED IMMEDIATELY (maybe even made s'mores). 

Why you ask? Because at any moment my much older brothers could have burst into that two-way-mirrored room, threatened violence, and SNATCHED my marshmallows, then slowly and dramatically eaten them in my face (without consequences) like every other day of my childhood. Again, I jest (kinda), but culturally, what if you were a deprived, neglected, or anxious child? I suspect a few others can relate? (I'm talking to you kids whose youth was more Stranger Things than Bluey.) 

Hmm, now I'm imagining the adult versions of those long-ago (1972) well-adjusted gratification deferer-ers aka kids with matching socks. I bet they all work for Big Pharma Long Term Reward Ltd., or some other nefarious corporation filled with superiority-complex, pearl-clutchers...er, never mind: given the current state of politics, I retract this statement unequivocally. Please PLEASE please OUT with the glut of ME FIRST ME NOW ME FOREVER leaders addled by unrelenting vainglory. 

Sigh, I digress. Here's my point: perhaps some instant gratification is less pathology, and more (just enough) self-care. With that and happiness in mind, here are some short term rewards I'm currently indulging:

• reading.
• journaling and blogging.
• YouTube travel vlogs & comedians.
• eating healthy, trying new recipes, & sharing treats with others.
• wearing my flat cap on walks.
• hanging out with those mini-masters of self-gratification, kids & toddlers.
• adding a new song to my playlist every day. 
• sawing.🤣
• remembering.
• paying attention.

Wordfuse (shut-eye edition)

 (noun): slept + skeptic = those who doubt they'll sleep through the entire night, or whose history has shown proper uninterrupted shut-eye to be elusive aka more four winks than forty winks. Sigh.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tree Gazing

As my oldest granddaughter once said, "Happy New Day, Pops." It is indeed. The saskatoons are ripening— my favourite sign of Canadian summer. Happy Canada Day, friends.  

Science says even looking at trees boosts your mental health. What's your favourite tree? Or berry? 

Welcome interruption?

Thanks, M. 

The world is (extra) a lot right now, so here's a smiling dragon my toddler granddaughter drew for me. 

You're welcome. And may this interrupt your doomscrolling. 

(Ever think about how our phones are kind of like our refrigerators? The fridge pictures displayed tell about the best goings-on in our lives: first ultrasounds, wedding invites, Christmas family pics, travel photos, love notes...but the pictures in our phones often mirror the worst goings-on in the world. Dear friends, don't forget to spend a little time reflecting on your fridge "algorithm" too.) 

Thursdays

Recently, thanks to another blogger, I experienced the "psychological relief" of learning the oh-so-apt name for what we're all experiencing in the 20s: hypernormalization. This is that feeling of dread and powerlessness that permeates our modern lives as we endure daily chaos written off by those in power as uh, I don't know, Thursday, so we square our shoulders, endure, and continue our daily lives amidst the pervasive instability, because uh, what the hell can we really do about it anyway? Sigh. 

So I'm taking a break, sort of a psychological relief break. Let me explain. 

While watering the front garden yesterday, a butterfly landed on me. Oddly, I gasped. I think I reacted this way because it's very 2025 to deem this incident as the ominous opening "butterfly effect" to yet another shitshow. But no. Just what I needed, it took me out of my head. I love it when nature taps me on the shoulder. Delightful. 

Despite everything, what else is delightful? Let's go there. 

Words. Words are delightful. So is corn-on-the-cob and trees and the northern lights and ice cream and garden spaces and when women wear kilts in curling competitions and wedding vows and music and art and the human eye (each so startlingly unique and beautiful) and history class and movies and hilarious one-liners and Lego and librarians and architects and artists and writers and ee cummings and books so moving they shouldn’t end and deep-fried fish and chips and Scotland and Ireland and the Maritimes and Montreal and the wide Saskatchewan horizon line and waving grain and frogs and northern Alberta’s long, long summer days and a freshly painted room and golden hour and watching people open presents and (controversial) tuna casserole and The Swedish Chef and bork bork bork and making cupcakes and cookies and giving them away and haircuts and sleeping in and lavender and poppies and rabbits and snowmobiling and skiing and long walks and picking saskatoons and wood furniture and my bed and my house and my flat-cap and CBC radio and sudden rain and sticky-note pads and my grandkids and the countless ways my spouse, my children, and their children enrich and fortify my ordinary (extraordinary) life, and friends too, playing dice or Ticket-to-Ride or texting memes and when human facades fade and when we admit our stupidity and interdependence and people who don’t condemn others and don't complain just for the sake of complaining and people who understand being neighbourly and Dolly Parton and nurses and people who care for the elderly and my past and present teachers and every teacher my kids ever had and grandmothers and people who snowplow or can fix your AC and people committed to improving the world peacefully and self-deprecating people and comedians and unifiers and people who volunteer and people who are honest, people who encourage without ulterior motives and especially how sometimes the world seems to conspire to make me butterfly happy and oh ya, run-on sentences—I love run-on sentences too.

Dear friends, there is also psychological relief in naming what you delightfully love. Even on Thursdays. Sigh, it's often impossible to love what's going on in the world, but we can love our way through it. Right? 

Help Yourself.

Thanks, Grandma. 

My life-long relationship with food? Dysfunctional. Someday we may delve into that topic. 

Anyway, current status? Complicated, and healthy-ish, but perhaps not in the (caloric) way you might be thinking. Let me explain.

A Gen X kid (aka 8/10 times without parents), I taught myself how to "cook" all the 70s-80s savory classics: mostly fish sticks, oven fries, KD, tuna casserole, chili, and other box/ package/ can-opener inspired meals. (I still firmly believe that most meals should be cooked in one pot and eaten as leftovers for days.) Except for rice-Krispie squares—marshmallows are fun to melt—childhood me never learned to cook anything sweet.

 

After years of attempting to feed my kids (no comparison to my wife's abilities), cut to becoming an empty-nester (about a decade ago). Equipped with more time, knowledge, and skills than childhood me, I decided to join that elusive club of people who made food others actually enjoyed. In most cases, people ate my culinary concoctions with more resignation than reverie. So, always a creative, I began to experiment. I failed. I succeeded. I learned how to make chocolate-chip cookies that are infinitely more popular than I am. 

And that's it. Insert record-scratch sound here. I perfected these cookies and that's all I made for years; it's still my go-to. I call my recipe, 'Small Cookies are Stupid,' because they are. 

But this taught me something more meaningful than recipes. Cooking sweets for others boosts my mental health. My cookies make people happy; happy is not my default mode, but making people happy? Pure dopamine. 

Cut to the pandemic. Remember those tragic and trying 24 months when most humans became more we-orientated than I-orientated? But then thanks to politics and social media 30% of humans went batshit? Sigh. Who didn't need extra dopamine during those days? So I mastered my Grandma's cupcake recipe. And gave them away again and again and again; I made them for my own birthday party this week. Why? Gifting cupcakes boosts my personal growth, and increases my life's purpose and meaning. It bolsters my self-acceptance. It lifts my heart too. In short, everyone is rewarded; IT'S A DOPAMINE PARTY!

Dear friends, happiness is fleeting. But mastering something simple and sharing it with others? Help yourself. 

Things one should never outgrow?

L😍

My grandson is almost two. His vocabulary? Incredible. He can sing the A-B-C song AND Bridge Over Troubled Waters, lol. 

I am not kidding. 

And then there's his enunciation. Impressive, but still developing. Here's what happened:

We were together on the back deck at his parent's home, just us, blowing bubbles and singing songs and reading books. In other words, doing what this toddler and this Grandpops enjoy doing together. 

Suddenly, he yelled, "MURDER!PSYCHO!" 

Startled, I asked, "What?!"

He repeated himself and pointed into the backyard, "MURDER!PSYCHO!" 

As I contemplated what might possibly be going through his mind, his 4-year old sister joined us on the deck from the backyard. Barely noticing her, I made eye-contact with my grandson; bewildered (yet also impressed), I asked him slowly, "L, are you saying murder psycho?"

Unconcerned and a bit slower, he repeated himself for me, "MURDER! PSYCHO!" Then his sister quickly translated, "motor cycle, Pops." 

Let me explain: his backyard is completely fenced in and set back safely from a fairly busy roadway, but louder vehicles occasionally disrupt the peace, especially his favourite vehicles. 

Days later, I am still laughing and I can't wait to enjoy a lifetime of hearing/mishearing his excited thoughts. 

Also this: when did we outgrow randomly yelling the names of things we love? I say my grandson can teach us all how to love life: ICE CREAM! GOLDEN HOUR! BOOKS! GRANDKIDS! DEMOCRACY! 🤣🤔

FOMO

Our precocious, fast-moving
youngest granddaughter, I. 

Although my grandchildren's personalities are unique (and in development), they all seem to display one common trait: FOMO. 

It's the reason they're so disarming. 

I love it when all three grandkids are together with us, but let's just say I am the JOMO to their FOMO. So when they wiggle their way into my lunch, my laptop, my life... I am summarily overwhelmed and yet also joyously powerless to resist them, similar to Elizabeth Olsen's vibe in this puppy interview, lol. I recall a comedian once remarking that he had no idea that parenting his first toddler would be similar to living with his university roommate if said roommate were drunk 24/7. To hell with boundaries, amirite?

Oh sure, I know how to to gently redirect and distract when necessary, for their safety, for their education, etc. etc.... but at this stage in my life I avoid imposing myself. Why? We earned it: grandparents often take advantage of the privilege to laugh about it and let their parents figure it out. But the real reason? These kids are the nervous system reboot I never knew I needed right now in my life; like the Grinch, they make my heart grow three sizes, minimum. 

Currently, my youngest granddaughter is the perfect age for this puppy-like pandemonium, so that's why I thought she needed to celebrate the way she jumps into life (and off the slide) with both feet; hence, she has her very own FOMO been-there, done-that, bought the t-shirt t-shirt. 

Things one should never outgrow:

Thanks, M. 

unicornory. 

While waiting for her birthday party guests to arrive, my oldest granddaughter enjoyed some spontaneous dancing in the backyard, adorned with her spanky new unicorn rubber boots. 

Scotland's national animal, the Scots love the unicorn for its untamable independence and for being notoriously difficult to capture or conquer. 

That's reason enough to respect this mythical creature, but inspired by my granddaughter I am also learning "unicornory" which I define as the way a 4-year-old reminds me to pay attention to and enjoy life's simple pleasures: sunshine, warmth, music, laughter, sparkles inside your birthday cake, being together, and being alive for this one unconquerable life. 

Fullness

P 💞 L 

Weeks ago, I intended to write about our January holiday to Mexico, but life interrupted things. 

Travel makes me grateful and reflective but I need time to process all that discovery and restorative-ness. 

This trip we traveled with our daughter, her husband, his parents and our grandchildren. Imagine. 

There are stories to tell about French fries and puffer fish and a margarita stand, but mostly there was precious time to play with our favourite grandtoddlers, 3 year-old M and 1 year-old L. And although there are many impressive photos of the beach and sunsets and an excursion to a tiny island and a burrito bigger than a birthday cake, I keep returning to pictures of my daughter with her children, and this one with her young son. 

It's impossible to accurately describe the feeling of watching your children be parents to their own children: it's joy, it's pride, it's time-travel, it's nostalgia, it's laughter, it's longing, it's...peace...it's a fullness...(it's fleeting and forever) and I wish it for everyone. 

Look Closely

Absolutely love kids' drawings...
look closely to read this artist's message.

"Look closely at the present you are constructing; it should look like the future you are dreaming."          ~Alice Walker

A happy Christmas to you and yours.