January days

Half-way through January, the tip of the tongue of the year.

J is back in school full-swing. Five days and counting until this semester's end, but she will miss her classes, her writers, her artists, her performers and comedians, her bright learners. J has a week left of playing Daddyman at home before work starts up again, a week of taking trips to the library and reading about Anansi, derailing trains and drinking coffee at the Pepperdog Cafe. Our life is so full. Tonight at dinner we did a round of animal sounds, each guessing what the other was pretending to be. Ethan won, giving off a shriek that sounded like "Sh-rrrr-ekkkkk!" and was, indeed, Shrek. No one could guess it.

 Half-way through January and we've embraced every opportunity to make the most of the sun, hiking Horth Hill and Swan Lake in the good company of old friends and new.We chose paths less travelled in the woods we walked, and each took us to a sight worth staying silent for. E and the sun played like brothers, each unaware of the delight the other took in his company.

On rainier days, E found puddles and claimed them. The Js tried in vain to catch up on the laundry. One particularly rainy weekend, J and E drove up to Denman Island. E slept most of the way, visions of  Pepperoni Sticks dancing in his head. 

For Grandma Susie

Because laughter is the best medicine, here are a collection of photos for our farway Glamma, who is sick in  -- though certainly not sick of -- the big city of NYC.

It's early December. We've pulled off the island highway after hours of driving and found ourselves in a place called Coombs, into a marketplace where they claim goats graze on the rooftops, though we didn't see any. Coffee for the Js and a sticky, mincemeat tart for E. It's the season for sweet treats, so we don't mind that he loads up with sugar when there are still more hours of highway driving ahead. We're not on the highway now. The marketplace around us is busy and bright, but we find a quiet table perfect for a family of three.
We are happy.

Every other day this month we spend at the pool. J read somewhere that "spirited children are calmed by the water", and so E is encouraged to dunk-a-lunk his toes, blow his bubbles, douse his daddy with a shower from the bright plastic watering can. He's even allowed to sit on the steps of the hot-tub, despite the recommendations of the sign overhead. Every other day, after the pool, the boy is calm, sleeps well at night, and his parents look knowingly at one another and smile.

No mother should trust this grin. 

And for good reason. When J turned her back, E found her expensive (albeit old) MAC make-up and gave himself a Joker's smile. He also decorated as many of his cars and trucks as he could get his hands on before daddy found him. The web cam doesn't do the moment justice.

 

There are more stories, more photos, more videos even, and we promise to send them. Until then, be well. With love and kisses, J~J~E 

A Merry And A Bright

 

If we could have fit you all into our living room on the night of Christmas Eve, dear Readers, we would have done so. The room was all a dazzle.

  
An angel kept watchful guard as Handel's Messiah spun round on the record player. Our tree, sparse but lovingly decorated, kept vigil in the corner. J made a trip to Fan Tan Alley, to one of the oldest shops in Chinatown, and bought vintage streamers and accordian decorations ("These were made before you were even born," the shopkeeper said) and we strung them up while E was fast asleep. Then we sat, the only two Js of the world, and admired the sight. In the morning, at the decent hour of almost-eight, we came downstairs and delved into our stockings: first E, then dad, then mom. Our guests (and there should always be guests for Christmas morning, it's the best sleepover EVER) came down when their eyes were finally open, and we all exchanged gifts as the coffee brewed. Only you, dear Readers, could have made that morning more special; but as it stands in my memory, it was the best Christmas there's ever been.

 What can we say of the rest of December? It came and it went, and with it came and went the heartache and recovery that accompany the lift of hope and the tumbling down of loss. We Three Rioux held together. Soon it was New Year's Eve and our doors were flung open for family and friends to eat and drink and share our merry making. As 2010 rung itself out and 2011 shook itself into being, we hugged and kissed and felt alive in each other's gleeful company. What better gift could there be than to have a roof over our heads and the people we love dancing under it? Happy new year, one and all, near and far, good'ns and bad'ns. You are loved, you are loved, you are loved.

No(mo)vember

And so we come to the month of NO. No sun, no sky, no break of blue. The weather was contrary and so was the little boy whose favourite cry was NO. Joining the ranks of so many other men this month, J made his lady a vicitm of the retrostache, until she too cried NO. And so the month wore on.  

This makes it sound worse than it was.

Things are never quite so bad as they sound, and certainly not as bad as they seem. There was also the snow this month, which, despite putting J out of work for a good week, spread smiles of YES across our faces. This was especially true for E, who discovered the joy of making angels, throwing snowballs and tasting snowflakes. But it didn't last. It was a westcoast snowfall, after all.

This was also a month of stories. E begged for stories about Bucky the Brown Dumptruck, a spark of his Granny's creating, but one that caught and spread. Bucky became friends with The Little Mouse, who lives in a teacup on a shelf in Bucky's kitchen -- yes, this is a truck with his own seaside shack, complete with kitchen -- and The Schoolbus, a vehicle for patience and compassion, and the occasional moral. When E wasn't calling for Bucky stories, he was transfixed by J's stories of The Little Grub, which are hazy versions of our own memories of when E was small and grublike. These stories of our own imagining were supplemented by nightly readings from the Beatrix Potter collection and whichever new title we'd drawn from a recent trip to the library. Should it come as any great surprise that two such literary parents could produce a child with a love of books and stories? Perhaps not, but our delight and gratitiude are no less heartfelt for that. Some stories are best put to music, and even better when performed. It seems fitting to let E have the last word on this post, so here he is. Enjoy.     



Greetings and salutations!

Welcome to the Rioux family blog. Since we're not the type of people who can give ourselves over to facebook, and since we know our widespread friends and family miss us (just as we miss you), this is our great compromise. It is our new year's resolution. We will post photographs, in no promised order, and poetic musings, of no promised quality, and let you into our life a little. You can watch E grow and the Js grey. You can get to know Aunty Helen, our inimitable cat.  You can feel a part of our family, as you know you always have been.

Are you ready for a bit of time travel?

This is a nostalgic time of year. Everything seems to be drawing in and pulling close. It's a time of long good-byes and lingering hellos. It seems appropriate to look back and see how we wound up here. "Here" for our family is the house on Fifth Street. It's a townhouse, if you want to get particular, but it's home. Our first home. We moved in back in August and played host to as many friends and family members as we could fit for a good month afterwards. Sounds crowded, and it was, but it was also the best kind of housewarming. Since we didn't have a camera at the time, a good friend and an excellent photographer captured a few moments from that last month of summer (thanks M).

Owning your own home, we discovered, brings a sense of pride and
comfort. Somehow, doing the dishes in your own sink (because the dishwasher that came with the house conveniently and obstinately refused to work for us) offers a sensual, even a sexy appeal, as J clearly demonstrates.

There is a unique comfort to being in your own home that is not unlike wrapping yourself in a favourite robe and really letting yourself unwind, as E shows us how to do. E's sense of play helped the Rioux Famille survive the grind of the autumn months, when both Js took on more work than they felt able to do. A few timely getaways to serene islands like Denman and Saltspring also kept the threat of burn-out out at bay. We abandoned our landscaping and lesson plan woes, temporarily at least, to enjoy time with friends and family in cabins with wood stoves and wild gardens.  



When we returned to our island rock, we had a renewed sense of how to find magic in the unlikeliest places.

When Halloween rolled around, E discovered the true joy of gutting and carving pumpkins. An army of Jack o' lanterns guarded our porch and lit the path for trick-or-treaters.

 

E's costume was a unique creation. All month he'd

been talking about dressing as a dragon, but he took both Js by surprise when they asked (one too many times) what he was going as and the answer came, "A flying cat". J earned great big fatherly points by fashioning a set of wings that even the flying monkeys of Oz would envy.



The remainder of fall passed in a blur of gold and orange. We measured our days in trips down the path to the library, circles of the fountain in the rose garden park, black coffee mornings and picnic supper nights. J spent most nights between campus and her dance studio, while the boys built forts at home. And always there were the stories. E asked for them incessantly, and when the Js weren't writing they were crafting and weaving and narrating, building characters and worlds for which they had no memory. But E remembered every detail and demanded accurate retellings. One day, the Js said, we'll write these down, but that's a story for another post.