Poutine!

In my post about my first night in Montreal, I mentioned having poutine for dinner. What is poutine, you may ask? Why, it's a Montreal specialty -- french fries with cheese curds and gravy. Here's the one I got that first night, at Franx Supreme, a hot dog restaurant in a mall food court.

It didn't taste very good. The gravy was kind of nasty. But I felt I should press on. After all, there are all sorts of poutines and chances are this just was not the best poutine Montreal had to offer.

The next day, just before we climbed Mount Royal, the city's namesake, we stopped at a cute little cafe where the French guy behind the counter was chatting with an English-speaking friend. We got the house specialty poutine, which was covered with grilled vegetables.

LOVE.

I'm not usually a big curd fan, but the heat of the fries and gravy melts the curd into gooey globs and makes it palatable.

Montreal With No Kids

Epu's unemployment has not in general been a good thing for our family, but a couple happy side effects have occurred. One is that the number of companies inviting him to interview and urging him to consider relocation has been a great confidence boost to him. He did not realize his skills were so much in demand!

The other side effect, we are living right now. We were offered the opportunity to travel to Montreal for a job interview/getting-to-know-you trip this weekend. Our only expense would be my flight, which I got with miles, and of course our meals while we are here. We're still in Montreal as I type this at a cafe near his possible future employer.

When you get an email on a Wednesday telling you you fly to Montreal on Friday, some scrambling ensues. We had house guests for the weekend, who willingly converted themselves from guest status to babysitter/cat sitter status. I demonstrated diaper changing for them and thanked my stars that one of them has worked as a lifeguard and therefore knows CPR. It would just be for one night, until my parents could get there to pick up the little ones and Nutmeg's best friend's parents would pick her up.

You have to appreciate friends and relatives who are so willing to step up even though they DON'T want you to move away. It kind of makes you think, would I be able to get this kind of support if I moved 1,000 miles or more away? Well, maybe, after years of cultivating new friendships.

We flew separately, because the company put Epu on a flight on a different airline than my miles. I strolled through O'Hare kid free, enjoyed a smooth flight with an empty seat next to me (wish I could have given it to Epu, who had to take a later flight with a connection and layover), and touched down in Montreal at 5:30 p.m. local time. The customs line zigzagged through a large room but moved pretty quickly. I was sad to realize that my smart phone would not get data here in Canada unless I paid for roaming or upgraded my plan to an international one. Oh well.

Once through customs, I took a bus to the city center for just $8. Canadian and US dollars are about the same right now, I guess, but you can assume I mean Canadian when I quote prices here. The bus driver was the first person I met who did not speak English, so I was able to pull out my dusty French to ask, "Is this stop No. 7?" It was, and our hotel was just a few steps away.

Downtown Montreal looks much less dense than downtown Chicago. There was a parking lot directly cross from the Hyatt hotel charging just $8 a day. Not a parking garage, just a lot. With a car wash next to it.

I soon found out that what Montreal lacks in high rise, it makes up for with low, um, sink? That is, there are several levels of corridors, stores and other stuff below the street level downtown, and you can walk for miles without going outdoors.

So after I checked into the hotel, I strolled underground, bought some poutine for dinner at an underground mall food court, and then wandered through the Place des Arts -- a museum/theater complex -- until I ended up at the subway entrance. There was a drunk man with a very bushy black beard singing The Doors' Riders on the Storm, keeping perfect time by stomping with his big winter boots. His deep voice sounded just awesome in the underground chamber, and yet, with him booming out, "Killer on the road ..." I was not about to go close enough to give him any change.

I went back to the room and watched the local news in French, pleased to discover that I could follow most of it. What I didn't pick up the first time, I caught the second time they played it, and by the time Epu showed up around midnight, I was able to fill him in on local events (unarmed man shot by police in the subway, that afternoon before we arrived) and the weather report (cold, snow).

TO BE CONTINUED

Wish We Could Just Pray

Recently I had dinner with a devout Christian who I have admired from afar for years: Crystal Paine, author of the blog Money Saving Mom. I've interviewed her before and she has featured one of my guest posts on her blog, and despite how different we are, we really like one another.

During our dinner, she mentioned that, like all parents but especially we self-employed moms, she had trouble balancing work and family and deciding how much time to spend on each.

"But I know God wants me to be doing this right now," she said.

I'm an atheist, and a lot of other atheists I know would respond to that statement with an eye roll. Me? I felt sincere envy.

See -- for those few remaining readers here who don't know us IRL -- we've got some crazy decisions looming in our lives right now. Major, unexpected life changes. And I so wish I believed that we could pray about it all and get some direction from on high about what to do.

I might have mentioned that I was laid off from my job last summer. This was disappointing, but not a huge deal financially, since my job had been part time and we weren't depending on that income to pay our bills. I immediately started building my a blog, Frugalistic Mom, and hoped to soon be earning enough to replace my Tribune paychecks.

But on Dec. 2, while I was typing away on Frugalistic Mom, Epu called me from work to say that most of his company had just been laid off.

Oh.

I immediately Facebooked a friend in a similar situation and typed the F-word many times.

Thank you, friend, for listening to my digital freak out.

I assumed, in this economy, that it would be weeks or months before Epu would be able to line up any job interviews. Although I had been looking around for job opportunities since my lay-off, I got more aggressive in my own search.

To my surprise, Epu lined up two multi-hour interviews during his first week of unemployment.

During his second week, he flew across the country to an in-person interview.

Across the country.

Epu makes video games. Since we moved to Chicago in 2006, the game developer scene here has shriveled. When we moved, Electronic Arts had a big studio in the Loop which is now closed. Midway was still in business.

Now, there are just a few other companies in town, mostly small. So if he's going to get another full-time job, he's looking at either scoring a slot at one of these smaller firms, getting a job outside the game industry, or moving.

Or, if I'm able to score a really good full-time job, he could do what I've been doing -- take care of the kids and pursue an independent project on a part-time basis. What with the world of cell phone games, this is a realistic and tempting prospect for him.

After we both had some promising interviews, this Longest Holiday Week Ever descended upon us. Do you know how long the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve feels when you are waiting for job offers? Do you know how weird it feels to go to holiday parties and have no answers for all your sincerely well-wishing friends and family who want to know if you're going to leave them and rip your adorable children out of their grandparental or friendly embrace?

Yeah. We had a lovely Christmas, and we went to a fun New Year's Eve party last night, but the days and hours between parties drag on as we run all the potential scenarios in our heads right now.

I love adventure and traveling to new places. And yet, our whole family is happy where we are right now. We've spent the past four years putting down roots in a community we love and are finally in a place where we have a local network we can count on for friendship and support. This was not easy to build.

We moved to our town in 2007, with a preschooler and a newborn. I spent the first 2 or 3 years here mostly getting settled -- well, that and having babies. It's only been since Toth was born that I've been able to rev up my career again. And now that I finally got to a place where I can focus on building a part-time, at-home career on my terms, I'm faced with either going to work full-time (albeit possibly at a really cool job) or starting over and spending another year or so doing nothing but getting settled in a new community.

And that's just me. The kids are upset at the prospect of moving, our parents don't want to lose the opportunity to see their grandkids on a regular basis, even our babysitter has been depressed since we had to let her go. Epu is faced with making some really huge career and family choices that might just contradict one another.

So we wish there was someone -- God, village elder, Siri, anyone -- who would just tell us what to do.

Despite all this angst, I have to admit that I do feel lucky. I'm so impressed with Epu over the enthusiasm that companies are showing for him. I'm grateful for some very interesting prospects that have cropped up in my own career -- prospects that I would not have been pushed to investigate had this unexpected situation not come up. I'm so glad that we were able to save some money while I was working, even if we didn't really want to spend it all on living expenses.

This will all work out. And despite the agony of waiting, it's exciting too to wonder what is going to happen next.

Happy New Year, guys. I hope we all make good decisions in 2012, with or without divine guidance.

Holiday To-Do List

I just put a bit of a spin on all these plans by deciding to send the family car up to the grandparents' house (with Epu and the little kids in it, as well as all our presents for everyone) on THURSDAY! The good thing: After Thursday night, I should be pretty chill.

THINGS TO DO BEFORE CHRISTMAS

• Shop for gifts. (Sublist to be completed at later date but not published.)
• Decorate house.

• Declutter house in order to decorate.
• Create custom gifts online.
• Order more holiday cards.
• Search for friends' addresses that have changed over the past year and try to figure out which version of address database is most current.
• Address and write holiday cards.
• Mail holiday cards.
• Get a tree.
• Trim tree.
• Have friends over to enjoy tree.
• Verify sitter arrangement for family adult Xmas party.
• Bake 8 dozen cookies for nursery school fund raiser. (Easy, thanks to the Wilton cookie press I got for just over $2 on Black Friday! Tried it today and got all 8 dozen out of one batch.)
• Ignore everyone who thinks it's stupid to bake 8 dozen cookies for a school fundraiser.
• Promote school fundraiser online.
• Volunteer at prep shift for school fundraiser.
• Shop at school fundraiser.
• Make soap with Nutmeg for her school's charity market. Pray it turns out.
• Wrap presents.
• Get or make some kind of advent calendar.
• Make gingerbread house with kids.
• Drop off toy drive gifts in Girl Scout box before it's too late.
• Possible trip over to Hepzibah children's home to drop off gifts there too.
• Bake the one teacher gift I haven't bought.
• Deliver teacher gifts.
• Assess wrapping paper supply and buy more if needed.
• Look for a good deal on Scotch tape and buy a lot of it.
• Wrap gifts.
• Take kids to Danish Brotherhood Xmas party in Kenosha.
• Attend Oak Park holiday event of some kind.
• Write Gifts for Cheapskates guide on Frugalistic Mom, in addition of course to day-to-day blog posts.
• Drink mulled wine, cider and egg nog.
• Make cookies with the girls to bring to family celebrations.
• Prepare broccoli cheese soup for Xmas Day Night Packer Game.
• Pack up family's stuff for several days in Wisconsin and NOT wait until the last minute to do it and end up being late to Xmas Day at Mom and Dad's.
• Order Xmas Eve sushi platter.
• Not gain holiday weight.

That's all I have at the moment, and I'm sure I'm forgetting about half of it so I will log onto this post and add things as I remember them. Some of the things that look like only one item will take lots of steps.


Is my list par? Do you think I'm crazy or hey, maybe I don't do enough? What's on your holiday to-do list?

Halloween: The Weekend

Halloween is not a day, you know. This year, it's a four-day weekend.

Friday night, we dug the ice skates out of the crawl space, put on costumes and went to the Halloween Edition of Friday Night Family Skate. I hate ice skating, but it was worth it for this picture.

Today, Pebbles had an in-costume birthday party at 10:30 a.m. As soon as I dropped her off, I took Nutmeg and Toth downtown for trick-or-treating to businesses. Epu made the kittycat costume Pebbles is wearing.

Then after the little ones went home to nap and Nutmeg and I had hit the gym for swimming lessons and rock climbing, the kids carved pumpkins with dad.

We're not the only family in America who did that tonight, either. I know this because "pumpkin seed recipe" is the No. 17 most popular search on Google tonight. Here's the one that's baking at our house right now: Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds.

Pedal Pushing

Nutmeg rode her bicycle up and down the block this afternoon, over and over. No training wheels, no adult "getting her started."

I raised both arms and sang "We Are the Champions" for her. But my feeling was only part pride. The other part was relief.

See, Nutmeg asked to have her training wheels off more than a year ago, right after the end of kindergarten. She tried riding without the training wheels, found it difficult, and has subsequently refused to try riding her bike outside a few isolated occasions.

Usually, I didn't press it. Because we're not supposed to force our children to do things, right?

But today, it was a beautiful September afternoon, and as we pulled the car into the driveway, i said, "Kids, it's a perfect day to grab these bikes and ride."

Toth and Pebbles were all for it, but Nutmeg, as always, said, "No thanks."

She wanted to go into the house and read instead.

For some reason, today, I put my foot down. "Nutmeg, there will not be that many more nice days before winter. Get your bike and get out front."

She pouted, but she dragged her bike out there. A few minutes later, one of the neighbor kids joined them with her bike. Her training-wheels-free 2 wheeler. This was a 6-year-old neighbor.

Then, a 5-year-old neighbor joined them, riding his training-wheels-free 2-wheeler.

I didn't see exactly when Nutmeg turned from sulking to earnestly trying, but it happen. She pushed herself up and down, peddling, veering off to the side, falling and getting back up.

It really didn't take long before she was smoothly gliding up and down the block, and even stopping with confidence. Maybe half an hour.

I didn't even tell her that one of the neighborhood dads told me, while we were watching the kids ride, that his 4-year-old had recently gotten his training wheels off. No sense rubbing it in.

Once I saw how happy she had made herself with that little bit of effort, I started thinking. She could have been enjoying bike rides all summer. She had let that tiny obstacle shut her out of bike riding for too long.

Should I have let her let that happen? Or should I have been more insistent a year ago that she get out there and ride that bike?

I read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother this summer, and while I agree with most of "normal" America that browbeating and pushing your children constantly is not the way to go, the book still made me think. The Tiger Mother's basic premise for why she pushes her children to practice their musical instruments for hours every day goes like this: Nothing is really fun until you are good at it. Children never want to work hard at first. Therefore without a loving parent there to override their preferences, children are denied the joy of mastering a skill.

I have to admit that, watching Nutmeg's joy -- she literally said, "I am so happy!" I can see where the Tiger Lady is coming from.

So do I get in the habit of forcing my kids to do things they don't want to do? As luck would have it, I'm facing another such decision right now. Nutmeg had a wonderful time in Spanish class during summer school, and she made great progress during the short class. At the time, she said she would definitely want to join the before-school daily Spanish classes offered at her school.

But now that it's time to sign up, she doesn't want to do it. I know she'll love it if I force her to sign up, but ... I never thought that would be my style.

To Tiger Mother, or not to Tiger Mother*?

Of course, the real Tiger Mother would probably have her getting up at 4 a.m. to add Latin and Chinese to her Spanish curriculum. But if you read the book, you know that one of the Tiger Mother's cub's totally turned on her.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Global Warming and 9/11/2001

This weekend we drove a very long distance in a supreme act of indulgence. We went all the way to the town of Pepin on the Mississippi River, and back again, all because someone just had to attend the Laura Ingalls Wilder Days festival in Laura's birthplace of Pepin, Wisconsin. And if we didn't go, there would have been a major tantrum.

The girls kind of wanted to go, too. Toth got to stay at Grammy and Grampy's, which was more than fine with him.

The festival featured some old timey children's games, like the one Nutmeg is playing in the picture, and some people demonstrating 19th century crafts and occupations. One demo that especially captivated Pebbles was the spinning wheel. She got to see just a little spinning, and then the spinner took a dinner break so we went to our campsite and had our own dinner. But afterwards, Pebbles grabbed my arm and hauled me back to that spinning wheel.

The whole family watched for awhile, and the spinning lady entertained us by explaining how her hobby saved her money by allowing herself to make high-end yarn for free when friends give her the raw materials like angora rabbit hair. Then for some reason I made a comment about global warming.

"Oh," the lady said. "Do you believe in global warming?"

Nutmeg spoke up that she did.

The lady assured her that "they" have by now learned that it's all part of the earth's natural cycle of warming and cooling, and nothing to worry about. An awkward silence ensued, before we were able to resume chatting about spinning yarn.

Later, our friend complimented Nutmeg on her restraint in not arguing with the nice old lady about global warming. I suspected that this was not restraint at work, so I questioned Nutmeg about it.

"I was so relieved to find out that global warming isn't happening after all!" Nutmeg said.

Was it wrong of me to set her straight? I hate to think of her little 7-year-old brain stressing about global warming, but after all this is her future world it's happening to and I don't want her to grow up with her head in the sand either.

Anyway, we had already saved the kids from exposure from disturbing fact that we were having this conversation on the 10-year anniversary of a fatal attack on American soil. I'm glad to say that they were not around a single television on Sept. 11, and on the car ride home we changed the station whenever talk turned to remembering the tragedy. The girls are only 7 and 4 -- they have plenty of time to learn about things like that.

Looking back at the past decade, for me, brings into sharp focus how much personal lives can diverge from the broad sweep of history. It's like when you ask someone what it was like to live during World War II or the Vietnam War, and what they remember is that their mother was very sick or that they fell in love and got married. terrible decade, nationwise, one that began in my mind not so much with the awful tragedy of 9/11 but with on Dec. 12, 2000, when the Supreme Court handed the presidency to George Bush. Funny that we -- at least Democrats -- don't commemorate that day and wonder what the 2000s might have been.

And yet, for Epu and I, the past 10 years have been the best of our lives. If I could turn back the clock 10 years and a few days, I'd live in a world that could not imagine an act like the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. It would also be a world where I am still young enough to get carded in bars and have the free time to go out and do that, incidentally.

Yeah, and a world without Nutmeg, Pebbles and Toth in it. Life is not fair. I know that thousands of families would do anything to turn back the clock, and my heart goes out to them. For us, erasing the past 10 years would be unthinkable.

I couldn't tell the kids why I was doing it, but I could gather them up in a hug on 9/11, and feel in my arms how lucky we are.