It doesn't seem to matter how much other stuff I have going on, I always have time to read. Don't have time to blog, don't have time to work, definitely don't have time to houseclean—still have time to read.

Science, Sense and Nonsense by Joe Schwarcz is a collection of commentaries on chemistry in everyday life, with a side of fraud-spotting advice. The book covers antioxidants, trans fats, historical alternatives to rubber, and a wealth of other topics serious and amusing.

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen is a young adult book about a modern girl who, bored with her family Seder, is transported back in time to 1941 Poland. I guess maybe the only thing worse than being a Jew in Poland in 1941 is being a Jew in Poland in 1941 who knows the future. She and her entire village are sent to a concentration camp where they fight to survive and to retain their humanity. This book has won a heap of awards (and I just found out it was made into a movie with Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy) and it is a wonderful story about the importance of remembering.

I read The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn out loud to Delphine. It's another time travel book, about a girl who is left alone when her grandmother dies. She is packed off to live with relatives in rural Ontario and is lonely and miserable until she discovers that the root cellar takes her back in time to the 1860s, where she makes friends and feels more at home than in the present. Her twin challenges are to track down a friend who doesn't return from the American civil war (in the past) and to find a place for herself in her new family (in the present). I loved this book when I was a child, and Delphine liked it this time around, as did I.

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson is a short biography of Shakespeare—short because we don't really know much about the playwright. In addition to what little we do know, Bryson covers disproved (or unlikely) theories and myths. As always, readable and informative.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss was a book club book. It's about old man who feels like he is disappearing; his long-lost son, a famous novelist; a teenage girl named Alma whose mother is translating a book which turns out was written by... well, you'll have to read it yourself. It's one of those books where the stories go along in parallel and you have to try and figure out how they're connected before the end when the author ties everything together with a big bow. It was a lovely book; I enjoyed reading it, although in book club we decided you have to read it in big chunks or you'll get too confused.

The Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech is a... young adult? Middle grade? I never know—although I'll have to figure it out pretty soon because I'm helping a friend with her middle-grade novel this fall— Anyway, it's a book about an angel whose quiet life in a tower is interrupted by the arrival of a girl who changes everything in the village. The book is written in the childlike voice of the angel, which sounds a little cringe-y, but Sharon Creech is a phenomenal writer and she makes it work. This is only a short book and it goes quickly, but it's well worth reading.

OMG, look at this! I was going to write a book blog post and here I find this half-finished book blog post. So I'm just going to finish this up and post it, and then I will work on blogging the eighteen thousand books I've read since I wrote this.

Twelve Books That Changed the World by Melvyn Bragg is a book that doesn't need much introduction. I believe it's a tie-in book to a TV series, the kind of TV series that could only be produced in England. The books range from the St James Bible to Mary Woolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and, curiously, Rules of Association Football. Each book is given its place in history, and as such this book is an excellent cheat sheet for someone whose education in history is lacking.

Further Under the Duvet by Marian Keyes was recommended to me by someone on Twitter (I think it was FlossieTeacake) after a discussion of villa-itis, or the fear that you are going to run out of bread while staying at a French villa. The book is a collection of essays and short stories. Keyes is an Irish writer with the most extraordinary Cinderalla story of going from abject alcoholism to fame and riches as a writer. The story is told in the book, along with essays on the joy of writing a makeup column (free samples!), air-guitar championships, shopping and plenty of chocolate. Funny and sweet.

Positive Discipline by Dr. Jane Nelsen is yet another positive/democratic/whatever parenting book. I don't know why I keep reading them, since I more-or-less know what I'm doing by now, but it's good to be reminded, and I do pick up different ideas from the various books. This particular book reminded me of the importance of family meetings, and reassured me that some problems (namely chores) will have to be revisited at regular intervals but are still worth handling democratically. I wouldn't call this my favourite democratic parenting book—it's just not funny enough. But it's worth a look if you need a refresher (or an introduction to positive parenting) or if you want a new angle.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is our first book club book of the year, and already this year's book club selection is looking better than last year's. The Gargoyle is about a man who gets terribly burned in a car crash, then meets a mysterious woman with a bizarre past while he's recovering. It's about love and redemption and all that good stuff, with a big dose of history. It's beautifully written and I didn't want it to end.

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. I have long been a fan of the checklist. I like to-do lists to keep my days focused, I like lists of things to take places, I like to record our daily routines in list form so nothing is forgotten. This book is the validation for my checklist habit: Gawande writes about how checklists can improve the outcome of extremely complex projects, such as construction projects, and surgeries. Checklists are already in use in construction and aviation, and the book centres on Gawande and his team's attempt to create a checklist to reduce the number of fatalities as a result of surgeries. It's not a smooth path, but along the way we learn the kinds of checklists (DO-CONFIRM and READ-DO), what makes a good checklist (not too much information, easy to read), what makes a bad checklist (too long), and the mind-boggling difference that a checklist can make in a process that everyone involved feels is already going pretty well. (Gawande uses his own checklist, and at first he thought it wouldn't make much difference to his outcomes. As it turns out, not a week goes by that the checklist doesn't catch something he would have missed, and it has even saved at least one life on his watch).

As usual, Gawande is engaging and convincing. This was a great read as well as a confirmation (and refinement) of my love for checklists.

Delphine's birthday party, or How To Throw The World's Best Party.

I was once again lured by the siren song of Flick'r, and posted pictures from December, January to April, and Ursa's birthday party there. I thought it would be easier than posting on the local page, but in the end I got tired of editing and saving all the caption text, picture by picture. Next time I'll go back to posting pictures on the local page.

Blake and I went for a bike ride today while the girls were out swimming with Baba and Zaida. I didn't really want to go, but Blake does so love to ride his bike, and I don't mind biking. So off we went, and went up some steepish hills and down a slightly scary one, found some nice nature to bring Delphine to, and lost contact with my butt. And that was, as they say, all well and good, but the interesting thing happened later.

I felt great.

My back didn't hurt, my foot didn't hurt (I've had plantar fasciitis for, like, months), and I had enough energy to run up and down the sidewalk flying a kite with Cordelia. I didn't realize how bad I'd been feeling lately until I stopped feeling bad, and clearly part of the problem is the utter lack of aerobic exercise I've been doing lately. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do about that...

Cordelia and I fought today. Not the screamy angry kind of fighting, but silly punching kicking fighting. She was hitting me as hard as she could, and of course I was just play hitting. It's never come up before, so I have no idea of the etiquette of playfighting. I suppose it's not done to playfight at all any more, but she's just so cute when she snarls at me with her perfectly straight tiny teeth, and thumps me with her tiny ineffectual fists. It's like being menaced by a chinchilla.

We watched Prince of Egypt today, admittedly a week late for Passover. I had forgotten how great that movie is. We bought it, so we can watch it as often as we like. Every Passover! We don't do anything else for Passover, apart from eat a lot at Baba's house, so why not create our own traditions?

I used to have a blog here, but lately I've been busy with this paying job thing and haven't been blogging much. I have about eighteen million books to blog about, and everything else. This is going to be the everything else post.

Delphine

Delphine is nearly seven and she's become all happy and patient and agreeable. Well, not all, but more than before. She sometimes doesn't respond when Cordelia tries to fight with her; she sometimes goes along with me when I ask her to do stuff she doesn't want to; she is usually happy after school and she seldom complains about her day. She's no Pollyanna, but she's not quite as emo and gloomy as she has been through most of the last year.

Delphine had her first piano lesson last Saturday. Piano lessons now are so much cooler than when I started playing: instead of starting with "this is a staff and this is a quarter note" it starts with "these are your fingers and this is the keyboard" and you plunk away, and notation is introduced as needed and no sooner.

So Delphine loves piano. She couldn't wait to get home to practice, and she has practiced every day this week.

Cordelia

Cordelia is still happy, sweet Cordelia. She tells me she loves me eighteen million times a day and she does little dances. She loves her friends, too—she and Anna won't go into the kindergarten playground without the other.

I wonder, sometimes, if Cordelia's always going to be the sweet, frivolous contrast to Delphine's darker personality. No, that's not quite right. What I wonder is how Cordelia's bubbliness will make the transition to adulthood. Where is she going to get that gravity that surely adulthood demands?

For now it seems like along with gloominess, Delphine also has a lock on scepticism, bookishness, and intellectualism (inasmuch as a six-year-old can be intellectual). Cordelia's only "things" are that she runs really fast (and a lot) and sings well. I guess I worry that Delphine's going to be "the clever one", leaving some other identity for Cordelia. I suppose even if she isn't "the clever one" she'll still be clever and she can always leverage that in whatever she ends up doing with herself.

Anyway, there's nothing so sure as that they'll be what they'll be and I have much less control over what they'll be than I'd like to think.

Me

As for me, I have got myself a paying job. I'm copyediting and laying out a non-fiction book for self-publishing. A while ago I said that I didn't think copyediting would be a great job for me because it's so picky-picky; as it turns out it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I do love to proofread things, and even the totally anal stuff is kind of cool. I like knowing what kind of dash to use (even if I don't always bother to use the right one) and whether "BCE" has periods or not. And the meticulousness you need to employ to keep track of the style decisions you've made is right up my list-making alley.

I do need to reread Strunk and White, and some other writing books, just to clarify what makes good writing good, and I feel like I should put my hands on some style guides. (I wonder if people buy those on paper or just, I dunno, subscribe to them online or something.)

This working gig is going to have to get a lot more real in September. I signed Cordelia up for daycare when she was just over a year old, and as it turns out she got in. She starts in September at the daycare at the school. I won't have Delphine in daycare ("It's not FAIR!") but I will send her to school with a lunch, so my work day will be from 9:00 until 3:00. My plan, such that it is, is to work a twenty-hour week, leaving me ten hours a week for such frivolity as housework, exercise, reading and getting my nails done. Maybe I'll skip the nails and read more.

I'm reading a rather intense (but very useful) book about starting a home-based writing business. The author is quite intent on my making a business plan, planning further education, budgeting, marketing, and all that sensible, grown-up stuff. I almost feel like I can't waste my time doing that stuff when I could be doing billable work—kind of like the kid who runs his bike all the way to school because he doesn't have time to get on. I'm also resisting doing all that business stuff because somehow I can't take myself that seriously as a professional freelance writer and copyeditor. Clearly I'm going to have to get over that, but fortunately I have a few months to do it.

I've been thinking I should really take some driving lessons to get over my fear of scary big city driving. Since I already have a driver's license, I don't need actual in-class lessons, I only need a few hours in one of those cars with the extra set of brakes, so I emailed a couple of driving schools to see if I could do that. Here is what I received in response from AllWheels Drivers:

were do you live and do you have ontario G1 licence.
IF YOU ONLY HAVE SASK. licence you will have to get your G1 licence inder take driviong lessons.

I shit you not, I didn't change a single letter of that email. If you're keeping track, that's three spelling errors, two missing capital letters, one missing question mark, a whole lot of pointless ALLCAPS, and one incomprehensible phrase ("inder take driviong lessons"?)

I was going to send a polite email explaining why this isn't a good way to handle customer response, but it seems I can't be bothered and would just rather blog about it here. I'm passive-aggressive like that.

Since then I've received a recommendation for another driving school from a friend. I won't be emailing them.

I went to Starbucks this morning to treat myself to my usual decaf tall non-fat with-whip mocha (personal), and there was a lady behind me in line with a baby and a five-year-old boy. The boy was a handful—at one point he disappeared into the kitchen, and he didn't want to stand still and wait in line. The mom was obviously tired, anxious and overwhelmed. Meanwhile, baby in one hand, Blackberry in the other, she was calling friends cheerily asking what kind of coffee they took. You know when you watch someone make a phone call and their whole mood changes when they're on the call? It was like that: tired grumpy tired HAPPY BRIGHT HAPPY tired grumpy tired

First of all, why would you put on yourself the extra work of getting coffee for all your friends when you have your hands full with your kids? It's okay to drop a few things when you have little kids. Maybe not cleaning the toilet and showering, but bringing coffee is definitely expendable. And second, why be all happy and "Hey, I'm bringing you coffee!" to your friends while only the strangers in Starbucks get to see how anxious and overwhelmed you are. Your friends don't care about coffee, they care about you. (The strangers at Starbucks don't care about you, they care about coffee.) It's okay to tell your friends that you're overwhelmed and you're going to beg off bringing coffee for a while. You can be the coffee and treats bringer again when your little one is old enough to carry a bag of croissants.

I guess I have two points. First, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're not doing anyone any favours pretending everything's fine. Mostly people will believe you, and you won't get the help you need, which sucks. But just as bad is the overly optimistic impression you're giving other parents of the level of busy-ness and achievement they should be able to manage.

And second, when you have little kids you have to set aside some of your old identity. (Unless your old identity included about ten hours a day of absolute sloth, in which case parenting will fit in just fine. Except you'll have to set aside the "I'm slothful" part of your old identity. No, I'm going to stick with my original claim—when you have kids you have to set something aside.) Maybe it's being a great housekeeper, maybe it's being an employed person, maybe it's being a gym rat, maybe it's being someone who sees all the latest movies, maybe it's being the one who brings the coffee. When you add a baby to your life something has to give.

But it doesn't have to give forever: when you're stuck at home with a four-month-old and you're staring down the abyss of babyhood and toddlerdom and preschoolerness it seems like everything you ever loved about your old life is gone for good, or at least unrecognizably mangled. But if you just wait, you'll get it back. Your kid will be able to walk so you can carry an extra coffee; your kid will go to preschool so you can go to the gym; your kid will start school or daycare so you can work.

When you have a baby it seems like you have to hang on to everything about yourself until your fingernails bleed, that if you don't you'll lose yourself completely in snot and diapers. But all that stuff that made you you is still in there. It will still be there for you in three or four or five years when your hands are free and you have a minute or two to yourself.

Wow, that turned way more profound than I meant it to.

I posted this as a comment over at Hollie's blog and thought I should put it here too.

We were at the grocery store today and Blake and Cordelia were having conversations on the pretend phone – you know the one you make with your little finger and thumb outstretched?

Well, Cordelia called Blake and said, “Is Mummy there?” Actually, what she said was “Give it to Mummy”, but she meant “Is Mummy there?”

So Blake held his pretend phone up to my face, and I said, “Hello?”

Cordelia paused, giggled, and said, “Bye!”

That’s right, she prank-called me on the pretend phone.

Twelve Books That Changed the World by Melvyn Bragg is a book that introduces itself. I believe it's a tie-in book to a TV series, the kind of TV series that could only be produced in England. The books range from the St James Bible to Mary Woolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and, curiously, Rules of Association Football. Each book is described, put into context, and Bragg makes his arguments for why it belongs in this list. This is a great introduction to some seminal written works, but also a brisk and effective overview of some high points of our society's history.

Further Under the Duvet by Marian Keyes was recommended to me by someone on Twitter (I think it was FlossieTeacake) after a discussion of villa-itis, or the fear that you are going to run out of bread while staying at a French villa. (I have a chronic case of villa-itis which is villa-independent.) The book is a collection of personal essays and short stories. Keyes is an Irish writer with an extraordinary Cinderella story of going from abject alcoholism to fame and riches as a writer. The story is told in the book, along with essays on various topics including the joy of writing a makeup column (free samples!), air-guitar championships, shopping and plenty of chocolate. Funny and sweet.

Positive Discipline by Dr. Jane Nelsen is yet another positive/democratic/whatever parenting book. I don't know why I keep reading them, since I more-or-less know what I'm doing by now, but it's good to be reminded, and I do pick up different ideas from the various books. This particular book reminded me of the importance of family meetings, and reassured me that some problems (namely chores) will have to be revisited at regular intervals but are still worth handling democratically. I wouldn't call this my favourite democratic parenting book—it's just not funny enough. But it's worth a look if you need a refresher (or an introduction to positive parenting) or if you want a new angle.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is our first book club book of the year, and already this year's book club roster is looking better than last year's. The Gargoyle is about a man who gets terribly burned in a car crash, then meets a mysterious woman with a bizarre past while he's recovering. It's about love and redemption and all that good stuff, with a big dose of history. It's beautifully written and I didn't want it to end.

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. I have long been a fan of the checklist. I like to-do lists to keep my days focused, I like lists of things to take places, I like to record our daily routines in list form so nothing is forgotten. This book is the validation for my checklist habit: Gawande writes about how checklists can improve the outcome of extremely complex projects, such as construction projects, and surgeries. Checklists are already in use in construction and aviation, and the book centres on Gawande and his team's attempt to create a checklist to reduce the number of fatalities as a result of surgeries. It's not a smooth path, but along the way we learn the kinds of checklists (DO-CONFIRM and READ-DO), what makes a good checklist (not too much information, easy to read), what makes a bad checklist (too long), and the mind-boggling difference that a checklist can make in a process that everyone involved feels is already going pretty well. (Gawande uses his own checklist, and at first he thought it wouldn't make much difference to his outcomes. As it turns out, not a week goes by that the checklist doesn't catch something he would have missed, and it has even saved at least one life on his watch).

As usual, Gawande is engaging and convincing. This was a great read as well as a confirmation (and refinement) of my love for checklists.

Delphine loves to read. We've recently been reading time travel books: we read The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn, and now we're reading A Handful of Time by Kit Pearson. She also loves mysteries (like her mother, her aunt, her great-aunt, her grandmother, her other grandmother...) and is working on a Trixie Belden novel by herself.

Delphine also loves to watch TV. She loves WordGirl but she loves Kim Possible more, which I'm kind of bummed about. Blake introduced her to Kim Possible because she liked WordGirl and y'know, female superhero. But Kim Possible is a teenage character, and well into that "kids are cool and parents are lame" stage, and I wish Delphine wasn't being exposed to that already. Unfortunately the horse is out of the barn now; failing another hard disk crash (hmmmm) we're going to be watching Kim Possible until Delphine goes onto another thing or I ban TV altogether.

Delphine is no great fan of hard work. At school she goes to great pains to make sure she's not at the beginning of the line, so she doesn't have to hold the door. She loves the idea of having lots of responsibilities, but she hates the reality of dropping whatever fun activity she's doing in order to do the job.

She has a few jobs lately: she cleans the cat litter every other time (I alternate with her); she helps clear the table; she's in charge of her own morning routine and I'm trying to get her to help Cordelia, too; she is in charge of her own bedroom, including putting away laundry (which in effect means her room is a mess and her laundry stays on her desk). The doing of all these jobs is prefaced by a great deal of moaning and whining. I feel somehow responsible for that because I hated housework and it took me years to understand that if I wanted my house to be nice I had to do the work of making it so. I also have trouble understanding that things that are worth doing take effort and time, and aren't always fun. I would like Delphine to learn that before she's, like, twenty-five. Maybe then she won't be a big old quitter like I was.

Delphine is in gymnastics, trampoline and swimming this term. I didn't mean for her to be an overscheduled child, but I happened to check the city swimming classes and there were classes available at the right time and the right level, which never happens, so I had to pounce. She likes the classes in this order: swimming first, then trampoline, then gymnastics. This is interesting because swimming is, like, $90, trampoline is $35 and gymnastics is $225.

Swimming is going very well: she does front crawl and jumps in and puts her head under water, all of which she couldn't do at the beginning of the session. With gymnastics she's hit a bit of a roadblock because she doesn't like to be upside down. More than that, she absolutely refuses to be upside down. This rules out such cornerstones of gymnastics as somersaults, cartwheels, and anything interesting on the bars. So either she has to bust through that or I don't think she'll be having any more $200 gymnastics classes.

I think school is going well. It's hard to tell, on account of she's always in a bad mood on the way home, so she regales me with complaints about how boring it is and how she hates everyone. Later in the day, when she's rested and fed, I hear about the interesting things she did and the fun she had. I suppose both angles could be true.

She seems much older lately; she's moody and critical and opinionated and complicated. And she's clever and insightful and interesting and passionate. She's, I think, like me: she's going to have to grow into her personality. It definitely isn't a little girl's personality. She's a tiny grown-up.

Today Cordelia read a book! She wanted a second bedtime book, and I said she could have another book but she had to read it herself. In the past she has "read" those baby dictionary-type board books with a one-to-one word-to-picture ratio. This time she picked a Clifford easy reader. I stood my ground and got her to read it and she actually read the whole thing with a combination of all the tools she's supposed to use: phonics, word recognition, and context.

She kept saying, "My brain doesn't want to do that!" when I said, "sound it out" or "that's a popcorn word", but eventually her brain stepped up.

(A popcorn word is a word that you recognize on sight, it just "pops" into your head. Delphine taught us that terminology.)

You might know that, until recently, Delphine was just too sensitive to watch movies. Any kind of suspense or peril would send her running for the farthest corner of the house. But lately she's become more blase about everything, and she is much cooler about scary bits in movies. "Actually this is pretty scary," she will say, while holding her ground on the couch. So, we've been watching movies.

We started a while ago with The Sound of Music, which is really quite scary what with the Nazis and all. (Although Delphine was more scared of the stern father.) Then a few weeks ago we rented Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, then Nanny McPhee. We decided to have a regular movie night every weekend. After some discussion we've decided to have matinees so as to avoid too much pre-bedtime excitement and bad dreams. I'm excited to introduce the girls to some great movies, and to get back to watching movies myself, even if only PG-rated ones.

Last week we watched Star Wars (the original one). Cordelia was really excited to see it, and Delphine enjoyed it in the end. I think they both liked making sense of all the stuff the boys in their classes jabber about. Although Delphine was very confused as to why Ethan would dress up as a bad guy—Darth Vader—for Halloween. I couldn't help her.

Here's our list of movies to see:

• Bedknobs and Broomsticks
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
• Mary Poppins
• Fiddler on the Roof
• Toy Story
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Princess and the Frog
• Alladin
• The Aristocats? (This is the first movie I saw in a theatre, but I can't remember if I liked it.)
• Shrek
• The Lion King
• The Iron Giant
• It's a Wonderful Life
• The Muppet Movie
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
• Darby O'Gill and the Little People
• The Incredibles
• Nightmare Before Christmas
• Escape from Witch Mountain
• The Wizard of Oz
• To Kill a Mockingbird (maybe later)
• The Princess Bride
• E.T.
• Fantasia
• Babe
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• Miracle on 34th Street
• The Parent Trap
• Swiss Family Robinson
• My Neighbour Totoro

Any other classic, or great, kid or kid-friendly movies we should see? Dave, what about Miyazaki? What do you like?

(Oh, and Columbine's post about Alice in Wonderland is quite apropos.)

Today Delphine described her dream spa. (I don't know how she knows about spas.) "There would be a really big hot tub, with books and food and drink right by the edge."

Then she thought for a moment.

"It would be a hot tub in a library!"

That's my girl.

Miss Cordelia is now four years, four months and twenty days old, and she is well settled into being four. Four is a year of experimenting with power, and a year of great emotion.

Cordelia still loves to be with Mummy, but she can be pursuaded away by a sufficiently compelling offer. On Sunday Zaida stopped by to take her out. At first when we asked if she wanted to go with him she said, "Mummy!" and clung to me. But when I rephrased the offer—"Don't you want to go on an adventure with Zaida?"—she perked up. "Adventure?" And off she went.

Tonight I was talking her through the plan for tomorrow, as I do every day, and I said my friend Tanya was going to pick her up at school and take her for lunch. She pulled the "Mummy!" thing again, but I said, "Otis [Tanya's little boy] wants you to come play with him," and then she was fine with it.

Cordelia can get herself dressed to go outside all by herself. She's so good at it, in fact, that her teacher wanted to make a PSA video starring her, to try and pursuade kindergarten parents to teach their kids to dress themselves. I don't get to see this skill, however, because when I go into the class to help with mittens and zippers, she becomes all helpless and I have to zip her up. I don't help with boots and snowpants, though, because it is literally easier for her to do it herself—she's gotten competent enough that when I try and help we end up working at cross-purposes and getting in each other's way. So fortunately that's off my plate.

Cordelia has friends! She is friends with Anna, and Zoey, and Scarlett and Samantha. Anna was her first friend of the year, and neither of them will go into the schoolyard without the other. They walk in together, hand-in-hand. Anna is an SK and a good head taller than Cordelia. She's very quiet; we had her over for a playdate and Cordelia was in charge, telling her what to do and when. She was so proud to be the authority.

Cordelia is in swimming class this term. She and Delphine take half-hour classes, first Delphine then Cordelia, so DeeDee hangs out with me by the pool while Delphine has her class. She makes me draw pictures made of shapes, and then she has to count the shapes. Then I draw her name in bubble writing and she colours it in. (When Cordelia has her class, Delphine and I each read our books.)

Today when I picked Cordelia up from school she was crying. I know enough not to ask what was wrong right up front: she has to get some of her crying out before she can talk to me. But her sobs didn't seem to be slowing down, so I asked anyway, and she said she hurt her head. I tried to figure out how she had hurt her head, presenting various possible scenarios—did you trip and run into the wall? Did someone push you?—until she agreed with one. She said she had slipped and fallen into the wall. I didn't see any bumps or scrapes but I was appropriately sympathetic. We picked up Delphine and headed over to Tanya's place, where we have lunch every day.

But just as we got to Tanya's Cordelia started crying again—sobbing! I knew if she'd only bumped her head it would have been forgotten by now, so I asked if something bad had happened at school. She nodded, and after further questioning I got her to say that someone had hurt her, but she wouldn't specify how. She was really miserable, and eventually (after the retching started) I realized that the problem was actually that she was sick. She was nauseous and had a headache—the whole story about someone hurting her and her bumping her head was just her trying to explain to herself why her head hurt. She's never had a headache before! Nonetheless, she insisted on a bandage, so in addition to acetaminophen inside her, she had a nice big bandage plastered over her forehead.

Incidentally, this was the progression of her illness: headache, cry, nap on mummy, puke, cry, rest on mummy, puke, rest in stroller (with Otis next to her looking very dubious), watch Dora, sleep on bathroom floor, sleep on couch, wake up, take acetaminophen, watch Backyardigans, better! The whole thing took less than five hours.

Cordelia's nicknames: DeeDee, Boo, Cordeliaboo, Cordeli-bum, Bootle, Chuckles, Bubbles. Her teacher calls her Cordie.

Blake has been away for two weeks on business. It's the first time he's ever been away for more than a couple of nights, and before he left I was worried that it would be impossible and miserable to manage by myself.

Blake's coming home tonight, and his absence has taught me a few things:

Blake doesn't do much around the house. I've suspected this for a long time, but now I'm sure. I didn't perceive any change in the amount of housework or childcare I do from when he was here to when he wasn't. Obviously this sucks and has to change. I get that he has a job and earns all the money, but I work hard too and I think everyone should help out at home, I don't want my children growing up thinking that housework is women's work, and I can't do any kind of freelance work or self-improvement if I'm spending all my time doing other people's scut work.

Sorry, that turned out to be kind of a rant, didn't it?

Anyway, that led me quite smoothly to realization number two: I don't need him. Obviously I love him, and of course we need his healthy income. What I mean is I don't need him to keep the house and family running: I can manage by myself. This is tremendously empowering. I was honestly worried that somehow everything would fall apart without Blake here. That I would fall apart without him. (Yes, apparently being married has turned me into a jelly.)

This leads, somewhat less directly, to the next realization: I still want him around. We've been married for ten years, and we're attached to each other through this house, through the children, and through habit. Sometimes it seems like all those things are doing the work of keeping us together, and the spark and affection which brought us together in the first place has become irrelevant.

I'm trying to write about this without making it sound like I've been plotting a divorce. I swear I haven't, I love being married to Blake and we're always going to be awesome together. But for a while there it looked like we were together because I didn't have any choice. Now that I know I have a choice, however hypothetical, it makes it much more satisfying to be together. It means we're here because we want to be—because we like each other—not because it's the only option.

Here's another thing I learned: I don't do housework either. I never thought I was doing housework for Blake's benefit, but the house has gotten slightly more disheveled than usual in the last two weeks. It's not so much that I'm cleaning for Blake—I don't think he could care less. It's more that having another adult around adds a level of accountability that keeps me honest. If I can get away with it, I don't clean. Good thing I had company today: at least the main floor and the bathroom are clean.

I noticed is that I'm a lot happier to do the housework I do do when I don't have someone to resent for not doing it instead. I think once we've worked out some kind of respectable chore schedule I'll be much happier to do my jobs, secure in the knowledge that I'm not doing all the jobs.

Last one: it's nice to be the only decision-maker. Not so nice that I'd want to do it all the time, but there is something about not having to discuss everything: meals, plans, jobs, whose turn it is in the shower, all that chatter and negotiation. It's not something that bothers me normally, but it's nice when it's not there, like the silence when the power goes out.

Tonight the silence ends and we get our man back. I wasn't happy to see him go, but I'll be very happy to have him back, with a little wisdom under my belt.

Since last week we've been continuing the pleasantifying of mornings, and with one little hiccup yesterday, I think it's working.

To review, this is how it goes: we get up and have breakfast together, then I go and shower and leave the children the following list:

1. two trips to the kitchen
2. pack snack
3. get dressed
4. brush teeth
5. brush hair

To which Delphine inevitably adds a sixth item: Play. I think they're finally understanding that Play can only come after (and if) every other thing is done.

Cathy suggested creating a colourful chart listing the morning routine, but Delphine is text-oriented and a list nerd like me, so the staid to-do list format works for her. I write a new list every day, and she solemnly X'es off the things she's finished. It works for both girls, even though Cordelia doesn't read yet, because Delphine's essentially in charge of Cordelia in the morning, and Cordelia doesn't mind. (Your mileage may vary.)

Yesterday I didn't include "brush hair" on the list, and when I announced "we have to leave in five minutes" Delphine rashly concluded they had time to play because they were "almost done". Cordelia came downstairs with every intention of playing and justly rebelled when I said I had to brush her hair first. She dug her heels in and I lost my temper and hollered at them. I'm not sure why I took it so badly—could be that I didn't get enough sleep, or I was worried that I would miss a 9:00 appointment. Fortunately Delphine stepped up and was the grown-up. She brushed Cordelia's hair and her own, and helped us all get out of the house in good time.

Today our morning went smooth as butter: I didn't leave anything off the list, and the children didn't muck about. We arrived at school in plenty of time, with no shouting. It probably didn't hurt that the kids were in bed early last night.

I should add that one of the keys to this working is that I studiously don't care what their snacks look like (apart from that they have to contain fruit). Today Cordelia took a little container with some pretzel sticks and a dried apricot—no snack bag, no drink. It's certainly not how I would do it, but I expect it will be good enough for her, plus she has the satisfaction of having created and packed her own snack.

Another thing I cultivate a lack of interest in is what the children wear. Today Cordelia wore a black dance leotard with teal leggings, which might just be a little too gorgeous for kindergarten. Delphine has been dressing herself sensibly (but with a certain flair) since forever, and fortunately she's happy to choose Cordelia's clothes too, on the days Cordelia's not interested.

So, for now, mornings are a success story. As the girls grow and the dynamic between them changes, I guess our mornings will change too, and of course the success of mornings will depend on how well-rested we all are, but for now I'm happy that we have laid the groundwork for a functional start to the day.

I'm not sure this is the post I want to post, but it's on my mind.

Today I did a positive parenting experiment. Normally Blake and I nag and cajole the girls through their morning, until we're all angry at each other and we end up rushing to school in a sweaty rush. Lousy way to start the day, so I decided to Schäfer it up: I would tell the girls what was expected of them and what I would do, and then I would step back and let them take responsibility for their morning routine.

They were forty minutes late for school.

Here's how it went down. We ate breakfast together, and then I went upstairs to take a shower and dress, with the following message: "You guys need to take your two trips [to the kitchen with stuff from the table], pack your lunches and snacks and get dressed. If you have time can you give Thomas his food and water?" At that point they had enough time to complete everything if they got on with it.

While I was in the shower they fought. While I was getting dressed they fought and then played. After I was dressed I came downstairs—the table was not cleared and they were both still in their pajamas. I carried on without agitation or urgency. I finished clearing the table while they played, them I folded laundry. At 8:30 I let them know the first bell was ringing at school—they were still in their pajamas, but at that point Delphine started to rush. She asked for, and received, help packing her lunch, while Cordelia stayed in her pajamas. Delphine tried to get Cordelia to hurry up, and she agreed to pack Cordelia's snack while she got dressed. Finally we left the house at 9:05, and signed in at school at around 9:20.

I was calm on the outside but on the inside I was freaking out while they played as if they hadn't a thing to do all day. It was a miracle of parental self-restraint. I didn't even nag on the way to school, I let being late speak for itself. (When you say "I told you so" or "let this be a lesson to you" it's called piggybacking and it turns a natural consequence into a punishment, which just gets you caught up in a power struggle and demotivates the child.) Being on time for school is not my problem, it's theirs. My job is to provide them with the tools and information to get to school on time.

Tonight we're going to have a family meeting to talk about mornings. My suggestion will be to make a morning routine poster, and I will let them know that a) I will only remind them of their morning responsibilities once, b) I will not play with them in the morning, and c) I will let them know what time it is every ten minutes. Hopefully they will come up with some ideas of how to stay focussed in the morning.

I hope tomorrow goes better. I know I'm supposed to be detached and aloof, but the school expects the parents to "get" their children to school on time, so I do feel responsible and guilty when they are late. Also, I have a few morning meetings and appointments coming up which I don't want to be late for. I'll have to review my parenting books and see what I'm supposed when my kids are making me late. In the meantime I will repeat the following phrase: "It will get worse before it gets better. It will get worse before it gets better."

Also, we were running a teeny bit behind right from the start. Not behind enough to make us late, but behind enough that we needed to be brisk. So I would say I'm responsible for about five minutes of that forty. I would rather our mornings were leisurely but focussed, which will mean I need to be more disciplined about getting up and fixing breakfast on time.

What I Did Right: I think otherwise I applied the principles of positive parenting correctly. I remained kind yet firm, I didn't get into any power struggles, I told them what I would do rather than what they should do.

For the last six years I've been reading parenting books. I've read dozens of them, some good, some useless, but a handful stand out as books I've reached for time and again when I had a question or a problem, or just needed some reassuring company. These are the books I would buy (if I were rich) for every expecting mother I know.

Start At The Very Beginning

Well, not the very beginning—there are lots of books about pregnancy and childbirth out there, but childbirth is such an unpredictable and personal thing that you'd have to read a library's worth of books just to learn the handful of things which will apply to your situation. Your best bet is to find a good midwife and stay off the Internet.

Once the baby comes you'll want to feed it, and the best nursing advice I found (in book form—again, a trustworthy advisor is your best bet but unless you were clever enough to marry a lactation consultant you'll need a source of midnight advice) is Breastfeeding Made Simple: Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. The title is an exaggeration, of course—no book can make breastfeeding simple— but their advice is soothing, practical, and research-based.

After a while your baby will be ready for, as we call it, people food, and the best introduction to the subject is Better Baby Food: Your Essential Guide to Nutrition, Feeding and Cooking for All Babies and Toddlers by Daina Kalnins and Joanne Saab. Published by Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, this book introduces you to the nuts (actually no nuts) and bolts of feeding babies and small children, from nutrition advice to guidelines on when to introduce different foods. There are recipes for everything from purees to delicious entrees the whole family will enjoy. We love their hot and sour soup, and the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies are divine. There is a good mixture of healthy meals and homemade treats, plain food and sophisticated flavours. All the recipes are clearly written and easy to follow, with common ingredients.

My only caveat with Better Baby Food is that it was published before the latest advice moved weaning age up to six months, so their baby food recipes are suggested for four months and up.

Sleep, Gentle Sleep

The best sleep advice around is to be found in Dr. Marc Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Weissbluth is pragmatic, respectful of your child's need to sleep (and yours) and insistent on the importance of a good night's sleep. I wish the book were better edited, as it is sometimes hard to slog through his academic pontificating to get to the actual advice, but once you've found it it's gold. People keep borrowing my copy.

Dear God What Next?

Children change all the time; no sooner do you think you've figured your little one out then they become someone slightly different. I have often thought to myself, sometimes dispairingly, "Is this just a phase, or is this what she's really like?" The Your N-Year-Old series by Louise Bates Ames and Frances Lillian Ilg can help answer that question. Each book comes with a subtitle which is a teaser for what you can expect in that year of your child's life; your three-year-old is "Friend or Enemy", your four-year-old is, alarmingly, "Wild and Wonderful, but then you're rewarded with a "Sunny and Serene" five-year-old.

These books have given me perspective on what my children are going through developmentally and what I can expect from them, both good and bad. Now, when Cordelia throws a giant fit because I cut her toast the wrong way, I can just wait it out with a shrug—"She's four"—rather than dispairing that I've borne a drama queen and she'll always be like this. These books make it possible to untangle the influences of developmental stage from my children's real personalities.

Discipline

No less than four books (plus two) on this topic. They all cover about the same territory but in slightly different ways, so I suppose you could pick your favourite and just read that, but I find it's helpful to reinforce this stuff periodically, and this way you don't have to do it by rereading the same book over and over.

Kids Are Worth It by Barbara Coloroso, Positive Discipline by Dr. Jane Nelsen, Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, and Breaking The Good Mom Myth by Alyson Schäfer are all books about positive parenting, or unconditional parenting, or democratic parenting, or Adlerian parenting, which are variations on a philosophy of parenting which regards children as full and equal members of the family with equal rights to respect and dignity. It's the style of parenting I have chosen because it seems most right and effective to me, and the books listed are all excellent guides to parenting in that style.

How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish is a light but effective guide to talking to your kids (rather than at them). This book is thick with specific ideas and techniques to help you communicate with your kids. The same authors wrote Siblings Without Rivalry, which teaches how to manage siblings, with plenty of examples, cartoons and summaries.

Reading

In between feeding, disciplining and putting your children to sleep you might want to spend some time with them, and a great way to do that is in the company of books. Babies Need Books: Sharing the Joy of Books with Children from Birth to Six by Dorothy Butler is an impassioned appeal to parents to read early and often. Butler tells us not only why and how we should read, but what, with long lists of great books for every stage from birth to six.

Perspective

In the thick of all this advice you'll want some perspective. Having a second child is a great way to get perspective, as well as a good dose of humility (if you thought your child's awesomeness was to your credit) or absolution (if you thought your child's horribleness was your fault). If you're not ready for another child, though, these books will put your parenting—and all the advice you're getting—into its proper context.

The amply sub-titled The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz is a collection of case studies of children who have gone though horrible trauma—abuse, cults, neglect—and what they can teach us about childhood development and resiliency. This book will help you because no matter what you're doing "wrong" you can't do as much harm to your child as has been done to these children, and because despite such miserable childhoods many of these kids go on to be normal, functioning adults.

Perfect Parents: Baby-care Advice Past and Present by Christina Hardyment is an overview of the crazy, yet earnest, advice given to parents (usually mothers) over the last hundred and fifty years. Parents have been admonished on topics from hugging (bad) to breastfeeding (bad) to warm baths (bad), and some of the advice will leave you open-mouthed. Following the advice is almost always presented as vital to the fabric of society, and yet somehow, civilization has soldiered on despite the failings of mothers everywhere.

How Not To Be The Perfect Mother by Libby Purves is a memoir written by Purves while she was, as she puts it, at the "coalface of practical early motherhood". Funny and pragmatic, Purves offers advice and reassurance without judgement. "A good hungry dog mooching around the high chair helps."

My children are six and four, and I expect I have at least ten years of parenting books ahead of me, so I suppose this list will change, but I've been through two babyhoods and two toddlerhoods and am now firmly in the realm of parenting children. Books have been a terrific help and comfort to me through this journey, and I hope this list can help other parents find their path.