Take my kids, please.

Major Man just started a new job. He's waiting to hear about another job and rather than sit around the house contemplating the difference between doing a load of whites, of colours or of not giving a crap and throwing it all in together.... he went out a got a between-the-time job.

Strangely enough he found one at the parent company of the company I work for. It's a few steps below what he's acutally qualified to do (since that was 'being a leader' and now he's 'moving boxes around') but he doesn't care because it's SOMETHING.

It's also a job that starts at 3:00 pm and goes to 11:30 pm. Which means I'm all by my lonesome with the kids in the evenings now. No more "can you put the baby in the tub while I clean up?" or "can you read the stories and I'll rock the baby?"

Just me. Kind of like single motherhood again. Fun.

Tonight my mom took the kids for about an hour and a half and at first I was all "yes, take them, please!" but then after I ran to the drug store and picked up the baby's prescription... I kind of missed them. I wanted them back.

Weird.

When I'm feeling judgy

Have you ever had a moment when you are just feeling judgy? You know, when you just want to smack someone or your eyes are rolling so far back in your head that if the wind changes they'll stay that way?

Today was one of those days.

We went to the zoo. (Note, brother carrying his sister's coat and sister saying "get me out of this flippin' contraption, there are animals to squeal at!!)

We did have fun, we had a lot of fun. The kids wore themselves out and they both love the zoo now. M was never a zoo kid, but in the last year he's started to love it. E is a total zoo kid because there are Animals! With fur! And they are cute! Her favourite is the warthog, I swear. She goes nuts when she sees him.

It would have been perfect if it weren't for ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE. I don't mind the kids running around, it's just some of those parents. The lady yelling at her son because he wasn't pushing the stroller right ("you just about ran into that lady!") who five minutes later nearly ran over E with her crazy stroller-pushing-while-dragging-kid maneuvers.

I did feel bad for the one mother who was trying to jam her stroller up a hill and thought she was ramming it over a bump, until she realized that the reason it wouldn't go forward was her child's leg was caught against a fence. Yeah, that sucked for her, I did feel bad.

And the people who STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD or, in the middle of an exhibit without pulling over to the side. What is with that? You are not the only person in the zoo today.

But the zoo was fun for the kids. It was a bit chilly off and on, about 6 degrees celsius. Even I needed a nap when I came home.

But the judgy feeling was still there.

I was watching a show, one of those reality shows where contestants try to lose weight. (It's called X-Weighted, I tried out for it once, but was rejected because there wasn't enough conflict in my life!) This woman is stressing about going back to work after her maternity leave (which in Canada is one year).

She's crying and saying "I don't know how people do it! I don't want to leave my baby!" Which translates to me as "all you other women must be heartless". Which, let's face it, probably wasn't what she meant.

But my inner judge said "suck it up princess".

Which I find really sad! I find it sad that when I'm in uber-PMS, judgy mode because it means that my capacity to love anything and anyone is compromised. And my capacity to receive love is compromised.

So this is what I do:

I clear my mind and pray, asking that the spirit of strife leave me.

I imagine the person I'm judging is sitting in a room with me and it's just them and me... then I try to imagine the words I'm thinking actually coming out of my mouth. I imagine what their face would look like if they heard those words.

I ask forgiveness in my heart for thinking those things. (There but by the grace of God go I.)

I receive the forgiveness (crucial step!!) and I move on.

It can be hard to stop being judgy. I think I mentioned earlier that I was diagnosed with Premenstrual dysphoric disorder or PMDD a few months ago. I take a daily dose of vitamins. Or, rather, I am supposed to. But sometimes I forget. Luckily I have a job that has the side benefit of just enough stress to remind me each day to take my Happy Pills.

But more than a physical reason, being judgmental (well, I call it judgy because it sounds nicer!) can be a habit. And I don't want it to be MY habit any more. The first step is stopping the words from coming out of my mouth. The second step is stopping them from forming in my brain.

I'm a work in progress.

The View from the Middle of the Road

Have you ever wondered what is the worst affliction in our society today? Is it the evils of terrorists? The stories in the news of infanticide? Famines and war? There is something I feel is much more pervasive in our lives. It has stained us as we look at the world through its lens.

Indifference and mediocrity.

When you watch the news at night, and see the horrors of the war in Afghanistan, or news of fathers and mothers killing their children, what do you do? You hear it, but it doesn’t really affect you. It is only a factoid from TV; just something that happens in this world. How many years now have certain places taken up residence in the vocabulary of newscasters: Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia. What have we as individuals actually done? Is there really anything that we can do?

Yes, of course. I don’t think that we can single-handedly stop violence, or the hunger in the world, but we can drop our feelings of indifference, and sense of mediocrity. We can tune in to this world, see that we are all connected and all the same. Since I have become a mother, this has never seemed clearer. I am not disparaging those of you who are not mothers, but ask any mother you know. You simply cannot look at the world without your child in it.

I made the “mistake” one day of watching one of those World Vision shows. Where the producers seem to have chosen the worst case scenarios and made families look as pitiful as possible. When I realized suddenly, that it was simply a picture of a mother holding her baby son, the same size as my (at the time) 3 month old. Except this boy was 18 months old and dying of hunger.

Looking in her eyes, I saw that she knew he son would die and she knew she could not stop it. I looked immediately into the eyes of my own son and desperately tried to imagine what must be going through her mind. She had carried this child within in her for 9 months, feeling his kicks and hiccups. She had laboured for hours giving birth with no drugs. She had held her wet, screaming child to her breast and perhaps nursed him. She saw his first smile and felt his fingers curl around hers. And now she would watch him die slowly. Creep away from her as his frail little body gave out on him.

I could no longer feel indifference. I felt this mother's pain and knew that we were the same. We had the same hopes and dreams for our sons, and hers would not be realized. I could not continue about my petty business for the day until I, too, had mourned for the loss of her son.

What is the cure?

Compassion.

We have lost our compassion in this global community we live in. We watch TV, as though it is only a picture, when, we should be considering each image as a reflection of life. It is one thing to see the effect of war and famine in our world. It is another to smell the acidic smoke from burning buildings or feel the touch of flies on your face from infested water. We need to regain compassion that we have lost. Reach out to the suffering and not assume that others will. Give until we know the pain that they feel. Go out on limbs to rescue the lost. Not fear to let our voice and our single voice alone be heard.

They came for the Communists, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;
They came for the labor leaders, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't a labor leader;
They came for the Jews, and I
didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew;
Then they came for me - And there
was no one left to object.

Martin Niemoller, German Protestant
Pastor, 1892-1984

The Big Question

M.: Can I have one more chocolate?

Me: No, you can't. It's bed time. Besides, too much chocolate will make you have bad dreams.

M.: But what about Jesus?

Me: ....

M.: But what about Jesus?

Me: What about him?

M.: Didn't you say that he can make bad dreams go away if we pray?

Me: Well. Yes. But, um,... well, just no more chocolate before bed.

M.: But, mommmyyyyy...

Me: Did you just call me butt-mommy? (distraction! distraction!)

My Personal Board of Directors

I have spent a few years sitting and volunteering on boards and committees for various groups. Currently I'm on the executive of one board, a political women's group. It's quite informal and I really enjoy the interaction with other women. I'm on a committee of another and I enjoy it too, though it's quite a bit more work.

It occurred to me tonight that I have a personal board of directors. These are the people I go to with questions and problems and I seek information and feedback from them. I don't always like the feedback I get, and sometimes I know they have an agenda that differs slightly from mine, but I always appreciate that they take the time to "volunteer".

I have Major Man, of course, who carries a lot of weight. He's like the chair of the finance committee... someone smarter than me in certain ways and able to answer the question "can we do this?" The answer is most commonly, we can do anything as long as we can afford it. He's a rock though. 110% in my corner at all times.

Then there's G. She's like the chair of the governance committee. Always ready to give direction if I ask and talk about precedence, procedure and the direction I am headed. Sometimes a conversation feels like an information gathering session, but I don't mind. She's a smart one too. Not much grey in her life, more black and white and she brings a lot of clarity to the table.

And of course J. She's the longest standing member on my board of directors. She's chair of the sponsorship committee, always working on helping me figure out how we're going to do what we want to get done. There are no roadblocks in her view and she helps me to look ahead positively.

M and E play a roll. They are the membership. They are the reason I need that board of directors to ensure I'm a success.

I don't always like what my committee members are telling me, I don't always like what the membership wants me to do. But I am glad for both of them. If they weren't here I would feel as though I were adrift. I mean, what would I DO all day?

I hope you have a personal board of directors. People who volunteer their time for you.

Balancing

Act as if it were impossible to fail.
-- Dorothea Brande


A co-worker of mine said recently, "I don't know how you do it all, I can hardly figure out how to be a dad and work full time... but you are a mom, you work full time and you have all these other things going on."


I admit, my plate is a little full. And I do have to stop once and a while and make sure that my full plate does not become too much of a source of pride. Because you know what comes after pride... right?


And I don't really want to drop a full plate.


I think that the reason I take on so much, is that I don't believe I will fail at them. I look at a task and think, "can I do this? do I want to do this?" and if my heart says yes both times, then I take it on.


Periodically, and driven by my own stress level, I reassess and sometimes I scoop a little off that full plate. I did that recently when I stepped down off of a committee that I'd spent two years chairing. It meant a lot to me, but at the same time I recognized that I had to let it go so someone else could do a better job.

Other things came in to fill it's spot... but they were different things, I could do them better or they took less energy or they were a better fit with my family.

I've also started trying to multi-task LESS and I'm finding I get MORE done. It used to be that I tried to juggle everything, including being a mom. But I started to realized that at the end of the day while I was here with my kids, I wasn't here for them. Once I started working full time and my son went back to school, I started seeing them even less. It meant that I wanted the time with them to be about them... not about me on the computer.

So now I spend more time playing, talking and attending. And when they are in bed, I sit down here at the computer and write.

Chicken Soup for the Working Mom's Soul

I just got my copy of CS for the Working Mom's Soul - my essay appears on page 237. This marks the second time I've been in a Chicken Soup book.

Chicken Soup essays don't pay a huge amount, but they pay enough, in my books. I will often sit down and write some personal essays just for the heck of it. I might turn them in to blog posts or I might hang on to them. Both of my CS essays have come about this way. So when I see a call out, I remember an essay I wrote and I submit it. So far I'm 2 for 2.

I think being a working mom is probably the toughest job in the world. It can be very hard to leave being a mom at home and leave work at work. I'm lucky to have great family support and one wonderful babysitter. Plus, my son is having a much better year at school this year, so I worry far less than I did last year.

But still, there never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. Blogging and writing are scheduled in for the 3 pm - to 10 pm time at home. At work I think I'm the most efficient because I have one thing to focus on: my job. Now it seems that when I'm at home, I'm doubly distracted. Supper-homework-diapers-writing-friends-phone calls-after school... it all gets squished in to seven hours in the afternoon evening. Sometimes I feel like I am not doing everything as well as I could.

My daughter is benefitting from more one on one time with her dad. He is with her a lot during the week while I'm at work. He doesn't work at home, which means that he has a lot of time to focus on her. She's thriving! Part of me feels a little guilty, she wasn't as talkative and easy to interact with when I was home because I spent a great deal of time distracting her so I could get some writing done.

That's the gist of my essay in CS for the Working Mom's Soul. How to balance being at home for your kids and being *there* for them too.

And now... for something controversial...

I have a daughter. Thankfully she's one and not a teenager, or even close to it. (Though she does put on some spectacular teenager-worthy tantrums!) So I currently don't have to worry about the HPV vaccine.

That doesn't stop me from thinking about it though. I worry because it seems to have been pushed through so fast. It went from "available" to "we think it should be compulsory" pretty darn quick.

Like the mother of many girls, I hope my daughter makes good choices when it comes to matters of the heart (or, let's face it, of other body parts too) and I do intend to promote abstinance. But I speak very openly about sex and other topics with my kids because I don't want them to learn stories from their friends. I will also discuss methods of birth control and what they protect against (besides babies).

I don't see the HPV vaccine as something that undermines abstinance. I just see it as a vaccine that we don't know a lot about. I hope that in ten years that we haven't learned that it was really something horrible. I have family members who have been harmed by medications that doctors promoted as safe... until problems cropped up years later.

But reading this article brought something home for me:

Dr. Foley says she'd never fault someone who vetoes the vaccine because of her
trust in her child's lifestyle choices, but she adds, "Given the number of circumstances we cannot control in our children's lives, I think the vaccine is a good idea." Some choose to vaccinate, even if their child has pledged chastity until marriage and monogamy afterwards, because of what they can't guarantee:

That their child won't be forced into a sexual situation.
That their child's marriage will be lifelong and mutually monogamous.
That their daughter won't be sexually active.

Can I guarantee those things? Can I protect my daughter from ever being assaulted? Gosh, I wish I could say yes... but I have to face reality. Can I guarantee that my daughter's marraige will be lifelong and mutually monagamous? I pray for it... but I cannot guarantee it.

What do you think?

School Prep

At the end of last year the Kindergarten teacher told me that M. has issues with printing. I knew, of course, that he was a bit wobbly. However up until that final report card she assured me that it was normal boy behaviour.

Then I saw the words "will experience difficulty in Grade One due to poor writing skills". (Or something along those lines, I have already translated the teacher-speak for you here!) I realized that I'd been blissfully believing his printing would get better on its own. So as soon as school was out I started asking M. to print things for me every day. We started with a sentance and I let him choose what to print.

At first it was "I like my baby sister" and "I like to play outside" but soon it became "I like toys" and "I am cold"... shorter sentances that could get him out of his printing duties faster.

I smile. Then go buy lined printing paper so he can practice the ABCs.

And maze and connect the dot books so he can strengthen his fine motor skills.

I encourage him to color and draw me pictures.

But it dawns on me that my love of school and my love of writing is not genetically passed on. He is the lover of cars and spiders, the bike rider and Jedi Knight, the video game player and part-time Transformer.

I have, however, fostered a love of words. He has a huge vocabulary (which he uses mostly to impress friends and get out of trouble) because we read three books ever night.

I've tried explaining to him that I know he's smart and I love when he explains things to me, but in school you also have to explain things by writing them down to show the teacher. He accepts this and has just now accepted that you should also write in a line. Very often his words would all be there... just in their own order. Three letters, line break, three letters, line break. Last letter. I could read it, he could read it... but unfortunately that's not How It's Done.

So today he was practicing his c's and d's before he could play his video game and he was complaining about why he had to do it. I said that it's good to practice, that I'm proud of his letters and I want to see him write. He complained again.

Then I heard it come out of my mouth.

"I'll give you a quarter for every line you write."

Shoot. I didn't even think before that came out. I started adding up the number of lines he might write. I started thinking about whether or not it's unethical to pay your child to do his work. Will I start paying for A's and B's next? (We don't do A's and B's in Canada... we do percentages...) Will I end up with a kid that says "what's in it for me, show me the money?"

Hopefully not. I think I'll put a stop to it. Soon we'll have homework to do... I just have to vow not to pay him for doing his homework. Goodness... I'd be broke by grade three!

Warning: Curves Ahead

I'm getting ready to be busy. Swamped. Distracted. Tired.

I'm headed back to my old job. Oh sure, I could look at it like giving up, like giving in... but those who might say that... don't live in Calgary. This place could surely be one of the most expensive cities to live in. And while I made the most ever in my last year of writing... It's not enough to survive. If surviving is ensuring I drive a safe truck, my kid can attend soccer camp and take gymnastics lessons.

In essence, I've put off my dreams just a little so I can give my kids a little more. I'm definitely not stopping writing, I have more books to write, more articles to write... but I'm just not doing it "full time". I tried to come up with reasons why I didn't do a better job over this past year and all I could come up with was "well, I just didn't... I had kids".

But this pending change has left me a little grumpy. I find myself sniping at friends and family. I find myself with a short temper.

Amidst this, my doctor believes I have premenstrual dysphoric disorder or PMDD. The typical treatment involves medication. Something not practical for me and a breastfeeding one year old. So my doctor has prescribed me Vitamin E and a B-50 Complex. After speaking with the most wonderful homeopathic pharmacist you'll ever meet I also picked up some iamara and sepia officinalis.

Just what does PMDD feel like? For about three days a month it feels like I'm going insane. I feel unable to cope, I feel mean, I feel angry. I feel like the best thing for me is to slam my bedroom door, crank up some Pink and scream into a pillow.

I normally hope that the urge occurs when my son is playing and my daughter is napping. It doesn't work that way though.

Here are some comments from others:

It was as if the normal ‘sane’ me was inside watching a psychotic me take over.

I would go off on him for absolutely no reason, or overreact to the point of being really hurtful.

At first I thought my emotions were simply out of whack and that I just needed to deal with it somehow. The past few months have been terrible in the sense that anger has turned into rage, sadness into depression, normal irritations bring on great frustration!

There’s a dark rage that takes over, turning everything black. Triggering stupid, impatient reactions to things that I can normally laugh off. I don’t even know who I am sometimes. I watch myself behave terribly, but I can do nothing to stop it. I have tried. I have tried so hard.

I’ve been trying to control my outbursts at others by going somewhere and crying until my eyes are swollen, then when I get home I scream at my son for no reason.

Ten days before my period I start to suffer severe anxiety and I can barely sleep or eat, I feel physically ill and I have the most awful panic attacks to the point where I just want to escape from my own mind. At these times I sincerely believe I have a terminal illness and that I am a bad, ugly person.

Back from vacation

Just got back this afternoon from a week-long vacation in the mid-west. Indiana to be exact. Now I'm a Canadian prairie girl so the mid-west feels very homey to me. It's different than home, of course, being that it isn't home... I love the huge trees that seem plucked right off of a romance cover and the humidity that does loverly things to my hair. (I kind of like it curly and unruly!)

One of the highlights of my trip was getting together for lunch with Shirley Jump. We actually didn't talk shop a lot, but she was very helpful with advice on family matters!

Sometimes family matters can really get you down. If perfect strangers were doing the same things our family did, we could let it slide. But because it's family, it's close to the bone.

I learned an important lesson this week. I am the most important advocate for my children. I can stand up firmly and draw the lines around my family so that my children know just how much I value them.

And to my former mother in law: I am SORRY. I had NO IDEA what I had in you. You are a wonderful grandmother, let me never take you for granted, I'm so happy you are in our lives. Granted, I wouldn't have stayed married to your son just for you (because honestly, we're better friends now than we were when we were married) but you are worth your weight in gold not just as a grandma, but as a mother in law. How precious it is to have an ally.

Now. I had so many ideas for articles while I was on vacation! I am just dancing at centre here, waiting to get some queries out the door. I put myself on a writing diet on vacation and did not write a word, didn't even start up my laptop! I wanted to some times, but I didn't... and it feels so good to be back at the keyboard today!

The kids had fun as well... getting to know their cousins. I think their cousins are sweethearts and I really enjoyed getting to know them as well!

Emily took her first steps this past week. Actually the first couple of steps were on a boat and we kind of looked at each other and said "now is that because the boat moved and she rebalanced herself, or did she just take a couple of steps?"She's taken to grinning at people with MY OWN CRINKLY GRIN. This face is identical to about fifty of my baby pictures. Major Man calls it the "who farted grin".

And the almost-six-year-old wouldn't get off the pool steps on day one, but was dog-paddling all over the pool by the last day! I have plenty of smiling pictures of him, but I feel like showing you the "I pout, therefore I am" one that I got when he decided that is cousin wasn't being fair.

I had no idea it was so hard to teach the rules of fairness and sharing. He's a conundrum, my son.

Of Other Mothers

Joshilyn (Joss, never Josh) Jackson has an interview up today on her blog Faster Than Kudzu. If you don't read Joss' blog, then you are missin' out on some funny stuff.

Julie Kenner is back to talk about the latest in her Demon Hunting Soccer Mom series and she talks about how her life as a writer changed after she had a child:

My schedule has changed dramatically over the years. At first, I was practicing law while writing and my husband was in grad school. We would both come home from work/school and write/study. Worked great :)

Then I had a baby, and life got hectic. I wrote in the evenings after she went to sleep until I could afford to quit and write full time. Then I had her in day care and would write during the day.

She has turned 5 and is in school now, but since we homeschool, she’s home with me during the day, and so is her sister, who we adopted at age three last October. So now I have two kids at home with me doing school (or preK play) during what used to be my writing time. So I’m back to writing in the evenings and squeezing it in.

Right now, a day might be:

7:30 — get up and veg in the recliner while the girls watch Curious George.
8:00 – noonish — school with the oldest while the littlest does “play school” and some speech and sign language games.
noon-1 — lunch, and I’ll usually answer emails while they eat
1-2 – any school we haven’t finished
2-5 – they play, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with me. I try to do non-writing writing stuff (emails,mailings, etc.). Or errands.
5-6 – daddy time. I write
Family time until their bedtime.
9-whenever. My writing time.

When I’m on a crazy deadline (like last week) going to bed at 2-3 is common. And I often will beg my mom to come over around lunch time once or twice a week to play with the girls so those afternoon hours can be writing time. During those weeks we squeeze in karate, piano and speech therapy for the little one!

It’s insane, but I’m loving it.

I heartily encourage you to go read it the rest of it. This past month I've also been begging my mother to come over and help with the kids, or I ship them over there for a break. She brings them back bathed, pajama'd, tired and ready for bed. That is a big secret to my success! (Thanks mom!)

IN WHICH I HAVE SOME CHEESE WITH MY WHINE

Oh I'm a little cranky today. It was one of THOSE days where nothing gets done. Where every time I ventured within a foot of my computer I would be pulled away by one of the kids.

My son is pretty easy to appease. He can pretty much be pointed in a direction and he'll run with it. My daughter, 10.5 months, not so much. Her favorite thing to do as soon as I sit at the computer is to crawl over and head for the cables beneath the desk I really wish I was organized enough to have my cables all neat and tidy and tucked. But I'm not.

I try to block her with my legs, but I can't really move since I'm usually worried about moving my chair and rolling it over a finger.

That lasts all of a minute before she objects and I pick her up and go play. Apparently she doesn't yet understand "Mommy has to transcribe three long interviews, honey!"

So why am I sitting here blogging...?

WAH!

Someone slow down the world please. Pretty please?

Last week my baby girl, 8 months, got her first tooth. This week, my big boy, 5 years, is losing his first tooth.

Why are they growing up so fast!?

I may have overscheduled us for the spring/summer... or the sprunger as it's known in Canuckistan.

My son is enrolled in Gymnastics, T-Ball and Soccer. The baby is enrolled in swimming lessons. We're scheduled Sunday to Thursday. Ooops. I was just talking the other day about getting some 'me' time in a couple nights a week. Then I paid all the fees up for these sports... tonight I was talking to a friend and mentioned my me time plan.

And remembered the upcoming schedule. Crap.