abuse

If you saw a woman (let's say on a beach or at a pool) and she was covered in small, penny size, round little bruises, her torso, arms, neck, parts of the rib cage... all covered in little varying brown and yellow little bruises. What would you think? Abuse? Torture? Self inflicted torture? HA! I bet you the last thing that would come to your mind would be BABY! Right? I was standing in front of a mirror this morning counting them all (14 visible at the given moment) and applying "Arnica" tonic to the spots. Stella is a pincher and the older she gets the harder she pinches. And recently she has begun to pinch' n' twist. The pinch' n' twist leaves the darkest bruises. Maybe if I did not bruise so easily... but, boy, does it ever look weird. I'm starting to train her not to do it, but it's not as easy as you'd think. The pinching is a sort of a calming mechanism for her it seems. When she's really upset - she pinches. When she's really tired and falling asleep in my arms she pinches. When she's really hungry - she pinches. When she eats - she sometimes pinches, too. And the more she pinches the faster she calms down. Strange bird!

breakdancing?

Judging from the third picture in the series you might think she's break dancing. No! She noticed me with the camera and tried to take a step towards me without holding on to the couch. Need I say more? Stella is close to walking, but still long way to go before she figures out the balance thing on her own. Of course it does not help to have a "bear" hiding under the couch and cheering (or should I be totally honest?) more like "roarrr-ing" her on. Kaspar is constantly pretending to be a bear, a moose, a lion, a wolf, a big bird or .... a garbage man. Sometimes he lets me pick which I want to see. But for Halloween he's going to be a giraffe. He's got no choice in the matter this year.

mischief

Oh boy! Toilet paper, tissue, books, Kleenex... you name it. This is my personal little shredder, who gets into everything all the time. She knows she's not allowed. She just grins and squeals and tries to get away, when caught red handed. Tearing and shredding things is one of her favourite past times! And being so tall, she able to coax a Kleenex box off the kitchen table, without much work, if it's left too close to the edge. We try to make sure the bathroom doors stay closed all the time, but I've noticed that she's figured out how she can slide her little fingers under the door (between the door and the step) and tug a few times and sure enough, after a while the door gives. We live in an old house where the door handles do not latch as properly as they should. :-) Oh, life with a toddler!!!

week from h.e.l.l.

Looking at these two, you'd hardly believe that I can title a post "week from hell". But it is... sometimes life just has a way of getting under my skin. And this week has been one of those weeks that I'd rather not ever have repeat. However, if I have to be fair the kids have been absolutely wonderful. In fact, they are the only ones keeping me grounded right now. Kaspar came up to me a couple of days ago and said: "I think you need a break. I think I'll just sit here and hold your hand, so that you can feel better." Talk about a perceptive three year old!

Let's see if I can list a few things that have made me go completely bonkers. I think I'm just begging for some sympathy here, aren't I? Oh well... right now I just need to get it off my chest.

I'll begin with... Our phone broke (without me fully noticing it for a day or two). That would not have been a tragedy if my merchant account manager had not called during those specific two days and assumed that I had either closed the business or moved the business and proceeded to file a closure of my merchant account with visa/mc. All this only a week after I had discovered that the same company has "lost" 3000$ of mine. They were taking longer then usual "looking into the matter" and then my account got closed... so, they stopped "looking into the matter". It took me several days to sort that one out. Several days of several hours on the phone and fax and email. I still don't have the money... They are still "looking into it". God, give me patience!

In the middle of the week some work that was supposed to be done by my casting company never came through. And you have to understand, this company NEVER has done this to me. They have been absolutely impeccable for the last ten years. But they messed up. They chose this week to mess up. And I had to deal with a very upset and angry client, who will probably never speak to me again and proceed to let everyone know about me being unreliable (it's a Latvian client... and the Latvian society here in the city is so small... the word will get around... I'm sure).

On Thursday morning I found out that my mom and I have been asked to make food for 60 people on THIS Friday night. And it's not like I was sitting with my hands in my lap in the mean time. I was getting ready for a sale on Saturday and scrambling to get some work finished before the sale. So, having been brought up right and knowing that you cannot say no to friends in need, I put my life on hold and went shopping on Thursday and did a bunch of prep work while entertaining the kids and continuing talks with my bank and having my arms greasy up to my elbows.... talk about multitasking. (The tenderloin roast with a tangy basil sauce turned out so well that I was tempted to keep it and not share!)

On Friday morning just after 11am, as my mother and I, and Stella and Kaspar packed into the car and made the first delivery... the car blew up. Well, OK, I am exaggerating a tad bit here. It stopped working and as we tried to start the car it just huffed and puffed and blew billowing clouds of smoke in the air and finally was towed to the Volvo dealership. It had just been serviced there at the beginning of the week and given a clean bill of health. What gives? I still have no idea what happened to the car, but was forced to abandon all my plans for Friday, let my mom finish all the food prep and I had the pleasure of dealing with towing, car dealerships and mechanics, who (as I discovered just this Friday!) speak a different language then me. I know NOTHING about cars!!!

On top of it, I had to find a car to get to the show the next morning, which happened to start bright and early and was out in the middle of nowhere, about 1.5h north of Toronto. At about 8pm, when I had finally found a car to borrow and arranged to have everything in place for 7am the next morning, my arranged babysitter for the kids for Saturday called in sick. That topped the whole day! I wish someone could have just called the mental hospital and had me admitted... I so much so did not want to deal with any of this. I cried and kicked the wall and woke up Kaspar doing it. And cried some more... I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and am recovering as we speak. Miraculously, my "Latvian connections" bailed me out, once again. I'm sure my friend Tania would say "I knew it!" right about now. So, even though I still feel like I'm recovering from a breakdown, I do feel blessed. And thankful for every friend I have ever had and those that I still have... and all the people I meet in my life. I'm turning the corner and hoping for a better week ahead. God bless you all out there... ...

shoes

How many shoes does a girl need? Apparently no more then 20 pairs or so for the first and second year. Especially if you do not intend to do much walking during the first.

No, I did NOT buy Stella twenty pairs of shoes and boots. While I do have a passion for a good shoe (or boots are even more of a favourite of mine!) I have not had the pleasure of purchasing any of these. They've come to us in the form of gifts or hand-me-downs.

are you cooking?

With two kids on my hands, a hubby touring (more then I could have ever imagined!) and a business to run and about to have to back to my day job... there is still one thing I take time to do. It's cooking. I love cooking. Cooking makes me happy. It calms me. It makes me forget all other troubles. I love it!!! I'm happy to say that I have discovered recently that Kaspar is very much into helping me cook. So, these days I've learned to cook with both of the kids present. I usually try setting Stella up in front of the fridge with a stack full of magnets to take off the door. Kaspar with a little cutting board and a blunt knife and a soft fruit or vegetable or two. He does all the chopping for me! And it's even better when friends come along and set me up with new and unusual recipes asking for a lot of soft veggies or fruit to be cut up. :-) I'll post this one, because it was sent to me as a picture attachment and even though I burned it the first time, it came out awesome the second time. Hope you can read it... It's BBQ Peach crumble.

cool finds

I found this awesome coat at Value village the other day. Could not resist spending the 5$. Even though it's very possible that by the time Stella hits age 5 or 6 and would fit into this gorgeous little coat, she might not like it one bit... Regardless, I'm keeping it. It's made by some European clothing label Bo Ba (the "a" with two little dots on top) or Maybe it's even Ba Ba (both "a" with dots on top). I've been trying to Google it, but nothing comes up regarding kids clothes. But it's such a cool coat. And the red fabric is this soft, soft, fine corduroy material. The pockets made me guess that t might be some Scandinavian design. Any ideas?

first day

Even though Kaspar is only three we decided to put him in Latvian school kindergarten as of this fall. It's only a few hours every Saturday morning and it's a great chance for him to meet and hang out with other Latvian speaking kids his own age. Well.... relatively speaking, I guess. Most of them are a year older. Last Saturday was his first day of school and he took it very seriously. Very seriously! The night before we had to read the "Jekabs & Joakims" story about six times trough from cover to cover (it's an interactive book about an elephant, who goes to school for the very first time...) And the next morning Kaspar was not impressed about the fact that we did not have enough apples to bring for every kid in his class. That's what Joakim does, when he goes to school... he brings a large bag of apples for all his classmates to share. So, Kaspar had a little breakdown on me.

The morning routine and getting ready for school otherwise went relatively smoothly. He even managed to pack his own bag. But once we got to school and he saw the teacher and some of the other kids he became this quiet and shy and frightened three year old... I'm still surprised how the shy stage for kids only begins after they turn two and a half or so. Before the age of two they don't seem to really grasp the "shy" thing. It took a few minutes of holding both Stella and him in my lap, a few friendly kids, who wanted to share a train track with him ... a good ten minutes into the school day he was off on his own, playing and laughing and ordering the other kids around. Yup, he's becoming a little bossy. I blame the "older sibling" status for that. Finally, when he noticed that I was still lingering by the door he came up to me and in a gentle but firm voice said: "Mommy, get lost, please. Don't you see? All the other parents have left." That was enough of a hint for me to take off ad finish signing him up for the class. I knew it was safe of me to pay the non refundable school fees for the year.

I do have to clarify the "get lost" statement... or else I might have emails from grandparents and concerned family members asking me about the language my child uses. First of all, it was said to me in Latvian, of course! And I'll have to blame Disney for the advancement of my three year olds' language skills, especially the rich vocabulary in Latvian slang. There are four or five movies (Shark's tale, Cars, Ice Age) that have been given to Latvian movie studios by Disney and re-done in absolutely fabulous Latvian. We own a few of them and they are some of Kaspar's favourites. He watches them on average three to five times a week. So, the language he's learning from these films is not only full of humour, great lines but also rich in slang, of course. Just the way some kids pick up lines from movies in English, my child has developed a very advanced Latvian sang vocabulary and uses movie jokes to make people laugh. He's in his "I'm a parrot" stage. It'll pass... I'm sure.

california

Oh, beautiful California! We just got back from a work/holiday week there. It was awesome! I loved the weather in California... and the ocean... and the palm trees. Kaspar was thrilled about the waves and Stella was happy to spend days on end in the sand. My only problem was trying to keep a hat on her head, but we managed to keep her under an umbrella for some of the time. And she did learn to eat everything 'sand'. You know... apples dipped in sand, sandy fingers, sand covered cookies, sandy spoons and even at time sandy flip flops. Got to love that "everything goes in my mouth" stage of babies!

back in toronto

Uh. Um. We've been back home for a few days now... Well, I guess I should admit it to myself that it's getting close to a few weeks... But returning home has meant not only lots of toys for the kids, but also LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of work for me. I'm trying to juggle between studio work and taking care of Stella and Kaspar and weeding a yard and washing dishes and making breakfasts, lunches and dinners and washing laundry and floors and lamps and visiting friends and family and so on... and so on...





Kaspar was thrilled to return back home, where all the usual suspects of toys were all of a sudden like a brand new discovery. Talking to his dad in English was also a little bit of a challenge for the first few days.Stella was a little perplexed about the time change again, but was back on track in two days. I was swarmed instantly with orders and work for both galleries as well as individuals and upcoming shows. And the house needed to be readjusted from "a bachelor's flat" back to "a family dwelling". The yard that had seen so much rain that not only the plants and trees had grown and overgrown their flowerbeds, but also a swarm of weeds had overtaken some of the emptier patches of earth and grown high enough to tickle my armpits. So, needless to say, blogging has not been my priority.