Caspar Babypants and Being Half Of A Creative Couple

brimming with creative potential

My son is watching every single conceptualization of “The Wheels on the Bus” ever video recorded and posted to YouTube on my iPhone.  Now he’s watching one in Japanese.  Atleast he’ll have a multicultural appreciation before JK.  Also in the background is Mighty Machines on the TV (Google the theme song now to share in my pain).  Upstairs, I’ve left Caspar Babypants playing on the CD player.  Energy conservationists we are not.  This is a recipe for ADD in the making if I ever saw one.

I’m writing today about Caspar Babypants.  Well not JUST about him, also about his wife, Kate Endle and well “artsy coupledom” and how darn aspirational it is.  I’m no mom blogger product endorser, but Caspar Babypants, if you’re not familiar, is a children’s musician/ entertainer also known as Chris Ballew the chrome-domed, former frontman of zany 90s band The Presidents of the United States of America.  “Peaches come in a can, they were put there by a man in a factory downtown.”  You might remember that little ditty.  Well, he’s reinvented himself after marrying and having babies and he’s amazing and prolific.  If you’re a parent you know the typical playlist: Yo Gabba Gabba, Justin Roberts, Elizabeth Mitchell, Frances England, Dan Zanes, (oh, and likely Sharon, Lois and Bram and Raffi are still in heavy rotation).  Well might I suggest you add all of Caspar Babypants albums to the virtual jukebox?  I’m not getting paid for this because my site traffic is laughable so I assure you I’m not part of his marketing strategy, I’m just a fan.  His original songs are hilarious (bug in the cuff of my pants, poor little broken truck, poor dust bunnies, my flea has dogs) and catchy (still singing small black ant and not annoyed by it).  And his wife is pretty darn amazing herself.  She’s a successful artist whose work has made it all over the place (to greeting cards, children’s books and just so happens to have graced all the covers of her hubby’s albums with her adorable collage art).  What might their house be like on a typical Sunday morning? I’m envisioning kids wearing newspaper pirate hats, feet warm inside hand-knit wool slippers in rainbow colours, they climb inside a cardboard box to eat their organic pancakes while dad plays his latest tune on a vintage bright green guitar and mom cuts out paper samples to collage the kitchen wall in owls.  Anyway, in my mind its the stuff of a Dwell center spread or a feature on Moomah.

This brings me to the actual point of this blog post which is: aspirational couples (those who I aspire to be like).  Couples who (publicly at least) are creative, artsy and successful and just authentically good at what they do.  I find this very inspiring.  Its all very artificial potentially.  I’m aware that their personal lives may be a shambles and for all I know they can’t stand the smell of each other’s breath, but their public personae as a couple is simply irresitable, and so that is why I find them aspirational.  They have that “thing”.  I consider myself somewhat creative and my husband very much so, and while we have careers that bring in the bucks, I think deep down, many of us are still trying to find that perfect-world scenario where you love what you do and make money doing it; when work doesn’t feel like work anymore.  Not rich and famous, that’s not the goal, but making ends meet (plus a little for an authentic espresso machine from Faema).  I’m not saying that every couple should try to become Paul and Linda and form Wings.  I’m just saying that if you and your spouse happen to have that particular sensibility then, well, embrace it and support each other embracing it.

So with that overly-philosophical point murkily made - here’s my dream dinner party guest list of some inspiring (and yes, famous) creative couples:

Chris Ballew and Kate Endle

Bono and Ali Hewson
Rufus Wainwright and Jorn Weisbrodt

Trudie Styler and Sting

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin

Diana Krall and Elvis Costello

Tracey Stewart and Jon Stewart

Luke Doucette and Melissa MccLelland

Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner (ok, maybe they’re not around anymore, but this is a dream list)

Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano

Jay-Z and Beyonce

Who would you add to your list?

Items That Might Develop Into Blog Posts*

* My father, a columnist, has this funny thing he gets published every so often which is called "Items that Might Grow Up To Be Columns"  I stole this idea from him.  These are a collection of fleeting thoughts I've had of which I'll probably pick and write about at length, but not right now.

Oh! So that's a bathtub ring!

Why is everything always strewn so willy nilly?

Are those tiny jumping spiders bed bugs? Oh my god.

My son is going to be a garbage man.  That boy is just too interested in sanitation and disposal to become anything else.

Why are there always so many crumbs?

I wonder if I were to put a baby gate at the entrance of Charlie's room if he'd just sit there peacefully while I nap?

Why do people have to report you when you want so badly to run into a store and grab diapers when your son has finally fallen asleep in the back seat of the car? Its called windows slightly open for ventilation and a car alarm PEOPLE!

All he does is take puzzles apart, why can't he put them back together?

How do you calm your anxiety and stop being a worry wart if you're basically a nihilist?

Why can't I be one of those people who has a label maker and likes using it?

Rolling With It

you can choose to freak or smile 

There's a dark and a troubled side of life;
There's a bright and a sunny side, too;
Tho' we meet with the darkness and strife,
The sunny side we also may view.

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life;
It will help us ev'ry day, it will brighten all the way,
If we keep on the sunny side of life.

Tho' the storm in its fury break today,
Crushing hopes that we cherished so dear,
Storm and cloud will in time pass away,
The sun again will shine bright and clear.
Let us greet with a song of hope each day,
Tho' the moments be cloudy or fair;
Let us trust in our Savior alway,
Who keepeth everyone in His care.

-Ada Blenkhorn

if there’s one resounding lesson i’ve learned from being a mom for a little under 2 years its that you just have to roll with it. yeah, I’ll admit it, this new realization probably has something to do with the Stress Multivitamin my mother-in-law recently bought me (I get the message, thanks mom).   you can’t cling too tightly to the way you were and you shouldn’t try to be something you’re just never going to be.  for instance: I will never ever again be a size 2.  Dukan diet or not.  and i am never going to buy a jogger stroller and join the running club like the other fit mom’s I see around my ‘hood.  the likelihood of that is akin to me taking up heli-skiing. Um...no.

i’m now almost totally okay with going out into public spaces with smears of food from Charlie’s mouth or fingers on something I’m wearing or in my hair (peanut butter makes a fine pomade).  actually, if I remember to brush my hair and put on earrings that is a bonus.  because gradually, I think my priorities have shifted from me at the epicenter of it all to someone much more important, my son.  sure i have bitter days where I long to sleep in, or be uninterrupted while I surf the net or go shopping at a regular pace instead of Operation: buy a perfectly fitting swimsuit without trying it on and without having a 22 month old a) hide under a rack in a department store or b) scream his head off.  I do miss them, but i’m getting used to la vie nouvelle.

yes, there are puffy stickers all over my couch cushions.  all the cloth napkins that were folded nicely in the linen drawer are now the comforters and duvets of all of charlie’s stuffed animals, and the contents of my pantry are lined up (railroad-style) along the floor tiles of my kitchen (Thomas the Tank Engine is a very useful engine - he can pull 9 chicken stock bouillon cubes at a time!)  these may seem like annoyances but really they’re all just signs that my child is gifted and a divergent thinker.

today at a local pancake house we sat and shared a plate of kiddie cakes and after each bite charlie decided he’d share one with the floor. “Dit” he’d say (his version of “dirty”)  “That’s right.  It IS dirty when you throw pancakes on the floor.  So why do you keep doing it?” I asked, smiling sheepishly at the tsking waitress.  “Ants.” Charlie replied as he pointed out a small black ant crawling across the table.  “Ants yike syr-dup”.  See? He’s not only creative, but also concerned with the surrounding habitat.  Pests or not.  I left the last bit of pancake there for our friends before paying the cheque.

Before vs. After

Today I was doing my usual "Charlie is napping" routine (make a coffee, surf the net, maybe go #2) when I visited People.com and noticed an intriguing quote by Pink, the singer, who had her first child, a daughter called Willow, last year. She said, "We have no idea what we did before having Willow."  She must have amnesia.  Is that just one of those things people say because the masses expect it of them?  Here's a reminder for her.

Things We Did Before Kid and Haven’t Really Done Since - MOURNING Header	Things We Didn’t Do Before Kid - WELCOME HOME
Watched movies (start to finish, in one sitting, usually not rated G)	Share our bed with a squirming, kicking, restless leg creature
Went out for dinners (and didn't need a high chair)	Go for bike rides
Spent money on ourselves	Play trains
Slept in (I mean, past 6 am)	Roll on the carpet
Had long showers or baths (or if not long, at least had them)	Talk to strangers at the grocery store or in any line quite frankly
Took uninterrupted bathroom breaks	Cut sandwiches into 4 crustless triangles
Read a book	Kneel on the floor for 3/4 of the day
Blow dried hair, did makeup	Hunt for spiders with a "tish-oo"
Read the paper	Laugh hysterically when things spill or break
Follow fashion trends	Kiss boo boos better
Made elaborate meals	Get tackled with hugs and kisses
Went to bed late	Spot school buses, tractors, lawn mowers, dump trucks, taxi cabs, police cars and fire trucks
Had a conversation during daytime hours without whispering	Read the same book over and over
Listened to loud music loud	Listen for airplanes, train whistles and sirens
Yelled at each other with abandon	Run outside when Canadian Geese are overhead or when the Garbage/ Mail man has arrived
Made up passionately	fold 9-million pieces of laundry only to have them dumped out and spread around the floor promptly afterward
Got drunk	fought to remove a small wet person from a bathtub

Spic n' Span

Fresh as a daisy

It was 8:30 on a beautiful summer evening, and Charlie was asleep.  My husband was working late and I was by myself in a quiet house.  What to do, what to do? I decided I’d steal a moment away for myself and...clean.  Sounds ridiculous, right? Well not to the makers of a variety of products which are lavender scented.  They’ve done the focus groups, they’ve talked to the cleaning women who relax as they clean.  It seems odd.  Never in my life did I enjoy cleaning, but now I do when my son is sleeping.  I realized that cleaning uninterrupted is actually a luxury (as is eating, going to the washroom, shaving my legs, etc.).  Well, when there is nothing else on the agenda and it is quiet, cleaning is quite nice actually.  

I had a girlfriend as a teenager, whose mother would ritualize cleaning in the evenings. She would smoke, drink a corona, dim the lights and put on Joni Mitchell.  As Little Green would play softly in the background, she’d fold her whitest whites, which she’d dump out on the large harvest table in her all-white kitchen.  She'd peacefully fold the laundry blowing smoke rings making little piles based on clothing type and owner.  I believe vanilla candles were also lit in the background.   Sometimes I feel like I’m channeling this lady as I clean.

There is a difference between tidying and truly cleaning - like - Molly Maid grade cleaning.  So often, all I manage to do is a surface clean, where I grab the nearest damp cloth or Kleenex (or wipe) and clean the obvious, visible spills as they appear to me.   My cleaning, or should I say, tidying, involves: straightening pile of magazines, recycling junk mail, straightening shoes by the door, and swiffering (now a verb!) obvious dust - like ray-of-light-through-the-window dust.  After he eats, I’ll wipe down the tray of his highchair.   Later, laying on the floor doing puzzles I notice parts of the highchair that should have never seen food directly, but that now have pizza sauce and other miscellaneous things spackled and caked on - that need wiping badly.  How long has THAT been there?  My regular cleaning is not thorough spring cleaning type cleaning - who does that but before guests come, I mean, really?! You’re supposed to wash the walls?! But now, with little ants around sink, I know down deep inside why we have these household pests.  I can’t keep up.  Why does having a baby mean that everything has crumbs on it?  And I only have 1 kid! I mean, no pets and a husband who sadly works 12 hour days.  Its just me in this house basically - this means that I’m the pig and I’m raising a piglet!   I’m the worst with stuff just piling up.  My buffet for example (or sideboard/ credenza - what do you call those things anyway?) is covered in bills (paid and due mixed together), a dying plant, mix-matched tupperware, an empty Kleenex box, Charlie’s crocs, an extension cord and some random art supplies.  I’m a candidate for Clean Sweep for sure! Does that show still exist?  Hopefully I’m not a candidate for Hoarders! No, I’m not THAT bad.  

I do have one pet peeve and that is the stinky dishcloth.  Of that I am extremely vigilant, replacing it daily with a freshly bleached cloth.  But the other chores? Well, they slide.  Of all the chores on the list, emptying the dishwasher is my least favourite.  I have no clue why. I’m a soak and scrub later type.  What I lack is some true elbow grease.  And for this reason, shake and bake is my mortal enemy.  Particulates that don’t come off unless you put your back into it.  However, scrubbing a pan is quite good for getting out internal aggressions - like punching a punching bag. 

I know that I occasionally get into hyper cleaning moods where I put on Bjork or some aggressive rock and roll (The Dum Dum Girls is a favourite) and really scrub the bath ring around the tub or get down on my hands and knees and wrangle the dust bunnies that live underneath every piece of furniture in my house.  I fill up the kitchen sink with hot, I mean boiling, sudsy water and scrub every surface.  As I clean I literally feel my hair fall out and my biceps bulge as I turn into a flat-chested bald man with a hoop earring. Self-satisfied, arms crossed, nodding with a big grin on my smug face.  “Yes, that’s Mrs. Clean to you.”

My house rarely looks spiffy and sparkly except for when my mother-in-law has been over.  My spices drawer is alphabetized, my linen closet looks ready for a Martha Stewart magazine centerfold spread and when I put away the folded laundry she’s done I have a series of revelations!  So THIS is how you’re supposed to fold a bath towel, fitted sheet, pair of panties, FILL IN THE BLANK!  It was like I was visited by the laundry fairy.

The last thing I’ll say about cleaning is the idea of getting your kids on board to team clean!  Its this myth that I’ve heard mentioned over and over.  Its cool that Charlie loves to clean by his own volition, but as soon as you force it, by buying a little broom swiffer- trying to make cleaning fun during a pre-ordained "time for cleaning"!  Its just not going to happen.  I've heard it said,  “If your little one likes cleaning, you’ll have a helper and not have to get after them to always clean up after themselves”.  It reminds me of the little ditty we sing at playgroup at the day’s end:

Clean up, clean up everybody everywhere

Clean up, clean up everybody do your share!

Not in this lifetime.

Quit Toying With My Emotions

Its not just the prerogative of grandparents anymore

One of my son’s favourite pastimes is to read a catalogue for Mastermind Toys.  He will  go to the book shelf (yes, it has book shelf status in our house) and make a point to look for it, and then he’ll sit and study every single toy in there.  He finds a lot of joy in it, exclaiming loudly, “Wow!” and “Yeah!” when he points out his very favourite toys (mostly those toys with wheels).  I recently had the brainwave of bringing him into a toy and hobby store at Mapleview mall where I experienced 21 month old fury at being penned into a stroller and forced to “look and don’t touch”. That’s not an option for my son.  Screaming doesn’t quite capture the extreme vocalized disdain he had for me when I kept trying to soothe him with redirection and reassurance, “look at this one! no I’m sorry honey we can’t play with these toys.”  I felt like a complete ass and promptly beelined for the exit.  You see, Charlie understands the difference between print ads for toys (2D) as in, not real, can’t touch and 3D (real, physical objects that EXIST) as in, can and should be able to touch.  He did not however, understand why I would bring him to such a wonderland of commercialism and then restrain him from touching anything.  He pouted for a good hour after that and his puffy, tear-stained cheeks made me feel like a moron for the next 24.   But I’m not writing here to confess my toy store + nearly 2 year old conundrum, I’m writing about my own problem for buying things that I feel Charlie should have, nay needs to have.  

Prior to motherhood, I was known to indulge in the best wines and foodie goodies, trendy clothes and jewelry, spa treatments, highlights.  I would say I enjoyed shopping for myself.  Now I channel my love of cute things into buying toys and clothes for Charlie.   You see, buying a toy for your kid is pretty satisfying, some might call it addicting.  The joy you feel when you pick out just the right thing and he plays with it happily afterward, suddenly inseparable from it.   It makes you feel really warm and tingly in a materialistic sort of way.  But the really funny thing about toys and kids is that, they may want something in the store, and so you cave and give in and satisfy their whim and then well, it sits untouched collecting dust in your house.  What I’ve discovered, especially in social situations like play group where there is a body of toys to SHARE is that what kids really want is the toy that the other kid is playing with.  It is the best toy.  And then when they get that toy, the other toy being used is the one they want.  I guess I’ve entered sharing 101.  The grass is always greener mentality starts young!  I’ll try not to do a Foucaultian analysis on children sharing 1 coveted toy but I want to talk about something else.  Found material makes excellent toys.  

On our recent trip to Vancouver, the plastic beverage cup the flight attendant handed Charlie was way better than the 25 kg of primary colored, plastic distraction I paid to haul on board with me to occupy Charlie.  Twigs are also very cool, dead bugs, trash at the park that Charlie must pick up and put in the garbage (so sanitary), things he’s not supposed to play with make excellent toys too (the cordless phone, tv remote, mom’s tampons).  And lately, he’s been on a domestic jag, favouring the swiffer broom, mini dust pan and hand broom, dust buster, etc.  He even inspects the waste baskets around the house and brings them to me to put in the big kitchen garbage if they’re getting full (e.g. if they have 1 thing in them).  Did I mention he is 21 months old?  I’m quite ok with having him circle the house pushing a swiffer broom - it saves me loads on Molly Maid!   

My final remark on the subject of toys relates to second handiness (a skill every spoiling mom should possess).  Once Upon A Child, Value Village, Garage Sales, Mom-to-Mom sales, Church sales, Kijiji, Craigslist, Momstown, etc.  USE these.  There is no point at paying full price for something your son is going to submerge in the toilet, throw down the stairs, use as a stepping stool, put down his diaper or peel the decals off of. 

Staring Down The Barrel of A...Baby Potty

Every time I see its pristine, gleaming bowl I feel like a bad parent

Its human nature to compare ourselves to others, and when a mommy: to compare our little ones to other little ones.  We do this all the time, however we love the trope, “everyone is different, everyone has their own internal clocks and timelines”.  We say this over and over again; almost a mantra, hoping that our child will be developmentally sound and reach all their milestones in good time (and not slow-bus time), but also to sound like we don’t care about such trivial matters and that we love our little one in whatever shape he or she decides to take.  Sorry, but its true.  I admit that I am slightly worried about my son’s verbalization.  Its not his fault.  We talk for him all the time and I do a pretty great job of decoding his sounds and so he gets everything he wants.  That’s communication 101 - give me what I want! He’s probably fully aware of this and thinks, “why go to all the trouble of forming the whole word when “Jew” gets me Juice and “popo” gets me my toy police car in record time?”  That’s not laziness on his part, its ingenuity.  

The reason that I realized that I compare way too often is when I started going to OEYC (Ontario Early Years Centers) drop-in hours around the corner from us.  I go for an hour or two in the mornings with Charlie for him to play with other kids, and for me to socialize with other moms.  This sounds like a great idea and its free - different toys and songs and stories everyday, a revolving door of new friends - what could be negative (other than communicable diseases) about this set-up?  Well, I’ll tell you what.  I have found that I do nothing, but compare developmental milestone calendars with other moms, and not all on my own doing either, its like we gravitate to each other and its a predictable and easy conversation starter.  It goes something like this: 

“How old is your little one?” 

“Oh, Charlie? (repeating or calling his name over and over during the course of the play date is a popular shameless, proud namer maneuver) He’s 21 months.”  

“Oh mine is 20 months.  Potty-trained yet?” the other mom is looking at my obviously diapered son and just baiting me into defensiveness.  I almost always take the bait.

Now I ask you, how is one supposed to, in a socially-acceptable manner I mean, respond to this?  Its not a harmless question, its a question that is basically sizing up a variety of personality traits of me as a mother: am I dedicated, in-tune with my son’s digestive patterns, am I environmentally conscious?  I have a sort of meta-cognitive awareness going on as I take part in these mostly mommy encounters.  How am I perceived? What are my strengths here? How am I doing as a parent?  Its kind of crazy actually.  I wish I could say what I’m thinking in these situations.  Something like, “well we’re a family of defecation fetishists so I think having him discard his feces into a toilet would be stripping him of the joys of sitting in his own crap.”  But that wouldn’t get me on any parenting committees and probably WOULD get me a visit from Children’s Aid, and so I keep my mouth shut (for once).

When Charlie was first born I went to these centers to get the F out of my house and to try to connect with actual human beings that were functioning as parents and not needing life support and anti-depressants by the bucketful.  Okay, that’s a bit melodramatic, but I was hurting.  So I went and I was told by the early years educators that I was normal and that it was good I was coming out, reaching out, and that it would get better.  I was comforted to meet other new zombies, I mean moms, who were just as disheveled, overwhelmed and exhausted as I was.  It sounds mean, but when I met one mom who hadn’t showered in three days, had twins and no help (no moms, sisters, non-working girlfriends, or mother-in-laws) well, it made me grateful for my one child, my great familial support network and my knowledge of the PTA sink bath (you can guess what the acronym stands for).  And see, even then, in my brand new days as a parent, I was comparing.  I didn’t smell, she did.  I had one kid, she had two.  I had a doting mother-in-law around the corner, she didn’t.  Did that make me a better person? No, my relief at my own situation and pity for hers probably made me a worse person, but it did put me in tune with that fact that, despite my terror at the whole game-changing arrival of Charlie, actually, I was lucky.  

Now that I have myself more together and have adjusted to being a parent, I guess I feel I need to compare my child.  Now I don’t do it in a mean way.  I don’t find (that much) joy when Charlie’s fine motor skills outshine a playmate, nor do I curse Charlie if his ball throwing form pales in comparison to another’s.  I don’t ever look down at Charlie and think, “well, what a shame, he’s just not going to be pianist” or “his artistic composition with the finger paints tells me he’ll probably be an athlete” but I do look (split-screen in my mind’s eye) at the two 21 month old toddlers trying to climb up the mini slide, one wearing a diaper and one not and feel like a bit of a potty-training slacker. Or I hear one saying, “Oh mom, not Gouda again!” in an exasperated tone, as his mother unpacks his snack and then to my son who happily munches a cheese slice and says “tee” (which in all fairness to him sound a lot like the “ch” sound that the word he’s trying to say starts with.)  And there I go again, wondering when it will happen for Charlie.  When he’ll be enunciating his vast vocabulary like the brainiac he is.