ashleybristowe.com

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Proof That Kids Don't Need Toys

All it takes is imagination. I think I heard that somewhere.

This is shower cap, filled with water and tied closed. It contains the lid of one of those teeny hotel shampoos, and an old bandaid.

The day before I found this in our Airlie Beach bathroom, we'd been touring the Brisbane Sunday riverside market. Sloane had been fascinated by the aquarium booth, and especially interested in watching the chinese fighting fish swimming around in their bags.

I'm just saying.

Categories: Australia 2008 | Sloane

Monday, May 19, 2008

Benefits of the zoo

Life and death, death and life.

The death of basically all of the Calgary Zoo's stingrays last week made national headlines. Here we are at the stingray exhibit just over week ago, when everything was still going well.

It was a cool exhibit. Sloane and I both chickened out when the rays got too close to our hands, though. No thanks for me! I'm still with the "that's a wild animal and it doesn't want me touching it" opinion I had back in 2004, in Australia.

...But also I'm scared of fish n' shit, yo.

Any guesses as to what else we saw at the zoo? I found this little tableau on the coffee table the next day.

Categories: Calgary | Sloane

Saturday, May 03, 2008

By Her Own Hand

A bit out of date now, this photo is from a month ago. I was at the helm of allowing this to happen, I admit. Turner went a pearly shade of grey when he saw this face:

Dig the painted toes! And yes, these were washable markers.

Categories: Sloane

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Park Times

We are blessed, living close to a number of good-ish parks.

Crazy nighttime bath bribe: note the pyjamas & indoor moccasins.

Swinging after playschool.

Categories: House | Sloane

Lobster Fest!

"We" here at ashleybristowe.com are a bit behind in the postings. So for your viewing pleasure, a photo from March. Gramma Margo came out to Calgary for Sloane's birthday, and she brought a whole schwack of live lobster with her direct from Nova Scotia. What to do but hold a big ol' Bristowe Turner Lobster Boil.

Dada? Dada? Dada?

Categories: Family | Sloane

Friday, April 04, 2008

Extra-curricular

Um, I guess we're those kinds of parents. You know, the ones who worry that we're not enriching our child enough.

Like:
Are we reading her the right books? Will she remember the art work in this one when she's 20 and think, "oh my god, that's when I decided to be a marine biologist/artist/dragon!"? Will she get to old age and tell her biographer, "Yes, if my grandmother hadn't saved those old Babar books from when my mom was little... I think I would never have become a mushroom farmer. Do you remember the one when Cornelius ate the poisonous mushroom? He turned green and died! It made a great impression on me. From a very early age I knew I could change the public view of fungi."? You just don't know what might stick, what might be seminal in hindsight. Nope, you just have to get every damn good book out there and read it 350 times. Just to be sure.

Are we doing a good job with the nutrition? We want her to be adventurous with her eating, but balanced of course, and cautious when necessary. So let's bring the leftover bok choi and brussel sprouts for her after-school snack. By 5pm she'll eat anything!

When it comes to the physical stuff though, we know we're doing ok. The trampopoline in the backyard is a great thing. And then we also let her jump/climb on the furniture. Great for the balance, that. I came from a great tradition of climbing on the furniture. The other day Brucio came by with a pile of old photos he'd snagged from Grandma's archives and among them was a picture of me and my siblings with our grandparents. My first thought was, "I did a lot of headstands on that couch."

So it was kind of an inevitability that Sloane would end up in gymnastics. The local program is, frankly, way more than fabulous and worth every single dime. Darlene, who runs FitKids out of a church hall in Inglewood, is way more than awesome. The equipment is top drawer, exactly what you'd see in a competitive gym. Everything's weighted and safe and there's always a theme to the week's rotations. Sloane fricken LOVES it.

The before-Easter class had a special treat, the reverse bungee:

On goes the harness...

Boi-yoi-yoing!

Yep, that's our three-year-old, nine feet in the air and loving it.

I won't post the pictures of my temper tantrum after being told I wasn't allowed a turn.

Categories: Sloane

Comments [4]

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Happy Easter, Old Skool

For several (...okay, many, many) years, I've wanted to do psankye on Easter. I'm 1/4 Ukrainian, but my grandfather being... male, "my heritage" mainly manifested in periodic anecdotes about language loss and Ukrainian flags dangling from the rearview mirror. Mostly not so much with the arts and crafts. Especially when I was growing up in Winnipeg, I'd watch the neighbour kids head off to dance lessons once a week with flowers in their hair and be jealous.

So, yeah, it only took me six years since I moved back to Calgary, but I finally finagled my way into being invited to do psankye at Alexis' parents' house. All under the guise of teaching Sloane about her heritage, of course.

Our fabulous host, Christina Bahry, shows off the various (indelible! and inedible!) special Ukrainian easter egg dyes.

This was the post-holiday email I sent to Alexis about the event:

"Your parents were total saints about the fact that we brought a toddler into their house, and proceeded to engross ourselves in an activity involving concentration and indelible dye for several hours, obliviously leaving them to tag-team babysit Sloane. Meanwhile we drank up three pots of their coffee, smashed eggs on the floor, and yammered on about our own blathering ideas... after which they basically had no choice but to feed us lunch. Not only did your mom pull a huge crayon-marker set from out of nowhere in a very timely fashion, but she also spirited up a surprise: one fully remembered-and-wrapped-plus-card birthday present for the wee girl. ...In what I can only assume was Easter-inspired delirium, your parents suggested we make it an annual thing and I readily agreed before they could change their minds."

We made three eggs between us adults and carted them around all weekend, to the various Easter stuff we did, to show them off and brag about how authentic our Easter experience had been this year. Ya, late-bloom Ukrainian crafthood in my mid-30s: that's my story.

The red one is Margo's - widely regarded as the best effort this year - simple, beautiful. Mine's the way-too-complex one in front (I think that black-and-yellow crisscross circle bit at the front there is supposed to be the traditional 'sunflower' pattern... yeesh), and Turner's is that one in back, showing off the traditional repeating patterns to best effect.

I really enjoyed the whole artistic element of the psankye stuff and was only half-joking when, after Christina presented me with a bunch of supplies to take home, that we'd have the 2009 event at our house. Of course, whereupon I'd show off the 7000+ practice eggs I'd done in the meantime... In my vision, I've put up high-near-the-ceiling shelves along every wall to display my many many creations, and the house has a not unpleasantly pervasive eggy smell. Also, my hair is in wrapped braids & I'm pulling a tractor through the kitchen, but nevermind...

After approximately 8.5 minutes of her "heritage", Sloane wandered around the house touching stuff and generally proving that a chinese checkers game and an ornamental wood tea set are waaaaay better real toys for kids than all the Barbies & bits of plastic "toy" junk out there all put together. Also, we showed her the very adorable communion photo of Auntie Alexis on the wall, which everyone enjoyed.

* Please note, some egg-zageration (har!) has been employed in this post for comedic effect.

Categories: Friends | Sloane | Ukrainian

Monday, February 11, 2008

At Turner's Presentation

Also from a few weeks ago: we were invited to spend a few days up at the Banff Centre, enjoying the views and dinner buffets, courtesy of the Festival speakers' series.

Sloane was surely Turner's most charming audience member. When we came into the auditorium Sloane saw the screen and pronounced for all the hall to hear, "Oh Dada! Look! It's your book, Dada! That's your book!" Twitters and smiles all 'round.

Categories: GeoHope | Sloane

Does She Got It?

So. Sloane is a child of mine, which means that various of her great- and great-great-grandparents were professional musicians.* From both sides, her one grandmother can play a mean Scott Joplin rag and the other is an accomplished choir singer. So it stands to reason that she might end up with some musical ability. When I took this photo up in Banff a few weeks ago, I said to Turner, "If she ends up even remotely competent at an instrument, we can pull out this picture and say: it all started here."

Sloane Lantau, Mt. Stephen Hall, Banff Springs Hotel. January 2008.

*Which, of course, meant that all us grandchildren were subjected to years of hopeful music lessons and various other attempts to coax out of us the latent - very latent, as it turned out - talent that surely slumbered in our genes. John Bristowe, a natural percussion genius, was denied drums and in their stead provided with a trumpet, and later, piano lessons. He got just good enough to get bored. And Viki Bristowe, blessed with fabulous pipes, never took actual serious training, and in the limpid teenagerdom we all suffer, ended up thinking she wasn't good enough or something, and never persued her voice. I hear Alanna's also pretty impressive with the singing. The rest of us... well, I dunno. I took piano and flute and can read music (though only in the treble clef), but certainly I was never much of an actual musician. So it went with most of us Bristowe grandchildren.

Categories: Sloane

Thursday, February 07, 2008

The Wizard Of Oz

Brucio gave Sloane The Wizard of Oz on dvd for xmas, and in the last two weeks we have watched it many times.

We have had many plot clarification-type discussions, including the "Howcome that lady wants to take Toto away from her?" conundrum. And the "...Who... who's those boys Mama?" That's the Lollypop Guild, dear. "Oh. Howcome they give Dorothy that big sucker, Mama?" puzzler. And of course never forget the ever-popular, "Howcome the Wizard left her there Mama?" Well lovie, the balloon got away and he couldn't steer it back to pick her up. "Oh no. Now she'll NEVER get home!"

While you might think the Wicked Witch of the West would be the scariest part of the movie, the scene that gets to Sloane is the one where the apple trees scold Dorothy for picking their fruit. I think it's scary because the tree actually slaps Dorothy's hand besides looking mean and frightening. As in, the tree actually enters the physical space of and interferes directly with Dorothy, striking her. If you think about it, the Wicked Witch of the West never actually even touches Dorothy, just comes in real close and points her green finger and makes threats and cackles. When she's got Dorothy trapped in her castle, she never even says that she'll kill her. The scene involves the Witch turning over the famous hourglass, and she points and says, "See that? That's how long you've got left to live!" Just enough mental distance from the concept of actually killing Dorothy to render it unjumpable (and therefore palatable) to Sloane. Brucio reports that he saw Oz in the theatre at about 6 years old, and at that age the Witch's threats and whatnot were sufficiently graspable to the 8-year-old mind for the character to embody capital-S "scary" for years to come.

In the end she's melted anyway, an incredibly satisfying revenge in toddlers' opinions (among those we've sampled).

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s of course I only saw The Wizard of Oz once a year at most, usually sometime around Christmas when it would come on television. I remember very clearly seeing it in Thunder Bay, in the basement of our house on Parkway Drive. I might have been four years old. I'd seen it before, because I remember the excitement and anticipation as we watched the sepia Kansas scenes at the beginning. Sloane's going to grow up knowing it backwards. Strange to only be in my thirties and already be thinking, for the thousandth time as a parent, "Wow... well, back in MY day it wasn't like this at all..."

Current favourite lyrics, from the Lion's song "Courage", in the corridor outside the Wizard's chambers:
What makes the Hottentot so hot? Who put the ape in apricot? What've they got that I ain't got? ...Courage.

Who put the "ape" in apricot. That kills me.

Categories: Olden Days | Sloane

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

2007 Year In Review

I learned and re-learned some lessons this past year. Wouldn't it be great if we knew it all at 18? Think of the world = oyster situation. Amazing.

On metabolic regulation: Remember to take your damn thyroid meds. Yes, every damn day.

On owning cats: One day you have a cat, the next day he's eaten by coyotes. So you grieve, and pull it together and get another cat. And then one day that cat is run over and you find yourself digging a second pet grave beside the house. So you reflect on your animal track record, but decide you still want to be a cat owner, and you get two more cats. And Sloane says, "Mama, please may we not let these new cats die?" Heh. We'll do our best.

On getting what I want: Patience and humility have done wonders for my win ratio. From photo assignments to getting Sloane into the right playschool, shutting up and being polite and proceeding with grace have been such amazing lubricants this year. Shoulda learned this one at age 20.

On getting fired for other people's bullshit: Sometimes you get fired for other people's bullshit, nothing you can do.

On parties: People will not come at the appointed time. The best people stay late, but the worst'll hang around until then, too. Exits define your attendance, particularly if you stomp the shrubbery on your way out. If you're serving mulled wine and beer, some friend-of-a-friend will still march in and ask for a good scotch straightaway (and we will give it to them). And we'd still love a few more invitations to other people's parties, please... a reminder to publications and corporate friends: freelancers have no Christmas parties or schmancy fundraisers to go to unless you invite them to yours.

On accounting people at various publications: People will take as long as inhumanly possible to pay you.

On finances: It's good to be able to mean it when you say, "Well, if we have to sell the car and the house, I can live with that."

On funding: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

On freelancing: Turner - "You will sometimes do your best work for free, you will sometimes do the most work for the least pay. The tradeoff is that you are your own master. ...Most of the time." September 26/07

On continuing education: As it turns out, I'm a complete obsessive, bent on perfection. If only Farokh could see me now (Farokh Afshar, my M.Sc. advisor, 1947-2007, peace be upon you).

On parenting: There are tough days. There are days when you are so flayed and raw and every smile and moment of concentrated attention is a huge effort. We want to keep her away from sugar, and tv, and crappy plastic toys, and the moronic cult of the fairy princess pervading the under-six crowd. But grandparents will still give her Smarties for breakfast, and Thomas the train dvds are incredibly helpful in moderation. So you try to find the middle way and hope to keep the scarring to a minimum.

Also on parenting: We are such good parents, way better than the rest of the parents out there. Also better than our own parents, of course.

On Sloane: She's the best. The talking, my god the talking. Being able to see into her little 2 year old mind has been such an amazing blessing every day. Even her temper tantrums are the best. And the hair is getting fabulous! When she hugs my head and says into my ear, "Ma-mee, Ma-mee, Ma-mee!" in this purposely hilarious pitched voice, I know she's going to have a great sense of humour and inner dialogue.

On attending weddings: Still a good idea, particularly when you've arranged babysitting.

On photography: Everyone wants to have their picture taken, even the ones who say they don't. Creating a meaningful photograph is one of the greatest gifts you can give a person. When they're ninety-nine and in a home and the caregivers ask for a photo from when they were young and beautiful, you bet they'll choose one of mine.

On sending out photos I've taken of people, having promised to send them copies: Managing expectations does wonders. Once I started saying, "Don't expect to receive these for quite a while," people were more grateful when they finally arrived. Take note McConnell Reunion-Goers, you still won't get your photos for quite a while.

On drinking: Sourpuss shots have their time and place.

On politicians: Disappointing liars, 98% of the time. I'm cautiously optimistic about the other two.

On marriage: I'd still rather be poor with Turner than rich with anyone else.

On Turner: I had this awesome and terrible realization about Turner. He is well aware of my many many failings, my ego, the judgemental edges. You think marriage is about loving someone so much. But the worst of it is that you have the love of someone else. Turner loves me despite everything he knows, and in the face of this I am appalled, and thunderously grateful.

On building community and having good friends: Pick the good people who love us back. Get rid of everyone else. Life is too short.

Also on friends: Sometimes people drift away. There're all sorts of reasons. I try not to take it personally, I figure the soul mates will resurface eventually.

On changing the world: It's exhausting. When you can't even convince your family to recycle their cans and bottles, the uphill battle seems that much more uphill. But boy, you take pride in your work, and you know you're on the side of good. Call it sanctimonious if you like, but it feels good to work hard.

On holidays: There are no holidays.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

The Egg Man Herself

Categories: Sloane

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Koo Koo Ka Choo

So last night we're listening to Sloane's new favourite song, I Am The Walrus by the Beatles. It was our ...15th? 16th? time hearing it. John Johnston was over visiting, and we were all in the livingroom enjoying the vinyl when the pop culture blew Sloane's gasket. I'm singing the chorus with adapted lyrics, i.e. "Sloane is the Egg Man, Sloane is the Walrus!". Sloane isn't liking it. She winds up and yells at me in complete rage, right in my face, with hands in fists thrown out at her sides.

"I am not the Egg Man!!"

Eyes bugged out. Piiiiiiissed off.

It was so funny. It was SO funny. But we couldn't laugh.

Categories: Sloane

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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

The Rest Of The New York Shots

I spent my lovely birthday evening uploading, naming and captioning our NYC pictures. Hurrah!

Although I ran out of steam to fix and fuss with every image, the total shortlist of the trip is now up on Flickr. I recommend the set & slideshow, here.

Categories: Friends | Sloane

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Dreadful Sorry

Well, a really sad thing happened on the night of the lymphoma walk. Somewhere along the way, Sloane lost her baba.

The baba is a family tradition. That is, I have a baba (which, now that I'm an adult, I call my "softie"), and Sloane has a baba. Sloane's first baba was, actually, one of my old babas from when I was a toddler. My mum saved them (there were multiple babas, all the same, white waffleweave cotton with a satin fringe) and ironed them and gave them back to me when Sloane was born. We introduced her to them when she was about 5 months old. "Baba" was one of her first recognizeable words.

The current baba which we lost on Saturday was actually a "new" baba, made by Granny Val especially for Sloane about six months ago. The old babas were wearing thin - literally - when suddenly in the mail arrived this amazing, satin-lined, fuzzy-centred, holes-in-the-corners-for-stuffing-fingers-into yellow baba from Granny.

Hurray! Turner and I said. Boo! said Sloaner. It took us about a week to convince her that the yellow baba was the new baba, I'll admit. But after that, we were good to go. We'd throw a complaining-for-whatever-reason Sloaner on our shoulder, then stuff the baba under her neck, and wait for the inevitable long sigh and the pop of her thumb going in the mouth. I tell you, that sigh, it's the sound of everything being all right in the world.

I would have bet cash money that we never woulda lost this yellow baba. Even now I find it hard to believe that it's actually gone. You know that feeling, when you lose something, that you get when you KNOW something is gone forever? I don't have that feeling about the yellow baba. It's out there in the world, somewhere.

Categories: Sloane

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Our Garden

Sloaner and the beans!

(Also shown, below: hollyhocks from Strawberry Hill, marigolds inspired by Shimla, and many sunflowers! The 'orange' theme for our newly-planted flowers this year is in honour of John Johnston's arrival in Calgary last spring.)

We have a great book, Barbapapa Sur Mars, given to Sloane by Jenny and Korey for her first birthday. It only took us a year to decipher the very elementary French of the story. And now? We love it!

Barbidur takes a bean, and plants it in the soil once they get to Mars.

Turns out that the French have moralising to do, under the guise of children's literature. This time, it's the well-known "never bring seeds across international borders" lesson you really need to drill into the under 5 crowd. In this story, the 'harmless' Earth bean tries to take over the whole planet! Mon dieu! Quel disastre!

For her part, Sloane was thrilled that we had planted and grown the very same beans which took over Mars! Formidable!

When we harvested all the beans that'd grown - two whole packages' worth of 'runner beans' - we ended up with just about enough to not-quite-be-a-side-dish for one person. Has Montsanto taken over the domestic bean market here in North America, too?

Categories: House | Lise | Sloane

Because We Don't Arrange Enough Play Dates, Obviously

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Categories: Sloane

This One's Mainly To Panic The Grandparents

I got weak in the legs, watching Sloane traverse over these 3m-high loops at the local playground (on the occasion of our Ramsay Safe Walk evening, post to follow). Turner called me over to see the feat, reportedly sick to his stomach watching her the first time, himself.

Sloane, Dada, and Mia Ho.

In my day, I was also a great climber, me. For which I give my mom & dad HUGE props for being completely cool with letting us climb all over everything, including up onto counters and tables, and for providing us with swing sets and jungle gyms in the backyard throughout our youth. John and Ainsley and I all grew up with no fear of heights, and amazing core abs strength as a result of all that monkeying around.

But I very clearly remember visiting Nanny and Grampa at 206 South Hill Street in Thunder Bay, and climbing up onto the kitchen counter to fetch this ceramic bird from a shelf beside the sink - it was one of those things you fill with water and then blow through, producing a very passable bird tweedly-tweet-tweedly-tweet! So I'm scrambling up onto the counter with basically no trouble, and standing there picking up the bird, and Grampa comes in and yells, "GET DOWN FROM THERE! YOU'LL HURT YOURSELF!" And me: ...Really? I will? How?

This exact scene was to be repeated many, many, many times with my grandparents over the years, well into my twenties. And every time, the whole idea that I might possibly fall and hurt myself always struck me as absolutely ludicrous. Frankly, I had excellent balance and had the gymnastics balance beam medals to prove it. On a two-foot-wide counter I knew exactly what I was doing. Their fear of my inability to keep myself safe while climbing truly made me question my grandparents' judgement. I never fell. None of us did. And I wondered how grown-ups got things from the high cupboards.

When we moved to Calgary I was sent to Sam Livingston elementary in Lake Bonavista. In the schoolyard, there were these peanut-league soccer goalposts that had an extra, lower, set of bars within their frame. Me and the other gymnastically-inclined girls would play up there all recess and on lunchours, doing half-kips and baby drops, great fun. And then in grade five, along comes Lindsay Schooley. She was new, having moved to Calgary from somewhere else. She wanted to play on the bars with us. She didn't know what she was doing, and she fell, and broke her arm. We all got to sign her cast. But after that no one was allowed to play on those bars. And I remember, even as a 10-year-old, feeling so indignantly gipped by the whole situation. Pissed off: I most certainly wasn't going to fall and break my arm. Lindsay didn't know what she was doing and had tried a baby drop and missed it and now suddenly all of us were banned from the best part of the playground equipment. (I'm sure Lindsay Schooley is now a very capable adult leading a productive life. I'm sure she's a very intelligent and nice person. Let me not imply that Lindsay did anything wrong or bad by breaking her arm on those bars at Sam Livingston elementary way back in the early 1980s. I'm just noting here that she ruined it for the rest of us.) Even as a young person I had my suspicions that Lindsay's parents didn't let her climb around on the counters at home.

But! now! as a parent, I can really understand the concern for the first time. It's an actual physical feeling. It's as though you, yourself, are in danger. The blood sugar crash, the rush of sound in your head. Danger! Watching Sloane climbing these loops, my legs went tingly and strange. I really really really wanted to grab her and pull her down. You know, to keep her "safe".

So I now doubly, triply, quadruply appreciate my own parents' restraint when it came to this stuff. I'm sure they went through the same thing, that same gut fear. But they squelched it. (Or just didn't care. ...Just kidding! Kidding, kidding.) And I grew up strong and able and athletic, with excellent balance and no physical fear. Turner and I have talked about this - the climbing - a lot. He absolutely didn't do stuff like this when he was a kid. Turner wasn't allowed to stand in chairs or climb along the backs of couches, and of course the famous example in his family is that he wasn't really allowed to look down into the Grand Canyon when they visited it. ... And Margo, I know you're reading this! I want you to know that I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND where you were coming from. That fear - it just doesn't go away, does it? I think it never really does.

At this point, I can completely believe getting emails from Sloane at university, with photo attachments of boat races and cheerleading pyramids, and still getting that crazy parent vertigo.

For now, however, we're biting our tongues and fighting the nausea. And hoping she ends up with an "Excellence" in the Canada Fitness Test (when they re-institute it, of course), and never falls off a counter. Because then, of course, my grandparents will roll over in their graves and yell "I TOLD YOU SO!"

Categories: Dad-ness | Mom-ness | Olden Days | Sloane

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Globe n' Mail

Today Turner's sustainability column premieres in "Canada's National Newspaper", the Globe & Mail. This first one was titled "The Secret Greening of Calgary", and talked about the city's quiet commitment to sustainable energy solutions, despite the larger city's love of sprawl, SUVs and all things bling.

I was contracted to do the photos, which took me to southeastern Alberta to shoot the Taber wind farm (colour, Focus section cover photo, below the fold) and to the Erlton Ctrain station (three times, with three different children, to try to get the b&w ctrain-and-pinwheel shot they chose for page F9).

Get out there and buy the paper today, y'all!

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Sloane | Turner | Work work work

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Undercover Sloaner.

Categories: Sloane

Comments [3]

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Oh Woe, Oh Bliss, Oh Carolina

Taken from a long-ago seen funny bit of graffiti, is the title, here.

But me, I am 'oh woe' at the very least, because I am SO BEHIND in the blog postings-es. Lord ha'mercy, I have so much to tell. ...I may simply not live to tell it all, there's just too much from the last few months. But I'll try.

I'll start small: in height, that is.

Sloaner. She has a backpack. Alexis and I bought it at the Houston airport on our way home from Costa Rica. We all lurve it. So primary-coloured and tasteful and non-commercially-decorated (from "The Metropolitan Museum Store", apparently the design hails from a newly-unearthed Egyptian tomb). And it has a hippopotamus on it.

So this backpack, she takes it to school. It holds her (many) changes of big-girl underpants, an extra hat, some sunscreen, a granola bar for hungry days, and various other stuff.

I took this photo en route to school sometime in early August, when we were newly back from 'out east' and Sloane was re-new-ed-ly THRILLED to be putting on her own backpack. You have to be dead inside if you can't find something to laugh at when you live with a toddler:

Of course, once I ran for the camera and started taking pictures, Sloane realized something was up. The backpack - it had to go.

Sloaner sez: "F-you, backpack! ...Mama, will you carry me?"

Categories: Sloane

Friday, August 24, 2007

Naked toddler trampoline-o-fest!

Categories: Sloane

Thursday, August 23, 2007

She Said, He Said

Me:         Okay Sloane, that's it. (Taking bowl, standing up)
Sloane:    Nooooooo! Noooooooo!
Me:       Yes, that's it. I'm sorry. (Moving to sink, emptying bowl)
Sloane:    Nooooooo!
Me:         Yes. Yes. I'm sorry lovie. That's it. (Wiping hands)
Turner:    (Coming into kitchen) ...What's going on...?
Sloane:    No! Mama! (Crying. Screaming. Throwing spoon.)
Me:         (Turning to Sloane) No, lovey. You may not throw your bowl while blowing milk through the whole wheat ...shedded wheat ...bran squares. (Looking at Turner. Grinning at the idiocy of the statement.)
Turner:    ..."Living With A Two-Year-Old In Fifty Words Or Less"
Me:       ...Too true.
Sloane:    Mama, I'm done!

Categories: Dad-ness | Mom-ness | Sloane

Thursday, June 14, 2007

The Ongoing RESP Obsession

Yeah, I'll admit that this is more my obsession than Turner's. But we're both pretty bought-in on the idea that we'd like to be able to provide for Sloane's post-secondary education (whatever that ends up being, sweetie! Seriously! Art school, sure! Engineering, okay! Whatever you want!). We both had that deal from our parents in undergrad. And although we, neither of us, probably really grasped what a gift that was, at the time, in the years since it's been made perfectly plain what an AMAZING gift it is not to have the dreaded student loans that many of our friends are still paying off, now, into their 30s. We do not have those loans. That is an AMAZING gift. Those loans that loom large for years and years? The ones where they garnish your wages, straight out of your bank account, even if it's a shitty recession in Ontario where you can't possibly find a job for love or money (or even "love" for money, not that either Turner or I eventually got to that stage) and they take the money out of your account right at the end of the month, right before you're supposed to pay "rent"? (True story of someone I know.) Oh, but I digress. We are SO GRATEFUL: take heed, our wonderful parents who paid our way. We are now, finally, incredibly thankful for your gift of education!

And so grateful, in fact, that we feel the burning need to do the same for our own child.

And so we save. And save. Even when we're conserving water and shutting off lights at night and using candles instead, we save for you, O Sloaner Baloner, and your eventual post-secondary education. We are not... "unaware" that you will probably waste lots of time in university. And we are not "unaware" that you will drink your face off, perhaps even eventually smoke a doob or two. We know it's bound to happen. We don't LIKE that it's going to happen, but it'll happen whether we like it or not. What we want to ensure for you is the OPPORTUNITY to smoke those doobs and waste that time, IN THE UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT. And maybe get some book learnin' in. You know, if you can spare a few moments.

...Sloane, you need to know that your five grandparents are a big part of how we're saving the money for your education. They helped us and now they're helping you. When you're 19 years old and reading this online from whatever amazing place you end up, you need to know who your benefactors were. They roll up coins for you every day (Brucio) and send cheques for special occasions (Gamma and Grampa JT, and Granny and Papa Mike). Your Mama and Dada, we squirrel away every spare cent we have as loonies and toonies. And long ago we decided that the recycling money was yours, so when we take the mountains of soda water cans back, it all goes into your piggy bank. Every night before bed we have a ritual of changing your diaper, putting on pyjamas, and then putting money in the piggy bank. You always check the bottom to make sure nothing falls out. And then every few months we empty it out and take it down to the evil bank people in Mission to have it deposited in your RESP account. We pray, that even whilst they treat us like expendable feudal servants, they invest your money wisely. Seems (from the pie charts on the shiny monthly statements we receive) they're doing okay by us so far.

And that's how it goes. Hopefully we'll have the ONE BAZILLION DOLLARS it'll take to send a kid to university in the year 2024! ...One loonie at a time!

Sloaner tallies it up whilst Dada pours out the last few months' worth of bedtime-coins.

Categories: Sloane

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

She put 'em on all by her-SULFF!

Categories: Sloane

Friday, June 08, 2007

More About The Exhibition

As reported, I sent out this email saying "please come to the ~~exhibition~~ play" and told people that I'd be there on such-n-such dates. So as per the schedule, we headed down to the theatre as a family for repeat performances of the torture-of-watching-strangers-look-at-my-photos, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week. Turner would chase around after Sloane while I hid behind the structural pillars in the lobby, sucking on martinis. This, as part of our ongoing campaign to socialize Sloane into being one of those precocious kids who is at ease in 'thee-ah-tah' (and other "arts") circles.

We took some pictures (after everyone went into the theatre, so as to prevent me looking like a totally self-absorbed narcisstic asshole):

On the caption card:
Sydney, Australia. Taken during the Planet Simpson tour through Australia in November 2004. Turner was off doing an interview at some boobsy men’s magazine where women were definitely expected to be naked or absent. Instead of hanging around, I wandered through central Sydney. The shape-echo between the tricking bike and the birds at water’s edge always stuck with us as weird, and awesome.
Metallic paper, 11 x 14. (2004/2007)

Quaich
This traditionally Gaelic vessel usually holds scotch during celebrations. Originally published in Swerve magazine, January 2007.
Metallic paper, 11 x 14.
by Ashley Bristowe (2007)

The captions:

Left -
Fort Macleod Java Shop
Home of the best buffalo burgers in Canada, this old building is perched at a corner, along the southbound Hwy 2 in the middle of Fort Macleod. Part store, part restaurant, part bus station, the corner is dusty.
photographic ink print and laminate on canvas, 20 x 24.
by Ashley Bristowe (2004/2007)

Right -
Knowles Motel
Just east of Moose Jaw, SK off a feeder road to the TransCanada Hwy. The prairie sky was – obviously – doing one of its midsummer showstoppers. We were pulling a drive-till-we-drop cross-country sprint but roared onto the shoulder for this one.
photographic ink print and laminate on canvas, 20 x 24.
by Ashley Bristowe (2004/2007)

These are the ones that sold. I think I've agreed to a limited run of 5 prints (remember, many martinis): at this manipulation, this size, three sets are sold. We're going to keep one set. Which leaves one for the clamouring masses. If you think that based on this photo that you. must. have. a. set... Well? I suggest you contact me post haste: (403) 234-0176. They are awesome, but my natural inclintation to think my friends are humouring me leads me to believe that I shouldn't wait by the phone. (Prove me wrong?)

...Etcerera. Vertigo Theatre, Calgary. (2007)

There were others, but I got too self-conscious and had to go home and throw up.

My official apologies to Mark Heard, with whom I originally offered to share this exhibition but I didn't get my shit together in time. I am a big narcisstic asshole. Also I was registered in Art History 110 at ACAD and it seemed to suck up every moment of my free time (please see previous postings re: this) that I would have otherwise used to be not-a-narcisstic-asshole in the sense that I would've finally figured out a time to meet and get our photo choices sorted. Let's do something at ArtSpace in the fall? Sorry again. Love Ash

Categories: Ash | Calgary | Sloane | Work work work

The Hockey Thing

I won't go on and on here, because I mainly just want to post this photo. But those who know me know that I'm not a particular fan of hockey. It's more about how men behave when they're watching hockey than anything, but there's also the thing where many boys are perfectly nice and normal and doing fine as teenagers playing hockey and then around age 16 or 17 the ones who get to pre-Junior-A sort of level turn into GIANT ASSHOLES. Almost to a one. It's really quite extraordinary.

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about that. I just wanted to post this picture. It's from the second-last game of the Stanley Cup Final, where Ottawa went on to lose on home ice. Turner was cheering vociferously for the Sens to choke. Brucio for his part had trained Sloane to chant out, "GO SENS GO. GO SENS GO!" Me, I hid in the kitchen, biting my fists.

Caption: The Brainwashing Of Sloane Turner.
Subtitle: Wherein My Husband & Father Conspire To Destroy Me And My Girlchild.

Categories: Ash | Sloane | Turner

Monday, May 14, 2007

Categories: Sloane

Friday, May 04, 2007

Sloane's Greatest Hits

We recently became the owners of a lovely little green iPod Shuffle, purchased by Grampa Brucio specifically for Sloane. It's a cute little thing, almost too small to comprehend. I feel like such a dinosaur when I marvel at its smallness, having been the semi-proud owner of several gigantic ghetto blasters in my teenage and university days. (Then I met Turner, Mr. Clark Hall Pub DJ, and graduated to having a whole "stereo", with seperate "woofer" and "cd changer thingee" and "speakers" all strung together with "cords".) That you can put 250 or 1000 or 20,000 songs on it is immaterial - I simply can't get past the fact that that music is put somewhere in a piece of machinery about 1/4 the size of a pocket calculator. And all kinds of MATH fits into a calculator! Surely you can't possibly stuff bigger pieces of the universe into something smaller than a calculator.

However it seems they can, and now we, too, do. Although she hasn't embraced the concept of wearing her earphones, she does love the songs we've put on the shuffle. Which we play through the olde-tyme "stereo" in the livingroom.

Sloane's Greatest Hits: The Playlist Thusfar (with Sloane's personal title, if applicable, for each song in parentheses):

Jump Around, House of Pain ("Raise The Roof")
Big Rock Candy Mountain, Harry McLintock
Wonderwall, Oasis ("Gonna Throw It Back To You")
Hey Ladies, Beastie Boys
Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell ("Paradise")
Black Betty, Ram Jam
Moonshadow, Cat Stevens
Looking Out My Back Door, Creedence Clearwater Revival ("Back Door")
Tutti Fruity, Little Richard
La Petite Poule Blanche, Michael Doucet ("Fais Dodo")
Chicago, Sufjan Stevens ("All Things Go")
One Hand On The Radio, Aengus Finnan
Kowloon Hong Kong, The Reynettes ("Hong Kong")
Hold On, Sarah McLachlan
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Part I), Flaming Lips

Sloaner dancing with her Dada

Jump around! Jump around! Jump up jump up and get down!

Categories: Sloane

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Week... um... 80? Something like that?

Taken on the Coolpix.

Categories: Sloane