Raising Her

This past Friday we had the Beaver Sleepover where 15 or so kids (and most of their parents) slept over at the local community centre. It was quite fun (for the most part) until the kids decided that sleeping was NOT going to happen and their respective adult guardians were either asleep or pointedly ignoring their lovelies traipsing around the room. I'm going for the latter.

A few of the moms have boys only and they sign and say how lucky I am to be raising a boy and a girl. "Oh you're so lucky... to have a GIRL." They cast long looks over to their boys, rough-housing and making 'spisht' noises with spittle flying. Pow! Zap! Zing!

Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE raising my daughter. Just as much as I love raising my son. I can't believe how similar and how different they are. How unique. Gee, almost like they are two different people.

After I'd had my first child, Army Boy, I used to marvel at the excellentness of my parenting. He was a good kid. Therefore, I was a good mother.

Then my daughter came along and Pow! Zap! Zing! I was pretty useless.

She's had her head glued twice, stitches once. She knocked her tooth backwards in her mouth and this past week she actually knocked herself out. She's two and a half, people. I should have known that it would go this way... when she was 3 months old she fell off the bed. I swore that would never happen again, except it did... three weeks later.



I've taken her in to get her head checked out and the doctor said all the accidents were just a product of her walking early and having an older sibling to keep up with.

But the grey-hair inducing accidents aside, raising E is like raising myself. My mother calls her "payback". She's stubborn (stick-to-it-ive-ness), loud (extroverted), demanding (sure of what she wants) and never stops moving (energetic). Sometimes Major Man just looks at the two of us and shakes his head. "Apple... Tree."

Which of course means she's going to grow up to be most awesome. :)

She loves books, running around naked, refuses to say sorry when she's in time out, can stare a hole in your forehead when she's mad, believes completely that you WILL do what she wants and never goes down without a fight. She's also tough as nails physically and soft and mushy inside.

When the other moms look at me and tell me how lucky I am I know they are thinking pink bows and princesses. Yeah, I got your princess right here.

My Favourite Colour

... is pink Camo.

Last weekend I was at an event for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and I bid on a gorgeous pink camo down jacket. Now, many may not think that "gorgeous" and "camo" don't ever go in the same sentence. (I submit that those who say that may not have my Army-Guy crush either.)

But as I was cruising OFAH's web site, I saw that it's included in their online Auction for Wildlife. You can see the complete auction here.

A person-who-shall-not-be-named recently made a snide comment about how "anglers and hunters" could be conservationists, because, you know, they hunt and fish and kill things. After I picked my head up from my keyboard (appalling ignorance gives me a headache) I asked him how he thought that a hundred thousand hunters and fishermen could continue to hunt and fish every year and still leave us with any animals left at all.

Fun with the RCMP

So here I am in Mississauga, at a "work thing". Actually, the company I work for was receiving an award and it was to be presented by none other than the Prime Minister of Canada. My boss was the one actually receiving the award and despite my deep, abiding love for the PM, it was really my boss who started the account I now own that resulted in this award.

But, I did have fun, got my hair done, had a pretty dress on and was shoe throwing distance from the PM. He did the keynote and then zipped out of there... my fellow seatmate and I were most intrigued by his bodyguards.

No, no, not in that way. (Though, admittedly, they were quite good looking.) But in the way they had the Serious Mad Face on and constantly scanned the crowd for do-no-gooders. We didn't know whether they were CSIS, RCMP or some other group. (We were smart enough to know they weren't the 'secret service'.)

After the awards and the very yummy dinner my seatmates and I headed to the pub. Well, who should walk in but the bodyguards! Now, I can recognize an interesting opportunity with the best of them and who wouldn't want to talk to the PM's bodyguards?! I think my new friends were surprised when I jumped up and invited them over, but this is only because they don't know me.

We had some cosmos and there may have been a shot of tequila. Two of them had to work the next morning (taking the PM to church I think) and so they went to bed early and drank water. But the remaining two were a blast, talking about travel with the PM and the crazy guys they encounter and how they have to stay calm and let people have their space as long as they don't get in the PM's "bubble". They were all regular RCMP officers who applied for this special posting.

Recently some freelancers I know were talking about how soul-killing a full time job is, but it's opportunities like this that make me love it!

How I do it.

Every once in a awhile someone says "how do you do it". And I'm not going to brag... because I don't really "do" anything. But if you mean work full time and write... my answer is: naps.This is what we look like after a full day of work, daycare and school... well, for the boychild it would have been school if he hadn't been up until 2 am puking. He's feeling better now.

E can hardly take her eye off of Kung Fu Panda, which is how I get her to sit still (while sitting ON ME) while I take my catnap.

I'm not stupid enough to nap while the children are in another room. That's crazytalk.

Apologies All Around

I know, it's been a month. I have never taken a month off like this. Truthfully it's not a month "off" and over this month I've tried to start writing this post. Six times if I've tried once.

But my energy level has allowed for the odd tweet or Facebook post still. Perhaps my writing endurance has been affected by only being allowed 140 characters. :)

I've been writing quite a bit offline. I edit profiles for an online dating site, I have written and edited portions of my work's training manual, finished one round of edits on the 85K manuscript that's out this spring. Now I sit before a list that includes TWO large manuscript edits (one due tomorrow), more profiles and two articles.

I worry that I'm burning out. My passion for writing is waning. I'm still "a writer" but there's so much else in my cup right now that it all seems like a chore.

Part of the problem is that I don't know how to sit down and relax. Even when I appear to be relaxed, I am not. I'm either planning what I'm doing next or avoiding something with forced relaxation. ("No, I'm just lying here. I refuse to do anything. Nope, not moving. Maybe if I just pull these covers over my head.")

The weekends are the worst - it seems that when I'm at work I can get things done from moment to moment because there's a definite structure. Sales reports. Check customer accounts. Prepare sales flyers. Manage staff. (They are always good for a quick emergency or two a day.)

But on the weekends I feel like I'm 500 pounds and unable to move. I sit and stare out the window or I putter around, feeling exhausted by a task like taking the laundry downstairs. (It never manages to get folded.)

But, I'm off to church now. The only place that I do find some rest and relaxation. (It's just the 'getting ready with kids' part that takes up the energy.)