<saturday april 26, 2003 - 10:36 p.m.>

Warning- this is a long one.

Because I'm such a socially minded person, I would like to collect a list of ideas for Mother's Day gifts. Send me an email (tomkins@sympatico.ca) if you've received a particularly outstanding example of something that celebrates motherhood. If I collect a few good ones I'll post them here for Mother's Day.

I'll start it off:

• A homemade card. Because original artwork is priceless.
• Time given to spend doing your favourite thing - reading, sleeping, eating, strolling, biking, relaxing, looking and breathing - these are all Very Good Things.
• A vermi-composter (although I think I got it for my birthday, it is an equally good MD gift). After all, it is truly the gift that keeps on giving. For the uninitiated, if you believe that a vermi composter is one that uses a group of enslaved rats to make compost you're wrong, it is really just a bin of redworms.

In all honestly, I'm not totally in agreement with the principles behind M-day. I think the M-day is one of those industries that's mostly driven by Hallmark who in turn is doing a good job at driving our collected guilt. This change has only occurred in the last handful of years. If you don't get your mother a card you're in the doghouse. It is now required by Social Law. Those who don't follow along are treated like lepers.

And then there's Father's Day, which seems to be tacked on in June like an afterthought. Hey, if we have a day to celebrate mothers, then we surely need one for father's too? And what about cousins and uncles and aunts and secretaries?

I think we celebrate M-day on the wrong day. M-day should be celebrated on the same day of the birth of the child. That is the big day that everyone forgets about. We go hog wild celebrating the kid's entry into the world, but WHO REALLY DOES ALL THE WORK?

:)

Sometimes I come to a realization that talking to a two year old is like explaining something to an alien visitor from a faraway galaxy.

Xeepxorb, on our planet we use a toothbrush until the bristles get worn and frayed and then we throw it in the garbage. [Postpone lecture about our consumer-driven society until next year]. Then we get a new toothbrush. But under no circumstances do we retrieve and reuse the one that we just threw in the garbage. You see, on this planet there are these teeny things called germs. Now there is no need for immediate panic, but they multiply and live all around us, and especially in places like the garbage. They can make you really sick...

Suddenly everything needs an explanation. And the scary thing is that the two year old alien is listening and understanding, even storing the information you just relayed, waiting to spring it on you when it is most inconvenient to you.

i.e How do I explain the "five second rule" to a two year old, and how to I explain where it applies and where it doesn't apply?

Friday night was movie night. Mark and I were hurrying through the video store to make our selections. We always get one for ourselves and one for the girls.

Mark picked a children's movie that we'd seen on the New Release shelf for awhile. The cover looked interesting - a bunch of computer animated vegetables. We grab and go.

The movie started innocently enough. A family of veggies are driving a bus to a concert. ("How can they drive if they don't have arms?" I whispered to Mark. This question has no easy answer, so I didn't think about how they dressed themselves or functioned in society. Were there people to help them? Or was it just vegetables? Was there fruit?)

The veggies get in an accident and go to a nearby restaurant to await the tow truck.

They sit at a table and open the menu. This I scanned quickly for Vegetable Stir Frys but there were none, phew, they were safe. There at the bottom of the list was the word Compassion.

"What's compassion?" One of the little veggie boys wonders.

Well, there to answer the question is a trio of veggie pirates. Yes, pirates.

At this point I leaned over and whispered again, "Mark, is this some kind of Christian thing?"

And before you can say "Holy Whistling Peter" the pirates launched into a big song n' dance about the prophet Jonah (portrayed by an asparagus) whose job it is to deliver the word of The Lord.

Mark was amazed that I had pegged it for what it was so early into the movie. You see, it was all that talk about compassion that tipped me off.

I looked over at our collection of 30-or-so kiddy videos. How many of these movies take such a strong moral stance for anything - and use what can be thought of as "adult" terms like "compassion" and later on, "mercy." Answer: none, although some of our films have a moral, they are much more subtle than what we were watching.

Anyway, I'm not going to use this space to debate religious issues, or defend my own, but frankly I'm not that keen on religion being presented this way to an unsuspecting parent whose children have no concept of God or Buddha or Krishna or anything like that.

This movie turned out to be a biblical/vegetable reenactment of the story of Jonah and the whale. This film was chock full o'the good word.

I let the movie go by without much explanation.

There was one part that I took exception to. There was a big rainstorm and the pirate's ship was sinking. They were in trouble. No vegetable had ever seen a storm the likes of this one! Why was it raining so much? Answer: because God was angry. Clearly, someone on the ship had been bad.

I didn't want Emma to be traumatized by dramatic shifts in climate for the rest of her life. I pointed out that it doesn't rain like that if someone has been bad. That's not how the weather works.

Mark was mildly miffed that the movie case wasn't labeled. The very idea of this made me laugh. Imagine the big red sticker slapped across the front of the case: WARNING - contains religious subject matter.

Emma watched the film fairly intently. I don't know what she thought about it. Like during the musical number "Our God is a God of Second Chances" - didn't she wonder who this God guy was? There were no questions, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't had some effect. Perhaps she now thinks that He could smite her if she doesn't drink her milk or wash her hands.

Mark checked out the production company's website. Feel free to see it all for yourself. There are some video clips there too: www.bigidea.com/videos/veggietales/vtm01/default.htm

And here's the official site: www.jonahmovie.com. I recommend you view the trailers. They're pretty good, but it is interesting to note, now that I've seen the movie, how much they play down the religious content.

This afternoon we had a special family outing. Looking back, and knowing what I know now... I would not dare to do it again any time in the near future.

We went to the NAC (National Arts Centre) for a children's classical concert. We were an hour away from going when we realized that it was for children between the ages of 7 and 11.

I'm going to skip over the details and just say this - it was hell and I had a knot in my stomach the whole time. I was so tense you could have bounced a quarter off my back.

The show itself was very interesting. Did I manage to catch any of it? Very little. I was too busy trying to convince Sarah to (a) be quiet (b) stay in her seat (c) stay in my lap (d) stay on the floor (e) not take off her shoes (f) put her shoes back on (g) watch the show.

I would have died if it wasn't for some very stale licorice laces that I shoved in my purse as I was walking out the door. This kept squirmy Sarah occupied with chewing and pulling for about 17 minutes. And it was perfect until she started to yell, "more mommy!"

Five minutes before the lights went out before the beginning of the concert Sarah decided she was thirsty. In fact, it was almost dead silent in the auditorium when she said "WATER!" in a loud, yet dryly pathetic little voice. It was too late. To make things more difficult we were seated DIRECTLY in the middle of a long row about 60 seats across. At an adult concert this is prime seating. This is not so good for little kids who have tiny bladders and tend to be overstimulated. Hmm - should we disturb 30 people on our left, or the 30 on our right?

We were staying put, but the longer I thought about water the hotter and thirstier I became. I was cranky from the word go.

Anyway, Emma really liked it. At one point I turned around to see her bouncing excitedly in her seat. She was impressed, although I'm not sure if she really understood what was going on.

Anyway, the last 15 minutes was the worst. I just felt like slinging Sarah over my shoulder and heaving our two bodies backwards over the last rows of seats just to get out of there. I refrained. We survived, and then decided to prolong the experience by going out to dinner with them.

We went to Ho Ho's, which is a Chinese restaurant nearby. It's a bit of a dive, but we get takeout there a lot. They made big points with us. I have never been to a more child-friendly restaurant. The staff were amazing. And even made some balloon animals for us to take home. Emma got a pink dog (her request) and Sarah got a parrot whose perch looped around to make a hat. So all in all, dinner went fairly well.

I'm glad today's over. It was a long day. Tomorrow it's my turn to sleep in. And as an added bonus I have some luxury time to spend all for myself. Perhaps some shopping is in order.

andrea