being me is exhausting

Just spent nearly half an hour with my arm trapped in a radiator.

Eight!

Oh wow my little boy, you are eight! How can it be when just yesterday it seems like you were curled up in a ball sleeping on my chest?
Eight has brought new experiences and challenges. Grade two was not the greatest academically or socially, and I struggled along with you and felt every moment of confusion, every push from a bully. And yet your capacity for forgiveness and your good heart shone above it all - I am so much in awe of that strength in you.
Lego continues on as your absolute favorite toy in the world. There is nothing you cannot do with it. You create games, and contraptions, and worlds, and you can live there for hours if only your sister would let you. You are reading more now, casually reading signs and telling me things from books. It's getting easier for you every day.
You look like a boy now, all arms and legs. Your sister is becoming more of an annoyance. She is still your number one playmate, but the plaintive cries of, "Mom, Nomi's bothering me" are more and more frequent. Still, you watch out for her and make her smile and you have secret jokes and special games that only you two understand. I hope that never changes.
You are making new discoveries on your own and sharing them. This year you decided that in addition to being a scientist that you also wanted to be an artist, and you brought home books on artists and sculptures to share. You saw pictures of deserts in the southwest and want to go, and you continue to love music, especially AC/DC, although I hear you humming Beethoven sometimes.
You are still a gentle soul in a sea of loud rabble. I want to protect that and yet I realise just how much more resilient you are and how powerful your vulnerability can be.
You have the most beautiful heart in the world, don't change for anything, keep it open to let all the joy in.
I love you more than you can ever imagine my Benny Boo.
Love,
Momma

Words can't fix anything tonight.

oh yeah

My friend Guislaine just sent me this quote and I must share:
"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."
— Stephen King

Perfect moments above you

On the drive back from the Townships last Saturday evening near sunset, Naomi was fast asleep and Ben was awake, staring out his window, lost in thought. Suddenly he said, "Mom, look! A balloon!". Sure enough, there was a hot air balloon in the distance, half hidden from view by some trees. We watched it appear and disappear from view, then the highway turned and suddenly there it was in plain sight drifting low over a farmer's field in front of the setting sun and the pink haze-tinted sky, and another was following it a bit farther behind. We both watched in awe as they floated along, both thinking the same thing. Ben said, "Mom, I'd really like to ride on one of those". I smiled.
Me too kiddo, me too......

(Photo by very talented photographer, and good friend, Irene Suchocki)

If I had a time machine, I'd have a lot to do back then

I am too embarrassed to explain the major fuck-uppery mess I made the night before last. Think about something you did that still makes you cringe and shudder when even the tiniest inkling of the memory appears in the smallest, darkest corner of your mind - and then fill an oil tanker with that episode until it sinks. That would be my night.
The results of my epic debacle have left me questioning my perceptions, my motives, and my feelings. Someone who I thought was self-centred and really didn't give a goddamn was giving me coffee and making me laugh about the foolishness of the night before (which importantly included saying some pretty mean things that have apparently been forgiven and forgotten). Someone who I thought cared and would never hurt me walked away without even looking at me or saying a word.
Just when I think that I have it all figured out, I realise that I don't know anything, about life, about myself, or about the people I care about, or for that matter even who the people I care about really are.

I really hope so....

It's the people who are still around despite everything that you do who really matter.

juvenile laugh of the day

Museum display people have a good sense of humour.... these were up on the top shelf by the way.

Learned wisdom of every girl I know

Sometimes you're just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love you.
And sometimes, you think that you are probably better off just eating all the cookies instead.

A smile at the end of the day

When you are down, call a friend. They make everything better :-)

Flux

My job today feels very stupid and unimportant. I want to throw everything aside, climb out my window and run - run past the streets, cars, condos, stores, run past the restaurants, and the cemeteries, and the parks and the fountains, and the trees, and just keep going and going and going until someone catches me up into their arms and holds me and says, "You can stop running now, you're here".

Thbbbttttt

Sometimes, you just get so tired of hearing the word "no", that you stop trying.

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."

-Mother Theresa

(via I can read)

It's the long weekend, do you know where your ninja is?

The long weekend had its periods of sucky dampness, crying and whining children, and general exhaustion, but redeemed itself at the end.

Friday it rained, really rained, rained like people should drag out their ark plans and make a trip to the lumber store. Of course the morning started at 6am because we didn't have to get up early. I turned on the tv, a mom's snooze button, and tried to get a bit more shuteye, but sure enough, as soon as I would drift off, I heard the requests: could we have milk, could we have breakfast, could I have an apple, can we make collages, glass of water, new show, can you move the livingroom more to the left -ok, so nevermind the sleep. After the needs were met and I had coffee, I wondered what we should do. There was a break in the weather after lunch, so we put on our boots and coats and headed for the park, stopping briefly to pick up another kid to give her folks a chance to clean their house in peace. The kids didn't care that it was lightly raining, and there was a lot of running around and bickering and laughing and whining and experiments involving puddles and sand.



After a couple of hours we went back to the friend's house where we were preparing to have a BBQ. All the adults were around the BBQ or in the kitchen hanging out while the children ran up and down the hallway. One of the girls started to cry hysterically and her mom went to take care of her, then she saw Naomi, silent, blood pouring out of her mouth. They had a head on collision, head into face. Ahhhhh! I freaked out internally and got my daughter in the bathroom. Once the shock wore off she started to cry uncontrollably, she was obviously freaked out by the blood and the sharp blow to the mouth caused by the hard little skull. Wanna hear something sweet? While we were in the bathroom and she was bleeding and crying and I'm trying to figure out how bad the damage is and trying to calm her down, the first thing she said was, "I want Benny". He was playing legos, oblivious, but came right away and gave her a hug and sat next to her while we waited for the bleeding to stop. It kept bleeding and she wanted to go home, so she and I went home and Ben stayed because he wanted to eat BBQ. She cried all the way home, clutching the white face cloth to her mouth and sobbing. She is normally such a tough kid, I'm not used to her hurting herself and not shaking it off. Once we got home and I gave her some ice cream and put on a movie she calmed down and was fine. Both top front teeth are really loose though, one is SUPER loose. Good thing they have to come out anyway. Other than the teeth, she was fine the next day.

Saturday we watched cartoons and after lunch we jumped in the car to go and see Kung Fu Panda 2. It was funny and the kids are so well behaved at movies now. Then it was a few errands and McDonald's and home.

Sunday started out with a plan to go to the Redpath museum, which is small, but has one dinosaur. Ben was whiny, made more whiny because he couldn't find his ninja to play with in the car and I wasn't going to spend hours looking for it. So the ninja sorrow loop started, where he tells me how sad he is, and how he wanted to play with it in the car, and how we should go back so he could can clean his room and find it and bring it. When I tell him he can play with it some other time in the car, he wails, when I tell him that he should keep his room clean so he knows where his ninja is, he tells me I'm being mean. His sister takes this opportunity to crow about how nice she is being and tells Ben to stop crying like a baby, which of course amplifies the wailing and screaming by 300%. I admit defeat and crank up the piano concerto on the car stereo. We get to the museum, after parking and making a still sad and now sniffling son tie his own shoe (I'm such a beast!), and we find that the museum is closed.
Drat.
I put on a happy face and suggested we make the best of it by walking down to the art gallery a few blocks away. Ben forgot all about the ninja and now started in on how he wanted to see the dinosaur - all the way down Sherbrooke Street. No amount of telling him that I, being a total failure as a parent by lacking the necessary lock-picking skills or having the foresight to bring a crowbar, could dessuade him of the impossibility of going to a closed museum. So I smiled and pulled him along while the dinosaur sorrow loop played on. We got to the art museum and went in to see the Jean-Paul Gauthier exhibit.



Not really all that kid-friendly, but at least the bright, outlandish outfits were interesting, as were the mannikins that talked. We whizzed through the exhibit without time to read anything, and then stopped by the Greek and Egyptian rooms below. Naomi was amused by the naked lower half of a man carved in marble. It is a truth universally acknowledged that bums and penises are very funny.



Leaving, it was Naomi's turn to have a freak out because she refused to believe we were finished. Cue girl with an attitude being very rude to her mother - man I so deserve it, but so young? We walked back to the car and headed over to Peter and Lysanne's for a book giveaway/cookie eating shindig. Lots of fun and the kids played in the backyard. The sun was out, it was hot and beautiful. Then we were invited over to a BBQ at Aaron's where the kids ran around in his backyard and we had yummy food and let the Sunday end on a relaxing note. I could be in a falling aircraft and that man's smile would make me burst into song.



(Yeah I know I should have a picture of him smiling here, but he is notoriously awful about smiling for photos, so just look at the tree fort. I'll put in a random picture of him smiling when I'm talking about something completely different.)

Then we got home and I realised that my house key had fallen out of my pocket on Aaron's sofa.
Drat.
Luckily this was remedied quickly and then it was a flurry of bathing and pyjamas and slightly more attitude to get the kids into bed and then another couple of hours preparing everything for first day of daycamp and daycare and lunches and laundry. Cue collapsed but happy.

Way to holiday St Jean Baptiste!

Things I'm thankful for this week

Yeah, I know the title sounds too self-help Oprah-esque...

• Finally seeing the end of this damn cold! It has caused more problems than it was worth and now I have a mountain of work and things to catch up on and not a single run in more than a week!
  
• Short week because of the holiday!
  
• Ben's last day of school today!
  
• Naomi had her daycare graduation ceremony and she did great! She wore her flower girl dress and was the prettiest thing in the whole entire world.
  
• My girlfriends who always bring laughter, honesty, and a good dose of perspective to any situation.
  
• The two steps forward, three steps back dance of a very beautiful and frustratingly timid bird. It can be maddening to wait with your hand outstretched with breadcrumbs watching the war between wanting the offering and fearing the hand, but patience seems to be the only solution that will make both parties happy. So, we wait.
  
• Cereal. I ate a lot of it this week when I was too sick and tired to cook.
  
• The lady behind the counter at the tea store who gave me a free tea because it was my birthday last week.
  

Oprah moment over! I must find a better title for this - suggestions?

I'm sick. One of my office mates was sick last week and came into work anyway coughing his germs all over the room and Wednesday night I started to feel a tickle in my throat. I thought it might have been because I turned the a/c on in the car for the first time this year, but by Thursday morning I couldn't swallow without the help of tylenol. I soldiered through the day, but Friday I decided not to work, but had to take Naomi to an afternoon appointment and then errands and that evening wasn't restful. Saturday morning Ben was awake before 6 and came in to cuddle with me, which ended in him being restless and me not getting back to sleep. I took them to the townships for the day to celebrate my birthday and father's day with the folks. We got stuck in two hours of traffic just getting off the island. Fever, shakey, stuck in immovable traffic, it was cruel. I've decided I'm not leaving the island again unless absolutely necessary.
But once we finally got there it was nice and my fever went away and the kids had a great time running around.
But back to the sick. I cannot remember the last time I was this sick. Throat, fever, chills, cement headed, coughing, aching - it's like a god-damned nyquil commercial.
Sunday after the kids left, I collapsed on the sofa and watched netflix, but everything was making me cry. Obviously being sick makes people emotional, and I can understand when I cried when I watched the documentary, "God Grew Tired of Us" about the lost boys of Sudan, sure, that's going to break your heart, but I cried during "The Nanny Diaries", what kinda twisted flu is this? After that happened, I turned the tv off...safer than seeing if I was going to cry through Spice World.

Monday I called in sick, but I felt bad about not working, so I tried to log in to work, but the Internet connection didn't cooperate and the room was spinning, so I read with my book all sideways until I fell asleep, then woke up, read some more, then fell asleep again. Then it was dark. I hadn't spoken to a soul.

Today I was able to stand up without falling over, coughing still sounds disgusting, but hack is mostly gone. Still can't smell or taste anything, which means I've been eating anything because it doesn't matter. Managed to get downstairs to do some laundry so the baskets aren't overflowing. Sleep is winning out over guilt by mere exhaustion. And yet, the guilt is making me think I should be up, working, cleaning, baking, instead to curled up in bed like a pathetic, sniffling sicko. Why is it so hard to give yourself permission to be sick? I sat down to write hoping it would cheer me up a bit - hahahaha, oh yes, much better now.

This better be over tomorrow....

p.s.: Just remembered that I did talk to a couple of people yesterday - Ben was picked on again at school, grrrrr....... the claws are out.

Happy birthday to me!!

I have the best friends on the planet! I love you more than the awesome cake :-)

Perfect moments: Laughter, good food, lots of wine, thoughtful gifts, word play, cleaning up to Billy Idol, a wonderful man to kiss goodnight ..... bliss!

mini life lesson

Two children doing their homework at the dining room table must be at least three feet apart at all times. This would have prevented the crayola/glue stick massacre of 2011.

and speaking of signs....

I would like a sign that I can wear telling people that I ran 19k Sunday, ran 10 this morning, and did exercise classes Monday and Wednesday so I am not judged taking the elevator to the second floor....

I would walk around with this on a big sign if I could

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Thurman