A Middle

You don't usually think of "a" middle. There is the middle of something, like the middle of your forehead; it can be a place, like middle earth; it can be an adjective, like when someone gets in the middle of a fight. In our case though we really do use it as a middle. Liam is a Middle. To be really detailed he is actually a Young-Middle. Next year he will be an Old-Middle. Then he can move on to be a Young-Old before he becomes an Old-Old.

Confused?

We used to be too!

Liam attends an independent school that started out as an experimental school in the 1970's. They don't use grades like the public system. So Liam is NOT going into grade 1 this year. He will be in the Middles class. And since they have multi-age class rooms, he will be a Young-Middle. The names were decided on by the students in the 1970s. As new classes get added to the school they get named in the same spirit. So the 3 year olds starting in the daycare class this year are being called the Smidgens.

This will be Liam's 4th year at the school. He's been a Little, a Rising 5 and a Young. It's taken me till now to be able to keep all these names straight in my head and make the corresponding link to what grade the kids would be in at any other school. Liam handles it much better. If anyone asks him what grade he is going into he automatically will say "Grade 1" because he knows that outside the school no one will understand their designations.

I can't wait to see what wonderful things Liam will learn as a Middle. As a Little he came home and wowed us with his knowledge of phosphorescent fish (once we could figure out what our 4 year old was trying to say!). As Rising 5 he taught us all about the Titanic. And last year we all got to learn about the Green House effect on our environment. The new year starts in 2 days, so we won't have long till we find out this years topic!

In the still of the night

Liam has a friend over for a sleepover. They are attempting to sleep in the tent in the back yard. We'll see how long that lasts!

We bought glow sticks and sparklers for them to play with when it got dark. Both boys were scared to hold the sparklers but enjoyed the show Hilary and I put on for them.

Thank God I'm a Country Boy Gal

I did not grow up listening to Country and Western music. Mostly I had my mother's old LPs from the '50s and '60s. (If you don't know what an LP is you are just TOO YOUNG!) I had a few singles on 45s of 'modern day music' you know, the '70s. I listened to musicals. I knew all the words to Grease, Oklahoma and Annie. The only Country music I did listen to was a record my Grandfather gave me. The Best of John Denver (1974). I got that record on my 6th birthday, a month before we moved to the farm and I became an actual Country Gal.

Then I become a teenager in the '80s and listened to all sorts of bad music. My first grown up album was Freeze-Frame by J. Geils (1981). Piss on the Wall is still a favorite song!

The '90s saw a 20-something year old me, living on my own and checking out the bar scenes for the first time. Madonna, Prince, C+C Music Factory and various other dance music helped the nights go by like long, strange, sexy aerobic work outs.

But then the summer of '93 happened. In our intimate circle of friends, it is still referred to as "THAT" summer, even though it's been 16 years. A lot of stuff happened that summer. Some good, some bad, some awful, some strange.

Very strange.

THAT summer 4 20-something-year old lesbians ended up working in a straight Country and Western bar in Parkdale, Toronto. In the early '90s Parkdale was a pretty scary place. In fact I think it was the second worse area in Toronto for crime, drugs, prostitution and murder. In other words, a perfect place for 4 young women to hang out at night.

There were actually 2 bars, side by side. The smaller one had a few tables, some bar stools, a pool table and barrels of peanuts that you could eat and just drop the shells on the floor. The bigger one had a front room of tables and a back room with a dance floor and stage. During the day and on week nights I worked either at the small bar or at the front of the big one. The big bar's appeal to customers was the $0.90 draft. If you ever been a waitress or bartender you know that this translates into a $0.10 tip. It was not a very lucrative job.

The good money was made on Friday and Saturday nights. The back room would be packed, filled with smoke, leering dirty men with too many hands and karaoke. Country and Western Karaoke. My main job on those nights was "Shooter Girl". I had a metal tray that held test tubes of various concoctions hung around my neck, conveniently balance on my, then, very ample bosom. That may have been why Friday and Saturday nights were much more lucrative.

And during all of this strangeness something happened. It was a slow transition, so I didn't really notice it at first. It started with occasional toe-tapping. Then I would catch myself signing along every now and then. Finally there would be the smile that creeps across your face when you hear a song you really liked. And it hit me.

I liked Country and Western music!

Now I don't like ALL country music. I like some old stuff, I like novelty songs, I like some occasional new stuff. And since that summer I haven't really listened to Country and Western. I still love John Denver, I have Dwight Yoakum's "Looking for a Hit" cd on my I-Pod right now. And Hilary recently introduced me to the Dixie Chicks' "Earls Gotta Die". Now that's a song that gets this country gal's toes tapping!.

Wordless Wednesday

and holding..........

39

Aunt Becky Goes to Canada

Aunt Becky over at mommywantsvodka recently posted a contest where she sent out her business cards left over from Blogger and asked people to do something fun with them and then post a blog about what we did with them. Here is my contribution:

Be sure to check out everyone else's entries here.

On being an Aunt

Growing up as an only child I figured that I would never be an Aunt. Of course it never dawned on me that I could become one through marriage. And since shacking up with Hilary I have had that chance, as we have a wonderful nephew, Noah, who is one year younger then Liam.

Unfortunately since we live on opposite coasts of a pretty big country, and they sometimes live in Japan, I don't get to be that dotting Auntie that I imagined. You know, like Monica from "Friends", when Rachel and Ross have the baby and Monica declares "I will always have gum".

The converse of that of course is that Liam's Aunt (Noah's mom) doesn't get to dote on Liam either.

And then it hit me yesterday as I was walking home (my best time for random thoughts).

Liam has another Aunt, who lives on this coast, in fact only a few hours away. But adoption has interfered with that relationship. When most people think about adoption they never go past the "triad" - child, first parent (and even then most only think about first mother, not father) and adoptive parents. Yet there are so many other connections that can be lost when adoption enters the picture: Aunts, Uncles, cousins, Grandparents.

Open adoption is a great step towards keeping those connections forged. Letting children grow up knowing ALL of their extended family, seeing their traits reflected in their people, being loved by many.

My other random thought yesterday was to ponder if I am an Aunt through my own first family. I know that my 1/2 sister Madelaine does not have any children, but I also have 4 1/2 siblings from my father's side. They are all 20+ years older then I am, so it's quite conceivable that they had children who now have children of their own.

This thought of even more lost family connections has got me thinking, once again, about whether or not I should try to find and contact my first father's family. Something I will have to ponder some more.

And my last random thought yesterday?

Aunt Andy just sounds funny! Whether you say it as ANT or Awnt (which makes me want to say Awndy instead of Andy) neither rolls off the tongue very easily. Auntie doesn't improve it nor does Aunt Andrea. I think I will switch to my French Canadian background and declare my self "Ma tante Andy"